When a small-market team nears zero barrier in terms of a franchise player who is one day going to become too expensive to keep long-term, along comes the inevitability of rampant trade speculation.
Such is the case for the Cleveland Indians and Francisco Lindor, a reality of which Tribe fans are already uncomfortably aware. For the better part of the next two calendar years, all the way up until the 2021 trade deadline, Cleveland’s front office will face the most unenviable of decisions: Keep the club’s best position player since Jim Thome and try to win a World Series before he leaves for nothing via free agency, or sell him for what is sure to be a haul containing both prospects and established MLB talent.