Major League Ready

It's unfortunate that both Robles and Colome have sucked. At the risk of stating the obvious, those guys could have brought back something decent.

Ah ha ... I thought you meant what they got for Berrios because there was a bunch of Berrios focused posts. My bad and I absolutely agree on Pineda. I also can't imagine he does not get moved. The one I am wondering about is Robles. I guess it does not matter much because he is not going to bring much back.

How will we know what the alternatives were to what they end up getting? Hard to judge when we don't know what they turned down.

I thought we were talking about pitching. Your argument seems to be they were ranked high but why do we care how they were ranked when we now know how they have performed? What did that system produce for pitching? We can evaluate based on results and that group produced virtually nothing in terms of pitching. We don't know how this group will rate 5 years from now when we can evaluate based on results. I would be willing to bet we get a whole lot more pitching out of the current system plus whoever they get for Berrios/Pineda assuming they are dealt.

No doubt the free agents were not good but a lot of people here speak as if the FO failed to bring in the right guys. Who were the right guys? Were we going to get Wainwright away from STL? James Paxton pitched 1 inning Garret Richards’s ERA is 5.15 Drew Smyly has been decent with a 4.3 ERA but he certainly would not have made a difference Corey Kluber pitched 50 innings and is now on the 60 day IL Charlie Morton has been good but his geographic preference is well known so that was not going to happen. Mike Minor has an ERA of 5.32 Jake Odorizzi has been decent with an ERA of 4.3 but how much difference would he have made. The guy I wanted (Taijuan Walker) has been great but I got no support here when I floated him as a good option. We could have traded for Blake Snell like so many here insisted was a no brainer. We could have given up a bunch of prospects for a near replacement level player. We could have traded for Darvish. He was great the first couple months but he has given up 16 runs in his last 20 innings. We would still be talking about a horrible season even with Darvish so there is a lot more to this failure than our free agents SPs, one of which was a $2M depth play.

I have watched 7 or 8 games now but he has been at 1st for half the games. He looked good at 3B in the limited number of plays I have seen but you make a good point. He is going to rank quite a bit higher if he projects to stick at 3B although I don't mind the flexibility of him being able to play 3 infield positions.

I would argue he has created the pipeline. Balazovic / Duran / Canterino / Ryan / Ober / Winder / Enlow / Sands / Ober / Strotman / Valimont / Varland. I would say the 1st 10 have good shot at being MLB starting pitchers. Valimont and Varland are too far off to tell. That's a better pitching pipeline than when Falvey got here in my opinion. You seem to be saying he has not created MLB players yet which is true. The difference is that the pipeline he inherited produced very little. It's going to take another couple of years to compare the current regime in terms of developing a pitching pipeline.\ BTW ... There might be 2 or even 3 more guys added to that list in the next 24 hours and 13 minutes.

Miranda has to be the bright spot of the season. Winder has been good but in terms of elevating a players ranking, wow! Where doe everyone think ends up in terms of ranking? Is he top 50 if he keeps this up the rest of the year?

How about the Odorizzi trade? I am more upset about Nick Anderson and Tyler Wells then Baddoo. Baddoo had very limited playing time in the previous 2 years and had a handful of ABs above high A. It was not exactly reckless to expect he would not get picked up or that if he would not be ready for the MLB level. It's also easy to point to keeping Jake Cave because fans tend to be very critical of this type of role player but they are valuable to staying in contention.

Are you saying there is not a significant trend away from trading top prospects? I most certainly am not saying there are not deals to be made but I don't consider and Kirilloff to be equivalent prospects. I find it bizarre that you are not aware of the strong preference of other teams to not part with these assets. What is the basis for your support of practices that are being abandoned by other teams? Perhaps more to the point I think trading away a player that profiles like Kirilloff, including years of control for a team with as many holes as this one has would be gross incompetence. Maybe the Twins won't be able to get a reasonable offer for Berrios and he will stay. However, you are going to be disappointed if they get a decent offer. No competent executive is going to make 2022 their Alamo as you defined it in an earlier post. You have the privilege of being indifferent to the long-term. The FO is responsible for the long-term health of the organization and they are going to manage assets accordingly.

Teams are stringently avoiding this practice. Do you know something they don't. I would be interested to hear why we should follow a practice the top teams have clearly avoided.

There are many fans that can't imagine a strategy that does not put heavy weight on 2022. Team's however have learned that short-term focus is a good way to be bad often. The Dodger's are a very good example. Compare how they constructed teams 15 years ago. Of course, their front office has heavy influence from the origin of these strategic practices practices which would be the Tampa Bay Rays. Many fans don't look at all of the factors and determine the optimal strategies to get back to contention. They assume a focus on next year and develop a plan from there. As we have heard here, some fans dislike taking a step in order to improve in the future, even in a losing season. This is not how good teams operate thus the refusal to give up top prospects. The FO is not going to make "2022" their Alamo" unless they believe they are out the door if the team does not contend in 2022. IMO, any baseball executive who looks at this team and goes all-in for 2022 should be terminated. They need 3 starters, one of them at least as good as Berrios, and half the BP needs to be replaced. The lost their best hitter. Short-stop needs to be addressed. Will Sano continue to be a liability? Will Buxton stay on the field and is Larnach going to adapt? I guess we should throw in will age catch up to Donaldson. Is that a scenario in which you go to your board and recommend an all-in strategy?

J.A. Happ is a 15 year veteran with over 1800 IPs. If looking for a reason for his regression, I would be more inclined to believe being 38 years old likely had more influence than his coach.

