As of March 21st and 23rd, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe reported the Indians scouring the trade market for outfield help.
Carfardo mentioned that the Indians had been “pitching a trade” to the Red Sox. Boston, with David Price and a lot of question marks following him, could use a starter. Any team, not just the Indians, would love to get Mookie Betts in their jersey every night. Even before Abraham Almonte got hit with an 80 game ban for a positive PED test and before Tyler Naquin set the Cactus League on fire one home run at a time, the Indians needed outfield help. This is why Marlon Byrd was brought in two weeks into camp when Rob Grossman, Will Venable, Collin Cowgill, Lonnie Chisenhall and Joey Butler weren’t lighting it up either. So the link between the Indians and Red Sox wasn’t exactly a stunner.
The timing of it is interesting, however, as Chisenhall has one hit this spring. While spring training stats mean 99% of nothing, one hit isn’t encouraging from a player you’re going to give 400 or so at bats to in the regular season. In addition, he has recently missed time with a forearm injury. He was scheduled to be in the Indians lineup on March 25th against the Arizona Diamondbacks and was a late scratch. MLB.com’s Indians beat writer Jordan Bastian among other beat writers in Goodyear, tweeted Chisenhall went to participate in a minor league game to get extra at bats.
https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/713407779176714240
However, Chisenhall’s name didn’t appear in March 25th’s minor league box score report. That’s not really the point anyway. He could have very easily taken part in an intersquad game on a backfield or some other sort of action. He’s supposed to be in a minor league game today after getting his forearm being checked by a doctor.
https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/713426600386121728
As we learned on March 26, Michael Brantley‘s return has been slowed slightly because his shoulder hasn’t bounced back the way they would like from his first major league game action, in which he hit a home run and just missed another.
https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/713776371156131840
When Brantley was going to rest a few games after his first game action, the Indians said it wasn’t a big deal. Which makes sense. After shoulder surgery and a few live at bats and a homer, the Indians would be wise to let him sit and come back slowly after he’d already pushed the timetable. But it’s no surprise that maybe Brantley’s timetable has been pushed back to a normal schedule, instead of being ahead of schedule like he had been putting himself on.
The trade rumors between the Indians and Red Sox coming at that time possibly add up to the Indians not being sure who was going to be in their outfield on April 4th when they host Boston. Pro sports teams aren’t always forthcoming about injuries to their players. They have no reason to be. It’s in their best interest to protect the notion that their team or a player is healthy, but it’s naive of any fan or writer to believe teams are always 100% honest. Some can tell when teams are putting out a line of pure PR.
If the Indians were engaged in talks with the Red Sox about an outfielder, they’d want to do everything to make Dave Dombroski believe Brantley was just fine. He may not be. He may be back sometime in late April or early May, like originally planned, instead of Opening Day. What about Chisenhall? Who knows. It doesn’t sound like Boston wants to let anyone get their hands on Betts, which makes a lot of sense, but if writers like Rosenthal and Cafardo are mentioning the Indians are working the phones on the outfield front, they likely have been and it could easily be related to the uncertain health of Brantley and Chisenhall. This may explain why Naquin was told he was making the Opening Day roster already, not that there were many reasons to deny him that chance. The Indians outfield situation was hairy before and being connected to trade rumors right now might suggest they are trying cover any possible disasters in April that come with not having Brantley or Chisenhall in the lineup.
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