Otto von Ballpark

I am not saying Moore is going to fetch a ton in trade. I am saying they are unlikely to move him. The Giants have a ton of long term money committed. They can't really rebuild right now, or if they did, it would be all about moving Bumgarner or Posey in a blockbuster. Moore for Blankenhorn doesn't really do anything to that end, it would be an unlikely first domino. They are kind of in a recent Tigers/Angels situation. They still have a couple performing stars (Posey and Bumgarner), they could be in WC contention again next year with the right breaks.

Yeah, the promise of Moore's early years might be gone (when he was the #1-2 prospect in MLB prior to 2012). To be fair, he doesn't have much of a recent resume because surgery knocked out most of 2014 and 2015, but even before that with Tampa he was never a stud in MLB. Guessing the Giants will be aiming for a repeat of 2016, when he was a tick above league average for a SP by ERA/FIP in 198 IP.

What do you think it would take to get Moore? It wouldn't be Gordon, but I imagine it would take something that would hurt us in 2018, because the Giants would want help for 2018. (Which is why they'll probably just roll the dice on Moore.)

Bonus points for Cobb: he's been solid against the Yankees in his career. 2.99 ERA across 14 starts, and that includes a disastrous start against them in 2016 as he returned from TJ surgery. https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_stats.cgi?full=1&params=oppon%7CNYY%7Ccobbal01%7Cpitch%7CIP%7C 3.12 ERA in 5 starts at Yankee Stadium: https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/split_stats.cgi?full=1&params=site%7CYankee%20Stad3%7Ccobbal01%7Cpitch%7CIP%7C His teams are 2-0 behind him in postseason games too...

Why do you imagine that? If the Giants dealt Moore, wouldn't they need a replacement? And wouldn't a 28 year old Moore on a 1 year deal, with a 2019 option, be pretty attractive on the FA market this winter? They're not going to rebuild yet with all of their long-term commitments. I mean, I don't think the Giants would need some elite return for Moore, obviously, but I don't think they'd have much interest in moving him for the Twins spare prospect parts either.

Lindor joined one of the best pitching staffs in baseball; Trout plays for the Angels. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable reading any "intangibles deficit" into that.

Lynn and Cobb are free agents. I think there is almost zero chance Tampa Bay re-signs Cobb, it would take the biggest FA contract in their club history. Plus their rotation is stacked. St. Louis likely has the money for Lynn, but they too have a lot of SP options. The fact they haven't locked him up yet suggests he is probably not a priority to them at market prices.

That's been the argument/plan for the last several years, and they've generally been sinking.

Verlander had a full no-trade. So it didn't much matter what package/destination Detroit preferred.

Two things: 1. Sounds like you are interested in game-level win probability. Check out the last two columns in this table: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=1837,7441 Those are "Shutdowns" and "Meltdowns": https://www.fangraphs.com/library/pitching/sd-md/ Davis has a clear advantage over Belisle in this, 30-2 versus 21-10. 2. Even if you figure their 2017 performances were close by some measure -- do you think their performances are likely to be close in 2018? Or in a postseason? How much did Belisle help us in our elimination game? Nothing wrong with a guy like that rounding out your pen, but you're in trouble if a guy like that is leading it.

Wouldn't that team want to keep their Gonsalves type? (Also, wouldn't Ervin's AAV be similar to that of Lynn?) Teams "like" Baltimore, who have a Gonsalves type to trade? This isn't that hard, there are only 29 other MLB teams. How many teams are "like" Baltimore in this regard*** and have a Gonsalves type to spare? 9 teams we can probably discount as having no interest in trading quality MLB ready SP prospects at this time: ATL CIN CHW DET OAK PIT PHI SDP TBR 16 more don't have a Gonsalves type to trade, even if they wanted (defining "Gonsalves type" as a top 100 SP prospect with at least AA experience, using MLB's current top 100 list for reference). This is the most subjective part of the exercise, but just eyeballing it, it doesn't look there is a ton of talent just bubbling under the top 100 either. ARI BAL BOS CHC CLE COL HOU KCR LAA MIA NYM SEA SFG TEX TOR WSN That leaves 4 teams with a "Gonsalves type" who would even consider trading it for Ervin. LAD - Walker Buehler and Yadier Alvarez MIL - Luis Ortiz and Brandon Woodruff NYY - Chance Adams and Justus Sheffield STL - Alex Reyes and Jack Flaherty Buehler and Reyes are top 15 prospects, so they are probably off the table for Ervin. Seems doubtful that the Dodgers or especially the Yankees would see trading top prospects for Ervin as any kind of difference-maker towards their goals either. St. Louis (Flaherty) seems doubtful too -- they probably would have locked up Lynn or wouldn't have salary-dumped Leake if an Ervin-type starter was that much of a priority, no? Then there's the Brewers (Ortiz and Woodruff). Would we want one of them for Santana? They seem like low-upside types, and Ortiz isn't particularly ready (just threw a pro high of 94 innings, all at AA in 2017, with middling results/peripherals). Feel free to use this as a springboard for your own specific proposals. If you want to target names from last year's top 100, it wouldn't take much time either -- but there aren't a ton of guys "like" Martes and Glasnow who graduated from that list (and quite a few like De Leon and Beede and Reid-Foley who dropped off for health/performance reasons). *** Does Baltimore really "love" veterans, to the point they'd rather have Ervin than a Gonsalves type, or are they just bad a finding and developing Gonsalves types? They have Bundy and Gausman in their rotation now, and Tillman was up at age 21 and locked in to their rotation by age 24, so I don't know if they are particularly afraid of committing to young pitchers, they may just have trouble finding them.

