Cleveland Indians: 5 reasons why the Mike Clevinger trade was great
By Chad Porto
The team finally gets a backup catcher
The team missed on Oscar Mercado and Domingo Santana. Carlos Santana has fallen off from his All-Star performances of 2019. The Indians’ biggest issue has been at catcher. While Roberto Perez has played well defensively, and too be fair so has backups Sandy Leone and Beau Taylor, none of them have produced offensively.
All three men are hitting under .200, and their combined average is .122. Perez is the best of the three overall, and his batting average is .167, which makes him Ted Williams by comparison for the group.
They’ve all been just horrid at the plate.
The Indians made sure to address that issue in the Mike Coveinger trade, though with an unproven commodity with Austin Hedges. Hedges is a career .199 hitter in the minors and in the majors (as of this writing). Currently, Hedges is hitting .155 during the 2020 season.
Hedges is better than Taylor off the eye test alone. He’ll be given an opportunity to unseat Leone as the backup and if Perez’s injuries continue to flare up, he’ll see far more playing time than one would think.
Granted, now you have four catchers who are all hitting under .200, so that’s not exactly a step up. It’s also not a step-down, considering Taylor’s performance so far. If the team can continue to show signs of life at other positions, maybe Perez, Hedges and the dynamic duo of Taylor and Leone can up their batting averages with strong performances.
Unlikely, considering what we know about all four men but hey, anything’s possible in this whacky season.