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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    Opportunity to showcase the future is nice when your team is awful. Even moreso when those opportunities yield fun results!
  2. TheLeviathan
    Jon Gray is the guy I'd lock on to personally. Also, there are a lot of good shortstops on the market this year and it might be the ideal time to buy in on one. Go sign Corey Seager for a boatload of money and toss 4 years and 60M at Jon Gray. If not Seager, take your pick with guys like Baez, Story, Simien, etc. This team is already better than the 2021 version without doing anything more. And they have two top 100 prospects on top of it.
  3. TheLeviathan
    Yeah, I am for sure making an "is" argument over an "ought" one. What I will say is this, if you've come to terms with the idea that the Twins aren't going to spend 25-30M on a single starting pitcher, especially one intent on trying the market, then this deal is a no brainer IMO. Instead of Berrios and his salary and an impending loss of him to FA, we now have more money immediately and long term to find his replacements and more prospects/talent around which to build the team. Part of how a team like the Twins win isn't in having a few very good to great players like Berrios, but in having a major league roster with as few bad players as possible and a couple studs sprinkled in. At this point, our major league roster this year and next year just has too many negative players to be optimistic and one Jose Berrios doesn't change that. Making this trade, however, gives them more assets towards that end, especially from 2023 and beyond.
  4. TheLeviathan
    I don't think it's fair to say the Twins can win bidding wars in FA with the heavy spending organizations. Baseball has a serious problem on this front, I'm not sure why we're approaching the system in denial of that. We don't have to like it. We can find it morally wrong. Yet, nevertheless, this is our situation: we won't be outbidding the big dogs and Berrios wants to let the big dogs fight over him. We'd all love to be in a situation where keeping Jose Berrios made sense. All of us. We all wish the organization's status with MLB-ready pitching was better. But it's the reality of both of those things that make the analysis of this rather simple, if depressing. He isn't staying. The Twins aren't going to spend 30M on a pitcher because that's not the way they operate. They don't have anyone ready now or for next year that can step in and make this team a contender. We look like a retool for 2023 by all probabilities. Given that, it makes more sense to have two well regarded guys that could be here in 2023 over a guy with 0% chance. The sober part is about not letting the emotional arguments you keep make rule over the cold analytical ones. Hard as that might be.
  5. TheLeviathan
    I agree, it's both.
  6. TheLeviathan
    It's a W in the sense that they got much more value than was expected. And it was a W relative to other deals for other similar players who moved at the deadline. It isn't mutually exclusive that the team also will suffer immediately from losing Berrios and that the Twins did very well given the circumstances. 0% chance is not entirely on the Twins either. That's the marching orders Barreiro is preaching in the media market and he's mostly grasping for straws. (Reusse too. On the basis of haggling in arbitration....which happens ALL THE TIME. It's literally what the process is: quibbling over thousands) Jose Berrios wants to experience FA. He can't do that by signing an extension. I'm sure if the Twins threw some absurd amount of money at him he might change his mind, but the money it'd take to do that is not what I think any Twins fan would agree to pay. (Say....5 years, 150M) So, no, that's not on them. That's how the system is built. Good for Jose that he gets to set his terms and his valuation and let suitors come to him. He has earned that privilege and there is nothing the Twins can do about that if he has his mind set to do so. Given that's the case, you have to weigh the prospects of what 2022 looks like because keeping him guarantees you a vastly diminished return in a trade. The 2022 staff is still a bad pitching staff with him and there are less tradeable assets and less money to improve. Now they have more options because they chose to maximize his trade value. I don't think 2022 is a contention year, I think 2023 is more likely because of the state of their young talent and what 2020 did to delay that pipeline. Is that a certainty? No. But no one gets to deal in certainties, only probabilities. All the probabilities point to this series of decisions being the right ones. We seem to be trying to paint people as "lusting for prospects" when all that's really happening is a sober take on where we're at. No one wants to be at this point, especially not with the expectations we set out with. But this isn't a fantasy land where you can just will the team to success on the basis of your undying love of seeing them play right now. Good teams, that retool quickly, don't double down on mistakes and hang on too long out of denial.
  7. TheLeviathan
    20 and at AA....that part can't be said enough.
  8. TheLeviathan
    I have heard multiple people lament hos loss. I have done so no less than three times. It has been acknowledged. We just added two top 100 prospects who immediately slid into the top 3 in our organization. Top 100 prospects hold a crap ton of value in trades. I don't know what the future holds in terms of how they will help the club....but I also haven't declared the next year, or two years, or decade a waste because we traded one pitcher. Yeah...maybe 2022 sucks. But it looked like it was bound to be a longshot with or without Berrios. What I do know is waiting dramatically reduces his value in trade for a player we have zero chance to retain long term. Deliberately tanking that value to buy in to 2022 seems like the kind idea you don't need hindsight to warn against.
  9. TheLeviathan
    He has said everything but that. He has made it crystal clear he simply isn't interested in an extension. That is a factual, vital part of evaluating the situation. I love Jose. I'm sad our situation forced these choices. But I can't remove the context and then judge the move fairly. Not once in this thread has it felt like you fairly weighed the context/realities of the situation. It's ok to be pissed or worn down or sad....but it's leading to completely unfair arguments born of fantasy rather than reality.
