TheLeviathan

Yeah but it's SOOOOO amazing to watch teams bunt! In the same situation. All the time. So that the awful guy doesn't hit. And starts the reliever train early. And all the other marvelous "strategies" we hear so often about. I would dare anyone to tell me what great "strategy" it would be every four minutes in a hockey that everyone played without sticks for a minute. Or your QB had to throw left-handed every four drives. Or NBA players shoot with their eyes closed. Yeah, that ain't strategy.

Opportunity to showcase the future is nice when your team is awful. Even moreso when those opportunities yield fun results!

My opinion has been expressed many times, but it's a given this is going to change. I think it will be good for the game on a number of levels and can't wait for it to finally happen.

120? How about we just consistently get 100 out of the man? I hope they find a way to creatively resign him, but I find it twice as likely his career ends early due to injuries than he ever wins an MVP.

Denver and Washington are ideal but neither are going to happen. Maybe Pitt makes sense. Again....alas...wishful thinking.

Colts? Giants? Pure wishful thinking?

There isnt much of a hit for a trade though....or am I wrong on that?

I listen to a lot of Wild games via radio as an out-state fan. Charging for radio is pure greed.

Here's a bunch of observations, both generally and specifically to this thread: 1. I'm young enough and tech savvy enough to know I don't have to pay for a single game. So when the price tags are what they are, you've tuned me out immediately. Most sports viewers 40 and under are also on this track. There are so many free options (baseball, other sports, entertainment in general) that I can find background noise for a fraction of the price. 2. Baseball is horrifically slow. It's not even interesting enough to be background noise anymore. It truly wouldn't matter if the Twins were good, I'd rather invest my time in a highlight reel package and the box score on the internet. 3. These trends aren't reversing - baseball viewership isn't coming back. TV viewership in general isn't suddenly going to revert to old habits in this environment. And people need to embrace that tracking sport engagement is better done through social media than ratings on TV. That's where you see the passion. Now, that being said, baseball might be the one sport that is hurt by this more than any other. With their average fans being so much older than the NFL or NBA....TV viewers are pretty much all they have. So these numbers should be scary. Especially since lots of winning franchises - Houston, Tampa, Boston, etc. - are also seeing significant dips. 4. Baseball is played every day for 6 months. They don't deserve a pat on the back for having one free viewing of Colorado vs. Arizona a week. Especially when they also make you pay to listen out of state to a freaking radio broadcast. The NFL and NBA can do that because they know they have engagement. Baseball doesn't. They're squeezing blood out of a turnip. 5. Speaking of which, cable greed continues to be proven as harmful folly. People won't pay these prices and they continue to tune out the sport. Bally's plan for a standalone app can be described as nothing less than utter stupidity wrapped in greed. 6. Baseball's competitive imbalances are preposterous. Why watch a sport that feels like it's going closer and closer to being the equivalent of letting Alabama play in the same conference as St. Thomas? 7. Baseball staunchly avoids being fun. They literally harm each other when fun happens on the field. What we're left with is a slog of slow-paced neuroticism masquerading as "nuance" and "game within the game". Nope....just painful from an entertainment perspective. 8. Lastly - it's too late. I've been saying it here for 5 years. Baseball is already dead. It's a zombie and many of it's fans don't even realize it. They've lost an entire generation to complete indifference. Measure it by ratings, social media, or anything else...this isn't the beginning of the end, that started awhile ago. Get used to it.

I've always been in the Josh Allen camp. People were too down on him because they didn't realize just how terrible his supporting talent was his first few years. And, brace for this, we're paying Cousins more AAV than the Bills are paying Allen.

Our talent in AA and AAA gives us a real chance of making this a quick retool vs. a rebuild. Prospect optimism is always dangerous, but there are some interesting guys to watch both now and coming soon.

I haven't understood his situation all year. The kid should've been taking AAA at-bats for months now but sat on the bench and when opportunity is glaring at the big league level we decide to send him down. Baffling.

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.

Mike Zimmer sounds like he's ready to cut the guy. Kellen Mond might be this team's QB before we know it.

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.

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.

Vikings cut Gladney. What a colossal misfire that pick was. And for what he did I hope he gets every ounce of that ten year maximum.

I agree, it's both.

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.

Me either, I just don't like what I read here. @Major League Ready Now, if the return stunk even with money, fine, but if they turned down a good move over a few million bucks I'd be a little irritated.

B+. They did a fantastic job in the Happ, Berrios, and Cruz deals. They got an interesting guy for Robles too. Where I ding them just a bit is in not getting rid of Simmons and for potentially falling short on other deals by their unwillingness to include money to get deals done. It sounds like that was a consistent issue with Donaldson trades. Maybe it was right not to deal JD, but not because of an unwillingness to move cash.

20 and at AA....that part can't be said enough.

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.

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.

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.