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Live Chat With Fantasy Baseball Expert Nicklaus Gaut

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Fantasy baseball expert Nicklaus Gaut will be holding a live chat today at 11am central time, exclusively with Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. Use the link below to ask a question in advance, participate in the live event, and read the transcript afterward.

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Tim Dierkes’ MLB Mailbag: Skenes, Soto, Mets, White Sox

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Today's mailbag digs into what a Paul Skenes extension could look like, whether the Yankees will extend Juan Soto, how the Mets move forward, who the White Sox should trade, and much more.  Let's get to it!

Scott asks:

If you’re Paul Skenes, what do the Pirates need to offer to convince you to sign an extension?

I happened to catch Skenes' Wrigley Field start in-person with my kids, and it was awesome.  There is a type of guy who replies to any Paul Skenes accomplishment with "When's the Tommy John scheduled?", and I really don't want to align with those guys.  He's healthy and incredible right now - just enjoy it without the doomsaying.

That said, there should be an army of nerds at Paul Skenes' agency doing pitcher actuarial type stuff in the event the Pirates come with an extension offer or already have.  And the basic fact is that a list of the game's hardest-throwing starting pitchers doubles as a graveyard of injuries.

So OK, Skenes' injury risk is high simply because he's a starting pitcher, and it's even higher because he's the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in baseball.  That should be built into any contract offer.  But while injuries may be up, his risk is not all that different from a pitcher five years ago.

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Sponsored: Win Father’s Day With Dugout Mugs

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The following is a sponsored post from Dugout Mugs.

Baseball dads are the unsung heroes of the ballpark, and deserve more than just a pat on the back for their unwavering support. They’re the real MVPs, juggling schedules, cheering from the stands, being a human snack dispenser, and playing catch until the mosquitos come out. So, when it comes to gifts, let’s ditch the clichés (ties, gift cards, and stretched out polos) and step up to the plate with something truly unique.

Enter Dugout Mugs. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “A mug? Really?” But picture this: a hollowed-out baseball bat barrel, transformed into a one-of-a-kind drinking vessel. YES, we’re serious…it’s the perfect blend of form and function, just like that one kid on the team who’s surprisingly good at bunting.

But wait, there’s more! The Dugout Mug isn’t just a drinking apparatus; it’s a conversation starter. With customizable options galore, you can slap on a team logo (MLB, travel ball, etc) a custom message, or even a picture. This is DEFINITELY a home run in the nostalgia department!

“Shut up and take my money,” right? Not just yet. We haven’t even told you about the rest of their roster. We’re talking bottle openers made from baseballs and bat handles, wine glasses that are more bat than glass, shot glasses made from bat knobs, whiskey mugs, and more.

But perhaps the best part of all is the sense of community that comes with each Dugout Mug. Don’t believe us? Just ask any of of their 3 million (plus) followers online, or read some of their 50,000+ 5-star reviews they have online (yes, seriously).

So, there you have it, folks. The guys over at Dugout Mugs have your back this Father’s Day, so give them the nod and have them come out of the bullpen to close the deal!

Live Chat With Fantasy Baseball Expert Nicklaus Gaut

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Fantasy baseball expert Nicklaus Gaut will be holding a live chat today at 11am central time, exclusively with Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.  Use the link below to ask a question in advance, participate in the live event, and read the transcript afterward.

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Tim Dierkes’ MLB Mailbag: Severino, Blue Jays, James Wood

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Welcome to another edition of my subscriber mailbag!  If you're wondering where this paywall thing came from, please read about that here.  Today's mailbag gets into Luis Severino's solid start, the future of the Blue Jays, the trajectory of Nationals prospect James Wood, and assessing free agent mega-contracts.

Dmitry asks:

I noticed Luis Severino is doing much better this year. GB rates ticked up, along with his barrels % and overall FB runs value. What's different this year? Did the Mets unlock something Matt Blake couldn't? Better health? Just needed a change of scenery?

Severino has reinvented himself as a groundball pitcher.  His 56% groundball rate this year ranks sixth among all qualified starters.  In a sense it's good that he's done so, because as with last year's disaster season, his strikeout and walk rates have remained unimpressive.  I usually start by looking at a pitcher's K-BB%, and Severino's 11.0% mark is pretty bad and basically the same as it was when he posted a 6.65 ERA last year.

Most of Severino's success came in 2017-18, when he put up 11 WAR across 384 2/3 innings for the Yankees.  He missed almost all of 2019 due to a shoulder/lat injury, and then had Tommy John surgery in February 2020.  His TJ recovery included a setback along the way due to a shoulder injury. Severino's layoff between MLB games was just shy of two years.

