More listener questions this week, thanks to all the great submissions over the past couple of weeks. We also walk through each of the MLB teams to do a June check up on the bets that Jared and Ben made, as a means for anecdotes and commentary on notable player performances or team situations.
We also took a reader question and wanted to post the answer here in case it is helpful to those of you reading the posts but not listening to the podcast. We go into some more detail and discussion on the recording.
Matt Kenerly writes:
I've been selling off pieces for a couple weeks now, but I wanted to get your thoughts on a particular offer I've been given in wP-NL823. For the record, I am Team 2.
I would give away: Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Holliday and picks 33-35 (2016)
I would get: supplemental picks 40-45, picks 14-16 (2016) and a rookie SP (I assume this includes Steven Matz, Aaron Nola, Zach Lee, Max Fried and Lucas Sims, at a minimum)
On the surface, it seems like it would do an awful lot to jumpstart a rebuild, since I could at least get by with Wilmer Flores at shortstop and Angel Pagan and Michael Cuddyer in the OF while stockpiling prospects and other trade chips for the coming months. However, I want to get your opinion on this as soon as possible. Thanks.
Our Thoughts:
Thanks for writing and listening.
As you may have heard us say, we are in favor of moving Holliday in general because he's still putting up solid production but we are expecting him to taper off in the next couple of years. He's definitely a valuable piece to a team trying to win this year, but his long-term value seems limited to me.
The qualms I have with pulling the trigger on this deal revolve around Tulo. You could get all the picks in every round from 40 to 45 (not just one team's worth) and you will probably still have a pretty low chance of ever ending up with a player of Tulo's caliber. He's had health issues in the past and he's struggling this year, but a 5+ offensive win shortstop just doesn't really exist very often.
I'm assuming there isn't really a way to get this deal done without Tulo, given his value, so my recommendation would be to scale back to whatever the other owner is willing to accept as an alternative where you just move Holliday.
I'm interested in hearing what Ian and Jared think as well, so hopefully if they disagree we can get a lively conversation about it.
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So, in a "here's how the sausage was made" postscript, it's not actually the microphone at fault (at least, I think it isn't). About 20 minutes into the recording, my Skype cast started spinning circles. What you heard was actually our third attempt at recording, believe it or not. And due to actual life getting in the way, we didn't have any backup days to record, so we made the field decision to record what we could.
If anyone's a tech wizard, I'd love to know what could cause a Skype call to go south. I rebooted my computer, wifi, and speed tested at 80mpbs down, 10 up. If you guys know how to troubleshoot, drop a comment or email us--I know I'd appreciate it at minimum.