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Speaker 1: Let's get in the news. Let's go news. There's been news, not a ton of news, but there's been news. Okay, top right into it. First piece of news. I thought you guys would find this fascinating, because I did. These two gentlemen, Carlos Korea and Jose Al Twove were denied insurance to compete in the World Baseball Classic. Now you'd be waving. Now you may be wondering what does that mean? What do you mean insurance? Where where does the insurance come from? So Jose al Tuvan Carlos Carea will not play in the World Baseball Classic because no one will insure them because of their prior injury history. So here's the quotes from the two guys, and I'll tell you a little bit about what insurance means in this context. Okay, Korea told the Athletic Channel of Roman two Tuesday that they wouldn't covers thirty one million dollars salary. Now that is a very high salary. Sometimes that comes into play. But the quote goes as follows. Chris says, that's too big of a risk to take to play with no insurance. So instead of going and playing because and just chancing it he's decided not to, so at the end of the day, you can still go without insurance, but you can't anyway. Continuing the quote, I'm definitely upset because I've been preparing really hard this offseason to get better this year and be ready early so i can be ready for the WBC. You know, he would be playing for Keen Puerto Rico. A lot of pride, especially the Puerto Ricans have spoken a lot about how much pride they have in their team and their country and able to represent them in the WBC and WC Ballo accounts is so much fun to play in. Altuve said, I signed the paper that I'm willing to go and play like I did in the last two WBC's. It's always an honor to represent my country. I played in the last one and the one before, and I'm trying to do it this one. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but it seems like this year it's not up to me now that those were interesting words to you, so like, let's keep that in the back pocket. It seems like he's probably being maybe encouraged to forego the uh the WBC this year. We'll see we'll see if he ends up going or not. He looks like he's pushing back a little bit harder than Korea is. But but he also has had some injuries recently and he's getting a little bit older. So for clarity, the insurance is taken out, it's a policy that is taken out on the salary by the team, not the player. Okay, so there's been historical this is pretty common, but I don't think it's been talked about enough. So basically, the team can be reimbursed if the player misses significant time or reimbursed a percentage of their of their salary. So there's been a bunch of examples of this, right, and they and the policies look or they have different types of stipulations with sometimes really high premium. So that's not whether or not always used. A prime example this is actually we've got to give a shout out to New York Mets because this was was actually smart. They took out a policy on David Wright in twenty twelve, the Mets signed Right to an eight year, one hundred and thirty eight million dollar contract, shortly after Right began suffering chronic injuries spinal stenosis, which is still one of the most sad stories. I wish we would have gotten more of David Wright, which essentially ended his ability to playful season. So like the Mets had a policy that allowed him to recoup allowed them to recoup seventy five percent of the salary if you missed more than sixty consecutive days. Now sixty might sound like a specific number, it is the sixty day to il was the stipulation. He had to be on the sixty day IL in order to get the reimbursement. So if you remember back, if you are a Mets fan, you remember back he was on the six sixty IL a lot, no matter what, really, which really stunk because it basically meant like he's not coming back soon, and it was always like that, so the hope was really not there. But that was how they got the money return. So because Right was sideline for nearly all of sixteen, seventeen and eighteen, the insurance company reportedly reimbursed the Mets roughly fifteen million dollars per year, so about the forty five seventy five percent of the animal salary. So because the policy only stayed active if Right was on the forty men roster and attempting to return. So we had stipulation was he has to be trying to come back. That's why they kept putting him on the sixty day so like he couldn't retire or it would end and the team would have to be on hook for the rest of the money. So that's why he can perpetually like he probably wasn't going to come back. That's why that happened a lot of the end of his career. It was for the insurance to be returned to. Now there's probably a pretty good chance that David knew all this and was like playing it. He's like, ill, yeah, whatever, like whatever we need to do. I don't like. It's effectively the same thing for me, Like I like being around you know. That's what it takes off toward it takes because either way he's going to get paid, right, So actually I believe if he retired, he'd before grow his contract. So he wanted to get paid, but he couldn't be sent home, so it was one of those things he had to kind of be in limbo here to get paid. So other examples of this, and we've talked about this Prince Fielder with the Rangers. He had the neck injuries that actually were life threatening or at least paralysis threatening, and so he was declared medically ineligible to play, and so that was actually part of his and the insurance paid nine million of his twenty four million annual salary through