Cleveland Sports Forum

No drive to succeed is even more worthless. Why not just let him go? Can't they non-tender him? Of course he does have that strong arm.

The state of the Cleveland Indians, their window for contention, and their tricky approach to the offseason

Zack Meisel 6h ago 16

CLEVELAND​ — A few​ days before​ the full squad reported​ to Arizona for spring​ training in 2013,​ the​ Indians snagged​ a straggler on​​ the free-agent market.

They inked Michael Bourn to a four-year deal, a late signing that fortified the club’s outfield, vaulting the position group toward the top of the team’s list of strengths. An outfield with Bourn, Michael Brantley and Drew Stubbs was supposed to resemble a graveyard for fly balls.

Well, it didn’t pan out as anticipated. Bourn never recaptured his All-Star form. Stubbs spent one strikeout-filled season in Cleveland. And while the Indians qualified for the wild card game in Terry Francona’s first year at the helm, it certainly wasn’t the direct result of a dynamic outfield trio.

Ah, but it could always be worse.

The Indians are still waiting for that dream outfield to appear, nearly six years later. Only now — as the ghosts of Collin Cowgill, Marlon Byrd, Brandon Moss, Ryan Raburn, Jerry Sands, David Murphy, Nyjer Morgan, Tyler Holt, Abraham Almonte and Daniel Robertson haunt the fourth-floor offices at Progressive Field — the pressing need underscores the club’s central dilemma.

For the Indians to threaten the Red Sox, Astros, Yankees and any other American League behemoth that emerges by next summer, the outfield (and bullpen) must be infused with talent. The club enters a bone-chilling winter with Leonys Martín, Greg Allen and Tyler Naquin as its candidates. They might reluctantly toss Jason Kipnis’ name into the mix if it comes to that. Bradley Zimmer could return from shoulder surgery at some point in 2019, but no one knows whether he’ll be fully recovered from his strikeout plague.

Chris Antonetti conceded that the outfield is “the area on our team with the least certainty.” In order to rectify that, it will require some creativity. Barring a stroke of fortune in the Mega Millions or a historically lucrative lemonade stand, the Indians’ payroll won’t be increasing much, if at all, according to multiple sources.

So, that’s the origin of the hullaballoo about the Indians potentially dealing a starting pitcher to patch their holes. Tap into your surplus and swap it with another team’s surplus.

“That’s one way in which we could do that,” Antonetti said. “It’s not the only way.”

How the Indians approach this offseason, though, figures to shape not only the team’s 2019 prospects, but also its expectations in future seasons.

The first thing to note:

The Indians aren’t going to make a trade with the intention of decreasing their immediate chances of winning a title

Teams don’t fixate on “contention windows” in the manner that fans (and reporters) often do. So much can change from year to year, and front offices feel that, so long as they have a sound decision-making process in place and a strong player development program, they can extend their “window” beyond when their top talent is under team control.

That said, the AL Central provides an atypical landscape. Without question, the Indians have a better chance at a busy October schedule as long as the Tigers, Royals and White Sox continue their meticulous rebuilds and the Twins do whatever the Twins are doing.

I asked The Athletic’s beat writers for each of the four other division foes for two pieces of information:

1. In an ideal scenario, when could your team challenge for the division title?
2. In a realistic scenario, when should your team challenge for the division title?

White Sox: 2020, 2021
Royals: 2021, 2022
Tigers: 2021, 2022
Twins: 2019, 2021

The Indians will benefit from a weak division again in 2019 (and probably in 2020). But we also witnessed the pitfalls of such a setup. It’s one thing to be granted the right to an October journey. It’s another to stall out before reaching the bottom the driveway.

So, the Indians need to retool. They need to flood their outfield and bullpen with new bodies. They need to cut some dead wood from the roster. They need to get younger; they were the second-oldest team in the majors last year (average age of 29.9 years), behind Toronto, and the only one of the eight oldest teams to make the playoffs.

That doesn’t mean they should sell off integral pieces in exchange for 19-year-olds. That wouldn’t fit with the timeline. This isn’t a rebuild.

Antonetti and Co., however, must face some unsettling questions, including:

Should they trade a starter? Should they trade Corey freakin’ Kluber?!

Mike Chernoff talks about it all the time: To complete a trade, teams must have aligning means of motivation. Deals often take the form of veteran-for-prospects or surplus-for-surplus.

The Indians could follow the latter principle and deal from their rotation to help fill out the rest of their roster. This isn’t a new strategy. Teams have routinely checked in on the availability of Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar in winters past. The difference in this instance is that the Indians have more holes to plug and little flexibility to do so.

They didn’t address their bullpen last winter, and now Cody Allen and Andrew Miller are hobbling off into the sunset. The outfield was already a mess, and now Michael Brantley is likely being removed from the equation. (Antonetti called Brantley last Friday morning and said the team wants him to remain in Cleveland, even though it didn’t extend him a qualifying offer.)

“The interest and desire is there,” Antonetti said. “What we will have to work through is, ‘Can we make the pieces fit?’ ”

Enter the notion of trading a starter.

Dealing Kluber might make some sense, but it would come with a mountain of risk. Really, all of this would, which is why an opposing team is going to have to make an offer Antonetti can’t refuse.

Kluber is under team control through 2021, but he’s also the oldest and most expensive of the club’s five starters. He’ll turn 33 in April. He’ll earn $17 million next season.

