The Twins Made a Third Base Mistake

The pendulum between the two could easily swing as much in the Miranda's direction over the next year as it has in Steer's over the past year.  Steer will also face a similar in house obstacle to what Miranda has faced in that

25 minutes ago, RJA said:

I think the issue is not a Miranda versus Steer question.  Rather, the issue is the blunder the FO committed in making the two deadline trades last year, one for Mahle who was injured when they traded for him, and has provided nothing to this team the past two years, and the other for Lopez who had one brief period of success after years of being "meh."  Giving up Steer and CES for an injured pitcher is crazy, regardless of whether Miranda was regarded as a budding star or not.  The same could be said for the Lopez trade as Povich sure looks to be a decent major league starter in the making.  Lopez may turn things back around, so that trade might improve, but as of now it looks "sus."  I agree with Dman that the hitting has been atrocious thus far as nobody anticipated that Correa would perform so poorly, Polanco would be unable to perform, and Miranda would regress so sharply.  But, the unfortunate trade with Cincy cost them dearly by taking away a potential replacement and getting nothing in return.

four of the Reds top seven prospects (if you consider Elly De La Cruz to be graduated off the prospect list) have a 3B next to their names. 

3 hours ago, Linus said:

I’m not a fan of our FO but nobody would have traded Miranda instead of Steer one year ago. 

I might have but I would expected a higher return than I would have for Steer. Lewis was always the long-term answer at 3B. Trading BOTH Miranda and Steer is defensible.

42 minutes ago, RJA said:

Yes, but the Reds still traded for Steer which means they are interested in accumulating talent and sorting it out later.  Whether Steer stays with them, or is traded for other assets, the point is that our FO blew that trade big time.  I am increasingly convinced they need to go.

good luck with that

HOT TAKE!!!!

Hindsight is 20/20!!!

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

It's not their job to only trade bad players. No one would ever trade with them again. The post said they should keep all the prospects until they were certain which were the good ones ... That's impossible, not even Tampa does that. 

We trade for ALOT of BAD players.

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

FalVine might want to brush up on their Seinfeld lore, and maybe take it to heart.

George : Yeah, I should do the opposite, I should.

Jerry : If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

And while they're at it maybe they can lure George away from the Yankees. He'll have the Twins flying coach. That'll keep them grounded and hungry.

I would seriously question or be interested to see if there was an alternate universe,  if Steer would be as successful hitting if he was with the Twins or would he also be sucked into our hitting philosophy and/or our lineup malaise.   Reds look like they are having fun.   

Basically the Twins need to make hard decisions on who to play, where and when.

Is Buxton purely a DH? That sure complicates things. Who is the centerfielder to be, then...as although I like Taylor and Castro, both are bench bat/subs with distinct late-inning plus skills, and Taylor was just a temporarty bandaid.

Is Kirilloff the first baseman going forward? Keep him there, then. NOT in the outfield. You have others to look at and play. And he HAS to bat against all pitching. Sure, he is coming back from basically a season of sit. But, still......

When Polanco comes back, is Julien sent down to the minors...for what reason? And if Julien is, indeed, the current second baseman of the future, he needs to stay there and let Polanco struggle at third and say bye-bye at the end of the season. Again, who plays what where. Do we want Julien at first base? Move Kirilloff to the outfield? 

Start making those decisions, because you also have to figure out the fate of Wallner, Larnach - and the  likes Contreras and Stevenson should be in the mix, at least temporary, for what they bring to the game. Rioght now those last two could contribute equally to the outfield mix of Taylor/Castro, not to mention "what about Gordon."

Lewis back at third? Or does he play better at second, and we keep giving Miranda another chance for a season before having to figure out where to put Lee and Martin come sometime in 2024?

And the Twins have promise in Chris WIlliams, who will basically be the answer to Solano (hopefully) in 2024, and might actually make Vasquez espendable in the off-season if you think Camargo is appealing...before 2025.

But you have to quit plugging guys anywhere and everywhere. Miranda plays third abse for 50-60 games period. SInk or swim. You can bring in Wallner and see if he is the next Brent Rooker or the current Brent Rooker. He can't be any worse than the ones already playing the corners.

Send Julien down? Except for NOT stealing bases, he is doing what you wanted him to do in the major leagues. Sadly Polanco won't get enough at bats to bering back a good mid-season trade return, which makes me...sad.

The Twins really don't have a lot of offense decisions to make going into 2024 off-season. Most would be potential guys who can walk (WIlliams, Contreras, Helman, Camargo, Bechtold) and they should have plenty of spots to protect most. Be interesting to see who they advance for the season's end, so they could be roster removal fodder if soemthing better shows up in the free agent marketplace.

