PREVIEW: Setting EXPECTATIONS For Cleveland Guardians At Winter Meetings | Chris Antonetti Plays Coy

PREVIEW: Setting EXPECTATIONS For Cleveland Guardians At Winter Meetings | Chris Antonetti Plays Coy

The winter meetings are coming up next week, so buckle up Cleveland fans for three days of absolutely nothing. We’re going to preview the most eventful non-event of the offseason and test how predictable front office language is. You might be surprised, confused, or maybe both. [Music] You are Locked on Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. I know the winter meetings are coming because winter hit Cleveland very hard overnight. Uh what’s up? Snow day out of it. We Yeah, my wife sure did. I I had to work. But uh hey, Guardians fans, thanks for hanging out with us for the next half hour. It’s time for Lockdown Guardians, the only daily podcast that covers your team every day from the majors, the minors, the draft, and of course everything in between, which we’ll cover today. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. Thank you for that. I’m Justin Lada, one of your two co-hosts along with my friend and co-host Jeff Ellis for the last three years and counting. And I’ve also spent 18 years covering the Guardians minor league farm system as a prospect writer and editor. As you mentioned, I am Jeff Ellis, your other co-host here. Uh, I was came on when locked on started baseball. Before that, I was a national writer at Scout and 247 focused on prospects and the draft. I want to thank you for making today’s episode your first listen today and every day wherever it is you get podcast as well as a big shout out to all of our everydayers out there. Thank you for tuning in and joining us as we have another fun discussion today. Yes, thanks for being part of the club. Uh today’s show we’ll talk about the competitive balance picks. So we have an idea of where the Guardians are going to pick in the draft coming up next week. We’ll dive into that later. We’ll play our second annual game. We make Jeff play a game of who said it, Chris Antinetti or Chris Ai Tonetti. Uh but the winter meetings, they do start in full next week. We’ll dive into what to expect first on today’s show. And today’s show is brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanel.com. place your live NFL bets all season long. So, what to expect, Jeff, when you expect absolutely nothing. Uh, let’s just kind of go back and kind of and look at some of the previous moves. Let’s see if you remember some of these moves from past winter meetings. Are you ready? I’m not going to because because I’m being quizzing you already. Okay. Well, let’s just say like we’ve talked about like my memory is good at some things. This is the type of stuff I’m really bad at is putting like specific years to when things happen. So, this is one I didn’t know ahead of time. 2014 was the year that Cleveland traded for Brandon Moss for Joey Wendell. That apparently happened at the winter meeting. So, there’s that. We thought it might be Jose. Like the big talk was that we thought they might have to give up Jose at the time who was slightly slightly better rated than than Joey Wend and uh or or the other one was Tony Walters was was a mention in that deal. Yeah, I forgot about that part. I I remember mostly we were kind of shocked when it ended up only being Wendle. Um, I remember arguing over at IBI back in the day with some of uh my co-workers. I would because I was all for it. I wanted Moss. I’m like, “This team needs power.” So, if you want That was That was 10 years ago, Jeff. And we’re still saying the same thing. I mean, any small market team though, you’re going to be saying that, unfortunately, probably every year. I mean, every team right now is out there saying they need power. There’s not a team that’s not talking about trying to add power to their lineup. Fair enough. 2018, Cleveland traded away power. They gave up Edwin Carnosion two years after signing him. They also traded the 2019 comp B pick. Remember that little nugget we talked about the draft later. Uh they got Carl Santana back in return and Jake Bowers came to them and the Yanni Diaz trade. So they also got cash. And they got cash, not Kevin actual cash. Yeah. Um that was the last day of the 2018 winter meetings like literally after the rule five draft had ended um before everybody left. I think the um resort. I forget where it was that year, but that was literally the last thing that happened. Uh they did announce the Carlos Carrasco extension, the first one in 2018. So, there was that. 2020, they picked Trevor Stefen in the role five draft. That counts as a uh a winter meetings move. We’ll talk more about that. And then last year, the winter meetings, they traded on Andre Simenez. So, that did happen last year. And then there’s also been instances where and this is this is what’s more important is there’s been trades and moves like right after. So like literally the couple days after the winter meetings ended uh Cleveland