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Grant & Danny debate the Nats' chances to try and sign Foster Griffin. Is there a real possibility he's traded at the deadline.
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00:00Foster Griffin was incredible again yesterday.
00:03Another seven-inning outing.
00:05Another start where he allowed one or fewer runs.
00:09That's eight straight starts for him where he's allowed exactly one run.
00:13But that's something no Nationals pitcher has ever done before.
00:16His ERA for the season, 2.68.
00:19And he had one really bad outing against the Reds where he got charged nine earned runs.
00:24You take that out of the equation, his ERA is down barely over two,
00:27and it's one of the best in the entire sport.
00:29It's top three in Major League Baseball.
00:32This is a guy that was in Japan for three years who's a rookie 30-year-old,
00:35but in a quirky situation is also in a contract year.
00:39About to be 31, is going to be a free agent at the end of the year.
00:43And he is the most interesting name all of a sudden at this deadline
00:46as to what are the Nats going to do.
00:48There's very few arms available.
00:50A guy like Tarek Skubal is no longer getting traded.
00:52Some of the teams that it looked like they might sell that had starting pitching,
00:55like Boston with Sonny Gray, no longer going to be trading those players.
01:00So there's a chance Foster Griffin is the number one or number two pitcher available on the trade market.
01:05If Paul Toboni decides to put him on the block,
01:07you might get 157 cents on the dollar or something like that for Foster Griffin
01:13just based on it being a real seller's market.
01:16And if that's the case, it's going to make it hard for Toboni not to dangle him.
01:21But at the same time, why wouldn't you try to extend this guy for multiple years right now?
01:25So again, it's always so hard to predict trade markets.
01:28And I don't have many good skills, and that's definitely not one of them.
01:31I'm always bad at kind of determining.
01:32But my guess is looking at 30-year-old rookie Foster Griffin,
01:37my guess is the greatest value he's going to have is going to be right here with the Nats.
01:41I don't know that you'd get the kind of haul that you would get for Mackenzie Gore
01:45or that you got for Mackenzie Gore rather,
01:47or some of the other dudes that are out there on the market.
01:50It's probably closer to, you know, I don't know,
01:53mid-level starting pitcher guy that's going to be sort of a back end of a rotation.
01:57And it's, you know, an A-ball Allen or, you know,
02:00a sort of borderline big looker that's not going to help you that much.
02:03I mean, to me, this is extension time.
02:04Now, somebody could come in and blow you away.
02:06Someone could go, this is exactly what we need.
02:08We see pitchability here.
02:09We see this not being just a flash in the pan.
02:11We want to trade for him and also extend him, get three more years of this,
02:15and we're willing to win a bidding war.
02:17Maybe that happens.
02:17Maybe it doesn't.
02:18But to me, I think the best course is a Foster Griffin extension
02:22because they've made beautiful music here.
02:25He and this pitching, coaching staff rather, have gotten on famously.
02:29They have figured out how to maximize him.
02:31Every time you think, okay, that meltdown in Cincinnati was early enough in the year
02:35where you go, okay, the league's seen him.
02:38Here comes the regression.
02:39Except there's no regression.
02:41It's not.
02:42He's getting better as he goes.
02:43The more the league season, the more film there is,
02:45nobody can figure it out because he's a different pitcher every time through the order.
02:49I mean, you saw in the All-Star game.
02:51Is that the most electric changeup I've ever seen him throw two different times for punch-outs?
02:55I don't remember that really being the thing.
02:57It is now.
02:57Back-to-back strikeouts in a 1-2-3 inning in the All-Star game.
03:01By the way, 117 innings of work, just 94 hits.
03:06Dominant.
03:07Tells you the story.
03:082-15 average against for him, throwing his seven pitches.
03:11And his swings and misses, his strikeouts have gone up, too, as the year has gone on.
03:15He's basically a strikeout per inning guy.
03:17111 Ks in 117 innings.
03:20Not a guy with a fastball that sits at 91 that you'd anticipate being a big-time strikeout volume swing
03:26-and-miss guy
03:27because fastball velocity is like ninth percentile, I think it is, in baseball.
03:31But he is a groundball machine.
03:33He doesn't walk anybody.
03:35All seven pitches in any count.
03:37And a few of those pitches, the way his fastball plays, the way his sweeper is played,
03:42certainly that changeup batting average against, just some really, really good numbers.
03:46The cutter is awesome.
