The Delmon Young Trade is Still Haunting the Twins 17 Years Later

2 hours ago, Greggory Masterson said:

Is this reason to harbor resentment toward the Twins or Terry Ryan?

Trades are won by the team that better develops or increases the value of the players acquired.

There was nothing wrong with the original deal when it was made. The trade ended up being really wrong afterwards because Delmon's value plummeted to the point where he was given to the Tigers. Delmon Young the center piece of the deal was just 22 years old at the time with tons of career that was supposed to come.

It's probably more on Delmon according to reports that I've read about Delmon... However... Delmon did not increase in value during his time with the Twins... His value plummeted to the point where he was given away to the Tigers just to get him off the roster. Development during this time was certainly not a strong suit for the Twins.    

Not only did Delmon not develop... every single player that we acquired in the aftermath did not develop either. No Rookies broke down the door either for over a decade.  

J.J. Hardy was mentioned in the article. J.J. Hardy was probably a worse trade tree. We failed to develop Carlos Gomez, we rushed him to the big leagues as a 22 year old and cut him loose two years later. During his time with the Brewers Carlos Gomez increased his trade value so much that the Brewers got Josh Hader, Domingo Santana Adrian Houser and Brett Phillips in return. Hader has since netted them Estuary Ruiz who was traded for William Contreras and Joel Payamps today. So the Hardy trade is still giving to the Brewers.    

J.J. Hardy did not develop as a Twin in his only year with the Twins. He was injured during the season hitting 6 homers as a Twin and that was the ONLY year he didn't at least reach double digits in dingers over the course of 7 SEASONS. The Orioles got him back on track with 30 dingers the immediate year after acquiring him from us for nothing as we handed the reigns to a SS from Japan that was the worst thing we have ever seen. Another development failure I guess. Because we couldn't convert whatever the scouts saw in Japan to a functional major league baseball player. 

It's easy to see who wins and losses trades afterwards... The teams who lose trades are the ones who don't make the players acquired better but most of us tend to think the win/loss thing is decided at the time of the trade. 

From 2006 to 2016... Under Terry Ryan. We went through a long stretch of very few players increasing their value with a few big ones crashing and burning.

Name a rookie who rose from the Farm during this stretch that developed any kind of decent value either on the field value or trade value.

This is what did Terry Ryan in... In my opinion... the failure to develop anybody as we plugged the holes with average veterans.  

As I'm building a statue outside of Target Field to honor Terry Ryan and I do honor him because he was one of us... development was his downfall and ultimately I will judge our front office on development as well. We seem to be doing much better at it today. 

The Twins can't survive without development. We have to make our players better. 

1 hour ago, Road trip said:

Well, I don't really disagree with your point regarding player development in the Ryan years.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't ZERO.

Wilson Ramos was traded away for Capps, which was unfortunate, but Ramos was developed and had great value.  The Twins just made a bad trade with that value.  (and Ramos had the misfortune to get continually hurt after a great rookie season in Washington)

Denard Span and Ben Revere both had decent, but not great careers.  Span unfortunately didn't bring much value back when traded.  Revere got us several good years of Trevor May.

Brian Dozier is arguably one of the great development stories in Twin history, as he was never considered more than a middling prospect, but had a few great years.

You could add Trevor Plouffe to the position player list as well, and possibly Danny Valencia and the legendary Drew Butera, although we are kind of stretching the boundaries of "successful" at this point.

Glen Perkins is probably the lone pitcher from that era that would be remembered as a development success.  That may be the real problem.  No quality starter was developed in that entire decade (Liriano came up just a hair earlier).

Great Post... You have a fantastic list of players from that time period and your assessments are solid but I do see things a little differently when I think of those guys. 

Perkins - No doubt... He is a development success story. A Twin from beginning to end and he was top notch. 

Dozier - I'll give you Dozer... Kind of... We had 4 big years of Dozier. Although, when it was time to cash out... only pennies remained. The Dodgers sure didn't give up much for him. Certainly wasn't a player that could speed up the needed build.  

Ramos - I won't give the Twins any credit for Ramos development. I give the Twins the opposite of credit. He goes into the same pile as Carlos Gomez. Traded at age 22... Just another young player that was given away. What a shame because the following year Joe Mauer shifted over to 1B. No worries we had that ole' average vet standby that we stuffed our rosters with during that decade in Drew Butera. You list Drew Butera and admit to stretching the boundaries. I can't stretch things that far. 😄    

Span - What the Twins got back in return is another example of that development problem. Span was like you said... decent but not great but I think Alex Meyer in return was a pretty good get at the time... Hard throwing 6-9 Dude out of Kentucky. But Alas, Alex Meyer did not develop under Twins care. So when I think of Span... I think of Meyer... Failed development.  

Revere - I have always been a huge Revere fan. That speed, that defensive ability, that ability to put the ball in play. I was a big fan. But, Revere and Span traded in the same off-season just reminds me of another development failure. We trade Revere at age 24 along with Span and hand the job to... Yep... that 23 year old 1st round pick named Aaron Hicks who the Twins developed to the point of being worth John Ryan Murphy. Hicks was just decent... not a superstar but he did stick around New York for 2,000 AB's of average baseball. 2,000 AB's with the Yankees is pretty hard to do.

Plouffe - 1st round pick. Career OPS of .714. The definition of average. Yet... he was entrenched as the every day 3B for 6 years like he was Adrian Beltre. So entrenched at 3B while playing average baseball that the arrival of top prospect Miguel Sano had to detour to RF to accommodate an average Plouffe. Once Plouffe hit free agency... he barely found a job spent two months with the A's and was traded to the Rays for a player to be named later. 

Valencia - No Credit for Danny... He was given to the Red Sox after producing a back to back sub .522 OPS season. His success came with the Orioles, A's and Jays. At best those clubs fixed him after we broke him. At worst... he's just another example of a young player that we moved off of as a young player and they found themselves elsewhere. At least for awhile in Danny's case.  

The Twins really really really struggled with development over that long dark period and I believe it was why the period was long and dark. I'm not sure the Twins could have done worse and I'm typically a pretty optimistic guy.