Cleveland Indians: 5 ways Bauer trade helps Tribe get back to World Series

4. Pitching help on the way

In Logan Allen, the Tribe acquired a pitcher who entered the year ranked as MLB.com’s 74th ranked prospect, and ninth in the Padres system.

Allen was mostly a starter in the minors, but he has been relieving of late at the major-league level. He has a 6.75 ERA, so things haven’t started smoothly for the foremother eighth-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox.

To be fair, Aleln’s only appeared in eight big-league games, with four being starts.

During his minor league career, the left-hander averaged 9.50 strikeouts per nine innings. He was only averaging 4.97 strikeouts per nine innings at the Major League Level.

Given the Tribe’s track record for developing pitchers such as Mike Clevinger, Shane Bieber and Zach Please, you’d certainly like to see what the Tribe can do with him during an offseason, though.

Allen is under team control for six more seasons and he projects as a back-end starter, but it looks like his calling will be in the bullpen for the rest of 2019.

The Indians are being talked about their pitching depth, but all the guys who were capable of helping in the minors are already here. The Indians need someone else they can go to this season, and next, if they need a starter in a pinch.

Top pitching prospect Triston McKenzie was injured for most of this season and is still getting his feet wet at Double-A, so Cleveland needed someone capable of helping in the short term.