Cleveland Indians Roundup: The Tribe Have the Pitching Other Teams Covet

The Cleveland Indians have cheap, dominant starting pitching, and other teams are trying to figure out a way to get a piece of it.

The rest of the baseball world is jealous of the Cleveland Indians. The Diamondbacks will pay Zack Greinke nearly 35 million dollars next year for an estimated 4.2 wins, and the Red Sox will pay David Price roughly 31 million dollars next year for an estimated five wins. As for the Indians, they will pay roughly nine and one-half million dollars for an estimated 13.2 wins.

This has made the Indians’ stock of young pitchers highly desirable trade targets; and with every additional free agent signing, Carlos Carrasco’s value grows. With this in mind, August Fagerstrom took a deeper look into Carrasco’s trade value. As he explains, Carrasco has a highly team-friendly contract for a bona fide ace. The surplus value on his contract is in the order of tens of millions of dollars. Given this knowledge, he suggests that a deal headlined by Jorge Soler and Javier Baez for Carlos Carrasco and Lonnie Chisenhall might get the job done.

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But, as Jayson Stark points out, this extreme value makes the Indians unlikely to trade a starting pitcher. Players like Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar have an unbelievably high value, and teams will shy away from meeting this price. This leads many executives to believe that the Indians will hold onto their starting pitchers. Even further, trading a starting pitcher would have to significantly improve two positions for a deal to make sense, argues one American League executive. Otherwise, they would be “just shifting around [their] problems”.

Finally, Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer continues the theme of expensive free agents bolstering the Indians’ leverage in trade talks. Since a number-four starter in J.A. Happ now makes 12 million dollars a year, any haul in return for a top starting pitcher in Carlos Carrasco or Danny Salazar would involve a lot of talent. So much talent, that Pluto writes that such a deal could be “the biggest deal of [Chris Antonetti’s] career”.

More from around the AL Central:

Coming to Terms with Carlos Carrasco’s Trade Value – FanGraphs.com

Starting pitchers and interested teams to watch in Nashville – ESPN.com

Cleveland Indians have Terry Talkin’ how high prices for pitchers impacts Tribe trade possibilities – The Plain Dealer

‘Eight stars that could be on the move soon’ – MLB.com

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