Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers sent in their mailbag questions, and I answered a bunch of them! Let's get to it. For those surprised to see the paywall, please read the explanation here.
Chris asks:
It's my understanding that Woo-Suk Go was included in the Luis Arraez trade mostly for salary relief. What is going wrong for Go so far that caused the Padres to change their minds on him so soon after signing him?
The way things went down with the Padres and Go was a bad look for the team:
- Sign him to a two-year, $4.5MM free agent deal in January
- Watch him get hammered in six spring training outings; send him to Double-A
- Go pitches well in ten outings aside from an inflated BABIP
- Include him in the Arraez deal as an apparent salary dump, four months after the signing and without using him in the Majors
While the standard XX-B free agent has to consent to a trade if he's signed and then traded before June 15th, Go was signed internationally, so he had no say in the matter.
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This is starting to remind me of The Athletic with locked articles and such. Hopefully they don’t increase the amount of locked articles or go to entirely membership based product.
Stay true to your roots! Let us give you the visits and let the advertisers pay you based on volume!
Pretty sure the time ESPN started locking articles was the time when they started to decline in popularity. This site and Fangraphs started around the same time. Fangraphs has become really obnoxious about asking for money.
Yeah, that would’ve been around covid when MLBTR and FanGraphs and many other publishers took big hits.
Personally I’m happy to support FG. Everyone’s mileage is going to vary based on their financial situation and what is being offered for the money. As I am said I am appreciative of our many ad-supported readers and hopefully we can find a balance.
They made a post detailing all this; these paid articles have always existed they’re just exposed to all now. Which as a non-subscriber is a good thing imo, nice to read some snippets and comments if nothing else
Personally, the opinions and columns don’t mean much to me. I’ve been following this site for as long as it’s existed. It feels like 15-20 years, not sure if it’s actually been that long. I just want rumors and news. That’s how it started. I rarely ever click on team reports, columns and such.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think they’d do better eliminating some of that extra stuff, which would probably cut staff costs and data cost. They could focus on the news and rumors specifically.
You’re probably in the majority, but eliminating everything except “hard” rumors and news stuff would reduce MLBTR’s profits. Front Office is, as a unit, a profitable part of the business.
We’re covering the rumors and news about as far as we can cover it, without expanding outside the hot stove. Last year we increased our post volume (largely covering rumors and news) from 5,211 to 6,083 (not including any of the Front Office stuff which was sent over email).
A 16.7% post volume increase nonetheless led to a 6.3% decrease in traffic.
So we can use 10-12 hours per week creating more in-depth Front Office articles with opinions and analysis, and some portion of the MLBTR readership will pay for it, helping keep the whole thing afloat.
Snowsenses
Great some idiot replies to my comment but apparently has me on ignore so I can’t reply to his. Thanks for nothing champ.
I don’t like seeing these articles. And I don’t care for the explanation.
I don’t like seeing your posts. Let’s here it for the mute feature!
Yeah, people who hit you with the “reply-then-mute” are annoying.
This is covered thoroughly here:
mlbtraderumors.com/2024/05/trade-rumors-front-offi…
The Athletic is, I think, entirely paywalled. At present we’re paywalling roughly 5% of MLBTR posts, all of them opinion/analysis. As I said in the above-linked post, I don’t think it makes sense to paywall the many news articles we post (which of course often include a lot of context/analysis within them produced in real-time).
Front Office articles, which we’ve been doing for four years, typically take 2-4 hours to write. The ad revenue from the traffic on those would fall well short of break even.
I appreciate the idea of staying true to roots, but I fear that in 5, 10, 20 years that could resemble how Blockbuster stayed true to their video rental roots.
The ads pay less every year. The traffic is harder to find as Google and Twitter work to keep users on their platform and not going to websites. I think doing nothing and relying entirely on scale would lead to a slow death. (Or a medium-paced death…this stuff is not entirely predictable).
Tim, not sure if you guys currently do this, but I remember a couple segments from MLB.com back in the day that I really did enjoy and would routinely read.
One was looking at a trade from a decade or two ago, re-analyzing it in hindsight and grading how it turned out for both sides.
The other is pretty nostalgic for me, but I loved it – “Where have you gone, _________” It’s always fun to find out where some of our childhood favorites are now and what they did after baseball. It also sparks names that you haven’t heard in years. Where have you gone, Benny Agbayani?
I would prefer more talk about hypothetical trades. It’s original content and it’s easy to create. Just about every team in baseball should be thinking about either buying or selling.
Where have you gone stuff is fun. We’ve definitely done trade retrospective stuff over these 18 years.
These are both pretty good examples of things that would have to be Front Office features so as to not lose money. And they perhaps could be one day – as Front Office grows we are able to do more original work that we weren’t able to before.
