ashbury

I've given my analysis before, and you want to go with the above plus his age-23 MLB numbers in < 100 PA (hint, Godoy's 2021 cuppa coffee in Seattle was worse). At this point we're in Agree To Disagree territory, and watch young Ben with his progress (or lack of same) the next few seasons while he reaches the level of maturity that Godoy already has.

Third-string catchers belong one phone call away at AAA, but Sanchez does seem to be a special case. In which case, we need catcher #4 waiting in the wings, and he needs to be MLB-caliber (well, AAAA like Godoy).

Groovy. He'll be decent on defense, have less of an upside at bat than Rortvedt. We've downgraded our 3rd string catching slot.

League-wide, they did VERY well. I think it came out almost exactly at .500, just as predicted.

If you want to flush a prospect after <100 major league PA at age 23, I don't know what to say. 41 OPS+ isn't what Rortvedt "is". Elsewhere, a comp was made to Drew Butera. Rortvedt lost his age-22 season to Covid, but at age 21 he OPSed .687 at AA, while at the same age Butera managed .603 at low-A. At 23, Rortvedt did .750 at AAA, and Butera did .765 at high-A. Being 2 league levels higher at the same age, that is huge when comparing. Rortvedt's has been developing as a hitter, just fine. He won't win any batting titles, because catchers not named Mauer generally don't. But he's going to hit. Especially now that he's been traded, because, Twins, y'know. And people are going to be, all, "well, that came out of nowhere."

I'm all for deep dives into analytics. But at the end of the day, we should not expect to get Coors Field Trevor Story with his .900 OPS if we sign him. Home/road splits for Rockies players do mean something. We'll get The Real Trevor Story, whatever that is. Unless his defensive skills erode, we'll have a well above average shortstop if he OPS's in the high .700s, and there's additional upside (if the detailed analytics are correct) that could mean he's a vital difference-maker for a team with World Series aspirations. That's enough to justify a low-nine-figures contract for four years.

Sure! Now that the lockout is over, trades are possible again. If we can't pry any pitching from the Marlins, perhaps they'll give us Astudillo in return for one of our prospect arms.

Save that thought for the Urshela puff piece, as well.

Gotta sandwich in that he reported to camp in the best shape of his career.

I keep checking MLBTR hourly, on the assumption that something big must be on the verge of happening. After acquiring Gray and then the drama of the Donaldson trade, it feels like having bought a new set of performance tires and then taking the car in for a tune up, only to learn now that the engine is sitting on a hoist and the mechanic is telling you they are "waiting on parts". Why did you shell out for those expensive tires, again? Sign Story, and/or swing a favorable trade that is possible only by taking on new salary, and my outlook for the team brightens.

There are 24 pitchers on the Twins 40-man roster. Even if a couple will soon be on the 60-day IL, there isn't room for adding a retread. Not that the roster is stuffed to the gills with all-stars, but I'd rather drop one of the incumbents because we acquired someone actually, you know, good, and with upside. Not just a hurler that will help you limp through 2022.

"Only two things will keep that kid from the Hall of Fame. A knife, and a fork."

I'd personally pump the brakes a bit on such a dire outlook. No reliever, not even a closer, is worth more than a couple of wins, compared to the guy who they'd have to plug in as replacement. They'd likely need to go out and acquire someone else - but relievers can be had for a decent prospect, no more.

If the team doesn’t make other moves, I predict some here (including myself) are going to lose their ****.

Palacios was the only name on this list that would have intrigued me (Austin Martin seems like a courtesy invite to me, as far as Opening Day planning is concerned). Of course, just like Charlie Brown with Lucy's football, I'm totally absorbed now by the rumors surrounding Trevor Story, so even that interest suddenly becomes muted.

Concur. Would you trade Ben Rortvedt for Gary Sanchez? I would not. Would you trade Isiah Kiner-Falefa for Gio Urshela? I would not. The only missing piece to the trade is Donaldson. Those who pooh-poohed the notion that he had negative trade value around the entire major leagues are left with defending that our front office must be the stupidest people on the planet, to pull the trigger on the above pair of bad one-for-one trades and then throw in Josh Donaldson for free simply as a sweetener. Josh Donaldson is a valuable player when healthy. But the health risks plus his salary make him a large-market gamble now. The FO has opted to redeploy Donaldson's salary. Half of it goes for Sonny Gray. We'll see what they do with the rest of it (plus of course the considerable budget headroom they already possessed).

It just goes to show that pitching remains the coin of the realm. We did get an undersized pitching prospect in the deal. Going for better pitching than that becomes exponentially harder, if you use only position players as trade bait.

Stewart just didn't work out, but Jay was one where Terry Ryan tried to think outside the box, and the criticism was immediate and obvious. Ryan had this reputation for conservatism, but he would gamble, and the gambles never seemed to pay off.

It's not the absolute last word regarding a player's value, because there is no such resource to tell you that. Team GMs tend to keep their thoughts to themselves on a topic like this, and every GM will have different perceptions and different situations to work under. The results from any tool like this will be based on the assumptions baked in. The single best thing about it is that it factors in the remaining years of control and the dollars committed in any existing contract. Typically fans will forget about this, and just construct trades based on perceived talent. For example Garver and Jeffers have similar projections for contributions on the field per year, but Jeffers has more years of control remaining and thus looks like the one who would bring more in trade. (Of course the same logic might dictate that he's the one you keep and build on.) Now, does Josh Donaldson (for one example) really have negative trade value, as this site will instruct you? For some trading partners, probably yes. If you wanted to swing a trade with the Orioles, they would have less than zero interest, which is one way of saying "negative value," and you might have to offer a good prospect along with him, or pay most of his remaining salary, just to get him off our books. But money aside, he remains an above average bat, and maybe he won't get injured; if some team with World Series aspirations for 2022 thought he was the missing piece, you might be able to pry a decent prospect away from them. "We have him, and you don't," remains a critical factor, and isn't something easily captured in a tool like BTV. Any trade involving one or more desirable players will go to the highest bidder, almost by definition, which means that some GM saw things differently than any competing GM did, which in turn means the trade will probably violate what BTV would tell you. I don't know how you could construct a tool to predict those outcomes. Bottom line, I like the site very much and I use it as a sanity check for proposed trades. I don't treat it as anything remotely approaching gospel, nor I believe would they expect me to.

He wasn't just some random 16-year old signing, and expectations were high at the outset. He hasn't met them.

Just going by what's on the Twins website. It might be out of date somehow.

Literally the most recent on-field data we have on him is being MVP of the 2019 Fall League, including MVP of the all-star game. It's small sample, but I don't think swing mechanics could be a complete mess and still accomplish that. Recovery from the injury to the knee is of course the biggest "known unknown" - but does that truly stack everything against him?

That's great. Curious in the same way, I looked at the SABR site, and nobody has done a bio on him yet. Seems overdue.

Jharel Cotton is on the Twins' 40-man.

Man! The moderators are going to be all over you, like stink on a skunk!