prouster

Harold Baines deserves it more than A.J. Pierzynski, and Baines doesn’t really deserve it.

Well yes.

My memory of Darvish at least is that they were in it until the end, when the Cubs finally offered an extra year.

Right. It would be stupid to make an offer in bad faith. What if the guy accepts?

I’m curious to see which arms get traded. If I was Derek Falvey, I’d call my peers in Philadelphia and see what they want for a package of Nola and Gregorius. Nola has one guaranteed year left plus a team option and would be an instant extension candidate. Gregorius was borderline unplayable last year, but is also an interesting bounce back candidate who would reduce Philadelphia’s prospect haul. Other arms to consider are Rogers in Miami and Gallen in Arizona. All of them would be costly in terms of prospects, but I think the twins need to be willing to part with Lewis, Kirilloff, Larnach, Balazovic, or Duran (not all of them, but one or two) to improve the major league rotation.

I see. Thanks for the info. I was wondering if the league would consider it some kind of unfair tampering or collusion. They should talk to other teams!

I’m curious, once the lockout starts can teams “unofficially” discuss trades? I know they can’t make any transactions, but could they have a hypothetical discussion about what they’d accept or offer for players A, B, and C?

Ok, this is a good start to the winter. I withdraw my recent criticisms of the front office (although I still wish they they met Berrios’ terms). Happy day!

I liked the trade when it happened, because Berrios seemed intent on hitting free agency. If he was signed for 7/140 when the trade was made, he would have brought back a lot more than Martin and SWR. Ten times out of ten, I’d rather have the proven pitcher signed to a somewhat team friendly deal.

Could be. I wonder if he just went back and forth with the Twins, saw they weren’t interested in even approaching a market rate contract, and assumed other teams operate the same way? Or maybe he didn’t anticipate being traded. Who knows. At the end of the day, I think Toronto’s front office outsmarted ours, even though I like the return they got for Berrios.

Well, after years of negotiating with the Twins, he signed in Toronto very quickly at a very affordable price. I agree the length of the deal is probably a factor. But jeez.

I understand your point, but the problem is that the numbers we’ve seen don’t at all constitute a big contract. Jon Gray will sign a higher AAV deal this winter.

My guess is that Falvey has a number in mind that he isn’t willing to cross, even by a little. Doogie tweeted that they came nowhere close to what Toronto offered for Berrios, so the same thing could be playing out here. Perhaps this is why his name keeps popping up in the rumor mill whenever a team has a front office vacancy…I’ve been a supporter of this front office, but the Buxton situation is very quickly unraveling my trust. It’s just such a no brainer. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. If the numbers we’ve seen are at all accurate, then clearly there’s a way. There just seems to be no will.

Pretty much where I'm at.

Dan Hayes and Ken Rosenthal have a piece about Buxton in The Athletic today. To summarize: Others in the industry expect them to trade Buxton. There has been no progress to date since their discussions broke down at the trade deadline. Falvey: “At this point of the off-season we’re still just navigating our planning and strategy and trying to understand what’s available to us and what the market looks like . . . There are people on our team that are interesting to other clubs and we just always need to work through what does that look like, what does our team look like as we navigate it.” The tea leaves seem to be signaling a Buxton trade. If that happens, then there’s not really a reason to watch this team as far as I’m concerned. The Twins brass should remember that the Twin Cities are mostly a football and hockey town.