Major League Ready

You speak as if not signing Berrios means certain failure. Is this what happened when the Rays traded Snell and let Morton go to free agency. How about the Astros losing Cole in free agency and Verlander to injury. Boston seems to be doing fine after trading Betts. These losses are all more impactful than Berrios and you fail to acknowledge that the money they would have spent on Berrios can be spent elsewhere. It also difficult to argue that post 22 the Twins will be in a better position if they get value in the trade and spend the money on an equivalent player. Is it hard to sign equivalent players. Of course. That does not mean it can't be done.

I seriously doubt they would not trade Pearson for Berrios straight up.

I also had catchers. So we are staying away from corner OFers and 2B. Of course, a lot of guys drafted at SS end up at 2B

Me too. SS and a couple CFs with mad athleticism and the potential for power.

I call and raise you to the 1st 5 rounds. You in?

I would like to see something like 12 pitchers / 3 CF / 3 SS / 2C. Of course, subject to a tweak if they fair well between now and the trade deadline.

I wonder if he would had said that if it was Sano?

I agree completely. I would add this team is not nearly as terrible as the record would suggest but they would need to dominate the Whitesox to have any chance and even then the chance of winning this division is remote. All of the injuries to key prospects is a real bit@#. Our relative success is going to be a matter of a handful of prospects working out. I like the odds of Ober and Winder contributing and Winder has a high ceiling. Obviously, Duran, Balazovic, Canterino, and Enlow are the higher ranked prospects but they need to get healthy and demonstrate they are ready before I am going to have confidence in them. Adding to the pool of prospects can only improve the odds of future success. Let's hope the guys on expiring contracts are very good over the next month.

I thought they did quite well in 2018 with much less to work with than they have this year. Alcala looks to be a contributor for the next few years. Of course, the overall value of those deadline moves will probably depend on how Duran turns out. I think Chris Valimont and Luis Rijo were part of that group too. He could end up having some value too. I think Celestino and DeLatrinidad are 4th OFers.

Good question. We have a lot of guys that can play 2B. The flexibility is nice but he is a big piece of the puzzle if he is at least average at 3B.

I am assuming that pointing out the myriad of players picked up at the deadline that are now contributing to winning teams is absolutely pointless given the examples are many and you have chosen to ignore this fact. I guess you are correct that SanDiego shed some salary when they traded away James Shields for Tattis Jr. Someone should have told those fools you can't improve your team with this type of trade.

They have made really good personnel decisions. A lot of the people who made those decisions are now with other clubs. Even the clubs that did not hire their staff have learned from them. Teams are doing things differently today. To what degree have the practices that drove those decisions been implemented with the Twins. None of us has what could be called an informed opinion. Therefore, IDK the size of the gap or the specific shortcomings. I will say that I believe the biggest difference between the Rays and the mid market teams like the Twins is that they understand the value of years of control. They have been consistently willing to trade away established players. Frankly, much of what they do are things that people here despise like trading away Snell, cutting guys because their arbitrations amounts are on the rise and they play a lot of guys cut by other clubs. I am not going tp to list the common practices in bridging these gaps because frankly I don't think people care. I think they want to bitch because the team has sucked. I will add that I would make sure I found the people capable of understanding and implementing these practices. Then, you have to be willing to operate the way they do. For example, they would not let Berrios and/or Buxton hit free agency. If they could not sign them, they would trade them. That has obviously been an unpopular strategy here but it does not make sense to say we are not capable of making there decisions if you are unwilling to make the decisions they make.

That roster MIGHT give you a shot at making the playoffs. However, having bad middle infielders does not help the cause. A SP that gives you a good shot at matching up with other playoff teams is closer to $30M. Are you going to be happy when we get swept from the playoffs again if they were fortunate enough to make the playoffs? You also have not considered the fact that these meaningful additions are going to get multi-year contracts. Of course, Berrios / Buxton and Rodgers contracts are going to increase the payroll by an incremental $25M. Of course, there will be arbitration increases as well. And BTW you have to get someone to take Sano before you can spend the money and who is going to take him at his current level of production. Donaldson would have to come off the books and probably Sano too. So, add needing a 3B to the list and having Polanco at SS is a bad idea. Arraez is no prize at 2B either.

Thanks for posting this Mike. My position has been we trade him if someone is willing to trade (pay) as if he will continue to mash this year and they want him for next year. Obviously, that's the highest value. Is there a team out there willing to pony up as if they are going to get a year and half of great production? IDK. However, I would take advantage if the situation presented itself.

You either have intimate knowledge of the TB processes or you simply don't understand what it takes to assess the operational aspects of an organization. Even the assessments we did on a single operational function took 10 weeks with complete and unrestricted access. The 10 weeks was after the client provided us with a massive amount of data. We then did dozen of interviews and validated all the information we collected. Several people here seem to think they have a comprehensive understanding of the Minnesota Twins and The Tampa Bay Rays operations. I know I do not because I do have a comprehensive understanding of what it takes to acquire that insight. Regardless of this insight, I do know that it is incompetent to pursue less effective practices. If this group, including leadership can't institute best practices, fire them. Get people who can. Don't suggest pursuing less effective practice because that would be truly incompetent.

