Ken Rosenthal’s Inside Scoop: Tarik Skubal, Jarren Duran, Sandy Alcántara & other trade candidates

00:00:05
Speaker 1: We're hitting the inside scoop with that FT senior insider Ken Rosenthal. I'm going to bring up a name that we talk about a lot during the regular season. He's fun to watch, but Ken, I've barely heard a lick about him this offseason. Where in the world could Luis Arise sign?

00:00:21
Speaker 2: Not exactly, sure, Scott, and it's almost February, and you're right, we have not heard much about him. It doesn't mean things are not going on behind the scenes. But Arise is a guy who is really the most fascinating free agent in so many ways. Obviously, he has what they call the hit tool. He can hit for average. That is the thing he does extraordinarily well. The rest of his game is the problem. And we're talking about defense, of course, and we're talking about power. He has no power in an age when basically you need power. And his defense, whether it's second or first, is not at an average level at this stage of his career. So there are spots I can imagine him being The Giants are still looking for a second baseman. I don't know that they would want to compromise their infield defense in that way, but maybe they would. And then I know you guys have talked about the Blue Jays a little bit. I don't really see that. It seems to me their infield is pretty set. But I would imagine he's going to get a deal somewhere. It's not going to be a very financially lucrative deal, and it's going to be almost a prove it year for him, which is kind of weird because he is a player who has proven it. But I just don't see a huge market for him right now.

00:01:38
Speaker 3: That's crazy, Ken, That's great.

00:01:39
Speaker 4: So is this a case of not only does he not have power, but he also can't run right, so he doesn't steal bases, He doesn't really have a position, so the one he only has basically one tool. He can hit for average and doesn't strike out, and that's basically his only tools. So teams are saying, hey, we value power, we value slug obviously, which are kind of the same thing.

00:01:59
Speaker 3: We value speed defense.

00:02:01
Speaker 4: You have to have more than one thing to get the lucrative deal because if you just have the one, unless maybe you're a pitcher that can do one hundred and five miles an hour, then they're like, oh, we'll overlook it. Right, But as an offensive player. You have to have more than one tool to get the big contract you think you deserve.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: A hey, ja, that is a fair assessment. And it's hard to say that about Louis Ries because he's one of my favorites. He is a favorite of a lot of people. He is fun to watch, but at the same time, the deficiencies in his game are pretty big deficiencies. And let's look at it from another perspective. Let's say he was a player who was a really really strong defender but couldn't hit it all. What would that player be worth on the open market? Probably not much, So I'm thinking of a guy like Nick Ahmed. Okay, Nick Ahmed was a one dimensional guy in many ways, a gifted fielder and a guy who contributed to a lot of good teams. But it was a struggle for him latter part of his career because he really was a one trick guy. And that's kind of how teams c arise.

00:03:02
Speaker 3: Yes, is his defense at second base? Is it that it's that poor or it's that he hasn't played that much of it? Because when he was with the Padres recently they were deploying him more at first base. So the giants' fear of his lack of experience in the last few years, or is it just that you know, they see his foot speed and the way he moves around the bag isn't going to be enough for them.

00:03:27
Speaker 2: I can't speak specifically to the giants, and what I was saying about them was kind of speculative. Eric, they need a second basement, so naturally you would think perhaps he's a possibility, and the athletics Andrew Baggerley has mentioned him as a possibility there. It's pretty much the only mention I've seen of him. You ask, is the problem that he hasn't played it, or is the problem that he didn't play it well? Well? The reason he hasn't played it is because he wasn't playing it well, and kind of both things go together. So it probably is a stretch to imagine him as a full time second basement at this stage of his career. Again, maybe he's someone you bounce around a little bit. I'm not exactly sure. Maybe he DH is a little bit, but from your DH you would want more power. So it's kind of a difficult puzzle to solve if you're trying to fit him onto your twenty six man roster.

00:04:18
Speaker 3: Jez Ken.

