markos

Another thought: Colorado and Baltimore are both trying to win now, and they both have competitive balance picks (though in the B round). I think the Twins should target those picks if they trade with them.

A lot will depend on exactly how the money gets distributed under the new CBA, but if past years are any guide then there is little reason for them to not come away with a consensus top-20 talent with their second pick.

To piggy-back on this, the run from 2001-2005 was pretty spectacular, especially when in the context of their draft position for most of those years.

Yeah. He averaged 95 out of the bullpen for the White Sox last year. It will be interesting to see what he can do if he focuses solely on the bullpen.

I really liked the idea of the Twins bringing in Turner on a minor league deal.

Yeah, I don't think you will be the only one to rank them that way.

When it comes to pitching, I prefer quantity-over-quality, for three reasons: 1) The Twins are pretty bad right now. Though I think their overall talent is better than the record indicated last year, they still have way too many below-average spots on the roster - and nowhere is that more obvious than in the rotation. Yes, there are a lot of good and interesting pitching prospects coming up, but the failure rate is really high on pitchers. If the Twins want a rotation with five average-or-better starters, they probably need something like 15+ legitimate pitching prospects. 2) I'm not certain how much having an Ace helps if the rest of the roster (and rotation) is weak, even in the playoffs. In this team's own recent history, there is a very good argument that Johan was the best pitcher in baseball from 2004-2007, yet in those 4 years the Twins only made the playoffs twice, won only one game in the playoffs, and they went 1-2 in the 3 games Johan pitched (even though Johan only gave up 3 runs combined in those three games). 3) Cashing in all of your trade chips for a single young pitcher with "Ace potential" seems like a good way to ensure that you end up without any decent pitchers at all. Johan is a good example; pitching development is unpredictable, non-linear and, frankly, seemingly random. Who knows what currently unheralded young (or not so young) pitcher will make a small mechanical change, or add a pitch, or remove a pitch, or change a grip, or slide on the rubber, or something else that seems completely random, and go from just a guy to a GUY. Corey Kluber was just kind of interesting as a 24yo AA pitcher, and he was a year removed from having as many walks as strikeouts when he was traded. But somewhere along the line he learned/developed an unhittable cutter/slider and is one of the top pitchers in baseball. Carlos Carrasco passed through waivers. Jake Arrieta was below-average - arguably replacement level - for 4 years before becoming one of the best pitchers in baseball at age 28. Kyle Hendricks was an uninspiring 22yo in A+ when he was traded. Did all four of those pitchers, at their respective nadirs, have "Ace potential"? Even at the time of their acquisitions, only Carrasco clearly had "Ace potential", though I can see an argument that Arrieta might have. So looking at a couple hypothetical trade packages from the Dodgers: 1) Alvarez 2) De Leon, Brock Stewart, Mitch White I am not convinced that the odds of Alvarez becoming an Ace are that much better (if any better) than the odds of ONE OF De Leon, Stewart, or White becoming an Ace. I am convinced that the total expected value of package 2 will exceed package 1. So to me it is pretty clear that package 2 is better. I recognize that a strategy of quantity-over-quality depends a lot on the pitching development of the organization, but I'm optimistic that Falvey can put a good program in place.

From a certain point of view, this trade actually throws a little cold water on a potential Dozier deal: - Depending on how much weight one puts into age curves and the value of defense, it is completely reasonable to value Eaton over Dozier for the next two years. - On top of that, Eaton is paid less than Dozier over the next two years. - And Eaton is under contract for THREE additional years at very reasonable costs. So it isn't crazy to think that Eaton is a more valuable asset than Dozier, perhaps significantly more valuable. Now, from the perspective of the return... - Prospect projections definitely aren't perfect, but they do shed some interesting info. In this case, Chris Mitchell's KATOH+ projection system has identical rankings for both Giolito and De Leon. As another datapoint, Steamer projects De Leon to be significantly better than Giolito next year (3.34 ERA vs 4.93 ERA). - From a scouting perspective, Fangraphs has Giolito at a 60 Future Value (FV) and Lopez at a 55FV. That matches Yadier Alvarez (60FV) and De Leon (55FV). Dunning gets a 45 FV, which is similar to Brock Stewart, Jordan Sheffield and Walker Buehler. So a package of Alvarez, De Leon and something else is arguably just as good as the package the Nationals gave up for Eaton. Given this, I think it is wishful thinking to get Alvarez and De Leon in a trade for Dozier. At the very least, it is just as crazy as the Eaton deal.

The new pools don't have slots anymore; it is just a pool of money. And teams can just trade any value they want - they aren't limited to specific slots. Earlier this week the 2017-2018 pools were announced. I'm not sure if that means that they can start trading that money, but I would think yes.

Does anyone know if SD still gets their international signing pool even though they are penalized for going over last year? As in they still get the $4.5M or whatever, but they can't sign anyone over $X amount. If that was the case, then they might have a ton of that pool money to spend to help facilitate trades for these Rule 5 picks.

