For the third time in his career, third baseman Jose Ramírez has committed to the Cleveland Guardians, and vice versa. By agreeing to a seven-year, $175 million extension that supersedes the three years and $69 million Ramírez had left on his previous deal and will keep him under contract through his age-39 season, the two parties have effectively ensured that this player-team relationship will, incredibly, go the distance.
The first investment in this unique partnership came nine years ago, when Ramírez, an unexpected key contributor on Cleveland’s pennant-winning club in 2016, agreed to an extension that guaranteed him $26 million over five seasons, with club options for 2022 and 2023 worth $11 million and $13 million, respectively. As the expiration of that deal drew near — and with Ramírez having established himself as an all-around superstar — the two sides explored the possibility of a longer, more lucrative pact leading up to the 2022 season.
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Considering Ramírez’s tremendous on-field value relative to his modest salary — and a potentially larger payday looming in free agency — it was hardly a certainty that such a contract would come together. For a small-market club such as Cleveland to pay Ramírez enough that he would eschew the chance to cash in as a free agent was a daunting task. The Guardians even prepared possible trades to send Ramírez to either the Blue Jays or the Padres in the event that a deal could not be reached.
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But against all odds and despite most precedents involving comparable situations, Ramírez and the Guardians hashed it out late in spring training 2022, constructing a seven-year, $141 million contract that worked for both sides. The deal undeniably still underpaid Ramírez, but it was a sizable enough investment — and an outlier relative to the franchise’s bottom-tier payroll — to warrant his putting down deeper roots with the only organization he’s ever known. Having received just a $50,000 bonus when he signed as a teenager out of the Dominican Republic, Ramírez secured generational wealth a dozen years later — a monumental achievement regardless of whether his salary exactly matched his star-level performance.
Now, after another four seasons of face-of-the-franchise production, Ramírez and the Guardians have tripled down on their relationship with a new nine-figure deal, one that should extend to the conclusion of his playing career. Just three active players — Jose Altuve, Salvador Perez and Mike Trout, all of whom debuted in 2011 — have been in the majors with one team longer than Ramírez, who arrived in 2013. If Ramírez completes this deal as planned and retires thereafter, he will have played in parts of 20 seasons with Cleveland, joining an extremely exclusive group of players in major-league history who played with one franchise for two decades, a cohort that is almost entirely enshrined in Cooperstown.
Certainly, Ramírez will be headed to the Hall of Fame one day, too. Although the league’s top honor has continued to elude him — no player in MLB history has amassed more MVP votes without winning the award — his statistical résumé stacks up comfortably. Since becoming an every-day player in 2016, Ramírez is tied with Mookie Betts for third among position players in fWAR, behind only Francisco Lindor and Aaron Judge. Assuming he stays healthy — and he hasn’t been on the injured list since 2019 — Ramírez will become just the ninth member of the 300 home run/300 stolen base club at some point in 2026. And if his still-elite power-speed form is any indication, Ramírez might have a chance to join the 400 HR/400 SB club, occupied by only Barry Bonds.
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In short, the numbers speak for themselves, and Ramírez’s eventual place at or near the top of every franchise leaderboard will eventually be rewarded with a statue at Progressive Field and a plaque in upstate New York. But his individual efforts have yet to manifest in the collective triumph he and the Guardians continue to chase. World Series winners in 1948 and never since then, Cleveland’s drought is nearing eight decades, the longest in MLB. When the Cubs ended their own infamous drought by defeating Cleveland in 2016, they passed off the burden to their Great Lakes neighbors. Ten years later, the Guardians’ wait for a championship continues.
By some measures — and accounting for its market size — Cleveland’s efforts to contend with Ramírez have been admirable, if not downright impressive: The Guardians have qualified for the postseason six times and won the sixth-most regular-season games in MLB over the past nine seasons. But viewed another way, Cleveland hasn’t come especially close to winning it all, reaching the American League Championship Series only once during that span, when they lost to the Yankees in five games in 2024.
Even as the personnel has changed year over year, Cleveland’s success has often been rooted in its pitching. But the lineup surrounding Ramírez has rarely resembled that of a legitimate contender, with last year’s offense representing a new low, even amid a historic second-half surge to claim another AL Central crown. The Guardians arrived in October with an offense that ranked 28th in wRC+, with only Ramírez and sophomore slugger Kyle Manzardo posting above-average batting lines in the regular season (All-Star Steven Kwan was a touch below at 99 wRC+). And with spring training fast approaching, Cleveland has done nothing this winter to upgrade its position-player group.
