Major League Ready

We could paint any scenario we could possibly come up with in the same negative light. We could have traded for Clevinger and hoped he would not go down with an injury like he did or many other established players who were traded and injured. We could have signed Patrick Corbin and hoped he did not turn into a bad pitcher like he has. We could have signed Anthony Rendon instead of Donaldson and hoped he did not turn into a pumpkin and on and on. The same negative crap was said about trading Donaldson. Several people absolutely insisted we got worse. Well, since Miranda got it together in late May his OPS is 300 points higher than Donaldson. Now we have a better player going forward and an extra $20M to spend on pitching. What they need is reasonable health and players to perform to the capabilities. No kidding players will have to play well for the Twins to be good. What a concept! Guess what ... That scenario is true no matter what strategy the team pursues so all of this is nothing more than finding a way to be negative.

It starts with them getting some injured pitchers back. They are missing Ober / Paddack / Alcala / Maeda and Dobnak. Hard to say what Dobnal provides but it's worth mentioning. Get Winder back as a permanent addition and replace Archer / Bundy with a top of the rotation free agent and add a back of the BP free agent and you have a very different pitching staff. Of course, the response will be that the Twins won't spend on pitching. I would suggest they have not spent big on pitching but they have never been in the position they will be next season. They will only have roughly a $73M payroll and they will already have Gray / Ryan / Wider / Ober / Maeda, eventually Paddack plus Smeltzer / Dobnak for depth. The only hole to fill among position players is catcher and who knows maybe Hamilton impresses the remainder of the season. It's not like Palacios is horrible and Lewis should be inserted by mid-season. Miranda and Kirilloff are night and day better than they were to start this season so their emergence makes us better next year. Those two also collectively save us $30M which could be invested in pitching. They could also afford Willson Contreras. Yes, they need to execute on landing a free agent SP and RP but that's all they need to do to make this a darn good team next year. So, we will see if they are just dead set against spending on pitching. Keep in mind, I am the guy who was against such a move in previous years. I have a totally different opinion now because of the situation I just outlined. There is a reasonable chance the FO will also be much more open to spending on a top free agent SP. How does Musgrove / Gray / Ryan / Maeda / Winder sound for a rotation with Ober / Paddack / Smeltzer / Dobnak for depth? An infield of Kirilloff / Polanco eventually Lewis and Miranda. BP of Duran a LH free agent / Alcala / Jax and three among Thielbar / Megill / Hamilton / Moran / Sisk / Schulfer / etc. We could also use Two of Ober / Paddack / Smeltzer / Dobnak could be used as multi-inning RPs. This all fits within a roughly $130M budget. This looks like a better team than we have at the moment to me.

Apparently, you did not see my earlier post in this thread. I listed 10 players including all the ones you mentioned that have expiring contracts or were otherwise certain to come off the 40 man and I listed 6 others who were good candidates. The point was that removing those certain to come off only gets us down to 38 and there are 7-8 that should be added.. Garlick / Cotton / Romero and Colombe are arbitration eligible. That's quite different than an expiring contract and all of these players are not key players but not all of them will be or should be non-tendered. How can Dobnak show he can pitch unless he remains on the roster? They will not and should not just flush Dobnak and if they do there is a reasonable chance he becomes a back of the rotation starter or good long reliever. Having to make decisions on players like Columbe / Garlick and Dobnak would suggest a 40-man roster crunch. Now, I think we can agree losing any of these players will not be remotely devastating, but depth has value which has been quite evident this year.

Neither one is going to be traded.

I would not trade Kirilloff / Miranda and would be unlikely to trade Canterino / Wallner / SWR / Steer / Varland. I would hope to get 2 good RPs with a pool to trade from of: Yannier Cano Jharel Cotton Sawyer Gibson-Long Brent Headrick Edouard Julien Jair Camargo Austin Schulfer Cole Sands Jovanni Moran Ronny Henriguez What do you think? Would Julien + another prospect and SGL + another prospect net good 2 RPs?

I didn't think so either until I actually looked at who would come off and who needed to be put on. As I wrote earlier, there are 48 on the 40 man now and 10 that for sure need to come off. Obviously, that only leaves 2 spots. I came up with the list below of 13 who arguably need to go on. I believe that's a "crunch". Matt Canterino Matt Wallner Simeon Woods-Richardson Spencer Steer Louie Varland Sawyer Gibson-Long Blayne Enlow Brent Headrick Edouard Julien Jair Camargo Austin Schulfer Caleb Hamilton Evan Sisk I would not argue that SGL / Headrick and Camargo probably don't need to go on the 40 man but we would still need to find room for 6 additional players.

