Ken Rosenthal’s Inside Scoop: Bellinger’s signing status, A’s wanted Arenado, Pitching market update

00:00:05
Speaker 1: Let's at the inside Scoop with that T senior insider Ken Rosenthal and Ken. A fresh notes column came out this morning, so let's dive right in.

00:00:11
Speaker 2: Hold on, hold on, no, no, no stuff. I have a favorite ask I Ken before we dive into the notes. Ken, I have to wear tuxedo on Saturday night? Or first of all, are you going to be there?

00:00:19
Speaker 3: I'll be there, yes, but not a tuxedo.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: Okay, I have to wear a tuxedo and I had to buy a bow tie, and I'm not talking about the clip on bow tie. Will you teach me how to tie a bow tie? Can you teach me in under five minutes how to tie a bow tie?

00:00:31
Speaker 4: Or will you tie it for me?

00:00:34
Speaker 3: I can help you with it, but it's difficult to do on someone else from me, especially with you all need a step stool obviously, but I'm game to help you. Why do you have to wear a tuxedo?

00:00:44
Speaker 2: By the way, because I'm on the dias dias dais whatever it's called, and I'm presenting, so I have to wear Trust me, if it was my choice, I would go like Chris Sale last year, no tie and like just a long sleeved shirt.

00:00:58
Speaker 4: But you know they said I have to wear one, so actually.

00:01:00
Speaker 3: I'll just unless order otherwise, so I'll help you out.

00:01:05
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, that's good video.

00:01:08
Speaker 1: Our social team is just like drooling right now hearing that they're able to do a two minute behind the scenes clip with Ken trying to teach aj how to tie a bow tie. Anyway, that was fun for thirty seconds. Let's get to business, so Ken Fresh notes column in The Athletic. Let's start with your take on Bobachett's deal slash, how the lockout isn't really holding back the big stars from big contracts, right or not?

00:01:32
Speaker 4: The lockow and I found it interesting.

00:01:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I found it interesting. Scott just the idea that he would take a one year opt out, and a couple of other players have done that as well. In Ma's Got One, Michael King's Got One. There are a few players a handful that have in their deals one year opt outs as well as two year opt outs in the three year deals. So I found that interesting because remember we have the lockout coming on December first. It's a near certainty. Of course, doesn't mean we're going to miss games, but there is the chance in twenty twenty seven, that part or all of the season will be canceled. I don't believe that's going to happen, but that possibility exists. And yet Bobachhett is willing to go back into the market. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One because he's still going to be a young free agent. He'll be the same age next offseason that Kyle Tucker was this offseason, and one of Kyle Tucker's appeals is that he's entering his age twenty nine season. Also part of this is if you remember the last lockout back in twenty three, I believe it was twenty one, I can't remember the year, But what happened right before the lockout was a free agent spending frenzy unlike any we've ever seen before. One point four billion was spent in one day as teams were trying to get in under the buzzer, trying to get players under contract before the lockout began. So that too would suggest that it's not going to be a problem for a guy like Bobashett. Maybe it's a problem for a lesser free agent, but a guy like Bo no and the other part of this, and actually the reason I got thinking about it was a GM mentioned to me last week that it's been difficult to value players with two years of control left on the trade market. Difficult because again, we don't know what twenty seven is going to look like. So if you're giving up prospects for a guy with two years of control, let's use Brendan Donovan as an example, are you giving up too much because you really only might get one year of control or one plus years? Who knows. And the general consent as I'm getting from people in the game is that while we all understand that a lockout is going to happen, there's a lot of positive momentum with the sport right now with the industry, and to miss a significant amount of time, even if the owners are hell bent on a salary cap, that would be something that probably is not going to happen.

00:03:53
Speaker 4: Now.

00:03:53
Speaker 3: I'm not going to make any predictions on labor because who knows what will happen. But logically speaking, the way the game is right now, record revenues coming off a great World Series a better place esthetically because of the pitch clock, the larger basis, all of the things that have happened in recent years. It would seem to me it would be kind of dumb to start missing games at this point or twenty seven.

