Von Hayes, where are you when we need you?

 Mike Clevinger, Greg Allen and Matt Waldron going to San Diego

Well, Clevinger has the look of a California guy so he should fit right into the California lifestyle

Allen is a San Diego native and given the logjam in Cleveland and the fact that his hometown Padres are competing for its first playoff berth in, well, like forever, he should be ecstatic.

Waldron is a potential middle reliever and, given the Indians ability to find middle reliever late in the draft should not be considered just a throw-in.

But most of us don't really care about who is leaving, we care about who is coming back, right?  The Indians are competing this year but also are looking for ways to stay competitive in future years.   Clevinger would have helped that as we had him for two more years after this year.  So let's look at the guys we got back to see if they help us now and in the future.

First, with an eye on the playoffs, the first round is best of 3.   Historically you can get by with 3 starters in the playoffs if everyone pitches on short rest and your really only need 4 starters. Since we have Beiber, Civale, Carrasco and Plesac we should be good, right?   Throw in McKenzie as the 5th starter for the rest of the season and we should be good for at least a couple of year with Plutko in the bullopen.  

So if you believe Carrasco is on the right track now and Plesac comes back to his pre-Chicago-night-out form, we are among the best in baseball.    If you believe that.

So, progressing like we do believe that, here are my thoughts on the guys we got back:

Josh Naylor - Since we have his brother Bo, we have cornered the market on the baseball Naylors, I guess.   Unfortunately he is not a great fielder and not a great hitter in the majors, so far.   If we expect him to step in and give us anywhere close to what Reyes gives us we are dreaming, at least for this year.   The best I can say is that his offense is likely an improvement over our left field platoon so there is an incremental upgrade to our offense.  But this part of the deal does smell like the Jake Bauers trade to me.

Cal Quantrill - He is an intriguing guy...as a reliever.   To give you an idea of his prospect status as a starter, however, in 2018 Logan Allen was the Padres #9 prospect...Quantrill was #11.   So we got this guy as a reliever because a polished college starter who was going to be a quality major league starter would NOT have a 4.67 ERA in the minors, even with ballpark factoring taken into account.  

Austin Hedges - So we got probably the best defensive catcher in baseball.   We already had the best defensive catcher in the American League.   So now we have the best catching duo in baseball....BY FAR.   This will help the pitching staff as no matter who catches we should have great defense.   But, really, was Sandy Leon that bad that we needed an upgrade at backup catcher?  Not really.  I see this part of the trade as not really moving the needle on what we really need: offense.

Then there are the prospects:

As of May this year MLB had SS Gabe Arias, LHP Joey Cantillo and SS/2B Owen Miller as the #7,9 and 11 prospects in the Padres organization.   So, not a terrible return in prospects but (a) none of these guys is likely to help us this year and (b) two of them are middle infielders in an organization where we have plenty of middle infield prospects.  Plus none of these guys will help the team in 2020 and are unlikely even to make the team out of spring training in 2021 so, short-term, not much help in our limited 'window'.    

SUMMARY - So, we went into this trade deadline with the goal of improving our offense.   The clear spot for that improvement was left field.   This trade robs us of a controllable, quality starting pitcher and brings back little that we need right now.  Given that Naylor's best position is first base it also makes me think that this trade is to get ready for us not re-signing Carlos Santana next year after we don't pick up his option this winter.  So, getting Naylor may actually be a real negative, long-term.  

Folks, this is not a terrible return for Clevinger, to be sure.   I mean, look at our CC Sabathia (Michael Brantley, not even named in the original deal but added as the PTBNL, was the only notable player) and Cliff Lee (Carrasco was the only notable player) and even our recent Corey Kluber trades. In those deals for quality, Cy Young caliber starting pitchers we hardly got anything back but promise, most of which went unfulfilled.  So this trade can't look, on paper, any worse than those.

Plus, on the prospect end we got quantity over quality and, like the trades for Lee and Sabathia, that generally doesn't go well as we can see just by looking at Logan Allen from the same team.   Not terrible but, clearly at this point in his career, a guy on a potentially fringe major leaguer patth.

Still, if you are thinking about this year and next, trading Clevinger for one controllable, quality major league power hitting left fielder would have been better than the 6 players we got.   In the end, when you trade quality assets in a year you are contending, THAT is what you want to get back, not a bunch of question marks, lower (but good) quality) prospects and duplicates we got in this trade.  

Now, to see if there is another shoe that drops later in the day or if this is it.   If this is it for the day, color me very disappointed as I don't believe any of these guys really help our change of getting to the playoffs or making a splash there where as it really does help the Padres...and isn't that the real measure of a trade between two contenders at the deadline?