jay

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9612015/mlb-future-power-rankings-2013-update?refresh=true

But no Miguel Sano? Why not?

If Dozier continues to perform as he has since May, 2B is his. If Rosario shows in AAA that he is clearly ready for MLB, I think we need to have this conversation then. Neither of those are a given and could very well not happen at all.

I do recognize it as possible in theory to get a better prospect by paying money. As I stated in an earlier post and mentioned by a few others, I don't think it was an option in this case. There's simply no reason for Neal Huntington to even consider giving up a better prospect if his owner agreed to cover the salary. I don't personally buy the reasoning whatsoever that he only would have asked for that after the Twins said 'no' to covering any salary. Even if it were an option, I could very well be 'better off' if the Twins use that $2M (or even of a portion of it) to acquire talent elsewhere. That's a steep price to pay for a marginal difference. How would they use it? I don't exactly know, but I retain hope it'd go to some cause other than profits. Further, this seems to be another example of trying to type-cast the Twins front office in a certain manner. They are due their fair share of criticism, but it can at times seem like trying to make a round peg out of every possible situation to fit the round hole of a preconceived notion.

IMO, this is the biggest flaw in the 'Twins should have covered salary' argument. None of the other points, sources, facts, inferences, ideas, etc matter when you accept that Morneau simply didn't have much value and the Pirates wouldn't have given up much more even if he was free of cost. If Morneau was free, what's the very most the Pirates would give up? Best case, a #20-range prospect? In theory, yes, the Twins could get a better prospect in exchange for cash. I don't know why anyone would deny that. However, in this instance of reality, it probably wasn't an option or just didn't matter enough to make a difference. Whether that $2M was budgeted for already or not, it's hard to picture it making sense for the Twins to pay $2M to go from whatever this PTBNL turns out to be to a still-fringe prospect.

It's not ignorance. It's just as simple and reasonable to conclude that the Pirates weren't going to give up a better prospect to get a .741 OPS first baseman for a month. Of course the Pirates GM is going to praise ownership for approving the additional salary. As the GM, who needs to build the franchise, why would he want to give up prospects over salary? He wouldn't.

More importantly, a smart org like the Pirates that has built a strong pipeline probably would have just declined the idea of giving up a better prospect. I'm less likely to place blame for this on the Twins.

The Twins certainly don't have a track record of doing it. However, they also don't have a track record of ever signing decent free agents.... yet everyone here spends an amazing amount of effort talking about that. Why should we rule out the idea that the Twins could cover part of a contract if we don't rule out free agents?

I'm confused. The Twins have been bad for a while now. Trading Morneau was the last straw?

Mike, "Money is an issue" cannot be directly translated to "would not eat any". We don't know if the Twins put that option on the table or not. The Pirates could have just as well said 'no thanks, we like our prospects' and here's 2 scrubs.

The possibility that this trade helps in some way exists. However, if the PR hit (which is pretty clear to a good portion of the fan base) results in a decrease in revenues, you could also make a point that this could negate those very gains you speak of. The point does remain that a winner will bring the fans back regardless...

He's regarded as the best int'l FA pitcher and that's not good enough? Who exactly is this power arm that you speak of?

Please note that I do agree with the general sentiment/concept of your post, but I don't think it's relevant here. Exactly what part of this trade is going to make the Twins a contender? I think you're making a leap both there and in trying to draw correlations to the Wild. None of those moves have been along similar lines to this.

Presley: Perhaps, similar to the last player that came from the Pirates, he's better than his numbers?

Help me out with a few examples on both ends, please?

Hit like what exactly the past few months? He's .230/.282/.467 since the All-Star break. His .741 OPS on the season ranks 23rd of 27 qualified first basemen.

I was hoping to see the same folks that were advocating we had to trade Justin (and/or Doumit/Willingham) because 'something is better than nothing' in here defending the currently lackluster return. The salary dump comments are silly. The only positive here so far is a chance to see Colabello and maybe Parmelee, but I'd have to agree with others that the PR hit isn't worth it. Perhaps Justin told the team he'd be happy to go join a playoff team and they were trying to accommodate that, but I find that unlikely.

Commonly ranked at #2 for the O's right behind Machado in 2011.

