Cleveland Indians: Indians acquire Brad Hand for top prospect Mejia
While all eyes were on Los Angeles and the deal the Orioles and Dodgers were putting together, the Cleveland Indians have made a big trade coming out of the All-Star break
The Cleveland Indians Thursday made a trade to shore up what has been their biggest issue this season – their bullpen. In a big trade with the Padres, the Indians traded away their top prospect, Francisco Mejia, in exchange for two relievers.
Who the Cleveland Indians got
The big “get” for the Cleveland Indians is lefty Brad Hand. Hand has been one of the best relievers in all of baseball over the last few seasons, with a 2.66 ERA over 213 innings of relief since the start of the 2016 season with a tremendous 71/280 BB/K ratio. He’s widely considered one of the best left-handed relievers in the entire game, and pairing him with Andrew Miller could very well give the Indians two of the 3-4 best left-handed relievers in all of baseball.
The other piece of the deal was right-handed reliever Adam Cimder. He’s worked his way up through the Padres system before breaking through this year. In 48 1/3 innings this year, he’s allowed a 3.17 ERA, but he’s actually posted a 2.32 FIP, which leads to a thought that he could give an even better performance in the second half. Cimber has posted a tremendous 26.6% strikeout rate and 5.2% walk rate in his rookie season. He’s a sinker/slider combo pitcher out of the bullpen who will generate plenty of grounders.
One huge thing about both Hand and Cimber is that they’re controlled for next season. With both Cody Allen and Miller free agents after this season, this gives the Cleveland Indians some bullpen security for 2019 as well.
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Who the Cleveland Indians gave up
Francisco Mejia has been regarded as one of the top catchers in the minor leaguers, and one of the top prospects overall. After the 2017 season, he was ranked #20 by Baseball America, #11 by MLB Pipeline, and #5 overall by Baseball Prospectus. We at Call to the Pen ranked him #22 in our recent midseason prospect rankings.
Mejia has long had tremendous contact skills with some polish needed on his defense behind the plate. He’d begun working at other positions to help get his quality bat to the major leagues for the Indians last season, spending time in the Arizona Fall League at third base.
He opened the season struggling, hitting just .189/.258/.293 as of June 1st. His bat came alive in June, which helped bring his prospect status back up to allow for this deal to even happen. He’s currently hitting .277/.330/.423 in the minor leagues.
Next: CTTP's midseason top 150 prospects
The Cleveland Indians have now made the first big strike of the American League contenders. They’re likely not done, either, but this will make a big impact on the team.