My conversation with author, broadcaster, and podcaster Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, who is known around industry circles as a versatile and multi-talented force; he’s written and published The Baseball Thesaurus, is the radio voice of The Lansing Lugnuts, and hosts the Around The Nest Podcast.

We discussed his candid take on the Josh Donaldson saga, how the front office was at cross purposes from the start, on the perception of player value when it came to Mark Shapiro’s plan for contending and rebuilding, if an $18 million dollar qualifying offer would have solved everything, whether or not Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez can make this team competitive in 2019, if the claims of having the third best farm system in organized baseball will minimize the pain of transition, his rookie projections for under-the-radar names, if Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki are the cavalry or the fallout, and how Vlad Guerrero Jr. will stop attendance bleeding and keep the team from descending into irrelevancy.

Be sure to follow Jesse (@jgoldstrass) on social media and check out his website at jessegoldbergstrassler.com.