TRADE: Twins Send Jorge Polanco to Mariners in Five-Player Deal

[jorgenswest]

12 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

The only problem is that you are ASSUMING Seatle was willing to give up the most coveted asset in baseball for something less than an absolute haul.  You want the highly coveted asset very badly.  Yet you assume Seattle was willing to give it up.  There is no doubt the twins were to get their young pitching.  It didn't happen so it's not that tough to read between the lines.  

Agree. My point in the trade discussions was Seattle was not a good trade partner. They were looking to improve their rotation and not use it to trade for Polanco.

They did need a 2B so they might be a good three team trade opportunity and maybe this will be a version of a three team trade. Move Polanco and his salary for a top 100 prospect. Trade off from top 100 prospects to get a starting pitcher. 

[nicksaviking]

7 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Or, they got some money, a RP and will use that money to replace Polanco with someone similar, or in a position of more need? Plus two prospects.... 

I'm not bummed about moving Polanco, one more injury and he's got NO value. I am bummed about not being able to get one of Seattle's young pitchers, though if Seattle was refusing to move them, there's not much to do about it.

As far as the money saved goes though, the last of the three free agents I wanted, Justin Turner, just signed. So at this point I couldn't care less what payroll is. I'd rather go with the roster we have than hand out dumb contracts to what's left on the market.

[chpettit19]

19 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

The only problem is that you are ASSUMING Seatle was willing to give up the most coveted asset in baseball for something less than an absolute haul.  You want the highly coveted asset very badly.  Yet you assume Seattle was willing to give it up.  There is no doubt the twins were to get their young pitching.  It didn't happen so it's not that tough to read between the lines.  

I'm not assuming that at all. I'm saying I'd have given up the "absolute haul." I'd trade anyone in the system not named Walker Jenkins. I'd trade Julien. You're assuming the Twins were willing to give that up and still couldn't get that. And if Seattle wouldn't do it Miami certainly might have. I started with Polanco and Lee already in that post and I'd add Festa without question who people seem to think is some sort of superstar prospect. I'd add Rodriguez without thinking twice. I'm not assuming anything you say I am, I'm openly stating I'd give up what it takes to get that asset.

[nicksaviking]

3 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I'm not assuming that at all. I'm saying I'd have given up the "absolute haul." I'd trade anyone in the system not named Walker Jenkins. I'd trade Julien. You're assuming the Twins were willing to give that up and still couldn't get that. And if Seattle wouldn't do it Miami certainly might have. I started with Polanco and Lee already in that post and I'd add Festa without question who people seem to think is some sort of superstar prospect. I'd add Rodriguez without thinking twice. I'm not assuming anything you say I am, I'm openly stating I'd give up what it takes to get that asset.

I certainly hope they pivot to Miami.

I'm guessing after trading them a 2B last year, they probably didn't have the same level of interest in Polanco. Maybe that's the Kepler stop. And I'm in the same boat, I'm all for including Festa in a deal. I'd actually move Lee first if needed and Rodriguez last, but both are on the table for me.

[chpettit19]

7 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

The Seattle reporter made it pretty clear they were dead-set on keeping their young pitching and the Twins weren't getting any of them. And considering this deal pretty much goes against Levine's comments just days ago about how the team wasn't looking to deal for prospects, and now he's got a whole pile of crow to eat, I'm guessing that until last night, the Twins were dead-set on getting that young pitching.

Then call Miami. Call Milwaukee and get Burnes even though he isn't controllable. Nobody made them trade Polanco. Call Chicago about Cease. Cleveland about Bieber. Seattle isn't the only team in the league with pitching. Were the Twins "dead-set" on getting that young pitching for Polanco or getting that young pitching overall? Did they offer Julien instead of Polanco? Did they offer Lee? Kepler? Festa? Rodriguez?

