Guardians head into winter meetings with a history of franchise-shaping trades (Podcast)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Baseball’s winter meetings are a few days away and the Guardians have a history of making franchise-transforming deals once the league gets together for its annual swap meet. Will Cleveland’s front office find the right trade for the right price to boost the club’s historically low power output from last season?

On Friday’s podcast, Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look back at some of the biggest deals struck by Cleveland at past winter meetings and what could take place on Music City when Chris Antonetti, Mike Chernoff and Stephen Vogt arrive.

Listen and read along with an AI-generated transcript of the podcast below.

Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.

Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast, Dec. 1, 2023

Joe Noga (00:15): It’s Friday, December 1st and you’re tuned into the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. I’m Joe Noga, joined by Paul Hoynes Hoey. The winter meetings for baseball are days away in Nashville. You’re heading down to Music City to take part in the annual tradition of waiting around in the hotel lobby for somebody to break some sort of news about a trade or something. Talked to some managers and team officials, but the winter meeting’s always an exciting time for baseball as we sort of get to see not just what each team is going to look like, but what the league is going to look like and how it’s going to change from year to year.

Paul Hoynes (00:55): Yeah, it’s always an exciting time, Joe. It’s lost some of its luster over the years because it used to be a gathering point for all the teams and deals used to get done and free agent signings used to get done. Now a GM really doesn’t have to leave his office in his city texts and phone calls and FaceTime and you can get everything done without gathering in one place, but it’s still a cool thing. Everybody turns out the agents, Scott Boros makes his annual tech, his state of the game, state of Scott Boros and telling everyone how great his clients are and he usually comes in and controls the lobby for a couple hours in the middle of the meetings. So you get to see a lot of old friends, a lot of people, and you get to hear a lot of gossip.

Joe Noga (01:54):

Well, come on now, Hoey, try not to sound like too much of a boomer here and lamenting the state of the way that things are. The reason that things have devolved the way they have is the internet, right? It’s Twitter. Oh yeah. Back then, the deals and the trades and the signings and all that got broken there in the lobby and at this meeting, but now with the way things are connected online and the different social media apps that our outlets for the agents and the players and the teams and all that, you almost don’t even need these meetings to take place in person and we saw that during Covid. We saw that during the pandemic that they really didn’t need to have them sort of in person to still have the business of baseball get done. It’s just a nice tradition and nice break right before the holidays or right between the holidays for everybody to get back together after a couple of months of not having baseball in their lives and just sort of have a tangible outlet for it and be around each other. That’s really what you’re getting together for, right?

Paul Hoynes (03:08): Yeah, definitely. And Joe, you brought up a good point. I remember one winter meetings, I don’t know where we were, but I have not gotten on the internet yet, and the guy sitting next to me, Larry Larou from Seattle goes, what are you doing? You got to get on a OL, you got to get on this thing. Yeah, the world is passing you by. And so I got it at another one we were in, oh God, Indianapolis for the winter meetings. Anthony Castor Vince is covering for MLB and we’re talking to Manny Acta and Manny tells us Carlos Santana broke his handmaid bone and playing winter ball and I’m getting ready to run back to the press room and write it. Anthony whips out his blackberry and just kind of touch a few words in there and kicks my butt on it and I’m sitting there thinking, this is not good. The world is changing. I have got, and I’m on the caboose hanging onto the caboose with my teeth here.

Joe Noga (04:16): Well, you’ve caught up and then since then you certainly have evolved and maybe the winter meetings has been part of that. So great to see, and we’ll get into more depth here later on in this podcast talking about Cleveland and the guardians and the Indians and their history at the winter meetings, some of the stuff that they’ve done in the past and just looking forward to this year’s meetings, A couple of news and tidbits to clean up here from the past couple of days. The guardians did actually make a signing. There was a pitcher that has joined the club on a minor league deal, Jaime Bea from The Angels five years with the Angels. He was released and he is elected minor league free agency and has chosen to sign a minor league deal with the guardians. This is a guy who’s got more than 330 major league innings, some as a starter, some as a reliever, sort of versatile in that way, not exactly the shining, glittering kind of numbers that you would hope free agent Signee would bring with you, especially against Cleveland. I think only he’s got actually really awful numbers against Cleveland in his career. He is, oh, and two in four starts in 14 innings. He’s given up four home runs, 13 strikeouts, but overall this is a veteran arm, a depth guy that they can maybe plug in at AAA and sort of store ‘em there and stash ‘em there to provide depth and backup at the major league level.

