MLB Mailbag: Helsley, Giants, Rangers, Brewers, Gore, Cubs, Padres
This week's MLBTR Mailbag looks at Ryan Helsley's value, potential upgrades for the Giants, some Rangers trade candidates, the Brewers' infield, MacKenzie Gore's breakout and why he's a difficult trade candidate to envision, the Cubs' bench, the Padres' outfield and more!
Let's dive in!
Sam asks...
Given Helsley's dip in performance this year, would the Cardinals get more future value/prospects by trading him or offering a QO? This questions assumes that the decision is made entirely on boosting the farm system, not with any considerations for this year's team or the '25 playoffs.
The assumption there is important, as I'm not at all convinced the Cardinals will trade Helsley given the manner in which they've trounced preseason expectations from just about everyone (myself one thousand percent included). From a pure look at future value, though, the more prudent move to gain future value is to trade him before July 31. Holding him makes further assumptions than the one you listed in this question; it assumes that Helsley will stay healthy and that he'll pitch well enough to merit a qualifying offer at season's end. Neither is a given.
Further, there's no certainty that he'd sign a contract worth $50MM or more even if he rejects a qualifying offer. That's the threshold needed to secure a compensatory pick after the first round of the draft. If Helsley signed for under $50MM, that comp pick would come between Competitive Balance Round B and the third round, some 40 picks later.
If Helsley is healthy and pitching well, there's a good case for him to land that $50MM+, but we can't assume he gets it. There have been instances in the past of relievers turning down a QO, seeking a massive payday, and lingering in free agency because their initial ask was too high and because teams had exhausted their offseason budgets by the time that asking price came down. Cardinals fans should be quite familiar with this phenomenon; it's how Greg Holland landed in St. Louis back in 2018.
So, there's a lot of presumption just to get to the point where the Cardinals select in the No. 31-35 range with the comp pick for Helsley -- and then there's the matter of actually drafting the correct player there as well. There are obvious, bigger-picture benefits to adding that pick's slot value to the team's 2026 draft budget, but the best way to maximize that value is to land a high-quality prospect there. Let's run through the recent history of players selected with QO compensation picks after the first round:
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Trade Deadline Outlook: San Francisco Giants
MLBTR's subscriber series previewing each club's deadline activity continues. Next up: the team that has already pulled off what'll probably be the biggest in-season trade we'll get all year.
Record: 44-35 (56.2% playoff probability, per FanGraphs)
Buy Mode
Potential needs: first base, second base, mid-rotation starter, left-handed relief
Two weeks ago, identifying the Giants' biggest priority was simple. The lineup was floundering and in desperate need of an impact bat. Then came the Rafael Devers stunner. All of a sudden, the top half of the order looks strong. They've pitched exceptionally well all season. They have fewer areas that they absolutely need to address than one might expect, since they're still generally viewed as a step below the top contenders in the National League.
First base was the biggest problem into the middle of June. They finally pulled the plug on the scuffling LaMonte Wade Jr. while signing Dominic Smith as a stopgap. Smith has made a strong impression through his first 16 games. More importantly, the Giants quickly convinced Devers to start taking drills at first base. He remains a designated hitter for now, but there's a decent chance he's getting into games as a first baseman prior to the July 31 deadline.
That doesn't preclude an upgrade. Smith has had a strong couple weeks, but he was a replacement level player between 2021-24. He's not someone who firmly stands in the way of an outside acquisition. Top prospect Bryce Eldridge suffered a right hamstring strain in Triple-A just this week (relayed by Justice delos Santos of The Mercury News). He's going to be out of action for at least 3-4 weeks and is unlikely to make his MLB debut before July is out. The Giants could theoretically replace Smith while keeping Devers as a designated hitter.
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Trade Deadline Outlook: Houston Astros
MLBTR’s team-by-team look at the upcoming deadline continues with the Astros. They're yet again in pole position in the AL West. Payroll might be an obstacle this summer, but they're in a familiar position as a deadline buyer.
Record: 45-33 (89.6% playoff probability, per FanGraphs)
Buy Mode
Potential needs: Left-handed bat, rotation depth, second base
Dana Brown gave us an easy starting point for the Astros' deadline outlook. Houston's general manager said over the weekend that the front office is already scouring the market for a left-handed hitter. That would have been easy enough to infer from a look at the roster. The Astros have the most right-handed lineup in recent history. They've given more than 2500 plate appearances to righty hitters this season (not including switch-hitters against lefty pitching). The second-place Angels are more than 400 PAs behind Houston, and no other team has even reached 1900. They're on pace to surpass the 2022 Blue Jays for the most plate appearances for right-handed batters in a season this century.
