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Lindor trade ideas

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If you trade Lindor for lower minor leaguers (not opposed to this) then what is the point of not going full rebuild by the end of 2021? They aren't going to actually use the financial savings created by trading Lindor and letting go of Santana/Hand. They aren't going to even take advantage of Ramirez/Carrasco cheap contracts by spending around them. So if you aren't going to do that then their greatest value to the organization will be on the trade market to a team looking for high caliber players for a bargain in order to take a step forward. You might as well load up with prospects if you move Lindor for class A prospects.
 
If you trade Lindor for lower minor leaguers (not opposed to this) then what is the point of not going full rebuild by the end of 2021? They aren't going to actually use the financial savings created by trading Lindor and letting go of Santana/Hand. They aren't going to even take advantage of Ramirez/Carrasco cheap contracts by spending around them. So if you aren't going to do that then their greatest value to the organization will be on the trade market to a team looking for high caliber players for a bargain in order to take a step forward. You might as well load up with prospects if you move Lindor for class A prospects.

Indians on paper still have one of the best rotations in baseball. Also this offseason there will be a ton of non tendered players, so in a sense the Indians will be one of the best teams available for a lot of position players especially if Lindor is traded. There will be a bunch of guys available that could produce like Hernandez did at a low price just because of the market in theory will be flooded with them.

Essentially I am saying, let competition make the roster by bringing in as much of this talent as you can and let that dictate 21. Not a sure bet but honestly it work in 16
 
I might be in the minority here, but I'm not necessarily dead set on needing a 2021 contributor if the trade is right. Especially if that player is already in arbitration. I know the Indians goal is to compete every year but realistically 2021 is just probably not going to be the Indians' year in the AL Central.

We all know Lindor and Santana had disappointing 2020 seasons, yet they still ranked 4th and 5th on the team in wRC+. Hernandez ranked 3rd and he's unlikely to be back as well. I'd suspect Lindor rebounds significantly, Santana returns to a happy medium between 19 and 20, and Hernandez regresses a bit but is still a quality starting 2B. That's an 8-10 combined WAR trio you are losing to be replaced by unproven young players.

2022 is the year we should see more offensive talent ready to contribute from the minor league pipeline.
Urban, if you are right then they should go ahead and trade Ramirez and Carrasco(if no gentlemen's agreement). With unproven talent, the more the merrier.....right? It's not the route I'd like to see them take, but that doesn't mean that isn't what they should or will do.
 
Indians on paper still have one of the best rotations in baseball. Also this offseason there will be a ton of non tendered players, so in a sense the Indians will be one of the best teams available for a lot of position players especially if Lindor is traded. There will be a bunch of guys available that could produce like Hernandez did at a low price just because of the market in theory will be flooded with them.

Essentially I am saying, let competition make the roster by bringing in as much of this talent as you can and let that dictate 21. Not a sure bet but honestly it work in 16

The market being "flooded" will still require a bunch of luck to work because we will still be the cheapest team on the market. It's not like everyone is going to sit still and not take advantage of the bargains.

We don't have the horses for any type of run and will be a solid 3rd place divisional team. This "let's see what happens" motto is old and it's trash. It's time to plan for 2023 at this point. Use covid as your excuse.
 
Indians on paper still have one of the best rotations in baseball. Also this offseason there will be a ton of non tendered players, so in a sense the Indians will be one of the best teams available for a lot of position players especially if Lindor is traded. There will be a bunch of guys available that could produce like Hernandez did at a low price just because of the market in theory will be flooded with them.

Essentially I am saying, let competition make the roster by bringing in as much of this talent as you can and let that dictate 21. Not a sure bet but honestly it work in 16
Isn’t this the approach that brought in Hanley Ramirez and Domingo Santana?
 
The market being "flooded" will still require a bunch of luck to work because we will still be the cheapest team on the market. It's not like everyone is going to sit still and not take advantage of the bargains.

We don't have the horses for any type of run and will be a solid 3rd place divisional team. This "let's see what happens" motto is old and it's trash. It's time to plan for 2023 at this point. Use covid as your excuse.
There are three kinds of excuses...

Good excuses..
Bad excuses..
Any excuses..