He’s also still supremely effective, a Cy Young Award finalist for the fourth time in five years. And that’s why he holds plenty of trade value, even if his strikeout rate dipped in 2018 and questions arose about his release point and his health. Maybe the Indians would be selling high. But given his work ethic, it’s also tough to bet against him pinpointing some way to thrive beyond 35.

Welcome to the major-league stock market.

Mike Clevinger and Shane Bieber lack the track record to land the Indians a godfather haul and the salaries to save the Indians any money. If the club moved Kluber, it could use the savings to replace him or some other vacancy on the roster, depending on the return.

Pump the brakes, though. This is far from simple.

Which teams could use someone like Kluber? Contending teams. Therein lies the primary challenge. Sure, the Yankees have a bounty of young talent to dangle, but that’d be a tough pill for the Indians to swallow.

Another thought to consider: If your financial situation dictates that you have to resort to consider dealing your two-time Cy Young winner when he’s still near the top of his game and you’re still in contention, what does that say about ownership and the payroll? Well, that’s a bit murky, since teams aren’t required to reveal their bank statements.

The money matters

Antonetti said the team is still working through precisely what financial flexibility it will have this winter. But the Indians aren’t going to jump into the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers stratosphere.

Offloading Kipnis’ contract or Edwin Encarnacion’s hefty final year would breathe some life into the payroll, but that’s a tall order. The structure of Encarnacion’s contract is particularly painful now, as he’ll earn $21.7 million in 2019, plus a $5 million buyout if the team doesn’t exercise his $20 million option for 2020.

The Indians ranked 14th in the league with a payroll of $143 million last year, according to Spotrac. The team ranked 18th in 2017, with a payroll of $132 million.

The club’s departures (Brantley, Allen, Miller, etc.) will be mostly offset by raises handed out to those eligible for arbitration or those with escalating salaries built into their long-term deals. Kluber and Francisco Lindor alone could earn about $16 million more in 2019 than they did in 2018.

The team does not anticipate its attendance to exceed its 2018 figures. The Indians have come to accept that a season total of about 2 million is its best-case scenario.

Here are the Indians’ season-ticket holder totals from the past decade, according to a source:

2010: 8,700
2011: 8,300
2012: 7,900
2013: 7,400
2014: 8,200
2015: 9,100
2016: 8,600
2017: 12,200
2018: 13,800
2019: Nearly 13,000 committed so far

Average attendance per game, by year:

2010: 17,435 (30th)
2011: 22,726 (24th)
2012: 19,797 (29th)
2013: 19,661 (28th)
2014: 18,428 (29th)
2015: 17,806 (29th)
2016: 19,650 (28th)
2017: 25,285 (22nd)
2018: 24,083 (21st)

The team’s local TV ratings remain strong. There are still plenty of people waiting for the franchise to break its 70-year title hex.

The rotation — one of the best in the league — is intact for at least two more seasons. Lindor and José Ramírez, an AL MVP finalist, are locked up through 2021 and 2023, respectively.

The rest of the roster needs some work, though. And without financial flexibility, a trade or two or three must be in order. Otherwise, the Indians might be hankering for the days of Bourn, Brantley and Stubbs in the outfield.

(Photo: David Richard / USA Today Sports)

attendance was down this year? i'm surprised.

Hillbilly wrote:Well, it’s not that Salazar needs low pressure. The rumor is he just does not care. Doesn’t “want it”.

That being said I’d put him in the bullpen too. Lord knows we have holes there. Hopefully he’ll find something. And the lower workload won’t kill his shoulder or elbow or whatever boo boo he has this week.

Ditto big guy!

Look, some guys are more laid back than others. Gotta work with what you have.

For me, I just hope maybe putting him in the bullpen and letting him just air it out for an inning or two might work for him.

Andrew Miller was a starter too. We know Danny has the arsenal.

CLEVELAND SPORTS PERSPECTIVEComments About Cleveland's Pro Sports Teams

HOLD ON! TRIBE TRYING TO RESTRUCTURE, NOT BLOW IT UP

by MW

The Cleveland Indians were in the news over the past weekend and extending into today after it was reported the team would be willing to trade some veteran players, not including Francisco Lindor and/or Jose Ramirez.

Many fans took this to mean Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff were going into rebuilding mode. This could not be further from the truth.

Of course, the team also declined to make qualifying offers to Michael Brantley, Andrew Miller, or Cody Allen, the Tribe’s primary free agents.

We have talked about the fact that the Indians’ offense was very top heavy in 2018, largely dependent on Lindor, Ramirez, and Brantley, and the latter doesn’t look to be on the roster next spring.

Combine that with the payroll in ’18 was as high as the franchise can have, and you can see some restructuring of the roster has to be done.

If you look at the every day lineup from the end of last season, outside of Lindor, Ramirez, and Greg Allen, everyone else was over 30 years old, which means improvement isn’t likely, so we are sure the Indians want to get younger.

The issue is that among the Tribe’s top ten prospects (from Baseball America) show the only position player who played above the AA level last season was 1B Bobby Bradley.

So, there is no help on the horizon from the minor leagues.

While we are sure the front office would love to move Edwin Encarnacion, Jason Kipnis, or Yonder Alonso, our guess is there wouldn’t be much of a return for that trio, it would pretty much be a salary dump for low level prospects.

So, you have to look at players who you can sell high on, and that brings us to Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Yan Gomes.

There is no question the strength of the Indians is their starting pitching, and they brought up a rookie into the rotation this season in Shane Bieber, and their top prospect is another starter in Triston McKenzie, who was at Akron last season.

