Don't Look Back in Anger

eh... A strong upside pitcher does well (albeit in an extremely small sample size) after spending a few injury plagued years with the Twins.

Mahle being successful shouldn't really surprise anyone, it just would have been nice to see the healthy version of him in Minnesota.

I guess, maybe, I can kinda buy this argument. 

The trade is looking less disastrous as time passes now that the shine is off some of those prospects.  Steer remains a solid and promising hitter, but his glove is weak no matter where Cincy puts him (a trend with Twins prospects).  It's somewhat unlikely that he becomes a difference-maker... probably just a reasonably reliable 2-3 WAR player who brings a little power but not much else.  Encarnacion-Strand is starting to look like a total bust, which is a real surprise.  He's had no MLB success at all.  Looks like Hajjar may never make it past A ball.

I don't regret trading the prospects. I do wish the FO had better luck on getting solid and healthy players in return.  

41 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Nobody was angry with the Twins pursuing a pitcher of Mahle's caliber, though I certainly wish they had aimed higher. Most of the fanbase was angry Falvey made the move immediately after Mahle came off the IL for shoulder fatigue and the Twins didn't do any due diligence on the arm, and it just so happened to turn out the arm was a mess.

Like what feels like far too many of Falvey's moves to accumulate every injured or injury prone player in baseball.

I am not sure the issue is due diligence. Looking at the totality of the tenure, it feels more like calculated risk. Look at Correa and Buxton. They got below market deals on these guys knowing there were health issues. They have made efforts to have capable backups (to varying levels of success). At the same time, when on the field, Correa and Buxton have generally been very good.

Because of the financial limitations imposed on this team, I understand the need to take these sorts of risks. But when they don't work out 100%, and the wheels fall off in other areas, the optics look really bad.

This is what I will say  , THE FRONT OFFICE IS GUN SHY ABOUT TRADING PLAYERS FOR PLAYERS ...

They have made some good trades , odrizzie and sunny gray that have worked out , but there deadline  acquisition in 2022 which should have been put off until the 2023 deadline because we were a more of a contending team in 2023 than 2022 was more of a pretending team at the deadline in my opinion  ...

Unable to evaluate talent and trading for oft injured players has not been the front offices strong points  ...

Their last trade of Polanco for 1 injured pitcher and 1 pitcher that had 1 good season and 2 prospects hasn't helped to date , with time the trade may favor the twins ...

Okert is pitching well for Houston  ....

Not quite sure I understand the concept of saying a "sound-decision making process" is being made just because the player you are getting was good. Anyone can see how a player performed previously and if it was good want to trade for that player. The real judge of a trade is how that player played for you when you had him. In this case, it was a total failure. It's also not a "sound-decision making process" when the player is having arm issues and you choose to ignore them. Was trading for a 1/2 year wonder like Jorge Lopez a sound-decision making process? No. Or DeScalfani? No. I wouldn't go out on a limb and say bringing back Correa was either. A known cheater that 2 other teams didn't want due to injury questions, who also didn't want to stay with the Twins after his first tenure, leaving for bigger money. What does that tell you about the supposed leader when he has the choice to stay or leave and chooses the latter? And we are to believe that he is the team leader? He didn't even want to be here in the first place. The Mets and Giants are the ones who had a "sound-decision making process". Not the Twins.

I don't get too spun up about the Mahle deal: it didn't work out, but we needed starting pitching badly at the time and if arm had held up it might have been not just a good trade but a great one. It was a reasonable risk. And hell, the prospect that i was the most high on (CES) is already looking like a 1B/DH at 25, isn't hitting anywhere near where he needs to be there, and has struggled to stay healthy.

Twins traded from an area of strength to shore up an area of weakness and it didn't work out. they didn't move anyone who was a sure-fire MLB player or wipe the system of talent. If Mahle's arm had held up for either of the 2 seasons he'd pitched for the twins this might have worked out. As it is, it's a loss...that's turning out to be less awful that we thought because CES and Hajjar haven't done anything and Steer has been in free-fall since his rookie season in MLB. (maybe Steer pulls out of it, or maybe he's one of those guys who peaked early and never gets it back together)

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

You can make a good decision and not have it work. There were three, IIRC , pitchers traded, none of them worked. I guess they could have done nothing like Ryan did. How'd that work?

Problem was, it wasn't a good decision. That's the point the article was trying to convey.

