bird

Never, ever resist trading "prospects" for whatever the market will bear in the way of established major league players? Am I interpreting this right? We can't just say trade the dang prospects, but only the ones who flunk out or get injured. I don't have to name dozens to make the point that, sometimes, you resist. I'll try to counter your position with a dozen examples or so. What do you think the club would have fetched in the way of established major league players for these prospects: Carew, Puckett, Oliva, Blyleven, Mauer, Hrbek, Knoblauch, Hunter, Radke, and A.J. Pierzynski? I am convinced every one of those would have been catastrophic one-sided trades. And once Pierzynski became an established major league player, weren't prospects Liriano and Nathan, and Boof too, an awfully nice return? And once Liriano was an established major league player, wasn't Eduardo Escobar, a guy with all of 45 MLB games under his belt, a nice prospect to get in return? How about veteran Aguilera for prospects Viola and Tapani in 1989? I don't want these guys to avoid trading prospects like Ryan did, I want the opposite to happen. And I want the trades to never, ever create a shortage, and instead come from a surplus. And I'd love it if it always involved a redundancy among established major league players who are blocking the next Gaetti, Knoblauch, Morneau, or Johan Santana (wishful, I know). The reason I favor trading proven players for prospects as often as possible is because established major league players are valuable, often at peak value, and while prospects flunk out at a high rate, it's game-changing when you land a future star on the cheap. I'd trade Jake Cave for Luis Gill in a New York nanosecond.

What's not to like, IF... Odo on a 3 year at $14? Pineda on a 1 year at $11? Wheeler on a 4 year at, what, $25? Wood on a 3 year at $11? Berrios being pitched an extension at ??? Injury replacements Dobnak, Thorpe, Graterol, others emerging? Affordable and doable?

I hope Falvey has asked his people to identify those teams who are thin in MLB-ready OF depth such as Cave, Raley, and Wade, with the idea of a low minors high ceiling prospect return. The Twins were one of those needy teams when the Yanks talked them out of Luis Gil in exchange for Cave. Gil is now NYY's 4th-ranked prospect, albeit in a so-so pipeline. This is the type of trade I want to see from this FO. Sellers whenever possible, from their own modest surplus into another team's more urgent need. Gordon and Cave clearing space on the 40-man roster. Pitching the bubble guys to other teams when you don't have a spot, guys like Raley, Blankenhorn, Wiel, maybe Poppen, Jax or Smeltzer if you're not sold on them and expect Thorpe, Duran, Ober, Colina, and Balazovic to pass them by...

Understandable, but it doesn't work that way, right? So, giving up Lewis, Kirilloff, Graterol, and Larnach for whatever they would fetch might...MIGHT...convince the oddsmakers to make the team what, 3/1 favorites? Houston kept Correa and Bregman.

Yeah, I think they'll struggle to stay a step ahead, because draft order changes things quickly. For example, if FanGraphs is right, after the last two draft classes, Detroit vaulted to #8 from about #23. We'll see, but my hunch is that the better organizations will become aggressive and active traders in an attempt to capitalize on what they've learned about investor psychology and about negotiating from a position of greater psychological leverage. Things like selling into the trade deadline to take advantage of a trading partner's urgency. It's maybe one of the few opportunities left to gain an advantage if you're winning on a regular basis. But again, being active and opportunistic is a lot easier if you have some free cash and have built up surplus player assets at both levels rather than doing the whole boom and bust of good MLB, bad farm system or the opposite.

To clarify, I'm entertained with how often people ignore the possibility that a major signing they want may not result in that WS banner. The whole "if we sign Cole, then we will win the WS" simplicity. I'll grant that little gets said here on TD about the risk to the organization of not doing enough. Ryan got fired because he didn't do enough. Even Jim Pohlad implied that Ryan didn't spend enough. It wasn't lost on Falvey or Jim Pohlad that going from 78 to 101 made turnstiles spin faster. But you're right we don't talk much about not signing players from the standpoint of the organizational risk of lost revenues. That's a harder calculation for us to make and discuss.

