It's hard being a Cleveland Guardians fan sometimes. That's the sentiment around the reigning AL Central champions, who won their sixth division in 10 seasons in 2025. The team keeps making the playoffs, seven times in 10 seasons, and doing so on a shoestring budget. In fact, that's kind of been the club's modus operandi: win with no real help or money.
The team lacks a lot of major talent, but it does have Jose Ramirez, who gives them an elite hitter. At the end of the day, however, he's proven that no one great hitter is enough to win a World Series. Not when teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers can just buy their way to a title.
The Dodgers' payroll is so massive, the Guardians' entire club would be just 29% of it. It's so massive, their highest-paid player, Shohei Ohtani, makes more than half of the entire Guardians roster. It's becoming a problem, not just with the Guardians but other small-market teams that don't spend a lot of money.
It's gotten so bad that the Dodgers' luxury tax penalty, $169.4 million, i s just about double the Guardians' entire payroll for the 2026 season (as it stands currently). It's a huge discrepancy that may continue to grow if rumors about the Guards' roster are true.
Currently, there are discussions that the team may trade All-Star outfielder Steven Kwan, and if they do that, that'll shave another $9 million off the payroll. Considering he's one of the best lead-off hitters in the league, it's possible the Dodgers could be interested in him, and if they are, that would drive the Cleveland fandom wild.
There remains hope that the club can surprise fans by extending Kwan just as they did prior with Ramirez, but the sad reality is that the club is likely to move on from Kwan sometime this upcoming season. When that happens, it'll only further prove just how broken the MLB's salary situation really is.