chpettit19

Yes, I would. But I wouldn't have traded Polanco so there's a lot more factors in all of it. But in a vacuum, yes I'd trade 5 years of Julien for 1 year of Burnes.

I'm saying it was/is possible to get pitching for Julien. Each person just has to determine what they feel is an appropriate return. That's what the Twins have to do. The Orioles felt they had an "infield logjam" so they traded 6 years of one of their infielders and more for 1 year of Burnes. Yikes, I guess.

Jesus Lazardo was almost traded for Vinnie Pasquantino. Arraez and Julien have both played 1B. Seems like that'd be a possibility. We don't know Seattle wouldn't have traded their pitching for Julien + prospect. We know they wouldn't trade them for Polanco. Everyone is available if you offer enough. Of course Dipoto is going to say he's not trading his young pitching. What else would he say? The question is what you define as good value, and how important is the controllability factor to you. Corbin Burnes could've been had for Julien + prospect since Julien is likely more valuable than either Ortiz or Hall, and the Twins could've thrown in their own Comp pick if they wanted. I bet Chicago would love to have Julien + prospect in exchange for Cease. There are trades to be made if you're willing to pay the prices. The Twins weren't/aren't. There's a difference between something not being possible and the Twins not being willing to do it.

No, but it's still worth in the 450 mil range and his deferments may allow him to save a bunch in tax payments. The point is the agents know what they're doing, and guys are still getting massive deals.

There's video of DeSclafani throwing today. You don't need to believe reports. Love to see the quote and I will change my stance on him being injured immediately.

I don't think this is totally true. You're assuming only positive progression because the team has youth. There are more young players that go backwards than go forwards. There's a very real possibility that guys go the other way. The Guardians were just as young and won even more games with just as good of pitching and plenty of young offensive talent in 2022. Now plenty of fans aren't worried about them at all. We all love Julien's potential, but go look at Andres Gimenez's 2022 season. Also a 2nd baseman. He actually won a gold glove and is one of the best defenders in baseball. He made the All Star team and had an OPS+ of 141 over 146 games at the age of 23. All of that is better than Julien at the age of 24. Gimenez had a 98 OPS+ in 2023. Progression is not linear, and improvement is not guaranteed. Steven Kwan another example. Oscar Gonzalez went from a 125 OPS+ in 2022 to being DFA'd multiple times this offseason. There's a middle ground between the doom and gloom and expecting widespread progression. Youth is a destabilizing factor in any MLB team.

Yes, teams are able to get insurance on players, and they almost always do. If they don't it's almost always a "point and laugh" situation when a player gets hurt and it comes out that the team didn't have insurance on them. It's standard operating procedure at this point. But depending on the player and their situation it can become a prohibitive thing. There were rumors about the Giants and Mets struggling to get insurance for Correa and that maybe playing a role in him ending up back here.

An MLB player just signed for $700 million. I think the agents have a pretty good grasp on the financials of the league.

If those guys step up to 180+ innings of 3.2 ERA the rotation is way better than last year's no matter who pitches the rest of the innings (within reason). You put 3 top 10 pitchers in any rotation and it's better than what the Twins had last year. You're talking Glavine, Smoltz, Maddux if those guys reach those numbers (adjusted for era, obviously). Those 3 guys alone at those numbers would match the fWAR of last year's entire rotation.

It'll make for a heck of a 4 year run if it happens.

That'd give the Twins 3 of the 10 best pitchers in baseball. Sign me up for that result.

You don't think the Cardinals trust Gray for 5+ innings in the playoffs? You don't think the Twins trusted him for that? I'm not saying they just blindly leave him in there, but they most definitely aren't pre-planning a 2 inning outing. Joe Ryan had no chance of going 5 innings in that game. He could've had a no-no through 3 and they were taking him out. That's very different than someone struggling early and them changing the plans mid-game. There are plenty of guys trusted to go 5 innings in a playoff game. Elimination or not (again, they should all be treated the same as far I'm concerned). If the Twins can't find 3 guys they don't pre-plan to pull before 5 innings of a playoff game they should just pack it in. That's not a large ask. The Twins 100% would not have run a bullpen game in that situation if it were Sonny Gray coming off a 2.79 in 184 innings season. 2 innings, 1 earned wouldn't have ended his day. That's a massive difference in trust level.

If he's going from a 130 OPS+ (136 wRC+) in 109 games and busting out in a "big way" on top of that you're talking MVP discussion. That would be very fun to watch.

I lack the optimism of this thread, but I very much hope it's correct. I can see the path even if I'm more reserved in my beliefs on it being all that likely of a result. If a few key things break right (namely health) this team could be very good. It's definitely nice to have it not be totally ridiculous to have faith in the Twins. That isn't often the case. Looking forward to enjoying the 2024 season with all the TD faithful.

Yes, it does. You try to win every single game in the playoffs. They absolutely should not be saying "eh, it's ok if we lose this game so let's not go with our best strategy to win" in any playoff game. Most managers would prefer to not feel the need to cover 7 innings with your pen in any playoff game. I want guys you can trust for more than 2 innings in a playoff game. Elimination or not. The Lopez trust bar is the bar I want them to be meeting for at least 3 starting pitchers. It's possible Ryan reaches that bar this year if he can maintain his production for a full year. But they very clearly did not trust him last year. The only bar I care about for the rotation is finding at least 3 guys they trust to go 5+ (preferably 6, but beggars can't be choosers) innings in a playoff game. If you only have 1 you're in trouble. The Twins are banking on Ryan and Ober becoming those guys, it appears. I can definitely see the logic in it. But they haven't reached that bar yet and it makes me nervous that they're putting so much of their playoff hopes in such uncertain hands.