So I just realized that it is very possible that the White Sox will be good again before the Twins. Now I'm bummed.

Yeah. Still, Lopez and Giolito are both big-league ready, while Meyer hadn't pitched a single inning above high-A. Anyway, water under the bridge...

I get that Eaton is better than Span, but there are certain similarities there. I always thought that the Span trade was a little light. I think that Lopez and Giolito are both way better than Meyer at the time of their respective trades. I have a hard time thinking that Eaton is more than twice as valuable as Span was at the time.

Sure, but the fact that the Padres drafted Turner at #13 doesn't necessarily mean that they would have taken Turner instead of Gordon. It is entirely possible that every single team would have taken Gordon over Turner if given the choice - unfortunately, we don't get to see each team's draft board. So comparing the success of the Twins versus other teams isn't as simple as just saying that the Twins messed up because later picks worked out. And its is particularly difficult when dealing with a large tier of similarly ranked players. Take the Gordon pick. There were something like 10 names legitimately brought up (both on this site and among various draft experts) for that spot: Gordon, Jackson, Nola, Freeland, Turner, Newcomb, and Toussaint for sure. I also liked Holmes and Hoffman. All had their pros and cons, with passionate fans on all sides. The fact that a handful of them have worked out better than Gordon (so far) isn't at all surprising - in fact, it is expected given the odds and the size of the pool. Sorry for the rant, but judging draft performance in a context-neutral way (and trying to separate the actual talent evaluation from the player development) is something I've thought a lot about. It is a really tough problem, and maybe impossible, but I'd really like to figure out a way to systematically grade a team's performance without resorting to "this other player drafted X picks later is better" arguments.

I agree. A team like Seattle or Baltimore needs the ~200 steady innings Santana could provide than rolling the dice on upside. A team like the Dodgers need the potential upside more than innings.

I guess it is a small sample, but he did have a .360 ISO and 1.132 OPS in 2014 between AA and AAA.

Soler walks a lot more than Rosario, and he has shown a lot more power in the minors as well. So there is definitely the possibility that Soler has a higher ceiling right now. But I agree that it is mostly projection right now, and that it certainly wouldn't be shocking if Rosario ends up as the more valuable player going forward. Hard to believe that Wade Davis is only worth Soler considering the packages that Miller and Chapman received.

Some Twins-related MLB news: International bonus pools were announced. As part of the new CBA, the pools are a hard cap, and they vary by revenue/market size. Twins are in the second tier at $5.25M for the 2017-2018 signing period. Also worth noting that this money is tradeable. http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/2017-18-international-bonus-pools/#cpBZdMJ9KT08JSlF.97 Also, they announced that the Twins get an extra Comp Round A pick in the 2017 draft. Not sure exactly where it will fall yet because of pending free agents, but last year they fell in the 37-41 range. It will help with their overall bonus pool and give them another option for moving money around to get multiple high-upside players.

I really expected them to do the opposite of what they are doing. This is their last year, so go all in. They could blow it up at the deadline if they fell out of contention for some reason. In hindsight (actually, not really...), the signings of Soria and Kennedy last year are really tying their hands this offseason, and now they have to shed salary and try to thread the needle by acquiring win-now assets in return for their current core. I actually thought they would make a decent trade partner for the Dozier+Santana combo trade. I though Ventura, Mondesi + pieces would be a decent return. But instead they are trading away players.

Two thoughts. First, I would argue that Urias is better than any of those four. Second, Moncada, Robles, Lopez and Giolito are all non-essential pieces for their respective teams' 2017 25-man rosters. Baring injury, none of them are being counted on to be a full-time player, and there is a decent chance that all 4 will start 2017 in the minors. Urias, on the other hand, is the Dodgers #3 (arguably #2) starter. Trading him for Dozier is kind of treading water. Yes, the Dodgers improve at 2B, but they now need to find another above-average starter to fill in their rotation. It is the same reason that every report has indicated that Trea Turner, Alex Bregman, Dansby Swanson, etc have been off-limits in trade discussions. Trading an above-average, long-term asset for a slightly better but short-term asset doesn't move the needle very much even in the short term. This reasoning is why I've thought that it will be very hard to pry away a young, controllable starter that is already established in the big leagues, and that it makes some sense to try to package Dozier and Santana together.

Maybe in December 2013. A similar Twins package would have been: Moncada -> Buxton Kopech -> Berrios Basabe -> Polanco Diaz -> <shrug> Interesting that the White Sox chose this deal over the reported Robles/Giolito package from the Nationals.

At this point, I feel like I know the Dodgers farm system almost as well as I know the twins system...

I believe Cashman when he said he never checked in on the situation - I'm sure he had one of his assistant GMs make the phone call.

One of De Leon or Alvarez One of Buehler, Sheffield, Verdugo, or Diaz One of Stewart or Stripling

I'm really surprised by the Diaz ranking, though I'm pretty skeptical that the bat will end up being good enough to play at 1B/DH.