VISIONARY: What POTENTIAL Cleveland Guardians See in Connor Brogdon | CHASING Guardians Trade Rumors

VISIONARY: What POTENTIAL Cleveland Guardians See in Connor Brogdon | CHASING Guardians Trade Rumors

The Guardians made their first move to address an area of need. If you’re asking who is Connor Brogdon or why him, tune in to find out what the Guardians see. You are Locked on Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the Locked On Podcast network. Your team every day. What’s going on? Guardians fans, thanks for hanging out with us for the next half hour. Unlocked on Guardians, the only daily podcast that covers your team every day from the majors, the minors, the draft and everything in between. Part of the Locked On Podcast network, now the number one sports podcast network. I’m Justin Latta, one of your two co hosts for the last three years and counting with my friend and co host Jeff ellis. I’ve spent 18 years covering the Guardians minor league system as a prospect writer and editor. And as you mentioned, I’m Jeff Ellis. I’ve been here since Lock on expanded into baseball. Before that, I was a national writer at Scout in 24 7, focused on prospects and the draft. I want to take a moment and thank you for tuning in to today’s show, making today’s episode your first listen today and every day wherever it is. The podcast a big shout out to all of our everydayers out there. I was trying to pull up a specific person who commented, I’ll give him a shout out after one of our other segments because I closed my tab as I want to do but well, I’ve got a shout out coming so we will get to that person later on in the show today. Yes, it was someone who was a Spotify listener who wanted to make sure he got a comment in. So the free agent market, it is moving and when will the trade market start and who are the Guardians connected to? It’s Trade Talk Thursday, so we’ll get into that later on today’s show. One of the Guardians trade targets is getting a lot of interest. You’re gonna debate if he’s no longer attainable to Cleveland later in today’s show. But we start today’s episode talking about the Guardians and what they are thinking. Signing reliever Connor Brogden. Today’s episode is brought to you by fanduel. If you want to get right in the middle of the action this season, visit fandom.com Place your NFL Live bets all season long. All right, so a lot of people I think are are wondering who is Connor Brogdon? Why him? And they’re looking at surface level stats, which you know is fair because those are the stats that tell you what happened. They tell you the results. They don’t tell you how it happened, they tell you what results happen. So that’s why a lot of people rely on things like ERA and wins and losses, I guess and all those sorts of things. Wins and losses we know especially for a reliever are garbage. But yeah, those are things that tell you what happened. They don’t tell you how they happened or why they happened, but they tell you what happened. But kind of brought a little background here. 31 years old. He was I believe, a 10th round pick. I don’t remember what year it was. I don’t have it pulled up 2017 because he was. Exactly. Because he went to Sam Clark. His college is Bo Mills and I know. So it’s exactly 10 years between them. So I know it was 2017. He was a 10th rounder in 2017 from Lewis and Clark State College. Okay, so he’ll be 31 in January. The guardians are giving him, according to Zach Meisel, a $900,000 major league deal. He does have two years of club control left. So he’ll make 900, 000 if he finishes the season with Cleveland in 2026. And then they’ll have the ability to go to arbitration with him or settle for 2027 if things go well. The thing is he hasn’t had a good season in the majors since 2022 and there are some things around that season that weren’t sustainable as Jeff will kind of tell you. What I will say as far as this signing goes is this is a beyond er in conventional stat signing. I know some people are going to say, well if you have to squint really hard to figure out the value here. I, I totally get what you’re saying and I think we should all, we should all acknowledge too. Talking about how that’s this is not exactly a move that’s going to replace the closer who will not be named. This is not a guy you’re. You’re expecting to be a high leverage arm or someone who’s gonna make a massive difference in the bullpen. At least not right now. This is more of a depth piece for the, for the bullpen. A guy that you’re probably gonna roll out in the sixth inning of a game whether you’re. When you’re probably losing. So it’s a specific role. I think the question here is like why is he getting a major league deal? So he went to Los Angeles to play with the Angels last year or Anaheim, let’s just call it Anaheim and he got a minor league deal for them. Wasn’t very Good on the surface. And he passed through waivers twice last season. So it’s really interesting that he got a major league deal, which I’m guessing that means Cleveland heard other teams were interested