00:04:18
Speaker 4: What came first, the chicken or the egg? Right, No power equals no playing. You can't play second, but you don't get to place. It's great. It's like when you're a young kid and they bring you up and you're a left handed hitter and they say, we can't hit lefties. Well, how do you know? I hit leftis in the minor leagues. I've hit lefties in my whole life. But now I'm in the big leagues, I can't hit lefties. Like, give me a shot. But anyways, we're gonna move on from Luis Rise because I love him. I know Scott loves him. I don't know about Kratz. Kratz was a home or nothing guy. But I love Luis A. Rise. I think he's great for the game and we need to get back to a little more of that. But I'm off my soapbox. We just talked about trades. The names that are supposed to be trade Sandy al Contra, cj Abrams, Jaron Duran. Which one of these guys do you think is most likely to be traded? Brandon Donovan maybe before day.

00:05:02
Speaker 2: I still believe the Cardinals are going to trade Donovan, and it seems that well not seems it's obvious that their bar has not been hit. The standard that they set for the return they want for Brendan Donovan just hasn't come their way. But you still have the Giants we just talked about looking at second base. The Mariners are another team, and there are others as well that have been linked to Brendan Donovan. Kansas City was interested at one time. Doesn't seem to be a match there. So it seems to me that he is the guy that the Cardinals are going to move at some point. There's not much question about that. The question is when and do they get their return, desired return in time before the season starts to make that move. So I still see him as the most likely simply because he's been out there so long. CJ. Abrams, It's possible, but they have time to trade him. He has three years of control. The Duran thing. The Red Sox have insisted repeatedly that they're comfortable going with all of their outus but one of their outfielders could be the guy to get them a piece like Paradus, who you've discussed, So I don't exactly know which one of course is going to get traded. But I would say, because Donovan has been discussed so heavily, that he would be a guy that it seems to me would at some point go.

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00:07:21
Speaker 3: What kind of message did the Nats send this offseason to their fans? Obviously we get it. You know, they're turning over their coaches, they're turning over their general manager. They traded Juan Soto for James Wood, Mackenzie Gore, cj Abrams, Robert Hassel who's in the big leagues now this past year, and Sasanna Harlan Sasana. Okay, So those five guys, four of which are currently on their big league team, three of which really had major impacts on their big league team, and they're talking about only keeping James Wood so far. What kind of like wasn't that the reason like build around them during that time?

00:07:58
Speaker 2: And so what is the least Eric? Here's the lesson. And these teams go into these rebuilding plans, five year plans, four year plans, whatever it might be. They tell you trust the process, trust us here. Now, sometimes it works quite well, and we've seen countless examples. I would say Detroit is an example right now of one that is working well. They've got some really good young players in the big league and big leagues, and they've got Max Clark and Kevin McGonigal coming. They're two of the top ten prospects in the game. But then there are the Nationals, and I would even suggest that there are other teams along these lines through The Reds have not ever really gotten back to where they wanted to when they started their rebuild. But the Nats were a clear rebuild when they traded Soto, and now they're on phase two because they've traded a key player from that deal, Mackenzie Gore. And again, the lesson is doesn't always work, doesn't always work the way you want it, and even when it does work at some points. Let's stick at the Oriols for example. The Oriols rebuilt did work. They got to the playoffs back to back years, and yet they were unable to take the next step because they were not aggressive enough in free agency whatever you might want to describe. They didn't put a good enough big league team together. So when fans are sold this bill of goods, hey trust us, it's going to be okay, it's not always okay. Often it is, and you can understand, for instance, what the Cardinals are doing right now. In their case, it's overdue, But is it guaranteed that in five years the Cardinals went back to where they were not at all, No way.

00:09:34
Speaker 3: Another person that has been rumored to be traded but wasn't last year, Sandy out Contra. Could he be the one that goes into the season and has Ken's going to answer how many starts it's gonna be, and then bang be traded?

00:09:48
Speaker 2: Like?

00:09:48
Speaker 3: Is that where they're looking like as soon as he looks hot, he could be like an early June type of trade.

00:09:55
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, Eric, and actually I discussed this on Fair Territory yesterday. They've already t created two starting pitchers, Edward Cabrera and Ryan Weathers. Part of their logic there is that they have prospects like Thomas White Cumming and they want to give them enough of a runway to have opportunity in the major leagues. Good. That's fine, and they did well in those trades, at least they believe they did with our contra. You want to go into the season competing six team that won seventy nine games last year was a pain to play. They were difficult to play. They were kind of the Brewers of the Southeast, not as good, but they had that kind of mojo about them. Put the ball in play. Do some things play the game fundamentally well. So I don't know that right away their objective is going to be the trade Sandy l contra. If indeed they are not in contention and he's pitching well in July, of course, then you entertain it. But I sort of expect them to be at least in wildcard contention. Obviously they're in a difficult division. We all know that Atlanta will be better. The Mets have retooled. The Phillies are going to be good. They might not be as good as their fans would want them to be, but they'll be good. So we'll see where Marlin where the Marlins are in July. But I don't know that in spring training they would even entertain this because they do plan on competing at a higher level this season.

