The Guardians Debate To Trade Shane Bieber At The Deadline Is Over As He's Headed To The 60-Day IL Instead

Welllll shit. This is just about the worst news that could come out of the Shane Bieber elbow inflammation that sat him down about 10 days ago, no? Obviously avoiding surgery (for now) is good news, but in my mind, we just lost the ability to be Buyers or Sellers at the upcoming deadline. I'm not saying that at 5-6 with a 3.77 ERA that he's been anything close to what he once was for us, but his name would've carried weight had we decided to continue our tradition of trading our pitchers 12-18 months before they leave on their own, or it would've been nice to at least have him for the playoff push. I'm not sure which way I was leaning before this news, but afterwards, who gives a shit.

What do you tell a team that has proven over 100 games that they're garbage, but they're also sitting just 3 games back of leading the division and having home field advantage in the the Wild Card Round?

I think you have to make a run for it, right? Give Tito Francona a chip and a chair, and the whole city will rally around playoff baseball in Cleveland. But then again, we've shown we're the definition of an below average team, and now Bieber and Tristan McKenzie are both on the 60-day IL, with Cal Quantrill also injured. What's the point of trying to do anything with this team that has a Shohei Ohtani sized hole in both our rotation and lineup?