You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Front Office Chat: 8/30/24
powered byJotCast
Prev Page View Full Chat
El Jeffe
4:40
Mark Vientos or Junior Caminero for next year? Jordan Westburg or Luis Garcia, Jr.?
Anthony Franco
4:42
Westburg > García for sure. I'd take Caminero over Vientos but it's a lot closer than I would've thought a couple months ago. Still not completely sold on Vientos' bat-to-ball but he's closing in 'hits the ball so hard that it doesn't matter if he strikes out a ton' territory
Mark Lu
4:42
Any info on whether Pirates skipper Shelton is on the hot seat?
Anthony Franco
4:44
I haven't seen anything to suggest this is the case but we're on five years without a playoff berth and the rebuild feels like it's stalling. This is usually the time when the manager comes under fire
Eric
4:44
Do you think Masyn Winn will be in the Gold Glove conversation?
Anthony Franco
4:45
Conversation, yes, but I expect Lindor to win it
mmddyyyy
4:45
When they say "middle middle", what are the two things it's in the middle of?
Anthony Franco
4:46
Middle of the plate and the center of the hitter's vertical strike zone
UtahSteve
4:46
So for the three years the Athletics play in Sacramento (should've been Salt Lake City...just sayin')will they be named the Sacramento A's, Oakland A's or Las Vegas A's? Will they even retain the Athletics name? I wonder what you and others think.
Anthony Franco
4:47
Yeah, they'll keep the name. Oakland tried to get them to leave it behind in case they get an expansion team and the A's were adamant they were taking it
Bill
4:47
The. acquisition of Sean Murphy and loss of Contreras must have AA cringing every time Murphy comes to the plate.What the heck is wrong with Murphy? He. has been horrendous since last years all star break.Help!
Anthony Franco
4:49
Yeah this has been a terrible year. Grounders through the roof, not hitting the ball hard, swinging through a lot of hittable pitches
4:51
I don't have a good answer for why he just completely stopped hitting. If his numbers weren't also terrible in last year's second half, as you mentioned, I'd probably attribute it to the oblique. Tougher to explain away when he's going on a year and a half of being an inexplicably poor hitter
Baba Booey
4:51
If Cole opts out, will the Yankees be secretly relieved? That's a lot of money for a pitcher who clearly isn't the same and is only going to decline more.
Anthony Franco
4:52
Depends on how he finishes the season but if he continues at his current pace, they might be relieved
4:53
Wouldn't be a secret though since they'll need to decide whether to exercise the '29 option to override the opt-out. If they don't do that, it's because they're concerned about that kind of commitment for his mid-late 30s
Astros fan
4:53
Bregmanks contract - who, how long, and how much?
Anthony Franco
4:54
Big debate for us this week as we put together another free agent top 10
4:55
I'm around 6/160. Tim and Darragh were both below 150, pretty sure Steve had him at 175+. He's going to be a divisive one when we do the actual Top 50
4:56
Haven't given team any thought but I'd take someone other than the Astros. Detroit makes sense, Seattle could fit if he's fine going elsewhere in the AL West
Corbin's Side Burnes
4:56
Will Burnes' struggles down the stretch give some teams pause when making an offer to him this off season? 5.90 ERA in his last seven starts, K's down, hits and HR's up for the season. He'll get paid but maybe a little less than expected?
Anthony Franco
4:58
Yeah I think he's nudging himself down from around 250 closer to like 200-220. Still the clear top pitcher and #2 overall free agent for me, but it's a two-year trend of the drop in strikeouts and the results are starting to catch up at a bad time
mmddyyyy
4:58
What's a good strikeout rate for a pitcher?
Anthony Franco
5:00
Something like 23% for a starter is solid, 25+ is good. The baseline's a little higher for relievers. The 27-28% range there is probably the floor for a good K%
Dano
5:00
Is Reid Detmers finally going to get another shot in the majors?  Last 3 starts have been pretty good: 21 IP, 29:7 K:BB, 3 ER
Anthony Franco
5:03
Yeah might as well. Already getting looks at Dana and Aldegheri and I'd rather give Detmers a handful of starts down the stretch than continue to run Canning out there
George
5:05
I'm less than impressed with the Nats pitching & prospective pitching. Gore & Gray (hurt now) have had fine partial seasons. Jake Irvin is interesting, Mitchell Parker a little less so. Cavalli's been having a long rehab and is unproven. Is this more of the Nats development woes or something else related to their drafting and signing of young pitchers. Even with a young and potentially small ball offense next year, don't they need a lot of arms to start and in the pen? Does that push their timeline to invest even longer?
Anthony Franco
5:08
Yeah they probably need multiple starters to take the next step. The position player group is coming into place (although I'm a little worried about relying on Abrams as a long-term shortstop defensively). Getting Cavalli back should help but I'd like to see them make a push for one of the top starters available in free agency
5:10
Plug Flaherty and a less exciting back-end arm in there alongside Gore, Irvin and Cavalli with Parker and Herz behind them
You
5:10
It would be cool if the MLBTR team held a mock expansion draft.  What say you?  NOT UtahStebe btw
Anthony Franco
5:11
Tim and Connor Byrne did this during the pandemic transaction freeze
5:12
Whoops, here's the archive link:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020-mock-expansion-draft
5:13
No immediate plans to do it again -- it was time-consuming and probably only enabled by the circumstances -- but I imagine we'd do something similar if expansion were a more realistic short-term possibility
5:14
The other one is a fun 'remember some former prospects' exercise four years later haha
Marc
5:14
Outside of Hendricks, have you guys noticed how well the Cub’s starters and (bullpen!!) have been pitching the last couple of months?
Anthony Franco
5:19
Taillon not so much but the other starters have been good. Hodge looks like a keeper, intrigued but not sold on Pearson. Still think they need a little more stability at the back of the 'pen going into next year, but it has been really good out of nowhere in the second half
Ok, I'm going to wrap up here to put the finishing touches on the free agent rankings before tonight's games start
5:21
Thanks for hanging out and for continuing to support the site! I'm off the next two Fridays: friend's wedding next weekend and then a family trip to Baltimore to watch the Raiders get killed by the Ravens. We'll find alternatives for the chat, though -- probably Steve
5:22
Talk to you again in a few weeks. Have a great weekend!
Connecting…