CLEVELAND, Ohio — Kenny Lofton is widely regarded as the greatest leadoff hitter in Cleveland franchise history. To argue that is pointless, some would say. But is it completely crazy (or altogether too early) to mention year three Steven Kwan in the same breath as the beloved base stealer extraordinaire from the 1990s?
On Thursday’s podcast, Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look at what Kwan is doing to draw such comparisons and whether or not it is fair to either player that we are even thinking this way so early in the season.
Listen and read along with an AI-generated transcript of the podcast below.
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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
Joe Noga (00:15):
Welcome back to the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. I’m Joe Noga, joined by Paul Hoynes. Hoey, what a win for the Guardians last night you ever seen a walk-off catch? That was pretty amazing by Stephen Quan Diving into the Gap, robbing a soft line drive off the bat of Maurizio Dubon and doubling up the runner at second base to end the game. Three, two guardians win in their fourth consecutive extra innings game, a game that they really needed to win and they came through and Stephen Kwan did it on both sides of the ball.
Paul Hoynes (00:54):
Yeah, just a great knight for Kwan. The great catch, like you said, Joe, the double play to end it and then in the top of the 10th he doubles home the with the go ahead and winning run with just really, really a big night for him. He goes, what, three for five in Tuesday’s loss he goes two for two and reaches base five straight times. We’re seeing the emergence of perhaps the best lead off hitter in the American League.
Joe Noga (01:30):
Yeah, OPS of nine 15 entering the day on Thursday. Now for Steven Kwan, you were talking before we started here, you said he’s leading the league in batting average base hits and what else?
Paul Hoynes (01:45):
And runs
Joe Noga (01:46):
And runs scored and we’re seeing that power start to maybe emerge a little bit more, at least total bases and slugging percentage over the last few days. He’s had a bunch yesterday he was a home run short of the cycle, had a triple and RBI triple in the fifth inning that scored Brian Rocchio just doing it at all facets and all phases of the game here. But I want to go back to that catch, I mean talking after the game. He said that he didn’t even know where the runner on second was. He just did it by instinct. He sort of dove for the ball, made the catch, didn’t know he was going to catch it until he had it in his glove and then doubled up the runner, Victor Carini, who tried to get a little bit of a headstart off a second base to score that tying run in the 10th inning and really he won the game for him right there with a walk-off catch.
Paul Hoynes (02:43):
Yeah, no doubt about it. Just a great catch. And in talking to him after the game, Quan was saying the ball was coming in and out of the lights from the ballpark. He really didn’t have a good read on it. He didn’t if he could get it and he just dove for it. He had a good feeling about it, but he didn’t know he caught it until it was in his glove. But the thing about that was Joe, he didn’t have sight of it all the way. He said he was kind of in and out. He was trying to get every kind angle or read on it that he could and just a great effort by him. And then Andre Jimenez is screwing around stepping, trying to fake step on second base. I’m not sure what he was doing, but it took him about five seconds to make the force to end the double play and everybody in the dugout, I don’t think anybody knew if he caught it or not because no one really jumped out of the dugout right away because Jimenez was screwing around before completing the double play.
Joe Noga (03:47):
Yeah, well watching that at home on TV and Matt Underwood doing the broadcast and he was waiting to use his signature line book it when Jimenez stepped on the bag and then Jimena wouldn’t step on the bag and so he was hesitating and hesitating. It was like you building up all this anxiety and everybody watching at home. How likely is it that Jimenez maybe gets one in the ribs this evening if the Astros didn’t like that kind of thing? I mean that’s one of those things you kind of don’t screw around like that. You just step on the bag and you go celebrate with your boys. Right,
Paul Hoynes (04:22):
Exactly. And Jimenez gets hit so many times with pitches anyways, you won’t know if they’re thrown at ‘em or not I guess unless they really make an emphasis, emphasize it. And Carini was the hero from Tuesday night’s game with the walk-off home run and last night he’s in the dugout when Quan makes the catch or headed for the dugout, he got a little too aggressive on that one.
