Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

Anthony Franco

Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed your weekend!
Different schedule with the holiday so I’ll have to keep this one around an hour

RoxTalks

When Arenado gets into Cooperstown, does he go in as a Rockie, or is there too much bad blood there? Thanks!

Anthony Franco

Agree he’s a Hall of Famer, and yes, pretty clearly a Rockie for me
Could argue his best season was with St. Louis in ’22 but majority of his career was in Colorado, including five of the six top 10 MVP finishes. Second or third best player in franchise history for the Rox

Guest

Over Under 93.5 Mets wins, and what is the X-factor

Anthony Franco

I’ll go under but not dramatically so. If I have to pick one x-factor, it’s McLean
Confident they’re going to hit. Bullpen isn’t elite but should be solid enough. Rotation’s the highest variance but obviously looks much stronger if McLean is immediately a #2 starter

Joe from Milwaukee

Do you think the Brewers make an effort to extend Contreras? They seem a lot more willing to give big money to their position players historically and he’s one of the best catchers in baseball. Also, the Yelich money is gone after 2028 anyway.

Anthony Franco

Pretty far outside their usual spending habits at this stage of a player’s career. Quero’s hanging around as a potential long-term answer as long as the throwing drop-off isn’t permanent. Eventual trade of Contreras seems more probable

el jefe

Anthony Franco

Probably added two wins between all those moves? Not bad for the cost. Canning’s my favorite of them but they’re all sensible since rotation depth and the bench were the biggest issues and not that difficult to address for cheap
France would’ve been overkill on an MLB deal. For a minor league deal, sure. Decent chance he just doesn’t break camp and opts out at the end of Spring Training
We’ll see how long the Preller extension runs but makes sense to keep him around. Much as the approach can be shortsighted at times, especially with the free agent spending toward the end of Peter Seidler’s ownership, they continue to trot out top 5-10 teams that are also far more exciting than virtually any Padres teams from before Preller was hired

Ms fan

Are teams generally staying away from promoting their top prospects to AAA now? Seems like you get a lot more guys going straight from AA to the majors.

Anthony Franco

Yeah it seems like this is happening more often. The Prospect Promotion Incentive rules are part of it. There’s also just less to be gleaned from Triple-A from an evaluation perspective
The Pacific Coast League, in particular, is so hitter-friendly that the stats there don’t mean much. The pitcher quality at Triple-A continues to drop as injuries at the MLB level rise and force teams to call up more of their depth arms. There’s also more of a tendency for the interesting Quad-A pitchers to move to Asia rather than sticking around in Triple-A because they can see the earning potential if they have success overseas

Guards4Life

Is Kwan open to an extension or is he gone? Haven’t heard much from his camp.