Twins Beginning to Accumulate Value from the José Berríos Trade

[Hashim]

On 4/19/2024 at 9:54 AM, bighat said:

Meanwhile Berrios is leading the AL in virtually every pitching statistic so far this year. He's 3-0 with a 1.05 ERA, absolutely dominating out there. 

I say the Twins should let Martin and Woods-Richardson play as much as possible this year. It's a lost year and developing those two, plus Lee and maybe a couple other rookies will greatly help this team in 2025. 

The return value for Berrios is nothing unless you let these guys play. 

I agree. Martin & SWR should be playing instead of Santana & Margot. Those are awful, absolutely awful. What a waste of money. 

[USAFChief]

6 minutes ago, Hashim said:

I agree. Martin & SWR should be playing instead of Santana & Margot. Those are awful, absolutely awful. What a waste of money. 

You want SWR playing 1st base?

 

[Fatbat]

On 4/19/2024 at 9:54 AM, bighat said:

Meanwhile Berrios is leading the AL in virtually every pitching statistic so far this year. He's 3-0 with a 1.05 ERA, absolutely dominating out there. 

I say the Twins should let Martin and Woods-Richardson play as much as possible this year. It's a lost year and developing those two, plus Lee and maybe a couple other rookies will greatly help this team in 2025. 

The return value for Berrios is nothing unless you let these guys play. 

Nothing is lost yet but a few too many games. We gotta play more guys that want to win instead of show up and collect a paycheck. Last year the twins and other teams got great value from younger players. Veteran leadership is great but not hitting the ball and not fielding balls doesn’t win games.  Ride the hot hands!  Varland and Paddack look like dumpster fires right now. Get them fixed and in the mean time give SWR his games. If he is successful, he should stick in the rotation! Martin looks like he is here to stay. We need more obp’rs. Less K’s and GIDP’s!!

[bean5302]

18 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Conversely, then they should get credit for what actually DID happen. Berrios was awful the next year, tanking his trade value at the next season's deadline and making it unlikely the Twins would tender a qualifying offer. Toronto is only getting any value back from that trade because they were able to negotiate an extension. If Berrios had gone to free agency the Twins would have been the clear winners just by not having to pay for Berrios that following season.

First, Berrios was not awful the following year. The Blue Jays won like 65% of the games Berrios started that season because Berrios had some clunkers, but overall pitched very solid in 2022 despite the negative perception. In 17 of his 32 starts and 172 innings pitched in 2022, Berrios went at least 5 innings and left the game with an ERA under 4.00. In 14 of those starts, he left the game with an ERA of 3.00 or lower.

The replacement for Berrios, Sonny Gray, had 5.0+ innings and an ERA under 4.00 in 14 of his 24 starts and 119.2 innings. He had an ERA of 3.00 or under in 13 of his starts where he pitched 5.0+ innings. Berrios was not far off from Gray on any given start, Gray just had a couple fewer big clunkers mixed in.

Second, there were other offers on the table for Berrios and other players the front office could have chosen from Toronto. The Twins were extremely unlikely to keep Berrios until the 2022 trade deadline if they didn't move him at the 2021 deadline. The team would have traded him at the end of the 2021 season to maximize their return, anyway.

Falvey has acquired 0.1 fWAR for a young, 1.5 year controlled, inexpensive, durable, mid/upper rotation starter. That's a blunder, plain and simple. What matters is what the real return for the Twins' assets. If it makes you feel better, you can say both teams lost the trade so both GMs should be fired, but I bet money the Blue Jays make that trade over again today while the Twins would love to have it back.

[DJL44]

18 hours ago, h2oface said:

Analytics be damned.

Yes those newfangled analytics of hits and runs allowed.

[DJL44]

5 hours ago, bean5302 said:

First, Berrios was not awful the following year. The Blue Jays won like 65% of the games Berrios started that season because Berrios had some clunkers, but overall pitched very solid in 2022 despite the negative perception. In 17 of his 32 starts and 172 innings pitched in 2022, Berrios went at least 5 innings and left the game with an ERA under 4.00. In 14 of those starts, he left the game with an ERA of 3.00 or lower.

Pitching decent in 17 of 32 starts is not solid, it's pretty bad. That means half your starts your team is trying to overcome the starting pitcher giving the game away. He had a 2022 season that was basically no value at all and he was paid $11M to do it.

[h2oface]

3 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Yes those newfangled analytics of hits and runs allowed.

🤮 That was cheap.

If Berrios was on a make it free agent year, his whole season might have been different. To assume that his 2022 season would have been the exact same results with a different team backing him and managing him is folly, and different consequences of his performance would be in play. It can't be known. The Yankees didn't trade Judge. They played out the year with him raking. The Braves didn't trade Freeman for prospects, and won a world series with him. A lot of teams keep one of their stars and get THAT value instead of what may be nothing, and cash in on the draft. This whole "you have to trade him to get (unknown) value in the future that could be 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years later", or maybe never...... well, it doesn't happen more than it does. To say that ONLY analytics should be considered gets you a team like this one. I like high batting averages. I like to watch hitters and not strikeout kings looking for walks. I think a guy that consistently knocks in runs isn't lucky, but shines under pressure. I don't abhor analytics at all, I just don't think that it is the master of all decisions, especially when pre-scripted before the games with no consideration to what is actually happening in the game NOW. 

But I like homegrown players that work their ass off, and Berrios was one of them. So was Polanco. Morneau and Cuddyer won batting titles after cast off. Batting titles that many statheads like to pretend doesn't matter for the almighty OPS with 200 Ks. If only analytics worked so well, we would have repeated as World Champions by now. 🙃

[bean5302]

17 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Pitching decent in 17 of 32 starts is not solid, it's pretty bad. That means half your starts your team is trying to overcome the starting pitcher giving the game away. He had a 2022 season that was basically no value at all and he was paid $11M to do it.

I've done that analysis before and you're dead wrong even if it "feels" like that shouldn't be the case. No legs to stand on at all.

Feel free to spend a few hours looking at mid/upper rotation pitchers, and how often they leave games at 5.0+ innings under 4.00 ERA in recent years. Over 50% is very solid. It's why I put Sonny Gray in the comparison because I knew he wasn't going to be a lot better. For a mid/upper rotation starter, $11MM (he made $15MM) is a ludicrously good deal, (let alone the $6MM he made in 2021).