JotCast | Trade Rumors Front Office Chat: 7/30/20

Trade Rumors Front Office Chat: 7/30/20

Prev Page View Full Chat

Steve Adams

12:40

What an absolute mess.

Amateur draft signings

12:41

Are you surprised that all 5 Rounds of Draft picks have been Signed so early before the August 1st deadline? Is Scott Boras getting soft or something?

Steve Adams

12:43

There was a lot less latitude for creativity with the draft dropping down to five rounds. And a lot of teams likely steered clear of some tough high school signs knowing the leverage they had in talks.

Boras, for the record, is far from the only agent to play hardball with draft negotiations and take things down to the wire at times. He's just the most outspoken of the bunch.

Brewers!

12:43

How long before Yelich gets out of his funk? I’m going with during the White Sox series next week at Miller Park.

Steve Adams

12:47

He's too talented for me to bet against, but as with Khris Davis before (that's probably the only time I'll liken those two players, ha), I always worry a bit more about a slow start when a guy is coming off an injury or injury-plagued season.

A dozen K's in 28 PAs is a tiny sample but still atypical for Yelich, and his exit velocity, hard-hit rate, etc. are all way down. It's also alarming to see him in the 14th percentile among MLB players in terms of sprint speed when he was around the 90th last year. For a guy who had such a notable knee injury, that's ominous.

Luzardo or Urias

12:47

If you are building a team, do u take Jesús Luzardo or Julio Urias?

Steve Adams

12:50

Urias already has a pretty scary shoulder surgery behind him, so I'd lean Luzardo. I know Luzardo has had Tommy John, but that's more commonly overcome and rebounded from than anterior capsule surgery. Plus Luzardo is younger.

Ted

12:51

What will it take for the Royals to get back on track? Major league roster has only a handful of truly major league players (Merrifield, Perez, Dozier, Mondesi maybe, Soler maybe, no pitchers). The others are career minor leaguers or castoffs. They seem to have a few young pitchers in the pipeline, but no position players. Trades have not netted any good players. Payroll has been relatively high. How do teams like the Rays and A's field good teams year after year with half the payroll?

Steve Adams

12:55

I think the Royals are well on their way. We've already seen Singer debut. Bubic tomorrow. Kowar and Lynch will be up sometime this year or early next, too. Not all of those guys will pan out as surefire starters, but they have some passable names right now (Junis, Keller, Duffy) and should be able to assemble a decent staff between the in-house options, the rising prospects and some offseason additions.

As for position players, Bobby Witt Jr. is still a few years off but one of the best prospects in the game -- but you're right that they're light in that regard. That might take some free-agent success or perhaps eventually making another Shields/Davis type of move but this time for a notable bat.

At any rate, I do think they have some reasons to be encouraged. And while the A's and Rays compete more regularly, I bet they'd trade a handful of those ALDS appearances for Kansas City's consecutive World Series berths (and a win)

Marc

12:55

For my money, the piped in crowd noise is as cheap and gimmicky as it gets.. But I want to ask you about the idea being tossed around that instead of having make up games lost to the virus, they'd go to a winning % formula. Am I wrong to think that could benefit teams that play less games?

Steve Adams

12:58

Yeah, I don't like the piped in noise, but I can live with it knowing that it's just a one-off thing while fans are out. I'm more concerned with the runner-on-second rule that it could have staying power.

At this point it feels inevitable that some clubs won't get a full 60 games. I can see where it ends up being controversial and leading to some gripes about the playoff field, although it could also just as easily hamper a team that plays fewer games. Telling a club "We're just going to scrap your 4 games against the Marlins or Orioles" or some other cellar team can impact things the other way.

I think the league should be happy if it's able to get to that point -- right now there's still a lot up in the air about the 2020 season.

Flergin

12:59

Is it possible that Ozuna is going to benefit from a small sample sized season in a walk year? This DH audition looks goooood so far.

Steve Adams

1:00

His end-of-year numbers could look great, sure. But today's brand of analytical, data-driven GM isn't going to say "Holy cow this guy hit .315/.360/.515" and shell out huge dollars if it's driven by a huge BABIP with questionable plate discipline, while his secondary/expected numbers tell a different story.

Ted

1:01

Seems like the Cardinals always have a bunch of AAAA outfielders, but none that stand out. That seems to be holding them back. They are hitting .217 as a team, so they have to find a way to score some runs.

Steve Adams

1:03

I know they love Bader's glove -- rightly so -- but if their lineup keeps struggling they're going to have to give Dylan Carlson a look sooner than later. In such a short season it's tough to say "We'll see how things look in three weeks."

Flergin

1:04

Re: Archer...D'oh. So let's say Musgrove to ATL...what gets it done? I confess I'm still confused by who you can trade...help me speculate!

Steve Adams

1:09

I'm always loath to speculate specific trade packages. We don't know how individual clubs value specific prospects, and the opinions on those prospects change throughout the industry much, much more quickly than many realize. That might be less true in 2020 because there's no minor league play to evaluate, but generally speaking, prospect lists/rankings are snapshots that can change quickly.

Broadly speaking, Musgrove is a respectable mid- or back-of-the-rotation arm who is controlled cheaply for 2.5 more seasons. He's less highly regarded than Archer was when he was flipped a couple years ago. I doubt you'd see Waters/Pache/Anderson as a centerpiece, but most of the farm beyond that seems like fair game. The Pirates did prioritize lower-level, high-ceiling guys in trading Marte.

As for who can be traded

It's anyone in a team's 60-man pool or anyone who opened the year on a Major League deal (on the 40-man) and was removed but remains in the org.

1:10

That's how the O's traded Velazquez to Houston yesterday even though he'd technically been removed from their pool.

SteveM

1:11

St. Paul, the place of my birth and the greatest city in the U.S. I should have never left.

Steve Adams

1:11

Ha -- I don't know about best in the U.S., but it's a great one and I'm proud to be from here/have returned home here.

1:12

Still loved my time in New York and wonder about going back someday -- but settled down here for now!

And with that, I have to wrap up

1:13

We'll do this again next week. Thanks so much for chatting everyone. I hope we can continue these. It's fun to have a smaller setting. Still can't get to every single question, but hopefully most who submitted a question(s) got at least one answered.

1:14

We'll continue to try to improve these -- so please do send feedback, thoughts, criticism, etc. We want to make these as valuable for you as we can.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Connecting…

Message History

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Steve Adams hosts a chat