Both Kluber and Carrasco are under reasonable contracts for the next two years, so they would have huge value for teams looking for starting pitching.

We believe you should A). Deal from strength, and B). Better to trade someone a year too early than a year too late.

Kluber is going to be in the top three in the Cy Young Award voting this year, the fourth time in his career that will be the case. However, he did show signs of wear and tear as the season went on.

Keep in mind, he has thrown 200 innings or more five consecutive seasons. His strikeout rate was the lowest since before his first Cy Young season in 2014. Is he starting a decline? That’s what the organization has to ask themselves.

His salary jumps from $10 million to $17 million this year and basically stays there through 2021 on club options.

Carrasco has less wear and tear on his arm (only one 200 inning season) and is still making under $10 million in 2019 and 2020.

Carrasco might fetch more in a deal for that reason.

Gomes is 31 years old and is coming off perhaps his best season in the major leagues. It would be a good baseball move to try to trade him at his peak.

This current group perhaps went as far as it could in 2016, and the organization gave them two more shots to win a title.

The front office knows they need to address the offense and they need some younger position players who have an upside.

The core remains the same. The Indians are still trying to get better for 2019. They aren’t starting the rebuild.

MW

Sarris: This winter’s top-10 free agents, ranked by value

By Eno Sarris 1h ago 1

There​ are reasons​ to shop​ at the top of​ the market. Bryce​ Harper and Manny​ Machado​ are young,​ so young​​ they might still have a peak season in front of them, and a few years before the decline really sets in. There are a limited number of roster and lineup slots, and if you could theoretically fill your starting lineup with nine stars between the ages of 26 and 30, you’d probably have the best lineup in baseball. The teams that can afford it will — and should — go after the top-two available guys this year.

There are reasons to shop at the bottom of the market. Trevor Cahill, Jesse Chavez, Carlos Gonzalez, Derek Holland, Edwin Jackson and Bud Norris could have been had, collectively, for less than $10 million in guaranteed major-league money last offseason, and they all contributed this year. They gave their teams more than eight wins, which would be worth over $60 million on the open market. Bargain-bin shopping works.

But we’ll spend a lot of time on the first two, and the bargain list is for February and March. Right now — with the winter meetings coming — is largely going to be about the group that sits between the bargains and the superstars.

What’s interesting about this group is that we often struggle to rank the players in it. If we rank them based on talent, they fall in line behind the two superstars and the list is generally easy to figure out. If we rank them based on how cheap they’ll be for their acquiring teams, they’ll fall behind the extreme values at the bottom of the market. It’s likely that someone like Nate Karns or Drew Pomeranz ends up providing his next team the most value coming off of a small contract, for example, but it’s a little weird to put those names atop your overall list of free agents.

What if we did something in between? What if we ranked the established free agents — the ones who will get multiple years with guaranteed money — but we listed them by their possible value with respect to their price? We have FanGraphs’ readership to thank for projected deal details, and we can look at their projected value, compare the two, and then sort the list a little to produce a top-10 (established) free-agent ranking based on value for the money.

Here is that list, as I see it:

Josh Donaldson
Wins Above Replacement are probably not exact to a decimal point, at least not the current iterations. What happens if you round the projections to the nearest full number? All of a sudden, Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are all projected to be five-win players in 2019 and are, collectively, the best of the class this year.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not the same.

Of course, there are a few legitimate reasons Donaldson won’t get the same deals that his contemporaries will. He’s nearly seven years older, for one, and that means a lot for the way you age his production going forward. While you might expect five-win production from the youngsters for as long as three more years, you’d expect a player in his mid-30s to lose at least a half-win a year — and more after he turns 35. Add in Donaldson’s calf issues this last year and you’ve got risk that will be reflected in the deal he signs.

But FanGraphs readers project Donaldson to get less than $20 million a year for three years, which seems like a bargain worth jumping at, especially for competitive teams. With Donaldson, the Braves could turn Johan Camargo into a super-utility player, the Nationals could push Anthony Rendon back to second base, and the Angels could push Zach Cozart over to second as well. All three teams could use a five-win boost next year, and all three teams should have the money to do it.

As recently as 2016, Donaldson was nearly an eight-win player. Will he get back there? Is he healthy? It does look like he recovered his old oomph late last year — look at how his exit velocity rebounded in September, for example. Not quite to his old levels, but above 90 mph on average, which is excellent.



Donaldson’s upside — combined with the reduced downside of a shorter, cheaper deal — makes him the best established free agent with respect to value.

A.J. Pollock
How many free agents could play an average center field and also are projected to be above-average with the bat? That’s right. One.

And given Pollock’s ability to play center, his bat rates as better than above-average. He’s been 16 percent better than the league average for the last four years, a feat that only 10 center fielders have bettered — and on that list of 10, four or five are no longer really center fielders. Add in the fact Pollock just showed his best power year in a season in which Arizona’s park actually played as pitcher-friendly due to a humidor, and you have an easy chance to get yourself a top-10 center fielder here.

Of course, Pollock’s injury history is going to create a discount situation. The projections that say that he’s a good free-agent value on the four-year, $64 million start with 630 plate appearances next year, a number that Pollock has only managed one time. It’s tempting to dismiss some of those injuries as freak, but even something as random as breaking his right elbow on a play at the plate had an asterisk — he’d broken that same elbow before.

Here’s the thing, though. As much as we think past injury predicts future injury, the effect is fairly muted. The Athletic‘s Rob Arthur once came up with a model for position player playing time based on past playing time, and if you plug in Pollock’s numbers, that model says Pollock will miss … 18 days in 2019. I think his next team would count one trip to the DL and a couple of missed games as a win.

