TheLeviathan

Aren't the basis of all trade talks something along the lines of "we can afford to give up this guy right now?" Reframing the entire process as a lemon swap seems unfair. The Dodgers aren't offering DeLeon because he's a lemon. They're offering him because they feel content with their pitching depth. It's not some deliberate effort to troll us or dump some overrated prospect on us. Hell, I could reframe pretty much every trade ever that way, that doesn't make it a valid point of view. Observe: Can you believe those chumps in New York took Johan when we knew he was going to blow out his arm before his extension was even half up? Suckers....

I'm starting to wonder about Wiggins as well. I'd only trade Rubio now and continue to let things play out this year. Re evaluate at the end.

Yeah and that's but one of many valid reasons to think Hughes is closer to being finished as a starter than ever being an "upper half" guy.

Perhaps, but this team already struggles with shooting...

Except that isn't equivalent. It's more like Berrios circa spring training last year. And then to include more because the bizarro-Dodger fans are insulted by said offer.

I think your post falls apart at the point whre you describe the Dodgers as "fence straddling" akin to the 2000s Twins teams. That's just so far off base it's hard to take the rest of your point seriously.

You also don't identify a need in April and wildly overpay for it to benefit you in October. They know Chase Utley is a phone call away if they need him. They don't have to give in to the Twins, they could horde their chips for later and patch if they need to.

Because they know they are a playoff team regardless of who they march out there. So why overpay in April? Save your assets and make a mid-season splash when your needs are more clear.

In fairness, that isn't unique to the Twins this year.

In a word: disappointing.

I tend to think what is truly on the table hasn't been outwardly discussed. I don't think it's JDL and Alvarez and I also don't think it's just JDL. I think it's something else. But we need to find a way to make what accompanies JDL worth our time, somehow, someway.

I thought part of the value in hiring outside leadership in the FO was to help change the way we do things? If so, I hope they are making their decisions with absolutely no calculation of what the underlings of the past regime want them to do. Otherwise we undermine the value in hiring from the outside. I have no reason to doubt our new FO is being thoughtful and making well informed decisions. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. I also appreciate that they seem to recognize trading Dozier is the right thing to do. I'm willing to continue to be patient as they try to squeeze value out, but at the same time this trade does need to happen somehow some way. So hopefully they have the salemanship, read of the situation, and creativity to pull it off.

Sure, but every situation is different. From the assets you take over, to the position of the team relative to competing, to financial restraints, etc. It was an interesting general question, but if we make it so narrow that it only applies to our new FO then what's the point of the exercise? I would hope that anyone who takes a FO job does a thorough assessment of their situation to determine their actions. Not go in hell bent to be passive or aggressive or some set strategy.

Right, at some point your question has so many caveats it's no longer generalizable and therefore no longer important. I mean, we are a layer or two from you asking if anyone named Levine has ever been in charge, traded their best player, for a good return, on a leap year, while using a Verizon phone. Your original question had validity because it was generalized enough that the answer may be generalizable. I think we've ventured far past that now. Especially since five minutes on Google and I alphabetically found a counter example at Atlanta seems to take the teeth out of your question.

I sorted by team leaders on fangraphs and then compared 2015 to 2016. I'm not a huge believer in all of those stats, but if you go stat by stat it is almost universal by those metrics that we were worse. I'd like us to play a much better defensive SS next to Sano than Polanco has appeared to be so far. I think that will do a world of good. But even then we're hoping for a below average starting staff given the talents available to us without adding upside arms.

Perhaps, by most advanced measures the Twin's defense dramatically fell off from 2015 to 2016. It was bad in 2015, catastrophic in 2016. Now I believe Castro will help. I also think a full time OF of Bux-Kep-Rosario helps. But keeping Dozier gives us a left side of the infield I am much more unsure of.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. And once you're talking about getting from the NLCS to the World Series you are talking a margin for improvement that is really difficult to predict or pin down. What they need to do that on April 1st make look a lot different on July 1st. Injuries and a variety of other things could make something else a far more pressing need than 2B. They're a WS contender without Dozier. They may be better off hoarding assets for July to improve their odds rather than doing it while there is still snow on the ground.

Well, we may disagree about what to expect from Dozier. Caesar Hernandez is likely to not produce as much as Dozier but he would be a better fit for them and be a longer term fit. And he may even cost less despite his age and control. Forsythe and Harrison may be options as well. Not as productive as Dozier, but likely less cost as well. By midseason Kinsler may be down for a trade if Detroit is out of it. Segura may get re-flipped.

All good points, my guess is the Dodgers see Dozier as a nice patch for two years, but I doubt they see him as anything longer than that either. Which may play into this as well. 2B is a position deep enough around the league that it isn't unreasonable for them to think they may get better value than Dozier for DeLeon later in the year if they so choose. But that is also a risky move on their part with JDL's injuries.

