chpettit19

Aren't you the one on these boards using games played and batting average to claim Kyle Farmer is the better option to have over Jorge Polanco? Farmer was gotten for Casey Legumina last year, but now you think Polanco and a guy that can't stay on the Twins roster is bringing back a prospect good enough to add to Ronny Henriquez (another random guy at the back of the Twins 40-man roster) to help boost a package that includes 1 top 100 prospect (ERod), a good not great pitching prospect (Festa), and two 27 year old (for the 2024 season) AAAA players with 1 option left (Winder and Larnach) to bring back a Cy Young candidate type starter, and an elite closer? Yeah, we're just going to have to agree to disagree that the Brewers would have any interest in that package. Again, Corbin Burnes by himself can bring back 2 top 100 prospects. The Brewers have Frelick, Mitchell, and Wiemer already on their roster (I won't include Yelich cuz I'm sure you'll just say they'll trade him, too) who are younger, and more valuable than Larnach. Their top prospect is in the conversation for best prospect in baseball, is younger, and closer to the majors than ERod while playing the same position. Would they take ERod? Of course, but Larnach is not a boost to that package when adding ERod to their roster would give them 5 more valuable, younger OF options immediately. With Yelich and Taylor also still on the roster. The Brewers won more games than the Twins last year, they're not interested in the scraps from the Twins 40-man in return for 2 of their 3 most valuable trade options. That package could be beat in a second by any other contender. They're not trading both those guys in 1 deal unless you're throwing all of ERod, Jenkins, and Lee plus others at them. It'd take 2 of those guys to get Burnes alone, let alone Williams with him. You may be able to get Williams alone for Erod, Festa, plus though. That I can agree with.

Polanco has value to a contender who needs a 2B, yes. ERod has value to anyone, yes. The rest of those guys are in their mid- to late-20s and can't crack the Twins starting rotation or lineup. They do not have that kind of trade value at all. Josh Winder is 27 years old and never been close to being an MLB starter, and couldn't even stick in the pen last year. The idea that you can package a bunch of guys who are closer to being DFA'd than making the Twins opening day roster in 2024 and get back a Cy Young candidate or elite closer is way out there. Sure, maybe they'd want to bring in a 3rd team to take Polanco and get another top 100 prospect to go along with ERod, but I doubt Polanco brings back a top 100 prospect, and adding a 3rd team makes any deal exponentially harder to pull off. Larnach, Miranda, Moran, Winder, and Sands don't bring back anything more than a low level flier, if that. You can't turn the back end of the Twins 40-man into elite players just by throwing a bunch of them together. They're not worth that.

They're not trading both those players in 1 trade and only getting 1 top 100 prospect back. They could get 2 top 100 prospects for Burnes alone. Piling a bunch of random AAAA guys already in their mid-20s together doesn't get deals done. And that's a +5 to their 40-man roster. I don't know where they're at with their 40-man, but I'm guessing they're not looking to add 5 players of that caliber to their 40-man in order to move maybe their 2 best players. Edit: looks like they're at 37 guys. So to do that trade they'd also have to DFA 2 guys. Never happening.

1B, 2B, or DH all work just fine for me. If the argument is going to be "Buxton is the DH" you can just skip it. Locking him into the everyday DH role again would be a horrible roster management decision. 3B would be fine with me, too, if Royce isn't able to go again. He's not exactly the most reliable when it comes to staying healthy. I don't care if they were paid to be backups or not. Donovan Solano got 450 plate appearances last year. That is not a "backup" number of plate appearances. Planning for the only guys to get big numbers of PAs being the 9 games you plan to be opening day starters is incredibly unrealistic, and horrible roster management. I think you're putting way too much emphasis on "day one" instead of 162 games, but even just looking at day 1 he's one of the 9 best players currently on this roster so I don't get why you think there's just nowhere to play him. All we've been hearing about since Falvey got here was "roster flexibility." If you can't get one of your 4 or 5 best hitters in your lineup you don't have flexibility. As of this very moment I don't see how anyone can think the 2024 team is better by trading Polanco for prospects. Removing one of your best hitters for prospects is not how you improve your team. It simply isn't.

