The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- Mariners fire Scott Servais, hire Dan Wilson as manager (1:30)
- Angels extend general manager Perry Minasian (10:50)
- Orioles optioned Trevor Rogers to the minors amid other rotation challenges (23:15)
- Reds legend Joey Votto announces retirement (33:15)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- In my opinion, Max Fried’s 2024 has cost him $100MM+ due to injury and some weirdly shaky games/random innings. Do you agree and does this make him more/less likely to re-sign with the Braves? (41:40)
- Appears Justin Verlander will not hit the 140 innings pitched needed for his $35MM vesting option for 2025, making him a free agent at the end of the season. What kind of market can we expect for Verlander? What teams interested, salary, contract length. (50:20)
Check out our past episodes!
- Who Could Get Waived, Potential Rule Changes, Austin Riley, And Hector Neris – listen here
- The White Sox Fire Their Manager, Víctor Robles Extended, And The Marlins’ Front Office – listen here
- Fallout From The Trade Deadline And Mike Trout Injured Again – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Orioles rotation has had SOME injuries? The rotation has been decimated and no one saw that coming
Tonight’s game will be interesting. I don’t like the way Burnes has been getting hit recently. His August has been really bad and I can’t blame it on fatigue, as he’s used to this workload. I truly hope it isn’t a pre-cursor to TJS.
@Oriole1971. So appropriate, IMO, that you kick this thread off! What a stark contrast in staff health when comparing now with that ’71 rotation. IE. Four 20 game winners on the same team. Woah.
C Yards, that’s always my bar bet answer. “Name an MLB record that will never be broken”. Like to see a team with five 20-game winners.
@Letitbelowenstein
If I would have answered your bar bet question correctly and it was time for pay up, would it have been OK for me to scream over the din of bar noise “And tonight let it be Lowenstein”?
Hmmm. Is Lowenbrau even around anymore?
There’s a decent five man rotation in Rodriguez, Bradish, Means, Eflin and Wells.
John means isn’t under contract and you damn sure can’t count he’ll throw another ML pitch.
Wells also probably is a reliever when he’s healthy which isn’t going to be in April. Bradish neither. We need multiple arms.
At least 2 starters have to be signed this offseason.
Means and Wells. Both 2nd timers with the TJ surgery. Oof.
As a fan, it’s easy to want everything to be fixed overnight. I was expecting Perry to get let go. But not totally surprising, when he got an extension. Mike Scioscia, gets blamed for Trader Jerry leaving. No one will ever know, what fully what happened there. But maybe if Jerry had built a Bullpen in 2012, things could have been different. The Angels haven’t even been close to 500 since Mike left. Yes Trader Jerry, has been better with Seattle. But with the Angels, other than the Hank Conger trade, I can’t even think of any other trades he won with the Angels. The Chris I, trade was decent. David Freeze trade was decent. Every other trade, was horrible and set the Angels back. And don’t get me started, on his horrible drafting. When Taylor Ward is your only draft pick, with drafting over 140 players, is the only one who has been able to stay in the majors. That’s bad. Even as bad as Billy Eppler was, he was better at drafting players for the Angels than Trader Jerry
Moreno is the problem, not any GM the Angels have had.
Good assessment of the Angels by Steve pointing out that Moreno is the only constant through several GMs over more than a decade and Moreno has failed to allow his GMs to build a pitching staff worth anything. Ultimately the fans are to blame for continuing to spend money on the Angels. It’s about money to Moreno and if his revenue takes a hit, he might take owning a baseball team more seriously.
Which one is Steve again – Beavis. or Butthead?
Nice to see you on here again Mrs. Moreno. Please tell your husband to sell the team…please.
Will do. Right after he’s done with your mother.
Good ole mom jokes. They never get old.
Fried is gonna be interesting. Maybe he does a one year deal with the braves or couple years with opt outs? I dunno. Teams seem to not be giving the big contracts to pitchers anymore. AA has no problems cutting bait.
“Teams not be giving the big contracts..A.A has no problem”…Nola & Wheeler got big contracts just last year, without even being free agents. Teams are reluctant to pay pitchers #1 money when they’re not really #1 pitchers. Max Fried’s a good, serviceable pitcher, but clearly not a #1. I feel Fried could easily snag a market rate 5/$125M deal, but will most likely hold out for $200M+(especially if he’s a Boras guy). #2 and #3 guys(J.Montgomery)trying to get #1 money is the real problem in my opinion.
@mlb fan: Nola was a FA. The Braves offered him 6 years @$162M. He opted to stay w/the Phils for $10M more. You’re right on Wheeler. He signed a 3 year extension @$126M in March, prior to the last year of his previous 5 year deal w/the Phils. Going to be very surprised if Fried gets anywhere close to $200M (my guess is he ends up in the 6 years $140M-$160M range.) This year and 2023 season forearm injury trips to the IL could—imo—-make teams wary of his future health. Fried’s not a Boras client. The Braves are the only MLB team that doesn’t have a Boras client on their 40 man roster.
I think MLBTR and virtually everyone else ate underrating the impact of the Orioles new ownership.
With Santander and Burnes leaving (at least nominally) they have a mind boggling amount of payroll space. The luxury tax space is almost $200m. They will play in the very top of the FA pitching market, including Fried, Snell, Verlander and others.
Verlander isn’t the top of the market anymore. Just a big named #3 atp.
I totally agree Moreno is most of the problem. Minasian is nothing special, but any GM would love to buy top free agents, and he can’t because of Moreno’s penny-wise, pound-foolish approach. The reason why the Angels have failed in this is all Moreno. He had one of baseball’s all-time best players on his roster last season. But when it came to free agency, he wouldn’t pony up, and now Ohtani may be NL MVP this season. Moreno should either sell the club, or give complete autonomy to his GM.
in all fairness, Ohtani didn’t want to resign with the Angels. Ohtani offered the same contract terms to 4 teams, the Dodgers, Angels, Blue Jays and Giants.
I know the Angels declined before the Dodgers accepted, not sure about the other 2 teams.
But the reason why the Angels declined is because of the “Anti-Angels clause” (it’s what I call it, not the official term), which states that Ohtani can opt out of the contract at any time, if there is a change in ownership, management or front office.
People never seem to mention this clause, but it was reported by everyone when it was made, as it seemed like a weird one.
The point is, the Angels and Moreno COULD have been super aggressive and out-bid everybody. But they did not. Why? Because Moreno is an idiot.
He could’ve done that and still had a terrible team. The Angels need to actually draft and develop a team before inking anymore mega deals.
Verlander needs to retire. Let the young guns have a chance at a roster spot; they can spin a ball without going on the IL after each game. Give him his plaque in the hall and send him off into the sunset.
He just looks too old out there on the mound.
To make your Servais joke even darker, imagine him finding out about getting let go on MLBTR and then scrolling down to the comment section…