The flip side, of course, is that they've given a staggeringly low 175 plate appearances to pure left-handed hitters. Victor Caratini is their only switch-hitter of note. Yordan Alvarez should be back at some point, but he's coming up on two months since he fractured his right hand. Opponents have unsurprisingly thrown more right-handed pitchers at Houston than at any other. It hasn't stopped them from having success so far, but they'll obviously prefer to have more balance as they look ahead to potential playoff series.
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Trade Deadline Outlook: Philadelphia Phillies
MLBTR's team-by-team look at the upcoming deadline continues with the Phillies. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has never been afraid to take swings, and this year figures to be no exception as they battle the Mets for control of the NL East.
Record: 47-31 (90.7% playoff probability, per FanGraphs)
Buy Mode
Potential needs: Late-inning relief, corner outfield, center field, second base
Philadelphia has fewer holes than most teams do. They're the rare club that probably feels good about their rotation depth. They've stacked much of the everyday lineup with star players, most of whom are performing up to expectations. The top priority is a familiar one for the fanbase and front office: stabilizing the back of the bullpen.
Jordan Romano, Orion Kerkering and Matt Strahm are their top in-house options at the back end. Strahm is consistently effective but not a prototypical power arm. Romano's first season in Philly has been up-and-down. Kerkering has high-octane stuff and has gotten excellent results since the start of May, but he's always at risk of losing the strike zone. Rookies Mick Abel and Andrew Painter are starting pitching prospects but might make a greater impact this year in the late innings. Still, that's a lot of onus to put on young pitchers.
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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat, Today At 2pm CT
Steve Adams
- Happy Monday! We'll get going in about 90 minutes, but feel free to send in questions ahead of time.
- Hello! Let's get underway
Rafael Devers
- (Sorry for the old news but it’s still hot for a lot of us.). Is my contract “under water”? Some reports say yes, the market (I.e., the Giants) apparently say no. Great hitter but not much more. Is there surplus value in the contract or not?
Steve Adams
- I wouldn't say it's underwater. Devers is an elite hitter, top-10 in the sport, who won't turn 29 until October. We just saw Guerrero get a $500MM contract and Soto $765MM. Devers is owed $238.5MM beyond this season, starting with his age-29 campaign. That's older than Soto and Vlad were when they signed their contracts, of course, but if you asked me whether Devers would clear $238.5MM as a free agent this winter, I'd say he would, yes. Maybe not by leaps and bounds, as many teams would view him as a DH, but yeah, I think he'd get more than that in the open market still.
Knock-Knock
- Are there ever thoughts about changing All Star Voting? I think the starters should be based on stat leaders at each position and then reserves should be who the fans vote for. Too many homers vote for their favorites when clearly, they aren’t the best. This year is better than past years (so far) but not totally true to who is playing the best at each spot.
Steve Adams
- I doubt there will be, but yeah, I said last week in a chat that I don't really care about the All-Star Game whatsoever, in part because I find the voting process so stupid in the internet/social media era. It's always been more popularity contest than anything else, but it's just so exacerbated now.It'd be more appropriately labeled the "Fans' Choice" game or "Fan Selection" game, but in general, I don't find much excitement in it. I'll watch it if I have nothing else going on that night, but I find the All-Star Game less exciting than just tuning into a random Pirates/Reds game to watch Skenes vs. Greene or something.But it's also probably not aimed at the hardcore fan or a baseball sicko like me who consumes as much baseball content as I do. So maybe I'm just jaded and grumpy, haha.
What about Ann?
- Tyler Fitzgerald a fit for Braves 2b?
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Trade Deadline Outlook: Miami Marlins
MLBTR has kicked off a new series for Front Office subscribers! Over the next few weeks, we’re going team-by-team and examining every club’s deadline outlook as trade season approaches. There are some teams that’ll be easy to categorize as buyers or sellers, but many still find themselves right on the bubble where their play over the next four to six weeks takes on extra importance.
There’s nuance even for teams that are clearly into buy or sell mode. Where are those organizations from a payroll perspective? Are the buyers all-in for 2025 or just opening a long-term competitive window? Are the sellers committed to a multi-year rebuild, or are they likely to focus only on moving rentals while hanging onto players who are controllable beyond this season? Might the baseball operations leader be on the hot seat, and if so, how could that impact their deadline decisions?
We’ll start the series with a focus on teams that have moved to the far ends of the standings, giving a bit more time for the fringe contenders to clarify their plans. This edition focuses on the Marlins, a franchise which has been undergoing a huge pivot, despite making the playoffs two years ago.