Paul Hoynes (06:07): Yeah, Joe, I think this is the kind of guy, remember when they signed a Los Santos, kind of same kind, same kind of scenario, minor league deal, not a great track record. He’d been bounced around a little bit in the big leagues, but look what Dale Los Santos did. He turned around, stabilized that bullpen, gave him two years, two solid years, and then they were able to trade him and got a pretty good piece back in Scott Barlow. I think they’re looking to do that, but with Berea, I think they’re looking maybe as the Los Santos correlation with as a starter. I think they’re looking for their depth in a rotation. This is a kind of guy that could help them in case they run into the kind of injuries they did last season and because you look at that staff, Joe, question Marks, Bieber, question marks with Mackenzie, you got three young guys backing those guys up in Gavin, Williams, Allen and Bobby, and a couple who’s behind them, Curry gaddis. So I think you need kind of an experienced guy and maybe this guy can fill that role.

Joe Noga (07:28): Yeah, I would expect maybe to see one or maybe two more of these kind of signings in terms of bringing in one or two more guys like this just to sort of fill out the roster and spring training. See if you can have that sort of build on that at aaa, because you’re right with not knowing Mackenzie and Beaver’s physical status, how durable they’re going to be this year. It could be another situation. You don’t want to definitely be bouncing around back and forth with calling Hunter Gaddis up four or five times in a stretch during the season. It’s going to be, you want somebody to be able to plug into one of those roles if there’s an emergency and you have a need, and certainly could be that guy. He was really good in his rookie season, I believe back in 20 18, 3 0.41 ERA in 26 starts. I mean, he just hasn’t recaptured that sort of success in the years since then. So we’ll see if he can turn things around as under the Guardian’s guidance, you get him in that pitching factory, see if he can turn things around.

Paul Hoynes (08:49): Yeah, great point. Great point, Joe. I mean, have the guardian’s, minor league pitching guys, kind of get their hands on him, see what he looks like in spring training. If he doesn’t make the club, I guess he’s out of options, so I guess you’d have to make a, you’d pass waivers, you’d have to make a deal with him if you go down, we’ll bring you up in a certain amount of time, that kind of thing, but it can be done and it’s been done before and this is just the kind of guy they’re looking for.

Joe Noga (09:24): Yeah, exactly. He’s motivated to want to pitch well to make himself a viable option for the major league level and as we’ve seen over the last several seasons, the need is going to be there at some point no matter what your starting rotation looks like rolling into the beginning of the season. Alright. Also, we talked, you talked too, and you talked about in a post that you put up, Mike Augh, the guardian’s longtime member of the organization had been the team’s third base coach and been with the Major League Club the last 11 seasons under Terry Fona, but the club decided to part ways with Sarvi a face that had been around for 34 years in the organization. He’s now signed on with the Mets. What more do you know about sbe joining New York staff under Carlos Mendoza?

Paul Hoynes (10:23): Yeah, just great news for Mike Augh. Joe Sar, and so do, I mean, great guy. He knows what he’s doing out there and I was really sad when they fired him and I’m sure Chris Antoinette and Mike s Shernoff, that had to be one of their toughest calls. This guy’s, he’s been here longer than Chernoff and Antonette, but I’m glad he landed on his feet. The Mets are getting a great baseball guy. The Mets contacted him in early November. He definitely still wants to coach. He’s 55, 56 years old. He’s going to be the infield coach for the Mets, so just really good news and a great Christmas present for the Augh family.