in him as a major league deal and that’s why they had to do what they did I guess to get him the things you can look at at least. I don’t want to say squint to see value, but to maybe understand where the guardians are coming from here. It’s, it’s a lot of things that teams are measuring these days. You know, Sarahs has been a big proponent of this, of not measuring by era and other kind of stuff. It’s an end, you know, fielding, independent pitching, which is strikeouts, walks, home runs, other stuff. Didn’t like him last year either, but he’s always been liked by stuff plus Models. Stuff plus models are basically like measuring velo, release point movement, spin rate, all those kind of things. And just like anything else, 100’s average, lower is worse, higher is better. Stuff plus models have always liked Connor Brock and he’s always had an above average fastball by stuff plus he’s always had a way above average change up. It’s his best pitch as craze. Cutter has always been like mediocre like in the, in the high 90s, throws hard so those things. And he has good extension on his delivery. He’s not as far out as Kate Smith, but he’s pretty close. So those are all the things Cleveland likes for him and those things are fine to me on a very low risk deal like this. For a guy like who’s barely making above the league minimum and you’re getting an extra year of control if things go well. So there’s only, not a lot of risk for them here. But I, I see the upside. My only thing is just like dedicating a 40 man spot to him, a 26 man spot because he’s out of options. And for a guy who passed through waivers last year twice and. Went to Anaheim on a minor league deal. So it’s kind of odd that that’s the way it went for them. But you know, I, I could see the pieces they’re looking at here. I think what you’re really asking here for Cleveland is to take these traits and that’s what, what a lot of teams are interested in these days is traits. It’s a lot of the stuff plus like you like the stuff, you like the extension, like the velocity. Can you improve the cutter? Can you help him with control? Is he healthy too? He said plantar fasciitis issues in the past. So like if you’re working on all those things, you could to bring something together to be a valuable depth reliever in that bullpen as a six sitting guy, it makes sense. You know, it’s. It’s interesting how you talk about the stuff plus because for as good as the stuff’s been, we also see him having negative values on a lot of his pitches last year still over on savant. So it’s, it’s kind of that whole, you know, you can see beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe they think there’s something they can fix. Maybe there’s something more to it. While you know, I’ll be very honest with everyone, I’m very non plussed by this edition. I. It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. But at the same time I have to be really honest. I was, I had the same exact feeling when they signed Ben Lively. I’m like, why bother? What’s the point? And that’s lifesaver for this team. It honestly was. I had similar feeling when they had Daniel De los Santos and that was another great one. Like bottom line, as much as like I look at it and I see a guy who really hasn’t been good since 2022 and some of his value in 2022 was more a little bit of luck based. The bottom line has to be this team has done a really good job rehabilitating pitchers. You know, Matt Festa, we, we saw more under the hood with Matt Festa. Like that’s why you and I were more bullish on that. Even some more results. Yeah, yeah. There was more data there to back it up. But it’s like even Kobe Allard, they got a career best year out of him. Like that is the best he has ever looked. Like they do have a good. And the reason he’s not here is because Kobe Allard and arbitration I think was gonna get 1.2. So this is still cheaper than that. Like the, the bottom line here is they’re really good at identifying traits for guys who have pitched at this level and they’re really good about knowing how and what to do. Maybe they do help him with that cutter. That’s been essentially a terrible pitch. He’s got the change up that he can spin that one well. The fastball, you know, in the change up I believe last year is a pitch he threw the most. Like he’s. He started to shift over and the fastball, it’s got velocity it’s got extension but doesn’t have anything else. So maybe they think there’s something they can do. I wouldn’t be shocked if like by the end of the year he ends up being a useful part of this team because this is the type of pitcher that they excel at. This is that guy on the fringes. You know, you go back beyond the guys I mentioned, the man ships, the oteros, you know, the Matt Albers. Like guys that they can target some traits and work on seem to, you know, have a career year or two here. So as much as I sit back and I go, well, I can look at the data, I can look at numbers and I can see some of why they like him. Doesn’t move me as much. What moves me is this team is really