Btw, it's official. Morse to Orioles. Twins pulled Willingham back off waivers. MLB.com has the guy that the Twins were supposedly targeting, E. Rodriguez, at #3 in the O's org (and #86 overall). BA had him at #5 and nowhere on the pre-season 100 or mid-season 50. The guy the Mariners got for Morse, X. Avery, is at #10 (preseason #7) on mlb.com and was #7 on BA's list. FRIDAY, 12:33pm: The Twins and Orioles could not come to an agreement on a trade, and Willingham has been pulled back off waivers, according to Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun (Twitter link). Earlier reports indicated that the Twins asked for top prospect Eduardo Rodriguez, causing Baltimore to back off. 12:48pm: The Orioles are sending outfield prospect Xavier Avery to the Mariners, according to Peter Gammons of the MLB Network (on Twitter). 12:35pm: The Orioles have acquired Mike Morse from the Mariners, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Heyman adds that the Mariners will receive a prospect in exchange (Twitter links).

That's a great point. The Twins are in a great position to take on the risk of a guy with upside. If it doesn't work, oh well, we're no worse off in trying to bring the next 'nucleus' along. Even if this were 100% true, the Dodgers simply weren't going to be outbid. That's the reality of it. I think these points get completely ignored here far too often while we dream on the great FAs we could sign to spend all that money on. It's not hard to find plenty of examples to clearly show that terrible teams struggle to attract quality FA players.

I'm not sure who those people are. I've seen arguments on both sides about the money piece with Morneau, but not so much about the demands. TR probably is asking for a lot and I'm perfectly okay with that. You don't win the trades you do make by establishing a habit of caving for scraps. Plenty of people here have advocated dumping any/all of the vet trio for a sack of old balls. It'd clear out some PT and roster space which is great, but we can't ignore the implications elsewhere -- general fan response, signing FAs this offseason like everyone is hoping for, etc. Whether Morneau goes or not (either now or FA), those decisions on Doumit and Willingham are probably more realistic to happen in the offseason anyway.

This is true, but it does seems more reasonable to reach the conclusion the Twins aren't as deep into it as others. Unless TR is playing one heck of a poker game, his quotes (and others such as Anthony) on advanced metrics certainly don't indicate an embrace for these new things as they clearly do in the article with Mozeliak. It'd be hard to believe the one-man stats team has developed a full database and assessment algorithm. I'd probably laugh if someone could say with a straight face that Gardy even *possibly* might have embraced anything near what they say Matheny has.

Have to agree with most of this. I think Rosario is going to be Arcia-like in his rankings... higher end of that range on most, but a few that give him respect for hitting well at every level. I could see Berrios sneaking onto the back end of a list or two, but I agree he's probably a bubble guy for the top 100. It's nice to see that we also seem to have a good bit of depth in that 100-250 range that are still legit prospects and could very well make an MLB impact in due time.

Reviving this thread a few days later... I stumbled across this article this morning that talks about the Cardinals and how they use advanced metrics. I've derided overly praising teams that are currently successful (remember when the Twins were a model franchise?) because it can be rather cyclical. However, this article upped my level of respect for the Cardinals by another notch or two. A GM with stats books on his desk. A manager that actually gives a care about metrics. I thought I could only dream such a thing. How the Cardinals use sabermetrics - SweetSpot Blog - ESPN These quotes specifically are exactly what I pain for out of the Twins and I wish we had a better understanding of what they are doing behind the scenes: "Most importantly, we hire a manager to make that lineup. I do think one thing that Mike and his staff have done a very good job of is embracing anything we can put together as far as advanced scouting for them. Trying to eliminate small sample sizes and make them accept larger ones for probabilities has been helpful. Mike, he is a young manager that is very interested at looking at the best ways to be successful, so that's always a good sign when you have that in an employee." Oh, so you mean it doesn't actually matter when a guy is 5 for 7 lifetime off a pitcher? "When evaluating a player such as outfielder Oscar Taveras, a top prospect in the Cardinals organization and one of the best in baseball, there are several prongs to making a decision on what turns a prospect into a major league player. Mozeliak says you can think of the process as legs to a table... One aspect would be the scouting, such as bat speed or a player's mechanics. A second is statistics. For the Cardinals, another important part is work ethic and character. "The character component of our decision-making does not account for anything in the analytical world," said Mozeliak. "We don't put it in the algorithm, because it is just not there,..."" ...just the fact that they even have an algorithm. *swoon*

Great point. They are also well regarded for having a strong statistical analysis team. I apologize for the pun, but you can see some pretty clear correlations going on here.