03:47The one pitch that's gotten hit pretty hard is the one he uses the least of the seven,
03:50which is his curveball this season.
03:53But he's thrown all seven of his pitches at least 100 times.
03:56Most of them he throws at least 10% of the time.
03:58I mean, it's a real, legit seven-pitch mix for him, which is so rare.
04:03But here's the question.
04:04We always talk about this when it comes to re-signing guys with the Nationals.
04:08Normally it's some superstar bat, like a James Wood or a C.J. Abrams.
04:11It does take two to tango.
04:14Would he be willing to do an extension right now?
04:17I perceive him to be happy-to-be-here guy.
04:20You were in Japan a year ago.
04:22You got a young wife and a couple young kids,
04:25and you probably just want to set up your roots
04:28and you've been really good in baseball at the big league level for three months
04:33and you throw 91 and you're 31 years old soon.
04:36Of course you would take $45 million on a three-year deal.
04:39Why would you say no to that?
04:40I really believe that he would say yes to 3-45.
04:43I need to find out if he would.
04:45Exactly.
04:45Don't you?
04:46What about 3-36?
04:47What about 3-30?
04:48I don't know.
04:49Where is the line there?
04:50I'm not sure.
04:51But would he say yes, or is he, do you think, like most guys,
04:55when you're this close to the free agency,
04:58even if you're not a Boris guy, you might just shut it down.
05:01Think about what Rendon told us years ago,
05:03sitting at the Nats Youth Academy.
05:06Why would I shop at one car lot when I could shop at a lot of car lots
05:10for my dream car?
05:11This is the only chance Foster Griffin will ever get at free agency.
05:14So maybe by hitting the market,
05:16he might get an extra $10 or $12 or $15 million.
05:19Big, big difference to set up his family forever.
05:21Sure.
05:22Maybe he wants to do that.
05:23I guess my point is just they should do everything they can to resign him.
05:27And if you can't,
05:29now we can have a conversation in the final day ahead of the deadline
05:32about trading him possibly.
05:33But I need you to go to the end of the earth to try to resign him
05:37at a reasonable rate,
05:38which would be as much as $15, $17 million a year.
05:41Yeah, that's where I'm at.
05:41And again, I don't know.
05:44If there's some sort of godfather offer that's waiting out there right now,
05:47maybe that's your best interest to take it.
05:49Again, I don't know exactly what that would look like.
05:51But to me, you finally got the lightning in a bottle situation.
05:57Very rare that it has happened here over the years.
05:59The completely unexpected, nobody saw this coming,
06:03all-star, out of nowhere, what are you going to do with it?
06:06The best case, probably, is a below market rate
06:10that is going to continue to play for you for the next couple of seasons.
06:13And you've got an unexpected anchor on your pitching staff
06:15where there really aren't any.
06:17It's a bunch of Trevor Williamses, some part-time Peters.
06:19You hope Josiah Gray comes back and is worth something
06:22after he's recovered from Tommy John surgery.
06:25You don't have a lot of long-term answers.
06:27Kate Cavalli only has a couple years left, I think, of arbitration
06:30just because of how his service clock has gone.
06:32You don't have much here.
06:34And you're going to kind of be doing piecemeal for a while.
06:36Well, that's one less piece you've got to figure out
06:38in your starting rotation,
06:38which is a weakness for you at this point.
06:41But there's your anchor all of a sudden, right?
06:43Worst-case scenario, he regresses some.
06:45I mean, his fielding independent pitching is right around four.
06:48You wouldn't take that for three years?
06:50And, you know, 12, 13 million bucks?
06:51A guy that's going to throw well over 200 innings
06:54and end up with around a four ERA?
06:56You could do an awful lot worse at that rate
06:59in the big leagues at this point.
07:00So, I mean, to me, they should be trying to sign him.
07:02I don't know what the status of that is.
07:03I'm hoping that there's been an update since, you know,
07:06no overtures have been made to this point.
07:07But this should be what they're doing in earnest.
07:09And then they've got to find that if they can't,
07:11then it's, okay, what can we get in trade?
07:13Let's salvage something.
07:14Let's turn a profit here on a guy that we spent nothing on
07:16that the hard work was the scouting part
07:19to bring him over here, right?
07:20You could turn a profit.
07:22I want to open up the phones to Nats fans
07:24at 800-636-1067.
07:26How demoralizing would it be if they trade Foster Griffin?
07:30I think there's a very, very legit possibility
07:32he gets traded.
