Tom Froemming

All right, first thing’s first, here’s where all the players the Twins acquired are headed: Minnesota: Logan Forsythe Rochester: Chase De Jong, Tyler Austin. Chattanooga: Devin Smeltzer, Luke Raley, Jorge Alcala (on the DL) Fort Myers: Ryan Costello, Ernie De La Trinidad Cedar Rapids: Jhoan Duran, Gabriel Maciel Elizabethton: Luis Rijo, Gilberto Celestino So who are the best prospects the Twins acquired? Well 10 of the 12 guys the Twins added (everyone but Forsythe and Austin) still qualify for prospect status. I’m still getting up to speed on a lot of these guys, especially the ones acquired this week, so I’ll defer to another source. Baseball America published a fun list today. They ranked all the prospects dealt at the deadline, and the order they had the new guys in made a lot of sense to me. -Jorge Alcala -Gilberto Celestino -Jhoan Duran -Luke Raley -Chase De Jong -Luis Rijo -Devin Smeltzer -Gabriel Maciel -Ryan Costello -Ernie De La Trinidad Personally, I’d strongly consider putting Celestino on top. I also might put Rijo and Maciel above De Jong. Anyway, BA has capsules written up on those top three guys, and it’s just kind of interesting to see where they have them listed among all the prospects on the move. But, I’m going to make you click the link to go check out the rest of that stuff if you’re interested. All right, so let’s take a look at each trade individually. On each of these, I’m going to provide the link to the Twins Daily article published when the deals broke and also link to the Baseball Prospectus Transaction Analysis piece for each. Friend of the site Aaron Gleeman and the rest of the staff at B-Pro did an excellent job at breaking down each piece of each of these trades, so again, I’ll tip my cap to another outlet and encourage you to check those out. The grades though, those will be all me. Any grade disputes must be taken up with the Dean Friday, July 27 Twins give: Eduardo Escobar Twins get: OF Ernie De La Trinidad, RHP Jhoan Duran, OF Gabriel Maciel Additional info: Twins Daily | Baseball Prospectus Tom’s grade: B Escobar was my favorite Twins player, but it just made too much sense to trade him away. It’s encouraging to hear the Twins approached him about an extension prior to shipping him off, and here’s hoping they engage with his camp again once he becomes a free agent. Eduardo was having a career year and will hit free agency at the end of the season, so it was difficult to envision the Twins netting a huge haul. I think Duran is a nice add, and he already made a great first impression, throwing seven no-hit innings in his Cedar Rapids debut. It sounds to me like he has a better chance at reaching the majors as a starter than Alcala does, though he doesn’t have quite as high of a ceiling. Maciel will skyrocket up prospect lists if he ever develops power. He’s a switch hitter who’s billed as a legit center fielder with elite speed, so even if the power never arrives he could be a fourth outfielder. De La Trinidad was a college draftee taken in the 19th round last year. His upside seems limited, but hitters hit. He’s got a career .874 OPS so far in the minors, so that at least makes him an intriguing throw-in. Friday, July 27 Twins give: Ryan Pressly Twins get: RHP Jorge Alcala, OF Gilberto Celestino Additional info: Twins Daily | Baseball Prospectus Tom’s grade: A I love this deal. Pressly was the only player they moved who was going to still be under team control next season, but in parting with him, they acquired what I consider to be the two most valuable pieces among the dozen players that were acquired. Yes, Alcala was immediately placed on the DL with a right trap strain, but I think it’s a good sign that happened before he threw a single pitch in the Twins’ org. That suggests two things to me: 1) The Twins’ staff was able to uncover something in Alcala’s medicals and is getting out in front of this issue, and 2) I’d be willing to bet they used that information to leverage this deal with Houston. Celestino signed out of the Dominican Republic for a big bonus and he's living up to that billing so far. Not many guys put up the kind of numbers he was in the New York Penn League. He was fourth in batting average, sixth in OBP, seventh in slugging and was 14-for-14 on stolen base attempts in the NYPL. Pressly throws absolute filth and was having a strong season, but bullpen arms are so unpredictable and I feel like there are a lot of different ways the Twins could replace a guy like Pressly. Monday, July 30 Twins give: Zach Duke Twins get: RHP Chase De Jong, 1B/3B Ryan Costello Additional info: Twins Daily | Baseball Prospectus Tom’s grade: C To Twins fans, Duke may not seem like much of a prize, but he is among the best left-handed specialists in baseball. Duke has faced 425 left-handed hitters since the start of the 2014 season, and southpaws have hit just .214/.286/.316 off him. Since he was on an expiring contract, Duke was never going to fetch anything similar to the Pressly haul, and I’m not real impressed with what the Twins netted from Seattle. De Jong might be an interesting candidate to stick in the bullpen and see what happens, but it’s very difficult to see him ever working his way into the picture here as a starter. Maybe Costello is going to make me eat my words someday, but he was a 31st-round pick last year. Despite that underwhelming pedigree, he certainly deserves respect for putting up some of the better power numbers in the Midwest League this season. Again, hitters hit. Monday, July 30 Twins give: Lance Lynn Twins get: Tyler Austin, Luis Rijo Additional info: Twins Daily | Baseball Prospectus Tom’s grade: A I love this deal too, but for very different