As rumors fly regarding the possibility of the Indians dealing one of their outstanding starting pitchers, there’s an interesting new wrinkle. The club is discussing a new contract with Carlos Carrasco, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter links).
Details aren’t known, but the Indians obviously see an opportunity to achieve yet more value with Carrasco, a player who has contributed plenty to the organization over the years. He previously inked a four-year, $22MM pact that included two options and has worked out quite favorably for the club. Carrasco has turned in 722 innings of 3.40 ERA ball since putting pen to paper, with advanced metrics suggesting he has been even better than the results alone would indicate.
That contract still has two years left to go; he’ll earn just $9.75MM in 2019, while the club also possesses a 2020 option priced at $9.5MM (with the potential to rise by up to $4MM based upon Cy Young Award-driven escalators). Given that Carrasco is already 31 years of age, he obviously is not working from the strongest position of leverage in talks. Given that he’s discussing another long-term deal with the club, though, it also seems fair to presume that he truly wishes to remain with the only organization he has pitched for at the MLB level.
As this news confirms, but was already evident, the Indians aren’t in a full-blown selling stance. The club still profiles as a massive favorite in the American League Central and is no doubt hard at work thinking of ways to challenge the other top dogs in the AL. Rather, the Indians are trying to pull off a series of moves that will not only leave them in excellent shape for 2019, but will enhance their long-term sustainability.
If a new deal comes together, Carrasco would obviously not be marketed this winter. That’d leave Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer as potentially massive trade chips for the Indians to cash in for younger, controllable position players at an area of need. It’s not hard to see the appeal behind that concept, particularly given the still-impressive pitching depth in the organization. But doubling down on the existing investment in Carrasco is another intriguing avenue for achieving long-term value.
Increasing like that kluber or bauer will be delt probably to the dodgers. Probably have framework in place then with klubers money move that over to carrasco. When are winter meetings??
I think they start on the 9th.
The rumored players that the Dodgers are supposedly offering in trade make no sense at all for Cleveland.
Kudos to Carrasco, he took much less on the last contract just for lifetime security, and it pissed off the Union, now he’s looking at extending the deal. Considering he knows they’re shedding salary, it’s safe to assume he’ll take a team friendly deal again or else they wouldn’t even entertain an offer.
The Indians are a quality organization. Especially good with pitchers.
A guy can sign a multi-year contract with most teams, and as soon as he turns in some bad outings he’ll be traded…..often to multiple teams in 2-3 years with numerous managers and coaches fiddling with him as they try to make a name for themselves. In short order the pitcher becomes confused and lost.
Heck, the other day Bauer said he didn’t want to be traded. He was headed on the above journey when the Indians acquired him, listened to him, and supported him. There may well have been no other organization that could have developed him into what he is today.
Carraso came over to the Indians in the Cliff Lee trade. The Phillies jacked him around not knowing what they were doing. If the Indians had not patiently worked with him, there’s a good chance he would be out of baseball 2-3 years ago. He very probably knows it.
4 years 20 million is what he would get on the market. Give him half
I’m guessing you mean 20 million per year … or maybe just a typo? No way possible you think he would get $5MM a year
He has to mean 4 years 80 million
He’s taking security over maxing out his earning capacity. Smart move, he’s an injury or two away from spending a year or two trying to re-establish value. I’d sign and trade him, Kluber, and Bauer’s, then bring in a couple free agent pitchers before selling them off.
Which is exactly why h3 took the hometown discount on the last contract. Kudos!
Maybe they’ll add a few million his option years in exchange for more years at a similar salary
Perhaps this means they have asked Cookie to go to the pen (replace Cody Allen?)
He has been in the pen before and has done well.
If so, they probably won’t be trading Kluber or Bauer.
With this news I’m leaning more toward Bauer being the one traded now. Bauer has said in the past he doesn’t want to sign long term deals and publicly stated in an interview this week that the Indians won’t be able to pay enough to resign him when he hits free agency. He is young and coming off his best season yet and I like him but it might be the right time to move him too.