Joe Noga (04:49):
Well, and I kind of get it, I mean that ball to tarantini, that ball looks like it’s getting down for a base hit and you’ve got a score on that if you’re him at second base. So I mean he’s got to go. You can’t blame him for getting doubled up in that situation if that ball drops and he doesn’t score, you’re yelling at him for a whole different set of reasons. But yeah, Hemi’s the last guy that you would expect to be taunting or doing anything silly like that. I think he was more trying to be funny than anything else I would assume. Or maybe he’s trying to throw it up in Houston’s face. I don’t know. We’ll see if that strategy backfires on him in tonight’s game. But just going back to Kwan and talking about the offensive numbers speak for themselves right now, what seven three hit games in the team’s first 30 games that’s only been done four other times in franchise history and most of those were in the twenties and thirties. You’re talking about guys like Trish Speaker who have accomplished the feat of at least seven three hit games prior to the team playing 30 in a season. That’s impressive. Is Steven Kwan, you and I were talking before we started recording here. If the all-star game was tomorrow, you would have to find a place for Steven Kwan in that outfield, maybe even the starting outfield for the American League.
Paul Hoynes (06:23):
Yeah, Joe, I think you’d have to. Yeah, he’s a different kind of outfielder. He is not a power hitter, but he’s the classic lead off hitter. He does everything. You want a guy at the top of the order to do. He’s hitting 360 Joe, he’s got 45 hits, he scored 27 runs. He’s hitting 4 29 on this trip. A trip against it started in Atlanta with really tough, a really good Braves team and I know the Astros are struggling but they still have really a potent offense so he’s doing it against some top level competition.
Joe Noga (07:03):
Yeah, you and I were talking and I threw out maybe a comparison when you talk about classic lead off hitter, obviously from people from my generation from around here, you say classic lead off hitter. The name that pops into everybody’s head is Kenny Lofton, but you didn’t necessarily like that comparison maybe because of power numbers or whatever. Why are Kenny Lofton and Steven Quan different and why are Kenny Lofton and Steven Quan may be a little similar?
Paul Hoynes (07:35):
Yeah, I think they’re similar in that they both get on base. They both hit for a high average and they both kind of give the pitcher and catcher concern when they do get on base. I think Kenny was probably a little more speed, a little more of a stolen base threat, developed some power toward the middle part of his career. We don’t know if that’s going to happen with Quan, but I don’t think Quan is a stolen base threat that Lofton was.
Joe Noga (08:09):
Yeah, and that’s also developing a little bit more. I mean Kenny wasn’t a guy who collected a lot of total bases in terms of doubles or slugging or anything like that his first two, three maybe seasons, but sort of grew into that and grew into more of a threat that way defensively. Kwan is elite right now. Kenny was beyond elite in his day, so I can see maybe it’s not a completely fair comparison. Obviously Kenny played a lot longer and did a lot more things over his career, but if the first two and a half seasons or two and a quarter seasons are any sort of indication Kwans along that trajectory, what does this mean for his future? I mean every three hit game he throws on there, every dazzling catch he throws up there in left field that just puts another zero on the price tag. It’s going to cost to keep him in Cleveland.
Paul Hoynes (09:18):
Yeah, Joe, I mean they talked to his agents over spring training in the off season about an extension. Nothing got done and then both sides decided to halt negotiations once the regular season started. But this is a guy that doesn’t come along very often. You don’t see these type of hitters very often and if Cleveland is serious about continuing to win and continuing to put good teams on the field, I would think you’d want to start at the top of the lineup and take care of your lead off hitter. But we’ll see how this goes. This is his third season, what three more years to go to a free agency. A lot can happen between then and now, but he obviously has to be on their radar to sign an extension.
