Article: Twins Trade Phil Hughes, Draft Pick to San Diego

[AZTwin]

Manny Machedo sure would be a dream.  Could play SS or 3B

Edited May 27, 2018 by AZTwin

[h2oface]

In light of how well these draft picks have been doing......... and the scant chance they ever make it to the show, ...... this is a great deal, and I applaud it. The acquired catcher should be 27 or 28 by the time he could be ready for the show in this system, even if he does make it. Ho hum. Nothing to see here. At least Hughes has good weather to lose games in for his home team.

[Danchat]

So the trade is basically Hughes and the 74th pick in the 2018 draft for C Villalobos and $7.5M in 2019. I don't hate the trade but I don't like it... Villalobos seems like a lottery ticket, but it could work out well if the money in 2019 is spent well. The draft is a crapshoot so losing the 74th pick isn't so bad (as an NFL draft junkie, I would not like this trade, but this is the MLB Draft).

[Otto von Ballpark]

The catcher Villalobos was almost 19 when he signed with the Padres, presumably for a negligible bonus (can't find it reported anywhere). Combined with his pedestrian numbers/advancement, he feels more like org depth than a real prospect.

[gunnarthor]

 

Also i like how its next seasons money we free up and not this seasons.

We'll see if the Pohlads will spend it. They've been a pretty low payroll team for quite some time. Even the modest investments they made - as a playoff team - didn't move them up the payroll that much if you compare it to other teams. I believe we're 18th in payroll to start the year after being 21st last year.

[Mike Sixel]

[wabene]

For me having a flat 20m+ loss is just bad business. Time for everybody to move on and in the the process addressing an organizational weakness? I can see the logic.

[Brandon]

I would hate it if the savings was only 1 million or so. I dont see how this is a bad trade. Our window is now. In 5-6 years we will likely be retooling anyway. The Twins upped their budget for this season and hopefully will do so next yeargiving us even more to spend in the offseason. Lets see how this plays out before being so judgemental first.

[jorgenswest]

The pmajority of players picked 74 never play in the majors. By WAR Mike Benjamin is 8th of 53 and the last of the useful players. A few other recent draftees might join the group but pick 74 has minimal but better odds of being a useful player than the catcher they received. With the 7 some million they can add a bat like Morrison for a year or a set up man for a year. I am not sure that there is anything here to get very passionate about.

[Brandon]

Mike Sixel, the trade works out for both teams. Again as long as Hughes and the draft pick deliver less than 1 WAR we win the trade.

[Thrylos]

 

Does it matter, given everything else coming off the books?

I can't see them spending sixty plus million in free agents in one year.

 

They got a few extensions to work on as well.  Got to consider that, too.

[Thrylos]

The fact that they got something for Phil Hughes is a big win, no matter how you slice it.

 

 

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

Isnt a WAR around 8 million? So as long as the 74th pick and Hughes dont combine to have a net present value of a WAR its a good deal for the Twins.

Not quite so simple. The Padres could use the pick's slot money to go over-slot on another pick. (The Twins could have done likewise, had they kept the pick.)

 

Also, that dollars per WAR figure is an estimate, and it really varies by circumstance. For the Padres, or any rebuilding team, 1 WAR is worth a lot less than $8 mil. They just don't need marginal wins. For the Twins, a team that should be contending, we should rather have the 1 WAR than an extra $7-8 mil, could mean the difference between the 2nd wild card or staying home. That said, Hughes wasn't going to give us 1 WAR this year, and neither was the draft pick -- but if the pick was worth $7 mil, maybe we could have traded it for something other than salary relief?

 

Especially since technically the Hughes salary relief isn't until 2019. If the Twins are sticklers about year-to-year budgets, $7 mil would be a lot more useful for the 2018 team than for the 2019 team (which already had a lot of free payroll space).

Edited May 28, 2018 by spycake

[Otto von Ballpark]

The fact that they got something for Phil Hughes is a big win, no matter how you slice it.

I would agree, but they really didn't get anything for Hughes. They essentially sold the #74 draft pick for $7.5 mil. Hughes's deal was just the currency used for payment.

