Why You Shouldn't Lump Anthony DeSclafani In With Other Injured Twins Pitching Acquisitions

I don't buy this line of reasoning. At all. 

It was well known from the day after the World Series ended that the Twins were going to have to attempt to replace innings tossed by Gray & Maeda in 2023. Desclafani was 100% not anybody's first choice - including the front office, I'm sure - but to say "the front office didn't proactively target him" is splitting fine, fine, fine hairs. The front office was looking for a starter that wasn't going to cost much & that target ended up being Desclafani. 

I add this to the pile of injured pitchers the Twins took a bad chance on. But water under the bridge. Hopefully Varland & some of our young arms stockpiled in AAA can hold down the fort in '24. 

So the Twins traded Polanco for a relief pitcher, a prospect and payroll deduction and the guy they thought would be a throw in 5th starter that cost 4 million shouldn't shouldn't be looked at as trading for another hurt pitcher?

The trade makes zero sense if they aren't getting a guy they think can be the 5th starter and taking on half the salary they traded away.

Wouldn't the been better off trading Polanco for 3 minor league players (regardless of their rankings) and signing a Hudson, Ross, Flexen, Turnbull for what they are paying Topa and not pay the 4 million for DeSclafani?

Sounds a little ( a lot?) like a colonoscopy!

6 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Well said. The trade ws basically Polanco for Topa and Gonzalez. Seattle forced DeSclafani and $4m of his salary on the Twins, for which we received Bowen. If one looks at BTV, Topa is 7, Gonzalez 11, Bowen .4 (DeSclafani was 2.8 but he is effectively a negative number for the Twins this year), and Polanco is a 9.4. Throw in $4m effectively being paid by the Twins to take DeSclafani  and the Twins are a little ahead. I know some of you don't like BTV but it is objective and fairly authoritative, certainly more than any of our own at best semi-informed analyses.  

Basically, Polanco for Gonzalez would have been a fair straight up trade and we got Topa and a flyer on top of that in return for taking on a $4m obligation. Not a bad deal at all., some might even call it good. There are a lot of moves the FO has made that one can criticize, but this isn't one of them.   

Not buying it, then they should have traded Polanco straight up for Gonzalez, and used the 5.25 million they are paying for Topa and DeSclafani for a cheaper starter.

46 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Twins desperately need to add starting pitching. Everyone, EVERYone knows this. 

Twins make crappy trade for dubious starter. BTW, the only starter added, all winter. 

Twins apologists: "This wasn't a trade for a starter."

C'mon. Seriously?

 

I don't feel desperate at all.  Twins have a good staff, ok depth, and a farm system with the ability to add whatever levelmof talent is deemed necessary at the trade deadline.  

Not saying you're one of them Chief, but it's crazy how the clear concensus was that everyone wanted nothing to do with Scalafini pitching in our rotation,  yet when we all get what we want it's such a negative?  

5 minutes ago, Joe A. Preusser said:

I don't feel desperate at all.  Twins have a good staff, ok depth, and a farm system with the ability to add whatever levelmof talent is deemed necessary at the trade deadline.  

Not saying you're one of them Chief, but it's crazy how the clear concensus was that everyone wanted nothing to do with Scalafini pitching in our rotation,  yet when we all get what we want it's such a negative?  

Good staff, not great.
Highly suspect depth, not ok
Farm system depth that will not be traded if it brings more payroll

The issue is not so much Scalafani blowing up, but the initial trade itself and the subsequent spin.  Polanco for a AAAA SP, a RP, a mid-top prospect and a flier was not a good deal.  Make no mistake, Scalafani was penciled in as SP5 the moment this trade was made.  Injury or not, a team with WS aspirations does not have this pitcher on their staff.  The injury just makes the optics of this trade look even worse. 

25 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Not buying it, then they should have traded Polanco straight up for Gonzalez, and used the 5.25 million they are paying for Topa and DeSclafani for a cheaper starter.

The trade probably would have been Polanco for Topa and Bowen if you leave DeSclafani out of it. The Twins essentially bought Gonzalez for $4M because the Mariners needed to clear payroll to fit Polanco's salary in their budget.

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The trade makes zero sense if they aren't getting a guy they think can be the 5th starter

I am going to guess DeSclafani was the best 5th starter candidate they were offered for Polanco. Nobody is trading a good starting pitcher for an expensive second baseman. I don't think anyone except the Mariners really wanted Polanco.

3 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Polanco for a AAAA SP, a RP, a mid-top prospect and a flier was not a good deal.

For a salary dump trade with one bidder that's actually a pretty impressive deal.

I would blame Falvine for how they presented all of this in the media. Pitching depth was important and they sold us on having LV waiting in St. Paul if someone stumbled. As many mentioned, Topa essentially cost $4M + actual salary and Darren Bowen (throw in) is a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG way from helping the big club let alone St. Paul. But you don't get Topa/Gonzalez without taking back a bag of poop. 

If the message was "We're taking a flyer with DeSclafani and his injury history and we have Varland ready and we're signing someone else..." is a better message than "we're excited about DeSclafani and hope he regains his form". One additional pitcher signing would've made this all much easier to stomach. Michael Lorenzen, Jordan Hicks, or Blake Snell would've been better than trying to sell the public on another reclamation project with a high probability of this result. 

This was far worse than being in first place at the deadline and trading for Mahle. I absolutely want them to take risks then for one of the more talented starters moved at that deadline.

