Throw in Prospects

[GMinTraining]

With the trade deadline approaching - What prospects do we have that would be good "Throw In" pieces to go along with Santana, Nolasco, etc.?

 

Who is worth departing with, and who isn't?  What trade value makes a "Throw In" prospects truly beneficial in the short / long term?  

 

What do you people truly hope to find in a trade that is worth the move? ............................

[jorgenswest]

The difficult part will be 40 man issues for the other team. Adding prospects that an acquiring will need to put on the 40 will not be as enticing since they would have to take someone off their own 40 to make room. The more valuable pieces are those that are not in the 40 (and don't have to be put on the 40 in the winter). Those pieces are really valuable to a rebuilding team also.

 

Roster issues are probably why not to many of these deals are made in July. Teams also are looking to fix a short term problem as cheaply as possible. They would not be interested in including better prospects for an extra lesser prospect. They will just look to another team

[Vanimal46]

When it comes to trading the higher priced veterans on this team, I'd prefer to eat a percentage of their salary and just be done with it. If there needs to be throw in prospects, I suppose someone in the 20-25 range for our organization?

[gunnarthor]

Polanco is an obvious throw in guy.  Top 100 prospect, out of options next year (I believe) might not be a short stop.  I guess it depends on what a "throw in" is.  If I was another team and I knew Santana (for example) was my main guy but I was trying to add a bit to the trade, I might try and snag a guy like Gonsalves or Vielma.  Neither are top 100 guys but one looks like he might be a solid back end LH starter and the other plays great defense.  Maybe aim for a strong bullpen arm like Chargois?  If I was hunting in the low minors, Landa, Cabbage or Jorge might be tempting.  I think it just sorta of depends on what the main trade part is and what the return is.  

 

If you're looking for a high ceiling guy who might be available you'd probably be looking at a guy with some warts - maybe Jermaine Palacios or Melotakis.  Or a rehab guy like Meyer.

[nicksaviking]

I don't think either Santana or Nolasco are good enough pitchers to bring back quality players, so the only reason the Twins would have to throw in prospects to trade either guy would be so they would have to eat less salary. As much of a burden as Santana's and Nolasco's contracts may be, their salaries should have no impact on spending going forward, the Twins should be adding no prospects to their trade packages to move them. If needed, the Twins just need to straight up eat the money.

 

God help Twins Daily if the Twins sacrifice prospects to save money on those two.

[wsnydes]

With the state of this franchise, throwing prospects into trade packages for expensive veterans would more misguided roster management.  They need those prospects to rebuild.  As others have stated, eating money on the expensive contracts is the way to go.  The idea should be trade the older veterans to acquire young talent.

 

The only real benefit that I can see to trading away prospects would be to get another prospect that plays a position of need within this organization.  Trade youth areas of depth for areas of need.  That's the only way that makes sense to package them with these veterans.

[Mike Sixel]

I'd consider throwing in Polanco, only because he is out of options, and they refuse to use him up here to find out what they have. I'd rather keep him, but we have such little information on his MLB future.....even though he is out of options.

[lukeduke1980]

I would think the amount of money thrown into a Nolasco or Santana trade will dictate the quality of prospect returned

[HitInAPinch]

Trading away pricey, non-performing, veterans and include a prospect of any kind is the stuff that'll get even a GMinTraining fired, as well as the GM on the other end of the deal for taking on those now inflated salaries. 

 

You eat some of those salaries to make those players look more "attractive".

[bird]

 

I don't think either Santana or Nolasco are good enough pitchers to bring back quality players, so the only reason the Twins would have to throw in prospects to trade either guy would be so they would have to eat less salary. As much of a burden Santana's and Nolasco's contracts may be, their salaries should have no impact on spending going forward, the Twins should be adding no prospects to their trade packages to move them. If needed, the Twins just need to straight up eat the money.

 

God help Twins Daily if the Twins sacrifice prospects to save money on those two.

 

 

Good post. I'm thinking that both Santana and Nolasco are "good enough" pitchers so that the discrepancy between what their contracts call for and what their contract value really is may be a smaller number than we think. I mean, what should Santana be paid right now?

 

I'll be unhappy with any trade where we accepted a lesser prospect because we wouldn't eat the difference between real value and contract value, for ANY player we move. These aren't big numbers in the scheme of things, even when factoring multiple years.

 

The larger issue, for me, is what we target in terms of prospects. The system is loaded with C prospects, who by definition are VERY highly unlikely to ever make a long-term, meaningful contribution to the big club. If I'm GM, and I should be, (kidding!) I'm shooting for prospects we grade as C+ and higher, which requires me to hunt the very low minors for gems. Prospects KLAW and Sickles haven't yet honed in on. I'm eating salary, and/or throwing in C prospects of my own, in an attempt to elevate the QUALITY in the system. We don't have a quantity problem here, and we don't have a salary dump need. We can afford to eat some contract obligation.