 

Seems like we fetched a decent price for that pick, but I don't know much about their relative value. And of course we don't yet know what the Twins are going to do with the money.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Per Cot's, the Twins only had $39 mil committed for 2019 anyway, even with Hughes. Obviously there are virtually guaranteed arb salaries to come, and probably Erv's option, but that does seem to dilute the value of saving $7 mil on Hughes next year.

 

Put another way -- if we were only looking at $20 mil payroll room, saving an extra $7 mil would be a lot more important than if we already had $60 mil payroll room.

[Thrylos]

 

I would agree, but they really didn't get anything for Hughes. They essentially sold the #74 draft pick for $7.5 mil. Hughes's deal was just the currency used for payment.

Seems like we fetched a decent price for that pick, but I don't know much about their relative value. And of course we don't yet know what the Twins are going to do with the money.

 

They also got a 21 year old catcher with a career .408 OBP and 1.14 BB/K.  Plate discipline is a great thing to have and does not really get affected that much by competition level.   If a college catcher had Villalobos's numbers, he could have been a 74 overall pick.

 

The way I see it, they effectively drafted Villalobos with the 74th pick with $0 bonus money, and instead of eating all of Hughes's contract in 2019, they are $8M ahead of the game ($7.25 for Hughes plus $800K for the pick)   They can use that $ towards extensions or towards another bullpen arm that they sorely need.

[USAFChief]

They also got a 21 year old catcher with a career .408 OBP and 1.14 BB/K.  Plate discipline is a great thing to have and does not really get affected that much by competition level.   If a college catcher had Villalobos's numbers, he could have been a 74 overall pick.

 

The way I see it, they effectively drafted Villalobos with the 74th pick with $0 bonus money, and instead of eating all of Hughes's contract in 2019, they are $8M ahead of the game ($7.25 for Hughes plus $800K for the pick)   They can use that $ towards extensions or towards another bullpen arm that they sorely need.

That “career .408 OBP” is 233 PAs in two years combined of the DSL and AZ rookie league. It comes with a .253 BA and .322 SLG.

 

He’s not really worth mentioning in this deal.

[KGB]

Last year the Twins the Twins picked up the 85th draft pick from the Angels for a $1 million in internal cap space. So it looks like good value.

[Otto von Ballpark]

They also got a 21 year old catcher with a career .408 OBP and 1.14 BB/K. Plate discipline is a great thing to have and does not really get affected that much by competition level. If a college catcher had Villalobos's numbers, he could have been a 74 overall pick.

I think you are reading way too much into Villalobos's limited stat line so far. He had a .437 OBP and 1.79 BB/K rate in 2016, but it was in 135 PA in the Dominican League, and with no power or average. Then he posted a .367 OBP in 2017, with an acceptable average and ISO, but in only 98 PA in the Arizona rookie league (and a rising K rate too -- his BB/K rate was down to 0.61). Those competition levels are so low, it is hard to know much -- Rosario and Danny Santana posted their career best BB% in rookie league seasons. And even if you think walk rates aren't affected much by competition levels, these are tiny samples.

 

And Villalobos hasn't even played yet in 2018 -- he's apparently ticketed for rookie league again at age 21. It is a big stretch to say he is the equivalent of a #74 overall pick based on those numbers and that progression.

 

Maybe the Twins found a diamond in the rough, but we can't really tell that from the stats at this point. He could just be org depth, or more favorably, still just a Willians Astudillo type of one-trick pony.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Last year the Twins the Twins picked up the 85th draft pick from the Angels for a $1 million in internal cap space. So it looks like good value.

$1 mil in international cap space is HUGE, with the new hard cap. That's like 20% of the average total pool. Adding $1 mil basically makes you a favorite to land the top international free agents in any given year. (And it helped the Angels land Ohtani this year.)

[ashbury]

That “career .408 OBP” is 233 PAs in two years combined of the DSL and AZ rookie league. It comes with a .253 BA and .322 SLG.

 

He’s not really worth mentioning in this deal.

I don't know whether the player himself is worth mentioning - I need more scouting info to have a view on that - but rookie league stats definitely aren't worth mentioning.

