Major League Ready

Even the Ray's, A's, and Guardians are not following identical practices, but they definitely operate differently than other teams. Part of that is pure necessity. They literally have 1/3 the revenue of the top revenue teams. It goes without saying that they are effectively executing these strategies. The Guardians rarely spend in free agency. The Rays spend sparingly but get great value for the dollar. Charlie Morton for example. They managed to get a great free agent SP on a moderate AAV, two-year deal. They also cycle through more (as they are called here) dumpster bin cast-offs than any other team. Cleveland and Tampa have traded a lot of good players in their last year. This strategy has arguably been the biggest difference maker for these organizations. They have gotten 5-6 years of good production by trading players in their final year. Look at Kluber as an example. Texas got nothing out of Kluber and Cleveland got Emmanuel Clause. This also how the got Clevinger, Carasco, Bauer, Sanatana, Haffner, and many others

That is not an even remotely logical conclusion. Other teams are VERY aware of practices followed in Tampa, Cleveland, and Oakland. Many teams, even large market teams have adopted practices similar to those followed in Cleveland and especially Tampa over the last 10+ years. However, other teams have different personnel with different opinions that result in different strategies. Fans have different opinions on how to do things as well. Many hate Cleveland's practices despite their success.

Completely agree and I have voiced this position quite a few times here. I would like to see them follow most of their practices and use the incremental revenue they have over these teams. Ideally, they would have more of the type of players we want to extend which would result in them moving fewer established players. It would only be a few less but the players we kept would hopefully be impact players. Rameriz for example is a waaaay better deal than Correa. He produces more for 60% of Correa's salary.

Who said it's the best they can do. That's hyperbolic response to reality you don't want to acknowledge. I completely agree that there is room for improvement. However, with the exception of the Mets or a couple teams that had owners who knew their time on earth was very short, teams don't spend well beyond their revenue assuming revenue will take a giant shift upward. Expecting business owners to not care about the bottom line is incredibly naive.

Not exactly true. The Rays and Guardians operate differently. The way they accumulate talent is quite different. The Guardians rarely spend on free agents and both the Rays and Guardians have traded away significantly more established players for prospects. It MIGHT be fair to say they have a better success rate but the bigger difference is the number of opportunities they have created through trades. The Twins trades of established players that worked out were Cruz and Escobar for Ryan and Duran. The Berrios trade remains to be seen. It looks OK at this point. The Polanco trade remains to be seen. That trade also looks OK rat this point. I am blanking on other good established players they have traded in the past decade. They too often refuse to turn over players the way the Rays or Guardians have in the past.

IDK if you listened but they actually said in framing one of the questions that the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expect different results. They also pointed out Detroit has a strong young team and a very good farm system so if the twins are going to compete with them, they have to upgrade the talent. I am paraphrasing a more direct version. They were being polite.

I like the Cardinals organization a lot. However, "Market Size" does not necessarily dictate revenue. St Louis does not have an NFL team or an NBA team. It's a great baseball market and the Cardinals generate substantially more revenue than the Twins. You can't just ignore all every factor outside of population size and call them similar markets. Therefore, it is unrealistic for the Twins to operate the same way as the Cardinals.

Thanks for the link. It sure seemed like both Sherman and Heyman believed they should sell. They did not come out and say it but the way they framed the questions suggested they believed this team needs a makeover.

The only team in the bottom half of revenue that has won the WS in recent memory is the Royals. Do you want the Twins to model their practices. The Royals rank dead last in win percentage over the past 20 years and they have won 90 games in a season exactly once, the year they won the WS. They built most of that roster by sucking really bad for many years and getting high draft picks. The WS measure is a very poor anecdotal measure given how rare it has become for teams in the bottom half of revenue.

IDK what to believe of Clemens but I doubt he is a long-term solution at 1B. However, I do like his versatility. He is a decent defender at a number of positions which at minimum would make him a good bench player. Why not give him a chance and see if he can gain some consistency which is what they seem to be doing. Keaschall will be back very soon. He might end up getting some time at 1B. If that's their plan, they should DFA France and bring up either Julien / Sabato or Martin. That would give them plenty of depth at 1B and Keashall could get plenty of playing time by rotating between the INF and OF.

Like you, I really want to get a look at Sabato but I might be inclined let Sabato prove it for another month. I would still definitely DFA France because we have Clemens / Julien / Keaschall and Sabato as potential replacements. Julien has a .989 OPS the last month. Clemens does not need to be the everyday 1B to get a significant number of PAs the rest of the season. He could be a valuable bench player next year so I want to see him get a chance. We could also see one or two of Castro, Bader, and Larnach traded so hopefully there will be a few spots opening up. We need to start looking for long-term solutions now.

