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Front Office Chat: 8/16/24
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Anthony Franco
4:47
We've already seen it with Jung and Caminero in the last couple days. Jacob Wilson should be back this year. Colson Montgomery isn't hitting in Triple-A but the White Sox need to add him to the 40 this offseason and could bring him up this year to try to generate any level of positive buzz. The Angels could call up Christian Moore since they don't believe in the minor leagues
NL MVP
4:47
Barring injuries, is there any hope for the other 14 teams' best players to get a 1st place MVP vote beyond this season? Ohtani pitching and hitting on the media darling team that spends like money is heat in the southwest is unbeatable right? He's going to win a "close" race in 2024 and go 10/10 while earning $700M isn't he...?
Anthony Franco
4:49
Judge (justifiably) took one in 2022 but it'd probably take an all-time great season to win the award if Shohei is dominating on both sides of the ball
4:50
I doubt they'll all be unanimous because there'll be some amount of voter fatigue if Ohtani wins five or six in a 10-year span, but he's also capable of things that no one else is or has been in a century, so I don't begrudge anyone for voting him every season if he's fully healthy
4:51
He can't throw and he'll probably still be the MVP this year
SD and AZ
4:51
Are either of these teams actually as good as they've been recently? Or are they feasting on poor opponents and making waves that are giant nothingburgers?
Anthony Franco
4:53
Padres are doing a lot of damage against bad teams right now but you can only beat who you play. They're not the best team in baseball, but I've generally thought they were a capable Wild Card team throughout the season
4:55
Arizona has had a couple terrible teams mixed in there but they also had a stretch where they swept Cleveland on the road and took three of four from Philly (mostly in convincing fashion). Even with the Phils scuffling right now, that's really impressive
4:57
While I was lower on them for most of the year, they've got the rotation healthy and fortified the bullpen. Ketel Marte's awesome, Jake McCarthy has been huge, Carroll looks like he's gotten going. I just think they're really good
Tim's Mailbag
4:57
His first question was about WAS and Soto. Assuming ownership is cool with spending, what if the team brought in Soto and Walker via free agency and traded Gore to a team with a good catching prospect (MIL and CWS come to mind right away). It's a lot of major change in the budget, but they'd be competitive on paper right? At least for a wild card?
Anthony Franco
4:59
That's a massive assumption that I don't think the Lerners have earned with the way they've operated for the last couple years. But if we assume they add Soto and Christian Walker, they're in the Wild Card mix for sure
5:01
The Gore for catching help thing is interesting. I wouldn't give him up for Edgar Quero from the White Sox. If the Brewers offered Jeferson Quero (not convinced they would but there's logic with Contreras there), I'd probably pull the trigger if I were the Nats
Would need to backfill the rotation via FA but I'm not a huge Keibert Ruiz fan and generally think Gore's command is going to put him more as a talented but frustrating mid-rotation arm than an ace
elias diaz
5:02
do you think the rox should’ve traded me after 23 or were they better off getting my production
Anthony Franco
5:03
I doubt there was a ton of trade interest last offseason either. The Rockies were never going to compete this year but if the best they could for Díaz last winter was another team's #28 prospect or something, I don't mind them holding him
5:05
He's a nice complementary player but the slash line is inflated by his BABIP at Coors and the receiving metrics had been really poor until this season. Most teams probably view him as a quality backup getting paid quality backup money ($6MM) and would rather just sign a Victor Caratini or Austin Hedges than give up anything of significance for Díaz
tigersfan
5:06
Why didn't the tigers cut McKinstry with the callups today? Are they waiting for Greene to return?
Anthony Franco
5:07
Probably handedness. Keeping Urshela on the bench instead of McKinstry would've given them basically an all right-handed bench (assuming Sweeney's the everyday shortstop and Javy's officially a backup)
5:09
I thought it would be Ibanez since he has really tailed off lately but he has crushed LHP at least. Not convinced he sticks on the 40-man all winter but Urshela was clearly not going to be back next year
Ross F
5:09
Thinking about the Red Sox situation with Luis Perales (out through 2025 after Tommy John surgery), have any teams decided it was more valuable to be able to use that 40-man roster spot by putting the injured player on the 60-day IL even if it means he accrues major league service time while injured? There's plenty of bust potential with Perales so I wonder about the relative value in preserving his pre-arb slate and playing with a 39-man roster when there's lots of scenarios where he never makes it to arbitration.
