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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat with Steve Adams: 3/31/25
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Steve Adams
12:51
Rockies announced that Sam Hilliard went unclaimed on waivers and was outrighted to AAA.
Friar Faithful
12:52
Something or nothing, the Padres sweep of the Braves? They look like they’re on a mission given how last season ended. Pivetta and the bullpen were lights out. Most of the lineup was clicking, especially late in games.
Kevin in Texas
12:52
How many games into the season before you can get a lead on how good or bad a team is.
Steve Adams
12:52
Lots of questions along these lines for various teams.
12:55
In general, while you can't take back the results from the first few weeks of games, I also don't think it's productive to draw sweeping conclusions about the season-long outlook for a club based on much of what we see in March/April.

By June or so, sure you can start to get a more legitimate sense of things, but even then ... look how far into the season the Nationals, Braves and Phillies were sub-.500 clubs in years they won the pennant in 2019, 2021 and 2022. (and the World Series in the cases of Washington and Atlanta)
Mark in Toronto
12:56
Considering all of this deferred money that some large market teams are giving out, is that going to pose future luxury tax issues for them in years to come, impacting their ability to sign other free agents?   Is the league going to do anything about this practice?
Steve Adams
12:59
We talked about this on the podcast last week. In short ... no. (I don't think, anyway.) The simple reason being, both the players and teams want deferrals to be permissible. The only ones getting angry about deferrals are fans, who don't have a seat at the table in collective bargaining. Teams like being able to kick the can down the road. Players like being able to get inflated totals and set new "records." Agents like to be able to tout those "records" when recruiting prospects or new players.

It's not going to be a hot-button issue. Also, deferring contracts is hardly unique to big markets. The extent to which the Dodgers have done it recently draws plenty of attention, but that's basically all because of Shohei Ohtani. The rest of their deferral setups aren't out of line with prior deferrals we've seen from teams like the Nationals, Orioles, Reds, etc over the past decade-plus.
1:00
And Ohtani was clearly pushing that deferral structure with everyone he sat down with, so it's not like it was something concocted by the Dodgers that they and only they were willing/able to do.
Salt Twinkie
1:00
You know, everyone there is so high on the Twins, like every year, and like every year they suck for most of the season and then suddenly remember to win. Their pitching, for my money, is a wreck every year. The bullpen ultimately fails. The, "so called" stars wind up on the IL for months at a time. The farm produces a bunch of junk. Falvey should give it up and go back to Cleveland, an organization that actually knows how to win.
Steve Adams
1:06
Twins are tied for 15th in overall ERA dating back to 2020, including 13th among their relievers. Lewis/Buxton/Correa are hurt a lot, yes. That's just a fact. The farm has consistently been middle-of-the-pack or better and has produced Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Buxton, Lewis, Luis Arraez, Ryan Jeffers and others in that time. They're 356-352 since 2020.

I purposely excluded the weird 2019 juiced ball season when the Twins of all teams hilariously set the all-time MLB home run record, but in general, while they haven't been an elite team they've generally been competent and produced a handful of pretty good big leaguers
Cora's Lobotomist
1:07
Wilyer Abreu lost out on ROY last year getting benched against lefties and the Sox missed out on a PPI pick. He is currently batting SEVEN hundred. What does he have to do to get a chance? Rob Refsnyder hitting any fewer than 20 home runs does not make this platoon a good idea.
Steve Adams
1:11
Abreu had a gap of more than 250 points in his OPS versus lefties and righties in his final two minor league seasons. If he'd played against lefties all year, his rate stats wouldn't have looked as nice as they did.

Also, he wasn't a top-ranked prospect prior to debuting in the majors, so they weren't getting that pick for him regardless.

If we're going to cite him hitting .700 in all of 15 plate appearances, I don't know why we're writing off the fact that he's a .181/.253/.264 hitter in 79 plate appearances against lefties in the majors.

I wouldn't personally glean a ton from that, but it's more meaningful than the 15 PAs he's had so far this year.
Canario
1:11
Any word on who claimed me?  I had a good spring.
Steve Adams
1:13
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Canario cleared. Even in his good spring, he K'ed in 35% of his plate appearances. The power is legitimate, but he might have a 20 or 25 hit tool on the 20-80 scale.

He was traded for cash to a team that had no place for him on the roster but loves stockpiling depth. I would assume the Mets' hope was always to get him on the cheap and pass him through waivers as AAA depth.
NY Sotos
1:14
Not a good start for the Mets. Are you concerned about the Mets pitching?
Steve Adams
1:14
I was concerned about if before the offseason ended:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/02/the-mets-havent-done-enough-wit...
Ms Fan
1:15
Don't think enough national media types caught that Jerry admitted in a press conference that teams reached out about dozens of seattle prospects, he just didn't like the price. Understand that ownership is the issue, but a F.O. who doesn't want to pay market price to help the big league squad is culpable as well.
Steve Adams
1:17
The Mariners have one of the three-ish best systems in the sport. It's only natural that a bunch of teams reached out. But look around the league at the caliber of bats that were available and actually traded this offseason. There wasn't a ton there.

I don't doubt that they got a lot of calls, just based on the quality of talent in their ranks, but I do doubt that teams were peddling immediate infield upgrades at a price that fans would've deemed acceptable. Dipoto is nothing if not bold when it comes to trades, and he knew he had no money to work with this winter. Based on his history, I would feel pretty comfortable buying the notion that if there was a decent bat to be had at a reasonable price -- perhaps even a slightly unreasonable price -- he'd have made it happen.
1:19
Alright, I've got to wrap this up for the week! I'm on X @Adams_Steve and Bluesky @adams-steve.bsky.social. Always happy to take more questions on either.

Sorry for the ones I couldn't get to this afternoon! Enjoy the rest of the week and enjoy having actual baseball back! I certainly have been.
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