07:34Percentage right now, do you think?
07:36Because I think I'm probably lower than you.
07:40This is going to annoy a lot of people.
07:42Oh, no.
07:42I think the chance he gets traded is better than 50%.
07:45Like how much better?
07:4755?
07:47I would say 55-60% right now.
07:51Okay.
07:51That Griffin gets traded.
07:53Oh, no.
07:54Yeah.
07:54I hear you, Frank.
07:55Here's why.
07:56Why are you higher than I am?
07:59He is going to be the second best or best starting pitcher on the market.
08:05All the other starters that we've talked about all of the first half of the year
08:09for the most part are on surging teams.
08:11Think Detroit.
08:12Think Boston.
08:13Think Baltimore.
08:14Some of these other clubs where they just extended a starter, by the way.
08:18He's owed $1.5 million after the trade deadline.
08:24That's it.
08:25So if you're a contender and you can pay $1.5 million to add an impact starting pitcher
08:31who could completely change your chances of winning a division series or a league championship
08:35series and all it costs you.
08:37Normally, you're taking on more significant money than that in addition to the prospects
08:42is some minor league players and you're a contender like the Yankees or whoever it
08:47is, Boston.
08:47Pick your team.
08:49They don't really need an arm, but I think he's going to be a massive asset.
08:54The better question would be, I guess, do the Nationals want to punt if they're a playoff
09:01contender and over .500?
09:02But unless something changes in the next two weeks, you're on the very fringe of playoff
09:07contention.
09:09Your chance of making it right now analytically, I haven't seen the numbers, but I would still
09:13guess as well under 10%.
09:15The number of teams that are in the hunt, the fact that you're sitting at .500 on the
09:19nose, it's not like they're 8 over .500.
09:21They're the Cardinals of 5 over .500 or something.
09:23They've literally lost as much as they've won this year while hitting at a rate that no
09:27one else in the sport does.
09:29So if you're Taboni, you're going, we are a playoff contender kind of in name, but we're
09:35not really a playoff team.
09:38And one of the things he said to me on SiriusXM radio yesterday, and I'm talking about Paul
09:42Taboni, was he thinks the Dodgers have always done a really good job playing the market, striking
09:48while the iron's hot.
09:49When something's light or something's heavy, okay, we won't trade this guy now.
09:53We'll trade this guy.
09:54I just think it's the stock market in a sense.
09:57And he knows he's got a thing that nobody else really has.
10:00Especially if Scooble stays home in Detroit, it's like, who's the best impact pitcher on
10:04the marketplace?
10:05It might be him.
10:06Because the other names are guys like Reed Detmers for the Angels.
10:10Yeah.
10:11There's something to that, Grant.
10:12What team needs a starting pitcher the most at the deadline, would you say?
10:18Because I just want to kind of workshop what a deal could even look like.
10:21Yeah.
10:22Like, I'm thinking the Atlanta Braves in the division, okay?
10:25Makes sense.
10:26Really use a starter.
10:27The Twins aren't a real contender.
10:28The Blue Jays aren't a real contender.
10:30I'll give you one.
10:31The White Sox are the answer.
10:32There you go.
10:33All right.
10:33So the White Sox have, they're like the Nats, but in a worse division, in a worse league,
10:38and they look like they're actually going to win their division or make the playoffs,
10:41right?
10:43If the White Sox were willing to give you a prospect that they shouldn't for Foster Griffin,
10:47typically, like a Hagan Smith, I don't think they would, but I'm just making this up.
10:53Who's their best lefty prospect?
10:55Who's, you know, was a top five pick a couple years ago?
10:58Or the shortstop they just drafted, who's 19 and in single A, Billy Carlson at Akrona
11:03High School.
11:07The third best arm in their system or something, because they're giving you $125 on the dollar
11:13because six teams want Foster Griffin because there's not another Foster Griffin.
11:16And normally, you know, you would get nothing like this for this player.
11:19And maybe you think he's going to eventually regress, right?
11:22Like, you just said, his FIP is almost a run and a half better.
11:26Yep.
11:27Or worse, I should say, than his turn run average, meaning he's kind of going to eventually
11:32cool back off.
11:33Like, this is the ultimate, this is what they did for a couple years.
11:35It's the ultimate win.
11:36You signed this guy for nothing.
11:38You brought him over for Japan with no expectations.
11:41You're accidentally 50 and 50, and now you flip him, and you do really well on that return?