Record: 29-44 (0.0% playoff probability)
Sell Mode
Impending Free Agent: Cal Quantrill
The Marlins have already shipped out a lot of their veteran players in recent years and also made little effort to bolster their roster in the offseason. They signed two free agents this past winter. One of them was Eric Wagaman, who came into this year with 18 games of big league experience and who can be controlled until he reaches six years of service time.
The other was Cal Quantrill, who signed a one-year, $3.5MM deal. The Marlins will surely make him available this summer, though the value will surely be modest. He's a back-end guy, at best, and contending clubs won't pay a huge price for that.
A playoff-caliber starter would fetch a much larger return, but Quantrill has a 5.68 earned run average over his 14 starts this year. There's probably a bit of bad luck in there, with his FIP at 4.43 and his SIERA at 4.49, but his strikeout rate has been subpar in every full season of his career. The Pirates got a lottery-ticket prospect for Martín Pérez last summer, and that's probably what the Marlins will be looking at here.
Controllable Trade Candidates: Sandy Alcantara, Jesús Sánchez, Anthony Bender, Edward Cabrera, Ryan Weathers, Max Meyer, Otto López, Kyle Stowers, Janson Junk, Calvin Faucher, Derek Hill, Dane Myers, Xavier Edwards, Andrew Nardi, Jesús Tinoco, Ronny Henriquez, Nick Fortes
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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
MLBTR's Steve Adams hosted a live chat today at 2pm CT, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.
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Trade Deadline Outlook: Pittsburgh Pirates
MLBTR is kicking off a new series for Front Office subscribers! Over the next few weeks, we'll go team-by-team and examine every club's deadline outlook as trade season approaches. There are some teams that'll be easy to categorize as buyers or sellers, but many still find themselves right on the bubble where their play over the next four to six weeks takes on extra importance.
There's nuance even for teams that are clearly into buy or sell mode. Where are those organizations from a payroll perspective? Are the buyers all-in for 2025 or just opening a long-term competitive window? Are the sellers committed to a multi-year rebuild, or are they likely to focus only on moving rentals while hanging onto players who are controllable beyond this season? Might the baseball operations leader be on the hot seat, and if so, how could that impact their deadline decisions?
We'll start the series with a focus on teams that have moved to the far end of the standings, giving a bit more time for the fringe contenders to clarify their plans. We'll get underway with the Pirates, who are headed to their seventh consecutive losing season.
Record: 29-45 (0.2% playoff probability)
Sell Mode
Impending Free Agents: Andrew Heaney, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Caleb Ferguson, Tim Mayza, Tommy Pham, Adam Frazier, Andrew McCutchen
The Pirates aren't likely to trade McCutchen. He has played on a series of one-year deals and has made clear he hopes to retire in Pittsburgh. Unless he has a change of heart and wants to compete for a championship, he'll stick around. They'd listen on any of the other impending free agents, but they'll probably have a tough time generating much in the way of returns for Pham, Frazier or Mayza. The former two haven't hit well in 2025 (Pham, in particular), and Mayza is on the 60-day IL due to a lat strain. He hasn't pitched since late April and isn't particularly close to a return.
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MLB Mailbag: Devers, Red Sox, Braves, Alonso, Helsley
This week's mailbag gets into many aspects of the Rafael Devers trade, remaining questions to answer in Boston, no-trade clauses, shortstop options for the Braves, Pete Alonso's next contract, Ryan Helsley's struggles, and much more.
Kevin asks:
What's your personal take on the Giants trade? I think Boston got the better deal.
John asks:
Seen a lot of talk from fans and the media that Devers contract will age badly but I did a little digging into the Contract Tracker. Between 2015 and 2020 there were 12 contracts with an AAV at 30 mil. and over. This year alone there were 5, including one for 50. So am I wrong to think that given the way salaries have escalated by the end of the contract 30 mil. likely won't be that big a deal?
Denny asks:
Will Devers HR stats suffer playing home games at whatever the current name is of the ballpark in SF?
My initial reaction was to favor the Giants' side of the deal. They added a 28-year-old top 10 hitter in baseball who should be worth 3-4 WAR per year for the foreseeable future. The Giants also ditched Jordan Hicks' contract in the process.
The Giants could feel pain from moving Kyle Harrison and James Tibbs III, but probably not in the short-term. The balance of this deal hinges heavily on Harrison, who is just 23 and retains number two starter upside. The Red Sox can control Harrison through 2030 if they keep him in the minors for a few weeks, which I'm guessing is the plan. Harrison has at least held his own through the equivalent of one Major League season.
