Rumor: Top 50 Trade Candidates - Who Interests You?

[clone52]

On 7/6/2023 at 6:29 PM, SwainZag said:

Buxton has a full no trade clause and worked hard with the front office to stay in Minnesota.  He wanted to be here.   He's not going anywhere.   

Not to mention, he's going to be cheap.  He's not going to keep hitting this terribly the rest of teh contract and even if he can never play CF again, $15M isn't bad for the type of hitter he would be.

More likely, he recovers in the offseason and does get to play some CF in the future.

[clone52]

I'll post plans to buy and to sell.

Since I'm ever the optimist, I'll start with a buy plan first.  Thought being is that the Twins can obviously win the division and have pitching that can compete in the playoffs.  If their big hitters revert to the mean, they can have a good offense.  Correa, Buxton could get way hot.  Kepler can hit better than he has.

Here is the buy plan:
1: Fire the hitting coach.  Its incredible how bad almost every single hitter is this year.  They don't have a single guy having an above average (for them) year and several who are having their worst season in 3-5 years.
2: Keep Gallo.  His average sucks, but he's doing what he does.  Walks and hits for power.  His position flexibility is nice, being able to fill LF, RF and 1B.  At worst, I'd rather have him on the bench than Nick Gordon.
3: Probably keep Kepler, unless you get a decent offer or fall into a big upgrade.
4: If you're worried about Royce Lewis coming back, trade for Paul Goldschmidt.  I'd maybe even do Goldschmidt for Rodriguez.  Would rather do Goldschmidt for Larnach/Winder.
5:  Cardinals are probably not selling, so 3B could be a hole.  Maybe Justin Turner for the Red Sox?  Carlos Santana or Bellinger at 1B and let Solano move to 3B?
6: Shop the RP market for one more RP.  Don't break the bank on prospects.  

If they are sellers:
1.  Shop Gallo and Kepler.  Make sure you give Wallner and Larnach a lot of play.
2. Shop Gray.  Would have to be for a solid haul, though.  He'll get a QO and possibly a contract extension.
3. Obviously shop Pagan, but I'd listen to any reliever not named Duran.  Jax or Stewart would need to be a great haul, though.
3. Shop Solano
4. Shop Michael Taylor, although I might resign him instead.
5. Trade Polanco.  I think Julien will be fine, or if a 3B steps up, its another Royce Lewis spot.  Or Brooks Lee.
5. Shop Vazquez and Farmer.  Vazquez probably won't get much, so I'd keep him due to the lack of C depth the Twins have.

[Vanimal46]

15 hours ago, DJL44 said:

There is a huge drop from Sonny Gray to Dallas Keuchel or Louie Varland

Neither of those guys would start a playoff game. If Gray is traded there are 3 good starters left for a series - Ryan, Lopez, Ober. Maeda around as the 4th option/bullpen guy. 

[RpR]

2 hours ago, clone52 said:

I'll post plans to buy and to sell.

Since I'm ever the optimist, I'll start with a buy plan first.  Thought being is that the Twins can obviously win the division and have pitching that can compete in the playoffs.  If their big hitters revert to the mean, they can have a good offense.  Correa, Buxton could get way hot.  Kepler can hit better than he has.

Here is the buy plan:
1: Fire the hitting coach.  Its incredible how bad almost every single hitter is this year.  They don't have a single guy having an above average (for them) year and several who are having their worst season in 3-5 years.
2: Keep Gallo.  His average sucks, but he's doing what he does.  Walks and hits for power.  His position flexibility is nice, being able to fill LF, RF and 1B.  At worst, I'd rather have him on the bench than Nick Gordon.
3: Probably keep Kepler, unless you get a decent offer or fall into a big upgrade.
4: If you're worried about Royce Lewis coming back, trade for Paul Goldschmidt.  I'd maybe even do Goldschmidt for Rodriguez.  Would rather do Goldschmidt for Larnach/Winder.
5:  Cardinals are probably not selling, so 3B could be a hole.  Maybe Justin Turner for the Red Sox?  Carlos Santana or Bellinger at 1B and let Solano move to 3B?
6: Shop the RP market for one more RP.  Don't break the bank on prospects.  

If they are sellers:
1.  Shop Gallo and Kepler.  Make sure you give Wallner and Larnach a lot of play.
2. Shop Gray.  Would have to be for a solid haul, though.  He'll get a QO and possibly a contract extension.
3. Obviously shop Pagan, but I'd listen to any reliever not named Duran.  Jax or Stewart would need to be a great haul, though.
3. Shop Solano
4. Shop Michael Taylor, although I might resign him instead.
5. Trade Polanco.  I think Julien will be fine, or if a 3B steps up, its another Royce Lewis spot.  Or Brooks Lee.
5. Shop Vazquez and Farmer.  Vazquez probably won't get much, so I'd keep him due to the lack of C depth the Twins have.

