Otto von Ballpark

That's fair Brock, although given the Twins inactive offseason overall, it would appear Falvey and Levine have similar confidence in many parts of the current roster that probably isn't warranted.

Thanks for the response. No, I don't think it makes the Dodgers "horribly incompetent". Even if they preferred Dozier to Forsythe, they perhaps don't project a huge difference. I think "best offers" are withheld all the time, because there are risks to making them. Once you offer a guy, it's incredibly bad form to pull him back or try to change it. Maybe the Dodgers would have been ultimately willing to pull the trigger on De Leon plus Stewart, but making that offer when the Twins were steadfast in demanding 3 players (per Morosi) would have effectively ended any chance of settling on their preferred package of De Leon plus, say, Calhoun, and it still wouldn't have gotten the deal done. Even offering "one of" Stewart or Calhoun as the second piece would have probably just emboldened the Twins to demand all 3. Not to mention the trickle down effects -- if the Rays know the Twins turned down De Leon plus Stewart or Calhoun, they are more likely to try to squeeze those players into their demand too. Or if the Dodgers don't acquire Forsythe and they re-visit the Twins later, the Dodgers earlier offer might become the "starting point" regardless of how circumstances may have changed since then. I'm not saying this is exactly what happened, but these are examples of reasonable possibilities that could have led to only De Leon being on the table. Real-world negotiations with multiple moving parts aren't just an isolated math problem, where one side says X and they other says Y, and if they are near equal, the deal happens, and if they're not, the page is erased. It's a lot more complicated than that. And to re-iterate, I'm not picking on the Twins too much here, I think it's fine to walk away because of your high demands for Dozier -- that's what many folks here endorse, and that's likely what the Twins did. I just don't think you get to further justify your walking away because the Dodgers "only" put De Leon on the table, when it was only done in the face of much higher demands.

Let me try again. I don't fault the Twins for making an initial high demand. My issue is that there's no evidence they backed down from that demand in any meaningful way, even as they saw those demands generating very little activity with the Dodgers or other clubs. Which is again fine if you are extra skeptical of De Leon (and the Twins might have been), or if you really peg Dozier at high value (which again the Twins very well do), and you don't mind passing up the Dodgers as a potential partner and kicking this can down the road. But I don't think you get to endorse that skepticism and those high demands, and then further justify a deal not getting done because the Dodgers only put De Leon on the table. The latter is a product of the former. You can't blame the Dodgers for not putting a second name like Stewart on the table if it wasn't going to get the deal done anyway, it would only hurt their future bargaining position. Hopefully it's clear that I'm not being too critical of the Twins here, like perhaps other posters are. At worst, I am a little disappointed that they didn't lower their demands a bit to generate more interest at what might be Dozier's peak value point. At best, even if one endorses their high demands, I think the Twins strategy was inelegant (the gambit of leaking specious interest by other teams certainly didn't seem to help their Dodger situation). But as I've said on another thread, I think I am more disappointed that they haven't done anything this offseason at all. The bare minimum was to sign a catcher and make a Rule 5 pick, and that's pretty much all they have done. I get not forcing a Dozier trade -- but was there really nothing else they could manage with this roster?

I am happy to admit that the best "offer" on the table was essentially De Leon in a 1-for-1 type swap. My problem is, offers aren't produced independently in a vacuum -- they have a large dependence upon the requests and demands on the other side. The 1-for-1 result might have been just as much a function of the Twins high demands as it was the Dodgers being cheap. For example, we sort of know that once De Leon was initially agreed upon, the Twins still wanted one of Bellinger or Alvarez and talks stalled. Perhaps when talks picked up later, the Twins were willing to forgo Bellinger or Alvarez, but wanted two additional pieces (per Morosi) perhaps like Stewart and Lux. Again, from what we know, the Dodgers said no at this point, but it's unclear whether there was a legitimate opportunity for them to counteroffer, say, just De Leon plus Stewart. If that deal is still likely to be rejected, the Dodgers gain nothing from putting it out there, and it could actually hurt them -- it might put Stewart on the table where he is not easily retracted when they'd prefer a similar prospect like Calhoun in that place instead, etc. Might also set a precedent for other teams to ask for those players in trade too (I could see the Rays asking for De Leon plus Stewart for Forsythe if that was leaked to be on the table but rejected by the Twins, for example). Given how lifeless the talks seemed, and that Morosi was still reporting the "two additional players" demand yesterday, I don't think it's far-fetched to say that the Twins were probably never receptive to a De Leon plus Stewart or Calhoun type proposal, so I can't fault the Dodgers too much for not submitting such an offer. And I can't put too much credence in the ultimate "1-for-1 offer" that was on the table as being truly indicative of what the Dodgers may have been willing to give up, given a different approach/demands by the Twins.

Ditka.

Mind if I cross post from the Forsythe thread? Seems more appropriate here. Interesting that the Rays have kinda had the offseason that many hoped for the Twins. They traded their 2B for a pretty good (albeit polarizing) MLB ready SP prospect. They signed a controllable bounceback candidate for their bullpen in Shawn Tolleson. They signed a catcher with upside in Wilson Ramos. They signed a bounceback outfielder in Colby Rasmus. And they also dealt a SP with only two years of control left (Smyly), although I'm not quite sure how to grade that return yet. This one seems more influenced by their financial limitations than the other moves. The total lack of moves is more disappointing than just the Dozier situation.