twenty twenty, so he got paid. They paid out almost forty million dollars of that salary to the team because he had to not play. He couldn't play anymore, and that was actually built into the policy that he was declared medically knowledgeable. With Albert Bell same thing three years left in his contract, they paid out about twenty seven million of the thirty nine and Jeff Bagwell had shoulder issues and his career in two thousand and six. The Astros almost got the full price back because they had a short term insurance policy. So these things are common, they exist. I believe Strasbourg had part of his done too. These are really common to do, especially with like big contracts. But the problem is they're not as common as they could be because the principal, sorry, the premium, could be ten percent of that contract value every year. So if someone's paying being paid twenty million dollars a year in order to have an insurance policy on them, you'd have to pay the insurance company two million a year. So like it's one of those things like, huh, should we chance this because it's gonna might cost us more money to insure it. So it's it's a weird situation. You know, insurance companies are everwhere, but and that's why these guys aren't aren't playing. So let's go back to the astros and talk a little bit about why they were insured. Two way fractions write them being hit by a pitch last time, so that was one big one. He literally got hurt last time, so that makes sense to be denied. They're like, you got hurt last time, and we had to pay out, so why would we do We don't want to pay out. We're insurance company. We like just getting money to do nothing. That's why we exist. And so you're so we're not going to ensure you if we actually have to protect you, which is one of the weirdest things ever if you really think about it, and Korea really, if you really look at it, it's completely logical that his history with injuries would give pause anyone looking to get an insurance policy for the WC not just to name a few. He missed over a month in twenty eighteen with a back injury, who was sixty day aisle with a broken ribbon nineteen, missed two months with planner fasciatus in twenty four If you remember, between twenty two and twenty three, he nearly signed contracts both the Giants and the Mets before they found issues with his right ankle, so he had he failed two physicals to get a massive contract and ended up going to the Twins if you remember, so, like that's or back to the Twins, so like that's that's where this stuff is coming from. You're uninsure. If you're uninsure, sure a bulldoe to their injury history. The player's contract would not be guaranteed. Like you can't go out there and say you're not playing for the team you're on right now. If you get hurt, the team's like, hey, we're not gonna let you go because then we get nothing for our investment. But if we can get an insurance, that makes it more likely to respect your wishes to want to play. In the past and twenty twenty three, for example, players who coudn't play were like Clayton Kershaw and Nathany Yvaldi because of their issues with injuries, Tyler O'Neil for Team Canada and Bruce ar gradawall Team Venezuela. Those four guys couldn't play because they cadn't get insured. A lot of people didn't really know that, probably, but like the teams basically said, we don't want you to go because our investment could get ruined. But now Kershaw's going back because he doesn't need to be insured because he's not employed by a team, which I think is awesome. So just something to realize. It's not widely reported, but that is how insurance works in baseball. Isn't that so interesting? Probably not, now that I'm thinking about it, that's probably not super interesting, But I think it's interesting, and you know it's my show, Okay. Moving forward, Jay ram Jose Ramirez signs a seven year, one hundred and seventy five million dollar extension with the Cleveland Guardians, his third with the same team. He is very clearly going to spend his entire career with them, a feat that simply does not happen anymore, especially in extensions. Now. He the price of his contract is not quite one seventy five because he has all you guessed it, deferments, deferral of ten million dollars each year to be paid out in ten installments every year after so once it's over ooh, once it's over, he will be paid basically a million dollars every I don't know, five weeks for the whole year for ten years, which I think is cool, or for seven years. Sorry, so seven years paid out, so ten million a year for seven years after the contract expires, which I think is cool for him. But at the same time, we have seventy million dollars of deferments once again for a team friendly deal because for all intensive purposes, if he went onto the free agent market right now, he would be paid an astronomical amount of money. Like do you think Bragmann got paid. Josier Maris is get blowing Bregman's payout of the water, like not even like he's getting paid forty eight year right. But he doesn't want that. He wants to stay in the same place. If the speak to his character, he likes being there, he likes guys, he likes it. Just to be easy to understand, now he's thirty three years old. This will take him to his forty year old year. He's a seven time All Star, six top five MVP finishes what he is a career eight fifty seven ops with two hundred and five home runs two hundred eighty seven stolen bases. He's one of the best players, definitely one of the best players, if not the best player in Guardian slash Indians history, but the one of the from surefile Hall of Famer, I mean, probably