GOODYEAR, Arizona, March 1, 2025 — We often think of spring training as an opportunity for players to win starting jobs or work on mechanical changes that will take their games to another level. However, for some players who have starting jobs seemingly locked up and no major issues to iron out, spring training can just be a routine step in their pre-season preparations. For the first time in a few years, that’s the case for Guardians first baseman Kyle Manzardo.
After spending a few years trying to break into the big league roster for both the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians, Manzardo enters spring training this year as the team’s starting designated hitter, and that comes with a peace of mind that he hasn’t experienced in a while.
“I just feel loose,” the 24-year-old mentioned after a spring training game against the White Sox. “I’m a lot more comfortable this go around than I did this time last year.”
This time last year, Manzardo was hoping to impress the Guardians coaching staff enough to win a spot on the big league roster. He was traded from the Rays in exchange for Aaron Civale in the middle of the 2023 season. He had been one of Tampa Bay’s top prospects and was viewed by many as their future first baseman, so the trade was a bit of a surprise and seen as an impressive get for the Guardians.
In 21 Triple-A games with the Guardians’ organization, Manzardo hit .256/.348/.590 with six home runs and 16 RBI, and seemed like he might have a chance to make his long-awaited MLB debut early on in 2024. With Josh Naylor in town and David Fry impressing in spring training, Manzardo was sent back to Triple-A to start the season and got off to one of his best stretches in years.
In 83 games, Manzardo hit .267/.398/.548 with 20 home runs, an 18.4% strikeout rate, and a 16.8% walk rate. He was a little more aggressive in the strike zone than he had been in previous seasons, and while his swinging strike rate went up a bit, it still sat at a well-above-average 7.7%, which was a worthwhile trade-off for the increased power he seemed to get from attacking pitches in the zone more.
Manzardo himself attributed that success to “just getting older, learning from from past experiences and being able to really apply a lot of the work I put in into the games.”
While those lessons and previous minor league experience paid off for Manzardo at the Triple-A level, there were still plenty of lessons that he would need to learn during the 2024 season. After his hot start, Manzardo got called up to the Guardians, but his first cup of coffee in the big leagues didn’t go as planned. In 29 games, he hit .207/.241/.329 with no home runs, a 26.4% strikeout rate, and an uncharacteristic 3.4% walk rate.
Some of that had to do with an overly aggressive approach that saw him swinging at more pitches than he had been when he was in the minors. He also saw his fly ball rate explode to 55%, which is well above the 42% mark he had in the minors, and he posted just a 30% pull rate, down from the 44% mark he had in Triple-A. All of which suggests that he wasn’t hunting his pitches as aggressively as he had been before his promotion and was maybe not as comfortable in the batter’s box as he had been earlier in the year.
“We threw them into a kind of an impossible situation,” said Guardians manager Stephen Vogt. “When you go from playing first base every day to DHing every day, and there’s more time on your hands.”
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In that first stint, Manzardo started just one game at first base, getting more of his playing time as a pinch hitter or designated hitter. That the shift to not playing the field was a bigger mental hurdle than Manzardo had expected it to be. “When you’re playing the field every day, you’re so physically exhausted that a lot of the mental side of the game can kind of take the back seat, and you can just go out there and grind,” he explained. “Whereas when I was DHing and pinch-hitting a bunch, it was a lot more of a mental grind. I had to keep my mind right and think the game a little bit differently than I ever have.”
That mental adjustment was on top of the steep learning curve that comes with making the jump from Triple-A to the majors. It’s a gap in competition level that many players have said has only been widening over the last few years and one that Manzardo admitted was “the biggest jump that I saw coming up through the minors.”
It’s not just the talent gap between MLB pitchers and minor league pitchers, but also the off-field components of being a major leaguer that minor league players simply don’t have to worry about.
“It’s different in the sense that there’s so much more media, so much more going on at the big league level,” said Manzardo. “You know, through the minor leagues, that’s not on your mind at all.”
“The first time you come up to the big leagues, there’s a lot to learn,” echoed Vogt. “I felt like Manzo got to go back to Triple-A, get back into his routine, but then, knowing what that role is going to feel like and trying different things. He owned it.”
