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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat with Steve Adams: 5/19/25
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Steve Adams
12:02
Good afternoon! We'll get going at 2pm CT, but feel free to start sending in questions ahead of time, if you're so inclined.
2:01
Hello! Let's get going
Rick
2:02
Lawrence Butler batting average down and striking out too much. Concerned?
Steve Adams
2:03
Not especially. He's had a tough couple weeks, but the quality of contact is elite and his overall K% is only up 1.6 percentage points over last year. Lots of swing-and-miss lately, of course, but that's not a huge surprise from a young hitter trying to work out of a slump.

I'm a big Butler believer, and the batted-ball metrics are still excellent. If he K's at a 30% rate for the rest of the season, obviously that's a more concerning trend, but a 31 K% for 2-3 weeks while he's trying to hit out of a slump doesn't sound too many alarm bells yet.
Guest
2:04
If a players is on the 10 Day injury list… but he still can’t return to play after 10 days…can he go for another 10 days or does he have to go to 60 Day IL?
Steve Adams
2:04
Can be on the 10 or 15 day as long as the team wants. The move to the 60 is just done to open a 40-man roster spot when necessary.
Players on the 60-day IL don't count toward the 40-man roster limits.
Phillies situation
2:04
Weird question, but does the Alvarado, unpaid suspension inadvertently free up roughly $5 million in payroll and “cap” money for the team?
Steve Adams
2:06
Not weird! At least not around here with contract sickos like us, ha. By my rough count, Alvarado will lose about $4.5MM of his salary. The Phillies are in the top tax bracket, so that money was being taxed at a 110% clip, so that's another nearly $5MM. They're "saving" close to $10MM total with his suspension, though that's a small consolation right now. And since there's no "cap" in baseball anyhow -- just the luxury penalties -- there's no real benefit other than maybe John Middleton being more willing to take on some cash at the deadline.
Mike
2:07
Why two forms of WAR?  I know each one is site specific but why can’t baseball just decide on one official version?
Steve Adams
2:09
I have to imagine MLB is working on developing its own proprietary version of WAR based on Statcast data. The two WAR iterations (there's more, really, but the two main ones are bWAR and fWAR) exist because B-Ref and FanGraphs calculate them differently, particularly for pitchers; Baseball-Reference uses Runs Allowed, whereas FG uses FIP.

I don't love fWAR for pitchers for that reason, but I understand the thought process in positing "It's not as useful to say how valuable he was based on the raw runs he let in if he was overwhelmingly unlucky along the way."

I prefer RA9-WAR for trying to determine award voting and such (though I do not have a ballot and am frankly fine not subjecting myself to such scrutiny or impact players' earnings with my voting/opinion anyhow).
Joe Schlabotnik
2:09
If the Orioles decide to clean house, how valuable is Sugano? He succeeding in an unorthodox way, but he is definitely succeeding, and probably should bring something meaningful back right?
Steve Adams
2:13
I wouldn't say he's succeeding in an unorthodox way -- I'd call it an unsustainable way. He's just not going to sustain a sub-3.00 or low-3.00s ERA if he's only fanning 14-15% of his opponents with a swinging-strike rate that's only about 75% of the league-average mark.

A team simply in need of innings might give up a marginal prospect, but this version of Sugano isn't going to be viewed as a playoff starter for a contending club (barring multiple other injuries in their rotation post-trade), and he doesn't miss bats or throw as hard as you'd like for someone you're eyeing for a bullpen role in October.

