JotCast | Trade Rumors Front Office Chat

Trade Rumors Front Office Chat

Steve Adams

2:05

Hey all -- I'm finishing up a quick post on a minor Mets/Giants trade and will get this rolling momentarily.

2:08

Alrighty, sorry about that!

Keith

2:09

Alex Cobb, Justin Upton, and a whole bunch of cash for Frankie Montas and Stephen Piscotty. Who says no?

Steve Adams

2:09

I don't see much point in that for the A's, even if they think Cobb is an upgrade over Montas presently.

They could just go get a better fifth starter who doesn't require them to take on a part of the Upton deal

2:10

Plus Montas is still controlled a couple seasons, and the underlying numbers aren't near as bad as the ERA.

Will

2:10

This doesn't have anything to do with trade rumors, per se, but the US Olympics Baseball team was just announced, and Jarren Duran is not on it (Triston Casas is, however). As I recall, Duran was on the team in the preliminary round last month. Does this seem to indicate that the BoSox might be calling him up in the near future?

Steve Adams

2:11

Here's Alex Speier from the Boston Globe on this, which is a better answer than I'd have been able to speculatively provide off the cuff without looking into it:

For what it's worth, Jarren Duran remains with the WooSox. He played with them last night. As @PeteAbe noted, it's likely Sox didn't want to lose him from July 16 through early- to mid-August.

2:12

Per a major league source, the decision not to include Duran on US Olympic Team was from the USOC. Red Sox would have been OK with him going - with the proviso that if they wanted to call him up, they could. With visa requirements and logistical challenges of replacing …

…a player, Olympic team elected not to include him on the roster - for the same reason that the team doesn’t feature members of 40-man rosters. Duran is de facto big league depth at this point, very likely to reach the big leagues at some point this year.

2:13

So -- maybe not in the immediate future, but yeah, it seems likely he'll get a look eventually. I don't know why they continue to ride out Santana. I guess he had a nice game the other day, but he's had a real rough stint there.

Ryan S.

2:13

The Cardinal's are playing terrible, and still are close. Doesn't say much for the division. But is a Kyle Gibson realistic? They need 2 starters realistically, and some BP help. Or you think they'll punt on '21

Steve Adams

2:14

I don't think they'll punt on '21, and I've said in some of these chats -- maybe not Front Office ones -- in the past that I think he's among the best fits for them. Controlled beyond '21, former Mizzou ace, specializes in weak contact/grounders, which is ideal with their stacked infield defense, etc.

Would've been even better if they kept Wong (oops), but he's still a good fit.

Michael

2:15

Franco is here! Nice 1st game. I know it is early, but is he considered to be in the same class as Acuna Jr, Guerrero Jr and Tatis Jr. Does he need to add a Jr to his name?? MLB needs more flair from the young guys!

Steve Adams

2:17

I've seen scouting reports from people who've been covering this stuff for decades that say he's one of the best prospects they've ever seen. That doesn't mean he's 100% a star, but he's among the most highly regarded prospects in recent memory. Comping him to Vladdy, Tatis Jr. and Acuna is a pretty high bar to set, though.

I always hate calling someone the "next" anything or lumping him in with a group of players. Let him be himself. I think he'll be great, and maybe in a few years we'll be debating Franco/Tatis. But if we're not, and he ends up being like ... "only" as good as Carlos Correa or Javier Baez or something, it's not like that's a bad outcome.

2:18

Hell even if he settles in at like ... Jorge Polanco's level ... that's still a nice player. I almost feel bad for some of these kids who get such obscene expectations placed on them. Franco could be a solid 3-4 WAR player for the next 15 years, and some people would call him a bust. It's rough.

Ted

2:19

Are the DBacks not headed for an historically bad record? How does a team that looked promising less than two years ago dig out of this hole? How much of the failure falls onto Ken Kendrick's shoulders?

Steve Adams

2:21

Part of the blame has to go on the owner. Remember, this is a team that traded Starling Marte last year because they didn't want to pick up his option. That's not because they didn't think he was worth it -- but because ownership told the front office it wouldn't spend on the option. Marte x2 would be looking great right now.

