Cleveland Indians: Five 2018 spring training predictions
By Ryan Rosko
Catching options gives Cleveland a number of scenarios to consider
The Indians have three options at catcher: Yan Gomes, Francisco Mejia, and Roberto Perez. Lets envision one of the three playing more DH than anything else, a case could be made to keep all three in Cleveland. While that wouldn’t be a bad idea, it’s not going to happen.
Cleveland needs a few more bats along with upgrades and/or depth across the diamond. Teams are not going to wait around as they pursue improvements if they don’t have to. As a result, Mejia will do more than enough to get Cleveland thinking.
Do they want to keep him at the MLB level? Perhaps this is just an exception to what was expected and he’s better off in triple-A. Or maybe this is truly a sign of things to come. If it’s the last scenario, the best way to improve the roster would be dealing him when his game is on a hot streak.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Indians nearly dealt him. If you recall, Cleveland almost traded Mejia, along with others to the Milwaukee Brewers for catcher Jonathan Lucroy.
Mejia could be the future catcher for the Tribe but with Perez under contract, he doesn’t need to be. Despite playing sparingly (and putting up a slash line of .154/.214/.154/.368) in 2017 for Cleveland, there were some moments where Mejia showed his potential. In this scenario, the Tribe decides to move Mejia in a trade early on to improve their major league roster.