Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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mikechamp
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Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

Post by mikechamp »

These comments came from a chat with MLB Trade Rumors' Anthony Franco that occurred on May 4. (You can find him on Twitter at @affranco10 if you really want to ask him something.)

A smattering of questions about every team in the division except the Pirates. I included 2 bonus Q&As this time: one about the lack of offense and one about lineup construction.

The link to the entire chat can be found here: https://www.jotcast.com/chat/mlbtr-chat ... 13048.html

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Josh Bell will be traded to ______ in ___?

Anthony Franco
Brewers if Tellez falls back to earth, Guardians, Twins all kind of make sense to me. Don't think he moves until July though.
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When do teams gain an extra year of control over a player and when will we see Nolan Gorman ? Thanks!

Anthony Franco
Players need 172 days on an active roster or MLB injured list to reach a full year of service. That doesn't all have to be in the same calendar year, but their path to free agency is delayed a season if they don't make their first MLB appearance until around two and a half weeks of the regular season have elapsed
The new CBA allows top prospects to earn a bonus service year with a top two finish in Rookie of the Year balloting, though, so there's no longer a hard and fast absolute cutoff date.

On Gorman, I'd be surprised if he's not up within like two weeks. The Cardinals really seem to want to give DeJong every chance they can but at some point, the discrepancy in performance just has to matter.
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Could the Reds get 2 top 100 prospects for Castillo? 1 for Mahle? What would be a reasonable return?

Anthony Franco
If he looks like vintage Castillo, that feels attainable. The Berríos deal last summer netted Minnesota two top 100 guys (albeit fairly divisive players) for one and a half years of the high-end #2 starter type.

I think something similar could be viable for Mahle, but he obviously has to return to his 2019-21 self after an awful start this year.
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Should Cubs look to deal Contreras now ahead of summer speculation? Which team would want him?

Anthony Franco
I was surprised they didn't try more aggressively to move him before the start of the year. It's rare to see players of Contreras' caliber traded in May -- typically those guys go closer to the deadline -- but I could actually see the case for an earlier deal here.

Gives Contreras more time to get acquainted with a new pitching staff, Cubs could turn to Gomes and not completely punt on 2022 (although they're almost certainly not a playoff team).
Yankees seem like the best fit still. Maybe the Giants if they're worried about the shape of Joey Bart's production.

A 128 wRC+ is very good, particularly for a catcher, but Bart's striking out 43% of the time. That combination is tough to maintain.
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Are the Reds losing 105+ this year?

Anthony Franco
I don't think the Reds are that bad. Wouldn't be all that surprised if they played around .500 from here on out.

Now obviously, that's not enough to avoid an awful season because they're already 17 games under. But I'd still take the under on 105.
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Have the Brewers displaced the Rays as the best-run small market team? Is anyone else even close?

Anthony Franco
They're both awesome. Wouldn't say the Rays have been upstaged though; they won 100 games last year.

Guardians and A's are probably a little behind those two teams, but both those front offices have won a lot of games in recent years despite never really getting to dip in free agency. Cleveland has been excellent at drafting and player development. Oakland not so much, but they've done a really nice job identifying under-the-radar trade targets from a pro scouting perspective.
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Should the Rangers offer Willie Calhoun to Cincinnati for Aristides Aquino as both could use a change of scenery?

Anthony Franco
I'd rather have Calhoun. Don't think I'd even claim Aquino off waivers at this point (though I expect someone will).
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Will the Cubs ever try to compete again?

Anthony Franco
They didn't not try this past winter. They signed significantly more players than anyone else, basically overhauled half the roster.

2022 is kind of a stepping stone year. Evaluate whether guys like Wisdom, Schwindel and Hoerner can be regulars, break in Brennen Davis at some point. But this isn't a rebuild really. I expect them to make win-now moves next offseason.
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When does the "it's still early" point come to an end in your opinion? Now, two months in, etc ... Thanks!

Anthony Franco
Obviously it's kind of a sliding scale. I would say we've long since hit that point for the Reds, nowhere close to it for the White Sox.

But as a general rule, the end of June is about where I think teams have to really think about how their place in the standings should be affecting their deadline behavior and long-term outlook.
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Anthony, thanks for the awesome chats. What's with the lack of offense this spring?

Anthony Franco
It's a few things. Offense is always bad in April because it's cold everywhere and the ball doesn't carry. It's been particularly dreadful this year after every team added a humidor.

The league has also obviously played around with ways to deaden the ball in recent seasons after the home run explosion of 2016-19. I'm not entirely sure what they've done there recently but it appears they've gone a little too far.