The D-backs also didn't spend almost anything this past winter, despite some obvious areas for improvement (most notably in the bullpen).

Granted, ownership green-lit the Madison Bumgarner signing, and that hasn't panned out at all, so it's not like Kendrick won't spend and is solely to blame. There's a lot to go around.

I don't think if you went back and replayed the schedule so far, the D-backs would lose this many again. But things have snowballed pretty obviously.

2:22

On the plus side, the D-backs already had a strong farm, they have a top 10 pick this year (7th? 6th? Can't recall off the top of my head) and probably will have the top pick in '22.

2:23

They're going to have a real good system, and the fruits of that system will start reaching the Majors around the time the Bumgarner deal is wrapping up. They can be good well before that, of course, but just saying the future looks OK. This isn't some Tigers/Orioles-esque five-year odyssey back to competence.

2:24

One second -- I'm going to attempt to add MLBTR's Anthony Franco in here as a co-host. He's going to start running some chats on the site as well, so I'm going to subject him to on-the-fly getting used to the software and maybe weighing in on some of your questions :)

Bernie

2:25

What would it take for the Brewers to land CJ Cron and Jon Gray?

Steve Adams

2:28

I don't think Cron, on his own, has all that high of value. You're talking a C-level prospect or two. With Gray, the value is a bit higher because the need for starting pitching is so much greater throughout the league that demand naturally increases. If the Brewers were go for both of them, I think Rox could justifiably ask for one of their top 10 prospects or so and a couple further down the ranks. Granted, the Brewers' system isn't great, so there are probably better fits to market Gray on his own.

2:29

Success. Anthony is here. Somewhere.

(I think. Say something Anthony?)

Guest

2:30

Which Mariner do you see going to the All-Star game? Kikuchi? Crawford? Haniger?

Anthony Franco

2:30

Hey everyone, appreciate your support for the site! Looking forward to engaging with everyone more on these!

Steve Adams

2:30

I lean Haniger, in part for sentimental reasons because of what he had to go through to get back to the field. I think KIkuchi has quietly had the better season of the two, though)

Hooray! He does exist.

Nick Plummer

2:31

If the Cardinals decide to sell, what sort of return could Gallegos and Kim each bring back?

Steve Adams

2:32

I don't think they'd sell, but we'll pretend they lose like 12 in a row or something for the purposes of this question.

2:33

Kim's going to be viewed as a third/fourth starter -- probably closer to a fourth -- and is a pure rental. The affordable nature of the contract probably ups his value a bit, but I think it's similar to Gray ... one solid piece from the 5-10 range in a decent system and some lower-tier guys. It's not going to be some overwhelming haul.

2:35

Gallegos would be tough for them to trade even if they did sell. He's controlled three years beyond the current season and established himself as a high-end reliever over the past three years. He'd be the most coveted reliever on the market and should command at least one premium prospect -- top 100 type -- and several other quality pieces from the acquiring team's system. It'd be a significant haul, but I don't think the Cardinals would do it, since even if they sell for 2021, they're going to try to win for 2022.

daddydeerist

2:36

With the Yankee season circling the drain, wouldn't some contender like to acquire Aroldis Chapman again? Even if all they got was some salary relief and no prospects they might be able to improve over Roughned Odor.

Steve Adams

2:38

The way Chapman is performing right now, who's going to want to take on that contract? Especially since his struggles line up with the foreign substance crackdown. (Not saying that's the case, but the timing is hard to overlook)

2:39

I don't know why the Yankees acquired Odor in the first place, frankly, and I'm even more perplexed with how long they've kept him around.

Kirt

2:40

Spin rates are down after the crackdown. Where do you see the MLB batting average ending up overall for the year?

Steve Adams

2:41

I don't have a good guess, mainly because I don't pay much heed to batting average in the first place. I did see a tweet just like an hour ago that said scoring is up on a per-game basis by 9.7%, which is ... pretty considerable. Also noticed that the leaguewide strikeout rate has dipped below 24%, which is something, since earlier this year (mid-May?) it was like 24.8% when I checked

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