You more than most are familiar with what I regard as the main events which are drastically changing the competitive landscape, because you're a student of the game. The things I think are profoundly changing the landscape mostly relate to two things. The first is the ongoing and desperate efforts by the industry to create some sort of competitive and financial parity. Examples include revenue-sharing, penalties, taxes and imposed limits on spending such as bonus pools, industry lobbying for public assistance in building stadiums, etc. This struggle has been going on for three decades now. The second is the widespread information now available and the explosion of observation technologies and opportunities. No future superstar is a surprise these days. Think of all the changes that turned Terry Ryan into a dinosaur and converted guys like Shapiro into front office superstars. The playing field has been leveled when it comes to the evaluation of new talent and its acquisition. No one's kicking anyone else's butts in the draft room these days, and, since the IFA cheating was stopped, no one is outspending to gain an advantage. Even the new observation technologies are pretty much a requirement now. That's why guys like Falvey are so focused on trying to gain some sort of edge in coaching and development areas like nutrition, preventive health, and injury prevention. I may be wrong, but my intuition is that things are slowly circling around to where teams that are opportunistic, active, and adroit traders will create an advantage for themselves. You either do that, or you tank for awhile to take advantage of those past parity initiatives such as draft order and larger bonus allottments.

The three things that are the same are thoughts that we're pretty much seeing the best we're going to see of the player, that Cave is an upgrade, and that the player won't fetch much of a solution to our pitching needs. The OP doesn't express this opinion. A few others have however. You're probably right that it's not exactly the same. Kepler is turning out to be special.

I know this is redundant as all get out, but our FO believes in windows, remember? While I have some skepticism about thinking this way, I can't say they're wrong in assessing that last season was prying it open and now they feel the breeze (their own description, which was followed by the first promise we've heard from them to go after a spendy target. I don't expect you to acknowledge THIS in every post you make, but perhaps it would help not to ignore it? They just went from 78 to 101 wins. I'm going to wait to complaint about what they don't do until AFTER they don't do it, not before.

I was a scout. My first merit badge was Bird Study.

And sometimes teams pay the cost and don't win it, right? Greinke almost, but didn't, push the Astro's over the top. Most of us would still call that acquisition both smart and risk-savvy, but it was still a risk. I'm constantly rather entertained with how many people argue for the big move with pretty much no acknowledgement whatsoever of the possibility that there may not be a victory parade resulting from it. And I totally reject the notion that Falvey is relying exclusively on home grown talent. The facts dispute this. But it's also important to note that HOU and WSN got great production from a lot of players for whom they did not pay a price in prospects and cash in FA and trades. The Twins were #4 in SI's Power Rankings most of the year. Personally, that felt generous, but the fact of the matter is they are a top 6 or 7 MLB team, a top 6 or 7 prospect pipeline team, and have more dry powder than all but the half-dozen perpetually wealthy and cash-rich franchises at the moment. Most readers here don't really give a whit about farm system rankings, and I get that. I just disagree, in large part because I believe the landscape has been drastically altered in a way that favors teams that can avoid straining themselves financially or bumping up against their league-imposed salary threshhold while simultaneously maintaining trade value in both their major and minor league systems. The teams you mentioned? FanGraphs ranks their farms systems this way: KCR 26, HOU 24, WSN 27. Oh, and BOS 30 out of 30. Some of these teams have financial issues related either to major contracts, poor revenues (KCR). WSN is the oldest team in the majors, I think. They have two Top 100 prospects, but that's one more than HOU, BOS, or KCR, and three less than the 101 win Twins.

Well, sure you would, if you knew you'd get that WS title X out of 10 times. The question is, what's your X number? You're rolling dice, not buying a pennant, right?

I'm feeling a hint of deja vu. Last off-season, I distinctly remember more than a few opinions that Kepler was who we thought he was, and therefore should be dangled out there for whatever pitching help he might be able to muster, but hey, lower your expectations, people. He won't get us much. A common justification was that Cave might be the better player.