traded Yandere Alonzo for Alex Call. And then a couple days after the winter meetings ended in 2019 was when they traded Club to Texas for uh the closer who will not be named and some outfielder named Lo to Shields. So, um, that that’s that’s the whole premise of the winter meetings anymore for Cleveland is sometimes moves happen, but generally it’s it’s always the the leadup or the setup to something that happens later. It’s conversations. I mean, you can have these conversations with your with your other GMs and and Pobos, which is president of baseball operations, uh, 247 because of cell phones and and text messages now. But these guys are at least all in one place for a couple of days. So it it pushes a little bit conversations and you get some, you know, white smoke. That doesn’t mean the next pope is being elected, but um you know, you get some noise and generally it’s it’s trying to filter some of the noise out, especially for Cleveland when we know if if Cleveland’s going to do something, there’s pretty much no smoke around it, right? Yeah. When things when Cleveland does something, it usually kind of appears out of thin air. Uh when Jeff Pass or Zach Meisel tweet Yeah. Like when they traded Shane Bieber, you know, three off seasons ago. Remember that? Like when he was imminent smoke over that. Yeah. To the Cubs, then he went to the Reds and Yeah. It was imminent. Yeah. It was It was pretty funny uh in retrospect. But uh yeah, the one thing I think we’re seeing is like, you know, they spend time, they talk. There’s not a lot to do. They spend a lot of time talking with each other. They kind of get a lay of the land. That’s the one nice thing too is like, you know, when you’re doing phone calls, you’re as opposed to seeing someone in person is like there’s sometimes not as much as you can do. You can get more done or do kind of quicker bits with it. So, they do tend to use that time and then see if there’s a deal to be made like if they’re, you know, intent on moving someone. They’ve got the time to like it’s not you’re just going to randomly run into each other at points. So, it’s also like just continuing conversations in that way. So, we do see those like the Jimenez deal breaking um after the draft lotto like which is what will happen. You said the draft will be next week. I’m sure someone’s going to put that in the comments, but the draft lotto is what’s next week um at the start. So, yeah, that that’s what we’ll see. Like there’s a good chance they’ll make a move. Historically, it’s like what every But since they made one last year, it’s like every other year, so maybe they won’t this year. Um yeah, I went back 10 years and it was it was 14, 18, 20, and 24. So yeah, probably probably not till uh next off seasonason or no 2026 offseason. The way things are going. Yeah. So it’s just, you know, it’s one of those things where maybe like we do think that they are focused on the one thing I’ll say though is like this probably does set up for like some of these guys that we know are moving. Like I I would be I wouldn’t I I would more bet on like hey, you know, if you’re going to try to get Brandon Donovan that that might get done next week. Like there’s going to be all the teams in the area. have probably behooved teams. I don’t think it will. My my read of my read of it is like this. Like I don’t have any I’m just going off of what’s been in the headlines and and trying to read the headlines, but like pitching has moved really quickly. We’ve seen, you know, a couple starters off the market now. We’ve seen a lot of relievers off the market. I think if you’re looking, you know, Cleveland keeps saying like we know, we know where we sat in offense last year. We know we need to improve offense. Saying saying, you know, and what you’re going to do about it are two different things. I think though it’s more of the other side, right? Like if you’re St. Louis, you don’t want to sit around forever because other trades happen. Then you got less teams, the lowers the price, a prospect you like might get traded to someone else. I think it behooves St. Louis, honestly, to move the guys they want to move. That’s why they jumped on Sunny Gray, right? You want to move these players early so you can Cleveland’s not a fast mover. That’s the thing. They’re not. So then they’re going to be left out in the cold on some of these guys unless they’re willing to react and move. They could be. I but I do wonder like does Peter Lonzo have to come off the board? Does Kyle Schwarber have to come off the board before St. Louis makes those moves? Like does does it benefit St. Louis because it’s not the same position? No, but like you’re seeing and they’re very different. They are. I don’t know. I’m just just wondering like the middle infield’s garbage like Jorge Palano and I know I know somebody mentioned Hassan Kim in the comments who Cleveland has no chance of getting this off seasonason because you mentioned the market’s so dry and that’s why teams are going to want to