Are the Cleveland Guardians the Brewers of the AL?

The next Cubs’ opponent, the Cleveland Guardians, don’t spend on big-name free agents. They often lose some of their best players, year after year. But they continue to win divisions and make the playoffs. The Brewers get lots of credit for winning as a smaller market team, but the Guardians also have to be considers as a “small-market” success story.

For Cub fans, Cleveland now holds a special place in our hearts as the location where the curse was broken. But in the 10 years since, the Cubs have seen mixed results, while the Brewers have flourished. But how have the Guardians done since they barely missed out on breaking their own World Series curse?

Here is a comparison of the 3 teams from 2017-2025:

Team	Division Titles	Wild Card	NLCS/ALCS
Cubs	2	2	1
Brewers	5	2	2
Guardians	5	1	1

There have been no World Series appearances for any of these teams, but the Brewers have only been slightly more successful than the Guardians. Last season, there was lots of attention paid, rightfully so, to the Brewers historic run. But the Guardians had nearly as impressive of a comeback. They were behind the Tigers by 15.5 games and were 6 games under .500 on July 8th, and still came back to win the division. They were aided by a Tigers collapse, where the Brewers did it mostly on their own. But they still finished on a 42-26 run to end the year. And this all happened after their amazing closer, Emmanuel Clase, was suspended indefinitely for assisting gamblers by purposely throwing pitches out of the strike zone.

Let’s looks at the Guardians’ Payrolls over the years:

Year	Salary	Rank
2017	$150M	18
2018	$160M	15
2019	$119M	23
2020	$46M	26
2021	$64M	29
2022	$88M	27
2023	$112M	26
2024	$132M	24
2025	$118M	25

And they have lost lots of free agents without signing that many.

Here are players they lost getting over $10M per year:

• 2018 – Carlos Santana (3-yr, $60M)
• 2018 – Jay Bruce (3-yr, $39M)
• 2019 – Michael Brantley (2-yr, $32M)
• 2019 – Andrew Miller (2-yr, $25M)
• 2019 – Josh Donaldson (1-yr, $23M)
• 2021 – Brad Hand (1-yr, $10.5M)
• 2024 – Lucas Giolito (2-yr, $38.5M)
• 2024 – Reynaldo Lopez (3-yr, $$30M)
• 2025 – Matthew Boyd (2-yr, $29M)
• 2025 – Alex Cobb (1-yr, $15M)

Here are the free agents they signed for $10M+ AAV:

• 2017 – Edwin Encarnacion (3-yr, $60M)
• 2023 – Josh Bell (2-yr, $33M)
• 2024 – Carlos Santana (1-yr, $12M)

Jose Ramirez is the only player on their roster making over $10M per season, and he’s only making $25M per season — although he is signed through 2032, when he’ll be 29.

It is incredibly impressive that the Guardians have maintained their level of success while maintaining such a low payroll and avoiding spending on free agents. They currently sit atop the AL Central at 4-3, and it will be interesting to see if they can hold off the Tigers yet again.