You can guess on any of that you want, but we will never know the answer. If the Twins were willing to offer a combination of those guys to all the teams in baseball with pitching available and everyone said "no, thanks" then so be it. I find that hard to believe. And if it's actually true then the level of excitement for those guys on this site needs to come down significantly. If we're really so overloaded with young hitting talent that we have no reason to be concerned about losing our 2 hole hitter then that young talent should be valuable on the trade market. I'd have traded some of it. I'm guessing the Twins wouldn't.

[Fatbat]

16 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

The Seattle reporter made it pretty clear they were dead-set on keeping their young pitching and the Twins weren't getting any of them. And considering this deal pretty much goes against Levine's comments just days ago about how the team wasn't looking to deal for prospects, and now he's got a whole pile of crow to eat, I'm guessing that until last night, the Twins were dead-set on getting that young pitching.

So we got 2 pitchers for the 26man roster. Prospects and cash. ALL of these as assets that Polo got us. With 4 players, polo will have tentacles for many years as these 5 assets play, and buy other assets to improve the team.  It may not be a better team today but games dont really count until summer. We got a lot we can do by then because of this trade. 

[wabene]

26 minutes ago, William K Johnson said:

I will remind you of this quote in July.   I guess one of his "skill set" is to guess wrong on a two-strike pitch.   Honestly, I hope I am wrong, but he is defensive nightmare and seems to guess too much at the plate.

It has been posted here that Eddie's defense improved and towards the end of the year his defensive metrics surpassed Polo's at second during the stretch run. I'm not sure where to find the defensive stats but it's posted here somewhere.

Offensively this is what we got

Regular season

Polo .255/.335/.454/.789

Julien .263/.381/.459/.839

Post season

Polo .209/.346/.349/.695

Julien .294/.455/.588/1.043

Julien will continue to improve defensively. He said this week during Twins Fest that he got a lot of work batting in the cages growing up in Montreal (it shows), but didn't get much fielding work. His goal since turning pro is to take thousands of grounders more than his peers to catch up. 

Eddie will refine his two strike approach while also getting more respect for his eye by the upms. He was just a rookie.

I don't think Eddie is the most likely regression candidate of the Twins excellent rookie class from last year. His eye is too good. 

[nicksaviking]

Just now, chpettit19 said:

Then call Miami. Call Milwaukee and get Burnes even though he isn't controllable. Nobody made them trade Polanco. Call Chicago about Cease. Cleveland about Bieber. Seattle isn't the only team in the league with pitching. Were the Twins "dead-set" on getting that young pitching for Polanco or getting that young pitching overall? Did they offer Julien instead of Polanco? Did they offer Lee? Kepler? Festa? Rodriguez?

You can guess on any of that you want, but we will never know the answer. If the Twins were willing to offer a combination of those guys to all the teams in baseball with pitching available and everyone said "no, thanks" then so be it. I find that hard to believe. And if it's actually true then the level of excitement for those guys on this site needs to come down significantly. If we're really so overloaded with young hitting talent that we have no reason to be concerned about losing our 2 hole hitter then that young talent should be valuable on the trade market. I'd have traded some of it. I'm guessing the Twins wouldn't.

I have no interest in Burnes. They need to get controllable pitchers, I don't want to do this dance EVREY year. Bieber and Cease are a bit better with two years left, but I'm not terribly interested in them either. Bieber's plummeting K% is alarming, I think the clock is about to strike midnight on him. For Cease, you'd have to pay for his 2022 season and his other seasons have only been average, and the Twins would probably have to trade twice the haul to get him than any other team in the league.

 

[DJL44]

9 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

DeSclafani and Bundy types have no business in rotations of contending teams.

Dallas Keuchel pitched 37 innings for the Twins last season.

I see DeSclafini as the #6 starter. Varland will get optioned if everyone is healthy on Opening Day but with DeSclafini and Paddack in the rotation I see Varland getting 25 starts just like Ober did last year.

