TUESDAY: There isn’t currently much momentum between Encarnacion and the Indians, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick tweets. Crasnick writes that Encarnacion hopes to receive a longer and more lucrative contract than the Indians are willing to offer.
MONDAY: The Indians are discussing a multi-year contract with slugger Edwin Encarnacion, Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. Cleveland’s interest in Encarnacion was first reported earlier today, and it appears as though the Tribe has more than just a cursory interest — talks are “serious,” Hoynes writes, though there’s no indication that the two sides are close to any sort of agreement.
With Mike Napoli a free agent, the Tribe have been connected to several first basemen this offseason, though Encarnacion (the top first base option on the market) was widely considered to be beyond Cleveland’s financial reach. When asked if this was the case, however, Indians director of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said “you don’t have to curb expectations. We are being exhaustive in exploring options to improve our position player club.”
A source tells Hoynes that the Tribe’s run to Game 7 of the World Series may have generated as much as $48MM in extra revenue for the club, which could provide Antonetti and company with some unexpected payroll flexibility. It could be something of a perfect storm for Cleveland, as the team’s extra money coincides with a possible downturn in Encarnacion’s market — potential suitors like the Blue Jays, Astros, Yankees have acquired other players, while the Red Sox and Rangers have both shown only lukewarm interest.
The draft pick compensation tied to Encarnacion (due to his rejection of the Jays’ qualifying offer) has also reportedly factored into his relatively quiet market, and giving up the 27th overall pick of the 2017 draft to sign Encarnacion is surely a major consideration for the Indians as well. The loss of a first-rounder is even a bigger hurdle for a smaller-market team like Cleveland that relies on cost-effective young talent, and the Tribe already dealt several top prospects for Andrew Miller at last July’s deadline.
In a projected lineup, Encarnacion would split the first base/DH duties with Carlos Santana. Michael Brantley‘s status could also be of note here, as after missing almost all of 2016 with shoulder and biceps injuries, Brantley’s ability to play the outfield next year could be somewhat in question.
This would be a huge signing for their club.
Just a theory. What if the Brewers sign Edwin. Move Eric Thames to the outfield and trade Braun for some pitching. Just imagine the numbers Edwin could put up at Miller Park. And trade Braun for a front of the rotation starter like maybe, just maybe jump into the mix for Sale, Archer, and Gray. A Sale package could be Sale and David Robertson for Braun, Wily Peralta, Tyler Thornborg, Scooter Gennett, Junior Guerra, Brett Phillips, and Tyler Cravy. But that probably won’t happen with the probability the Sale goes to Washington
I feel like even with the acquisition of some pitching as you described, Milwaukee wouldn’t be attractive enough as a competitive team. But if EE really just wanted the power numbers, why leave Toronto?
Answer: it’s too late to rewind the clock and get the offer that was made months ago.
That won’t happen. Braun doesn’t have much surplus value on his huge contract. None of the others are top prospects or considered above-average MLB starters. You can’t just trade a bunch of spare parts for a superstar. Those types of trades are always put forth on MLBTR and they never happen in real life.
Braun doesn’t have a ton of value because of age and the contract, the rest of those guys aren’t anything. Can’t imagine why the rebuilding Brewers would want Edwin or Robertson.
I’d be pretty upset if we got outbid by the Indians.
I’m assuming you’re a Jays fan like myself. Unless the deal is for more than the $20MM per year we offered, we technically wont/didn’t get outbid. You can’t blame Shapiro and crew for taking the offer of 4/80 off the table after EE said he wanted to see what’s out there. It’s his and his agent’s fault for not properly assessing the market and the Jays had every right to get cheaper players to try and replace the production before they signed elsewhere. As much as I would have loved to have him back, I’m totally OK with him going to the Indians if that’s where he ends up. 4/80 was totally reasonable and his love for Toronto should have been more than enough to accept that. I don’t know what waiting on an extra 1 or 2 mil. per year would have done considering he has a draft pick attached to him.
