ashbury

A big Fukuoka to the Twins and Sox, apparently.

From http://chicago.sbnation.com/chicago-white-sox/2012/6/13/3083580/white-sox-roster-2012-terry-doyle-released A 37th round pick by the White Sox in the 2008 draft, Doyle has always put up exceptional minor league numbers, but he's never been considered a good prospect. Despite having a 2.92 ERA with 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings over 499 minor league innings, scouts have never really believed that he has big league caliber raw stuff. Sounds like Slama Syndrome.

I've been in favor of that for some time now. If some team claims him, the Twins are off the hook for the salary. Butera could take his place for all I care. I don't think it's a matter of his being complacent or whatever; I just think he's lost what talent he had. Unless the coaches/scouts think the talent is retrievable, he needs to go.

Works against Burroughs being the short-term callup guy, then.

When you obtain waivers on a player being sent to AAA, can you then bring him up and down at will for the rest of the season, or must you waive him again each time he's returned to AAA?

It's only a start to what would be a more solid analysis (say, looking a little harder for trades of lesser magnitude that still brought 2 or more legitimate prospects), but points in the direction that I think is a true conclusion, namely that we're looking at a summer of one-for-one trades of any significant talent that may have various spare parts included for any of a number of reasons. Shoot! I forgot a trade candidate, even though he stares me right in the face in the first list of trades: Matt Capps Age: 28 Jun 12 WAR: 0.6 Prev WAR: 0.8 Career WAR: 6.2 These numbers don't stack up any better to the list of big-time trading chips than the rest of the Twins' candidates (and it's not as if WAR is systematically prejudiced against closers, since Nathan regularly had seasonal WAR in the 2-3 range and Rivera goes even higher). What we need is a trading partner who'll do a swap similar to the Ramos deal; can we get Bill Smith planted as a mole in some team's organization?

I believe $100K is the maximum that doesn't require thought and planning. If you have room because of other signings (rounds 1-10) below slot, you can apply the amount to round 11+ signings above that figure. You could also just go ahead and pay the luxury tax above the $100K figure. In other words, each round-11+ signing above $100K, the excess amount gets added into your slot-eligible total for rounds 1-10, and if you go above your total slot allocation, you pay the tax.

Why be stingy? Throw in Nishioka and acquire yourself an ace.

My purpose here isn't to try to do a complete study on how to make trades. Just to look back at trades viewed favorably for acquiring prospects, which is what the Twins probably want to try to do, and see if we can map anything to the present situation. So yes, there is a bit of 20/20 hindsight going on here, but I'm looking for successes to build on, not balance. Guys can be chosen in the 22nd round for reasons other than being marginal. He was a 19 year old in his first pro season; maybe it was considered unlikely at draft time that he would skip college, so he dropped in the draft, and then the Tigers persuaded him. I note his signing was on Sept 22, which probably was close to some deadline (either MLB's, or enrollment in class). Unfortunately I don't know where to find signing bonuses; his Wikipedia page indicates he did attend Michigan State, and that basketball was also in the picture. This is where you trust your scouting department. Just like when the Twins snared Hoey and Nishioka.

There's kind of a Scruffy Joe Mauer look to that photo.

One thing I know for sure is that the players I've talked with don't share my mindset. (Yogi would remind me that you can't hit and think at the same time.) So I have little confidence answering "maybe" to your question. BUT, for what it's worth: it would depend on what I had been told to work on. It's not all about OPS, particularly for catchers. If I was consistently told that my framing of pitches still left a lot to be desired and it was what was holding me back, I would at least understand. If I was given a different story each time ("it's the hitting" when my OPS was low, "the footwork" or "the throws to second" when the OPS was good), then I'd be angry at them.