pretty close to it at this point. Already, I would say after this contract one percent, he is in. But no one does this anymore. And why people don't do this is because the money's just massive out there on the free agent market. We've talked about this a lot. This is a definite decision, his decision. Okay, nobody's advising him to do this. This is his decision. He fully understands how it works, and he wants to stay in somewhere, somewhere normal, and he knows and he very clearly doesn't have a super strong connection to how much money he has. It's plenty of money for all intent, for all all everything I know about my trout, same thing. He just did not care about the big money. It was mostly he felt the responsibility to the market, but it didn't really matter that much to him. So kudos to Jay Ramfer stay in the same place, and I can't wait to keep watching him wearing this uniform. Let's let's see if they can actually get this thing done with him on the team. So just something to keep in mind. This is possible, but the player has to want to do it, and you have to You got to figure out how to do it if the player wants to do it. Harrison Bader signed. Harrison Bader just signed a year twenty zero point five million dollar deal with the San Francisco Giants, who were a desperate need for outfield help. He won a Gold Glove in twenty twenty one and can now slot in as the everyday center fielder' possibly allowing John Hooley, who's a better arm but less range, to shift to right field. Interesting John Hooley can run a little bit, but Bader takes much much better routes, so that could be a huge upgrade for them out there. He has had very, very good years his last couple of years, so I think this is a quality bat to add to a team that kind of needed a little bit of shaken up now, who knows if they're done. I don't know what else he could do. Maybe there's a trade in there. I've been huge on anyone who can go grab Brendon Donovan. He's a good fit there too. That's been thrown out there. That's a cool thing I would like to see. But I'm good, happy for Harrison Bader getting getting paid a little bit too, and he should. He should fit right into that that team really nicely. Freddy Peralta, who was just traded to the Mets and in pretty pretty actually big trade with Brennis Brot and uh Jet was it Jet Williams? Yeah, Jet Williams moving on, which were two very highly tired prospects. It didn't I didn't think that David Stearns would go there. But he's trading with the boys, the Milwaukee Brewers. So Freddy Peralta is now a met for the final year before he goes to friends, and he is open to signing an extension with the Mets. He is one of those new guys in that clubhouse now. He said he'll consider it. But for him to wait for a minute, it's probably smart. You got to figure out what's going on in there. You gotta be around and you see if you like it. He also went over with Tobias Myers, another solid pickup I think for the Mets, and think he's gonna add some some value there. He's a two time all starting. Now that the Mets now have a front end starter, it'd be interesting to see if they do one more move to go get another guy who is available. There's a couple of guys that would fit there well. But if you remember he went, he went seventeen to six with a two seven last year, was up there for the cy Young Obviously he was going against the Paul Skins, which you're not gonna win that one, but was very good for the best record in the league. So big pickup for them, and if they were able to pull off an extension for him, I mean, dang dang, all right. Speaking of trades, Mackenzie Gore gone. Uh, he's one of the one of the guys from Swansota trade that's finally moving on in a five for one trade with the Rangers. The Rangers appear out of nowhere. They now have McKenzie Gore and Brandon Nemo and he, as you remember, he made the All Star team last year. He was leading the league in strikeouts for a really long time. I was really high on him early in the year, but then he kind of scuffled a little bit. Has not has He's never thrown up as many innings as he did the end of the year with one hundred and fifty nine to two thirds inning. So it's quite a stretch for him to stay healthy all year. I think ending with the for four, one, seven, and five, he was five and fifteen record, but we're not gonna hold that against them. They were really bad for a while there, so but he ended with one hundred and eighty five strikeouts, so the dominances there. He made thirty starts, he maintained his health, and now it's going to be at about finishing strong. But I think that's a big pick up for the Rangers. I think adding another quality arm to Jacob gram you know, any evolved. Yeah, so they I like it. I like it. Now we'll see if the Nationals are just kind of going for get as many prosspects, get as many prospects as possible, throw him against the wall. See who sticks. That could be what we're seeing, but we'll we'll have to wait and see there. But I like it. I like the uh. I like that they went for it. I liked that Mackenzie Gore. I like that both teams are doing something. That's what I like to see. So we'll see how it works out moving through this year, and we'll check back in and see see how we're feeling about this trade in six months or so. Room around up though, there are some guys who not move, So let's talk about some of the rumors. First, room, where we have Framber Valdez is still not signed. He probably the one of the if not the top starting pitching guy out there outside of Cease going into this offseason, and not only has he not signed, but there's no there's no real sign that anyone's that interested, and