A deep team with a need in center could add Pollock’s bat and benefit. Depending on their desire to spend, the Giants, Indians, Phillies, Nationals and Mets should be interested in joining the bidding for his services. Given the fact the D-Backs put a qualifying offer on him, though, the guess here is that Pollock returns to Arizona with a nice paycheck.

Yasmani Grandal
Let’s have a little fun. Let’s take the average annual value of the median projected contracts for all the top-50 free agents on FanGraphs and divide it by their 2018 projection to get a loose dollars-per-win number. There are plenty of flaws with this approach, and that’s why Grandal is not the No. 1 free-agent value, but he is No. 1 on at least one list.

Player Position Age Years AAV WAR $/WAR
Yasmani Grandal C 30 3 15.0 3.6 4.2
Wilson Ramos C 31 3 12.0 2.8 4.3
Mike Moustakas 3B 30 3 12.0 2.8 4.3
Josh Donaldson 3B 33 3 19.5 4.5 4.3
Ian Kinsler 2B 37 1 8.0 1.8 4.4
Kurt Suzuki C 35 1 6.0 1.3 4.6
Asdrubal Cabrera 2B 33 2 9.0 1.9 4.7
Charlie Morton SP 35 2 16.0 3.2 5.0
J.A. Happ SP 36 2 15.0 3.0 5.0
DJ LeMahieu 2B 30 3 12.0 2.4 5.0
There are reasons to think this number isn’t even generous enough. Grandal is an excellent framer — the best in baseball last year, overall, by Baseball Prospectus — and that’s not included in the FanGraphs numbers. And there’s a real paucity of young catchers who can hit, so there’s a scarcity issue — Grandal was one of only two catchers under 30 who were above league average with the stick last year. (Wilson Ramos is 30 but also attractive for this reason.)

Of course, there are also reasons to think Grandal’s wins-per-dollar number is too generous. We don’t have great publicly available numbers on game calling, but it’s not Grandal’s strongest suit. Along with his occasional issues blocking the ball, that aspect of his game is part of the reason the Dodgers have gone to Austin Barnes as their primary catcher in the past two World Series.

Still, the chance to get a top-three offensive catcher who is also a top framer will bring many teams to the table. The Mets and Astros have already been linked by rumors, but the Phillies, Red Sox, Angels and Nationals all make a little sense, too.

Charlie Morton
Y’all have heard me talk about velocity enough, so I don’t need to link the thing about how it’s the best predictor of future success and all that. But did you know that Charlie Morton had the fifth-best fastball velocity among qualified starters in baseball last year? 96.6 mph of filth.

But movement and velocity are also important for the curveball, and no starting pitcher threw a curveball that went faster and also had more drop and cut than Morton’s last year. It’s a beauty.

By moving from the sinker to a balanced mix of four-seamers and sinkers, and adding back in his splitter and cutter, Morton has had his best two-year run against lefties, and that looks to continue wherever he lands.

Of course, he doesn’t have command — he acknowledged as much to me when he said “I just grab the grip and throw the shit out of it” this year — and, coupled with his velocity and injury history, he might not be a great long-term bet. The good news is the 34-year-old has not expressed the desire for a long deal; in fact, he was discussing retirement last year.

Any contending team with a little bit of money could use his fire stuff, though.

DJ LeMahieu
It’s a fine time to need a second baseman on the free-agent market, and that’s probably why there are three of them in the top-10 dollars-to-wins leaderboard above — three available veterans mean they collectively drive the cost down. If they’re all going to be values, I’d argue that the thing is to get the best one of the three, and that’s probably DJ LeMahieu.

Due to good defense, mostly, Ian Kinsler is projected to be nearly league average next year, and due to his age (37), he’s probably looking at a one-year deal that might make a good value for his next team. But injuries have come for him, even if he’s playing through them, and nowhere was that more obvious than his romp around the bases in the World Series. Last year, Kinsler’s sprint speed was in the bottom third of the league, and his bat hasn’t been above-average since 2016 and isn’t projected to be next year.

So you’re left with identical deals for Brian Dozier and DJ LeMahieu … and identical projections. Dozier is certainly coming off a worse year and is more than a year older, so it’s easy to reach for LeMahieu.

There’s a chance that more of LeMahieu’s value comes from defense … and that defensive value from a second baseman is less important in the days of the shift. No infield position has seen a bigger drop in defensive chances than second base, at least. But over the past two years, the difference defensively between LeMahieu and Dozier is stark — the difference between the second-best and 15th-best defenders (out of 17 qualifiers) at second base.

The bonus is that LeMahieu started doing something he never had before over the course of 2018: pulling the ball in the air. He didn’t acknowledge a different strategy to me late in the season, but the difference is obvious. Look at left field from 2017 and 2018 and there you’ll see just a little bit of upside — and for a team like the Dodgers that had some difficulty putting the ball in play, LeMahieu’s above-average strikeout rate would already be attractive.



Mike Moustakas
Running a team is impossible, especially with certain owners, I’d imagine.

“Get me power, everyone’s got power, get me more power!” I could see an irascible owner yelling with the cigar in his mouth and a cognac in his glass. “Oh, and improve our strikeout rate, I heard that’s more important than ever. And make it snappy.”

Ah, good. Power, but with fewer strikeouts. Should be easy. Time to take a big sip out of my sabermetricians cup of coffee and peruse the leaderboards for a good option.