I agree that hypothetical trades are easy to create, but I do not think it is easy to create good ones.
If someone asks what the Mets can get for Pete Alonso, that should take at least a few hours to answer well, using historical precedent and researching prospects/young players.
On that tangent, I think there’s a place for a Front Office tool that would help us do that more easily. I created the Contract Tracker for much the same reason – my own research.
For example, I’d want to look at position player sluggers traded in their contract year, but it’d be even better to drill down to ones who hit 40 HR the year before, or 80 the previous two years, and/or are under the age of 30, etc.
Create a post about a potential Pete Alonso trade. Do a little starter research to get it going but then let the readers do the rest. It doesn’t have to be perfect you aren’t predicting lottery numbers here it’s just creating a discussion aka traffic to the site.
As a Cardinal fan I have thought quite a bit about potential Cardinal trades. I would be happy to comment on someone else’s ideas and also to contribute my own to the discussion.
I also think this is a good way to get fans from less successful teams involved in discussions which I have always seen as a problem here.
You’re describing our MLBTR Polls, definitely good in moderation
As a Cardinal fan I have thought quite a bit about potential Cardinal trades.
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I think the issue there is that most people won’t care about other teams’ trades. I think I’d do okay discussing RS trades, or maybe even NYY (EE) trades. Or trades for major players.
But Blackpink recently proposed Cardinal trades, but they were probably the Cards #10 and 16 guys for the LAD #9 & 18 guys.
And they might’ve and probably did make sense, but it feels a bit too much like real work to be analyzing guys that you might know, but not know enough about to discuss in-depth.
I don’t speak for everyone but I certainly care about other teams trades. I am a bit more qualified to discuss the Cardinals but I still enjoy discussing all teams. For fans of teams like the White Sox or Marlins what else do they have to talk about?
You are a Red Sox fan. I think they are an interesting team. Should they be buyers or sellers? Should they try to lock ONeill up or trade him away?
This gets all fans involved instead of just the winners of the offseason.
I have said this many times and I will say it again. This site needs to start working with the people at trade simulator. The site is called trade rumors. I like talking about potential trades. Partnering with trade simulator gives both sides credibility they wouldn’t normally get. Produce more articles about trads. Not some old school Brian Roberts nonsense where you silly Cubs fans try to will a trade into happening. Just normal trade ideas that make sense for both teams without a bias.
I think sometimes people get hung up on the name of the website, which I chose in 2005 with no idea what this would become. I think even on Day 1, it was as much about free agency as it was trades, so the name was already slightly misleading.
I don’t use the trade simulator site, nor do our other writers that I know of. I’m not saying it’s bad; just professing ignorance. I know enough to have seen trades graded by it as unfair or fair. I’m sure that would require a large database of players with values assigned. I’m not sure about the ins and outs of it or whether I agree with the premise.
Reporting on free agents is fine and important but it’s not unique. What makes this site unique is the discussion about trades, either before or after they happen.
If you don’t know anything about the trade simulator site then perhaps it’s time you should. It’s ok if it’s not perfect that can be discussed in the posts. Again it’s instant original content. It gets people talking which leads to the site making more money.
I disagree – I don’t know any other site providing real-time context analysis on a breaking trade or free agent signing the way MLBTR does.
“Instant original content” is not something we’re striving for here. You can’t do that and maintain quality. And one of the points I have been making in various comments here is that lowest common denominator traffic is A) harder to even get and B) harder than ever to monetize.
When I think of instant original content, I think of Buzzfeed, which I think is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Yeah you guys get the scoops and analyze the deals quicker than anyone I know of that is true and a big reason I click on the site many times a day.
You are striving for more money. Quality? I don’t know what you are talking about. Every other day there is an article about some former player who died. I have no problem at all with those articles existing but are they necessary? I don’t think so. None of this is necessary. Who said it’s lowest common denominator traffic? It’s potential trades you aren’t baiting people with sex or shock jock stuff. No reason the denominator is lowered that’s nonsense.
Hey 10 years ago I didn’t offer you advice. You weren’t asking me for money and didn’t seem like you needed it. Times change.
“…Many in the industry do not perceive Arraez the way fans might think. He offers little power, making it almost essential he maintains his .325 career average. He is below-average at second base, the wrong type of offensive profile for first. Whatever versatility he offers — he also has played third and left — is negated by his overall lack of fielding ability.”
This is what MLB has morphed into because of all the analytic nerds. Luis Arráez essentially has the same profile and statistics as HOF great Rod Carew minus the SB totals. The nerds would have also hated Carew’s SB acumen because his SB% didn’t fit their prescribed rate of needed success. Arráez might actually be the better pure hitter between the two because of all the hard throwing fresh arms in today’s game compared to those back in the Carew ‘era’ of 1967-1985.
