Mets get Peralta. Framber Valdez is still out there, Tarik Skubal get no love from Tigers - Ep. 646 - 2.2.26

Well, last time we sat down here, were with the breaking news that Beau Bichette had signed with the New York Mets. And as we sat down with Dan Brown last week, we had had a wonderful conversation about his Hall of Fame vote in baseball as a whole, only for us to finish our podcast and find out that Freddie Peralta is a New York Met. It's this week in baseball.

I think the wildest thing to me is that the Mets are now number three in the baseball power rankings behind the Dodgers and Tubs. And if you talk to Mets fans, you would have thought they were a more above franchise with 0 % chance of making the playoffs this year, like a week ago. I don't want to say I kept saying, but I kept saying going, I didn't think it was done and we can't see their plan. Now the question is, was this really the plan or is this where it ended up? I think.

There's no way you can look at Beau Bichette and say that was the play. I think that that's clearly they gave a huge offer to Kyle Tucker. Clearly, Beau Bichette wasn't the plan. They think we trade for somebody like Freddie Peralta was always much more. was going to be one of those guys, right? Whether it's one of the Marlin pitchers or they didn't. They weren't going to go sign a guy like Framber Valdez. He doesn't fit what they want out of a pitcher. Freddie Peralta.

They get there to have a chance to sign him to an extension next year. I am sure they made this deal full well knowing their ability to sign him to the extension he wants. And by all accounts, he seems like what he really wants to be here in New York. And he seems like he's a really good clubhouse guy in a team that kind of needed a couple of her. And he came out just ⁓ earlier this week. This will be dropping on Monday, just the week before Wednesday or Tuesday, where he said, well, I I need to feel it out.

I need to see how I fit in the clubhouse. have to see. he's not committing. He's not ruling it out. And David Sterns, the pro-bo, said the same thing, going, we're feeling each other out here. But certainly, if there's desire in both parts, well, basically, both parties are saying, we'll try to make that happen. Right. He's not unhappy with being in New York, but that's an entirely different thing than signing the extension to be here long term. And he's in a good situation where he really gets to show out this year and then decide what he wants to do as a free agent.

I'm sure the men's would love to get them on an extension. Right, right. And you mentioned Fran Bervaldes who's still unsigned, which is interesting only in that. So, you know, if you would have signed Fran Bervaldes to a contract, even if the Mets got him in a short-term deal, which I don't think is going to happen, but let's say that he's getting $50 million for four years.

for 200 million or something like that. Instead they got Freddie Peralta for $8 million this year, obviously. That's giant difference. Right, giant difference. And now you did give up two prospects. gave up Jett Williams, a young second- He's a top 100 prospect. Top 100 prospect. So is Grand Dance Pro.

There so is Brandon's bro, know, guys, you know, neither of the guys. Now when we talk about top 100 prospects, I think what's really interesting is what what what these actually project out to be the sprout at the major league level, because it's like, okay, if you tell people, thought he's a top 100 prospect, everybody's like, Whoa, this guy might be an incredible sprout, you know, in terms of what his stuff projects out to be is like a third, fourth star. Now the question is, is

How valuable is that in the major leagues? Because if you ask a fan like, you're going to get a third, fourth starter out of this trade, lot of fans would be like, ⁓ that's not great. But then you actually think about how good having a really good three or four starter on your team is. And you're like, wait a second, that's actually really valuable. Not every trade is going to be netting you a Tarrick Scoobel-like prospect, because teams don't trade those. And how hard it is to be a number three starter.

It takes being in the top 100 to really give a go at it because let's face it, only the elite guys get to be that number one starter for them. And that's what in terms of in terms of being projected to be a top one style starter, a generational start, even Nolan McLean, who came into the major leagues and pitched unbelievably in that strategy was in the major leagues. He still doesn't even have a top level starter grade as a prospect.

There's still a lot of questions about whether or not he's going to come up this year and be successful. Even though, yes, Metbanz, we all love what we saw last year. That's not a guarantee. That's true because for him to be as good as he was in the short sample we saw last year for the whole season would be amazing. You have no right to expect that.

He did that for an entire season. He is the Cy Young and he is the best pitcher in baseball. And now we're talking about Nolan McLean instead of Paul Skeeds. And there is just zero way you can predict as a Met fan. You have to think he's going to take some kind of step back. You can't expect any. Like he was pitching at a level you really can't sustain. Now, you know, the Mets have remade their team such that I think I was thinking a few weeks ago.

that I would have the Phillies and the Braves, you know, fairly far ahead of them. And now with what they've done, I don't feel that way. I don't think the Mets are a runaway, you know, walk home vision kind of a thing. I would probably rank them if you put them to my head right now, Phillies, Mets, Braves, just because I have to see the Braves kind of do it again. Because it's like, okay, you've kind of had two weird seasons in a row now.