I would hope this post and my previous posts were not so poorly constructed as to have you would believe I don't understand that a larger payroll is advantageous. My point was that others quite frequently measure the quality of a transaction by the amount spent and present that premise as if it's an obvious fact.

I am really reluctant to trade Kepler given he is under team control (relatively cheap) through 2023. The return has to be substantial. It would also be more acceptable if it included a very good SS or high-end pitching prospects or one of each. Peraza plus pitching from the Yankees could make it worthwhile.

It's pretty common to see a pitcher really elevate their ceiling by adding or even improving a secondary pitch. I would agree that it would be a win to get a decent RP in the 15th round. However, we should all be intrigued by the possibility of Varland becoming a starter. He reminds me a little or Lance Lynn and wouldn't be great if he ended up as good as Lance Lynn.

They should have left him on the bench hoping someone would take him off our hands.

This is what I was thinking when I posed the question. They could make it work with all 3. They just already have a lot of guys looking to get ABs at 1B, especially if Donaldson's defense continues to decline.

I had the same reaction after watching a couple of Varland's starts. He could make it as a RP with his reliance of the FB but his ability to make it as a SP at the major league level will depend on the development of his secondary pitched. Of course, that's what they are supposed to do in Milb.

I too have been hoping for Rortvedt's bat to develop. His defense is great and he will stick at the MLB level. A little better offense and he is really something. The question is ... How do we handle the roster with Garver looking like he can sustain his offense closer to 2019 than 2020. Do we trade Jeffers or do we use Garver at DH / 1B and catcher? Obviously, we don't need to make any decisions now.

Nice plan! The only thing I would do slightly different is move Donaldson if a good decent is available. I think our chances of being a real contender in 2022 is very low. By 2023 he will be in his age 37 season. I would rather give Miranda or perhaps even Lewis a chance to get established in 2022. Miranda is unlikely to ever be as good as Donaldson in his prime but there is a good chance he is as good as 37 y/o Josh Donaldson. Take that money and invest in pitching or a SS next year and you are no worse in 2022 and better (probably) in 2023. We would need to send money with him. However, it could be distributed over this year and next with no obligation in 2023. With Berrios leaving, this plan definitely does not bet on 2022 but it is also far from a rebuild. Adding Ryan and Strotman to Balazovic / Duran / Canterino / Winder / Enlow / Sands plus whatever we get for Berrios and Pineda gives us a very good bet to establish 3-4 SPs over the remainder of this year and next. That will provide the financial flexibility to retain Buxton, sign a top FA pitcher and even sign a SS if needed.

For starters, the Twins are not clearing out their ML roster and I have not heard anyone suggest they do so. However, that practice has been both common and successful when teams are looking to rebuild. KC started their rebuild that led to a WS victory after 20 years of futility by trading Zack Grienke. Their CF (Cane) and SS (Escober) came from that trade. The Astros traded every player on their roster with any experience when they started their rebuild. The Whitesox trade Sale and Eaton and they would not be in the position they are today without the multiple good players that came out of that trade. We could go on but what's the point because that is not what the Twins are looking to do. So far, the Twins have traded one player on an expiring contract and will trade more expiring contracts. I guess what I would suggest where this practice is concerned is to look around the league a little. Read some baseball news or listen some baseball radio shows/podcasts. Literally EVERY (when out of the playoff race) purges expiring contracts in hope of future improvement. It is not just common, it's standard practice. So, yes, failure to acknowledge this is a standard practice is going to put you in the minority because most of us pay attention to the practices across the league. Where Berrios and/or Buxton are concerned, that's a little different. The are under contract until the end of 2022. The difference is basically two-fold. They could bring back players that are difference makers for 6+ years. The FO has to weigh the value of the impact on 2022 by keeping them IF they get a great offer VS the impact on multiple years. Some of us weigh those variables and conclude the team would be better off taking the assets than betting on 2022 based on the fact we have many holes to fill. Others want to avoid letting good players go under almost any circumstance. You might want to take a look at what the Rays have done in recent years. They have clearly demonstrated the value of maximizing asset value.

I was with you up to the point where you made a sweeping statement about spending as if it were fact. Houston let Cole go? How are they doing? Cleveland's largest contract ever is $60M and they have had many 90 win seasons. The Ray's have had exactly one big contract, Longoria 100M and an AAV of 16.6M. The Royals largest contract was $72M and the Pirate's was $60M. One of the best decision the Cardinal's ever made was letting Pujlos go and one of the worst was signing Small/mid market teams making bad decisions is a way to be bad for a very long time. It also does not do any good even for big market teams with a core of affordable talent. Philly signed both Harper / Wheeler and Realmuto. They have not been good for a while. How about the Angels. They drafted the best player in the game and signed expensive free agents and have done very little for the last several years. Pujlos contract, even with their revenue, hurt them badly.

He is going to get bought out for 2.75M in 2023 unless 2022 is quite a bit better than 2021. I would love for him to rebound enough in 2022 that they want to pay him $14M in 2023. Who knows. He was great in 2019. Wouldn't it be nice to have that guy back because this guy is kind of hard to watch.

The BETA tests I was referring to are rule changes and I don't have any strong opinions there. For example, I am really on the fence on shift restrictions. I thought players who learn to hit the other way and bunt should be rewarded but it does not seem like players / teams are going to adapt. Therefore, maybe we should change thge rules, IDK. In terms of compensation, I think Milb players should make double what they make now. Why do you think we would disagree?