You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Front Office Chat: 8/29/25
powered byJotCast
Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page
Brewers Fan
4:18
MLB Network left Turang off the top 10 second baseman list... even before his power binge that was lunacy correct?
Anthony Franco
4:19
Pretty sure I'd have him somewhere in the back of my top 10 but I don't want to criticize it too hard without having the time to actually put together my own list
Reynold
4:20
If you were Dana Brown, and you were told you could not trade Correa/Paredes/Walker, that Altuve and Yonder were healthy and raking, what would the 2026 Astros line up look like. I guess I'd mix Correa/Paredes/ Walker at 1st and 3rd, Paredes/Altuve at 2b, Altuve in LF mix, Altuve and Yonder at DH, and wait for injuries? Confusing.
re: my previous question. Yordan not Yonder. Forgive me, I am elderly.
Anthony Franco
4:21
Pretty much. Certainly not going to trade Peña to force one of those other guys in there so Correa can play shortstop
4:22
I expect them to try to trade Walker this winter. Not sure they'd find a taker, though, so there's a decent chance this plays out the way you mentioned
Chris
4:22
I know its way too early to evaluate this, but was the Devers trade a win-win for both teams? Giants got a long-term elite bat that agreed to move to 1B, Red Sox removed a clubhouse problem, opened up playing time for their younger guys, and got out of the contract financially.
Anthony Franco
4:23
Eh, I think it's a win-win only if you take it as a given that Devers' relationship with the Sox was irreparable. Their team would still look a hell of a lot better if he were just playing first base for them
4:25
I think that's mostly on the player, but clearly the front office didn't manage the relationship as well as they could have. I think the contract itself is fine, especially if he's willing to play, and a lot of the playing time they opened at 1B went to Abraham Toro and now stopgap Nathaniel Lowe
4:27
They soured on James Tibbs so quickly that they traded him as a package for Dustin May, who's not very good at this point. Kyle Harrison is still struggling to throw strikes in Triple-A and the Sox just called up a (very good) prospect with three Triple-A starts in his first full professional season over Harrison to serve as their fifth starter in a pennant race
Optimistic Giants Fan
4:27
Giants have been awful against left handed pitching this year, and with Eldridge likely to debut next year alongside their most logical offseason target being Kyle Tucker (probably won't happen but I can dream) it doesn't look to be getting much better. Who are some strong platoon options that would be available this offseason and could help them out?
Anthony Franco
4:30
Willi Castro has sucked for the Cubs so far but he's a switch-hitter with good production against LHP. Could bounce around and offer insurance against Schmitt regression at second base. Broadly similar profile for Luis Rengifo, who has picked things up after a terrible first couple months
4:31
If you're looking strictly as short-side platoon outfielders, Miguel Andujar and Austin Hays work. Randal Grichuk, I guess. I'm sure the Orioles would love to get out from a portion of the Tyler O'Neill contract if they wanted more of a boom or bust swing in the corner outfield
Wouldn't love the lack of DH at-bats available on a team with Devers and Eldridge though
Guest
4:32
Who will be in the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation for 2026?
Tony
4:32
Greetings, My question is about the Cardinals. How would you assess the Mozeliak era for the Cards? I think the early teams were still heavily influenced by Jocketty, the 'oughts' were very good (long tenure of winning at high levels) and towards the end he fell into the 'Jocketty trap' of trading future for present. I think that works if you are Dombrowski and have deep pocketed owners but the Dewitts aren't that type of owner. Apologies for misspellings.
Anthony Franco
4:35
Gray, Libby and McGreevy plus two low-cost free agent pickups. Matthews could get there at some point, outside chance of Doyle I guess. Can't be Pallante, and it's obviously time to let Mikolas walk
4:38
On Mo: I feel like you're underrating his early tenure. No doubt helps to inherit a team with Pujols, Yadi and Wainwright -- though of course Mo was a high ranking part of the front office under Jocketty, so it's not like he completely stumbled into those guys. They had a knack for developing mid-round position players well into Mo's GM tenure (Craig, Carpenter, Edman, Donovan etc.)