according to Yahoo Sports is Jake Mint. The consensus around baseball is that the situation which Framber Valdez apparently apparently intentionally crossed up his rookie catcher, which we covered here on this channel, is having a pretty adverse effect on his market. He is the top available free agent, it's not appeared to be close to signing a contract. So I I sometimes, like, you know, I'll be honest in my opinion, it was pretty clear he did it on purpose. That is a huge no no, especially with your catcher's supposed to be your partner in crime here. But it's also like a kind of a I don't want to say a one off incident per se, because I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but like kind of came out of nowhere, I think publicly, and it's not like he has a history of like blowing up in that way. So you know, sometimes when a a single event happens, you can you can like just take full responsibility to be like, I don't know I should that was crazy. I don't know why I did. That was crazy. I gotta work on this and you're able to move on. But you know, maybe there's something they know we don't know, right, it seems seems like it's not a one off incident. I don't know, you know, I'm not speculating here. I have no idea if there's anything else, but like, it is a little bit odd that we're not willing to at least give him a chance. So I wouldn't be surprised if the market opens up a little bit, if the dollar amount in the number of years comes way down real quickly, So we might be about to see a bridge deal for fran Raveldez. But I will say, just from a pitching standpoint, I mean, there's not a lot of guys who've been as solid as him for as long as he has, and any team could use that. So we'll have to wait and see. I guess Max Schurzer has made it clear that he is open to signing after Opening Day this year. He's willing to wait, and if he waits, that's really really interesting. Now if you remember Roger Clemens said this too when he's forty four years old, signing with the Yanks in May and getting paid over a million dollars per start, and by all accounts, he only had to be there on the day he was starting, which is a pretty cool, pretty good gig. But Max is he's a smart guy. He knows he's in his forties, he knows he has diminished stuff, he knows what his value is, and he knows that there's going to come a team, there's going to be injuries in spring training. Yes, he might not get a job right out of spring training, but he might be able to get called to come help a team as quickly as possible, and that might be the best way for him to get an opportunity. And I agree with him. I agree with him hardily. I think that's really smart. And if that opportunity doesn't present itself, then opportunity doesn't present itself. But he's a Hall of Fame regardless, so it's a smart move. This is something we haven't seen in a while, but that's what savvy guys do. They do smart ones. So I think that's really really interesting. And this is reported by Ken Rosenthal in a phone interview, So and Will Salmon, he revealed it to him straight up. He's like, I'm open to waiting. So it's forty one years old. We'll see what happens with Max. All Right, a couple more quick things. I want to hit some questions here in a second too, because we have a couple in the in the chat that I'm gonna hit on. Lucas di Alito is being connected to possibly the Tigers. I like that. I like that matchup. That seems really interesting. There are probably many teams actually in on him, including the Detroit Tigers, as reported by John Hayman the Detroit Free presses Evan Petskoll. The also report of the Tigers are interested in Dialdo as well. So that's that's two, and usually when it's two, it's true. I didn't think that was going to come out so easily, but he missed the entire twenty four season with Tommy John bounced back last season. He had three four, one hundred and forty five ins for the Red Sox, so he was a really quality pitcher to help that team turn it around a little bit and get in the playoffs. So he's a solid pitcher. He is no stranger to the Al Central. I think that that would be a good lock up for the Tigers to add a little bit more depth around Perennial Cy young winner the school and maybe make a run at this thing while you have him for one more year. I don't know, I just work here. Maybe you should do that. And finally, Zach Gallon, we have some movement. We have three teams that are interested, also being reported by John Hayman, the Orioles, the Cubs, and the Diamondbacks. I'm gonna say it here. You're gonna hear it first. You're gonna hear it here first. I think the Orioles end up with that Gallon. I think that is they need a starting pitcher. They still haven't gotten one. They need him, they need one, So I want to see him in an Oriol's uniform. I think it would be a solid bounce back place to go. And I think that young crew could benefit from having a veteran like this guy on their team. If you remember, just two years ago he finished third for the Nail say young and he has been a very quality starter outside of some regression last year. But you know, there might have been injuries involved. Some things looked off to me. That tells me that he he needed some space to do some work on some things that that might have been physical. So I'm gonna wait to see what we see out of him in the first month or so in the season, see if it's still there. But I still think he is worth at least getting a couple year deal with with this solid contending team. But my guest is the Orioles. I'll rank him for you. Why not Orioles, Diamondbacks, Cubs in that order, That's what I think is most likely. So Zach Gallant back on the market,
