bunsen82

After looking at everything . . . honestly I think this is a very good trade for the Twins. You got a starter with 4+ years of control that has the upside to be a #2 or #3 starter for 2+ years of Jax (reliever). I could see Tampa trying to convert him to starter in the offseason, otherwise for now he is their closer. Matthews, Festa, Abel and Bradley are going to get a lot of run time to see if they can become solid pieces for the rotation. Hitting on 2 to 3 would be a great outcome. We are just increasing our chances of trying to find something good.

Varland, Stewart Jax were all about destroying our ability to win the next 2 months, extracting values from the most volatile positions relievers while receiving some value back. I didn't think I would say this but Bradley for Jax has the potential to be a great trade for both teams. Bradley is a backend arm with the potential to be very very good. Again he is only 24 and hasn't performed terribly. He is currently rated as our 4th best asset. You rebuild his value, you either have a core piece of the rotation, or another trade piece. he doesn't fit in a full tank mode firesale though. Still haven't quite figured this one out yet.

Gonzalez needed to move up.

A lot of this is paperwork and processes it seems. I have no doubt Outman will be up with the Twins soon and is likely our CF the majority of the remainder of the season. Outman makes 0 sense in a straight up deal for Stewart. He only makes sense if you can regularly play him and he begins to hit MLB pitchers again and drastically rehabs his value. He just looks like Jake Cave to me though. I am waiting to see what we have in the bullpen - Sands, Topa, Funderburk, Tonkin, Davis . . . . Pressley was DFA'd but I see no way the Twins pick him up and pay the remaining salary unless they are ok with getting some relatively cheap experience in the bullpen. So if I were to bring up the bullpen isn't great. So maybe start converting starters. Ohl, Morris, ??? I mean who knows whats going to happen with the bullpen.

The only internal 1st base candidate right now is Sabato. Technically you could try McCusker. That would be a large man at 1st.

Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are the highest valued assets remaining. Byron has stated he wants to stay, Joe Ryan I would assume is the most likely to be traded in the offseason.

LOL - the new owners looked at the house and told the current owners to fix it, otherwise it was a no go. This was all about the money to fix the problem and who was going to be responsible for fixing it. It came down that the Pohlads had to eat it - hence why he was the one doing the deal. It also tells me this had been in the works for a while.

They ate a bad contract - likely for the sale. Needed to get that contract off the books, basically all on Pohlads to make the financials make more sense. I would have thought let Correa continue to play Short and see if he could have rebound year - I personally think he will. There was no value in Correa, you aren't getting a prospect, wow look how much his value has fallen in 4 years. 100 million for 3 years, that is still valuing Correa as a 2 WAR player per a year for the next 3 years. If he is below replacement level, then eating the contract was the best thing to do.

My son he still wanted to go to the Royals game in August where he could get the Twins backback LOL. I told him this probably isn't the year you want to be wearing a Twins backpack. I'm sure I could get great seats for cheap. Honestly there is probably some things I would go to watch, I do want to to see how big of a sh it show our bullpen is and whether we actually can find some useable pieces in the last 2 months. To me it looks like we may let Ryan go a few more starts, but the SP will consist of the following - Bradley, Matthews, Abel, Festa and SWR. The lineup will be Jeffers -C, Lewis 3rd, Lee SS, Keaschall 2nd, ??? 1st Base (Miranda Julien, Roden, Sabato??), OF - does Buxton play - my guess is very little. CF - Outman, RF -Wallner, McCusker LF - Martin, Larnach If Buxton plays, I actually think the lineup is better than what we have been putting out there. Removing Correa and France are not losses. Keaschall in his initial cup of coffee looked good. I have to assume Outman is most likely this teams version of Jake Cave. Assuming we don't trade much of positional players - next year we could be looking at 3rd Lewis SS Culpepper 2nd Keaschall 1st Roden??? Utility Lee Bat - Julien CF - Buxton LF and RF - pick from Larnach Wallner, Martin, Gonzalez, McCusker Roden or maybe push Jenkins - Buxton insurance - Outman Thats not a bad lineup at all especially if Lewis can turn it around and Lee settles in with the bat. Culpepper looks legit right now.

Everything matched up with the mlb trade value calculator. Painter would have costed Jax and Duran. Phillies had said they were not trading Painter. You can't make them add Painter to the deal. I said it before, i really do not see much difference between Abel and Painter. Thats my personal opinion. Painter has better control, otherwise they are pretty similar.

