ashbury

This isn't an especially young team. Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis, and Matt Wallner are the only position players on the major league roster 27 years of age or under. Weighted by plate appearances this season, the Twins are the 8th oldest team in the majors (something that may start to change after the trade deadline). Maybe some guys are inexperienced at the major league level, but that might be more a matter of questioning their preparation, by that age.

I don't know the specific scouting report, but #9 hitters aren't necessarily that because they can't hit fastballs, even good ones. Often, it's the only pitch they can hit.

Where's the young catcher coming back to the Twins? I'm all for the part of the trade involving saying goodbye to Vazquez, but we have to have someone competent to replace him.

That, plus the possibility there's no new owner at all, factors into the nearly fifty percent I suggested. Anyway, congrats, we've converted a thread on two specific deadline deals into yet another plebiscite on Falvey's tenure. My work today is complete. 😀

Fair point, but inaction on account of this can be just as deadly. I prefer to use 2025 as Falvey's audition for the unknown new owners (who he might have a very good idea the identity of). As long as he doesn't sell the family cow for some magic beans, if a new FO is brought in, they can do a course correction on anything done the rest of this season. Moreover, I'd put odds nearly fifty - fifty that Falvey's in charge a year from now, so why tie his hands?

I would like to gear up for 2026, and not a lengthy rebuild. I would not be trading any established talent under team control for next year, and barring any revolting developments the rest of 2025 I'd be aggressive on acquiring more during the offseason. So if either Jax or Duran is traded for anything at all this month, I would like to know what the FO's vision actually is. Especially if only one is traded - if it's not a teardown then what are we actually doing? Trading one is treading water. Trade one, then trade both - and a whole lot more too. But the fanbase is paltry enough as it is. Not my preference.

The sleeper move I've been hoping for.

Late to the party? I used Brock's Trade Deadline Blueprint tool (did you?) and made a post titled Sell, Retool last week which answers the questions others posted here, and pretty much everything else I've posted lately has been on a similar tangent. Before that, I've posted hardly anything for weeks, for various reasons. This one-word post with a one-word title was intended as a joke playing off on all the verbiage that has been expended of late by myself and others (looks like Brock caught it with his response). Late to the party? Has any team made big trades yet? I may have missed one or more, but MLBTR seems to be still concentrating on "9 under-the-radar bullpen trade candidates" and the like. Buyers simply don't seem to decide until they find out which teams are sellers, the better to exploit an eventual oversupply when teams finally wave the white flag. Until that happens, every plan to sell or buy is provisional, whether the GM's plan or my own. Late to the party? I'm gonna invoke Satchel Paige and say I was right on time. 😀

Sell

I came on here this morning to apologize for my part in the threadjack, so while I'm curious to see the different reasoning you use to get to approximately the same place, let's don't do it here. Message me, or start a different thread, or point me to an existing thread where you laid out your version already and I missed it. As for the points made by the OP here, I think they're clear enough and correct so that they maybe won't even raise much debate. Trades proposed in the comments section here can seem reasonable but if they put additional pressure on 40-man decisions then they might not be realistic. A "haul" of prospects could do more harm than good. I've repeatedly said that I'd prefer to go the other direction - package a valuable expiring contract with a middling prospect in exchange for a top-end prospect. Funny thing, though, other GMs probably want to do much the same thing - package up several bodies in return for one of our best prospects - so the trade discussion along my lines could dry up quickly. Every team wants to dispose of their so-so Rule 5 candidates, same as us. Being GM isn't as easy as armchair analysts think.

This morning there were 5 AL teams with 46 losses or fewer. The current 6th place team and holder of the last Wild Card spot, the Red Sox, has 47 losses. Below them, 4 other teams have fewer than the 51 losses our Twins have. It's not enough to do as well as these 5 teams, counting Boston - we have to do BETTER than ALL of them. If we were all currently tied with those five, our random chances would be 1-in-6 - but we have unfortunately spotted each of those other teams between 1 and 4 losses for this closing sprint. If we squeak through and land that final spot in place of Boston and all the others, what are our realistic chances in the post-season? As good as what we had in 2023, even? Bear in mind we just got done losing important games to the Pirates and Rockies, and in the post-season we'll face teams a tad bit tougher when it's win-or-go-home. It's not a Fair Weather fan to see the writing on the wall that this just isn't our year. I'm not in favor of trading away the players with team-control beyond this year - I'm reluctant-but-willing to flush the rest of 2025 but not 2026 - but what value do players like Coulombe and the others with expiring contracts bring the Twins for the rest of 2025 alone? (They won't be open to a contract extension this close to free-agency, unless we overpay their agent's fondest hope.) "We're losing 89 with you. We can lose 92 without you." The FO put together the roster, the players tried their best, but at this point the remainder of the season is worth very little, and the return from some teams who will value the collection of our departing players' contributions could be something nicely above zero. And with luck, we pull a turnaround a la the 2024 Tigers and do well after the sell-off anyway. That's hardly more implausible than the luck necessary to make the post-season with the current crew.

