Cris E

I somewhat agree with your point that standing pat is defensible sometimes, but 2022 Baltimore is a poor comparison to 2022 Minnesota. No one expected BAL to be anywhere near first place and they had no depth to advance in the playoffs, but MIN had a core of quality vets on hand that the kids were supporting well. There was no certainty that all the injured guys would be gone through the end of the year, or that Grey, Ryan, Ober and a healthy Mahle that pitched to his road record wouldn't have been enough to get into the playoffs. As mentioned above, there's a lot of guesswork in these projections and trades, particularly when injuries are involved. (You need to live with some acceptance of injury risk with all pitchers. Example: Sonny Grey has a very long injury history yet he's been pretty good here when kept on a short innings leash.) 
Anyway, over-simplifying cases does no one any favors. The future is hard, so embrace the ambiguity, question anyone who is too certain, forgive mis-reads, enjoy the game.

I somewhat agree with your point that standing pat is defensible sometimes, but 2022 Baltimore is a poor comparison to 2022 Minnesota. No one expected BAL to be anywhere near first place and they had no depth to advance in the playoffs, but MIN had a core of quality vets on hand that the kids were supporting well. There was no certainty that all the injured guys would be gone through the end of the year, or that Grey, Ryan, Ober and a healthy Mahle that pitched to his road record wouldn't have been enough to get into the playoffs. As mentioned above, there's a lot of guesswork in these projections and trades, particularly when injuries are involved. (You need to live with some acceptance of injury risk with all pitchers. Example: Sonny Grey has a very long injury history yet he's been pretty good here when kept on a short innings leash.) 
Anyway, over-simplifying cases does no one any favors. The future is hard, so embrace the ambiguity, question anyone who is too certain, forgive mis-reads, enjoy the game.

I'll be honest... If my front office ever looked at a team in contention and ignored it because they didn't believe it. 
I'd want them gone.   

What do you base this on? What have you seen in their games to make you think there's better defense in there? Or is this just a shot at the Twins organization based on nothing real?
It's turned out to be a bad trade, yes. It doesn't "really hurt" yet, but it could in the future. There's every bit the chance that Steer is pushed out of that IF as well by the elite prospects they have coming up. We'll see. Only time will tell who turns out to be the best between Steer, CES, Miranda, Lee, Lewis, and Kirilloff. I'll take my chances with Lee, Lewis, and Kirilloff.

You can never look at each trade in a vacuum of these guys for that guy(s), and who won trade.  You have to pay attention to other moves made or not made, who else was in system and so on.  Looking at Steer, he has shown good offense, something we knew he had, but also shown poor defense.  bWAR has him negative at defense playing 3rd, 1st, and DH this year.  He maybe would have played some 2nd if we kept him.  Would his offensive numbers slotting in at 2nd for who we have put out may have been nice, but who knows what defense he would have brought.  Right now, he would not be in our starting lineup though, because Buck has DH locked up, AK or Gallo have 1b locked up, Steer could get games against lefties some times, and Lewis will have 3rd mostly locked down.  So where does Steer play for us, or who would you want to get moved out for Steer? 
CES may very well mash, but again, he plays basically no defense.  He is playing mostly 1b for Reds AAA team, and that is not great.  He is all offense, and his k-rate is a little scary.  He may turn out to be one of those AAAA players that when facing MLB level pitching his K-rate becomes a big concern, we will see.  Either way, unless he is a superstar hitter, he would again most likely slot behind guys we have already.  Keeping in mind for both Steer and CES, Lee is in the wings too.  
Will the trade haunt?  No, it will not in my opinion.  The only thing you can really be upset about is that we did not get much in return, and maybe could have flipped them for something during off-season.  However, I am not seeing either being that much better than who we have that I would be like darn what could have been.  Maybe CES becomes a hitting superstar, but I just have a feeling he will struggle at MLB level, not many guys that strike out at a rate of about 33% at minor league level improve at MLB level. If he cannot keep up his very high BABIP at MLB level when he gets called up, he will struggle badly and since he offers no defense he will have less value.  

Luis Arraez grounded into a double play in a high leverage spot, and Pablo Lopez didn’t even get into the game! 
And Tommy Herr and Tom Brunansky are both retired! 