Severino's 2022 season gave hope that he could return to his pre-Tommy John form.  Most of his velocity returned, and even though he missed more than two months due to another lat strain, his strikeout and walk rates were reminiscent of the Severino of old over a 102 inning span.  It was enough to convince the Yankees to pick up his $15MM club option for 2023.  Severino's 2023 season was so bad that he remarked last summer,"Right now, I feel like I am the worst pitcher in the game, no doubt about it."

As you might expect, Severino tinkered with his repertoire heading into 2024.  According to SNY's Andy Martino, Severino went to Driveline.  Martino wrote, "There, he split his hard slider into a cutter and a sweeper. Neither was as powerful as his old slider, but the two offerings combined to show hitters different speeds and different looks."  Martino added, "Severino has added ride to his velocity, creating a more powerful fastball. Played off his new cutter/sweeper mix, which features variances in speed, and a changeup and sinker that helps him get ground balls, and Severino looks like a more complete pitcher."  Martino provided a third reason as well, suggesting that Severino tipped his pitches often as a Yankee and has cleaned that up with the Mets.

Indeed, Severino has started using a sinker often.  He's using it 16.7% of the time so far this year, according to Brooks Baseball.  His career high for sinkers was 2.6% last year.  He explained to Tim Britton of The Athletic, "Just to have that pitch in my pocket that can help me get a groundball here, get a double play, get out of an inning with one pitch instead of striking out two guys. I was just thinking about how I can be more productive and save more pitches."  An open-mindedness toward sinkers, which have gone out of style in baseball, is a conscious choice for the Mets, which pitching coach Jeremy Hefner explains in Britton's article.

Severino has a 3.00 ERA as of this writing, and if he stays healthy and lands under 4.00 for the season, his one-year deal will have been a big success for Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns.  There's probably too much emphasis on that 3.00 ERA through these first 45 innings, though.  I think a pretty big correction is coming, because a portion of Severino's success comes from a .250 BABIP and 8.3% home run per flyball rate.  He's a bit less interesting with a league average strikeout rate and subpar walk rate, even as one of the league's best groundballers.  Severino's SIERA sits at 4.11, though Statcast's expected ERA is solid at 3.59.  So he's not allowing a lot of hard contact and could be a 2-3 WAR type moving forward.  What Severino is doing this year seems a bit like what Marcus Stroman did last year, but with more velocity.

I took a look at recent starting pitcher seasons with a K-BB% of 12 or below and a groundball rate of 50% or better.  There is a survivorship bias, because if that combo isn't working for a pitcher, he'll be removed from the rotation.  But this is a weird combination, especially for a pitcher who throws 96.  Here are a few comps other than Stroman's 2023:

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Fantasy Baseball Live Chat

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Nicklaus Gaut is holding a live fantasy baseball chat with Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers at 11am central time today.  You can find the link below.

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MLB Mailbag: Go, Arraez, Mariners, Red Sox, Braves

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Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers sent in their mailbag questions, and I answered a bunch of them!  Let's get to it.  For those surprised to see the paywall, please read the explanation here.

Chris asks:

It's my understanding that Woo-Suk Go was included in the Luis Arraez trade mostly for salary relief.  What is going wrong for Go so far that caused the Padres to change their minds on him so soon after signing him?

The way things went down with the Padres and Go was a bad look for the team:

  • Sign him to a two-year, $4.5MM free agent deal in January
  • Watch him get hammered in six spring training outings; send him to Double-A
  • Go pitches well in ten outings aside from an inflated BABIP
  • Include him in the Arraez deal as an apparent salary dump, four months after the signing and without using him in the Majors

While the standard XX-B free agent has to consent to a trade if he's signed and then traded before June 15th, Go was signed internationally, so he had no say in the matter.

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Transcript For Chat With Fantasy Baseball Expert Nicklaus Gaut

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Fantasy baseball expert Nicklaus Gaut held a live chat today, dishing out advice on Paul Skenes, Wyatt Langford, Corbin Carroll, and many more.

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Tim Dierkes’ MLB Mailbag: Mason Miller, Vlad Jr., Orioles, White Sox, Marlins, And More

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As explained here, we have been writing Trade Rumors Front Office originals such as this one for the last four years or so, but moving forward they'll be available on the website and not just in subscribers' inboxes.  In the near future, expect to see roughly six such paywalled posts per week here on MLBTR.  This week's mailbag explores the logic behind a Mason Miller trade, the Giants' slow start, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s true talent level, potential rotation upgrades for the Orioles, musings about the White Sox and Angels, and a look at Kim Ng's tenure as Marlins GM.

Phillip asks:

Mason Miller and Lucas Erceg are amazing, and totally wasted on the A's right now, despite them playing better than expected. But any trade would best be for solid prospects-SEVERAL solid prospects- who are 2-3 seasons away instead of MLB-ready guys who would also be wasted on the current and near-future teams. Given that, what team has those far away prospects to pay for one of those splendid slingers? Not Baltimore, more's the pity.

