Have the Twins Been Successful Getting Creative in Trades?

[bean5302]

8 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

He looked like a AAAA player: good enough to wreck AAA pitchers, but not good enough to hit in MLB. He was chasing sliders and would get himself out, and added no value defensively. He repeated things in SD and KC: huge stats in AAA and couldn't even really get a look in MLB other than a cup of coffee, and both teams let him go. I mean, SD traded him for a terrible backup catcher and KC (who was going nowhere at the time) cut him.

Good for him for getting things together in Oakland. Now, is it maybe easier to play for a team that has no expectations? Maybe. But he's also figured some things out in the last 2 years.

But I'd push back on the idea that Rooker is a "Falvey Dream Pick". There seems to be some idea that the Twins under Falvey/Levine established some kind of hitter profile that they stick to like glue or something, and that it's significantly different from the rest of the league. Are there a lot of teams out there that don't want their hitters swinging hard?

Rooker owned a wRC+ 97 with the Twins in his SSS of just 234 PA, and apart from his sporadic April plate appearances in 2021, he was above average at the plate, and his xwOBA in 2021 was far higher than actual (xwOBA .341 in 2021, which translates to a wRC+ 130ish). Rooker was "chasing sliders" like every other hitter in baseball, and that's why pitchers throw sliders. That said, Rooker was +1.6 vs. Sliders in 2020 and +0.2 vs. sliders in 2021 according to Fangraphs. Like most arguments against Rooker, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

For whatever reason, the bizarre inability to accept Falvey's front office (or the casual fans here) made a colossal error in Rooker's case is baffling to me.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

Rooker owned a wRC+ 97 with the Twins in his SSS of just 234 PA, and apart from his sporadic April plate appearances in 2021, he was above average at the plate, and his xwOBA in 2021 was far higher than actual (xwOBA .341 in 2021, which translates to a wRC+ 130ish). Rooker was "chasing sliders" like every other hitter in baseball, and that's why pitchers throw sliders. That said, Rooker was +1.6 vs. Sliders in 2020 and +0.2 vs. sliders in 2021 according to Fangraphs. Like most arguments against Rooker, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

For whatever reason, the bizarre inability to accept Falvey's front office (or the casual fans here) made a colossal error in Rooker's case is baffling to me.

They definitely made a mistake but my recollection is that most posters here were all for getting rid of him.  There was a lot of comments that he was a AAAA player, he is too old to be a good prospect, would never be a good MLB player, etc.  Is my memory faulty?  Are we criticizing them when most people here thought he was a terrible prospect.

[jmlease1]

14 hours ago, bean5302 said:

For whatever reason, the bizarre inability to accept Falvey's front office (or the casual fans here) made a colossal error in Rooker's case is baffling to me.

Just make sure you bash SD and KC's front offices for making such a "colossal error" as well, I guess. Reality is probably more like he wasn't actually that good at the time, but made some adjustments and put in offseason work and it paid off when a team that had no hope of playoffs handed him a job and let him figure it out in real time at 28.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Just make sure you bash SD and KC's front offices for making such a "colossal error" as well, I guess. Reality is probably more like he wasn't actually that good at the time, but made some adjustments and put in offseason work and it paid off when a team that had no hope of playoffs handed him a job and let him figure it out in real time at 28.

I've addressed this before. There is absolutely no similarity between SD and KC's front office situation with Rooker and the Twins'. After drafting and developing him for 5 years in their system the team who should have known Rooker inside and out thought he was trash. The Twins' actions ruined Rooker's reputation so it's natural other teams would view Rooker with a ton of skepticism.

[bean5302]

16 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

They definitely made a mistake but my recollection is that most posters here were all for getting rid of him.  There was a lot of comments that he was a AAAA player, he is too old to be a good prospect, would never be a good MLB player, etc.  Is my memory faulty?  Are we criticizing them when most people here thought he was a terrible prospect.

Yes. The Twins' front office's wisdom should be far greater than casual fans posting comments on an internet site.

[jmlease1]

14 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I've addressed this before. There is absolutely no similarity between SD and KC's front office situation with Rooker and the Twins'. After drafting and developing him for 5 years in their system the team who should have known Rooker inside and out thought he was trash. The Twins' actions ruined Rooker's reputation so it's natural other teams would view Rooker with a ton of skepticism.

This is ridiculous. The Twins didn't ruin Rooker's reputation; he shrunk his own value down by not being able to lay off sliders outside the zone. Twins didn't think he was going to fix it and dealt him. they didn't run around the league telling teams "screw this guy, he's trash!"

He got a chance at 26 and was bad. he was basically the same guy the next season and didn't show anything to prove that he was different at 27 (and KC in particular needed a RH OF/DH). Everything suggests that he figured something out in 2023 and changed as a hitter (he's still an awful defender and is basically a DH now) and used a hot start to latch on with Oakland and he's been able to sustain & improve at the plate. Good for him, but anyone who saw this coming is full of it.

[Major League Ready]

33 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Yes. The Twins' front office's wisdom should be far greater than casual fans posting comments on an internet site.

I agree but it seems to be a bit hypocritical to say what's wrong with this front office keeping this old prospect that is obviously not a major league player and then criticizing them years later when he has some success.  While it's coinvent to pull out the "they are the professionals" defense, there are a great many posts where posters assume a superior understanding of what needs to be done.  My only point is that we should perhaps see why they were not confident in him given most of us shared their opinion.

[Riverbrian]

17 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

This is ridiculous. The Twins didn't ruin Rooker's reputation; he shrunk his own value down by not being able to lay off sliders outside the zone. Twins didn't think he was going to fix it and dealt him. they didn't run around the league telling teams "screw this guy, he's trash!"

He got a chance at 26 and was bad. he was basically the same guy the next season and didn't show anything to prove that he was different at 27 (and KC in particular needed a RH OF/DH). Everything suggests that he figured something out in 2023 and changed as a hitter (he's still an awful defender and is basically a DH now) and used a hot start to latch on with Oakland and he's been able to sustain & improve at the plate. Good for him, but anyone who saw this coming is full of it.

There was another Rooker discussion on a different thread so I wasn't going to comment on this one... But Oh Well. 

2021 didn't go that great at the major league level. There is no doubt about that. However... in fairness... there were two players that year that we will be counting on THIS YEAR that were in the same boat statistically... Larnach and Jeffers.

Gordon, Astudillo, Simmons and Cave were offensively worse and received more AB's in MLB than Rooker did. Celestino had 59 well below average AB's in 2021. Rooker had more AB's in AAA that year to the tune of a .931 OPS. 

In 2022. He wasn't the same guy. His AAA OPS at El Paso and Omaha combined to 1.044. At the major league level... 7 AB's in San Diego... 29 AB's in Kansas City. 36 scattered AB's in the majors... I'm sorry... you can't say "Same Guy". 

Maybe a light switch was flipped in 2023. I don't know but with Rooker that light switch really really flipped. It did not flip for Astudillo, Gordon or Celestino who the Twins gave more playing time.  

I'm not sure why it's hard to accept the possibility that the Twins missed on their assessment here.  

[Trov]

I get the point of this series, but I have always said a straight up WAR to WAR comparison is a terrible way to gage a trade.  You also need to look at who was not traded and filled in for the traded player.  For example, you have 2 guys that will play 2nd base, you cannot play both, so you decide to trade 1 for a player.  Even if the guy you traded away did well, if the guy you kept did better and the guy you got did just fine, then it was a good trade.  Now, if the guy you traded was amazing, and the guy you kept tanked, and the guy you got sucked, then it was a terrible trade.