The Delmon Young Trade is Still Haunting the Twins 17 Years Later

[Richie the Rally Goat]

5 hours ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Hey Greg and Twins fans ...

This is the best article written since the end of the world series  , I enjoyed the read and comments  ...

I'm getting tired of responding to all the speculations  of who the twins should acquire in trades or free agency  , it's out  of our hands  and all we should do is sit back and see If FO makes us a winner  or they just tank ...

Then we can either praise or shredd them .....

I liked this article  ...

Me too!

[Craig Arko]

Ahem, Tom Brunansky->Tommy Herr. My neck still hurts, and the ghostly sounds of the Metrodome fans keep interrupting my sleep.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

4 hours ago, Road trip said:

Well, I don't really disagree with your point regarding player development in the Ryan years.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't ZERO.

Wilson Ramos was traded away for Capps, which was unfortunate, but Ramos was developed and had great value.  The Twins just made a bad trade with that value.  (and Ramos had the misfortune to get continually hurt after a great rookie season in Washington)

Denard Span and Ben Revere both had decent, but not great careers.  Span unfortunately didn't bring much value back when traded.  Revere got us several good years of Trevor May.

Brian Dozier is arguably one of the great development stories in Twin history, as he was never considered more than a middling prospect, but had a few great years.

You could add Trevor Plouffe to the position player list as well, and possibly Danny Valencia and the legendary Drew Butera, although we are kind of stretching the boundaries of "successful" at this point.

Glen Perkins is probably the lone pitcher from that era that would be remembered as a development success.  That may be the real problem.  No quality starter was developed in that entire decade (Liriano came up just a hair earlier).

A decade of 40 man roster spots netted 7 players developed, one of which was great, a couple were good, 4 of which were fodder for other teams, out of 400 roster spots and zero free agent spending.

1.7% isn’t technically zero, but it’s effectively zero

[KBJ1]

Lopez and Ryan have been the only decent trades since Pirzinski. Delton was a disaster and Tampa won a WS with Garza & Bartlett.

Let's hope for better. 

[RickOShea]

"Live in the Now" !

 

[Doctor Gast]

Yes TB starting with Garza & Barlet made some pretty good trades with good evaluations & they knew when to sell when a players hype & trade value was high. That's the buy low/ sell high technic that always win. Twins tend to sell low due to poor evaluations & keep players when their hype & trade value were high only to suffer for it.

[jmlease1]

I think you have to discount the secondary and trinary impacts of trades like this rather than just tot up the bWAR and go "holy cow, the team really blew it there!". It's one thing to look at the direct returns on a deal, but a different ballgame to look at the value accrued from the players that were traded again; isn't that on the other teams that were in on the deal? An assessment like this shows how well the Rays front office was functioning and how well that spotted talent in other team's farm systems and leveraged their assets to get those players. But you can't hang any blame on the Twins for Pittsburgh making a trade to acquire Chris Archer and sending the Rays quality prospects in exchange that quickly outstripped Archer's value.

The original deal has some interesting parts and other questions that need to be answered, like how much influence did Ron Gardenhire have over personnel decisions in that off-season and during the Bill Smith years? It's also notable that Jason Bartlett had one of the more notable "fluke years" in recent baseball history for TB in 2009, hitting far far better than he ever had in his MLB career, and better than he ever would again and it wasn't really close. Please tell me who could have seen that #*%$ coming?

But I don't think this deal haunts the Twins any longer. Bad trade at the time, but also part of quite a few bad decisions that all piled up together for a stretch where we couldn't get our infield right and the rotation wasn't good enough. Dealing Bartlett was a bad decision because we didn't have a proper SS ready to step in, but acted like we did (I remember back then believing that Gardy didn't care for Bartlett that much). Harris almost immediately got dropped in the pecking order because Gardy seemed to prefer Punto there. Garza was a bad decision because we didn't have enough pitching, even if he didn't like being with the Twins or their coaches.

[KP34Forever]

On 12/15/2023 at 2:35 PM, Road trip said:

the legendary Drew Butera, although we are kind of stretching the boundaries of "successful" at this point.

 

Legendary is right! All the Butera hate is blasphemous! Y'all were too busy focusing on his sub .200 average and couldn't see what he could do well!

You show me another player to come in for garbage time innings and throw (mostly) accurate 95 mph gas past the guys expecting to either see a Astudillo eephus pitch or take a 65 mph throw the ribs. 

On 12/15/2023 at 3:38 PM, Riverbrian said:

No worries we had that ole' average vet standby that we stuffed our rosters with during that decade in Drew Butera. You list Drew Butera and admit to stretching the boundaries. I can't stretch things that far. 😄    

Would you stretch your boundaries for Buxton's 2023 season? He hit for basically the same batting average as Butera with no defensive value for an entire season. Buxton has more power, sure, but Butera wasn't exactly a slap hitter. With the exception of one anomalous season, he was basically Joey Gallo hitting at 50% power. Terrible average, but when he does connect there's some power. 