[DocBauer]

1 hour ago, se7799 said:

Doc...one is a concensus top 50 prospect.  The other is on one list closer to number 100 than number 1.  I have had many opportunities to watch him play in person...over 125 games including multiple practices.  You may have your opinion.  But stop trying to convince me your opinion is right.  I will hold my opinion and just state facts.  There is a large value gap between valuing a prospect at number 50 and number 89 or wereever he iby only one outlet.  As opposed to a concensus top 50 player.  And I believe this trade shows that.  There is noway a Polanco trade would bring back a Rodriguez plus type package.

 

And here I thought you were trying to change my mind, lol.

Fair enough. 

[Fatbat]

@nicksaviking Burnes wants a big contract. We simply give him a 4-5 yr ext with an average of 26-28M. Defer some of it. Its a possible deal closer to july when the brew crew is 8 games down and floundering. 

[nicksaviking]

5 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

So we got 2 pitchers for the 26man roster. Prospects and cash. ALL of these as assets that Polo got us. With 4 players, polo will have tentacles for many years as these 5 assets play, and buy other assets to improve the team.  It may not be a better team today but games dont really count until summer. We got a lot we can do by then because of this trade. 

There is nothing left in free agency that I want. 

Again, I'm not upset about this trade, it was the perfect sell high moment for Polanco, but the only thing helpful for 2024 is a 33-year-old reliever with injury concerns. If that's the best they could do, fine. I didn't want prospects, but it's not like I'd refuse them if that was the best offer.

[nicksaviking]

Just now, Fatbat said:

@nicksaviking Burnes wants a big contract. We simply give him a 4-5 yr ext with an average of 26-28M. Defer some of it. Its a possible deal closer to july when the brew crew is 8 games down and floundering. I’m 

Why would Burnes accept any kind of extension midway through his walk year when he could test free agency three months later?

[Fatbat]

1 minute ago, nicksaviking said:

Why would Burnes accept any kind of extension midway through his walk year when he could test free agency three months later?

I can think of 130M reasons 

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, nicksaviking said:

I have no interest in Burnes. They need to get controllable pitchers, I don't want to do this dance EVREY year. Bieber and Cease are a bit better with two years left, but I'm not terribly interested in them either. Bieber's plummeting K% is alarming, I think the clock is about to strike midnight on him. For Cease, you'd have to pay for his 2022 season and his other seasons have only been average, and the Twins would probably have to trade twice the haul to get him than any other team in the league.

 

Totally fair. The point is there's other arms out there that cost other things besides just Polanco. And they very well may bring some in. I've said from the beginning I believe they'll make more moves and we'll see what the team looks like on opening day. But right now, on 1/30/2024 the MN Twins are a worse baseball team than they were at the start of the day on 1/29/2024.

The Twins were a playoff team last year. They won their first playoff game and series in basically 2 decades. And all they've done to this point is watch the team get worse. They made the team worse with this trade. I assume they have other plays in their back pockets ready to be made, and we'll start seeing them improve the team from here on out. But I don't think it's ridiculous for some of us to be disappointed that they made the team worse last night. Even if we think they'll make the team better from here on out.

[nicksaviking]

4 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

I can think of 130M reasons 

Well then I can think of 70M additional reasons why he wouldn't. And whatever number you can cook up, his agent will cook up one even higher. They players union would probably lynch him if he considered such a foolish move too.

Find one example of an elite pitcher ever getting traded in his walk year and signing an extension during the season.

[chpettit19]

9 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Dallas Keuchel pitched 37 innings for the Twins last season.

I see DeSclafini as the #6 starter. Varland will get optioned if everyone is healthy on Opening Day but with DeSclafini and Paddack in the rotation I see Varland getting 25 starts just like Ober did last year.

Totally possible, doesn't make me any more excited about it. Dallas Keuchel wasn't on the opening day roster. Nobody says you have to rely on DeSclafani types on opening day rosters. And maybe the Twins won't. Why didn't San Fran or Seattle want him? They're teams trying to contend. San Fran paid to get rid of him for a guy who's only pitching half a season this year. 

