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 Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- At the start of the offseason, we expected players to do better than in 2023-24 and it seems like they did. What can we learn from that? (1:50)
- Apart from Juan Soto and Willy Adames, a lot of top position players have been struggling in free agency. Is this signal or noise? (7:10)
- There seems to be growing frustration from fans of small-market clubs, with new CBA talks just over the horizon. How will baseball respond? (20:00)
- The Mets outbid the Yankees on Soto. Is this a paradigm shift in New York? (36:40)
- Does the Soto deal help the top of next year’s market, guys like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Kyle Tucker? (45:50)
- Many Central division teams had almost no money to spend due to TV revenue concerns. Are there solutions coming in the future? (54:40)
- With the Rays stadium situation, the Twins being for sale, the White Sox and Royals trying to get new stadium money, is expansion possible in the near term? (59:30)
- Things we’re excited about going into the 2025 season (1:05:55)
Check out our past episodes!
- The Rays’ Stadium Deal Is Dead, Rangers’ Rotation Issues, And More! – listen here
- Lawrence Butler’s Extension, Gerrit Cole’s TJ, And Rays’ Ownership Pressured To Sell – listen here
- Jose Quintana, Luis Gil’s Injury, The Nats’ TV Situation, Salary Floor Talk, And More! – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images
Something else that we learned from this offseason is that the Orioles’ new owner, David Rubenstein, is actually willing to spend some money and isn’t going to constantly cry poor and pinch every last penny like he’s drowning and it’s a life preserver the way that detestable ratfink John Angelos did.
That the NYY’s C+ team was as good (6-6) as the Met’s A squad the other day? Even with Soto!? Um, that’s surprising.
Oh yes….so surprising. Just like extrapolating Judges spring stats (a bigger sample than just one game) would amount to a .121 BA and 20 HR’s. Should option him to the minors to work on his plate discipline 😂 😉
178 iq providing further evidence that the “1” is a lie.
@gbs Hes shown time and time again he made a typo and it’s 1.78
Ive been arguing for years that Baltimore is a big enough city where they dont have to operate like a small market team. If the right owner invests in it, I believe they can pack the house. Baltimore fans are crazy about the Ravens, the Orioles can do the same.
Beg – The O’s don’t generate enough revenue yet, tickets are a tough sell because of the crime in the Oriole Park area.
They have the 18th-highest revenue in MLB (2023) despite winning a division title with 101 wins …. but they also had the 4th-lowest payroll in MLB which is ridiculous! They definitely should spend more.
We also learned from the offseason that 37 articles in 41 days suggesting an eminent Dylan Cease trade makes for great click bait.
This
I hope Vlad gets signed by the end of the week, he wants at least 500 Million, and it will probably be around 12 years? but idk…I just want us to resign him long-term.
The Jays should sign Vlad for five years guaranteed, with 7 club options afterwards. That keeps the player honest, and he has to keep producing or he loses 250 million dollars. It ends the albatross bad contracts teams are stuck with when the players fall off a cliff, but are still paid a king’s ransom for contributing next to nothing.
Yeah, Vladdy has no reason to take a deal like that, either money or years
Ashley is worried about Vladdy’s tendency to blimp up after after too many Tim Horton’s in the clubhouse and taking Kirk & Schneider out to the Golden Corrall after every game.
Ashleyr, no one forces teams to sign these long contracts.
Also, how about paying players much closer to what they’re worth during their first 6-7 seasons?
@Ashley Obviously no player would sign such a deal. Half of these deals are players marketablity and name recognition. In Vlad Jr’s case he came into league with a ton of name recognition and it’s associated value. Being a Jr to a HOF will do that.
That David Stearns still thinks he’s in Milwaukee. Thankfully Cohen wrote the check for Soto.
There’s a fresh take. I love how well researched it is and how you provide many examples. Be sure to complain later about how we overspent on Manaea to really bring the point home.
Btw this was supposed to be “what did we learn” not “whats your troll strategy”
Learned absolutely nothing
I learned that Juan Soto poops gold, urinates mercury, and sneezes out diamonds. I also heard Soto blew his nose, and a pearl came out.
How about when he farted?
We learned that the Reds owner and front office is as inept as we thought they were after high hopes when they talked Tito out of retirement.
The team may still make some noise despite them like 2023 while the talented kids are still there.
We learned Hoyer is still clueless.
We learned that there is an acceptable level of competence required for some of these execs to be able to safely attend a baseball game.
Craig Breslow would get jumped for letting the whole “Devers is a DH” thing play out. The rest of us knew that in November and they didn’t show any tangible awareness of that fact until yesterday.
There isn’t anything that Breslow did that I, or Gwynning, or Leo Morgenstern, or any of the other hundreds of people that could see this comment could not have done while we kept our current jobs and had the Red Sox in the same position, probably a better one, to compete. Breslow runs the Red Sox full time, and…. this is it?
All Breslow did at Yale is smoke Yeed. He threw baseballs well enough to get pro looks and had to stop smoking Yeed when he had to go to Indy Ball to keep his playing career alive before he broke through at the MLB level. Smoking Yeed at Yale can’t be good enough to run the Red Sox anymore (see Chaim Bloom).
Troy – I view Breslow as an intelligent guy who simply doesn’t have the knowledge and experience yet to be a solid HOBO. He’s still got his training wheels on, Cora is still running the show and will probably replace Breslow eventually, and there’s nobody around to properly mentor Breslow like Larry did with Theo.
I wonder how involved Theo is these days, if at all.
Fever,
My understanding of Theo’s involvement is he is an investor in FSG and collecting checks from the Sox/Penguins/Roush Fenway Rcing/that Soccer team and nothing more.
Epstein could be involved in Baseball Ops to some degree, I would be if I was him because he is both a minority owner and a HOF Executive, but I don’t know what he actually does day-to-day.
Cora beating his chest like he has decision-making input in Baseball Ops has always soured Cora on me. He has overplayed his pets before (Eugenio Suarez, Joely Rodriguez, etc) and I’m not a fan of having to make sure that Cora’s pet can actually play baseball (David Hamilton, Brennan Bernardino), I would rather just put the best team on the field and call it a day.
As for Breslow, I could see him gaining experience like you said and being good at this, but as of right now, there is absolutely nothing he has done that you couldn’t do.
That said, winning papers over a lot of issues, and we look GOOD this year. Cheers to a great season.
Troy – Last year there were reports of Theo being an advisor to Breslow, especially because of their Cubbies ties. I wouldn’t expect Theo to be involved day to day, but it seems strange we haven’t heard anything about him in a long time. Perhaps there was some sort of 1-year agreement which has since expired.
Yes now is the time for optimism and there’s been no major injuries yet so it’s full thr …… eh, onward and upward ;O)
Spending is insanely overrated. Mets gave Juan Soto a record-breaking contract and they’d still lose to the Seattle Mariners in the World Series.
We learned that the Twins will never be a winning team because all they do is sign 3rd tier players to fill a void.
Something we’ve learned from the beginning of this season: The umpires, as a group, are worse than ever. The umpire in yesterday’s Mets game missed 20 calls; another missed 19 earlier in the week. “The Evil Umpire”