The Twins’ Homegrown Starting Pitching Has Been Few and Far Between

[Major League Ready]

8 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

His WAR since he left is 7.0   The two guys they got are a combined 4.1 and Martin was negative coming into this year and is a mere .9 in this his "breakout" year.  

They did not get anything back.  This has been established but you can't look at it this simplistically.  He had no value to the 2021 team given they were out of contention.  He produced .9 WAR in 2022 which was his last season of control.  That's as far as the trade comparison goes and he had no value.  You can't lump in the rest of his career.

If you want to look beyond the 1.5 seasons of control they gave up, you have to do that in the context of should they have extended him.  His first year was good.  (2.9 WAR)  The last 3 seasons he has produced a total of 2.4 WAR.   He could bounce back but right now I am very glad they did not extend him. 

[Major League Ready]

8 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

The biggest impact of trading Berrios was that a year hence they found themselves in need of a Jose Berrios type of pitcher.  Which lead to the Mahle trade.  Need I say more?

They needed a pitcher like Berrios was the previous year (2021).  The 2022 version that had an ERA of 5.23 would not necessarily have negated their need for a good SP although Berrios did give them 3 very good innings before being pulled in game 2.

[bean5302]

22 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

I really don't get this gripe. If you draft good hitters and trade them for good pitchers, that works. If you trade relief pitchers your developed for SP, that likely works better, because you are trading for more sure things than if you draft them 

This idea that somehow they've failed at having good starting pitchers just isn't borne out when looking at their standings in pitching. It's average or better. 

 

Starting pitching gets by far the most trade value. It's almost impossible make the kinds of trades you're suggesting. 

[bean5302]

Starters. Quality starters are what we're talking about. The players required to advance in the playoffs. Ober is not in the same league as Matthews. Ober was a quality starter for 4 years, and potentially a back-end playoff rotation option.

Apart from that, the Twins have not developed a single #3 or better arm since Berrios, who Falvey inherited. Falvey did put together a rotation, but it was largely built on scavanging assets he inherited from the previous regime.

[terrydactyls]

There is a lot of discussion at Twins Daily about following the model of Tampa Bay or Cleveland.  And yet, when they had the opportunity to do just that at this year's trade deadline, most posters railed against trading Ryan and Jeffers because the Twins had a small chance of possibly getting the final wild card spot.  And after that, who knows what could happen.  And now reality is settling in.  As of this morning, the Twins are tied for 6th in the race for the last wildcard spot.  This means the Twins have to outperform 6 other teams over the final 31 games.  Possible? Yes.  Probable?  Not likely.  Trading Ryan and Jeffers was the move that a Tampa Bay or Cleveland (or Detroit or Chicago) would have made.

[LA Vikes Fan]

6 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

There is a lot of discussion at Twins Daily about following the model of Tampa Bay or Cleveland.  And yet, when they had the opportunity to do just that at this year's trade deadline, most posters railed against trading Ryan and Jeffers because the Twins had a small chance of possibly getting the final wild card spot.  And after that, who knows what could happen.  And now reality is settling in.  As of this morning, the Twins are tied for 6th in the race for the last wildcard spot.  This means the Twins have to outperform 6 other teams over the final 31 games.  Possible? Yes.  Probable?  Not likely.  Trading Ryan and Jeffers was the move that a Tampa Bay or Cleveland (or Detroit or Chicago) would have made.

I agree with the decision not to trade Ryan, question the decision not to trade Jeffers, but your point is well taken. If posters here want to follow the Tampa Bay or Cleveland model, we need to be trading guys at their highest value before reaching free agency. That certainly meant trading Jeffers this year. Ryan is a little more debatable, at least to me, because I personally think we will do just as well in the off-season as we would have done at the trade deadline but the point remains. Tampa Bay and Cleveland developed their pitching pipeline by making frequent trades of established MLB players for well scouted prospects, including pitchers. If we want to follow that blueprint, we need to be doing the same by trading guys like Jefferson Ryan for young pitchers to develop. We can't have it both ways.

[weitz41]

This is IMO is a nuanced subject. Mostly around payroll. How many of last year's WS teams current SP, that aren't on the IL, are Homegrown? Zero. Including the players on the IL Two. The best record in the AL. One. The second-best record in the Al. Two. Worst record this season in baseball...Rockies. 3 of 5. Athletics, 3 of 6. technically J.T. Ginn could be called an A's prospect. So, 4 of 6.

Homegrown. Sure, you hope for 1-2 of them. Trades, same. It's the free agents the Twins don't take advantage of.

[Major League Ready]

13 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

There is a lot of discussion at Twins Daily about following the model of Tampa Bay or Cleveland.  And yet, when they had the opportunity to do just that at this year's trade deadline, most posters railed against trading Ryan and Jeffers because the Twins had a small chance of possibly getting the final wild card spot.  And after that, who knows what could happen.  And now reality is settling in.  As of this morning, the Twins are tied for 6th in the race for the last wildcard spot.  This means the Twins have to outperform 6 other teams over the final 31 games.  Possible? Yes.  Probable?  Not likely.  Trading Ryan and Jeffers was the move that a Tampa Bay or Cleveland (or Detroit or Chicago) would have made.

Milwaukee as well.  It seemed to me to be about 50/50 in terms of TD posters favoring buying or selling but perhaps the majority wanted to "go for it".  I was actually surprised there were many people that wanted to follow a strategy more focused on building a true contender. 

I guess I am a greedy fan.  I don't care about constructing a team with a 25% chance of getting the last wildcard spot in a year when the AL is really weak.  I want to follow an approach that can build a team that is really good for several years.   We passed on an opportunity to get some impact prospects and we traded away a couple guys with the potential to be high impact players.  Who knows, they all might turn out to never play at the major league level.  We still gave up the potential to make the team a lot better for several years.  We can't buy those players like some other teams.  The opportunity we just passed up is how low revenue teams can create an opportunity.  

[dxpavelka]

On 8/24/2026 at 7:12 AM, Major League Ready said:

They did not get anything back.  This has been established but you can't look at it this simplistically.  He had no value to the 2021 team given they were out of contention.  He produced .9 WAR in 2022 which was his last season of control.  That's as far as the trade comparison goes and he had no value.  You can't lump in the rest of his career.

If you want to look beyond the 1.5 seasons of control they gave up, you have to do that in the context of should they have extended him.  His first year was good.  (2.9 WAR)  The last 3 seasons he has produced a total of 2.4 WAR.   He could bounce back but right now I am very glad they did not extend him. 

You also can't assume that what happened there is what would have happened here.

[dxpavelka]

On 8/24/2026 at 7:19 AM, Major League Ready said:

They needed a pitcher like Berrios was the previous year (2021).  The 2022 version that had an ERA of 5.23 would not necessarily have negated their need for a good SP although Berrios did give them 3 very good innings before being pulled in game 2.

Again, you can't ASSUME that what he did there is what he would have done here.

[Major League Ready]

19 minutes ago, dxpavelka said:

You also can't assume that what happened there is what would have happened here.

Does it make more sense to assume as you have that he would have been good here?  We should make an assumption not based on what he did but what he would have done.  He has been gone for 5 seasons and produced one good season.  In the other four he produced 3.3 WAR.   Yet, you want to make the case it was a terrible mistake to let him go.  I would bet that had he been good, you would not have been to accepting of the premise we can't assume he would have been good here.