Major League Ready

Of course, they have made trades. Do you really think I was not aware of the trades of Thomas and Cobb or other deadline trades in the past? I qualified my statement by saying "significant trades". The kind where you give up significant assets like the Padres did for Scott and Houston did for Kikuchi. I don't give a crap about the inconsequential trades they didn't make. If you want to bitch about those go ahead. Please quit ignoring the parts of my posts like "significant trades" when it gets in the way of your narrative. There are some examples of significant moves in the history of the teams I mentioned but in general they have been very reluctant to part with good prospects. Did you miss the fact they have produced 44% of their WAR from acquiring prospects. That tells you a lot about their philosophies, practices, and what has been responsible for their success. I don't worry about the Twins not going all in because I understand that the teams that have been successful understand that trading away assets that produce for 6 years for rentals is a good way to never have enough talent to contend in the first place.

We definitely agree on this.

Big deal! Really? That's your answer. Lane Thomas and Alex Cobb? Lane Thomas is playing at replacement level and Alex Cobb is 36 years old coming off an injury. You want Alex Cobb starting a playoff game?

Their lack of success in the playoffs is not proof that trading for established players is the best strategy. You would need to look at the league as a whole and more specifically teams with similar or less revenue. Which teams with similar or less revenue that have been the most successful getting to the playoffs and playoff success. Which teams have been the most successful? Have they spent significant prospect capital to gain that success? The answer is Cleveland and Oakland have been the most successful followed by Tampa. These teams very rarely trade prospects of significance and they have been the most successful. If you look at Cleveland's 7 best teams over the past couple of decades, they produced 44.5% of WAR from players acquired as prospects vs 10.1% from trading for established players or free agents. The bar I am using for established player is they had one season where they produced 1.5 WAR. I can appreciate your frustration with the lack of playoff success but if you are looking for proof of concept, looking at the actual history of success for teams with similar revenue is the way to do it. The organizations producing the best teams are not following strategies that are often professed here.

The couple million dollars is irrelevant. Putting a good product on the field more often drives viewership an attendance as well as brand loyalty. Trading assets that produce for 6 years for assets that produce for a couple months does not promote sustained success. It's always about money but your interpretation of the value proposition is a microcosm of the financial picture. Producing a good product more often will have monumentally more impact than spending 2 or $3M dollars in a given year.

Heard on MLB radio today that after last night's loss the twins ARE 54-4 when leading after 7 innings.

How many games have Correa / Buxton / Lewis and Miranda all been healthy? I recall Miranda getting some starts at 1B (8 starts) but I don't recall who was available. Lewis and Correa both being healthy allowed them to use Castro at 2B. That full complement of players also provides a better bat at DH against RHP. Let's see if Miranda is held out if/when that full compliment of players is back.

There we are a lot of people who said we should not count on Miranda, Larnach or Wallner as well as SWR. That said, I seriously doubt they would count on Julien or Kirilloff but they will get a chance to earn a spot at some point.

The famous outburst from John Mcenroe (you can't be serious) comes to mind.

We are not there yet but it would be great if we developed enough starting pitching to make that a good move.

I think SWR is a solid bet to be in the rotation at the start of 2025. Then, I would like to see Matthews do so well they give him the final spot and trade Paddack this off-season. The 2025 rotation is Lopez / Ryan / Ober / SWR and Matthews with Festa / Varland / Morris for depth.

You have the luxury as a fan or not caring about anything except 2024. That position will get a CBO / GM fired in baseball and any other industry. I am going to watch Twins baseball in 2025 and beyond so I want someone running the show that balances the present and future. The whole best player thing is an oversimplification. It does not matter if Polanco was the best player traded. It's one thing if you can't replace that best player. It's entirely another thing if you can replace or improve upon that player's production at 2B / 3B and use the incremental funds to improve the team which is exactly what they did.

Harper was not a 1B and I said that hit like Correa / Lindor. Do you really think that Correa / Lindor are equivalent offensively to Harper and Freeman. Career OPS: Correa .825 Lindor .813 Harper .912 Freeman .901

If it's a fallacy, why doesn't a 1B that hits like Correa or Lindor get paid like Correa or Lindor? It's much easier to find a 1B that is a well above average hitter than it is to find a catcher, CF or SS. Therefore, an elite hitter in a premium defensive position provides a team with an advantage.

Like you, I don't understand the hurry. he is not going to be promoted to the majors this year. He needs to work on command. Next year, they will have Zebby, Festa, Varland, and Morris at AAA. That's plenty of depth to start the season even if they send Varland to the BP. Lewis, Raya, Nowlin, and Prielipp can determine a pecking order to replace these guys at AAA as the AAA guys get their shot.

