Where The Cleveland Guardians Payroll Stands Right Now

The Cleveland Guardians have made a series of intriguing moves this offseason. Many of those decisions involved finances for the upcoming season and beyond.

Andres Gimenez and his long-term contract are off the books, and Josh Naylor, who was entering his last season of team control, was moved while he still had relatively high value.

After these trades come Cleveland’s free agent signing of Austin Hedges, Carlos Santana, and Shane Bieber, as well as the arbitration deal with Lane Thomas and Steven Kwan.

As it currently stands, Cleveland’s payroll sits at $97,387,203. To put this in context, the Guardians finished the 2024 season with a payroll of $143,865,037, making this a difference of -$46,478,014. (All numbers are per BrooksGate on X.)

Yes, moving on from Gimenez cleared up some flexibility with the cap, but he was only owed $5.5 million in 2024 and $10.5 million in 2025.

One of the biggest reasons for the drop in payroll is due to the contracts of players who didn’t finish the 2024 season on the active roster.

Those players include Jean Segura ($8.5 million), Scott Barlow ($6.7 million), Ramon Laureano ($5.15 million), and Carlos Carrasco ($2 million) coming off the books, per FanGraphs.

So, what does all of this mean?

If the organization plans to match or exceed its 2024 payroll, they have plenty of room to work with.

Chris Antonetti said that following the Gimenez trade, they planned to “reallocate” the funds from that deal to other areas of the roster.

He also mentioned late last week that the team will still “be engaged on opportunities to add to our group if the right opportunities are there.”

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be a big player on the free-agent market.

They could always sign one of the outfielders or starting pitchers on the market, or they could use the funds to keep their homegrown talent.

Cleveland could be saving some of this money for possible upcoming contract extensions. Those negotiations and signings typically happen at some point during Spring Training.

There’s still plenty of time before Opening Day, and the Guardians have options on the free agency market to add pieces to their starting rotation, in the outfield, or both.

Either way, hopefully, the Guardians do something with these funds to improve on the roster which was just three wins away from the World Series just a few months ago.