Fair Territory: Kyle Tucker visits Blue Jays, HOF vote Sunday, Dodgers shopping Teoscar Hernández?

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Thursday edition of Fair Territory. I'm Ken Rosenthal here with as you can see, the master of the Foul Territory universe, Scott Braun. We are not with Alana Rizzo today for reasons that I will explain later in the show. Good reasons, Scott. We've got a ton to talk about as the Winter Meetings approach.

00:00:22
Speaker 2: Yes we do, and I'm excited to see you briefly at the Winter Meetings, running around covering the sport like you do. But let's get into what's surfacing before that, And Ken, I think we need to start with the biggest name in terms of who should command the most money this offseason. That's Kyle Tucker. And that's a little visit to a fancy facility in duned and Florida. What else do you know? And do you think that the Blue Jays are serious candidates to be able to sign him?

00:00:46
Speaker 1: Well, this was a stunning report by Robert Murray last night about this visit by Tucker to the Jays training complex, which is one of the best in d Need. It's a selling point for the Blue Jays. Now, what's interesting about this is that prior to last night, The Jay's interest in Tucker was kind of rumored, but it was never really confirmed or even seemed to be something that the club was prioritizing. We know that they signed the two starting pitchers, d'lan cease and Cody Ponce. We didn't know exactly what they were doing on the position side, but they had interest, perhaps in Tucker and certainly in resigning Boba set So this is a clear indication of their interest. Whether it indicates that they're going to sign Tucker, that remains to be seen. And let's not get carried away with that idea. You remember show he Otani a couple of years ago visiting the Jay's training complex and Dunedin didn't sign. This is kind of a normal thing for players to do. And Kyle Tucker does live in Tampa, which is a short drive from duned and so really for him, hop skip and a jump, no big deal to go there. But at the same time, I don't want to underplay this. The Jays are acting like behemoths in this market, and this meeting with Tucker that took place last night or yesterday, whenever exactly it was, that's an indication that they are thinking big. It also might be a message to Bobaschett, hey come down a little bit in your price. There are all kinds of possibilities here, but the fact of the matter is he was into Needon at their complex and that is news.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: That is definitely news, and I will give credit. We got to see this actually surface. If they signed Tucker or if they sign back Bobachhet, payroll will be high for the Blue Jays. We certainly knock on this network teams when they cry poor and don't spend. The Blue Jays just had a banger postseason. I know they didn't win the World Series ken, but they clearly made a lot of money and it seems like they're reinvesting back into the team. You mentioned in the story how they were at about two forty ish mill for their opening day payroll. It seems like whether they get Tucker, Bishett or someone else, they're going to be tracking well ahead of that number next year.

00:02:56
Speaker 1: Yes, they're going to open with a club record payroll and it's right now. If they signed Tucker, likely will be over three hundred million opening day, which is not where the Jays have been. They've been a high payroll team in the past at various points early nineties when they were rolling. They had a big payroll back then, at least relative to the other clubs. But this is clearly an indication of their aggression and assertiveness in this off season. And let's have some fun here, Scott and look at a projected lineup with Kyle Tucker in it, because it's kind of an awesome thing to just consider it. Here it is. You can see it right there, Springer Tucker batting second right in front of Guerrero, Addison Barger behind them, than Kirk Santandre varshow Clement and him Menez. This is without Bobashed. I don't expect them to sign Tucker and Bobashed, but my goodness, it is a fascinating look. And that is a powerhouse lineup, no doubt about it.

00:03:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, that looks really good. And here's a team that's going to be in a competitive division. Yankees always good, Red Sox should be as good, if not better, this coming season, Oriols better. So good to see the Blue Jays getting involved on some of the big boys.

00:04:05
Speaker 1: I like it.

00:04:07
Speaker 2: Let's move to the team they lost to, and that's the Dodgers, And I thought this stood out a Ton to me in your notes column this morning, to Oscar Hernandez is beloved in LA and we know he has defensive deficiencies. Do you really think the Dodgers might dangle him in trade talks?

