Notable Cleveland Indians Winter Meeting moves since 2010

The past 10 years, the Indians have stayed mostly quiet on the free agency front during the Winter Meetings but have made a handful of minor league signings, including some that wound up making the big league roster.

Among the eight players, the Indians signed to minor league free agent contracts with invitations to spring training during the Winter Meetings since 2010, just one reached the majors with Cleveland after signing on with the team.

During the 2014 Winter Meetings, the Indians signed veteran catcher Adam Moore. Moore spent three seasons (2009-11) with the Seattle Mariners after being drafted by the club in 2006 and went onto play with the Kansas City Royals (2012-13) and San Diego Padres (2014) before signing with Cleveland.

Moore would play just one game with the Indians in 2015, going 1-4 with an RBI and then went onto play nine games for the team in 2016 in which he did not record a single hit.

The only other name that signed with the team during the Winter Meetings to play a major league game for the Indians was outfielder Matt Carson who the team re-signed to a new MiLB deal during the 2013 Meetings.

Carson appeared in 20 games for the Indians during their 2013 season and notched a walk-off single against the Houston Astros on Sept. 19 during the Tribe’s late season surge to lift them into the postseason.

While Carson and Moore both spent time playing for Cleveland, Robbie Grossman is the most notable name the team signed to a MiLB deal during the Meetings.

Grossman signed with the team during the 2015 Meetings but, after not making the club during Spring Training, opted out of his contract in May of 2016 and joined the Minnesota Twins. He would play 99 games for the Twins that year, 119 games in 2017 and 129 in 2018 in a year that saw him hit .273.

In 2019 Grossman signed a one-year deal with the Oakland A’s where he played in 138 games. He rejoined Oakland for the 2020 season, where he played in 51 of 60 games during the shortened season and hit eight home runs for the AL West champions.

The Rule 5 Draft hasn’t exactly gone well for the Indians in the last 10 years. Virtually none of the players they opted to draft have amounted to anything worthy of the selection, while a handful of players the team lost to other clubs have panned out to be solid MLB players.

In the 2012 Rule 5 Draft, the Baltimore Orioles selected left-handed reliever T.J. McFarland away from the Indians. Since then, McFarland has put together a solid career as in 2014 he made 37 relief appearances and one start posted a 2.76 ERA to help the O’s clinch their first AL East title since 1997.

He would remain a key member of the Orioles bullpen through the 2016 season before landing with the Arizona Diamondbacks, where in 2018, he posted a 2.00 ERA in 47 relief appearances.

In 2020, McFarland pitched in 23 games for the Oakland A’s in which he posted a 4.35 ERA for the eventual AL West champions.

McFarland wasn’t the only valuable asset the team lost in the 2012 Rule 5 Draft as right-handed reliever Hector Rondon was also drafted away. Rondon, who was drafted by the Chicago Cubs, emerged as one of the best late-inning men in baseball for a handful of seasons on the Northside of Chicago.

In 2015, Rondon pitched in 72 games for the Cubs posting a 1.67 ERA to help the team reach the postseason for the first time since 2007 and the NLCS for the first time since 2003. The following year, he posted a 3.53 ERA in 54 outings and helped Chicago defeat the Indians in the World Series.

He went on to join the Houston Astros after the 2017 season and posted a 3.20 ERA over the course of 63 outings in 2018. Rondon spent 2020 with the Diamondbacks, where he struggled in 23 appearances posting an ERA north of seven.

Perhaps the most painful Rule 5 Draft loss for the Indians came in 2016 when Baltimore drafted away outfielder Anthony Santander.

Santander burst onto the scene for the Orioles in 2018 when he slashed .261/.297/.476 with 20 home runs and 59 RBI’s. He followed that up by slashing .261/.315/.575 with 11 home runs and 32 RBI’s in just 37 games in 2020 before losing his season to injury.

With the Indians’ need for help in the outfield, losing Santander has become more painful than ever imagined.

The Indians have made three trades during the Winter Meetings over the course of the last decade, all of which wound up significant.

2014

During the 2014 meetings, the Indians traded for a veteran bat as they added Brandon Moss from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for infield prospect Joey Wendle.

Moss was coming off a 2014 season that saw him earn All-Star honors as he slugged 25 home runs and picked up 81 RBI’s for the A’s. He was unable to replicate that success in Cleveland as he hit just .217 with 15 home runs in 94 games for the Tribe before being traded at the 2015 July Trade Deadline to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Wendle spent short stints with the A’s in both 2016 and 2017 before landing with the Tampa Bay Rays, where in 2018, he finished as an AL Rookie of the Year finalist after slashing .300/.354/.435 with 61 RBI’s.

He helped guide Tampa to the World Series in 2020 after hitting .286 in 50 games for the AL champion Rays.

2017

In 2017, the Indians made a seemingly small move when they dealt right-handed reliever Shawn Armstrong to the Seattle Mariners for International Bonus Slot Money.

Armstrong pitched to a 4.38 ERA in 21 relief appearances to the Indians in 2016 and was clearly simply a depth piece in the pen.

Since leaving Cleveland, however, Armstrong has found success. In 2017 he posted a 1.23 ERA in 14 appearances for Seattle and in 2020, he posted a 1.80 ERA in 14 relief outings for the Baltimore Orioles.

2018

Perhaps the most memorable Winter Meetings trade made by the Indians in the past 10-years was a three-team deal with the Mariners and Rays in 2018.

The Indians sent slugger Edwin Encarnacion to Seattle and both infielder Yandy Diaz and right-handed pitcher Cole Sulser to the Rays in exchange for first basemen Carlos Santana bringing him back to Cleveland after one-year away and young first basemen Jake Bauers from Cleveland.

Encarnacion spent just two full months in Seattle before being traded to the New York Yankees; Diaz emerged as a key contributor to the Rays 2019 AL Wild Card Game-winning team hitting two solo home runs for Tampa in their win over Oakland and then helped the team reach the World Series in 2020 and Sulser wound up landing in Baltimore where he became the Orioles closer in 2020.

As for Cleveland’s addition, Santana put together an All-Star 2019 season that saw him hit .281 with 34 home runs and 93 RBI’s but struggled in 2020 and is now a free agent while Bauers slumped through the 2019 season and spent all of 2020 at the Indians alternate site in Lake County.