Twins Trade Candidate: Austin Martin

[Major League Ready]

21 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

You aren't really comparing a 23 year old Martin to a Guy that debuted at the age of 21 are we and won Rookie of the year at age 21/22?

You are bending the point.  I am pointing out that Jeter struggled with errors at one point and we know many stories of players who overcame being error prone and became great defenders.  There is a tendency here to just ignore hard fact and numerous examples throughout history if it fits a negative narrative someone wants to promote. 

Perhaps the more salient point is that it's also not necessary for him to be a gold glove SS to be valuable.  His skill set screams high on base super utility with the added bonus of being a pinch runner.  A guy that can adequately back-up SS and CF with that skill set has great value but people want to be negative because he is not Carlos Correa at SS. 

I have no problem pointing out the negative as long as the positive is not ignored for the sake of simply being negative.

[TwinsDr2021]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

You are bending the point.  I am pointing out that Jeter struggled with errors at one point and we know many stories of players who overcame being error prone and became great defenders.  There is a tendency here to just ignore hard fact and numerous examples throughout history if it fits a negative narrative someone wants to promote. 

Perhaps the more salient point is that it's also not necessary for him to be a gold glove SS to be valuable.  His skill set screams high on base super utility with the added bonus of being a pinch runner.  A guy that can adequately back-up SS and CF with that skill set has great value but people want to be negative because he is not Carlos Correa at SS. 

I have no problem pointing out the negative as long as the positive is not ignored for the sake of simply being negative.

My point was you were comparing a high school kid (drafted) who was a teenager (or 20) to a college kid that was 23 all of last year. There may be examples of a 24 year old prospect that turned it around defensively and became valuable SS but using Jeter as an example is a huge leap. When talking about prospects age matters and ignoring that ignores the history of baseball. What some call negative others call being a realist, it is no different than Winder, Ober, Varland and even Joe Ryan becoming what some call an Ace. It is not that they can't but man they are fighting the odds. (We all hope 1 or more of them do, but some of us are setting are expectations a bit more realistically. )

With that said Martin can and hopefully becomes a viable major league player or better.

[PatPfund]

The OP (and the series) is doing good work in assessing trade values, because if you ARE going to do trades for real talent, you can't send back people you might be dumping from the 40 man in a couple weeks (other teams are at least as informed as Twins Daily readers).

That being said, I agree with the many who say don't trade him now. His trade value is not great, and he as a pretty clear path to the majors in the outfield, and potentially at 2b. Someone mentioned Kepler, Kirilloff, Wallner, and Celestino earlier; Max is glove-only (aka a reserve) at this point, Kirilloff had pieces of bone cut out of his arm to shorten it (aka, he may NEVER play an MLB game again), Wallner has promise (but few at-bats above AA), and Celestino... (maybe the lowest baseball IQ I've seen in a Twins uni in decades).

The Twins outfield has been a mess the past two years, and the team can only dream right now of somebody being good enough to block Martin's path.