  10. TheLeviathan
    I'm not confident they can add much talent to the roster hanging on to a guy who has every intention of not being here in 2023. They could take these two prospects and use them to add arms. Martin and somebody for Zac Gallen. Woods Richardson and another piece for John Means. Bam. Better 2022 Rotation. And 2023. And 2024. These are the kinds of things you can do when you have assets to move.
  11. TheLeviathan
    I think ashbury and mike answered this well, but I don't understand why it was a question at all. So much of the discord in here feels like people are tailoring the context of this trade in strange ways that omit key reasons why it makes so much sense to pull this trigger. Take just a few: 1. Berrios has made it abundantly clear he isn't interested in an extension. Short of "Pay me 5 years and 200M or I'm going to let the Yanks wine and dine me"....there isn't much mystery about his intentions. That means in one season and two months you have as much control over who he pitches for as every other MLB team. 2. Trading him at the next deadline will dramatically reduce the return. I can't emphasize dramatically hard enough. 3. If your plan is to outbid the Yankees....you get your shot in 2022 I guess. Plus the guys we just got! 4. Jose Berrios and a bunch of question marks is not a contending caliber staff. 2022 doesn't have enough ready starting pitchers to supplement Jose. Now, let me add a few personal contextual bits I think are worth noting: 1. The Twins just got more for Jose Berrios than the Nats got for Scherzer AND Trae Turner with a similar level of control. 2 I'd trade Berrios for Turner 102 times out of 100 straight up. 3. The Twins could, conceivably, turn around this offseason and make two separate deals with these guys as lead parts of the package and come back with two arms as good (or nearly as good) as Jose. This is what could happen because now the Twins have more assets to make the 2022 team better than one guy who has made it his outward goal to bet on himself.
  12. TheLeviathan
    Signing him to a one year deal with a guarantee he walks in a year? Sure, if we are a piece from a World Series I say absolutely it's a HR. But that isn't our situation.
  13. TheLeviathan
    That depends on how we go forward, same as it did before we made the trade.
  14. TheLeviathan
    I want to point out the irony here as well: The Twins acquired Jose Berrios via a comp pick for letting a major league player walk from their team. They made a business decision about a player who was still productive and a fan favorite that ultimately was best for the club long term. And now here we are with Berrios. It's not his fault, but when things don't come together it doesn't help to double down on a failed attempt.
  15. TheLeviathan
    Yet....the suck has happened. And will continue to happen. If you're somehow squeezing joy out of this god awful season I have confidence you'll continue to find it if you're so determined. Doing nothing was going to continue to result in one good pitcher and a bad baseball team. You seem to grasp this notion, what I cant' grasp is why you would like it to endure.
  16. TheLeviathan
    I seriously don't understand this one...but I'll take it!
  17. TheLeviathan
    This is really well said. Yeah, it sucks to lose Jose. He's probably my favorite Twin, but the Twins pitching wasn't winning anything with him and he wasn't staying. You can lament the state of things without letting it color your ability to see the path forward. The path forward for this team was to move on, acquire assets, and rework the roster. We might be able to flip Marten for a pitcher. Maybe Woods-Richardson will step right in. Same with some of the other arms we added. We weren't going to progress being stagnant. Take big swings. Some of you would've been on a Padres board 5 years ago singing the ballads of James Shields and the worthlessness of prospects like Tatis. (Best case scenario of course, but you can't hit roster homeruns without taking swings) It's ok to feel crappy about the state of things, but some sense of reality would be nice.
  18. TheLeviathan
    Winning will put butts in the seat. Staying with a bad team and changing nothing will not change that.
  19. TheLeviathan
    That's different than the last four months....how? I guess we can just stay with a bad team and just hope that we magically become not bad? I don't understand this mentality. The disappointment is already a reality, no reason to double down out of obstinance.
  20. TheLeviathan
    Martin is exactly the guy I was eye-balling if the Jays were the team that landed him. I preferred San Diego's SS, but I'll take this return!
  21. TheLeviathan
    I'd be curious how you feel about Lovecraft after you finish it. We haven't started it, but I've been wary to because I've heard it fell off the cliff midway through the season.
  22. TheLeviathan
    Vital? No, but he's not being paid like he's vital. He's being vastly underpaid for how useful, versatile, and good he is. Plus, we've seen the upside there too. I think all you'll get for Kepler is people trying to steal an undervalued asset, you won't get someone to pony up.
  23. TheLeviathan
    Maybe they are ok with that. They shouldn't be.
  24. TheLeviathan
    I think Kiriloff is a 1B, not an OF. The team still has a spot for Kepler and, let's face it, if Buxton is our CFer we better damn sure have a guy that can slide over too.
  25. TheLeviathan
    I appreciate the sobering reality you provided on Buxton. I think it's too pessimistic, but a lot of folks here at TD also are way too far off the deep end the other way. If you read a lot of these comments you'd think they've built churches to Buxton and his baseball career. So if nothing else, you're trying to balance the boat and I appreciate that. But contracts are not just given based on what a player has done, but the potential reward they provide as well. There is very clear risk to Buxton as you lay out, but there is obviously so much reward too. The Twins can't offer 3/35, it's not enough guarantees. If they cut the term down that far, they have to bump the AAV or it isn't worth it for Buck. By adding more years they've been able to cut down on the AAV, which I think is the better way to go in balancing this risk vs. reward.
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