MLB teams
Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer 11y

Ripple effects of Choo-Bauer deal

MLB, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds

Executives cling to highly talented young pitchers these days like family heirlooms, precious and almost irreplaceable. Big-market teams like the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees sometimes struggle to gain access to those types of pitchers because of draft position, and for small- and middle-market teams, the pitchers are lifeblood. The Tampa Bay Rays have been who they are because of their ability to draft and develop young pitchers, and the Minnesota Twins were successful for a decade because of their homegrown pitching.

When this offseason began, it was the Cleveland Indians' mission to get young pitching talent, and they had been willing to talk about everybody from Asdrubal Cabrera to the ghost of Tris Speaker to make that happen. This is why it is stunning to folks in the industry that the Indians were able to land Trevor Bauer in a nine-player, three-team deal just 18 months after Bauer was the third player taken in the 2011 draft.

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