The Twins Are Waiting On an Offer They Can’t Refuse

[Major League Ready]

20 hours ago, h2oface said:

Trading for prospects is the plague of modern day baseball. Hope and dreams never win anything.

You really should take a look at a few winning teams in the bottom half of revenue.  There is plenty of variability in how they were built but in aggregate, players acquired as prospects account for almost as much WAR as drafted players.  They account for more than double the WAR of free agents and triple the WAR of established players acquired in trade.  You make this statement repeatedly.   I tell you to go look at you obviously don't care to be encumbered by the facts.  Try actually looking at a few teams like last year's Brewers team.  Half of their most productive players were acquired as prospects.

[tony&rodney]

Maybe the Twins should be trying to entice a team like Detroit into doing something they would never consider, trading Max Clark. Offer the Tigers Joe Ryan, Austin Martin, and either Taj Bradley or Connor Prielipp. Maybe Detroit flinches. Meanwhile the chorus screams, nobody trades their best prospects. Oh well. The 2028 pick for losing Ryan could be pretty good.

[DJL44]

If the Twins truly are waiting for an offer they can't refuse, they should realize that the players they have to trade (Ryan, Lopez, Jeffers, Buxton) are declining in value with every game they play. Ober is the only one who might be worth more in July than he is right now.

[Paved Paradise]

MLB Trade Rumors has an article about reports in The Athletic that the Twins showed interest in Peralta. It doesn't seem like they'd be interested in Peralta while shopping Ryan at the same time. 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/01/twins-trade-rumors-freddy-peralta-brewers.html

 

[h2oface]

10 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

Well that's obviously not true. If you do it well, it can build up your system during lean years. Hopes and dreams? You're not hoping and dreaming that Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez can win you a championship? What are you even cheering for?

But mostly it's not true because it's 100% not a modern baseball tactic, unless by modern you mean anything after Curt Flood forced free agency on the owners.

Only Losers trade their best players for prospects. Winners always trade their prospects for other teams MLB best. I have yet to see the prospects traded for put that team in a playoff run anytime soon, but often see the MLB players that were traded become prime reasons for the new teams success immediately and very soon. 
 

This idea that trading your best players for prospects that may never even make it to the show makes a bad team better is way more often folly than success. How is that working for the Twins? It sure showed after all the trades. But it sure helped several teams that traded for the Twins best. 
 

A team isn’t bad because of their best, they are bad because of the worst and mediocre. Hell, we all could be dead before it ever happens with rinse repeat. That is a better bet than thinking it is always going to happen by getting rid of your best that every other team would like to have, 

Yup. After following this team since being 6 in 1961, calculating batting averages longhand after every at bat, scouring the Sunday peach section from Rapid City and Pipestone and White Bear Lake…..these last two seasons and the collapse of the current round of prospects (including Lewis and Wallner and Larnach and Kirilloff) that were the next sure thing….. I’m demoralized and yelling at the clouds. 
 

I did have an awesome 5 years of fandom 1987-1991 through my 30s, (I see you got it years 8-12 - great age to get sucked in for life, eh?) and those 60s teams, too. I leave hope and dreams to others now. I have no time for the future and embrace the now. I hope it all works out for you that are gaming for next year, and the year after that maybe, or in a five year build cycle, or whatever you want to tell yourselves. 

[h2oface]

8 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

…….and Team has #3 pick this coming draft.

…. and likely take an 18 year old shortstop that is an Austin Martin utility player in 7 years?  Exciting. 
 

But maybe finally, a top of the heap pitcher that is the next Skenes? Na. They like projects for pitchers. 

[tony&rodney]

2 hours ago, Paved Paradise said:

MLB Trade Rumors has an article about reports in The Athletic that the Twins showed interest in Peralta. It doesn't seem like they'd be interested in Peralta while shopping Ryan at the same time. 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/01/twins-trade-rumors-freddy-peralta-brewers.html

 

The Twins were interested in Peralta in the same manner as they were interested in Aaron Judge and a host of others. Surprisingly, the Brewers didn't accept the offer of Julien and Ohl for Peralta. Thus the Twins, rebuffed, turned to the rockies for their next next best deal.

[Major League Ready]

2 hours ago, h2oface said:

Only Losers trade their best players for prospects. Winners always trade their prospects for other teams MLB best. I have yet to see the prospects traded for put that team in a playoff run anytime soon, but often see the MLB players that were traded become prime reasons for the new teams success immediately and very soon. 

