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By Mark Polishuk | at
Click here to submit questions and follow along with tonight’s live baseball chat
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
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Mark is one of my favorites in the chat room. Brings different points of view to us fans. Good chat.
I agree. Great job deflecting on a number of early questions and not acknowledging the sarcasm in a few others.
Yes! He’s great!
The trade proposals in this chat are spiraling down to outright ridiculousness. I think Mark is being screwed with.
I agree. I can’t imagine anyone would be serious in thinking Albies, Ozuna, and Rosario, would bring back Ohtani, but only if the Angels sweetened the pot. That’s just too absurd to be believable.
In that guy’s defense the Angels did give them Iglesias for Tucker Davidson and Jesse Chavez who the Angels subsequently released and returned to Atlanta where’s he’s been dominating hitters w/ 89mph cutters.
Don – I totally agree. The person who proposed Ohtani getting traded to the Red Sox made me LOL.
Not sure which was funnier, him saying the Red Sox have a strong enough farm system to support a trade for Ohtani, or him saying the Red Sox would make that trade if they did.
Right now the Sox have just one Top 100 prospect not in the majors (Mayer) and even with Casas and Bello they are still just 11th.
John Henry approving a $500M+ Ohtani extension? That’s almost as laughable as dreaming of the Sox signing Diaz.
Fellas, Shohei is staying a lifetime Halo along Trouty. I say it to remind the populace at large. And I will keep saying it until he finally gets his big o’l extension. They would have to be clinically insane to not keep that man.
The Angels are not complete and utter fools. They just won’t do it. The Nationals made a similar mistake letting Soto go. That guy was everything and I doubt fans will soon forgive/forget.
@Trumbo, I believe MLB is far more interesting when teams keep their “faces”, meaning their best players who are identified with the team. I didn’t want Mookie Betts to leave the Red Sox (even though I’m a Yankee fan), I wanted trout to remain an Angel, I wanted Freeman to stay with the Braves, and I of course want Judge to stay a Yankee. Ohtani should remain an Angel, but I’m not convinced it will happen. You need to get your new owner in to keep him!
Yes, Yes, unfortunately, the ownership “limbo” situation is having a non-deserved bearing on the entire situation. I feel like WHOEVER takes over the team better have enough sense, b@lls, and guts to make sure that man remains in Anaheim.
Mark only answers a small fraction of questions submitted. He selects which ones to publish and answer, so maybe he’s actually screwing with us.
Hats off to “No Coors” for using the words insular and contrarian. That is all!
Guys….he has to keep himself engaged as well….
Can you imagine how many troll type q’s he gets…..? Like anything else…..his job may “seem” easy…..But he’s in this spot for a reason….
More often then not, I miss the chats, BUT love reading them and when I catch them, usually (50%) get a q answered……
The question about who to take in the field for the playoffs – either the tops in the 2 leagues or others – was something I haven’t thought of.
First of all – Moneyball changed the way a lot of FO’s viewed putting teams together and having them managed. But the A’s never really built on that. The 2 organizations that did were the Rays and Astros – although their approaches are different. In turn they’ve sent people from their FO’s to run other organizations. The top teams in their leagues this year are 1) the Dodgers – run by Andrew Friedman that ran the Rays FO; and 2) the Astros – still using a lot of Jeff Luhnow’s strategies but now being run by James Click that came over from the Rays…..and there are reports that the owner may be a bit uncomfortable with the way Mr. Click is doing things.
Then I got to thinking which teams could beat the favorites. It came down to the managers working with FO information.
In the NL Brian Snitker did it last year with the Braves – could do it again. Possibly the most fundamentally sound team in MLB. Buck can do it with the Mets, although I’m curious to see how he works with the analytical data when it contradicts what he believe needs to be done in post-seasons. The Cardinals are running out a rookie manager. Phillies are a long shot. Padres….who knows?
In the AL the Yankees will finish 2nd to the Astros in season records. But they’re been carried by Aaron Judge’s year. Is there a pitcher facing the Yankees that’s going to give him a pitch to drive other than by mistake? He’s the only guy that can beat them on that team. Now the Rays and Guardians have sensational mangers, and it’s possible that their teams can surprise. But do the Rays have enough hitting, and how does Cleveland work around being the youngest team in MLB? The Mariners are a long-shot as well, but it’s the first time in the playoffs for them, their manager, and most of their players. The Jays can hit, but lots of question marks othewise.
Mark said he’d go with the field. I lean towards the favorites, but a surprise can surely take place…..although it’s hard to call the Braves a surprise….kind of like betting against Bill Belichick in the playoffs because his team didn’t have the best W-L record……it might be logical, but until it’s over it’s an uncomfortable position to be in.
