State Of The Twins: Reacting Too Quickly (Stream of Consciousness)

This is NOT a rambling, stream of consciousness.  You used punctuation....  ;-)

I think the acquisition of Garcia was simply an FO attempt to stop the bleeding in one rotation spot.  I think Garcia has an excellent chance to do just that, this year and next, if he so chooses.  A little surprised they didn't go after Neshek early for stability.  

Intrigued by Hildenberger and Busenitz.

Also intrigued by Aaron Slegers, Stephen Gonsalves.  But are they closer to a Jon Rauch / Chris Young-clone than a Randy Johnson-type?

I'd promote Mitch Garver before I'd ever bring up Kennys Vargas again.  Been there, done that.

Always gauge the market!!

Problem with selling from areas of weakness is that Twins will need starters next year, so at least be careful with what you do.  

I would love to see them sell from the bullpen if they get the chance, They have several relievers (Curtiss, Bard, and several others to look at).  

There is also the idea of moving some spare parts, I would look at moving a SS (Polanco prefered, but also maybe Escobar) because Gordon will be here next year.

Agree Garver should be up, but he somewhat duplicates Grossman as an OF option.

Take offers on the starters, but only move them if you are belown over by them.  Relievers I would move whatever the market will bear, if you can get good prospects, but expect market to be soft as there are a lot of relievers on the market.  But this as middle infield are the Twins biggest areas of strength right now so I hope some moves will be made.

Garcia and Santiago are gone (FA) at the end of the year.  Gibson should be non tendered so Twins will need mulitple starters next year.  

mlbtraderumors has commented that they feel the Twins should flip to selling as they have some useful pieces.  My guess is the weekend in Oakland should tell.  Twins need all 3 games. Go Twins.

Maybe it is just anecdotal memory, but the Twins don't seem to play Oakland well, especially in Oakland. Point being, I wouldn't be looking at this series to make up ground, especially with no Ervin, no Jose.

This is maybe a simplistic version of whether to buy or sell. But, the Twins should no more make their decision on buy/sell on the Oakland series, than on the Dodger series. They should make it on what they need to do to be (truly) competitive. Whether they sweep the A's or get swept their strengths and deficiencies remain in place. They have 3 shortstops, one can't field at a high level, one can't hit, and one can't currently do either. They have a ground ball closer who is starting to be abused. They have no bench bat. They have some excellent young positional talent. They have an expendable second baseman, DH (RG) and the aforementioned closer. None of this changes this weekend. Beating Oakland is the same as losing to the Dodgers. You still retain middle of the pack mediocrity. Let's use Dozier or Santana as an example. Those who say that both will help the Twins next year are to an extent correct. But unless you use them, or some other players who would also fall in that category as trade chips, it's a moot point. You cannot win with this roster, and whether it's Santana or Dozier or ???, that is the problem. And it does not change no matter the outcome in Oakland.

I imagine they'll go further before deciding whether to sell. But the fact is, this team has been playing above its heads all year. So they've always been just a few games here or there between buying and selling.

What's more, they are now 5.5 games out of first, and four games out of the Wild Card. Both the Royals and the Indians are taking command. 

While I would love to see the Twins compete this year, it is just not that realistic. So it's perfectly reasonable for this team to go from buy to sell that quickly. 

Good article.  I don't think the 3 losses to the Dodgers changes anything, except possibly making people realize the situation.  The Twins should be sellers and SMART buyers.  Sell assets that won't be here to help us win long term.  Buy only when the asset you are receiving can help you win long-term.  To me, it's pretty simple.

At every point this season, I thought the Twins should be in sell mode.

Good article. I don't think the 3 losses to the Dodgers changes anything, except possibly making people realize the situation. The Twins should be sellers and SMART buyers. Sell assets that won't be here to help us win long term. Buy only when the asset you are receiving can help you win long-term. To me, it's pretty simple.

Anyone not under guaranteed contract next year can be up for grabs since none of our impending free agents are worth a qualifying offer.

Dozier will help us win next year, but might be redundant if Polanco can hit again, and if we tender Escobar, with Gordon in the high minors. So, listening to offers on Dozier makes some sense. We can't really expect any of our internal options to replace his bat completely though.