4:39
Fair to say they've fallen behind the last couple seasons, especially on the pitching side. They've basically admitted that they were too late to move more from a ground-ball emphasis to whiffs for a lot of their young pitching. Probably not a coincidence that some of those deficiencies became more glaring after one of the best defensive catchers of all time retired
Stamen
4:39
What do you think the Red Sox would have to send to the Twins for Joe Ryan this offseason?
Anthony Franco
4:43
I imagine Minnesota would try for Tolle and either Arias or Mayer. Hard for me to see the Sox doing both, maybe Tolle and Garcia plus gets the ball rolling?
Guest
4:43
If you're the Mets, with McLean, Tong and Sproat, the forgotten top prospect Christian Scott, and the starters already signed for next year, who do you trade this winter and who do you keep (with the understanding you can never have too much pitching)?
Anthony Franco
4:44
Yeah it's a boring answer but I'd probably keep them all. The young guys all have options and this summer showed how quickly the veteran depth can disappear with injuries
4:46
Might as well release Montas this offseason. No reason to carry him on the 40-man. Canning's gone. Could shop Megill, I guess, but they're facing five or six free agent losses in the bullpen so I'd probably just move him full-time to relief
Grateful Follower
4:47
Do you agree that MLB needs to find a way to curtail the use of position players as pitchers?  It was bad enough that Kurtz’s final homer in his 4HR game against a position player (not that it was Kurtz’s fault) but imagine if when Judge hit 62 it was “discovered” that 1, 2 or 3 of those had come against non-pitchers (fortunately not the case).  In the “old days”, in the rare instances of position players pitching they actually tried their best to get you out (YOU try to hit against Colavito).  Now it’s a series of 50MPH lobs towards the plate.  This is bad.
Anthony Franco
4:48
It's kind of ugly but I'm not sure what else I want them to do about it. They've already restricted when you can do it. If you're going to have a tight pitcher limit to combat bullpening (which they should), then this is an unfortunate byproduct. Otherwise you're going to get more middle relievers hurt by forcing them to wear it in a 10-run game
4:49
They dodged a bullet last night with Schwarber though. There would've been a lot of discourse if he broke the single-game HR record off Bruján. Short of straight up implementing an eight or 10-run mercy rule, I don't see a great solution
When Will Condon Get to COL Nxt Yr?
4:50
When will Charlie Condon get to COL?
Anthony Franco
4:51
June or July '26?
4:52
He's going to obliterate pitching in Albuquerque so I imagine it'll be a pretty brief Triple-A stint. Needs to make more contact in Double-A before I'd consider bringing him up though
Bobby Chette
4:52
Varsho extension o/u 5 years at 70M this offseason?
Anthony Franco
4:54
Yeah I don't think that's crazy. He's in an interesting spot as a post-'26 free agent. That class is facing a lockout, but the position player group that year is abysmal. Varsho's probably the second-best one in the class after Jazz
4:55
So he could prefer to avoid the work stoppage uncertainty but he also has a path to being the top hitter in his free agent year somehow
Stockholm, AZ
4:56
Hey Anthony! Will Tyler Locklear start hitting?
Anthony Franco
4:57
He's certainly better than he's shown so far but I'm not convinced he'll hit enough to be a regular
MoTork City
4:57
Are the Tigers going to roster Jack Flaherty next year? It’s hard to justify paying him. If his AAV next year was $10 million then maybe you would keep him, but his AAV next year is $20 million because he had 15 starts this year. His performance level since leaving Detroit last year has been putrid.
Anthony Franco
4:58
They can try to trade him but if they don't find a deal, they're going to need to pay him either way. It's a player option. Strikeout rate is high enough that they can talk themselves into some kind of rebound
Lloyd
4:58
If the Red Sox moved on from Devers to squash a potential clubhouse issue, could the Dbacks do the same with Marte?
Anthony Franco
4:59
Eh, the Devers one was because he had a falling out with the front office leader. Marte might've pissed off some teammates but it seems like he's on good terms with both Torey Lovullo and Mike Hazen
5:00
Alright, we're at the two-hour mark so I'm going to call it here. Still had a few questions in the queue that I didn't get to, so as always, feel free to throw it at me on X @affranco10
Connecting…