[wsnydes]

 

I would think the amount of money thrown into a Nolasco or Santana trade will dictate the quality of prospect returned

Agreed.  Since payroll should not be an issue for the next few years, eating a large portion of the those contracts shouldn't be an issue considering they were willing to pay them to begin with.  The object should be getting the best return possible and if that entails paying more for a guy you no longer have on your roster to get a better return, you do it.

[GMinTraining]

I'm trading a Santana and a C / C+ prospect for a B/B+ prospect that can help us within a year or two.  Look what the Braves got for Shelby Miller.  I want just 1 top prospect for my 2 players.  

 

Or I'm trading now for the 2017 success and obtaining Lucroy. I would make my 40 man concerns easier by getting rid of guys with option concerns like Polanco; Meyer; Vargas and throw in Zach Jones and Turner.  You are going to have to make decisions on all these guys anyway in a few months.  Trade them and get a big return.  Maybe you get your Will Smith as a bonus from their end.

[The Wise One]

 

I don't think either Santana or Nolasco are good enough pitchers to bring back quality players, so the only reason the Twins would have to throw in prospects to trade either guy would be so they would have to eat less salary. As much of a burden as Santana's and Nolasco's contracts may be, their salaries should have no impact on spending going forward, the Twins should be adding no prospects to their trade packages to move them. If needed, the Twins just need to straight up eat the money.

 

God help Twins Daily if the Twins sacrifice prospects to save money on those two.

Wrong. Look what Baltimore gave up for Feldman.

[The Wise One]

 

I'm trading a Santana and a C / C+ prospect for a B/B+ prospect that can help us within a year or two.  Look what the Braves got for Shelby Miller.  I want just 1 top prospect for my 2 players.  

 

Or I'm trading now for the 2017 success and obtaining Lucroy. I would make my 40 man concerns easier by getting rid of guys with option concerns like Polanco; Meyer; Vargas and throw in Zach Jones and Turner.  You are going to have to make decisions on all these guys anyway in a few months.  Trade them and get a big return.  Maybe you get your Will Smith as a bonus from their end.

Miller is centuries younger than Nolasco and Santana. . With 2 very good years and one sophomore slump Miller is worth more than Nolasco and Santana.

[The Wise One]

 

Good post. I'm thinking that both Santana and Nolasco are "good enough" pitchers so that the discrepancy between what their contracts call for and what their contract value really is may be a smaller number than we think. I mean, what should Santana be paid right now?

 

I'll be unhappy with any trade where we accepted a lesser prospect because we wouldn't eat the difference between real value and contract value, for ANY player we move. These aren't big numbers in the scheme of things, even when factoring multiple years.

 

The larger issue, for me, is what we target in terms of prospects. The system is loaded with C prospects, who by definition are VERY highly unlikely to ever make a long-term, meaningful contribution to the big club. If I'm GM, and I should be, (kidding!) I'm shooting for prospects we grade as C+ and higher, which requires me to hunt the very low minors for gems. Prospects KLAW and Sickles haven't yet honed in on. I'm eating salary, and/or throwing in C prospects of my own, in an attempt to elevate the QUALITY in the system. We don't have a quantity problem here, and we don't have a salary dump need. We can afford to eat some contract obligation.

Any system is loaded with C prospects.  There is no need to give them a c prospect to hope to get a b prospect. The trick is to find the mislabeled prospects. Almost all of those top 100 prospects from the Mets worked out rather poorly. those were all b or better prospects .   Getting B prospects, top 100, really doesn't mean so much.  Better to go gem shopping for a diamond in the rough and trust whatever version of moneyball is played.

[Blackjack]

 

 Better to go gem shopping for a diamond in the rough and trust whatever version of moneyball is played.

Thats what they did with Meyer and we can see how well that worked out!!

[jorgenswest]

Wrong. Look what Baltimore gave up for Feldman.

Baltimore gave up a 27 year old failed prospect with 63 starts in the majors with a 5.63 ERA and no good seasons. They also gave up a 28 year old reliever who did have a nice season at the back of the bullpen at age 27. He also was a waiver wire pick up after being dropped by the Rockies.

