CCHOF5yearstoolate

This doesn't mean anything. You are speculating, don't try to hide behind platitudes you clearly don't understand. Acting like you know the truth when you're unable to actually describe anything specific is a farce. And an easily seen-through farce, at that.

Just to get this straight you are saying You would bet on Polanco being healthy Gonzalez has absolutely no chance at getting better at baseball Topa is a flash in the pan (who is "Jose" Lopez?) I don't know how anyone can reasonably say that they believe every single aspect of the move will work out poorly for the Twins and expect anyone else to take it seriously. You clearly just have an emotional attachment to Polanco and will never acknowledge that it wasn't a bad move.

"Easily"?? If it's so easy, do you have any specific suggestions?

I think E-rod has the higher floor with his eye at the plate and athleticism in the field. Gabby has more of a Andres Gimenez approach with few walks and below average strikeouts, but hopefully more consistent power. Luzardo is just where my mind goes when talking about a good young pitcher with a few more years of control.

ESPN just ranked E-rod their #22 prospect in all of baseball. I'm not sold on Luzardo's durability, so that's a high price for me.

Having an outline doesn't necessarily mean it's scheduled in granite.

Cedar Rapids is about to have 6 starters from the 2022 draft in Bowen, Kyle Jones, Zebby Matthews, Cory Lewis, CJ Culpepper and Andrew Morris. Pretty interesting!

Sure there's a sizeable chance that he doesn't even make AAA and washes out in the next few years. But at the cost of being a throw-in prospect in a trade, there's a lot to like here. And the Twins have done a really good job developing this kind of college pitcher - a mid-round draft pick where they can unlock velocity.

You got me to subscribe with this one! $50 a year is pretty reasonable, especially to me if it funds deep dives like this.

If you just want to put words in my mouth and assume everything will go as poorly as possible for the Twins, that's your prerogative, but it's pretty far from any kind of analysis worth taking seriously. Every team in the league trots out a 4.5-5 ERA guy for a chunk of starts each season because injuries are guaranteed and no team can stockpile enough quality starting pitching to avoid it. Those types of pitchers get 8-10 million dollars on the free agent market. All I wish sometimes is that Twins fans could have even a smidgen of league-wide perspective. Polanco would maybe bat 5th or 6th on the Twins, and I don't think that's a good faith read on the trade. We'll agree to disagree.

Might as well take a flyer on either of the 2 starters on his team that outproduced him, or like 9 other starters in that league that were better than he was.

I'm not judging their ability to hit LHP off of 100-150 PA sample sizes of last year. For their careers, Farmer has a 100 point OPS lead on Polanco. A strong platoon with Farmer facing LHP and Julien facing RHP is all but guaranteed to outproduce Polanco because of the platoon advantage. Do you think it's unreasonable to be comfortable platooning Kyle Farmer? Who said Polanco will "fall off a cliff"? I don't think it's unreasonable to look at his recent injury history and coinciding drop in production and feel comfortable saying that Julien, who is already a better hitter, has a pretty good chance to be more productive. I meant PA and typed AB, my bad. Edouard Julien spent close to 2 months in the minors last season and they didn't give him regular playing time in the first half. He had 487 PA against RHP across both levels. FWIW, 23 players in the league faced >500 PAs against RHP, Mookie did it in 140 games. The Twins had 1 player clear 500 PAs because the vets were largely injured (including Polanco fyi) and they didn't give the young guns regular playing time until June/July. The team lost little to no production at 2B, gained a 7th/8th inning setup arm, and will assuredly need some innings in the #6 rotation spot from an 4-5 ERA starter - which is a lot better than most teams get from that position. If you think that's "the hottest of takes" I'd love to hear you explain why they will be *so* much worse after the trade.

This is overrating Clevinger by quite a bit. He's had very comparable FIP numbers to DeSclafani the last 2 seasons and overperformed his peripherals by quite a bit last year. Buyer beware, he had a 27th percentile K rate and a 5th percentile groundball rate. That's a bad combination.

Trading Jeffers with no plan to replace him is absolutely preposterous. Your valuation of Polanco and Julien is detached from reality.

And Farmer will be better against LHP than Polanco was, Julien better against RHP. Julien graded as a better defender by OAA, with a clear progression throughout the season that matched my eye test. Julien is never going to "have to hit LHP" because there will always be 500 ABs to be taken against RHP. There just aren't that many LHP in MLB. If Varland is better, he will start. They're not attached to DeSclafani, it's $4M. And he's clearly not an Archer or a Bundy. The team is clearly better after the trade compared to where they were before the trade. No dropoff at 2B, much better in the bullpen, better low-end SP depth.

Good trade, wash on value for this year and surplus for the future. Could also easily be turned into a trade for a high-end starter.

Would love to see you prove any of this.

I don't understand a majority of this comment. Polo is clearly not entering his prime, catching is not a position of need, Topa is a legit setup man and DeSclefani is a fine #5 starter you hope can stay healthy at $4 million, Gonzalez for Polanco straight up would be a pretty even trade, and they also got an intriguing throw-in arm. Julien is ready to take over 2B and improve on both sides of the ball from Polanco's last 2 years. There is still a surplus of talented infielders after losing Polanco. Seems odd to grade the trade just assuming that everything will go as poorly as possible for the Twins.