This allows me to dredge up one of my favorite points. 
The margins are razor thin. The difference between Miranda and Steer is probably miniscule. Front offices have to to walk up to the window and place their bets on near coin flips. They are not choosing between Ronald Acuna and Ronald McDonald where the difference is obvious. These are young players that are capable of being major league players and also capable of working in a car wash in two years.  
Any illusion that any front office for any of the 30 teams have these razor thin decisions perfected down to a science is incredibly impossible. Every front office makes mistakes on these coin flips and they make them often. 
Does anyone think the Rays trade Joe Ryan for a DH rental if the Rays knew what Joe Ryan would be doing in 2022 and 2023. I think its safe to assume that they don't make that trade, they probably offer Brandon McKay instead who was rated higher in the system at the time of the trade. 
If the Twins knew what Ryan was going to become when trading Cruz to the Rays do you think they needed Strotman added to the deal? They would have agreed to Ryan and called the commissioner before they got off the phone with the Rays.  
Front offices know that they are going to make mistakes. How often do they make mistakes. Often... they are easy to find for all 30 teams. Just pull up any roster at random and look at who is doing what and ask yourself... was that the plan?  
Angels - I don't believe the plan was to sign David Fletcher to a 5 year deal only to send him to Salt Lake City so they could call up a SS who was drafted last year. 
Astros - Abreu? 
A's - They didn't start the season with Rooker penciled into a starting position? They didn't plan for what he did? They took a flyer to fill out the worst roster in baseball. 
Jays - Do the they trade for Berrios if they had the chance to do it over? Are the Twins still insisting on Martin if they still do? 
Braves - Michael Harris was the greatest thing on earth last year. I have to believe that his current .526 OPS was not the plan. 
Brewers - They did not pursue a 2B in the off-season. Do they still just hand the job to Turang or did they make a mistake? 
Cardinals... Do you think they sign Wilson Contreres to that contract knowing his OPS would be .663 in June and that he would have to be removed from the catcher position for a spell.   
Cubs... Isn't it possible that they break camp with Morel if they knew what he was going to do. Is it possible that Mancini or Hosmer isn't necessary if they break camp with Morel. 
I'm going alphabetically and I'll stop now but there are ton of mistakes being made in the baseball world far away from 1 Twins Way.
The Margins are thin... these decisions are hard. Mistakes are inevitable... it's what you do after is what is important. 

Yup, even if it does “haunt” it will at least have the benefit of producing several more articles like this over the years. 
Do the Tampa Bay Rays have a message board lamenting that dang Joe Ryan trade?  Serious question, if not, room for expansion!
But no worries, we will have new series of trades to lament coming around soon.  
It’s not great that Mahle is injured but it is good that they are leveraging areas of strength to get pitching. They are, on purpose, acquiring pitchers with question marks as a measured risk. 
The players they sent away last year, and I expect this year, are bat only prospects and players for the most part. Julien and Miranda should not be too comfy in July if they can’t find an outfield glove. It’s a shock because it’s not the traditional Twins way but get used to it. 

I've posted my Ultimate SSS observation from a game at Oakland before, but when I watched Steer playing first base what I noticed was a lack of nimbleness, and hand-eye coordination.  I don't see him being an asset at any defensive position on the diamond, merely "adequate".  With that as a baseline, the bar is set pretty high for his bat to cause regret.
The package we traded was a good idea.  Mahle being the choice of target is what made it a below-par gamble for a trade.  And I still don't have a good answer for who else I would have targeted at the trade deadline give that we were in first place at the time; "nobody, or some lower target and hang on to our best trade chips for the offseason," is about the closest I can come.

Agreed... You always have to consider that it takes two to tango. 
Trade deadlines would have to be chaotic with everyone in the market for starting pitching. They liked Mahle, chances are other teams like Mahle as well. Now you got to pay the price it costs to acquire Mahle. 
This price won't even matter if the Reds like the prospects that the Rays are offering. 
The front office just can't walk into trade deadline chaos like a supermarket and simply pull macaroni and cheese off the shelf and put in the basket. 
 

You mention Steer and CES defensive limitations and yet you want to see what Miranda and Julien do over the course of the next 6 years. Both of them are limited defensively as well. In fact with Buxton as DH where do you see Miranda playing with Lewis manning 3rd and Kiriloff at 1st. 

I think some of my esteemed fellow posters are missing the point.  The issue is not necessarily that we traded Steer and CES (yes, they theoretically had several other players in front of them and also may be defensively limited/challenged), but, rather, what we received in return. Which, btw, is nothing, nada, zip, jack diddly squat. Two legitimate major league prospects were given away for nothing.
Again, hindsight is 20/20, but the signs were there and, as pointed out above, the talent was not so great.
It gets worse. The trade was not only an ill-advised dice roll, but also, even more ominously, likely led to our need to trade Arraez.  
Why is no one ever held accountable for these debacles? 

