HeresWaldo

To me this is a classic example of an expectations mismatch. To be clear I really like Clemens and think he's been an excellent find, However, taken in context Clemens is having a career year as a bat first good utility regular. He's a lot like Willi Castro in that he can play everywhere but not well defensively, and he's got a great bat for a guy who can play everywhere, but it's not actually a great bat compared to the league's great bats. Again, to reiterate, not a criticism because he's been great, but if he was a former top prospect people would be absolutely furious he hasn't found a defensive home, and instead we're thrilled he's providing the value of a good regular.

Zoll is a smart dude and I know the front office has access to data we don't so I hate to be dismissive, but I think he's pretty clearly wrong. Alan Roden has played in two of the three most recent games. He has below average bat speed, a below average barrel rate, below average sprint speed, and is hitting.230 with no power playing corner outfield. Josh Bell is on an absolutely ridiculous heater, but his overall season numbers are basically as projected and he could sit once a week if needed. Buxton is going to miss a game or two per week to protect his health, which is fine but Keashall is a butcher in center field so those ABs could easily go to Jenkins. Just by giving him Roden's spot and backing up Buxton he can easily play 4-5 times a week. If they rest Bell once a week to play him more that would get him to essentially a full workload while upgrading the defense in center on days Buxton is out. If they really just think he's worse than Roden in right and Keashall in center, fine I guess, and like I said I acknowledge they have data we don't. But I just don't see it.

Personally I value speed over arm in center, and health permitting I'm pretty sure Buxton will be faster than Jenkins even a year from now. Candidly I don't think the next quality center fielder is in the organization right now, so I'd say stick with Buxton until it really becomes a problem or a more obvious candidate arrives. Now, if Buxton shows up to spring training next year with 75th percentile sprint speed that would be different, but at least for now I'm pretty confident he's faster and has more range than Jenkins or Rodriguez. Buxton also has the advantage of being a sprint speed outlier. There are too few of them in the Statcast era for super compelling conclusions to be drawn yet, but there is some evidence that the player type Buxton is a part of really do age better (at least as runners) into their mid-30s, so I wouldn't be super confident that Jenkins will surpass Buxton next season. Downside is if this research is right, once it starts to go for Buxton it'll go quickly, but he may very well be able to put up similar numbers to his current ones in center 2 years from now, again health permitting.

They've performed well and Morris in particular is interesting with that deeper pitch mix. I don't think either of them will ever come even remotely close to Duran though. A triple digit fastball not being the best strikeout weapon in the arsenal of a groundball pitcher with solid control is extremely uncommon. Duran was essentially a video game character come to life, and without some very significant luck or a blockbuster trade to bring someone in we aren't going to be replacing him any time soon. Best case scenario both guys are as good as Jax, which would still be nice, but we're unlikely to ever replicate a duo as good as the one the included Duran.

Good catch and yes I am

Good Lord I need coffee, yes I 100% am.

Hancock isn't happening for a package where Larnach plays any kind of meaningful role. I like Larnach, but Hancock is the best pitching prospect in baseball and a concensus top 5 globally. He's probably off-limits under any circumstance, but in a world where we could get him the package would probably look something like him for Joe Ryan + ERod + another of our top 5 prospects. I keep seeing things on this site that suggest we should trade for him and I do not understand why anyone thinks that's got even a remote chance of happening. If hypothetically someone managed to trade for him the headline player going the other way would be a superstar capable of joining Julio as a face of their franchise.

"That doesn't necessarily mean the Twins are about to land one of baseball's elite prospects". Well don't trade him then. Tom Froemming pointed out last night that the Twins are actually tied for the 3rd best record in the AL since June 1st. In that span - which is a significant part of the season - they've been better than the White Sox, Guardians, Rays, Yankees, and Mariners who are also fighting for playoff spots. Yes Jeffers could bring something back in trade because he's good, but we could also just let him be a good player on our pretty good team and try to win some games in October. If the Yankees want to send us Lombard or some other team wants to make a clearly unwise decision on that level, let them. But why are we trading away premium players off a pretty good roster in exchange for prospects who wouldn't crack the top five in our minor league system? We should be lightly buying not selling.

Certainly fair to say that's how a lot of front offices now think. My problem with that approach though is if you follow that line of thinking you'll always end up focused on the future and never be able to justify trying in the now. Any good veteran major leaguer can by definition return more years of future asset control with theoretically similar or higher ceilings, but personally that doesn't interest me as much as just having a good team. Look at the Rays. They're the model franchise and they always maximize asset value. And yet they have managed zero championships with this approach. And honestly I'm fine with that because I'm not into Rings Culture, but they're also not drawing fans to the park during the regular season because they trade away every player fans fall in love with, and I think that's a huge problem. Personally I'm of the opinion that it's okay to try building something even if it means taking on some current and future risk.