 

There is probably a 27 year old failed pitching prospect who hasn't pitched well In several years available. The Rangers have a few younger guys like Chi Chi Gonzales and Anthony Renaud. The Red Sox have Matt Barnes who would be seen as better since he has pitched well in relief. They also have Joe Kelly. Liam Hendriks might fit the description. He is 27 now. The Twins just need to find the Arrieta out of the dozens of others that won't turn it around. They then need to have the coaching to turn it around.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I'd half expect Santana to net something decent, especially if we threw in cash.  As for throw ins.. only way I'd do that is if it means getting a really top shelf guy.  If Pittsburg (just making this up, I have no idea what they need) was willing to trade Glasnow for example, but wanted something more than Nunez, I'd have no problem adding someone to make it work...

 

As for Polanco, I think it makes far more sense to trade Dozier who won't be around for much longer and keep Polanco than to trade Polanco for 2 more years and presumably a QO of BD.

[Seth Stohs]

 

With the trade deadline approaching - What prospects do we have that would be good "Throw In" pieces to go along with Santana, Nolasco, etc.?

 

Who is worth departing with, and who isn't?  What trade value makes a "Throw In" prospects truly beneficial in the short / long term?  

 

What do you people truly hope to find in a trade that is worth the move? ............................

 

The goal is to get back prospects in trades for veterans (along with ridding themselves of bad contracts, I guess)... But to me, it makes little sense to add a prospect that you think has a chance to ever being a regular position player or a starting pitcher or a high-end relief pitcher to a package just to get a guy you also hope will be one of those things. 

[bird]

 

Any system is loaded with C prospects.  There is no need to give them a c prospect to hope to get a b prospect. The trick is to find the mislabeled prospects. Almost all of those top 100 prospects from the Mets worked out rather poorly. those were all b or better prospects .   Getting B prospects, top 100, really doesn't mean so much.  Better to go gem shopping for a diamond in the rough and trust whatever version of moneyball is played.

 

 

I get your point but wonder if you missed mine. I'm talking about how the Twin's scouts grade a prospect out, so yes, they'd certainly be looking for "mislabeled" prospects. I don't care about BA's top 100 per se. The Twin's system has significantly more players that grade out as C or better than most systems. And I disagree with you, in that I think there is a massive difference, in general, between, say, the best 250 prospects in the minors and the next 500 who scouts might grade out as C prospects. And since every team knows this, we're talking about throw-in prospects when we get down to these next 500 guys.

[nicksaviking]

 

Wrong. Look what Baltimore gave up for Feldman.

 

In this scenario the Twins are the Cubs. The Cubs gave up Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger. If you're referring to Steve Clevenger as a prospect, well sure, I don't care if the Twins clear a 25-man spot by adding Danny Santana, who is probably the best Twins comp to Clevenger.

 

I wouldn't consider him a prospect though, and Santana is a better player than Clevenger, as bad as Santana has been.

[bird]

As a hypothetical trade with the Rangers, let's say they want Santana badly enough for 2016 to forever part with either one of two of their better pitching prospects: Luis Ortiz (BA #63) or Matuella, at one time thought to be a  contender to be drafted first overall, but plagued by injury.

 

How much of Santana's remaining contract would the Twins have to eat to make a trade for one of these two happen? I don't know, but I'll guess $7.5M. Now, if Texas needed the pot sweetened with a throw-in, would you give up Theofanopoulos? (Just wanted to see if I could get anyone to type this besides Seth).

[Mike Sixel]

 

As a hypothetical trade with the Rangers, let's say they want Santana badly enough for 2016 to forever part with either one of two of their better pitching prospects: Luis Ortiz (BA #63) or Matuella, at one time thought to be a  contender to be drafted first overall, but plagued by injury.

 

How much of Santana's remaining contract would the Twins have to eat to make a trade for one of these two happen? I don't know, but I'll guess $7.5M. Now, if Texas needed the pot sweetened with a throw-in, would you give up Theofanopoulos? (Just wanted to see if I could get anyone to type this besides Seth).

 

I would absolutely throw in a RP with Santana and a few million to get a legit SP prospect, yes. 100% yes. If this team was even mediocre, I'd think about keeping Santana around.....

[GMinTraining]

Send Santana to Dodgers for Chris Anderson (1st rounder and MN native)

[The Wise One]

 

Baltimore gave up a 27 year old failed prospect with 63 starts in the majors with a 5.63 ERA and no good seasons. They also gave up a 28 year old reliever who did have a nice season at the back of the bullpen at age 27. He also was a waiver wire pick up after being dropped by the Rockies.

There is probably a 27 year old failed pitching prospect who hasn't pitched well In several years available. The Rangers have a few younger guys like Chi Chi Gonzales and Anthony Renaud. The Red Sox have Matt Barnes who would be seen as better since he has pitched well in relief. They also have Joe Kelly. Liam Hendriks might fit the description. He is 27 now. The Twins just need to find the Arrieta out of the dozens of others that won't turn it around. They then need to have the coaching to turn it around.

