Indians inquiring about Marlins’ Derek Dietrich, Kyle Barraclough, Brad Ziegler

The Cleveland Indians have been linked to just about everyone this trade deadline, even as far as Bryce Harper. Now, according to SiriusXM’s Craig Mish, they are talking with the Miami Marlins for several players, including outfielder Derek Dietrich.

Dietrich is a bit of a late bloomer outfielder, having had his breakout season (2.3 fWAR) in 2016 at the age of 26. He’s no Bryce Harper, but he has a solid .279/.347/.447 slash with 13 home runs for the Marlins this season at the corner outfield spots. The real value for the Indians here is that he has two more years of arbitration left, which would carry him through the 2020 season.

While Dietrich hasn’t been officially linked to the Indians until now, his name has come up several times as a potential candidate. The Marlins are entering a deep rebuild and the Indians have viable prospects at just about every level.

The Indians are also asking around about a pair of relievers, Kyle Barraclough and Brad Ziegler.

Barraclough’s peripherals this season are a little worrisome — his FIP is 4.12 while his ERA is 2.54 — but he has a four-year track record of being a solid reliever with a lot of strikeouts. Walks are his biggest issue as his 14.1 percent walk rate will attest.

Ziegler is an interesting reliever that relies very heavily on ground balls (66.7 percent career ground ball rate) as opposed to strikeouts. With the Indians defense featuring Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez on the left side and occasional flashy plays from Jason Kipnis, it wouldn’t hurt to add him to the mix. Just glancing over Ziegler’s stats, something weird sticks out: He has a 74 percent ground ball rate this season and a 31.8 percent home run/fly ball rate (!!!) meaning a third of every ball hit in the air is leaving the yard. That’s insane, but hardly a realistic number to maintain — thankfully.