jump because they need to get those positions now because there’s no other way to get them. Well that’s what I’m saying like does it behoove St. Lewis to wait and see. Oh, you missed out on the game of musical chairs on these bats. So, guess what? We’ve got Brennan Donovan. We’ve got Lars Dar maybe. No, I don’t think that ever helps teams. It’s always you don’t want to be the the longer you stand around, the less the returns tend to be. That’s why like we see these teams try to move quicker. So, they I think you want to jump when you have as many suitors as possible when no one else is really dope into the market and taking it. So, I think I would not I I kind of expect Brandon Donovan to come off the board next week. I got to be honest. I expect him to because he is a lot of teams are interested, a lot of talking. I think it’s I think the trade dominoes might drop before the hit are dominoes. Um I think I think they’ll trade Nolan Aronado first actually. But my thing is too if you wait you narrow I mean yes you narrow down your list of suitors, but those are the people that are most serious. Maybe you gain some extra leverage on those. I don’t know. So are the Guardians going to make a trade next week? Yes or no? No. Okay. I I say I agree. No. Will they make a rule five pick? Yes. Okay. Okay, I’m I’m with you. Yes. Will they sign a free agent? No, I agree. So, what’s the earliest free agent they’ve signed? Like a legit free agent. Don’t Don’t put Austin Hedges in the com comments. They they signed Josh Bell in the winter meetings in 2022. Was he really that early? Wow. That was that was a winter meeting steel. Yeah. So, I guess I should have included that. Yeah. So, that was a that was a winter meeting steel. I didn’t realize he was that early. But outside of him, I just you know, I think about like Nick Swisser around the holidays and Edwin close to the holidays. We seem to wait till that was closer to Christmas. Yeah, we have our Christmas signings is when they attended. Yeah. All right. Coming up, Jeff is going to have to decipher whether or not Chris Antetti actually said this quote or whether it came from Chris AI Toneti. And honestly, if you get any of these right in the first try, you probably should be hired by the Guardians front office. NFL Sundays, they move fast. And we know that one big play, everything can feel different. And that’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. And on FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum, every swing, every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift. Receiver gets hot. Probably not for the Browns, but the defense tightens things up with Miles Garrett going for the sack record or the momentum flip after a turnover. Band to let you jump into the moment. The Browns, they are still giving up three and a half points to Titans on toilet bowl on Sunday. So you can get in on the action. Cavs, they are 10 and a giving up 10 and a half points to the Blazers tonight at home. So there’s a lot of good things going on in that game you can check out as well. If you want to be right in the middle of the action all season long, visit fando.com, place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel, the game moves fast and so can you. As always, thank you for making Lockdown Guardians your first listen today. Never get podcast. We love being part of the routine. We love this community talking Guardians baseball with you all off season, long, rain, sleet, or snow. We’re like the mail that way. Uh even bigger thank you to everybody who made Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. We’re only here because of you, literally. Uh keep up to date with all things. Yeah. Keep up to date with the Guardians all off season long with us. Hit the bell on YouTube so you get notified of the newest episode like this one going live or get notified of that breaking news that’s going to happen next week at the winter meetings when Jeff and I react to that breaking news. Or you can auto download us wherever you get podcasts, all the audio platforms. We’re free everywhere. Keep the show in your feed no matter what all offseason and holiday season long. It’s a great way to support the show. All right, it’s time to make Jeff confused, which is sometimes not hard to do if we’re being honest. Sorry, Jeff. Especially on a night where I didn’t get a ton of sleep. You know, I’m just I’m operating at about 70% of normal. So, you know, I think you got a much you got a better chance this year. Last year, I want to say I had like 80 or 90 percent of four out of five last year. Yeah. So, you did pretty good. All right. Play along with Jeff with Chris Antinetti. Did he say it or was it Chris AI? Tonetti. First quote. There are always opportunities, but it’s hard to know which ones will actually materialize. God, that’s so vague. I mean, uh I mean, anyone could have said that from like Julius Caesar to like uh to like uh you know, Martin Luther King. Like it’s just that is like the biggest statement