You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Winter Meetings Day 1 Subscriber Chat!
powered byJotCast
Tim Dierkes
4:00
Hello from the Hilton Anatole media workroom in Dallas!  Winter Meetings Day 1 is underway.  Sitting next to me is the esteemed Steve Adams, and we're both ready to take your questions for about an hour.  I think we have a few things to talk about!
Not Chris Young
4:05
I live in Dallas. How accessible is the meetings/the Anatole for a fan?
Steve Adams
4:05
Greetings all!
Tim Dierkes
4:06
I would say it's a pretty well-kept secret for fans.  So the cat is out of the bag!  The Winter Meetings lobby at around 9-10pm is quite the spectacle, and you will absolutely see MLB people you recognize.  All 30 managers are here, plus about a billion other baseball people.
Steve Adams
4:07
Yeah, fun to see some recognizable faces milling about. Jorge Polanco and his reps looked pumped earlier when they were hustling through the lobby, ha. Do with that what you will
Lots of smiles and high fives haha
Baba Oriley
4:07
Does signing bonus count toward a player’s AAV?
Steve Adams
4:08
Yup
Doesn't matter if it's prorated over several years or paid up front -- it's in there, though the specifics can alter the AAV depending on when it's paid out, same as deferred money and all that.
Spaghetti Marinera
4:08
Best guess: Who will get baseball’s first $1 billion contract?
Tim Dierkes
4:08
I am not kidding when I say it's probably someone who is in, like, the second grade.
Steve Adams
4:08
Someone who is currently like seven years old.
4:09
YES
We typed our answers independently
Tim Dierkes
4:09
So Steve votes for a first grader
Steve Adams
4:09
First grade was a good year.
Tim Dierkes
4:09
I was thinking about this today though.  Once AAVs creep into the 60s, then it becomes plausible.  I feel like that'll take a decade or two.
Curious A's Fan
4:09
Is Arizona actively shopping Montgomery? Are they willing to pay down the contract enough to get a decent prospect back or do they just want to dump salary?
Steve Adams
4:10
1) Yes
2) I think they're open to either. Mike Hazen kind of directly commented as much to Nick Piecoro with the AZ Republic a few weeks back. Essentially, he said if they're going to do a straight salary dump it needs to be sooner than later so there's actual talent left on the market for them to sign.
4:11
That's paraphrased, off the cuff, but that's the gist. I'll find a link to Nick's (excellent) work here quickly
Steve Adams
Steve Adams
4:11
Shout out to Nick, who we just chatted with a bit ago. Great dude
Tim Dierkes
4:11
I do think that if Luis Severino is now a $22MM AAV guy, then maybe the DBacks need to pay down Monty a bit less than what they thought a month ago.
Joe J.
4:11
Do you guys get access to any GMs?
Tim Dierkes
4:12
I think GMs generally hold sessions in their suites with their team's beat writers.  So we don't get a chance to horn in on those.  We might see a GM passing by, or perhaps could try to ask a question if there's a press conference.
Steve Adams
4:13
Yeah -- I've seen Alex Anthopoulos and John Mozeliak around today but I'm not going to barge into the conversations they're having and grill them or anything, and even if I did they'd tell me to go away and mock my unprofessionalism, ha.

But we do get to meet some team folks and chat it up with them at times, which is always nice. I met both Peter Bendix and Chaim Bloom at these long before they were at the top of the front office food chain, for instance. (And I doubt either remembers chatting with me, ha, but they're both quite nice human beings)
tigersFan
4:14
Why did the tigers sign Cobb? To me it says they are not serious about winning
Tim Dierkes
4:14
To me it just says that Scott Harris loves one-year reclamation projects.  This should be a relatively affordable one, definitely less than Flaherty cost.  If it was the defining move of the Tigers' offseason your comment would be fair, but let's allow things to play out a bit.
Steve Adams
4:15
Nothing's stopping them from adding another pitcher. He's good. He's hurt a lot, but he's good. The last front office spent huge before the team was ready, and the current Tigers are still paying/rostering Javier Baez
Do Not Pass Go
4:15
I happened upon the classic image of the Mr. Monopoly with his empty pockets pulled out. That's how it seems to be with AJ Preller and the Padres right now. Acting like a large market team was more fun. What can us Padre fans reasonably hope for out of the Winter Meetings?
Tim Dierkes
4:16
It's hard to root for big trades, too, given that the Padres don't really have the prospect capital they once had.  As a Padres fan I'd hope that a lot of Roki Sasaki groundwork is laid here in Dallas.
Steve Adams
4:16
Yeah, Sasaki's the big thing and then after that, I think it's going to be more mid-level signing and you hope they spike a big win like the Tigers did with Flaherty last year or like the Padres themselves did with Profar last winter on what was the best bargain of the offseason
Youkyliptus
4:17
should the Red Sox have offered Tyler ONeill a QO after all?
Steve Adams
4:17
If they wanted to pay him $21.05MM, sure.
4:18
(I think he'd have accepted. Tim is typing a more thoughtful reply than my immediate snark haha)
Tim Dierkes
4:18
I don't think TON at $21MM would've been a problem or anything, but it does tie up a lot of money in that spot.  The Red Sox are either aiming higher (given the Soto bidding), or they may want to keep that spot open for prospects.  I'm not a huge TON guy myself and I don't expect him making a big impact.
Steve
4:18
Do you think the contracts Boyd and Montas got may have convinced the Mariners to explore the market for Castillo?
Tim Dierkes
4:19
I wouldn't think those deals would have any bearing on Dipoto's willingness to trade Castillo.  Boyd basically met expectations, while we were kind of just too low on Montas.  Castillo has a lot more cache than those two, and I never quite bought the idea that he was completely off the table.
Steve Adams
4:20
Not nearly as much as ownership again giving them a tiny budget to address an offense that needs some real work. But the bull market for starters probably indirectly pushed teams looking for SP help to blow the Mariners up even more than usual, and at a certain point that moves the needle -- especially when dovetailing with some tight resources
GBS42
4:20
Thanks for the impromptu chat, gents!  Signing bonuses are huge this offseason (Soto $75M, Snell $52M, Adames $22M) compared to previous contracts.  Do you know why this is?
Load More Messages
Connecting…