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Chat with MLBTR's Steve Adams: 2/21/23
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Steve Adams
9:02
Good morning, all! I'm chatting a bit earlier than usual today to avoid any overlap with our latest industry chat -- former Nats and Pirates hitting coach Rick Eckstein.

Feel free to ask me any questions in advance, and I'll be back to chat for an hour or so at 11am CT.
10:57
Welcome all! Let's get started
The Guy Next Door
10:57
How many more guys get MLB deals, and who are they?
Steve Adams
11:00
Profar is still the likeliest to get a decent MLB deal. I expect Will Smith to get one. Brad Hand, less likely than Smith but still feel he has a good chance. Yuli Gurriel maybe. Bauer's the obvious elephant in the room there, but I feel like if a team were going to sign him, it'd have happened by now. Plenty of teams made sure to leak to various reporters that they weren't interested at all.
Andrew
11:00
I am freaking out man! The Jays have 4 starters and some scraps (sorry White and Kikuchi). I can't believe they couldn't make a legit run at Wacha. Nothing against Belt he's a really nice pick up but I believe he's a luxury when adding a pitcher is more of a necessity if they are truly going for it. I think I would have used the Belt money on pitching. I am wrong?
Steve Adams
11:03
I'm not really big on Wacha. He, more than probably anyone we ranked on our top 50 heading into the offseason, was someone the team here at MLBTR agreed was something of a landmine. The market agreed. (Profar was another, actually)

Long history of shoulder issues, three straight terrible years before 2022, when he only went 127 innings with a sub-par K%.

There's a decent chance he gives you 140 innings or so of low-4.00s ERA ball. But there's major injury risk, and the performance downside is substantial.

A team like the Jays might've been a good fit for him -- other options in house, only relied on as a fifth starter, etc. -- but if you're asking me whether I'd rather have Belt at his price point or Wacha where he landed in San Diego, I'm firmly on the Belt side of things.
Bud
11:03
Giants have missed out on landing marquee players by free agency and trade for 5-6 years now (Stanton, Ohtani, Harper, Judge, Correa). Will that motivate them to be extra aggressive in their offer to Ohtani next fall? Perhaps $500M?
Steve Adams
11:05
I do think they'll be aggressive next winter. I wrote about this topic for our Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers last week; they spent a fair bit this winter but more or less set themselves up for an offseason mulligan. Conforto, Manaea, Stripling can all opt out. Joc is one year only. Crawford deal is up after the season.

They're going to have a ton of money available to them -- arb class is also small -- and there's going to be urgency both from ownership (after missing out on so many names) and on the front office, who'll be five years into their tenure at that point.
Nate
11:06
What's your opinion on Dbacks trying to extend Corbin Caroll?
Steve Adams
11:09
I don't see why they wouldn't try so early on. More often than not, these early extensions are ultra low-risk for the team, even as the market for such players moves forward. Carroll is a good to plus defender with elite speed... hit tool got above average to plus grades throughout his minor league tenure. He fanned a lot in 2022, but he was debuting against MLB pitching as a 22-year-old.

He's a high-probability regular and a potential star. It'd be silly if the D-backs were opposed to it. By the time you give someone with this level of talent even a year of service, they can reach nine-figure extension territory (and by a comfortable margin).
Daniel
11:10
Will Daulton Varsho see some action behind the plate this season?
Steve Adams
11:12
Can't speak to the Blue Jays' plans for him, as I don't believe they've publicly laid them out yet. They may not even know for sure, themselves. The D-backs last year all but declared him a full-time outfielder midway through the season. Toronto has a pair of strong catchers in Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen.

The Triple-A depth behind them isn't great, so it's possible Varsho gets maybe 10-15 games in back there, particularly if there's an injury to Kirk or Jansen, but I would expect the overwhelming amount of his playing time is coming in the outfield.
John
11:12
Can you confirm or deny that being a small or medium market team is simply an excuse used by owners? They all can spend more than they are.
Steve Adams
11:13
I mean, there's truth to the fact that a small-market team's local TV deal is just nowhere near as lucrative as the Dodgers, Yankees, etc. -- there's no denying that.
At the same time, there are increased revenue sources piling up as the league brokers streaming deals with services like Apple and Peacock, and as FOX/Turner Sports/ESPN pay escalating prices for postseason broadcast rights.
11:14
I don't think you can just say "our local TV deal stinks, we're doomed" anymore. Last year, every team got a reported $65MM in revenue just from streaming/postseason television rights. MLB also sold its remaining stake in BAMTech to Disney for $900MM. That sum was divided among the teams as well.
11:15
(The looming death of the RSN model is going to be interesting for a lot of reasons.)
Josh
11:15
Twins can use another lefty reliever. Think Hand would help?
Steve Adams
11:17
Smith is better. Hand is a fine depth guy, but at this point he's just not the same guy he was in Cleveland or San Diego. Last year's ERA was good, but the strikeout, walk and swinging-strike rates were all his worst (by a large margin) since becoming a full-time reliever.
11:18
Seems like the Twins are pretty content with their group unless they can get someone to agree to an NRI, though. Hand seems likelier to take that kind of deal -- at least in my view.
D-Man
11:18
What is going on with the Tigers?  We're not sure what Scott Harris' plan is, but, man, what an underwhelming offseason.  Just feels like they are completely off the radar now.  What do you think?
Steve Adams
11:20
I never expected Harris to come in and just start spending. This is a huge year for guys like Torkelson, Greene, Skubal, etc. to prove themselves, and for several minor leaguers to try to take some developmental steps forward. The previous rebuild just didn't establish the farm to the extent that is should have, and last year's free-agent splashes blew up quickly.