I’ve ever had to guess at with this. Um I’ll say yes because this organization likes to be vague. I’m going say yes. Yes. Yes. The real ones at it. You’re saying it’s Chris Antonetti. Yeah. I mean, it feels a little like bland for them, but I I don’t know. We do know that they nope. Jeff is O of one. That was Chris AI Tonetti, unfortunately. All right. Yeah, it’s just too basic, I guess, in the end. We’ve been in touch with quite a few clubs. At one point today, I thought we were close to something, but it turned out we were all just trying to figure out who ordered lunch that got delivered to the wrong suite. Once that was resolved, we agreed to revisit the actual baseball conversation at a later time. That’s the kind of cadence things here. Mixle logistics, speculation, and occasionally transactions. I’m going to say no, but that’s the AI. That’s the AI. Are you sure? Is that your final answer? That’s my final answer. It’s too specific for what they would ever tell you. All right, good. I’ve been in press conferences with him. If you get more than three sentences, you’ve done a good job. This is true. Uh, we do feel good about the group of guys we have. Not only the guys returning, but about the guys we have at the upper levels of the miners. That’s it. That’s the real one. That is Chris Anthony from the 2020 or I’m sorry, 2015 winter meetings, believe it or not. Oh wow. I was going to say last year. No, it was 2015. That was way back. All right. So, we’ve explored possibilities across the field. Infield depth, outfield options, additional pitching. Our focus remains on finding the right fit rather than reacting to the pace of the market. We understand fans look for movement during the meetings. Yet, the reality is that most productive discussions from our perspective don’t lead to immediate headlines. What they do is help us define our evaluations so that when the situation does materialize, we know where we stand and what we’re comfortable doing. That’s AI. That’s AI. Yes. All right. Jeff is cooking with gas here. He’s three or four after the Oh, it’s again, they would never give you that much information and they’ll never talk about what the fans want. So, this is true. This is true. The fans um every day it’s literally hundreds of exchanges whether it’s meetings, phone calls, or text messages. I say that’s that one’s real. You sure that one’s real? I think so. Wow. Jeff is just cooking with gas here. He knows Chris Anthony better than his own wife and kids at this point. Honestly, I’ve been doing, you know, as much as people are like, “What what qualifications do you have for this podcast?” I’m like, I’ve been doing it for six years. Like, I’ve been listening to press conference. That’s the qualification. We listen, right? That’s literally uh one thing we do is try to say discipline. You trigger a lot of momentum. someone talked to someone and it creates that sense of urgency. Something’s happening. Our approach is to filter that out. If there’s a great opportunity that aligns with our values and our long-term goals, great. If not, we’re comfortable acknowledging that most productive decision is to do nothing and let the rumor mill tire itself out. It’s the first one I’m kind of going back and forth on for a while. I’ve been kind of doing rapid fire. I actually think that this is AI as well. I’m going to settle with AI. All right, Jeff. Jeff set that set the expectations low saying that uh he was not gonna get anything but he’s five to six now. I’d love to tell you that we’re on the verge of something but that would be news to us. I’m gonna say that one’s real. You think that’s Chris Antonetti? Yes. You were doing so good. That is not Chris Antinetti. That was Chris Ai Tonetti. Feels like one of those joke comments they would make in a press conference like to lead like someone asked a poor question like I’m not gonna say any names. We Justin and I could probably think of a few. There’s a lot of great people. Let me start by saying that there’s a lot of fant but it’s it’s a big group whenever anything like this happens and you’ll get some really out of left field questions. So there are some good ones. Yeah. Yeah. And and Chris, you know, he will throw some humor in there as well too which is what that kind of reminded me of. And it’s it’s usually pretty high class humor, too. So, it’s not insulting anybody, but it’s it’s poking a little bit of fun. Oh, yeah. All right, let’s go with the next one here. We are not in a position to just see, oh, let’s see how it goes, right? Because we feel like we’ve got a team that’s capable of competing. I’m Wait, I lost part of that. Can you repeat it? I’m sorry. We’re not in a position to just see. Let’s see how it goes, right? Because we feel like we’ve got a good team that’s capable of competing. Just the beginning of the wording feels awkward. So, I’m gonna say it’s AI. You’re gonna say it’s AI. Yeah. Ah, that was Chris Antonetti in 2022 saying that they felt like they had a team. That was winter of 