Speaker 1: Let's get in the news. Let's go news. There's been news, not a ton of news, but there's been news. Okay, top right into it. First piece of news. I thought you guys would find this fascinating, because I did. These two gentlemen, Carlos Korea and Jose Al Twove were denied insurance to compete in the World Baseball Classic. Now you'd be waving. Now you may be wondering what does that mean? What do you mean insurance? Where where does the insurance come from? So Jose al Tuvan Carlos Carea will not play in the World Baseball Classic because no one will insure them because of their prior injury history. So here's the quotes from the two guys, and I'll tell you a little bit about what insurance means in this context. Okay, Korea told the Athletic Channel of Roman two Tuesday that they wouldn't covers thirty one million dollars salary. Now that is a very high salary. Sometimes that comes into play. But the quote goes as follows. Chris says, that's too big of a risk to take to play with no insurance. So instead of going and playing because and just chancing it he's decided not to, so at the end of the day, you can still go without insurance, but you can't anyway. Continuing the quote, I'm definitely upset because I've been preparing really hard this offseason to get better this year and be ready early so i can be ready for the WBC. You know, he would be playing for Keen Puerto Rico. A lot of pride, especially the Puerto Ricans have spoken a lot about how much pride they have in their team and their country and able to represent them in the WBC and WC Ballo accounts is so much fun to play in. Altuve said, I signed the paper that I'm willing to go and play like I did in the last two WBC's. It's always an honor to represent my country. I played in the last one and the one before, and I'm trying to do it this one. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but it seems like this year it's not up to me now that those were interesting words to you, so like, let's keep that in the back pocket. It seems like he's probably being maybe encouraged to forego the uh the WBC this year. We'll see we'll see if he ends up going or not. He looks like he's pushing back a little bit harder than Korea is. But but he also has had some injuries recently and he's getting a little bit older. So for clarity, the insurance is taken out, it's a policy that is taken out on the salary by the team, not the player. Okay, so there's been historical this is pretty common, but I don't think it's been talked about enough. So basically, the team can be reimbursed if the player misses significant time or reimbursed a percentage of their of their salary. So there's been a bunch of examples of this, right, and they and the policies look or they have different types of stipulations with sometimes really high premium. So that's not whether or not always used. A prime example this is actually we've got to give a shout out to New York Mets because this was was actually smart. They took out a policy on David Wright in twenty twelve, the Mets signed Right to an eight year, one hundred and thirty eight million dollar contract, shortly after Right began suffering chronic injuries spinal stenosis, which is still one of the most sad stories. I wish we would have gotten more of David Wright, which essentially ended his ability to playful season. So like the Mets had a policy that allowed him to recoup allowed them to recoup seventy five percent of the salary if you missed more than sixty consecutive days. Now sixty might sound like a specific number, it is the sixty day to il was the stipulation. He had to be on the sixty day IL in order to get the reimbursement. So if you remember back, if you are a Mets fan, you remember back he was on the six sixty IL a lot, no matter what, really, which really stunk because it basically meant like he's not coming back soon, and it was always like that, so the hope was really not there. But that was how they got the money return. So because Right was sideline for nearly all of sixteen, seventeen and eighteen, the insurance company reportedly reimbursed the Mets roughly fifteen million dollars per year, so about the forty five seventy five percent of the animal salary. So because the policy only stayed active if Right was on the forty men roster and attempting to return. So we had stipulation was he has to be trying to come back. That's why they kept putting him on the sixty day so like he couldn't retire or it would end and the team would have to be on hook for the rest of the money. So that's why he can perpetually like he probably wasn't going to come back. That's why that happened a lot of the end of his career. It was for the insurance to be returned to. Now there's probably a pretty good chance that David knew all this and was like playing it. He's like, ill, yeah, whatever, like whatever we need to do. I don't like. It's effectively the same thing for me, Like I like being around you know. That's what it takes off toward it takes because either way he's going to get paid, right, So actually I believe if he retired, he'd before grow his contract. So he wanted to get paid, but he couldn't be sent home, so it was one of those things he had to kind of be in limbo here to get paid. So other examples of this, and we've talked about this Prince Fielder with the Rangers. He had the neck injuries that actually were life threatening or at least paralysis threatening, and so he was declared medically ineligible to play, and so that was actually part of his and the insurance paid nine million of his twenty four million annual salary through twenty twenty, so he got