Joe Noga (11:20): Well, and I don’t know, he is going to be the infield coach for the Mets. Is he familiar with anybody over there maybe playing short Chop in New York? Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, I guess there’s somebody who he knows at least a familiar face on that roster in Francisco Lindor should make things easier for him for sure. Do you know if he he’ll coach third base again or is that something that wasn’t, is he just on the staff or will he be a base coach or is that yet to be determined?

Paul Hoynes (11:48): Yeah, he’s going to coach third base and be the infield coach. Great. That’s fantastic. I think what Lindo won a gold glove and a platinum glove with SAR as the Enfield coach, right?

Joe Noga (12:00): Absolutely. Yeah. His rookie year, he won the platinum glove, the best defender in the American League at the time, and SAR leaves Cleveland having coached the best defender in the American League at second base in Andres Jimenez this past season. So it should be interesting to see the reunion there in New York, but also, hey, Carlos Mendoza gets a guy, gets some backup in case there’s a bench clearing brawl during the season between the Mets and anybody else. You got a great guy there, a guy who’s going to run through the gauntlet for you. He had to be held back by half the coaching staff and everybody this past year when the Guardians and the White Sox got into it over the Tim Anderson, Jose Ramirez fight. I have never seen Sebe that fired up and that heated, he wanted a piece of Pedro er fall, and it should be interesting to see when the Mets in the White Sox tangle.

Paul Hoynes (13:06): Yeah, I just remember, Joe, we were sitting in the press box and SAR charged into this group of white socks and the White Sox were wearing their black jerseys and you just saw one. Well, I think the Indians or the Guardians were wearing their Red Jerseys then White socks were their black jersey. You saw one red Jersey in the circle of this all black circle and it was Serb. I said, God, somebody get him out of there. He’s going to get killed.

Joe Noga (13:37): And he got suspended for it too. Yeah, he missed games. So that’s great. And that’s the reason we bring that up is because it’s so out of character for sbe. He’s such a laid back, great guy, easy to talk to and approachable and just one of the best guys to be around in that clubhouse. So good for the Mets, good for sbe, and we’ll, we can’t wait to see him when the guardians and the Mets get together. Want to make sure you know about Subtext, our subscription texting service. It’s 3 99 a month to get text messages sent directly to your phone from me from regarding the winter meetings regarding trades, acquisitions, signings, all the stuff that’s going on over the next week. This is actually probably the most important week to have subtext because the updates will be coming fast and furious all week. So join by going to cleveland.com/subtext or by sending a text message at 2 1 6 2 0 8 4 3 4 6.

(14:49): Make it a Christmas present for somebody who loves the Guardians in your life and will make it worth their while by having them in our subtext community. Hoey the Guardians announced today, actually right now, currently as we’re speaking, the tickets for Guards Fest 2024 are on sale online. It’s a completely cashless event now at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland. We will begin on January 20th, Saturday, January 20th at 8:30 AM with an exclusive season ticket holder event at the convention center. Players, coaches, executives, everybody will be there. Lots of interactive events, fun for the kids. There’s baseball diamonds, face paintings, speed pitch, autograph sessions, lots of interaction on the main stage with talking to players and different games that way. Look forward to the event every winter. A nice way to break things up right after the holidays. What are you looking forward to most about Guards Fest this year?

Paul Hoynes (16:05): Yeah, I love Guards Fest, Joe. I mean I go back to when it was Tribe Fest and I think

Joe Noga (16:13): They had, when they did it in the service level at the ballpark underneath the stands,

Paul Hoynes (16:19): And they used to do, one of ‘em was at Cleveland State too, the arena I’m pretty sure at Cleveland State one year. But yeah, it’s a great event. It sparks your love for baseball again in the middle of winter when the Guard Fest happens, spring training’s right around the corner. Pretty soon the players are going to Good Year and as reporters, we get to catch up with a lot of the players, coaches and managers that we haven’t seen all winter. It is just really fun and there’s a lot of events that, like you said, Joe, the kids love it. The players are throwing what Wiffle balls to ‘em hitting the, they’re playing baseball in the middle of the convention center. It’s cool if you’re a baseball fan or if you’re a Guardians fan, you should be there.

