Rod Carews Birthday

Just call out to the wind, and he will answer. . .

What? No Willians Astudillo reunion? That would be the funniest of all I think.

You would rather that they didn’t do any analysis? There’s a lot of recent evidence in the world that making judgements by the gut is a bad idea. I get it. He’s a hometown favorite and you liked him. I did too. I also like Rojas, and less so, Roden. Let’s give this trade a little time to breathe before we call it a win or a loss.

Apparently some here think that you can just add whoever you want for free. Reyes is a decent prospect - light years away from the majors. He has a nice OPS right now. So does Kyler Fedko. It didn’t make him a star either. I don’t think Kremer is a world beater, but he is an upgrade from the minor league guys that you would need to bring up in the event of injury/innings limits/ineffectiveness. The odds of Kremer not being cooked are probably better than the odds of Reyes becoming a good major leaguer. .

First of all, let me say that I did not like the trade at the time, nor am I enamored with it now. That said, it is WAY too soon for anything resembling a final verdict on the quality of the trade. This year, Varland has been amazing. Relief pitchers always have been and always will be very combustible. He might be excellent next year (or next week) or he might not. Time will tell. HOWEVER, there are some on this site talking about him as if he's a surefire hall of famer like Mariano Rivera. Slow down. Take it a day (or a year) at a time. As for Roden and Rojas, at this point Rojas is quite a bit better than Varland was at the comparable point in his career and Roden, while I think being overhyped, has been disappointing but is far from washed up. Might they both be gone in a year? Yup. Might one of them become a star, or at least pretty good and valuable? Yup. At this point Rojas has shown me enough for me to think that he might be at least Varland's equal, and if he can stick as a starter (No, he doesn't need to be Johan, or even Joe) he will probably be more valuable. Why does everyone have WIN a trade RIGHT NOW? I know we're all impatient for success, but these things do take some time to develop and evaluate.

He’s not a SS. The point is moot.

I also think that this would be a good starting point for Tom Pohlad to start investing in the team. It's not signing a $300M+ free agent, but it's a reasonable first major task.

I think this would be a fantastic idea. All pitcher contracts are risky, but even more risky is to not have good pitchers. If something like 6/$75M would get it done, that seems like a good ballpark to be in. It would cost the Twins some money in the near term but likely be a bargain on the back end.

Roden needs to start hitting pretty much immediately if he's going to stick on the Twins major league club. There are simply too many high upside guys on his heels (or is he on their heels actually) in AAA that are going to pass him up. You're absolutely correct in that he hasn't had enough at major league at bats to know who he will become, but the clock is ticking in a big way for him and he needs to do SOMETHING to earn some more at bats so he can prove it.

True. It's amazing that people don't realize that EVERY. SINGLE. PLAYER. in the major and minor leagues was a star at their previous level. Then they all continue to be stars. . . until they don't, and then we are disappointed. For some it happens immediately. For some it takes a year or two of teasing us. Some make it all the way to the majors before we find out that they aren't quite who we anticipated them to be. That being said, I like this group more than the last group, but there's a long way to go before we know how this will turn out.

It always cracks me up when the national guys like Passan come up with "Great Trade Targets" or "So and So Would Fill A Position of Great Need", without mentioning any concept of what the return would need to be. Anybody can do that -- and it sure gets clicks! You know, it would be great to trade for Shohei Ohtani - playoff starter and slugger. He would really fill some needs, especially if the Dodgers would pick up all of his deferred money because we threw in Austin Martin and Kody Clemens! That's not happening either.

As always, whether to pull the trigger depends on the return. The only way I trade Ryan at the deadline is if I think the return is a big overpay. It could happen, but only if there is some sort of bidding war for him — a bidding war (possibly with more participants) that might just as easily occur over the winter. Yes. He could be injured and ruin his value. Yes, it is unlikely that we will re-sign him. If you say that with every good player, then you effectively shorten your team control over your best players by one or two years. However, Joe Ryan is the obvious anchor on the pitching staff, and for all the fawning over Lopez (who I like A LOT), probably has been for the past couple of years. If we trade him at the deadline, we are absolutely flushing away what has been a pretty fun season with the team doing a little bit of overachieving. IF Tom Pohlad is serious about building a winner, now is not a great time to take a step backward. As for other players, again, it all depends on return. But I would definitely explore trading Larnach, Jeffers, and Martin. We have replacements on hand in Roden, Caratini/Jackson, and Keaschall, and if we can acquire pieces (ahem. . . relief pitching) that will help us down the stretch and beyond, we would be putting our efforts into areas of higher priority for now and building for next year.

Bradley is younger and better, with more years of control. Barring injury (which really can’t be factored in either way), It seems pretty likely that the Twins made a good call here. If Jax goes on to have some good success, there will be people here lamenting it. However, they forget that we can’t have them both, only one, and for my money, the best is Bradley.

Considering that two of those players haven’t even sniffed the majors yet, I would likely tap the brakes a bit. It would, however, be nice if we had some players develop and transition to the majors more seamlessly than we’ve had in the past. Let’s hope this all comes true.

It all depends on the return. Always. No exceptions.