After Alex Anthopoulos didn’t accept a contract extension largely because of a conversation with new Blue Jays president, Mark Shapiro, much has been said about the former Tribe GM and president. While most of that coming from sports writers and fans can be ignored, there was an interesting comment that deserves discussion told to Bob Elliot of the Toronto Sun by an anonymous GM:
“What have they won in Cleveland? Have they won a World Series since 1948?” asked one puzzled GM on Thursday. “Have they won anything since Shapiro and Chris Antonetti took over? No, they have never won anything in Cleveland and they will never win anything in Cleveland because they over value prospects in a very dramatic way.
“They are worse to deal with than the Los Angeles Dodgers when every minor leaguer was going to be the NL rookie of the year. Shapiro probably doesn’t like the fact that the Blue Jays went for it because they never go for it.”
This may seem like a personal attack, but there is much evidence of this extremism. This is actually a topic that has come up multiple times this year including in an article discussing the types of trades made at the deadline with Shapiro and Chris Antonetti heading the front office and in the final regular season episode of Tribe Time Now where we discussed that a new strategy concerning prospects was needed.
You can listen to the episode if you like, but if not, the argument is essentially that the Indians have a realistic window of World Series contention right now, but they don’t have enough immediate talent to win it yet. By the time Clint Frazier and Bradley Zimmer are really ready to compete at their peak level, many of the current stars will be in their waning years or could be dealing with injuries. There is simply too much risk to try to keep the window open through 2020 (which the Indians did by keeping Francisco Lindor in the minors too long this year, costing themselves wins and Lindor the Gold Glove and possibly the Rookie of the Year).
This hoarding of minor league talent has already cost the team as players continually lose value. The Indians are particularly deep in the outfield and middle infield in the minors and there is no possible way they could use every player who has Major League potential. Instead of deciding who among them has the best chance of making it big, they have made the decision to keep all of them, with the exception of Joey Wendle who was moved for Brandon Moss last year.
This trade shows how incredibly valuable prospects can be. Wendle has yet to make his MLB debut and is already 25, but netted one of the better power hitters in baseball from 2015, a hitter so powerful that he ended the season the second best home run hitter on the Indians despite playing just 94 games with the team. Jason Kipnis is signed through 2020 and Jose Ramirez, a capable utility man and defensive back-up, is under control just as long. There is absolutely no room on this team for Wendle and won’t be until he is 30, yet the Indians pinched onto him and Ronny Rodriguez.
At short stop, it is hard to believe the Indians will need to go deeper than Lindor and Ramirez, yet they maintain Erik Gonzalez, a player who was worth significantly more after his surprise 2014 than his down 2015. They knew they had Lindor and that no one would surpass him, yet they didn’t make the most of the opportunity to move the defensive specialist Gonzalez. In a similar situation, Tyler Naquin was a hot commodity last year, but after injuries derailed his season this year, he will likely net little in return. Both Clint Frazier and Bradley Zimmer had surpassed Naquin on the prospect charts last year and with those two, Tyler Holt, James Ramsey, Carlos Moncrief and other near MLB ready fill ins, there was little reason to keep Naquin around this year.
While this all happened when Shapiro was president, he obviously developed this strategy as GM. Bartolo Colon was the first, but in general, almost every trade after that was sending a free agent to be veteran to a team for prospects. While most of these worked out, there is a time to sell and a time to buy. Other than Ubaldo Jimenez, the Indians have never realized they were in that time to buy. They have had no problem trading every single big name, looming free agent since Jim Thome, but have never been willing to move even mid-level prospects.
It isn’t too late to fix this. The Indians farm system is still brimming in talent and with 4/5ths of the rotation decided and under contract for half a decade, that appears to be the best place to deal from. New acquisition Rob Kaminsky from the deal that sent Moss away (probably a mistake), Mike Clevinger, Adam Plutko, Justus Sheffield, Ryan Merritt and even new comers Triston McKenzie and Brady Aiken are all considered probably future Major Leaguers. While there is a high fail rate among low level prospects, a team that doesn’t take risks doesn’t win. Yes, the Blue Jays made some mistakes in their recent dealings (particularly in acquiring R.A. Dickey), but ultimately, it got them into the ALCS and once there, anything can happen.
There is no reason to trade everyone, or even the top talent like Zimmer, Frazier, Plutko and McKenzie, but if one or two of those highly considered players could be moved, they could bring in a huge haul from a team that is looking to compete in three or four years. The Phillies were able to obtain Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco for just Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp, Jason Donald and Lou Marson. We often look at this from the Indians side and say how great it was that Cleveland got the great Carrasco for just a year and a half of Lee, but Lee was worth 5.9 WAR over those two years.
Lee was also coming off his Cy Young season and arguably the most valuable pitcher available in trade. If the Indians could get a hitter of equal value across the league for even someone as highly ranked in the Indians system as Plutko combined with a few others, it would be worth it to maximize the current window that will likely start to close after 2017.
I know there wasn’t much gossip in this article, but before getting defensive because “they made fun of our guy” try to take a different point of view. The Indians got Michael Brantley in 2008, but CC Sabathia practically carried the Brewers to the play-offs. Sometimes it’s worth losing a future All-Star to win right now and the Indians have never been a situation where that was so true. Hopefully, this will mean that while the Blue Jays begin hoarding prospects, the Indians can start to attempt to win at all costs.
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