They made two moves this year volunteering to take on contracts for players that were not wanted by their organizations. The Mariners had to take on DeSclafani to make their Giants trade work. The Dodgers had to take on an Margot to make the Rays trade work. Neither was going to make those rosters and they found someone to take them off their hands.

Once they traded for DeSclafani they stopped looking for alternatives. They have so little confidence in Margot that they started Martin instead when Buxton moved to DH.

Falvey didn’t set the budget but he did set the roster. It started with needing to cut 30 million. You don’t payed a short side platoon infielder beyond market and then follow up by taking on the DeSclafani and Margot dollars. When the money is good take a chance on an injured pitcher and solidify the short side platoon. When the money isn’t good they really needed to prioritize the everyday line up and reliable depth.

They leave themselves with a real need for an everyday hitter to add to an obviously weak lineup against right handed pitching and no depth in starting pitching.

8 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

Once they traded for DeSclafani they stopped looking for alternatives. 

Did they ever really start looking for alternatives?

13 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

For a salary dump trade with one bidder that's actually a pretty impressive deal.

Another part of the issue... Even with his injuries, Polanco outplayed his salary basically every year.  He wasn't overpriced, if anything he was under-valued.  This trade never should have happened.  It looks even worse now that Lewis is out.

8 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

For a salary dump trade with one bidder that's actually a pretty impressive deal.

is this a true statement or you assuming? If so it makes it even worse they picked up his 10.5 million club option. It really means they paid 9 million for two prospects, one good and the other just a flyer.

They could have not picked it up and paid Paxton 7 million (not much more than then they are paying now) or signed Chris Flexen or Dakota Hudson for under 2 million.

Looking at the whole picture it is a terrible deal!

Instead of money coming back, the Twins basically paid $4m for the Mariners to take Polanco, but got a possible TOP prospect in return. The trade will pay off if Topa ends up pitching well. 

But also goes to show that you can't have too many players, sometimes. Polanco playing third now for the Twins, although the question remains who wouldn't have made the 40-man out of spring training if Polanco was still around, so that alone was a reason to trade Jorge. 

But  the Twins better start looking long and hard at pitchers they get in trade, or jsut stick to small deals with minor league free agents with potential. Happily this guy isn't eating up a 40-man roster spot in-the-end. But, still.....

3 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

All that aside, the offseason was largely a failure for Falvey.
Address CF backup for Buxton - Fail
Address lack of front line starters - Fail
Address lack of RH 1B/DH power bat - Fail
Drop payroll - Pass

Well he passed the only one the guy who signs his paychecks actually cares about so I'm sure he'll still get a glowing performance review

19 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

is this a true statement or you assuming? If so it makes it even worse they picked up his 10.5 million club option. It really means they paid 9 million for two prospects, one good and the other just a flyer.

They paid $5.25M for a reliever and two prospects.

2 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

They paid $5.25M for a reliever and two prospects.

yes, I forgot the 4 they go back, still IMO would have been better not to even pick up Polanco's option, seemed like they gambled he would be worth more than they got and hey lost that gamble. Maybe in the long run it was worth it to pay 5.25 million for Gonzalez, but don't tell me you have to cut payroll when you are paying a premium price for a prospect after coming off of last year.

19 minutes ago, Rosterman said:

The Twins better start looking long and hard at pitchers they get in trade, or just stick to small deals with minor league free agents with potential.

If that's the case then Falvey needs to be fired. If you can't trust your baseball operations to sign free agents or make trades then what is the point?

Just now, TwinsDr2021 said:

yes, I forgot the 4 they go back, still IMO would have been better not to even pick up Polanco's option, seemed like they gambled he would be worth more than they got and hey lost that gamble. Maybe in the long run it was worth it to pay 5.25 million for Gonzalez, but don't tell me you have to cut payroll when you are paying a premium price for a prospect after coming off of last year.

They still need Topa for the bullpen. If Topa performs as expected they still win the trade. He was worth more than $5.25M last year.

20 minutes ago, Dman said:

SSS but Polanco isn't lighting it up right now as he 1 for 14 or something like that. I like Polanco, but he needed to be moved.

He didn't need to be moved, the Twins had a 10.5 club option, they could have let him go and saved 10.5 million. Instead got a relief pitcher and a prospect and flyer for 5.25 million.

So when I purchase my next new car. I'm going to look for 1 that has all the bells and whistles. BUT I want one with a blown motor and I can negotiate with the sales person how much they'd be willing to knock off the purchase price

3 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

They still need Topa for the bullpen. If Topa performs as expected they still win the trade. He was worth more than $5.25M last year.

They didn't need Topa at that time (now would be nice, but he is on the DL), and with a healthy Duran, Jax, Stewart, Thielbar and Okert he wasn't going to get the chances like he did in Seattle. Plus the 40 man is loaded with relief pitchers, Sands, Jackson, Funderburk, Duarte, Alcala, Staumont, Weiss, Winder.

So maybe yes the could win the trade much further down the line, but again it goes back further than this trade it goes back to the decision to pick up Polanco's 10.5 option.

12 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

If that's the case then Falvey needs to be fired. If you can't trust your baseball operations to sign free agents or make trades then what is the point?

On the trade front this FO has been IMO a pretty good (or better) (Odo, Maeda, Ryan, Lopez, Duran), sure they have missed on a few but that is how baseball trades work. On the developing side of starting pitching they only have Ober to show and fingers crossed Varland which isn't great or really even very good.