paid. They paid out almost forty million dollars of that salary to the team because he had to not play. He couldn't play anymore, and that was actually built into the policy that he was declared medically knowledgeable. With Albert Bell same thing three years left in his contract, they paid out about twenty seven million of the thirty nine and Jeff Bagwell had shoulder issues and his career in two thousand and six. The Astros almost got the full price back because they had a short term insurance policy. So these things are common, they exist. I believe Strasbourg had part of his done too. These are really common to do, especially with like big contracts. But the problem is they're not as common as they could be because the principal, sorry, the premium, could be ten percent of that contract value every year. So if someone's paying being paid twenty million dollars a year in order to have an insurance policy on them, you'd have to pay the insurance company two million a year. So like it's one of those things like, huh, should we chance this because it's gonna might cost us more money to insure it. So it's it's a weird situation. You know, insurance companies are everwhere, but and that's why these guys aren't aren't playing. So let's go back to the astros and talk a little bit about why they were insured. Two way fractions write them being hit by a pitch last time, so that was one big one. He literally got hurt last time, so that makes sense to be denied. They're like, you got hurt last time, and we had to pay out, so why would we do We don't want to pay out. We're insurance company. We like just getting money to do nothing. That's why we exist. And so you're so we're not going to ensure you if we actually have to protect you, which is one of the weirdest things ever if you really think about it, and Korea really, if you really look at it, it's completely logical that his history with injuries would give pause anyone looking to get an insurance policy for the WC not just to name a few. He missed over a month in twenty eighteen with a back injury, who was sixty day aisle with a broken ribbon nineteen, missed two months with planner fasciatus in twenty four If you remember, between twenty two and twenty three, he nearly signed contracts both the Giants and the Mets before they found issues with his right ankle, so he had he failed two physicals to get a massive contract and ended up going to the Twins if you remember, so, like that's or back to the Twins, so like that's that's where this stuff is coming from. You're uninsure. If you're uninsure, sure a bulldoe to their injury history. The player's contract would not be guaranteed. Like you can't go out there and say you're not playing for the team you're on right now. If you get hurt, the team's like, hey, we're not gonna let you go because then we get nothing for our investment. But if we can get an insurance, that makes it more likely to respect your wishes to want to play. In the past and twenty twenty three, for example, players who coudn't play were like Clayton Kershaw and Nathany Yvaldi because of their issues with injuries, Tyler O'Neil for Team Canada and Bruce ar gradawall Team Venezuela. Those four guys couldn't play because they cadn't get insured. A lot of people didn't really know that, probably, but like the teams basically said, we don't want you to go because our investment could get ruined. But now Kershaw's going back because he doesn't need to be insured because he's not employed by a team, which I think is awesome. So just something to realize. It's not widely reported, but that is how insurance works in baseball. Isn't that so interesting? Probably not, now that I'm thinking about it, that's probably not super interesting, But I think it's interesting, and you know it's my show, Okay. Moving forward, Jay ram Jose Ramirez signs a seven year, one hundred and seventy five million dollar extension with the Cleveland Guardians, his third with the same team. He is very clearly going to spend his entire career with them, a feat that simply does not happen anymore, especially in extensions. Now. He the price of his contract is not quite one seventy five because he has all you guessed it, deferments, deferral of ten million dollars each year to be paid out in ten installments every year after so once it's over ooh, once it's over, he will be paid basically a million dollars every I don't know, five weeks for the whole year for ten years, which I think is cool, or for seven years. Sorry, so seven years paid out, so ten million a year for seven years after the contract expires, which I think is cool for him. But at the same time, we have seventy million dollars of deferments once again for a team friendly deal because for all intensive purposes, if he went onto the free agent market right now, he would be paid an astronomical amount of money. Like do you think Bragmann got paid. Josier Maris is get blowing Bregman's payout of the water, like not even like he's getting paid forty eight year right. But he doesn't want that. He wants to stay in the same place. If the speak to his character, he likes being there, he likes guys, he likes it. Just to be easy to understand, now he's thirty three years old. This will take him to his forty year old year. He's a seven time All Star, six top five MVP finishes what he is a career eight fifty seven ops with two hundred and five home runs two hundred eighty seven stolen bases. He's one of the best players, definitely one of the best players, if not the best player in Guardian slash Indians history, but the one of the from surefile Hall of Famer, I mean, probably pretty close to it at this