Doctor Gast

Good luck to Celestino. He's a MLBer, he'll make it somewhere as a sub CFer & 4th OFer. If he get's enough AB now, he could improve his hitting together with his very good OBP & defense which could land him a full time CF position someplace.

I'd throw out the high & low. I'd like to shoot higher than Blackburn & I wouldn't want to shell out any high prospects for 1 yr. of Burns because I doubt we can resign him which makes a trade feasible. You didn't say how many yrs. of availibilty w/ Gilbert which would make a difference. Yet I believe SEA would want to hold out for Julien instead of Polanco. Which I'm fine with me. go for it. I think you hit the nail on the head with Manoah as far as his problem is mental. What sticks out to me about Manoah last off season was his verbal confrontation with the Yankees & Big Media, that was bound to effect him. He needs to be removed from that enviroment & TOR knows it. IMO TOR is motivated to move him where he can recover. This could be an opportunity for MN. I love the Cedar Rapids connection with Keller. PIT has done wonders in the last few years in their pitching development but still Keller could benefit greatly by coming to MN. I've longed for Baldelli to reach out to Sheldon when Sheldon was motivated to make some great deals. I believe that window has closed. PIT highly prizes SPing now & it'd be hard to pry Keller away from PIT.

My sentiments exactly on all you said.

Seatle is a nice target for our SP needs. But I disagree that Brook Lee is our best trade piece option. Lee is 2nd on my untouchable list, Lee is a future All-Star being so versatile at premium positions & hitting. I like Julien's bat but he wasn't on my list. FO will try to unload Polanco but they will ask about Julien ahead of him. Because Polanco missed ST, needed an extra long time to recover from his abused knee injury, the extra conditioning (yet suffered from hamstring injury & reinjury & ankle injury afterwards), the vamping up & trying to find is rythym, last season didn't portray his true value. This season he'll start out 100% & we'll never get what a 100% Polanco is worth. It make much more sense to trade Polanco at the deadline, at this time we'll see where Lee is at & Polanco's value would greatly increase to where it should be. But it'd be hard to trade him when he's producing much like Kepler did this season. If Julien is considered as part of this INF logjam he's the one that should be traded this off season because Julien's value has pretty much peaked & he's expendable.

I'm sorry Hans, I'd pass on Alonzo. I'd love to have a pure hitter like Alonzo but I'd hate to give up E Rod for one year of Alonzo & I'd sooner have a whole team like Alonzo which means focusing on changing our philosophy that drafts, signs, encourages & horde these type of hitters with holes in their swings.

Thanks for putting something like this together. Very interesting. Trades are indeed very tricky. You have to line up needs of each team & even if you line-up perfectly the needs of the team, the FO might not be able to see their needs. Thinking they are strong in one area while in fact they are very fragile and putting their priority into something that isn't. I came through this more open to Keller (PIT) as a trade target. Most of the "out the box" ideas were ridiculous (IMO was intended to be so & TD was being nice) but those that were truly "out of the box" were interesting. Hitting on ideas that are totally foreign to this FO, like inniating a 3 way trade or hitting on areas that they are blind to. Which is the basic idea of "out of the box"

Thanks tony & co. I appreciate it. Looking into Mahle's injury history, he didn't have any shoulder injuries until '22 when he was overextended by the Reds. He had a hamstring injury in '19. I never mentioned a rift between Baldelli & Gray, I understand that Gray's grieviance was competitive motivated that could have been easily been taken differently or become frustated & a manager could give in to the grieviance & pitch him much more but Baldelli wasn't bothered & stuck to his guns. Plus the new pitch he picked up with Twin. My point is that this Thanksgiving Gray has a lot to thank the Lord & Twins for. I hope he fully understands & appreciates how blessed he has been.

Maybe things will happen more quickly this year?

To keep to subject, I like to say i'd be very hard to trade any of these guys. My list is #1 Royce Lewis- To me he has never been an option to trade because like flying finn said there are too many intangibles to figure his true worth. We be at great loss if we trade him. #2 Brook Lee- I agree with BTV & value Lee over Jenkins because of the production over longer time (we have more certainity of his future), I love Lee's tools especially his hitting & the fact of his balanced switch-hitting. Plus he plays a premium defense. #3 is very hard for me to pick & I know most people will disagree w/ me but my #3 is Pablo Lopez- I value front line SPs & Lopez is established & is well known. You know exactly where your baseline is at & it's fantastic. #4 Walker Jenkins- He has a high ceiling & most everyone else has him at #1 but he's young & has very little exposure. Until he gets a lot more experience I'd rank him here. #5 Joe Ryan- I'd be very hesitant to trade Ryan because of his ability & determination to become a very viable front line SP. Again I value front-line SP Everyone else has a price tag depending on our need & if the player is overated or underrated

Thanks again Weitz for your intriguing ideas. I've advocated getting Senzel back during Cave's early sub CF days, I thought a change of scenery might do him some good. He could still very well be a viable cheap option. I believe that Paparesta could get Turnbull back in shape. & do well w/ the Twins. DET didn't have the dependable INF to go along with Turnbull's fort`e, if the Twins keep Polanco I'd give him a shot. Otherwise, no thank you.

It's a little disappointing that Rosario is our #11 top prospect but it's the result of this FO's priority in hitter preference & lack of priority of defense & athleticism.