00:04:20
Speaker 2: Great, Great, I was gonna ask you about something completely different, but you brought up a point, and I want to ask you about it. It's the you said of spending frenzy like we had never seen before the last CBA expired. Is that because that the owners say, Man, if we sign these guys to big money, they're gonna be a little more hesitant to go to the union and say, hey, I can't miss a whole year, I can't miss part of the year because I'm making big money. Now do you think we'll say the same thing again between the end of the World Series and December first, when the CBA expires.

00:04:49
Speaker 3: I don't remember exactly, AJ, but that is not what fueled it. If I recall correctly, what fueled it was the simple desire to get in under the buzzer, as I said before, and get these players under contract. It wasn't to co opt them in any way with regard to the negotiations, So I don't see that really being a factor in how this is going to play out. Perhaps the greater factor is teams might be less inclined to do what they did the last time, that crazy spending frenzy that I mentioned. When there is the threat or the possibility of a salary cap that I guess could affect it. But I'm only guessing. With that, it seems to me that the same mechanics likely would be in effect.

00:05:37
Speaker 4: Oh okay, hid you do it? Oh? Sorry, I bet I was reading the wrong thing. Ken.

00:05:42
Speaker 2: My next question is on Bellinger. Everyone's posting like much like what haw Mikyle Tucker. He's expected to sign soon, soon, today, soon, this week? Is it soon tomorrow? What do we expect for soon? And what do we expect to do? We even know the teams and we know Yankees, but there hasn't been much other talk other than the Yankees.

00:06:01
Speaker 3: I would say soon means within a week. I would expect it's going to happen within a week. We're getting closer to spring training now, believe it or not. And I would imagine not only does Bellinger want resolution, but the teams involved want resolution as well. Now, the question with a guy like Bellinger who lingers on the market is always, well, what's the rest of the market? Who is in there besides the Yankees, and we know the Yankees offer pretty much five years, one sixty two, opt outs, big signing bonus, all these elements to it, no deferrals. It's seemingly a good offer. But could the Mets jump in They still need a guy like Bellinger. In fact, I've always thought Bellinger was a better fit for them than Tucker, simply because of his defensive ability and versatility. So the Mets, certainly after not getting Tucker, could be in the market for that kind of player. And the Blue Jays were the other big bidder for Tucker ten years, two hundred and fifty million, as first reported by John Hayman. So why wouldn't they with two outfielders coming off the books at the end of this season, var Show and Springer be involved in Bellinger as well. These are fair questions, and I always caution people on my show and on this show when I write that we don't know the full extent of what's going on. And I'm not trying to say there are mystery teams or anything like that, but usually there is more than one team in a market. And if there wasn't in this case, if Bellinger and his agent Scott Boris weren't trying to work things, then it would just take the Yankees deal, I would assume, But apparently they believe there might be something else out there, and who knows what that might be.

00:07:41
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00:07:56
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00:08:41
Speaker 5: Is it possible when you said the Blue Jays, it made me think, is it possible that they were being loud, like, oh, we're in on Tucker. Everybody knows that they're in on Tucker, and all of a sudden they're quietly in on Belly? Or does it normally say okay the mo is we hear about the teams that are in on players, and if they're not, then we're not hearing about a certain player like Belly. Because I'm also confused why they wouldn't be in on Belly.

00:09:08
Speaker 3: First off, I don't know that they were loud about Tucker. We didn't really hear much about them for the longest time, and they don't talk at all. Actually, clubs don't talk at all about free agents because they're not permitted to under the CBA. They're very careful with that, actually, so it wasn't that. I guess what you're asking Eric is is it possible that while they wanted Tucker, Bellinger is just as good a fit, or if not a better fit, And yeah, they're right in there too. I would say why not. Why wouldn't they be. We've seen them active the entire offseason. We've seen them do big things already, and they had a big offer out for Tucker Bellinger would not require the same kind of contract, of course, But at the same time, I would think, yes, that they're in their swing. I just don't understand why they wouldn't be for that matter.

