After I spent the past week badmouthing the Indians for trading Michael Aubrey - another failed first round pick - and now Mark DeRosa for the infamous “player to be named later” I stumbled upon some interesting information: Asdrubal Cabrera was the PTBNL in a prior Indians trade.
The trade took place in 2006. The Indians sent Eduardo Perez (who’s now boring people all across the country on Baseball Tonight) to the Mariners for a PTBNL…who became Cabrera. Asdrubal was effective almost immediately, playing a key role in the Indians team that almost made it to the World Series in 2007. Presumably, he’ll continue to be an important cog in the Indians middle infield for some time.
In other words, I was wrong for broadly dissing the PTBNL - valuable players can come out of this.
One final note. While checking on the details of the Cabrera trade, I discovered this anecdote:
“In 1962, Harry Chiti was traded from the Cleveland Indians to the New York Mets for the proverbial ‘player to be named later’. In 15 games for the Mets, Chiti batted .195. He was sent back to the Indians two months after the trade as the ‘player to be named later’. He didn’t play another game in the majors after being returned to the Indians.”
This is more evidence to suggest that the Indians have historically had problems in the front office. Here they essentially lent a guy to the Mets for 15 games and got nothing in return. Being a Good Samaritan isn’t how you win World Series.
But, if in about three months the Cardinals are out of the pennant race and the Indians get DeRosa sent back to them right before his contract’s set to expire, you’ll know there’s a precedent for this kind of thing (granted, the inclusion of Perez would be at least some payment for the temporary rental).
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