markos

I'm not trying to be that judgmental of the Twins coaching staff. I think a player's developmental progression is highly path dependent, and that the dynamics of when/how coaches work with a player aren't necessarily recreate-able. I don't blame the Twins for every single played that has found success in other organizations. Sure, I think you can make judgments of the organization's ability based on the broad pattern of players, but certainly not on any one specific player. Using Pressly as an example, it is fairly well known that the Astros came to him after the trade and presented data for how to change his pitch mix. The Twins could have presented the exact same information, but Pressly has a much longer track record with the Twins organization, and there might not be the same buy-in, especially since he was already pitching as well as he ever had in his career. The Astros, by virtue of being a fresh voice and having explicitly sought Pressly out, could approach these changes in a very different way than the Twins could. And yes, Pressly was pitching well prior to the trade, but you need to put a lot of weight on his last 10 appearances with the Twins if you think you could predict his Astros level of success based on his Twins performance. Now, don't get me wrong, I think he was a solid bet to be above-average going forward; I did not predict "top 5 reliever in baseball". As an interesting juxtaposition, the Pirates acquired Keone Kela at the same deadline. While not a perfect analogy to Pressly, he was also a young, very good reliever with team control remaining. He is currently on the 60-day IL with a shoulder issue. Teams only have so much control over preventing injuries. Are we having this conversation if Pressly was the one that ended up injured? Reliever performance is historically quite volatile, I don't hold it against the Twins FO that they thought it was a sell-high moment for Pressly. Going back to the small sample size, what is everyone's prediction for Duffey going forward? His last ten appearances compared to Pressly's prior to the trade: Pressly: 10.0 IP, 0.90 ERA, 33.3 K%, 7.1 BB%, 1.10 WHIP Duffey: 13.0 IP, 0.69 ERA, 32.1 K%, 7.1 BB%, 1.08 WHIP I've been extremely optimistic about Duffey for weeks now, but I'm not ready to anoint him a top-10 relief pitcher going forward. But at least superficially, there are a lot of similarities between Duffey this year and Pressly's 2018.

Yeah, I think it is much more likely that the FO doubted that Pressly would become a top-10 reliever going forward. And that is a problem with the hindsight argument - there is no guarrantee that the Twins would have been able to unlock Pressly's full potential in the same way that the Astros did.

I think 1 or 2 of Nationals, Mets and Phillies will throw up the white flag by the all star break.

I don't disagree with anything you said. Sano is a tough guy to value. I was trying to frame it in terms similar to the Machado trade last year (also a rental). The Machado deal was headlined by a 50 FV, back-of-the-top-100-list player in Diaz. Someone not unlike Larnach. Now, I personally think Sano > Larnach/Diaz or someone of that ilk, even if he only has 2 years of team control left. And the fact that Sano can play 1B (which the Nationals need) would allow them to still make a big run at resigning Rendon this offseason. It would also help the Nationals try to contend next year, whereas a prospect might not play right away. But now that I think about it more, my suggestion is obviously undervaluing Doolittle. Sano+Duran is probably close enough for just Rendon, but the Nats would need another really good piece to include Doolittle.

Speaking of the Nationals... Anthony Rendon + Sean Doolittle for Sano + Duran. Who says no?