00:09:56
Speaker 5: Especially with his versatility and a better defender. I guess Tucker's a better hitter. But you know, there's definitely value there for Bellinger somebody that doesn't have value based on what you wrote in your article from what an executive said, Zach Gallan being the exact words I think you wrote were the least attractive free agent among the rejected qualifying offers. Now that was not your words, it was an executive.

00:10:21
Speaker 4: Correct.

00:10:21
Speaker 5: Is that something that Okay, so he's in that range where like that pick, that competitive pick is really hurting him or is that just like, okay, he's just the last chip to fall.

00:10:34
Speaker 3: The point the executive was making was that there is always one or two guys who jet qualifying offers and linger on the market who aren't maybe at the same level as a Juan Soto last year or Kyle Tucker this year, guys who are no brainers to sign and give up draft picks for Boba Schetz another one, and most of the other qualifying offer free agents fit into that category. But there is always, it seems, in this executive's opinion, a guy or two that kind of get hurt by the system the way it is hurt by the qualifying offer. Zach Gallen might be one of those players. Now I say might because we don't know how this is going to turn out. But would it surprise me if Zach Gallen, a Scott Bors client, made a decision like a number of other Scott Bars clients have made in recent years, from Blake Snell to Matt Chapman to Alex Bregman, and take a shorter deal, go back into the market next year perhaps or the year after, without a draft pick attached, and at that point maybe do better than he would do this offseason. He also had kind of a down year by his standards. He was not great for four months. Zach Allen back to himself the last two months, so it seems that that's hurting him as well. But the executive's point was there are guys who get hurt by this. Pavetta was won last year. Pavetta didn't get the deal that he probably wanted. Four US fifty five million was what it was from the Padres when he rejected the qualifying offer. The qualifying offer seemed to hurt him.

00:12:10
Speaker 4: It hurts some guys, it doesn't hurt other guys. It's crazy. Listen, we've talked about CBA.

00:12:15
Speaker 2: That's gonna be a big thing in the CBA is the qualifying offer and the draft picks because teams hold it all to well, it's a lot. There's gonna be so much gosh, this offseason is gonna suck, and I'm not gonna lie, uh just because the next offseason, as the deadline looms and all these things start, it's going to be awful.

00:12:33
Speaker 4: But I don't want to talk about that anymore.

00:12:35
Speaker 2: Yesterday we had ce Trent rosecrants on and he was talking about the Reds obviously that's his squad, and I said, well, Hunter Green is available, and he said, you didn't hear that from me, I still don't believe it. So you've said that the Reds are getting offers for their starting pitchers. Would they really trade one of those starters for prospects?

00:12:55
Speaker 3: I'm with Trent. I don't believe that they're necessarily inclined to do that. They're pretty happy with their starting pitching. They consider it the strength of their team. And the only way they would do it is the only way that the Tigers would trade Trek School will, the only way the Brewers will trade Freddie Paratha. All different circumstances, but teams will tell you we'll do anything as long as it improves us for the short and long term. So are you going to make a deal for a Hunter Green that's going to improve you short and long term?

00:13:23
Speaker 5: Good luck?

00:13:23
Speaker 3: I don't know that you can. And that goes for the rather Red starters as well, Lodolo and Abbott, the entire top group. If they do it and maybe accept younger players back, then they would have to backfill, and the options in free agency to backfill sign another starter or starting to dwindle. So I don't necessarily see it happening. And by the way, Age, getting back to your point, about how next off season is going to be awful. It doesn't have to be awful. The two sides actually can reach an agreement, forge a new collective bargaining agreement before the deadline even come about on December first. This has happened in the past. It happened in two thousand and six. Hasn't happened recently.

00:14:06
Speaker 4: I know that.

00:14:06
Speaker 3: But again it's not Oh, it shouldn't be FATA complete.

00:14:10
Speaker 5: I know it is.