And everybody strikes out all the time because pitching's too good, but that's not unique to this year.
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Do you think lineup construction actually matters? There's always a fair bit of talk about who hits in what spot in the lineup but all the evidence I can find points to it making a small enough difference that it really doesn't matter.

Anthony Franco
Not really. It's an easy discussion point for fans to quibble with managerial decisions, but so long as you're not actively tanking it (like if Astros were hitting Martín Maldonado leadoff or something), I don't care.
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Popeye_Card
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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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I like the idea of top two in the ROY voting getting an extra year of service, but doesn't that pretty much guarantee that teams will leave top prospects in AAA for the first month or so? It is now basically the difference of getting 5 years vs. nearly 7 years. By keeping them down a month, you not only delay the clock, but you also lessen their chances of finishing in the top two. Seems to encourage teams to do the exact opposite of what you wanted.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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Popeye_Card wrote:
May 5 22, 6:47 am
I like the idea of top two in the ROY voting getting an extra year of service, but doesn't that pretty much guarantee that teams will leave top prospects in AAA for the first month or so? It is now basically the difference of getting 5 years vs. nearly 7 years. By keeping them down a month, you not only delay the clock, but you also lessen their chances of finishing in the top two. Seems to encourage teams to do the exact opposite of what you wanted.
So can a player earn two years of service time, by finishing top 2 in ROY and getting the 175 days' time on the active roster? If so, yeah, that's big incentive for teams to wait significant amounts of time to avoid calling up a top prospect.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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Popeye_Card wrote:
May 5 22, 6:47 am
I like the idea of top two in the ROY voting getting an extra year of service, but doesn't that pretty much guarantee that teams will leave top prospects in AAA for the first month or so? It is now basically the difference of getting 5 years vs. nearly 7 years. By keeping them down a month, you not only delay the clock, but you also lessen their chances of finishing in the top two. Seems to encourage teams to do the exact opposite of what you wanted.
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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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It sure seems like the MLBPA somehow got a *worse* CBA in so many respects. Great job, guys.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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Popeye_Card wrote:
May 5 22, 8:19 am
It sure seems like the MLBPA somehow got a *worse* CBA in so many respects. Great job, guys.
Billionaires hire better lawyers (and are more willing to lose a penny today to save a dollar tomorrow) than millionaires.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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In fact, the MLBPA hired a former player instead of the next Marvin Miller.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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Popeye_Card wrote:
May 5 22, 6:47 am
I like the idea of top two in the ROY voting getting an extra year of service, but doesn't that pretty much guarantee that teams will leave top prospects in AAA for the first month or so? It is now basically the difference of getting 5 years vs. nearly 7 years. By keeping them down a month, you not only delay the clock, but you also lessen their chances of finishing in the top two. Seems to encourage teams to do the exact opposite of what you wanted.
This was my concern, also a decent chunk of recent top 2 ROY finalists were up the full year in the previous setup, which dulls the impact. However, it's noteworthy that a decent number of prospects who you would think would've been held down were up on opening day this year. Hunter Greene, Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., CJ Abrams, probably a couple others I'm forgetting. Maybe that's a 'don't poke the bear' thing after contentious labor negotiations, and it's not as if there's no top prospects in AAA who probably should be in MLB, but it is noticeably different than recent seasons.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

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Transmogrified Tiger wrote:
May 5 22, 9:37 am
Popeye_Card wrote:
May 5 22, 6:47 am
I like the idea of top two in the ROY voting getting an extra year of service, but doesn't that pretty much guarantee that teams will leave top prospects in AAA for the first month or so? It is now basically the difference of getting 5 years vs. nearly 7 years. By keeping them down a month, you not only delay the clock, but you also lessen their chances of finishing in the top two. Seems to encourage teams to do the exact opposite of what you wanted.
This was my concern, also a decent chunk of recent top 2 ROY finalists were up the full year in the previous setup, which dulls the impact. However, it's noteworthy that a decent number of prospects who you would think would've been held down were up on opening day this year. Hunter Greene, Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., CJ Abrams, probably a couple others I'm forgetting. Maybe that's a 'don't poke the bear' thing after contentious labor negotiations, and it's not as if there's no top prospects in AAA who probably should be in MLB, but it is noticeably different than recent seasons.
Julio and Hunter were so good that if they weren't called up, the fanbases would riot. Julio's spring was insane.

At some point, teams see more value in using their skills to win games immediately.

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Re: Anthony Franco's NL Central comments

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

There was a case to be made BWJ should’ve been up last year.

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