good at identifying fringe players and knowing how to help them. Like this is better than typically your Junas or Seawall. The Junas were great just because like they’ve had less success sometimes with the mid tier reliever than they have the low tier reliever. Yes, this is the kind of signing Cleveland has excelled with. A little bit more and I think there’s a little more ceiling here, possibly just because of the vlo, the extension and the change up if they can work on the cutter. The only, the only question really is a major league spot for him. I think it’s interesting. All right, we’ll give some final thoughts on Connor Brogden and is one of the Guardian’s most talked about trade candidates so far this offseason starting to slip out of reach? We will discuss next. The World cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994 with 48 teams for the first time ever. So it’s going to be a massive tournament. Let’s be honest, getting tickets, that’s going to be a really hard part. That’s why the Game time app is super clutch and it’s finally giving fans like you and I the real advantage when it comes to snaggy seats to any event. With Game Time, you can track price drops in real time. You can get alerts with great seats open. You can buy tickets the moment they’re on. The app puts the power back in your hands and it makes going to the World cup actually a possibility for you instead of impossible. It’s a great place to find good deals the last second. I’ve used game time before to buy concert tickets. 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So yeah, to wrap up things on a little bit on on Connor Brockton, it can’t be the only bullpen move, obviously. And doing this for 900, 000 shouldn’t preclude them from making another bullpen move. So I think that’s important to know too. We’re not talking about a guy who’s going to transform the bullpen. This is going to be a guy they’re hoping to fix. There’s one one other thing we forgot to talk about with this and I actually forgot to mention it before the show. There’s an interesting wrinkle with this which is kind of like what the Mets did with Richard Lovely, where they gave him more money. So a player like Brogdon, if they do decide to have him go through waivers, is it’s historically less likely to be claimed. This gives them kind of a back and forth ability too. So this what you may not be what people want to hear. You know, someone like Zach Kent, other guys like that who might be coming off roster, this kind of gives them some of those options back and gives them a little more overall depth, which is always a need. So. Sorry to interrupt, but I do we do have to mention that this could also be they gave him the right amount of money where listen, if he’s your, you know, your bonus bullpen arm, that’s great for this team. That gives you them depth they need. So. But yeah, it might preclude teams taking a risk on claiming him because they don’t want to get stuck with the bag, even though it’s a little bit. That can sometimes stop a lot of teams who just don’t want to pay more than the minimum for a guy who might only be there for a week or so. That is a good point because Brogdon does have three years of experience. So if he gets waived, he doesn’t have options. So if he does get waived, he could elect to be a free agent instead of go to the minor leagues. However, you have to have five years of experience or service time to claim all that money. So if he were to elect free agency when he got waived, he would forfeit all of his money in there, the rest of the owed money to. Him, which he’d never do. Exactly. So you’re right. That makes him more likely to go through waivers unclaimed even though he doesn’t have any options. So that is a good point to that. I mean, he’ll make it to spring training on the roster. I’m pretty sure we’ll see what happens to the rest of the off season. But Jeff, one of the names we’ve talked about ad nauseam on the show is Brendan Donovan. We know the Cardinals is open for business and they say they are not eager to trade Brendan Donovan, but would have to be blown away for an offer they can’t refuse. But everybody keeps saying that the interest is so high that it’s almost too likely to happen, even if they keep saying they don’t want to trade them. And they’re after blown away, which is all possible posturing statements anyway. But the report now is that the Mariners are interested in Brendan Donovan, the Pirates are interested, the Astros are interested, the Royals, obviously the Guardians and the Dodgers and Yankees were connected to him during the trade deadline last year. You seem to think this is going to push Cleveland out of reach for Brendan Donovan. Yeah, I, Sorry, I just got my headphones ripped down my ears there. But yeah, I, so here’s the, the main takeaways for me of Brendan Donovan is one, his flexibility means he really works for any team. Right. Like there’s not a team that doesn’t couldn’t use an upgrade either in the outfield or at second base or short. Yeah, I, I, I really would not want