Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

Anthony Franco

• Good afternoon everyone, hope you're doing well!
• Going to stay around an hour on this one to buy some time for free agent/outlook work. Let's get rolling

Lance

• Do you expect the Padres to be super active for any big moves?

Anthony Franco

• They should be in on the top rotation trade candidates (Gore, Ryan, etc.). Not as easy to do now that they've traded De Vries but they've consistently found a way to make those kinds of trades work
• Guessing the free agent approach will be more of what we've seen the last two years. Quiet early in the offseason and try to find ways to creatively structure deals for guys who fall through. Rotation is the priority -- though I could see there being enough uncertainty on King that he kind of falls back into their laps on some sort of opt-out deal -- but they could also be in for another bat
• If it's February and Alonso still hasn't signed, could they jump in?

Drake

• If Roki Sasaki continues to look as good as he does out of the pen do the Dodgers consider making the move permanent?

Anthony Franco

• Nah. Maybe he struggles again as a starter next year and they think about it, but they need to give him another chance to start going into '26

David

• Now that the Mets have moved on from most of their coaches, do you have thoughts in targets for pitching and hit?  Hefner was well regarded but my word, so many walks and full counts!  Thank you!

Anthony Franco

• Feels to me like Hefner fell on the sword for the front office getting too cute with the pitching moves over the offseason, but that's life as a coach. The upcoming rotation class isn't great but I have to imagine they'll be more engaged at the top than they were last winter after things fell apart the way they did
• You can put Tatsuya Imai with every big-market team but he's a potential mid-rotation guy who's uncommonly young for a free agent starter. Shane Bieber's only 30, rock solid, and at least won't come with draft compensation

607179

• Have you any sense of why Oneil Cruz had the year he had? Is he fixable?

Anthony Franco

• Some of it is batted ball stuff that'll normalize. He hits the ball so hard that I can't see him having a .262 average on balls in play again
• Always going to be a ton of strikeouts but I still feel alright about him as an above-average hitter moving forward. Don't think he's long for center field, though, and the whole package adds up to a pretty good player who's super frustrating because you feel he should be more given how freakishly talented he is

ml25ad

• Lots of different directions that the Cards can go in the offseason.  But if they do look to balance out their position player side of bats with so many LH's, what kind of return do you think each of Donovan, Burleson, Nootbaar, and Gorman could net?

Anthony Franco

• They'd all have value, probably in the order you mentioned them. Donovan would bring back a lot, probably a little better than the return Miami got from the Yankees for Jazz
• That was a weird one because Agustin Ramirez was a Top 100 caliber prospect for teams that thought he could catch and not especially valuable for those that didn't. But we can assume Miami was in the former camp (doesn't look promising), and the Cardinals should be able to get someone they value as a top 50-75 overall prospect for two years of Donovan as well

Hopeless Reds Fan

• Am I wrong to think that this would be a perfect offseason for the Reds to trade Hunter Greene for a haul that could bring them back a mlb bat and a couple of really nice prospects?  With Abbott, Lodolo, Singer, Burns, Lowder, Williamson, Petty, etc... this may be the time?
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