I wonder if a trade like this is a signal towards approaching the playoffs with every starter on a very short leash and letting a super powerful good bullpen handle roughly half or a majority of each game. A lot of teams were starting to move in that direction over the past couple years, and the Indians wanted to leverage their two best relievers that way last year (and, uh, lost) but maybe thats the plan as far as any sort of "magic sauce" (that I agree doesn't exist, there's just way too much variance for anything to make a huge dent in a handful of games) in the playoffs.