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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat with Steve Adams: 3/14/25
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Steve Adams
12:09
Happy Pi Day, everyone. Anthony and I switched up our chats this week, since I was off Monday while the kiddos were home from daycare. I'll get this going at 2pm CT, but feel free to submit advance questions if you prefer! Looking forward to it.
2:00
Hello there! Let's get underway
Kevin in Dallas
2:00
Why did Baltimore and Seattle not go for broke this year, the rosters just needed a little push, Was it money or fear of trading from the farm.
Steve Adams
2:03
The payroll constraints placed on the Seattle front office are pretty well established at this point. They had, at best, somewhere around $15MM to work with this winter. Dumping Haniger or Garver would've helped but wasn't an easy task. The Mariners shopped some prospects around, but very few clubs were trading established big league bats, particularly in the infield, where the M's were looking for help.

The Orioles, I don't know what to make of their winter. It seems like they clearly had some money to spend. I don't know if it was ownership or the front office that was just staunchly against any sort of long-term pitching commitment. Corbin Burnes at least suggested the O's were competitive in their talks, though he also noted they never made a formal offer -- only verbal indications of where they might go.

I've been harping on Baltimore to be more aggressive with free-agent and trade additions for years now. It seems like such an overwhelmingly cautious baseball operations outfit there.
Guest
2:03
Is Jordan Montgomery going to finally get traded now that teams like Yankees and Red Sox have injured starters?
Steve Adams
2:04
Montgomery has made one official spring start. He retired one of the six batters he faced, walked two and gave up two home runs. His next outing came on the backfields.
2:05
All of which is to say, no one's taking him on right now. The D-backs will try to get him sorted out, but if you're the Yankees, you're not looking at his 2024 performance and that start to his spring training and thinking, "getting Monty back is what we need"
Paul K
2:05
Please explain the beas-beads thing that keeps popping up
Steve Adams
2:05
Ha, it's an old Arrested Development bit. Mark Polishuk is nothing if not a voracious consumer of comedic television, particularly from that era
GBS42
2:06
Phil Maton is the game changer the Cardinals have been waiting patiently for, right?
Steve Adams
2:06
He's a nice pickup at $2MM!
Obviously just a weird/bad offseason for the Cardinals, but hey, in isolation there's nothing to hate on with that move.
Chris
2:06
Is there a scenario where Nolan McLean make the Mets main roster this season?  Love his arm.  Thank you.
Steve Adams
2:07
I would be surprised as he's just had the one full season in pro ball and the Mets have other options ahead of him on the depth chart. He pitched well across three levels last year though and held his own in  Triple-A. I'd imagine there's a real chance he debuts at some point this summer, perhaps sooner depending on the team's health.
Ernie Whitt
2:07
Jays could be best in the AL EAst at 1B, 2B, CF and second best at C, SS, RF. With really good starting pitching and a better bullpen, why are people still thinking it's a last place team? Especially with Cole out...
Steve Adams
2:09
Even setting aside the specific "best at X position," it's just a talented group. I think general underachievement under this front office and core fuels that perception, as does the fact that it's just a very strong division.

But with a Bichette bounceback, even passable offense from Gimenez, and some kind of break with one of their 3B options -- yeah, the lineup can be really good and sneaky deep. The rotation is on the older side but everyone in there is still a good arm. Bullpen is a big question mark, but they made some nice additions.

I don't think there's one team in the AL East you can look at and say "there's just no way they'll compete this year."
Cashman
2:10
Cole's injury pretty much seals the deal on this season being lost, right?  Or do I just wait to try to acquire an ace at the trade deadline?
Steve Adams
2:12
A lot of teams would love to look at their rotation and see Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Marcus Stroman and Clarke Schmidt in the top four spots.

A lineup with Jazz Chisholm, Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Austin Wells, Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe and hopefully at some point Giancarlo Stanton looks pretty good (even if Stanton doesn't come back anytime soon).

Devin Williams/Luke Weaver/Ian Hamilton as your three highest-leverage arms is pretty darn nice, too, assuming Weaver can prove last year wasn't some wild aberration.
It's easy to be down on the Yankees with Cole, Gil, Stanton and others ailing, but this is a really deep roster that can withstand some of those issues. And yeah, if/when they're in it at the deadline, they can always pursue another arm or infielder.
Talent Scout
2:13
Would Derek Zoolander or Hansel be the better OF? I feel like Hansel would hit for more power
Steve Adams
2:13
Hansel. He's so hot right now.
Royals
2:13
In 2015, they won the World Series on a modest payroll and spent money to build the best bullpen with a good starting rotation. Have they created a new Moneyball by going for two modest $15 million starters and controllable guys behind them and a great defense?  They created a lot of defensive runs saved. The Diamondbacks kind of did the same the year before. Are they on to something for the teams that can't afford aces???
Steve Adams
2:15
I don't think it's a new concept for smaller-market clubs to focus on things like defense and baserunning when they know they can't sign the big-name aces and sluggers. Looking back over the past decade, these teams are all in the top 6-7 for combined Defensive Runs Saved and/or Outs Above Average:

Brewers, D-backs, Guardians, Royals, Rays
2:16
It's one of the many ways those clubs have been able to compete more often than not. Teams don't pay up for defense, and higher-end relief pitching can generally be found more affordably than higher-end rotation help or offense -- particularly late in the offseason.