I know we're not supposed to be downers during the offseason, but my point here is that the Twins got worse last night. They had already gotten worse during the rest of the offseason and they added to it last night. Doesn't mean the offseason is over and there aren't more moves, but, objectively speaking, replacing your 2 hole hitter with "the #6 starter" and a reliever makes your team worse. This team was in the ALDS last year and has taken all steps backwards since. I'm expecting some steps forward in the coming days and weeks and months, but right now they went backwards. The fact that we're trying to spin DeSclafani into a Dallas Keuchel comp to suggest it's not that bad that he's currently slated to be in the opening day rotation says all we need it to say. This team is worse than last year's and worse than the team they opened the day with yesterday.

[DJL44]

8 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Oops! I believe BBRef has changed content in their trade story again. It now says the Mariners are sending $2M plus the $6M that SF is paying for DeSclafani. So this edition says the Twins are netting $5.25M, putting payroll around $120M. Perhaps another $5M will be spent by the Twins, so we can lower our sights on any free agents. 

Putting payroll firmly at 19th in baseball, barely ahead of the Royals and Tigers. The $2M extra from the Mariners reminded me of Billy Beane getting someone to fill his soda machine.

The Twins are spending like they expect to not have any local TV broadcasts in 2024.

[Fatbat]

3 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Well then I can think of 70M additional reasons why he wouldn't.

Find one example of an elite pitcher ever getting traded in his walk year and signing an extension during the season.

Thats a good point but …

1. He may want to screw the brewers out of a QO comp pick.

2. If the Twins are rolling towards a deep run in the playoffs and have a 5 yr window to be perennial playoff team. He may want to be here. 

[DJL44]

11 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

This team is worse than last year's and worse than the team they opened the day with yesterday.

I agree with the former but not the latter. Polanco didn't even have a spot in the starting infield and they were in the position of giving serious bullpen innings to Jordan Balazovic. Topa makes this neutral for the 2024 roster.

[jmlease1]

44 minutes ago, William K Johnson said:

I will remind you of this quote in July.   I guess one of his "skill set" is to guess wrong on a two-strike pitch.   Honestly, I hope I am wrong, but he is defensive nightmare and seems to guess too much at the plate.

I'll take this bet. I'm amazed at how down you are on a player coming off a season where they were top 10 in RoY voting and absolutely earned that status. You apparently care more about the few times he's taken a called third strike over the 64 walks and the 130 OPS+ he put up. He might have started out as a nightmare on defense (that's still a little exaggerated, mostly because he made some very glaring errors especially early) but finished the season looking solid. no, he's not as good defensively as Polanco, but his rookie season he was more productive at the plate than Polanco has ever been his entire career. (I don't say this to dis Polanco, a player I love and who has been very important to the Twins. But Julien is 5 years younger, healthier, and far more patient at the plate)

[harmony55]

Reports suggest that the Mariners have been interested in Jorge Polanco for years.

This offseason Minnesota CBO Derek Falvey likely was asking Seattle for Bryce Miller or Bryan Woo while dangling the expendable Polanco to other teams as well.

In the end the Mariners were unwilling to trade Miller or Woo and the Seattle package likely topped any other proposed trade for Polanco. That's the nature of negotiations.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

29 minutes ago, wabene said:

Julien will continue to improve defensively. He said this week during Twins Fest that he got a lot of work batting in the cages growing up in Montreal (it shows), but didn't get much fielding work. His goal since turning pro is to take thousands of grounders more than his peers to catch up. 