The $13MM salary isn't egregious for a bulk innings guy, but it's not really a bargain, either. I don't see a ton of trade value unless he can more consistently strike hitters out.
2:14
For what it's worth, from April 28 through May 9, he pitched 18 1/3 innings with a 24% strikeout rate and 12% swinging-strike rate, so maybe there's some hope for him upping the whiffs as he further acclimates to North American ball
But he followed that up with a pretty rough start against the Twins wherein he wasn't missing bats at all.
D Hat
2:16
Dillon Dingler and Tomás Nido are both performing well. How will the Tigers handle the situation when Jake Rogers returns? What are your thoughts?
Steve Adams
2:18
Nido is hitting .343 in 37 PAs and doing so despite not having drawn a single walk. He's sitting on a .480 average on balls in play -- about 1.7x the league-average. He'll crash back down sooner than later at this rate. We have 935 plate appearances from 2018-24 telling us Nido isn't a good hitter (.209/.244/.308). I don't think the Tigers are going to put much stock in a 10-game sample that's not at all supported by his plate discipline, approach or batted-ball quality.
All of which is to say, barring an injury, I expect it'll go right back to Rogers/Dingler, unless the latter is really struggling suddenly and they want to get him regular at-bats in Toledo.
Ned Colletti’s Toupee
2:19
With Taylor gone, is Conforto next?  It’s obvious the Dodgers have zero problems eating bad contracts.
Steve Adams
2:22
I wouldn't say they have zero problem with it. If that were the case, they'd have cut Taylor last year.

The Dodgers are paying Conforto more than Taylor. He's still drawing tons of walks, hitting the ball hard, and striking out a relatively manageable (albeit still higher-than-average) rate. None of that was true of Taylor. He should have a longer leash -- deservedly so in my opinion -- but I get the frustration over his lack of hitting since that's basically all he was signed to do.
John B
2:22
Bryce Eldridge got off to a slow start but lately has been raking in AA and his strikeout rate is down. Could see him in AAA by the end of the month. Do you think the Giants will still slow play him or will he force the issue?
Steve Adams
2:26
I'm not even sure you could say he had a slow start ... I guess the first 5-6 games or so. But since May 1, he's hitting .322/.385/.593 with a 9.2% walk rate and 23.1% strikeout rate.

I don't see huge reason to leave him in AA all that much longer and expect him to be bumped to AAA soon, as you said. I don't know your definition for slow playing since it's a relative term, but unless he just faceplants in Triple-A, there's an easy argument that he should be in the majors by the end of June.
Just a Rockies fan
2:26
Any idea what’s happening with Soto in NY? I caught the Mets/Yankees series over the weekend and I can’t believe this is the same player he was last year.  He looked slow, late, and uninspired. I’ve now learned his RISP is in the toilet. Thoughts?
Steve Adams
2:29
Soto's had 30-some plate appearances with RISP this year. I don't put a lot of stock in RISP in general, but especially not in a sample of 30-40 plate appearances. He's hitting the ball hard, getting on base, and been around 35% better than an average hitter.

It's only a "down" showing by his stratospheric standards. His walk rate, strikeout rate, batted-ball metrics -- it's all right in line with last year. No reason for me to think he won't finish the year ranked right alongside the game's other perennial elite hitters (Judge, Ohtani, etc.)
Barney Rubble
2:29
How much longer can the Guardians trot out their anemic CF/RF combo?
Steve Adams
2:33
They've needed outfield help for years. The farm isn't producing it. I never liked their pickup of Thomas -- I think he's a very good fourth OF who's miscast as an everyday bat, especially in center field -- and while I loooooove the "Big Christmas" nickname, Jhonkensy Noel's general approach and lack of plate discipline doesn't seem like something he'll overcome anytime soon.

I'm sure in their long-term planning, they were hoping to have Chase DeLauter and/or George Valera contributing in a meaningful capacity by now, but injuries suck.

I'm not sure there's a ton to be done right not but hope for turnarounds from the guys they have -- and then aggressively look for outfield help again at the '25 deadline (for a second straight year ... whoops)

At least Steven Kwan is excellent?
R0cketer
2:35
Is the perception that the Red Sox waiting to call up Mayer and/or Anthony due to perceptions that they aren't ready or just problems on finding the spots to work at?   I am kind of surprised that they haven't worked with either Mayer or Anthony as  a possible solution at 1B.  There is always the idea that you don't want to have a prospect trying to learn the MLB lifestyle, a new position as well, but Campbell isn't exactly a hardened veteran and they are having him learn a new spot, this early in his career.  Is Rafaela not considered as someone who could help at 1B since he was thought to be a good utility player.  With the apparently cursed spot (1B) adding Casas to its cursed list (Casas, Dalbec, Chavis and the others, be it from trades or from the system), I don't have the time to look it back up, I had before but don't trust my memory.  Thanks for answering
Steve Adams
2:38
I've said already that I think they should use the Casas injury as a means to get Anthony in particular on the roster. Mayer is hitting fine, but not great. Anthony is obliterating Triple-A pitching in basically every possible capacity.