Yeah, the Nats have done a good job of benefitting from a position player lineup that's given them astounding production from a combination of cheap young guys like Soto, Robles, Turner, and Rendon, and cheap old guys like Kendricks and Suzuki, plus discards like Cabrera and Gomes. But they haven't gone cheap, in either cash outlays or prospect payments, when it comes to pitching. The Nats have committed to contracts totaling $545M for Scherzer, Strasburg, Corbin, and Sanchez. Granted, they only have two years left on Scherzer's 7 year $240M deal, Strasburg may or may not let them off the hook for the next 4 years at $25M per, Corbins deal is about $25M for another 5 years I think, and Sanchez is "cheap" at $10M for one more year I think. They have given up a ton of future pitching value, that's for sure. Doolittle cost them Jesus Luzardo, ranked #23 in all of baseball as a prospect and now in MLB, and Blake Treinen, an all-star relief pitcher last year. Adam Eaton cost them ace pitcher Lucas Giolito plus Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning, a 29th overall pick who the Twins would probably swap in a heartbeat for Balazovic. All three of these guys might be in the White Sox' rotation together in 2020 and be better than average. They won because of Scherzer, Corbin, and Strasburg, no doubt, and Eaton and Doolittle were contributors. Good for them, but you can't say the price wasn't steep.

Concur.

The overseers must be having a debate about two things: First, is there any realistic hope that Rosario has the mental and emotional capacity to face up to and correct his undisciplined approach without flatlining him? He's clearly egoistic. Is this what causes his lapses? Is this what inspires those big moments? What does the team sports psychologist have to say? Second, is he in his current form more valuable to the Twins in 2020 than whatever return would be managed? I'd hope they are factoring in a projected timetable for when one of the internal alternatives might fairly assuredly produce more than Rosario. Unless Kirilloff, Larnach, Rooker, or someone else is immediately better, assuming no FA or trade scenario is in the works that brings us an outside upgrade, I'd hope they'd hang onto him to start 2020. Once someone else is an upgrade, then he fetches what he fetches. Just don't pull another Aaron Hicks type trade.

Terrific, insightful post. I think FO's have made qualitative judgments about "character', "leadership" and how they envision a guy affects "chemistry" forever. I mean, how many times can we think back to comments a guy like Terry Ryan made to highlight a player's "makeup"? The new FO has surely articulated and incorporated this qualitative assessment as part of a more highly disciplined process. But as much as teams want to find a way to put a number of this stuff, it's still a qualitative analysis, albeit infused with more science. But hey, not only is there nothing wrong with valuing more than quantitative measurements, it's hard to imagine a well-run organization that doesn't value qualitative judgments. Looking strictly at the sabermetric data to definitively conclude the value of a player is myopic. And since we aren't privy to how much unmeasurable (visible to us anyway) value is assigned to, say, Cruz, or Mauer, all we can rely on is quotes from players and staff telling us if the player did anything to make the players around them better. And even then, beware the open-ended question: "Miguel, how much has Nelson Cruz's incredible leadership and constant mentoring of you meant to you?"

Not so fast, Mr. Walker. We can all recall when similar criticisms were aimed at all those position players on the Twins who just had breakout years here in 2019. The performance flaws you're pointing out pertaining to Anderson, Jiminez, and Moncada sound eerily familiar regarding Sano, Buxton, Rosario... Let's not assume those three won't continue to develop. And now add their monster prospect, Luis Robert, to the mix, a guy more highly regarded than Royce Lewis, and Madrigal, whose bat control is better than even Luis Arraez and whose prospect value is almost on a par with Alex Kirilloff. I also wonder if you aren't dramatically underrating those young starters. The Twins would very quickly trade either Graterol or any other pitching prospect for Kopech, and Dunning is equally regarded, I believe, as either Balazovic or Duran. In my view, the key to the Twin's ability to stay a step ahead of the White Sox revolves around three things: 1. What we do to acquire front line pitching help this winter via FA and trades. 2. Graterol, Duran, and Balasozic AND OTHERS amounting to something, and soon, so that they can avoid having to pay even steeper costs in prospect capital and cash in FA in future years to make up for guys like Thorpe, Alcala, and Dobnak possibly not making the grade. 3. Lewis, Kirilloff, Arraez and Larnach becoming core pieces, thereby allowing them to trade redundant players like Rooker, Gordon, Rosario, and Cave for value. One really positive thing, in my mind, is that Fangraphs gives a 40FV or better to 17 Twins pitching prospects, most of them starters currently, whereas they give only nine pitching prospects for CWS the same grades. Numbers matter when it comes to developing pitching. Another positive, IMO, is that, whereas CWS only has 5 non-US prospects at 40FV or better, the Twins have 17. I believe this because I believe the only way to truly gain an advantage through the US amateur draft is by having a favorable draft order. The Twins have 40 prospects with a 40FV or higher. The CWS have 24.