00:04:24
Speaker 1: Well, what I reported along with Patrick Mooney today is that his name has come up in trade conversation. Doesn't sound like it's terribly likely, but it's an intriguing thought for a couple of reasons. Yes, as you just mentioned Scott, their defense was lacking last year, Tao was one of the worst defensive right fielders in the game. But of course what else is he He has been one of their best hitters in the postseason the last two years, eight home runs combined for back to back World Series champions in the postseason, and one of the more consistent hitters during the season as well. If you trade him at a point when you already need an outfielder, Confordo is not coming back, then you're down to outfielders and you'd have to shuffle some things around. Maybe play Payes in right where he could be elite Andy Payes, find a center fielder and just figure it out from there. I'm not certainly going to do it in fact, I would say the odds are against them doing it. But it's interesting to hear that his name has come up because his contract gets complex, but it's relatively affordable. And let's say the Dodgers could get an outfielder back and then sign another one, then you have something going. And I don't know that this means in any way that they are going to be in the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes. Just seems to me his price is going to exceed their comfort level for him. But what if Byron Buxton becomes available, What if some other players that we aren't even focusing on are in the mixed trade wise, then perhaps this becomes a viable thing. I don't necessarily expect it to happen, but his name has come up in conversations, and that to me was certainly interesting to hear.

00:06:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ken, My observation is that the Dodgers are in a place where they have someone who is going to DH every day for them and show Heyo Tani. I think Tao, if not a full time, is someone that should at least be getting some serious DH consideration during a season. Maybe you even point to someone like Jordan Alvarez when he's healthy, He'll still play the outfield here and there, but you want him dhing most of the time. You want him dhing in the playoffs where you need your defense to be tight. The Dodgers are never going to be in that spot, and they're still on the hook for him for years. Do you think that they might be able to find a team that has a better space for him, a team that's looking for pop. Like you mentioned, it's not easy to find the profile of Tao on the market right now. So there are teams out there that are like, hey, we could use this and we could put him in the outfield occasionally during the season. It's not going to kill us, but we also have the DH spot open for him.

00:06:56
Speaker 1: I think that's a great call, Scott. And one team that's stands out immediately, as just you were talking, there is a team that's pretty predominantly left handed, and it's Boston. Boston has, of course the desire to resign Alex Redman, a great right handed hitter, but if they don't, then they're going to do some other things, and frankly, they're looking for two bats. So that's just one team. I do believe you're right that another team can fit him in better because of the DH spot being totally closed off in La. So I don't know again where this is going, but there are some interesting dynamics in play here. And obviously, if you lose Tayo, then you've got to find offense to replace him too, because he's been such a meaningful part of their offense and he's also been a meaningful part of their clubhouse. But again the question becomes, Okay, if you trade him, then what are you doing to replace him? And I'm sure if the Dodgers even come close to considering this, they'll have some pretty intriguing thoughts in mind.

00:07:57
Speaker 2: That's funny you mentioned the Red Sox. It seems like they were in on him. I don't remember. I think they actually publicly said that they were in on him, that they missed out on him. Tayo was on our show soon after he signed. I think he mentioned that as well. So the fit makes even more sense when you consider that the team actually does like the player in the past.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have, and again a lot has to happen to get from point A to point B here, But teams consider all kinds of things in the offseason, things that we don't even report or even hear about. It's a wide, wide variety. So this in that sense does not necessarily surprise me that his name is coming up, simply because, as you mentioned, they've got the DH set for I don't know, eight more years. That's not opening up tasker Hernandez. Even if you think he can play outfield a little bit. Now, well, what about in the final two years of that deal. I don't know how that happens. I'm sorry, the final year of that deal after this one. He's got two years left right now.