00:11:16
Speaker 4: Ken, I'm just gonna give you a warning now that people in the comments are going to destroy you about saying that the Marlins need to keep Sandy and keep Ryan Weathers and all this because they have apparently the greatest pitching depth in the history of Major League Baseball. When I said Ryan Weather seems like someone you might want to keep around, I got absolutely destroyed. Because you don't understand how deep to Marlin's pitching staff is. And they named three kids, four kids, five kids, six kids, twenty five pitchers that are from the Complex League to the Triple A. So Ken just you know, the Marlins have the greatest conglomeration of pitching prospects ever assemble a J.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: I would advise you not to look at the comments if you're going to be that sensitive about them. The Marlins do have they do have seacent pitching depth. They do have it, and that doesn't mean it's all going to translate into success.

00:12:10
Speaker 3: We know this.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: Pictures get hurt all the time. The Marlins have experienced this with countless pictures in recent years. But the way they are going about it, the reasons that they traded Cabrera and Weather's part of it was because they could get good value for them, and the other part was they feel that, as I mentioned, guys like Thomas White are coming and they want those guys to get fair opportunities. So I'm sorry that people are getting upset with you, AJ, but I understand the logic there. I understand why fans of the Marlins are saying that that is what the Marlins are saying, and that is kind of how they're operating. Obviously, we'll see how it all comes together.

00:12:47
Speaker 3: Okay. And I saw a smile when you said sorry, And if you say sorry and you smile at the same time, it's not that genuine.

00:12:56
Speaker 2: Well you got me, Eric, What could I say?

00:12:59
Speaker 3: Oba Schef from Dave Dobrowski's words, was a very close to being a Philly. Is there any smoke to the fact that they may have had to trade it Bryson Stott or Alec Bowman? Could that still be a way that the Phillies maybe add some major piece, or they come into an agreement with like a a Uhennio Suarez and then moving Bowman his last year before he's a free agent.

00:13:26
Speaker 2: All those things are possible. And Boehm was a guy they've talked about for over a year now, so that is certainly something that's been in play. But they were going to sign Bishett regardless of whether they had a trade in place for Bohm. In my opinion, I'm not sure of that, but I don't know that they were too worried about Alec Bohm. They wanted bo Baschett, and yes they did come close, but it's free agency teams do come out of nowhere, and that's what happened with the Mets. The Mets will tell you they didn't come out of nowhere. They were in there the whole time, but the Phillies certainly were not aware of that, and that is how it transpired the way it did. Phillies fans right now, if you read message boards and Twitter or whatever, they're quite upset. They feel that the Mets pulled a fast one on them with Bishett and that Dombrowski did not react well enough or was not aggressive enough in getting that done. But they're going to be a competitive team now. Can they be better? Yes, they can be better, and in my view, it would have been helpful for them to do a little bit more this offseason simply because I don't want to say it's stale there. They've had a great run, but they're getting older and you would want a younger position player like a Bichette in the mix. So I can understand the frustration. They're essentially running it back, and that's okay. It's a pretty good roster that they have, but sometimes there is a great amount of value in bringing in new players to kind of bring in new energy. The Dodgers have done that over the years, not just with Tucker, in fact, Tucker's kind of a different kind of mood. They've done it with comp mentary players, guys who might not have been World Series champions elsewhere but are coming to the Dodgers and are desperate to be in that position. Blake Snill not a complimentary player, obviously, but that was one reason he signed there. He was hungry to win, and you do need that kind of injection from time to time.

00:15:22
Speaker 1: Hey, ken, we haven't talked about Schooble in a while on the trade front, so I'm going to bring it up again just because it's the hot topic in the chat at the moment. I do look at the chat and I love it, and I don't get offended. I actually get in figurated from it. But anyway, for Schooble, he's got the arbitration battle coming up with the team. Clearly there are worlds apart on any kind of extension, this team is going to be contending. They have been worse than the Phillies in terms of running it back. They really haven't added anything besides resigning, Fitning in and signing up Kenley Jansen for the bullpen during a winning window that might close after this year. Bring it up again, I know the asking price to sky high. Why go into the season like this, You're basically saying, I'm good, I'm going to let this guy walk for a draft pick after the season.

