MLB Executives Predict Guardians Will Trade $20 Million Superstar

The Athletic’s Jim Bowden recently polled a group of MLB executives in order to get a better understanding of what to expect at the trade deadline. This group of executives shockingly mentioned Cleveland Guardians superstar closer Emmanuel Clase as a potential trade candidate this season.

“Clase’s name kept coming up in the survey, which surprised me as he’s considered one of the top closers in the game,” Bowden wrote. “He’s also under team control through the 2028 season. Clase, 27, has a 3.28 ERA over 37 appearances and 18 saves this year.

“The Guardians, who rank 26th in runs, need more offense. Perhaps they’d be willing to make a buyer-to-buyer type of trade to give up a lock-down leverage reliever for a middle-of-the-order impact bat to address this weakness.”

It would be quite shocking to see the Guardians trade such a valuable asset at the peak of his career, especially since he still has multiple years of team control left on his contract.

But if the Guardians do decide to trade him, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Toronto Blue Jays make sense as landing spots.

With the Dodgers, they’re seemingly interested in any star that hits the market. They could package Bobby Miller, James Outman, and others to land Clase.

The Blue Jays desperately need a closer and would greatly benefit from landing Clase. Toronto could trade away a few top prospects from its loaded farm system in a deal that sets it up for the future.

The Cubs are aggressive and need a closer, but it’s hard to imagine them making another trade of this magnitude. Their farm system has been destroyed with the Ryan Pressly and Kyle Tucker trades.

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