2022. So, that was coming off of the division title run. You felt like they had a team that was capable of competing. Well, now I’m falling apart. You are falling apart. The last two have been bad. All right, we’ll wrap it up with these a couple more. Uh, I’ve gotten three texts since we’ve been here. We’ve talked to 22 23 teams. Maybe not necessarily about starting pitchers, but about some type of deal. I’m gonna say that one’s AI. I feel like it’s got too much specificity. I would I would agree with you, but that was Chris Antinetti in 2015 when everybody thought they were going to trade starting pitcher at the Winter Meetings. So, you never know. All right, this is the last one I’m going to ask. This is a two-parter, so let’s get this one out of the way. Um, it’s a work in progress. How do we position him, not gonna say a player, how do we position him and the team for success individually, making sure he’s prepared as possible when an opportunity is here to come up and contribute? And then on a team level, one of the things we continue to wrestle with is we look at our planning. What do we start to plan for him? We feel that it would be accelerate his readiness to transition into role. Is it fair to see that happening on opening day next year? I’m not sure. Is at some point during the season? Hopefully. When is hard to predict. It’s there’s some awkwardness in that one again that makes me want to say it’s not them. And then just the depth of detail. So, I’m going to say AI, but I’m probably wrong because I’m on a bad run. You are on a bad run. Wow. You’ve been on a bad note. That was Chris Antinetti. Was it last year? No, this was 2023. Who was he talking about? Do you know? I’m so bad at guess who he was talking about. What player? I’m guessing who would be set up opening day 23. Was it Quan? Nope. It would have been Bone Naylor. They were talking about Bone Naylor heading into the 2023 season. So, all right. Jeff officially went five of 10. He started off cold. He got hot and then he just lost it out of nowhere at the end. Yeah, he did. But you did pretty good. Let’s see. Let’s see why you didn’t Yeah. Let’s say you Well, you fail. It’s five out of 10. So, you fail. It’s baseball. It’s not failure in in in baseball. So, I guess you’re a Hall of Famer is what you’re saying at figuring out if Chris Antonetti said it or not. That’s fair. All right. Let us know how you did in the comments at home. If you were playing along on our game show this year, we do appreciate you uh hanging around with us on the show. Give pause to yourself. Uh, still ahead, we got to talk about the Guardians potential 2026 draft slots and what that could mean for the strategy coming up next. Winter meetings or any sort of meeting. If you need more Guardians baseball talk, hang around with us during the offseason. Follow Jeff at jeffl draft everywhere. Myself at JL baseball or JL baseball. You can also join the lockdown guardians insiders club as well. That is jointsubtex.comblocked onguardians. We’re texting with the community daily dropping news, rumors, anything we hear and we do mailbags which we’ll do this Thursday with our insiders as well as monthly video chats. Got to set that up and occasionally some bonus content. So come over and hang out with us there. And then next week we’ll have another great offer coming out for all the everydayers and the insiders who want to be part of the club. So all right, Jeeoff. So we did see a little bit of news. We you and I were talking about this off air yesterday in uh news broke today that the competitive balance picks are out. So Cleveland has the first competitive balance pick in the in comp a round which is great. Uh we don’t know how things hold with the lottery just yet but you want to go through I’ll give you some money and some you can give us players. I’ll give you some because I think the big deal here is how those slots affect the bonus pool. You know, I I think that’s I I went through the history and just kind of looked at like what was the money associated with that slot and how is that going to affect the overall pool because ultimately that’s going to affect how they proceed with those picks. Yeah. And it’s it’s actually pretty hard to find this data. And I know like I like I I like using Tankathon for just like seeing, you know, records and things like that, but when I was doing my mock and I did it successfully at Cleveland and 19 in my mock, you know, I went to a lot of places to figure out how you break it down. So, just to get explain all of this and how all this stuff breaks down, um let’s start with why they’re picking 19. Even though, you know, they have a higher um you know, win percentage than actually the teams picking after them have higher win percentages, but even though they were a division winner as opposed to other things because it’s it’s the record for based on kind of like your tier of spending. So, if you’re the small market team, Cincinnati and Cleveland are, you know, the team with the worst