to look at him long term as a, as a shortstop, but I think like specifically like those two positions, you know, between the outfield and everything else, you can find a spot for him. And but here’s my concern which is I feel like a Jimenez is the last guy that they traded for that there was a multiple teams and a lot of heat around. They tend to, to get, you know, Fran Milrez was a little bit out of nowhere when they added him. Lean Thomas was expectation and they, they have not gone where, you know, Sean Murphy they tried for in a scrum and in multiple times were rebuffed. So you know, we know that they stick a hard price. There is no organization that probably prospects hugs as much as them. So I, I got to be honest, like, I think there’s a better chance maybe with a new bar than there is with the Donovan because I just, I don’t think when you have this many teams it is going to drive up the price. And I think, you know, they’re never going to trade for the hot name and the fact that like us and Zach and other places have like talked about him as like this ideal Cleveland guy means there’s no way it’s going to happen. We’ve never all been in agreeance and then that trade happens. Right. Like there’s never been that player that I can think of in recent memory. We’re all like this guy is the fit. So they always tend to go off the beaten path. There tends to be another place to go and they’re not gonna pay the high price. So I am, I’m not as I am bullish on the idea of it. I am just not bullish on it, you know. Yes. Of it occurring. It’s not to say they won’t make a move. I, I still think they will. But with their, when there’s this many teams and you know, the Mariners arguably have, you know, one of the best farm systems, if not best in baseball by just like, you know how many prospects they have in the top 100. You don’t want to get in bidding wars with a team like that. They’re gonna lose and it’s gonna, Whoever wins is gonna hurt them. Yeah. And the Dodgers obviously have a great farm system. Yeah. I mean, the Pirates have a good farm system in terms of young players, but I don’t know about depth there because obviously you’re not going to trade, you know, Connor Griffin or any of those guys, the top for him. The Astros farm system’s not good anymore. No. Is great. It’s not. So I, I think, like, I, I agree what you’re saying. Like, yes, based on precedent, this does seem like a situation like a Murphy or an Olsen, where they might get pushed out because of the, the whole amount of interest of the team. That being said, for me, in their. Last trade with the Cardinals. I thought Jose Fermin was a, was a free, a minor league free agent sign. No, they traded him for cash. I thought, okay, yeah, it’s been a while for sure. I mean, I went back and looked and it was like that or Mercado. Yeah. As you say, that was my number two is Mercado. Yeah. So it’s been a little bit for sure. But I do feel like there is pressure to add a hitter that’s going to help the lineup no matter what position or. I know people are going to say it’s got to be right handed hitter. This team just needs to upgrade an offensive spot anywhere they can. And that could be second base of the outfield, Brendan Donovan. And let’s be honest, free agency is not going to be their friend in this market. There’s not, you know, outside of like the Austin Hayes is or bringing back Elaine Thomas. Free agency is going to be a hard path for them to do it. They have the prospects to move. And does having Rob Cirfolio as the assistant GM in St. Louis, does that change anything? I don’t know. Like, obviously he’s, he’s the assistant GM to Heim Bloom. So like, is he gonna tell him that he likes certain prospects in the guardian system? Could that help them? I don’t know. That wasn’t the case, obviously with Murphy and Olson in, in Oakland. And the big thing here is your pieces just have to be. They have to like your players better than they like the Mariners, Pirates, Astros, worlds. Now the Mariners had a better system, the Dodgers have a better system. The rest of the names in this list do not have a better system than Cleveland. But we know teams aren’t really looking at rankings and depth. They’re looking at players and they’re looking at we like this trait better than this trait. We like this player better than this player. So they just have to like your players better than the other players that are being offered. So I still think there’s a possibility. It just depends on what St. Louis is looking for in this deal. It depends on what everybody else is offering, if they can beat it, which I know is what you’re saying is they likely won’t, but all you have to do is like a certain player. And that’s what happened to Cleveland with the Murphy trade, right? The. Yes, yes. Not a good player, but the Athletics liked him better. They probably would. They probably regret that trade now. But that’s what I’m saying. So maybe, maybe those other teams offer better players. Maybe, maybe the Cardinals say, well, we like Parker Messick way better than this