Royals Destroy My Dreams, Acquire Ervin Santana

[Winston Smith]

It's a start. Not a perfect pitcher by any means but he has shown he can be good. The problem with many teams the Royals and Twins among them is that when you have a really bad pitching staff it takes a lot to climb out of that hole. You can't just go out a trade for say a Fister, Sherzer or Sanchez to build a staff you need to band aid it together piece by piece and some of those guys may not be perfect.

[ThePuck]

Rays just exercised Shields' option...if the Twins are gonna trade Span or Revere, NOW is the time... cause the Rays need a good inexpensive CF....and many of the CFs on the market now will cost more. TB is one for the few teams who need a CF where we can get good value from in a trade due to his team friendly contract. Revere might even be more tempting due to salary.

[Mike Sixel]

They will have to give up more than 1outfielder to get Shields.

[ThePuck]

They will have to give up more than 1outfielder to get Shields.

 

Clearly...the point was more about if they are gonna trade Span or Revere, the perfect fit would be TB and the perfect time would be now. TB won't exercise Shield's 2014 option and won't re-sign him, so they need to trade him soon. Teams know this

[PseudoSABR]

Rays just exercised Shields' option...if the Twins are gonna trade Span or Revere, NOW is the time... cause the Rays need a good inexpensive CF....and many of the CFs on the market now will cost more. TB is one for the few teams who need a CF where we can get good value from in a trade due to his team friendly contract. Revere might even be more tempting due to salary.

TB does have Jennings. He can play CF, can't he?

[johnnydakota]

They will have to give up more than 1outfielder to get Shields.

 

Clearly...the point was more about if they are gonna trade Span or Revere, the perfect fit would be TB and the perfect time would be now. TB won't exercise Shield's 2014 option and won't re-sign him, so they need to trade him soon. Teams know this

if the twins dont move fast and show other free agents there serious about competing ,i can think of no reason to come to twinkie town and hope not to lose 100 games,so get shields or johnson now...or sit on your thumbs and tell the fans we tried but no one wanted to take a cut rate offer and come here excepts capps and moyer....

 

the twins need to decide if there making a run at a title or rebuilding the only thing you get from straddeling the fense is sore balls

so either go big , or rebuild , just quit blowing smoke up our butts about how you think you put a competitive team on the field in march and april then complain in june ,,,,,

god bless the working people and go twins

[ThePuck]

Rays just exercised Shields' option...if the Twins are gonna trade Span or Revere, NOW is the time... cause the Rays need a good inexpensive CF....and many of the CFs on the market now will cost more. TB is one for the few teams who need a CF where we can get good value from in a trade due to his team friendly contract. Revere might even be more tempting due to salary.

TB does have Jennings. He can play CF, can't he?

 

Well, he can go there....not sure if he can do the job in CF. Some TB fans I know seem to doubt it, but honestly I'm not sure.

[John Bonnes]

I just heard some hand-wringing about this Santana move on the radio. Here's the thing: if the Twins would've made this move, I would have not have liked it. It's not a disaster - one-year deals are never disasters - but with limited resources, this isn't the way to spend $12M. The extra millions they spent on Ervin might not have been necessary, as he's a prime candidate for a one-year deal anyway this spring.

 

And don't get me wrong - I like Santana. He was a guy I was targeting, too. But if the Twins are spending $90M, they can't blow $12M of the $16M they have to spend on Santana. I'd much rather give a multi-year deal for similar money to better pitchers.

[John Bonnes]

Rays just exercised Shields' option...if the Twins are gonna trade Span or Revere, NOW is the time... cause the Rays need a good inexpensive CF....and many of the CFs on the market now will cost more. TB is one for the few teams who need a CF where we can get good value from in a trade due to his team friendly contract. Revere might even be more tempting due to salary.

TB does have Jennings. He can play CF, can't he?

 

 

Well, he can go there....not sure if he can do the job in CF. Some TB fans I know seem to doubt it, but honestly I'm not sure.