Right now, the Twins are weak at DH and shortstop by guys they have to keep on the payroll, and keep playing. They are horrible in the outfield and three of the four currently on the depth charts won't be here at all in 2024 (and five, if you count Gordon). Castro and Farmer are what they are, super subs. They shouldn't be playing every day. I would've kept Miranda over Steer in the off-season (although I would've kept Steer over signing, perhaps, Castro and Solano, in the end, and big bat CES would've been my choice of DH for the future, but then "what about Buxton." Yes, the Twins got shafted on a bunch of the prospects that changed teams last season, but there ae always prospects and you never know if they will make it, be a one-year wonder, or a star regular.

Unload this ballplayer. He is not the answer either with the glove or the bat. Of course, neither is Buxton, Gallo, Kepler, and Correa though batting poorly is a defensive wizard with a cannon. He'll at least hit again. The others .....nah..........not with this already bad Twins team.

Go Twins!

Twins Geezer..........out.

So here we have another "plug and play" article on TD. It's like the writers here have a template set up where all they have to do is copy and paste a name into the blanks: Twins make bad decision by keeping _________ and trading _________.

They then proceed to tell us the traded player is doing this and that with his new team while telling us that the player the team kept is unworthy of MLB playing time. Well, hindsight is almost always 20/20 and not every move works out. If player A is succeeding and player B is not, guess who gets traded. If the roles reverse the following season, then so be it, the call was made at the time.

Having said that, this team has been unbelievably snake bitten with injuries and poor performance from the trade acquisitions and the players they decided to "bet" on.

I think a little soul searching needs to be done over the next few days by players and front office alike.

I fully disagree with the article.  Sure, Steer has been good for Reds, but there is no evidence to say he would do same here, maybe yes maybe no.  Miranda has been terrible, and no one expected that.  Lewis was doing just fine, until the new injury issue.  We have others in the minors that will come up and will play similar profile to Steer.  It is unlikely Steer will be better than all of them, but possible.  This year, maybe you can say trading Steer is coming back to bite us, but I do not agree it was a clear mistake to include Steer in a trade. 

What do the Twins have to lose by calling up Brooks Lee? He certainly cannot be any worse. He may be both a better hitter and fielder. The Twins future is with younger players.

I have no problem with articles like this.  Aren't they the point of a site like Twins Daily?!??  What do we like to do as baseball fans??  Talk baseball!!!  It's perfectly fine to debate the Twins trade for Mahle.  And it's perfectly fine to admit it was a colossal disaster.  Because it WAS!  The Twins got virtually nothing out of Mahle who was certainly damaged goods.  That's on the F.O. for not being more aware of the physical condition of Mahle. 

Steer is looking like a pretty solid Major League hitter right now and he has 3B, 2B and now LF versatility.  CES, once he ever comes up could be an absolute masher.  But with Buxton a full time DH (hopefully just for this season, but who knows) where would the Twins play CES if we hadn't traded him? 

Everybody makes good trades (A.J. Pierzynski for Nathan and Boof Bonsor) and bad trades (Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio).  I can forgive a bad trade here and there.  I can't forgive due diligence failing to convince the Twins F.O. that Mahle's physical issues were a red flag.  Career wise, on paper, Mahle made sense.  But what if the Twins had acquired Blake Snell or Chris Bassitt instead?  Then we wouldn't feel as terribly over giving up Steer and CES. 

Maybe the Twins sign Mahle on the cheap like they did Chris Paddock and it works out O.K. in a year or so and they get SOMETHING out of that trade.  But for the last half of 2022 and THIS year, it was a terrible trade because the Twins have nothing to show for it.  

Miranda has seen his value plummet.  It's all the way down to 8.9 on BBTV's.  I don't think he has a long term future with the Twins.  After getting swept in embarrassing fashion by the Orioles at home before the All Star break, it's hard to see the Twins in any kind of positive light.  But they still have the best starting pitching in the A.L.  I'm still of a mind they should be buyers AND sellers at the trade deadline.  The task of the F.O. is to clean out whatever dead weight they can (Kepler, Gallo, Pagan, Polanco) and leverage whatever young talent they could see as expendable depending on what they get back (Miranda, Larnach, Winder, Austin Martin) to get some bats for the 2nd half of the season (Pham? Bellinger? Friedel? Lane Thomas?) and add punch and dependability to the Bullpen (Hader? Foley? Robertson?).

The division is there for the taking.  The starting pitching should have them competitive in any playoff game.  What pieces can they add now who will help for just the rest of this season (Pham) or could help with an eye on not just 2023 but several years beyond? (Hader).  What current trash could they unload (Gallo) and what youth would they be willing to part with to help the team now and in the future?  

Our F.O. has it's work cut out for it.  Are they up to the task?  In my opinion, standing pat is not an option.  Too much dead weight on this roster and too many holes to just sit there and HOPE everything works out.  