Joe Noga (17:13): I got to share, last year I have my 13-year-old son came to the event with me and I sort of set him free and let him roam around and go through. I got him a couple of passes to the autograph sessions and during the summer leading up to that whole past season that he had been going to games and every time he’d get a ball or he’d catch a foul ball or ask for a ball from a player, he sort of put it in his bag and we roll into Guard’s Fest in January and he’s got four or five unsigned baseballs that he picked up at different games, whether they were at the minor league games or wherever we were over the summer and those were the balls that he used to go to the autograph sessions and get different players and he was super excited and he was sort of trying to sneak into different autograph sessions and get different players and he got a couple of different baseballs signed by Minor league guys and signed by multiple players that he was super excited about.

(18:19): So just if you’re an autograph seeker, if you want to get Snap a selfie with a player, they have opportunities for things like that. They have different special sessions for gold glove winners where you can get their autographs and take pictures with ‘em. It is just a lot of fun. We don’t have to sell the event to guards fans. They know how much fun it is and the different things you can do there, but just the fact that we look forward to it as much as we do because of the access to the players, those guys will all be there. It’s a rare thing when a guy misses that because something else maybe is going on. I believe Shane Bieber got married during Guards Fest last year, so there was a pretty good reason for him to have to miss, but as long as he’s on the roster, I think he might be there again this year. They’re incentivized, I think in their contracts to make an appearance as well, but it’s a lot of fun to see them in a more relaxed setting throughout the day and throughout the afternoon.

(19:30): For the last few minutes of today’s podcast, I wanted to circle back to these winter meetings and the way things go with this and just the agenda for the meetings. The first thing that really takes place at these winter meetings is the announcement from the Hall of Fame on the ERA committees. They get together and they make their votes and they elect. It’s sort of the Veterans Committee sort of thing. The evolution of that. We’re going to get one, maybe two new Hall of Famers this year right off the jump on Sunday night, former Cleveland General manager, Hank Peters, the guy who pretty much sparked the whole comeback of the franchise in the nineties. He is up for election by this Veterans committee.

Paul Hoynes (20:28): Hank really kind of just a career baseball guy. He put together those great oral teams in the seventies and late sixties. First run with the Guardians or slash Indians was as their farm director. Then he left. Then he came back in the late eighties. Dick Jacobs hired him to run the ball club. He convinced Dick Jacobs to really invest heavily in the minor league system. They developed Manny Ramirez, Jim Tomy, guys like that, Albert Bell. And then he brings in John Hard, he brings in Danny o’, dod from Baltimore. He engineers the trade for Carlos Bayer and Sandy Alamar at the winter meetings and really sets the foundation for the Renaissance of the Cleveland Indians in the 1990s.

Joe Noga (21:29): What do you think the chances that Hank Peters gets in on this ballot? I know the committee’s ballot is really full of some great, some names in terms of managers. You’ve got Seato Gaston Lou Pinella who barely missed the last time he was eligible. Jim Leland is on there. Davey Johnson is on there. I think at least one of those. And umpire Joe West is eligible for the first time. So some big names out there. Hank Peters might not be very widely known outside of guys who know baseball real well to the common fan, but Hank Peters certainly has if not more credentials than any of those guys. I think it’s just going to be really hard for him to get elected this time.

Paul Hoynes (22:17): Yeah, there’s some big name managers on there, Joe, and they probably, they’ve got a little flashier resumes and I think there’s a 16 man committee of writers and writers historians and Hall of Famers. So we’ll see how it goes. And you got to get 75% just like you need just the Hall of Fame players on A-B-B-W-A ballad. So it’s a tough nut to crack, but Hank certainly deserves it. I’m pulling for him, but probably he doesn’t get in this turn and he is deceased. I’m sure his family would love to see this, but they may have to wait for the next turnaround on the ERA committee.

