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Front Office Chat: 1/19/26
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Anthony Franco
4:13
Obviously there are things we'd change based on how the market has developed -- pretty sure we'd all move Geno back to two years, as an example -- but we live with whatever we put out there in November
Chris
4:13
Can a team actually not trade a player that just accepted the QO until June? Or can they just not trade the player before June without their consent? How does that work? Thinking specifically about a Woodruff or about a Trent Grisham. Could they be moved this offseason if they agreed to it or do the teams have to actually wait until June regardless?
Anthony Franco
4:14
Any Article XX(b) free agent -- usually the standard six-year service guys -- who signs an MLB deal, which includes the QO, gets no-trade rights until June 15. The player can waive
4:15
It basically never happens with someone as notable as Grisham or Woodruff. Occasionally happens with fringe roster types
4:16
Most recent example I can think of is middle reliever Joely Rodríguez, who agreed to an April 2022 trade from the Yankees to the Mets after the Mets agreed to pay him an extra $500K to sign off
Grant
4:17
Will the proliferation of short term / high AAV impact your thinking come next year's predictions? It seems that the MLBTR team still predicts traditional long term contracts for the high end FAs
Anthony Franco
4:18
It'll definitely be part of the conversation, too soon to say how many guys we'll actually flip to short-term deals when the time comes to finalize it
4:19
We've overreacted to reading into offseason trends before and gotten burned. Part of the reason we went 12 years on Bellinger a couple years ago (easily our biggest whiff since I've been part of the process) was because we placed so much stock in the Padres going 11 years on Xander and Phils doing 11 years for Trea one offseason earlier
4:21
Figured it meant that all the tax paying teams were going to stretch out their contracts to lower the CBT hit and someone would do the same for Bellinger. The Phillies have mostly stuck to that, but a lot of the others have gone in the opposite direction
4:22
And the Bogaerts deal was a one-off dramatic overpay by an owner who really badly wanted to win a World Series in the short term, turned out to be basically useless as a market precedent
Mr Red Leg
4:22
Would Moniak be a good fit on Cincinatti?  Is he a bad defender? -0.6 WAR seems crazy with his offensive production.  Wouldn't cost then much, right?
Anthony Franco
4:24
Moniak's more of a platoon guy for me than a regular -- production very heavily skewed against RHP and almost all of it came at Coors -- but his '25 season is why I think single-season WAR totals are a pretty bad approximation of value
4:25
He should be a corner guy but he had one year where the defensive metrics were outrageously bad that I just don't believe
Alex
4:25
How do you reconcile Kyle tuckers AAV with Bregman's, Naylor's even Schwarbers AAV.  That and the $/WAR doesn't make any sense.
Anthony Franco
4:26
Tucker's either younger or better than those guys and this is the tradeoff if you want to sign him without committing to his late-30s
4:27
A "reasonable" AAV isn't getting it done if you want to avoid paying him for the years you're projecting him as a DH
Colorado
4:27
FWIW Mr. Red Leg, defensive metrics at Coors Stadium are historically difficult to judge and should be taken with a grain of salt compared to other stadiums. Brenton Doyle is the first Rockies' CF to have a positive defensive WAR in a while.
Anthony Franco
4:29
Yeah this is also a good point. The defensive metrics hated Charlie Blackmon for the longest time, and while I don't think he was ever a great center fielder, a lot of it was skewed because the outfield is so big to try to compensate for the ball flying at altitude
AZ
4:29
For players with partial no-trade clauses in their contracts, are the teams on those lists publicly available or does that information only come out if the player or agent choose to speak about it?
Anthony Franco
4:30
Only comes out if they get leaked. Doesn't necessarily have to be the player or agent who is the source though. D-Backs front office obviously knows who Marte has on his no-trade list, for instance
4:31
(Just an example, not speculating about Rosenthal's source)
MLBTR
4:31
Do you guys write up histories of players to have on hand so when someone's in the news you can just bring their piece up and taylor it to the moment.?
Anthony Franco
4:33
For the most part, no. Will occasionally lift a paragraph or two from a previous post if nothing with the player has changed (e.g. Marco Luciano getting claimed off waivers for the fourth time in a month) but we basically just know the transactional background for these guys because we write about them all the time
4:34
Alright I need to wrap up here unfortunately. Have some stuff to take care of before my usual shift this evening
4:35
Thanks as always for all the questions, these remain a highlight of the week for me! Feel free to throw whatever at me on X @affranco10 if I didn't get to yours here
4:36
Steve will pick up Friday's chat and I believe will run his usual chat open to the main site tomorrow afternoon
Thanks to all of you for the continued support of the site! Have a great week!
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