That would certainly be one way to do it, and probably a way I'd be more supportive of. And to be clear I'm not trying to be a bummer here with my original comment. I just think people are vastly overrating how good the median outcome will be for the return we'd get for Ryan. Of course there's always a chance we get our next star because that's true in any trade (look no further than Cruz for Ryan) but on the whole that's probably not a likely outcome in the same way it's unlikely that Seattle wants to give us the best pitching prospect in baseball in exchange for a pitcher with lesser stuff and less team control. Where I'm at is that Joe Ryan is a really good and desirable player, but we're probably not going to get a kings ransom for him so why not just keep the really good desirable player and try to be a good team? And if someone wants to wildly overpay and send us a potential future Cy Young candidate let them, but short of that why not just keep the All Star?

They did work out though, that's my point. For guys of their prospect caliber, both reaching the majors for more than a cup of coffee across multiple seasons is a better than 50th percentile outcome. Prospects are fun to dream on, but outside the concensus top 10 or so most of them are going to turn out this way, especially in the 75-200 range where they were. Like I said, if the Mariners want to do something insane and send us the literal best pitching prospect in baseball who is also the global #1 on at least one major list, by all means let them. But if you focus on the kinds of less fun names that would actually be attainable in a Ryan trade suddenly it starts to look a lot less appealing and another Martin/SWR type of return starts to feel like a plausible result.

I suspect all of these headliner prospects are out of reach and I'd much rather just keep Ryan. If you can talk the Mariners into trading Anderson by all means do it but I seriously doubt they're that stupid. If they wanted a starter they could just call him up. The Athletic correctly pointed out that a decent comp for Joe Ryan right now is the Jose Berrios trade. Joe Ryan is a 2 time All Star with 1.5 years team control remaining coming off a 3.42 ERA season and carrying a 3.38 ERA into the trade deadline as of this moment. He's been worth 6.6 bWAR in the past season and a half. Berrios was a 2 time All Star with 1.5 years team control remaining coming off a 3.52 ERA season and carrying a 3.48 first half ERA into the trade deadline. He'd been worth 5.3 bWAR in the season and a half leading up to the trade. So maybe Ryan is a bit better, but Ryan also famously fades in the second half which could be a factor. I know it's fun to dream on robbing other farm systems, but just as a hypothetical, how many people would still want to trade Ryan if the fair return for him is Austin Martin and SWR? If the return is going to be a new 5th or 6th best prospect in the Twins system do we really want to lose a great player?

Houston's power surge is interesting, and if he can sustain it this could be a real breakthrough. His .352 BABIP at AA and .379 BABIP for the season are completely unsustainable though. Even if the power increase isn't real he can still be a useful glove-first guy so I'm not trying to be too much of a bummer here. However, for me at least I think we need to see him sustain this new higher ISO for another month or so before we start to call the offensive breakout real.

I really don't know what to think of Taj. Models like Pitching+ aren't super impressed with him because the command is so bad and he doesn't really tunnel well, but if teams are going to repeatedly swing at cutters in the dirt like the Guardians were earlier this week maybe it doesn't matter. I'm inclined to think he's going to regress when teams force him into the zone, but it keeps not happening, so who knows. For what it's worth I threw together a quick graphic that compares the two and there's a real argument Jax is better, although as a big fan of stuff I do have a soft spot for Bradley. I'd probably take Bradley of the two, but it's a lot closer than I think a lot of people are making it sound in this comment section. It's also worth noting this graphic uses full season numbers so it includes Jax's brutal start as a reliever. If you filter to just his starts he absolutely dominates in this comparison.

To be honest my takeaway from reading through these trades is that the Twins should keep Ryan. The Brewers have a much better trading and development track record than we do, and even with that being the case a lot of these returns were just okay. In exchange for four All Stars they got a solid regular, a reliever, a couple interesting but unproven starters with big question marks, and a few okay prospects. And that's the return received by a team that's great at this. I get that this is a depth sport and they've increased the quality of their depth which has some value, but there are Willi Castro and Kody Clemens types available on the waiver wire and cheap part of the free agent market every single year. I mean no offense to either of those guys because they were both really good with us, but if you're giving up stars you need to get more than these guys in return. Smart teams don't give up stars to get quality depth, they find or develop it cheaply.