In a surprising twist Sunday, Milwaukee Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy exercised the no-trade clause in his contract, vetoing an agreed-upon deal that would have sent the All-Star to the American League Central-leading Cleveland Indians.
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Carlos Beltran actually told the Indians twice in one year he didn’t want to come to Cleveland back in 2011, so it’s a little amusing to see them pursue him again.
Perhaps most importantly for the Rangers, Lucroy cannot veto a deal to the Rangers, who are not one of the eight teams on his partial no-trade list. Stearns said there was no chance of re-working the deal with Cleveland. But Gallo, or Jurickson Profar, getting sent out in a deal for Lucroy or someone else would potentially make the Rangers more inclined to go after Beltran, since Gallo and Profar are now getting at least semi-regular at bats for Texas. If Lucroy does end up heading out, the Brewers are expected to receive four prospects in exchange for him. “The other half of that is your future in this league and your career”. According to USA Today, another hurdle was that the Indians would not guarantee Lucroy would be their starting catcher next season.
The Dallas Morning News’ Evan Grant reported the Rangers are hoping to get pitching help from Milwaukee as part of the Lucroy trade. If that’s going to happen or not, I don’t know.
That Lucroy invoked his right to refuse a trade to Cleveland and stood by his decision is also important from a labor perspective.
“We’re going to re-engage in that market and see where it goes”. In the Yankees deal, the Tribe had to give up four prospects including two top prospects in outfielder Clint Frazier and pitcher Justus Sheffield. Unless that report that they couldn’t guarantee his being the starting catcher next year was true, he just made a decision to cut his own nose off to spite his face. It’s why we engaged with multiple teams throughout the entirety of the negotiation.
But Brewers fans know the All-Star catcher has been the subject of trade rumors involving several different teams.
Can Andrew Miller help the Indians to the World Series? With speculation about his eventual destination taking place throughout much of this year and being withheld from the lineup in recent games, the team’s intentions had to be clear to Jonathan Lucroy. It just seems a poor tipping point if you really do want to play for a contender.
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“The fans have been great to me here”. Jon Morosi of MLB.com reports that prospects Luis Ortiz and Yohander Mendez are among the prospect names being discussed.