I have to put together a good season before I'm to start rating you above other teams. But like, and I think that the Phillies have done it too recently for me to put the Mets above that. And the only reason you might scratch your head with the Phillies is Zach Wheeler won't necessarily start the season in the rotation and there's no Ranger Suarez. And you may think that that's not a big deal, but that was a big deal in terms of that's two pitchers who might not be there until one for a call.

month or two. Right. And all that takes is Christopher Sanchez feels a little bit of elbow tightness in spring training. And now all of sudden he's not pitching till June. And all of sudden that rotation, you're like, wait a second, where did all of our pitchers go? And I don't expect Dave Dombrowski of the Phillies to sign Framber Valdez to replace Ranger Suarez who he just let go. The problem for Framber Valdez is he's negotiating against one team at this point. It's Framber Valdez trying to get the best contract out of the Baltimore Orioles because

It's the only team that makes sense to sign him at this point. They're the only team that really has the money left to give a giant contract to a free agent pitcher that also wants to give a giant contract to a free agent pitcher. The Dodgers are just like, OK, yeah, we don't need to spend the money on frame for Valdez. I guess they could. But even they would probably say that's a little excessive at a certain point, like.

I don't know. They are the dog. don't know. Like they could sweep in and sign him and everybody would be like, I guess this is our fault. Like, cause we don't have infinite money, but like, got to think he's going to end up in Oreo and really all he's doing is holding out. It kind of becomes a weird thing where it's a game of chicken is which side's going to blink first. I think it's interesting that you put that because there are other teams that could, you know, that could certainly plug him in and have them, you know,

Go against the grave. He's only gonna sign a short-term deal because he can't get the long-term deal that brings a lot of teams into play that necessarily are right now but if he wants a 60 or hundred and fifty million dollar deal I said and The Orioles know they're the only team that has that deal on the thing and over that deal on the table and he's like no I want seven for 200 right and They're like well, we'll give you six for 150 and nobody else is negotiating against them

Then it just becomes of like, okay, who's willing to blink first on this? Somebody will. go for a deal three years for a hundred, right? And I don't think he'll do three for a hundred. I think he really wants minimum five years because he's 30. He might even be a little older than that. He might even be a little older than that. You're right. He's not getting another contract. Nobody out there is giving a multi-year deal to a 33 year old Framer Valdez.

Well, at the end of the, if he signs a three year deal this year, yes, I see what you're saying. He's not going to get a good another contract when he's 33. Unless he's like, that's there's betting on yourself. And then there's making a bad financial decision. And that's just making a bad financial decision. And Gordon, you were right. He's 32. Definitely not going to get worse.

There's zero percent chance if he signs a three-year deal, he's getting another deal. So he is 100 % milking this for as long an average and longer duration as he can, 100%. And we said this about the ALEs before, you that has the potential of just being a really, really exciting division, but just a very, you know, hard-fought division because, you know, every team is good.

Everybody's good that the Orioles they've got to hit better just with those talent they've got there than they did last year. And like you said, pitching will make the difference there. They need that hitting. Remember, people forget what the Baltimore Orioles were last year. They were a terrible team for the first like 45, 50 ish games of the of the season. And when they were a pretty good team in the second, like the last two thirds of the year, they finished way better as they buried themselves with their god awful first half. Now.

There's a lot of things that you have to be concerned about. I believe Richmond has apparently forgotten how to play baseball and he's gone from a the next star catcher in the American League to do they want to keep him in a staggering short. It's hard for him not to be better than he was last year. He has to be because they're literally getting ready to move off from it. It is wild how well that's why they have Sal Basolo. You know, right, right. But between adding Pete expecting the lineup just overall to perform better. The problem for them is

They still haven't addressed to the elephant in the room, which everybody knew about last year, which was the lack of pitching. And now you have to sign frame or Valdez. So that's why I think they might blink before Framber does because letting if they don't sign him, almost makes signing Pete not make any sense. And for the new ownership that's there, that's saying we're not the former ownership. We're going to spend money. And that was out on him. This would be a really good sign for them to say we only did. We didn't do it just for Pete. We brought another guy in too.