Remember, there are only 29 other teams, and probably only 15-20 who would even entertain the idea of trading decent prospects for a guy like Ervin Santana right now. And Martes and Glasnow were both consensus top 10-30 prospects entering 2017. There aren't enough quality prospects/destinations to simply assume we could get a prospect "like" those from "someone" for Ervin (or other "older resources"). It's going to take some specifics to convince me this is anything more than a pipe dream.

The Mariners only "MLB ready" SP prospect is Andrew Moore. Don't think he was ever ranked in any top 100 lists. 5.34 ERA and 4.7 K/9 in his MLB debut this past season. Fangraphs said "Moore does enough to project as a big-league rotation piece of some kind, likely as a strike-throwing No. 4/5 starter whose bat-missing abilities are limited." Their next best / most ready SP prospect is Nick Neidert, who did sneak onto BA's top 100 midseason (#84) with a solid season at high-A but he's not MLB ready -- 6.56 ERA, 5.0 K/9 in 6 starts at AA to end the season. Before the season, Fangraphs said "The command (which projects to plus) and secondaries should still allow Neidert to be an effective No. 4 big-league starter, but his upside is limited by a lack of heat, and he features little, if any, physical projection." Maybe you could get one of these guys for Ervin, but why? We have plenty of this kind of depth. What we don't have is dependable MLB depth (which Ervin already is) or ace quality/potential (which Ervin doesn't really have, but neither do these guys).

How does Ervin help the Astros push for the WS? See my post above about their SP already controlled for 2018 or beyond. If they don't get it done this year, they will probably aim a lot higher than Ervin.

If the pitching is MLB ready, why would those teams give it up for Ervin? After his horrendous playoff performance, knowing his chances for regression at his age? Even assuming you can find a GM who is looking past those things about Ervin (not a good assumption, by the way), the odds that GM also has a young MLB ready pitcher to deal are probably quite low. The two teams you cite are unlikely candidates to give us strong returns. The Pirates probably have no interest in giving up a potential cheap contributor for Erv's contract given that he is probably no better for them than another Ivan Nova, and the Astros rotation is stacked (Verlander, Keuchel, McCullers, McHugh, Morton, Peacock all controlled for 2018 or beyond). Ervin solidifies rotation depth more than he helps at the top end , and he is probably more valuable to the Twins in that capacity (with our paucity of viable SP) than he is to anyone else in trade.

Yeah, I didn't mean they would have gotten them cheaply. (Although I do wonder what the correct valuation is for Gordon these days. Don't know if this deal was right, but it is certainly possible that his max value to the organization might be adding a few pitching seasons now in trade, rather than a few more infield seasons down the line.) Interestingly, the Yankees got 2.2 IP of fairly effective long relief from Jaime Garcia last night, so maybe the "buy" phase of our deadline strategy wasn't so bad?

Note that the Yankees got pretty effective long relief last night from... Jaime Garcia. 2.2 IP, no hits, no runs. 1 inherited runner scored on a sac fly.

Carrasco is on the roster. He is scheduled to start game 3.

Just brainstorming, but should the Twins have gotten Robertson and Kahnle? The White Sox were apparently willing to deal early... heck, we could have probably used Frazier too... I guess the response will be that it wasn't worth it with our lack of confident SP, but Robertson and Kahnle are both controlled for 2018 too, and as we saw last night, they can help cover for SP deficiencies.

It's not limited to 2018. So he could be activated on August 1st, accumulate ~60 days, then stay active for ~30 more days to begin 2019 to meet the requirement. The 90 days also do not have to be continuous. A team could have him active for a month, then DL/rehab him again for a month, and then re-activate him for ~60 days to meet the requirement.

Not sure if Gordon + Gonsalves gets any top guys. Both are decent prospects, but seem to be of the "higher floor" variety than higher ceiling types, and I don't see a team suddenly moving someone like, say, DeGrom or Stroman for that.

Actually Willingham was with KC then, so his side won this game. He also made brief PH appearances in the ALDS and WS later that same postseason.

The Red Sox IFAs were still subject to IFA bonus rules (although the first $300k of their new bonuses were exempted).

I just looked it up, the actual MLB leader in runs scored since Sep. 5th is the Yankees. 2nd is the Marlins, and the Twins are 3rd.

The poster is speculating about narratives from the future.