Thread: Josh Willingham trade value?

Originally Posted by twinswon1991

The rotation is fine????? They are worst in the league and were on record pace for futility a few days ago.

At this point all vets should be on the block and they should be building for 2015. Whether they win 40 or 75 games the next two years is meaningless if winning championships is the goal.

Exactly.
The could lose 100 games plus with Hammer, Span, Morneau, Mauer in the lineup. If you can't pitch, you can't win. What difference does Span and the Hammer make if you have the worst record in the league??

I hope the FO realizes it needs to get drastic in order to have any chance of contending in the next 3 or 4 or 5 years. I would love for them to make some forward thinking moves just once, rather than pretending they can piece together a contender with journeyman minor leaguers and washed up veterans. I HOPE they realize this....but I doubt they have the balls to think big enough.

I think trading Hammer would send such the wrong message to the fan base. Terry Ryan sold us that Willingham would produce equally as well as Cuddyer at a limited wage. So far he has surpassed Cuddyer in every offensive stat. So what is the point of trading him it is not like he is making crazy money. they only have 65 mil committed to 2013 so there is no need to trade him. Its like anytime the Twins get a good player some want to trade him. He is doing well so don't mess with that.

No, it's like this team is the worst team in baseball, and they have nothing in AAA or AA that looks like it is coming up and making a difference. Look at the FA pool for next year, and find me a 2B, SS, 3B, 3 starting pitchers....that they'll pay for and are good.

What message do you send the fan base if you don't make trades? That you are happy with a AAAA team? If you have another way to get talent into the system, other than trading players (and signing big time FAs just will not happen with the Pohlads and Ryan in charge), I'm all eyes.

I disagree with the concept that trading Willingham will send a bad message to the fan base. I think if the right kind of trade is made that it will send a positive message that the goal is to win a championship not just be mildly competitive to put fans in the seats.

Originally Posted by twinswon1991

At this point all vets should be on the block and they should be building for 2015. Whether they win 40 or 75 games the next two years is meaningless if winning championships is the goal.

The cynic and the realist in me says that "winning championships" is not the goal, at least not the true goal. The goal is to make money; baseball is a business, first and foremost. To do that, you need fans in the seats and ratings on TV. To get those, you have to win 40-45% of your games and you have to have players people like to watch. Purists will be happy to see the team blown up for the hope we can contend in 2015. The average fan isn't willing to wait that long for the Twins to be interesting. There has to be a balance between building for the future and putting a competitive team on the field today.

Originally Posted by sbknudson

The cynic and the realist in me says that "winning championships" is not the goal, at least not the true goal. The goal is to make money; baseball is a business, first and foremost. To do that, you need fans in the seats and ratings on TV. To get those, you have to win 40-45% of your games and you have to have players people like to watch. Purists will be happy to see the team blown up for the hope we can contend in 2015. The average fan isn't willing to wait that long for the Twins to be interesting. There has to be a balance between building for the future and putting a competitive team on the field today.

I don't disagree with this take at all. The thing is, the Average fan doesn't really understand A) How bad the situation really is B) How difficult it will be to get out of this box(pitching in particuliar) C) How meaningless it is to have decent veteran players on a team that loses 100 games.

This team needs to start thinking bigger, and the sooner they do that, the sooner we might be competetive again.

Originally Posted by sbknudson

The cynic and the realist in me says that "winning championships" is not the goal, at least not the true goal. The goal is to make money; baseball is a business, first and foremost. To do that, you need fans in the seats and ratings on TV. To get those, you have to win 40-45% of your games and you have to have players people like to watch. Purists will be happy to see the team blown up for the hope we can contend in 2015. The average fan isn't willing to wait that long for the Twins to be interesting. There has to be a balance between building for the future and putting a competitive team on the field today.

The owner's goal is to make money, for everybody else in the organization it is to win championships.

But is the situation really that desperate? Granted, starting pitching sucks on a historical level, but if one or two things go right that can bounce back quicker than people are thinking in a year or two. If either Diamond or Walters turns out to be a for-real back-end starter, if Gibson recovers well from TJ surgery (which happens more and more all the time), if we pick up 1 or 2 decent arms via free agency, the rotation is no longer a disaster - not where we'd like it, granted, but not a disaster.

And notice - over the last 22 games, the Twins are 11-11 - 500 ball. Are we going to contend this year? No. But I'm not assuming that 100 losses is a given. 90, probably, but not 100.