00:16:10
Speaker 2: You do that because you think you can win with him, and certainly they can win the Al Central with him, and they were in position to do that last year fell apart. Of course, we know that. But while they are running it back, and I'm with you, Scott, they should have done more. They should have done more offensively. They kite labor Torres of course accept the qualifying offer, and that was part of their off season equation as well. They are going to mix in some of these kids, and I still question their bullpen. I still think they need another starter. But they're gonna be good. So that's why you keep schoobled because you're trying to win. You don't sign Kyle Finnegan. You don't sign Kenley Jansen unless you're trying to win. Now, it's like anything else. If you get the right offer, the right piece is back that would help you compete this year and beyond, you do it but what is Serk Scuobel's worth. He's one of the best pitchers, if not the best pitcher in the game right now. We just saw Freddy Peralta, a lesser pitcher, go for two top one hundred prospects. He too, is a rental like Scooble, so Scooble would command more than that. He's a back to backside young winner, of course, And the other part of the equation is you'd have to take on his thirty two million if it's that in arbitration for this year. Could be nineteen, could be thirty two. Maybe we get a better answer for this after the arbitration case is resolved. Maybe the Tigers are more motivated if they lose and have to pay him thirty two million. I don't know, but if that's the Tiger's thinking, he has less value at thirty two million than he does at nineteen million, because teams would be of course having to absorb that salary.

00:17:44
Speaker 4: Ken, you wrote an article about Brady Anderson, and you and I in New York talked about Brady Anderson, and I told you my one Brady Anderson story, which was I remember my first Big League spring training. He was out running in the outfield in only his sliding shorts, which, by the way, if Brady Anderson and was jacked, by the way, okay, so I couldn't fault him. But now he's a hitting coach. But I have heard and people in the Orioles. He has always been around the Orioles. I know he was very close with the Angelo's family. But now it's official he's a hitting coach. Why do we think he'll succeed as a hitting coach when so many others have failed.

00:18:18
Speaker 2: A j I love saying this to you. You've got to read the story, and I know you did, so thank you for that. But the reason people believe that he will be a successful hitting coach is because he essentially has been a coach for a long time. He was with the Orioles from twenty ten to nineteen in a front office capacity, but that job was kind of undefined, and that job entailed a lot of coaching. He worked with the hitting coaches, He threw batting practice, he assisted with analytics, He ran their strength and conditioning program. He hosted players in the offseason and helped them train and help them get better. And there's three examples in the article of players who essentially credit him with helping salvage their careers. It's Caleb, Joseph, Trey Mancini, and it's Zach Britton as well. Zach Britton a picture. But yes, Brady Anderson played a role in his development as well. Now we'll see how it works out for him as a full time coach in uniform all the time. But the players who are with the Orioles during those years, they swear by him. And I noticed this morning Adam Jones retweeted the article and he said, Hey, this guy helped a ton of guys, so that part of it is not in question. And in fact, the Angels have signed Trey Mancini to a minor league deal. They're reuniting him with Anderson seeing if there's anything left still there. So it's going to be really fascinating to see. Brady Anderson, though, is a guy that has had an impact on players as a coach, and that is why the Angels believe he can have an impact as a full time guy with them as well.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: I think it's funny in the this what kenn.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: And I talked about.

00:19:59
Speaker 4: This Joseph has got one of the greatest stats of all time Cratzy. He played in forty nine games, one hundred and thirty two at bats, zero RBIs. He had an ops plus of thirteen Scott thirteen. That's like the greatest line. And then he went on and played for like three more years zero RBIs in one hundred and forty played appearances. You would think you would run up there with the guy on third and down by ten and just hit a ground ball and they'd be like, we're gonna give him one RBI for the season. It's one of the craziest stat lines of all time.

00:20:37
Speaker 1: RBIs don't matter and he took it to heart, don't care about RBIs and he said he was ahead.

00:20:43
Speaker 3: Of the curve.

00:20:44
Speaker 2: I don't matter.