Joe Noga (10:10):
Well, I called up the baseball reference page that compares Steven Kwan head to head with Kenny Lofton and obviously this is a career comparison between the two. So all of Lofton’s numbers are going to be skewed because of a 20 year career here, but just think about in a seventh of the number of seasons that Kenny played, Stephen Quan’s Total War right now a baseball reference war 10.7 Kenny Loft to finished his career at 68.4 war in about seven times more games or seasons or whatever. So there’s a lot here to sort of chew up and digest. Obviously the stolen base total is a lot different, but batting average, Steven Kwan hitting two 90 for his career. Kenny Loftin was a 2 99 hitter OnBase percentage a little bit closer, 360 for Qua 3 72 for Lofton, but like you said, the slugging percentage definitely a lot different.
(11:18):
Kwan slugging percentage, 3 96 slugging percentage for loft and 4 23 for his career, but that power sort of developed later in his career. Total OPS about 40 points higher for Lofton, but I’m surprised Kenny’s OPS below 800 for his career right at 7 94 quant checks in at 7 56, which is still, it’s pretty good. The only place he does have Quan does have Kenny beat right now is total OPS plus. It’s one 16 for wan, 16% higher than league average and Lofton at 1 0 7 there. But again, it’s not a fair comparison at this point, but keep that kind of thing in mind. If you’re thinking about the prototypical leadoff hitter, the guy that you want at the plate in those situations, even late in games, Kwan is still seeming to come through that way and he’s carrying this offense and leading this offense right now along with guys like Josh Naer and Jose Ramirez to a certain extent, he hasn’t really hit his stride yet this year. We talked about whether or not he could be an all-star that remains to be seen, but there’s a little bit of an opportunity there. I think the center field and right field spots in the American Li room he spoken for out of New York, but left field there might be an opportunity.
Paul Hoynes (12:55):
Yeah, no doubt about it. Joe. I think he’s an all-star right now. He is on that trajectory. This is a guy like you were naming some stats Joe, and like you said, he’s clutch. He went into last night’s game hitting 3 33 with runners in scoring position for a lead off hitter who doesn’t get a lot of chances to drive in runs that are hit with runners in scoring position. That says a lot.
Joe Noga (13:23):
Yeah, that is real important. Alright, as far as updates, news, anything coming out of last night’s game, obviously a very important win for Cleveland in that the fourth game in a row, they went to extra innings. You saw Tristan McKenzie go seven innings. That completely gets overshadowed by the way the game ended and everything, but Mackenzie gave them seven innings at a time when you couldn’t have him going three or four and taxing the bullpen even more. If Mackenzie doesn’t go seven last night, somebody’s losing a job this afternoon.
Paul Hoynes (14:03):
Yeah, it was just a great effort by Tristan, like you said, seven innings, two runs, one walk, six strikeouts. He threw 90 pitches and 50 of them were fastballs Joe and the velo uptick a little used it right around right around 91, 92 miles an hour. Carl Willis, the pitching coach, had said Sunday in Atlanta that in his previous start, Tristan had showed him the best fastball he’d seen all season. That was when he only went four innings against Boston and he carried that into last night and he really stretched out. That’s his longest start of the season and like you said, they really needed that after Carrasco only went four innings the night before.
Joe Noga (14:52):
Help could be on the way. In terms of the bullpen though, obviously they’re super taxed right now. They’re overused, but Sam Hinches apparently through a couple of innings the other night and he’s close to being ready to be activated off the injured list. What do you think of the opportunity for Sam Hinches to maybe join this bullpen?
Paul Hoynes (15:17):
Yeah, he threw two scoreless innings last night in his final rehab appearance for Columbus. He got the win in fact in a 14 day eight win over Toledo and I think he’ll be activated either Friday or Saturday, Joe, when the guardians return home to open that series against the Angels
Joe Noga (15:37):
14 a, what are they playing football out there in
Paul Hoynes (15:39):
Columbus? They had 17 hits.