00:14:12
Speaker 3: Basically, the Commission has already announced that there's going to be a lockout. I get it, but we accept this as reality when in reality they can.

00:14:21
Speaker 4: Do other things.

00:14:22
Speaker 3: They can actually make an agreement.

00:14:25
Speaker 5: I think they should because the game is in a good place. Let's get to somebody who was actually traded Nolan Aernado. It's now come out in your notes column that there were two other teams that were in serious pursuit. Can you rank those two teams, the Athletics and the Padres, and exactly how they were going to deploy Nolan Aernada.

00:14:46
Speaker 3: Yes, the Oakland oh, sorry, the Sacramento As were one of those teams. They were going to use him at third base, and that is a position that they've been trying to fill. What happened in that case was they had a deal in place with the Cardinals, I'm told, and the deal was one in which they were taking on more money than the Diamondbacks ultimately did. Remember, the Diamondbacks are only paying eleven million of the remaining forty two million on Arnado's remaining two years. The A's were going to pay more, and in that respect, it was a better deal that the Cardinals would have gotten, But Arnaudo indicated that he'd rather than prefer or he'd rather that they continue negotiating with teams like the Diamondbacks, and the other team that was involved late was the Padres. The Padres wanted Ronado to play first base, and that would have been a position change for him. But this guy's a ten time goal glove winner, a third or whatever it is. I would feel comfortable that he could have adapted to first And the Padres thought process was, we don't want to really pay any of this. We want the Cardinals to pay the vast, vast majority, because they are still looking for a starting pitcher, probably a pitcher with an AAV and the eight to twelve million dollar range, and that is where they wanted to put more of their money. They still want a bad as well, but based on their actions here and overall, you would think that what they're going to try to do here is get a very inexpensive bat and a picture. Like I said in that eight to twelve million dollar AAV range.

00:16:19
Speaker 2: Speaking of range pictures, an eight to twelve million AAV range. You mentioned Justin Verlander and I actually saw him on Sunday and talked to him, and he said he's got an interest from teams. He just hasn't gotten the right offer and he's waiting for it. And plus you know, he's like, hey, if I wait until spring training, you know someone's going to go down unfortunately, and then a team that is going to come to him and say, hey, can you do this?

00:16:40
Speaker 4: So there's offers.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's offers out there, but there's definitely interest in Justin Verlander.

00:16:45
Speaker 4: Are there teams?

00:16:46
Speaker 2: You mentioned the Orioles, but are there how many teams do you think would be interesting because I think he's the perfect fit, much like Max Scherzer was for Toronto last year, to go in and help a team put him over the top and get him to the World Series.

00:16:58
Speaker 3: I agree with you, and he had a really good second half for the Giants. I know the first half wasn't what he envisioned, but he proved in that second half that he could pitch at a high level, not the old Justin Verlander level, but certainly a high level where he is an above average major league starter. Now I don't know the exact teams interested, and the reason I wrote about the Oriols I heard about them and they are considering, of course, numerous options, and I didn't want to overplay it in what I wrote, and I don't believe that I did. It's not close or anything like that. But Verlander is from Virginia. He knows Michaelias the Ools GM from his time in Houston twenty seventeen and eighteen. And of course the Oils are still looking for one more starter.

00:17:42
Speaker 4: Maybe it's at the.

00:17:43
Speaker 3: Top of the market. That's probably their preference, whether it's one of the great starters available in trade, Schooble Peralta if they're actually going to move, or someone like from ber Valdez. But Verlander could represent a fallback for that much like Chris Bassett or another starter could. So that was one team. There are other teams still looking for starters. The Giants are won actually, and the Mets. You can go right down the line. I don't know if the Mets would want to go back to Orlando or they're probably aiming higher as well. But do I expect he's going to pitch in twenty twenty six? I absolutely do.

00:18:20
Speaker 2: As he should, as he should for me, at least he should. Yes, yes, I mean he pitched good Pete. Yeah, he pitched well in the second half and did some nice things. Got to remember how bad he was at the start, and he turned it around the second half.