Several factors have contributed to this inaction. Most glaringly, ownership has demonstrated a complete unwillingness to elevate the payroll above the lowest rungs of the league. The front office has also exhibited a reluctance to part with prospects in trades for more proven commodities. But the complete lack of external additions can also be explained by the genuine belief Cleveland has in its internal options on offense — a belief informed in part by Ramírez’s unlikely example.
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“After 650 plate appearances of Jose Ramírez, we wouldn’t have said that he would have gone on to be an every-day player, let alone a Hall of Fame-caliber player,” president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said at the winter meetings in December. “Michael Brantley’s first 500 or 600 plate appearances weren’t great. Some other guys like Grady Sizemore come up and hit the ground running and is an All-Star from the day he sets foot on the field.”
Indeed, Ramírez posted a 78 wRC+ across 635 plate appearances in the majors from 2013 to 2015 before breaking through as a regular in 2016. So while Cleveland’s front office isn’t counting on any of its current young players to blossom into Hall of Famers like Ramírez did, it doesn’t want to discard them prematurely. As such, the projected depth chart features several players who have yet to entrench themselves as reliably productive hitters but remain in the mix for playing time.
“We want to find that right balance of urgency and patience,” Antonetti said. “Obviously, we have urgency, we want to win as many games as we can and compete for a World Series … but with each individual, [we want to] have enough patience to give them an opportunity to be productive players.”
Gabriel Arias (76 wRC+ in 1,034 career plate appearances) has yet to translate his tremendous physical tools into reliable production. Brayan Rocchio (77 wRC+, 911 PA) has shined in some big moments, but the overall offensive output has underwhelmed. The versatile Angel Martinez (77 wRC+, 653 PA) has taken well to Ramírez’s mentorship as a fellow Dominican switch-hitter, but his on-base skills have been woefully inadequate. Bo Naylor (88 wRC+, 1,041 PA) is still seeking consistency at the plate while balancing the rigors of catching.
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“As we looked at a lot of the possibility of external additions, one of the questions we continually have to ask ourselves is, ‘Whose opportunity does this impede? Which guys will we not be able to give plate appearances to because we’re signing a free agent?,’” Antonetti reiterated recently when asked about Cleveland’s lack of additions. “And in the end, we made the determination that we have a really exciting group of young players that are starting to emerge at the major-league level and depth beneath that. We want to give them the opportunity to contribute and fuel our success.”
Perhaps these players will reward Cleveland’s patience in 2026. If not, it will be on the next wave of bats — Chase DeLauter, George Valera, C.J. Kayfus, Travis Bazzana — to form a worthwhile supporting cast while Ramírez is still in his prime. Kwan and Manzardo have answered the call, but more firepower is required. If the Guardians want to capitalize on this championship window opened in part by Ramírez’s brilliance, it will take more than just their headlining superstar.
Some consternation about Cleveland’s stagnant offseason is warranted, but it’s also not unique within the AL Central. No division has spent fewer combined dollars in free agency, with the last-place White Sox actually accounting for a healthy portion of said expenses. The Tigers have been quiet, promoting familiar sentiments about trusting their young players while Tarik Skubal’s historic arbitration case looms large. The Royals have made some intriguing trades but have spent very little in free agency and have a lot to prove after last year’s letdown. The Twins have some solid pieces but haven’t remotely replaced all the talent they dealt away last summer.
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So without a juggernaut atop the division raising the standard through aggressive roster-building, the Guardians — with a top-tier manager in Stephen Vogt and a trustworthy track record of run prevention — have a compelling case as the team to beat in the AL Central in 2026. Of course, that doesn’t absolve the organization of the well-earned skepticism regarding its plan to score more runs this year.
But amid another quiet offseason, Cleveland has at least reinforced one of its few organizational certainties: Ramírez is the foundation on which the entire operation is built, and that will remain the case until the switch-hitting, base-stealing, slick-fielding, unrelenting, 5-foot-8 dynamo has dirtied his last uniform.
