MLBTR Chat Transcript

Steve Adams

• Good morning! I need to get the chat wrapped up a bit before 2pm today, so moving the start time up ever so slightly, from the usual 1pm CT to 12:45pm. As always, feel free to ask questions in advance if you prefer.
• Greetings! Let’s get rolling

Cincinnati kid.

• If the reds fail to make the playoffs I see McLain and Stephenson as trade bait. Would you consider dealing DeLaCruz to someone like the Yankees or dodgers since management will never give him the contract he’s expecting to get

Steve Adams

• Stephenson for sure, if not a non-tender candidate. The Reds extended Trevino and have Alfredo Duno climbing the minor league ladder. Stephenson is controlled only one more year and due a raise that’ll take him north of $6MM in a season where he’s taken huge steps back at the plate and spent significant time on the IL. I don’t think there’d be a ton of surplus value, but I do think he’s a viable change-of-scenery candidate.As for McLain, it’s hard for me to imagine them selling so low on him, but I suppose if they could move him for a genuine upgrade in the outfield (with much lesser team control), maybe you entertain that thought.I generally don’t think it’s wise to just staunchly say any individual player is off limits — always listen — but it’d be hard to move Elly, who’s still controlled four more years.

Guest

• Is Kyle Tucker still the biggest Free Agent this winter ?

Steve Adams

• Yeah. If anything, I think the previously hush-hush fracture in his finger kind of quells some concern about why he’d struggled so much. Of course his numbers are going to take a hit. But he’s still a 29-year-old with plus power who at his best walks more than he strikes out and plays a fine right field. No one on the market can match his earning power.

FP

• Will we see Jonah Tong in MLB this season?

Steve Adams

• I think there’s enough smoke there that we should expect it, yeah.

Tigers

• Tigers should trade skubal this offseason #1 to get as much value as possible and #2 because a 10 yr+ deal could kill you in the later years

Steve Adams

• Not the first Tigers fan I’ve seen suggest this, but I couldn’t disagree more with trading Skubal. This is their window to win a World Series. If he walks and you “only” get a draft pick next winter, so be it, but Skubal is one of the two best pitchers in the game. Trading him in the midst of a win-now window because you want to make sure the 2028 team is better for it … I don’t see it. At least not for the Tigers. If you’re the Rays or Brewers and know you’re never going to get anything close to even a league-average payroll from ownership, perhaps that’s another story, but that’s not the case for Detroit.

Baltimore Fan

• What is Adley’s future? Could he be traded this offseason? To where?

Steve Adams

• I don’t think it’s completely off the table, but I also don’t think they’ll shop him or anything. With Basallo up/extended and Adley down to two years of club control, there’ll be teams calling, however, and Elias is going to listen since that’s his job.Padres, Guardians, Rays, Rangers, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies all make varying degrees of sense as teams that could look into the possibility

“Cracker” Ray Schalk

• Chisox catcher in 2026 will be…………

Steve Adams

• I imagine they’ll just split reps between Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero, probably mixing in some DH and 1B work at times. Korey Lee could factor in as a third catcher since he’ll be out of options, but they could also just trade him to a team looking for a cheap option behind the plate.

Chris

• What do you think Ben Rice’s role is next year? 1B only, lead C, backup C? Its tricky bc he needs a righty caddy and their other primary C is a lefty too.

Steve Adams

• I’d say it’s likelier that Rice’s role hinges on what other opportunities present themselves this winter than it is that they have a set role for Rice that’ll drive their offseason pursuits. Ultimately, he’ll probably see time at both spots and mix in at DH, since you pretty much have to bake in some downtime for Stanton to any expectations/projections.

Tommy

• What do you think the Orioles need to do for the rotation in the offseason? I could see Elias talking himself into a staring group of Bradish, Rogers, GRod, Kremer, Wells with Povich/Saurez/Young behind them. But there’s injury concerns galore. Does an ace complete the work or do they need multiple additions? Who do you think is reasonably available to improve them?

Steve Adams

• I don’t see how they can just run it back with this group. They’ve been pretty timid in adding to the rotation under Elias, with the exception of the Corbin Burnes acquisition — and even that was just for one year.They’ll have major questions on the workloads for Bradish, Rodriguez and Wells. Povich/Young haven’t proven anything. Rogers is a free agent after 2026. Kremer after 2027.They should be looking to add multiple arms, at least one of whom can be controlled multiple seasons. Could be via trade or free agency, but you can’t carry that group into 2026 and hope for better results, and this past offseason’s barrage of low-upside one-year deals proved to be a notable misstep that played a big role in sinking their season.

Carlos Mendoza

• Am I in over my head? Will I be back next season?

Steve Adams

• He’s signed through next year with a 2027 option. I don’t really think this is a question, but I guess Mets fans have been frustrated enough that David Stearns felt it necessary to publicly state this morning that Mendoza will be back… I saw his quote and thought, “Well… yeah.”

