If Twins Owners Want to Clean Up Their Books, Pablo López Could Be a Trade Candidate

Without Pablo Lopez the Twins are no longer a playoff capable team. It was obvious that we could not lean on our young pitching staff of David Festa, Simeon Woods-Richardson, and Zabby Matthews, without Lopez Minnesota would be left with only the injury prone Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober as starters to build around. Also, with a bullpen that blew up at the end of last season we need multiple high caliber starters that can help ease the bullpen's arms.

Let the hand-wringing begin....

Books are the Twins least problem.

They should have never spent all that money and long term commitment to a part time  player in Buxton and an injury prone star shortstop that two other teams wouldn't sign due to physical concerns.  Before I dump Lopez I would try hard.to get Correa and Buxton to agree to trade them.  We need Lopez.  I honestly believe we can do without Correa and Buxton and reallocate some of their salaries to fill other positions.

No reason to do this in any capacity except for a complete rebuild which the Twins do not need.

The vitriol following this move would be insane.

7 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

In the private equity investment world, where The Pohlad companies operate, and is also typically done when sports franchises are put up for sale, like the Orioles and Royals, companies artificially inflate their profitability and or cash flow by selling their liquid assets and converting them to cash. This reduces Cost of Goods Sold, making gross profit (and net) higher. It comes at the expense of future sales, but when you are selling the company you don’t care. When you are buying the company, it becomes more valuable even though it has less assets, because outside of the stadium, the assets are intangible, you’re buying profitability 

also, cash from the seller, stays with the seller. There is a likelihood the sale will last into 2025, maybe 2026.

What talent did the Royals sell?  The rest of your statement is backwards of what the people here have said about a profitable team 

4 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

I understand how the numbers work.  Unfortunately for your theory, anyone who would be interesting in making the purchase would also understand how they work.  Most of the adjustments you are suggesting have already happened and will be transparent to a buyer.  Gee, your EBITDA for the last two years looks nice, now lets see the 5 and 10 year information.

There is no such thing as dressing up the books for a sale, that's called fraud.  Anyone involved in these transactions can see what happened in 5 minutes with the proper information presented.  What actually happens is the seller takes care of problems instead of passing an issue to the buyer.  The more outstanding issues, the more items the buyer has to negotiate with. 

There is no artificially inflating or deflating anything.  Moving money around so I'm not selling bad (unsecured) debt is pretty standard stuff but its out in the open.  Lopez has a good contract and isn't an issue, it's very standard for the business.  Any new owner would know they have to get another pitcher anyway so they have to run their numbers based on spending that money, rather than running with what the seller was able to conjure up.  The buyer would have to pay current market prices at a higher cost than already secured.  There is no incentive to offload a good contract.

Many real estate investors get themselves in trouble accepting expenses as presented rather than underwriting how they would actually operate..  "Who shovels the walk?"  "I do, if I'm out of town my brother does."  "Are you going to keep doing it for me if I buy it?"  "No!" "OK, that has a cost for me to do it, I'll add it to the calculations."  Price goes down, just a little.  Pretty soon the numbers aren't nearly as rosey as presented.  Simple example but happens all the time.  People that buy baseball teams don't make those mistakes.

Anthony Rendon made it harder for Angelos to sell the Angels.  It's a bad debt.  If they could have gotten that off the books, a sale is much easier.  Lopez is not a bad debt.

You do not buy a business based on what the seller is doing or has done.  You buy it based on what you will do with it.

Cash from the seller remains with the seller?  2026?

In a 3 billion Olaf sale, Rendon’s contract is not the hold up 

An emphatic "NO" on the idea of trading Lopez. It took us this long to find another quality starter, it would be a big stop backwards to deal him this winter. 

Clean up the books? Seems to me, that trading away some of your best assets isn't the right way to make the franchise attractive to a potential buyer. 

Really the question the article poses is could you raise the overall team by spreading out money across the board more?  Personally, I would not trade Lopez away.  He is not making that much that spreading his money across the board will make a huge difference.  The economics of baseball make it that you either need to spend huge on vets, or hit big on prospects.  You rarely will get by spending a little across the board on vets.  

Think about it, most guys do not become FA until average of 30.  Some earlier, but they generally are great players that will demand mega bucks.  Most players start to really drop off at 30.  The ones that do not, normally are really great players that demand mega bucks.  Sometimes you get the guys like Santana who can still play at late 30's earning single year contracts until they fall off the cliff.  Sometimes you get a pitcher that pops up out of no where when older. 

However, for the most part, teams are built either on young guys they drafted, or traded for, or big time FA that they spent big on. 

Now, if you are saying dump him to cut payroll for a sale, it is possible but it will just cause more fans to get mad.  Then you have fans not showing up and attendance dropping, not something you want to show to your new buyers. 

All this penny pinching is very sad. Your competitive window is usually before all your core players get expensive. Now would be the time to supplement, not tear down and start a rebuild or trade away assets BEFORE they get expensive. If ownership trades Lopez, the leader of our pitching staff, we are no longer a playoff team. Just because we have a lot of warm bodies SP in the high minors does NOT mean they are ready for the majors. Neither Festa or Mathews looked ready to hold down a full-time roster spot. I won't believe we have a surplus of pitching until I actually see more than a rotations worth of successful pitchers.

We finally have some good pitching and all we want to talk about is trading them away? I may feel differently about this given another year with some of the rookies but pitching was a big problem in 2024.

Trade Lopez if you want to confirm that the front office has no idea of what it is doing. Trading the hugely popular Arraez for Lopez, signing Lopez to a huge contract extension, and then trading him a year later, would verify that the team management is incompetent. I like Lopez, but let’s stop saying he is one of the top starters in the league. At best he can be really solid, but he is inconsistent and he’s no ace. As for the idea the Twins have “quietly built one of the most exciting young pitching groups in the majors”. We all need to reserve judgment on that notion. So far, none of these young starters look like a top of the rotation starter, and you need a legitimate number one or a couple of number two starters to have a realistic chance of making a playoff run. 

12 hours ago, DocBauer said:

Pablo began each of his 2 Twins seasons rather slow, and then picked it up BIG TIME. Unfortunately, he got in a groove a little later this season than last. But if he was a FA this season, he's easily getting $25-30M per season. He's actually underpaid based on age, stuff, results, while still offering additional upside.

Moving him DEFLATES the overall value of the team in regard to a potential new owner.  He's actually an ASSET that's PART of the purchase of the ballclub!

Moving him is a TERRIBLE idea short term as well as long term to the product on the field, as well as removing an asset for the new buyer.

Awful idea.

Well said!

Trading cost-friendly Pablo makes no sense. Trading Pablo only makes sense if we are rebuilding. But then we have to trade both Correa & Buxton, if we can't trade them it'd be counter-productive. Pablo can be up & down during the season while adjusting. But in the postseason, I wouldn't want anyone else.