I'm old and retired. Sell.

Sorry, didn't invest the time to watch a video, but I'll offer the quick opinion that at his present pace he'll come in somewhere around 5th all-time among Twins seasons (not Senators). Kirby had a monster year in '88, Mauer in '09, Knoblauch in '96, and of course Carew twice '75/'77. This factors in defense which is a great portion of Byron's value - so Killebrew suffers by the modern view of value. Just by offense alone (OPS+) he could continue at his present pace and be top-20, and Harmon earns his place far above (along with Joe and Sir Rodney). But that's not enough to define Byron's "Best".

Good win! Hooray! Sell.

We aren't the Rays or Athletics. Ryan and Duran become relatively expensive during their final final years of control? That's cause for celebration - it means they are successful. You want successful players. It's a privilege to pay them; the budget can support keeping them. Suppose you trade Ryan. What do you do with the cost savings? Use it to replace him? That's merely spinning your wheels. I posted my deadline blueprint. It's similar to the sell strategy the article lays out. I agree with trying to compete in 2026 unless evidence later on this year suggests not. But I don't shop my good players under team control, at this deadline.

My bad. I haven't been keeping up.

If memory serves, it was the Twins, back in 2023 I believe.

What are the Pre-Arb counts for the Dodgers, who we play next?

Starting pitchers pace themselves from the beginning of the game with the aim of throwing 100 quality pitches. Relievers have the luxury to do things differently in the hope of sitting back down after a dozen. The quality dimension could become higher. Guys like Jax and Varland are examples. That's where the solution, if any, would lie.

I'm nowhere near qualified to coach a hitter, which makes me unqualified to judge those who do. Still, I have this nagging worry, or maybe a working hypothesis, that our batters are being taught techniques that work right up through AAA but break down when facing good solid MLB pitching. "Wait for your pitch" would be one example I can think of, simple though it may be. If you face a typical AAA hurler, eventually he'll make a mistake pitch, and you should pounce on it. At single-A, mistakes come your way all the time. At AAA, maybe one in five pitches are mistakes? So you'll get your chances to do damage over the course of the game. What if the pitcher makes NO mistakes while it's your turn at bat? Some pitchers in the majors are capable of that for lengthy stretches when they are going well A couple of tempting pitches in the dirt that you can choose to lay off of, but three similar looking pitches that catch a corner or edge of the strike zone and you just look at them waiting for something better? What's your Plan B in that case? Do you have what it takes to punch the pitcher's best pitch the opposite way for a single? (And maybe persuade him eventually to stop feeding you that, giving you more opportunities for the pitches you do like?) Or do you just stick with Plan A, game after game after game? I don't know how to state it any better than that, but that would be the gist of it. And again, I know actual coaching is way more layered and nuanced than that. It's just a starting point for conversation. Those are the things I'd be looking at from the FO perspective. Given that it's system-wide, and they have made multiple changes in batting coaches at the major-league level, I'm concerned that this FO doesn't have the perspective to find the problem. They do hire people from outside, but there is a bias if they are looking for people who are attuned to the present system. Do they hire complete outsiders on a consulting basis, for instance?

At this point in the season I don't see Danny signing an extension unless it's for an overpay and his agent tells him he's a fool not to take it. If we want him back, we can compete for him in the free agent market for probably less than it would take to get him now.