It seems like they don't want him learning a new position and making the adjustment to the majors simultaneously, as you said. Maybe they hate the idea of plugging in a plus defender like Abreu or Rafaela at 1B, but I'd be looking at basically every player on the MLB roster and trying to figure out who can slide over to 1B to get Roman Anthony to the majors like ... yesterday.
Wandering Chief
2:39
Raisel Iglesias always had issues with control but was able to pitch out of it. His velocity is down and he's looking vulnerable this year. Concerning? If so where to look for backup plan.
Steve Adams
2:44
I wouldn't say Iglesias has had long-running issues with his command. He has a career 6.8% walk rate and a 5.3% dating back to 2020. That's borderline elite.

The velo is down, but his swinging-strike rate and chase rate are fine. Walk rate is still great.

My gut reaction when the peripherals look good -- and Iglesias' do -- and the player is getting hammered by home runs is to wonder about tipping pitches or something.

All of Iglesias' rate stats look good to great, with the exception of home runs. He's gone from seeing 10.4% of his fly balls become homers (2020-24, which is right where that number should be, more or less) to a ridiculous 28.6% in 2025.

HR/FB tends to normalize over larger samples, so I don't tend to worry too much about some spikes. But this one is SO pronounced, that it just feels hard to fathom.
2:45
A .530 BABIP over his past 5-6 outings (despite really good batted-ball numbers for him/really bad batted-ball numbers for his opponents) isn't helping his cause.
2:46
I wouldn't be surprised if they shake up the ninth inning and swap Pierce Johnson in there, but Iglesias just doesn't look to me like he should be as much of a mess as his ERA would suggest.
walterj23
2:47
Do you think Crow Armstrong  will have more WAR at the end of the season than Tucker ?
Steve Adams
2:48
It's possible just because of the defense and baserunning, but Tucker is such a superb hitter and we have no indication yet of whether PCA can sustain anything close to this. I'd go with Tucker, but it's a more justifiable question than would've seemed possible just a couple months ago. What a year for Pete
Kirt
2:49
When will Wallner be back?
Steve Adams
2:51
Last update on him that I saw was last week -- that he's still not cleared to run. I don't think it'll be anytime this month, and early June is tough to imagine, too.

In the meantime, Kody Clemens of all people is doing his best impression of Wallner's ludicrous batted-ball numbers... he's averaging 99.2 mph off the bat and has hit 73% of his batted balls at 95 mph or greater.

It's 42 plate appearances with virtually no chance of being sustained, but I love weird small-sample baseball stuff like that. And good for Kody Clemens, who just turned 29 and has had little to no MLB success while dealing with the constant references/comparisons to his dad. Probably feels great to go on a nice run like this.
D Hat
2:52
Do the Tigers need to pick up a closer at the great deadline? Your thoughts.
Steve Adams
2:54
I don't think it matters a ton whether it's a closer specifically, since the Tigers have shown they'll just play matchups and throw all roles out the window to great effect. But getting another bullpen arm in general, yeah -- most contenders should and will be in the market for that type of addition.
Tommy
2:54
Has Andy Pages done enough to cement himself as a regular starting fixture for LAD with his offensive outburst in the last month? Id assume Outmans the demotion when Teoscar comes back this week but it's getting crowded again and his PT always has seemed to be on tenuous ground.
Steve Adams
2:56
Pages has had some wild batted-ball luck but I don't see how they could activate Hernandez at his expense when he's hitting .356/.375/.634 over his past 105 trips to the plate -- especially when Outman is striking out more than ever (which is saying something, based on his track record)
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