Piggy-backing on this, the Twins certainly aren't in the best prospect position among contenders (and prospective deadline buyers). While no other team could really match the Lewis-Kiriloff combo coming into the season, once you broaden things to look at the top-50-to-75 prospects, other teams really shine. The Braves have 6-8 guys in that range, as do the Rays. Dodgers and Astros each have 4ish. And the Twins players in this range (other than Larnach) haven't really excelled this season for various reasons. I think the Twins biggest problem heading into the trade deadline is this: - generally speaking, most of the best players traded every year are either elite rental players or good players with another year or two of team control. - these kind of players general don't require a "blue-chip" prospect to acquire, but more generally a package headlined by a prospect in the back-half of top-100 lists. - due to injury/ineffectiveness, this is the area where the Twins have Larnach and not much else. Graterol is injured, Javier isn't playing well. - Larnach, while a good player and prospect, is probably not as valuable as his ranking would indicate. He is a bat-first corner outfielder who is still in high-A. Not every team is going to be excited about that profile. As a hypothetical, Ken Giles will probably be traded, and I could see him fetching a top-100 prospect. He is the type of player that the Twins would probably be willing to give up Larnach to acquire, but loath to include Kirilloff or Lewis. However, I'm not sure that the Twins could WIN a trade sweepstakes with a deal centered around Larnach. Other teams could easily include equivalently talented players at positions with more value and upside, or in closer proximity to the majors.

From rereading a lot of the draft threads from 2015, there were a lot of people that liked Jay specifically because of his upside. He was a risky profile, not someone I would put under the label of a "high floor" or "safe" player. In many ways, his "floor" as a reliever was more as a hedge for his perceived risk, not as his value in and of itself.

So, I just wasted the past hour reading through past threads on the 2015 draft. Interesting (and humbling) to reread what everyone one (included myself!) said about Jay and the others available. My own comment about Benintendi: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/18293-article-twins-draft-preview-andrew-benintendi/?p=344241 In many ways, Benintendi was another "miss" for me because I didn't foresee the flyball/launch angle/power revolution that was going to overtake baseball. Interesting to read that thread and the Ben Revere comps he was getting. Other draft pick threads from that day: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/18552-article-twins-select-tyler-jay-sixth-overall/ http://twinsdaily.com/topic/18540-article-official-twins-daily-draft-day-thread-cheat-sheet/

Ha. I was going to point out that this Twins fan <points at self/> would have been very happy with Benintendi.

You are kind of moving goal posts here. Your quote in the article was If you look at last year's trade deadline, how many relievers actually qualify for that criteria? Jake Diekman? Nope Brandon Kintzler? Nope Brad Ziegler? Nope Keone Kela? Yes? Currently demoted to AAA. Roberto Osuna? Yes, though dumped by the Blue Jays because of domestic abuse suspension Brad Brach? Nope Ryan Pressly? Yes Sam Tuivailala? Nope Joakim Soria? Nope Seungwhan Oh? Nope Nathan Eovaldi? Pending FA Matt Andriese? Nope Zach Britton? Pending FA Jeurys Familia? Pending FA Brad Hand? Yes? Required a top 50-to-100 prospect to acquire. So, depending on how stringent we take your criteria, there might be 1-5 relievers available, which I wouldn't exactly describe as "no shortage" - especially when almost every single playoff contender is looking for bullpen help. We can kind of assume that the Rays, Astros and Yankees are pretty set. But that leaves the Red Sox, Cardinals, Cubs, Phillies, Braves, Brewers, and Dodgers to compete with the Twins.

I absolutely think this is a sell-high moment for Cave. His path to playing time with the big league team seems long. Honestly, I would trade him for prospects right now, kind of like what the Yankees did with him last year.

I hope all of Wes Johnson's time is spent trying to make the big league pitchers better and keep them healthy.

Sure, but there are ways for competitive teams to restock the pitching pipeline through trades. For example, the Yankees have been extremely good at clearing out 40-man and 25-man roster crunches by trading for young, upside pitchers and betting on their player development staff to make the necessary improvements. Case in point, acquiring Luis Gil from the Twins for Jake Cave. Over the next few years, there are going to be multiple decent, young position players coming up the Twins system that they likely just won't have the roster space for. Anyway, I'm on team "don't invest a lot of draft capital on pitchers" for many, many different reasons. So I'm mostly okay with this draft so far.

