This Week on Wahoo’s on First: Trading for Upton and Ending Rebuilding

Here are the highlights from another big week at Wahoo’s on First!

Chris Humphreys-US PRESSWIRE

In our most popular article of the week, Jeff proposed a trade that would send Asdrubal Cabrera and Chris Perez to the Diamondbacks for Justin Upton and Trevor Bauer:

"Upton has had some off-field issues and the Diamondbacks soured on Bauer last year, but the Indians have to gamble, and the fact that Upton was fourth in the MVP vote just a year ago shows that the upside is definitely there. Besides, Terry Francona managed Manny Ramirez so Upton won’t scare him, and Bauer will be 22 next year, so he has a good chance to figure it out in the next year or two."

Lewie wants to see the Indians either go all in for 2013 or blow it up and start over:

"There’s no clear answer to what the Indians should do from here, just the necessity that they choose one and then commit to it. Double down on the current core or cut lose and start over—either way, there are risks and uncertainties. But one thing’s for sure: standing pat and hedging our bets won’t do the team any good."

Meanwhile, Steve argued that Cleveland should end “rebuilding” forever:

"The Indians front office should aggressively spend the offseason actively eliminating the words rebuild andwindow from the discussion of the team’s future. They need to respond to every writer who pens a story using the term “rebuild,” and especially target those that try to draw a distinction between rebuilding and re-tooling or regrouping in order to open a new window of competitive baseball with a strong rebuttal."

Brian wondered what lessons the Tribe might learn from the World Champion Giants:

"If you look at it objectively, there are several things San Francisco has done that the Tribe could implement. However, in order to do that we need to take a look that the process through which the Giants built a championship caliber team."

David Richard-US PRESSWIRE

Jeff outlined a plan for the Indians to embrace annual roster turnover:

"It seems to me that there is a simple standard that the Indians should be held to if they want to be viewed credibly as a team capable of contending: If the players on a 25-man roster are limited to a five-year tenure, the front office must find five new players every year."

Lewie looked at how the Esmil Rogers deal affects the possibility of Chris Perez being traded:

"With so many young arms waiting in the wings odds are that someone could raise his game enough to step into a setup role, or at least give Cleveland a few dozen flukily good innings. And even if the Tribe can’t come up with a good replacement a relief pitcher isn’t as important as, say, a left fielder, and having a dominant seventh-inning guy shouldn’t be a priority if the team is about to go into rebuilding mode. But it’s important to recognize that losing Perez now would hurt the team more than it would have two weeks ago."

Katrina made the case for not giving up on Jason Donald:

"One of the remaining bench jobs should go to Donald due to his success in the past when given the opportunity to play with the team consistently. The Indians would be wise to write 2012 off as a bad year for the young player and move forward with him. He doesn’t need to participate in every game, but he does need to spend a full season in Cleveland. He could be an important part of the Indians’ bench next year, if given the chance."

Finally, in our Weekly Wroundtable, we debated whether or not the Indians should trade Asdrubal Cabrera:

"Andrew Zajac (Indians Prospect Insider): My gut tells me that we should trade Asdrubal Cabrera this winter. For starters, his conditioning has come into question on more than one occasion. His second half slides are too difficult to forget and I can’t help but to think it’s a trend. For a team that wants to be in contention, hitting .251 after the All Star break isn’t going to cut it."