Good decisions vs bad ones... that’s really what it comes down to. And when you look at Falvey’s whole track record, I honestly don’t know how you could give him anything better than a C.

The one that still ticks me off the most? The Pressly trade.

Pressly was just starting to figure it out, and the Astros spotted a small tweak, helped him unlock it, and boom—dude turns into a beast. Meanwhile, the Twins had him right there and totally whiffed on it.

Falvey and his crew basically gave him away. They didn’t wait, didn’t develop him, just pulled the trigger way too soon and handed Houston a steal.

And what’d we get? Two guys who’ve done next to nothing in the bigs. That trade still stings.

Can we now reverse engineer the trade to acquire a reasonably uninjured fielder that can hit .280 and not GIDP once per game? 30 SB/season would also be nice. 

15 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I am not sure the issue is due diligence. Looking at the totality of the tenure, it feels more like calculated risk. Look at Correa and Buxton. They got below market deals on these guys knowing there were health issues. They have made efforts to have capable backups (to varying levels of success). At the same time, when on the field, Correa and Buxton have generally been very good.

Because of the financial limitations imposed on this team, I understand the need to take these sorts of risks. But when they don't work out 100%, and the wheels fall off in other areas, the optics look really bad.

They've traded for 3 SP in the last 3 seasons and gotten next to nothing out of them. At what point does it stop becoming calculated? It's not just optics, it's reality. You can't keep trying to rely on guys who are terrible and/or not available. 

They didn't get a below market deal on Correa, and Buxton's backups have ranged from subpar to abysmal over the last few seasons. That doesn't offset his time missed in any capacity. 

5 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

They've traded for 3 SP in the last 3 seasons and gotten next to nothing out of them. At what point does it stop becoming calculated? It's not just optics, it's reality. You can't keep trying to rely on guys who are terrible and/or not available. 

They didn't get a below market deal on Correa, and Buxton's backups have ranged from subpar to abysmal over the last few seasons. That doesn't offset his time missed in any capacity. 

Considering this team does not have the capability to go out and spend $150m on a SP2, this is what you get. Like it, don't like it, teams that are hamstrung financially need to find lightning in a bottle where they can. Paddack wasn't brought in to be an SP1, he was expected to be an SP4. Same with Mahle. If either of them performed at or above expectations, the narrative would be different. They didn't. The team keeps looking.

It is hard to say with any confidence the Twins did not get a below-value contract with Correa. The amount of team options alone on this deal for a player of his caliber is staggering.

Taylor - Good
Margot - Bad
Bader - Good (so far, though Buxton has been healthy too)

As much as every team tries, there is only one Tampa Bay organization. Personally I would rather see them take runs at guys like Mahle and Paddack, then sign Rich Hill.

5 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Considering this team does not have the capability to go out and spend $150m on a SP2, this is what you get. Like it, don't like it, teams that are hamstrung financially need to find lightning in a bottle where they can. Paddack wasn't brought in to be an SP1, he was expected to be an SP4. Same with Mahle. If either of them performed at or above expectations, the narrative would be different. They didn't. The team keeps looking.

It is hard to say with any confidence the Twins did not get a below-value contract with Correa. The amount of team options alone on this deal for a player of his caliber is staggering.

Taylor - Good
Margot - Bad
Bader - Good (so far, though Buxton has been healthy too)

As much as every team tries, there is only one Tampa Bay organization. Personally I would rather see them take runs at guys like Mahle and Paddack, then sign Rich Hill.

They just spent $200M on Correa. The money was apparently there, the team chose to invest it elsewhere. Mahle was definitely brought in to sit at the front of the rotation when they traded for him. Paddack was not expected to be that high in the pecking order but that takes a back seat to the fact that they were relying on him to stick in the rotation. 

Unless you actually believe he was turning down better offers to stay in MN, the Twins represented the top of the market. 

Taylor is severely overrated on TD. He was an offensive black hole and a major contributor to a team offense that went dormant way too often for way too long. No need to talk about Margot. Bader if TBD and if the Twins keep feeding him PAs against RHP I'll take the under. 

I don't want to be TB. No fan should. Sure, take a run at an injured player if there's an actual plan B. Don't collect injured players, rely on them to stick, and then throw your hands up when they inevitably get hurt. I can't feel sorry for a FO that put themselves in those situations.  

Gray, Lopez, Mahle, Ryan, Ober would have been fun to see for a year... Still have to score runs though.