Right Now Is (Unfortunately) the Right Time to Trade Trevor Larnach

1 minute ago, tony&rodney said:

What about Larnach and either Sands or Winder for Hader?

I wouldn't do that at all. Larnach and a rookie ball flier. Hader is better than Robertson, but he's still a rental reliever. Robertson just got 2 rookie ball prospects as a return. Larnach alone should really be enough, but if they demand someone else I'm not giving up anyone above Low A ball, and none of my highest ceiling guys down there either.

3 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

Pretty sure Larnach would realistically need to be the 2nd or 3rd best piece going back to San Diego in a Hader trade. 

For 2 months of Hader?! I don't see it.

1 hour ago, Nick Nelson said:

Oh yeah? If Larnach has a 125 OPS+ next year you won't be moved, huh.

Come on, Nick. Rooker hit 9 HRs in March/April. He's hit 7 since. OPS of .616 in May. .620 in June. Slugged .327 and .353 in those months. Up to .757 OPS in July, but that's only been 13 games for him. He's only had a month long OPS over .700 while playing at least 20 games in that month twice in his career. April this year, and a .740 OPS in September 2021. His 1.245 OPS in April is an extreme outlier. Brent Rooker is not good, and nobody should be moved by Larnach doing what Rooker is doing this year.

32 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Come on, Nick. Rooker hit 9 HRs in March/April. He's hit 7 since. OPS of .616 in May. .620 in June. Slugged .327 and .353 in those months. Up to .757 OPS in July, but that's only been 13 games for him. He's only had a month long OPS over .700 while playing at least 20 games in that month twice in his career. April this year, and a .740 OPS in September 2021. His 1.245 OPS is April is an extreme outlier. Brent Rooker is not good, and nobody should be moved by Larnach doing what Rooker is doing this year.

Larnach's career AAA OPS is only .737. Obviously it's possible to improve on that at the majors, but there are other players they can start trying, I don't see why the best option isn't to cycle through these players until they find the right ones. They don't need to keep going back to Larnach. When you're a college player, 1st Round Draft status five years removed shouldn't be of any consideration when evaluating young talent.

If Larnach has value, even as a complementary piece, I don't see much harm in moving him now.

3 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Larnach's career AAA OPS is only .737. Obviously it's possible to improve on that at the majors, but there are other players they can start trying, I don't see why the best option isn't to cycle through these players until they find the right ones. They don't need to keep going back to Larnach. When your a college player, 1st Round Draft status five years removed shouldn't be of any consideration when evaluating young talent.

If Larnach has value, even as a complementary piece, I don't see much harm in moving him now.

I'd move Larnach, too, in the right deal. I don't know that I love the idea of cycling through players, though. Depends exactly what you mean by that. But you need to give guys chance to acclimate and make adjustments before cycling through another guy. My point in that post was simply that pointing at Rooker as some late bloomer that we should hope Larnach becomes is ignoring literally all but 1 month of his career.

I'd trade any, and all, of their lefty cOF bats for the right package. Wallner, Larnach, Kepler, Gallo, Gordon would all be on the block for me. Only question is which moves help the team best overall.

12 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

The point is that sometimes hitters take a while to find their stride, it's one example to illustrate a point. Want another example, see LaMonte Wade, who also was completely unaccomplished through age 26.

I really don't care about Rooker's monthly splits, they are irrelevant to what we're actually discussing. I only referenced him as a comp because of the close career timeline parallels to Larnach. Still, you can't just ignore that Rooker's been 25% better than the average hitter based on where the production was concentrated or what you presume will happen going forward. His OPS is up 130 points from his previous career norm, even with all that slumping after April. 

Bottom line: Larnach is not a finished product. He's been better through age 26 than either of the two mentioned above.

LaMonte Wade is a good example. My point is that Brent Rooker doesn't illustrate your point.