He actually went on the IL on the 8th after not being able to play for 2 days after having fouled a ball off his foot and they made it retroactive to the 6th. At least that was their story. You can say he wasn't thrilled by that decision? Do you have quotes from him on that? But none of this matters now. DeSclafani is in camp throwing bullpen sessions and isn't hurt. That idea has been soundly put to bed. There's no 60-day IL trip coming for him unless he truly gets hurt.

Well they gave Ryan a start and pulled him after 2 innings. Not sure that's a great sign of their trust in him.

Or that he also faded in 2022 when he wasn't hurt.

I think the biggest factor in determining how far they fall (technically they could rise, but that's a far less likely outcome) will be how closely they can match their health from last year. Mahle went down early, but they still got 94% of their starter innings from just 6 arms while pitching the 4th most innings of any rotation. That's incredible. The year before their 6 most used arms accounted for 80% of their innings while the rotation overall threw 113 fewer innings. The final results of this rotation will come down to how deep they need to dive into their depth for real innings. My read on their moves recently is that they're preparing for fewer innings out of their rotation and more out of their pen. That could help protect the rotation and is probably the smart thing to do.

If we're talking about right now (that's how I read things based on the possible answers) the answer is pretty simple to me, put Lee in AAA until he shows he has mastered that level. There's no logjam yet. Lee hasn't shown he's a major league player. If they all perform well this year at the MLB level and show that they deserve everyday roles to start 2025 it'll depend on a lot of other things, but using the DH to rotate them through, moving Julien to 1B (depending on Kirilloff and Miranda), and moving Lewis to the OF would all be possibilities for me.

They didn't clear money. They shifted money while spending even more money. They spent an extra 6 million in salary in 2024 by trading for DeSclafani and Haniger and then trading for Polanco. And Haniger has played 100 games twice in his 7 year career. He's played fewer games than Byron Buxton the last 2 years. He's played 57 and 61 games the last 2 years. It's not like he was some huge health upgrade on Robbie Ray. They turned Robbie Ray, Gabriel Gonzalez, Justin Topa, Darren Bowen, and $6 million into Jorge Polanco and Mitch Haniger for 2024. That's a payroll increase for 2024. Are the podcast folks blasting ownership for cutting future payroll with these deals? Because they added current payroll with these deals no matter how you'd like to spin it. These deals weren't the money saving deals, those were separate deals. The Mariners may be cutting payroll overall, but these deals were not part of that. These deals added money. The Suarez and Kelenic/Gonzales deals were deals that saved them money. Some of which they then spent on Mitch Garver. The DeSclafani deals did not save them money. Their overall payroll reduction is a separate thing from the DeSclafani deals.

Byron and the team at the start of spring said he wasn't 100% and wouldn't be playing the field at all in spring and would start the year at DH in the hope that he would heal up after the first month or 2 of the season and then be able to play the field. I'm betting we get some videos of them throwing pen sessions, too. I guess people can believe whatever they want, but I'm not seeing any reason to believe either of these guys are hurt based on the information we have available to us.

That is from just a few minute ago. Both guys self-reporting that they're 100% goes on the first day of workouts.

If the Twins chose to knowingly eat 4 mil on a guy they didn't think could play this year to trade one of their 4 or 5 best hitters coming off an ALDS trip to gain a reliever with 1 successful MLB season at the age of 32 and 2 prospects in A ball (and a short side of a platoon 1B if you want to add Santana) fans should be pissed. If they did that trade expecting it to be likely that they'd have to start DeSclafani on the 60-day IL that trade was horrible. Your point about the Giants having money and Seattle not and that being the motivation here doesn't really seem to track for 2024 at all. Robbie Ray is getting paid 23 mil this season. Mitch Haniger is getting paid 17. DeSclafani is getting 12, but the Giants are paying 6. That trade was a financial wash. It didn't save the Mariners anything and wasn't about the Giants being able to eat some salary. If it's about 2025 and beyond salary I'd think the Mariners would've wanted to let Ray come back and pitch half a year to show his worth so they could get more in return for him after this season. The Mariners then took on salary in the Polanco deal. So apparently their motivation was not to cut budget since their 2 DeSclafani deals actually added salary to their payroll for 2024. The Twins told us over and over and over that Buxton wasn't right and that's why he was DHing. How is that not being upfront about the knee being "extremely inflamed" and him not being able to do things? They told us MAT was Buxton insurance from the start. They told us in spring that Buxton wouldn't be playing the field and would start the year as the fulltime DH. How much more up front could they be? They literally told us Buxton's knee still wasn't right so they brought in MAT to start the year as the CFer while Buxton would be the fulltime DH until he was able to get the knee right and play the field. Seems like they covered pretty much everything you said they didn't cover. The Twins are likely going to need between at least 9 and 11 starters this year (they used 14 in 2022). They don't have that right now. Their "shopping" reportedly includes Noah freaking Syndergaard who hasn't been good since 2018. That doesn't feel like it has anything to do with DeSclafani's current health, it sounds like they're trying to add more AAA depth because they know they don't have enough starters yet. The Twins entire strategy is to load up with as much depth as they possibly can, but when it comes to the 5th starter it's about DeSclafani's health? Doesn't seem to track. Are their 20+ reliever options about Duran's health? Adding as much depth as they possibly can is the very core of their strategy.