Baseball is a results oriented business... the latter two would describe anything less than an affirmative effort to improve & win.. I.O.W.. anything less, such as capitulation, is just flat out wrong and rejected..

W/R to Lindor trades.. there was a new one posted that had some merit.. it was from a NYY fan that wanted to see the two holes in the Yankees filled.. The deals are posted as:

Trade #1:
Indians get Miguel Andujar, Clint Frazier, Estevan Florial, and Jonathan Holder
Yankees get Francisco Lindor

Trade #2:
Brewers get Luke Voit, Luis Gil, Oswaldo Perez, and Deivi Garcia
Yankees get Josh Hader

Say what you will about Andujar and his bad glove and so on.. but his last 30 to 45 days of the 2020 season were eye opening.. the rest of the deal for the Indians reads like an Indians fan wrote the deal..

I doubt the Brewers would do this deal.. but, then, again.. that's a lot of pitching in an area that the Brewers need pitching help..

Thoughts..
 
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Urban, if you are right then they should go ahead and trade Ramirez and Carrasco(if no gentlemen's agreement). With unproven talent, the more the merrier.....right? It's not the route I'd like to see them take, but that doesn't mean that isn't what they should or will do.

Don't really buy the gentlemen's agreement. He'll be the "toughest" player for the FO to deal from the emotional attachment perspective. From my perspective, trading him would be the toughest pill to swallow but I at least would understand it. He'll be 34 by next year's Opening Day and is by far the highest paid member of the rotation.

As far as Ramirez goes, he's a MVP caliber player locked into a 3 yr $35m deal. I don't think a team is really capable of making a fair offer for that value.

In any case, I think the Indians will be true division contenders in 2022. I still think they're a .500 team next year.
 
Don't really buy the gentlemen's agreement. He'll be the "toughest" player for the FO to deal from the emotional attachment perspective. From my perspective, trading him would be the toughest pill to swallow but I at least would understand it. He'll be 34 by next year's Opening Day and is by far the highest paid member of the rotation.

As far as Ramirez goes, he's a MVP caliber player locked into a 3 yr $35m deal. I don't think a team is really capable of making a fair offer for that value.

In any case, I think the Indians will be true division contenders in 2022. I still think they're a .500 team next year.
Agree about Cookie and J-Ram. Not sure you meant to say the Tribe will both compete for the division title and have a .500 record.
 
Don't really buy the gentlemen's agreement. He'll be the "toughest" player for the FO to deal from the emotional attachment perspective. From my perspective, trading him would be the toughest pill to swallow but I at least would understand it. He'll be 34 by next year's Opening Day and is by far the highest paid member of the rotation.

As far as Ramirez goes, he's a MVP caliber player locked into a 3 yr $35m deal. I don't think a team is really capable of making a fair offer for that value.

In any case, I think the Indians will be true division contenders in 2022. I still think they're a .500 team next year.
I'm not sure what the agreement means.. and, frankly, if there is a deal that allows the club to be better, Carlos Carrasco goes.. If not.. he stays.. and is a good value, good pitcher and good person to have on the club..

.500... huh?.. The twins are going to lose 40 % of their starting rotation along with a half dozen other guys who contributed, including Nellie Cruz, the heart and soul of the middle of the Twins lineup.. they're going to regress.. imho..

The CWSox have the making of a strong division opponent, however, there are a couple of question marks to consider. Perhaps the two most concerning are the potential loss of their closer and James McCann (who I would love to see wearing a tribe uni).. Sure, they have Yasmani Grandal.. but every team needs TWO good to better than good back stops... The bottom of the CWSox rotation, Gio and Rodon, is "nothing special" or can't stay on the field. The CWSox may not need either one of these guys as the have a deep and talented minor league system.. with a pair of excellent SP prospects moving into roles as starters: Michael Kopech and Jonathan Stiever.. Both of these guys have big arms and wipe out secondary pitches when going well.. they're both very young.. which almost always means inconsistent. Inconsistency at the ML level usually means .500..

Those are the two clubs the Indians need to be concerned with.. and neither have the depth or talent in their pitching staffs to match the Tribe.. who are mostly young and getting better every outing..

In a round about way of saying.. the Indians aren't looking at .500 as a goal.. they're looking at .500 as their floor.. and probably closer to 92 to 94 wins.. for a full 162 schedule..

