Cleveland Indians: Breaking down offseason trade rumors

Cleveland Indians fans were given quite the juicy trade rumor on Wednesday, but it is important to realize what some of these rumors mean.

The Cleveland Indians didn’t make a trade on Wednesday to spice up this slow offseason. Instead, a rumor came out that had a lot of fans creating their own theories.

A rumor, which we wrote about yesterday and will share in the ICYMI section in a few paragraphs, came out that said the Indians had spoken to the Red Sox about trading Edwin Encarnacion. The rumored trade itself brings up a lot of thoughts, but I think it’s important to note that this was not some sort of mega-deal that fell through at the last second.

Teams in all sports float trade ideas out to other teams. Sometimes this is done to spark serious conversation and other times it may be done just out of curiosity. It is likely that the Indians have received offers for Encarnacion from several teams, and the Red Sox trade rumor is the only one to leak.

The leaks are a whole other story, as teams do that for a variety of reasons as well.

The good news is that Encarnacion is still here and the front office is doing its due diligence to ensure this team remains a contender in 2018. Trading the slugger may not have been the best idea, but it surely would have been part of a much bigger plan.

ICYMI

Indians Rumors: Encarnacion almost traded to Red Sox?

Does Tyler Clippard make sense for the bullpen?

Quite the attention-grabbing trade

At first I thought this was just a player with a similar name. But no, the quarterback is switching Spring Training camps this year. Living the dream.

Ranking the best

What is your top five?

Next: Top 5 home run hitters in franchise history

And no, Ricky Vaughn can’t make your list.