Major League Ready

The way I see it .... If 2 of Duran / Balazovic / Winder / Enlow / Canterino / Sands turn out to be better than mid-rotation SPs we are in good shape. My hope is a couple top of the rotation guys and a couple other solid SPs or back of the BP guys. Maybe that's unrealistic but we would be in great shape. It all does not rest on Duran.

Let's hope that all of the injuries around the league create an opportunity to trade our FA SPs well in advance of the deadline. Trades this time of year are somewhat unusual but this is an unusual year with all of the injuries. That would accelerate the process. It would be interesting to know how the FDO office sees the various prospects in terms of readiness.

Two questions .... One, what's the return. Two, can we sign another free agent SP that is as good for roughly the same money and younger? If the return is a starting caliber player, why would we want to pass-up that opportunity if we can get a similar player (hopefully younger) in free agency. A key consideration is if the team is able to establish a couple prospects this year that take rotation spots next year. If so, They could take the money they are spending on Pineda, Happ, and Shoemaker and spend it on an upgrade SP. If I were this FO, I would move those three even if it meant putting them in the BP or releasing them to make room for auditions. Also, Cruz and Simmons come of the books too. They will have money to spend on FAs.

Dobnak has one pitch. He has absolutely no control over the slider. Send him down until he can control a 2nd pitch or even better a 2nd and 3rd pitch. Bring up whoever they feel is closest to ready.

Are you predicting Buxton gets traded or are you assuming he is on the IL most of next year. Regardless, I am with you on Lewis At whatever position he is best suited to contribute. I was really hoping we would get a look at Lewis this year in a big league uniform. All of these injuries really suck!

Good idea! The Chris Archer trade was one of the best ever. I guess that trade is more analogous to trading Berrios as Archer was traded at the deadline with the remainder of that season and the next under contract. Glasnow was better with more years of control + Meadows and the prospect they got back then is now #76 on MLB.com. 70 grade fastball and 65 grade slider. He is a front of the rotation guy if he can command that stuff reasonably well. Sure would like the Twins to pull off something similar. Good call, Mike.

Do you suppose Gray did not bring much back because he was quite bad in 2018 (4.9 ERA)? Also, you are arguing value based on the fact they needed a SP. SO do most teams. How does that change the value of a player who profiled as Gray did at the time. Service time matters to value. Gray and Quintana would not have brought back nearly as much as they did had they been rentals. How much better are Whitesox as a result of trading Quintana and getting Cease and Jemenez? Good SP s can bring a good haul which is why we have to listen to trade proposals for Berrios.

Contract length always influences the cost to trade for the player. Players like Gray and Quintana have significant value beyond the current year. That benefit might be in the form of continuing to aid a contending team or the form of trading them if the team suddenly is no longer a contender. This is hardly a new concept. Value in this form is discussed frequently during the off-season and trade deadline on a myriad of baseball shows.

Maybe. The current "core" never really delivered with the exception of 2019. 2023 could be very good if the pitching prospects pan out the way we hope. Berrios was the only really solid pitcher we developed. Therefore we relied on FA starting pitching and that's tough for a mid-market team to pull-off. If part of the new core includes 4 home grown starters and 1 premium FA starting pitcher that would be a scenario where we could be a playoff team relatively soon. For position players ... Kirilloff and Larnach look like they could cornerstones. We just really need Lewis to meet expectations. Areaz and Polanco are quality starters. That would be a good core of position players especially of Miranda and/or Palacios continue to shine. Now, add to that a couple of decent contributors acquired at the deadline this year and you have a good team by 2023. That team is not going to peak in 2023 but the pieces are there to retool/rebuild in a short period of time,

IDK ... Larnach looks just as capable of being the ROY as Kirilloff. Those two will give us something to watch the rest of the way. Could not agree more about Lewis. Man, does that suck. It would be ideal to deal Simmons at the deadline and bring him up. I guess giving Gordon a shot will at least be interesting. We can all hope he steps up with the opportunity. The biggest leap towards a retool vs a rebuild would be if a couple pitching prospects were to come up an impress. Move Shoemaker and Happ for whatever you can get and give those spots to Duran / Winder / Ober and Balzovic if he is ready.