Thoughts?..
 
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Personally, I want highest value for Lindor whether it's realized in 2021 or later. If we could trade him for an exact carbon copy of Lindor himself but two years away from the bigs would that be a bad thing?

Exactly.

The Indians organization, from a talent prospective, is in REALLY good shape. Sure, they have some holes at the major league level but the worst thing any baseball organization can do is try to plug holes and the Indians won't. Keep collecting talent, continue to develop talent, regardless of the position they play and how far they are from the Major Leagues.

Honestly, the talent at the lower levels is pretty incredible. I'll gladly take a step backwards at the Major League level because I think this next wave of talent is that legit. If our return for Lindor and Carrasco happens to add to that talent pool, and maybe not immediately contribute to the big league squad, then so be it.... I'd much rather have a high-end talent in A ball than a middling big league OF.
 
Exactly.

The Indians organization, from a talent prospective, is in REALLY good shape. Sure, they have some holes at the major league level but the worst thing any baseball organization can do is try to plug holes and the Indians won't. Keep collecting talent, continue to develop talent, regardless of the position they play and how far they are from the Major Leagues.

Honestly, the talent at the lower levels is pretty incredible. I'll gladly take a step backwards at the Major League level because I think this next wave of talent is that legit. If our return for Lindor and Carrasco happens to add to that talent pool, and maybe not immediately contribute to the big league squad, then so be it.... I'd much rather have a high-end talent in A ball than a middling big league OF.
True, Tribe has too many middling outfielders right now. Time to say goodbye to a few.
 
Exactly.

The Indians organization, from a talent prospective, is in REALLY good shape. Sure, they have some holes at the major league level but the worst thing any baseball organization can do is try to plug holes and the Indians won't. Keep collecting talent, continue to develop talent, regardless of the position they play and how far they are from the Major Leagues.

Honestly, the talent at the lower levels is pretty incredible. I'll gladly take a step backwards at the Major League level because I think this next wave of talent is that legit. If our return for Lindor and Carrasco happens to add to that talent pool, and maybe not immediately contribute to the big league squad, then so be it.... I'd much rather have a high-end talent in A ball than a middling big league OF.

No matter what we do this winter we're not likely to win a World Series in 2021. OTOH I think the pitching quality and depth we have (with or without CC) is enough to make us interesting next year, enough so watching games will be fun, at least for me. It's easy to forget the awful pitching many teams end up running out during the back end of the usual 162 game grind.
 
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Agree about Cookie and J-Ram. Not sure you meant to say the Tribe will both compete for the division title and have a .500 record.

.500 in 2021
More likely to compete in 2022
 
.500... huh?.. The twins are going to lose 40 % of their starting rotation along with a half dozen other guys who contributed, including Nellie Cruz, the heart and soul of the middle of the Twins lineup.. they're going to regress.. imho..

Odorizzi pitched in 4 games last year.

I think they re-sign Cruz and finally ante-up to bring in a starter via trade or free agency that they've put off the past 2 years. As far as regression goes, they had guys regress already from 2019 (Polanco, Garver, Kepler) to 2020 who should all be bounce back candidates in 2021. Donaldson missed half the season as did Garver.

The CWSox have the making of a strong division opponent, however, there are a couple of question marks to consider. Perhaps the two most concerning are the potential loss of their closer and James McCann (who I would love to see wearing a tribe uni).. Sure, they have Yasmani Grandal.. but every team needs TWO good to better than good back stops... The bottom of the CWSox rotation, Gio and Rodon, is "nothing special" or can't stay on the field. The CWSox may not need either one of these guys as the have a deep and talented minor league system.. with a pair of excellent SP prospects moving into roles as starters: Michael Kopech and Jonathan Stiever.. Both of these guys have big arms and wipe out secondary pitches when going well.. they're both very young.. which almost always means inconsistent. Inconsistency at the ML level usually means .500..

Every team needs two good to better than good catchers? How many teams in the league can say that? In any case, they do have Zack Collins who was a 1st round pick a few years ago. Hasn't produced much in the majors but did produce in the minors.

Their rotation next year will probably be Giolito-Keuchel-Dunning-Cease-Kopech. It's young and they may be inconsistent but there is a lot of potential there.
 

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