Joe Noga (23:08): Alright, Monday and sometime Monday or Tuesday during the winter meetings, the BBWA Career Excellence Award, formerly the JG Taylor Spin Award will be announced in there. You’ll also get opportunities to talk to the different managers every day in the different meeting rooms. So Steven vote, we’ll get a chance to basically face whatever local reporters are down there, whatever national media want to take another run at him after the announcement that he was the 45th manager in Cleveland history, and then the event wraps up on Wednesday with the Rule five draft. That’s sort of the closing ceremony for the winter meetings. And we can get into early next week, we can get into more detail about what’s at risk or what opportunities there are for Cleveland with the Rule five draft, but certainly there’s opportunities to remake your roster in that.

Paul Hoynes (24:11): Yeah, the Rule five draft’s an under the radar thing, but it’s interesting because always there’s always some really good players come out of there and teams kind of find a gem or two, it costs ‘em like a hundred grand to draft an unprotected player off another team’s roster. And you go down the list of Rule five drafts starting with rule draft, rule five draft players starting with Hall of Famer, Roberto Clemente, and you can make a pretty good ball club out of those guys.

Joe Noga (24:49): Yeah, it’s got to be a guy, a minor leaguer who’s eligible, who you think could cut it, could hack it to stay on your roster for the entire season. Otherwise you have to offer him back to the club you drafted him from. But the guardians did that when they took Trevor Steffen a couple of years back from the Yankees. He stuck it out and made it through the entire season on the roster, but they also, they lost, if you go back to Anthony Santander Antier, they lost him to the Orioles and he’s now one of the premier outfielders in the American League in terms of power bats, exactly what Cleveland needs, and he’s now playing in Baltimore. So we’ll see how that shakes out. Just over the years though, there’ve been some significant moves for this Cleveland franchise that have gone down just in your time, covering the team at these winter meetings. Just go back to even the trade to acquire Julio Franco.

Paul Hoynes (25:50): Yeah, that was a year before I started, Joe. This was when the winter meetings were unquote in Hawaii.

Joe Noga (26:00): Oh man.

Paul Hoynes (26:01): Yeah, so they must’ve done this deal on the beach, but that was when the Indians sent Von Hayes and four other players to the Phillies for Julio Franco. And when Julio came, he was in 1983. That was my first year in a beat. When they introduced him in Cleveland, he walked in, it was freezing cold. He was straight from the Dominican Republic. I don’t think he’d ever seen been that cold in his life, but it was, excuse me, Von Hayes turned out was a fine player for the Phillies, but Julio Franco, he was an eye-opening talent. He was a fun guy to be around one of the best right-handed hitters I’ve ever seen. And just a fun guy just to watch him play and develop. And when he retired, Joe, if he would’ve stayed in the big leagues, he would’ve easily had 3000 hits, but he ended up going to Japan for some reason for a season, then ended

Joe Noga (27:05): Up in the nineties,

Paul Hoynes (27:06): Then he ended up in Mexico a couple years. Then he comes back and Bobby Cox loved him. He’s 50 years old and he’s pinch hitting for the Braves. I think he’s 45 or 46, but he’s got all sorts of the oldest man ever to hit a home run, oldest man to get a pinch hit, grand slam, stuff like that. He holds a bunch of records. He might still be playing somewhere.

Joe Noga (27:30): Well, he’s got one of those Dominican birth certificates, so you never know what the age is on. He could be be 50 or he could be 43 or whatever, it doesn’t matter. But he kept himself immaculate shape from what I recall is his workouts and his conditioning were always top shelf for Julio Franco. Even after that, the Corey Snyder trade was something that went down at a winter meetings as well, right?

Paul Hoynes (28:00): Yeah. They traded Corey to the White Sox one at a winter meetings. This is Corey had fallen into disfavor with the Indians. He hit an outfield wall, he hurt his back. He wasn’t, he was having problems making contact and they traded Corey and he was going to be the franchise savior,

Joe Noga (28:26): Other trades that sort of reshaped the franchise. In the nineties, the Kenny Lofton deal was sort of struck at the winter meetings.