Me too, to varying degrees, but that's the reason they seem the obvious candidates to go in return for good prospects in this lost season. I don't expect fantastic returns, but let's see how desperate contending teams are, especially for "proven" bullpen arms. Remember Jorge Lopez? 😀

They lost a game to the Pirates just before the All-Star Break. They lost a game to the Rockies coming out of it, in the process making Kyle Freeland the latest pitcher having a meh season to look like Cy Young most of the game. I don't care if they take the next two games against the lowly Rox; a team with legitimate post-season hopes can sweep one of these teams. Instead the offense continues to sputter. So I'm in sell mode. As GM I line up some trades, and barring a miracle sweep against the Dodgers I pull the trigger anytime after the first loss against them, unless some team makes me a sweet deal with a time limit that causes me to jump earlier. I'm not in Fire Sale Mode, though. My aim is to retool for a run in 2026 after the failure of 2025. As long as Correa and Buxton and Lopez and Duran are under team control I insist on calling this a window of contention. Keeping fans engaged is a necessary part of running the team. I never believe in "selling high", as the value can be used by us just as well as the other team - Duran being an example of a player I'll just "agree to disagree" with some fans concerning - and of course I dislike "selling low" on a player, especially if under team control and with minor-league options remaining. I don't have any specific trades to mention, but I've zeroed out the players who'd I'd aggressively sell. Vazquez is the one that, if I have to eat salary to get rid of, I just might hang onto for the remainder of 2025 since I'm not be able to replace him with anything better (barring what I obtain at the deadline of course). Everyone else of these, have potential trade value - I think - but if not then I hang onto them too as placeholders for the remainder of 2025 - I'm not intent on gutting the roster for its own sake - our talent at AAA isn't nearly as deep as necessary to do that. I believe Falvey indicated this past week they've been in information-collection mode a long while now, in either buy/sell direction, and as POBO I'd accelerate that to spend this week learning as clearly as possible how other teams value each of my zeroed out players. My inclination is to try to package all of these with lesser prospects to obtain higher-value prospects, preferably near-MLB-ready making them ultra-expensive, so if a team values two of my expiring contracts I push hard to see what they would part with and what else I need to add to make it happen. But I am not interested in parting with any of my top prospects, as that just fixes one hole by opening another. I can not know how desperate any given contender is to patch holes, so this is a "TBD" part of the blueprint. (When I play Out Of The Park, I approach a fellow GM with an initial package and suggest a 4-star prospect in return, and see what develops. You can't "blueprint" the trade deadline any better than this, IMO.) I don't expect Miranda/Gasper/Julien to have significant trade value but I'd include them in any deal where the other GM suggested them as the final tiny piece. Post housecleaning, I demote Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis to try to relearn how to hit. I promote any of the remaining pieces such as Keirsey to fill in the holes in the 26-man roster. August and September will be a struggle, and Rocco will be put to the test to make any kind of purse, silk or otherwise, out of some of these sows ears. I'm fine with finishing the season way under payroll budget - I don't begrudge one penny when gearing up in the offseason for contention, but at the trade deadline I'm more than happy to save my ownership group a bunch of money. (My strong assumption is that part of the POBO's compensation package is a form of profit sharing, and when I can't compete I'm perfectly happy to pocket an extra quarter-million or whatever myself, ditto for my key underlings.) Again, I'm not parting with meaningful assets under control for next season. Depending on what comes back in trade, and the remaining progress of the top prospects, I reformulate the roster next November for another competitive run in 2026. The fans don't deserve another lengthy rebuild. C: Ryan Jeffers ($4.70M) 1B: Ty France ($0.00M) 2B: Brooks Lee ($0.80M) 3B: Royce Lewis ($2.30M) SS: Carlos Correa ($36.00M) LF: Trevor Larnach ($2.10M) CF: Byron Buxton ($15.00M) RF: Matt Wallner ($0.80M) DH: Harrison Bader ($0.00M) 4th OF: Dashawn Keirsey Jr ($0.80M) Utility: Willi Castro ($0.00M) Utility: Kody Clemens ($0.80M) Backup C: Christian Vazquez ($0.00M) NA: Dead Money Here ($0.00M) SP1: David Festa ($0.80M) SP2: Joe Ryan ($3.80M) SP3: Bailey Ober ($4.30M) SP4: Chris Paddack ($0.00M) SP5: Simeon Woods Richardson ($0.80M) RP: Jhoan Duran ($3.70M) RP: Brock Stewart ($0.00M) RP: Griffin Jax ($2.60M) RP: Danny Coulombe ($0.00M) RP: Cole Sands ($0.80M) RP: Justin Topa ($0.00M) RP: Louie Varland ($0.80M) RP: Joey Wentz ($0.00M) NA: Dead Money Here ($0.00M) Payroll is 44.21% under budget

Trade deadline is nigh. Sell.

But you beat me, so there's that.