00:08:57
Speaker 2: M yeah, I know there's some crazy pervision and you should read the article for everyone listening right now in terms of if he gets hurt, then there's an option you're at at all that you can get into that in the article and the Athletic Ken's got it out right. Now, let's move to the other column that you put out this morning, and that regards the Hall of Fame. There's a big decision coming up this weekend with the Contemporary Committee that's going to try and vote in some players. But you need, I believe, twelve out of sixteen votes to go your way. But can you get into what you wrote about and how the landscape of how people are thinking about voting players in should change.

00:09:33
Speaker 1: Yes, Scott. So this idea that I had to write the article stemmed from the fact that Mattingly is on this contemporary era about and he is a guy who had a short peak in his career, but some people consider still Hall of Fame worthy, even though the writers for fifteen years snubbed him in the Coopers Down balloting. Now, there are a lot of layers to what I was getting into here, but basically what I was saying is that as the game evolves and as players' careers are shorter, pictures don't pitches deep into games. That's another element here, and position players and pictures both sometimes injuries force them to retire prematurely. As this kind of thing keeps going on and it has now, we need as writers to consider these players with short high peaks in maybe a bigger sense than we have in the past. Who am I talking about? Chase Utley, who has done well in his first two years on the ballot, David Wright, Dustin Pedroia, both of whose careers ended prematurely due to physical problems. And a guy like Felix Hernandez who just faded quickly, in part because the Mariners used him so heavily early in his career. These guys all had relatively short peaks, And what I say in the article is that generally speaking, I prefer my Hall of famers to have longevity, to have volume. Ten year dominance is kind of my prerequisite. But maybe I need to rethink that, and maybe we just need to rethink in general how we view these players now. In the article I mentioned as well, Don Mattingly's statistics career wise are very similar to Kirby Pucketts. Kirby Puckett was another player whose career ended before it should have due to the glaucoma that caused your blindness in his right eye. But Puckett got in first ballot, maddingly, never got in on the writer's ballot, and this is his fourth try on an eras committee. So it's going to be really interesting to see how the voters look at this on Sunday, and not just maddingly. Of course, Bonds and Clemens are on this ballot, Sheffield's on this ballot, Dale Murphy is on this ballot. All kinds of players, eight of them really good ones, all worthy of consideration are going to be looked at Sunday. You see the list right there. Fernando Vealezuela. How could I forget him? Jeff Kent? I voted for him when he was eligible. Carlos Delgado, a guy who got overlooked at position where there was a lot of thunder in the two thousands when he was in his prime, but he put up some huge numbers as well.

00:12:09
Speaker 2: To me ken for the Veterans committee that votes, which is a totally separate process from the BBWAA, this is a stacked ballot. And even if you want to get rid of the bonds, Clemens debate and all that, it's still a stacked ballot, like you mentioned, with Jeff Kent getting a lot of love but not getting enough. And I think Delgado's underrated. So here I'll bring it to this from what you wrote about, would you vote for those particular players?

00:12:34
Speaker 1: Now?

00:12:35
Speaker 2: I know you did vote for Chase Utley last year, But then also I want to spin it to Murphy and Mattingly, who you spent time writing about.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: Scott. I haven't thought about this year's ballot in great depth yet, and write and Perdoi are certainly two guys I'm going to look at more closely Felix too. Now, Mattingly and Murphy, do I believe they should be in the Hall of Fame? Do I believe the Hall of Fame would be their presence? I do. I don't believe that I voted for either during their eligibility, and I don't recall the specific reasons. Perhaps the ballot was too crowded. Perhaps I just didn't think their numbers were worthy, and that is why, of course they did not make it. But you consider an entire baseball life, and in Manninglely's case in particular, twenty years more than that as a manager and coach, all the contributions to the game, he should be in in my opinion. And Dale Murphy, it's a tougher one for me because that peak again was kind of short and he didn't have much that he did after age thirty two or so. But would the Hall of Fame be a worst place if Dale Murphy was in it? No, it wouldn't. All right, we are going to take a break down. We're going to be back Scott with the Dudes and Dorks of the week, a little different flavor this week. Right after this.

