Gladly Paying a Prospect Tuesday for a Player Today

[Greggory Masterson]

The hot stove is heating up, and players are available on the trade block for the right price. How much trust should we place in the Twins trading prospects for MLB talent? Let’s turn to history for the answer.

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports (photo of Steven Cruz)

No team wins every trade, but competitive teams typically win more than they lose. Teams that can leverage offseason trades, instead of free agency, to fill out their roster are often rewarded with less monetarily expensive players, which can benefit a team like the Twins, whose payroll going into 2024 is uncertain.

To aid you in determining how much faith to put in the current Twins front office, I have combed through every trade that the Twins have made since October 2016 in which the Twins traded away a prospect for a ready-made MLB player. You can make your own judgment. Below, I’ve listed every trade that could be considered a "Buy" over the offseason. 

Before we begin, some housekeeping. I provided stats for each player with their new team. Performance isn’t considered if they were again traded or signed elsewhere as free agents after the trade being discussed. Obviously, this analysis doesn’t include future performance, either. This information is accurate as of November 15th, 2023. Those with an * indicate that the player is still in the organization they were traded to, so the complete picture isn’t available.

I will also be providing some context for each trade. Comparing statistics does not necessarily indicate which team won the trade, so I have done my best to explain why the trade occurred. 

For an example of why comparing statistics isn’t ideal, let’s skip to the 2022 Sonny Gray trade. Statistically, the Twins won the trade. Gray was good for 7.7 bWAR and was the 2023 AL Cy Young runner-up. However, Chase Petty, a former first-round pick, still has time to accrue value for Cincinnati, so we can’t definitively close the book on that trade yet.

Without further ado, here’s my subjective order, from best to worst.

2/18/18: Minnesota acquires Jake Odorizzi (337.0 IP, 107 ERA+, 4.9 bWAR) from Tampa Bay for Jermaine Palacios (did not reach Tampa Bay), +4.9 bWAR for Minnesota.
 For quite some time, this trade was the undisputed crown jewel of this era of Twins baseball. Odorizzi sat in the front half of three Minnesota pitching rotations between 2018 and 2020, providing consistent performance, though he was not a star. Palacios never reached the majors with Tampa but came back as a minor-league free agent and debuted with Minnesota in 2022.

3/13/22: Minnesota acquires Sonny Gray (303.2 IP, 142 ERA+, 7.7 bWAR), Francis Peguero (did not reach Minnesota) from Cincinnati for Chase Petty* (has not reached Cincinnati), +7.7 bWAR for Minnesota.
Looking to shore up a rotation with several holes, Minnesota traded future value in Petty for present value in Gray, effectively trading a pitcher now for a pitcher tomorrow. Gray led the staff for two years and finished second in the AL Cy Young in 2023. Peguero was released following the 2023 season. Petty had been drafted in the first round just months before and has impressed in the low minors thus far. As the book is still out on Petty, I’m keeping Odorizzi in the top spot.

3/27/23: Minnesota acquires Michael A. Taylor (388 PA, 94 OPS+, 1.9 bWAR) from Kansas City for Evan Sisk (has not reached Kansas City), Steven Cruz (12.2 IP, 91 ERA+, 0.0 bWAR), +1.9 bWAR for Minnesota.
Taylor served as the everyday centerfielder in 2023, given injuries to both Byron Buxton and Nick Gordon. The Gold Glove centerfielder performed as expected defensively and showed some pop, though his bat has been mediocre overall. Cruz debuted for Kansas City in 2023, and Sisk finished the year at AAA.

11/18/22: Minnesota acquires Kyle Farmer (369 PA, 98 OPS+, 1.7 bWAR) from Cincinnati for Casey Legumina (13.2 IP, 82 ERA+, -0.3 bWAR), +1.8 bWAR for Minnesota.
Without a starting-caliber shortstop (before the Carlos Correa signing), the Twins traded for Farmer. He’s since started games at second, third, and short—and seen time at first base and left field—as the top bench infielder in 2023 and is a platoon bat versus lefties. He was tendered a contract for 2024. Legumina had not debuted at the time of the trade - he had just been added to the 40-man roster - but has since thrown 13 mediocre innings, getting his first taste of MLB in 2023.

1/10/23: Minnesota acquires A.J. Alexy (did not reach Minnesota) from Washington for Christian Jimenez (has not reached Washington), +0.0 bWAR for Minnesota.
Alexy was a fringe roster addition as a depth reliever. He was waived shortly after the trade and claimed by the White Sox. Jimenez is an 18-year-old in Rookie ball, so we’re several years from knowing if the trade was an unforced error.

3/16/18: Minnesota acquires Jake Cave (922 PA, 93 OPS+, 2.3 bWAR) from New York (AL) for Luis Gil* (33.1 IP, 114 ERA+, 0.6 bWAR), +1.7 bWAR for Minnesota.
Cave had yet to debut in MLB, but I include this because he almost immediately became a Twin. Cave spent a couple of years as a good fourth outfielder before spending a couple of years as a poor fourth outfielder. Gil had a promising short run in 2021 but is recovering from Tommy John.

Overall WAR added: 18.0
Overall, the Twins have successfully bought over the offseason, bringing in MLB players in exchange for unproven prospects. Given the nature of buying, it almost always looks better in the near term than it will years later, as the prospects traded away develop, but given the group of prospects traded away, the only one that looks like it has even a moderate chance of biting the club is Petty in Cincinnati. I’d assume that the Twins would make that deal again, anyway.

