Last night the Indians and Brewers struck a deal to send two-time All-Star catcher Jonathan Lucroy to Cleveland in exchange for four prospects. Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting this morning, however, that Lucroy has vetoed the trade.
The Indians were one of eight teams on Lucroy’s no trade list. It is unclear why Lucroy has vetoed the deal, but one strong possibility is that Lucroy wants whoever acquires him to void the team option to which he is subject for $5.25 million. While he obviously agreed to that at the time he signed his deal with Milwaukee, that is far below his market value now. No-trade clauses like Lucroy’s, which he also bargained for, are often used as leverage in just this sort of situation.
Buster Olney of ESPN said a few minutes ago that the Indians will continue to try to convince Lucroy to change his mind and accept the trade, but if they are going to have to tear up the 2017 option to do it, they’ll likely be sending far less to Milwaukee than that which was reported last night. Or, if they think it’s too much trouble, they could simply move on, content with the Andrew Miller acquisition and hope against hope they can straighten out their catching situation which is the absolute worst in baseball.