The more I think about it, the more I dont see nearly as big of a problem in how the Indians handle this situation of not retaining their best players into free agency. In fact, just the opposite. Lets look back at the past twenty years.
We had CC for 7.5 years and paid him about $37 mil. Milwaukee had him a half year. The Yankees had him eleven years and paid him $227 mil. His years for us were very good. His years for NY were HOF worthy. But we also got ten years of Michael Brantley, for which we paid about $38 mil. Thats an overall plus.
We had Cliff Lee for 6.5 years in which he was up and down, but won a CY. We paid him around $15 mil. He played another 6.5, was very good, and got paid $127 mil. But we also got Cookie for eleven years, in which he was mostly very good, for which we paid $44 mil. The jury will be out a long time on the return we got for Cookie, but even with zero return, the Lee deal was a big plus.
We had Victor for about 5.5 years and paid him around $14 mil. He was very good for us and continued to be very good for another 9.5 years, for which he got paid $127 mil. We also got five so so years out of Masterson for about $10 mil.
We got five very good years from Choo for which we paid about $10 mil. He continued to be very good for eight years, but got paid $137 mil. We also got six very good years from Bryan Shaw for $10 mil plus 5.5 up and down years from Bauer that cost around $27 mil. The return on Bauer is yet to be determined, but at the very least Bauer will have made $119 mil by the time he has pitched 4.5 years after leaving Cleveland.
We got six years out of Lindor for about $30 mil. He will make $22 mil this year. He will make at least $300 million after that. We do not know yet what the return is.
Kluber gave us about seven years, one of which he was hurt. Five of those years may be the greatest Indians pitching feat in the last 100 years, including two CYs. For that we paid about $42 mil. Texas paid him $18 mil for one inning. The Yanks will pay him $11 mil this year. The return for Kluber rests solely on Clase.
Clevinger gave us about 4.5 years for which we paid about $6 mil. SD got four starts out of him and will pay him about $11 mil over the next two seasons. The return for Sunshine is TBD.
We did extend three and kept them thru their contracts...Kip, Pronk, and Brantley.
Kip cost us $40 mil for three years of substandard production, due to the fact injuries had sapped his abilities. His contract became an albatross.
Brantley cost us about $27 mil over his last three seasons, two of which were destroyed by injury.
Hafner wasn't close to being Pronk his last five years here, only playing 100 games once, and never having 400 ABs in a season...all for $57 mil.
In hindsight, as much as they were beloved here, the org would have been better off had we traded all three in their earlier years, instead of playing out the string.
A few notes on all this..
1) The idea that our SOP is trading our best youngsters when they are still young is overblown.
2) Discounting the four most recent trades, the overall return on the others was insane. All those trades, excepting Victor, strengthened the organization. The other t
four are TBD, but it is unlikely that all of Franmil, Allen, Moss, Naylor, Arias, Quantrill, Clase, Rosario, Gimenez, Wolf, and Greene will bust. IMO the odds are far better that we will end up with several long term productive players, some starting this season.
3) Nobody can reasonably think that the Indians, no matter who the owner was, could pay the kind of money to have retained any of those players in their prime.
4) History shows us that we should have traded more of our youngsters, rather than extending them well into their 30s.
5) While we fans might complain about these types of trades, the results have shown our FO to be geniuses.
6) Showing that it is impossible to satisfy fans, there are multiple posts in multiple threads almost demanding that the FO trade JRam, Biebs, or Plesac...or all three...right now.