Santana can't be replaced in terms of production and reasonable contract this free agency season. We'd really be shooting ourselves in the foot trading him away unless we got back a higher ceiling, MLB ready arm, which seems unlikely.

I wonder if other GM's are on the phone going NOW will you trade me that Santana/Kintzler package?  I dunno, maybe the Garcia move was a hedge on that.  Probably not.

Regardless, Molly needs to find somebody else he trusts in the late innings.  Does Curtiss have the mettle to move up straight to the 8th or 9th inning?  

Not having Garver or Vargas in favor of extra relief was bone-headed for this NL series.  Does it send a subliminal message to the starting pitching staff when they do that?

I agree this team is not the same team as last year.  However, based on where this team in currently sitting and where they need to be in order to make the playoffs I think they will need to end up with 86 wins.  That is 37-25 the rest of the way.  I just don't see them going 12 games over .500 in the final 62 games.  

That isn't to take anything away from what they have accomplished so far.  They have far exceeded most everyone's expectations and have given renewed hope for the future. If the team is not selling after this weekend, any buying in my opinion should be for young arms with control.  Even 3 team trades to do it might make sense in a way to give up a veteran to gain prospects used to gain a controllable asset.

Well I felt the same way, even though the Twins had leads in some of these games I certainly did not feel confident that they were going to win any of them. However, I know he hasn't provided a lot with the bar, more so lately than early in the season, but missing Buxton has affected the Twins in the field for sure, I know I have seen a couple of low flairs that Granite let fall for base hits that I'm 100 percent sure Buxton would have tried to make a play on and about 80 percent sure he would have made that play. Which if a couple of those plays makes a difference of a run or two then the Twin probably pull an extra win vs both the tigers and the dodgers. Also missing Sano the last couple I feel also hurt. So missing those two guys probably hurt more than we think. Also they can trade after the deadline, just have to pass them through waivers first. Guys not under contract like Gimenez or Kintzler could pass through more easily than guys under contract like Santana and Dozier, so moves can still be made after Monday. Last, even with Gonsalves and Romero and guys like that there is no guarantee that they can pitch in the MLB, god I hope they all can that would be awesome, but until they prob that they can I'd keep Santana. If you get rid of him and all those guys bomb, the twins wouldn't be too far from losing 100 again. I mean if the youngsters bomb your 3rd best pitcher would be Gibson, assuming that Santana is traded and Garcia, Colon etc all leave. That is scary

Trade grossman - high obp guy who switch hits - should get something.  The same could be said for Esco but I think he's an intangibles guy who needs to be around.  I'd trade Kintzler too, for anything.  

I get that Seth can't write a two sentence article reflecting this if he wants to keep this gig. But: Guys, it's over. It's OK to let go.

This team can't pitch. At all.

They're not exactly murderer's row offensively, either. With Sano out of the lineup, they're flat-out bad.

I haven't looked it up, but I have to think the team's chances of a playoff birth have fallen down around 10% or less. I think it's closer to zero considering how Cleveland and Kansas City have elevated their game over the past couple of weeks.

This team needs to try and return some semblance of value from these veteran contracts that are set to expire in the next year or two. It's a huge mistake to let it ride, do nothing, and let people walk. We're not talking about Max Scherzer and Mike Trout, here. If Erv and Dozier were as good as we like to think, the team would win more games. Add the prospects you can, and sign some guys in the offseason.

They have 3 shortstops, one can't field at a high level, one can't hit, and one can't currently do either.

Adrianza's batting like .280 or something.  At this point he's looking like a fine choice for the everyday SS role.  I feel bad for Polanco, he was so good at the start of the season.  I admittedly thought he was the long-term answer and even thought he had a better future than guys like Kepler or perhaps even Buxton had he kept things up.  Don't know what happened to him but it's been hard to watch.  Escobar is a great utility guy but when he gets pressed into full-time duty for weeks on end he begins to struggle.  Weird situation for sure.

Great thoughts, good post.  Same goes for the original post by Seth!  Good stuff from everyone here.