Name K% HR
Nolan Arenado 16.9% 75
Mike Trout 19.2% 72
Francisco Lindor 13.6% 71
Manny Machado 15.7% 70
Jose Ramirez 11.1% 68
Mike Moustakas 16.0% 66
Charlie Blackmon 18.9% 66
Marcell Ozuna 19.4% 60
Anthony Rizzo 12.5% 57
Mookie Betts 12.8% 56
That’s your top-10 list for home runs over the last two seasons with an above-average strikeout rate. You know who usually has a good strikeout rate and huge power? Superstars, that’s who. Oh, and two free agents. Part of the reason Manny Machado is going to cost $300 million is he’s on this leaderboard and adds either capable shortstop or elite third-base defense to the package.

Moustakas adds more like bottom tier defense at third and won’t walk all that much, so he has flaws. But for three years and $36 million — as the crowd has it — he might just be able to check two boxes that are very, very hard to check at the same time.

Adam Ottavino
Can we get a pitcher out of Colorado for once? Can we rescue him? Let’s do a fun little 2018 comparison between Ottavino and a pitcher who will cost twice as much according to the crowd.

Name HR/9 ERA- FIP- xFIP- BB% K%
Adam Ottavino 0.58 52 63 77 11.7% 36.3%
Craig Kimbrel 1.01 61 75 74 12.6% 38.9%
This ignores that Ottavino has had worse seasons recently, like the tough year he had in 2017, and that there’s a decent velocity difference between the two. But Ottavino, despite pitching in Denver, had a great year. That strikeout-minus-walk rate was in the top 2 percent all time!

Why should we believe that this is the real Ottavino and not last year’s version? Because he spent all offseason adding a cutter, and then that cutter didn’t give up a single home run all year and had the best whiff rate of all his pitches, which includes this ridiculous slider.

The cutter might not look like much, but it gives Ottavino a pitch he can command that sits in movement and velocity between his ridiculous pitches. For the projected three years and $30 million, he could be a bargain against the top of the reliever market.

Andrew McCutchen
I like Andrew McCutchen for the same reasons I liked the Curtis Granderson deal for the Mets all those years ago: The more tools you have, the more opportunities you have to contribute as each tool ages.

McCutchen’s tools have already fallen off some, but he’s on a good list of players with well-rounded skills. Here are the 11 players in 2018 who contributed with power (above-average isolated power), speed (more than 10 stolen bases), plate discipline (better-than-average strikeout and walk rates) and weren’t zeroes on defense (defensive value above -10).

Name HR SB BB% K% ISO WAR
Mike Trout 39 24 20.1% 20.4% .316 9.8
Mookie Betts 32 30 13.2% 14.8% .294 10.4
Christian Yelich 36 22 10.4% 20.7% .272 7.6
Alex Bregman 31 10 13.6% 12.1% .246 7.6
Jose Ramirez 39 34 15.2% 11.5% .282 8
Manny Machado 37 14 9.9% 14.7% .241 6.2
Freddie Freeman 23 10 10.7% 18.7% .196 5.2
Francisco Lindor 38 25 9.4% 14.4% .242 7.6
Aaron Hicks 27 11 15.5% 19.1% .219 4.9
Andrew Benintendi 16 21 10.7% 16.0% .174 4.3
Andrew McCutchen 20 14 13.9% 21.3% .169 2.6
On average, this group was 47 percent better than the league with the stick, and there’s a chance McCutchen has more power than he’s shown here — he’s played in the two parks that suppress homers by righties more than any other parks, and 20 percent more of his fly balls have left the park on the road over his career so far.

While McCutchen is the oldest on this list, it’s a great place to live. And that age will keep his deal short — the crowd says he’ll get three years and $42 million, and that’s an easy bargain for someone likely to put up something like six wins over the next three years (with a little upside due to finding a better park for his power).

Marwin Gonzalez
Gonzalez offers something that no other top-50 free agent does: positional versatility. And that’s becoming increasingly valuable as starting pitchers are taken out earlier and earlier. The past few postseasons have shown us that players are being asked, on average, to play more positions in order to be the glue that keeps a lineup together during double-switches, and it’s particularly important to be able to play the infield and outfield, given the makeup of most benches.

This probably means that Gonzalez will end up on a National League team that could use a switch hitter who plays all over the field. There are plenty of good fits.

The Nationals don’t really have a player like this — maybe Wilmer Difo will fill that role for them, but Gonzalez is projected to be up to 30 percent better with the bat than Difo is — and if they want to sign a bigger name in the outfield, Gonzalez could be part of a solution at second base and a big boon for their versatility late in games. Pairing Gonzalez with Johan Camargo could help the Braves in a couple of lineup slots instead of spending on just one. Even in the American League, teams like the Angels and A’s could use a player like this — and the Yankees have a stopgap need at shortstop while Didi Gregorius is hurt, after which Gonzalez could help all over.

Versatility is in, and this free agent offers it in spades.

Yusei Kikuchi
There’s a good chance that Kikuchi is not at all a value. There’s a ton of risk in signing this pitcher out of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He’s not a consensus top talent like Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani or even Miles Mikolas. He took a step back this year off a peak year in 2017, and he’s been injured fairly frequently. His changeup is inconsistent, and he might need to develop it or his curve to make good on his upside in America.

But it’s that upside — and maybe just the fact that I wanted to explore his arsenal — that will make him intriguing. There’s the chance to get someone like a left-handed version of Kenta Maeda here: a mid-rotation starter who could also do good work in the bullpen.