11:47That's the whole point of the rebuild.
11:49That's brilliant.
11:49That's good business.
11:50Now, I say that, and I have to add, though, all I care about is that they do everything
11:55they can to extend him first, is my point.
11:58If they're just behind the scenes...
12:00Yeah, I want to be presented with options.
12:01We could sign him at this, or we could get this haul from the Cubs, for example.
12:04And this is what I don't know.
12:05And how do we ever find this out?
12:07Yeah.
12:07Did they actually try to re-sign him?
12:09There's a huge difference between trading him in the last hour of the trade deadline
12:13to the White Sox and getting a hell of a prospect, because he wasn't willing...
12:17He turned down three years and, you know, $48 million or whatever at 16 per.
12:23And ownership signed off on it, and you really wanted to make him a mid-rotation starter for
12:27the contending team you're going to have next year, because you're pretty close.
12:30Big, big difference between that, and they never tried to sign him because either ownership
12:35said, we're not giving you $16 million per year for this guy, and we're not paying
12:38anybody, because the lockout's coming, and we don't do that.
12:41We don't spend money.
12:41Remember, we're the Brewers.
12:43We're the A's.
12:44So just draft and develop.
12:45Or maybe, you know, the other side of that could be Tiponi and his staff just say, we
12:49don't want to pay this guy.
12:50We don't really see him.
12:51Right, they go, he's a four-fifth guy, and this is fun, but let's sell it a profit.
12:54Yeah.
12:54I would be...
12:55Like, neither of those work for me.
12:57They are in a place where it is time to keep one of the guys that you get right.
13:01And I think it would be just such a kick to the stomach of the fan base to trade him.
13:06It's not why they shouldn't do it.
13:07They shouldn't care what the fan base thinks.
13:09I'm just acknowledging another part of this is...
13:11Uh-huh.
13:11It's another dimension.
13:11It's a kick to the...
13:12In the clubhouse, it's a terrible thing.
13:15Now, they don't have to care about that, but go to James Wood and C.J. Abrams and the
13:18number one offense in the sport and tell them, hey, the only guy that was really consistent
13:22at all in our rotation...
13:23You know that guy?
13:23We just got rid of him.
13:24So, keep trying to win, though.
13:25I'll pat you on the back and tell you we're not giving up, but we just traded Foster Griffin.
13:29Yeah, it is...
13:30They better try to re-sign him.
13:32If they can't re-sign him and they trade him, fine.
13:34But if there's no attempt to re-sign him, then it's just business as it's always been,
13:38and that's infuriating.
13:39But is there an offer that's great enough where you go, you know what?
13:43This is too good to ignore.
13:44Because that's what I'm arguing.
13:46It may not be reasonable, but just play that out.
13:48In other words, you've got the idea, hey, we're going to approach Foster Griffin.
13:52We're going to see if they'll sign up.
13:53Again, we're making these numbers up.
13:54Three years, $39 million maybe with an option for year three where it could earn as much as $15
13:59or $16 million.
14:00Fine.
14:00But just call it $3 and $39.
14:02We were going to go to him with that and see if he would sign it, but we just got...
14:05Again, I mentioned the Cubs.
14:06Their big market, their starting pitching ERA is a disaster.
14:10They have among the least amount of the starting pitching war of any contender.
14:13They're 7 over 500.
14:14If they were just decent in that area, they'd be 15 over 500.
14:17They think they can win.
14:18We're getting...
14:19Again, name that prospect.
14:21Name this potential knocking on the door big leaguer.
14:24You can get a haul that could not quite be Soto-like, but could be a...
14:29You're going to have to wait a year, but my God, look at what's going to come up to the
14:32major leagues.
14:33If it offers that good, does that trump the potential of, come on, another one's getting away?
14:39Or is there almost no realistic offer possible?
14:43That's a good question.
14:45Because I know exactly what you're saying.
14:46Yeah.
14:48I guess...
14:48Answer this for me.
14:50We find out three days from now, they've...
14:53It's not going to be that early because it's still two weeks out.
14:55Yep.
14:56They trade Foster Griffin, will you be annoyed?
15:01Because we're never really going to know the behind the scenes on what led up to it.
15:04Obviously, we want to know because it makes all the difference in the world.
15:07Yeah, it's everything.
15:08They trade him, and we have to just assume that the extension was not on the table, I guess.
15:15Or that it wasn't what it took to get it done.
