Otto von Ballpark

That's an interesting point. I was just thinking, the front office really didn't decide to pull the plug on the season last week. The plug was pulled then, but the decision was almost certainly made by the end of the late June / early July losing streaks, barring anything crazy like a 15 game win streak (or losing streak by Cleveland). Which is fair. But then I thought, what if the decision was made earlier than that? We signed Belisle on June 12th. We didn't use him in any kind of leverage spot until we were already negotiating to deal Escobar and Pressly. There was no competitive purpose to adding Belisle to the MLB roster at that time. Maybe we were just done competing, and moving on to other goals? Dropping Sano to single-A a few days later seems like further evidence (although I didn't mind that move so much). If so, I feel like giving up then was a bit too early. It had been a disappointing season up until that point, but we were only ~5 games out of the division with almost a hundred games to play. Our playoff odds at Fangraphs still ranged from 9-23% that day. We could have shook things up at that point by dropping a vet or two, trying something new, but instead we let them all play out the string up to the deadline. And by adding the retread Belisle, we simultaneously blocked potential pitching reinforcements from getting extended looks in that low-leverage position. We even maintained LaMarre as our primary starting center fielder over Cave until we were 8 games out, for some reason. To those that like the deadline trades -- what do you think of that? Should the front office have acted sooner? Not necessarily big buying (although KC made a couple guys available affordably in June), but anything to shake up the veteran malaise. I can understand the case for selling or not selling last week -- but I'm having a hard time justifying doing nothing (or worse than nothing, Belisle) for as long as we did leading up to that point.

I get the sentiment, but this reads more like you welcome the freedom to stop watching, which is pretty much what Vanimal said. Not that you actually want to watch now. I mean, Erv and Mejia weren't part of the problem of vets laying down, and they both just came back a week ago with a theoretical chance to help make the race interesting. The most interesting addition since then (Sano) came at the expense of most beloved vet to get the boot (Escobar). And we also added Forsythe. By your own admission, plenty of the veteran stink is still around -- for example, Belisle still came into a key spot last night, in what might be our last glimpse of a "must win" game this season. Even if you fully endorse the trades so far, it's hard to see interest in watching the team as it stands today. Following, yes, but not watching. Hopefully more moves come soon, because they need them.

Narrowly avoiding a mistake might be better than actually making it, but it does not necessarily make one a "genius".

You are correct. Buxton has only burned options in 2016 and 2018 so far in his career, so he will have one remaining after this season. (He was also optioned in August 2015 but didn't spend 20 days on optional assignment that year so it didn't count.)

So 29 MLB GM's are geniuses (and we're perhaps less "genius" than 28 of them). And the only one who isn't a genius has won 3 of the last 14 World Series titles. Got it.

That's fair. Plus the opportunity cost of the guaranteed roster spot -- yeah, you can move on from Rodney mid-season and not be out much money, but there's not necessarily going to be a good alternative available at that time. You've got to be open to, and perhaps seeking, a better alternative in the offseason.

What's interesting, last year I was open to the idea they were "targeting" specific prospects -- Littell and Watson, primarily. But this year, they've acquired so many more prospects, it seems more likely they just had fewer assets to deal last year. Not that they don't care about any of the prospects, of course -- but they probably aren't targeting them, or at least not as many as we might have thought last year.

Well, Romero also missed two whole years due to injury. He may have only been about 6 months behind Berrios in terms of development before he got hurt. Not to say the development of Berrios hasn't been very good. (And health is a positive part of that too, although a little harder to quantity/credit.)

Not directly, no. But it could have hindered our ability to claim other players on waivers. Blake Parker and Kirby Yates were relievers claimed off waivers while Haley was on our roster (and while we had top waiver priority). Also Jesus Aguilar and Scooter Gennett as position players, although I'd guess neither of those guys would have appealed to us at the time anyway (redundant with Vargas and Escobar/Adrianza, respectively).

