Guardians Trades from 2016-Present

 I was challenged on X to do something I had wanted to do for a while: look at how well the Guardians have been at making trades.

So let's take a look, going back to the 201-2016 off-season, at how the Guardians have done.

But first, here are the ground rules:

•  I will only look at trades that have TURNED OUT to be significant or was thought to be a significant trade at the time
• 'Significant', for me, is defined as a trade in which one of more of the players traded has a future impact on the team or, in a few rare cases, are prospects projected to have that impact.
• A few of the most recent trades I have graded (e.g., Civale/Manzardo) may change categories over time.
• If I have missed an important trade, I apologize. But I don't believe that a single trade will change the outcome of the analysis below.

With that being said, here goes:

Trades that the Guardians have won

• Andrew Miller for Heller, Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffeld, Feyereisen
• Hedges, Quantrill, Josh Naylor, Arias, Cantillo, Owen Miller for Clevinger, Greg Allen, Matt Waldron
• Ortiz, Hartle, Kennedy for Horwitz
• Clase, DeShields for Kluber
• Brandon Guyer for Lukes, Salinas

Trades that the Guardians have lost

• Carlos Santana, Jake Bauers for Encarnacion, Yandy Diaz and Cole Sulser
• Trevor Bauer for Scott Moss, Yasel Puig, Frnmil Reyes, Logan Allen, Victor Nova
• Horwitz, Mitchell for Gimenez, Sandlin
• Myles Straw for Yainer Diaz, Maton
• Juan Brito for Nolan Jones
• Justin Boyd, AJ Hajjar for Will Benson
• Junior Caminiero for Tobias Myers
• Kept Esteban Florial instead of Deyvison De Los Santos (not really a trade)
• Kody Huff for Cal Quantrill
• Jefry Rodriguez, Daniel Johnson, Andrew Monasterio for Yan Gomes
• Jean Segura, Khalil Watson for Josh Bell
• Patrick Sandoval for Eddie Rosario
• Kyle Dowdy, Leonys Martin for Willi Castro

Trades that are roughly even

• Kyle Manzardo for Aaron Civale
• Lindor, Carrasco for Gimenez, Rosario, Wolf, Greene
• Lane Thomas for Jose Tena, Alex Clemmey, Rafael Ramirez, Jr.
• Brad Hand, Adam Cimber for Francisco Mejia
• Scott Barlow for Enyel De Los Santos
• Alex Cobb for Jacob Bresnahan
• PTBNL for Myles Straw, cash and intentional bonus pool money
• Amed Rosario for Noah Syndergard

SUMMARY

Looking at this list, the Guardians have made their trade reputation on three trades: Clevinger trade, Andrew Miller trade and Clase/Kluber trade.  Potentially, the Civale/Manzardo trade may work out.  However, if you take a look at the bulk of the trades, the Guardians have not gotten the best or broken even on their trades.  Conventional wisdom would be that teams have to make good on at least half of their trades just to avoid getting worse, overall.  However, a small market club like Cleveland probably needs to do better than 50/50 as they can't make up for their trade or draft mistakes by signing expensive free agents.

The front office (including the managers and coaching staff) in Cleveland has been UNBELIEVALBE in putting together great teams and giving the fans an unbelievable product for a long time.  Looking at the results of the trades they have made in almost the last decade even makes their performance better because, frankly, they haven't been good at making trades, except for a few huge ones.