Comments about the winter meetings

You know, this type of post is usually called "Musings about the winter meetings"

Problem is, I am not a-MUSED.   It is more like I am a-PO'd.  When I am mad I write a lot.   So bear with me.

So far here is what we know:

1. Joe Smith signed with the Astros.  As I said at the time, getting Joe Smith was a bad trade.   In my opinion we gave away WAY too much for a rental of a middle reliever.   In the end, we win the division without Joe Smith and, at worst, we do as bad in the playoffs as we did, losing in the first round.   I know trade deadline acquisitions sometime don't make any difference.  However, this one will hurt for years to come if Thomas Pannone and Samad Taylor even just scratch the surface of their potential worth.  I saw no other team make this kind of one-sided trade at the deadline but more on that below.  Plus, Smith signing with the Astros hurts our chances of making the WS again.

2. Shawn Armstrong traded for 500 K of international signing money.  Yes, this gives us some money to use to sign some of the Braves signees who were thrown back into the mix by the commissioner.  However, since the commissioner already said that teams can borrow against next year's pool to sign guys now AND since the Indians don't often sign more than one high profile guy anyway AND since you can always trade someone next spring to get extra bonus money, what is the big deal with making this deal now?  Yes Armstrong is out of options but 500K is not that much considering that the Mariners had already given 1 MM for a fringe prospect minor leaguer.   Look, no one should think that I believe that Shawn Armstrong is the second coming of Cody Allen or anything and I know he was out of options but, bottom line, precedent tells me we didn't have to do this trade now and, if we DID make this trade we should have gotten more international bonus money out of it than we did.   Plus, with the loss of Joe Smith, it's not like we didn't need options for the bullpen.

3. Rumors of a trade of Danny Salazar to the Cubs are swirling.   No problem, as long as we rob the other team.   We are already down a couple of solid relievers from last year and, truth be told, we have only 6 solid starters counting Salazar.   It doesn't take a pessimist to predict that we might only have 5 starters available by next opening day...just a realist.   So, if you want to trade Salazar and leave Ryan Merritt as your next starter option if one of the remaining starters get hurt, you better damn well get Anthony Rizzo back.   Just on paper, this type of move looks like the Indians of the '80s, trading pitching for hitting and then finding that they don't have enough pitching, trading hitting for pitching.  Hey, dangle any of the starters for hitting.   That's fine.  Just let's get a king's ransom back because we don't have a lot of starting pitching depth to play with in Cleveland.

4. I am a little worried about the Indians' ability to pull off a trade that doesn't favor the other team more than us.  Yes, we have a limited window but if you look down our roster and prospect lists (see below) you can see that there is not much to help us once that window starts to close.   The Joe Smith trade talked about above is the perfect example of the kind of overpayment I see them making on a grander scale this winter or next July.  I see the Indians robbing Peter (our farm system) to pay Paul (our major league team) without much consideration of getting fair value back.  The issue with this is that it weakens the farm system for a team that is unlikely to jump into the US free agent pool feet first and has not been willing to sign high profile international amateur or international professional free agents.   Any time there is a bidding war we just sit back and wait to see if it evaporates with the attempt to sweep in and get a guy.  I understand that we are a small market team but now is the time we need to replenish our farm system or in 5 years we will be the worst team in baseball.  If we don't go all in with amateur guys right now we are in trouble.
     Along those lines we could have easily matched or exceeded what the Cardinals paid for Marcell Ozuna.  Ozuna will not be a free agent until 2020.   Chris Antonneti said that he is looking for assets good for more than one year.  Ozuna fit that bill but, for whatever reason (maybe they think 2017 was his career year, which is possible), we whiffed on that trade.

5. Going into the Rule 5 draft the Indians were one of only 6 clubs who did not have a single one of their top 30 prospects eligible for the Rule 5 draft.  This is the result of having a lot of their top prospects making the majors this year or being traded and the rest being recently drafted/signed who are not yet rule 5-eligible.  It also reflects some of their top draft picks like Mike Papi not panning out as expected.   Only 3 of their top 30 prospects even had to be protected from the Rule 5 draft and they all were protected by the deadline in November for setting rosters.   As I posted at the time the decisions weren't that hard and even the fringe prospects who weren't protected would not likely be lost as they were unlikely to stick on other major league rosters.  I thought we might lose Rob Kaminsky because he is a LHP and because he was injured which could give the drafting team extra time to develop him (as with Anthony Santander last year).  In the end, the Indians lost Jordan Milbrath (26 year old RH relief pitcher who has not made it past AA yet) in the major league phase.   They selected no on in the major league phase.  Milbrath will have to stick with the Pirates all year or be offered back to the Indians.   He is unlikely to stick with the Pirates even as a mop-up man so we should be getting him back.
    In the minor league portion where we don't get the players back, the Indians lost Junior Soto, an OFer who, while 20, has spent 4 years and not made it past low class A where he batted .172 last year and Ivan Castillo, a 22 year old SS who has been in the organization and finally made it to AA this year where he hit .203.  We selected R.C. Orlan, a 27 year old LHP who has not pitched above AA yet. 
    In summary, the 2017 Rule 5 draft was a yawner for the Indians as expected.   While it is a good thing not to lose players it also shows that the organizational depth of players who can help at the big league level is not there.  To me it signals that what is on our 40 man roster is what we will have to pick from to help the Indians early next year.   Not surprising but you would like to see one or two minor leaguers jump up to help your ML team every year.   I think the draft results support that this is not likely to happen in 2018.
     One other Rule 5 draft note.   Anthony Santander has 44 days left that he has to be on the Orioles major league roster next year for the Orioles not to have to return him.   Given that the Orioles were the only team in the majors who selected THREE players in this year's ML portion of the Rule 5 draft, I think they are looking to the future which, to me, completely eliminates any possibility of him returning to the Indians.  It is a shame because the organizational depth last year was just enough to keep Santander, probably a top 15 prospect on the Indians, from being protected.   They thought his injury would keep him from being selected but, instead, it was used against the Indians to get Santander more seasoning and allowing him to only be on the roster after the Orioles were essentially eliminated from the pennant race, picking up 46 days of active roster time, most of that in baseball's equivalent of basketball's garbage time...September.