Free Agency

• Who’s giving up a draft pick to sign Gallen, Cease, King, Woodruff, Mahle?

Steve Adams

• I don’t think Mahle gets a QO, and if he does, I would imagine he accepts it. The others are all pretty clear cases to reject QOs, for me. I suppose maybe Gallen would consider it, but he’s on a nice run right now and I think he’ll get the two-year/opt-out treatment at least.

RookTaker23

• How much do home/road splits impact FA offers? Cody Bellinger (predictably) has some extreme ones.

Steve Adams

• I doubt Bellinger’s home/road splits are going to be a prominent factor in his free agency. Most players hit better at home, even if they don’t necessarily play in a hitters’ paradise. Bellinger’s career-long home/road splits skew heavily toward his home performance, for instance, and he’s only spent four-plus months with Yankee Stadium’s short porch.

Cool Mama Bell

• What does a long-term extension of Winn look like? 10 years, $300M?

Steve Adams

• Nowhere close to that. He still has one pre-arb year where he’ll make basically the league minimum. Even if you project him to make $30MM in arbitration (just using an arbitrary round number), you’d be talking six free agent years at around $270MM, or $45MM per year. No way he’s getting that.Fernando Tatis Jr. is the only position player in this service bracket to ever clear $300MM, and he did it over 14 years (and with a much better offensive profile than Winn has put together). I doubt Winn would get even $150MM, which isn’t to disrespect him as a player, but here are the top three extensions for 2+ years of service position players:Tatis: 14 years, $340MM
  Witt Jr.: 11 years, $288.7MM
  Yordan Alvarez: 6 years, $115MM

  (All of which you can quickly look up in our handy Contract Tracker)

Rick Camp

• Think Volpe might be available next season and if so would the Braves be interested?

Steve Adams

• I do think there will be some talk about the Yankees looking for a better option at shortstop, and I have wondered whether Volpe is someone the Braves would look into, yeah.

Richard

• Would 250 over 7 with a player opt out after 3 years be about right for Bichette? Adds a lot of risk for the team but gives him a chance to hit the market one last time in his career.

Steve Adams

• I think that’s steep, despite the strong rebound. I like Bichette and all, but him being a year younger than Willy Adames doesn’t justify him shattering Adames’ $182MM by $68MM. I have him somewhere around $175-200MM. We’ll see how he finishes.

Reds GM

• It seems this year that there are a lot more players who may qualify for Super 2 and reach arbitration a year early. Does everyone who reaches the cutoff and has 86 days of service time qualify? Or is there a limit on how many players can qualify for Super 2 every year?

Steve Adams

• The Reds have several of those guys (McLain, Elly, Abbott, Brandon Williamson). But it seems like there’s some fundamental misunderstanding of what the cutoff is. Super Two status is given to the top 22% of players (in terms of total service time) between two and three years of MLB service. By definition, only 22% of all players between two and three years of service can be Super 2 newcomers.The number could vary year to year, simply because the volume of players between 2 and 3 years of service changes somewhat each season, but on a rate basis, it’ll always be the same proportion of the service class.Cincinnati just happens to have quite a few guys in that boat this year, so perhaps it seems to you like there are more.
• For what it’s worth, EDLC and Abbott will probably be right around the bubble.
• McLain and Williamson are locks, though Williamson isn’t going to get a salary of note after missing the season due to injury. Probably like $800K. If he’s tendered.

Champdo

• Does Riley Greene’s rising k rate and plummeting walk rate limit the amount of money he’ll get in an extension or in FA

Steve Adams

• I don’t think it matters a ton just yet. He’s traded out some extra K’s for the best power output of his career, both in terms of volume and on a rate basis.I wouldn’t want to see the strikeouts climb any higher, though, and I’d already like to see some of the walks creep back in. He’s clearly working with a bit of a different approach this year, swinging far more often than at any point in the past. If he can maintain some of the power gains and restore a bit of his former selectivity, there could be a sweet spot where he really dials in.
• Whatever concerns the less-exciting plate discipline profile create would also be offset by him inching closer to free agency (and topping 30 homers). He’d probably clear $100MM on an extension if they pursue it.

Free Agency

• How robust is Gleyber Torres’ market going to be? I’m a little surprised not see him on the monthly power rankings of impending free agents, given his youth and performance

Steve Adams

• I had him 14th and wrote him up on the Power Rankings follow-up (Nos. 11-15) we did for subscribers.Broadly speaking, the market doesn’t pay pure second basemen. Marcus Semien is the only one who’s gotten the huge payday, and he did it coming off a 6-WAR, 45-homer season with plus defense and baserunning (and from a Rangers team that was willing to splash around some silly money).Torres has had a nice year, but he’s been a more good than great hitter with minimal defensive/baserunning value. To me, he feels like someone who’ll come in comfortably under $100MM, age notwithstanding.