BLOW JAYS!!! Love it. Their GM always tries to buy low on their own players. Another reason they suck. And the Indians are far from irrelevant. They went to the WS and took a team with Cy Young caliber pitcher and MVP to 7 games when the Indians missed the most important guys of their starting rotation along with their best bat. Not to mention the Cavs have won and might even win another title this season. Congrats to Toronto to winning in early 90’s but both their major sports franchises have been waaaaaaay more irrelevant than Cleveland has.
Wow. Such enthusiasm. Too bad it didn’t rain or you would need assistance keeping your head from being borderline operable.
Hmmm I wasn’t saying they were irrelevant due to a lack of recent success. I stated that they were irrelevant because despite their recent success they were’t even able to draw 20,000 fans a game on average. They finished third last in attendance. And my reference to the city being irrelevant wasn’t about the other sports teams it was about the literal irrelevance of the city of Cleveland. I am not really sure how you can say that the Jays have been more irrelevant than the Indians since the indians haven’t won in much longer and draw way fewer people even when they’re winning.
Obviously you’ve never been to Cleveland to know what you’re talking about. Attendance issues are mainly because the fanbase hates the Dolans and their frugal ways. A big signing like EE would change that – and their recent WS run already increased their season ticket base considerably. I’d expect attendance to be much higher in 2017 than we’ve had in the past. But, to put out a blanket statement of the “literal irrelevance of the city of Cleveland” is just dumb, to be blunt.
The Attendance issues existed before the Dolan owned the team. The funny thing is that if you heard the the narrative in Toronto about ownership it’s the exact same thing, everyone hates Rogers because they haven’t historically spent enough to put the team over the top. Also, attendance is almost exclusively based on the size of the market and the quality of the product. While the indians product has been decent (albeit inconsistent) since Dolan bought the team the market is too small for the team’s attendance to rise consistently above 2 mill a season (unless they are in the midst of a dynasty of sorts like between 1995 and 2001 which is the same for almost any team. Signing EE wouldn’t change that. The year after the indians signed Swish and Bourn they won 92 Games and they were only able to draw 1.6million fans. I would amend my statement of “Literal irrelevance of the city of Cleveland” with the caveat “in terms of baseball” because regardless of payroll or success the team is simply unable to draw.
The attendance issues didn’t exist before Dolan bought the team, actually. When Dolan bought the Indians they were still going with their record (at the time) sellout streak of 455 straight games. I’d say selling out 455 straight games isn’t an attendance problem. Next time research your claims.
And the Jays were the first team to draw 4 million fans. All ancient history at this point. Fact is, Cleveland’s attendance was terrible despite having a great, exciting young team. Whether people don’t like the Dolans or not (and who does?) is what’s irrelevant; get out there and support your freaking team instead of worrying about where the money you spend doing it will end up.
I even mentioned in my comment that between 1995 and 2001 the Indians didn’t have the attendance problems… therefore i did research my claims. Nice try though! Every year prior to that and after that they have had attendance problems.
Ah, I misinterpretted your statement, I assumed you didn’t look and see how long Dolan had owned the team. In the alternative, I’ll say that claiming that a city is irrelevant in regards to baseball by citing attendance records is just silly. Cleveland is relevant in baseball because Cleveland Indians executives are spread throughout the league: Hart, O’Dowd, Cherrington, Shapiro, Huntington, Byrnes to name a few… and yeah, that’s the same Shapiro and Cherrington that are President and Vice President of baseball operations for the Blue Jays. I’d call that pretty relevant.
Oh, man, and Ross Atkins, too, I forgot about him.
I would say the quality of the teams executives has little to do with the city and a lot to do with the person in charge of hiring personnel. Also, citing executives as a barometer for relevance is sort of odd. In my opinion the amount of people that care about the product is what makes it relevant, in fact my whole point was that the product (including front office and squad) has been solid but that they aren’t relevant because despite that because of the lack of people that care about the product they put out. And food for thought: Maybe the fact that they continue to lose top executives emphasizes their irrelevance… that argument could go both ways.