Although I criticize the hitting philosophy, I like how Popkin has helped the team with pitch recognition & laying off bad pitches that leads to more walks.

Rowson became the Twins hitting coach in 2017. The organization had decided to send Buxton down but Rowson stepped in & basically said "over my dead body!" Rowson personally knew each player & tried to find out what was best for each player. That's what I liked most about him, standing up for his players & personally customize each players swings.

Gordon lack of production in the beginning of '23 was an extention of their experiment of trying to play Gordon in INF. Often FO overlook poor production if it's their idea & good production from someone like Castro.

The Twins made 0 effort to draft a college catcher of any signifance.

I still have hope that Miranda can turn it around & be impactful at 1B. But IMO Miranda will have to come out of gates hitting like gang-busters in ST. The only problem with that is that Miranda is usually a slow starter. Cosetti has a great bat & graduated to High A but IMO his defensive is lacking.

When you mentioned Astros & CF. My ears perked up because I love the way HOU develop their hitters & a true CFer could help out. But his SOs is probably why they want to unload him & why MN would be interested. He could become another MAT. The only RP that is close to Myers is Moran. & that would be an overpay for MN if they are motivated maybe a Winder which they would overpay more. Because of the fact that they've mentioned that Myers is available & MN is a possible trade partner seems like to me that HOU has someone in mind from MN. I wouldn't mind either way because of the glove but I think we could squeeze by with Castro, Gordon, & Martin until Buxton is ready. But if we get another '23 Buxton we better get a Myers & figure out the mess later. PS- paying for someone to take away our truly top defensive catcher doesn't make sense to me.

As I thought LAA would be motivated to trade Quero. Here's our competitor stealing Quero away from LAA. There was no cash involved, here it was added so the trade could be accepted by the system. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/115327 We could have offered Maeda & a RP to get only Edgar Quero & could have been accepted. It's a lesson of evaluating our need, look for an opportunity & ceasing it. Something I'd like to see this FO to be more proactive in. The way that CWS have been proactive in these trades lately. The Twins will regret for not being so. At least some fans will be very disappointed.

First, I congratulate Sonny Gray for coming in 2nd in the CY & thank you for what you accomplished as a Twin. As expected Gray turned down the Twins QO. In this thread I like to show how Gray should appreciate the Twins. Below is a '21 comparison between Gray & Mahle before the '22 offseason Name G GS W L PCT ERA SV IP H ER R HR BB SO Sonny Gray 26 26 7 9 .438 4.19 0 135.1 115 63 67 19 50 155 Tyler Mahle 33 33 13 6 .684 3.75 0 180.0 158 75 78 24 64 210 Here we see that Mahle was a better pitcher than Gray going into the '22 off season. Better record, better ERA & pitched more innings. In the 1st half of the '22 season, Gray pitched 63 innings & Mahle pitched 96 innings. The Reds pushed Mahle & his arm fell off (figuratively speaking) when the Twins got him. Let's supposed that roles were switched that Mahle was traded in the offseason to the Twins & Sonny stayed with Reds to be traded at the deadline. With the Reds wanting to showcase Gray they'd (with Gray's blessing) over-stretch him like Mahle. I'd imagine that Gray's arm would also fall off & prematurely ruin his chances to have anything to show coming into free agency, let alone 2nd in the CY. It'd be very hard to forecast what Mahle could have accomplished if he was properly managed by the Twins if he was traded in the off season. But he could have been just as good. So Gray has a lot to thank the Twins for properly managing him against his stern grievances. And how grateful do you think Sonny should be?

Thanks Rik. I agree with you that this idea is ridiculous. I'm not even sure if E Rod can stick at CF let alone be rushed up. That'd be disasterous. This Longonhagen guy doesn't know what he's talking about. It might look good on his paper but in reality it doesn't make sense at all.

As always, I appreciate your reasonable response Doc. I agree with you that Julien looked hesitant & sloppy at 2B at the beginning but that's just nerves from playing an unnatural position at the MLB level. Yet that's not what I'm talking about. In my book a defensive position up the middle (CF, SS or 2B) the prerequisite is range. If they don't have adequate range then they are disqualified. If they have the range then the rest can be learned. Julien doesn't have the range that I'd like for a 2B man. Many people like place players in position not according to their defensive abilities but how their bats play there. I disagree. I really don't like the idea of Julien being our main 2B man. We'll face in majority RHPs & I'd play Julien mainly there at 1B because AK can play OF & in the beginning AK might be taken easy. I'd try to get their bats in the line-up on a constant basis especially against RHPs.

I've heard that the MIA won't listen to any trades unless it includes a viable catcher.

If Nick hadn't broken his bone, Castro would have been stuck in AAA & not able to shine & probably let go. But the rest is history. I like Gordon is liked by the team but Castro is more needed & ranks over Gordon. Gordon's LH bat is valuable to many teams but although there'd be interest in Gordon, I agree we won't get much for him but he might be a deal maker, throw in in a bigger deal.

Thanks Seth! That's what I think, I've been high on him, I was hoping somehow the Twins could make an attempt of attaining him.

We have a great crop of young talent in the MLB & about to break into. IMO some of these ETAs are aggressive because of lack of openings. For some of these ETAs to come true there has to be some injuries (I hope not) or a few cases that they are breaking down the doors, the FO will try to hold them back a little or if they are really breaking down the doors a trade will happen.