Guardians cut ties with 'Big Christmas' Jhonkensy Noel

Billy Heyen

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Guardians cut ties with 'Big Christmas' Jhonkensy Noel image

The Cleveland Guardians are risking their future with Jhonkensy Noel, the sturdy slugger affectionately known as "Big Christmas."

On Wednesday, the Guards designated Noel for assignment.

This is what that means:

  • Noel has been removed from the Guardians' 40-man roster.
  • Noel has been put onto waivers.

If Noel passes through waivers unclaimed, he can revert to being a Cleveland player for Triple-A Columbus.

But any other MLB team (with room on its 40-man roster) could claim Noel and acquire the remainder of his contract as a waiver addition.

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It's not clear that anyone would do that, and maybe Cleveland wouldn't have made a maneuver like this if it wasn't pretty sure Noel would pass through smoothly.

Another team could look at his power potential, though, and want a part of it.

The 6-foot-3, 250-pound Noel has 19 career MLB home runs in 327 at bats, but that comes with only a.193 batting average and a strikeout in 115 of those at bats.

Whether with Cleveland or elsewhere, he'll have to work on making better contact to have a more consistent big league impact.

But the power is certainly prodigious, and that's something that could intrigue another team.

Noel is only 24 years old. There's a lot of time for the native of the Dominican Republic to still get this right.

Cleveland took a risk placing Noel on waivers. It'll be up to the rest of the league, and then to Noel himself, to determine whether it was a risk worth taking.

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