00:18:31
Speaker 4: He did. So anyway, let's see what happens.

00:18:35
Speaker 5: Kind of the Pirate's gonna spend more money or they just gonna throw it around and be like, which pat is the baseball under? Oh, same payrolls last year.

00:18:46
Speaker 3: Well they're up a little bit. They're up about eight million from the end of last season.

00:18:50
Speaker 4: So eight whole million. Wow.

00:18:52
Speaker 3: Well, I'm just giving you what is the reality here? And they have acquired Brandon Low, they have acquired, of course, signed a free agent Ryan O'Hearn. They would like to do more, yes, and I would expect that they're going to do more. They know from when I understand that they still are at least one batch short, and if they get another decent offensive player, I would anticipate that people will see them as a potential wildcard contender. That's pretty good. So there are still a lot of hitters available on the market. Obviously, they're limited a little bit in the positions that they can pursue. Third base would certainly be one, but I do expect that they're going to still be active and we'll see where this ends up. Because if you remember at the start of the off season, the reason I wrote about this today was going back to the GM meetings, I was hearing that the Pirates and Marlins were signaling to agents that they were going to spend more this offseason than they have in the past. The Pirates certainly have, and they've certainly tried to do even more than they have and have been rejected in a few cases. The Marlins are are, according to Fangraft's numbers, one million below where they were at the end of last year, so they really haven't spent other than on fairbanks. They've made some interesting moves. So whether that all was just talk or whether there was something more there in the Pirates case, it wasn't just talk. They made some serious runs at some big players. But in the Marlin's case, I'm not so sure.

00:20:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes sense again, it makes sense. All right, Today's Hall of Fame day. Ken, you put out your balance. I agree with most of your picks on there, but I have one question for you. And in your explanation, you said you didn't vote for Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez because of the steroid ped thing, but you.

00:20:40
Speaker 4: Voted for Andy Pettitt.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: And one of my things is Andy Pettitt admitted to doing a ped He apologized.

00:20:46
Speaker 4: Said I did it this and that. He said it was for recovery.

00:20:49
Speaker 2: But you know Nelson Cruz had a parasite, Fernando Tatis had ringworm. You know Alvarado was trying to lose weight in the offseason. I mean, you know, everyone has a thing. So then why did you vote for Andy Pettitt but you won't vote for Manny and Alex.

00:21:04
Speaker 3: It's in the article the way I go about this and approach it. Now, I'm going to preface this by saying, I know people have their own opinions on this, and people are certainly entitled to their opinions. But my line, the line I draw here is players who are confirmed to have used or tested positive after the league established firm rules and penalties. At the time Pettitt was doing it, that wasn't the case. It's the same as with Bonds and Clements.

00:21:34
Speaker 4: Now.

00:21:34
Speaker 3: I didn't vote for Bonds and Clemens initially, but I eventually came around on them and others because once we elected players who were strongly suspected to have used. And I'm not going to name names here, but we know that there are players in the Hall now who have used. At that point, I felt, well, you couldn't exclude Bonds and Clements.

00:21:54
Speaker 4: Now.

00:21:54
Speaker 3: They Rod and Manny to me, they knew what was going on at that point when they were confirmed to have used, they knew what the rules were, and they still violated the rules. That is where I draw the line. I don't know that I'm correct in that, and I know people say, you guys are the morality police whatever. We can be criticized for any number of things with regards to our votes, and people are fair to criticize us, or certainly permitted to criticize us. But that is my feeling. The Hall is the whole vote is a very subjective personal thing. You go by what you believe is right, and you go by what your instincts are. And the one thing I'll say about a Rod in particular is that at the time, it wasn't just that he used peds. He sued the Union, he sued the Yankees. He was conducting himself in a way that was kind of out there. Now a fan might say, well, that doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter with regard to his Hall of Fame case. Okay, but I remember those times and they weren't really happy times for baseball with all that going on.