His monthly splits are 100% relevant if your point is that he's a late bloomer that we should be happy having someone like Larnach turn into. We shouldn't be happy with 1 Judge-esque month. Brent Rooker wouldn't be on a contending team's roster at this point. He'd already be back in AAA. He hasn't "found his stride" or "broken out" or any of those other catch phrases. He's been well below an average hitter for 3 months. Where that production is concentrated absolutely matters. He's had an entire career of being an unplayable major leaguer, but you want us to be impressed that he had 1 completely and totally unsustainable month to start the year? Not buying that for a second.

I agree Larnach isn't completely finished, but Brent Rooker is a bad example to use. A guy who wouldn't make a playoff roster isn't an impressive comp.

Edited to add: Joey Gallo had 1.063 OPS in March/April. He's gone .654, .674, .573 since. Should we not care about where his production was concentrated because he's been an overall average hitter?

2 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

The point is that sometimes hitters take a while to find their stride, it's one example to illustrate a point. Want another example, see LaMonte Wade, who also was completely unaccomplished through age 26.

I really don't care about Rooker's monthly splits, they are irrelevant to what we're actually discussing. I only referenced him as a comp because of the close career timeline parallels to Larnach. Still, you can't just ignore that Rooker's been 25% better than the average hitter based on where the production was concentrated or what you presume will happen going forward. His OPS is up 130 points from his previous career norm, even with all that slumping after April. 

Bottom line: Larnach is not a finished product. He's been better through age 26 than either of the two mentioned above.

But LaMonte Wade was the Chris Williams/Anthony Prato kind of prospect and the Twins traded him because they intended to give at bats to the more heralded guys like Brent Rooker and Jake Cave. Would have been better to trade high on Rooker/Cave. In the end they lost all of them because the best guy had the lowest pedigree, which shouldn't have mattered, and they moved on from the other two after they had next to no value.

Also, I think we took a bit of a tangent here because we're debating things other than the actual topic of this thread currently. It seems like we all think Larnach could still produce, thus still has value. Which is why he could/should be traded.

6 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

Joey Gallo is 30 years old with 3000 MLB plate appearances! He's NOT a developing player. I feel like you're intentionally ignoring the topic of discussion to rail on Rooker. 

Take away the specific names and circumstances and just look at the numbers. Rooker went from a 668 career OPS and 85 OPS+ to a 796 OPS and 125 OPS+ this year. (Again, this is WITH all the slumping you keep hammering on!) If Larnach saw a similar jump at age 27 he'd be in like the 840 OPS and 130 OPS+ range. As a left-handed hitter with solid defense and some patience. 

Take out Rooker's name (since they're not super comparable profiles anyway) and swap in one of any number of seemingly future-less players who break out in their late 20s. It happens all the time. Larnach has a lot of attributes of being such a candidate. And I think that will intrigue other teams.

You said the concentration of performance doesn't matter. Why should it matter for a 30 year old instead of a 28 year old? I feel like you're intentionally ignoring any context whatsoever to try to force Rooker into a narrative that he doesn't fit in. 

No. I will not take away the circumstances. Just like you normally wouldn't either. Not sure why you even chose Rooker in the first place. Context matters. I will not be impressed by Larnach going ballistic for a month and spending the rest of the season being a 60 OPS+ guy. Just like I wasn't impressed by Sano doing it. Or Kepler doing it to a lesser degree right now. The season is 6+ months long. Being out of this world good for the first and terrible for the next 5 isn't impressive.

If there's "any number of" players who break out in their late 20s why didn't you use one of them that actually fit your narrative instead of a guy who's going to get non-tendered again at the end of the year by an all time bad team? Larnach could be one of those guys. And I'm sure other teams would like to get him in their clubhouse to see if they can unlock what needs unlocking. But if all they get is a 1 month surface of the sun hot stretch and a bunch of unplayable months they won't go around pointing to him as some great success story. Rooker is a bad example for what you're trying to say.