In the recent days and weeks, there’s been rumors surrounding the Cleveland Indians starting pitchers, specifically Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Bauer about one of them getting traded this offseason.

Ken Rosenthal from Fox Sports and The Athletic is now reporting that the Indians and Carrasco are in discussions on a contract extension.

Rosenthal also added this to his reporting

With Kluber scheduled to make $17 million for next season and Bauer projected to receive around $11 million in arbitration, this would lead me to believe that the team is getting solid trade offers for either one of the two and if one is dealt which I think there’s a good chance it happens, the team would then take some of the money tied to Kluber or Bauer and use it towards extending Carrasco.

The 31-year-old right hander has been great for the Indians over the last several seasons and has been showing the potential the team was hoping for when they acquired him from the Philadelphia Phillies in the Cliff Lee trade back in 2009.

In 2018, he posted his second consecutive season of at least 17 wins and at least 226 strikeouts when he posted a 17-10 record with a 3.38 ERA with 231 strikeouts in 32 games (30 starts) and 192 innings pitched.

He started in Game 2 of the American League Division Series against Houston and went 5.1 innings, gave up six hits and two earned runs and took the loss in Houston’s 3-1 victory.

Over his nine-year major league career (all with Cleveland), Carrasco has a 79-62 record in 207 appearances (171 starts) with a 3.71 ERA and 1,127 strikeouts.

He finished 4th in Cy Young Award voting in 2017 after winning an American League leading 18 games (18-6 record) with a 3.29 ERA and striking out 226 batters while only walking 46 in 200 innings pitched.

Carrasco has been a consistent pitcher and has made a lot of progression under the direction of manager Terry Francona and whether it was Mickey Callaway or Carl Willis as the pitching coach, he has made strides and has become one of the underrated pitchers in baseball.

It’ll be interesting to see if an extension gets done during the offseason which if it did would give the Indians fan base some hope as some seem to think the team is blowing it up with all the trade rumors swirling around the organization.