Front Office Originals News & Rumors

Anthony Franco

• Good afternoon everyone, hope you're well! Looking forward to another of these, let's get going

NY Reds

• Would Benge Or Jett Williams be enough to get Lodolo? Mets must be in on Zach Littel right?

Anthony Franco

• I think Benge would at least get their attention. Doubt the Reds would be super keen on moving Lodolo for a prospect but unless they're way down on him because he had a bad few weeks in Triple-A, Benge seems like the kind of talent who'd get their attention. Not as convinced on Williams, whose offensive ceiling seems lower
• Littell for the Mets? Sure. He's kind of boring though, that'd need to be their second of two rotation acquisitions

RJ

• Do the Angels bring back Moncada to play 3rd next season? Or do they look elsewhere?

Anthony Franco

• Moncada has to be like Plan F. If he's the only option available in February for $5M again, sure. They'll probably make a run at Geno, could trade for Alec Bohm or wait and see if the Phils non-tender him

Glenn inSeattle

• How are the Mariners going to fill their openings at 1st and 3rd?

Anthony Franco

• I buy that they're going to try to keep Naylor. If he ends up at four years in the low-mid 70s, I could see them doing that. If it gets to five years and closer to $100M, not so much. I'd probably put them on a Ryan O'Hearn type fallback at that point
• Not sure they need to as big at third. Emerson's not far off, Williamson can handle the position defensively if nothing else. If they bring Polanco back to rotate between 2B/3B/DH and still have Bliss and Young in the mix at second, I feel like that's enough to at least bide their time to see if Emerson can take the job in the second half

Dan S.

• When will the MLBTR Top 50 come out? One of my favorite bookmarks every off-season.

Anthony Franco

• Five days after the end of the World Series
• That's the cutoff point for teams/players to make option decisions and teams to decide whether to issue qualifying offers. There aren't many guys who'll make the Top 50 if the team declines a club option (Imanaga this year would be the main candidate) but player option/QO decisions have a big impact on the market, so we wait until those are in
• Also planning to do a top offseason trade candidates list (probably not 50 but at least 20-30) that we expect to drop the morning after the World Series ends

Baseball been very, very good to me.

• Who do you think matches up better with the Dodgers in a seven game series, Cubs or Brewers and why? Who do you think will win tomorrow nights game 5, assuming the starters are Imanaga and Misirowski? Obviously, the starters are sppeculative and both would be on super sjhort leashes.

Hope

• Any teams that have a good shot of beating the Dodgers? I am so worried by how they are ruining baseball. They are gonna go back to back

Anthony Franco

• I'll still take Milwaukee but predicting any single MLB postseason game is 55-45 at best
• I do think the Brewers have a better shot at beating the Dodgers. I'd consider L.A. the favorite over either of them but it's not like they're unbeatable with that bullpen
• Sasaki being a lights out reliever has been huge so far. Their actual relievers aside from Vesia are pretty bad

Cat_Herder

• You're Toronto.  Would you rather Detroit or Seattle win tonight?

Anthony Franco

• Detroit. I think Seattle's a deeper overall team and the Jays wouldn't see Skubal until Game 3
• Non-zero chance that they'd only have to face him once in the series, especially if they take the first two at home

Stockholm, AZ

• Hey Anthony! I know pitching is top priority, but who will play the outfield for the Diamondbacks next year? Hard to believe they won’t at least try to trade McCarthy or Thomas. And who will be on the infield corners? Lawlar has looked lost so far.

Anthony Franco

• Yeah I'm coming increasingly around on the idea that they'll dangle Lawlar for pitching. Another team that'd probably need to be in on Bohm or Josh Jung if they do that. Blaze Alexander's a utility guy
• Agree that they also need to add an outfielder, though I think it'll probably be a lower-cost platoon type given the expected payroll rollback and their pitching needs
• Carroll, Thomas and an Austin Hays type. Hope for Lourdes to make it back around the All-Star Break and/or that Ryan Waldschmidt hits his way to the majors quickly

Duffy S Cliff

• What are potential landing spots for Munetaka Murakami? Could my Red Sox go after him? What do you think his ceiling is in MLB?
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Steve Adams

• Good afternoon! I'll get going at 2pm CT, but as always, feel free to submit questions ahead of time. Looking forward to it!
• Let's begin!

Dave

• Instead of signing K Tucker to $450 million and 10 years should the Dodgers reunite with Cody Bellinger for $150 million and 5 years?   Thanks

Steve Adams

• I think that's a bit heavier than what both would get. I don't really expect the Dodgers to be prime players for Tucker, as I've said. Obviously they can afford to, but they've really only gone to the absolute top of the market/long-term for Yamamoto (25 years old), Ohtani (unicorn for obvious reasons) and, to a lesser extent, Betts (who was a year younger than Tucker and was an extension at a price that didn't break the bank as some might've expected).Adding Tucker (or Bellinger, for that matter) when they already have Pages and Teoscar (through 2027) just seems to further take potential ABs away from Dalton Rushing and prospects like Josue De Paula and Zyhir Hope.

  Maybe they just love Tucker and don't care about blocking all those guys -- they could all be traded, I suppose -- but I'm just not big on the idea of the Dodgers shelling out nine figures for any outfielder this winter. (Others on the MLBTR staff are more open to the idea than I am, for what it's worth)

ArchTiger

• Can a HR-driven team win in the playoffs?

Steve Adams

• You'd have to go back to the 2019 Nationals to find the most recent time a team outside the top four in terms of home run output won the World Series. I assume you're talking more about teams that are dependent solely on home runs to score, but even that's a little different in the playoffs versus the postseason. You're just not going to face a team's fifth starter or sixth-best reliever in the playoffs unless the game's already out of hand. Every club is a little more homer-dependent in the postseason, because they're facing better pitchers who make fewer mistakes, so the difference will often come down to who can capitalize most often on the relatively fewer number of mistake pitches they see.

Ned Colletti’s Toupee

• Does Munetaka Murakami’s value take a hit because he’s limited to a corner outfield or first base?  I know he will get paid but I don’t see him getting Yamamoto money.

Steve Adams

• Murakami's value takes a hit because he strikes out too much in Japan, even against lesser pitching, has struggled in the past against above-average velocity (I don't have his '25 numbers against MLB-caliber fastballs handy, but the average NPB heater is like 91-92 mph), and yes, because he's a poor defender who's best suited at 1B in all likelihood.
• I imagine there might be clubs willing to play him at 3B briefly early in his MLB run.
• He's probably a 1B long term, but I don't think 325MM like Yamamoto has ever been plausible since his numbers dipped a bit after the back-to-back MVP wins in 2021-22. He's still going to cash in on something worth more than $100MM in all likelihood, but to your point, I wouldn't be surprised if he signed for less than half of what Yamamoto got

Steve from the Cleve

• Cleveland needs an OF bat that can hit LHP. Robert Jr can't be had since he's on the White Sox and expensive. Tyrone Taylor was Tim Dierkes suggestion, but you might as well play Petey Halpin instead since he's a great fielder, runner and had a .734 OPS in AAA. Seems like there aren't any good options who are younger than 33

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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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