Major League Ready

I don't think any of us know with any real certainty what level of desire Rosario possesses. What we do know is that he has very poor plate discipline which some might be interpreting as lack of desire. He definitely is not what I would call a "professional hitter." What we can say for sure is that he is capable of great production in streak but he has never maintained a high level of play. In the last year ( deadline to deadline) he is 9th on the team in wRC+ and he has an fWAR of 1.3 for that period. This year he is also 9th in wRC+ (1 point above Buxton & Adrianza). I don't understand why so many people act as if he is irreplaceable or someone we should extend for that matter.

Rosario is 10th among our position players in fWAR and 8th in OPS. He was also horrible the last half of 2018. I would not expect much in return. I seriously doubt they even consider moving Buxton but it would be great if one of the corner OF prospects thrive and afford them the option of moving Rosario.

Me too in regard to Thor. After all, he is a guy who was so great as to earn a mighty nickname. Teams who believe they are in a window simply don’t trade Ace SPs with 2 ½ years left under arbitration, especially teams with above average income. It would suggest the Mets are not confident he will return to ace form. His 2019 looks very similar to Kyle Gibson. BV might also be thinking about his job security. The Mets are 5 games under 500 after making several off-season moves. He spent $120 on Cano in order to get Diaz which was very risky. Cano was 35 at the time and we all know how volatile closers can be. Cano in just the 2nd year of the remaining 5 years has a negative WAR rating. Diaz has an fWAR of .4. and a bWAR of -.1. As I recall, there were posters here wished we had made that deal. Justin Dunn who they traded for Cano/Diaz is now listed at #77 on MLB.com top 100 and is showing well in AA. Kelenic, the 19 y/o CF that was included in that deal had a 980 OPS in 50 games at class A and 760 at A+ so far. They also traded Swarzak in that deal who has been better than Diaz this year. They also had a big swing and miss with Familia signing him for 3/30. He has a -1 bWAR. BV’s track record is horrible so far. BV could at least partially redeem himself if he gets a haul for Syndergaard, especially if he goes on to perform at similar levels for the remainder of his arbitration years.

I think (hope) we will have some interesting new arms ... not so sure about bats. Where would you put them? Arreaz takes over 2B for Schoop. Every other position is set with perhaps the exception of back-up catcher. Someone will get playing time as the 4th outfielder but that's about it.

You are making an assumption these teams would not have won without those additions. Maybe they made the difference and maybe they would have won it all without them. You are also neglecting to account for the dozen or so teams who traded many prospects and did not win the world series. Many of them did not even make the playoffs and all but 2 made it to the world series. The facts are crystal clear ... this strategy fails far more than it exceeds. This is not to say teams should not try to improve their chances. History or the facts if you prefer explain why GMs are no nearly as cavalier in their trading of prospects. They are accountable for more than just this year and while you may not care about anything but the present, their job is to balance the present and the future. You exhibit absolute disdain for the premise of certain prospects being off limits, yet the most successful franchises and most respect front offices take this stand frequently. You might want to rethink the position that you have a much better grip on strategy than all of these respected executives.

Depends on if you are looking at bWAR or fWAR. Fangraphs has Gibson at 2.1 / Odorizzi at 2.2 and Berrios at 2.9 WAR. Regardless, Thorpe has not been nearly as dominant as Smeltzer in terms of MiLB performance. Why would you favor him over Smeltzer?

The would not bet on more than 2 of the 4 being here 5 years from now. Cron is not at all likely to be here after next season. They are not going to pay him free agent dollars. Diaz is looking like a very good replacement at the moment. I think there is still a pretty good chance Royce Lewis ends up being a CF and Kirilloff is a good bet to replace Rosario. These transitions would make it more feasible to extend Berrios and extend our window of contention a competitive team.

The only SPs that are going to make a difference in the playoffs (IMO) are the Verlander / Sherzer type SPs because the top playoff contenders have similar SPs. So, if you are going to give up part of the future, make sure the player actually provides a significant elevation of our playoff chances. Having said this ... Using the very small minority of SPs that are able to maintain this level of performance is a very biased view. History is very clear that SPs of this age group have a high probability of declining or being lost to injury.

