The 2014 Winter Meetings Begin!

Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings begin today, the annual time of year that they owners, GM’s and other important personnel get together to discuss changes in the game of baseball. This year, there are a few major topics the group will likely cover, including the change of pace rules tried out in the Arizona Fall League and a further look into the new rule changes for 2014 involving catchers blocking the plate and expanded instant replay. For the Indians, Paul Dolan and Chris Antonetti, this is a time to improve the team without spending too much money to do so.

The Indians have been fairly silent so far this off-season, grabbing only a few minor league players and making no significant trades. Even the rumor mill has been quiet, with just limited talks about a possible reunion with either Justin Masterson or Ubaldo Jimenez and some interest in Chase Headley. Even across the league, things have started slowly as well with only the Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval signing of the major free agents and Josh Donaldson and Jason Heyward being the only major players traded.

While it is largely unpredictable what outcomes will occur when getting such a large group of important baseball officers together, the Indians will go into the meetings with a few solid goals in mind. To start, the Indians need to seriously improve the defense (hence the interest in Headley) and the offense, all the while attempting to drop one or two high salary players. This may seem counter intuitive, but because defense doesn’t cost the premium that an offensive player does, it may be possible to at least do two of the three. The Indians have also been rumored to be interested in a mid-level starting pitcher, possibly opening up the ability to trade one of the younger, high potential pitchers like Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer and Danny Salazar.

Reducing pay-roll will likely be Antonetti’s first course of measure as this will allow him more flexibility in other moves. For the Indians, Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn, David Murphy and Ryan Raburn are all on the short list of players to be moved and all have varying degrees of ability and money owed. It would be worth taking a hit on a few of these players as all have superior replacements already within the Indians system and simply replacing these players internally (like using Tyler Holt in right field instead of David Murphy) will help them both defensively and offensively. While many would like to see the Indians be more active on the free agent market, it should be noted that these players with undesirable contracts were essentially the Indians last four major free agent signings.

Since all the players above are high risk, low reward players, the Indians will likely need to offer up some players with higher potential if they are to add any significant pitchers or offensive producers. Luckily for the Tribe, they have a plethora of high end minor league talent. Outside of Francisco Lindor, essentially every Indians prospect should be considered tradeable. While there are far too many to name here, especially without knowledge of what other GM’s may be interested in, there are a few prospects that stick out. While likely not worth much talent wise, the Indians could attempt to move a few players later on in their development to teams looking to compete within the next two years, such as Carlos Moncrief, Jesus Aguilar or Tony Wolters. After a certain amount of toiling in the minors, every team has to either use their high level prospects or move them elsewhere where they could get more playing time.

As far as desirable prospects, the Indians would be smartest to deal from the middle infield, outfield or the bullpen. They have plenty of potential Major League players at each of positions including Joe Wendle, Erik Gonzalez, Ronny Rodriguez and Yhoxian Medina at short or second, James Ramsey, Tyler Naquin, Clint Frazier and Jordan Smith in the outfield and Shawn Armstrong, Louis Head, Giovanni Soto and Tyler Sturdevant in the bullpen. While some of these are high end prospects, the Indians should looking to win a World Series from 2015 and 2017 and none of these players will likely make a significant difference during that period. While a normal team may not want to sell their future for a better chance to win today, the fact that the Indians are so deep at these positions and haven’t won a World Series in more than 60 years should change their strategy.

This is really an important time for Cleveland. With the team they are currently set to field along with the loss of talent in Kansas City and Detroit, the Indians should have at least an equal chance to win the Central Division in 2015, but that can’t be considered enough. If they really want to change the culture in Cleveland, winning it all right now should be the only goal. The window is open for the next three years. To actually go through it, however, will take some more slick maneuvering.