00:13:52
Speaker 2: Hey Ft is going to be at the Baseball Winter Meetings. Yes, we'll be live doing our show one o'clock Eastern. We'll grab plenty of interviews before and after the show, mix those into the show. We'll put those up on YouTube. You can listen to them wherever you get your podcasts. We're very excited to be there for all three days in Orlando, Florida, AJ's favorite city on the planet. So make sure you tune a little extra for Winter Meetings coverage.

00:14:18
Speaker 1: Next week.

00:14:18
Speaker 2: It's baseball the way it should be covered on the FT network.

00:14:21
Speaker 1: Dude, dude, dude.

00:14:30
Speaker 2: All right, let's it dude to the week.

00:14:32
Speaker 1: Ken.

00:14:32
Speaker 2: Would you like to go first? Or should I go first? And I love the theme we're going with here, you.

00:14:36
Speaker 1: Know what, I'll go first. All of our dudes this week look like ladies. And if you don't know the song, look it up. The dudes are dude debts and I'm going to start with our own. Alana Rizzo. Alana is not doing the show today for a very good reason. G is being honored by the Italian American Baseball Federation tonight at their gallat in New York with their media Awards. So Alana Rizzo. You see you right there. Distinguished career, to say the least, she is one of my do debts of the week and the other this just came out yesterday Hazel May from Sportsnet. She received the Jack Grainy Award from the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. That is for significant contributions to baseball in Canada through her life's work. Hazel, like Alana, very very deserving to do debts for me.

00:15:22
Speaker 2: And what say you, Scott, I've got another one a due debt of the week, and that is my teammate here at the FT Network, your teammate even more so over at the Athletic. Katie Wu, who has done a brilliant job covering the Cardinals on the beat for the past five years, is still staying at the Athletic. She's moving over to Los Angeles. She's from California. She's going to cover the Dodgers along with Fabian Ardaiya, so there'll be two of them on coverage there. And I just wanted to point out how brilliant of a job that Katie did for years. I think that she brought just a different flavor of coverage. She's been great on Cardinal territory. You'll see her in some future FI Network action coming up. But I just wanted to give her a shout out Ken as people should recognize her in the LA area and add her to their follow list and look out for her articles.

00:16:11
Speaker 1: Absolutely and Katie, like Fabian, went to Arizona State their great sports journalism program. Both great young journalists and it's a pleasure to work with them, to say the least, in any medium. Yes, great dudes of the week. Yes, love it all.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: Right, let's get to the Dorks. Two good candidates this time around. I'll try and go first on this one. I'd like to Cueue up a tweet to help me out. Tis the season, Ken, But when I say that, I mean tis the season to say I'm not as rich as you think I am with my major league ball club, and you expect the common folk everyone else in the world to believe you. So we heard about the profit its situation for the Yankees. What a couple weeks ago. Now let's bring in this report from Sean McAdam and Tyler Milliken, who's part of the Jared Cravis podcast team, pointed this out. But anyway, here's the quote. According to Industry sources familiar with the organization's thinking. The Red Sox are okay going over the first CBT threshold set at two hundred and forty four mil for twenty twenty six, which would translate them to absorbing a modest financial loss, but with anything beyond that, there's a reluctance to incur bigger deficits. I wonder how that got out there. Who knows the books and the finances, Who would be able to speak on that and give information to someone. I just have a hard time when this stuff comes out ken believing that nobody, not even the Yankees or the Red Sox, are making money in Major League Baseball? Why own the team just for the love of the game. Feel bad for me. I'm the only one that can own this team, take the losses and still try to put it into the team to make it success. Pathetic, pathetic information that comes out this time of year. In my mind, I don't think it has as much to do with, say, an illumine lockout in a year. I just think we always get this every offseason and it helps to temper fan expectations.