To piggyback on this, there were 925 PAs that went to Solano, Gallo, Luplow, Stevenson, and Garlick last year. There is unquestionably starter level PAs available for Polanco.

The Brewers are not trading Peralta for Polanco, the Nats aren't trading Thomas for Kepler, and the Blue Jays aren't trading Manoah for Farmer or Larnach. There's not even realistic packages that could be built to make all 3 of those trades around those guys. Freddie Peralta is one of the most valuable assets in baseball due to his contract. You're talking multiple top prospects for him. Why would a team trade a player with similar and more consistent hitting with more control for 1 year of Kepler? Manoah was 3rd in the Cy Young in 2022. They're not going to turn around and trade him for nothing because of a horrid 2023.

Where is this "surplus" of corner outfielders? With all the surplus on this roster that's talked about on almost every thread on TD it's crazy that they only won 87 games last year, and we shouldn't have any problem replacing Gray through trade with all these high value trade guys we have that aren't needed anymore.

People misusing stats is different than stats being biased. The human is biased and selectively choosing which stats to use in what way. The other poster said stats are biased and "your eyes don't lie." That is wrong. Our eyes lie to us all day long, and our brains are wired to be biased. The best trained human eyes are not as good as the technology we now have in place. In person scouting is still absolutely important. Especially at the amateur level for the draft, and international free agents. But we don't need scouts as much at the big league level because of the technology that's in place. The stuff that scouts are looking at are now measured with equipment the human eyes and brain have no chance to compete with. "Makes consistent hard contact" can be boiled down to exact numbers now. "Needs more extension on his fastball" can be boiled down to exact numbers now. There's a reason guys are going to Driveline, or similar companies, in the offseason to work on pitches and not just getting together with a coach who will eyeball things. Yes, stats can absolutely be used in biased ways, but stats themselves are not biased. Knowing how to use them, or choosing to use them correctly/honestly is up to people. The humans are the ones that are biased, not the numbers.

Based on current roster with projected playing time for next year. So guys like Canterino and Pierson Ohl are included while Sonny Gray is not.

Arguing that stats that compare the same thing for every player in baseball with the same criteria are biased while the human eye that can't possibly see every player in baseball, and are attached to a fan of a certain team are unbiased is a real bold claim. Our eyes do lie. All the time. Humans are nothing if not biased. Defensive stats have a long way to go still, but our eyes absolutely lie. And, if you want to get into the tall weeds on things, some of the defensive stats are based on human eyes. Eyes that watch far more games of far more teams than the typical Twins fan so the eye test is actually baked into some of those stats already. The eye test is almost never as effective as the stats, especially with the high speed cameras that are now used to produce some of the stats. Those cameras are so much better than the eye test it's not even worth discussing.

While I'm not huge on Severino, he's a career .270 hitter in 6 minor league seasons. I think he needs more time in AAA before I'd like to see him get a shot in the majors, but he's doing much more than running "into a cookie in the minors once a week."

Aren't these 2 stances a little contradictory? Not saying I totally disagree, but if the lack of consistency and availability is a reason to move people shouldn't you be advocating for moving Kirilloff just as much as Polanco and Miranda? He's never ended a major league season healthy, and never played 100 games in an MLB season. 0-3 with major surgeries ending his season twice and another surgery that was feared likely major ended the third. Not exactly a great example of consistency or availability. I assume the difference is where you see their talent levels, and that's why I don't totally disagree. But counting on Kirilloff as the 1B going forward is awfully risky as well.

Significant step down from them, but, to be fair, all but about 5 guys on the planet are significant steps down from the Bader/Taylor tier. Martin is a good athlete, but not an over the top burner as far as speed goes. He's best viewed as serviceable in CF right now while perhaps having upside to become a plus defender down the road. It'd be a clear bet that his bat is enough better than Bader/MAT to make up for a decrease on the defensive side.