I tip my hat to Rosterman, who listed a LOT of interesting decisions the Twins F.O. and Rocco need to make.  

Maybe Popkins has the whole team screwed up? Just try someone else please and soon.

15 hours ago, Rosterman said:

Basically the Twins need to make hard decisions on who to play, where and when.

Is Buxton purely a DH? That sure complicates things. Who is the centerfielder to be, then...as although I like Taylor and Castro, both are bench bat/subs with distinct late-inning plus skills, and Taylor was just a temporarty bandaid.

Is Kirilloff the first baseman going forward? Keep him there, then. NOT in the outfield. You have others to look at and play. And he HAS to bat against all pitching. Sure, he is coming back from basically a season of sit. But, still......

When Polanco comes back, is Julien sent down to the minors...for what reason? And if Julien is, indeed, the current second baseman of the future, he needs to stay there and let Polanco struggle at third and say bye-bye at the end of the season. Again, who plays what where. Do we want Julien at first base? Move Kirilloff to the outfield? 

Start making those decisions, because you also have to figure out the fate of Wallner, Larnach - and the  likes Contreras and Stevenson should be in the mix, at least temporary, for what they bring to the game. Rioght now those last two could contribute equally to the outfield mix of Taylor/Castro, not to mention "what about Gordon."

Lewis back at third? Or does he play better at second, and we keep giving Miranda another chance for a season before having to figure out where to put Lee and Martin come sometime in 2024?

And the Twins have promise in Chris WIlliams, who will basically be the answer to Solano (hopefully) in 2024, and might actually make Vasquez espendable in the off-season if you think Camargo is appealing...before 2025.

But you have to quit plugging guys anywhere and everywhere. Miranda plays third abse for 50-60 games period. SInk or swim. You can bring in Wallner and see if he is the next Brent Rooker or the current Brent Rooker. He can't be any worse than the ones already playing the corners.

Send Julien down? Except for NOT stealing bases, he is doing what you wanted him to do in the major leagues. Sadly Polanco won't get enough at bats to bering back a good mid-season trade return, which makes me...sad.

The Twins really don't have a lot of offense decisions to make going into 2024 off-season. Most would be potential guys who can walk (WIlliams, Contreras, Helman, Camargo, Bechtold) and they should have plenty of spots to protect most. Be interesting to see who they advance for the season's end, so they could be roster removal fodder if soemthing better shows up in the free agent marketplace.

Right now, the Twins are weak at DH and shortstop by guys they have to keep on the payroll, and keep playing. They are horrible in the outfield and three of the four currently on the depth charts won't be here at all in 2024 (and five, if you count Gordon). Castro and Farmer are what they are, super subs. They shouldn't be playing every day. I would've kept Miranda over Steer in the off-season (although I would've kept Steer over signing, perhaps, Castro and Solano, in the end, and big bat CES would've been my choice of DH for the future, but then "what about Buxton." Yes, the Twins got shafted on a bunch of the prospects that changed teams last season, but there ae always prospects and you never know if they will make it, be a one-year wonder, or a star regular.

Other teams will develope a new tactic -- hit it to the lead gloves who cannot throw straight, you will gain an extra base.

On 7/9/2023 at 1:38 PM, Nashvilletwin said:

Reading between the lines, the real point of this article seems to be the inability of our system to complete the transition of young prospects into true major leaguers fulfilling their ultimate potential.

For example, no one could realistically argue that Steer was a better prospect than Miranda based on minor league production,  Yet, somehow, the Reds turned Steer into an above average major league 3rd baseman, while Miranda continues to struggle to even be in the bigs. Who bears responsibility for that?

Some fellow TDers might claim that sometimes prospects just “figure it out” - Steer may certainly be an example of that.  However, there does appear to be a pattern of players under this regime who do not either successfully make the transition from St. Paul to Target Field, or once here, reach their potential.  Let’s look at the list: Kepler (stagnated and declined), Sano (see Kepler), Kiriloff (sorry, he’s not yet solidified nor even close yet to what might have been expected based on his minor league performance), Larnach, Rooker (do we care if he’s cooled off; he’s playing in the ASG for Pete’s sake) Miranda, Gordon, Lewis (yes, injuries, but it is what it is), and even Buxton (see Lewis) Wallner and Celestino could eventually make this list too. Polanco, Arraez and Jeffers are the best examples of position players who have or are fulfilling their potential as big leaguers.

It wasn’t the trade; more likely it’s our system managing the transition of prospects to the bigs and their continued growth.  For a small to mid market team like the Twins, it’s a disaster if that is not a strength and it should be one of the top responsibilities/priorities of the coaching staff.

I believe I read that the Reds had moved Steer to 1st base due to his poor fielding at 3rd.