In his latest trade rumor report today, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes about some of the leading market forces in play with the major deals that have already happened or could happen this winter. His No. 3 point targets the Indians exactly:
3. The Desperate Team Syndrome
The teams that typically drive the winter market — the Yankees, the Red Sox, etc. — don’t seem to be playing that role. Rather, it’s the teams starved for success. The Mariners are thought by agents to be in this mode, aggressively shopping around at a time when they are under a lot of pressure to do a big move. The Indians are in need of a big shakeup, because of their search for good young starting pitching, which is why they are expected by other GMs to be in the middle of the trade market (Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo, Chris Perez).
It’s been heavily reported that all three of those players could be potential trade pieces this offseason. A likely target of the Indians then would be major league pitching, although the team is not expected to jump ship on all of those players in one mega-deal a la the Miami Marlins.
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