Ken Rosenthal’s: Trade Deadline update, Juan Soto owns June, Extreme Rangers pitching park

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Even when he was struggling, he wasn't that bad and there was all that noise around him, how he really wanted to play for the Yankees and not the Mints and he was depressed. Well, if he's really that depressed, I don't think he'd be playing the way he is now.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: FT senior insider Ken Rosendal with us. It's the inside scoop right now. Ken, I know we're still, let's see, a month away from the trade deadline. The questions are constant, as I'm sure you see the same. Do you feel like there'll be any activity over the next few weeks or it's just going to be a super heavy within the next you know, the three days of the deadline is when all of the action is going to happen because teams won't throw in the towel the latter.

00:00:46
Speaker 1: Scott, just what you said there that teams will wait and the draft comes into play here, because that's right at the All Star break, and teams are very heavy in preparation for the draft right now. Not that they can't do two things at once, but they're focus is the draft. So that is another dynamic that leads to later movement. But the really overriding dynamic is the fact just what you said that there are so many teams that do not want to declare their intent, even amongst other clubs. They want to see what happens over the next couple of weeks, because with expanded playoffs, with the extra wildcard, now you get hot for two weeks, you're right back in this thing, unless you're the Colorado Rockies or the Marlins or National somebody like that. But that's the reality for a lot of disappointing clubs. They're thinking, Okay, maybe we get hot here and then it's a whole different picture, and maybe that doesn't happen, and then they're sellers.

00:01:41
Speaker 2: So I want to throw a theory out there, and it's based on recent history. The third wild card makes this, I guess, a less sexy trade deadline because you have more teams involved. But it also means that you can win at the margins and look back and be like, damn, good thing, I acquired this, you know, on June twenty seventh instead of on July twenty seventh. Last year the Marlins straded away Luisa rise in May right, they were like, we're good, we got the offer we want, so here's my question. Do you think some of the bottom feeders who don't have the best assets available should be very aggressive now because when we get closer to the deadline, some of those assets will not be as valuable. There'll be more competition with some teams that do punt, and also they can talk a team into how doing this now might get them an extra win or two and bought them into the playoffs.

00:02:31
Speaker 1: Scott, you're speaking too logically, and what you're saying makes absolute sense that why not act now if you're a seller before the market becomes flooded with more players. Absolutely, that is the case. But the way deadlines work in all walks of life is that people wait until the end, and that is just the general nature of it. It changes the prices as you get closer to the end, and the desperation of certain clubs increases. So I still expect it to happen that way. But I'll give you an example here of what I'm talking about in the other way. Charlie Morton. Charlie Morton is suddenly pitching a lot better for the Baltimore Orioles. It's been about five or six starts now he is probably going to get moved at the deadline. The Atlanta Braves are sitting here and they need a starting pitcher in the worst way. Why wouldn't the Braves and Orioles do this? Now? There's no reason. There's no logical reason why they wouldn't. Because if you're the Orioles, you'll have other players to trade at the deadline. You might want to stack this rather than having to do everything at once. And if you're the Braves, you have this immediate need. But all of that said, things generally don't work that way in the game. Sometimes they do, but generally speaking, everything goes down to the end.

00:03:44
Speaker 3: Talking about trades, Ken, this is gonna be I feel like coming up, it's gonna be a little crazy because of the injuries. I want to talk about a team like the Diamondbacks. I mean, are they straight sellers right now? What do you think the direction they're going? And then talk we're going to stay in the West about the Padres. Talk a little bit about those two teams.

