MLB trade rumors: Indians keeping an eye on Eduardo Nunez and other infielders

The Cleveland Indians paid someone to watch a player and now I’m writing about it. We have reached peak trade deadline season.

According to Buster Olney, the Tribe are scouting third baseman Eduardo Nunez as well as other infielders. What other infielders he means is a mystery left for another day, but the we know for sure the Indians pay scouts that are doing scouty things right now.

Considering Nunez plays for the San Francisco Giants — the team the Indians just played against — it shouldn’t have been too hard to scout him, though he did sit out for the final game with a sore hamstring. Hopefully the scouts got some good notes on how well he rides a bench in a game that his opponent should have easily won.

Nunez was an All-Star last season, but one of those “he’s an All-Star because every team needs an All-Star” type of selections for the miserable 2016 Minnesota Twins. Still, he wasn’t bad splitting time between the Giants and Twins; he slashed .288/.325/.432 with a career-high 16 home runs and a career-high 2.7 fWAR.

If the Indians do work out a trade with the Giants, it likely would not cost much as the 30-year-old third baseman is a half-year rental at this point. The most obvious reason for the Indians even wanting him (besides getting secret damaging information about the division rival Twins) is to put him at third base and have Jose Ramirez man second while Jason Kipnis recovers from his own injury.