CLEVELAND — In the coming days, Stephen Vogt will return to Puget Sound and his home in the Pacific Northwest. He has earned the time away after concluding an improbable run from Cleveland Guardians rookie manager to ALCS runner-up.
He’ll also have plenty to consider over the long offseason.
Vogt twice had the opportunity to walk Giancarlo Stanton in key situations within 24 hours of each other in Cleveland’s series against the New York Yankees. Both times, Vogt elected to pitch to him. Now the Guardians’ season is over.
The total damage from those two plate appearances: two home runs, five RBIs, 850 punishing feet of distance — and two devastating losses to the Yankees, who are headed back to the World Series for the first time in 15 years.
Stanton mauled the Guardians in their five-game series, which is nothing new. He had four hits over the five games — all of them home runs. He has eight career postseason hits against this franchise and, yes, all of them are home runs. He has homered in each of the three series-clinching victories in 2020, 2022 and 2024.
Stanton isn’t the only reason the Yankees are moving on and the Guardians are going home. Cleveland didn’t get enough out of its stars. Brayan Rocchio made a few critical errors throughout the series that cost the Guardians precious runs. And every time a Cleveland pitcher hung a mistake, the Yankees seemed to never miss.
But Stanton is the clearest example of the thin line between courage and crazy. Vogt may have crossed it once or twice.
The Yankees had a one-run lead and runners at second and third in Game 4 with Stanton coming to the plate against ace reliever Cade Smith, who by that point clearly looked gassed. Nevertheless, Vogt elected to pitch to Stanton rather than put him on to load the bases with one out and set up a double play.
Smith threw a decent fastball high in the zone, but Stanton clobbered it 404 feet.
POSTSEASON STANTON!! pic.twitter.com/5m0IaoE1EE
— MLB (@MLB) October 19, 2024
Tanner Bibee was excellent in Game 5, bobbing and weaving through the Yankees’ danger zones for five shutout innings on a night Cleveland desperately needed length from its starter. He struck out Stanton in each of his first two at-bats.
When he faced Stanton again with a 2-0 lead and a runner at third in the sixth, Vogt elected again to pitch to him. Walking him would’ve put the tying run on base with two outs and a slumping Jazz Chisholm up next.
Bibee and Vogt elected for a half-measure, choosing to pitch around Stanton rather than just put him on. Bibee didn’t throw him a strike the entire at-bat — until the final pitch. It seemed clear that his strategy was to let Stanton swing himself into a strikeout on pitches away, otherwise they’d be happy to send him to first.
Except Bibee hung a slider on a full count, badly missing the target. It was the only strike Bibee through Stanton in the at-bat, and it was the only one Stanton needed to tie the game.
Made for the moment. @Giancarlo818 🔥 pic.twitter.com/iYe8qVHYOa
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) October 20, 2024
“Tanner was dialed. Tanner had struck him out twice. He had him on the ropes,” Vogt said. “You give me 100 more times, I’m not putting him on right there.”
I don’t believe Vogt was exaggerating. The Guardians did not intentionally walk Stanton at all in the series. They walked Anthony Rizzo once, which is the same number of times they intentionally walked Stanton and Aaron Judge combined.
Five years from now, with more experience as a manager, maybe Vogt chooses differently in these spots. Maybe not. There were only a few moments throughout this postseason when he looked like a rookie manager, such as pinch hitting guys before their first at-bat against the Detroit Tigers in a game they were shut out.
Otherwise, Vogt leaned into this team’s strength, the bullpen, and masterfully directed a young roster that spent most of the season overachieving.
“None of it was corny or fake. It felt really genuine,” Steven Kwan said of Vogt. “He believed in all of us, and I think that’s what you need out of a manager, someone who’s going to go to bat for you through the roller coasters, the ups and downs, and we felt from day one that he was going to be really special.”
If the Yankees are the standard, the Guardians now know where they’re aiming. It may have ended in a gentleman’s sweep, but this was a wildly entertaining series, particularly the three games at Progressive Field. The Yankees hit 10 home runs, and their biggest stars — Judge, Stanton and Juan Soto — delivered nine of them.
The Guardians needed more out of José Ramirez, Josh Naylor and Emmanuel Clase, although Clase at least fought back after consecutive miserable pitching performances to blow through Judge and Stanton in Game 4. He looked like his old self again.
The Yankees are the better team. They have the payroll and star power to prove it. The Guardians have plenty of questions to answer this winter, such as whether or not they can trust Rocchio to be the long-term solution at shortstop. For the first time in decades, they might need to seek more starting pitching. The idea of them spending wildly this winter is a fallacy, but is one middle-of-the-order bat either by trade or free agency too much to ask?
Team president Chris Antonetti made his annual walk through the clubhouse after Saturday’s game, going to each player and thanking them for their efforts this year. Last offseason was a much heavier lift for Antonetti. He needed to find a new manager to replace a legend in Terry Francona.
As with most everything else this organization does, they nailed it. Vogt shined in his first year on the job.
A little bit courageous, a little bit crazy. Sometimes the lines are blurred.
(Photo: Lauren Leigh Bacho / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