(Or, in the Brewers' case, you can just keep working voodoo magic to turn Joel Payamps, Trevor Megill, Hoby Milner, and so many more into plus relievers)
GBS42
2:16
Sure, in isolation the Maton signing is fine. As St. Louis' isolated move, it's sad and frustrating.
Steve Adams
2:16
No disagreement here. Their offseason has been a disaster
RoxTalks
2:17
Monfort's comments yesterday just another example of owners refusing to take accountability? He's run his team into the ground with ridiculous practices, horrible signings/trades, and a non-existent development system, but now it's because of large-market teams owning free agency that his team is bad? The Rockies have been pseudo-rebuilding for nearly a decade and have a bottom tier farm system because they refuse to do anything different. Give me a break, Richard.
Steve Adams
2:19
I think the Rockies' problem is that they haven't even been pseudo-rebuilding. They've just refused to rebuild as Monfort has continually deluded himself into thinking they're on the cusp of breaking through. And the Rockies don't seem to ever go outside the organization to bring in any kind of fresh perspective or voices. They obviously have some good scouts and intelligent people there, but the entire baseball operations outfit is just way smaller than so many other more successful teams.

The Rockies got nothing for losing Jon Gray. They got a pick for Trevor Story. They extended Daniel Bard rather than trading him when he'd have been the most coveted reliever on the market. They held onto German Marquez under similar circumstances. They jump to extend homegrown players a lot, but rarely the right ones. (Senzatela/Freeman/Kinley are all rough and looked ... perplexing... at the time)
2:21
The Rox clearly can identify some good talent in the draft and international markets. They've had tons of good players come through there. But they've made a lot of very wrong decisions as the window of control over those players has dwindled, in part because Monfort seems overly involved in baseball operations and has been for ages. He stepped in to veto a Jorge de la Rosa-for-Eduardo Rodriguez trade in like 2012 or 2013, when E-Rod was still a prospect.
They've struggled over multiple iterations of coaches and front offices. Monfort is the constant. It's hard to see them succeeding over a sustained period when he's running the show.
Fred
2:21
Who is the Astros starting second baseman on opening day?
Steve Adams
2:22
They seem pretty committed to Altuve in left field, so I'll say Mauricio Dubon 70% or Brendan Rodgers 30%
mlbfan
2:22
Is Devers getting traded something the sox will actually consider if is asks or will they find a way to smooth things over with him?
Steve Adams
2:24
He's already said he'll DH or whatever on Opening Day. He's a prideful guy, as all athletes are. I don't mind the "third base is my position" confidence he showed earlier in camp, so long as it doesn't fester into some toxic issue, which it hasn't. If they tell him he's DH'ing and he refuses to go into the lineup, sure, then it's an issue. Otherwise, it's just a player speaking his mind, expressing confidence and having a chip on his shoulder, all of which is fine to me. He didn't trash Bregman in his comments. He didn't publicly demand a trade. I think it's more of a story than it needs to be, although I understand why people are drawn to it. We're so used to the "wherever the team needs me" reply.
Rick
2:24
Do you see Keibert Ruiz being able to become a more productive hitter? He makes contact, just doesn't do much with it. Still young though.
Steve Adams
2:28
Sorry to say, I am not a giant Ruiz believer. The contact skills are great, but his swing choices are poor. He chases off the plate so often, and his contact skills are so good that he ends up just making a bunch of weak contact and easy outs on balls he never should have swung at in the first place.

It's strange though, because he actually swings within the strike zone slightly less often than the average big leaguer, while he chases off the plate nearly 1.5x as often. The only hitter in baseball who makes contact on balls off the plate than Ruiz is Luis Arraez. But Arraez chases off the plate a good bit less and uses all fields way better. Ruiz ranks 11th in MLB (min. 300 PAs) in chase rate, second in contact when chasing ... and 14th in total pull rate.
2:29
If you're chasing off the plate constantly and just rolling over everything or kind of lazily flying to left or popping to the left side of the infield -- his infield fly rate is also quite high -- it's not a good approach.
I just think he needs a massive overhaul of his swing decisions, and that's much, much easier said than done.
Reds fan Ryan
2:30
Over/under 3 WAR for Austin Hays?
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