00:20:45
Speaker 4: He was ahead of the curve.

00:20:47
Speaker 1: I'm still going to play after this. The last thing I want to say on the story Ken was how yes, there was pretty significant shade and smack talk about him after the Oriel situation. It was interesting to see how they're some retraction there based on hurt feelings and who was doing what job. But it didn't have to do as much with the character and the coaching. It had more to do with the politics within. The whole thing is that a good way to phrase it.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: Yes, and Scott I wrote that story too. That was back in twenty seventeen. And one of the reasons I was so compelled to write this one was that in twenty sixteen, the Oriols pitching coach was Dave Wallace. Their bullpen coach was Dom Cheaty, and they were two guys who after they left the Orioles following that season and went to the Braves, both of them did they went on the record with me about their frustration with Brady Anderson's vague, undefined role, and their complaint essentially was he had authority without accountability. He had autonomy without accountability. And Dom Cheeddy said at the time, and did Dave Wallace as well, that one of the reasons they left was because of Brady Anderson. So when the Angels put their together, I noticed Dom Cheaty was on that staff, So I'm like, WHOA, He's now going to work with Brady after what happened. This was a long article I wrote in twenty seventeen. I was with Foxsports dot Com at the time, and there was a lot of tension in that organization about Brady's role, even though he was helping guys. There were some other things going on. So I asked Dom Cheaty, Hey, what happened here? Why you guys okay now? And he said, listen, I kind of misspoke. I was frustrated, frustrated with some other things at the time, and I never really had a problem with Brady. Guys gonna have differences, you move on, and I'm excited to work with him again. So that was an element of it that I thought was interesting. And it's funny too. Somebody pointed this out to me. I didn't include it in the article in The Athletic yesterday, but in this current era of baseball, you do have guys like Brady in the front office, special assistants who do work with players. It does happen. It's more common now, So maybe the Oriols were ahead of their time with what was at the time perceived as a very weird situation. I love all of that.

00:23:06
Speaker 1: I remember that story. I loved that story because you just want to get inside baseball anyway you can as a fan, and there was some serious drama going on, and now you find out that some of it might have been frustration. So anyway, check out the article. It's really good. In the Athletic from Ken. And if you want to go back in the archives to the twenty seventeen piece, it's still up there too.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: Ken. Thank you. We'll talk to you. That's in that other article. The first story is linked in the current article so you can find it.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: Right so you don't have to do any digging. Yes, AJ, two articles. It might take you nine hours with that, and AJ, I.

00:23:40
Speaker 2: Apologize both or rather long they are AJ reads at a high school level one screen size.

00:23:48
Speaker 4: Then it's too long.

00:23:49
Speaker 2: Came.

00:23:49
Speaker 4: By the way, I'm very happy you made it home because the text messages in the panic that were in the that were noted in your text messages about getting home. I've never seen anyone panic that about getting out of New York City. I mean, I'm sorry, Kem, but you should have got smart like me and just jumped on the first flight and flew out in the blizzard instead of waiting for it to come.

00:24:09
Speaker 2: Slight overstatement there, AJ, but I would expect nothing less of.

00:24:14
Speaker 3: AJ was on the DEAs or whatever it's called, begging six guys who had personal jets and talking about panic guys, I need to get out of here. I don't know what I'm gonna do. How about you, Aj, how about you Rizzo? How about you? I mean everybody.

00:24:31
Speaker 4: I will say I got offered seats by two people, by two people on that dis one on is Aaron, and.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: Then what happened and I didn't accept.

00:24:39
Speaker 4: I didn't accept.

00:24:40
Speaker 3: I didn't he.

00:24:40
Speaker 2: Didn't accept, but complained that he couldn't accept because he had to work on our show. Gee.

00:24:46
Speaker 4: True, that's true, that's true.

00:24:49
Speaker 3: That's your guys.

00:24:49
Speaker 1: Next time I know that, I would have said, Aj, you take the judge plane and you do an exclusive sit down for three hours to judge from up there to down here. We will accept that next time. Okay, that just didn't get across the approval desk in time, But for next time, Ken, we'll catulate it this week.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: Good times, Thanks guys.

00:25:08
Speaker 1: Very territory also out from yesterday and again on Thursday. Then you should have Ken back on Friday. Thursday's episode with Alana. Rizzo will take plenty of your questions and then