Defensively we haven't had a catcher come anywhere close to Butera's defensive talent since he left. Mauer won Gold Gloves at catcher and Butera was still the superior defender and it's not even really that close.

 

But that arm was no joke.

I always loved seeing him come in to pitch in a blowout game. I think they missed a golden opportunity with him. They should have done with him what they did with Jason Motte with the Cardinals (and if I'm not mistaken Kenley Jansen with the Dodgers too) and convert him into a high leverage reliever since he couldn't hit above .200 I think he would've done well.

 

Butera for President 2024? I can think of one or two worse candidates 🤣😶🫣😰

[Riverbrian]

5 minutes ago, KP34Forever said:

Would you stretch your boundaries for Buxton's 2023 season? He hit for basically the same batting average as Butera with no defensive value for an entire season. Buxton has more power, sure, but Butera wasn't exactly a slap hitter. With the exception of one anomalous season, he was basically Joey Gallo hitting at 50% power. Terrible average, but when he does connect there's some power. 

Defensively we haven't had a catcher come anywhere close to Butera's defensive talent since he left. Mauer won Gold Gloves at catcher and Butera was still the superior defender and it's not even really that close.

 

But that arm was no joke.

I always loved seeing him come in to pitch in a blowout game. I think they missed a golden opportunity with him. They should have done with him what they did with Jason Motte with the Cardinals (and if I'm not mistaken Kenley Jansen with the Dodgers too) and convert him into a high leverage reliever since he couldn't hit above .200 I think he would've done well.

 

Butera for President 2024? I can think of one or two worse candidates 🤣😶🫣😰

No disrespect intended by me for Drew or any of the Butera's in baseball history. I will vote for Drew in 2024 if he runs. 

However, the discussion you are responding to was about development over the last decade of the Terry Ryan era. 

If Butera is the shining example of what our system was able to produce during that time... we are going to fall below the other 29 teams by a large margin. Where's our version of what the Marlins developed with Stanton or Yelich or Realmuto?, The DBacks with Goldschmidt or Corbin? The Rockies with Arenando or Lemehieu or Story? The Angels with Trout? The Mets with Syndergaard? The Ray with Snell? Nearly every team has a fairly significant development success story over the last decade of Ryan. Where was ours? Perkins and Dozier is the best that we can do? 

Buxton... it wouldn't be much of a stretch to put him into another example of failed development under Ryan. They dropped into the major leagues at 21 in 2015. He wasn't ready and it showed because he wasn't very good until he was 25 in 2019. The club burned 2 years and 160 days of service time trying to develop him which led to Falvey and Lavine sending him down to the minors and not calling him back up in September in 2018 to gain an extra year of control.

In 2019... Buxton finally became a special MLB player for straight years before the wheels fell off along with other body parts last year. 

Our development was brutal over the last decade of the Ryan Part II Era.  

Under Falvey and Lavine... As a 24 year old in 2014... His OPS was .383. That was the year he was sent down to the minors and they didn't call him back up in September gaining an extra year of service time. Buxton was 13 days short of being a free agent in 2028  

[Nine of twelve]

On 12/15/2023 at 3:38 PM, Riverbrian said:

Ramos - I won't give the Twins any credit for Ramos development. I give the Twins the opposite of credit. He goes into the same pile as Carlos Gomez. Traded at age 22... Just another young player that was given away. What a shame because the following year Joe Mauer shifted over to 1B.

Nitpick: The Ramos trade was in 2010. Mauer's concussion occurred in 2013 and ended his season; he moved to first base in 2014.

[Riverbrian]

22 minutes ago, Nine of twelve said:

Nitpick: The Ramos trade was in 2010. Mauer's concussion occurred in 2013 and ended his season; he moved to first base in 2014.

Good Nitpick and you are right. 2014 was when the move to 1B was made permanent with no looking back. 

Bi-Lateral Leg Weakness occurred in 2011 and that brings us back to Drew Butera who was our primary catcher in 2011. 

[Al from SoDak]

On 12/15/2023 at 9:28 AM, arby58 said:

That's not my recollection on the Knoblauch trade. Baseball Almanac says 'Traded by Minnesota Twins to New York Yankees in exchange for Brian Buchanan, Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton, Danny Mota and cash (February 6, 1998).'

Brian Buchana was trade for Jason Bartlett.

[David HK]

On 12/15/2023 at 11:51 PM, Doctor Gast said:

Yeah, Greg, that Young trade was head scatcher even at the time. Before that trade the Devil rays were a so so team. After that trade of Barlett & Garza, The Rays had taken off & never looked back. Just think of that ripple effect that the Rays made from that trade if the Twins could have made those same trades? It's mind boggling.

To me, this one nearly equates to the Vikes turning the Cowboys into perennial Super Bowl contenders-- and champs.