David Huff Optioned, but Who’s Taking His Spot?
June 21, 2010Cavaliers Unveil New Colors and Logos
June 21, 2010With the month of July nearing, Indians fans can start to hear their favorite team’s name get tossed around among the rumor mills. With the majority of MLB teams within spitting distance of first place in their respective divisions, there will likely be a lot of buyers at the trade deadline. This is something that bodes well for the sellers – which is the side of the coin that the Indians will be on once again. After all, they currently have around a two percent chance of making the 2010 postseason…
Latest name to enter into the mix? Starting pitcher Fausto Carmona who appears to have resurrected his trade value this season after an awful pair of campaigns in 2008 and 2009. ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that one team interested in acquiring Carmona’s services is the New York Mets.
Olney donned Carmona with the “Oliver Perez” factor, where the player can be dominant at times but be downright brutal if he has a mental breakdown of any kind.
Similar to the trades of Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez last season, and unlike Jake Westbrook thisseason, Carmona’s contract extends beyond this year. In fact, there are two years of options beyond his contracted years of 2010 and 2011. While options of $7 and $9 million respectively could be a burden for a team like the Indians, the Mets could take on the risk and potentially have themselves a steal if the Carmona of 2007 and 2010 sticks around for a little while longer.
As the NY Baseball Digest put best, young, cost controlled, high upside starters don’t come around often. What the Indians would be looking for in return remains to be seen. Trading away pieces of an already weak unit would not bode well for the win total between July and September, but the team does have several young arms on the 40-man roster that would conceivably tally innings in the big leagues by the end of 2010.
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(AP Photo/David Richard)
35 Comments
I’m the biggest homer in the world when it comes to the Indians – but trading away a low-cost talented piece under contract for a few more years is not the way to build. He would still be under contract when we would conceivably be contending. The cost of a veteran replacement is at minimum equal to that contract.
I don’t like the idea of trading Carmona. He’s under club control for another three and a half years and has been showing his 2007 form.
I think the Mets would have to actually blow away* the Indians with their offer to get him.
*not the way the Phillies “blew away” Mark Shapiro with their offer for Cliff Lee.
Package him with Santana. It will hurt less if they do it now before I get attached to him.
I have no idea how I feel about this. There is no doubt the kid has nasty stuff but Carmona has been too erratic over his tenure to pass up a great deal. That being said, the deal better be really nice for the tribe cause carmona has ace potential with this young core of players and could be a key piece going forward. Any other thoughts?
yeah, well.. if the guy shows an ounce of talent.. you know the drill. GET RID OF HIM ASAP! GET CHEAP PROSPECTS! TELL THE FANS WE’LL BE CONTENDERS NEXT YEAR!
After the burst of bitterness… meh.. let some other team deal with his erratic-ness. We have more losing to do, here.
Oh wait, still bitter.
Trading Carmona now would fly in the face of reason and past precedent for this organization. They try to compete every few years by signing their young players to reasonable, long term deals. Allegedly this team hopes to compete in 2012. If so, Carmona has to be seen as a piece to that team. It’s not like we have someone to slide easily into a number 2 role. I also think that Carmona, even when he had two atrocious years, still had the stuff; just couldn’t control it.
Demand Jenrry Mejia and Fernando Martinez in return. Take nothing less…
I am torn on this as well. Carmona has potential but is a shaky guy to build around. That being said we also wondered a few years ago whether C.C. was going to be the guy to build a rotation around and look at him now. If the Tribe had some more promising prospects in the minors than they do now I would be in favor of this but given the dearth of starting pitching prospects in the system I think they need to hang on to Carmona and hope he develops more consistency.
With Carlos Beltran scheduled to come off the DL after the All Star break to reclaim his spot in CF, do you think Angel Pagan would be available? Or would the Tribe be looking for young(er) pitching in return. Pagan has been pretty impressive this year.
@ 1 – Completely agree. Moving Carmona makes no sense – the Indians need to build around something and his contract is affordable enough to stomach his potential for inconsistency.
It all depends on what you can get for him. I agree that giving him up doesn’t make sense at all **unless you can get some really good guys on the cusp of being ready for the show**. I don’t know much about the mets prospects so I can’t name names but if you get an offer that blows you out of the water I think you have to look at it.
Just because the report says the Mets are eying him doesn’t mean we are listening, right? Heck, I’ve been eying Albert Pujols at first base for the Tribe for a few years now…wouldn’t he be a great fit? I think trading Carmona now, our only proven (did I just call Fausto proven?) starter after this year would be giving up before even trying for the organization.
Bottom line – I don’t trust Shapiro enough to make a good deal. When I can picture the other team’s GM laughing once he hangs up the phone (like I’m sure Philly did with the Cliff Lee debacle), I know I don’t want to make the trade.
@10 – Yeah but do you know who else’s contract is affordable? Luis Rivera!!! The backup 2B for the Mets single A affiliate, the Savannah Sand Gnats!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, meet your 2B of the future!!!!
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=&sid=t543&t=p_pbp&pid=453014
(See I could be an Indians PR Director; this stuff is easy)
That picture is depressing. Sigh.
If they trade Carmona it’ll be further evidence baseball in Cleveland is minor league. Trade him for a couple more double A prospects.
There needs to be a AAAA league for the all the bottom feeder teams around the mlb. Tribe might do well in that, until they start trading away talent to help the greedy/horrible owner
@3 – LOL! Sad but true !