In much the same way he took his prior years of minor league experience and put the knowledge to good use before the 2024 season began, Manzardo was able to take his brief MLB experience and get back to approaching the game the way he always had: “But the game, I mean, baseball, is always baseball. I knew I could help the team win the second go around.”
He knew that he was striking the ball well and that batted ball data, in particular average exit velocities, is something that Manzardo admitted he likes to use in season to check in on his process. In his first big league stint, he had an 8.3% barrel rate, 89 mph average exit velocity, and 109.8 max exit velocity. His quality of contact was in line with the hitter he was in the minors. The results would come.
“Part of being a big leaguer is figuring out how to stay true to who you are,” said Vogt. “A lot of times, you get to the big leagues, there’s more information, so you try and do something maybe differently than you have before, like, dude, do what got you here. That’s why you’re here. Just remain being yourself. Yeah, you need to learn, and, yes, we’re going to make adjustments, and you’re facing the best players in the world every day, but you have to continue to do what works for you, and Kyle did a great job of that when he came back.”
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And they did when Manzardo got another shot at the big leagues with a 23-game stint in September. This time, he slashed .270/.333/.540 with five home runs, and while his strikeout rate was still up at 26%, his walk rate also improved to nearly 9%, which is closer to the hitter he was in the minors. His average exit velocity increased only slightly to 89.2 mph, but his barrel rate rose to 11.1% in part because he reduced his fly ball rate a bit and increased his pull rate to 49%, which seemed to suggest that he was getting more comfortable in the batter’s box and looking to turn on the ball a little bit more.
That increased confidence carried over into the offseason and then into spring training.
“I went into the offseason feeling inspired just based off of how the previous year went, and still hungry given the way it ended,” Manzardo explained. “I definitely got after it a little bit more, maybe, than I had previous years…I feel like I belong a little bit more than I did last year.”
His coach shares that increased level of confidence.
“I mean, we saw what Manzo can do the last 30 days of the regular season and then into the postseason,” said Vogt. “You know he can hit, and we’ve known that for a long time, so I’m really excited about the way Kyle’s going about it. His work has been excellent this spring.”
A lot of that work has been alongside new teammate Carlos Santana, who was signed to a one-year contract in the offseason to replace Josh Naylor, who was traded to Arizona. Santana is in his third stint with the Guardians and his 15th year as a major leaguer, so there’s plenty that Manzardo can gleen from him on how to approach his role as an MLB regular.
“Carlos has been phenomenal for Kyle,” said Vogt. “Just 15 years in the big leagues, you’ve seen a thing or two, and so just for Kyle to have someone like that who genuinely cares for Kyle wants him to get better. He’s already taken him under his wing, and they work really well together.”
Some of that work has also been defensively, where Manzardo made a lot of strides in the minor leagues last year. Even though Santana is going to get the vast majority of the time at first base this season, but the Guardians are committed to Manzardo’s long-term growth at the position, and it sounds like he is too.
“He’s worked really hard on his throwing, specifically,” explained Vogt. “He catches the ball well, but the throwing has been an issue for him in the past, but he’s done a nice job of working on that and addressing it with our infield coaches and staff. He’s looked really, really clean so far in spring.”
At the end of the day, that growth is all that Manzardo cares about this season. “I don’t want to say I don’t believe in like statistical goals, but if I’m healthy and available for the team, I feel like I can take everything I learned last year and apply that and get better.”
If his second stint production and strong spring are a baseline of what we can expect in 2025, Manzardo should be able to hit around .260 in nearly full-time at-bats in a strong Guardians lineup. He has hit fourth, fifth, and sixth so far this spring, which means a spot in the middle of the order seems likely and should lead to 120 Runs+RBI with near 20 home runs.
That profile has Manzardo ranked as the 310th-best player in my calculations for 12-team leagues, but he’s being drafted 357th in NFBC Online Championship drafts in February; however, he’s only been drafted in seven of the 34 drafts. While some of that has to do with Manzardo only being UT-eligible in NFBC formats, he figures to outproduce that ADP no matter what format you play in.
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