Gashouse Gorilla

• I’m interesting in the decision on Nathaniel Lowe. I realize he was having a poor year, but it seems strange with his past history he was just let go.  Nationals have a reason other than (some) money?

Steve Adams

• They’d have non-tendered him in the offseason. No one was going to give up a prospect of any value to acquire one year of Lowe when he’d have gotten a raise north of $12MM. They cut him loose to open at-bats for younger players and probably held out a small bit of hope that maybe someone would claim the contract, which they unsurprisingly did not.

Charleston Chew

• Will Cal be MVP?

Steve Adams

• 76% of our readers now think so!
  https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/08/american-league-mvp-cal-raleigh…
• I tend to agree, though it’s hardly a sure thing just yet.

King Tuck

• O/U 75% chance the Cubs re-sign Tucker? If they do would a Cody Bellinger contract be possible? 3-4 years with an opt out after 2 and 3 years. 150mil over 4 years. 37.5 mil aav is a hefty pay raise from this year.

Steve Adams

• Way under on the percentage the Cubs re-sign him, and no way he’s taking a three- or four-year deal.

$ for a question?

• Only way a question can be fielded is if I pay a subscription?……..poor people like baseball too!

Steve Adams

• This chat is hosted on third-party software. I have no idea who in here is a subscriber or not. But there are 448 people participating/asking questions, and that constitutes a (very) lightly attended chat. Which is par for the course this time of year, as opposed to the deadline or offseason.

anxious jays fan

• whats our plan if bichette walks? start clement full time? kick gimenez over?

Steve Adams

• Gimenez to shortstop and go outside the organization at 2B, I would think.But I thought the Guardians should’ve moved Gimenez to SS years ago and they chose not to. So we shall see. I think the Jays will make a genuine effort to re-sign Bichette, too, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that he leaves.

Pete

• Now that a little more time has passed, does the White Sox handling of the Louis Robert situation make any more sense to you?

Steve Adams

• Robert could stay healthy and hit .300/.375/.530 from the deadline on, and I would still say it was a risk I wouldn’t have taken, even if it pans out perfectly like that.
• I understood the risk they were taking, I just didn’t agree with it and still don’t. But teams and players take risks all the time where I say “Woof, I don’t like that at all” and it still works out. Part of the game/business.

BTinVT

• Can you see Gorman turning into Muncy? Thank you

Steve Adams

• Gorman doesn’t walk like Muncy, and Muncy has never struck out as much as Gorman. I guess he could be a poor man’s version of Muncy, but I don’t think he has that same sort of offensive ceiling as Muncy

PhilsPhansince1965

• Should we unload either Castellanos or Taijuan over the winter to save some $$?

Steve Adams

• Far easier said than done. No one’s going to take much (any?) of Castellanos’ contract. I guess maybe you could pay Walker down to like $5-8MM and dump him for little to no return.

Even year

• What will need to happen for the Giants to contend in 26?

Steve Adams

• If they add one more legitimate bat, get Devers healthy, and bring in some rotation support for Webb/Ray, I don’t think it’s far-fetched that they contend. I’d like to see two bats (one in RF, one at 2B), but you can’t just expect them to go sign Tucker, Gleyber, Cease and a couple relievers, so trying to traffic somewhat in reality here.

rusty

• Will Jakob Marsee go 20/20 in ’26?

Steve Adams

• At this rate he might do it in 2025!
• Kidding, obviously. I think it’s a pretty easy yes on the steals. Bit more skeptical on the power, but it’s not outside the realm of plausibility.

Guest

• Do you see any big ticket free agents heading to San Francisco in the near future?

Steve Adams

• They’re among the more obvious suitors for Kyle Tucker and Gleyber Torres, sure. I imagine Bichette is going to state early on that he’ll play any position (a la Story and Adames) to increase his market viability as well, even if he wants to stay at shortstop. Giants pursuing him as a 2B option wouldn’t surprise me.
• Ok, I’ve got to wrap up for the week.I’m on X @Adams_Steve or Bluesky @adams-steve.bsky.social if you have more questions. If you want more opinions from the MLBTR team, you can learn about our Front Office subscription package and sign up here. In addition to ad-free viewing on the site and in the app, you’ll get weekly analysis/opinion columns from Anthony Franco and myself, a weekly mailbag column from Tim Dierkes, weekly fantasy baseball chats and columns with Nicklaus Gaut, two weekly subscriber-only chats (one with me, one with Anthony) where your odds of getting a question answered are much higher, direct Q&A opportunities with Darragh McDonald, access to our Contract Tracker, our GM Tracker and our Agency Database, and more.Have a great week, everyone!