TheLeviathan

What do you do about the pitching? And I'd like to know what the similar deals are too, that'd help.

Well the list of people that have taken you to task for you interpretations includes me, mike, spycake, jimmer, and biggentleben among several others. And all of us have a range of opinions on the matter. You have yet to provide a "similar trade". What trades do you think you've presented that are similar? (Also note you completely ignored the first part. I guess magic may not be so far off afterall....)

Well, if not magic...what? I've asked you no less than three times and you refuse to answer that. So, what would you like me to assume since you won't trade, you know we can't pay for it (it's not even there to pay for), so....what? I've heard mike ask you about 10 times too and you slink away from the conversation. And your summary is based on completely debunked examples. You have yet to provide any examples that approximate Dozier. You have offered package deals (which was not what we were offering) or Lucroy. That's the best you've managed to verify your stance. Those have been thoroughly debunked. So if you're view is going to be a summary of things that don't add up, you'll have to excuse me if I don't put much stock in it.

Right, this team's youth makes the possible outcomes for this season pretty broad. But it's going to have to find some pitching somehow for me to approach 80 wins.

I would recommend the Pioneer Press article Brock. Knapp had interesting comments about DeLeon's makeup, he was also quite bullish. At the end of the day the question with DeLeon is how is he maintaining a K rate that successful in the minors with that velocity and is it projectable? That would take some in depth scouting as far as his deception, his changeup, or whatever it is he's using to have that sustained success. That's a rather nuanced question none of us probably have the answer for.

I could see 100 losses, but I think more likely it's in the 90ish range.

That final analogy is spectacular. We have a TJ Clemmings rotation and we're worried about our backup QB.

That is an interesting comp.

You don't know anything for sure either. But only one of us keeps acting like they do. (Hint: you) I only claim to know what we know: DeLeon was the centerpiece and secondary pieces were discussed. I've said before I probably do this for DeLeon and Stewart. Sheffield or Lux would appeal to me too. But I don't know what secondary pieces were discussed and that makes a huge difference.

Actually, I really don't think that's been my position at all. I used the words "for fear of" not as being some over-arching point and you seem to have run with it well past the context it was used in. And other threads are pounding this "fear" concept too, that hasn't ever been the way I characterize things. I've consistently said I'm doing this because developing competent pitching takes a lot of bullets in the chamber and I doubt we find a better opportunity to add another bullet than this one. I think the opposition to it has a range of reasons, some I've openly said I understood but disagreed with. Others I can't make a lick of sense out of.

Since that wasn't what happened, you should try again. I'm not going to indulge you in hypotheticals if you're going to indicate no effort on your part to make it worthwhile.

I don't want to pass up on the deal because I don't like the ramifications for the Twins team going forward. You call it fear. You don't want to take the deal because you dont like the ramifications of taking less value for the Twins going forward. Not fear. WTF? Lets drop this "fear" characterization. Its BS.

I may have taken it, depending on the tenor of the negotiations. But I wasn't in that room.

We lose by 10-7 a bunch of times until we either give a doomed extension or watch him sign with the World Series contending Atlanta Braves in three years.

So you don't fear continuing to be a bad baseball team by making bad decisions? Because if you're going to label that as "fear", I'd suggest you have the same "fear" wrapped up in your aversion to a bad deal. So if we're fearing the same thing but for different reasons, why do you and gunnathor keep trolling out that criticism? It seems like an attempt to take out a valid argument at the knees without any real substance behind it.

Among pitchers only, he's top 10ish depending upon where you look. Most of the top 30-40 are hitters.

If you're going to argue "we can deal him later", shouldn't there be some evidence that doing so will, in fact, do what you say it will? If there is no such evidence, perhaps your suggestion is bogus. And it seems the only people talking about fear are those fearing DeLeon busts. I don't fear anything, I'm pretty confident in the knowledge that our pitching sucks. I'm also pretty contfident in my knowledge that it ain't getting better with Polanco at short and no reinforcements on the way for a year or so. Hell, I take this deal out of hope, not fear. I turn it down out fear and being gun shy.