point. Already, I would say after this contract one percent, he is in. But no one does this anymore. And why people don't do this is because the money's just massive out there on the free agent market. We've talked about this a lot. This is a definite decision, his decision. Okay, nobody's advising him to do this. This is his decision. He fully understands how it works, and he wants to stay in somewhere, somewhere normal, and he knows and he very clearly doesn't have a super strong connection to how much money he has. It's plenty of money for all intent, for all all everything I know about my trout, same thing. He just did not care about the big money. It was mostly he felt the responsibility to the market, but it didn't really matter that much to him. So kudos to Jay Ramfer stay in the same place, and I can't wait to keep watching him wearing this uniform. Let's let's see if they can actually get this thing done with him on the team. So just something to keep in mind. This is possible, but the player has to want to do it, and you have to You got to figure out how to do it if the player wants to do it. Harrison Bader signed. Harrison Bader just signed a year twenty zero point five million dollar deal with the San Francisco Giants, who were a desperate need for outfield help. He won a Gold Glove in twenty twenty one and can now slot in as the everyday center fielder' possibly allowing John Hooley, who's a better arm but less range, to shift to right field. Interesting John Hooley can run a little bit, but Bader takes much much better routes, so that could be a huge upgrade for them out there. He has had very, very good years his last couple of years, so I think this is a quality bat to add to a team that kind of needed a little bit of shaken up now, who knows if they're done. I don't know what else he could do. Maybe there's a trade in there. I've been huge on anyone who can go grab Brendon Donovan. He's a good fit there too. That's been thrown out there. That's a cool thing I would like to see. But I'm good, happy for Harrison Bader getting getting paid a little bit too, and he should. He should fit right into that that team really nicely. Freddy Peralta, who was just traded to the Mets and in pretty pretty actually big trade with Brennis Brot and uh Jet was it Jet Williams? Yeah, Jet Williams moving on, which were two very highly tired prospects. It didn't I didn't think that David Stearns would go there. But he's trading with the boys, the Milwaukee Brewers. So Freddy Peralta is now a met for the final year before he goes to friends, and he is open to signing an extension with the Mets. He is one of those new guys in that clubhouse now. He said he'll consider it. But for him to wait for a minute, it's probably smart. You got to figure out what's going on in there. You gotta be around and you see if you like it. He also went over with Tobias Myers, another solid pickup I think for the Mets, and think he's gonna add some some value there. He's a two time all starting. Now that the Mets now have a front end starter, it'd be interesting to see if they do one more move to go get another guy who is available. There's a couple of guys that would fit there well. But if you remember he went, he went seventeen to six with a two seven last year, was up there for the cy Young Obviously he was going against the Paul Skins, which you're not gonna win that one, but was very good for the best record in the league. So big pickup for them, and if they were able to pull off an extension for him, I mean, dang dang, all right. Speaking of trades, Mackenzie Gore gone. Uh, he's one of the one of the guys from Swansota trade that's finally moving on in a five for one trade with the Rangers. The Rangers appear out of nowhere. They now have McKenzie Gore and Brandon Nemo and he, as you remember, he made the All Star team last year. He was leading the league in strikeouts for a really long time. I was really high on him early in the year, but then he kind of scuffled a little bit. Has not has He's never thrown up as many innings as he did the end of the year with one hundred and fifty nine to two thirds inning. So it's quite a stretch for him to stay healthy all year. I think ending with the for four, one, seven, and five, he was five and fifteen record, but we're not gonna hold that against them. They were really bad for a while there, so but he ended with one hundred and eighty five strikeouts, so the dominances there. He made thirty starts, he maintained his health, and now it's going to be at about finishing strong. But I think that's a big pick up for the Rangers. I think adding another quality arm to Jacob gram you know, any evolved. Yeah, so they I like it. I like it. Now we'll see if the Nationals are just kind of going for get as many prosspects, get as many prospects as possible, throw him against the wall. See who sticks. That could be what we're seeing, but we'll we'll have to wait and see there. But I like it. I like the uh. I like that they went for it. I liked that Mackenzie Gore. I like that both teams are doing something. That's what I like to see. So we'll see how it works out moving through this year, and we'll check back in and see see how we're feeling about this trade in six months or so. Room around up though, there are some guys who not move, So let's talk about some of the rumors. First, room, where we have Framber Valdez is still not signed. He probably the one of the if not the top starting pitching guy out there outside of Cease going into this offseason, and not only has he not signed, but there's no there's no real sign that anyone's that interested, and according to Yahoo Sports