This brings up a philosophical question: should bad teams have nice things?  Mason Miller provides a reason to watch the A's, and his season has been insane so far.  And while he's under team control through the 2029 season, we can't count on him to hold up or on this franchise to be willing to pay him those last few years if he does.

So the cold-hearted logical answer is for the A's to trade Miller as soon as possible, as he might be at peak value and could be a lot less valuable the next time this organization has a realistic shot at contending.  (I am aware that the A's are not awful so far this year at 15-17, but I do not think they have a realistic chance at making the playoffs anytime soon).

It's worth considering that Miller was a starter in college and all through the minors.  He came down with a "mild UCL sprain" in mid-May of last year, which involved a four-month recovery period and short appearances when he returned in September.

A's GM David Forst explained to MLB.com's Martin Gallegos last December that he'd like to see Miller stay healthy for a year as a reliever before the team considers moving him back into a starting role.  When a pitcher excels as a closer to the degree Miller has thus far, it's often hard to get him out of that role, but if he can eventually transition back to starting, he could theoretically be even more valuable.  But given last year's UCL sprain and the attrition rate of the game's hardest throwers, there's a pretty good case that Miller is indeed at peak value right now.

I don't know where the hell the A's are going to be (as an organization) in 2026, when Miller will receive his first arbitration salary. Given the extra uncertainty around the franchise these next few years, Phillip's case makes some sense: trade Miller (and/or Erceg) now for prospects who are several years away from the Majors.

The problem with this idea is that a prospect's uncertainty is higher the further away he is from the Majors.  Trading Miller this summer might require threading the following needles:

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Trade Rumors Front Office: Changes To Article Delivery

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Four years ago, I created our Trade Rumors Front Office subscription service.  Facing some challenges with the online advertising revenue model, we launched a premium version of MLBTR with a paid subscription.  For $29.89 per year, a Trade Rumors Front Office subscription removes ads on all our sites and in our app, grants access to tools such as the Contract Tracker and Agency Database, and provides exclusive articles and chats from Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, Anthony Franco, and Nicklaus Gaut.  I think we’re offering great value for the price.

To date, the exclusive articles and chats have been delivered entirely via email.  This has resulted in a missed benefit for new subscribers, who had no access to previously-sent articles.  Sometimes people sign up specifically because they hear about a certain Front Office original we sent out.  They would inquire about it and I’d forward the email to them along with other recent exclusives.  This was not an efficient system, so I’ve decided to create an archive of Trade Rumors Front Office articles on MLBTR itself.  New subscribers will be able to go back and check out previous content as soon as they sign up.

This will be accomplished in the form of a paywall.  Roughly once per day on average, a paywalled Trade Rumors Front Office article or live chat will appear on MLBTR.  We averaged 16.6 posts per day on MLBTR last year, to give you a sense of how often you’ll run into this paywall.  If you’re a logged-in subscriber, you will not see the paywall.  Everyone else will see just a snippet of the article before running into it.

Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers will continue to receive these articles via email as well.  If you’re a subscriber and you decide you no longer need the emails because the articles are on the website, you can go here and unsubscribe from emails as needed.  We have not yet built the paywall technology in our iOS and Android apps, so the exclusive articles will not appear there.  If you’re an app user and paid subscriber you’ll want to continue receiving the emails.

Putting these Front Office articles on MLBTR is not just about creating an archive.  It will also serve as marketing for the subscription service.  A portion of MLBTR readers are interested in paying to read these articles, and I don’t think it makes sense to hide them.  Some people will see the topics and read an excerpt and be convinced to subscribe.  If that may apply to you, I should point out that it’s risk-free, in that we offer a 100% money-back guarantee if you’re unsatisfied for any reason.

Others will choose not to subscribe, whether due to lack of interest or their financial situation.  Our ad-supported readers remain appreciated and vital to this website.  It’s worth pointing out that the core function of MLBTR is not changing. We’re still going to curate, contextualize, and analyze news from the around the game in real-time and provide up-to-the-minute transaction breakdowns as we have since 2005.  That remains free and ad-supported.  The Trade Rumors Front Office articles that will appear on this site are opinion and analysis-based, as you’ll see.  We have no intention of paywalling news posts, which would not make sense.

We’re producing six Trade Rumors Front Office MLB articles/chats per week at present, two of which are fantasy baseball-centric.  Could the number increase from six?  It’s possible we’ll paywall additional opinion and analysis posts, particularly time-intensive ones such as our Offseason in Review and Offseason Outlook  series.

Whether you’re a Trade Rumors Front Office subscriber or someone who enjoys the free ad-supported MLB Trade Rumors, you’re welcome here.  After 18+ years we’re still going strong, and it’s a privilege to be able to do this for a living.  Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask questions in the comment section.

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