MLB rumors: Another AL East team has eyes on Ohtani, Votto return, Guardians bullpen
- The Guardians want to bring back a bullpen piece
- One writer gives strong reasoning for the Reds to re-sign Joey Votto
- Shohei Ohtani continues to be an AL East dream
By Josh Wilson
Guardians have hopes to re-sign a reliever
The Cleveland Guardians would like to, "kick the tires," on re-signing relief pitcher Reynaldo Lopez according to Cleveland.com's Paul Hoynes.
Cleveland became familiar with Lopez as a divisional rival pitching for the Chicago White Sox for several seasons. The Los Angeles Angels acquired him at the MLB trade deadline, but later let him go in large-scale waiving of players to save money once the team recognized they would not be competitive in their playoff chase.
For Cleveland, Lopez appeared in 12 games and gave up no earned runs in 11.0 innings. He walked four and struck out 12, earning a WHIP of 0.818 in Cleveland (1.310 on the season across three teams).
Lopez did enough in a short period of time to earn the interest of Cleveland to potentially re-sign. Lopez, after an up-and-down first few years of his career as a starting pitcher has been steady as a relief pitcher the last five seasons. He'll have no shortage of suitors, but perhaps Clevveland did enough to be his top choice coming out of this past year.