The Indians were a part of an interesting trade as the Winter Meetings closed this week when they were a part of a three team trade that sent Edwin Encarnacion to Seattle and brought Carlos Santana back to the Indians. What that move amounted to was moving money around for both teams and shifting those obligations to where they wanted them to be.
However, the move the Indians made today is arguably more interesting because of who the other party is.
Source: #WhiteSox acquire 1B Yonder Alonso from #Indians. First reported @WatchStadium.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 15, 2018
On the face of it, Yonder Alonso is an interesting player, but not likely to move the needle much for a White Sox team that looks like it is going to need some big additions to be competitive in the near term. While we don’t know what the return is for the Indians, the fact that they just got Carlos Santana back likely meant that they were going to have to trim down the first basemen on the roster.
However, an interesting side note is that Yonder Alonso happens to be the brother-in-law of, wait for it, Manny Machado. Machado has long been rumored to be a target of the White Sox this offseason and Ken Rosenthal used his psychic powers to potentially predict this sort of move.
Value-obsessed baseball teams do not think like this, but it would be interesting if a Manny Machado suitor traded for his brother-in-law, #Indians 1B Yonder Alonso, who now figures to be highly available. Alonso would amount to a $9M enticement, but who’s counting?
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 13, 2018
While Alonso has his own virtues and pitfalls (.250/.317/.421 in 574 plate appearances last season with 23 home runs), what will likely dominate the discussion of this trade is whether or not this made the White Sox a more likely destination for one of the hotter free agents in recent memory in Machado.