The people saying "trade Willingham now" are the same ones who will be back here a year from now whining about the fact the Twins have nobody who can hit the ball out of the ballpark. You don't get the best return in trades in May and when you DO trade, you trade from surplus, not from areas where you're already thin. Just saying, "there are a lot of outfielders" among the team's top prospects doesn't look deep enough. You need more than just 3-4 speedy glove-types who can't hit the damn ball out of the infield, much less over a fence. Willingham is signed for a reasonable amount for several years. You don't get in a hurry to trade away one of the few power hitters you have when it means you just have to go back in to the free agent market to buy ANOTHER power hitter, because you have none of them in your organization that are likely to be ready for the Big Leagues for 2-3 years.

Even IF an offer for Willingham comes through that's too good to pass up, it's not going to happen now. GMs don't get stupid until July.

This gets to a really interesting question of just how far to go. Because there is NO QUESTION that Willingham has value right now. That contract looks downright amazing to anyone looking for a right-handed slugger. There is real value there, and not jsut to teams looking to overspend. But yesterday in Grantland on his team rankings (http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...limbing-charts), Jonah Keri had an interesting note:

Twins fans don't need any more reminders of how bad this team has been. So let's try this: You can count the 1-3-4-5 combinations that have been better than Denard Span (.306/.362/.404), Joe Mauer (.306/.412/.422), Josh Willingham (.271/.399/.535), and Justin Morneau (.240/.304/.529) on one hand. All right, maybe two hands. Tops.
I can't tell if Keri is being facetious here, but I don't think he is, but the stats tell the story - this team still has a solid offensive core. And historically, as far as offense goes, THAT'S THE HARD PART. You might look at it and say that they just need to fill in the pieces offensively, and my gut feel is that is correct.

The problem is the other side. There is no starting pitching and there isn't going to be any really good starting pitching barring some miracles. And historically, as far as defense goes, THAT'S THE HARD PART. So do you tear down the half that we already are fortunate to have or do you gamble on the other side somehow coming together?

I suspect the consensus here is that it needs to be torn down, but that's almost always the easiest (and least interesting) choice in my opinion. One doesn't have to look any further than the Wolves or Gopher football team to realize that sometimes taking a couple steps back just means taking a couple of steps back. Or the Royals or Pirates to see how difficult it can be to build those two cores at the same time to become relevant again.

The Twins would take Bryce Harper for Willingham, right? OK no one would offer that much and the Twins would also accept less. So there is a line somewher where, above it, the Twins would accept a deal. This is true for every player on every team. Poorly managed and desperate teams tend to draw the lines in the wrong places. The Twins have misplayed their new stadium so far, imo. I hope they are not desperate but I hope they realize the size of the hole they are in. You have to be willing to part with players who are playing well as they are the only ones with value.

I doubt the Twins are seriously considering flipping Willingham. Whether or not it's even a good idea is debatable, and IMO I doubt ownership or management is ready to admit to themselves or the fan base that a total rebuild is necessary. Hell, I'm not sure it is...it's very possible if ownership was willing to spend the money they might be able to buy their way back into contention. The everyday lineup isn't that far away if they can keep the core together and healthy.

Originally Posted by Chance

Kind of have to agree with this. I liked the proposed topic because I really wasn't sure what I'd do. I sure don't want Willingham to go, I look forward to his at bats and you are locked in the whole plate appearance. But at the same time if a contender is willing to part with a top prospect and maybe a couple other talents with some upside I'd like the twins to make the trade.

And for those complaining about not wanting to watch a game without him since we are rebuilding then don't watch at all ever. This is baseball it happens when you arent a major market team live with it and enjoy watching prospects.

I was not referring to simply watching a game, just turn on the TV for that. I am referring to buying tickets to watch a game.
We just assume that hundreds of thousands of fans will continue to buy tickets and pay Big Market prices to see a bad product.
The Twins can still have a watchable product while they are rebuilding. Even bad teams have a few players who Fans come out to watch.
The Twins are not a Major Market Team, but they are also not a Small Market Team. (subject to change)

Originally Posted by Curt

The Twins would take Bryce Harper for Willingham, right? OK no one would offer that much and the Twins would also accept less. So there is a line somewher where, above it, the Twins would accept a deal. This is true for every player on every team. Poorly managed and desperate teams tend to draw the lines in the wrong places. The Twins have misplayed their new stadium so far, imo. I hope they are not desperate but I hope they realize the size of the hole they are in. You have to be willing to part with players who are playing well as they are the only ones with value.

