The Cleveland Indians were in the news over the past weekend and extending into today after it was reported the team would be willing to trade some veteran players, not including Francisco Lindor and/or Jose Ramirez.
Many fans took this to mean Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff were going into rebuilding mode. This could not be further from the truth.
Of course, the team also declined to make qualifying offers to Michael Brantley, Andrew Miller, or Cody Allen, the Tribe’s primary free agents.
We have talked about the fact that the Indians’ offense was very top heavy in 2018, largely dependent on Lindor, Ramirez, and Brantley, and the latter doesn’t look to be on the roster next spring.
Combine that with the payroll in ’18 was as high as the franchise can have, and you can see some restructuring of the roster has to be done.
If you look at the every day lineup from the end of last season, outside of Lindor, Ramirez, and Greg Allen, everyone else was over 30 years old, which means improvement isn’t likely, so we are sure the Indians want to get younger.
The issue is that among the Tribe’s top ten prospects (from Baseball America) show the only position player who played above the AA level last season was 1B Bobby Bradley.
So, there is no help on the horizon from the minor leagues.
While we are sure the front office would love to move Edwin Encarnacion, Jason Kipnis, or Yonder Alonso, our guess is there wouldn’t be much of a return for that trio, it would pretty much be a salary dump for low level prospects.
So, you have to look at players who you can sell high on, and that brings us to Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Yan Gomes.
There is no question the strength of the Indians is their starting pitching, and they brought up a rookie into the rotation this season in Shane Bieber, and their top prospect is another starter in Triston McKenzie, who was at Akron last season.
Both Kluber and Carrasco are under reasonable contracts for the next two years, so they would have huge value for teams looking for starting pitching.
We believe you should A). Deal from strength, and B). Better to trade someone a year too early than a year too late.
Kluber is going to be in the top three in the Cy Young Award voting this year, the fourth time in his career that will be the case. However, he did show signs of wear and tear as the season went on.
Keep in mind, he has thrown 200 innings or more five consecutive seasons. His strikeout rate was the lowest since before his first Cy Young season in 2014. Is he starting a decline? That’s what the organization has to ask themselves.
His salary jumps from $10 million to $17 million this year and basically stays there through 2021 on club options.
Carrasco has less wear and tear on his arm (only one 200 inning season) and is still making under $10 million in 2019 and 2020.
Carrasco might fetch more in a deal for that reason.
Gomes is 31 years old and is coming off perhaps his best season in the major leagues. It would be a good baseball move to try to trade him at his peak.
This current group perhaps went as far as it could in 2016, and the organization gave them two more shots to win a title.
The front office knows they need to address the offense and they need some younger position players who have an upside.
The core remains the same. The Indians are still trying to get better for 2019. They aren’t starting the rebuild.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 