I think these 10 guys come off for sure at the end of the season .... Archer / Bundy / Duffey / Smith / Sanó / Godoy / Correa / Contreras / Urshela / Sanchez and any of these 6 guys could be off ... Cano / Strotman / Cotton / Romero / Henriquez / Pagan They probably won't non-tender Pagan but they might. With additions I would expect they need to clear 16 spots so it makes perfect sense they trade 2 or 3 guys of the 6 above or players among those who will need to be added at the end of the year. Makes a lot more sense than losing a couple guys for nothing.

Here is the ranking of Twins top 10 hitters by OPS since the date (may 20th) you referenced. Jose Miranda .906 Luis Arraez .870 Jorge Polanco .859 Carlos Correa .853 Kyle Garlick .818 Alex Kirilloff .796 Gio Urshela .781 Byron Buxton .746 Nick Gordon .742 10 Max Kepler .698

Do you have anything to say other than management is stupid?

There occasionally are players that take less than the max they can get to be somewhere they really like. However, those players are not represented by Scott Boras. Lindor said no $300M+ was not enough and Soto just said $400M+ was not enough. Judge who will be 31 next year just said not to $225M. It's not completely impossible Correa would take a little less to stay here but him taking a significant discount, especially less year, is very wishful thinking. Most players are going to fight for every dollar they can get. Also ask yourself if Houston is a poorly run team and then ask yourself why a team very likely to be a top contender does not extend him. They had the exact same situation in terms of a very good prospect that was ready. Lewis has the most value at SS. We have a very good young 3B, 2B is covered, he is not playing CF, and he has far less value as a corner OFer. I think it would be far more impactful top spend the money on a front of the rotation SP and probably have money left over for a good BP arm.

In the last year and a half they have added Ober / Ryan / Winder and Smeltzer as starters. Duran and Jax in the BP There are a several guys that have a reasonable shot at joining the big league staff next year and several others (Prielipp / Povich / Hajjar / Festa / Gibson-Long / Varland / Headrick / Medina / Sisk / and Schulfer that have a good shot beyond next year. The recent results and the current pipeline are far better than what we had the 20 years prior to Falvey / Lavine. Yes, they traded for Ryan and Smeltzer. That's an even bigger plus IMO because they improved the team long-term by trading rental payers.

Kirilloff is the 1B going forward and Arraez is the 1st back-up. Miranda will be at 3rd when they trade Urshela or nob-tender him so this argument makes no sense. I might add that after Miranda slow start he has come on to hit 300 since 6/1 with a wRC+ of 147. Teams don't trade rookies that hit this well even if they are below average defenders. Of course, there is always the possibility he improves defensively.

There are endless examples of trades or free agent signings of highly regarded players that have failed. That does not in in itself mean the strategy is better or worse than another strategy. The question we should be asking is how have mid market teams with 90+ win been constructed. That is arguably the only relevant outcome that should interest us. Were the most productive players Drafted / Intl Signings / Free Agents / Traded for as prospects or were prospects traded for established players. We can easily loojk up any successful team on Fangraphs/ I have put substantial effort into understanding how mid and small market teams have acquired their high contribution players. Have you actually studied these teams or are you assuming you have the answers because something make sense to you intuitively. Go to Fangraphs and look at any of the playoff teams built by teams with equal or less revenue to the Twins. Count how many were drafted or acquired as prospects. In almost every case 85-90% of the players over 1.5 WAR were drafted or prospects acquired by trading established players like Escobar / Pressly / Clevinger / Kluber / Sale / Eaton, etc. 5-10% or modest price free agents. Elite free agents and established players acquired in trade are 5% on average.

Agree completely and I have been an advocate of addressing the BP. This is a matter of degree. I differ with those who want the top SP available and a couple of RPs and maybe a catcher too. It's one thing to trade Steer for a good RP and I am sure you agree it's another to pay the price required for Castillo, Contreras and a couple RPs

There is no doubt many teams throughout history have turned around season. These are good examples. However, the question is not can a team come on strong and do well in the playoffs. The question is which teams accomplished this by acquiring the high end starting and relief pitching as being suggested here. Therefore, this list could just as well illustrate teams that stood pat or made trades that required only mid-tier prospects. Was Nelson Cruz a good investment for the Rays last year? Even Scherzer did little to advance the Dodgers. Was Escobar 's impact worth Jhoan Duran. Clevinger did nothing for SanDiego (injury) and that cost them Miller / Naylor and Quantrill. Texas got a few innings out of Kluber (injury) and that cost them Clause. Samardzija's bombed at that cost Oakland Semien and Bassit. Of course, we all know about Tatis Jr for Shields. Trading long-term assets for short-term assets has far more potential for the team getting long-term assets.