I am going to ignore 2&3 because they have very little to do with the primary point. What does the fact that The Pohlad Companies or for that matter MLB teams are privately owned have anything top do with estimates made by Stastista or Forbe? The analysts constructing these estimates would not need any input at all to get with 5 percent +/- of a teams operating income. The revenue is taxable. The tax is public record. Therefore, revenue is easily verified. The vast majority of overhead is player and employee salaries. We know the player salaries with nearly 100% accuracy. We also can estimate payroll taxes on players salaries within one-half of one percent. Payroll for all other employees can also be estimated quite accurately by using the payroll taxes which are public record to estimate payroll. We don't know IRA contributions which could account for some error. We also don't know what percentage of payroll paid out after individuals surpass the max pay-in for Social Security. These are small in terms of percentage so salary and benefits for the entire organization could be estimated within +/- 2%. I would presume the next highest cost is associated with travel. My guess is that Forbes or Statista could easily obtain an accurate estimate of costs associated with airlines / hotels / per diem, etc and also accurately estimate the quantity of each item. Even a sloppy estimate should be within 10%. The same is true for any other cost of significance. Forbes and/or Statista could get within 5% of actual operating cost without any great effort.

No, I don't think we have a pitching staff that will do well in the playoffs but the tone of previous posts failed to acknowledge the primary reason for recent losses has been very sloppy play. We have one dominant RP and Harper has actually been pretty good too. The rest are all just decent. Our SP also does not match-up with any of the top contenders and it's not all that close. We would need someone a step-up from Berrios. That's a tall order. The BP needs a lot of help too. Littell actually looks like the 2nd best RP to me at the moment.

How does a trade fix dropping a routine fly ball or booting a ground like Schoop did yesterday?

Only stat where may is better than Harper is K/9. May strikes out 1 more per 9 innings. May walks twice as many batters and his xFIP is 4.45 vs 3.83 for Harper. May's WHIP is 1.24 vs 1.01 for Harper. For what it's worth Fangraphs has Harper at .7 WAR and May at .4 WAR. bWAR is .8 and .5 respectively. Harper seems to be at least as valuable / reliable as May. Regardless of how you see it, I don't see the pointy of adding a RP that would not slot both of them.

According to Statista five teams made less than the Twins last year. Three of them (Orioles / Blue Jays / Marlins) lost money. According to them your estimate, at least for 2018, is about 7X too high. Over the years I have looked at Forbes data every year. Their estimates average around $25M in profit. $100M is dramatically different tan any number I have ever seen, not to mention that estimate would suggest they can pay for every employee + payroll tax for players + travel + equipment + promotion, etc for around $30M for 2018. The payroll taxes alone (just players) are around $15M. What source are you using to come up with $100M? It sounds like a number you plucked out of the air. https://www.statista.com/statistics/193650/operating-income-of-major-league-baseball-teams-in-2010/

Is there a way too look up RBI with less than 2 outs and a runner on 3rd by individual player. I swear Sano has not has a sac fly all year but maybe it's my imagination.

Go ahead and make it rain. Let's not forecast sunny skies if a storm is on the horizon. His numbers were good in AA but now they are incredible at AAA. His performance at lower levels did not indicate a high ceiling. I think we are all trying to figure out if he has figured something out that makes him capable of being a long-term asset at the ML level.

Thanks Steve. I was kind of hoping it was pitch recognition. There are guys who can get by with lacl of pitch recognition at the MiLB level and then don't do so well at the MLB level. I hope he is one they refuse to let go unless its for pitching with control beyond 2019.

He sure caught my attention this season, especially after bumping up to AAA. What changed? He has never shown this kind of offensive production prior to this year. We need another RH OFer. Is this an opportunity to sell high or his he a guy that should be a priority to keep. I would love to know if there is something specific that clicked and what the Twin's brass believes is his future.

I was thinking the same thing as Thryos in terms of keeping Diaz. Nice replacement for Cron after next year. I might add Davis to that list too. We don't have much for RH outfielders and he has been a beast this year. Nice 4th OFer at minimum.

Granted, I was really high on Garver after his second half last year. Perhaps more than a half season warranted. Part of it was pure optimism because his break-out being real would be big for the team. They were right about Grandal but that needs context too. Big difference in signing a free agent as opposed to giving up the necessary assets to trade for Realmuto. In addition, the shot at Grandal was probably before signing Cruz. They could have gotten Garver ABs at 1st, DH and catcher so adding Grandal as a free agent when they had not yet added Cruz makes sense.

The later. I am now on board with adding and I have been consistent with the position of adding once the team demonstrated we are a real contender. You may recall I said during the off season that could be as soon as the 2019 deadline. My argument was actually with Chief but you interjected what I thought was a good point and I responded to you instead of him because Chief would not accept my position if I said it was Friday today.

