gunnarthor

I dunno. The team hasn't been absolute garbage since 1991 so you sort of lose a lot of your validity. Falvey and Levine are in charge. They seem to think that Hunter et al can help. This isn't because they were former Twins. It's because they've seen it work in Cleveland and in Texas. That's what they are attempting to do here.

I assume you must be new here.

Well, I don't think the Twins would trade three guys and 11 years of control for one pitcher. I don't really see a Reyes to Twins plan that would work. But the Cards could still be a factor. Besides Weaver, they have a number of young pitchers in the majors as well.

That's true as well. And, going in our favor, does Dozier's LH hitting ability push LA over the top? Do they pay a premium on that? I'm really curious on what Dozier's trade value will be. During the season I was a bit of a pessimist and thought we wouldn't get much back. Maybe one top 100 + a Trevor May like arm. But Dozier just kept hitting and hitting and I think I was under estimating his value. I think it's a really good sign that national writers have the Dodgers giving up so much in return. They might be wrong but it means the price is probably a lot better than I originally thought.

Nah. Peralta's done at short. He might be done period. I'd honestly trust Escobar at short more than Peralta at this point. I do like the idea of upgrading short but I'm not sure what the best option is. I'd like to steal someone from TX (Profar?) but not sure what the need/cost is.

I think the big disconnect seems to be what is Dozier worth going forward? WAR is clunky as hell and teams have better internal stats but for back of the envelope math, it might work. Dozier has two years left and I think any team trading for him would assume that he'll be worth at a minimum 6 WAR over the next two years. (If a team thinks he'll fall off and be a 2 WAR player, they wouldn't trade for him). But Dozier's been a pretty good player four years in a row now (3.7, 5.2, 2.5, 6.5). So the team might think he's worth 8 or more WAR the next two years (or the Twins might and hold out accordingly). It's hard to find trades that are comparable but there have been some strange trades the last few years. The Astros traded quite a bit for 1.5 years of Gomez and 3.5 years of Fiers. I don't know what the Astros expected but 8 WAR seems overly optimistic. They also traded a crap ton for Ken Giles, a dominant closer with 4 years of control left and avg 2 WAR his first two years. I'm not sure the WAR math works here since closer is very specialized but they probably didn't expect more than 8 WAR out of their end of the deal (although there could be non-WAR value in creating a strong back end bullpen). The Royals traded Sean Manaea for half a season of Zorbrist. BA has a list of all trades made each year. Here's the 2015 list. But it does seem that teams trading away players have gotten some surprisingly strong returns the last few years for mere rentals. (David Price and Zorbrist). If the Twins are dealing with the Dodgers, they should certainly begin by asking for their top guys like Alvarez or Bellinger. I'm not sure if they'll get them but there have been stranger trade returns. I think that a respected national writer thinks Alveraz would have to go back is a good sign.

Why? Dozier's contract is better and the trading team gets him longer. Seems like the Twins should aim higher than the Hill/Reddick return.

Didn't the A's trade Reddick and Hill together? They got 6 starts from Hill and 47 games from Reddick and gave up three pieces. Grant Holmes (entered the season as BA #72 prospect although BP and mlbpipeline had him higher), Frankie Montes (entered the season as BA #95 prospect) but injured and Jharel Cotton (an undersized starter who made 5 solid starts for the A's last year). I think Dozier being both better and cheaper than the Reddick/Hill combo as well as having much more team control should be able to top that return.

They had Bruno on the bench last year. That didn't seem to help. These moves seem pretty smart and hopefully they'll help but I certainly can't see how they'll hurt. Last year's team sucked and they were also boring and unwatchable. They seemed to lack energy and drive. I think that blame should go on Molitor but if Hunter et al can help the team, great.

Yeah, he kind of reminds me of Kepler 2015. Same build, both are lefties. Not as good a hitter but more power and fewer walks but a real strong AA season. He's only 20. He entered last season as BA #54 prospect and will probably move up into the top 30. But he does have warts. I don't think he's an elite prospect like Buxton/Berrios/Sano were but he's probably in that next grouping with Kepler.

I think this is why we're seeing reports that Falvey/Levine are asking for a very high return on Dozier. They aren't going to give him away and the hope is that the players he gets back will be a better fit for the Sano/Buxton/Berrios nucleus. But if the best return is a couple non-top 100 prospects, you keep Dozier because you don't have to trade him now. He's cheap, he's a pretty good player and you can always reexamine trading him during the season.

Both probably have notes from TX and CLE on the Twins minor league systems. I think Levine has strong scouting background as well. And, as Klaw has stated, the Twins scouting system is well respected so I don't think they're going in blind.

Yeah, I wouldn't want him straight up for Dozier.

I think Puig would be a really nice fit for us, actually. He isn't perfect and I think he'd have a bit of culture shock going from LA to MPLS but, in a down year, he still had an 101 OPS+ and doesn't strike out too much. He needs to start taking a few more walks again but .... We'd have him for his age 26 and 27 seasons and (I think) he'd be a nice upgrade over Rosario and Rosario could be an intriguing fourth OFer option.

Well, hopefully he can help nibblers like Gibson

Mike hit on the smart points but does the economy really feel that secure to anyone? These last few years, I've been very surprised by how well the stock market has been doing vs. how I feel the economy should be doing. I think the economy should take a hit.* * Again, I'm just some idiot on the internet.

Another note of worry on TSLA is that they were (arguably) somewhat dependent on tax credits and rebates for solar power that a Trump presidency might not continue.

WFC (and other banks) had a pretty nice week until today. Probably not a bad idea to throw some money into banks and oil for a bit.

I'm not sure if Sano, Buxton, Berrios really fit into the 'bounce back' category. They are all young guys adjusting to the league. They'll be fine. I think guys like Gibson, Hughes, Perkins etc are more the bounce back types we need to do well. I'm not sure what to expect from them but I do think the young guys on the team will be better because 1) they are very talented and 2) players get better with experience.

Hey, that's your leadoff CFer your talking about there.

I probably wouldn't touch Russian stocks unless you're trigger happy with when to sell them. Russia's underlying economic troubles are legit and frightening and just being buddy buddy with the US President isn't going to fix those problems. We might see some movement based on things like expectations and hope but probably not on the fundamentals. * Remember, I'm just some idiot on the internet and know nothing.

I think, unless we see a real deal, we're going to collect cash for a bit and reexamine investment opportunities after next summer. I tend to think the market will be lower a year from now.

How the hell do you not change the pitching coaches?

I kind of wished I caught the ending but when the tarp went out I went to bed. Pretty decent WS though.

Nice piece, Seth. The Twins have been taking a few PR guys in most of their recent drafts too.