Cleveland Indians: A great August trade from the recent past

The Cleveland Indians may make a waiver trade or two this month to bolster the roster. One August trade from the past is still paying dividends.

The Cleveland Indians are approaching a third straight American League Central title. A lot of that is due to the great work done by the front office over the past decade.

Not every move was a great one but the team maintained a strategy of building up the farm system to ultimately make a run such as the one seen right now.

The month of August is a time when trades can still be made and the Indians are no stranger to making some trades late in the year. Such a trade brought Jay Bruce to Cleveland a season ago, while another notable one brought Jim Thome home back in 2011.

MLB.com ran a piece today going through the greatest August trade for each MLB team. The one for the Indians was not a move for the now, but rather one for the future.

The trade selected was the one made in 2014 that sent reliever Vinnie Pestano to the Angels in exchange for a young pitcher named Mike Clevinger. Pestano appeared in a total of 31 games for the Angels from 2014-2015 before falling out of the league. Clevinger is a mainstay in one of the best rotations in baseball.

From the article:

"The Angels wanted a reliever for the stretch run, so they added Pestano and dealt Clevinger (a prospect with mechanical flaws and in the early stages of a Tommy John surgery comeback). Clevinger was a project, but he went to work with the Indians, rebuilt his delivery, broke into the Majors in ’16 and is now fixture in one of baseball’s best rotations. Pestano hasn’t pitched in the Majors since ’15, and Clevinger has a 3.59 ERA in 67 career appearances for Cleveland (54 starts)."

Now we see why the Angels are stuck where they are.

Pestano was a solid reliever for the Indians but there is no question the Indians got the better end of this deal. They traded him away on his career decline while receiving Clevinger before the young man even got close to his prime.

Any trades made this year won’t bring top prospects back in return, but the Indians may find a player who ends up making the difference in the playoffs.