> Is the WAR of the player, or the players returned? Of the veteran player only. Unless I made typos. > Because isn't that part of the question, how much WAR did you give up to get what WAR in return? It's part of "a" question, I guess. But my purpose here was more modest: to try and line up current Twins assets to assets that have been used in big trades from the past. In the case of several of these trades, it's too soon to know the WAR gotten in return anyway (or also how much WAR was ultimately traded away in future years' production). Again, I wasn't trying to assess the success of the trades; it's certainly an interesting question to wonder how much is received in return for a player with a certain profile of WAR numbers past and present, but when trading for prospects you don't know for sure what you'll get anyway, and looking after-the-fact at WAR is almost exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do, which is to look at the trades from the perspective of the moment they were transacted. You need something other than WAR (of the later years) to measure what a prospect's value was thought *at the time* to be. Not every player in a 5-player package is a blue-chipper, but in the trades listed, the packages weren't typically just one stud with 4 fillers. So, it seemed enough to just group these trades generally, looking for a pattern of what was being traded away. And the pattern I think I see is that the Twins have absolutely no one on the roster who is likely to pull more than a single can't-miss prospect, paired maybe with a second good but unproven player. And IMO trading at that rate of speed means treading water, with a sub-.500 club, indefinitely. That doesn't mean no trades are possible, or in the Twins' interest. But I'm convinced more than before that trading alone isn't going to restock the system in one stroke. Maybe I'm setting up a straw man argument here that no one was actually arguing to be the case. > Also, if your team as currently constructed utterly stinks, but you think you have 2-4 starters in the minors ready in, say, 2015, wouldn't you want to trade your current players and get 1-4 more guys that will be ready in 2015? It can be done, but it's hard to do well. It's true, a strategy of trading veterans for prospects is quite a lot more complicated than just backing up the truck and loading the merchandise. My aim here was much humbler, to assess how big of a truck might be needed. Looks like a U-Haul trailer is enough.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I compiled them and wrote up a blog entry, comparing the current Twins roster to these blockbuster trades, if you have an interest.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1217[/ATTACH] There has been much banter about whom the Twins might trade, and what they might get in return, if and when they decide to give up on the season and become "sellers" at the trade deadline in July. Folks seem to expect that several prospects can be obtained for the most prized of the Twins' trading chips, thus restocking the minors and/or bringing major-league ready talent to the parent club, particularly on the pitching side. So I got curious what kind of return teams actually get, historically, when they trade someone valuable. The other day, I put out a posting with the question of what good trades came to mind - ones at the high end like Teixeira that brought a good nucleus. (Thanx and a tip o' the baseball cap to daan4786, boom boom, cdog, coach j, gunnarthor, and jtrinaldi for their nominations.) I wound up with 17 trades to look at. A few opening comments. I am not trying to judge who "won" these trades; each one was viewed at the time as a gamble on young talent in exchange for a known quantity (to whatever extent value can be known in baseball). I decided to use Wins Above Replacement (WAR), as found on the baseball-reference.com site - I need a metric that attempts to place a value on batters and pitchers alike, combining offensive and defensive contributions, and it's not my purpose here to defend WAR itself - if you don't like WAR, feel free to construct your own study. Finally, this is not a comprehensive study of "trades in general" - I was purposely looking for trades that brought a lot in return, again because of the presumption in some places that the Twins can restock with a few astute trades, so I colored the discussion from the outset by holding up the Teixeira trade as a benchmark. For each veteran listed, I present the return that was obtained (either a number of prospects, or a specific name when it was one-for one), the age of the most recent season (or mid-season) of stats when the trade took place, the date of the trade (to distinguish between off-season trades and deadline trades when the in-season WAR reflects only a partial season), and then three WAR values: of the current or most recent season, of the previous season (in a few cases marked by asterisks I give some benefit of the doubt by reverting to two seasons previous, when the previous season was marred by injury or otherwise didn't seem representative of what a GM would be looking at), and finally a career total WAR up to the time the trade occurred to give a sense of the total body of work by the given age. Again, my purpose is not to bother looking after the trade is completed; the clock stops when the trade is made. Here they are, sorted in order of the age of the veteran player: Mat Latos for 4 prospects Age: 23 Dec 17 WAR: 1.5 Prev WAR: 3.0 Career WAR: 4.4 Gio Gonzalez for 4 prospects Age: 25 Dec 23 WAR: 3.9 Prev WAR: 3.6 Career WAR: 5.8 A.J. Pierzynski for 3 pitchers Age: 26 Nov 14 WAR: 4.2 Prev WAR: 2.1 Career WAR: 8.6 Matt Capps for Wilson Ramos Age: 26 Jul 29 WAR: 0.3 Prev WAR: -1.2 Career WAR: 3.9 Zack Greinke for 4 prospects Age: 26 Dec 19 WAR: 3.2 Prev WAR: 10.1 Career WAR: 24.8 Mark Teixeira for 5 prospects Age: 27 