record picks higher. And then you have San Diego and Boston who both spend it at the higher rate. So, those two are mixed together next. Um, and then because the New York Mets are supposed to pick 17th, um, but if if the Mets win the lottery, which is a less than 1% chance, I think it’s like half a percent. If they jump into the top six picks, that’s winning the lottery. Um, if they manage to jump in those top six picks, and we have seen like the Twins had a massive jump last year. There’s been other examples like baseball’s had some weird lotto luck. Um, if they move in the top six, they’re safe and then their next pick, which them likely probably to sign someone who would cause them to lose their second rounder anyways. So, it’ be like their third rounder drops 10 spots. So, then all of a sudden the penalty to the Mets is is it’s a pendance, especially if they sign someone and lose that second rounder. But if the Mets don’t jump up in the draft, they’ll fall down to 27. Uh the other teams that drop are the Yankees, the Phillies, the Dodgers, and the Blue Jays. And since those four teams drop out of the top 30, we have a situation now where Cleveland has the top competitive A pick because you take those picks and it is just who best record. Cleveland had the best record, then the Royals, then everyone else. So, we have the PPI picks, one to Houston, one to um Atlanta, and then Cleveland would have the next pick unless Zach Allen signs for 50 million or more dollars because Arizona is the only team who gave a qualifying offer who is in the tax bracket where they would get a first round pick. Everyone else, it’s it’s like second round or fourth round basically. So, if Zack Allen gets a contract north of 50 million, then Cleveland would pick 30th. If Zack Allen doesn’t get a contract north of 30 million, uh, Cleveland would pick 19th or I’m sorry, pick 29th and they’ll pick 19th as long as the Mets don’t jump up in the lottery. So 19 feels very secure. 29 or 30 isn’t bad. On the other side of it, um, historical precedent, uh, when Cleveland picked one player at 30, that was Kevin Wikander. Uh, 20 was CC Sabathia, no one at 19, and then I don’t have it pulled up in front of me. I know Bo Naylor was 29. Uh Tom McMillan, a pitcher, was 29. And then there’s another hitter relatively recently, I believe, who’s 29. But I I I decided to to close a tab because that’s me and I like to close tabs. Um but for the history of the organization, they picked 29 three times. So it is kind of funny that that would be it. Uh greatest player taken at each one of those picks. By the way, let’s see. The uh Lonnie Chisel, forgot the one who’s had the most success from that pick. Uh, greatest 30th overall pick in terms of value you get is George Brat. I’m sorry, the 29th, 30th is Mike Schmidt. Uh, 19 is Roger Clemens. And the highest valued player ever taken 20th overall. Would help if I put a a zero instead of the letter O when I was trying to pull up that because I didn’t have that memorized. Was uh Mike Muy and I was CC behind him by a pretty significant bit. But yeah, um it’s a lot of good value. They haven’t had two picks in the top 30 that I can recall in, you know, a very very long time. Like basically last probably happened when you got the pick from the team that signed that player. What was what was their 2024 picks? They had the first overall pick and then uh well they picked Dowy in the 30s. I want to say he was like because since it’s a reverse order of how you do with those competitive picks and it’s like eight or nine teams that year they weren’t great. So they wouldn’t have had one of the top few selections and I think there was two PPI picks as well. So 34 or 31 and 36. Okay. One and 36. So yeah, I wasn’t I was off. Yeah. But yeah. So yeah, one and 36. That’s that’s a pretty that’s a pretty good set. But 19 and 29 or 19 and 30 will be pretty good. So like last year the 19th overall pick was Carson Bench who you and I loved. Uh you know things that was two years ago, wasn’t it? Oh yeah, you’re right. Because it would have been the 2025 draft. Sorry, that was 2024. I didn’t include 2025 date. I should have done that. Oops. I I goofed up on that one. 2024 19 overall pick was was Carson Benj. Um, I’m going have to look that up now. Well, I’m just trying to go through um and see the last time they had two. So, in 2014, they had the 21st and the 31st selection. Uh, Bradley Zimmer and Justice Sheffield. So, that’s the last time they had a similar thing to this, but to have two top 30 picks in the same draft uh is still something. Uh it looks like it would have been 2003 where they had 11 and 18. Um and it’s Michael Aubrey and Brad Schneider. Believe that’s Schneider pick was was a painful loss one wasn’t that was that Jim Tomy. So when they lost Tommy they had those two picks and it was worked out great. Worked out so good. I mean well last year last year at 19 was Ike Irish and that pick was valued at 4.42. 