That’s interesting, thanks. I will make the comparison that trying to acquire that fielding skill as an adult might be a bit like learning a language as an adult or trying to pick up a new instrument. You can practice enough to get to a level where you can get by, and enjoy yourself, and might experience a few graceful moments, but that inherent fluency will never be there. Julien could take a million ground balls at this point and many of us still would not trust him. I think Julien is a terrible pairing for Correa (or conversely, Correa is great for Julien). If Julien’s bat is good enough, he might be able to carve out a few season in the field like Schwarber did. Otherwise I see Julien as a guy with a DH-PH career, nothing wrong with that.

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I agree with the former but not the latter. Polanco didn't even have a spot in the starting infield and they were in the position of giving serious bullpen innings to Jordan Balazovic. Topa makes this neutral for the 2024 roster.

Jorge Polanco was set to be their opening day 2 hole hitter and would've played as everyday a role as this team does when healthy. The argument against Jorge Polanco is how likely he was to be healthy. Jorge Polanco was the everyday 2 hole hitter for the 2024 MN Twins until they traded him. That's a big piece to replace with a reliever.

[LewFordLives]

11 hours ago, Fatbat said:

Seems like a few people on here are ready to DFA DeSclafani tomorrow at 8am. 

I know you're joking, but if he shows up to Ft Myers and his elbow is still giving him problems, I hope they cut bait and not keep sending him out there to get shelled.

[Otaknam]

13 hours ago, stringer bell said:

No salary freed up--DeSclafani is making more than Polanco.

Cash returned might make save the Twins some $$$. Do we know how much money is involved?

Another column indicated that Seattle kicked in $8 million of the $12 million DeSclafani salary. $4 million for a back of the rotation veteran starter is probably close to market value, sadly. 

[Major League Ready]

55 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I'm not assuming that at all. I'm saying I'd have given up the "absolute haul." I'd trade anyone in the system not named Walker Jenkins. I'd trade Julien. You're assuming the Twins were willing to give that up and still couldn't get that. And if Seattle wouldn't do it Miami certainly might have. I started with Polanco and Lee already in that post and I'd add Festa without question who people seem to think is some sort of superstar prospect. I'd add Rodriguez without thinking twice. I'm not assuming anything you say I am, I'm openly stating I'd give up what it takes to get that asset.

OK.  Then you just disagree with the guys getting paid to make this decision.  Fans focus on right now.  The same type of logic was used at the 2022 deadline.  We had to go for it because we are in 1st place really hurt this team right now.  That team was not worthy of that type of investment and here were are in 2023 where those players that were traded would fit very nicely on this team.  Putting so much weight on immediate return is a very poor asset management practice.  (See Tampa Bay Rays or any finance textbook) and it's an absolutely horrible way to run a business.   It's OK to have a fanatical point of view but you're going to be disappointed quite often if you expect the people responsible for the long-term health of the business to follow your basis for making decisions. 

[DJL44]

49 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I'm openly stating I'd give up what it takes to get that asset.

The Twins front office prioritized lowering their payroll even more. Looking like $125M will be the limit which is sad for a contending team.

[Major League Ready]

7 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I agree with the former but not the latter. Polanco didn't even have a spot in the starting infield and they were in the position of giving serious bullpen innings to Jordan Balazovic. Topa makes this neutral for the 2024 roster.

You could also argue that the combination of Farmer / Julien is more valuable than Polanco / Julien.  Polanco and Farmer were not both going to be on this roster.  Farmer is a far better hitter than Polanco against LHP so did they really lose anything?  

[wabene]

10 minutes ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

That’s interesting, thanks. I will make the comparison that trying to acquire that fielding skill as an adult might be a bit like learning a language as an adult or trying to pick up a new instrument. You can practice enough to get to a level where you can get by, and enjoy yourself, and might experience a few graceful moments, but that inherent fluency will never be there. Julien could take a million ground balls at this point and many of us still would not trust him. I think Julien is a terrible pairing for Correa (or conversely, Correa is great for Julien). If Julien’s bat is good enough, he might be able to carve out a few season in the field like Schwarber did. Otherwise I see Julien as a guy with a DH-PH career, nothing wrong with that.

We'll see