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For the last three seasons the Cleveland Indians have won the American League Central. Unfortunately, those three division win have only equaled one trip to the World Series. In 2016 World Series the Indians lost 4 games to 3 to the Chicago Cubs.

Currently, the Indians are 3 games behind the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central. Cleveland also is holding the top wild card spot in the American League right now. The Indians are currently 2 games ahead in the wild card race. 

Even with a winning franchise the Indians just can’t seem to get fans to show up. Through 53 games this season the Indians ranked 20th out of 30 major league teams. On average Cleveland draws 20,565 fans per game. Besides winning a World Series you have to wonder what else Indians fans need to better support this team.

It appears the low fan turnout has finally gotten to the Indians. This past off season, they allowed Michael Brantley to leave as a free agent and they dealt veterans Edwin Encarnacion and Yan Gomes to try and cut some payroll. There was even talk that the Indians would be willing to deal a couple of their top pitchers be it Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco or Trevor Bauer.

None of the deals for those pitchers materialized during the off season, but it was definitely something that needed to be  kept an eye on. Then Kluber was struck by a line drive and suffered a non-displaced fracture of his right ulna bone. Now Kluber is beginning to throw off a mound in his rehab but he won’t be returning until late August. Carrasco was the next Indians pitcher to hit the IL and his was quite serious as he was diagnosed with leukemia. Carrasco has started a throwing program, but there is no timetable for his return. That left Bauer as the only starter left that they tried to trade in the off season.

Now as far as top of the rotation starters Bauer was an affordable alternative as he was making $13 million dollars this season through arbitration. Bauer has one more year of arbitration before he’ll hit free agency after next season.

In the end it took a three team deal, but the Indians where finally able to move Bauer. It was the Indians, the Cincinnati Reds and the San Diego Padres who coordinated this deal and here’s who landed where.

The Reds were the team that ended up with Bauer. San Diego ends up with Cincinnati outfield prospect Taylor Trammell while the Indians bring 5 players back to Cleveland in this deal. From Cincinnati Cleveland receives Yasiel Puig and Scott Moss. Going from San Diego to Cleveland is Franmil Reyes, Logan Allen and Victor Nova.

It was reported that one of the things Cleveland was looking to acquire was a power hitting outfielder and they got two in Puig and Reyes. Puig has 22 home runs so far this season while Reyes sits at 27 home runs. Carlos Santana was the Indians home run leader with 22 before this trade.

So the Indians end up with 2 quality major league outfielders and three prospects. The Reds get a top of the rotation starter. Which is something they’ve been looking for all season and the Padres get a top outfield prospect who is ranked anywhere from 11th to 33rd depending on which publication you read.

Now the Indians are the only one of these three teams that are in the playoff race and you have to wonder how dealing a top starter like Bauer will affect that. The Indians have a couple of 24 year old starting pitchers in Shane Bieber and Zach Plesac who seem to have started to establish themselves and if Mike Clevenger can stay healthy it looks like Cleveland will be able to hang around not only in the AL Central, but in the wild card race.

Don’t forget if Kluber comes back healthy and is anywhere near the pitcher he use to be the Indians will be adding a former Cy Young award winner to their rotation for the final month of the season.

To be honest, when I first saw this trade reported I wasn’t sure that Cleveland had not gotten enough for a pitcher like Bauer, but now that I’ve had the time to sit down and take a full look at the trade, I think they did vey well. Of course the difficult thing with any deal is you just never know how a prospect is going to turn out. Scott Moss is in Double-A while Victor Nova has only played in Rookie League. Logan Allen made 8 appearances for San Diego 4 of which where starts covering 25 1/3rd innings; so he looks to be major league ready if the Indians want to add him to the roster, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s assigned to Triple-A to begin with.

So now it’s up to you. Who got the better of this deal? Do you like the group of players the Indians got back? Or is it the single players that either the Reds or the Padres got in this deal that have drawn your interest?

While Bauer was the big name pitcher that was dealt yesterday there were two middle relievers traded yesterday that come really help their new teams.

The Chicago Cubs acquired reliever David Phelps from the Toronto Blue Jays for right-hander Tom Hatch who is currently in Double-A. The Atlanta Braves also added some bullpen help as they acquired Chris Martin of the Texas Rangers who’s name was involved with a lot of teams as a bullpen piece. The Rangers received left-hander Kolby Allard who is currently in Triple-A, but did appear in 3 games last season for Atlanta.

It seems as though every team could use some kind of help in the bullpen; so I won’t be surprised if we see a lot of reliever get moved at the trade deadline, but with Bauer off of the board there aren’t too may big time starters out there to trade for.

With the New York Mets acquiring Marcus Stroman over the weekend, will we see them deal Noah Syndergaard, Zach Wheeler or both? The San Francisco Giants are just 2 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, will they keep Madison Bumgarner or trade him? It looks like the Detroit Tigers have decided to hang onto Matthew Boyd, but could the right deal change the Tigers mind? The Arizona Diamondbacks might also be a factor at the trade deadline if they decide to trade Zach Greinke or Robbie Ray.

That’s not a lot of starting pitchers, so there could be some teams battling to acquire one of these guys. This should make it interesting to see what happens later today at the deadline.

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