Indians haul for Lindor and Carrasco in light of the Pirates trading Joe Musgrove

 Now, let's start out by saying that I had intended to do a followup post to the Lindor/Carrasco post anyway.

The Joe Musgrove trade just got me typing sooner.  

For Musgrove who has a 4.33 career ERA in the majors, the Pirates received 5 prospects, the Padres #7, #17 and #20 prospects and a guy not ranked in the Padres top 30.  They also received the Mets #20 prospect.  

Five decent prospects for one rather mediocre starting pitcher.  

I think the Indians could have gotten this package for Carrasco alone, easily.

If you look at what we got from the Mets I think that could equate to Greene, Wolf and Giminez or a prospect of his caliber. 

That means that we traded Lindor for Rosario and a little more.

Looking at it that way would make you think that we should have gotten more for Lindor.  I think a resonable guy would have been Pete Crow-Armstrong, the Mets #6 prospect.

Bottom line is, what the Indians got for Lindor/Carrasco was light when you compare what the Pirates got for Musgrove who isn't even as good as Carrasco.  This, to me, once again (Clevinger trade another example) that the Indians can't get value when they trade their veterans.  They don't get robbed but they don't get value, either.  

If you are the Indians and you are deciding to live and die with your farm system you have to do better than they did in the Lindor/Carrasco trade.   Not even considering the bulk of the return was what we already had in our farm system, we didn't get back the equivalent of what we gave up.   Small market teams like the Indians just can't do that.   They have to get back as much or more than they traded, trading the present for the future from teams that are going for it now.  

The Indians didn't do that meaning that their present AND their future is weaker now than it was before the trade.  Small market clubs have to do better.  Antonneti and Chernoff have to do better.  The problem is that there re-dos on this kind of trade.   We are now stuck with the guys we got for Clevinger, Lindor and Carrasco.   It wasn't enough.   These guys need to do MUCH better than they are doing.  They haven't shown any ability to rebuild the Indians and they are hurting the long term competitiveness of this franchise..