Who Should We Be Willing To Trade?

Before we look at what we could possibly do to improve this team, let's look at who we can trade.  

While you all know how I hate to rehash old errors, :-) what we do now is going to be made harder by our mistakes in the past.   Smply, getting Boyd, Hajjar, Brito and Carver last winter and Khalil Watson this summer has done little to increase our trade capital. Almost all of our best prospects are already in the majors and those that aren't still have some significant question marks.

I am generally not a conspiracy theorist but I firmly believe that baseball is changing, especially as it applies to the Guardians.  No longer are trades made to help both teams.  IMO, most GMs are trying to fleece the Guardians out of their best players for limited return.  And why not, it worked in the last 12 months.  I firmly believe that the A's wanted a package of something like Daniel Espino, Joey Cantillo, Tyler Freeman and Will Brennan for Sean Murphy.  What they accepted from the Braves was so much less than that.   Antonetti has said mutliple times that he has had challenges making trades as other teams don't value our players as highly as we do.  I think it all fits together, whether or not you consider it a conspiracy theory.

So, in the backdrop of people trying to fleece us, here is my impression of our trading chips, based solely on their worth and whether I think we can backfill their positions on the team.

UNTOUCHABLES

Jose Ramirez

Josh Naylor

Bo Naylor

Emmanuel Clase

Tanner Bibee

Gavin Williams

Triston McKenzie

Steven Kwan

Chase DeLauter

David Fry

Comments: Most of these are obvious.  I am including DeLauter in this group as I think trading him now will be selling low.  I think he is only going to get better as he gets more experience.  He might even be ML ready by the all-star break, given the results shown by Nolan Schanuel this year.  The key point here is that the Guardians MUST consider him untouchable or they will likely sell low on him as his future is just starting to be written (see Caminero, Jones, Benson, Yandy Diaz, Yainer Diaz...must I go on?). Note that McKenzie is on this list for two reasons: He is good and his injury history means that we would be selling low on him.  Fry is on this list due to his versatility and his cost.  There is no better value as a 26th man in baseball right now than David Fry.  NONE.   If the Guardians think they can replace him with a minor league free agent then they are not only spitting on their own system, they are paying more money for probably less return on that money.  Convince yourself, if you will, that this is not true but I believe that it is.

MOST TRADEABLE/MOST VALUE

Andres Gimenez

Shane Bieber or

Logan Allen or

Cal Quantrill

Juan Brito

Kyle Manzardo

Xzavion Curry

Comments:  As I said above, the ability to backfill a position is important in who we trade.  Gimenez is our most tradeable asset.  If a team thinks they are getting the 2022 Gimenez he could bring huge value back to Cleveland.  If other GMs try to stiff us, Gimenez stays with us.  Ditto for Bieber, Allen or Quantrill and we can only afford to trade one of them and even that would be risky, IMO.  We have 6 ML starters (the 3 untouchables and these 3) and everyone else is far from ready.  We are razor thin in terms of what we need to compete and really have no starting pitching prospects we can count on in 2024.  Note that Curry is on this list because I believe trading him, based on his 2023 performance and the normal projection of improvement with more experience, he is at his highest value now.  If we can get that value for him you trade him if it helps you get equal value back over the type you need.  Dtto for Manzardo and Brito, both of whom I think may currently be over-rated.  

TRADEABLE BUT UNLIKELY TO BRING BACK GOOD VALUE

Brayna Rocchio

Tyler Freeman

Will Brennan

Joey Cantillo

Gabriel Arias

Sam Hentges

Trevor Stephan

Eli Morgan

Nick Sandlin

Cody Morris

Hunter Gaddis

Enyel De Los Santos

Angel Martinez

Jose Tena

Jonathon Rodriguez

Jhonkensy Noel

George Valera

Tim Herrin

Ethan Hankins

Cade Smith

Comments: Look, the casual fan would see this list and based on 2023 frustrations might say 'Hey, dump them all for what you can get. They are all essentially worthless'.  That is exactly the point.  In trades they are worthless unless they represent that last, small piece in a big trade that gets you a good player your ML team needs.  The value of so many of these guys was depressed this year by how they were treated by Francona and the FO. 

TOTALLY UNTRADEABLE

Myles Straw

Ramon Laureano

Michael Kelly

James Karinchak

Oscar Gonzalez

Every other minor league

Comments: These guys are either so undervalued or so bad (take your choice) that they bring you nothing back in a trade except as a throw-in or a bad contract/change of scenery swap.  On the other hand, at least Gonzalez and Karinchak have some value if you stash them at AAA and Straw has some value as a 4th outfielder (especially if Brennan is gone next year).  I really don't trust our FO to trade lower level minor leaguers as they really undervalue our players, as could be seen in the Jones and Benson trades.  Plus, they aren't the best at evaluating other teams' players (see Justin Boyd, Steve Hajjar and Ross Carver, for example).

SUMMARY

So, there you have it. Our tradeable assets are really limited.  Our best trade chip is Gimenez.  The percieved value of everyone else is probably less than what it is to us if we just keep them (e.g., Tyler Freeman in RF has real value, I think).  I can see us not making ANY trades this winter.  The FA class is so weak that I don't see any financially reasonable options that we go for.

But I think we will be doing trades this winter and, in future pieces, I will talk about what I think our targets should be and what I think it would cost to get them.