I meant that Tampa has done quite a few deals where they move a player in a depth position and get some major league contribution and prospects. Quite a few fans are very focused on the benefits of a trade like this one being immediate. Those fans don't like these deals but Tampa and Cleveland have used this model to significantly outperform other organizations anywhere near their revenue level. They have literally produced more WAR from players acquired as prospects than they have the draft. If they had kept Polanco, he is playing even if he sucks. Their other options provide greater flexibility and therefore a higher probability of success. If Julien sucks, they can send him down. Castro is option 2. If Lee proves ready they can utilize Castro in a utility role and play Lee at 2B. If Miranda bounces back they play him at 3rd and Lewis to 2nd was also an option. I would bet they felt more confident in getting production out of that group vs Polanco alone. Of course, they also netted $9.75M to be invested elsewhere. Then, there was DeScalfani. He was a risk but they may just have seen that potential contribution as a bonus. I think they projected this trade as a net gain. If they got lucky with DeSclafani an even better net and the prospects were a bonus.

18 hours ago you said "My position, from the day the Twins announced the trade, has been it made the Twins weaker in 2024" You were wrong. I would accept your admission you were wrong but you didn't give it. We are all going to be wrong in these predictions. I thought Julien would be an above average player. Maybe he will be someday but as of this moment I was wrong.

And your position was wrong. It most certainly did not make the Twins weaker in 2024. I know exactly what my position was because I took a lot of grief from a handful of people that insisted it was a no brainer that losing Polanco was going to be horrible. The return turned out to be a worst-case scenario for 2024 and it still did not hurt the team. I also don't advocate running the team with only the present year in mind. That's a really good way to assure you will be bad often.

How is the team not better with Santana VS Polanco? I guess you just ignore the player acquired with those funds if it suits your narrative. Also, your position back then was that it was obvious the team would be better with Polanco and that has been proven false in spades.

6 of the Twins top 10 position players by WAR and 7 of the top 10 pitchers were drafted or acquired as prospects. I just don't understand the logic that says most will fail so none of them matter. It's because most fail that it does matter. That's why we have a couple hundred of them. Prospects doing well and moving up these lists increase the odds of them making it. The fact that most fail is the reason we should be encouraged by prospects performing well. There is nothing nearly as important as developing unproven players, especially to small and mid-market teams. Marginalizing the most important element of success for a MLB team just does not make sense to me.

There were a few people who advocated for keeping Polanco. Others said we had a few better options at 2B and the money should be spent on pitching. I don't know how you conclude the team would have been better off with Polanco. He is a replacement level player at this point. His salary went to signing Santana, DeSclafani, and Margot. DeSclafani netted nothing but Santana has definitely made this team better and while Margot has sucked as a PH, he will be an asset starting against LHP in the playoffs. Farmer and Thielbar were completely independent decisions. Farmer had played an important role in the past and there was no reason to believe he would fall off a cliff. That said, I said at the time I would move them and spent the money on pitching. I just don't agree with the concept that the only trade that's a good trade is one that makes the current team better. Cleveland has produced more war over the past two decades from players acquired as prospects than they have produced from the draft. Falvey is following Tampa's lead. They make trades like this one where the current team is better off or not worse off while collecting assets that make future teams better.

They knew they had Castro and Lee if Julien / Farmer did not work. It was the depth of alternatives that made moving Polanco less risky and every analyst that commented stated this in some form or another as did many TD posters.

I wanted them to get one of the Mariners starters as well. Many other teams wanted to get their SPs too. Seattle wanted to keep them and the only way to get them was a huge overpay. The Twins and every other team looking for pitching were not willing to pay what Seattle was asking. These arguments get made every year as if teams have to do what we want. What if they would have kept Polanco and signed Hoskins like so many here insisted would be a huge difference maker. We would be worse had they spent the money in that fashion. There were also quite a few people that said trade Polanco and dump Farmer if necessary to get another SP. That could have been done within the allotted budget so money was not the difference between success and failure. They could have signed Flaherty or Lugo with the budget they had to work with.

I quoted and answered a post that asked "wondering why they use so many and why/how they seem to be successful" I even highlighted that part of the original post in my response. I am not refuting your position in the slightest. Nor did I even comment on your position. My position has actually always been very similar to what you have been saying long before this thread. There is something to be learned from the success of the teams with less financial resource that have significantly outperformed other organizations over the course of the last couple decades. There is a lot of heated debate here about how assets should be managed without any supporting evidence of what has worked for the most successful teams with a revenue disadvantage.

How they have been successful relying on their farm system is pretty simple. They do a good job of trading established players for prospects much like the Rays. If you look at their best teams (most wins), those teams produced more WAR from players acquired as prospects than they did from the draft. (25.5% vs 44.5%) 7 Cleveland Guardians WINS Drafted Intl AaP Trade FA 100% Cleveland 2017 102 24.3% 19.3% 44.3% 4.3% 7.8% 100% Cleveland 2007 96 30.5% 38.2% 31.3% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2016 94 33.1% 22.7% 44.2% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2019 93 34.0% 17.8% 44.1% 4.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2005 93 7.5% 21.8% 51.4% 2.5% 16.8% 100% Cleveland 2022 92 34.2% 19.7% 46.2% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2013 92 14.9% 0.0% 50.1% 10.2% 24.8% Guardians Total 94.57 25.5% 19.9% 44.5% 3.0% 7.1%