Watson has had a rough year for sure; fortunately, he's not Rule 5 eligible yet this winter so we can get another year to evaluate him without committing a roster spot.

In isolation, perhaps, But in the context of the Twins having all of those other young guys already, plus 4-5 returning "vets" at the MLB level, plus requiring a 40-man spot, it was fairly questionable.

Murphy has been on Arizona's MLB roster all season. He had a HR barrage early in the year but is ice cold again, down to a 70 OPS+. That's still better than Arizona's other two catchers Avila and Mathis, but not by much. Weird arrangement there -- all 3 of those guys have 36-37 starts at catcher so far. Seems like a waste of a roster spot.

Yup. Actually, Danny Santana was non-tendered last winter and re-signed with Atlanta on a minor league deal. He somehow got called up on June 22 this year, but was DFA within a month and outrighted back to AAA, so he should be a minor league free agent again this offseason.

They did trade two guys for Kevin Jepsen in 2015.

They won't! That's the beauty of it. September will be our own pretend "postseason" and we'll leverage the heck out of it and win it all! (For pretend.)

100% here think that "they should have gotten so much more for an asset like Dozier"? If you believe that, I just wish you were in charge of estimating the Twins playoffs odds too!

Yeah, and the Twins won it all as recently as the Bush years!* * Okay, the earlier Bush years.** ** Not the current "Billy Bush" years either, no.

I can't believe no one has noticed the obvious until now: Cleveland set us up! They knew since last offseason that we were going to be the closest thing to a competitor for their division crown, and they also knew we loved us some Matty B -- but they also realized that with a fresh offseason, we were trying to quit him and Belisle's career was thus in jeopardy. So, Cleveland signed Belisle to a minor league contract, and after a poor spring put him on the roster anyway as a mop-up guy, just to keep his career alive. After another poor month in low leverage in April, Cleveland dangled him to the Twins on waivers and free agency in early to mid May, but no bite. So they re-signed him to yet another minor league deal, and dangled him again in June -- and this time it worked! The Twins signed Belisle to their major league roster, and Cleveland knew that he was there to stay, and we would foolishly trust him in a close game against them later this season. That moment came last night. I hope the league punishes Cleveland for this cruel behavior. Preferably by forcing them to roster Belisle for the remainder of the 2018 season and postseason, while also restoring native son Brad Hand to his proper place on the Twins roster. It's the only just resolution.

The real reason Rodney wasn't traded today: he is grandfathered under the old trading deadline of June 15. (Might explain why we "had" to acquire Belisle before that date too?) A similar grandfathering provision helps explain why Bartolo Colon is still allowed to pitch underhand from a box 45 feet away from home plate.

They did forget Alcala on that list, but they have him on the Twins list and he is only 29th. But the numbering is a litte weird. He is behind Duran, Rijo, and maybe Smeltzer who has a #25 but so does Moya. So there could be an error to sort out there too. https://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx?draft=2018updated&type=0&pos=all&team=min

Maybe we could do some extreme shifting with him.

Nope. Buxton is just under 3 years service time right now, and his clock is paused in AAA. If Buxton came back for a few more days this year, he could pass 3 years service time, then he'd only be controlled through 2021, like Sano. If he stays in AAA, or on the AAA DL, the rest of the year, he will finish under 3 years and thus be controlled through 2022.

Silver lining, if he doesn't return to MLB this year, we get an extra year of team control. Team control over *what* is very much in question, though!

Thanks for the link! FWIW, they are all 40 FV except Celestino and Duran who are "40+". We already had 18 guys at 40 FV before the trades, plus 13 better. I still think we are pushing up against a law of diminishing returns on stockpiling that many 40 FV prospects. (Not that I expected better from these trades.)

Dozier in AA had a 145 wRC+, a well below average K rate, an acceptable walk rate, and played middle infield. If we were acquiring Dozier circa July 31, 2011, I would be much more approving of the trade. I wouldn't say keeping Dozier was worth "nothing". I think we at least nominally care about winning games the next two months.