00:23:05
Speaker 2: Agreed, and listen, I agree with what you said. It was just an interesting I just wanted to hear your point. I know what you wrote in the article, and I agree with you. I've said that from the get go. If you did it before two thousand and four or five, when they started testing, and we don't know one hundred percent what you did, even the anonymous you know, Mitchell rapport where they said, how do we know that it was really.

00:23:22
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know that answer.

00:23:23
Speaker 2: Okay, But after two thousand and five, when they started putting penalties on it, I've said this, if you get caught, then to me, you're out and you know what you're doing. You're doing this knowing there is a rule on the Major League Baseball books.

00:23:34
Speaker 4: And I agree with you.

00:23:34
Speaker 2: But the Petitt was the one guy who had come out and said, hey, I did this, I'm sorry, and I didn't know because you know all the other guys maguire, So so all the names you hear, Paul Merrow, who then tested positive later even though he denies it, right, like, these are all guys that we were, ah, do we really know? We don't, And none of them got in Bonds Clemens.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: No, and that's a fair question.

00:23:54
Speaker 4: It was the one who said, yes.

00:23:55
Speaker 3: It's a fair question that you ask. But certainly, in this particular case with pettit, if that was the reason why I would withhold a vote for him because he admitted it, we're essentially penalizing him for his honesty. Where I voted for Bonds and Clemens, who never fully admitted it, really admitted it at all, that would seem to be an inconsistency that I would not be comfortable with. Now, I will say this in closing a Hall of Fame ballot, any Writer's Hall of Fame ballot pretty much contains all kinds of inconsistencies. It's almost impossible to maintain consistent arguments, not just with the ped guys, but with the others that we're considering as well. That's the nature of it. The beauty of the process to me is that we all do have our own opinions, and in the baseball writer's case, there are some four hundred of us. And my hope always is that with that number and the variety of opinions you will have, that we get to the right place. We often do, we don't always, And I wrote in the column that I believe we blew it on Mattingly and Dale mar and others because we penalize them for things that they didn't accomplish instead of really looking at what they did accomplish, even though it was over a shorter period of time. So our standards evolve, our voting evolves, our thought processes evolve. It's kind of an organic thing, and it's healthy to debate all this stuff. It's really these are great conversations if you ask me. I know, fans get all bothered and hot and lathered about this stuff. To me, it's the beauty of baseball man that we argue. We have fun talking about it and we disagree.

00:25:33
Speaker 1: I agree, that's part of it.

00:25:34
Speaker 2: And the numbers are going to change too, because you know, three hundred wins we're probably never going to see again. You know, the home runs, the five hundred homers might be might might not be the benchmark anymore because you know, like we can get into we can get into an argument with about Stanton if he gets to five hundred homers as he all. You know, there's a lot of changed. Yeah, the numbers have changed. You know, three thousand hits might be something we never see again, so that might be an auto.

00:25:56
Speaker 1: In oppose, he's going to get in with like half that right now.

00:25:59
Speaker 4: Our guys how got in with nothing close to that.

00:26:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, things have changed on every front. There's a little more in some ways quality over quantity on some of the guys too, because.

00:26:09
Speaker 2: They I mean, I heard Crash say Malina, But Malina had a bunch of gold gloves and he had two thousand hits. So yeah, if for a catcher, two thousand hits means something, yep, especially when you're one of them that Ken didn't vote.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: For you didn't get an honorary there's still now I'm going to say honorary vote. It's it's a hot it's a hot topic in the sport. Yeah, if everyone, if everyone gave an honorary vote to Rick Porcello, guess what, you'd be a Hall of Famer. Just throwing that out there. You know, if everyone said, oops, I gave the same honorary vote, you would accidentally be a Hall of Famer. So it's not my favorite thing anyway, Ken, Thank you very much, appreciate it. We'll check out the coverage later to see who gets in, and we'll see you this weekend.

00:26:49
Speaker 4: We're looking forward to it.

00:26:50
Speaker 5: Yes, me too,