 

Jason Collette, who I trust, says the Rays are almost undoubtedly going to be interested in acquiring a CFer this year. He wouldn't rule out a Shields for Span deal, straight up.

[PseudoSABR]

I just heard some hand-wringing about this Santana move on the radio. Here's the thing: if the Twins would've made this move, I would have not have liked it. It's not a disaster - one-year deals are never disasters - but with limited resources, this isn't the way to spend $12M. The extra millions they spent on Ervin might not have been necessary, as he's a prime candidate for a one-year deal anyway this spring.

 

And don't get me wrong - I like Santana. He was a guy I was targeting, too. But if the Twins are spending $90M, they can't blow $12M of the $16M they have to spend on Santana. I'd much rather give a multi-year deal for similar money to better pitchers.

I agree.

 

In any case, a one year deal doesn't work to the Twins advantage as it would in most years, with Morneau's 14mil coming off the books. Signing a pitcher (esp. one with a better recent track record) to a two or three year deal isn't the sinking ship it could be in most years because of the future payroll flexibility.

 

There's nearly a half dozen (if not more) FA pitchers I'd rather have than Santana, who might even come cheaper.

[PseudoSABR]

TB does have Jennings. He can play CF, can't he?

 

Well, he can go there....not sure if he can do the job in CF. Some TB fans I know seem to doubt it, but honestly I'm not sure.

He did play more than 400 career minor league games at CF, not that it means he's major league capable, but that certainly was his trajectory as he was developing.

 

If I'm TB, I'd use Sheilds to get a better than Span/Revere can offer.

[Nick Nelson]

He did play more than 400 career minor league games at CF, not that it means he's major league capable, but that certainly was his trajectory as he was developing.

 

If I'm TB, I'd use Sheilds to get a better than Span/Revere can offer.

I think the Rays trust Jennings to play center. I don't think they trust him to bad leadoff. Tampa Bay got a .314 OBP from the No. 1 spot in the order this year and .304 from the two-hole. You've gotta believe a stat-centric organization like that is going to be heavily targeting affordable high-OBP options to plug into the top of the lineup, particular since it would lessen their reliance on a breakout year from Jennings, who was nothing special this year.

 

Joe Christensen recently called my suggested Shields for Span-and-Hermsen deal far-fetched. And when I think about it, maybe he's right. But I can see plenty of reasons that the Rays would be extremely interested in acquiring Span.

[PseudoSABR]

He did play more than 400 career minor league games at CF, not that it means he's major league capable, but that certainly was his trajectory as he was developing.

 

If I'm TB, I'd use Sheilds to get a better than Span/Revere can offer.

I think the Rays trust Jennings to play center. I don't think they trust him to bad leadoff. Tampa Bay got a .314 OBP from the No. 1 spot in the order this year and .304 from the two-hole. You've gotta believe a stat-centric organization like that is going to be heavily targeting affordable high-OBP options to plug into the top of the lineup, particular since it would lessen their reliance on a breakout year from Jennings, who was nothing special this year.

 

Joe Christensen recently called my suggested Shields for Span-and-Hermsen deal far-fetched. And when I think about it, maybe he's right. But I can see plenty of reasons that the Rays would be extremely interested in acquiring Span.

This is a good point, although Jennings did post a very strong walk rate throughout the minor leagues.

[Willihammer]

I wonder if the Rays would take a Span-Morneau package where the Twins ate maybe $7m of Morneau's salary. That would be a neutral move payroll-wise.

[Mike Sixel]

Again, the bad part for the Twins is that this makes it more likely the Angels re- sign Greinke quickly, meaning the other teams are not waiting for him to decide on their offer, meaning the Twins now have a harder time signing other free agents.

[ThePuck]

Again, the bad part for the Twins is that this makes it more likely the Angels re- sign Greinke quickly, meaning the other teams are not waiting for him to decide on their offer, meaning the Twins now have a harder time signing other free agents.

 

Our team overvaluing it's trade chips is another problem...

[Mike Sixel]

on the other side of the coin, does this mean the Royals are leas likely to compete to sign pitchers now?