Joe Noga (15:41):
It’s like the Buckeye. It is like the Buckeyes score. What the heck? Although the Buckeyes would not have a final score of 14 to eight against Toledo, I think. Anyways, if Hench is ready to join the bullpen, then who looks like they’re the most vulnerable right now in terms of their spot out there?
Paul Hoynes (16:00):
Well Joe, there’s so many guys pitching well in that pen. It’s a hard call to make, but they do have Pedro Avila sitting there, kind of a long guy that really kind of pitches in blowouts one way or the other. He is made a couple of appearances, but I would think he’s probably the guy on the bubble right now.
Joe Noga (16:23):
Yeah, it makes the most sense to me. There will of course be the random keyboard jockey on Twitter who jumps on and says, oh well they should send Hunter Gaddis down or something like that based on his last three outings and that’s just crazy talk. I don’t ascribe to that. The guy was nails for the first three weeks of the season and he hit a rough patch. Steven vs. Got to do a good job of getting him through this and getting him back because he’s going to be important to this bullpen down the stretch.
Paul Hoynes (16:54):
Yeah, that’s the last thing you need to do with a guy like Gaddis first year and full-time reliever. He gave you what, 13 straight scoreless appearances and yes, he blew three straight saves on this trip, but I think you got to stick with him. I mean votes stuck with him every he votes sent him out there for three straight games. He had that confidence in him and I think he’d have to do quite a salesman a selling job if they had to send Gaddis down, but I don’t see that happening.
Joe Noga (17:30):
Other injury news, Eli Morgan getting ready to head out for a rehab assignment as well.
Paul Hoynes (17:38):
Yeah, they talked to Eli yesterday pitching coach Carl Willis. He threw a bullpen on Tuesday. Everything went well. So he will start his rehab assignment this weekend with Columbus.
Joe Noga (17:53):
Alright, just so you know for our listeners, if you sign up for our subtext subscription texting service 3 99 a month to get guardian subtext, you can get updates on all of the roster moves, injury news and updates on what we think of Steven Kwan and the opportunity to tell us if you think he compares favorably to Kenny Lofton there on subtext, go to cleveland.com/subtext or send a text message to 2 1 6 2 0 8 4 3 4 6 down on the farm. You talked about Columbus putting up 14 runs last night. It’s time for Kyle Mando Corner where we check in and see how Kyle Mando is doing Hoey. He had another good night.
Paul Hoynes (18:44):
You’re not kidding, Joe. We just said the final score, the Clippers beat the Mudheads 14 to eight last night. Manzano goes three for four with two doubles and is another home run. I think he’s got eight right now and he wasn’t alone. Jonathan Rodriguez hit his sixth home run. Daniel Neeman hit his sixth home run. George Valera is back in the lineup after being injured in spring training. He went two for three. So everything is coming together for the Clippers, especially with Mando Joe and he’s knocking on the door. It’s just a matter of when the guardians open it.
Joe Noga (19:27):
Yeah, it’s the ring doorbell. They can see him. He pops up on their phone and it’s Kyle Manzano again. No, George Valera making his season debut at aaa. Also a really positive sign. This is a guy who can’t seem to get out of his own way in terms of injuries, but him being on the field now, he’s just got developing and produce and maybe becoming an option for the outfield somewhere down the line. Speaking of an option for the outfield somewhere down the line, the guardian guardians, as we all know, have the number one overall pick in the July draft coming up and there’ve been a couple of candidates trying to separate themselves from the PAC there. Really the guy that profiles for exactly what the guardians need would fit right into where Cleveland is lacking maybe in their farm system and in their development over the last several years is a right-handed a true right-handed power bat.
