Article: Twins Won't Rule Out Trading For Lance Lynn

[Mr. Brooks]

I think it might be a little harder to find them in the offseason than you are giving credit for. Depending on the FA market, sometimes there are very few such pitchers, with a lot of suitors, and they can command $50+ mil or even $100+ mil long term contracts. In that sense, getting a single prime year of such a pitcher might be worth the prospect premium. Especially if you like the specific pitcher -- if the Yankees, Astros, etc. trade for him now, you simply can't acquire that pitcher for 2020 no matter what.

 

Obviously depends on the premium. I guess we have some evidence now with Stroman going to the Mets...

I think he means trading for a controllable pitcher in the offseason, not a free agent.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I think he means trading for a controllable pitcher in the offseason, not a free agent.

Are Stroman level pitchers available at reasonable cost every offseason in trade? There have been some but it sure doesn't seem like it is necessarily an every offseason type thing. And if a team doesn't forecast any that they like being available in this upcoming offseason, that could justify the premium, no?

[Hawkeye12]

To be honest by the time we traded him last year I was disappointed to see him go because he seemed to finally get right after the rust from missing spring training. His success with the Yankees wasn't a shock to me.   And even when he struggled last year, he did a good job beating the average teams that we are going to need to beat down the stretch this year.  I've got more confidence in him consistently beating the Royals or Tigers down the stretch than Perez.  Granted Smeltzer could probably do the same, but he's still a small sample size.   I wouldn't want him pitching a one game wild card against the Red Sox, but that wouldn't be his job either.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Hawkeye12

[Otto von Ballpark]

Fangraphs has the two Mets prospects as 45 FV in the Stroman deal. That's the same as Balazovic, although neither one seems as good as Balazovic -- the older one looks like more of a back-end starter, and the younger one is still a little behind Balazovic.

 

How does that look as a premium? Stroman had that bad 2018, but logged 5.2 bWAR in 2017 and is on pace for another 5.0 this year. Worse by fWAR, of course, but on pace for a career high 4.6 this year. How easy is it to get that level of pitcher this winter? (And that's not really rhetorical, I am honestly asking and open to input here!)

Edited July 29, 2019 by spycake

[Mr. Brooks]

Fangraphs has the two Mets prospects as 45 FV in the Stroman deal. That's the same as Balazovic, although neither one seems as good as Balazovic -- the older one looks like more of a back-end starter, and the younger one is still a little behind Balazovic.

 

How does that look as a premium? Stroman had that bad 2018, but logged 5.2 bWAR in 2017 and is on pace for another 5.0 this year. Worse by fWAR, of course, but on pace for a career high 4.6 this year. How easy is it to get that level of pitcher this winter? (And that's not really rhetorical, I am honestly asking and open to input here!)

I'm not sure I have an answer to this or your previous post.

 

I'm just assuming that 1.33 years of team control is going to cost more in prospects than 1 year of team control, theoretically.

 

You may be right that these types of pitchers aren't traded often in the offseason, but they also aren't often traded to teams well below .500 at the deadline either. I just found it to be an unusual move. Not necessarily that I think it's bad or the wrong move.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I think it might be a little harder to find them in the offseason than you are giving credit for. Depending on the FA market, sometimes there are very few such pitchers, with a lot of suitors, and they can command $50+ mil or even $100+ mil long term contracts. In that sense, getting a single prime year of such a pitcher might be worth the prospect premium. Especially if you like the specific pitcher -- if the Yankees, Astros, etc. trade for him now, you simply can't acquire that pitcher for 2020 no matter what.

Obviously depends on the premium. I guess we have some evidence now with Stroman going to the Mets...

I wasn't necessarily only speaking of free agency but also via trade. Stroman isn't an elite arm, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to find someone of his caliber on the offseason market.

 

But also, Stroman to the Mets...

 

*facepalm*

[USAFChief]

I wasn't necessarily only speaking of free agency but also via trade. Stroman isn't an elite arm, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to find someone of his caliber on the offseason market.

 

But also, Stroman to the Mets...

 

*facepalm*

who was traded in the past couple offseasons, similar to Stroman, at similar cost?

 

Get players when and where you can. And he could be most likely be flipped at next years deadline if need be.