Indians: What happened (or didn’t) at the Winter Meetings?

Finally, the most talked about rumor from the Winter Meetings was Francisco Lindor being discussed in trades to the Dodgers. Let’s start with the facts, this isn’t the first Winter Meetings with a Indians/Dodgers rumored trade in the works.

Last season, it was the Indians shopping their starting pitchers to the Dodgers. This year it’s a deal for Lindor. Unlike the Bauer/Kluber talks of 2018, this deal has a star-studded list of ingredients.

On the Indians side, there is rumors that both Lindor and Clevinger would be heading to LA. On the Dodgers side they would be sending some combination of LF Joc Pederson, OF Alex Verdugo, 2B Gavin Lux, and SP Dustin May. Of those players, you are looking at the Dodgers top prospects over the last two years, players who have a MLB sample to go off of, and significant team control.

If the deal was just as simple as all the players in exchange for each other, the Indians would be hard pressed to not make such a move. Lindor is the best player in any deal the Indians could make, but he is a star who’s unlikely to be re-signed. The Indians must determine if they want to go all in for two years, or use a Lindor trade to build a new championship window.

My personal opinion is that this is simply setting a framework for a potential Lindor trade later in the season. If there is any type of Lindor trade, then the Indians should go all-in on the reshuffling of the team and do corresponding moves with Kluber to restock the entire organization.

The Indians still appear to be very far away from any type of major decision like this. There are still a lot of good offensive options in free agency, and positional players to help this team win now, that don’t require Lindor to acquire.

All of this to say, the Indians came to the Winter Meetings to lay the foundation of multiple trades, and based on the numerous rumors, they did exactly that.