Trade for a lefthanded starting pitcher? Three options

[nicksaviking]

3 hours ago, KBJ1 said:

Boy, that's a really short list of Leftys.

Sale has always been a great talent, but unless Boston eats some of that contract, not a realistic choice.

Aren't there any younger up and comers we could trade for? That would make much more sense.

Jesus Luzardo, Braxton Garrett, Reid Detmers. Maybe Nestor Cortes, but he's not exactly young. Those first three would take some painful players to part with, but that doesn't bother me as much as it once did.

Not as many left handed starters in the league as there used to be, but I'm just fine with right handers too. 

Either way, we shouldn't want the rotation to take a step back next year. Either via trade or free agency, they need to find another #1 or #2 to replace Gray. There's next to no need to shop for #5 starters any more as your Varlands, Obers and Festas tend to be no worse if not better. When you shop for back end starters, back end starter is almost always the BEST case scenario, and usually they end up being DFA/bullpen fodder by the time the team finally closes the book on them. 

[stringer bell]

It would be nice to have a lefty in the rotation, just for variety. Cleveland has historically struggled against left handed pitching and they may or may not be the primary threat for the Twins in the Central. 

The Twins did just fine with five righties in the rotation, so I don't think a lefty is necessary. Adding a top half of the rotation guy is a very worthy goal for the offseason. 

[ashbury]

5 hours ago, stringer bell said:

The Twins did just fine with five righties in the rotation, so I don't think a lefty is necessary. Adding a top half of the rotation guy is a very worthy goal for the offseason. 

Concur.   As the old saying goes, I don't care about left-handed pitchers, I care about getting left-handed batters out.

Looking at OPS-against by our top 6 by games started, Lopez/Gray/Ryan/Ober/Maeda/Varland....

Lopez and Gray really stifled right-handed batters.  Gray didn't have much of a platoon disadvantage, while Lopez's was pretty significant in the normal direction.

Weirdly, all four of the others had a reverse-platoon split in 2023.  Ryan and Ober were sort of league average against right-handed batters, Maeda* and Varland were pretty terrible against righties.  But against lefties all managed to hold the opponents under .700 OPS, much better than MLB average.

Surely not a repeatable outcome, unless pitching coach Maki has some kind of voodoo no one else knows about.

Still, unless and until something changes, finding a lefty starter is pretty low among the priorities, as opposed to just locating a top arm, period.

* Maeda's season was split between trying to tough it out before finally going on the IL, and then being pretty effective when he came back, so I am a bit skeptical about slicing and dicing his data without taking that into account.

[Jocko87]

On 11/1/2023 at 1:23 PM, nicksaviking said:

Jesus Luzardo, Braxton Garrett, Reid Detmers. Maybe Nestor Cortes, but he's not exactly young. Those first three would take some painful players to part with, but that doesn't bother me as much as it once did.

Not as many left handed starters in the league as there used to be, but I'm just fine with right handers too. 

Either way, we shouldn't want the rotation to take a step back next year. Either via trade or free agency, they need to find another #1 or #2 to replace Gray. There's next to no need to shop for #5 starters any more as your Varlands, Obers and Festas tend to be no worse if not better. When you shop for back end starters, back end starter is almost always the BEST case scenario, and usually they end up being DFA/bullpen fodder by the time the team finally closes the book on them. 

I just did a trade value website look at Detmers and Julien plus Larnach or a Yasser Mercedes type prospect is about value per them.  If the Twins thought they could make Detmer the no-hit guy more often I'd be on board with that deal.  I don't know how realistic it is but the prospect cost isn't bothering me much anymore either.  They just have to be able to pick the right ones to send.

I'm all aboard for another trade for a pitcher.  I don't care about hand and I don't think the FO does either.  The most important part is that they find someone they can play up and resign.  The guys mentioned in the original post aren't that and carry baggage.  Now that all these younger pitchers would also give qualifying offer compensation the prospect capital is much easier to take.  Unless you have a Mahle disaster there are multiple ways to pay off a younger guy.  No reason to chase the old bulls. 

Even Pablo will get a QO when someone wants to give him $250m in 4 years.  I firmly believe it was part of the calculation when acquiring Paddack and Mahle.

[Doctor Gast]

I'd much rather go after Luzardo or Garrett (MIA)  in exchange for hitting.