15:17Because here's what I would need to know the distinction, even within that.
15:20Is this a...
15:22One of the points you brought up.
15:23Ownership going, no.
15:25No payment.
15:26Nobody.
15:27Or is this a front office who's really smart and has shown you they know what they're doing going,
15:34yeah, we can't believe this either.
15:35We're selling at a profit.
15:36You know what I mean?
15:36We don't care about giving him a bunch of money.
15:39This is the ultimate win.
15:40This was just a little bit of scouting elbow grease that got him over here.
15:43This is the greatest investment of all time.
15:46This is that I turned a dollar into a million bucks.
15:49This is the lottery ticket.
15:50This is why we're here doing this.
15:52Here's the problem I have.
15:52If I find that out, then I'm going, I'm not going to be mad.
15:54So here's the problem I have with that, okay?
15:57They are close enough to win next year.
15:59We know that now.
16:01I'm sorry it worked out that way, wanting to take three to five years or whatever, the slow build.
16:07This is what it is.
16:08James Wood's too good.
16:09As long as CJ Abrams is here, who now you probably aren't trading, but he's too good.
16:14Like, this offense is too excellent.
16:16You're now on the verge, and with a couple of additions on your pitching staff, you could be a wildcard
16:21playoff team next year.
16:23Why wouldn't you want this guy to be part of that, I guess, would be my question.
16:26And in a world where you still have him and Cade Cavalli, you're now a starting pitcher away.
16:32The other thing is, how do you get a Foster Griffin, or a guy that has pitched at his level,
16:36an all-star quality pitcher?
16:39They're not a draft-and-arm-early type team as it is, because of the data generally says bats.
16:44They also aren't an organization, over the last several years, that has spent any money on pitching whatsoever.
16:50Trevor Williams at $7 million a year is their biggest pitching acquisition they've made from a free agency standpoint.
16:57Where in the hell is my next Foster Griffin coming from?
17:00You get what I'm saying?
17:01I know exactly what you're saying.
17:02You have to draft him.
17:03It's not happening.
17:04It takes forever.
17:05Travis Sikora, who just started throwing again from a TJ, you're just hoping his arm doesn't fall off, developed.
17:10Harleen Susana, I mean, they don't ever say what's going on with him, but he never pitches, ever.
17:14Like, that guy, maybe, but these are pitchers who haven't done anything above AA, who have major arm question marks
17:23and red flags at this point.
17:25Where is my pitching coming from if I don't spend money on it, and if I'm not willing to draft
17:32it early, necessarily, which a lot of times the data analytics teams don't do that.
17:36You kind of have to hit on guys in the third, fourth, fifth round, what have you.
17:40So, I just think when you accidentally bump into a guy who could give you three decent years of starting
17:45pitching as a mid, you know, 3-4 starter.
17:48I'm not banking on him being an all-star ever again.
17:50I don't need him to have a 20-start stretch where he pitches to a 2-2.
17:53That's not what I'm talking about.
17:54I'm talking about paying him 15-ish, 12 to $15 million a year to be in the middle of my
17:58rotation with Cavalli.
17:59I'm a lot closer than resetting next offseason where I know you're not going out and spending 20-plus million
18:06dollars a year on an arm.
18:07Who are we kidding?
18:08You're not bringing in someone to give you what this guy's giving you.
18:11That's not happening.
18:12So, how, without Foster Griffin, where would they have been this year?
18:15How am I getting back here next year?
18:17Do you see what I'm saying?
18:18That's exactly what you're saying.
18:18You're taking a big step back, and there's no real reason to do so.
18:22But I can say at the same time, I understand the business of, you're telling me you're looking at the
18:29market as a brilliant executive, and Paul Taboni is exactly that, and he's going, if we have the number one
18:35pitcher on the market, and he's a guy that we've invested so little into, and we could get back way
18:40more than we ever dreamed of, we're insane not to do that.
18:43Yeah, if I can trade a guy that's going to end up with about four war for seven future, I'll
18:49do that.
18:49But, you know what I mean, I don't think he's getting back there again.
18:52How could you not?
18:53How could you not?
18:53800-636-1067.
18:55Your thoughts on Foster Griffin.
18:57Eight straight starts, one run or fewer, first time in Nats history, fresh off the All-Star game, and very
19:04much could be one of the most sought-after players at the trade deadline all of a sudden.
19:09Should the Nats be trying to extend him, though?
19:10That's the question on the Facebook page.
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