Tibbs is considered a 50-grade prospect; he'll have to hit a lot to profile as a corner outfield regular. Jose Bello is the wild card prospect, and those get moved regularly.
I have seen multiple anonymous executives suggest Devers' contract is underwater, meaning he's worth less than he's owed. You could look at that in a strict dollars per WAR/aging curve sense, plugging in Devers as a 4-ish WAR player for 2025 who will begin his decline in 2026 or '27 and will be paid through 2033 (age 36). WAR doesn't like a player like this, especially if he's a DH, and I could see valuing him below $250MM with this approach.
Say Devers was owed $253MM at the time of the trade, plus a $2MM assignment bonus paid by the Giants. Let's also say that Hicks should be valued around $8MM per year. Given that his contract pays $12MM a year through 2027, the Giants save approximately $10MM by unloading Hicks' contract. Factor in Devers' deferrals and we'll say it's like the Giants are paying Devers around $225MM for the next 8.5 years.
Had Devers been declared a free agent on June 15, would he have topped $225MM?
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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
- Hey everyone, hope you had a good weekend! I'm not feeling great today so I'm going to keep this one around an hour. Let's get rolling
Duffy Scliff
- You’re gonna get a million Devers questions, but tell me this, have you ever seen a trade like this? Where a contending team trades a player early into a massive contract? This is not Mookie, or Sale, or Nomar. This is not like A Rod or Stanton being traded in a salary dump. This is 100% unprecedented. This relationship must have been so far beyond repair and we didn’t see it. This is one of the most shocking trades in baseball history.
Devers
- Why would SF do this deal? They don't have 3B open for him and with Eldridge coming up soon, Devers is going to be a very expensive DH only bat. The upside exists, but that's gambling a lot on a guy adjusting to the NL West gaunlet and changing his clubhouse negativity for a team surprisingly in the midst of a tough playoff race.
Anthony Franco
- A quick control Ctrl-F shows there are 18 mentions of Devers in the queue. Not going to publish all of them for obvious reasons
- Broadly speaking, I like it more for SF though I get where both sides are coming from. If Boston felt the relationship was truly beyond repair, I have a hard time seeing them getting more than this. Giants took the whole deal (minus the Hicks contract, which is a negative value asset but a short-term commitment) and Harrison and Tibbs are arguably on par with Top 100 type prospects
- Harrison obviously is no longer a prospect but I think he'd be valued equivalently to a back of the top 100 guy if he hadn't exhausted his rookie eligibility
- There's definitely risk for the Giants in creating a long-term logjam at the corner infield with Chapman signed forever and Eldridge knocking on the door. But we've also seen the top of the market for elite hitters spike in the couple years since the Devers contract was signed -- Vlad Jr. might be a worse player and just got $500M -- and they're in a division where there's always going to be huge pressure to pursue top-end talent
Dear Evan Carter
- do you see the Mets transitioning well given canning is starting to show his true colors and senga being out awhile? i am concerned about what we could expect from montas/manaea given the time off.
John
- Would it make sense for the Mets to trade one of their depth starters to try to get a higher leverage reliever or use some of the younger prospects in a bullpen role later in the season? I get a feeling the bullpen market will be light given how scarce quality arms are, especially lefties
Anthony Franco
- Yeah I think they're going to be fine. The rotation is going to regress a little bit but the offense was heating up (at least going into the TB series) and they were starting to produce more with RISP
- I imagine they'll just deal prospects to a non-contender for lefty bullpen help but I wouldn't be wedded to keeping Blackburn if they had another win-now team that wanted to swap MLB assets
Bat first
- Yankees' designating Pablo Reyes for assignment in favor of keeping Ben Rice in the lineup is a bit surprising. With Rice/Escarra on the bench, that leaves Peraza/Grisham (or whichever outfielder is sitting that day) as the only pieces on the bench that can play a position other than 1B or C. Wouldn't it have been better to give Rice or Escarra everyday reps down in AAA, rather than let your 100 wRc+ players rust on the bench if you simply don't have everyday spots for them?
Anthony Franco
- They like Escarra more than Rice defensively as the backup C and I'd much rather have Rice on my team than two of Reyes and Peraza
- Tough to count on Stanton playing every day and there's not much harm in mixing in a few more rest days for Goldy. Between that and maybe an occasional start at catcher, I think they can find 3-4 starts a week to keep Rice in a groove
Robert from SC
- I saw that Braves fans were disappointed today when Nacho Alvarez was optioned. I don't understand why. He's not going to save this team from the disappointing season they're having. Is Nacho the long term answer at SS?
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