Right, right. We brought another guy in. The only way you can lose out on him is if the Dodgers dodger it again. The Dodgers are like, yeah, we'll give them a seven-year deal. We can use them. We don't give a shit. If they did that, then it's like, okay, Orioles, I don't blame you on this one. But we can't see them doing that. Especially because this is luxury stuff for the Dodgers, why would you bring somebody who we have to say is a clubhouse malcontent?

into your locker room like that if you're the Dodgers. You don't need to. You know, he made a whole video, did Valdez, that he sent around to all the teens, you know, basically depicting him as a good guy, because he knows that there's this sort of thing floating around in the background. Every baseball fan watched him intentionally cross up his catcher and hit him with a pitch. No, we've never seen a pitcher do that. Have you ever seen a pitcher do that? Ever.

uh... you know i i don't want to make this a a referendum on the a lease but the rest of the a lease you know the the the red sox who i i i think they've done amazing things that they're pitching this year there's no doubt uh... and then and the complaint there is that their lineup is is less than i thought well i thought they were a decent hitting team but when you look back on what they did we even with roman anthony coming back this year but they have there are some holes in the lineup that they didn't address and they lost alex bregman

Right, and Bregman hit well for them last season. They're in an interesting position, their fans are looking at it going like, okay, wait a second. We've traded Rookie Betts, we've traded, because we wanted to keep Devers, and then we traded Devers, and we don't really have anything to show for those. What? Except they're not here. Except they're not here. This doesn't feel good, and then the Dodgers have won a lot.

Hmm, that doesn't feel good. So I think they certainly, now the problem for them is it's really hard for the Red Sox to say, okay, well maybe we'll look to add a bat at the trade deadline because the A at least is such a dog fight that you're probably not gonna be in a position, if you're in a good enough position where you're gonna wanna make a move, people are probably overperforming in your lineup, so who are you gonna go and trade for? And if you're not performing well, how are gonna be to trade

who was injured last year and they don't even talk about him like he's going to be a factor. think unfortunately he's got a bit of the Pete Alonso problem where the glove is just not particularly good from what I could be wrong on this but from what I remember his glove is not particularly good and he's not so good a hitter that he can be a negative on defense. Like you can't

The league has evolved, I think, when they look at first baseman and they're like, OK, yeah, the first baseman that hits 260 hits 35 homers and plays godawful defense at first base is a net negative on our team, even if his war grades out as positive. Well, you know, I kept looking at Casas out of my side. go, you know, he's probably better than any first baseman the Mets have right now. You know, but you're getting a guy off an injury and to his wheel.

So, to your point, if he really is no better defensively than Pete, then what have you accomplished? All you've done is bring in a younger version of Pete who you already realized you had to move on from anyway. like, you needed to adjust for the future. So I think this is what you're seeing with teams and you see teams like the Tigers, I mean, the Guardians do really well in the AL Central and that they're able to go, okay, we're not gonna be able to compete.

with the other teams by spending on the top three agents. So where do we find the good ballplayers that are going to make the difference for us at the positions and the places we're going to go? OK, you know what? Our first baseman might not put up the counting sacks to accumulate the war that other first baseman are going to put up, but he's a good baseball player. He plays good defense. He situationally hits well, and he's going to contribute to our team winning more.

than a guy that might be a better numerical overall, numerical overall player. The other team in that division ⁓ that we haven't mentioned that's a contender, because I still don't consider the Rays a contender this season at all, ⁓ is the Yankees. And again, very quietly, the Yankees have really good pitching. I don't think I, when I really started.

going back and looking at it and going, yeah, okay, they start with Cole on the IL, he's a DL, he's not gonna pitch Rodin too. Right, but at the same time, when those guys come back. Yeah, they got a lot of guys. Right, and there's no free agent pitcher acquisition that's going to be as big for a team this year as Garrett Cole. I think he's the best pitcher that's coming back that didn't pitch for a team last year that's going to pitch for a team this year. So getting Garrett Cole back, especially if he is himself.

When you add them to that rotation of him and Rodone, now that's a big if. the Yankees are really depending on Rodone and Cole coming back and being themselves. If they are, that's Reasonable to expect. Right. That's the best or the second best rotation in the American League. And they've got a lot of young guards, but you're right in terms of, you know, they've got Luis Hill. Can he be what they hoped he would be? Can Kam Schlittler, maybe Kam Schlittler is the better bet to say, well, there's no reason for a young guy like that not to still come out and pitch great.

