3 Teams Who Could Make a Play for Ryan Jeffers at MLB Trade Deadline

[DJL44]

Since there are more teams who need catchers than there are catchers available, would you deal Jeffers to the Yankees and Caratini to the Red Sox or Rays?

[HarmonK03]

6 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Since there are more teams who need catchers than there are catchers available, would you deal Jeffers to the Yankees and Caratini to the Red Sox or Rays?

And go with Jackson and Cardenas at catcher, there is no way you can trade both. Jackson can be a solid backup but is not the guy to be the #1 catcher.

[DJL44]

29 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

And go with Jackson and Cardenas at catcher, there is no way you can trade both. Jackson can be a solid backup but is not the guy to be the #1 catcher.

They would probably get a backup catcher back in one of the trades (ex. Connor Wong).
It would free up about $10M in cash to make Jeffers a big offer as a free agent.

[Coach JT]

You need to Trade Jeffers and Larnach and you still can be in race . Pitching and more pitching and more pitching. Heck throw in Walner and get as much top ranked arms and maybe one already in the majors bullpen guy . 
 

[Sjwenn10]

The Twins need to build for next year while putting a competitive product out the rest of this year.

Jeffers, Clemens and Ober to Boston for Connely Early and Anthony Eyanson. 

Ryan and Larnach to LA for Mike Sirota (Wish it was Josue De Paula), Christian Zazueta, Chase Harlan and Brady Smith 

Emma Rodriguez, Dasan Hill and Gabby Gozalez for Reid Detmers.

Call up Walker Jenkins and Kaelen Culpepper.

Next year’s rotation: Lopez, Bradley, Detmers, Early and Abel/ Prielipp

Zebby goes to the bullpen and probably Prielipp

[David Maro]

Trading Jeffers and or Jackson may be on hold until Caratini is ready. He had to be helped off the field last night. The last thing a catcher needs is a bruised knee. If they still think the team is still in the division or WC they can't go with one catcher if Caratini is on IL. This is just another thing that has happened to the team they didn't need.

[LA Vikes Fan]

13 hours ago, bjorks said:

Unless it's Dax Kilby, I'm not trading Jeffers. I'd be trying to move one of the other 2. If you get rid of Caratini's $7M and Jeffers signs the QO for $23, I would take 1 more year of Jeffers at $16M (NET). Gives Lackey a full year in A+/AA 

Not a bad way to look at this. Trade Caratini, keep Jeffers, hope he signs a QO in the offseason, and go with Jeffers and Jackson next year. Make a low wattage deal with Jackson to keep him around as the #2 catcher. The big question is what do you do if Jeffers turns down the QO. The draft choice is nice but we're left with Jackson, assuming he will re-sign with the Twins, and ... Ricardo Olivar? Noah Cardenas? Jackson looks great right now but I see him more as a bat volatile #2 C guy. I doubt he can hit enough if playing 65% of the time to be a #1. But hey, the man is hitting .322/.355/.441  (.796) in a very SSS this year and .220/.290/.473 (.763) last year, much better in the second half after changing his swing, so I could be totally wrong on him. Trading Caratini is at least another option to think about. 

[UK Twin]

12 minutes ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

Not a bad way to look at this. Trade Caratini, keep Jeffers, hope he signs a QO in the offseason, and go with Jeffers and Jackson next year. Make a low wattage deal with Jackson to keep him around as the #2 catcher. The big question is what do you do if Jeffers turns down the QO. The draft choice is nice but we're left with Jackson, assuming he will re-sign with the Twins, and ... Ricardo Olivar? Noah Cardenas? Jackson looks great right now but I see him more as a bat volatile #2 C guy. I doubt he can hit enough if playing 65% of the time to be a #1. But hey, the man is hitting .322/.355/.441  (.796) in a very SSS this year and .220/.290/.473 (.763) last year, much better in the second half after changing his swing, so I could be totally wrong on him. Trading Caratini is at least another option to think about. 

Why would Jeffers sign a QO though? I see zero reasons for him to do so. By trading Jeffers I think we'd get more in return even as a rental and we can either keep Caratini to the end of his contract or trade him at next years deadline because I think Lackey won't need to be in the minors long.

[LA Vikes Fan]

6 minutes ago, UK Twin said:

Why would Jeffers sign a QO though? I see zero reasons for him to do so. By trading Jeffers I think we'd get more in return even as a rental and we can either keep Caratini to the end of his contract or trade him at next years deadline because I think Lackey won't need to be in the minors long.

I hear that and I agree that trading him is the more likely approach. Having said that, I think the reason Jeffers might sign the QO would be to get the one season at $23 million and stay at a place he knows and were they know him as compared to taking his chances in free agency when his most likely value that I've seen predicted on a FA contract is roughly 4 years/$60-$70M. I think you could make a good economic argument that taking one year at $23M followed by a FA contract of three years/$50-55M is a better deal because of the time value of money. In addition, if the new CBA has a salary floor of some kind in return for some kind of soft salary cap (very unlikely the owners can get a hard cap), his value might increase to the Twins so they can hit the floor and decrease to high spending teams. This would all assume he wants to stay, which I don't know one way or the other, and that he's willing to accept the risk that an injury in 2027 makes that later FA contract either smaller or nonexistent.

Much as I would like to keep him on the team, I agree that unless you have a pretty good inkling that you can either sign him later or get him to accept a Q0, the right move is to trade him at the deadline. Where I differ from some here is I don't think you just trade him for whatever you can get; you trade him if you can get a combination of someone that can help you in the bullpen this year plus a quality prospect or two. If you can't get that, it may make more sense to trade Caratini for a quality relief pitcher in his 30s, if that's available, and roll the dice on trying to keep Jeffers for next year. You take that risk knowing that you have Jackson to be the number two catcher behind one of those two guys in 2027 and that Jackson could potentially be the number one catcher if he really can hit like he has the last roughly year and 1/2. Jackson certainly has the defensive chops for the position, the issue has always been whether he can hit There's lots of moving parts here and it all depends on something we don't know; what can we get for Jeffers or Caratini if we trade them. I think each of us could make a good, well informed choice if we knew the answer to that question.

[David HK]

17 hours ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

Any chance of getting someone good higher than A+ ball? I'm sure these guys are good players and someday might even make good MLB players. That someday looks like a ways off for each of them. Maybe I'm just getting old and frustrated, but this looks like more playing for the future that never comes. Let's trade Jeffers for some guys that can come and help us in the bullpen this year or at least next year.

I concur. Trading a strong hitting, competent catcher needs to being more immediate help. That Evanson is lighting it up in AA so far, as a 21-yr old. I can't see reaching lower in the minors than that. 

[Mike Sixel]

mike sixel

2:03

Does Jeffers accept the QO or test FA if they Twins offer him? I mean, I trade him, but others want the QO and the rest of this year and maybe next at 23 million....thanks!

Jon Becker

2:04

I think I'd reject it if I'm him, assuming I finish the season healthy and hitting somewhere near as well as I am now. The catcher market in FA is always so thin, and this coming offseason is no exception with Jeffers and Stephenson the top two and then a lot of backup-types. I think he'd at minimum double the value of the QO on a multi-year deal, probably even triple it.