Major League Ready

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.

Holy cow ... they went wild in the last 24 hours. Round 1-18 picks all signed. Garret McMillan (19th round) announced he was returning to Alabama and Korbyn Dickerson (20th) round already announced he was going to fulfill his commitment to Louisville. That's a wrap on 2022 signings.

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.

Jim Calis tweeted that Connor Prielipp signed for 1.825 million. The top of this draft could not have gone better for the twins.

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

I was OK with it because so many high school pitchers never amount to much. Gray may be the difference in winning the division. However, I had the same apprehension because it could turn out to be a very high price. He is one of the prospects outside the organization I track because I hope we did not give up a true ace which we have not had in a longtime. BTW ... He is doing quite well for a 19 y/o in A ball but we shall see in a couple years.

That best hitter available produced a wRC+ of 96 and provided zero defensive value? I don't really care what your colleagues in Tampa thought about the move. As you said they hate the way the team is run. In other words, they are ignoring how successful their strategies have been and prefer they do operate in a manner that is less effective in a small market. Do you think Ryan's production is so meager that it was work trading for two months of a guy who had a wRC+ of 96 and provided zero defensive value? Ryan's is tied for the team league in WAR among SPs with Gray. He sure looks like a solid middle of the rotation arms. Sorry, but the premise that six years of a SP like Ryan for two months of someone who produced below league average is not a steal only demonstrates exceptionally poor critical thinking among these fans who want instant gratification above all else. I sure hope those colleagues in Florida have no role in developing organizational strategy for your company.

So, if the Yankees don't win the WS this year the team they built was not great? What a ridiculous argument. You are good at finding a comeback while ignoring the glaringly obvious. Oakland has the most 90+ win seasons and most playoff appearances of any team in the bottom half of revenue and they are at the very bottom in terms of revenue. They have done a phenomenal job of putting a good product on the field despite having a significant disadvantage. A very significant part of that success was trading established players for prospects that gave them several years of great production but you ignore this because you don't like the implications. Cleveland and Tampa Bay are the only others in this group that are close. You are also very aware small market teams will go through these cycles. Yet, you use it as a counterpoint. Weak!

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

I'm sure you thought this was a clever response, but you apparently did not think this through. I am not the person making these trades and my ability to predict which players will help a team contend is completely irrelevant. Those predictions are done by a team of people in front offices led by people like Billy Beane. The guy who got Semien and Bassit for 1 year of Samardzija. I would have to say Beane’s prediction for the six years following that trade were pretty darn good.

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.

There would be value if they could achieve this without giving up the players that will needed to become a legit contender. They can't trade Brooks or Prielipp so I don't believe it's possible. Fans quite often believe they are going to acquire these high impact players without impacting the future of the team. Was it worth it for the Rays to trade Ryan for Cruz? The likely result is that they trade away 2 or 3 players that would be instrumental in contender for the next several years to have a better shot at a 1st round win this year. That would be short-sighted but the trade deadline often promotes a fair amount of short-sightedness. Such a trade would be of service to fans that want instant gratification. It would not be of service to those of us who are going to watch every year, not just the good years, and want to see the best possible product year in and year out.

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. ?

I agree on point 1 in that a continuous pipeline is difficult or nearly impossible. However, Chpettit's characterization was still correct in that there will likely be a gap and that's a detriment to contending. Therefore, the question IMO is how is this addressed. Do you trade for Montas and fill the gap or do you sign a big free agent. Montas gives you a better shot this year. A big free agent gives you a much better scenario for several years because they could sign a Musgrove or Rodon and keep the Kirilloff / Miranda / Winder type players it will take to get them. As to would Musgrove sign here .... There is a constant barrage of people who are adamant that player X will come here if the twins offer is the highest compensation so the premise they won't come because the twins will take them out earlier is a convenient argument. Taking them out earlier protects them from injury and most pitchers will perform better when the opposing team sees them less times through the order. If I was an agent, I would be advising my client that's a good thing for their career. On the 3rd point, I think that's another convenient argument. Did Boston Fans quit coming when they traded Betts, Cardinals fans when they traded Pujlos, Washington fans when they let Harper walk, and on and on. Fans come when the team has a good product. Yes, it would be beneficial to do something but most of the moves promoted here will be detrimental long-term and therefore detrimental to the gate receipts at target field.

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?