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[Nick Nelson]

@Greggory Masterson I just realized what a wrench I threw in the title of this post by scheduling it to publish on a Tuesday. Please forgive me 😭 

Seriously though, great stuff as usual

[Greggory Masterson]

6 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

@Greggory Masterson I just realized what a wrench I threw in the title of this post by scheduling it to publish on a Tuesday. Please forgive me 😭 

Seriously though, great stuff as usual

If you didn’t point that out, I would have never noticed. It’s always next Tuesday anyway.

[Eris]

I’m not understanding why the Tyler Mahle and Jorge Lopez trades are excluded. Without looking these up there is also Sam Dyson, Michael Fulmer, Kenta Maeda, Chris Paddock. 

[Aerodeliria]

8 minutes ago, Greggory Masterson said:

If you didn’t point that out, I would have never noticed. It’s always next Tuesday anyway.

Any reference to Wimpy (it used to be a hamburger chain in the UK...is it still?) has my vote for creating a snicker or two.

[Greggory Masterson]

5 minutes ago, Eris said:

I’m not understanding why the Tyler Mahle and Jorge Lopez trades are excluded. Without looking these up there is also Sam Dyson, Michael Fulmer, Kenta Maeda, Chris Paddock. 

Tyler Mahle, Jorge Lopez, Sam Dyson, and Michael Fulmer are all trade deadline acquisitions. I discussed those trades at the 2023 deadline here. I'll dig them back up for the 2024 deadline, update stats, and rearrange my rankings. I also did a deadline sell review here.

Kenta Maeda and Chris Paddack were trades I categorized as offseason "challenge trades" because they were traded for present major leaguers (Brusdar Graterol and Taylor Rogers/Brent Rooker, respectively). There's another writeup for those trades coming out shortly.

I choose to break these up because I'm operating from a 90 line Excel spreadsheet with the data for these writeups, and the analysis for all 60+ trades is a 4000+ word  document. Much easier to digest in parts, in my opinion.

[Hrbeks Divot]

We can go down some of these trade trees for years but with the Gray-Petty trade we’re likely getting a Comp A pick back when Gray signs elsewhere. If that pick turns out greater than or equal to Petty we really nailed that one.

[Doctor Gast]

8 hours ago, Greggory Masterson said:

Tyler Mahle, Jorge Lopez, Sam Dyson, and Michael Fulmer are all trade deadline acquisitions. I discussed those trades at the 2023 deadline here. I'll dig them back up for the 2024 deadline, update stats, and rearrange my rankings. I also did a deadline sell review here.

Kenta Maeda and Chris Paddack were trades I categorized as offseason "challenge trades" because they were traded for present major leaguers (Brusdar Graterol and Taylor Rogers/Brent Rooker, respectively). There's another writeup for those trades coming out shortly.

I choose to break these up because I'm operating from a 90 line Excel spreadsheet with the data for these writeups, and the analysis for all 60+ trades is a 4000+ word  document. Much easier to digest in parts, in my opinion.

Just curious will you be doing deadline - trading vets for prospects which IMO is this FO preference? Or maybe you have.

[old nurse]

The trade for Gray looks good now. What they won with it makes the trade palatable. There still isn’t the faith in the front office to know what they have in minor league players. Petty with his performance last year could have been 4 years of great down the road. 

[TwinsDr2021]

56 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The trade for Gray looks good now. What they won with it makes the trade palatable. There still isn’t the faith in the front office to know what they have in minor league players. Petty with his performance last year could have been 4 years of great down the road. 

The Gray trade will look good forever regardless of what Petty does. He gave the Twins 303.2 innings over two years with a 2.90 ERA, ERA+ 142 and WAR of 7.7, and helped break the worst post season losing streak in history of all sports.  All While Petty was pitching 165 innings in A ball. Now there is a plenty of time for this trade to also work out for the Reds.

[Trov]

It completely depends on who the prospect is.  I do find it interesting you left out the Mahle trade. Both prospects, that made majors last year had higher WAR than Mahle did.  I still agree with that trade because of who we traded away was lower level prospects than who we kept.  The point is that it in part depends on who you give up and generally the Twins are not willing to give up the top prospects in their system. 

Other teams have got very burned in prospects for current MLB talent down the road.  One of the more recent trades that always comes to mind is Tatis Jr. for James Shields that the Sox made. When you look back at all the trades mentioned, outside of Petty, none were even like top 10 prospects in our system, but you left out the 1 trade recently that had 2 top 10 prospects that did not work in Twins favor overall. 

[tony&rodney]

30 minutes ago, Trov said:

I do find it interesting you left out the Mahle trade.

This was already explained. Offseason versus trade deadline deals. Articles are sepaerate.

[stringer bell]

12 hours ago, Eris said:

I’m not understanding why the Tyler Mahle and Jorge Lopez trades are excluded. Without looking these up there is also Sam Dyson, Michael Fulmer, Kenta Maeda, Chris Paddock. 

Agree, but I do think the theme here is that with the right trade, value can be derived by trading minor leaguers for major league players. 

[Greggory Masterson]

19 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Just curious will you be doing deadline - trading vets for prospects which IMO is this FO preference? Or maybe you have.

Yes—that’s the link I referred to as “deadline sell.” It’s not updated with end-of-year stats, but it’s accurate through June (I think)