Jul 31 WAR: 2.5 Prev WAR: 4.2 Career WAR: 22.3 CC Sabathia for 4 prospects Age: 27 Jul 7 WAR: 1.7 Prev WAR: 6.0 Career WAR: 25.7 Chuck Knoblauch for 4 prospects Age: 28 Feb 6 WAR: 6.5 Prev WAR: 8.4 Career WAR: 36.3 Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir Age: 28 Jul 30 WAR: 1.7 Prev WAR: 2.4 Career WAR: 4.4 Shaun Marcum for Brett Lawrie Age: 28 Dec 6 WAR: 3.8 Prev WAR: 2.7* Career WAR: 9.1 Hunter Pence for 4 prospects Age: 28 Jul 29 WAR: 3.2 Prev WAR: 2.8 Career WAR: 17.3 Matt Holliday for 2 prospects and 1 established reliever Age: 28 Nov 10 WAR: 5.6 Prev WAR: 5.8 Career WAR: 17.5 Michael Bourn for 4 prospects Age: 28 Jul 31 WAR: 2.1 Prev WAR: 5.3 Career WAR: 13.0 Frank Viola for 5 prospects Age: 29 Jul 31 WAR: 3.1 Prev WAR: 7.4 Career WAR: 25.0 Casey Blake for Carlos Santana Age: 34 Jul 26 WAR: 1.6 Prev WAR: 2.4 Career WAR: 14.8 Carlos Beltran for Wheeler Age: 34 Jul 28 WAR: 3.5 Prev WAR: 3.5* Career WAR: 58.7 Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz Age: 36 Aug 12 WAR: 2.0 Prev WAR: 1.7 Career WAR: 24.8 Capps and Zambrano and Marcum jump out as having the thinnest "resume" at their respective ages; a single (but very good) prospect was fetched in return for them; their all being pitchers suggests what GMs are thinking when they trade away prospects. Latos and Gonzalez were very very young, so their Career WAR can be excused as their recent two years' WAR were very attractive ("only" WAR of 1.5 from a 23 year old? sign me up!). Michael Bourn is a bit shaky in this grouping, with his main attraction apparently being his previous stellar year. The older guys, Blake and Beltran and Alexander, each snagged a single (but again very good) prospect. OK, so now what? Well, I picked ten current Twins player that seem to be the subject of trade discussion in the TwinsDaily forums. Again, I sort them in order of age: Danny Valencia Age: 27 Jun 12 WAR:-1.1 Prev WAR: 1.9* Career WAR: 0.2 Alexi Casilla Age: 27 Jun 12 WAR: 0.5 Prev WAR: 1.3 Career WAR: 1.2 Francisco Liriano Age: 28 Jun 12 WAR:-0.9 Prev WAR: 4.0* Career WAR: 8.0 Denard Span Age: 28 Jun 12 WAR: 1.7 Prev WAR: 2.3 Career WAR: 13.4 Joe Mauer Age: 29 Jun 12 WAR: 1.0 Prev WAR: 5.5* Career WAR: 33.9 Nick Blackburn Age: 30 Jun 12 WAR:-1.0 Prev WAR: 0.5 Career WAR: 3.6 Justin Morneau Age: 31 Jun 12 WAR: 0.2 Prev WAR: 4.6* Career WAR: 18.5 Ryan Doumit Age: 31 Jun 12 WAR:-0.1 Prev WAR: 1.0 Career WAR: 7.1 Josh Willingham Age: 33 Jun 12 WAR: 2.0 Prev WAR: 2.1 Career WAR: 14.8 Carl Pavano Age: 36 Jun 12 WAR:-0.8 Prev WAR: 1.8 Career WAR: 14.9 And now, I look for matches between the Twins list versus the historical list, guided to great extent by age. Valencia, Casilla, Blackburn, Doumit: None of these guys remotely resemble any of these historical trades, not even for a single good prospect. They just don't have the track record. It's possible that a trade for a prospect could occur, but it won't be a Smoltz or a Kazmir. Liriano, Pavano: Nobody in the list of trades had a bad current WAR, where the trade was made based on hopes of a rebound to past performance. It's hard to forecast getting a genuine prospect in return for either pitcher, sorry to say. Willingham: Kind of matches up with Casey Blake, who netted one good position player, moreso than Beltran who brought a pitcher. We love JWillie, but his offense so far is a little out of line with his track record while his defense is a known minus, and I don't see GMs valuing him as highly as Beltran for a pennant push. Morneau: I was surprised that his current WAR remains so low, due to the below-par batting average. Again, we love him, but I suspect the WAR reflects a little more faithfully how other GMs will factor in the potential for a full rebound to his MVP season versus the risk of injury. If his current WAR were higher he might be a good match for a Hunter Pence or Michael Bourn kind of trade, and I don't see his salary being an obstacle. But as it is, I just don't know. Mauer: Again the current WAR does not reflect what he could contribute if he bounces back a bit more. Maybe WAR isn't so good a proxy for what another GM might think of Mauer in a trade; but then WAR doesn't reflect the high-end salary Mauer commands, either. Tough to find a match in the first list - Knoblauch had established a really stellar resume by about that age, but his two most current seasons far eclipse what Mauer has (though I give Joe the benefit of the doubt with that asterisk). Again, I don't see a haul like in the first list, if Mauer was traded. Span: Finally, the trading chip most talked about here. Where's the match? Unfortunately, Zambrano looks like the closest one to me (Zambrano came up late, accounting for a relatively low career WAR), even though he's a pitcher, suggesting that only one stud prospect could be obtained for him. Span is valuable, indeed, but relative to other center fielders he's just about average, and the list of trades doesn't suggest how you would do more than close one hole (say in the starting rotation) while opening the hole in CF (which you might hope to cover with Revere). To get more, Span would need to be perceived as much better than average among center fielders. Well, I came out of this small study with basically the same view as I came in with, that even "backing up the truck" to dispose of current players would not re-stock the system like one would hope. The design of the study was shaped by my expectation, no doubt, so maybe I've overlooked some area of hope. But right now, I don't see how Terry Ryan will be able to do better than tit-for-tat trades, that bring individual young talent at the expense of current abilities; there just is nobody on the roster like Teixeira and Knoblauch and Viola in their primes. Pavano was supposed to be our Doyle Alexander to use to snare a young talent, but it doesn't look like it's going to work out. [ATTACH=CONFIG]1218[/ATTACH]