00:18:12
Speaker 1: Oh, there are excuses every off season, and it's COVID one year it's the TV money drying up another year. It's always something, and sometimes the excuses are more legitimate than others. This one I question, especially in the first off season after you have unloaded Raphael Devers Hello. That move was intended to create great financial flexibility in the future, and suddenly that flexibility isn't as significant as we thought it was. Eh, we're not buying now. I want to go to my dork of the week because it's a familiar target to this program and it's one we haven't hit in the while. The Athletics, the Oakland, Sacramento, Las Vegas Athletics, And let's take a look at the artists rendering of their new ballpark in Las Vegas, and I'll show you why they are the dorks of the week, because only the A's could pull this off. Now, I don't know if we can zoom in on that person wearing the jersey on the scoreboard, but that is not a Brent Rooker jersey that he's wearing. It's not a jersey of any player on the Athletics. It's a Jose Altuve jersey, a jersey on one of their biggest rivals in the division. So no Brett Rooker, no any other A. But we've got Altuve showcased in this artists rendering. It's a little thing compared to the injustices and criminal activity, not criminal activities, but various things that the A's have done in the past. But it's still dork of the week merit, and it is dork of the week Oakland a's whatever they are, the as the Las Vegas as, Sacramento a's darks of the week yet again.

00:19:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, easy one here, Ken, I mean, you're putting out renderings, you're putting out a model, you're showing off the ballpark cool and there's some really cool components. There is no faulting that, right. There are parts of the ballpark that looks super cool. Excited about that part. This isn't a knock on Vegas. But when about a year ago John Fisher tells everyone how excited he is for Aaron Judge to hit home runs in his ballpark in Sacramento. And now one of the main photos here has jose Al Tubay Jersey on. It's not like you have to really go find it, right, It's not like they had fifty thousand people in the seats and you find one al Tuo Bay jersey like this is on the video screen on both sides of this photo.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: It's just it's so ridiculous.

00:20:29
Speaker 2: It's so John Fisher and company.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: A pretty easy fix to find the picture of an athletics player and put that on the board. Put a fan with a jersey from an athletics player. Yes, they do exist, not that hard, Scott Man. Hey, thanks for helping out today, Alta. We hope you have a great time tonight. We are going to be back with grilling Ken right after this bet.