00:04:03
Speaker 1: Neither of those teams is a straight seller. And in fact, I would be surprised if either sold now. The Diamondbacks because of their injuries and they've got so many, if they by July thirty, first are out of contention, and it's difficult to be out of contention with a third wild card in play. But if that's the case, yes, they're not going to be dumb about this. They'll go forward and they'll trade Gallon and Kelly and Suarez and Nailer. But I don't know that it's ever going to get to that point, and even if it does, they might simply trade Assuarez, make room for Jordan Lawler at third base, and kind of try to still compete. My Keys, and their general manager has been adamant about this really since the day he took over. Doesn't like to lose, he doesn't like to rebuild. He is of the opposite view. He wants to win, and that's the way they've operated. So I would expect that even with all of their injuries, they're going to get Carol back. They're not going to get some of these pitchers back, but they're still going to be going after it. Aj Preller and San Diego the same, and that's a team that he intends to have compete for the rest of the season. There's a serious question about their rotation with Michael King not being back until f to the All Star break. You Darvish has yet to throw a pitch in the major leagues this season. But if they get one or both back, their pitching improves. If they get another bat and left field, which has been their bugaboo all year, they're better along those lines. And their bullpen has got to be a concern because I think it's tired right now. It's worn down a little bit. So all that said, there's still in a really good position. They're still a really good team, and Preller is not going to give up, so he is going to look to add and I would expect that he will.

00:05:44
Speaker 2: Let's get to some definites you wrote in your latest notes com which came out this morning in the Athletic. I encourage everyone to check it out. But we'll get by broonea taste right now. Marlins Pirates, what do you have for us on those two?

00:05:57
Speaker 1: The Marlins have two starting pitchers that are going to attract attention, Sandy al Contra and Edward Cabrera. Now, Contrera has pitched better his last four or five starts. He's looking like the al Contra of old, and then Cabrera is a little bit of a different guy. He's also pitching well. He actually is in the middle of his best year. He's a lot less expensive than Sandy is. He is a guy making a million nine to five this year. He has three more years of arbitration remaining, so the Marlins probably will be more inclined to trade al Contra if all things are equal. He's got seventeen million this year, he's in the middle of seventeen next year, and then a twenty one million dollar club option. They might not be competitive by the time his deal is up, or at least a guaranteed portion. They probably wouldn't be. But with Edward Cabrera they might be competitive. They should be competitive if all goes according to plan by the time he is a free agent, and he could be contributing to competing teams with them. That said that, the Marlins, they're never going to turn away necessarily from listening on pitchers or any players for that matter. I just expect that it might be more difficult to pry Cabrera away than al Condra. The Pirates I wrote about Mitch Keller, and Mitch Keller is a guy we all know. He's one in ten, but the Zra's around four He's pitched much better than his supposed win loss record, which is a reflection of poor run support. He's a guy that signed a five year, seventy seven million dollar extension with them just eighteen months ago or so. He's a guy they don't necessarily need to trade financially. But he's making sixteen million next year. He's going to command the sizeable chunk of their payroll. They've got young pitching coming, big time young pitching coming. They've got Jared Jones coming back. They also have a situation where their offense is horrid, not bad horrid. So if you could trade Mitch Keller for offensive pieces and maybe then redirect the money that you're saving to further your offense, that to you would seem to be a smart thing to do.

00:08:03
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00:09:04
Speaker 4: Ken, I want to give you a chance to kind of talk about one of the teams you hinted on in your article, where if I would have told you right now, Team A is three games out and it owns the second slide of a wildcard. They own the second wildcard. But you're talking that they might be trade partners. You talked about the Milwaukee Brewers might be trading Peralto, or they might be trading another one of their starters.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: What's the update with them?

00:09:26
Speaker 4: Because they've gone on a little run here and gotten closer and close the gap to the Cubs.