What about Pineda? I would think he would bring a decent return, especially this year when teams are running out of pitching. The guy we need to get it together is Robles. There is a past version of him that would bring back a decent prospect. Same is true of Colome. I am with you in the sense of I don't care if we win a few more games. The focus now is giving the young guys a shot as well as maximizing the return between now and the deadline. I would add that watching all the new guys will be more fun to watch then the current product.

Samardzija, Semien and Oakland in general are good examples of successful asset management. How have they managed to field such good teams while being at such a revenue disadvantage? Among their top current starters, Bassit was acquired by trading an established SP (Samardzija). Manea was traded for a rental veteran position player (Zobrist) Cole Irvin was purchased for cash. Their top 2 RPs are free agents at a combined cost of $6.55M and Burch was purchased for cash. Among their top position players, Laureano (16th round pick) was acquired by trading a relative low level prospect. Canha was acquired for a Milb pitcher that never made it to the MLN level. Olsen and Murphy we picked 47th and 83rd by Oakland in the draft. Kind of sounds like the Twins strategy. Brown was a 19th round pick. Point being Oakland has a better record over the past 20 years than many teams with far more purchasing power because they find value. They have also been willing to trade away established players to sustain success. Tampa has done the same thing. It would be great if we could employ some of these tactics with the same success. The plus side for us is we also have the benefit of a revenue advantage over Tampa and Oakland that provides additional opportunities. We can afford Josh Donaldson type deal along with other supporting free agents like Pineada / Haap / Ramos / Schoop / Cron, etc. The better job we do finding these values, the more budget available for FAs and extending players.

Why is it unfortunate? He has looked quite good in CF. Seems like a huge positive. A RH hitting 4th outfielder that can cover CF would be a great asset especially given we are going to have LH hitting corner outfielders. The fact that he can also play the IF is nothing but a plus. If he can continue to produce at an above average wRC+ he is going to be a great utility player hopefully for the next few years.

While I agree a team would likely want to keep Berios, It does not matter whether they keep him or not in terms of the validity of Dodechedron’s argument. He/she has stipulated that Berrios has significant value as a rental next year. Let’s call that value X. He/she has also suggested that the Twins would get no more for Berrios this year than the team trading for him would get the following year. In other words, they would expect to recoup their entire investment next year. This position suggests a team is willing to pay nothing for Berrios this year but he has significant value next year. If I am only willing to pay you the price I can get for something when I resell it a year later, I am essentially willing to pay you nothing for the use of that something for a year. If Berrios is worth X as a 2 month rental, why wouldn’t someone be willing to pay 2X for this year and next especially when they hold the option to recoup X if they are not in contention?

It’s exactly what you are saying regardless of your refusal to acknowledge some very simple logic. If the conditions you state are correct, another team would get a good return for him next year. Let’s call those prospects Smith and Jones. Therefore, two months next year returns Smith and Jones. However, based on your position, no team would give more for Smith and Jones for an extra year of control. Therefore, the rights to Berrios are worth nothing this year but next year 2 months of Berrios are worth Smith and Jones. Do you get it now? Arguing that and extra year of control is worth nothing is blatant head in the sand logic. Everyone knows an extra year of control has value but here you are telling me I am stupid because I just don’t get it.

You are asking us to believe 1 1/2 years of Berrios is worth less than a half year. Please send that question in to any of the national writers who hosts chats. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This topic is often discussed on various BB talk shows. It is common knowledge that extra years of control translate to additional trade value. Teams have become far less willing to pay big for rentals. We will just have to agree to disagree. One last thought ... If another teams does not see value in an extra year of Berrios, why should we? You are suggesting we can get by without him but another team won't see value in having him next year as well as for a playoff run this year..

Good point with Sherzer and Gausman. It would definitely cut into the market for Berrios If they are both available, Gausman is also an example of how you replace Berrios. He was very affordable when signed.