is Jake Mint. The consensus around baseball is that the situation which Framber Valdez apparently apparently intentionally crossed up his rookie catcher, which we covered here on this channel, is having a pretty adverse effect on his market. He is the top available free agent, it's not appeared to be close to signing a contract. So I I sometimes, like, you know, I'll be honest in my opinion, it was pretty clear he did it on purpose. That is a huge no no, especially with your catcher's supposed to be your partner in crime here. But it's also like a kind of a I don't want to say a one off incident per se, because I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but like kind of came out of nowhere, I think publicly, and it's not like he has a history of like blowing up in that way. So you know, sometimes when a a single event happens, you can you can like just take full responsibility to be like, I don't know I should that was crazy. I don't know why I did. That was crazy. I gotta work on this and you're able to move on. But you know, maybe there's something they know we don't know, right, it seems seems like it's not a one off incident. I don't know, you know, I'm not speculating here. I have no idea if there's anything else, but like, it is a little bit odd that we're not willing to at least give him a chance. So I wouldn't be surprised if the market opens up a little bit, if the dollar amount in the number of years comes way down real quickly, So we might be about to see a bridge deal for fran Raveldez. But I will say, just from a pitching standpoint, I mean, there's not a lot of guys who've been as solid as him for as long as he has, and any team could use that. So we'll have to wait and see. I guess Max Schurzer has made it clear that he is open to signing after Opening Day this year. He's willing to wait, and if he waits, that's really really interesting. Now if you remember Roger Clemens said this too when he's forty four years old, signing with the Yanks in May and getting paid over a million dollars per start, and by all accounts, he only had to be there on the day he was starting, which is a pretty cool, pretty good gig. But Max is he's a smart guy. He knows he's in his forties, he knows he has diminished stuff, he knows what his value is, and he knows that there's going to come a team, there's going to be injuries in spring training. Yes, he might not get a job right out of spring training, but he might be able to get called to come help a team as quickly as possible, and that might be the best way for him to get an opportunity. And I agree with him. I agree with him hardily. I think that's really smart. And if that opportunity doesn't present itself, then opportunity doesn't present itself. But he's a Hall of Fame regardless, so it's a smart move. This is something we haven't seen in a while, but that's what savvy guys do. They do smart ones. So I think that's really really interesting. And this is reported by Ken Rosenthal in a phone interview, So and Will Salmon, he revealed it to him straight up. He's like, I'm open to waiting. So it's forty one years old. We'll see what happens with Max. All Right, a couple more quick things. I want to hit some questions here in a second too, because we have a couple in the in the chat that I'm gonna hit on. Lucas di Alito is being connected to possibly the Tigers. I like that. I like that matchup. That seems really interesting. There are probably many teams actually in on him, including the Detroit Tigers, as reported by John Hayman the Detroit Free presses Evan Petskoll. The also report of the Tigers are interested in Dialdo as well. So that's that's two, and usually when it's two, it's true. I didn't think that was going to come out so easily, but he missed the entire twenty four season with Tommy John bounced back last season. He had three four, one hundred and forty five ins for the Red Sox, so he was a really quality pitcher to help that team turn it around a little bit and get in the playoffs. So he's a solid pitcher. He is no stranger to the Al Central. I think that that would be a good lock up for the Tigers to add a little bit more depth around Perennial Cy young winner the school and maybe make a run at this thing while you have him for one more year. I don't know, I just work here. Maybe you should do that. And finally, Zach Gallon, we have some movement. We have three teams that are interested, also being reported by John Hayman, the Orioles, the Cubs, and the Diamondbacks. I'm gonna say it here. You're gonna hear it first. You're gonna hear it here first. I think the Orioles end up with that Gallon. I think that is they need a starting pitcher. They still haven't gotten one. They need him, they need one, So I want to see him in an Oriol's uniform. I think it would be a solid bounce back place to go. And I think that young crew could benefit from having a veteran like this guy on their team. If you remember, just two years ago he finished third for the Nail say young and he has been a very quality starter outside of some regression last year. But you know, there might have been injuries involved. Some things looked off to me. That tells me that he he needed some space to do some work on some things that that might have been physical. So I'm gonna wait to see what we see out of him in the first month or so in the season, see if it's still there. But I still think he is worth at least getting a couple year deal with with this solid contending team. But my guest is the Orioles. I'll rank him for you. Why not Orioles, Diamondbacks, Cubs in that order, That's what I think is most likely. So Zach Gallant back on the market,