There was no quick fix to get out of this hole by spending. Harris said yesterday that he preferred to just give at-bats to the team's young players rather than sign some short-term stopgaps who didn't have a future in the org. I think that's defensible, given where the team was at when he was hired.
Will Smith
11:20
Will I get a Major league or a minor league deal?
Steve Adams
11:21
I think it's a big league deal still
Wayward
11:21
What is a reasonable mid-point between the Bucs and Reynolds?  6 years (buying out the 2 arb years plus 4) at $100M.  I just have to think this is something that this franchise needs to do for a multitude of reasons.
Steve Adams
11:24
Reynolds is going to make around $32-35MM in his final two arb years if he keeps up. His two-year, $13.5MM deal was evenly distributed, but he was projected at 4.5 in Arb1, so the Pirates basically wrote his Arb2 salary in around $9MM with that extension. A jump to $13-14MM in Arb3 and a larger jump in Arb4 is perfectly feasible.

From there, if you want to buy out four free-agent seasons, I don't see why he'd be getting less than 20 per.

I'm more in the 6/110 range, I guess, and I do think that'd be a compromise for both sides. It'll look like "more" of a compromise for the Pirates since their number's coming up more, but I also just think their initial offer was wildly team friendly.
Tyre
11:26
Teams like the Braves and Rays are now extending players more than often. Do you see another team following them at a rate of 3-4 players per season?
Steve Adams
11:28
The extension spree for the Braves and Rays aren't really direct parallels. Tampa Bay extended a bunch of arb-eligible guys when the team was facing a virtually unprecedented number of hearings. The Yandy and Fairbanks deals were pretty small-scale; even Springs was, too, though relative to the Rays' payroll it was a bit larger in scope.

The Braves are just hyper-aggressive in extending young, core players after they've been drafted and had some success. Dana Brown, who was their VP of scouting and is now the Astros' GM, has openly broadcast his intentions to continue the trend in Houston, so there's one team that'll be jumping on the trend (and already has, with Cristian Javier's five-year deal)
11:29
In general, I think there's some copycatting that goes on around the league. The Braves' recent rash of extensions and their simultaneous success as a team is getting plenty of talk. There'll be some other pushes from other teams to operate in a similar capacity, but this isn't really anything new. Cleveland popularized these pre-arb extensions under John Hart back in the 90s.
Yordan
11:29
How did I already hurt my hand and will it affect my entire season?
Steve Adams
11:30
He's had some hand troubles dating back to last year. Dusty Baker said today surgery has never been suggested or even discussed as an option.
Brant
11:30
Ben Gamel is still unsigned.  Will he sign somewhere or is his career over?
Steve Adams
11:31
He talked with the Rangers before they signed Grossman (Levi Weaver of the Athletic reported on that). He'll sign somewhere, though at this point I'm assuming it's on a minor league deal. He can hit righties some and handle the outfield corners; there should be a spot for him, but a lot of teams also probably feel they have depth options in the minors who can provide comparable production.
SilverSlug
11:32
Who wins the 5 spots for Atl: Anderson, Elder or Soroka
Steve Adams
11:34
Anderson's got my vote, but obviously we'll see how things play out. I just don't have tons of hope for Soroka holding up, and Elder's K-BB profile doesn't make his ERA sustainable.

I still think Elder can be a solid, back-of-the-rotation guy in the Majors, but there's only one rotation spot available right now
The Closer
11:34
Instead of Hendriks by likelihood? Lopez Graveman Bummer
Steve Adams
11:34
Graveman, Lopez, Bummer for me
OldMan
11:35
What are you thoughts on the Dodgers current roster? They have one of the best minor league systems for years; Why do analyst not believe these kids wont perform?
Steve Adams
11:38
I don't think anyone's necessarily betting against any of the individual prospects in a vacuum. The Dodgers' player development system is good, the farm is deep, etc.

It's more just that any team relying on a substantial number of prospects is exposing themselves to risk, because injuries and general prospect attrition (from a performance standpoint) are inevitable. The recent David Peralta deal safeguards against some of that in the outfield.

Generally speaking, I think I'm less concerned about it than some might be, but I'm also a big Gavin Lux believer and think that if Miguel Vargas is overmatched at 2B, they have in-house options (Rojas, Michael Busch) and the market is typically deep in 2B types.

Rotation looks OK on paper, and if any one of May/Miller/Pepiot/Stone steps up, it'll look better. They'll probably need multiple hits from that group, since pitchers always get hurt
11:39
By and large, I think the pessimism is to some extent rooted in how much the Padres have done, and by comparison, how inactive it looks like the Dodgers have been.
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