Thursday, April 5th, 2012, was an insignificant day in the grand scheme of baseball, an immeasurably small drop of water in the vast sea of moments which make up the history of America’s pastime.
It was a chilly, blustery spring afternoon off the shores of Lake Erie. The Cleveland Indians opened their 2012 campaign that day with a loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.
This was a remarkable affair, requiring 16 innings to decide a victor and lasting over five hours (making it the longest Opening Day game in MLB history). It was chronicled in a recent Rewinder video.
But for our purposes, this game acts merely as an effective opening backdrop for the epic tale which would unfold over the next 14 years of Cleveland baseball.
This is a story which persisted through a World Series appearance, a franchise name change, and a global pandemic. This is a story that is still unfolding. Yet, it’s a story few have fully catalogued.
That fateful afternoon in 2012, Shin-Soo Choo was etched into the Indians’ lineup card as the ball club’s starting right fielder. This fact in itself was not eye-opening; in fact, it was expected. Choo had established himself as a fan-favorite in the city, posting an OPS of .853 and slugging 372 homers in nearly 700 games with the club by the time he was finished.
This would be the 29-year-old Korean’s fourth consecutive Opening Day start in right field for Cleveland.
In the 13 seasons to follow, the franchise will have 13 different Opening Day right fielders.
As I reflect upon my existence as a sports fan, I question what brings me back for more each year.
Of course, winning is nice. So is the shared experience of rooting for your hometown team through the (few) ups and (many) downs. Being able to attend a ball game in person, especially when the crowd is buzzing and the scene is set, is one of the greatest feelings man can unlock within himself.
But what really brings the juice for me is the novelty. The endless number of never-before-seen gimmicks that have the potential to take place with each pitch, each trip up and down the court, and each new Browns quarterback.
Maybe Bartolo Colón will hit a home run! Maybe a random G-League player will score 50 points for the Pistons! Maybe Jameis Winston will lead the 2-8 Browns to victory against the 8-2 Steelers in a certified Snow Game! Maybe Purdue will lose to a double-digit seed again!
When the game has not yet begun, how can we possibly know what multitudes its entirety will contain?
There’s no sport that captures this potential for tomfoolery and eccentricity more than baseball. Thirty teams have 162 games’ worth of shenanigans to get into each season.
Shohei Ohtani chasing a 50-50 season. José Ramírez punching Tim Anderson’s lights out. Cal Quantrill having…choice words for Reese McGuire. These are the moments that make baseball weird, and the moments that make baseball weird make baseball great.
A winning team is never guaranteed. An exciting product on the field is never guaranteed. Yet baseball always has something to offer. Baseball always delivers the goods, whether you ordered them or not.
Such is the story of Cleveland baseball’s Opening Day right fielders between 2012 and 2025.
Let’s introduce them.
2012-2017: Searching for Something
2012: Shin-Soo Choo — Traded to Reds following the 2012 season
2013: Drew Stubbs — Traded to Rockies following the 2013 season
2014: David Murphy — Traded to Angels in July 2015
2015: Brandon Moss — Traded to Cardinals in July 2015
2016: Collin Cowgill — Optioned to Triple-A after 12 at-bats; granted release in October 2016
2017: Abraham Almonte — Waived in March 2018
OPS+ is a standardized measure of a hitter’s effectiveness in comparison to the rest of the MLB; 100 is league average.
Following a rock-solid 2012 campaign with the Indians, Choo had one more year on his deal before entering free agency. In typical Cleveland baseball fashion, he was unceremoniously traded to Reds in late 2012 in a three-team deal that netted the Indians Trevor Bauer, Bryan Shaw, and Drew Stubbs.
The hunt for a new right fielder was officially underway.
Zero of the next five contestants played more than 225 total games with Cleveland. Only two accumulated positive WAR while playing for the club, and all five were league-average or worse bats.
A few things of note:
Collin Cowgill’s nine games played for Cleveland are the fewest of any of the club’s 14 Opening Day right fielders since 2012. They would mark his final nine games in the majors.
Major props to David Murphy for accumulating a grand total of 0.0 WAR and posting an OPS+ of exactly 100 in over 200 appearances with the Indians. He did his job and went home. Some of us could learn from him.
This team was really good in the five seasons following Choo’s departure, averaging 91 wins per season from 2013-2017 and making the playoffs three times. To do so while starting each season with these options at right field is an accomplishment by itself.
A brief detour into Cleveland’s playoff-opening right fielders since 2012
The Indians/Guardians have made the postseason seven times since Choo departed for Texas. Below are their starting right fielders in each year’s playoff opener.
2013 (Lost in Wild Card): Ryan Raburn — Actually had a great 2013 season for the Indians. Posted a 151 OPS+ in 86 games, primarily playing right field!
2016 (You know what happened): Lonnie Chisenhall — More on him below. Probably the best option in right field since Choo.
2017 (Lost in ALDS): Jay Bruce — The most beautiful 50-game tenure any Cleveland baseball player has ever had. Bruce is a short-term Cleveland legend.