00:20:52
Speaker 2: I'm JM account holders today. How about an any sport parlay boost token. You can score a bigger payout if your wager with that token. Hey, Its tokens can be used on parlays and on same game parlays. Gambling problem or concerned, there's help called one eight hundred gambler. Hey, when you get a chance, subscribe to Foul Territory on YouTube. We are getting very close to three hundred thousand subscribers on the channel and love all of them, so we'd love you to join us on that channel as we break down everything going on across the sport. It is baseball the way it should be covered at foul territory, give us a sub.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: All right, time now for grilling Ken, the part of the show where I answer your questions. Let's get right to them. First question comes from Mike G fifteen, who says, could you see the twins moving Ryan and Buxton in the same deal? What would it take from a team like the Mets or Cubs who could use a frontline starter and outfielder replacement. Okay, the Twins right now are a mystery. And I've said this I believe on our show and also on FT there is not clarity yet on how they are going to operate this off season. And when I say there's not clarity, I don't mean not clarity coming to reporters about their plans. I mean clarity within their own organization. I don't know that they know what they're going to do. They're working through it. What I was told this week is that they'll have clarity by the winter meetings. Okay, it's probably a good idea to have clarity by the winter meetings. So the question then becomes, and to the question that the person is asking there, where are they going to go? Which way are they going to go? I don't necessarily expect them to trade Ryan Buxton, maybe Pablo Lopez. It seems to me that there are factions in the Twins organization that want to start building the team back up again. Good ideas since you've alienated your fan base and then there are ownership questions. They just took on the two new investors. How much are they going to spend all of that but to keep going backwards? If they do that, then yes, Ryan becomes available, Buckston becomes available. They're probably more valuable separately than they would be together. All right, let's go to the next question. What I mean there is separately in trades than they would be in one package. Next question, this one comes from Bernie Suarez who asked, can you elaborate on the case for Valenzuela in the Hall of Fame? I know there are many fans of Mexican descent, like myself that became fans because of him. Bernie, great question, And Fernando Valezuela like Murphy, like Maddingly, would he elevate the Hall of Fame? Yes, he would elevate the Hall of Fame. For a moment in time, Fernando Vealezuela was the hottest thing in the sport, and like some of the others, you could say his peak was shorter. He certainly didn't get to the major numbers in longevity that you like to see. But Fernando Valezuela had a huge impact on the sport, and in my view, that should be taken into consideration in Hall of Fame balloting. Now, he didn't get in on the writer's ballot. That's why he's on the Eras Committee ballot, and we'll see how it goes. But when you ask these questions, do I think he belongs, Well, obviously I didn't get in on the writer's baouot, okay, But if they put him in now, it would be good. It would be a good thing, and I would be quite pleased to see Fernando Vealezuela in Cooperstown. All right, Next question, this one comes from Let's get to It's Sicilian eighty seven. I love these names. A lot of money coming off the books for Toronto next year. True. Do you think they'll tolerate one year of an ultra high payroll? Yes, that seems to be the way that they're going with the signings of Cease and Ponce and then perhaps another big signing in store, whether it's Tucker or Boschette. Again, I do not expect them to do both. But with that money coming off the books after next year, yes, they can operate in the way that they're doing, and that is perhaps not even perhaps that is one reason why they're going this way. Next question comes from armand is amazing. Who asks, besides the Mets, Blue Jays and Dodgers, what other teams will be in on Edwin Diaz Armond, I'd like to know the answer to that myself, because I don't know now. Diaz is an interesting case. The Mets obviously this week signed Devin Williams as kind of protection against the loss of DZ. If they get Daz back, great, They've got a dynamic one two punch at the end of games. If they don't, certainly Devin Williams can close, though it's not as good a bullpen without Daz. Let's not mistake that the Blue Jays we do know have been linked to Edwin Diaz and the Dodgers. I can expect that they be in, but probably only if his market collapses. I don't see them doing another multi year for reliever after they gave Tanner Scott four years seventy two million last offseason. So when we look at this and say, okay, which teams are in? Who else can be in? Maybe he doesn't have a market, and certainly the qualifying offer is something that hurts all players who get it to some extent. But I don't ever buy that an elite talent like a Diaz or any other player at that caliber does not have a market. Now, he might not have a market at the level that he wants to be at. But let's say the price drops. Let's say it's not five years one hundred, Let's say it goes to four years, maybe even to three. Then teams would jump in. And again it's difficult to predict. I always tell you guys this that free agency it's almost impossible to predict in many cases because teams come out of nowhere and teams do things that you don't expect. But does Edwin Diaz have a market? Yes? I believe he does, so we'll find out in short order. I would expect where he's coming, but at this point just don't know beyond those teams which other ones are involved. All right, one more question before we go. This one comes from Christian Avilis one, two, three Ken who are the front runners for Tetsuga am I Now. In our notes column today, Patrick Mooney and I we wrote about am I and Patrick in assembling that it was his note for the most part, pointed out that am I as a guy that is not necessarily wedded to any one part of the country or any one team or anything like that. He is open minded. That was the point of what Patrick wrote. Three East Coast teams I can see being in on Ami for sure, both New York teams the Yankees could use another starter. Not necessarily an absolute must, but man, it would be great if they got one more. The Mets, we know they need an ace, and certainly they were in on Yamamoto, as were the Yankees and the Phillies. Another team that was in on Yamamoto two years ago also figured to be in the My Sweet stake. So those are three teams we've heard. San Francisco is out, But here is a guy that can be a difference maker and the best Japanese pitcher coming aboard this year. I would expect he's going to do quite well in free agencies. So with that, I want to thank everyone for watching, for listening, for however, you consume our wonderful product here. I also want to thank Scott again for joining us as co host. Have a great weekend everyone, and the next time we speak will be from the Winter Meetings in Orlando coming up Monday. Unfair Territory