While not exactly a full substitute, it is worth factoring the pitching talent that was brought in at the trade deadline last year. According to Fangraphs FV rankings at the deadline, Duran, Rijo, Alcala, and Smeltzer all would have slid into the top 120 players in this draft. So it is kind of like they spent a 2nd, two 3rds and a 4th round pick on pitchers... last year at the trade deadline.

Does anyone know if the Twins are expected to be in position to offer 7 figures to anyone today?

So Duran for Tanner Roark, who is a FA after this season. Who says no?

As a rough approximation, Fangraph has rated Jhoan Duran (45FV) similar to draft prospects in the 13 - 43 range. And I think Duran is equal to a pending free-agent late inning reliever or mid-rotation starter. Certainly in the ballpark. So I think you are valuing it about right.

Maybe? For some reason, the Astros and Dodgers have consistently managed to acquire pitchers that I would consider significant (Rich Hill, Darvish, Verlander, Cole) without giving up their best prospects. On the other hand, the Cubs and Red Sox have traded away ELITE prospects for their pitchers. I think there are a lot of guys that could slide into the #2 spot behind Berrios and not cost one of the Twins top prospects: Zack Wheeler Zack Greinke Marcus Stroman Mike Minor Robbie Ray Sonny Gray All of those guys are currently pitching as well or better than Perez/Odorizzi and projected to pitch better than them going forward.

Yeah, I think this is right. And a lot will depend on how much salary Washington is willing to eat. And I feel like the structure of the contract disadvantages the Twins quite a bit. Having a deferred $15M for the next 7 seasons is a rounding error for big market teams like Boston, NYY, LAD, etc. But it is over 10% of the Twins yearly budget.

Scherzer's situation is complicated. He is under contract for two more years yet has 7yr, $105M from 2022-2028 in deferred salary. I don't know what kind of value with that kind of financial commitment hanging over his head.

I get what you are saying, but the counter argument is that it is SO HARD to know when to pull the plug on a pitcher, particularly a relief pitcher. Especially when there is a new pitching coach that has me legitimately excited about what he can accomplish with someone like Duffey. I don't know if you watched the end of Saturday's game, but Duffey got me to sit up and pay attention even though it was 8-3. I mean, he was throwing 95+ and beating hitters with his fastball on the top of the zone. Watch this: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=7174682e-5569-465b-be97-943a0821badb https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=3af571bf-23a6-4cab-a992-7c1f16d4c456 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=b8f3f301-350e-4e25-9a64-db81cfc93fde And he still has the curve and fooling batters with it: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=19dc1ab5-39c5-4f5f-8985-9ed0879ee812 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=721f3b89-eefe-47a0-a1bc-04f8d97e5a2c It is obviously a small sample size, and the outing was against Detroit. But Duffey has almost doubled the rate he is getting swinging strikes with his fastball compared to last season (and currently second on the team). I wouldn't say that there is fire here yet, but something is smoldering.

I'm very interested to see if Duffey can sustain the 95-96 fastball he displayed last Saturday. That's a potential game changer for him.

Stroman replaces Pineda in the rotation. Pineda moves to the bullpen and becomes the Xth best option there. What is X? 3rd? 2nd?

Taking a SWAG based on ZIPS and Fangraphs research on asset value: Stroman is projected for 2.0 WAR for the rest of this year, plus another 2.3 for next season. So 4.3 total. Roughly $9.5M/WAR, so ~$40M worth of total value. He is getting paid $6.5M this year. Maybe $10M next year. So $16.5M total cost. Surplus value equal to ~$20M-$25M. Based on various research, prospects in the 50-100 range are valued between $20M-$30M. So I would say Larnach or Graterol would be fair. Quick edit: Prospect rankings are rather fluid things. I think a decent case can be made that Rortvedt and Balazovic deserve top-100 consideration.

Yeah, I actually meant to include current minor leaguers. Sometimes I forget that "Active Twin" is a technical term... Yeah, I forgot that Escobar traces from the AJ trade, and he was a 1994 draft pick. I think it will be hard to outdo that.