Sam, all I can add is that the maxim “anything can happen” stands as true in the MLB playoffs than anything. How did the lowest payroll team in baseball in 2020 push the mighty Dodgers to the brink (game 7) ? Nothing suprises me anymore in baseball my friend.
My lick was an Astros-Mets World Series. The Mets greatly complicated that pick by getting swept.
*Pick*. No licking going on here in these Covid days.
You meant LICK and you know it you dirty dog haha
A Buck vs Dusty WS. Cool. Finally, someone gets a ring. Hope it happens.
Game six
Nothing about 2020 should be extrapolated to explain what could happen this postseason. 2020 was a circus sideshow meant to lift our low pandemic spirits. The entire thing was a hackneyed artificial spectacle played in front of cardboard cutouts by ill-prepared and stressed-out athletes. 2020 was a Big Asterisk and none of it should count for anything, the stats should all be flushed. It’s so annoying when people think it should be counted as a legitimate MLB season.
So, NOT a Dodgers fan?
I wasn’t going to give it the dignity of a reply.
I would love to hear what Metsfan has to say after the Braves swept them beating both deGrom and Scherzer in the process.
He’s going to blame the Marte injury.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised not to see the “Melting Mets” one-joke troll in the comments the past couple of days.
Maybe it finally got banned, or maybe Mom took away its Internet access.
Is he still around? Maybe I muted him. The ‘put it in the books’ guy could be him I guess.
Put it in the books is a Mets fan. I’d gamble melting Mets is another burner account of bumgarnerequalsnlcs.
Von I remember the Phillies being quite the opponent for years headlined by Hamels, Utley,Rollins,Howard, and Bobby Abreu who I personally think is deserving of HOF consideration.
Anyone here think it would be awesome if MLBTR started a chat room for members like us to shoot the breeze? Live chat/real time?
I don’t know if they could logistically have a live chat room through just mlbtraderumors.com, but they could do something like have a Discord server for members only. It would serve the same purpose and may add more benefits for the MLB TR Front Office subscription.
Discord is not a bad idea.
“The cubs have a lot of average level pitching”?
Steele has pitched lights out in the second half… actually a little before the second half. One talk with Jon Lester a little over 1/3 into the season about being more aggressive and Steele went from a 4th starter with great stuff to a guy who looks like a TOR starter. 0.98 era, 3.62 k/bb, over 11 ks per 9.
Thompson pitched like a two the entire season until fatigue caught up to him. Took a short stint on the IL and came back dominate.
Wesneski is a little early but that slider… that one of the best wipe out pitches I’ve seen.
Stroman is being Stroman, his peripherals look great but his over all numbers not so great… he seems like Quintana for the Cubs where he is either good, heck he is good most of the time but one inning he falls apart.
Hendricks is my wait and see… Hendricks and Contreras haven’t meshed for two years but he definitely found his groove with Gomes. Every time (except his last game where he got hurt) Gomes was behind the dish for him, he looked like Kyle of old.
The Cubs second half tear while rolling out a minor league line up in many of the games, imo, has the front office thinking about grander. I also think they are optimistic, if not overly so, on Mervis and Canarios ability to provide power to their 2023 line up.
Would you be more surprised if Ohtani repeated his success or if he did not?
What would be you guys’ dream WS matchup this year? I think storyline wise, it would be the Cardinals vs the Mariners. What’s more enticing than one team in their first playoff run in 20 years making the WS, and the other team making the WS giving their legendary veterans one last ring before they headoff into the sunset?
Hard to argue with you on Mariners/Cardinals, that would be truly unique and exciting and great for baseball. Realistically I see Atlanta being the superior team in the NL though , so Seattle/Atlanta would be highly palatable for me. In all likelihood with my objective goggles on instead of my rose-colored fan goggles I will postulate it to be Astros/Braves with Astros winning out.
Mariners/Phillies. Two longest playoff droughts in the sport facing each other in the big one. It’s unlikely, and would require major upsets, which makes it more exciting.
I think it was more challenging and more impressive for Francona to get the young Guardians to the playoffs than Hyde to get the Orioles a winning record.
I think Scott Servais should get Manager of the Year overwhelmingly. It has not been an easy ride for the Mariners and things were looking grim back in May before they went on the huge win streak. But Servais was even-keel and didn’t panic thru the ups and downs. Great with the kids and solid maneuvering that bullpen which is their (not so) secret weapon. Plus breaking the 21 year drought blah blah blah. But granted all that I can see the case for Tito as well and I would be okay seeing him win it. Hyde not so much.