Would you make this trade?

 OK, so I thought it would be fun to propose some trades and get people thinking about whether they would make these trades.  Before we get into proposed trades the Guardians would be involved in, let's look back on a couple of prospect-for-major leaguer trades from a couple of years ago:

Nolen Arenado and $51 million goes to the Cardinals for Austin Gomber, Elehuris Montero, Mateo Gil, Tony Locey and Jake Sommers.

Although this seems like a terrible trade for the Rockies, consider that Arenado could have opted out of his contract after the 2021 season AND, if he did, the Rockies would have only had to pay $16 million of that $51 million.  He could have also opted out after 2022, with the Rockies being on the hook for $5.57 million for that 2022 season.   So, there was risk for the Cardinals, in a worst case scenario.  The key here is that the Rockies got a return back AS IF Arenado was likely to turn down the remaining $200 million of his contract to go back to free agency after 2021.   

Clearly the Rockies could have done better if they had just gotten Gomber, Montero and a high level prospect, even if that prospect was a tools-limited guy like Dylan Carlson (very little power), who was rated 10th in the Cardinals system at the time.  Instead, the Rockies took the salary dump option, one that would not likely impact the trajectory of their rebuild.

Mike Clevinger and Greg Allen for Joey Cantillo, Gabriel Arias, Austin Hedges, Owen Miller, Josh Naylor and Paul Quantrill

In all fairness to the Padres, this trade could not have worked out worse.  Still, at the time, the headliner was Arias.  Cantillo was a teens-level prospect (still is), Hedges was excess catching and expensive and an offensive black hole (still is), Mller was a mid-teens prospect (and has played like one), Quantrill was a reliever and Naylor was an overweight outfielder, sub-power first baseman.   As funny as it seems, the headliner for the Guardians, Arias, has been the one prospect from this trade who has underwhelmed, if you want to call a top 10 prospect in your system underwhelming!!!

Plus, Clevinger got hurt and then hurt again and then pitched only OK when he did get back to the mound.  He had ace-in-waiting stuff and intelligence but, unfortunately, injuries have slowed his development. 

So the Guardians made out like bandits there because (a) the Padres overpaid thinking Clevinger was going to be who Musgroves tjurned out to be and the Guardians got surprising performances out of almost every player they received in the trade.

So, two teams trading prospects for veterans.  Both were quality veterans with one team (the Padres) overpaying and one team (Rockies) gambling Arenado would opt out and so they were trading a year of him for a handful of magic beans...which sounds a lot better than what they got for 7 years of Arenado.  

With the above in mind and some of the scary (Christian Walker, Anthony Rizzo) acquisitions I have heard of, here are 3 trades I would like to propose to you where we don't get back just .220 hitting, 3-true outcome guys in return and we enhance, to varying degrees, our chances of getting to and winning the World Series.

Would you make these trades?

1. Sean Murphy (C) and J. J. Puk (LHRP) for Gabriel Arias, Logan Allen, Owen Miller, Richie Palacios and Jhonkensy Noel.

My take: You could substitute any pitching prospect we have for Logan Allen except Gavin Williams, Bibee or Espino.  I would also be willing to substitute Bo Naylor for Noel if I got a low A or rookie ball minor leaguer of note back. PROVISO: I would only want to give up this much if I already had Jose Abreu signed.   Adding Murphy and Puk would only help this team incrementally and the extreme price is not worth that incremental improvement which likely, in and of itself, would not allow us to catch the Yankees or Astros in talent or even stay ahead of the White Sox and Twins if either or both of those two teams put together a stellar season in 2023.

2. Bryan Reynolds for Oscar Gonzalez and Jake Fox

My take: Any Cleveland fan, after Gonzalez's 2022, would probably spit on this deal but remember that it is somewhat possible that Gonzalez, based on his track record, is just a one-year wonder.   Reynolds is far from being a be-all-end-all guy but he is more likely to give you production next year than Gonzalez and some, me included, might contend we would be selling high on Gonzalez with the Pirates counting on Reynolds not increasing his value during the season to make a deadline deal more lucrative.  For me, I would not do this deal but it does give you more veteran presence than Gonzalez brings.  Note that if we would do this deal it would not be tied to any other deal.  It is a simple future-for-present value deal.

3. Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani for Gavin Williams, Oscar Gonzalez, Daniel Espino, Gabriel Arias, Johnkensy Noel, Milan Tolentino and Bo Naylor

My take: Weird you say?   The Guardians would never take on this kind of salary you say?  The Angels will never go into a rebuild of the type that this trade would signify you say?  All hese are valid points but looking at their roster and looking at the rosters of Houston and Seattle I don't see the Angels being able to outlast these other two teams to rise to to the top.  The Guardians would be giving up much of their future for two guys who might have reached their top value (Ohtani) or are on a downward arc (Trout).  Not only would we be spending a HUGE amount of prospect capital, but we would also be doubling our payroll!  Oh, and we would only be guaranteed having Ohtani for the 2023 season.