Click here to view the transcript of today’s chat with MLBTR’s Anthony Franco.
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Click here to view the transcript of today’s chat with MLBTR’s Anthony Franco.
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
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BOS is the next to last place (last place: NYM) I’d see Freeman going. Doesn’t make sense, at all. Maybe if they blew him away with a contract, but I can’t see that Cali boy ending his career there. I’d see him in TOR, playing for a Canadian team (though TOR’s pretty good with 1B right now), before seeing him in Bean Town. Even LAD/LAA make a lot more sense, if you’re talking about teams with plenty of spending power.
Braves obviously have to be the top choice but I agree with you about Boston. I would think somewhere in southern California is he leaves Atlanta. Either San Francisco if they don’t bring back Belt or San Diego is they can figure out some way to unload Hosmer. Toronto was a good choice but with Vlad there it just seems there’s no fit unless they make Vlad switch positions again.
His son, Charlie, does love Tatis…
Lol. That’s true. Tatis is his favorite player. Harper is his 2nd favorite player. Freddie only comes in 3rd. Did you ever see the video of Freddie hitting a home run off Charlie in the backyard and Charlie getting so upset? It was hysterical.
Let’s see how Charlie fares against Rizzo. Someone has to bring honor back to the family name.
Picking a team that actually needs a 1B, might be a good start.
Conforto to Cleveland is an interesting possibility.
The Indians / Guardians have seldom dealt with Boras on long-term contracts, but they have on one-year made-good contracts.
Francona and his coaches are great at making players feel welcome, squaring their heads and games away. Look at what they did with Amad Rosario this year after the Mets had him screwed up something terrible.
Unless someone comes across with a multi-year high price offer for Conforto, having him play a year to increase his negotiating power is the way they’ll have to go. Add in the Cleveland prefers LH hitters as they have long felt that they hit better at Progressive Field than RH hitters; and the Cleveland market is nowhere near as toxic as the NYC market regarding media and fan pressure.
I don’t see that happening. Conforto specifically wants a multi-year deal. If he were willing to take a pillow contract he would’ve just accepted the 1-year $18.4M QO from the Mets. I don’t see Cleveland paying him that kind of AAV. Cleveland also doesn’t strike me as an organization that would be willing to give away draft pick compensation for one season of Michael Conforto. Chances are the draft pick will be more productive over his career than Conforto will be just for next year. Cleveland isn’t a bad team but they don’t look like they are in full on win now mode either. I figure any team would have to be in order to give up a high draft pick for 1 year of any player.
@ The Mets “Missed WAR”;
You may well be correct.
But Scott Boras is very good about working with his player clients in seeing the long-term big picture. In negotiations he excels at pitting teams interested in his client against one another to run up the contract. At this point there will be a limited number of teams in the mix due to his 2021 performance (imagine the heat people in the FO would take if they give out a long-term pricy contract and Conforto continues to play as he did in 2021 – that would not only upset the owner and fans, it would mess up the budget for the rest of the roster).
Boras gives his clients options, and the players decide. One option would be to take on a one-year make-good contract. If so, Cleveland would be a candidate to sign him.
My reading is that Conforto wanted out of NYC and the Mets. He’s in fine physical shape and 28 years old. Unless he has a catastrophic injury, he should be able to play another 7-8 years…maybe more. He’s already made a good amount of money; what he’ll make the rest of his career will dwarf that. Sacrificing one year to get into an environment that he’ll be comfortable in and can produce in, is a small price to pay for another 6-7 years of a quality salary playing with a quality organization. Having a good 2022 will set him up for far more long-term money than what Boras can currently get.
If Boras does negotiate a long-term contract for Conforto now rest assured that teams will be covering themselves by having numerous performance metrics put in. Then again, it only takes one desperate owner / FO to offer a contract in which they don’t protect their downside – at which time it comes down to Conforto committing to a team like does business that way.
This will be good trivia in the future: Q: Who are the last 2 Pitchers to win a Silver Slugger award?
A: Max Fried and Shohei Otani.
It will only be a good question for one year. 2 pitchers win the silver slugger award every year. Mike Hampton used to do it all the time with the Rockies and Braves.
No it will be good cause there will be no more pitchers hitting next year
this will be good trivia until next year’s SS awards are announced.