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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat with Steve Adams: 6/9/25
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Steve Adams
12:15
Good afternoon!
We'll get this going at 2pm, but feel free to submit questions ahead of time. Looking forward to it!
2:03
Hello! Sorry to start a couple minutes late
Let's get underway!
Marlins
2:03
Who on the team gets the All Star nod? Agustin Ramirez?
Steve Adams
2:04
I would imagine it's Kyle Stowers. They've both been good overall and cooled off recently but Stowers has been up all year. I guess you could say Ryan Weathers if he makes another six or seven really good starts between now and then, but Stowers feels likeliest to me right now
Beano
2:04
How low can W Adames numbers go this year? A career year repeat was out of the question, but a total bust is surprising - no?
Steve Adams
2:09
Yeah, it's a pretty big surprise. It's also worrying, because the main culprit I'd point to is bat speed. Adames is actually chasing less often and making more contact in the zone. His strikeout and walk rates are similar to last year. He's not suddenly hitting a ton of grounders -- though his GB% is up a slight bit, nothing major.

He's tied for the eighth-biggest drop in bat speed, as measured by Statcast, among 175 qualified big leaguers. That's not great, obviously. He was at 73.6 mph in 2024 and is down to 71.8 mph in 2025.

You never know precisely how healthy a player is. Maybe he's working through something that's hampering his shoulder or wrist strength. Maybe he made a tweak in his mechanics moving to a bigger park and it's having an adverse effect.

It's impossible to say, but you're plenty justified to be concerned with the first two-plus months at this point.
Kegger
2:10
Do you see only rentals moving at deadline or bigger deals happening?
Steve Adams
2:12
There will always be some players with multiple years of team control moved. The Rays are always a team to watch here because of their constantly strong farm and their constant payroll crunches. Brandon Lowe, Yandy Diaz and Drew Rasmussen come to mind. Pete Fairbanks. The Rockies waited too long to trade Ryan McMahon, but they're so bad this year that I wonder if they'll finally listen on guys like him or Kyle Freeland
Marlins obviously will listen on Alcantara, but they'll want to avoid selling too low. Ryan Weathers and Anthony Bender will get looks. Jesus Sanchez, too.
2:13
Pirates will have David Bednar and Dennis Santana, both controlled through 2026. Bailey Falter is another one there. Nathaniel Lowe in Washington
2:14
Even win-now clubs looking to buy will be forced to part with some young major leaguers; that's the nature when there's a limited inventory of available players for buy-side teams to target and when teams are more reluctant than ever to trade true prospects.
Kevin in Ranger Texas
2:15
Idea of Texas trading Mahle or Corbin or Gray after he comes back, for a consistent hitter to help in the lineup, hopefully the guys we have now can turn it around but…. Adolis is no help, Jung has slowed, Seager has not helped out. Should we trade ? And stay in it.
Steve Adams
2:17
Those guys are all free agents at season's end, so I doubt any of them is bringing back an immediate bat to plug into the lineup -- unless you're talking about swapping them out for another rental.

I think it's far likelier that if Mahle & Co. are traded, it'll be to bring in some younger prospects and then they'll reload in the winter and try again next year.
Chris
2:17
The Mets could soon have 8 starters for five spots (Holmes, Peterson, Senga, Canning, Megill, Blackburn, Manaea, and Montas). Do you see them trading any of these pieces to AL contenders?
Steve Adams
2:19
Doubt it. You don't know how Holmes and Senga will respond to workload increases of this magnitude. Montas doesn't have trade value right now between the injury and the opt-out. Even if he were pitching well, the opt-out is going to kill any real trade value he'd have. Manaea hasn't pitched this season and is on a $75MM contract; they're not going move him. Blackburn's value is minimal.

Beyond that, everything David Stearns has done since taking over in Queens -- including signing Canning, trading for Blackburn -- has been about stockpiling depth.

He's not going to decide there are suddenly too many starters and start shipping arms out. Or, at least, it would very much surprise me if he did.
PATigrrsFan
2:20
Has someone poked the bear once too often - are the Orioles waking up?
Steve Adams
2:23
The offense was never going to stay as bad as it's been, but their six-game win streak included a sweep of the White Sox, and they just lost two of three to a reeling A's team.

I don't think they have close to enough pitching. That's been my stance on them all year and is why I didn't pick them as a playoff club. Granted, I didn't think their season would go anywhere near this poorly, but no, even with a few wins recently, i don't think they're suddenly a major threat.

Their upcoming schedule is not super friendly, either. Three versus the Tigers, three versus the Angels (ok, that one's not so bad), four in Tampa, three in the Bronx.
Go Dills!
2:24
Are we seeing anything encouraging in Strider's numbers?
Steve Adams
2:26
Still has a 13% swinging-strike rate, which is very good! ...But it's also like 3.7 points below his once-elite mark.

The most encouraging thing about Strider right now is that you could hope he's still just building back up from that long surgery layoff. Beyond that, there's not much to take encouragement from in his recent starts.