Mariners pitching process. I don’t know. I’m just saying, like that’s, that could be how it goes. So I’m not giving up hope on Brendan Donovan. I am. I, I’m 100. I would be shocked. I, I would be absolutely shocked if it happened right now. They just don’t get the bidding wars and it’s bidding warface. They do like to set their value and they do like to not have to come out of that value. So that will make it interesting. And Rob Sir Folio knows that. So that could be a mark against them in negotiations. So let us know in the comments what you think, whether or not the Guardian is going to be in or out on Donovan. And if you’re holding on to hope, it is trade talk Thursday. I’ve got more trades to talk about. Who has the highest percentage chance of being traded this offseason, who doesn’t and who does make sense for the Guardians, according to insiders. We’ll talk about that next. NFL Sundays can move very fast. One big play and suddenly every game turns on a dime. That’s exactly what makes live betting with fandom so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. With fandom, you can place live bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight is the moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift. So if you’re watching a receiver go on a run, not not the Browns defense tightens up. We know that could be the Browns or momentum flips after a turnover. FanDuel lets you jump in to the moment Cavs lost on Wednesday. Things are not going well. I’d be careful with them right now. We do have Thursday Night Football with the Cowboys getting three from the Lions. The Browns are still getting three and a half from the Titans and you’ll be shocked. But Connor Brogdon did not increase the Guardian’s odds to win the American League. Still plus 1200 if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit FanDuel.com place your live NFL bets all season long. FanDuel the game moves fast and so can you. No matter how much snow is on the ground, no matter what the temperature is, we are always here for you. We’re like Joey Chandler and Ross that way. If you need more Guardians Baseball talk to warm you up during the winter, you can always follow Jeff and Jeff and will be draft everywhere myself at Jail Underscore Baseball and Jail Baseball on multiple social media platforms and you can check out the Lockdown Guardians Insiders club where we text daily with the community, drop news rumors, ask for mailbag questions as we’ll do tomorrow and monthly video chats which I’ve also got a schedule too. And we do provide some bonus content from time to time too. Joint subjects.com lockdown guardians and hey Insiders, we’ve got an exciting announcement coming your way next week for even more access to the show in the community. So stay tuned for that announcement coming next week. So ESPN had an article yesterday. It was I believe Jeff pass it and Kylie McDaniel. Yes and it was ranking the trade candidates this off season and giving him a percentage chance of likelihood of being traded. Let’s start with Stephen Kwan. They gave him a 25 chance to be traded but they also said executives think he’ll be will stay with the Guardians this winter. So I’m not really sure why it was that high but they say the fits were the Giants, the Pirates, the Mets, the Phillies, the Tigers and the Astros. Is there anybody of those teams that like makes sense to you? Like even if there was a chance to trade him to any and they didn’t mention the Dodgers which is odd. But yeah just do any of those teams make sense of a match? So what was that list again? A little bit slower. Giants, Pirates? Giants? No Pirates. No. Both teams need to add hitting. Mets. No. What are you gonna get? I mean there’s no right Philly. Philly doesn’t have any Tigers. Why would they train the Tigers? Tigers. That’s what I thought I heard. That’s what I wanted you to say. It’s long wait. Did they say The Tigers in there, that’s the dumbest thing. Have nothing. It’s a really bad minor league system in Houston. Like it’s, it’s really, really bad. I also don’t understand like why they would say the Astros, they’re looking for pitching. They’re looking to trade away hitting. So why, why would they. Yeah, they already have too many outfielders. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense to me. The Astros are already struggling with having too many outfielders and having a need for pitching. Here’s the thing. The, the article write up because I did read it was like, oh, you know, he’s probably not getting traded but hey, we should talk about him just. In case like 25 based on that. Yeah. And you know, they had percentages all over the place. But to me, like he was included as a. We should talk about. Yeah, people talk about so much. Like I, I don’t think he’s gonna get traded. Like yeah, I would be more surprised by a Stephen Kwan trade unless he has traded for like a Simarte. Well, no, like maybe not even a Brendan Donovan because they’re so similar. But like you and I talked about, like if there’s a way where you get trade for power. Like