Paul Hoynes (28:34): We were down in Florida at the Fountain Blue Hotel and John Hart pulled one out of his ear here in his back pocket. We’re sitting there, he makes a deal with Houston for Kenny Lofton, and we’re sitting there, well, who’s Kenny Lofton and I think it was for Eddie Toy and Dave Rhodey.

(28:58): I think that was it. And all of a sudden, and I remember the next spring, we’re on a backfield in Tucson with Mike Hargrove is hitting bp, and I mean he’s hitting fungos or no, we’re watching BP and Kenny hits a slow roller to the shortstop, and Hargrove tells me now they tell me that he should be able to beat that ball out. That’s going to be an infield hit. And lo and behold it was. I mean, that was the kind of player he turned out to be one of the best lead off hitters in the history of the franchise and probably maybe a borderline hall of famer. He should be a borderline hall of,

Joe Noga (29:41): He’s going to get in, I’m telling you now, he’s going to get in. He’s going to get put in by an error committee who’s going to take a longer look at him, have Faith Cleveland fans. He’ll get a longer look than just one year on the ballot for sure. But yeah, you didn’t know about Kenny Loft and what they got that basketball player from Arizona, is that who they Yeah,

Paul Hoynes (30:03): Right,

Joe Noga (30:05): With the national championship with the Wildcats. Come on.

Paul Hoynes (30:08): Yeah. I think Kenny had just played a couple games with Houston. I don’t think he’d been up and down a couple times.

Joe Noga (30:15): He still had, his rookie status was still intact, and he lost the rookie of the year that year, I believe to, was it Pat Ash?

Paul Hoynes (30:25): Pat Ash s and d, yeah,

Joe Noga (30:29): That

Paul Hoynes (30:29): Was

Joe Noga (30:29): Highway robbery. So other signings, they signed Carrie Wood, they traded Franklin Gutierrez for Luis Valbuena. They signed Josh Bell just recently. So there are deals that can get made and if not made then the groundwork gets laid here at the winter meetings. So it’s a good reason to sort of keep your ear to the ground and sort of pay attention to the coverage coming out of Nashville all of this weekend next week as we get ready for this off season to really sort of heat up and Hoey is going to be down there in the thick of it.

Paul Hoynes (31:10): Yeah, Joe, I mean, when your team is doing something, when they’re on the hunt, the winter meetings are the best place to be in the world. I mean, you never stop writing. You don’t sleep for three or four days because you’re always anxious that they’re going to do something. I mean, and it can work the other way as well. But the one winter meetings I remember is when they acquired Sandy Amar and Carlos bga, and that was a franchise changing trade. They sent Joe Carter, one of their best players to San Diego and that trade, then Kenny Loft and followed. Then they brought up Albert Bell and everybody knows the litany after that. That warmed the foundation of the 1990 Indians, those great division winning playoff bound Indians.

Joe Noga (31:59): Well, hopefully we’re looking forward to that. Do you get a sense that this club, this Guardian’s front office, this team right now is poised for any sort of those franchise altering moves? Or is this going to be maybe at winter meetings where they’re a little more low key?

Paul Hoynes (32:18): I think they’re going to be low key, Joe. I don’t think they’re going to be players in the free agent market unfortunately. And that’s where they could get some power that they need or some offensive help that they need. I think the TV deal, the questions around the TV deal with the Diamond Sports Group and ballet sports has kind of put them in neutral as far as what they can and can’t spend. I think they will try to make some deals, but trades are hard to make now, Joe, so I’m not sure if that’s going to happen, but I’m sure they’ll be kicking the tires on a lot of guys. But I think it’s going to be kind of a low-key winter meetings.

Joe Noga (33:00): Alright, well give us the lowdown all week long. Hoey will be, hopefully you get a chance to go out and hear some live music in Nashville. I hear there’s a lot of great places to see a band down there and enjoy yourself as well, Hoey. We will check back in with you on Monday from Nashville at the winter meetings. We’ll talk to you then.

Paul Hoynes (33:22): Alright, Joe.

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