Steve Adams
- Greetings! Anthony and I flipped the Monday/Friday chats this week since I was off for the holiday, so you're stuck with me today. Apologies in advance!We'll get going around 3pm CT, but feel free to submit a question(s) ahead of time if you prefer!
- We'll get started a few minutes early today and go til a bit after 4
BaseballRadio
- Curious as to how the Cleveland Ownership can justify doing literally nothing to upgrade the offense, while dropping to around 70 million in payroll, pending the Clase/Ortiz situation… literally dead last in MLB ?
Steve Adams
- It's pretty inexplicable. The only significant move they made this winter was extending Ramirez on a deal that saved them $10MM in 2026. They re-signed Austin Hedges and bought a few cheap, one-year relievers.For me, they had far and away the worst offseason in baseball. There are so many glaring holes in that lineup, and they're content to just hope a club that produced an AL-worst .226/.296/.373 batting line (87 wRC+) will become serviceable from an offensive standpoint based solely on in-house improvement and promotions of Bazzana, DeLauter, etc.
- It's an indefensible offseason, and if I were a Cleveland fan, I'd be livid. I joked the other day with colleagues that maybe the Dolans are trying to force people to say "Look! See how badly MLB needs a floor!" ... and while I was mostly kidding, I wonder whether there's some partial truth to that sentiment.
Matt
- Now that Pablo Lopez is out any chance the Twins listen to offers for Byron Buxton?
J. Zoll
- So . . . a lot of Twins fans think trading Joe Ryan ASAP is the right thing to do in the wake of Pablo Lopez's need for TJ. This late in the winter, though, I'm wondering if a guy couldn't get more of a return closer to the deadline. Your thoughts?
Sam
- Hey Steve, thanks as always for the chat! What avenue do you see the Twins taking to address the Pablo replacement while he recovers? Sign Giolito/Littell/Scherzer/another FA, acquire a seasoned innings eater via trade, or work with what they have?
Steve Adams
- Lots and lots of Twins questions post-Pablo
- For starters, no they're not going to trade Ryan now. Demand is down -- though teams would still want him -- and Tom Pohlad has done nothing but talk about how he wants to be aggressive and win now since he took over the executive chair position. They're not going to be good (unless about 15 different things break their way), but it's pretty hard for an owner to pull that kind of about-face when his whole schtick so far has been "I'm going to be accountable, answer tough questions and win back the fans."I don't think that's going to happen, but I don't see any way they trade Ryan before Opening Day. Deadline? Sure. But not before then.
- Ditto Buxton on all that
- I do think there's a realistic chance the Twins give a one-year deal to Giolito or Littell. I guess they could throw a year at Tyler Anderson to bring in some cheaper, fairly durable innings as well.There aren't many teams left with much budget space, but the Twins made a late run at Framber Valdez, so Pohlad clearly isn't married to the payroll staying at its $108MM-ish current level. It wouldn't be exciting, but his comments keep saying he wants to show the fans they'll try and be aggressive under his watch, well ... Gio/Littell is about the closest he can come at this point.
- Even before the report on the Jays/Scherzer picking up talks, there was no way Max was signing in Minnesota. He wants a clear win-now contender.
Tribefan528
- Is it inevitable that Agustin Ramirez moves to 1B? How does his bat project at dh/1b?
Steve Adams
- Guys make crazy improvements all the time, but Ramirez would need seismic gains behind the plate to stay at catcher. He had one of the worst defensive seasons ever for a catcher... -14 DRS and -12 FRV per Statcast -- in only 605 innings!Even if you don't like/trust modern metrics, he had an 8.8% caught-stealing rate and allowed NINETEEN passed balls in 605 frames. Plus 36 wild pitches!
- He has enough power to be a 1B/DH, but he undercuts that power by chasing too much ... if you're going to be a RH 1B/DH, you need more than a 6% walk rate.
- He's only 24, but last season was pretty rough in all aspects, other than ripping 21 homers in 536 PAs.
john
- Why has Giolito to Atl not happened yet?
Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription
BENEFITS
- Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
- Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
- Remove ads and support our writers.
- Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker
To the guy offering 5 Redsox prospects AND Wilyer Abreu for Jeremy Pena & a prospect…….HAVE YOU LIST YOUR MIND? Why stop at 5 prospects……give ’em 6 or 7. Smh.
I would say it depends on the prospects, but 5 prospects and Wilyer Abreu for Jeremy Pena and the prospect sounds fair enough to me. Depends on the prospect too. One final question, how do you list your mind?
If memory serves, when the NHL adopted a hard cap in 2005, it was effective right away, but teams were allowed “compliance buy-outs” in which designated players would be paid the full remaining value of their contract, removed from the roster and cap calculation, and become free agents. (they could not re-sign with the same team for obvious cap evasion reasons). There weren’t many of these, suggesting that the new cap did not bind that straitly, but teams above the cap had the opportunity to divest themselves of bad contracts, if not the bad $.
Looking to the MLB landscape, the Dodgers don’t have a ton of large bad contracts so imagining how they would immediately cut, say, $100 million AAV is an interesting thought exercise.
I’d rather think about how the Guardians, Marlins, Twins, Pirates, and other cheap teams can defend the fact that their player payrolls some seasons don’t even even equal the amount of revenue sharing plus national TV money they receive.