Are We Witnessing a Daniel Schneemann Breakout?

Daniel Schneemann had a huge weekend in Toronto, and he's quickly finding himself with an everyday role for the Cleveland Guardians.

The beauty of baseball is that very little is ever a sure thing. The unpredictability of the game is the appeal, the constant allure.

And for the Cleveland Guardians this season, the step forward taken by Daniel Schneemann is perhaps not entirely unpredictable, but certainly a welcomed sight.

Schneemann had a huge weekend in Canada with four hits in nine at-bats, two of those being home runs on Saturday as he single-handedly took down the Blue Jays, capped off by a ninth-inning grand slam in the Guardians’ 5-3 victory.

As Brayan Rocchio’s star continues to fade in this young season, Schneemann has stepped up to fill the void in the infield. Though the utilityman was certainly serviceable in his 2024 rookie campaign - a 91 OPS+ and the ability to play most positions will always be needed - Schneemann has entered the territory of becoming an everyday player in 2025.

As you can see, he’s made significant strides offensively thus far, barreling the ball with the best of them:

Schneemann already has nine barrels to six last year, and his hard-hit rate is up to 50 percent. He’s trimmed his strikeout rate down to a more respectable 27 percent and he continues to walk at a very healthy ten percent. The .255 xBA suggests the output so far is sustainable.

Here’s where his percentiles stood in 2024:

We forget sometimes how some of these Guardians players really haven’t spent much time seeing major-league pitching, even if they’ve been with the team for a couple seasons. We’ve seen the maturation of Gabriel Arias in 2025, and he still doesn’t even have 700 total plate appearances across four major-league seasons. The same offensive growth by Schneemann comes with fewer than 300 plate appearances; we might just be watching a guy getting more comfortable at the major-league level. He’s always had a good eye at the plate, and now he’s putting everything else together.

If that’s the case, the Guardians have yet another utilityman extraordinaire on their hands.