Great that it's cool with you but these arbitrary lines are used to support a precast preference. It's pretty simple. Are they producing pitching or not? Does it matter if Jax spent half a season as a failed starter? Does that somehow nullify the fact he will likely be a solid contributor for the next several years. Sounds like a load of crap to me. Does it matter if Ryan started 6 games last year. We should ignore Winder because he is basically going through the same process we went through with Berrios? The fact is with the last from the last all-start break to this one, we have established Ryan, Duran, Jax, and Winder looks very promising as well. Smeltzer, Megill and Moran are basically in process. We shall see about them. That's pretty darn good production from the farm system in 1 year's time. It also makes no sense to discount the addition of pitching acquired by trades in a debate about buying / selling or standing pat. Duran and Ryan were acquired by trading expiring contracts (rentals) and now they represent an enormous part of our team for the next several years. The fact is that trading for prospects has been extremely important to developing playoff teams, especially among those teams in the bottom 1/2 of revenue. Take a look at rosters of Cleveland / Oakland and Tampa who have been by far the most successful teams in the bottom half of revenue. Players acquired as prospects represent 40-50 of their War. Players acquired as established players is around 5%. I actually have this data but I am not going to take the time to put it all together. Anyone who would like to look at the facts and draw a conclusion can easily pull up the info on Fangraphs and baseball reference. I use Fangraphs to look at a given team in a given year. Fangraphs list position players and pitchers by WAR. You can easily see if that team drafted them. If not, use BB Reference to track how they were acquired. If they were a prospect is somewhat objective. My standard is that position players and starting pitchers have never produced 1.5 WAR in a season or 1 WAR for RPs. If you spend a little time on this exercise, it will become blatantly obvious that acquiring prospects has been waaaaay more influential to building playoff team than using them to trade for established players. I think most people would find it very enlightening if done objectively. Start by taking a look a Cleveland's current team. Among their top players, Owen Miller / Ahmed Rosario / Andres Gimenez / Myles Straw / Josh Naylor / Cal Quantrill / Emmanuel Clause / and Konnoe Pilkington were acquired by trading established players for prospects. Then, take a look at the Ray's teams in years where they won 90+.

You are basically saying why sell low? While I might agree, that does not even remotely fit the context of this discussion. The proposal is trade these prospects that are performing very poorly for a premium. Martin has not been good since college and he no longer looks like a high ceiling prospect and I don't know what the heck is going on with balazovic but he doesn't look like a prospect that could be traded for a utility infielder in A ball right now.

No wonder people want to make these trades. Apparently, the hope is that the Reds or Athletics have not noticed that Balazovic has been horrific, and Martin has been mediocre at best. We don't have any pitchers in the high minors that anywhere near satisfies what the ask will be. Therefore, I would guess it would take something like Duran / Larnach and Steer or replace Ryan for Duran.

It's basically 125,000. The way it works is that anything above $125,000 is counted against the total bonus pool.

Pretty good numbers for Nate Baez. 12 picks and every single one an up the middle defender or pitcher. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=baez--000nat

It's no fun if you spoil wild conjecture with facts. ?

Are you suggesting they have to spend like the Dodgers / Red Sox / Yankees / Mets / Phillies / Angels or are you saying they have to spend on this player?

I would bet a lot of money they are not trading Miranda or Kirilloff to bolster a team with very low odds of making a playoff run.

I am wondering if Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario making such a big impact for the Brave's last year might influence a team to take a shot with Sano. I doubt we get much like KC got little for Soler but something is better than nothing. I also just don't see them taking Abs away from Kirilloff / Miranda or Arraez to play Sano. They might run him out there for a week hoping in order to audition him but what do they do if no team bites?

The slot amount for Prielipp is 1.62M. Plus, they can go over by 5% or roughly $500K. Plus, whatever they pay under slot for Schobel and I would guess that Ross comes in under as well. That should get them to at least 2.5M to pay Prielipp.