If you just look at what Kikuchi did last year in the context of his league compared with what other pitchers in America did in context to Major League Baseball, you see how the range of comps extends from the very back end to even the front end of a rotation.

Name K9+ BB9+ HR9+ ERA+
Mike Clevinger 113 100 79 72
Yusei Kikuchi 118 76 90 79
Derek Holland 108 116 83 85
David Price 110 84 106 85
German Marquez 128 86 91 90
OK, so he could either be Derek Holland or David Price. That clarifies things. The problem here, too, is that we’ve used raw Japanese stats and haven’t washed them to compare with players in the majors. Dan Szymborski, father of ZiPs, has done that to find his major-league equivalencies. He provided his ZiPs projection for Kikuchi:



That’s basically a fourth starter, since there were 100 starters worth more than 1.5 wins last year. So, more Derek Holland than David Price.

Looking at his repertoire, you might get just as confused. Kikuchi has modeled his game after Clayton Kershaw, and has a great slider, as outlined excellently by Daniel Brim. Here it is in peak form.

Add that slider to an inconsistent changeup and a great slider and a big curveball, from a lefty who idolizes Kershaw? Easy to get excited.

The problem is, he’s emulated Kershaw all the way down to the velocity loss. After he suffered shoulder stiffness last year, his average fastball dropped down close to around 91 mph.

So he’s a lot more Derek Holland than David Price, huh? So why not get Holland with a small short deal — he didn’t even make the top-50 free agents on FanGraphs — instead of handing out the crowdsourced projection of four years and $52 million?

In a word, age. At 27, Kikuchi is the youngest pitcher on the market by two years. He touched 98 mph and broke the velocity record for lefties in 2017. What if he returned to that form? There’s also the fact his changeup has a 10+ mph velocity difference with his fastball, which is well above average, so there’s some hope there that the acquiring team could actually be getting some sort of 27-year-old Kershaw Lite.

If the cost is a little bit lower than the crowdsourced number, there could be a contract that captures Kikuchi’s upside and downside perfectly. Then we’ll get to see his stuff up close.

Nice article.

For the Tribe - to me it's obvious AJ Pollock would be the amazingly perfect fit. A right handed center fielder with all kinds of history of hitting.

Likely out of their price range though.

SILVER SLUGGERS

SHORTSTOP
AL winner: Francisco Lindor, Indians (second)
Lindor continued to assert himself in a field of electric AL shortstops with his second Silver Slugger Award in as many seasons. He tied for the Major League lead in runs (129) and became the first shortstop in MLB history with at least 35 homers (he hit 38), 40 doubles (he hit 42) and 20 stolen bases (he swiped 25) in a single season.


THIRD BASE
AL winner: Jose Ramirez, Indians (second)
Ramirez leads all MLB players in extra-base hits over the last two seasons (172) and, appropriately, has been named a Silver Slugger winner both years. He finished fourth among all AL players in slugging (.552), OPS (.939), RBIs (105), runs (110), total bases (319) and homers (39). He and Lindor are the first Indians teammates to win back-to-back Silver Sluggers since Roberto Alomar and Manny Ramirez in 1999-2000.
Mookie Betts joined Ramirez in becoming baseball's first 30-homer, 30-steal players since 2012

CATCHER
AL winner: Salvador Perez, Royals (second Silver Slugger Award)
Perez, who also won a Silver Slugger in 2016, was the only AL catcher to notch enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, and he repeated the career highs he set in 2017 with 27 homers and 80 RBIs. The Indians' Yan Gomes led AL catchers in OPS (.762) but in 107 fewer at-bats than Perez (.713 OPS).

2019 Minor League Preview: Cleveland Indians
November 21, 2018 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 10 Comments
by: Mike

It’s only fitting that on this magical holiday we celebrate the minor league system of the Indians. According to my history textbook, Christopher Columbus flew to Newark in 1962. There, he met the Indians and together they shared a fantastic feast of pork roll and cheese and that’s why we trample each other for video game consoles today. In what’s easily the biggest move of the baseball offseason, the Indians of Cleveland have non-tendered Chief Wahoo, who coincidentally organized that original Thanksgiving feast but apparently was also an extreme racist. It’s about time the Tribe cut ties with the image of that awful man. Here’s Cleveland’s top ten fantasy prospects according to Mike, a man who knows very little but tries very much.

Grade A

1. Triston McKenzie, RHP | Age: 21 | ETA: 2019
I get the shakes when the top prospect in a system is an arm. I get the straight up DTs when that arm looks like he’ll top out as a number two or three starter. So I guess I’ll just be over here with McKenzie and the pink elephants. He does have a plus fastball and curve with decent control, so don’t put me down as a hater. His 2018 was spent in Double-A, where he whiffed 87 batters in 90 innings with a 2.68 ERA. This year he should see some time in Columbus and eventually Cleveland.

2. Nolan Jones, 3B | Age: 20 | ETA: 2020
Jones has a solid profile with above average marks in both pop and approach from the left side of the plate. He hit .283 with 19 homers in the low minors and should hit Akron this year. It looks like he has enough on the defensive side to stick at third, but his bat should play regardless. He doesn’t appear to be a future star, but rather a sturdy regular that glues your roster together. More power could be coming as he matures too.