if you get a similar town. Like you know, I thought hitting not, not subtract. Yeah. Like if Taylor Warden had two years left with Cleveland needing a power hitter and the the Angels needing someone who’s left handed hitting, I could have seen that swap. For instance, two year WAR had one year left. Yeah. Yes. So Brendan Donovan was also on that list too. Just just to note he was given a 75% chance to be traded, which I agree with. The guardians were listed, but so were the Dodgers, the Mariners, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Pirates and the Royals. So that just again re. Re reaffirms that the market’s hot for him. Can I just say right now I haven’t had a chance to bring this up any other show. I like how the Pirates everywhere and I think, I think there’s going to be tinfoil hat time. I think with the potential of work stoppage coming up, I think Major League Baseball is pushing all the teamworks lockout. Sorry, a lockout. With the possibility of the lockout. Major League Baseball is going to really push teams to get close to that hundred million dollar area. Kind of make all the spending get higher to the floor to give them like hey, we’re already doing a spending floor. Basically. Like they’re having anyone below like that, that barrier where the players association could file a grievance is not going to be allowed this year. So I think we’re to see more teams go out and, and, and try to push themselves up. Yeah. To where Cleveland’s been and fake spending. Like the Athletics did last year was. Who by the way the best FIP on their team amongst their starters for all of his. All the struggles. That’s how bad pitching is. But the thing too with the Pirates is they also have a GM who’s kind of failed in his job since he’s been there. So. He has. But like their, their development has not got. You know, they’ve had a lot of high picks not work out. Now it looks like maybe they’ve had some that have. But like they rightfully should be in on some of these deals. You know, Donovan’s interesting, but it just, it comes down to God, he can play just about anywhere. So he, he makes sense. Everyone’s. Yeah. And second baseman in free agency that I can think of outside of like Bo Bashette, you know who’s shortstop, second base. Pick your position. Unless you’re at the top end of the spectrum, you’re not getting him. So he, Donovan is a guy who just makes sense to everyone. The other name on the list was C.J. abrams and he was connected to the Guardians on this list. They gave him a 35 chance to be traded. We’ve had some insiders text like what would be interested in him. I, I don’t see this one at all. Like there’s nothing in his profile. There’s one, there’s one offensive area of his profile that it doesn’t move the needle. But it’s like you can see where it comes from. He pulls the ball in the air very well. That’s what, that’s why he can hit 1819 home runs a year. Even though he has zero exit velocity, zero hard hit, zero bat speed, doesn’t barrel right. Nothing on his. Nothing. Nothing there. Bottom line, data wise. Except for that. But he’s also a God awful defender at shortstop. Yeah. Center field. And, and you don’t even know if center field’s going to work for him. And also just to point this out, this is a guy who got suspended last year. This is what I say. This is the bottom line. Point with it. Yes. He, he was suspended from the team or disciplined because he spent all night in a casino. Do you really think that’s the kind of player the Guardians are interested in? They can’t. Like C.J. abrams is literally someone they cannot add because of that. Like I can’t go out and add a guy who was like tired and late to a game because he spent all night gambling at a casino. Like this team, after what they did Last year, take C.J. abrams off the list. That’s not even a possibility. They’re not going to get anywhere near that at least. I mean he was doing something legal but they’re not going to be. Yes, no, they, they’re not going to be in 10ft of that. They wouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole. It’s that season. Right. You know the Grinch. Yes. They, they are also connected to Brandon Lau in this article. They gave him a 25 chance to be traded. I, look, I’ve been a fan of him in the past, but he’s got awful platoon splits. He’s not a good defender. He always gets hurt. He makes eleven and a half million for one year. I, I think I’ve kind of gone out on Brandon Lau at this point and again you’re gonna see similar themes here. Who are the fits? The Pirates, the Marlins, the Padres, the Giants, the Royals, the Guardians and the Mariners. Same teams. Because he doesn’t make a lot of money. Like that’s, let’s be very honest about. Too Like I think he makes too much money for, for his flaws. I mean, you know, I don’t know. He was. Here’s the thing, like he played 134 games. He’s played over 100 games last three years. Played 134 games last year. His, his WRC pluses 116, 123, 114. Like I’m still okay. It’s a weird profile because you know, he never walks. He strikes