Now here, here's a Met fan. What you can't do is you can't be sitting here having doubts about Kam Schlitt and not have those same doubts about Nolan McClain. Unfortunately, Met fans, if you're talking about prospects, he's just a better prospect than McClain. All of his stuff grades out higher. He's just a little bit better than him. That doesn't mean he's going to be a better pitcher. But ⁓ he has all of the makings of going to be a good pitcher in terms of the stuff. And so I think he's probably the guy that you've got the most

confidence in at the start of the year just because you think his stuff is going to play up and he's not coming off the. Me too. And they know that the Yankees did the right thing. They got they got Cody Bellinger back which that hasn't happened since we had our last podcast. So I think you know they won 94 games last year without Juan Soto with Aaron Judge being Aaron Judge. And there's no reason to expect that basically the same lineup for the most part is going to produce similarly.

I think the question that you have to ask yourself for the Yankees is what happens if Aaron Judge is merely great? Well, any team that there's what happens in one. So you have a little above average. I'm saying what happens if Aaron Judge is only a five point five war player this season? Yeah, that would hurt. Right. He's still an unbelievably good player. He's great. But let's say he only hits like he hits like three hundred. He hits.

40 homers, he only drives in a hundred. Now, when you say that, it ridiculous. This is Aaron Judge, and these are the quality of seasons he's put up the last few years. That's always something in the back of my mind is what happens if he's not putting up all time offensive seasons? Cause that Yankee lineup, if you take away Shrek Grisham and superhuman Aaron Judge last year, that was not a potent offensive lineup. And they've not done a ton to change that around this off season.

So God forbid Aaron Judge misses any time. Yeah, yeah, well, that's true. And as you often say, any team that loses a big star is going to struggle. It is just so interesting on that team because they've relied so heavily on Judge putting out superhuman seasons. What happens if he's merely just like one of the best outfielders in the American League? And I guess the same could be said on the other side about Shohei Otani. Except that, except that, if Shohei Otani hit

280 with 34 homers and 95 RBIs and he's also going to throw the 80 innings. That'd a great pitcher. The Dodgers have everybody else. He doesn't have to be Shohei Otani at his best lineup to be still awesome. Otani not being a good pitcher is much less impactful than Otani not being a good hitter. They need Otani in that lineup a lot.

than they need Otani the pitcher. Otani the pitcher is like a cool thing they get to trot out every once in a while. Be like, this is how we get a flex on you guys. But if they weren't able to trot out Otani the hitter every single day, I mean, that lineup was great in the postseason. I will not take that away from them. But without Otani, that is not nearly as special as a little. Now, obviously with Kyle Tucker, it makes a big difference this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So ⁓ we're, you know, we're

dropping this on Monday, February 2nd, which is exactly one week before the first teams will invite pitchers and catchers to report. we, for the most part, it's been a tough winter, I know, and I'm lucky because I'm in a nice warm place and you're not. ⁓ And the winter has been brutal recently. And it's so nice to think that the Super Bowl will be over in the next day. Yeah, is a changing of the season.

The Super Bowl is on February 8th and then pitchers and catchers starts reporting on February 9th. People say, you know, Groundhog's Day is the advent of spring. Pitchers and catchers for baseball fans is the advent of spring. So it's kind of nice that football ends. can, especially as a jet fan, I'm already forgetting about the 2026 season. like football is really over for the year after the Super Bowl. Let's start with baseball.

We have a few details about things that happened over the time that we had our podcast two weeks ago. that's players that had injuries like Hassan Kim for the Braves. They made a signing of him. was like, you're gonna bring him in and have him play shortstop. And now he isn't gonna play for like four or five months. And ⁓ I know it doesn't seem like a big thing, but I think it's a more important thing than most people realize.

I'm the Braves are probably not thrilled with that happening. I think, you know, like that was a guy that they were counting on. I think there's some smaller things like the Mets signed Craig Kim roll to a minor league deal. I believe, you know, he be he will be the second Hall of Fame closer. Now, he won't be closing for the Mets that they have had on their team.

I'm curious to see if he even makes the roster. I imagine they'll at least give him a shot because what's the worst that's going to happen? Yeah, he pitched only 13 major league innings last year. He pitched more in the minor leagues than he did. Right. He's 37. I think it's just insurance, you know, on that kind of deal. another guy. Maybe he comes in and he looks great. But I think that you're going to see more and more things like this happening.