Worth clarifying that that is Ken Rosenthal quoting “many in the industry.”
You’re kind of positing that today’s execs forced the game away from Arraez types. I might argue that because execs of the past had a worse understanding of how runs are created and prevented, they overvalued the Arraez types. Perhaps we all did.
I mean – what about that Rosenthal quote is incorrect?
I think comparing Arraez to Carew is apples to oranges. Even if “Luis Arráez essentially has the same profile and statistics as HOF great Rod Carew minus the SB totals” – the value of these is completely different in different eras.
You seem to be saying “the nerds would have thought Rod Carew was bad,” when in fact the classic nerd stat, WAR, says he was indeed an all-time great. He was worth 6.6 WAR in 1974 despite hitting three home runs – as declared by nerds.
Rod Carew’s 1974 equals Matt Olson’s 2023.
I don’t think I agree much on that Tim. The whole reason for all the new rules is because baseball started overvaluing TTO type of players. Hopefully that trend is reversing course.
I even remember a comment thread a few years ago that had people actually trying to say Joey Gallo is (was) better than Tony Gwynn.
WAR occasionally has something that looks goofy, although it seems pretty accurate on Joey Gallo. He hit 81 HR from 2017-18 and was worth 4.6 WAR in total.
What would be an example of baseball (you mean teams?) overvaluing TTO types, and of a new rule meant to change that?
Tim a lot of the shift to TTO began several years ago when the Rays put up fences around the infield at spring training to get players working on launch angles. And with their success, it wasn’t long before the elevate and celebrate mentality took over.
As far as rule changes go, the banning of the shift which means a second baseman isn’t built like a linebacker anymore because they actually have to cover some ground. Also the rules that have helped with stolen bases helps to incentive athleticism over muscle bound behemoths.
I don’t think baseball will ever completely revert back to what it was back in the day but it’s better now than it was. Hopefully there will be a trend towards players who put the hall in play.
The launch angle stuff took over because it’s correct, if your goal is to win baseball games.
MLB has a different goal – make the game more watchable. For that they want more balls in play. They haven’t figured out how to do that, aside from maybe secretly messing with the baseball.
The main effect of the shift ban was to act as a subsidy for one-dimensional left-handed pull hitters. The shift was bad for Anthony Rizzo; we took it away and gave that type of player some more singles. Mission accomplished?
Singles per plate appearance in 2022 with the shift: 0.142
Singles per plate appearances in 2023 with the shift restrictions: 0.141
MLB has done nothing substantial to create more balls in play. I agree that they should for watchability. To do so they need to make things harder for pitchers to strike hitters out somehow.
Stolen bases being way up and therefore speed being rewarded – they definitely succeeded in that with those rule changes.
They could lower the mound. A higher mound also supposedly puts more stress on the shoulder and pitcher. So with a lower mound we have a flatter plane of the baseball which should make it easier to make contact, more balls in play and more in-game action and less stress on the pitchers arms which should help them avoid injury. Seems like a win for the batter, pitcher and fan watching,.
Thanks for taking my question but the A’s should absolutely NOT trade prospects for rentals this year. Maybe they could pull a ’23 Marlins… but if they don’t win the AL West they won’t make the playoffs; the AL East will cover two of the WC spots.
My point was that rentals, especially with 2 WAR type players, are often basically giveaways by teams that don’t want to pay the salary. At most you’re kicking in some wild-card 17-year-old prospect.
Paid articles now?
I’m gone. Great site while it lasted.
BigmacNfrie, you will be missed and are welcome back anytime.
This isn’t an airport, you don’t have to announce your departures
Ha ha…
Announce the Bauer accuser being indicted for felony fraud and extortion!
You just announced it, Mrs. Bauer. Thanks!
The Bauer stuff is tricky. Tim was talking earlier about lowering the denominator and if you cater to shock jock nonsense that’s exactly what you will do. But on the other hand that increases traffic. I think about ESPNs old comment section. Yes it would get out of hand sometimes but geez the comments were often hilarious. I used to go right to it and then search based on most liked comments and it was always worth reading. I can understand why they stopped it but at the same time that’s right around when ESPN started to decline. And I mention ESPN because if they can fail anyone can.
We need Bauer news and updates. But I don’t think we need to comment on every post.
Blackpink – I agree with you but that guy uses every article for the same Bauer comment under different names. He’s a goof.
Only one name. Soz
How often should it be reported that no team wants to sign Bauer? Would daily satisfy? And what of the other players not being offered contracts, such as Brandon Belt. I want a daily article from MLBTR reminding us that no team has signed Brandon Belt and all the other guys out there who want to be paid to play MLB.
I love these mailbags Tim. Keep up the great work.