A team that has World Series aspirations?

Trade repellent, more like.

Sounds like they're missing a trick by not charging separately for this epic struggle.

I'll see your Kevin Garnett and raise you with the Herschel Walker deal. (How many guys allow themselves to be accomplices to the thread-jacking of their own thread? )

Good ones. Keep 'em coming.

With all the discussion about possibly trading players away, where sometimes the opinion is "not unless we're blown away by an offer," I got to thinking about what kind of successful trade ought to be the benchmark now. Here are three, just off the top of my head: Rangers trade Mark Teixeira for a nucleusBraves trade Doyle Alexander for a future HOF starterTwins trade A.J. Pierzynski for three pitchers who worked out to varying degreesWhat other such trades would you nominate?

Fatuous, drunk and stupid is no way for a sportswriter to go through life. Well, drunk is probably a job requirement.

I was just about to say that, but you made it unnecessary.

Rickey Henderson brought all that plus power. There's nothing wrong with starting a game ahead 1-0. And the threat of power brings more walks, boosting the OBP that your leadoff hitter thrives on. If Revere is able to maintain this pace for his batting average then obviously he's an asset. If he drops to .279 then he's really not, whereas a more complete hitter like Henderson remained an asset (and then some) with his lifetime .279. I hope Revere can do it. It's rare to hit .326 in the majors, but it would be cool if he can be one of the few.