So, you’re just city bashing? I don’t get it. If we aren’t talking about the quality of the organization and this is just a “your city sucks,” that’s rah rah crap. If not, what do you mean by relevant then? Cleveland has a quarter the pop of Toronto and draws half as many fans. Seems like the Indians are twice as relevant in terms of the percentage people within the city that buy the “product” by that metric. Or are you just talking sheer numbers? That bigger cities are more relevant than smaller ones? Also, Atkins, O’dowd, Huntington all left because the Indians had promoted others. With the exception of Shapiro, who just got offered a crap-load of money, so I don’t think that emphasizes their irrelevance. Shapiro gets bumped up, O’dowd and Huntington, left, Anotnetti gets bumped up, Atkins goes. Those guys left because there was no room to advance, at least that’s what the evidence suggests based on the timeline of the exits.
Not bashing the city, just it’s relevance in baseball terms. I have never mentioned rate stats with regards to attendance because market size is the crux of my argument. I guess, by extension of looking exclusively at the sheer numbers I am knocking the city for its population but my point stands. What matters is the amount of people that care about the team, you can’t discount the factor of market size and look at rate stats because that gets real dicy (i.e. an extreme would be that there a team in a town with two people that love baseball and watch every game, meaning that 100% of the market shows up to the games). Sheer numbers are what matters because that is where money is made, that is where popularity comes from, that is where widespread appeal comes from and by extension of all of these factors and more it is also where relevance comes from. And going back to the executive thing i’m just not sure that even has a place in a discussion about relevance… as I said i’m not debating the on field product (which is what those men create). Also, keep in mind when you look at rate stats and compare attendance that there is a maximum to the amount of people you can have in seat. thats pretty important because it might make the team with less people in seats look closer than they are.
Your point is that cities with higher populations are more relevant because you define relevancy within the sport as popularity, amount of money made, and widespread appeal? So naturally any team in a city with less population than Toronto, or lacking some national U.S. appeal like Boston, New York (AL), Chicago (NL), or not currently in a dynasty type run, will be less relevant than Toronto? And that stands without even trying to work in rate stats because you are just arguing “sheer numbers” which is all that matters when determining relevancy as you’ve defined it? So boiled down your argument is that Cleveland isn’t relevant because it has a small population, even if that 390k pop draws 20k/per game leaving 16k seats empty on avg and a city like Toronto with a pop of 2.6 mil draws 41k/per game and leaves about 12k seats empty on avg. Those numbers don’t matter because total numbers aren’t including all those Blue Jay fans who would have gone to games, but couldn’t because those games were sold out. I’m not sure Toronto sold out enough games to factor that in if their stadium holds 53k and they averaged 41.5k, but whatever. I think you could have just skipped all the BS and said, “Toronto is better because it has more people.” You’re right execs have no place in this discussion because we aren’t talking about the organizations, or how those organization influenced the rest of baseball, we’re talking about how many fans go to games. Not the ratio of fans that go to games compared to the cities pop. just the sheer number of fans. Ok. Then I agree, Toronto is a much bigger city.
This is so accurate. Cleveland is a dump
like good post
let us acquire the E-carn ohhhh Jobuuuuuuuuuu not do what did to gomsey….do better….diss time ttree chickens 4 u ohhh mghty jobuuuuuu
Jays stadium seats less than 50k, its capacity has never been 53k for baseball. Even when it opened and had more seats it was only right around 50K.
Lets talk about Rob Ford since you want to bash Claeveland.
Shapiro and Atkins misplayed the market too. How did Morales get three years?
The winning team in free agency is always the one who bid higher than 29 other teams thought the player was worth.
Wonder how good a 1b Brantley would make if necessary.
Would be a great signing for the Indians— can’t get to the WS and not try to stay at that level
Wow! Indians with Edwin. Nats with sale. My Cubs have some competition.
I’d say that they already had all they could handle with an Indians team that was missing a super star outfielder and 2 Allstars pitchers
Like
yes
Haha yah “all they could handle without a superstar outfielder and 2 Allstar pitchers” you can speculate all you want but and the end of the day the Cubs and a limping KS ended the drought! We’ll see how the al all stars do next year!
Would fit PERFECTLY into their lineup..
Funny how Jays fans think they’re superior to Cleveland when the Indians dismantled them in 5 games and the Cavaliers continually own the Raptors. If anything, the city of Toronto is the laughing stock of all major sports cities and it’s not even close.