Hmm, trade a poor hitting team with good fielding for a poor hitting team with lead gloves.😂

[TwinsFan98]

On 7/7/2023 at 9:51 AM, Puckett34 said:

If the Twins are buying, I'd like to see them shore up the bullpen as I think any bat of value will likely cost too much.  If they can't score, might as well get better at keeping opponents from scoring too.  Brad Hand and/or Joe Kelly likely should be reasonable.

I liked Hand a lot, until recently. He's kind of gone backwards a bit as of late. The name I really think the Twins should look at is Brent Suter. He's on the IL, but throwing as of late. His ERA is good, and he's 50% or above in 8 of 13 catergories on BaseballSavant. Him being a lefty helps too.

[Cap'n Piranha]

On 7/7/2023 at 6:08 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

You mean like the Phillies that fielded 12 DHs last season, backed into the final Wild Card spot, and went to the World Series?

There is rarely a "perfect year" and even when there is, the "perfect team" rarely wins the World Series (2022 Dodgers, 2001 Mariners, etc).

Just put together a competent team, get there, and see what happens.

Quick, name 5 other teams in the last 15 years that have made the World Series with a deeply flawed team, on a par with the 2023 Twins.

[Cap'n Piranha]

On 7/8/2023 at 11:05 AM, DJL44 said:

If you want to sign Hader after this season you don't have to give up anything but money. You're trading for the next 3 months  of Hader, about 30 innings of pitching. What happens in the offseason is irrelevant to his trade value.

It absolutely is not.  If you don't think you can/don't want to resign him in the offseason, it would be silly to value him as anything more than a 2 month rental.  If he's the missing piece (like how the Rays viewed Nelson Cruz in 2021) maybe you don't care.  But Hader, as good as he is, does not turn this team into a Top 5 outfit, capable of challenging for a World Series crown.  As such, giving up 12 years of cheap pitching depth to be only slightly less at a disadvantage in the wild card round is not a good idea.

[jorgenswest]

On 7/7/2023 at 6:08 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

You mean like the Phillies that fielded 12 DHs last season, backed into the final Wild Card spot, and went to the World Series?

There is rarely a "perfect year" and even when there is, the "perfect team" rarely wins the World Series (2022 Dodgers, 2001 Mariners, etc).

Just put together a competent team, get there, and see what happens.

Not a perfect year but the Phillies showed sustained stretches of excellence.

In May I suggested that if the Twins could win 4 series in a row, I would be a buyer at the deadline. They have yet to surpass two series in a row. You prompt had me go look at the Phillies last year. At the end of May their 21-29 record was pretty dismal. Then they won not 4 but 5 series in a row including 9 wins in a row and a stretch of 15-2 in June. That is what I need to see.

Time is running short but they have 5 series against losing teams before the break. They need to go dominate and then I am in. 

[Kummel]

The Twins could use another reliever, but the biggest concern i have is with the lackluster performance so far this year -- something that one trade can't fix.

[TwinkieFan4life]

On 7/6/2023 at 10:22 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

None of this makes a lick of sense to me.

The Twins have allowed the fewest runs in baseball. If that's not a team you try to build out for a playoff run, what is?

And the last thing this team needs (see sentence above) is Blake Snell.

Also, Lewis has stated he does not want to play center field.

You are omitting an important detail.  The Twins have been legendarily bad (on pace to set records for futility) at hitting.  It doesn't appear to be a fluke.  We added at the deadline last year when it had been obvious for two months that the team just wasn't very good.  If you watch this team, it is pretty clear we are struggling to be average. I see more utility in shopping Maeda, Gray, Polanco,  Solano and seeing what people will offer. 

[TwinkieFan4life]

On 7/12/2023 at 11:29 AM, jorgenswest said:

Not a perfect year but the Phillies showed sustained stretches of excellence.

In May I suggested that if the Twins could win 4 series in a row, I would be a buyer at the deadline. They have yet to surpass two series in a row. You prompt had me go look at the Phillies last year. At the end of May their 21-29 record was pretty dismal. Then they won not 4 but 5 series in a row including 9 wins in a row and a stretch of 15-2 in June. That is what I need to see.

Time is running short but they have 5 series against losing teams before the break. They need to go dominate and then I am in. 

THIS!!  If the Twins dominate the next 15 games (11 wins or more), go ahead and buy.  If they stumble out of the break sell or play it out.  That simple.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

15 minutes ago, TwinkieFan4life said:

You are omitting an important detail.  The Twins have been legendarily bad (on pace to set records for futility) at hitting.

That isn't even true, though. They're bad but not historically so, they're not even 30th in any of the mainstream statistics AFAIK.

Feel free to show me some numbers if I'm incorrect about that.

[TwinkieFan4life]

25 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

That isn't even true, though. They're bad but not historically so, they're not even 30th in any of the mainstream statistics AFAIK.

Feel free to show me some numbers if I'm incorrect about that.