2018 (Lost in ALDS): Melky Cabrera — In the twilight of his career, Melky was a replacement-level hitter for one year in Cleveland.
2020 (Lost in Wild Card): Tyler Naquin — More on him below. We are entering the era of playoff losses to the Yankees.
2022 (Lost in ALDS): Oscar González — Known best for his walk-off blast in the 15th inning of game 2 of the 2022 Wild Card series against Tampa Bay, which was immediately followed by his groove of choice, the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song.
2024 (Lost in ALCS): Jhonkensy Noel — More on him below. Known best for his game-tying blast in the 9th inning of game 3 of the 2024 ALCS against the Yankees and his excellent nickname (Big Christmas).
If you’re following along, that’s four more names entering the right field mix since 2012.
2018-2019: Cult Classics
2018: Lonnie Chisenhall — Played eight MLB seasons with Cleveland before signing with Pittsburgh in November 2018, injuring his finger in Spring Training, and never again making a major league appearance
2019: Tyler Naquin — Played five MLB seasons with Cleveland before signing with the Reds in February 2021
Both Chisenhall (Lonnie Chisenhall is an all-time baseball name) and Naquin were more than capable against right-handed pitchers, posting career OPS values of .757 and .791 against righties, respectively.
Both were fan favorites who were ravaged by injuries and eventually drifted out of the big leagues. In fact, if Chisenhall didn’t start the 2016 season on the IL, he likely would’ve been Cleveland’s Opening Day right fielder that year, totally eliminating the absurdity of the past 14 seasons.
Both had incredible moments in a Cleveland uniform: Chisenall’s three-homer, nine-RBI day against Texas in 2014; and Naquin’s iconic, walk-off, inside-the-park home run against the Blue Jays in 2016.
Oh, and Naquin was signed once more by the Guardians in March 2025. As a pitcher.
2020: ???
2020: Domingo Santana
COVID was weird. Santana signed with the Indians in February 2020. The season was postponed until July. Santana was released at the end of August, effectively ending his big league career.
His final 24 games at the highest level of baseball were in front of no fans in the middle of a pandemic. It’s a cruel game.
2021-2022: Familiar Faces, Unfamiliar Places
2021: Josh Naylor — Played five MLB seasons with Cleveland before being traded to Arizona in December 2024
2022: Steven Kwan — Still with Cleveland
We know these guys! Naylor and Kwan were both All-Stars in 2024 and have been beloved Guardians throughout their careers. They just happen to have found their most success in other defensive locations.
Kwan is a three-time Gold Glove winner in left field. He hasn’t played right field since his rookie season, when he suited up in right just 20 times, including on Opening Day.
Naylor has made just six appearances in right field since he fractured and dislocated his ankle in an on-field collision in June 2021.
Both are onto bigger and better things than the cursed Cleveland right field. The search continues.
2023-2025: Hoping
2023: Will Brennan — Still with Cleveland; optioned to Triple-A in March 2025
2024: Ramón Laureano — Appeared in 72 games with Cleveland before being released in May 2024
2025: Jhonkensy Noel — Still with Cleveland
We have officially entered the era of Today.
Before the Guardians traded for fellow left-handed right-fielder Nolan Jones in March of this year, Brennan was a (very uninspiring) contender to be the first duplicate right field opener since Choo. He has been a promising platoon option since making the bigs in 2022, posting an OPS of .727 against righties (don’t ask about lefties), but he doesn’t seem to be the clear answer in right.
Ramón Laureano was yet another lowercase-g guy in a line of lowercase-g guys in right field. He played well enough for Cleveland in 2023 to earn a new contract with the Guardians, but started 2024 in sluggish fashion before being released.
(He was soon picked up by Atlanta and proceeded to post a 128 OPS+ for the Braves in 2024 — it seems the curse of being an Opening Day right fielder for Cleveland was lifted as soon as he left town.)
Enter the next great Cleveland hope in right field: Big Christmas. Noel was called up in June of 2024 and posted intriguing numbers in 67 regular season games: a .774 OPS, a 115 OPS+, and 13 moonshots (not including his ALCS blast mentioned above). At this point, his numbers against righties do not inspire much confidence.
However, Noel’s raw power at the plate, improving discipline, relative youthfulness, and charming nickname have provided Guardians fans alike a feeling unusual to these 14 years of right field tragedy: Hope.
More than anything else, what unites us all as sports fans isn’t the past. It’s not championships won or lost, nor moments preserved in history.
What we keep coming back for every spring, year after year, is hope.
A 0-0 record.
A blank slate.
A season anew, fresh like an unopened can of Play-Doh, ready to be molded into success, failure, and all the moments in between.
So let us not think of Cleveland baseball’s infamous Opening Day right fielder inconsistency as a failure of the past, marked by inadequate spending and subpar prospect development.
Let us think of it as an opportunity to come. Someday — maybe someday very soon — Cleveland will have its right field success story.
Can’t we let that inspire us to live every day with just a little more hope?