You mean losers like the 2024 Brewers who won 93 games, traded away their Cy Young winning pitcher and went on to the best record in MLB in 2025 and then traded their top SP.  How did they get acquire that top SP BTW.  Oh yes, he was acquired as a prospect. 

Of course, then you have losers like the Guardians who have been the most inclined of any team in MLB to make this type of trade.  Those losers have more 90 win seasons than any team in the bottom half of revenue over the past 20 years.  Why not spend 20 minutes to validate your position.  All you need to do is pull up a successful team on Fangraphs, sort by WAR, and their acquisition method is listed.   

[dcswede]

Trading proven major league success for a handful of prospects is a fool's errand. A little over half of first-rounders ever make it to the majors. Only 30% attain 1.5 WAR. Drop below the top 100 draft picks and the incidences of success decline rapidly. Out of nearly 65,000 players drafted, only 11.2% ever made it to the majors at all. And that's just getting to the majors - perhaps keeping a spot for a couple of years. The number of prospects who become high-end MLB performers is much smaller. The chances you'll ever get back the value you traded away is vanishingly small. Much worse than a casino - but better than Powerball. If the trade is a disguised salary dump, that's a different question. But the idea that such a move will improve the team in the long term? 

[TL]

18 hours ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

Agreed. Neither package paid by Texas or the Mets is particularly impressive. Both were all prospects all "hope", no substance. That's the kind of package you look for and take on July 31 (Aug 4 this year) when you're 10 games under .500 and out of contention. I cling to the belief that the plan is to see how things play out and if the first half shows a complete rebuild is necessary, then you trade off guys like Ryan, Lopez and/or Buxton, plus Bell, Caratini and Jeffers. I'm pretty confident that we can get a package as good or better than those two teams got at the deadline, especially for quality starting pitching with a year plus of control remaining like Lopez and Ryan. The risk is injury. It's a real risk but to me one worth taking to see if this team can perform for the first half.   

This ⬆️

[Major League Ready]

3 hours ago, dcswede said:

Trading proven major league success for a handful of prospects is a fool's errand. A little over half of first-rounders ever make it to the majors. Only 30% attain 1.5 WAR. Drop below the top 100 draft picks and the incidences of success decline rapidly. Out of nearly 65,000 players drafted, only 11.2% ever made it to the majors at all. And that's just getting to the majors - perhaps keeping a spot for a couple of years. The number of prospects who become high-end MLB performers is much smaller. The chances you'll ever get back the value you traded away is vanishingly small. Much worse than a casino - but better than Powerball. If the trade is a disguised salary dump, that's a different question. But the idea that such a move will improve the team in the long term? 

Do you consider Tampa Bay foolish?  TB has had (8) 90-win teams in the past 20 years.  41% of their WAR produced in those years where they won 90 or more was produced by players acquired as prospects.  They actually produced less WAR from the draft and International Draft combined. See chart below.

BTW ... The low revenue team with the most 90-win seasons is Cleveland.  Their ratio is actually a couple percentage points higher.  The theory that this is a foolish practice is derived from ignoring history.

 

8	Tampa Bay Rays	WINS	Drafted	Intl	AaP	Trade	FA
100%	Tampa Bay 2021	100	24.5%	5.9%	54.0%	0.0%	15.6%
100%	Tampa Bay 2023	99	13.8%	9.8%	66.2%	0.0%	10.2%
100%	Tampa Bay 2008	97	45.7%	0.0%	33.2%	4.5%	16.6%
99%	Tampa Bay 2019	96	18.6%	0.0%	45.8%	9.0%	26.0%
100%	Tampa Bay 2010	96	64.7%	0.0%	22.1%	9.1%	4.1%
100%	Tampa Bay 2013	92	50.7%	0	28.6%	8.5%	12.2%
100%	Tampa Bay 2011	91	61.5%	0.0%	33.0%	5.5%	0.0%
	Tampa bay 2018	90	18.6%	0.0%	45.8%	9.0%	26.6%
	Tampa Bay Total	95.13	37.3%	2.0%	41.1%	5.7%	13.9%

[NJM]

I would not be mad if Ryan got traded for a haul, I cant really see him resigning with the Twins.