The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- Why did the 2023-24 offseason play out the way that it did? Was the slow offseason a trend or a blip? Looking at competitive balance tax and TV revenue issues. (2:40)
- The decision between a middleground deal versus a short-term deal, focusing on Cody Bellinger of the Cubs but also other players who didn’t get the huge offers they were expecting (20:00)
- There were very few long deals this winter, so can we glean anything about the trend of extending contracts to lower the average annual value? (34:50)
- Why did we project big contracts for players with clear warts? (42:10)
- Is the middle tier of the free agent market dying? (45:15)
- With the next CBA negotiations coming after 2026, how will the players respond to recent events? (50:20)
- Are the owners divided, with rich and poor teams getting pushed apart by the collapse of TV revenue streams? (59:05)
- Is deferred money a real problem and is there any motivation to change the rules? (1:02:40)
- Does MLB need more parity and what are the best ways to do it? (1:09:30)
- Was Shohei Ohtani’s deferred money an extreme outlier or is it still a concerning trend? (1:13:10)
- Will there be another lockout after 2026? (01:19:35)
Check out our past episodes!
- Baseball Is Back, Will Smith’s Extension, Mike Clevinger And Jon Berti – listen here
- A Live Reaction To The Jordan Montgomery Signing, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter, And J.D. Martinez Joins The Mets – listen here
- Mutiny In The MLBPA, Blake Snell Signs With The Giants And The Dylan Cease Trade – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
I did terrible in my predictions. At least everyone got Brandon Belt wrong.
Vader – I believe they said BB simply won’t be counted for anyone, not that anybody got it wrong.
Personally I think they should offer a mega-prize if anybody gets every possible selection correct, like the March Madness competitions have for perfect brackets.
How about for next offseason, if anyone gets all 50 correct they win 25% ownership of MLBTR?
Too bad the readers who trash every one else who makes predictions don’t take the time to do this
Owners and GM’s finally realizing that they don’t really have to give a 30 year old player a 6-8 year contract.
What the MLB players association just learned is what happens when the Yankees and Dodgers remove themselves from market.
For years agents, especially Scott Boras, used the Yankees as the leagues boogyman. You want a top free agent? Well you’re going to have to outbid the Yankees and their endless pockets.
All the sudden, the Yankees flipped the script and went the trade route. The Dodgers blew their wad on Ohtani and Yamamoto. These moves also happened so early and pushed both teams so deep into luxury tax territory that every MLB front office knew they were no longer in play.
Basically, without the Yankees and Dodgers (and Mets) MLB front offices were given an open playbook. Front offices knew what other teams needed, who they would be in on, how much money roughly they had to spend and they let the chips fall.
You forgot the Red Sox. The Red Sox have frequently had the highest payroll in MLB over the past 20 years and now the Padres are outspending them after slashing their payroll.
They didn’t discuss why Tim refuses to fix the comment section and why he allows the mods to remove comments which do not fit the socio-political doctrine of Anthony Franco.
What is his social-political doctrine?
1.. Your Anthony Franco stuff is total nonsense. I’m not going to debate it or give it any more oxygen beyond this comment though.
2. “He allows the mods” – demonstrates that you’re just making things up. We do not have a team of mods. Our full-time writers, led by me, moderate flagged comments as a necessity, and remove stuff way less often than you seem to think. Anything removed is always an obvious policy violation.
3. You are actually in violation of our commenting policy for insulting and making false claims about one of our writers.
mlbtraderumors.com/2020/07/mlb-trade-rumors-commen…
Fair enough and if banning Randor’s account feels meaningful you can do so, but what about his point regarding the comments section? For years the comments have not appeared in the right order and reply notifications for someone else’s comment come to our email boxes. This has been continually ignored for unknown reasons.
Rico – For years? Nope, it started only a few months ago when they added the grouping.
He didnt say you had a team of separate moderators. He said you have moderators, which you confirmed to be true.
I think Matt Chapman didn’t get a $150 million contract because he isn’t that good.
Remove his prospect pedigree, formerly elite defense, highway robbery the Blue Jays pulled off when trading for him, and 2019 season where someone’s Corgi swatted 20 home runs while playing 2B for the Reds, and what do you have?
A formerly elite defensive 3B who, on a playoff team, bats 5th vs Lefties and 8th vs Righties. Maybe he had a down year with the glove in 2023 and he’s not getting old, but it is more likely that his defense took a step back. Maybe someone who took more than my 2 second glance can point to how not great the Jays’ rotation was after Gausman and Berrios. I do not know.
What I do know is he isn’t worth $150 million unless you spread it on a front loaded 10 year deal.
Upon closer look, he leads the National League in dWAR and is 6 for 44 against RHP.
I would rather eat my words and he swats 50 which would make him the first Giant to hit 30 since Barry Bonds hit 45 in 2004, and he opts out and gets $200 mil, but so far, it isn’t likely.
Were MLB players allowed to bet on who signs where in the offseason?
As for Farhan the Stooge, he got played by Boras. No one else wanted to pay for Snell, Chapman and Lee. The Stooge paid and look at the results, LOLOL Gooch. You can’t run and hide from mediocrity.
Shortening the pitch clock and not signing Borass 4 seem like a concerted effort to suppress players’ salaries.