Korea Carlos Korea and Jose Altuve are skipping the world baseball classic due to contractual hangups. know what it is? Contractually is that they're not insured, right? so you're going to see more and more guys over the next coming days as we approach the world baseball classic. I know we've got all the rosters announced, but we're going to see some names drop out just due to injury. Just due to I'm not sure about this. The players do change their mind on this.

And we just have to the majority of the big ones, you know, the worst thing that could happen for the world baseball classic is Tarik Scoobel decides maybe I'm not going to go and pitch. Well, and as I know about Tarik Scoobel, so there were near, I guess, near the end of the arbitration hearings and the one with Scoobel and the Tigers hasn't happened yet. And I thought it was interesting that the submitted figures and I had to think the Tigers are up to something here. You know, they submitted 19 million, which

was ridiculously under market for a two time Cy Young winner in a row. They think you could try to get him for 19 million. Scoobal goes for 32 million, which okay, that sounds, you know, like more like what he's alive, but it's at least, you know, in the realm of reasonable, you know, reason. You if you sometimes negotiate a midpoint. So if the tigers say, let's just start really low cause he's not gonna win. We're not gonna win. But the tigers stand to lose.

this because most people think that the arbitrator will rule in flavor of scubal and give them the 32. So I think the Tigers basically went really low so they could say let's split it at 25 which is kind of in the middle instead of starting at 22 and having to split it at you know 29 or something like that. right, right. Drive like take the loss but knowing you're going to lose essentially. And then you know not not trading him which

You know, every day they don't trade him, think, wow, I'm really surprised that they're not going to, because they're not getting the prospects. You know, it just means that it's just going to be a disaster once he leaves there after this season. So I know we keep talking about that, but it's just, you know, it's just a hard thing to accept. right. You don't want to see him walk away from the Raptor, from the triggers and then get nothing, but at the same time, I can't, he's going to be asking for the most insane contract ever next off season.

In fact, the lockout might be the only thing that stops him from getting the craziest contract we've ever seen. And that lockout, know, and I think we all kind of feel like it's inevitable at the moment unless something dramatic happens that we can't see from here. ⁓ know, guys who are trying to reach all time marks.

and do certain things that going to be impacted by that. You know, that it's going to really, you know, take them off. You know, maybe maybe trout doesn't get 500 or 400 home runs or something like that because he's not, you know, or 500 home runs because he doesn't get to play an extra season. So it should be very interesting to see how that plays out. Right. You have these guys affect. Oh, so many of these guys have like misaligned career statistics because of the 2020 season and because of the because now because of a potential lockout season.

And so we we talk about Kimbrough and we talk about the three closers who are, you know, I believe they will be Hall of Fame closers ⁓ in Chapman, rolled as Chapman, ⁓ Kenley Jansen and Kimbrough. And all of them have, you know, near the top of career saves. And I just wanted to throw out that, you know, K-Rod has been talked about a lot. was on the ballot this year ⁓ and he's got 437 saves. And it seems like there's some groundswell that he should be a Hall of Fame closer.

And aside from his 62 save season that he had for the Angels, the very young player, I don't see him as a Hall of Famer, and yet I do the other three. wanted to take you, get your take on that. Yeah, I think I have to look at the other three, the other three more, because I feel on a gut level the same way, but I feel like I could also.

put him and Jensen sort of together. And I don't know why I would feel that way. They're sort of both just compilers of like guys that were in the league a long time and got a lot of saves. But is that really a hall of Famer? Like it's just getting a lot of saved because you pitched a lot of years worthy of the hall of fame. That's kind of where I am with them on an initial first read gut reaction.

But I'm not sure if that's actually true. Was Kimberle decidedly better than them? Was Wagner decidedly better than them? I don't know. Wagner, yes. Kimberle, I'm not as sure of. But I don't I just don't feel like like K-Rod. And like you said, you have to look at the stats and I'm not looking at them right now. It's just sort of a thought process. know, those years of dominance that I think Kimberle had, I just don't know that K-Rod had that same level.

The problem is I can't say whether he did or didn't have those stats without looking at them because there's a lot of players that when you like you think you don't think about their seven year peak and then you look at that seven year peak and you're like wow they were way better than I thought they were. So you know we're going to record actually our next podcast together. Yes. We've been we've been apart so we're going to get a chance to do the old setup and we'll have more to talk about I hope because when we record the next podcast we really will be you

going into baseball season because football season will. Right, Pictures and captures will be on the eve of reporting. The world baseball classic will be rapidly approaching and it'll be fun getting to watch meaningful baseball before we watch the season. Yes.