Cleveland Indians: A discussion on the Tribe’s farm system

Reading the tea leaves at shortstop

No matter what the Indians do over the next two years, there is no story line that will garner more attention than Francisco Lindor‘s future. The only ways Lindor will lose his mantle as the most pressing question facing the Indians are if he signs an extension (unlikely) or is traded (regrettably likely).

When and if that trade comes to pass, one factor that might make it an easier pill for the front office to swallow is that the Indians have a plethora of talent in their minor league system at Lindor’s position.

Tyler Freeman is the most prominent of these young players, and presumably the most likely of Cleveland’s in-house options to replace Lindor. If the Indians choose to ride it out with Lindor and lose him via free agency after the 2021 season, Freeman is a safe bet to be the Tribe’s Opening Day shortstop in 2022.

But as Callis notes, the Indians have eight shortstops among their top 30 prospects, by far their most at any position other than pitcher. Regardless of what ultimately happens with Lindor, the Indians can at least turn to a deep pool of potential successors, starting with Freeman, if and when the face of the franchise leaves.

More arms on the way for the pitching staff

In addition to being loaded at short, the Indians have 12 pitchers in their top 30–three lefties and nine right-handers.

If there is anything Cleveland has been undeniably successful at across the board over the last several years, it’s been in the development of young pitchers. At no time was this more on display than in 2019, when Shane Bieber took the reins of the MLB rotation and Aaron Civale gave the Tribe one gutsy performance after another in what can fairly be classified as an emergency starting role down the stretch.

Zach Plesac and Adam Plutko performed admirably (if a little over their heads) as well, and Mike Clevinger took a step from third starter to front-line ace this season. If we expand our assessment of the Indians’ ability to mold starting pitchers to go back a few years, look no further than Corey Kluber: an afterthought in a three-team trade at the 2010 deadline who has since won two Cy Young awards.

With such a wealth of young arms in their system–including four among their top 10 prospects in Logan Allen, Triston McKenzie, Daniel Espino, and Ethan Hankins–there is cause for optimism that the pitching mill will continue to churn out quality starters for years to come.

It also shouldn’t go overlooked, as Callis notes, that the Indians began to replenish a lack of left-handed pitching at the 2019 deadline with their acquisitions of Allen (Cleveland’s number-four prospect) and Scott Moss.

A deep farm system equals leverage on the trade market

For a team with Cleveland’s perpetual financial disadvantages, selling the farm in short-sighted, win-now deals isn’t always the most prudent course of action. But if the Indians find themselves in a position to truly shoot for the stars, perhaps as soon as the 2020 trade deadline, they could pull off a blockbuster-style deal thanks to the depth of their minor league prospect pool.

There are some players around the league who immediately come to mind when pondering a potential deal such as this, and the conversation simply can’t be had without bringing up the name Mookie Betts.

The Red Sox could easily rebound in 2020 and look poised for the playoffs deep into the summer, rendering this whole hypothetical scenario null and void. But say they don’t trade Betts this winter, and say the same things that plagued them in 2019 (specifically inconsistent starting pitching) hold them back next year.

If the Indians look like a true World Series contender next July, don’t they owe it to themselves to at least consider the possibility of acquiring an MVP-caliber player at the deadline? Yes, Betts would be an incredibly expensive (both in terms of prospect haul and salary) two-month rental. But who is going to care if it nets the Indians their first World Series since before the Korean War?

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Betts is just one admittedly idealistic dream scenario, but the point remains: The Indians are rapidly beginning to build up the prospect depth to pull off landscape-altering trades, should they ever be so inclined.

Cleveland has displayed a willingness to push the envelope on this front in the appropriate situations in recent years, most notably in their acquisitions of Andrew Miller and Brad Hand. Highly regarded prospects departed the Tribe’s system in both deals, though a push for a player like Betts exists in a different stratosphere than even those relatively high-profile trades.

If the mission is to try as hard as is organizationally possible to win a World Series before Lindor hits free agency after the 2021 season, these knuckle-biting prospect trade scenarios at least need to be entertained.

Hold fast on prospects, build supporting cast via free agency

The alternative to going for broke in the immediate future is for the Indians to keep a majority of their farm system in tact in order to maximize their “window” in terms of employing cost-effective, young players for as long as possible.

One positive of operating this way is that there’s something to be said for putting a winning team together built primarily around homegrown talent. Whether they were drafted by Cleveland or not, a majority of the key players who figure to make an impact on the Indians’ 2020 season have been developed by the Indians themselves: Lindor, Ramirez, Kluber, Bieber, Clevinger, Carlos Santana–you get the picture.

The downside, especially for a small-market franchise like Cleveland, is that there’s always a ticking clock on how long these homegrown teams have to actually accomplish their ultimate objective. Spirits were high after the 2016 close call because Lindor and his cohorts were all locked up into the distant future. Now? Not so much.

The Indians run the risk of repeating this cycle over and over again if they remain committed to the homegrown approach without taking the chances necessary to improve the roster through other means. And the problem is, with the lone exception of the good-faith Edwin Encarnacion signing before the 2017 season, Cleveland doesn’t have a decorated history of taking these chances.

Keeping the Indians’ farm system predominantly together so that the franchise can continue to field a competitive and inexpensive core down the road is great in theory, if the organization in turn takes every measure to provide that core with the best supporting cast possible. For Indians ownership, there is no hiding from the thinly veiled reluctance to push even the current iteration of the homegrown heroes at Progressive Field over the top.

If the organization continues to operate this way going forward, it might not matter how good Nolan Jones, Tyler Freeman, or Triston McKenzie are in three years. Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, and nearly a half-dozen starting pitchers are pretty good right now.