Before the Diamondbacks traded Starling Marte to the Marlins yesterday, “the Indians made a run at” acquiring the outfielder, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (subscription required). Marte would’ve been a enormous boost to Cleveland’s long-struggling outfield, and it is interesting to wonder what it would have cost the Tribe to land Marte. Looking at what the D’Backs accepted from Miami, the Indians would have had to surrender a pitcher with some proven MLB-level ability (like Caleb Smith), another big-league ready young arm (like Humberto Mejia), and a lottery ticket of a long-term pitching prospect like Julio Frias.
Beyond the prospect cost, it’s fair to assume that Marte’s financial cost was also a factor for Cleveland — Marte has $1.71MM remaining this year, and a $12.5MM club option for the 2021 season. Giving up a big prospect package and then declining Marte’s option wouldn’t have made much sense, and it isn’t yet clear what kind of payroll capacity the Tribe will have going into next season.
Some more Tribe notes…
- Also from Rosenthal, he shares some details on the talks between Indians and White Sox about a possible Mike Clevinger trade. The idea of a Clevinger trade to an AL Central rival seemed surprising at the time, and one Chicago official feels “the Indians used the Sox as a stalking horse, never intending to trade him within the division.” The White Sox also denied that right-hander Michael Kopech was offered to Tribe as part of the Clevinger negotiations.
- Clevinger wound up being traded to the Padres as part of a major deadline-day swap that saw the Indians acquire six players. It was a trade born from a lot of “familiarity” between the two organizations, as president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told MLB.com’s Mandy Bell and other reporters. “We’ve spent a lot of time on their system….We have asked about all of these players in the past. Every one of them,” Antonetti said. “I would comfortably say, at this point, we’ve had hundreds of iterations of deals with the Padres.” Cleveland and San Diego have combined for five trades since July 2018.
- In other Clevinger news, Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the right-hander turned down an extension offer from the Indians in the spring of 2019. Terms and contract length weren’t revealed, though the deal would have almost assuredly gone beyond the four years of control the Tribe already held over Clevinger. The righty was coming off an impressive 2018 season and heading into his age-28 campaign, so purely speculatively, I wonder if the Tribe’s offer was at least somewhat similar to the five-year, $38.5MM extension (with two club option years) reached with Corey Kluber prior to the 2015 season. Kluber had a similar amount of service time and was coming off a better platform of a Cy Young Award-winning season, though he was also a year older than Clevinger would have been at the time of his hypothetical early-2019 extension.
Let the GM comments about “We were going to trade for him” begin.
exactly – “We were in serious discussions regarding 1) Mike Trout, 2) Jose Altuve 3) Juan Soto…”
“We were going to trade Lance Lynn, but nobody wanted to give up all of their top 5 prospects.”
I heard not including Morejon with Patiño, Campusano and Gore made Daniels say “Preposterous!” and hang up on us.
And the other side said “as you wish”. I see what you did there.
Anybody want a peanut?!? lol
It’s so unlike the White Sox to be used by a free agent or another team…
Lmao.
Like the Cubs do any better. I LOL at their deadline trades EVERY YEAR.
Meanwhile the 28 other teams laugh at all of Chicago
Cleveland can have Marte this offseason. I’m glad we are trying to win this season, but I hope Monte, Sierra, Sanchez, Harold, Cooper, and even Brinson (if he continues to hit) are able to get a sufficient amount of at bats next season. Also the potential promotions of Encarnacion and Bleday.
I’m sure Mike Hill doesn’t go to bed every night worrying that he has too many good players.
12mm for Marte seems like a deal. Does this mean all options are about to be declined and negotiated as if 60 games were only played?
Cleveland is the AL version of the Braves. All talk little action and watches the window sliding down to close while trying to convince their fans they are trying to do it all. Disappointing to Cleveland fans.
I’m not disappointed.
They may not have filled their needs but no action is not what I would use to describe Cleveland when it comes to trades.
Hahn is telling the truth about Kopech. No way Chernoff said “nah, Id’ rather have Cantillo.”
Even if they would have offered Kopech, I doubt they would have been willing to part with much more. So that can still be true.
Also, the Indians seem to know pretty well the types of pitchers that they can develop their own way, and they probably figured that Cantillo (who presumably fits that mold) and a few other pieces is better than Kopech (who’s already done with most of his development) and little else.
It has been reported that Kopech opted out this year because he is has long-standing mental health issues that are flaring up. The white Sox pitching coach even went on the record to say he is worried about him.
There was another option for the Indians.
Trade three pitching prospects to the Diamondbacks for Starling Marte,They could have easily outbid the Marlins offer.
Keep Clevinger and ride with him into the play offs and then trade him for prospects in the off season and re-load the farm system.
I’m pretty sure they could have gotten the same deal they got from the Padres in the off season and maybe a better one with more teams involved..
Whether they keep Marte for 2021 doesn’t really matter in this scenario.
JD on the Rangers demanded way too much for Lynn. He should of traded Minor last year when his value was higher. He got next to nothing for Darvish. Has he actually done anything worthwhile lately
It’s actually stunning how bad Jon Daniels has been at his job over the last few years. He did a great job of building their farm system and being aggressive when he needed to be (which led to coming close to winning a title), and for a while he looked like one of the smartest guys in the game. But for whatever reason, since then he’s just made a bunch of head-scratching decisions.
Buying low on Minor and Lynn was smart, but he failed to move either when they were at their highest value, and it’s not like they’ve been competitive enough to justify hanging on to them anyway. He also gave Odor and Andrus those terrible extensions. I’m not even a Rangers fan, but they’re just getting really stale and I think it’s probably coming to the point where he should be on the way out. It’s time for them to rebuild instead of going halfway and “retooling” every year because they don’t have the depth or the prospects to make that possible. If there’s a team that needs to sell everything not bolted to the floor, it’s probably them.