Grade B

3. Bobby Bradley, 1B | Age: 22 | ETA: 2019
If I had more faith in Bradley’s approach and batting average he’d be in the tier above and maybe even ahead of Jones, but for now there’s still a thundercloud over that part of his game (he hit .214 at Akron). The cloud’s getting smaller though – he cut his strikeout percentage in Double-A by seven percent. There’s easy plus power (he hit 27 bombs) but it comes with that three-outcome profile that can be hard to swallow in batting average leagues. He looks like a future DH to me even though he currently plays first. We should get a chance to see him in the majors this summer, especially if he gets off to a good start in Triple-A.

4. Yu Chang, SS/3B | Age: 23 | ETA: 2019
With Lindor at short, Chang is going to have to cut it at third or DH to help the Tribe. He’s a very similar profile to Bradley, with easy power but a bunch of strikeouts on the side. I like Chang, but I usually invest in prospects with the reverse grades. I like the ones with the good hit tools and developing power over the ones with the early power and shaky hit tools. Chang nailed it this fall in the AFL though, hitting .337 with four homers in 23 games.

5. George Valera, OF | Age: 18 | ETA: 2021
Valera is a youngster with a nice left-handed swing, average power, and average speed. It’s a lot of projection, but I could see him developing into a .280/15/15 player pretty easily. There’s room for more power to develop as well. This is the type of stock I’m bullish on.

6. Noah Naylor, C| Age: 18 | ETA: 2022
Another young gun in this system is Naylor, the Indians’ first round pick in 2018. He’ll take a while to develop, but Naylor already shows the ability to hit for average and power, giving him the offensive fantasy value that catching prospects really need to be worth owning. I don’t think he’ll end up being quite the stud that Mejia was, but Cleveland has a legit backstop spec here.

7. Ethan Hankins, RHP | Age: 18 | ETA: 2022
I just realized I nearly could have tiered this system another way: a) can legally purchase alcohol; b) can legally purchase tobacco; and c) can’t legally purchase either. Hankins rounds out the 18-year-olds with a double-plus heater and average (or better) everything else. If I wasn’t such a Debbie Downer on pitching prospects in fantasy he’d rank higher just on his pure stuff, but here he is at number seven. *comedic fart noise*

8. Oscar Mercado, OF | Age: 23 | ETA: 2019
Mercado came to Cleveland from St. Louis at last year’s trade deadline in a move that probably slipped under everybody’s radar. He had a crazy good season in Triple-A though, hitting .278 with eight homers and 37 steals. Caveat: The majority of his at-bats came in the PCL. I’m near Cleveland and watch the Indians regularly and I can tell you that their outfield roster is kinda…weird. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Mercado get a shot at some point, maybe even battling with Allen in spring training.

Grade C

9. Brayan Rocchio, SS | Age: 17 | ETA: 2022
If you ever end up in a league with me and want to fleece my geese in a trade, just offer me a switch-hitting shortstop. That’s Rocchio, who hit .335 in rookie ball with a pair of homers and 22 steals in roughly 250 at-bats. There’s not much power, but that’s a tough one to call when these guys are this young, so it’s still projectable.

10. Gabriel Rodriguez, SS | Age: 16 | ETA: 2023
Rodriguez was signed at this year’s July deadline, so he’s about as fresh as they come. He gets average marks on all his tools, but like Rocchio it’s all projection at this point. He looks like a well-rounded player that can develop into something valuable over the next two or three years. Another name to look at here with the same idea is Aaron Bracho (17).

Surprised not to see Oviedo or Hentges on that list.

Cleveland Indians: Inside the deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates -- Terry Pluto


Updated Nov 16; Posted Nov 17

Cleveland shipped utility infielder Erik Gonzalez to Pittsburgh along with a pair of minor league pitchers. (Jason Miller)


By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer tpluto@plaind.com


Not long after the Indians traded for outfield Jordan Luplow, I called Neal Huntington.

“This could be a trade where both teams look up in a few years and feel very good about it,” he said.

Huntington is the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Chris Antonetti is the president of the Tribe. The two men have a long history. When Huntington was with the old Montreal Expos, he hired Antonetti as an intern with the team in 1997.

When Huntington moved to the Indians, he pushed general manager Mark Shapiro to hire Antonetti in 1999.

Huntington has been Pittsburgh’s general manager since the end of the 2007 season.

The two men had been talking trade on-and-off for months.

Finally, Huntington sent infielder Max Moroff and Luplow to the Tribe for shortstop Erik Gonzalez and young pitchers Tahnaj Thomas and Dante Mendoza.

“We need a shortstop,” said Huntington. “Gonzalez is good defensively. He showed last season he could play multiple positions. We like him.”

Pittsburgh’s starting shortstop Jordy Mercer is heading to free agency. The Pirates had a $94 million payroll (compared to $135 million for the Tribe). Neither team is going to be active when it comes to signing significant free agents.


Gonzalez spent the entire season with the Tribe, batting .265 (.676 OPS) with one HR and 10 RBI in 136 at bats.

He is out of minor league options. There is no place for him as a regular with the Tribe, as they have Jose Ramirez at second and Francisco Lindor at shortstop.

Gonzalez is 27. It’s time for him to find out if he can be a regular at the big league level. He’ll compete with 25-year-old prospect Kevin Newman to start at short for the Pirates.

Newman batted .209 in 91 at bats for the Pirates last season. He did hit .302 with four HR and 35 RBI in Class AAA.

ABOUT JORDAN LUPLOW

The real reason I called Huntington was to find out about Luplow, the 25-year-old outfielder coming to the Tribe.

He was the Pirates' Minor League Player of the Year in 2017.

In parts of two Class AAA seasons (2017-18), Luplow batted .300 (.857 OPS) with 32 doubles, 15 HR, 68 RBI in 539 plate appearances. He was 11-of-14 in stolen bases.