All true Doc but we do a lot of speculation here that is far more unfounded than believing a player is looking for a giant payday. Every off season we see reports of players looking for 50% more than they end up signing for. Free agency is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so it's a very small leap to conclude Berrios believes he is worth "ace" money. It's also not a big leap to assume they have tried to extend him. If the FO believed the amount he is asking for was in the best interest of the team, they would have signed him. The question is basically the return vs his value in 2022. Most here feel we are going to be a contender next year. Based on what? This core supplemented by very good FA signings in 2019 was not even a true contender when they all pretty much had career years. The same extreme optimism resonated here for a few years before they finally got good in 2019. Every year the sentiment was trade away our prospects because we had the core to contend. This team is just not that good and the only way it's going to be a contender is if the SP prospects provide contending pitching. I don't believe that's going to happen in 2022. IF and it's a big IF, the players coming back make sense, I take that capital that hopefully does for us what trading Sale did for Chicago. Of course, there are other examples of teams using this kind of trade to retool in a relatively short period of time. Then, if we can establish a couple prospects in the rotation, take the money from Happ, Pineda, and Berrios and g get a quality free Agent SP that will be part of the solution beyond 2022. If you believe this horrible team is a going to be a true contender next year than it makes more sense to hold onto Berrios. I just don't believe we are a true contender. Of course, that opinion could change if Duran and Balzovic burst on the seen in a big way and a number of position players bounce back but that seems like a real long-shot.

It sounds like you are suggesting Berrios would have higher trade value next year as a 1/2 year rental as compared to this year with a year and a half of control. Care to elaborate or provide examples? Sounds to me like you are talking yourself into what you want to believe because the premise of him bringing back more as a rental makes absolutely no sense.

Who replaced Snell and Morton in Tampa? Who replaced Sale in Chicago? There are many other examples of teams parting with very good players to acquire assets that were important for several years. There is a blind insistence among some fans that we can just "lock up" a player. It's not nearly that easy. It would appear Berrios is insistent upon testing his market in free agency. The only way we sign him now is a massive overpay and that just simply incompetent management.

I was critical of Sano when it was unpopular to be critical of him. However, I think you are being overly negative. His career wRC+ is 118 which is about 10 points above league average so that's not exactly poor. He had a wRC+ of 125 in 2017 and 137 in 2015. In 2016 he was leauge average. His one truly "poor" year was 2018 when he struggled to a wRC+ of 83. This year he had a poor April and a good month of May. History does not suggest he will have a poor overall season. As for his return, a guy who can really carry a team the way he can could have significant value at the deadline. His contract terms are reasonable enough that a large market team would consider the 2022 salary and option in 23 ta plus. For those who say his value does not matter, I disagree completely. Cashing in on assets is how you continue to be good. There are a number of teams that have demonstrated this the last decade. This singular focus on the present is a good way to be bad perpetually.

You might not have noticed I modified the scenario to what percentage of games were won by the team over a large sample size so I am advocating using win/loss in a different context and with consideration to a myriad of other stats. Individual Win / Loss has limited value but it's not a completely useless stat if properly positioned and utilized in concert with other stats. I am not sure where you were going with the comment regarding what the thread is about. This tangent has little to do with building a pitching pipeline. My observation is that many here focus on block buster trades and huge free agent signings. However, when you look at playoff teams and specifically mid market or lower revenue teams, pitching and the team construction in general are products of savvy trades for guys who have not yet been established. In some cases that profile is players that have minimal MLB experience and sometimes its trading for Tatis Jr when he is 19. It’s the Whitesox trading away sale and Eaton or the Royals trading Grienke. The same kind of focus on the highest profile players extends to drafting both here and internationally. Some here assume it’s essential to take pitchers in the 1st and 2nd rounds. Where is the supporting data? Degrom was a 9th rounder and there countless examples like him. The same type of assumption exists with international signees. Several people have made the same assumption that the best strategy is signing the huge bonus guys. Where is the data to support this theory? I have looked back at several international drafts and the #1.5M guys have actually become great players more often than the $3M guys. Of course, this is a gross generalization but the numbers suggest signing two or three well regarded prospects instead of the highest profile ($2.5-$4M) international prospects is the best strategy. I thought did a nice job of profiling Cleveland’s approach and success. We are going to find out over the next couple of years if the new regime has found and developed picks in later rounds or acquired them by trading rentals that are more than back of the rotation guys.

It tells you very little by itself but that's now how analysis is done. You want to insist on this point so you are conviently ignoring all else.

I would put virtually no weight given this small sample size. However, I would be interested in what percentage of games started were won by the players team over the previous 2-3 years. Tells me something about consistency and if a player is able to compete when they don't have their best stuff. Of course, I would still want all the other stats.

Could end up being one heck of a trade for a rental. It sure would be great if he dominates and we see him here at or before the deadline.