Don’t like using the word “haunting.”  To haunt the Twins they would need to have been traded to a team we play a lot, say the Sox or Guardians, and continually get big hits leading to losses.  At least that’s how I look at it.
Don’t get me wrong, we gave up a ton and will get little in return.  But the trade made sense the day it was made.  The good news is that several above have pointed out that both hitters would be blocked with the Twins.  Suppose you could counter that by saying they would get more if traded today.  Perhaps much more?

Yeah, it’s still more about Mahle than it is about what we gave up, IMO. Time and CES could change my opinion.
Right now the trade looks better if Miranda had been one of the highly-regarded right-handed infield bats we had given up…that’s true. But that too could change.

The determining factor, to me, on them haunting the Twins is what Miranda, Kirilloff, Buxton, Lewis, Julien, and Lee do over the next 6+ years. Steer is down to 1B/3B/DH. CES is down to 1B/DH. The Twins took a calculated risk that some combination of the 6 guys I named earlier would be a better overall combination at 1B/3B/DH for the Twins. Or at least that a combination of them at those positions, plus Mahle in the rotation for a year and a half, would be as good as Steer, CES, and Hajjar for 6+ years.
CES has to be Nelson Cruz to be a truly haunting player. I would bet against that happening, but you never really know. That's the game you play when making trades. If Buxton is a fulltime, or most-time, DH over the next 6 years CES didn't really have a place to play here. To me, the bigger thing haunting the Twins in that scenario is Buxton being a DH.
Steer has already been pushed down to having most of his time at 1B now. The bar to clear offensively for being a "haunting" player there is awfully high. I would bet against that happening as well, but he's looked good for the last month. 
Both of their defensive limitations lessen the likelihood that they're truly haunting losses. But Steer's current batting line sure would look nice in the Twins lineup right now. I wouldn't replace Lewis or Kirilloff with him, though.

Man, there's a lot to pick apart here. Don't get me wrong because of the injuries to Mahle its low hanging fruit to say the Twins FO screwed up.  I get it..but hindsight is 20/20 and you can probably say that about maybe 60% or more of all deadline trades. Ask the White Sox about the Tatis trade...
There's to many examples' similar to the Mahle trade to just pour gas on it for the sake of I want a bigger fire.
Juan Nunez from the Jorge Lopez trade could end up as a Cy Young winner as well.
To get to the nitty gritty of it IMO. Steer had at minimum Miranda and likely Lewis in line before him. CES would have Kirilloff, at least Gallo and probably Salano ahead of him. So, they gave up the third option for 2 positions for a decent chance at maybe their third best starter. I doubt many (if any) teams would pass on that. Ghosts of Christmas past or not.

"Toronto enters play Tuesday in last place in a surging American League East." Yeah, at 26-23 and only 2.5 games back of a WC spot. Why would they even remotely entertain the idea of trading their starting 3B?
Also, the Brewers are contemplating moving 1.5 years of Burnes because we're not sure they're WS bound? Like what?

I also couldn't give them a D and ended up voting C. They're in first place and above .500. That doesn't warrant a D grade, it's not as if they're the Padres.

I mentioned this the other day but it bears updating…
Coming in to today, there are THREE teams on pace to have winning %’s which would rank in the top ten worst OF ALL TIME
The A’s are currently on pace for the 3rd worst ever, and the royals and white sox are tied for 8th
The 1899 Cleveland spiders were 20-134 (.129)

2 back to back rough defensive play.  Even still overall I have felt the defense has been playing well. A couple nice plays behind Gray.  

Even in a blowout, the defense is lousy.

Anyone else remember when Harmon was teamed up with John Rooney for TV broadcasts? Only lasted one year. Mid 80's
9th inning, Twins leading. Opponent makes first out of the inning.
Rooney: There's the all important first out of the inning. Harmon, do you argee that the first out is the most important out of the inning?
Harmon: no, I think the third out is the most important out of the inning.
Rooney: then why do they say the first out is the most important out of the inning?
Harmon: I have no idea. I lost lots of games with one out in the ninth inning.
Followed by a long dead air silence.  You could tell they did not get along.

Nice to see Gordon get a hit there

Laudner is terrible. I could never understand how he got that job. WAY worse than Dazzle. He needs to stick with the Jeff Belzer commercials. 

The Twins have had a day off to rest, while Boston will be traveling across the country following a series with the Angels and no rest.--not quite. The Sox were playing at home in Fenway Park.
I'll be interested in the lineup against Sale tonight. Joey Gallo could come off the IL and somebody would need to be sent to St Paul. Whoever isn't in the starting lineup on Tuesday between Julien, Castro and Garlick would probably be the one to be sent out. I'm pretty sure they will start Garlick against Sale, even if that means delaying activation of Gallo to Wednesday.