Major League Ready

If that's all he would bring, I agree. However, if he is good as we all think, why wouldn't he bring back a Jordan Balazovic type SP prospect or a 50 or 55FV type SS prospect? If we really think Lewis of Martin will stick, the focus should be pitching but I just don't see justification for any deep confidence one of those guys is going to be our SS for 6-10 years. While I don't see anyone ready to take his place opening day, we have several guys that could be even better in that utility role. Martin / Miranda / Julien or even Lewis if he does not stick at SS.

Arraez was 142nd among position players in Fwar last year. Let's not get too carried away with his trade value or any suggestion that he could not be replaced.

No. They are not going to trade Arraez and add prospects so that they can be a 500 team this year. The entire premise and line of reasoning revolves around the theory they must go for it this year when all indications are they are playing the long game. My guess is the only way they trade Arraez is for a ML ready or close to ready SS or a high ceiling pitching prospect.

St. Louis let Pujlos walk which was a great decision. I am not suggesting Berrios is going to be dead weight like Pujlos was for the last 5 years but letting a player go is not necessary inconsistent with the approach you are advocating. It aids in the development of the steady stream of young talent you reference.

Sounds about right to me other than I don’t think the union would cave quickly even if replacement players were brought in. I have wondered about the point you made regarding would the owners want to the union to go away and I also contemplated would the game we be better off. I am not a lawyer either but the first question is what would prohibit the league from adopting a set of guidelines similar to the CBA provided those guidelines did not violate anti-trust guidelines. If the exact same agreement was used without a union in place would it all the sudden become illegal? IDK but you would think the teams could agree to operate as they have under a CBA. Then, again, I am not a lawyer and even if I were I doubt this could be answered with certainty. Hopefully we never have a covid situation again but that situation illustrated the added complexity in resolving problems when a union is involved. For example, had there been no union, the teams could have offered two-thirds pay for anyone that wanted to play. Anyone who did not want to work for 2/3 pay could have sat out the season and we would have had 100 or 120 games. The game faces other challenges that will require change. Would it be easier to resolve without the players holding up changes as a bargaining chip. There is also the matter of the union pressing hard for some things that would not be good for the game. We are in this situation because the owners are only willing to reduce team control after a certain age. The demands to eliminate revenue sharing while at the same time significantly increasing the luxury tax threshold. There is no way around it, these three things would be bad for at least half of the teams and bad for baseball in general. Therefore, under the assumption teams could and would form an agreement very similar to the CBA, I don’t see why they would be concerned about the union going away.

It's crazy that 8 guys are interchangeable in terms of making a case for their rank in the organization but I have to agree. I was already really excited to watch Milb baseball this year and this series has elevated my interest. Thanks Seth! Great series. In terms of ceiling I am thinking Duran / Canterino / Balazovic / Ryan but they would be reversed in terms of probability of reaching their ceiling. Does this seem accurate in your opinion?

This would be great. It's hard to pull of ML ready pitching with this much control.

Sure makes sense to me. I love Arraez but I would much prefer to keep Polanco. His wRC+ was 19 points higher than Arraez and I fear those knees. The problem I see is that the type of team (contender) that would trade for Arraez is unlikely to trade away an impact SP. They are going to offer prospects. Sure, there are exceptions but how often to Contenders trade good pitching and a rebuilding club is not going to be interested. By the time they are good, Arraez will be approaching free agency.

Balazovic Ryan SWR Winder Canterino I could see the 1st 3 in any order. Winder and Canterino could be reversed too so who knows. I will be interested to see why you rank them where you do. Great series, Seth.

I hear ya ... Some of them you don't think will be much develop a new pitch and all the sudden they are a different pitcher. MacKenzie Gore looked like one of the best prospects in baseball and now his future is questionable. Who knows! I am high on Raya while realizing he has not proven much so far.

I am curious who you mean specifically in the 11-20 group. Enlow (11) and maybe Strotman (15) we view as high ceiling guys, A lot of the other guys seem like they are just showing up as having upside now. .

I wondered where Raya would be ranked. Seems like Berrios is a pretty good comp. He would be a good bet for the Twins pitching prospect that makes the biggest jump in the national rankings this year.

Donaldson has negative value. Sano has no excess value. His 2023 option includes a $2.75M buyout so a team looking to trade would consider his current salary to include that buyout. $12M total. Maeda won't pitch in 2022 and it a FA after 2023. There is a lot of uncertainty the year after TJ so his value is minimal. Rogers salary negates his value but I would think he would still bring back a decent prospect in trade.