42 and he got the slot I think at 442. I’m sorry I see him didn’t get a little bit more. It felt like he slid for money. So I could be wrong. Yeah. So we’ll see. And then the the 29th pick value last year was uh 3 million. That was Patrick Forbes. I’m sorry. That was Yeah, 29 was was Patrick Forbes. So Arizona. Uh yeah, that was the was the 3 million overall pick. The year before the 29th pick was three was about 3 million too. Last year it was even 3 million. And two years ago it was 3.4 or 3.045. The 30th overall pick last year was Kaden Boddine and that was 3.11. 2024 that was a 2.9 million slot. Ironically enough that was Malcolm Moore. So two years in a row the 30th pick was a college catcher. So Guardians obviously are taking a college catcher this year. It’s a good year for catching depth. I’ll say that. Uh Von Likely, Cooper Tiny some guys. Yeah. Uh and then yeah last and then Carson Ben was 19th and 29 that was or 24 that was a $4.2 million slot and he got four million just a little bit under. Then the 29th overall pick that year was uh Slate Caldwell had three that pick was uh three million got a little over slot on that. The the important thing is for that too it’s not just those slot too it’s how much money gets added. So the difference in 2024, I don’t know the 2025 data, but 2024, the difference isn’t that great. So the Rangers picked 30th in 2024 and they had a slot value total bonus pool of $9.9 million. The Diamondbacks picked 29th that year and their pool was 11. So actually that was quite a big difference. But the Diamondbacks I think had an extra pick because of Corbin Carroll. Corbin Carroll PPI. Yeah. So that that also affected too the Mets drafting at 19. Like they only had a $9.5 million uh bonus pool because obviously they spent a lot of money so they didn’t have as many picks. So the bonus pool thing I I think is a big part here. 100%. Yeah. You’re not going to have like is there going to be a big drop off between 29th and 30th? No. But between 19th and those two spots, that gives you a pretty nice start of a bonus pool for next year. Probably gives you close to the overall value of like monetarily, I would guess, of like the 10th or 11th or 12th overall pick. Yeah. Like LA Well, if you just combine them, so like Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Combine them, you’re getting kind of maybe the spending money of a top 10 pick with them. Yeah. So 19 last year was 4.42 and then let’s just say 30. 30 last year was three million and 3.11 million. So yeah, that’s almost that’s almost $7 million right there over that’s more like an eighth or seventh or ninth overall. That was essentially that was essentially the seventh overall pick a year ago. Yeah. So you essentially have like top 10 pick power um in that range. You’re not going to quite get into the top five range, but the six through 10 is where you’re going to wind up with those picks. That’s big buying power for the Guardians. you want for them to have is to spread because they always spread it around. So, um that will be next week, the draft lottery will next week and then we’ll have an idea more free agents going off the board. We’ll have an idea of where the Guardians pick and we’ll keep you updated that all offseason long so you can be ready for that as well. If you have any more questions, feel free to let us know on that. I know some of our insiders were not 100% sure on what all that meant when I gave it to him today when it happened. Hopefully, we explained it a little bit better on today’s show, but if not, let us know if you have more questions. Jeff is good about answering those. Tomorrow, we’re back to trade talk Thursday, of course. Uh ESPN had an article on Tuesday talking about the trade percentages of players likely to be dealt this off season, including a Cleveland player and some players that could be Cleveland targets. Jeff and I’ll talk about those tomorrow and we’ll rank some of the trade targets that could be coming or going from Cleveland. So, come back for trade talk Thursday. Thank you for joining us as always. Appreciate it. Hit that thumbs up. Make a comment below. Uh let us know. Yep. Uh how did you do? Thank you all. And go go Guardians.

Can Cleveland Guardians fans expect fireworks at the MLB Winter Meetings, or just more front office mystery? Justin Lada and Jeff Ellis set expectations straight, discussing how the Guardians typically operate with a witty look back at winter meetings past.
We play our second annual game of “Who Said It?” “Chris Antonetti or Chris AI-tonetti” to the front office can be at the Winter Meetings. We wrap up the episode with analysis of the Guardians’ 2026 MLB Draft slots and how the 19th and 29th picks could impact their draft strategy.

04:15 Cleveland’s Past Winter Meetings News
07:04 Brendan Donovan Trade Speculation
15:02 Strategic Offseason Evaluation Focus
19:18 Planning Future Success Strategy
22:37 Mock Draft and Pick Dynamics
24:07 MLB Draft Penalty Impact
27:52 Top Draft Picks History at 19, 29

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