BEAVER TOWNSHIP — As the Cleveland Guardians prepare for spring training and the upcoming season, radio broadcaster Jim Rosenhaus is busy getting ready for his “spring training,” marking his 18th season with the Guardians and 13th behind the microphone with partner Tom Hamilton.

The Guardians finished third in the American League’s Central division a year ago — they went 76-86 and closed behind the Minnesota Twins and second-place Detroit, finishing under .500 for just the second time with Terry Francona at the helm. Cleveland will have a new manager in Stephen Vogt, with a new coaching staff and both new and young players looking forward to making the team in 2024.

“For the first time in a long time, 11 years to be exact, there is a new manager and that’s a big difference,” Rosenhaus told the Curbstone Coaches during Monday’s weekly meeting at Avion Banquet Center. “Terry Francona was awesome during his 11 years and really, for consistency, it was an unprecedented stretch of good baseball, playing above .500 ball.

“With Tito gone, we are going with Stephen Vogt and I had a chance to get to know him a little bit over the weekend at our Fan Fest. It will be interesting because he is a much younger manager than Tito, who brought in that great resume when he got here and just added on to it with some great work. Stephen is going to be a rookie manager, who just finished playing after the 2022 season, so obviously there will be some inexperience things he’ll need to overcome. The nice thing, however, is that so many times a young manager gets a job, the job is open because the team has struggled for years and they needed to make a change. That is not the case here. Yes, it was a disappointing year a season ago but there’s still a lot of really good, young talent here that we are hearing some great things about.”

There are stories making the rounds about Francona’s generosity, his knowledge of the game and how he treats his players.

Two stories are at the top of Rosenhaus’ list.

“Terry grew up not too far from here in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, so there was always that good feeling of he got us,” Rosenhaus said. “He knew what it was like to live in this part of the country and when we would go to Pittsburgh, one of his favorite places and his diet, or lack thereof, is legendary, but the place in New Brighton is called the Dog House. It had every kind of hot dog you could imagine, including just straight up, good hot dogs. When we went to Pittsburgh, someone would bring at least a dozen hot dogs from there so the last time we played the Pirates, which was last year, he had hot dogs catered in for the entire team and our bus ride back to Cleveland, just hundreds of hot dogs from his favorite place, which was just classic Tito.”

Being media friendly has always been a Francona trait, from his playing days, to his time as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox and the past 11 seasons in Cleveland.

“I think, from my perspective, maybe it speaks to how he handles the team, but it was at the end of his first season at the helm,” Rosenhaus said. “The then-Indians were on a big stretch to try to make the postseason, and they did win the final 10 games of the year to reach the playoffs. That was 2013 and he did it with a closer, Chris Perez, who was really struggling. He just wasn’t having much success, so near the end of the season, I had to do a report for the MLB Network and they wanted me to shed some light on the closer situation.

“I went into his office and was like, ‘Tito, they want me to ask you about Chris Perez, is he still the closer?’ He goes, ‘well, we are making some decisions and trying to work through it, but you cannot tell them whether he is or whether he’s not, because if he’s watching that show before he gets to the ballpark, he can’t hear it from you so we talked through it.’

“(Tito) was just awesome, going on to say, ‘let’s figure out what we can say so that it works for Chris, it works for us and works for them.’ We sat there for about 15 minutes, figured it out and I just thought to myself, what manager does that? He was great. So for us, we will miss him terribly because it showed his sensitivity toward players if, indeed, he had to make a hard decision.”

Rosenhaus still loves the atmosphere provided by spring training.

“It’s such a fun time of year because you’re not on a losing streak, you haven’t lost a game yet and you’re still at .500, so everyone is happy is the best way to put it,” he said. “This year is going to be fun because we will be learning about a new manager and his coaches and about new young players, too. So that always makes it fun.”

Guardian pitchers and catchers report to spring training Feb. 15, whereas the full squad is due Feb. 19, with Rosenhaus and Hamilton due behind the microphone for their first Cactus League game with the Cincinnati Reds on Feb. 24.

Next week, Dan Bertolini, YSU head baseball coach, will serve as guest speaker for the Curbstone Coaches.