Concur. If I'm the GM, he gets a choice of two years at the price my guys say he's worth on the market, or a one year deal at a premium rate at the top end of what he's worth. I give his agent a deadline to decide among those two or Door # it's been real bye bye. If Jeffers or Rortvedt look to be an upgrade by the end of next season, I trade Castro and hope for one of those Drew Butera-Miguel Sulbaran-Eduardo Nunez-Adalberto Mejia thingies.

We talked about 11 ballplayers in our exchange, Tom. Out of necessity, the team used 8 of these guys, and might have used two more, Gonsalves and Gordon even, had it not been for injuries to those two. Combined, according to b-ref, those 8 contributed an extra 4 wins and in that, Romero, Stewart, and Thorpe dragged it down by -0.2 WAR apiece. I just think it's really difficult, when you don't have any surplus talent, to trade off a Romero. Remember, he was as highly regarded as just about any prospect we had at the time, and coming into 2019, it was viewed as a major setback when he unexpectedly floundered. If you were calling for the Twins to trade Romero but hang on to Arraez back in April, that's impressive. If you were calling for them to trade both back then or before, you batted .500. Worse, because Arraez burst onto the scene mid season, produced 1.8 WAR, and probably quintupled his trade value in a few months. Trade from surplus.

While this is pretty much accurate and a good thought in theory, I'd offer three points: 1. We had a NEED for every one of these prospects unless we found a better prospective or real alternative. Each became a surplus over the course of 2019. Not before. Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, Graterol, and Poppen all supplanted Kohl Stewart and the injured Gonsalves over the course of 2019. Romero and the injured Jay got passed up by Stashak, Littell, Alcala, and any number of others. Luis Arraez came along and made the oft-injured Gordon redundant. The 2019 off-season will be the first in a long time when we have a surplus of quality prospects. Prospects who have decent trade value. Palacios, who was maybe fifth on the SS depth chart when he fetched Odorizzi, is an exception, and I suppose Huascar Ynoa as one of a boatload of similarly-prized pitching prospects and who ultimately resulted in Littell, might be another. But now, according to Fangraphs, we have 17 starting pitching prospects with a FV of 40 or higher, which is what Teng and Berroa both have and why even if Sam Dyson wasn't injured it was an overpay. But at least those prospects were surplus. 2. Most every talent evaluator probably projected the value of all five of those prospects to increase. Many believe Gordon's trade value is still low compared to what it will be. Even Gonsalves and Romero stand a chance to be more valuable as trade pieces in the future than they have been in the past. The thing is, even high-profile prospects come with warts that have to be addressed, right? So when a team finally decides a prospect has washed out, everyone in the industry knows it too. Had we traded any one of the minor leaguers who contributed this year for MLB players, it's highly doubtful that any player acquired would have contributed more than what we got out of guys like Littell or Stashak. Finds like Odorizzi are pretty rare. 3. Trading any of these prospects, or all three of the first-rounders, for that matter, would probably not have brought back a return sufficient enough to move the needle, even with Dozier and Mauer still good (not great). In 2019, moving players who fit into this category makes more sense because the team may only need a couple of final pieces. So the equivalents, maybe guys like Canterino and Wallner and, well, Gordon, are more likely to be useful trade pieces if the goal is more wins and being more competitive in the postseason. That's what the tough luck Sam Dyson trade was supposed to be.

