And yet another piece of crap!

The Indians stated method of operation this winter is to reduce salary, remain competitive this year and build for the future.   Given that, I need someone to explain to me why today's trade made sense.

In today's deal the Indians:

• took on $40.8 million in salary while giving up $25.   That is offset a little bit by getting $6 million but  it still means that we added over $10 million in salary over the next two years above what were responsible for going into today.
• They traded a 1B/DH for a 1B/DH.   One can argue the relative merits of these two players but, for me, I consider the talent a wash here.
• Traded Yandy Diaz and the lottery ticket that is Cole Sulser for the .201 hitting Jake Bauer, 
• Traded the #77 pick in the upcoming draft for the above-mentioned $6 million.   Note, also, that they saved $800,000 because that is the slot for the pick that they won't have next year so in terms of cost savings, you have to consider that. 

How does any of that meet the stated purpose of cutting salary while remaining currently competitive while building for the future?  Salaries actually GO UP considering the next two years.   Bauers, on paper, doesn't make us more competitive now or in the future unless, and here is that phrase again, you can catch lightning in a bottle with Bauer turning into a MUCH better player than he has showed up to this point and Diaz being a worse player than he has shown so far.  Plus, this small market team that should depend on player development just traded a draft pick for cash.

I will say this again.   NO TRADE, not one, they have made this winter makes them better in 2019 or in the future.  In every case it appears we gave up more than we got back.  EVERY CASE.   How is that possible?  I can see one trade like the Bauers one, looking like we got robbed because our analytics guys (who, BTW, got buried against the Astros guys in the playoffs) thought Bauers was a real good value, but EVERY trade looks like we took other teams' trash and gave them at least lottery tickets back, if not significantly more.

I don't like to call people names who are supposed to be professionals at their jobs.  I mean, people who know what they are doing entrusted them with these roles, roles they graduated into after years as underlings.   However, the Indians front office looks to me to be a bunch of Grade A idiots who can't distinguish between a race horse and the dung that race horse produces.