But without examining why, there isn't any meaningful conclusion you can draw from those games played numbers. He was a utility player most of that time. Since he became a full timer, he missed a solid month in the middle of 2 years. Does that mean he's significantly more likely than another player to miss time going forward? I don't really think so, unless you know something special about the nature of that 30 day absence.

Dozier has been durable, but I really don't think there is a knock on Forsythe's durability yet (at least I haven't seen a good case for that yet). He was a utility player for a few years, and just missed a solid month in his 2 years as a starter (and came back fine from it). I haven't seen anything about a series of nagging injuries for him or anything.

Forsythe missed a month last year, but he had 567 PA. I think it's crazy to cast that aside as "not a full season" unless there are some exceptional circumstances at play, but maybe I'm alone in that. He still trails Dozier in consecutive starter seasons (4 to 2) which is factor, but I don't know if it's fair to discount him any further on those grounds.

That's fair, although even that kind of player can have more value than the raw WAR total after 6 years. The Cardinals could have traded Jaime Garcia for a pretty impressive haul after his first season or two if they were pessimistic about his long-term chances.

It's worth noting that De Leon first missed time last year for a sprained ankle. Shortly after coming back from that layoff, he was shelved a bit longer for arm soreness. Given that he came back strong shortly thereafter, it sure seems that was more temporary due to the layoff than a major red flag, IMO. (Granted, you never know with pitchers.)

This is obvious. But we don't know the Twins internal evaluation, that's the point. It's possible their internal evaluation lines up with the most pessimistic of outside evaluations, but like I said, that would be a fairly gutsy evaluation. Likewise it would be a gutsy move to line up with the most optimistic take, but it seems there is a consensus on De Leon that's well above Law's opinion, even if it's not as high as Sickels'. Eric Longenhagen has been noted as a De Leon skeptic too, but I notice even he assigned De Leon a 55 FV grade which is still pretty good (and a step above Gonsalves etc.).

Forsythe has 2 pretty similar years, I'm not sure there's a "career year" standout in there. There's nothing in there boosting his numbers for those 2 years like Dozier's recent run. He's also not a year older, he's ~4 months older.

There's probably some truth to that too. They've made some bad deals independent of other teams (Yasmany Tomas), plus they were making bad deals before Stewart was even around (Eaton and Skaggs for Mark Trumbo!). Although I do wish the Twins had gotten in on the Arizona trade fest, at least more than Palka!

Generally agreed, although Stewart's moves in Arizona were pretty suspect when he made them. I don't know if we'll be able to conclude that we passed on a "bad deal" here for a little while yet, at least until we get some more data on De Leon, Dozier, Dozier's market, and in general, the Twins 2017-2018 performance.

While some have that pessimistic take on him, it seems most observers give De Leon a little more credit for ceiling than that.

Definitely. Of course, that would have given the Twins extra opportunity to evaluate Murphy and Garver in non-backup/platoon roles. The Twins would actually seem to be in a better position to withstand the absence of Ramos -- the Rays have very little else of interest at the catcher position right now (although I expect they will come up with some superlative Molina level framer somehow ).

I get that Law has De Leon pretty low and Sickels/Cameron have him pretty high, but there seemed to be more of a consensus on him last winter, and it doesn't feel like he should have slipped much since then (he missed some time, but followed it with some superlative performance). Pre-2016 ranks BA #23 MLB #24 BP #29 It would have been pretty gutsy (foolish?) to approach these negotiations with the idea that De Leon is roughly equivalent in value to Gonsalves or even Stewart.

Interesting that the Rays have kinda had the offseason that many hoped for the Twins. They traded their 2B for a pretty good (albeit polarizing) MLB ready SP prospect. They signed a controllable bounceback candidate for their bullpen in Shawn Tolleson. They signed a catcher with upside in Wilson Ramos. They signed a bounceback outfielder in Colby Rasmus. And they also dealt a SP with only two years of control left (Smyly), although I'm not quite sure how to grade that return yet. This one seems more influenced by their financial limitations than the other moves.

That's just their 2016 numbers. Career vs LHP Dozier: 131 wRC+ Forsythe: 127 wRC+ Either way, it's a big improvement over Utley's 2016 mark of 27 wRC+ vs LHP. And the Dodgers don't need all of their improvement vs LHP to come from Forsythe. They will almost certainly be playing RHB Puig more (or acquiring another RHB outfielder), and I imagine they expect RHB Turner to return to his career norms vs LHP after an uncharacteristically poor split in 2016.

What do we really know from reports about the Twins asking price here? Most reports had them asking for two of De Leon, Bellinger, Alvarez, and Buehler. Morosi's report (which I incorrectly attributed to Passan earlier) had them asking for "two additional prospects" (presumably not from the group above) in addition to De Leon. This leaves a clear blind spot of De Leon plus one additional prospect. With as lukewarm as the Dodgers discussions stayed, and zero reported offers coming out of shopping Dozier to other teams, I suspect the Twins weren't as receptive to offers of this type as many of us believe they should have been.

That sounds like a contradiction? If you're not super high on Forsythe, he's probably worth a 3/4 with any chance to be a #2.

It's just his opinion. He's posted it before.

I think he means that the Dodgers offer of 2-3 players did not satisfy the Twins quality demands in their request for De Leon plus 2 prospects (per Passan).

Not sure why you'd say that, unless you are primarily looking at Forsythe's stats from 3+ years ago. He's got 7.6 bWAR and 6.8 fWAR over the last 2 seasons, I think we would be thrilled with that production from Polanco. If anything, Polanco is probably Forsythe-lite until he adds a little power to his game (which could certainly happen over the next few years), or shows a greater defensive aptitude like handling SS.