I hope not. Seeing Smeltzer would mean they did nothing to improve the rotation after the lockout. If we see him after the first couple months it would also mean that the the plethora of Twins SP prospects with more upside than Smeltzer are still not ready.

I have had basically the same thought about this whole situation. You make a very good point. Owners are not going to spend because the super two rules change or free agency becomes shorter or even as a result of increased minimum salary. They have a high degree of control over the bottom line so long as revenue does not go down which is why I don't agree it's about power. I believe like many others here that the large markets already have an enormous advantage. The owners have offered a reasonable solution to most of the demands. The impasse is shortening, reducing revenue sharing, and the amount of increase to the luxury tax. The players demand would elevate the already large competitive advantage for top revenue market. Eliminate a year of control and the top players in bottom half markets all end up in the top markets a year earlier. Taking away revenue sharing while raising the luxury tax to any significant degree obviously increases the current level of competitive disparity which is already threatening the product on the field. These things together should have any fan of teams in the bottom half of revenue saying hell no.

I was critical of Sano when that not a popular position so I am not a supporter. However, his numbers are above average so it's not like he is a total slug some make him out to be. Career PAs 2778 with a wRC+ of 118 and an OPS of 819. Roasrio has 3242 PAs with a wRC+ of 105 and an OPS of 782. Having said this, my hope for Sano and his future is that he comes to camp in shape, has a great 1st half, and is traded for something of value at the deadline.

Sorry. I assumed you meant major league pitching and we all know what happens when we assume. Pitching would be great but I would be happy with any return regardless of position. An up the middle defender would be good too.

Blaine Enlow being the 11th best pitching prospect is pretty exciting? I guess we could say the same thing about Strotman being the 15th best pitching prospect. I am going to watch a lot of Milb baseball this year.

A contender is going to trade pitching for Sano?

Is Duffy healthy because that's an interesting option?

I understand where you are coming from as well. However, there is one overriding principle that everyone who wants a quick fix ignores with the type of justification listed here or the many other forms we have seen. The evidence / history is quite clear in terms of how successful teams are build. Literally, not one person has provided an example of success yet there are countless posts insisting the path to success is a product of strategies that rarely if ever succeed. It's one thing to be unaware. It's another to absolutely refuse to look at history which is the closest thing we have to fact. Ironically, I see building from within as the best way to make it feasible to utilize free agency. I believe we will have enough home grown players + Maeda for a rotation next year. A that point we will both have more funds and a better idea of where they should be spent. Maybe that's a front of the rotation guy. Maybe that's a SS or maybe they could afford both. Basically the Rays way while spending another $60M.

You have a point. So show me examples of where a team added a couple of mid tier free agents that carried them to success in the playoffs without already having homegrown talent leading the rotation. What I see in all of these responses is a desperate desire to be as good as possible next year and a complete refusal to do what's necessary to actually build a contender. That's why people are at odds with the front office.

I appreciate someone finally providing an example. However, how are the Giants relevant in a discussion about strategies employed by below average revenue teams? They are a top 5 team in terms of revenue. It's also not fair to just generalize they were FA acquisitions in the context of this discussion. The claim here is that the Twins failed strategically because they did not sign any of the top FAs which of course is consistent with long-term expensive free agents. The Giants top performer was signed in 2020 on a 1 year $9M deal and then resigned to a qualifying offer, another 1 year deal. That's hardly the same thing as what they are being criticized for here. And, BTW, they did not resign him (even with theri revenue) when it required a 5 year contract. There other top performer (Webb) was drafted. They also got solid production from Alex Wood on a 2/$25M contract. Also not at all the same as what people are calling for here and certainly not what the Twins need to get back in contention. They do have a huge contract on the books (Cueto) which produced virtually nothing after the first year. Equating how the Giants were built or where their production came from to the strategies being called for here is a real reach, huge revenue difference not withstanding.

It does not make sense to me to insist they made a mistake or they are waiting a year unless you can provide examples of below average revenue teams that went deep in the playoffs the year after adding the 3 SPs via trade/ free agency or a combination therefore of with 2 of those spots being the top of their rotation. Lots of insistence here that the appropriate strategy was obvious but not a single example of when it was successful. For every example provided of top free agents or trades for top SPs, I will come up with 3 success stories where the team was primarily built on players they drafted or traded for before they were established performers at the MLB level. It's not a mistake to follow the best practices. Let's see some examples of below ave Rev teams that built pitching staffs through trading for established SPs and/or signing top free agents.

Snell and Odorizzi combined for 3.2 WAR last year. They are not going to make us legit contenders unless every player on the roster has a career year. From all appearances the FO is focused on building a pitching staff from within. I would hope they would not abandon that plan/focus for Snell and Odorizzi.