Arrietta was never considered not to have front line starter pitcher. Failed, hardly . I would not disagree that the team needs better pitching coaches.  If anything changes over the winter it will be the pitching coaches. A few more failed young hitters and the hitting coaches in the system may change along with the pitching coaches.

[PseudoSABR]

Ugh. 

 

Throwing in a prospect would work against the Twins' desired ends for a number of reasons:

 

First, to a pennant-chasing team, that extra lower-grade prospect is virtually meaningless.  At best, it would serve to outweigh extra added cost of the contract (which *sigh* Twins).    

 

Second, if the trading-team had a better prospect it was willing to part with, it would seek a better pitcher than we have to offer.  Santana is a good asset, despite the word around hear, but he's not the game changer you give up a piece of the future (and that's what we seek in return, right?).

 

Third, these are prospects, we shouldn't give up our 'prospect' in addition to a valued tradeable asset, to obtain another 'prospect' whom is more highly regarded.  That's the strategy Delmon Young trades are made of. 

[jorgenswest]

Arrietta was never considered not to have front line starter pitcher. Failed, hardly . I would not disagree that the team needs better pitching coaches.  If anything changes over the winter it will be the pitching coaches. A few more failed young hitters and the hitting coaches in the system may change along with the pitching coaches.

From the day of the trade...

 

Arrieta was once a top prospect, but he’s been terrible in various big-league stints with a 5.46 ERA in 358 innings and is now 27 years old. Any notion of him developing into a top-of-the-rotation arm is probably long gone, but he may still be a useful starter or an interesting bullpen project.

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/07/02/cubs-trade-feldman-clevenger-to-orioles-for-arrieta-strop-and-bonus-money/

 

The Twins could look for a similar guy at 27 that was once a top prospect 3-4 years ago followed by no success over numerous opportunities. They can hope that a change of scenery will help. Maybe their scouts see something that the Twins coaching staff can fix.

 

What will be the reaction if the return is a 27 year with a 7.23 ERA before being sent to the minors even if he was the number 67 prospect 4 years ago?

 

The Twins picked up the 2012 number 76 prospect for free this year and were criticized.

[ashbury]

That's the strategy Delmon Young trades are made of. 

The strategy of not bothering to use state of the art methods for evaluating defense is what Delmon Young (plus don't forget Brendan Harris) trades are made of.

 

Multi-player trades with the aim of acquiring a higher-end player than one-for-one can bring about are still sound.

[clone52]

 

I don't think either Santana or Nolasco are good enough pitchers to bring back quality players, so the only reason the Twins would have to throw in prospects to trade either guy would be so they would have to eat less salary. As much of a burden as Santana's and Nolasco's contracts may be, their salaries should have no impact on spending going forward, the Twins should be adding no prospects to their trade packages to move them. If needed, the Twins just need to straight up eat the money.

 

God help Twins Daily if the Twins sacrifice prospects to save money on those two.

 

 

Santana and Nolasco aren't going to bring back top end prospects, but they could bring in young quality guys who aren't a sure thing.  Look at the Dan Heran or Mark Lowe trades last year.  Those pitchers are not as good as Santana, but were much cheaper.  They pulled in some low ball prospects who are certainly not sure things, but not bad pieces to have in the system to try and develop.  Obviously the Twins would have to eat a big chunk of salary to make that type of thing happen.

[clone52]

 

Ugh. 

 

Throwing in a prospect would work against the Twins' desired ends for a number of reasons:

 

First, to a pennant-chasing team, that extra lower-grade prospect is virtually meaningless.  At best, it would serve to outweigh extra added cost of the contract (which *sigh* Twins).    

 

Second, if the trading-team had a better prospect it was willing to part with, it would seek a better pitcher than we have to offer.  Santana is a good asset, despite the word around hear, but he's not the game changer you give up a piece of the future (and that's what we seek in return, right?).

 

Third, these are prospects, we shouldn't give up our 'prospect' in addition to a valued tradeable asset, to obtain another 'prospect' whom is more highly regarded.  That's the strategy Delmon Young trades are made of. 

 

Honestly, it depends on the prospect.  If a Santana+Adam Brett Walker netted a higher end pitching prospect plus some low level guys, I'd absolutely let Adam Brett Walker go.  With Buxton, Kepler, Rosario and now Grossman clogging up the outfield (and Santana as a fill in), ABW is probably not going to get a shot in the majors for awhile.  He'd be a guy I would consider expendable if you can net a better prospect at an area of bigger need.