Big picture Mike. Recent history is quite clear. Most of the moves that posters insisted were obviously great moves would have hurt this team both short and long-term and some of them would have hurt the team substantially for multiple years. Fans are not accountable for these failures and many just don't seem to gain any increased awareness of how damaging these deals can be or gain any understanding of why teams wait to make moves as opposed to simply adding talent whenever possible. I posted last year that Garver was the best hitter on the team for the 2nd half last year by OPS. I also posted that his number were very similar to Realmuto for the 2nd last year. His defense was also improving rapidly. I am not exactly sure what I posted on a Realmuto trade but my thought was that the package required was not worth the modest upgrade and that we would be trading 5 years of Garver for 2 of Realmuto not to mention the cost in prospects Realmuto commanded. Sanchez is 20 pitching at AA and is a top 25 prospect. The equivalent would have been Kirilloff and Garver for no net gain. These are the kind of deals that kill sustained success. It's also premature to say they will lose 60% of their rotation. Generally speaking the current team has the best shot at signing a free agent. Plus, we will have the payroll available to sign a SP better than the 60% going away unless Odorizzi continues and sustains this level of play after 2019. Point being, it is quite reasonable they resign one or two of the current SPs and we are in a much better position to attract FAs then we have in recent history. While it's too early to tell ... Smeltzer and Thorpe look like they could perform at the Pineda or Gibson level while opening up even more payroll to land a front of the rotation guy.

So teams like Detroit, Baltimore or Miami should trade for established players? You and I have very different views on building. You have demonstrated a extreme bias to the present. Did you disagree with any of the failures I mentioned? Where would this team be had the F/O followed an all about the present approach? I want to watch baseball every year. I want to see the best team possible over years not a given year and in general believe sustained success is always preferable to the KC model of sucking for 20 years / being good fort a couple years and then sucking again. We will never agree and the league most certainly does not follow the model you suggest. There is not a single team with a losing record trading for Verlander type players. SanDiego is 500, has a loaded farm system and spent a pile of money in free agency. Even they have not traded for any high profile players to support their huge free agent spending unless I missed something.

Mike, I was wrong about Verlander declining most everyone here understands the odds are heavily weighted toward a 34 Y/O declining. What’s missing here is context. Detroit ended up covering 8M/YR in salary. That in itself changes the scenario somewhat. However, what is far more relevant is that Houston making this move is completely different than the Twins making that move at that specific time. The Twins are now in a similar position although our core is not quite as good as the core they had assembled at that point. Anyway, I have said on a couple occasions Verlander was a good decision for Houston at that point in time. The macro view of that discussion back then was those who believed the Twins were “ready to contend” and therefore should trade prospects for established players. This was a constant point of contention. I did not believe it. Therefore, it made no sense to trade away good young players and or prospects as was proposed in 2017. Verlander was just one of several established players that many insisted back then we needed to acquire because the team was ready to contend. The year before (2016) there were many who felt we should trade away top prospects ( I believe Kepler was mentioned) for LuCroy because we were ready to contend. How would that have impacted our current position and long-term outlook? BTW … That was the same year many posters insisted we should sign Cueto. Some others suggested Zimmerman or Samardjzia because (you guessed it) were ready to contend. Cueto’s contract runs through 2021 and the other two through 2020. We would not have the entire cast we have today had we made those deals and we would not have room to add to next year. In 2015, there were many TD posters who felt we should give up top prospects for Troy Tulowitzki because we were ready to contend. To be fair, there were quite a few opposed to this trade. How about more recently. Many TD posters were very much in favor of trading away prime assets for Archer. The eventual trade for Archer was one of the worst of this century. I think a couple years ago Berrios was even mentioned. Darvish was a no brainer because we were ready to contend. How would you like to have that anchor of a contract right now? How about this year when many posters insist we trade top prospects for Realmuto? Great player but it still would have been a horrible move. There was also insistence we sign two of the top 10 free agent RPs that signed for AAVs of $7.5M and up. Their combined war for all 10 is roughly 0 and we would be saddled with contracts that would significantly diminish our options next year and beyond. Only the two signed the Yankees have been good. Yet, there are still people complaining they did not sign those RPs. The point is my that whole discussion was much deeper than Verlander and the fact that it was a good decision by Houston does not mean it would have been a good decesion for the Twins. The debate and my position has been consistent in past years about trading assets before the team had demonstrated they were ready. Some posters continue to ignore they insisted our FO was stupid or cheap when history has proven the deals they insisted upon would have severely diminished our current position and future outlook. We would be in sad shape had we followed the advice of those who insisted we had to make these moves because the Twins were ready to contend.

Sorry, I was not only in left field, I was looking up at the scoreboard when the ball was hit.

I am guessing Seth is referring to the $1.2M signing bonus the A's paid Chalmers.