out a lot of. But he does things looking for, he gets into, he gets into power though. And they do need to find ways to get into some power. I was just kind of curious to look at his savant page. His savant page is crazy because he’s, he’s a terrible, terrible defender. He can’t run. Yeah, he, he whips. But here’s the thing. He’s, he’s what we’ve talked about. He has bat speed, hard hit and barrel. And you can learn he’s a one. That’s not a one trick pony. That is a, that is a profile to success. If you have back speed and barreling, you’re going to be successful as a hitter. And that’s why he’s a hitter. I’m more interested in Donovan and Kettle. Like I, I don’t want to move Travis Pizzana to the outfield for Brandon Lau. Like you want Bazan to be up this year. If you acquire Brandon Lao, that’s more complicated because with Brendan Donovan, you can move him another position. You can. And you can bring. That was a dh. If you’re acquiring Lyle, you just. You got to drop him at dh. He did. He was so bad working either because you still have Kyle Manzardo and Kiss and Fry. And I thought it was interesting that they also didn’t mention Marte for Cleveland. Like they gave him a 40 chance of being traded. I don’t think Cleveland would do that contract. I gotta be real honest. I don’t think they’d have interest in a contractor that has three years of 27 million plus like the way this team operates. Because you combine when him and Jose are together, that’s half your payroll. He’s my white whale. That’s. That’s. I just. I don’t. It just comes down to the money. Like him and Jose is half your payroll. Yeah. In those other names, I don’t think they can. Can. Can have a two guys having half the payroll type of situation. So I think. I think Marte might be a white whale, but I think he is as imaginary as a white whale is. Some other names that were on the list that weren’t linked to Cleveland. Jaren Duran, they gave him a 50% chance to be traded. It not a fit for Cleveland because again, they’re looking for high end pitching. Cleveland’s not going to trade that. Yeah. Same for Wyler Brayu. Yandy Diaz was there, but I don’t see how that fits Cleveland right now. And Wilson Contreras is on there. He has to no trade clause. And I think he also has some character concerns in the past. The Astros didn’t want him in the past because of some character issues. Just the owner was just the owner who didn’t. Yeah. And. But I mean, I don’t know. He’s. He’s been a bit of a goof in the past. And then real quickly, before we get out of here. Jesus. Sanchez wasn’t on the list. The Astros say they’re getting interest in him. Their GM said they’re open to inquiries on him. To me, the only way you do that deal is if it’s just Logan Allen for Sanchez straight up. Because they’re looking for pitching. And. And that’s as much as I would give up for Sanchez. Honestly, I think you should get. After the regression he had last year. I think you should get Sanchez and a piece. You should get at least. More years of control. But I’d be all about that as well. Buy low seems perfect time. Yeah. So I keep an eye on that name. If they’re getting interested him, see if Cleveland jumps in on that. There’s no teams listed there, but it sounds like multiple teams are interested. So same thing as Donovan, but less of a known commodity, I guess. And a few more warts. So tomorrow’s show we Mailbag Friday. So insiders, give us some questions for the Mailbag. We’re looking forward to hearing what you guys want to talk about ahead of the Winter Meetings happening next week. So I hope you enjoyed this talk on Trade Talk Thursday. And Connor Brogdon. And make sure we get those mailbag questions. Yep. As always, thank you for joining us. Remember, rate and review. It helps. And go, go Guardians.

The Cleveland Guardians made a somewhat eyebrow raising move, signing relief Connor Brogdon to a major league deal. Can Brogdon’s impressive changeup, velocity, and extension transform him into Cleveland’s next breakout arm, or is this just a depth move? Justin Lada and Jeff Ellis break down why the front office targeted Brogdon, weighing Stuff+ metrics and roster implications, while questioning whether dedicating a 40-man spot is worth the risk for a player who cleared waivers twice last season. We also see that Brendan Donovan is emerging as one of the hottest names on the market. The Guardians facing competition from the Mariners, Dodgers, and rival AL teams. Will Cleveland’s prospects be enough to land Donovan, or will the bidding war push him out of reach? We also dissect possible fits for Steven Kwan, debate the merits of targeting players like Brandon Lowe or Jesús Sánchez on Trade Talk Thursday heating up.

00:00 Guardians Sign Veteran to $900K
09:03 Team’s Success with Fringe Players
13:01 Roster Strategy and Depth Tactics
15:29 Brendan Donovan’s Versatility & Concerns
19:31 Trading Depends on Player Preference
27:35 C.J. Abrams Trade Speculation
31:33 Trade Speculations: Cleveland’s Exclusions

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