Other than the Paddack trade and Correa trade, the rest weren't about money. Trading Varland, Stewart and Jax, all those are at minimum or extremely low sellers telling you the firesale is not about the money. It was to ensure we lose. Losing was a bigger priority than the maximizing the value we received in trades which is sad. Now I can see some value, although rebuilding for 2028-2030, Bradley is a very weird piece to pick up as that is when he is basically up. Maybe the Twins see someone they can rehab from the Rays, hopefully its more like Ryan than Emilio Pagan.

1. Increased draft capital (likely the biggest win) 2. Gave away Stewart, this one was dumb. This trade was the worst of the bunch. 3. Varland . . . I still want to cry. What did we trade him for in Roden and Rojas, potentially a very good 1st/Base Outfield bat and a AA pitcher. On paper it looks ok. Again though, It still doesn't feel any better. 4. Jax for Bradley. This one creates a heck of a lot more questions than answers. Both Jax and Bradleys value have gotten tanked in the last month. So we traded for a backend starter with 1 plus plus pitch. He will either be our closer of the future or we have much bigger plans for the tear down, and he is immediately one of our starters and we try to rebuild his value. Value wise its fair - but a tear down for the future this one is odd as he only has 4 more years of control. If we are trading Varland why are we taking on Bradley, even if you think the bullpen is a luxury and can be rebuilt. 5. Duran - for Tait and Abel. This is by far the highest upside of any of the trades and likely the one most feel is the fairest trade of all. If we are doing a full rebuild and trade Ryan, Ober and Lopez then Abel immediately slots into the rotation. With Tait we can have dreams of him turning into someone like a Yadier Molina. When we wake up though what will we see. 6. Expirings - Castro, Coloumbe, Bader, Paddack - We got a flyer on a Catcher Jimenez and got some cash savings. Value wise the best trade we did, however it primarily is on the paper side which is just helping to clean the slate for new ownership. Garret Horn for Coloumbe, Pitcher honestly looks like he may have a chance. Calculator aside this is one I can get behind. 34 SO in 24 innings. Castro for Armstrong (flyer), and Ryan Gallagher has had a good season, and there is something to work with there. Again a solid trade. So from me they get a C. For the most part they got pretty good value, on someone like Beef Stew they definitely left some value on the table, don't trade him if thats all you are getting back. This tells you the return ultimately wasn't the goal. They ensure we will lose the rest of the season which sucks, but we should get very good draft picks. For 2 months of suckage I will take it. So for where we were already going to be sellers I am ok with this outcome. The real question is do we trade the starts which if this is a reset/rebuild you have to. This also makes more sense as to why we picked up a Jax. He will immediately slot into the rotation, and is a potential flip, or possibly one of our key cogs for the next couple of year. I am starting to get flashbacks to the late 2000's watching teams led by Brian Dozier or the late 90's led by Radke. For the next couple years that is what I am seeing of this team led by Buxton. I truly hope it leads to something better than the most recent rebuild.

If we had fans in AA they would tell you they are pretty happy with Culpepper, Gonzalez (traded), and Jenkins. Drafting hasn't been the issue its actually a strength. My concern is we can get the players to AAA, then they really struggle with the jump to MLB. Some of this has to be coaching. We have a load of pitchers up and down the minors. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Let’s be clear they haven’t fully picked a lane yet we are still in limbo. Yes they went to the kids room (relievers) and completely demolished it, but they left the starters (Kitchen) and position players (Living Room) alone. The Front Office made it clear they are losing the rest of this year for draft capital. After that do they rebuild the kids room (reliever room), or do they continue to tear down the rest of the house trading Ryan, Lopez, Ober? They had offers on Ryan so that tells me a total tear down is most likely. Boy look what we get to look forward to. At least they weren’t willing to take fire sale prices for him. Honestly I think the Varland deal is one of the better deals we did, it still won’t stop me from thinking they did Varland dirty.

Culpepperm Jenkins and Gonzalez are studs. There will definitely be some openings today, we will see who gets called up.

