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 of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The Athletics and Brent Rooker agreeing to a five-year extension (1:40)
- The Dodgers signing Hyeseong Kim and trading Gavin Lux to the Reds (6:40)
- The Diamondbacks signing Corbin Burnes (14:45)
- Do the Blue Jays have unique challenges in signing free agents to come to another country? (16:30)
- Will Burnes opt out in two years and will the Diamondbacks trade a starter now? (21:05)
- The Yankees acquiring Cody Bellinger from the Cubs and signing Paul Goldschmidt (26:35)
- The Astros signing Christian Walker (34:40)
- The Mets signing Sean Manaea and Griffin Canning (39:15)
- The Red Sox signing Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval (43:35)
- The Phillies acquiring Jesús Luzardo and signing Max Kepler (50:35)
- The Orioles signing Charlie Morton (55:35)
- The Guardians trading Josh Naylor to the Diamondbacks and signing Carlos Santana (58:30)
- The Rangers trading Nathaniel Lowe to the Nationals and signing Joc Pederson (1:01:25)
- The Nationals get Lowe as well as signing Josh Bell, Michael Soroka and Trevor Williams (1:05:30)
- The Tigers signing Gleyber Torres and shuffling their infield around (1:08:25)
Check out our past episodes!
- Kyle Tucker To The Cubs, And Trades For Devin Williams And Jeffrey Springs – listen here
- Winter Meetings Recap – listen here
- Blake Snell, Dodger Fatigue, And The Simmering Hot Stove – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
I gather Kyle Manzardo isn’t worth a mention in regard to Cleveland’s decision to move on from Josh Naylor? Or factoring in Carlos Santana’s durability and elite defense which aren’t attributes in Naylor’s game? Is there risk in moving on from Naylor? Sure. But there’s plenty of risk involved in holding onto him as well, without the benefit of the pitching prospect and draft pick he garnered.
Wouldn’t Manzardo have a full-time job regardless of whether Naylor or Santana was the first baseman?
The risk of Santana collapsing at age 39 and being worth 0-1 WAR is much higher than Naylor doing so. Heck, Santana was worth 0.7 WAR per 150 games from 2020-23.
His defense in that period was good, but not 14 OAA, 3-WAR-propping-up good.
Steamer suggests 1.6 WAR for Santana per 150 games, and 2.1 for Naylor in 2025. As I said, there’s much higher risk of Santana going to zero, but if not then the Guardians may have pulled off a lateral move.
There is no way that they were going to keep Naylor on his walk year. He was very inconsistent and ended in a huge funk. Three walks and a .650 ops in the playoffs this year. He can’t hit lefties.
Santana will be just fine, especially if they eventually relegate him to hit against lefties (which I see happening).
@Tim Dierkes
Why would Manzardo get full-time play this year with Naylor still on the club? The answer: he wouldn’t, further delaying the need to get the experience playing the field at the big league level,.
Cleveland is not unlike other clubs which prefer to use the DH slot as a place to rest its veterans, like Jose Ramirez, to keep bench players fresh, and utilize match-up advantages. What’s closer to reality is Santana largely platooning with Manzardo, with Carlos being Kyle’s late-inning caddy in games he doesn’t start.
Keep in mind David Fry will be limited to DH duties when he returns from TJ surgery, further limiting Manzardo’s AB’s were Naylor retained. Yes, trading Naylor is a risk, but there is upside to the construction of this roster at 1B and DH (and we haven’t even mentioned Jhonkensy Noel’s role in all this as he was only played in RF because 1B wasn’t available).
I was taken aback at the dismissive stance that this was purely a “lateral” move. It was not. It was a carefully considered decision to unlock potential, reduce the possibility of injuries factoring into the DH-1B equation, and provide some veteran insurance and defensive skill while doing so. Not to look at the depth of Cleveland’s considerations and options was disappointing.
You missed the boat on Manaea, as everyone does.
His 10 starts to end the season were hardly a signal improvement for him
Even now, with all the nonsense about Manaea ‘turning the corner’ in the 2nd half, no one bothers to note Manaea’s ERA his last 14 starts including the postseason was 4.05, with a 4.23 FIP and 4.26 SIERA. That defines mediocrity, not excellence.
Even if you do him the favor of hewing to the regular season, Manaea’s last 10 regular season starts produced a modest 3.79 ERA, 4.03 FIP, 4.06 SIERA, AND it took a .191 BABIP to get there.
The myth is, Manaea turned on the lights by dropping his arm slot after watching Sale’s July 25th start against the Mets. Manaea then put up two terrific starts, but after those two 7-inning gems on July 30th and August 5th, Manaea was actually a little worse for the rest of the year than he was prior to those two starts. —In short, Manaea wasn’t good, he wasn’t improved, it was only that he was incredibly lucky, and all that luck only made him no better in his last 10 regular season starts than he had been in his first 20 starts … . A .191 BABIP even in 10 starts requires a great deal of luck—almost historical good luck.
When we applaud Manaea, it’s little better than applauding a lottery winner. Even across his 4 consecutive Cy Young seasons Greg Maddux could only manage a .260 BABIP and as far as I can tell didn’t get close to a 10-start stretch with a BABIP under .200. For his career, Clayton Kershaw’s BABIP stands at .274. In sum, Manaea was merely the beneficiary of great good luck. He’s a perfectly decent mid-rotation arm, but that’s all he is, and the story of his improvement in 2024 is plain fiction.
Baseball is a campfire around which we huddle against shadows, inventing tales to give benevolent shapes to randomness and to the dark. The story of Sean Manaea’s 2024 2nd half is just another tale we tell children pretending that a man, unlike so many, for a little while got to make his own luck.
If July 30th is the turning point, Manaea dramatically improved his strikeout and walk rates:
22.6 K% to 28.4%
10.1 BB% to 6.2 BB%
K-BB% went from 12.6% to 22.3%
BABIP went from .270 to .207, but if he is to maintain an elite 22.3 K-BB%, he’d be very good without a super low BABIP.
In Baseball HQ’s xERA he went from 4.40 in the first half to 3.64 in the second. Did I say something to suggest I felt he’d have an ERA significantly better than 3.64 in 2025?
I’m not too clear on why you’re excluding the two dominant starts on July 30 and Aug 5. Do they not count for some reason?
Even excluding those, his K% was 25.8% and BB% was 7.1%. That’s an 18.8 K-BB% Roughly in the range of Reynaldo Lopez, Grayson Rodriguez, and Michael King.
I see nothing wrong with calling Manaea the Mets’ “de facto ace” if you buy into the arm slot narrative. Darragh said “there’s no clear ace.” So not really seeing what we said that you feel is incorrect.
AL Central is going to be 4-team dogfight this year. They may suck now, but the White Sox are going to accumulate incredible talent over the next few years.