Sources: Guardians trade Naylor, sign Santana

Jeff Passan, Senior MLB InsiderDec 21, 2024, 06:56 PM ET

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The Cleveland Guardians traded first baseman Josh Naylor to the Arizona Diamondbacks and quickly replaced him by agreeing to a one-year, $12 million free agent contract with veteran Carlos Santana, bringing him back for his third stint with the team, sources told ESPN on Saturday.

Two months after losing to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, the Guardians continued the overhaul of the right side of their infield. They had already traded Gold Glove-winning second baseman Andres Gimenez to the Toronto Blue Jays. On Saturday, they flipped Naylor for right-hander Slade Cecconi and a competitive-balance Round B pick, worth just over $1 million in draft-bonus money, the team announced.

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After Arizona’s incumbent at first, Christian Walker, agreed on a three-year, $60 million contract with Houston on Friday, the first-base market — stagnant to this point in the winter — kicked into overdrive. Veteran Paul Goldschmidt signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the New York Yankees, and Arizona pivoted quickly to Naylor, the left-handed-hitting powerhouse who made his first All-Star team this year.

Naylor, 27, will hit free agency after the 2025 season and Cleveland’s propensity to move players before they reach the open market paved the path for a deal. Naylor hit a career-high 31 home runs and drove in 108 runs as the Guardians won the AL Central division this year. While his defense can be a liability, Naylor joins a Diamondbacks lineup that led Major League Baseball with 886 runs.

Santana, 38, has been a consistently solid player throughout the course of his 15-year career. He debuted with Cleveland in 2010 and spent his first eight seasons with the team. After spending 2018 in Philadelphia, he returned to Cleveland for two seasons before bouncing from Kansas City to Seattle to Pittsburgh to Milwaukee to Minnesota, where he hit .238/.328/.420 with 23 home runs and won his first Gold Glove in 2024.

The deal for Santana, which is pending a physical, will pay him more than twice his $5.25 million salary in 2024 and includes $1 million in performance bonuses, sources said.

Santana’s market had accelerated quickly this week after Walker’s deal helped give teams clarity. He’ll join Cleveland alongside Cecconi, a former first-round pick who in 104 major league innings has a 6.06 ERA. While he came up as a starter, the 25-year-old Cecconi spent the second half of this season as a reliever.

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