{"id":57156,"date":"2022-12-06T17:44:48","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T22:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=57156"},"modified":"2022-12-06T17:44:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T22:44:48","slug":"josh-bell-guardians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/12\/06\/josh-bell-guardians\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Bell Signs With the Guardians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to ESPN&#8217;s Jeff Passan, Josh Bell has signed with the Cleveland Guardians. Bell will sign a 2-year deal worth $33 million that includes an opt-out after the 2023 season. Bell will be joining Jose Ramirez and manning the opposite corner of the infield, adding another veteran bat to their young lineup.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">First baseman Josh Bell and the Cleveland Guardians are in agreement on a two-year contract, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JeffPassan\/status\/1600230353582497792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Josh Bell&#8217;s Career<\/h2>\n<p>Drafted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/pirates\/\" target=\"_self\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> in the second round of the 2011 MLB Draft, Josh Bell was destined to be their first baseman of the future. Debuting on July 8th, 2016, he carried a line of .273\/.368\/.406 with three home runs and a 108 OPS+ across 45 games. He put together two solid seasons over the next two years by carrying a line of .258\/.345\/.440 with 38 home runs and a 110 OPS+ across 307 games. He broke out in 2019 by hitting .277\/.367\/.569 with 37 home runs and a 142 OPS+ that earned Bell his first All Star appearance.<\/p>\n<p>After struggling in 2020 and only putting up an OPS+ of 82, the Pirates, then restarting their rebuild, traded Bell to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/nationals\/\" target=\"_self\">Washington Nationals<\/a> where he would spend the next 247 games of his Major League career. In that time, he hit .278\/.363\/.483 with 41 home runs and a 136 OPS+ while settling into his own as a hitter with an above-average eye for balls and strikes. The Nationals kick-started their rebuild at this past season&#8217;s trade deadline, however, when they packaged Bell and Juan Soto in a trade to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/padres\/\" target=\"_self\">San Diego Padres<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bell struggled in 53 games with the Padres as he only hit .192\/.316\/.271 with three home runs and a 75 OPS+. Despite his struggles, he still showed off his above-average eye at the plate with a 15.2% walk rate. This was Josh Bell&#8217;s first experience with free agency, and it may not be his last should he choose to exercise the opt-out that was included in his contract.<\/p>\n<p>Bell is joining a young Guardians team that shocked the baseball world by winning the AL Central in 2022. He will be a good veteran presence in their locker room, and a good bat in the lineup to hit ahead of Jose Ramirez and get on base consistently. Bell is the third of the big-name first basemen to come off the board after Anthony Rizzo re-signed with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/yankees\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Yankees<\/a> and Jose Abreu signed with the World Series Champion <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/category\/astros\/\" target=\"_self\">Houston Astros<\/a>. Trey Mancini and Brandon Belt still remain available to teams in need of a first baseman.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"KMi1FrQESoJuR4unDmuPNg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/824547690\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'KMi1FrQESoJuR4unDmuPNg',sig:'6N3j3gwgZiYrdCE4bdljVJPqO8RejRCogrgfgKyHCpo=',w:'594px',h:'411px',items:'824547690',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Players mentioned:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=belljo02,belljo01&amp;search=Josh+Bell&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Josh Bell<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=ramirjo01,ramirjo02,ramire022jos,ramire034jos,ramire033jos,ramire030jos,ramire032jos,ramire023jos&amp;search=Jose+Ramirez&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jose Ramirez<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=sotoju01,soto--004jua&amp;search=Juan+Soto&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Juan Soto<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rizzoan01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Anthony Rizzo<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/abreujo02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jose Abreu<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mancitr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Trey Mancini<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/beltbr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=&amp;utm_medium=referral\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brandon Belt<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to ESPN&#8217;s Jeff Passan, Josh Bell has signed with the Cleveland Guardians. Bell will sign a 2-year deal worth $33 million that includes an opt-out after the 2023 season. Bell will be joining Jose Ramirez and manning the opposite corner of the infield, adding another veteran bat to their young lineup. Josh Bell&#8217;s Career [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4389,"featured_media":57158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,1071,35],"tags":[67,113,552,596,1129,2133,2262,2555],"class_list":["post-57156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-guardians","category-mlb","category-news","tag-anthony-rizzo","tag-brandon-belt","tag-jose-abreu","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-josh-bell","tag-juan-soto","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-trey-mancini"],"modified_by":"Troy Brock","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}