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Front Office Chat: 3/2/26
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Anthony Franco
5:01
Good evening, hope you all enjoyed your weekend!
5:02
Steve needed today off so we're flipping chat schedules this week. He'll run one on Friday afternoon, going to keep this one around an hour
Red Wright Hand
5:02
4/112 million for Freddy Peralta to sign extension with Mets. You think that gets the deal done?
Anthony Franco
5:03
$28M AAV seems reasonable but I think it's a year light. Have a tough time seeing why he's taking less than Ranger Suarez money without at least seeing what's out there
5:04
If he has another season like 2025, I assume he's getting six years and north of $200M
Youk
5:04
Do you think it’s the right move for the Sox to trade an OF?  I’d love to lengthen the lineup with an infielder but it’s really hard to find a fair matchup and I would hate to lose any of the four.
Anthony Franco
5:05
Nah I think they're fine with Durbin and giving Mayer some leeway. I'd keep all four
LeagueWide
5:05
Any predictions for a late offseason trade before Opening Day? The FA market is pretty barren, so teams looking for an impact arm or bat don't have many options left.
Anthony Franco
5:06
Hope I'm wrong but I'm not really seeing anything big at this point. Most teams are at least saying they want to compete this year and as you mentioned, there's no real opportunity to backfill in free agency if you're trading away an impact player
5:07
Feels like a Paredes deal before Opening Day is viable but a long shot. If that doesn't happen, it's probably mostly tinkering at the back of rosters for the next couple months
Giant Hopes
5:08
The Giants have a glut of outfielders. The Royals need outfielders. Is there a match there?
Anthony Franco
5:09
Giants have a couple fringe roster types (Matos, Encarnacion) but those guys aren't clearly better than Lane Thomas or Starling Marte, who are ticketed for platoon/bench roles in K.C.
ABS
5:09
As much as I like the ABS system, do you think it will halt the popularity momentum that pace of play initiatives have generated?
Anthony Franco
5:10
No, the pitch clock was the huge one. There's nothing else they can implement that comes close to shaving off 25 minutes of dead time every night
5:11
ABS was necessary and there'll be a little bit of novelty in the challenge system but it's going to impact a very small percentage of pitches
Chris
5:11
The Nats are obviously restarting their rebuild. My question is, what happened to the last one? Did Nats fans like me, and former GM Mike Rizzo, completely overrate the chance of Gore, Abrams, Josiah Gray, Ruiz and other players acquired in the post WS selloff making the Nats competitive again without ownership spending like Ted Lerner did before he died?
Anthony Franco
5:12
Ruiz/Gray turned out to a be pretty big disappointment. They did well in the Soto deal but that's basically the only aspect of the rebuild that they hit on
5:13
Very little from the international system in the past few years and their recent first-round picks have returned almost nothing. Between 2017-22, they took Seth Romero, Mason Denaburg, Jackson Rutledge, Cade Cavalli, Brady House and Elijah Green in the first round
5:15
I still like Cavalli but obviously injuries have robbed him of most of the past few seasons. Just not enough talent all around, especially on the pitching side. Doesn't help that virtually all their position players play below their athleticism on defense for some reason too
Max
5:15
There seem to be lots of readers who are disappointed with their teams off season – the Giants, the Guardians, the Braves, the Pirates, the Royals, even the Tigers. I’m curious to know which teams you feel had good or even great off seasons.
Anthony Franco
5:16
Detroit took a while but the boxes I wanted from them. I know they've gotten some pushback on not doing anything with the offense but I love their moves on the pitching side
5:17
Loved Seattle getting Naylor. Dodgers are a boring answer but adding Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz on short-term deals is pretty great
5:19
Thought Milwaukee's offseason was sneakily good again. Felt like a sell high on Isaac Collins at the right time, maybe a little less so on Durbin but fine buy-low on Harrison
5:20
Loved getting Woodruff back on the QO. Return for Peralta/Myers didn't blow me away but was about as good as they could expect for one year of a player they were never going to re-sign
Not Dana Brown
5:20
any left handed outfield bats out there, that the Astros might be interested in, that you have not seen in a trade rumor so far?
Anthony Franco
5:21
Took a stab at this a couple weeks ago!
5:22
I would like Lile for Blubaugh to happen. It almost certainly won't, but I think it helps both teams
Chris
5:22
Do you believe that ABS should actually be vindicating umpires?  Most of the calls I've seen overturned were only off by like a quarter of an inch.
Anthony Franco
5:23
Oh yeah they're really good at their jobs now. It's easy to pick on them because we want their baseline to essentially be perfection (and some of them do themselves no favor by having huge egos) but especially with regards to balls/strikes, they're generally awesome at it
5:25
Someone had a graphic on X last week showing the heatmaps of called strikes last season compared to 2007 and it's amazing how much more accurate they've gotten since the pitch-tracking tech pushed them to narrow the wide part of the zone
Forget who tweeted it out and it'd take me too long to dig it up for the chat, apologies
who's on 1st
5:25
Botton of the 9th, runners at 2nd and 3rd-2 outs; WHO do you want at the plate? Oh, it 7th game of WS
Anthony Franco
5:26
If you're assuming first base is open, that's a pretty tough one because if I pick Ohtani or Judge, they're getting intentionally walked anyway
5:28
I'd take Judge if you're just asking which hitter I want most though. Obviously you can find guys are more likely to put the ball in play but give me the best hitter in MLB and hope he smokes a ball somewhere
Optimistic Giants Fan
5:28
How much weight will scouts/teams put on the WBC? Let's say somebody like Jac Caglianone has a huge WBC, will this make the Royals more likely to put him on the opening day roster? (Caglianone might be a bad example since the Royals outfield situation is so dire he might make it anyway but replace him with any WBC player on the roster bubble)
Anthony Franco
5:29
I don't think it matters much for players who are already on a big league roster. The sample size is so small
5:30
Probably a bigger deal for someone from Japan or Korea who shows well against MLB competition in their first look at higher level opposition though
5:31
Also hoping we get a pitcher from some random country who no one has ever heard of who throws 95 out of nowhere and gets a minor league deal off of it. That's always a cool story
snek fan
5:31
Other than Moreno, do you think any Dbacks players are candidates for extensions? I'm not seeing much, the roster just isn't in that place this year
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