kab21

The Twins may have used an 8 man bullpen several times but they didn't need an 8 man bullpen especially if they improve the bullpen. If you have Hicks in RF and Arcia/Walker platooning at DH then there aren't problems. Even Vargas isn't that bad as part of a platoon if you have Eduardo Escobar who can play OF.

All of those top prospects were also healthy and played full seasons. Buxton has missed so much time that it shouldn't be a surprise if he stays in the minors a little longer. Especially since Hicks might be a legit player and can cover CF. This would be similar to Oscar Taveras with the Cards. He was in AAA and got injured in 2013. He should have been up in 2014 (or even 2013) but he missed time and the Cards didn't have room. Unfortunately he passed away the following year.

I hope so. It doesn't make sense from a service time standpoint but I miss September callups of top prospects.

The thing that always frustrated me with not signing a mid tier RP was the money. The Twins had money to spend but it was understandable that they weren't signing a bunch of guys to 4 yr 10-15M/yr contracts. These mid tier RP'ers are available for 5M/yr on 2-3 yr contracts. It isn't an outstanding value but unspent money is also worthless. Instead they could have gotten a solid RP'er and a potential deadline asset. While I don't think Hu and Tapia are great prospects it would have been much better the last couple of seasons for the Twins to be the team trading a Jepsen level RP'er and collecting an extra prospect or two.

This makes a lot of sense if you only pick out the guys that have been successful. FWIW - I really liked the Gregerson pickup at the time. But the Twins should have been looking at these mid tier RP'ers. They didn't so there isn't much to do about it now other than make a trade.

There really isn't a problem next year with Buxton, Hicks, Rosario, Kepler and Arcia. Kepler (or Buxton - gasp) starts in AAA unless Arcia completely bombs out before then. Good teams have good prospects in AAA ready to call up and fill holes when injuries/ineffectiveness happen. The Twins for the most part have had AAAA players in AAA until recently. Loving Kepler though. Such a cool story and now he is on the verge.

Not really. These threads are suggesting that we traded a top prospect for a replacement level RP'er. Jepsen is a pretty solid RP'er. Hu is a successful MiLB pitcher that doesn't rank highly in the stuff category. The problem is that the Twins didn't make a big move when some of the big moves didn't require great prospects but required money (short and long term). They didn't need to trade the farm to get a good player but they needed to pick up some money. Not surprisingly JR was very conservative this year.

Are we talking about the same Broxton that has a 5.89 ERA? I really don't understand the angst in this particular deal. I understand the angst in the big picture of the trade deadline moves (lack thereof).

Jepsen is underrated Hu is overrated Tapia is overrated The problem here isn't this trade but rather that it is a rather unspectacular and only trade. This trade is nothing like the Ramos trade though. Ramos was an actual really good prospect that was MLB ready. Hu has a long way to go before he becomes a Liam Hendriks level prospect. I like him and am disappointed that he was traded but he has become way overrated here. My biggest disappointment is that the Twins traded away a Taiwanese prospect. I was really rooting for him to make it and see Taiwan become big Twins fans. They tend to bandwagon jump whenever there is a successful Taiwanese player.

Part of a prospects development is building up the amount of innings instead of making a large jump in one year. Berrios is at 114 IP right now. If you promote him now then he will probably top out at 130IP after 140 last year. That might lead to him getting shut down next year, tiring down the stretch or possibly even getting injured (if you subscribe to the Verducci Effect). But anyways his future is as a starter and potentially a very important one. I am not interested in sidetracking him from that and as was said above he is potentially an option to be called up as a starter if anything happens. once you get to September it is a benefit for him to get big league experience even if it is as a RP'er.

I have absolutely no problems moving Duffey to the pen and hoping his stuff plays up there. The only dilemma is who to send down/get rid of (discussed above) and if he actually leapfrogs other RP's in AAA. Berrios stays a starter until the MiLB season is finished. He needs to be ready to go a full season (6 months) as a starter next year. In September (Aug 31st to be postseason eligible) I hope he is promoted and could potentially be the Twins version of Carlos Martinez.