The RP that has not been mentioned is Brock Stewart. He has been good this year and in the past with a high K rate when healthy. He is not a free agent until 2028 but he is 33 years old. It just takes one team that sees him as dominant for this year with the possibility of another year or two. Maybe I am being a homer but I don't think Stewart gets enough credit.

The assumption that trading for established players would be far more effective than relying on prospects has been made here many times, Cody. Have you ever looked at examples of successful teams and how they acquired those players? It’s really quite easy to look up any successful team you like on Fangraphs and sort by WAR. The acquisition method is listed. If it’s a trade, you can look at WAR in all the years preceding the trade and determine if the player was acquired before or after they were proven players. Baseball reference has more details on acquisition. I will spare you looking them up but feel free to check the data. I used a very liberal definition of proven. If a player had produced 1.5 WAR in any season before being acquired they are considered proven. Listed below are the below average revenue teams with the most wins since 2000. The average WAR produced by proven players acquired in trade is 11.3% Pablo would get us to about that number if he performs as expected. There are 3 of 30 teams that are anomalies producing around 30%. The 202 Diamondbacks are by far the biggest outlier. No other teams even come close to their profile with 30% coming in trade and 44% from free agents. They acquired Randy Johnson in free agency and he produced 8 WAR. They acquired Curt Schilling in trade and he produced 9 WAR. He produced 3 WAR the year before they traded for him. They also had got more than expected out of some other free agents. The 2011 Tigers got 6.6 WAR from Miguel Cabrera and the 2018 Brewers got 7.7 WAR from Yelich (career year) and 3.7 from Travis Shaw. Shaw produced 1.5 WAR in his 1st season, .4 WAR in his second season and was traded to Milwaukee. As I said, I used a liberal definition but I doubt a player like Shaw is what you are advocating. Does this help answer your question? 30 Teams WINS Drafted Intl TaP Trade FA WAR 2001 Athletics 102 65.9% 14.3% 11.4% 8.3% 0.0% 2001 Mariners 116 0.0% 11.0% 18.7% 12.9% 57.4% 2002 Athletics 103 36.0% 12% 43.0% 0% 9.0% 35.4 2002 Dbacks 98 9.1% 8.9% 6.8% 30.7% 44.6% 43.6 2002 Twins 94 59.8% 0.0% 35.0% 5.2% 0.0% 39.9 2005 White Sox 99 33.2% 0.0% 31.0% 17.7% 18.2% 39.0 2006 Tigers 95 39.0% 0.0% 28.5% 17.4% 15.0% 32.8 2006 Twins 96 39.7% 3.3% 44.3% 12.7% 0.0% 2007 Guardians 96 31.3% 36.5% 32.2% 0.0% 0.0% 38.3 2008 Rays 97 45.7% 0.0% 33.2% 4.5% 16.6% 2010 Rays 96 64.7% 0.0% 22.1% 9.1% 4.1% 2010 Twins 94 50.4% 0.0% 20.8% 8.0% 20.8% 53.9 2011 Brewers 96 31.0% 4.1% 30.0% 12.8% 22.1% 2011 Dbacks 94 26.1% 22.2% 44.1% 3.9% 3.7% 33.6 2011 Tigers 95 39.9% 0.0% 10.9% 29.0% 20.2% 33.6 2012 Athletics 94 10.7% 0.0% 37.4% 5.3% 46.6% 40.7 2012 Reds 97 38.1% 19.6% 18.3% 17.2% 6.8% 46.4 2013 Pirates 94 46.7% 12.8% 0.0% 11.9% 28.6% 41.6 2015 Pirates 98 36.9% 13.5% 3.2% 22.9% 23.6% 36.5 2015 Royals 95 38.0% 9.0% 32.3% 11.7% 9.0% 40.4 2016 Guardians 94 33.1% 22.7% 44.2% 0.0% 0.0% 47 2017 Guardians 102 22.9% 20% 43.9% 8% 5.0% 38.3 2018 Athletics 97 51.8% 0.0% 29.1% 19.0% 0.0% 30.0 2018 Brewers 96 5.2% 0.0% 30.8% 34.8% 29.3% 33.3 2019 Athletics 97 25.0% 0% 54.0% 10% 12.0% 38.6 2019 Rays 96 18.6% 0% 45.8% 9% 26.0% 2019 Twins 101 36.3% 24.7% 0.0% 9.1% 30.0% 2021 Rays 100 25.0% 6% 45.8% 7% 16.0% 42.7 2023 Orioles 101 51.2% 8.3% 32.7% 0.0% 7.7% 47.4 2023 Rays 99 13.8% 9.8% 66.2% 0.0% 10.2% 41.3 97.73 34.2% 8.6% 29.9% 11.3% 16.1% * TaP - Traded as Prospect. (acquired before ever producing 1.5 WAR in a season)

I get it now. The plan looks good conceptually. Obviously, you can't get specific with something like this given all the variables. It's time to shake things up and I like that you have made room on the roster in order to invest playing time in potential solutions. Trading Duran is the only move here that is a step back so naturally people are going to flinch, including me. However, I have floated this too because RPs (even great RPs) are highly volatile. They have also brought back considerable talent when similar talent has been traded and we have to inject some impact players.

