The Cleveland Indians dealt Mike Clevinger in what may be a franchise defining trade for years to come, that’s assuming guys develop as they should.
The Cleveland Indians have got some great things to look forward to thanks in part to the Mike Clevinger trade. A replenished minor league system, some good new players for the main roster, and a loss of a bad attitude. This, unlike other recent trades, is all win for the Indians.
At least on paper.
Unlike other years in the past when the team traded away a slew of prospects for rentals and guys who weren’t going to be that good that much longer, this was the type of trade the Indians should try to make yearly. A good but not great player for a stack of main roster players and a few top prospects.
It may not be possible, obviously, but it’s the idea that gets fans excited. Guys like Ubaldo Jimenez, Yasiel Puig, and even Andrew Miller weren’t enough to get the team over the hump and while the Jimenez trade ended up being bad for both parties, the other two are vastly different. Granted the Puig traded brought in Franmil Reyes, so there’s some good that came out of it.
On top of everything else, the Indians haven’t had that best of luck with developing and calling up their position prospects. Either because they’re oft-injured, hello Bradley Zimmer, or because they just don’t pan out.
The trade absolutely helped address that issue, and the Indians minor leagues are looking pretty good now. The Indians can’t keep trading away their top prospects. Instead, they need to adopt a college football, “reload” approach. Run the same group out as long as they win and call up the kids every so often to see what they can do, then cash out on select veterans as necessary.
That’s exactly what they did with the Clevinger deal. So let’s take a look at the holes the trade filled for the Tribe.
A new starting outfielder
Since arriving in Cleveland, Josh Naylor has been starting every day in the outfield. He played the entirety of the most recent visit to the Kansas City Royals, going 2 for 10 in the series. Not a great debut but still .050 points better than most of the other options.
Naylor is coming in at a good time to claim an outfield spot. Most of the team’s “best” have been optioned or sent down, leaving only Delino DeShields and Tyler Naquin as the only consistent starters anymore. Both men have been great, comparatively, since joining the team around the mid-way mark and their additions have really improved the team’s offensive output.
That and Franmil Reyes deciding to go God Mode in the batter’s box.
With Naylor joining the team, the once highly touted San Diego Padres prospect will join equally heralded bother Noah “Bo” Naylor. Bo Naylor is currently ranked No. 3 in the Indians minor league system by MLB.com. It’s not just possible, but very likely both men end up playing together. With the Indians’ need for a consistent offensive catcher, Naylor may be on his way to the majors assuming he continues to progress steadily throughout the next year or two.
Naylor won’t become Juan Gonzales or David Justice for the Indians but even if he only hits .240 the rest of the season for the Tribe, that’s just nearly .100 points better than what the team was getting out of the rest of the group.
Now the Indians have three, steady everyday outfielders and we have Mike Clevinger to thank for that.
A new potential starting pitcher
The Indians‘ trade of Mike Clevinger also got them a new piece to add to the rotation or bullpen in Cal Quantrill. Quantrill will start as a long-reliever for the Indians but as he was once a highly touted minor league starter, a return to the starting rotation makes sense, especially with Zach Plesac and Adam Plutko being on thin ice for different reasons. Quantrill has good control of his stuff and regularly posts sub 4.0 ERA’s across the minors and majors, though not always.
In his lone year as a starter in the Majors, Quantrill posted a 5.00+ ERA, but as it was his rookie year, that’s not the worst thing to ever happen. Especially with the Indians, who have a known history of turning mediocre pitching prospects and beaten up vets into Cy Young-looking pitchers.
So if Quantrill can transition back into the rotation and pitch well, then the Clevinger deal would be worth it alone for Quantrill. Even if he only pitches out of the bullpen, there’s plenty of future potential with his skillset. The bullpen is pretty rock-solid for 2020, and there’s no real need to shake anything up currently. Yet, bullpens are never something you want to invest too much money into, and it’s better to just keep replacing parts as the years go on. Who knows, Quantrill could be the team’s next starter or their new closer depending on how the Indians organization wants to utilize Quantrill’s’ skillsets.
It’s possible that Quantrill starts a few times for the Indians this year. The organization and the pitcher in question should be very mindful of how those few opportunities go, because they may change the narrative for Quantrill going forward.
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.
It shored up the minors
No successful, competitive, and title worthy franchise can achieve the heights the Cleveland Indians have had without a strong and reliable minor league system. The problem is that the Indians depleted their top prospects over the last few years in short-sighted deals. Guys like Francisco Mejia, Justus Sheffield, Clint Frazier, and others have been dealt away for basically nothing. Rentals, at best.
Sure, Mejia was traded for Brad Hand, but Sheffield and Frazier were traded for Andrew Miller. It’s really fair to say that if the Indians just kept Meija, Sheffield, and Frazier, the team would be much better off.
Especially when you consider how good the bullpen is already in 2020. You’d be hard-pressed to not assume that someone other than Hand could close out a game. At least not this year. So the Indians need to replenish the minors because it’s clear that guys like Bradley Zimmer are not going to turn into the star they were hyped to be.
The Cleveland Indians were smart to get back three of the Padres top 11 prospects in shortstop Gabriel Arias, left-handed pitcher Joey Cantillo and shortstop Owen Miller. Cantillo is a solid pitching prospect, only 20-years-old and has a career 2.51 ERA so far in his time in the Padre’s minor leagues. He also averages 1.3 strikeouts per 9-innings.
The shortstops on the other hand are nearly identical in what they bring to the table offensively. Owen Miller is the better all-around hitter, not hitting below .290 at any point in his professional career and posting a minor batting average of .307 across three leagues so far. Owens is also a better power hitter (.441 slugging to Arias’ .396).
Arias will likely not play shortstop, as he’s not very good at the position. In 265 games as a shortstop in the minors, he’s committed 65 errors. Since Arias also plays third base, it’s likely that he’ll move over to allow Miller to play shortstop, should he and Miller share much time on the same roster.
Miller is more major league ready but is also three years older than Arias. So who knows what they’ll look like over time.
Got rid of a bad influence
One of the biggest complaints that seem to be reported from the media over the last few weeks, is how bad of an influence Mike Clevinger has been on guys. His “best friends” during his tenure in Cleveland were Zach Plesac and Trevor Bauer. Not exactly the kind of guys you can rely on.
Sure, all three are good pitchers, but Plesac and Clevinger had no respect for others, and that was on display with their decisions in Chicago. With Bauer, he was constantly airing his grievances publically, putting his ability to do his job in jeopardy (remember the hand injury he had working on a drone?) and has largely been someone who rubs people the wrong way.
Sure, each man has their fans, but all three seem to be instigators.
So getting rid of Clevinger really helped take a lot of the day-to-day annoyances off the books so to speak. It seems entirely likely that Plesac will be out the door in the winter, which would be nothing but a good thing if they can get even half of the hall for Plesac as they did for Clevinger.
The Indians under manager Terry Francona have been propelled forward by chemistry and comradery. It was Nick Swisher’s MO, it was Mike Napoli’s MO, and it needs to be the 2020’s MO. Maybe no more than in past years. Staying united in the face of a global pandemic, a commissioner who’s asleep at the wheel, and 29 other teams looking to take a crown you’ve been striving 70 years for is paramount.
You can’t win without the respect of one another and when you blatantly disrespect your teammates and show such little concern for them, then you gotta go. There’s nothing more that needs to be said about it.