To Buy or Sell?

By: Jamie Renner 

I think a lot of people are starting to realize that the Indians are sitting in a pretty rough position. For starters, Shane Bieber and Aaron Civale are still down and I am hearing reports Shane will not be throwing rehab assignments until the later half of July. I’m unsure about what exactly is going on with Civale, but for a guy who has not pitched since June 21st, things are maybe not looking so good. Not to mention, Zach Plesac is not having a great year himself and definitely looks like he has regressed since 2019 and 2020. 

So should we be concerned? 

Well, there are two approaches to take when dealing with something like this, the short term and the long term. 

In the short term, yes, we should be hitting the panic button a bit considering our next couple of weeks consist of some of the best teams in the league (i.e. Houston, Tampa, etc..) and we still have no idea what is going on with our top 2 starting pitchers. The front rotation looks and feels like the organization is trying so hard to shove a square object into a round hole, it just is not working as well as planned. JC Mejia and Eli Morgan look… okay… and I say that with a bit of a devilish smirk. Cal Quantrill is slowly turning into Zack McAllister in my eyes. Do not get me started with Triston Mckenzie, he reminds me a lot of my ex-girlfriend, just all over the place and the worst part of it all, is that we still do not know how to handle him. 

The hitting is still horrible with everyone hitting the struggle bus as of recent and it does not look great. Both Ramirez’s are cold, Rosario's cold, Hernandez's stone cold, and just overall everything is bad, Amed Rosario is hitting .246 since June 15th with 1 homerun and 26 strikeouts…. So much for my prediction of him starting to grow into a good hitter. We can throw that article into the garbage can. He has gone from a .284 batting average to a batting average of .259 … Cliff. Jumping. Head first. No Parachute. 

Do not get me started on the outfield…. My goodness, what can go wrong will go wrong. Bradley Zimmer can kick the can and take Yu Chang with him. Just not a good look overall. As I am editing this now I forget to realize Eddie Rosario is still somehow on this team due to the fact that he is always injured. 

I am starting to lose track of where exactly I am going with this article because I do not see a bright side… But you get my point, not many things have looked good on this team all year. 

I have to stop thinking that by trying to add a minimally priced piece, expecting a big impact is going to just leave a massive void of disappointment. The season is in the balance over these next 5 series coming up and I cannot say it looks good…. I vote to sell. 

We are not catching the white Sox and are better off creating roster spots for players who are Rule 5 draft eligible and just do what we can in the off-season. A bounce back season is going to happen sooner than later, as our once famous Cleveland Browns saying used to be “There is always next year.” 

Now in the long term, no, I do not think we should be selling and generally should be adding. Jose Ramirez is a second half player and always has been. Franmil is back in the lineup and Bobby Bradley is starting to really show us who he is as a player. I get it, it's only 36 games for the kid, but you do not just magically pop out a .845 OPS and mash 10 homeruns in such a short span. Plus, I think Plesac will finally get himself into shape already and stop acting like a child. The kid has all of the tools and just needs to mature. Harold Ramirez is awesome and while Eddie Rosario pisses me off with how clueless he can be, he comes up with a decent amount of clutch hits when he is on his A-game. 

We do not have the core group of guys anymore and have to establish that core sometime sooner, that means finding out what is working and is not working both in the Majors and throughout the farm system. 

The team has an INSANE amount of rule 5 eligible players coming up and with a limited number of roster spots to create in that time frame (from now until November) a trade could benefit this team even if it is only for a short amount of time. I think Ketel Marte, Bryan Reynolds, and John Gray are all in play for being a new member of the Cleveland Indians and while our farm system is great, we unfortunately cannot keep all of them. I do not know who, how, or what the details are, I just want to make sure that we keep as many of our prospects as possible, while still adding firepower to fend off some of these killers we are going up against. 

Truly, I do not have the answers, I see both sides to this argument and generally never question the front office and their reasoning for trading players away. 

I just want people to understand that there is a price to pay when wanting to be greedy and the baseball gods are unforgiving. You trade away some single A players in exchange for someone now, you never really know what those guys will turn out to be until it is too late and you regret doing those moves….. (Cough cough cough Yermin Mercedes). Some players will blossom, others will falter, but you just never know. We have a massively youth-filled minor league system with players that have the potential to bring a championship back to Cleveland. 

Guys like: Bryan Rocchio, Bryan Lavistada, Yanier Daiz, Jhonkensy Noel, Tanner Burns, Ethan Hankins, Nolan Jones, Tyler Freeman, Owen Miller, Gabriel Arias, etc.. All of these guys are a part of the big bright future this organization has set in stone for us and we need time to see this happen. Go get addicted to minor league baseball and you will taste the kool-aid I've drank while falling in love with these Indians prospects.