EastCoastAgNc said:

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Mystery team(s) emerging for Justin Verlander. In other words “other significant interest” beyond the known Astros and Dodgers

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 1, 2023

Angels getting ready to overpay again?

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Plot twist: It's the A's

texasaggie2015 said:

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It's going to be interesting to see how long the Astros are willing to wait for JV to make a decision. Nothing would be worse than to have him stretch this out up until the very end and not be able to pivot and make other moves. That's what has me nervous about this whole thing.

I can only assume that Dana and Crane are communicating. Like I said before, the JV negotiations are solely being done by Crane. Brown is working the phones with other teams. I'm not necessarily a fan of that dynamic, but we will see how it plays out.

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I read on another fan site their "insider" said Gilbert is the bat they want and we're willing to do it but they want an equivalent arm too but we're not giving them Hunter. Therefore, we're trying to work with a 3rd team that does have a high value minor league pitcher that needs outfield help that we can provide (Julks/Jake) to make the deal with JV happen.

Here's the dilemma, what if that 3rd team demands Chas? Do you do it? At that point we have given up our up and comer in Gilbert and also giving up by far our best CF option.

I wouldn't do it.

Can't trade both of them, imo

Can't trade brown when you already need starting pitching

EastCoastAgNc said:

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Pirates are weighing multiple offers on Rich Hill and Austin Hedges. Also getting inquiries on Bednar, Keller, Holderman and Choi. Bednar and Keller of course have big price tags.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 1, 2023

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Hell yeah. Rich Hill gets traded to another team, and I get another free space in Immaculate Grid every day

EastCoastAgNc said:

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Can't trade brown when you already need starting pitching

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Exactly...what good does that do us? We're right back where we started in terms of number of starting pitchers.

Prosperdick said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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It's going to be interesting to see how long the Astros are willing to wait for JV to make a decision. Nothing would be worse than to have him stretch this out up until the very end and not be able to pivot and make other moves. That's what has me nervous about this whole thing.

I can only assume that Dana and Crane are communicating. Like I said before, the JV negotiations are solely being done by Crane. Brown is working the phones with other teams. I'm not necessarily a fan of that dynamic, but we will see how it plays out.

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I read on another fan site their "insider" said Gilbert is the bat they want and we're willing to do it but they want an equivalent arm too but we're not giving them Hunter. Therefore, we're trying to work with a 3rd team that does have a high value minor league pitcher that needs outfield help that we can provide (Julks/Jake) to make the deal with JV happen.

Here's the dilemma, what if that 3rd team demands Chas? Do you do it? At that point we have given up our up and comer in Gilbert and also giving up by far our best CF option.

I wouldn't do it.

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You can't give up any important big league talent for old man JV. That means no Diaz, Brown, Chas.

If Brown, Chas, Diaz or any combination of those are in the package mix, then I'd like to pull Cease and Robert from CWS.

Top prospects and maybe Meyers and Julks in the package for JV, but I wouldn't send any of our main MLB contributors.

If we're giving them Gilbert, we should be getting a big fat check towards JV's salary in return.

Absolutely zero chance we should listen to anything including chas or brown. Each of them are more valuable than JV right now by themselves. That's ridiculous. I'm gonna bet our offer is something like Gilbert and arrighetti and them pay a good chunk on JV or just Gilbert and we take on majority

Prosperdick said:

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Wabs said:

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If Brown, Chas, Diaz or any combination of those are in the package mix, then I'd like to pull Cease and Robert from CWS.

Top prospects and maybe Meyers and Julks in the package for JV, but I wouldn't send any of our main MLB contributors.

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If it's Gilbert, Julks, and Meyers I would do that in a heartbeat. It would suck losing Gilbert but would be worth it for the potential impact JV could make with this team.

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Yes, I'd do top prospect(s) like Gilbert and throw in Julks/Meyers/other prospects for JV. But sending Brown or Chas is kind of defeating the purpose.

If Crane is working the JV deal and Dana is working other deals, then how about they simultaneously make deals for JV and Cease, each not knowing what the other had done.

I dont even want to give up Gilbert for Verlander

Danwell Home said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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Danwell Home said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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Danwell Home said:

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I'm still skeptical since we balked at a massive JV contract in the off season but now want to give up top prospects and take on most of his contract when we are starting to get healthy.

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What makes you think we're doing both? That makes no sense and hasn't been reported anywhere.

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I'm just going off the rumors, as is everyone else. Why would it not make sense to give up prospects and take a bulk of his contract?

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Maybe I read your post wrong. Did you mean not want to give up prospects?

It'll big a big prospect like Arlington gave up to get the contract paid down or more a more middling prospect package and then we pay the lion share of the remaining contract.

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If Gilbert is the real deal and we trade him that's going to be tough if Tucker walks. Bregman and Altuve's contracts are coming up. We have a lot of bullpen arms we need to resign or let walk this offseason but we've done a good job developing quality bullpen arms. It's a tough trade deadline for us and somethings gotta give.

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FWIW- I don't think Gilbert is the best OF prospect in our system.

One mystery team on Justin Verlander has been uncovered: the San Diego Padres

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 1, 2023

Of course they are lol

I feel the same way. Good prospect and top in terms of rankings, but I like Clifford best of all of our prospects.

Clifford is the future

I would trade Gilbert for an arm in a heart beat. If you can lock up Tucker you have your outfield for a while (Yordan, Chas, and Tucker). You have your left side of the infield locked up, maybe you want to get some youth at 2nd and 1st but really no minor leaguer should be off limits....bet we wish Forrest Whitley wasn't off limits when we could have gotten something for him. Also, farm system ranking mean nothing. What was French ranked?

Id even take another bullpen guy, the SD closer for example. That gives us 5 arms that you know will pitch a shutout inning. So really, your starter only needs to give you 4. Between framber, Javier (promising last start) , Urquidy, Brown, and French I feel good getting those 4 innings. While it would be nice to get a starter with contract control over multiple year, if you get Garcia back you still have a great 5 man rotation..so a rental for Gilbert to win this year may not be so bad, especillay as i struggle to see a window for Gilbert to come up.

Honeslty, the only hole on this team is Dusty. Try one game with:

Altuve
Bregman
Yordan
Tuck
Abreu
Diaz
Chas
Pena
Julks/Meyer

And you may not need a quality start every night to win.