The Twins are on a pace to strike out over 1600 times this season (currently 47 more SO than any team in baseball).  No team in the history of the game has ever struck out 1600 times in a season.  

While not historically bad in any other offensive category, they are bad in virtually all of them.  

Anyhow, the point is that this offense is putrid.  They make decent pitchers like Kyle Gibson look like prime Johan Santana on a fairly consistent basis. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

4 hours ago, TwinkieFan4life said:

The Twins are on a pace to strike out over 1600 times this season (currently 47 more SO than any team in baseball).  No team in the history of the game has ever struck out 1600 times in a season.  

While not historically bad in any other offensive category, they are bad in virtually all of them.  

Anyhow, the point is that this offense is putrid.  They make decent pitchers like Kyle Gibson look like prime Johan Santana on a fairly consistent basis. 

https://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~bvollmay/baseball/runs1.html
 

Ks have almost no correlation to runs scored. R-squared is statistical fit of the trend line. 0 is no correlation. 1 is perfect correlation.

Of course the trend line is negative, but the R-squared is -.078.

This in compared to OPS the R squared is positive .9

 

so if we look at the Twins Ks leading the league, it doesn’t tell us much about how well they score runs relative to the league.

the Twins are 24th in the league in Runs scores

they of course lead the league in K rate

But they’re 22nd in OPS

why? Because they’re 16th in walks and 20th in slugging.

So yes, they’re 24th in the league in scoring runs. The sneaky thing is they’re second in preventing runs

they don’t need to be the best hitting team in the league to go on a tear. Incremental run improvement can absolutely improve this team’s outlook.

[jorgenswest]

I did a blog on this data earlier. There isn’t a linear correlation. Look at the bottom teams in runs scored. Strike out too little and it hurts your run scoring because you lack power (WAS, CLE). Strikeout too often and it hurts your run scoring as you aren’t putting enough balls in play. Is it more so this year with the increase in stolen bases? This year’s dot plot looked more parabolic. Look at the top 5 teams in runs scored and you will see three in the middle of the strikeout rate data slotted 14,15,16.

Is the balance between balls in play and the strikeouts that come with power important? Did the Twins destroy that balance by trading Arraez and the signing Gallo hoping he could approach the .795 OPS they lost? Gallo may match that OPS. I think it would have helped a lot more to get that .795 the way Arraez did. The Twins need that balance.

[TwinkieFan4life]

2 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

https://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~bvollmay/baseball/runs1.html
 

Ks have almost no correlation to runs scored. R-squared is statistical fit of the trend line. 0 is no correlation. 1 is perfect correlation.

Of course the trend line is negative, but the R-squared is -.078.

This in compared to OPS the R squared is positive .9

 

so if we look at the Twins Ks leading the league, it doesn’t tell us much about how well they score runs relative to the league.

the Twins are 24th in the league in Runs scores

they of course lead the league in K rate

But they’re 22nd in OPS

why? Because they’re 16th in walks and 20th in slugging.

So yes, they’re 24th in the league in scoring runs. The sneaky thing is they’re second in preventing runs

they don’t need to be the best hitting team in the league to go on a tear. Incremental run improvement can absolutely improve this team’s outlook.

It sure is great if you can put the ball in play with no outs and the bases loaded though.

As I said, the Twins are bad.  24th is not good.  Maybe a player or two could move the needle who knows.  I'm not as optimistic as you obviously.

[ashbury]

13 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

This in compared to OPS the R squared is positive .9

I do think it's interesting that many of the top (and bottom!) run scoring performances have come when the strikeout rate is moderate.  It's very hard to have a top offense when you strike out this much, but going to the other extreme doesn't bear that much fruit either (CLE and WAS being the poster teams this season).  Unlike the OPS graph, a straight line barely tells a story at all.  My take is that the relationship between hitting for average and hitting for power isn't linear, and this graph tries to tell us that focusing on SO isn't the place to start.

A strikeout is always a bad outcome, but you have to factor in the good outcomes (HR I'm sure, probably others) that correlate with them.  We lack (AFAIK) useful historical data on other bad outcomes, such as popouts and groundouts, and the good things that correlate with them.  It makes an even-handed analysis difficult for those who want to know more, because it's always easy to point at strikeouts.  As I've said elsewhere, I'm also intrigued by the Pull% numbers found at b-r.com, in which our Twins also lead the majors.

None of this is to disagree with the main point you were making.

[TaterTot]

The list of players seems more focused on pitching. The twins have an elite rotation, and a slightly above average bullpen that if they add one or two new arms they can get by ok. The real problem is the offense, or the lack thereof. Maybe the twins can get two decent hitters in Turner and Duvall from the Red Sox, who have about the same record as the twins, but actually play in a good division. For Turner and Duvall the twins would trade farmer, pagan [ just PLEASE get him out of here] and a prospect who came in with potential, but hasn’t panned out yet in Austin Martin. You could also maybe throw a pitcher like Simeon woods Richardson in there to complete the deal.