What do his stats for 52 games after his trade have to do with anything? He was back to being an elite hitter last year so what does that mean about who he is as a person? Greedy because he didn't stay with the only team that could offer him a contract at that time? A team, by the way, that was in an absolute death spiral and looking at a massive rebuild. You don't like that players try to get paid as much as they can. We don't need to derail this thread. You're willing to judge a young man you've never met based on him not signing an extension, and, apparently, the fact that he had a singular rough stretch after a trade. We're just going to have to agree to disagree that any of us have any idea what sort of human Juan Soto is. We're going to end this side talk here, though.

Wonder if the offers people are calling with are just so good or if money has become a real problem. I'd guess those are the most likely motivating factors.

Padres weren't much higher in payroll in 2021 (roughly 174) than the Twins were in 2023 (roughly 155). That's a real gap for sure, but they weren't at some crazy level then. I think mess is a strong word to use. Some fans think Sonny Gray had animosity with Rocco. I think trying to judge those things (much like the character of a player) from the outside is incredibly hard to do.

Another poster did and I responded to them suggesting the Padres weren't a mess and you responded to me. Just using the term that was being used to describe them. The point, though, is that the Twins historically bad division was an advantage, even if it wasn't as big of one as it used to be.

The Padres played 91 games against teams over .500 in 2023. The Twins played 73. If you don't think getting 52 division games against teams under .500 isn't an advantage over getting 26 division games against teams under .500 ok. But I think it helped. Claiming the Padres "are a mess" when they finish 5 games worse than the Twins while playing 18 more games against teams over .500 feels like a misuse of the word "mess." If you don't want to attribute those extra 18 games to the 26 more intra-division games then don't. Doesn't change the fact that the Padres played a significantly harder schedule.

That's my point. You're assassinating this young man's character based on nothing. I'm asking if you have a basis to your statement that Soto's "line is ME, MYSELF, and I." JD-TWINS didn't provide any real reasoning for that thought either. Suggesting that Soto isn't a team player because he won't just blindly sign an extension for whatever the Twins offer him if he were to get traded here is nonsense. Guess what, Lewis isn't just going to sign whatever contract the Twins put in front of him either. He doesn't have a choice but to stay here. I think it's pretty reasonable to at least have a quote or two from someone before you label them selfish.

I didn't say it's the only place they should be looking to pursue players, but it's a spot that makes sense. They're going to have to get incredibly creative if they're going to make any sort of significant improvements to the current roster if they make significant payroll reductions. That's a different topic, though. But looking at 1B options makes sense to me as a standalone statement. I'm going to assume Falvey didn't say 1B is the only place they're looking for guys so I was just commenting on this in a vacuum. I would put controllable frontline starter at the top of my "to do" list if I were the Twins.

You have any quotes on this "ME, MYSELF, and I" line?

I think it makes sense depending on who they bring in. They need another big bat, or 2, and 1B is a place you can usually find those. I'd think there's a combination of lack of trust that Kirilloff can stay healthy and faith that they can move guys around well enough defensively while not locking the DH spot down with 1 guy that would allow them to utilize Kirilloff and the new guy if/when Kiriloff stays healthy and produces. I think Kirilloff is the most natural hitter on the major league roster, but I don't think the prudent thing to do is banking on him being healthy. I think you build the team as best you can while not counting on Buxton or Kirilloff, and if they can play to their very clearly high potentials then you've got incredible boosts to your roster. I think this news makes sense.

I'd be rather disappointed if one of these moves is the only rotation move they make. Not saying I'd be surprised, just disappointed.

If you go into a debate about the best hitter on the planet right now and drop those 2 names one of them gets you asked to leave the conversation while the other has people nodding their head in agreement that it's a possibility. I know it's natural to overvalue the players we watch all year and know well, but that is overvaluing to the max (see what I did there?).

You don't see the great value even for a 1 year deal? Really? You look at the numbers below and don't see how Juan Soto, in a down year for him vs a career year for Kepler, has great value?