Jim Ingraham: It's an old story ... Guardians' youth taking its toll

Remember earlier this season when the Guardians were gardening the American League for victories, and doing it quite well? Remember June 22, when the Guardians, with a record of 36-28, were in first place in the AL Central? Remember when the Guardians went on a nine-game trip to play the Rockies, Dodgers and Twins, and on that trip the Guardians won every game but two? Remember that? And do you remember how everyone talked about how great that was, because not only did the Guardians do all that, but they did it with the youngest roster in the major leagues? In fact, it was a roster that was not just the youngest roster in the major leagues, but a roster that was younger than any minor league Triple-A team. For Guardians fans, the whole thing seemed too good to be true. Turns out it was. Baseball's funny like that. Baseball's 162-game season is really good at exposing teams' weaknesses and rewarding teams with the fewest weaknesses. Sometimes it takes time to expose a team's weakness. But when it finally happens, it can be unforgiving. That's where the Guardians are now. Their garden is getting overgrown with losses, and it seems pretty evident why. The why lies in the how. How they built their team. Having the youngest team in the majors was a pretty neat storyline when the Guardians were reeling off victories on that road trip to Colorado, Dodger Stadium and Minnesota. So much so that, for a time, it seemed to indicate that this was that rarest of baseball animals: a low-budget, extremely young, painfully inexperienced roster filled with overachievers capable of extended periods of overachievement. From Opening Day to June 22, the Guardians' schedule included a combined 17 games against the Padres, Blue Jays, Twins, Astros and Dodgers, all of whom are likely playoff teams come October. Cleveland won 10 of those 17 games. On June 22, the Guardians were alone in first place in the AL Central with a record of 36-28. Since then, entering Saturday's game, Cleveland is 4-13, and five of those 13 losses have been to Detroit and Kansas City — two of the worst teams in the American League — who are a combined 31 games under .500. There were some early warning signs of this swoon in the month of June, when Cleveland somehow posted a record of 18-10 despite having a minus-8 run differential. July hasn't been nearly so kind. In just eight games the Guardians have a whopping minus-31 run differential. Their opponents are scoring an average of 6.3 runs per game to Cleveland's 2.5. All of the above numbers are attributable to the one statistic that everyone fell in love with over the first three months of the season, only to realize that it was fool's gold. That stat was the highly deceiving "youngest roster in the major leagues" illusion. Proudly trumpeting the youngest roster in the majors is no way to intimidate opponents. To the contrary, it's an unintended yet major form of institutional shrugging over an unfortunate reality. Winning, for any length of time, with the majors' youngest roster is a cute story, but it is not sustainable for several reasons. Fielding the youngest roster in the majors is another way of saying you're fielding the most inexperienced roster in the majors, or the cheapest roster in the majors. Unshaken opponents might even view such a roster as the most talent-challenged team in the majors, or the most underfinanced team in the majors. To their credit, the Guardians' front office has been able to consistently field competitive, if not championship-level, teams in recent years. That's no easy task on a shoestring budget, yet somehow they've made it work, one way or another. But entering this season with the youngest roster in the major leagues unavoidably brought with it a certain inevitability as to its outcome. Slumps come with the turf in all sports. The Guardians are experiencing that now. However, what they most need to avoid or combat a slump is exactly what they don't have. What they don't have are what the youngest, most inexperienced teams all tend to lack: experience and veteran leadership. When things are going well — for example, the Guardians' winning 11 of 13 games from June 8 to June 22 — the lack of leadership and a roster with some veteran presence isn't felt. But when things aren't going well, such as the Guardians' current 4-13 free fall, the leadership that comes with veteran players, and the production that comes from having two or three star players, is sorely missed. That the Guardians were able to stay competitive over the first three months of the season was encouraging. But it had nothing to do with having the youngest team in the majors. It had everything to do with overcoming having the youngest team in the majors. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com and follow him @Jim_Ingraham on Twitter.