As a Jays fan, I’m not even going to debate that. I’m just so thrilled that this year’s triumphs have so raised the spirits of the Mistake by the Lake’s citizens. I really feared for their sanity a couple years back, but I’m willing to take the shots now just to see little brother back on his feet. What’s more, my Mom and Dad were Indian fans back in the 50’s, when there were no Jays and the Tribe was the only team you could hear on the radio from Niagara Falls, Ontario, so I have a soft spot. Congrats on finding your balls.
you are a true gent…class post…or lady…whichever. I’m on the Carolina coast now but originally from Erie, Pa. Help us think positive and get some sluggers so maybe the barrel will hold next time we board north of the Horseshoe and plummet over the cliff toward the Series…….and good luck to the Jays as well….been to Toronto many times…..a great and wonderful city as is Cleveland. Peace and Please let us have Ed-Carn 🙂
What do the Cavaliers have to do with the Jays and the Indians… Also i don’t know if you watched the series or not but that defs wasn’t a dismantling the Jays scored 8 runs in the series and the Indians scored 12. The jays actually out hit the indians as they got 33 hits while the indians got 25. So, while I admit that the Indians played slightly better they most certainly did not dismantle the blue jays. Seems like a series that could have gone either way and really came down to terrible hitting and clutch pitching from both sides. If you are going to use one series to say that a franchise is superior to another then you would tell me that the indians are eons better than the Red Sox (based on this past post season). The problem with that is that it’s unequivocally false. The Red Sox have a much higher winner percentage throughout their history, they have 6 more world series and 3 in the last decade and a half. If one series is truly the determinant of superiority as a franchise then you got me but seeing as how the playoffs can often be a cr**shoot (as the Jays/Indians series was) I would say that you are probably misinterpreting what superiority means in this context.
The Indians were just better. Won series 4-1 and season series 4-3. Let’s Talk about relevancy you missed the playoffs 21 straight years had better attendance some years than the Indians. Other years even when the Indians were bad had about even attendance with the Jays. When we were in the playoffs since 01,07,13 we had a better attendance mark. Talking about playoffs while you missed for 21 years we were there 9 times. You have been relevant for 2 years calm down. We made the WS 3 times in that time frame. But yeah we aren’t relevant. Reason Cavs are brought up you were bashing the city. Sorry you can’t beat the “irrelevant city” in the playoffs in either sport.
I might be in the minority, but I’m fine if we lose EE. His contract is more than likely going to be crippling or at least bad at the end. And the same fans who are calling for shapiros head right now for not signing him would be the ones calling for his head if his contract turns into a albatross. There’s no winning for him
Seems like the Indians make the most sense at this point.
I still think Trumbo might be in play here for the Tribe. He can slot into the outfield for the first couple years of the contract, and Brantley, if he comes back and cannot handle the OF, can split the 1b/dh responsibilities with Santana.
This
No thanks on Trumbo or EE. Those contracts would cripple this franchise even if they do play well. If they don’t, it’s another Hafner deal where one guy forces them to dump everybody around him because they can no longer afford them.
The Indians need some dangerous sluggers. So many times during the season we left men on base with one out or less….I mean…like THREE men on base. Sheeesh. E-Can fits the bill of dangerous slugger…let’s get’em and a few more…shoot…give up TWO first round picks and yes….I am a fan that watched closely as Gomes goated out at the plate with Coco running and I also saw Tito’s fav-boy Home Run Shaw march back out…Double Sheeesh
let’s get some dangerous sluggers and finally win The Series
If Brantley can go in the outfield, then I absolutely love this move. If Brantley’s shoulder is still an issue, it’s too many DH types
I wish the best for Brant but I think he is done. Still like us getting some hitters that make opposing fans following on game day peek around the corner when they are up like we have to do all the time. E-can just a start…we need him AND a slugging outfielder as well as another sharp lefty in the pen.
Teams don’t have to outbid Toronto, the tax implications mean they can even come in lower and he’d still make more money.
cash is king, indeed. We need cash…fans bring cash…we need fans
cash brings sluggers…we need sluggers
Tribe has ALWAYS had fairly decent pitching. WE ALWAYS goat out at the plate. We need sluggers.
I live in Cle all my life but if I had to pick another city it would be Toronto. Great debate guys I enjoyed it