But in two partial years in Pittsburgh covering 190 plate appearances, Luplow batted .194 (.644 OPS) with six HR and 18 RBI.

“He has good raw power,” said Huntington. “He can hit a fastball. He can do real damage against left-handed pitching, and I think he’ll be competitive against right-handers. We still like him as a player.”


So why trade him?

“We have a real need at shortstop,” said Huntington.

He explained the Pirates have more depth in the outfield.

Meanwhile, the Indians have several middle infielders and desperately need an outfielder. It why Huntington and the Tribe could find common ground for a deal.

“He’s a right-handed hitting outfielder... capable of playing all three outfield spots,” said Antonetti. “He’s spent most of his time in left and right and we also believe he has the ability to play center field. He fits our team really well.”

So what happened to Luplow between Class AAA and the minors?

“A lot of young players have trouble adjusting to the majors when they play only part-time,” said Huntington.

Huntington’s point was the Pirates never gave Luplow a defined role because of the talent in front of him.

The Pirates' outfield in 2018 was Corey Dickerson (.300, 13 HR, 55 RBI, .804 OPS), Gregory Polanco (.254, 23 HR, 81 RBI, .839 OPS) and Starling Marte (.277, 20 HR, 72 RBI, .787 OPS).

THE SCOUTING REPORT

Huntington called Luplow “a hard-worker, a solid defender with a good arm. He has some power. He just needs a chance to play.”

The Indians and Pirates both consider Luplow a much better hitter vs. lefties.


But in Class AAA, he was nearly the same:

.299 vs. lefties.

.301 vs. righties.

My guess is Luplow fits into the Tribe as a right-fielder. The right-handed batter can platoon with Tyler Naquin.

It’s Brandon Guyer’s old job.

A real problem was Guyer being nearly helpless (.174) vs. righties last season. And he no longer crushed lefties (.233). He is a free agent.

Baseball America on Luplow: “He lacks huge tools, but does a lot of little things well. He is a contact hitter with a good feel for the barrel…quick hands and the pitch recognition to get on base. He’s not a burner, but is a smart baserunner who takes the extra base with his savvy. Luplow can ably play both corner outfield spots and cover center in a pinch. His plus arm plays anywhere.”

ABOUT THE INDIANS

1. Some veteran Tribe fans were wondering if Jordan Luplow is any relation to former Tribe outfielder Al Luplow (1961-65). The answer is…yes. Al Luplow was his great-uncle. He died in 2017. Al Luplow batted .235 (.662 OPS) in parts of seven big league seasons.

2. The Indians also acquired 25-year-old Max Moroff in the deal. He is mostly a second and third baseman. He can play some short. In 84 big league games, Moroff batted .193 (.625 OPS) with six HR and 30 RBI in 209 plate appearances over parts of three seasons.


3. Huntington told me Moroff “has some real power.” But he struck out 69 times in those 209 plate appearances. Moroff is out of minor league options. He could make the Tribe as a utility man.

4. Baseball America on Moroff: “He has made cameos in the majors each of the last three seasons, working at second base, shortstop and third base as a Pirates depth infielder. He doesn’t offer much with the bat as a career .252 hitter in the minors and .193 hitter in the majors. He can plug in as a switch-hitter with defensive versatility.”

5. The Indians were willing to give up Gonzalez because they have Yu Chang in the minors, where he batted .256 (.741 OPS) with 13 HR and 62 RBI. Chang is only 23 years old. The native of Taiwan has been the target of trade talks. He was in the 2016 deal to Milwaukee for Jonathan Lucroy. That trade fell part when Lucroy used his no-trade option.

6. The Yankees also pushed hard for Chang when they made the Andrew Miller deal with the Tribe in 2016. The Indians sent Justus Sheffield, Clint Frazier, J.P. Feyereisen and Ben Heller to New York in that trade.

7. As for the Lucroy deal, the Indians were supposed to send Greg Allen, Francisco Mejia, Shawn Armstrong and Chang to the Brewers. The Indians have since used Mejia to deal for relievers Brad Hand and Adam Cimber. Allen will compete with Leonys Martin to start in center field in 2019.


8. Chang is having a terrific Arizona Fall League, batting .337 (.919 OPS) with four HR and 17 RBI in 86 at bats. He’ll probably open 2019 at Class AAA, but the Indians do project him as a starter somewhere in the field in the future.

9. After Gonzalez, the prospect most intriguing to the Pirates is 19-year-old Tahnaj Thomas. The Bahamas native pitched only 20 innings in the Arizona Rookie League. MLB.com ranked him the No. 30 prospect in the Tribe farm system. He was signed as an infielder and converted to a pitcher.

10, The Indians are still looking for outfielders. But they are in better shape now than before the trade. Luplow has been highly regarded and probably can adapt to the big leagues at least as an extra outfielder if given a chance.

The Indians have let a few good players go when they failed in their initial attempts at the majors and they went on to have success elsewhere. I'm hoping we get the same break with Luplow for a change.

Mercado Luplow Johnson are the outfield acquisitions so far. None is a big deal prospect; all have some promise. Not done yet I'm sure.
Indians still seem likely to deal Kluber and he'll bring back a lot more value than one of those guys. I hope they hold on to Bauer

Civ, I am with you on Bauer. I also like his idea of no long term contracts. Didn't Charlie Finley propose no long term contracts as one time, seems he wanted all players to go into a pool and each year there would be a lottery in the inverse order of the previous years finishes.