Guardians Season in Review: Juan Brito

Could he be the opening day second baseman?

Acquired from the Colorado Rockies in 2022, IF Juan Brito had an excellent 2024 season in AAA Columbus. He finished the season with a slash line of .256/.365/.443 with a 113 WRC+ and a 13.5% BB rate to a 16.1% K rate . He also notably had a career high in Home Runs with 21, which was particularly interesting to me. After playing five different positions in 2024(2B, 1B, 3B, SS, RF) it’s clear after the trade of Andres Gimenez that second base is going to be Brito’s easiest path to Cleveland in 2025. Is he ready to be the opening day second baseman? I think he is, here’s why:

There is no such thing as a prospect that is a sure thing, but there are traits and skills that mightily increase the chance that a prospect will succeed at the big league level. Two of those being the ability to make contact, and the ability to not chase balls outside the zone. Those happen to be the two biggest strengths in Juan Brito’s profile. It’s a huge reason that he has raked at every level of minor league baseball. In five minor league seasons, Juan Brito has never had an OPS below .803. When you take a look at this graphic from @TJStats on X, it is easy to see why many fans are excited about Brito’s bat.

The exit velocites are not going to blow you away, the raw power is not all that impressive, but it also isn’t bad enough to stop him from being a great hitter. You don’t need elite raw power to hit doubles and Home Runs to the pull side, we just watched Steven Kwan hit 14 Home Runs last season and he missed 40 games due to injury. Brito’s ability to not swing and miss often, paired with his ability to draw walks and only swing at strikes makes me believe that he will have very little problems transitioning to the big league level. Keep in mind that Brito did this as a 22 year old in AAA, which is extremely young for the level.

We talked about the positives with Brito, now let’s get to the negatives, or negative, I should say. The big negative on Brito and the reason why I believe that he has a limited ceiling as a player is due to his defense. We likely all saw Eric Longenhagen’s hit piece on Brito’s defense in Spring Training earlier this year, and while I don’t agree that it is terrible, it definitely is not good. His arm isn’t too bad, but the range is rough. Going from one of the best 2B defenders of all time to Brito also will not be doing him any favors if he does indeed win the job. However, after playing Amed Rosario at SS for years, how much can they really care about middle infield defense? As long as Brito hits, he’s likely going to be the second baseman until Travis Bazzana is ready, and he should be.