No one is saying it was not valuable. But it wasn't valuable enough to overcome those run prevention issues. And likely won't be for the remainder of his contract. So I guess the same question that keeps being asked is asked again - if not by trade, particularly of Dozier - than how does our run prevention get better? How do we improve our pitching? Hell, how do we improve run prevention with a left side of the infield set to be Sano and Polanco? Only Willihammer has backed up his stance by actually responding. I wish more of you who keep saying "we'll fix it while Dozier is here!" would give us a roadmap, even a general one, for doing that. Instead we get that same line thrown out there and then people slink away from backing it up with some actual ideas.

Copollela made a helluva move with Shelby Miller. You could probabyl throw the Heyward and Upton deals on there too. Hell, he's got quite a few. We could probably come up with more if I felt like googling the hell out of every GM's history. Unfortunately, not all situations call for the same actions. Not all GMs walk into the same situations or have the same choices in front of them. I'm not sure a "one size fits all" pattern fits for that reason. A smart front office needs to be able to read their situation, their assets, their needs, and make good decisions. One of my biggest issues with Ryan was that he was too much of a "one size fits all" pattern sort of guy. That said, I agree with your points about the new FO needing to be careful establishing themselves. At the same time, the nature of this asset and our starting pitching needs necessitate action now. At least on this one front.

I haven't seen Strange yet unfortunately, looking forward to it.

The Morlocks are a good story and you can roll Sinister into that if you choose. Other than Batman most of the great comic stories have to do with the internal struggles more than the enemy IMO. Magneto being a notable exception. The Sentinels were used ok, other than the goofy Mystique thing they did about adaptation. Which didn't make any damn sense. But as a threat they are hugely effective. I just wish they had gone the Mastermold route, though I acknowledge it would be delicate to not come off as a Terminator rip off. I think we've talked about this before, but I'd plot my X-men movies something like this: 1 - Something like first class, heavy on X/Mags, but with the actual recruits mattering. They can't just be C-listers. Their role in the dynamic does matter, they need to be characters that endure the whole movie chain. 2 - Mags realizes he needs his own group of followers, mutant civil war 3 - Magneto loses but rallies many to his cause, sets up his own turf as a sort of Israel parallel. His rise results in the push back from the humans to design the Sentinel program and you go DoFP. 4 - Mutant civilization starts to form into classes, Sinister from the shadows tries to exterminate the Morlocks, the X-men are there to stop him. Magneto feels badly about his inability to step in 5 - Age of Apocalypse is a possibility here, Magneto sees the error of his ways in an alternate world where X dies to save him and the world goes to hell 6 - News of this shatters Magneto's world view, he opts to join the X-men as their leader as Prof X goes with Lilandra 7 - Phoenix Saga, the Xmen (with Mags) fight for each other against the most powerful force in the universe. Magneto realizes that cooperation and love is perhaps not the worst idea or whatever other sappy ending. I'm spitballing, but I think that hits the X-men's highest highs in a natural progression.

I like Jennifer Lawrence as an actress, she's wonderful. However, her profile was raised exponentially after she took the role and I think they over-centralized that character in the last three movies as a result. I'm not real comfortable with that. As for your larger point I can see that. I also love the McAvoy/Fassbender dynamic. They truly have nailed the characters. And for me, that's in part because McKellen was never Magneto to me. Yes, he had an air about him and there were elements of the character he did well, but he lacked something. I have always seen Magneto as a modernized warrior king. His people slighted and abused, he rose up from his own grief and vowed never to be subjugated again. He should have the air of royalty by force of personality, but he also needs to be evidently a man not to @%*^ with. McKellen's Magneto gave me the first half of that, never the second half. Fassbender gave me both. Still, for me, that relationship (as good as it was and as crucial as that dynamic is) doesn't replace a rather flimsy plot, terrible supporting characters, and some miscast roles. I was, however, encouraged by it as a new start for the franchise. DoFP carried that on, but then the whole thing fell apart IMO. That soured me as well. (Along with the ever escalating centralization of Mystique and her being shoe-horned into the Prof X/Mags dynamic) I've always been, first and foremost, an X-men fan and a comic book fan second. They've always been the most fascinating comic universe to discuss the complexities of humanity for me, even above Batman which I would place second. At times the movies have soared to reach those group dynamics and the problems of difference, but they've struggled to do it with any consistency. And they've often failed miserably. I feel like a restart with a better focus on that dynamic would be so much better served. Rather than trying to just play the hits (Apocalypse! Now Sinister! Who wants some Sentinels!), tell the X-men story. It's a damn good one. Oh, and if you're going to just play the hits, shoe-horn a movie in which they kick the ever loving hell out of the Inhumans. Because screw Marvel. Remember who put your movie universe on the map.

I think part of my issue is I hate the Mystiquifying of the X-universe because of casting choices.