The benefit of Tulo (this year and the following years) is much greater than Gibson. you might consider that undermining but they still improve. It would be better if Kohl Stewart (or someone else with a high profile) was doing awesome in A ball and could be the centerpiece but you have to give up something to get something.

Where else are they going to spend the money? Sign another aging middle of the rotation pitcher in the offseason? Wait 2 offseasons outbid everyone for Lucroy (a 30ish yr old catcher)? Money saved on payroll is only useful if it is spent on something good. I can't think of many better places to spend the money. Everything about Gibson says sell high right now. If he is the centerpiece for a deal that brings in an MVP caliber bat to fill the Twins 2nd worst positional need then I make the deal quickly. The only tough part is that losing him and Santana (in the playoffs) sets up a mediocre rotation.

I started doing some research a few years ago with the Coors effect and how using splits is misleading. The first thing you need to consider is the benefit that Coors gives. The perception is that the benefit is totally due to the ball going further and the field being bigger. That is only part of the story. Before the batter even hits the ball he is at an enormous advantage for two reasons. Opposing pitchers tire more quickly at elevation and opposing pitchers all of a sudden don't have the same movement on their pitches making it much easier for home hitters to hit the ball. Opposing hitters enjoy some of this benefit but not nearly to the same extent (backed up by K and BB rate comparisons of home/opposing hitters home/away stats). So part of my theory (and what my initial stat analysis showed) is that part of the reason Rockies hitters struggle on the road (the big splits) is that all of a sudden the ball is breaking a lot more than usual and they aren't able to adjust in the course of 1-2 road series. When given a longer period to adjust (like being traded/FA) their non Coors stats improved. Brock posted some stats a few pages ago that are misleading about Holliday. His Busch numbers are extraordinary when compared to his Coors numbers. Of course his BA is down at Busch. A) park effect BA league wide is down 15 pts from his Rockies days C) Holliday is in his 30's for most of his career at Busch The only questions regarding a Tulo trade is how much has to be given up and if he can be healthy. The health part of the equation is the only reason that the Twins can even consider a deal w/o buxton/Sano in it or even consider it all. The money really doesn't matter. Mauer/Santana/Nolasco are all FA's by the time Buxton/Sano (and most young players) are in arb. In the next few years the Twins don't have any big contracts or extensions to commit to since arguably almost every position except catcher, SS and front line starter are filled mostly with young and cheap players. FA is a horrible place to spend money and the Twins aren't going to be going after a 150-200M starter regardless if Tulo is here. Saving money on seasonal payroll is only useful if you have somewhere good to spend it later.

I am pretty happy with Gordon's turnaround. It is a little superficial since it only included 5XBH and 3BB but at least he is getting singles. It's a start.

You are going to have to give up far more than that to get Zobrist. You can't tell us how bad Santana is all season and then flip and say that he is valuable as a centerpiece for a legitimately great player like Zobrist. 2 struggling RP'ers certainly aren't the main pieces of the trade.

Contending for the WC is an awesome goal for a rebuilding team that has had 4 straight top 5 picks. That means that they won 15-20 more games than the previous seasons and don't have very much further to go. But they shouldn't be trading top level prospects to contend for the WC spot. They need to build the team into a perennial playoff contender. But other than Plouffe you named guys that have near zero trade value. We don't need more prospects that probably don't rank in the Twins top 30. not much of a reason to be sellers. And trading Plouffe would be a mistake. He is good and not that young. Now if someone made an offer of Plouffe for a Jose Berrios level prospect (into the midseason top 10 overall) then I am interested.

Actually the seller's market is the opposite of what you say. In the offseason teams will turn to FA to fill holes instead of overpay in a trade. They will also turn to an unproven prospect and there is hope. At midseason there will be desperation (and injuries) and no FA's to turn to and that unproven prospect might have fallen on his face. In addition to that the new Wild Card rules have added so many teams to the buyer's side of the equation that there are very few seller's. But I don't trade Plouffe right now. It is not as simple as trading an MLB veteran 3B for a MLB ready or veteran C. It is REALLY hard to match up teams with those kinds of constraints. The Twins also lack bats right now. I am not subtracting Plouffe from that lineup.

