On Sunday, the Indians made the kind of strong handed move to improve the team for this year that they have been historically known not to do. In snatching up the top left handed reliever off the trade market in Adam Miller, the Indians cost themselves a few players that we have been covering for many years in Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller and J.P. Feyereisen. In addition, Jhonleider Salinas and Taylor Murphy were sent to Tampa Bay on Monday for outfielder Brandon Guyer.
Looking back at the BurningRiverBaseball minor league rankings from the 2015 off-season, Frazier was ranked #2 and Sheffield ranked #10 and in the updated position by position lists from this season, Frazier was ranked as the top outfielder and Sheffield the #4 pitcher. Both right handed relievers were more than likely to be ranked 1 and 2 in the upcoming reliever rankings and were only left off last year’s overall list because relievers were generally downplayed.
While it will be years before the Indians will really know whether or not they “won” the trade, that doesn’t really matter right now. What is really important is how the Indians minor league system stands now that they are gone.
To begin, the direct result of acquiring Miller was that the Indians needed to free a 40 man roster spot and Joey Butler was released. This wasn’t important as far as the Indians future, but it was as it meant that the Clippers went from having too many outfielders to get each regular at bats, to so few they can barely fill out a line-up card. Currently, Bradley Zimmer is the only real, full time outfield prospect in AAA for the Tribe, while Collin Cowgill and Michael Choice are there, but not real future MLB options. Yandy Diaz has also been converting to outfield with Giovanny Urshela getting the majority of the playing time at third base.
In AA, Greg Allen and Luigi Rodrgiuez were only promoted on July 25th, so they are unlikely to make the jump to AAA at the moment. The same is true of Mike Papi, who was promoted on June 1st and the Ducks final outfielder is Jordan Smith, who is not considered a legitimate prospect at this point. In Lynchburg, Dorssys Paulino could probably move to the next level once he gets back from the DL. If anyone has gained standing in the loss of Frazier, it is Anthony Santander in Lynchburg, currently hitting .292/.365/.505 with 17 home runs after spending the whole year to this point in high A.
Outside of Santander, just like in AA, Taylor Murphy and Connor Marabell were recently promoted from Lake County in early June and late July respectively. It would be surprising to see either of these players moved up again this year. Lukes, who went to Tampa, was also playing in Lynchburg after a promotion in late July. He doesn’t project to be a Major Leaguer necessarily, but is a fringe prospect and could be replaced in high A by David Armendariz or Bobby Ison from Lake County.
While filling up minor league rosters may be a slight problem, the Major League future still seems bright. Even without Frazier, the Indians have Tyler Naquin for the foreseeable future and Zimmer, who should be ready in 2017. Greg Allen definitely appears ready for a Major League future and between, Papi and Santander, the Indians should have more help coming by the time Michael Brantley‘s is a free agent in 2019. By then, the Indians may even be seeing some of the more higher valued low level outfielders like Andrew Calica, Gabriel Mejia and 2016 first round pick Will Benson.
In the rotation, things are so much simpler with losing Sheffield. He was only in Lynchburg, so it wasn’t like the situation with Frazier where the Indians were expecting production from him in 2017. There honestly aren’t many interesting names left in high A for the Tribe, but between Ryan Merritt, Shawn Morimando and Rob Kaminsky, the Indians almost have too many left handed starters that are near MLB readiness. Given that the rotation of Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco is set through at least 2020, the Indians shouldn’t have need for too many starters during the rest of the decade. If Mike Clevinger is anywhere near his expected level and Trevor Bauer continues to pitch well, they might not need any for a full time role.
As far as the long distant future, Tristan McKenzie and Brady Aiken are as good as any pitchers in the minors while Juan Hillman isn’t far behind. Between them and some very interesting starters coming up out of the Dominican Republic, the loss of Sheffield should be nearly unnoticeable. The loss of Salinas factors into this group where Sheffield is more a short term option, but it still shouldn’t be a big deal long term. It’s very hard to predict players out of the AZL, particularly international free agents and we won’t know what the future holds for the young starter for years to come.
The biggest immediate impact for both the Yankees and the Indians will likely be in the bullpen. Had the Indians not picked up Miller, Heller would have been an option right now in the Majors as the right hander can hit triple digits on the RADAR gun and held a 2.49 ERA in 25.1 AAA innings before being traded. Feyereisen has been considered the Indians top relief prospect for longer, but was still only in Akron.
This severely weakens the Indians bullpen of the future, while only helping the bullpen of today slightly as they still only have 3-4 dependable pitchers (depending how you rank Bryan Shaw). Coming up, Shawn Armstrong, Jeff Johnson and Josh Martin are pitching well in relief in Columbus while Perci Garner and Louis Head have stood out in AA. In Lynchburg, David Speer and Cameron Hill have stood out and from personal observation, Ben Krauth and Cesar Ventura in the AZL are as good as low level relievers get. Given the Indians tendency at times to promote relievers quickly through the minors (such as Cody Allen, Kyle Crockett and Armstrong in recent years), it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see one or more of these names moved up quickly to replace Heller and Feyereisen and ultimately to help the Major League bullpen by 2017.
In all, the Indians lost a lot of good prospects this week, but thanks to great drafting over the past five years, it didn’t decimate the minor league system. This is probably the first time this was possible since they did a similar thing during the late 1990’s and it was great fortune that both the depth of the minors lined up with the success in the Majors, allowing the Indians to fix small issues at the Major League level with large parts of the minor league system.
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