Davy Andrews wrote a really good piece on him at FanGraphs the other day, but ... it's not the encouraging cause for optimism you're seeking. It's fairly bleak:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-worried-should-we-be-about-spencer-str...
Nick
2:26
Who on the pirates do you see will definitely get moved at the trade deadline?
Steve Adams
2:27
David Bednar, Ryan Borucki, Caleb Ferguson, Andrew Heaney, Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Probably Dennis Santana, but he's cheap (unlike Bednar), so if the offers are underwhelming they could hang onto him I guess.
2:28
All of that is health-permitting, of course.

I'd add Tommy Pham, but man, I'm not sure he sticks on the roster until the deadline. If he's on the roster, it probably means his bat has finally woken up -- and if that's the case, then yeah he'll be traded.
Modern pitching vs future batting
2:29
A few weeks ago, you said hitting .400 in the modern era isn't possible given the quality of MLB pitchers today. At the time Aaron Judge was hitting just over .400, but flash forward to today and he's still hitting an ungodly .396/.493/.771. What are your thoughts? Will the rubber band snap, or are you starting to believe?
Steve Adams
2:32
I still don't think Judge will hit .400 this season, no. I don't think even a hitter as elite as him can sustain a .468 average on balls in play.

The league as a whole is batting .705 on line drives this year. Judge is batting .895. No matter how hard he hits the ball -- and it is outrageously hard -- I don't see how he can continue placing nine of every ten line-drives somewhere that isn't right at a defender.
On grounders it's even wilder... he's hitting .431, when the league average is .244
2:33
Yes, the manner in which he scorches the ball makes it hard for fielders to range over to any grounder he hits, but that level of BABIP is still wild.

Plus, even with that insane batted-ball fortune, he's not quite to .400.

He might well finish hitting .350 or .360, but even that's around the upper echelon of where I can fathom in today's game.
Smalls
2:33
I'm sure this has been asked a million times since it was used in the minors and spring training, but your thoughts on the challenge system being implemented?
Steve Adams
2:37
Bring it on. There will be problems with it, but there are few things more annoying when watching a game than a home plate ump whiffing on a call by 6-12 inches in a key spot -- and the manner in which so many then puff their chest out and throw people out of the game for deigning to voice their frustration only adds to it.

Umpiring is an incredibly hard job, and I'm sympathetic to that fact and honestly think fans are too hard on them a lot of the time. But because of that, we should be putting systems like this in place to help them.

I was immediately on board with instant replay and challenges (for the most part ... I do abhor the "overturn" calls on guys who very clearly beat the throw but come off the bag by a half inch when they're stealing second base), and I'm similarly on board with this.
Drew
2:37
You see any reason Salano is still with Seattle? Why not DFA him and bring up Locklear? He can’t hit as bad as Donny Bats or field worse.
Steve Adams
2:38
Talked Locklear/Solano in the mailbag last week:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/06/mlb-mailbag-duran-bregman-marin...
Michael
2:38
One of the commenters on the Smith-Shawver piece is suggesting that the Braves hold a fire sale.  I don't see the need to burn the furniture here, I just think they need another viable starter and some middle relief.  Can Ozuna bring anything like that back to the Braves?
Steve Adams
2:40
I don't think they need a total fire sale, but I'd be open to moving Ozuna, would listen on Sean Murphy with Baldwin looking good, and would have Pierce Johnson out there as well.

I'd at least listen to offers on Sale. Starting pitching will be in such demand, and while Sale has been healthy in ATL, we know what the five prior years looked like and how fickle pitching health is. He's also 36 going on 37. Obviously hard to replace a bona fide ace, and maybe they just hope they can extend him again, but given the potential return, the relatively minimal remaining window of control, and the ever-present injury risk, you've got to see what's out there.
buffy, the umpire slayer
2:41
Is Corey Seager just in a very rare slump or could he be hiding an injury? The Ranger must have him hitting to have a chance for the playoffs.,
Steve Adams
2:42
I don't know that he's "hiding" an injury. He's been on the IL twice this year for  hamstring strains and his sprint speed has cratered to the first percentile of big leaguers; he was never especially fast in the first place, but I'd be surprised if his legs were 100%
Dave
2:43
My apologies for another Skenes trade question but here goes Two parts a. Do you think Pirates would prefer young MLB talent like Pages or minor league er like DePaula? B. How about this proposal for Skenes—Pages, Freeland, Ferris, Hope OR DePaula, Outman, and Knack? Thanks for the chat
Steve Adams
2:48
Again, I just don't see any way they'd trade him. If they were going to humor it, I think it'd be a blend of immediate talent and minor league guys. The package you've listed doesn't feel like enough. Outman doesn't belong in there. He's a DFA candidate at this point.

You're talking 4+ years of an ace who's not even in arbitration yet. 2.5 years of Juan Soto got James Wood, CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hasssell and Jarlin Susana. You'd need to handily top that to get Skenes.

Put Dalton Rushing on the table. Put Roki Sasaki on the table.

Sasaki, Rushing, De Paula, Freeland, Hope, Ferris, Sirota, River Ryan ... I don't know. Pick six or seven of those guys. It would have to be the largest return we've ever see in a trade.

You'd also have to assume that owner Bob Nutting is going to let what's very likely an on-the-hot-seat GM (Ben Cherington) make not just the biggest trade in franchise history but maybe the biggest trade in MLB history, and get it right.
Guest
2:48
rumors are floating around that there’s teams interested in IKF
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