Front Office Chat: 6/26/26
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Guest
4:04
Some people might be surprised that Stearns, Posey, and Breslow still have jobs. I'd point at Preller who, despite the many scandals, bad investments, and poor trades he's been a part of, still has his job.
Anthony Franco
4:05
He's also orchestrated the best and most exciting (by a mile) stretch of baseball in franchise history and is coming off consecutive 90-win seasons
4:07
In a sense, I'm also surprised he has stuck around as long as he has because almost no one else survives as much managerial turnover as they've had and the instability with the ownership of the past couple years, but they've unquestionably been a good team for the majority of this decade
James Lamh
4:07
When a player is injured at the start of a year, who pays his salary if he is out for the year. e.g. Blue Jays and Santander.
Anthony Franco
4:07
The team still pays the salary. MLB contracts are fully guaranteed
4:08
Teams will occasionally take out insurance to cover part of a long-term investment, but that's a separate risk-reward calculus for them based on injury risk, cost of the premium, etc.
Astros Fan
4:08
Does Isaac Paredes now look like a potential extension candidate now that the Astros are back in playoff contention and his batting fits Daiken Park?
Anthony Franco
4:10
They already control him for next season, still have to figure out what to do about Correa long term. I think it's more so that they've played their way to reducing the chance of trading him midseason as opposed to an extension
4:12
It's also just not a profile I'd be eager to lock up. I like the player right now but there's minimal defensive value, stockier body type, and he's already testing the lower bound of how much offense he can get out of hitting everything in the air to left field
4:13
If the bat speed drops off even 1-2 mph as he gets into his 30s and those batted balls start ending up on the warning track, there's not much left
Guest
4:13
What’s with all the Blue Jays in the All-Star voting?!?
Blame Canada?
4:13
What can be done to fix the All-Star Game voting process? The fan-vote popularity contest has gotten out of hand, with the Blue Jays somehow landing a finalist at every position. Clement and Okamoto have reasonable cases, but the rest haven't even been league-average players this season.
Anthony Franco
4:14
The Canadian fans just showed up for their guys
4:15
It is what it is. The fan voting results are less egregious than they were 10-15 years ago. If you really cared about "getting it right," you could strip the fan vote entirely and have front offices and/or managers vote on it
4:16
But team personnel don't actually care that much and ultimately it's an exhibition geared toward fan engagement
4:17
Nobody thinks Ernie Clement is the best player in the American League, the lack of Marlins fans screwed over Otto López (imagine if he were still in Toronto and had the season he's having), etc.
4:18
It's not perfect but it's supposed to be fun and ultimately enough guys will back out of the game  for injury or rest reasons that most of the players who deserve to make it eventually get in
Tom Rickets
4:18
Does an offer of Kevin Alcantara, James Triantos and Grant Kipp enough for Reid Detmers?
Anthony Franco
4:19
Nah that's way light
Zack Wheat
4:19
Is a Brandon Marsh ceiling too much to ask for Henry Bolte?
Anthony Franco
4:21
Marsh has always been better at getting the ball in the air than Bolte is. I see where you're coming from and could see it as an upside comp but probably takes a significant swing overhaul from Bolte to get there, which is a lot easier said than done
Cat_Herder
4:22
It's March of next year. Does the Tigers rotation have Framber, Melton, Jobe, Olsen, and Montero going north?  Seems a might young and injury prone, right?
Anthony Franco
4:23
Yeah they'll need to add at least two arms. That'd be a good rotation if you guaranteed all five were staying healthy but it never happens and Olson/Jobe are going to be on innings limits
Two Strikes and No Balls
4:23
When Yankees are fully healthy in outfield (Grisham, Judge & Stanton) where does that leave Volpe, Dominguez and Jones?  AAA bound or do any have a full time spot?  Who would you rather at SS ROS?  Volpe or Caballero.
Anthony Franco
4:24
Volpe at SS, the outfielders back in AAA if not traded
Ben Cherrington
4:24
Dotel, Barco, Bidois for Sonny and Aroldis. Who hangs up?
Anthony Franco
4:26
I'm a Dotel fan but that feels light for a package deal. Think it's closer to the cost for a season and a half of Chapman alone
4:28
I wouldn't make that trade for just Aroldis if I were Pittsburgh, to be clear, but I doubt Boston would consider that enough to put together two of their best veteran trade chips
While eating a bunch of money on Gray because there's no way the Pirates are paying him a $10MM option buyout for two months of work
Curious A's Fan
4:29
The A's need to add pitching but I'd rather they target guys that'll still be on the books when they (plan to) move to Las Vegas in 2028. Who is available this trade cycle that meets that requirement?
Anthony Franco
4:31
The Angels guys and Max Meyer would be the big ones. Borderline to move at all, would all require a huge prospect haul. Guess you could make a run at Landen Roupp but teams covet controllable starting pitching so they'd need to blow anyone away if you're thinking specifically about guys who have already had MLB success
4:32
Ryan Feltner's controllable for two and a half seasons and the Rockies should listen on everybody. He wouldn't cost a ton of prospect capital.

Is he good? Well...
Little Texas
4:33
What will it take for Texas to get Luis Arraez from SF. Also what relief should we target and do we need any other players
Anthony Franco
4:36
Probably a couple guys from the Jose Corniell, David Davalillo, Winston Santos, AJ Russell tier of pitching prospects. They're not getting Walcott or Scarborough but anyone else in the system should be fair game as a headliner. Has to be better both than a) whatever anyone offers and b) the compensation pick they'd get if they made Arraez a qualifying offer
4:38
Would like to see another bat. Nate Lowe reunion makes sense even with Burger hitting better of late, maybe a Trevor Larnach type to play LF since Carter never stays healthy
Alright we're past 90 minutes so I'm going to wrap this one up
As always, feel free to throw anything else at me on X @affranco10
4:39
Also just a reminder that Steve does the weekly subscriber-only mailbag and is always looking for questions, good place to submit those if we don't get to them in a chat
4:40
You can email those in to: mlbmailbag@traderumors.com
Steve will chat again on Monday and I'll do this again next Friday
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