The Cleveland Indians Should Not Trade for Kurt Suzuki

The Cleveland Indians are in need of an upgrade at catcher but it may be too detrimental to the team to add a new player this late in the season.

The Cleveland Indians head into tonight’s game with a plus-106 run differential, but there has been a glaring hole on offense all season.

The catcher slot in the lineup has been dismal since the beginning of the season and does not seem to be getting any better. The injured Yan Gomes is on the DL with a .165 batting average, while Roberto Perez owns a .102 average and Chris Gimenez is above the Mendoza Line with a .217 average.

Gomes is due to come back before the end of the regular season, but the way he played up until he got injured showed the need for an upgrade at the catcher position. Jonathan Lucroy was supposed to be that upgrade, but he decided to veto a chance to join the first-place Indians. To each their own.

The newest name to pop up on the catcher market is that of Minnesota Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki. According to an article by Paul Hoynes on cleveland.com, Suzuki has reportedly cleared waivers and can be traded.

The article explains how the two teams have talked about Suzuki, but there have been no major breakthroughs.

Suzuki, who is batting .281 in 81 games this season, would only be a rental as he is a free agent at the end of the season. The benefit of getting Lucroy was that he would be on the team in 2017 as well, but adding Suzuki this late in the season as a rental player may not be the best move.

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His contract situation aside, a catcher is perhaps the most important player on the field. He works directly with the entire pitching staff and can be relied upon as the field general. This type of role takes time to develop, especially when working with both the starting pitchers and the bullpen staff.

While Gomes, Perez and Gimenez have struggled at the plate, they are all assets on defense. It is wrong to only stick with them because the team has won with them all year, thus ignoring even the possibility of an upgrade, but the window to add a new catcher has passed.

Next: The New Bullpen Plan with Andrew Miller

With the amount of work it takes to work with the pitchers, adding Suzuki now may do more bad than good as the Indians contend for an AL Central title.