Twins Trade Phil Hughes, Draft Pick to San Diego

OK, that's true.  But do you think MLB teams have figured out some way of valuing those draft picks?  I'd say if your team hasn't done so, they're negligent.

I suspect so, sure.....but as fans, do we care if they made money on this, if they don't spend it? Also, do we care that they gave up a potentially valuable minor league player, and pool money?

If they end up with a payroll as large as this year's, next year, I'll be very surprised. And will then likely praise this trade.

Weird trade. My initial thought was that I would very much rather have the pick than the money, but I will give the FO the benefit of the doubt that there is in fact another move to follow. Maybe a trade for a catcher is imminent. I think if we landed Realmuto or Ramos it would make much more sense. I want to like Garver...but he is appearing very much so to be a back up. On a side note, now is a good time to extend as many of our young guys as possible. 

Every team has budget constraints. I'm not really sure why anyone has a problem about recouping 6 Million bucks of dead money especially when teams are not just going to burn 6 million without consequences. This is how teams get dead money off of the books. They have to give up something painful to get someone else to share the pain. 

San Diego could have waited to pick him up at the minimum. Just finding a team that would invest 6 million in Phil Hughes had to be difficult and it took a draft pick to get it done. Now it's up to Minnesota to draft well with the picks before that and the picks after.

Will the money be directly reinvested back into the product. Not directly because it really can't be calculated because the money is going to get mixed together with all the other dollars coming off the books and then spent according to opportunity and need. It's not here's 5 bucks now go buy a 5 buck hamburger.

Having 6 million more of it... means you have 6 million more of it and that may open some doors on specific players and it also might... (speculation from me) it might look good to Ownership who just might be heartened that if he signs a big contract like this in the future, there is a possible escape hatch. 

In the end, they get to draft one less prospect.

I think that can be survived. 

Every team has budget constraints. I'm not really sure why anyone has a problem about recouping 6 Million bucks of dead money especially when teams are not just going to burn 6 million without consequences. This is how teams get dead money off of the books. They have to give up something painful to get someone else to share the pain.

 

San Diego could have waited to pick him up at the minimum. Just finding a team that would invest 6 million in Phil Hughes had to be difficult and it took a draft pick to get it done. Now it's up to Minnesota to draft well with the picks before that and the picks after.

 

Will the money be directly reinvested back into the product. Not directly because it really can't be calculated because the money is going to get mixed together with all the other dollars coming off the books and then spent according to opportunity and need. It's not here's 5 bucks now go buy a 5 buck hamburger.

 

Having 6 million more of it... means you have 6 million more of it and that may open some doors on specific players and it also might... (speculation from me) it might look good to Ownership who just might be heartened that if he signs a big contract like this in the future, there is a possible escape hatch.

 

 

In the end, they get to draft one less prospect.

 

I think that can be survived.

Of course it can be survived. That is not sufficient to make it a good trade.

Sure, that is fine. I just don't think you can dismiss #74 picks because there hasn't been a star taken there since, say, David Cone in 1981. When there have been stars taken with picks shortly thereafter.

Not that it changes things too much, but by that point in the draft, you probably want to look at ranges, and expand the sample size.

When you expand the comparison beyond #74 you are multiply the odds of getting a viable player by the number of rounds you are adding.  So, no you can't look at successive rounds or anyone taken past #74 when evaluating the odds of getting a viable player at #74.  It would only makes sense to compare all picks between 74-xxx if they were trading away a comparable number of picks.

I would prefer they kept the pick but I also recognize they are running a business.  

I'm afraid I don't follow. The Twins drafted Blayne Enlow at #76 last year. They likely would have drafted Enlow at #74 too, if they had that pick. I wouldn't eliminate him from the analysis when projecting the potential value of our #74 spot this year.

Of course, expanding the sample means expanding the denominator too. So if you found 3 good players at #74 from the last X drafts, and 6 at #75 during that same time, you could estimate that as (3+6) / (X * 2).

Evaluating the last 15 years of picks 74-76, for example, would give you a sample equal to 45 years of just pick 74. And it would probably be a more relevant sample too, given the changes in the game.

(Of course there are limits. A 10th round pick that blossoms into a star shouldn't factor into the analysis at #74. Or even a 5th round pick.)

I was basically saying the same thing as you have here.  If you include 3 rounds for 15 years it's the equivalent of 45 years.  I would take rounds 74-78 for 20 years and make it 100 years. Divide by the number of ML players produced. You could even project the probable war of a player picked.  

I don't like giving up the pick but none of us have any regard for the financial component. This is a business and that's the basis of this decision.  Baseball fans understand and accept players treating it as a business but they often can't accept the teams making business decisions. 

The players don't matter in this trade. Simply said, the Twins sold the #74 overall pick for $7 million then included the other players to make it an actual "baseball" trade. It's a good trade for the fans only if they spend that money next season...

And they have a lot of it to spend.

I have a feeling no matter what amount they spend next offseason, $7 million of it will be counted as "money from the Hughes trade." 

It's a good thing they added some extra budget flexibility, I was worried they wouldn't have much $$ to spend.... 

Fangraphs: "The Padres Paid a Bunch for a Draft Pick"

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-padres-paid-a-bunch-for-a-draft-pick/

 

Despite the title, the author finds it to be a reasonable deal for the Padres.

KLAW called it a great deal for them.

It's a business move to offset Hughes' salary. It won't get spent.

 

From a purely utilitarian standpoint, a draft pick in the 70s range isn't worth $7.5M, so the Twins are making the move that most benefits the team. Be that as it may, the money will be earmarked to offset the lost salary.

It doesn't benefit the team unless it's spent. It's already been said but unless they match or exceed payroll next season, this move is purely about the Pohlad's lining their own pocket, and harming the team in doing so. 

I'm not putting much stock into the monetary value of a draft slot, especially when that assigned value doesn't consider team needs, developmental philosophy, opportunity cost, ect.