The Kings might be in trouble. Quick relies so heavily on athleticism and that doesn't always age well. Their core is getting old and the next wave doesn't look like it includes any potential franchise talent to replace them - maybe Vilardi but he has back issues.
Yeah that's where I stand. I really don't think he'll fetch us anything of value this off season. Seems like we'd get more out of keeping him as a veteran backup/mentor at least to start the year. Maybe at mid season there will be some catcher injuries around the league and that need might help us get a similar return to the Pearce deal. But in the off season when there are free agent options available, I just don't see a team offering enough to make it worthwhile from our side.
I guess my take is that I'm a lot more concerned with giving our top young talents like Jansen every advantage we can, more so than I am with adding another prospect or two in the 20-30 range where we already have more than enough depth.
Ritchie signs, leaving Nylander as the only RFA remaining. Can see the results of Ritchie's hard work this off season, he's dropped a lot of that baby fat.
The first part seems possible.
I don't agree with the other point at all though. The fact that he can also fill in at other positions is just a bonus. He's not going to get enough playing time at those positions to be stunting anyone's growth.
Reese McGuire is maybe the one prospect who would have their 2019 MLB playing time affected by Martin sticking around, but Jansen being mentored by Martin while McGuire plays every day in Buffalo is a much better situation than having two rookie catchers.
The only viable reason would be a team actually offering a prospect of notable value, which seems unlikely. Barring that, dumping him for the sake of dumping him does us no good. Keeping him as Jansen's backup this year could be greatly beneficial - a lot more beneficial than eating $16M to get a borderline top 30 prospect or something.
We only have one C prospect who we really should be concerned about blocking (Jansen), and he's not going to be blocked.
McGuire is fine starting in Buffallo, Maile is a low value backup at best. Having a great veteran presence to back up Jansen in his first full year is so much more important than whatever you think we accomplish by dumping Martin.
I'll never be convinced the Alford thing was more than him simply having forgotten to list him on his first ranking and shoving him at the end when someone brought it up.
Gibson, Rakell, Manson, Kase, Steel, Comtois were all taken with picks traded to Anaheim by Toronto. The best was the Leafs trading the two picks that ended up being Rakell and Gibson in order to move up a few slots to get Tyler Biggs.