[dbminn]

San Diego could be a good spot for Hughes. There are a couple of pitchers that have come back from TOS but it takes more than a year. They have Tyson Ross, so the Padres understand the injury. They can give him a spot and let him go later if it doesn't work out. 

 

From the Twins side, I think $7.5 million for the 74th pick is reasonable. I'd feel different if the club was under past management. This FO convinced the Pohlads to increase payroll this year. They've tried to improve the team. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on how they invest the funds saved on this one... at least until next year.

 

 

 

 

[Thrylos]

 

I think you are reading way too much into Villalobos's limited stat line so far. He had a .437 OBP and 1.79 BB/K rate in 2016, but it was in 135 PA in the Dominican League, and with no power or average. Then he posted a .367 OBP in 2017, with an acceptable average and ISO, but in only 98 PA in the Arizona rookie league (and a rising K rate too -- his BB/K rate was down to 0.61). Those competition levels are so low, it is hard to know much -- Rosario and Danny Santana posted their career best BB% in rookie league seasons. And even if you think walk rates aren't affected much by competition levels, these are tiny samples.

And Villalobos hasn't even played yet in 2018 -- he's apparently ticketed for rookie league again at age 21. It is a big stretch to say he is the equivalent of a #74 overall pick based on those numbers and that progression.

Maybe the Twins found a diamond in the rough, but we can't really tell that from the stats at this point. He could just be org depth, or more favorably, still just a Willians Astudillo type of one-trick pony.

 

The point is that so can be the #74th overall pick who would have zero positive professional experience.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Thrylos

[TheLeviathan]

Is there any value to freeing him up off the 40 man or anything of that nature?

[Otto von Ballpark]

An interesting way to look at trades is, how would I feel if the Twins were on the other side of this deal? Taking on a bad vet would suck, but hopefully we could talk him into minor league assignment first and cut him quickly if he fails to perform. But buying a draft pick might be seen as a good, aggressive move.

 

Echoes of the Nolasco deal here too. Of course Nolasco had more value than Hughes at the time, but I always felt like that trade was mostly about the Angels "buying" Alex Meyer, which seemed like a good risk for them to take. I admit I was dismissive of Busenitz in that deal, and he looked like a diamond in the rough last year, but we've also seen how "AAAA reliever" is definitely a thing and maybe they're not so special. In any case, while Busenitz was a lightly regarded draft pick, by the time of the trade he was almost 26, pitching in AAA, and had already dominated AA. I can't imagine we could have anywhere near as close of confidence in Villalobos, at least not to assign him comparable value in this deal.

[nicksaviking]

This is great news, the Twins payroll is going to be around that of one of the mid level regional auto-dealers next year. There's no logical reason to be concerned about getting payroll so low unless they plan on signing both Machado AND Harper!

 

Hopefully there's a little left over for Keeshaw!

[Otto von Ballpark]

The point is that so can be the #74th overall pick who would have zero positive professional experience.

I have zero positive professional experience too, but you wouldn't suggest I might have comparable value to one of the top college catchers in the nation, would you? Even if I had 230 PA of mediocre, OBP-heavy experience over 2 seasons at the lowest levels of rookie ball, and I was ticketed for rookie leagues again at age 21, I think the simplest explanation probably pegs me as a fairly minor piece of any trade I might be involved in.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Is there any value to freeing him up off the 40 man or anything of that nature?

It will give us a spot for May or Ervin when they return. But that was accomplished as soon as we DFA'd Hughes -- in the context of freeing up the roster spot, it didn't really matter whether we traded him or released him, or how much money we ate.

[nicksaviking]

The point is that so can be the #74th overall pick who would have zero positive professional experience.

If the Padres organizational #8 catcher's value is that of or greater than 74th overall pick, they must have the most talented crop of backstops the league has ever seen.

[Mr. Brooks]

This trade is about the next moves and not this one. I think the dislike is you need to see the next moves to better judge this one. Is another low level prospect beeter or having 8 million more now while we are in our competetive window?

That's only if they actually spend it.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Mr. Brooks