Why didn’t we get Dominic Brown from the Phillies for Cliff lee last season?
@17 It can work like European football. The top three teams in AAAA can move to the majors, and the bottom three in the majors move to AAAA.
can’t believe that people are so messed up that they believe some garbage that NY Mets are ‘leaking’
of course they are interested in a player who locked up in a decent deal until 2014.
guess what, we are NOT selling. i mean, if the Mets want to blow us away with their best position and pitching prospect, maybe we’ll come to the table, but unlike last year, Shapiro would have all the leverage on this deal.
I swear we’ve become chicken little’s when it comes to the Tribe.
@mgbode – And what was the leverage that we didn’t have with Lee and Martinez? Lee had this year under contract, and Vic swore he’s die an Indian.
The truth is, it is more profitable for small market teams to not compete than it is to compete.
WFNY Guys – can you do a story about the projected 2011 team payroll? Just using the ’10 salary numbers, you have the following money coming off for ’11:
Westbrook: 11.0
Wood: 10.5
Peralta: 4.9
There’s $26.4, with a **POTENTIAL** trade of Carmona clearing another $5.1 (’10 dollars). Assuming no meaningful moves (safe bet), wouldn’t the Indians officially have the lowest payroll in MLB next year?
…..With over 33% of that tied up in Hafner’s contract.
Ok, let’s start off with Vic – We had to make that trade. It was a good trade, it is panning out, and Carlos Santana is sweet (Vic would have been blocking him now). Can we agree there? Victor was a great leader and a good hitter, but because of a bad contract to Hafner, we couldn’t move him into the DH spot to make room for Santana. Let’s move on.
Cliff Lee. Obviously, he wanted to test FA. So much that Philly didn’t want to risk it and gave up more prospects to get a pitcher who is locked in longer. So, we had to trade him. Add in that Shapiro knew we weren’t contending this year and trading him last year wasn’t necessarily a bad move. Now, I wish we would have held onto him if we couldn’t get a deal we liked. It doesn’t look good yet. Let’s hope we got more for him than Minnesota got for Johan when they traded him.
That being said, we had 2 summers to trade Lee who we could tell from negotiations was going to test FA. We have 4 and a half seasons left of Carmona. 4.5 years.
Small market clubs are built by extending their windows open as long as possible by getting youngsters locked into reasonable deals and hoping it all comes together for the team one year. Well, Carmona should have that shot in 2011-2013, then we can trade him in 2014 if we didn’t catch any breaks.
Now, if Shapiro is convinced that Carmona is a head-case and he wants to sell high, that is fine. But, he can do so with all the leverage in that we don’t have to sell. We can sit back and laugh at any offer that isn’t 1-sided in our favor by a desperate team.
@ mgbode Martinez didn’t have anything to do with Santana and VMart could have played 1b. The Martinez trade hasn’t panned out at all and either has the Sabathia one.
The Martinez trade hasn’t panned out at all? Really?
Which would you rather have: a #2/#3 starter (Masterson) or a weak-fielding, good hitting 1B (if you move VMart there)?
I would take the #2/#3 starter every time (Masterson, who has been good). And, we still have 2 prospects doing well in the minors from that trade as well. Not sure what you mean by not panning out.
Lets not get crazy on Masterson. He’s had a decent month but overall he is still 2-6 with a 4.87 ERA. Still a long way to go before anyone definitely calls him a 2/3 starter on a legitimate team. I will say the Vic trade looks better than the CC/Lee deals although that is not exactly high praise..
@mgbode Victor didn’t play 1b any worse then Branyan and he certainly can outhit the “the love muscle” anyday of the week. I guess we just have different definitions for the phrase “panning out.”. I also don’t consider Masterson a #2 maybe a #3 but that’s pushing it.
Tired of getting red in the face. I just hope they don’t trade him away. Mostly because the Indians will probably get $0.25 back on the dollar.
panning out means better after the trade.
having Masterson doing well now, Price doing well as a bullpen arm in the minors who will hopefully get to show us something at the MLB level later this year, and still having the best prospect of the bunch, Hagadone that we could hit on (yes, we have to be patient there).
then, including Branyan at 1b if you must to compare that production as well. yeah, Russell is a dropoff, but i’d do that trade again today no problem because I believe the trade made us stronger.
but, you obviously don’t. you can stick by your convictions that is your right, just know it is not so cut and dry on that trade.
@ mgbode well I do disagree I believe the Indians gave Martinez away for a bunch of arms “who might be” or “maybe one day” produce. Meanwhile Victor is having his normal season for Boston and your stuck with a stiff like Branyan who is blocking LaPorta at first. But heybiv your into prospecting Cleveland is the team for you. I’m with the folks who say the iIndians are one of the AAAA clubs in the majors,
I do agree that I didn’t like the Branyan signing and can’t wait for him to get traded so LaPorta can take everyday MLB swings.
Fans overrate Martinez. Guy was a below average hitting 1B. His OPS was .006 higher than freakin Ryan Garko’s when each was traded!
He’s a great hitting catcher, but if you move him to 1B full-time he becomes just an average hitter there. Guy has NEVER put up a .900 OPS season either. Never heard of an elite hitter not doing that.
Tribe robbed the Red Sox in that deal. As pretty much every team has done when dealing with Epstein (by far the most overrated GM in sports).
A 2% chance? Seems generous. Anyway I can bet against it? Get Vegas on the line.