The Cleveland Indians traded Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco to the Mets.
This is bad- and I don't think people realize how bad. And it has nothing to do with who the Indians receive in this trade (I know very little about those prospects).
The Indians have traded superstar players before. Joe Carter. Bartolo Colon. Cliff Lee. CC Sabathia. Kenny Lofton. Trevor Bauer. Corey Kluber. I'm sure I'm missing others.
But this one is worse. Here's why.
In the past, the trades were explained by one of two conditions:
1) The team is in horrible shape, and we are trading one of our few good players to rebuild entirely.
That doesn't apply here. The Indians have done extremely well, and made the playoffs four out of the past five years.
2) We cannot pay superstar player A- but because we trade him, we can pay B, C and D.
The Indians are not in a case where they have to choose between paying five players the market rate. They aren't paying anyone. They have the lowest payroll in baseball- half the next lowest team.
The Indians have been blessed with an abundance of talent over the past five years... and the message the owner, Paul Dolan, has shown has that he will not spend money for this team... ever.
Even if the Indians develop superstar players, those players will not stay with the team.
It's one thing to tell fans, "We cannot match the salaries of the Dodgers and Yankees. We have to pick our spots to compete."
It's another to say, "We cannot compete, and we will not try."
That is the message the Indians sent, and that is the message the fans received.
