When I mentioned that the Indians were going to be active this winter, I didn’t mean this type of move:
The Indians acquired infielder Max Moroff and outfielder Jordan Luplow from Pittsburgh in exchange for utility man Erik Gonzalez and a pair of 19-year-old pitching prospects. Right-handers Tahnaj Thomas (No. 30 on the Indians’ Top 30 prospects list per MLB Pipeline) and Dante Mendoza will head to the Pirates’ farm system as part of the deal.
Parsing the comments by Chris Antonetti at the above link, it’s clear that the object of the trade was Luplow. With the Indians losing five major-league outfielders to free agency, they desperately need help there. And preferably affordable help. Luplow has less than a year of major-league service time (affordability), bats right-handed (potential platoon partner for Tyler Naquin if nothing better comes along), and can play all three outfield positions.
The issue of course is that neither Luplow nor Moroff has shown much offense at the major-league level. But then again, neither has Erik Gonzalez, the major-league player the Indians dealt. All three players have either good defensive scouting reports or good defensive results at the major-league level. As for what these three could do with regular playing time, we don’t know. Fangraph’s Steamer projects Luplow at 0.3 WAR with 237 PA, Moroff at 0.2 WAR with 85 PA, and Gonzalez at -0.3 with 196 PA.
Based on that, and given that Gonzalez is out of option years while Luplow and Moroff both one remaining, you can see why the Indians needed to include two very young prospects to make the deal work. Both Thomas and Mendoza are teenage pitchers who threw in Arizona last summer. Thomas is the more highly regarded of the two, ranking #26 in Fangraphs’ post-2018 organization rankings (with a Future Value of 40). Given how young he is, and how risky pitching prospects are, that FV of 40 isn’t that bad at all. But any contribution he’ll make at the major-league level won’t be happening for at least another 3-4 seasons, while the two players the Indians get back will help in 2019…at least marginally.
For I don’t see either Moroff or Luplow being everyday players next year, unless something goes catastrophically wrong with the rest of the roster. Moroff is a middle infielder by trade, so even if he does replace Erik Gonzalez as the backup infielder, he’s not going to play much, not with Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez around. Even if Jason Kipnis is still here and playing second place, Terry Francona isn’t going to make a concerted effort to get him into the lineup. Likewise, Luplow, who as I mentioned above is the reason the Indians made this trade, at best looks to be a fourth outfielder, complementing the two starting corner outfielders, whoever they may be. And even if the Indians see some hidden upside in him, they just aren’t going to pencil him in as a starting outfielder given his major-league numbers (.640 OPS in 209 PA). It bears repeating that both players do have an option year remaining, so they could be beaten out at those reserve spots by others on the roster and the Indians would be able to keep them in the organization. So the team does get a bit more 25-man roster flexibility by deal the out-of options Gonzalez for two players who do have option years.
Here’s my latest 25-man/40-man roster, with both Moroff and Luplow projected on the major-league roster. The Indians still need to add 5.0 wins in order to get back to their 2018 totals, and have about $7M in payroll space to do it (see below for why this changed).
Other roster notes:
Jordan Bastian confirms that Corey Kluber’s 2019 salary will be $17M, and also that his 2020 and 2021 team options will be more expensive as a result of his Cy Young Award finishes over the past couple years. This is reflected in the roster above, and shrinks the amount of “free money” to roughly $7M, assuming that the 2018 payroll is also the 2019 payroll.
Kluber's 2019 salary climbs to $17M. His team options get a boost to $17.5M in '20 and $18M in '21. https://t.co/7Vpa214Crl
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) November 14, 2018
I’ve also added to the roster the number of option years left on each player, using Roster Resource’s data. The number in parenthesis to the right of the player indicates the number of option years remaining. Past 5 years of service time, a team cannot option a player, so that’s why you don’t see any by veterans like Leonys Martin or Dan Otero. But teams can run out of option years well before a player accumulates 5 years of service time, so players like Danny Salazar, Neil Ramirez, and Tyler Olson also cannot be optioned. I don’t see Ramirez lasting the winter on the 40-man roster, but Olson might, so his status will be important next spring as the bullpen spot battles heat up.
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