No question. Fans from every team in baseball say this about their team's first round misses. Many fans say the miss is an indication of their team's ineptitude. It doesn't matter to some if their team's picks the year before and after were great, they're STILL stupid. Two of Houston's big misses, Appel and Aiken, could easily have hurt a lot. Instead, they got the reprieve of picking 2nd a year later and nabbed Bregman when stupid Arizona passed on him and gave Houston a generational talent. Pretty nice bit of luck. So in the year we had to settle for Jay at #6 (a risk that backfired), Arizona was stupid enough to pass on Bregman, who so far has generated 4 times more WAR than any other player drafted in 2015. Houston is simply smarter than the rest, right? But then they picked Kyle Tucker and his -0.1 WAR at #5, one slot before we picked Jay. Reports say the Twins liked Tucker a lot. Regardless, both the Astro's and the Twins have been criticized by some of their fans because both teams were so stupid that they passed on Beneintendo and his 8.7 second-best WAR one slot later. Stupid stupid stupid. Appel? They eventually packaged him up with 4 (four!) other players for Ken Giles, who gave them 1.7 WAR during his 18 month stay, but helped them win a game or two they otherwise would not have won at a very crucial time. But hey, we all wish the Twins would make these kinds of deadline trades... Houston's track record isn't as perfect as it gets portrayed, just sayin'. But they ARE the new Cardinals.

Good idea, they should try a deadline trade like that. Probably wouldn't cost more than, say, Diaz, Berroa, and Teng.

I don't have a personal view of Lewis, and I've caught some of the criticism (KLAW saying he better lose the leg kick and the hitch and can't stick at short). But I also saw him praised as the most impressive prospect in Arizona where he's been spectacular. At 3B and 2B. But Lordy, if your fears are founded that will be problematic.

While I appreciate your analysis and respect it, I respectfully question the quality of the conclusions one might draw from a comparison of the arithmetic being held out as proof of some gap in competence. I suggest that the two organizations have similar capacity to make quality decisions and that the arithmetic is telling an incomplete and false story. Let's take the first year you cite, 2011. This was a draft year that all the pundits described at the time as shallow and pretty much front-end loaded. That's exactly what happened. The Astros deserve much credit (there's always luck involved too, good and bad) for getting it right with Springer at 1(11). He's no Gerritt Cole 1(1), but hey, great job Houston. The Twins picked Levi Michael at 1(30). As expected, the pickings got slim in the minds of the pundits several picks earlier, and none of the next 9 picks after Levi panned out either. In fact, 25 of the 30 picks starting with Levi at #30 through pick #60 were essentially duds as well. That's an 85% fail rate. The fail rate of the first 30 picks? Roughly 40%. I'm just not convinced that Houston would have had the foresight to, for example, hijack Colorado's pick of Trevor Story at #45 instead of being another one of the 5 of 6 teams who have to call the second half of the 2011 draft a bust. The point: to use that 25 point difference in WAR between Springer and Levi is grossly misleading if you're using it conclude much if anything about comparative competence. Taking it a step further, if Houston was so much more competent, someone needs to explain what they did with their next pick, Adrain Houser at 2(69). He ultimately has generated 1.8 WAR none for the Astros, because he was shipped off to the Brewers with 3 other guys whose WAR benefited another team and not Houston: Josh Hader (6.6 WAR), Brett Phillips (2.6 WAR), and Domingo Santana (4.2 WAR). That's 15.2 WAR sent packing. The two guys they got back delivered 0.9 WAR for Houston. Mike Fiers and Carlos Gomez. Their third success story from that draft, Nick Tropeano, 5(160), generated 1.0 for another team, as did the Twins one success story, Derek Rodriguez 6(208). I realize people might roll their eyes and call this an excuse rather than an explanation. So be it. As for the IFA comparison, it defies all reasonable analysis to use a single extreme outlier as Altuve to conclude anything. The Twins can't (yet) match that total, but no reasonable examination of the capabilities in the IFA marketplace would conclude that the Twins are anything but at the least an equal to Houston here, despite the unfortunate setbacks and delays attributable to Sano. I agree 100% with your last paragraph. While it's unreasonable to expect any team to somehow luck out with a Bregman or a Trout, the Twins won't match the Astros in 26-man talent without hitting big with guys like Lewis, Buxton, and Kirilloff the way Houston hit it big with Correa and Springer. And yeah, I've been saying they need to take advantage of the fact that they now have value and surplus from which to trade, and an ability to jack up payroll to $150M or more.