Ideally the only way the Twins part with Willingham is if someone is willing to overpay at this point. The guy is a historically fast starter, he is 33 years old, he plays a below average defense at a corner OF position and he has 2.5 years left on his contract. As good as his numbers have been thus far, no team is going to give up a over the top prospect package for him.

Originally Posted by Highabove

I was not referring to simply watching a game, just turn on the TV for that. I referring to buying tickets to watch a game.
We just assume that hundreds of thousands of fans will continue to buy tickets and pay Big Market prices to see a bad product.
The Twins can still put out a watchable product while they are rebuilding. Even bad teams have a few players who Fans come out to watch.
The Twins are not a Small Market Team ether. (subject to change)

This is spot on. "Don't watch" is about the least insightful response I can imagine. The Twins are in the entertainment business, competing for disposable income. If you seriously think that fewer fans in TF and fewer eyeballs watching FSN is any kind of way to improve the team, or something that ownership/management isn't concerned about, your opinion is seriously flawed.

Does anyone know how long this team had been looking for a RH power hitter before this year? The answer is forever. I don't think Willingham get moved this year unless the Twins get back major league ready starting pitching prospects and that is very unlikely. Either way, the lineup is and will continue to be irrelevent when it comes to winning if this rotation does not improve dramatically. Remember the Rangers before they loaded up with pitching? They scored tons of runs, but were never a contender. A winning organization always starts with pitching. Terry Ryan knows this and will consider any option available to improve the Twins staff. The only "untouchable" player on this team is Mauer and that's only because no GM would touch his contract.

Originally Posted by USAFChief

This is spot on. "Don't watch" is about the least insightful response I can imagine. The Twins are in the entertainment business, competing for disposable income. If you seriously think that fewer fans in TF and fewer eyeballs watching FSN is any kind of way to improve the team, or something that ownership/management isn't concerned about, your opinion is seriously flawed.

It's a fine line, however. You're right that fans who want the team to eventually improve need to continue supporting it with their eyeballs and their wallets. That said, if everyone does that, it would mean near-sellouts regardless of the quality of the play on the field. That would send the message to ownership that it really doesn't matter how good the talent is or how competitive the team is because people will buy tickets, regardless. There has to be a mix of both... ownership needs to know there ARE consequences to them for not putting a quality product on the field. And fans have to understand that there will be good and bad years and you don't just turn your back on the team when things take a downward turn for a year or two.

Originally Posted by USAFChief

I doubt the Twins are seriously considering flipping Willingham. Whether or not it's even a good idea is debatable, and IMO I doubt ownership or management is ready to admit to themselves or the fan base that a total rebuild is necessary. Hell, I'm not sure it is...it's very possible if ownership was willing to spend the money they might be able to buy their way back into contention. The everyday lineup isn't that far away if they can keep the core together and healthy.

When has this organization EVER payed for high-end free agents? I mean....EVER? They have not and they never will. If you are waiting for them to hold onto all of the vets and then go out and "buy their way back into contention" you are waiting for something that has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. Like Delmon Young walking or Nick Blackburn striking someone out. It just doesn't happen. That's no solution.

Look at the history of this organization and look at Terry Ryan's track record and then tell me how they Twins front office is going to address their needs. Deal in reality a little bit.

Unless they get blown away with an offer which i doubt then they should just keep him. He's already 33 and although VERY affordable you won't get a top of the rotation prospect for him...teams just don't give those types. Next deadline or winter of 2013 if he's still producing then I can see a trade.

It seems that the people who want to hold onto Willingham are thrilled that he is exceeding expectations. So than does that mean he should be traded after he has come back to earth when his value is down and the Twins would get less for him? The next couple of years do not look to be bright so the negativity is going to follow regardless of having a possible 30 HR LF. When was the last time someone said they were happy that the Twins held onto Marty Cordova after two strong first seasons despite the fact that the Twins were in the middle of desperate rebuild mode? A better example would be established star Chuck Knoblauch. Fans were up in arms about trading him away despite the fact that they had just completed their fifth losing season in a row, yet it turned out to be a great move for the Twins and no one's complaining now. Knoblauch was a career Twin who was a big part of the last World Series team. Willingham has been here two months. Fans would get over it.