The 2019 baseball season will start in a week (yeah, we know Seattle and Oakland are playing in Japan), and the rumors about the Cleveland Indians trading one of their starting pitchers won’t go away.
It was reported earlier this week that San Diego is still talking to the Tribe front office about a starter, presumably either Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer.
You can make plenty of reasons to justify trading either of (not both) the men who figure to be at the top of the Cleveland rotation in 2019.
Kluber is certainly the more accomplished of the duo, with two Cy Young Awards (the only Indians’ pitcher to win more than one) and two other top three finishes.
On the other hand, the right-hander will turn 33 in a couple of weeks. He has club options worth $17.5 million in 2020, and $18 million in 2021 in addition to the $17 million he is reported to make this season.
So, trading him saves the team more money this season as Bauer makes $13 million in ’19, and gets the franchise out of a $35 million commitment for the next two seasons.
For the talent scouts, they have to figure out whether Kluber is starting the decline phase of his career. His velocity dropped towards the end of last season, and his arm angle was noticeably lower than earlier in the campaign.
If the Tribe has seen the best of Kluber, it makes tremendous sense to move him now, despite the backlash from the media about trading another Cy Young Award winner.
The argument for trading Bauer is we know he is going to test free agency after the 2020 season, and if he pitches like he did in 2018, he is going to cost $20 million for ’20.
Now, dealing Kluber and shedding his salary for 2020 helps pay for Bauer to be sure.
And you can make a pretty good case that Bauer will be the better pitcher in the next two seasons. Heck, Bauer proclaimed this winter on social media that he had a better 2018 season than the guy who finished third in the Cy Young voting.
He may have been correct too.
However, moving Kluber means by the end of the 2020 season, you won’t have either Kluber or Bauer. The Tribe would still have Carlos Carrasco, Mike Clevinger, and Shane Bieber to head the rotation though, and other options (Triston McKenzie, Sam Hentges, Luis Oviedo) working their way up the system.
San Diego is a good choice to deal with too. They have an overload of outfielders and the deepest farm system in the major leagues. That gives the Indians an opportunity to add someone who can be put in the lineup everyday, and another player in the upper minors, where the Tribe is a little light.
Would a deal getting a Hunter Renfroe, a right-handed power bat, who is not arbitration eligible until next year, and won’t be a free agent until 2024, along with a top tier prospect and another lesser one, be worth the squeeze for the Tribe?
Let’s say the deal involves Kluber. Would a rotation of Bauer, Carrasco, Clevinger, Bieber, and say Adam Plutko, or heck, you could sign James Shields as a free agent, be good enough to win the AL Central?
Of course it could.
If you think with your head instead of your heart, it makes a lot of sense for the Indians to pull the trigger on this type of deal. If they feel they need a bat to score enough runs to get to the playoffs, it might be the best way to make that happen.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 