(20:37):
And right now the guy who’s leading all of NCAA Division one Charlie Condon, the six foot 6 216 pounder from Georgia, he has 30 home runs he’s taking on, I believe South Carolina or either Vanderbilt or South Carolina this weekend, and he’s just assaulting the NCA record books and Georgia record books in terms of home runs leading the NCA and batting average. He’s got a slugging percentage that’s up over a thousand hoey. These are astronomical numbers. And as the season starts to head towards the tournament here, as they’ve got about two or three weeks left in the college season, he’s going to start seeing a little better competition, a little bit higher level of pitching, but Charlie Conan starting to separate himself from guys like Jack CAG Leone in Florida and Travis Banna Bana as guys who could be that number one overall pick.
Paul Hoynes (21:48):
Yeah, Joe, he is high on everybody’s draft board and yes, the guardians know about him. This is a draft kind of loaded with college hitters. That’s really, I guess the main talent of this draft is in college hitters. They have some pitchers, and this is the first time Cleveland has had the number one pick in franchise history. And Joe, they’ve got a $10 million slot value to assign whoever they pick with the number one pick. So this is a big draft and you got to get it right when you’re picking one-on-one, right, Joe?
Joe Noga (22:31):
Right. Yeah. I mean in terms of performance and what he’s doing out on the field right now, I think you can’t deny that everything is there. It’s what makes a number one pick. The only thing I could see that would steer them off of a guy like Charlie Ka would be if they sit down and interview him and they don’t get a good feeling in terms of his work ethic or personality or if he doesn’t fit with that kind of thing. Because everything else points to this is the kind of guy who an ESPN story the other day had him a scout, said he’s a unicorn, he’s a generational college player, six foot 6, 216 pounds could probably still fill out that frame. I mean, you’re talking about an Aaron judge size type player, if that’s the case and puts the ball in play hits home, runs a thousand slugging percentage. I mean, these are things that make you stop and take notice. If you pass on a guy who goes on to become the next errand judge, you’re going to regret that for a very long time.
Paul Hoynes (23:41):
Yeah, Joe, and the only thing that could stop them from taking Conn is they’ve got that $10 million slot value for the first pick. What if they can’t come to terms with him on a signing bonus or they decide, okay, if we don’t get Conan, we can get two players or three players by using some of that slot value on other picks. So that comes into this thing as well.
Joe Noga (24:17):
Is this the time to get creative with your financing and your selection or is it the time to take a guy who could go on to be a longtime superstar player? If you pass on that, that’s fine. Whatever Cincinnati I’m sure would take him or Colorado would definitely take him. But if you’re doing that because you want to split the bonus pool money and maximize however many players you can get, it screams kind of playing the poor card even. Does that make sense?
Paul Hoynes (24:58):
Yeah. Teams have done this, Baltimore has done it. They split the bonus pool for the number one pick. So teams have done that in the past, but sometimes Joe, you just don’t want to overthink it. You got the number one pick, take the best player.
Joe Noga (25:17):
And that’s where I’m coming from here. And if he separates himself over the next three weeks or three to four weeks or month and it really just looks like he’s the obvious choice, then go with it and don’t look back and I don’t know how much he’s a red shirt sophomore, so there’s a possibility that he could go back to Georgia for another year. Not likely. But the NIL thing comes into play there as well. Could it be more financially lucrative for him to return to Georgia with NIL money as opposed to taking a $10 million signing bonus with Cleveland? Not a likely scenario in any case, but the possibility of something like that out there, you might have to pay him
Paul Hoynes (26:11):
A 10 million bucks is 10 million bucks. Joe, that speaks pretty loudly to me if I’m Charlie Conden.
Joe Noga (26:19):
Alright. Alright, Zi, that’ll wrap up today’s edition of the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. One more game to go in Houston tonight. Logan Allen on the mound against Spencer Arogeti. How do you like that? There’s a name for you. We’ve got some great names we’ve been coming across lately. Spencer Arogeti Owen 3 10 96 ERA for Houston. Logan Allen has three wins for the Guardians on the mound. We will check in with you tomorrow after the series wraps up in Houston. Good deal, Joe.
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