You have Pablo in dead money but the amount listed is 800K which should be $21.75M

How would trading any or all of the old / low potential prospects make us a contender? We are a very long way from being a serious contender. Getting this team even remotely into contention would require parting with Jenkins / Keashall / Matthews and a few other top prospects which would be monumental stupid. I could see complaining about them not selling but complaining they won't trade away the future to upgrade the current pile of mediocrity makes no sense.

Keaschall has played some OF in the minors but you still have a point. Perhaps they should also consider trading Larnach or Bader as well. They could put Keaschall / Martin or Clemens in the OF. I would guess the specific of this type of plan would come down to which of the existing players can bring an enticing offer.

I think there is a path that keeps our chances alive this year while starting the roster reconstruction. In: Keaschall & Julien or Sabato Out: Kiersey and France. It would be of great benefit to find out of one of Julien or Sabato is viable to fill 1B going forward. I don’t see much downside to playing one of Clemens/Julien or Sabato over France. I would also trade Castro and bring up either Martin or E. Rodroguez. That would make an opening for one of the AA OFers that are currently performing well to move up to AAA. I would trade Paddack if a decent return is available. Brock Stewart or Coulombe would also be on the table but the return would have to be considerable. Picking up a good AA or AAA catching prospect would be attractive.

They have three guys at Wichita who could move up in the not-too-distant future if they think Fedko who turns 26 at the end of the season is still a prospect, Some of it depends on if they trade anyone at the deadline. I could see them sending Fedko to AAA and Martin up to the Twins if Castro or Larnach is traded. Fedko's OPS is .997 since 6/20 and .865 for the year.

I would bet one of Pablo, Ryan or Ober is traded at the 2026 trade deadline or the following winter. All three of their contracts expire at the end of the 2027 season. Replacing 3 of 5 starters for the 2028 season would be very difficult to manage. If healthy, we start next year with Lopez/Ryan/Ober/Matthews and Festa or SWR assuming Ober gets back to normal. One of the three more established SPs will be traded when they have a couple viable replacements. It would help if two of Zebby/Festa/SWR prove to be more than 4/5 type starters.

What percentage of MLB players were once prospects? It's a mathematical certainty that a small percentage of prospects will become MLB players. Nobody here refers to prospects as can't miss. I am not sure why people being hopeful for prospects is an issue given the only way the twins or any other team with average or below average revenue can possibly build a contender is to develop prospects. Complaining that people are encouraged by prospect performance that suggests our organization might outperform those low odds and building a contender makes absolutely no sense.

Martin is hitting .375 with a .477 OBP.

I have never given a "love" on a post until this one. Often, statements like "you just don't trade X, Y or Z are thrown around as if it's undisputable with no supporting evidence. If fans actually looked back on how successful teams were built and look at actually examples as you have here, history will show many instances where trading away an established player was key to accumulating the talent need to contend with modest revenue. The only small/medium market WS winner in recent memory would not have happened with trading away Grienke for Cane and Escobar. How have Tampa, Cleveland and Milwaukee have been by far the most successful teams in the bottom half of revenue? Because these teams are not afraid to rely on the practices you mention. It won't always work but it's a lot more likely to produce a true contender than hoping all of your above average players perform at their absolute peak.

Agree .... Something has to change. They don't have the horses. Will some combination Keaschall, E. Rodriquez, Culpepper, Debarge, GG, Sabato, etc elevate us to a 90+ win team? It's quite possible but I think they need to do something more. Free agency is not a feasible answer. They already spent the money on Correa and Lopez. Plus, they have a lot of arbitration eligible players. I see Duran as a reasonable solution based on what Tanner Scott brought back in trade last year. What will someone pay for 2 1/2 years of Duran? If it's the kind of haul that changes the course of a team it MIGHT just be worth it.

How many trades did they give someone away that produced for a player who performed during the period they would have been under contract for the Twins. The trade for Mahle was pretty bad and the trade for Jorge Lopez was bad but those trades were praised here. Pressly was bad. Rooker got very little love here and most people wanted him gone. They gave away nothing for Ryan, Duran, and Odorizzi. We gave something away for Pablo but that one seems to be in our favor. Sonny Gray was a good exchange. The Polanco deal remains to be seen but they gave away nothing and GG looks good.