It not only matters what the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, etc can throw at Buxton it's exactly why all this conversation about offering Buxton $100M or less is absolutely fruitless. Do you think he cares if it's a smart decision for the team? Horrible deals like Jacoby Elsbury are simply not nearly as devastating to big market teams so they have been willing to take the risk. They can have 3 of those deals and have the Twins budget left over. It's more likely IMO that Buxton and his agent are sure the free agency process will yield a stupid high offer. Why agree to sign for anything less than stupid money right now? This discussion is all based on the hope he recognizes he has often been hurt and/or he has not been nearly this good prior to last 6 weeks. Who here believes his agent is basing the ask on the fact that he is out a lot or that this performance level is a very small portion of his history? The discussion of what is reasonable or what should be offered is fine as an academic exercise but he is not accepting a reasonable offer, IMO. So, the more pertinent question is do you let him walk for a compensation pick or whatever the new CBA provides. We can also discuss what level of trade compensation we should take as opposed to just letting him go. However, a discussion of what's reasonable in terms of an extension is probably academic at this point.

What he is going to get matters less than what he thinks he is going to get. We can make reasonable offers until the cows come home. It does not matter if he has an unreasonable expectation. This scenario is about as ripe as it gets for a player having an unrealistic expectation via ignoring the injury concern and believing 6 weeks of play is now the measure by which he should be paid. To keep hammering the same old argument of why don't we offer him X is futile if he wants X plus 50%.

There won't be any free agents after 2023? You are failing to see the option of collecting the trade value now and spending the money on a different free agent.

What he got in free agency is absolutely irrelevant. $10M is a very fair estimate for what he would have got in arbitration which is what he would have cost had we kept him. Trying to make a case for a guy playing barely above replacement is a product of only see what you want to see. Bias is a powerful retardant for the accepting the truth even when it's this obvious. Sorry for the tone but I am sick of hearing about Eddie Rosario when we have two replacements that are both looking like cornerstones for the franchise. The wisdom in moving on should now be painfully obvious.

Tell you what. We have two very different assessments of this situation. The did not draft and develop these teams. They traded established talent for prospects. Some of them were MB ready. I even gave specific examples and you still are not following the point. You want them to follow a strategy that is basically the opposite. You want them to hold on to everyone which is exactly the opposite of what has made them successful. I think this is exceptionally short-sighted. Best practices has been the rage in pretty much every industry for the last 20 years. If you are not executing best practices, you make the changes necessary. You don't follow inferior strategies and then claim you can't execute better strategies unless you are looking to be fired. Within the myriad of dumb stuff I encountered while consulting, nothing irritated me more than someone telling me they could not do it the right way.

Even If I could convince myself defense does not matter, I would still take Larnach ever day of the week. With Rosario's recent hot streak he has now produced .2 wins above replacement. Failure to move on from mediocre players like Rosario is a great recipe for mediocrity or failure. Ask yourself what Tampa would have do\ne with Rosario and the answer is he would have been gone before this year.

Rosario has been good for 10 days. The rest of the year he has sucked by ever measure except RBI. He hits 4th and he has played almost every game. Cleveland has played 72 games or 44.44% of the season which means he is on place for 92 not 100 RBI and that's not even close to the top of the league for a corner OFer. Add to that the stupid base running mistakes and I am extremely happy to have Larnach or Kirilloff in LF. Actually, I would prefer to have Rob Refsnyder or Garlick and $10M to spend on free agents it's not even close. Also, the retort that Larnach and Kirilloff were not on the opening day roster is an absolute failure to accept common sense. The team knew they were both ready and either one would be available for 90+% of the season.

Do you like wRC+ or prefer to look at a wider cast of stats?

Can't argue that point but we also know that RBI is not a great measure. By every other measure OBP (301) OPS (.668) wRC+ 82 he is a below average hitter playing a position typically played by above average hitters. If the Twins signed a corner OFer with this line people would be pissed.

When people say this I assume they have not actually examined the Rays rosters from winning years and examined how the players are acquired. I have reported these facts in the past. We fans just ignore facts we don’t like. The facts are that the Rays have done what many here do not want us to do. They trade away established players while they still have value for players that are not yet established. For example, in 2019 (96 wins) among players that produced above 1.5 WAR, 50% came from players received in trade before they were established. They also got very good production from a couple of cheap free agents (dumpster diving) The Mets paid D Arnuad’s salary and they also had Avasail Garcia. Some of these players received have been MLB ready. For example the just traded Adames for J.P. Feyereisen and Drew Rassmussen who are pitching for the Rays right now. Feyereisen has a 2.08 ERA. They got Adames by trading away Tommy Pham who they had signed as a free agent. So, they got a couple years of production out of Adames and then got two pitchers for a player for whom they invested no assets, not even a draft pick. They also got Xavier Edwards and Hunter Renfroe in the Pham deal. However, the sent out Jake Cronenworth whois player well for SanDiego. So, they gave up a prospect that is working out in that one. How did they acquire the pitchers on that 2019 team. By far the best on the team was Charlie Morton who the signed for a modest (not cheap) price of 2yrs/$30M. Of course he wanted to be near his family and that’s a big part of them landing him. The other two were Yarbrough and Snell at 2.7 WAR each. Of course they developed Snell. Yarbrough was acquired by trading Drew Smyly. So. It’s not like they drafted and developed the pitching staff either. They got Smyly as part of the David Price package. The takeaway here is that they have been aggressive about trading away established ML players for players yet to become established. This is certainly not something the Twins are not capable of doing. However, it is not a strategy supported by many of the participants here.