A baseball team may seem like a family, but it is also a business. While team chemistry is valued, for every situation where they keep a player like Mike Aviles, they cut one like Juan Uribe, who was equally loved by his teammates. For every extension of an important team leader, like those to Yan Gomes, Jason Kipnis and Corey Kluber, there is a trade that just kicks the team in the stomach, like that of Victor Martinez.
The business of baseball is about wins and losses and maximizing a player’s value in trade is a huge part of that. It’s how most of the team was constructed an now, the Indians have a great chance to maximize one player’s value and possible bring some help back in exchange.
This is not a rumor or a potential trade proposal, but there is no player on the Indians whose value to other teams is so much greater than his value in Cleveland than Josh Tomlin.
Tomlin is beloved by his teammates and without him, the Indians may not have even made the play-offs and certainly would not have made it to the World Series. By simply being healthy when the roster wasn’t he made the post-season rotation and his performance in his first three games was ace like, allowing three runs in 15.1 innings with nine hits and four walked allowed to 11 strike outs.
In addition, his regular season was impressive, walking just 1 batter per nine innings to lead the league and holding a 4.40 ERA despite pitching 174 innings after just 65.2 last year. He truly made a name for himself after being an afterthought by most GMs previously in his career.
Perhaps most importantly, he signed a contract prior to the season that keeps him under team control through 2018 at $2.5M in 2017 and $3M. This extremely team friendly contract came because of Tomlin’s injury filled past (particularly 2015) and the uncertainty of his future in the rotation or the bullpen. After this year, there is little reason to worry about injury (at least no more than any other pitcher) and he has cemented himself as a starter. It is this latter situation that makes him a poor fit on the 2017 Indians, but a great one on many other teams.
While the Indians dealt with many pitcher injuries in 2016, none were the long term type. There were no shoulder surgeries or Tommy John. To this point, the worst injury is Carlos Carrasco‘s broken hand and he will begin throwing in December, ready to pitch in Spring Training. This will leave the Indians with a rotation out of the game that looks something like Corey Kluber, Carrasco, Danny Salazar and Trevor Bauer. With Tomlin on roster, he could deserve that fifth spot, but if the Indians want to maximize their ceiling, they should be looking elsewhere to fill out the back of the rotation.
Mike Clevinger, Ryan Merritt and Shawn Morimando all have the possibility of a greater future than Tomlin and made their Major League debuts in 2016. Clevinger in particular looks like a potential #3 starter although he had some rough patches in his rookie year. Merritt was barely given the chance to pitch at all in the regular season, but was dynamic in each appearance and it was his ALCS start that clinched the World Series appearance for the Indians as the accurate lefty put away the Blue Jays with ease. He is a similar pitcher to Tomlin as far as accuracy goes, but is younger, cheaper and under team control for a longer period. He also provides a different look than the Indians other starters, something they’ve been missing out of the rotation for years.
Like it was going into this season, the Indians have an extremely deep rotation. Cody Anderson is also back and Adam Plutko also made his debut late in the season giving the Indians five potential #5 starters, everyone of them younger, cheaper and under control longer than Tomlin. Anderson has enough MLB experience that he could fill in anywhere in case of injury while at least Clevinger and Merritt are good enough for the Indians to feel comfortable starting out of the gate in 2017.
There may be a moral obligation to Tomlin, he wouldn’t have signed the deal if he didn’t like pitching in Cleveland as he could have been a free agent right now otherwise and set to make significantly more, but at some point they have to do what is right to win the most games. In addition, there should also be a moral obligation to Merritt, who was also integral in getting the Indians to the World Series at least to give him a chance at the rotation. If Tomlin is on roster, there would be no rotation competition in Spring Training as there is no way that Terry Francona would unseat the veteran.
At the same time, Tomlin has extreme value to another team. Very few teams have all five rotation spots set tonight and if a team is looking to get into the free agent market, Tomlin would look like an extremely alluring option. Last year, Brett Anderson made $15.8M for his -0.8 WAR and Edwin Jackson made $12.5M from the Cubs to earn -0.6 WAR for two different teams (both are on the extremely short list of starting pitcher free agents this year). Starting pitching is expensive and after throwing 189.1 innings between the regular season and play-offs this year, Tomlin is a fairly sure bet to make 30 starts next year. That in itself is worth more than $8M in today’s market and to do so with his efficiency is worth even more.
While a ballpark like those in Colorado and South Chicago would be a back fit for Tomlin given his proclivities toward the home run, if a pitcher like Tomlin, who walks no one and induces a ton of fly balls, were to pitch in the large confines of Petco Park in San Diego or the safety of Safeco Field it could really turn him into something special. Progressive Field had one of the highest park factors in 2016 at 1.2 and this certainly hurt Tomlin, who allowed 36 home runs in 29 starts. There are 25 stadiums in baseball less conducive to allowing home runs than Progressive Field and teams like the Braves, Royals, Marlins and Pirates would be smart to look at a pitcher like Tomlin as the perfect fit for their home parks.
Because of this confluence of individual aspects (Tomlin’s contract and particular talents alongside the Indians starting pitching depth and park factor), he is of much greater value to almost every single other team in baseball than he is to Cleveland. What he could return is up in the air. The Indians don’t need much at the Major League level and he is unlikely to return a starting position player, but it could be an opportunity to increase depth in the upper minor leagues, possibly at first base or catcher, while freeing up a rotation spot for one of the young stars. The lack of a free agent market should mean there will be lots of callers and if the Indians shop around, Mike Chernoff should be able to get well over the normal market value for this particular part of the family.
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