Cardinals’ Rumors: Cleveland Indians trade partners again?

Sep 14, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco (59) throws a pitch during the third inning against the Kansas City Royals at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Option #1 Carlos Carrasco

This is an intriguing option. Carrasco’s overall career numbers aren’t the best, but his 3.45 FIP shows that he has some talent. Carrasco has been back and forth from the Indians to the minor league affiliates since 2009 and has had some good seasons but has been kind of inconsistent over the majority of his career.

Many thought that Carrasco was going to take off this year. Last year Carrasco was relegated to the bullpen for most of the season after having four straight starts where he gave up four earned runs or more to start the season.

Carrasco returned to the rotation on August 10th and made ten starts to finish the season, with an ERA of 1.30 and a sparkling 1.73 FIP, while averaging a really good 10.13 K/9 and 1.43 BB/9. This was a really good comeback for Carrasco and it secured his spot in the rotation for 2015.

However, Carrasco had a little bit of bad luck in 2015, he finished 14-12 with an ERA of 3.63 and a FIP of 2.84 which suggests that his ERA should have been lower, but Carrasco played with a bad Indians team last year.

As a fantasy owner of Carrasco, I knew he had a lot of bad games this year, but when you look at the bad games he had, almost all of them have drastic differences between his FIP and ERA, which means that Carrasco’s defense certainly did not help him this year. Carrasco, did however take care of business on his own a lot, as he finished the year with a ridiculous 10.58 K/9.

Interestingly enough, an article by Fangraphs’ August Fagerstrom the Indians discussed a deal with the San Francisco Giants that included Joe Panik and Brandon Belt. So, if the Cardinals and Indians are to do a deal, maybe someone like a Tommy Pham or Matt Adams could be of interest to the Indians, with a throw in of a high contact prospect like a Darren Seferina. Fagerstrom also mentioned that according to fWAR projections, Carrasco is a top 10 pitcher in this league. With that said, Carrasco would be a fantastic addition.

Can you imagine a “future” rotation with Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Carlos Carrasco, Michael Wacha, and Alexander Reyes? Wow that would be electric. Make it happen Mo! Heck, with Aledmys Diaz and Jedd Gyorko in hand, I may even consider letting go of Kolten Wong.