I would like to get Hamels and Lucroy but definitely not at the price of Sano or Buxton. this is where the struggles of Stewart, Meyer and Gordon and the injury to Thorpe (probably others) have hurt the team. They basically have Sano and Buxton that everyone is going to ask for, Berrios in the next tier (getting top 10 overall rankings at midseason), Polanco and guys that are probably falling out of the top 100. I don't think the Twins have enough to get Hamels w/o including Sano or Buxton. I think the Twins would need to include everyone interesting (not named Sano or Buxton) to get Lucroy. Are those the prices that you are willing to pay? I think it would be awesome to get Hamels, Lucroy and Tulo but I am not mortgaging the farm system to do it. Especially with a team that according to metrics might not even make the playoffs with the addition of a top player. The problem is that there aren't many players in the in between category available (very few sellers).

What position are you buying at? How much of the future are you willing to part with? this team could add Hamels at a cost of Sano and it's still among the worst of the playoff teams. I don't think you significantly alter the timeline because the team has overachieved and is a few games over .500. Minor moves and plugging holes should be looked at but for the most part the roster is set and the youngsters should be gaining experience.

I like #3 but I don't think they have needs to be filled (let the youngsters play) or valuable pieces to trade. They could sell an extra starter like Pelfrey or Milone but Milone was traded last year for Sam Fuld and his up and down season since then hasn't increased his trade value. Pelfrey's trade value is lower. The rest of the starters should stay put. They should be looking for a solid 7th/8th inning RP'er and use somebody in the 20-30th prospect range to do it. The could make a Sal Butera-esque trade also but this is such a small transaction that it doesn't really count.

But what does accomplish that a hard(er) spending cap and the disaparity in available pool money doesn't? Talk about punishing good teams with 50-75 players being off the board before they pick. Why not increase the bonus pool size between the non playoff teams and the playoff teams?

But it is no different than the int'l bonus pools (assuming 5 teams don't blow through their cap). There is a limited amount of money in both the domestic draft and int'l FA. Isn't the current MLB draft a combo of spending pools and draft picks?

Actually the only problem with the current system is that it greatly benefits teams to completely blow through the cap because the penalties aren't stiff enough. If they make the penalties stiff enough then this is better than the draft. One nice thing that I like is that teams can trade pool money to others (like trading a draft pick). They are also free to choose to blow it all on one guy or spread it out if they have several sleepers targeted. It is kind of dumb that MLB teams can't draft a player that they really like because they pick #5 and #50 but the player gets picked in the 30's.

Sorry, I exaggerated since I remembered more 500K price tags for 200-300K guys like Barrie but they have been signing alot of 200-300K guys and it seems like they have done a pretty good job picking them. One thing that is very strange (and frustrating) about the Twins is that they took an unusual path signing Sano, Kepler and Polanco in one offseason and then they cut back until 2012 when teams had bonus pools. At that point they started spending more (pretty much their entire bonus pool). I know the discussion was about 1 - 4M prospect vs 5 - 800K prospects but is there really a difference between a 200-300K prospects and 500-800K prospects? Can they really be dismissed as cheaper guys? 2013 - Diaz 1.4M, Tapia 550K, Martinez 340K, Molina 300K, Barrie 250K, Balbuena 175K, Gomez 150K, Herrera 135K, Verkerk ? 2012 - Minier 1.4M, Thorpe 500K, Hu 220K, Silva 175K, Tovar 100K, Quezada 150K 2011 - Gonzalez 650K , Silva 370K, Perez 300K, Romero 260K, Jorge 330K That is 5 interesting prospects that have recently ranked in the top 25 (on someone's list) out of two years of signings. I am certainly not going to complain about these cheaper guys.