Anthony Franco
5:12
Yeah this happens and I think Perales is right in that middle ground where it makes the most sense. They wouldn't want to burn the service time on a top-tier prospect
When a fringe prospect or depth guy gets hurt, the team might just release them so they don't need to pay the MLB salary. Sox did that with Brandon Walter to make room for their deadline acquisitions. Perales is probably too talented to release but not so good that they need to overly concern themselves with his service clock because of the bust potential you mentioned
5:14
I doubt they'd do it for a full year. He needs to stay on the 40 over the offseason anyway and he'd basically be the last injured player they'd want to move to the 60-day IL because most of the other guys would be on the major league roster or injured list regardless. But if they get to a point in June where they need a roster spot and they don't want to lose anyone via DFA, moving Perales over makes sense
Kenneth Habeeb
5:14
With their very good pitching staff, The S.F Giants should be in the thick of the Wild Card race if it weren't for dreadful situational hitting - 29th in the majors. The Arizona Snakes, for example, have lower batting averages but can get that job done. Although probably too late for San Francisco this season, can it be easily remedied a change of mindset? Change of hitting coach?
Anthony Franco
5:18
I think you basically need to wait for better results with regards to situational splits. This kind of thing fluctuates a ton without teams making huge changes. It's frustrating but generally, you're just trying to get the best overall hitters and hope they come through when it matters most
5:19
Teams that are super strikeout prone probably have a little tougher time in those spots, but that's not really true of the Giants (middle of the pack in strikeout rate) and much more of an offseason roster construction question than something that'd be solved by firing a hitting coach with six weeks to go
Way Cool Junior
5:19
What's your gut tell you about Caminero's future? Superstar or good/possible all-star level?
Anthony Franco
5:20
Not exactly going out on a limb here but yeah, I think he's a star
Derek Falve
5:21
In your opinion is there anyone that may hit the outright waivers that could give us some starting Depth Not in love with bringing back Rich Hill but our starters are dropping like flies.
Anthony Franco
5:21
This is about the Twins
Hill's nearing a deal with the Red Sox, so that's out for Minnesota anyways
5:25
Not a ton of obvious candidates with regards to starting pitching. Most of the guys who had value were traded at the deadline. Texas would be the exception if they tried to offload Heaney or Eovaldi, but Chris Young sort of shot that down last night and there's no guarantee they'd get to Minnesota anyways. Red Sox would probably step in with the state of their rotation right now
Pitch clock
5:25
I love how it has increased the pace of games, but Smoltz (granted, a bit of a troll at times) thinks it may contribute to injuries to starters because they are expected to go max effort from the first pitch. He says you can’t simulate game intensity in the bullpen. I’m agnostic about this, but I do wonder if experimenting with a longer pitch-clock interval in the first couple of innings would be worthwhile. Granted, again, that minor league hitters and pitchers aren’t MLB caliber.
Anthony Franco
5:28
Yeah I'm open to the possibility that this is true. It's a plausible hypothesis and major league pitchers know a hell of a lot more about the impact than I do. But it's also a very difficult thing to parse from the other factors that seem more clearly related to injuries: velocity, bullpening, increased breaking ball usage
Tampa Worrying
5:28
I think this series against AZ is the pivotal point for the season. If we lose, we will be buried beyond comeback, but more importantly, Arizona is the class of baseball right now and if we can't compete, we don't deserve to make the playoffs this year. That said, when will we get the Franco money back and be able to wade into some medium-sized meaningful free agent signings? Obviously we aren't approaching Soto or Gallen or Burnes. But a Gurriel sort would have made sense no? ...I've been focused on AZ recently can you tell? Their overall franchise record is only 3 games worse than ours now and I'm worried they will sweep us and leave having tied us as League Brothers.
Anthony Franco
5:30
I don't think this is the Rays' year but they should be pretty good next season. Caminero could play for a full season, McClanahan rejoins the guys they've gotten back from injury late this year
5:32
The Wander money isn't really an issue right now. The deal was backloaded and he's no longer getting paid even the relatively small salary while the trial plays out. There's obviously a huge loss in production at shortstop, but the finances aren't a huge deal yet. The bigger thing for them financially was moving Eflin, Arozarena, Civale, etc. and probably flipping Lowe next offseason
5:33
They should have the ability to make an Eflin/Gurriel style move in the middle of free agency again
Pete's Alonso
5:33
Pete going to get paid well? Or be forced to accept a qualifying offer and hope he somehow does better next year when pitchers like Strider are back? Is he going to be worth whatever his salary is to any team other than the Mets who can afford to eat it in 2026?
Anthony Franco
5:36
He'll reject the QO. I'm not sold on him as a $150MM guy (much less the 200+ they'll probably want). I think he'd be able to top 100 if he just wanted to max guarantee but he could be one of those late Boras signees who takes like three for $72MM with opt-outs every year and tries again without the QO in 2025-26
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