I took your post as it was written and in the context of the disagreement. Please do the same, you put at least three thoughts on me that I nowhere expressed. It's not just we that disagree, the people attempting to acquire these players flat out disagree with you. You seem to be placing a trade value on Dozier that the last decade of comparables doesn't support. And clearly the demand this offseason didn't support. Secondly, I wouldn't characterize just DeLeon as a "bad" return. I just would've pushed for more. And it's clear there was in fact more on the table. What that more constituted we may never know. But a top 10ish prospect in all of baseball is not a "bad" return. Thirdly, I'm proposing not to act out of fear or inflexibility, but out of probability. The probability of attaining a better prospect considering known factors that diminish his value (age, team control, likelihood of repeat performance) combined with the recent trade history tells me the probability of ever getting a better deal is about zero. So what's the alternative? Keep him? Well, again this causes a host of issues. Polanco either doesn't play or poorly fields a non-natural, key position. It also risks us giving him an extension into his mid 30s. Or just letting him languish for two years while we get our pitching together in some other way. So, based all the evidence we have for hitter values in trades the last decade, DeLeon was absolutely "remotely close", we just needed the icing on the cake. But you can't keep running around posting about how we'll "get a better deal" when the odds of that are stacked HEAVILY against it. Just accept it, you're going to keep him and hope we pull a competent pitching staff out of our rear end. Or use magic. Or something. But it's clear you won't do it by trading Dozier, because something better than DeLeon is extremely unlikely to center another deal.

What's the alternative? Retaining him for fear of taking a non-optimal deal gets us in the boat of Glen Perkins. How'd that turn out? I'd suggest none of the deals you've found match. They're either much lighter for a similar player (Zobrist, Cespedes) or they are better for a deal that included a far better player (Lucroy) or a package deal. (Gomez) And the point of that is to show you that perhaps this is not a "bad return". Perhaps it's this, soemthing worse, or Dozier languishes for two years as we lose 10-7 every other day.

Yes, Fried had tommy john surgery at the time. JDL has a sprained ankle and some low inning counts and we're freaking out about his durability. At least admit that's about 100x better than a TJ guy as your centerpiece. I wouldn't use that trade as an example unless you're willing to fairly analyze what your reaction would've been. As for the rest - are you suggesting a total of team controlled WAR years of 8+? If so, that number starts dropping after his first at-bat.... Which reinforces the idea that it is highly unlikely another, better (or even equal) offer is coming down the pipe. If you're going to argue it will, some precedence would be helpful. Based on your argument, the best that can be said is "it doesn't happen often enough to know". That's hardly reassuring. Especially when the few examples that are there don't represent Dozier's value very well at all.

I have never assumed them incompetent. I question what their objective was, but I fully admit I'm speculating. I stand exactly where I did a few weeks back - I don't hold it against them (i might, if future evidence leads me to) but I'm disappointed by the result.

I appreciate the effort here, one thing I noticed very quickly though is that these pitchers were dealt at varying times relative to their prospect ranking. So while it's true that Sean Manaea was dealt, his prospect ranking was not nearly as high as DeLeon at the time. You might make the same case for Walker and a few others on that list too. But, in fairness, both the Twins and Dodgers might be operating like they assume JDL will take a ranking fall this year and are valuing him accordingly. But I think we agree, top pitching prospects are hard to land. Any factor that further complicates that is going to be an issue. And there are a lot of potential future complications and only one thing that could reverse it (demand). So I just see a lot of probabilities stacking up against a better package coming along. Though I hope it does.

Well, his ranking as a prospect sort of is what it is. It was there prior to talks ever firing up. He's a top ten pitching prospect in baseball, those don't move often. And when they do it's pretty much always for other pitchers. I highly encourage you to go back and look at the last decade or so of trades. It doesn't support what you're arguing. And someone may bite on a reduced Dozier performance as you say. But I doubt they bite with nearly as big a return. That's the crux of it. We can't know for sure, but I know which side of it I'd bet on.

A couple things: 1) Pitching prospects this highly regarded for a hitter ARE hard to come by. Look back at the last decade, the trade history does not favor your expectations. 2) Higher demand MAY happen, but when it does Dozier will be a year older, with a year less of team control, and likely will not have replicated his 2016 success. How much of a bite do those factors take out of that demand?

No, I don't. I specifically said that there was a "wide range of possibilities" after the point we know to be true: JDL and Dozier were the main pieces and discussions of secondary pieces happened after that. No one knows who those pieces were. Or even how many of them there were. I have acknowledged that the fault could go either way. I simply stated that (without being in the room) my objective would've been to find a way to get that sucker done. I'm not 100% convinced our new FO shared that objective. Their version might have been "we won't deal him unless we're blown away". And those two objectives are very different.