Trading Varland and Stewart is not a salary dump. You are saving nothing. Jax is beyond cheap, so the question becomes why. Why do you trade for an Outman? You may like him but in the end he doesn’t matter. You trade those players if you want to lose and lose a lot. We got some decent pieces, but ultimate the trade return we got is not the prize, This reminds me of The Process with the 76ers and Houston Astros in the 2000’s. You lose big to win big in the draft. With 2026 being considered a very good draft year this is what they are cashing in on. The cynical part of me says a lot of this was agreed to by the owners, and a deal was cut to get the Pohlads out and new ownership in. Just watch us get the #1 pick in the lottery. The deal makes sense when we hear it was the Pohlads who were leading the Correa trade. So what do I like. I really like Abel, he has improved his control a ton this year and the numbers show it. He is a #2 or #3 pitcher in my opinion. Gallagher has had a really good year in the minors. Tait is very interesting, they say the bat skills are elite, but I still have concerns they will fall apart as he rises in the system. If he pans out it drastically improves the chances of the Twins winning in the future. Finding a bat first catcher when a lot of the defensive metrics of a catcher will be limited in the future is a gamechanger. I also like Jimenez but he is a bit away. Rojas is a good piece as well. We took a flyer on the pitcher from Texas. Outman??? Get the F out of here. He was likely being DFA’d by the end of the year. He has AAAA player written all over him that flashed once in 2023. We are taking beaten down assets in Bradley and Alan Roden. My guess is bothe those players pan out to what degree I don’t know. You can rebuild a bullpen cheap. it just takes time and patience, or spending a little money. So ultimately today hurts a lot, but the organization will be better off for it in the long haul for the players traded for, the draft, and not having Correa on the books. Even still we did Varland dirty. I do hope karma is real.

I went through the trades, surprisingly the values line up with the Twins ahead on every trade but Stewart for Outman and the trade with the Cubs. Stewart must be damaged goods and or the Twins have an infinity for Outman. Boy did we end up with a variety, young players to old players, helium players to fully deflated balloons. All in all I think the return is ok to above average which is more than I could say this afternoon. I mentioned it before but more than anything these trades appear to me to be tanking for the draft lottery. My guess is we will have a sale, we will be in a good position, and the Twins will get the first or second pick in what should be a loaded draft. The value of a first or second pick for a player like a Skenes is franchise altering. The easiest way to tank and later rebuild is to trade away your bullpen. Falvey has punted on the bullpen until the last 2 years, I think his view is it’s a luxury. You can rebuild a pen overtime by constantly running through retreads and finding a Stewart, offering a cheap contract like Coloumbe, or transitioning failed starter prospects like Duran, Jax Varland and Sands. Ultimately we can rebuild the bullpen, but it’ll take 2 years to build it organically. Or you can rebuild through trades and free agent. So with that being said, we still have a very good rotation. We have some decent positional players. Trading Correa was additional through subtraction. We have some decent lot of solid prospects in the minors. I still think best case is we are competitive again in 2027 and most likely 2028. That means we are likely trading Ryan, Ober and Lopez in the offseason or next years trade deadline. I was for a reset, but the Varland, Jax and Stewart trades seemed mean spirited. It was no longer about getting excess value, it was about saving money and ensuring we lose. We keep those 3 with Sand and we can still win a lot of games. I will continue to watch, just as I did in the mid 90’s. See who is improving, who still is struggling with second third or fourth shot. I am still a Twins fan for life, but damn today was rougher than I anticipated.

I had included Jax and Varland as a bullpen core with sands.

The Correa albatross contract is gone. Farm system is good and you basically have fresh slate. Varland could have been a key piece. I know the Twins prior to the last 2 years could care less about relievers but it feels like we gave Jax and Stewart away.

The Jays system is weak, but it is ok value.

I am in the minority that really likes Abel.

Because Twins think they can find RP, they are overvalued and are a luxury. We are in tank mode. We have several AAA level pitchers that we are going to throw into spots. Varland should have been kept. Stewart should have been kept. I can rationalize Jax is gone in 2 years, but you likely sold low, very low.

I was for trading if you create excess value. Stewart for Outman is not excess value. Jax for Bradley is not excess value - Varland - for Rojas and Roden seems ok but not great - but not excess. Coulombe for Horn seems ok, but again not an excess trade. This is a firesale. This is beyond stupid. I can defend the Duran trade, the rest of this is just yuck.

Its a 1 for 1 deal. 2 years of Jax for 3-4 of Bradley and no other return.

This is a tank job beyond tank job.