Simon Hampton's NL Central comments

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mikechamp
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Simon Hampton's NL Central comments

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These comments came from a chat with MLB Trade Rumors' Simon Hampton that occurred on March 11. A native of New Zealand, he is a part-time writer for MLBTR and will also be hosting their re-launched podcast. (If you like him, you can find him on Twitter @simonmhampton.)

For his first chat, I guess it was a decent number of questions. I included 2 bonus Q&As: one about the draft lottery and another about market size disparity.

The link to the entire chat can be found here: https://live.jotcast.com/chat/mlbtr-cha ... 15272.html

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Does Henry Davis start for the Pirates this year?

Simon Hampton
Opening day? No. I could see him getting into the mix towards the back end of the season. A healthy full season is the top focus for him though.
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If the Pirates could ever invest prospects and money into a starting pitcher, what are some possible names of who would might be?

Simon Hampton
It'd have to be someone with a bit of control remaining, so the Marlins' stable of young pitchers comes to mind, should Miami again float one of them in trade talks.

Actually thought Miami and Pittsburgh lined up really nicely on a possible Reynolds deal.
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Who do you think Texas may get for Mark Mathias?

Simon Hampton
News just to hand, Pirates are sending RHP Ricky DeVito to Texas to complete this deal. Will update our post shortly.
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STL seems to have an abundant # of OFS, but short on SP. Ideas on who might be a trading partner?

Simon Hampton
Am I missing something with STL? Wainwright, Mikolas, Montgomery, Flaherty and Matz is a fairly solid five. Matz obviously wasn't great last year and Flaherty has had injury issues, but I think it's a good place to start the year, and I don't see them adding a pitcher that'd bump anyone out of that rotation between now and Opening Day.
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If LA is WC3, who doesn't make it? NYM MIL PHIL?

Simon Hampton
My NL playoff teams are the Mets, Cardinals and Padres + Dodgers, Phillies, Atlanta in the WC. Brewers, Marlins, Diamondbacks all in the mix but not enough to get over the line.
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Do you think the new draft lottery is working on deterring teams tanking?

Simon Hampton
Not really.
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So from here on out, with the haves and gave notes, will any smaller market team EVER legitimately have a chance at a world series? I'm so frustrated that smaller market teams, except Padres for now, won't be really competitive. Even as a larger market fan, it is discouraging the difference in teams that will have a real chance to compete for a world series ever again.

Simon Hampton
Sure. There'll always be rich and poor teams, but baseball's contracting structure so overwhelmingly favors teams getting value from young players (that are earning league min/arbitration) v players signed as free agents that there's always pathways for small market teams to get competitive - the Rays and Guardians being good examples.

Of course, richer teams are able to combine strong development with big signings (Astros, Dodgers) to great effect.

I'm not saying I'm in agreement with the lack of spending from some small market teams, but I still think the best path to a quality team is through strong player development/drafting over pure $$$ in free agency.
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