00:09:31
Speaker 1: They have gone on a run six and one, I believe in the last seven. And this is a team that Jason, you remember a couple of years ago, traded Josh Hayterer at the deadline in the middle of a pane race. That deal ultimately proved to be a good one for them. It got them William Contreras and Pie Amps the reliever, but at the time it was quite disruptive. They missed the playoffs that year, so there was a lot that was negative about it, and they received a lot of blowback. They' in a similar position as they are always every year with looking at players who are growing more expensive and trying to decide if they fit or if they have alternatives that are cheaper and can be nearly as effective, if not as effective. Now Paralta is relatively inexpensive. His salary's eight million dollars. They've an eight million dollar club option on him for next year. The difference here with the Brewers, and what's so interesting about them is that they're the one team in the game it seems to have something of a surplus of starting pitching. Now. I know that when I say that, it could disappear tomorrow, but Brandon Woodruff and mister Quartees Junior are coming off the injured list at some point after the break. Most likely, They've got Tobias Myers who was really good for them last year, and Logan Henderson in TRIPLEA pitching well. And they've got five guys at the major league level doing decently in addition to all that. So could they trade a starter and maybe get some offensive help. It's probably something they can explore for sure. But would they trade Freddy Peralta in the middle of a pennant race That I'm not so sure about because their owner, Mark Attanasa Tanasio is sensitive to public perception. He remembers the blowback they got on the hater trade and I seriously doubt he wants to experience that again.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you, not worth it. Freddy is really well liked there too. He's just great energy, great smile, all of that. I remember they traded Iron Sabali a ready too. I mean, he hasn't been great this year, but they were like, whoop, here comes the miss. You're out of here, all right, I want to take us to the Mets. So I'm going to let everyone in on some foul territory. Behind the scenes, I help run the podcast department, and usually we'll put a checkbox box if it's explicit content, and Ken doesn't curse on fair territory. But there was one episode the other day Ken where it was the closest I ever got to having to decide if I had to click that box. When we were publishing it, he said something on the long lines of it's one freaking Sodo. He's fine, right, So I'll let you elaborate on how everyone has stopped talking about Soto's slow start and if he's worth the money, including the New York radio scene.

00:12:07
Speaker 1: I did say, Juan freaking Sodo, and that is the closest I will come to cursing on the show, I hope. And it's so interesting to me. Even when he was struggling, he wasn't that bad and there was all that noise around him, how he really wanted to play for the Yankees and not the Mets and he was depressed. Well, if he's really that depressed, I don't think he'd be playing the way he is now. He's playing at an extremely high level. There's some numbers that will show you that home runs in June He's right there with cal Rally and Ajohanna Suarez. He's been everything the Mets could have hoped for. Now. They've got other problems, of course on the pitching end, but Soto, in addition to all that, is even stealing bases, so he is doing Jan Soto things. He had that amazing two homer game the other night, not so amazing for him, but it was the twenty seventh of his career. It's the most ever before turning twenty seven by any player in Major League. He's going to make a lot of history. And if he's so miserable, boy, he plays up pretty well when he's pretty down and out.

00:13:10
Speaker 3: Last question here, Ken, let's go down south to the Texas Rangers. You wrote in your article about the nightmare they're having on offense at home. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? And you know, U sue that home cooking's pretty good, But for the Ranger it's been pretty tough.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: It's not a nightmare, Todd. As far as winning games. The record at home is twenty four and sixteen. I believe they go back home tonight against Seattle. The problem that they're having is offensively at home and it's a problem that is affecting everyone globe life. Field for whatever reason, the last two years has turned into a hitter's nightmare and a pitcher's paradise. And what I wrote about is that the Rangers cannot figure out why this is. In twenty three, it was one of the best hitting parks and they won the World Series that year, and all of a sudden, now it's an amazing pitchers park. It doesn't really seem to add up, and the Range trying to figure it out. They have that good record at home because their era at home is crazy good, and obviously when you have something that hurts the hitters, it benefits the pitchers, and the Rangers are living that. But it's just interesting that they're having such offensive struggles home and road. You wonder if somehow this is carrying over once you get out of that park and then you go somewhere else. I don't know, No one knows the answer to that. But the point of the item in the column was just that this is happening, that this park, which was a hitters park two years ago, is suddenly an extreme pitchers park, And again the Rangers are perplexed by the whole thing.

00:14:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm perplexed by their season. I mean, that's the thing is this team is pitching their freaking heart out, but they can't score. So look, I said, freaking that's the word of the week. Ken, Thank you very much. What game Saturday? What do you got?

00:14:54
Speaker 1: I got phillies at Braves?

00:14:56
Speaker 2: Gotcha? All right, We'll see you Saturday. Then we'll be watching.

00:14:59
Speaker 1: Thanks Ken, Thanks guys, guys.

00:15:02
Speaker 2: Uh fair Territory. Also, you had yesterday's episode which covered a lot of the Rays ballpark situation. Ken also wrote about that in The Athletic, But if you want to learn more about that, we covered it yesterday on fil Territory. Get Ken's take with Ilana, among many other topics, and then he's back on Monday Live. This is the time of year, I know. If you have trade questions, bring them on Grill and Ken