reasons than the Pressly trade. I just didn’t think Lynn had this kind of value. He fits the profile of exactly the type of pitcher a contending team should be looking to replace. Don’t get me wrong, he did really turn things around from May forward, but in my opinion he’s a second-division big league pitcher even at his best. Maybe the Yankees are onto something in using him in long relief, I don’t know. It’s worth noting that the Twins are paying half of Lynn’s salary, but this is still a really good return in my eyes. Tyler Austin could be a platoon 1B/RF/DH right now. The contact issues are a concern, but he crushes lefties and Target Field has been a pretty kind environment for right-handed power hitters. Honestly, if this was Lynn for Luis Rijo straight up I would have been impressed. Rijo has an insane 8.36 K:BB ratio in 125 ⅓ innings over his minor league career. He also tops out at 93 mph, so it’s not like it’s all just smoke and mirrors. And on top of all that, Lynn’s departure from the team opened up a spot for Adalberto Mejia to get a much-deserved chance in the rotation. Win, win, win, it’s looking all good here to me. Tuesday, July 31 Twins give: Brian Dozier Twins get: 2B Logan Forsythe, OF/1B Luke Raley, LHP Devin Smeltzer Additional info: Twins Daily | Baseball Prospectus Tom’s grade: D I’m certain this was the best deal the Twins could get on July 31, less than an hour before the deadline. What I’m not certain of is if that was the best time to deal him. You never know how these things work out, and both Ian Kinsler and Jonathan Schoop entering the trade market late had to have complicated things, but I suspect the Twins could have gotten a better package if they had made the deal earlier, or may have even been able to find a better waiver trade partner this month. Of course, there was always the option to keep Dozier and extend a qualifying offer to him. Maybe he would have accepted, but I’m of the mind that there’s really no such thing as a bad one-year deal. Why did I think this was the Twins’ worst trade? Mainly because of who they were forced to take back. Logan Forsythe, the only major leaguer the Twins acquired in all these deals, actually has extreme negative trade value. This seems to defy logic, but the business of baseball is funny. His inclusion basically made this deal cash neutral. There was probably never going to be a deal with the Dodgers that didn’t have to include Forsythe, since they’re trying to avoid luxury tax penalties, but that’s exactly why you don’t make a deal with them in the first place. I typically don’t care much what happens to the Pohlad’s money (did you see how I just suggested they give Dozier $18 million?), but you’ve still got to acknowledge that money is an asset to a baseball team. If you get rid of Dozier, I think you need to find a way to get rid of that money too. If Forsythe’s not in this trade, I give it at least a C, maybe even a B. Heck, if I just look at this deal in a vacuum, which is what I originally did yesterday, I might give it a C. But when you zoom out and look at the big picture of what happened across baseball leading up to and on deadline day, it definitely feels like the Twins may have hurt their odds at maximizing a return. Tough thing for me to say from the outside looking in, but that’s how I feel. Raley is putting up really good numbers in Double A, but he’s already 24 and it’s just really hard to break into the bigs as a corner outfield/first base type. On the plus side, Raley also sounds like the type of guy in terms of makeup who goes out and proves idiots like me wrong, so I’m excited to see how this plays out. Smeltzer is left-handed, that’s always a plus. He’s also relatively close to the majors (he’s spent all year in Double A) and his strikeout numbers saw a boost when he recently shifted to the bullpen. However, it sounds like he has a fairly straight, fairly slow fastball, so … All right, so there’s my report card. The front office comes away with a 2.8 GPA. Not exactly Ivy League material, but in my eyes they get a solid passing grade for what was a difficult trade deadline to navigate for them. Maybe they also deserve some extra credit for the non-move they made by keeping Kyle Gibson. So now it’s your turn, how would you grade the Twins’ trade deadline?

Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs) Adalberto Mejia: 64 Game Score, 5.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 K, 3 BB, 60.8% strikes Multi-Hit Games: Jorge Polanco (2-for-4) WPA of 0.1 or higher: Mejia .291 WPA of -0.1 or lower: Garver -.133, Rosario -.137, Morrison -.139, Forsythe -.246 Mike Berardino reported that new Twin Logan Forsythe was working on one hour of sleep. Sounds like a great choice as a pinch hitter in the highest-leverage situation of the game today, huh? With the Twins trailing 1-0 in the eighth, Robbie Grossman drew a 10-pitch walk to put runners at first and second with one out. Forsythe took two strikes, then hit the third pitch from Brad Hand 100.3 mph. Unfortunately, it was a bullet on the ground to Francisco Lindor, who started an inning-ending double play. The only real scoring chance the Twins had other than that inning was when Joe Mauer hit a two-out triple in the sixth. Cleveland’s first run came on a well-executed play on the bases. With runners at the corners and one out in the sixth, Ramirez broke for second. Mitch Garver fired down to get him out, thanks to an impressive tag by Ehire Adrianza, but Rajai Davis took off for home on the throw and beat the relay back to Garver. Cleveland’s second run came in large part due to an error on Jorge Polanco. AL Central Standings CLE 59-48 MIN 49-58 (-10) DET 47-62 (-13) CHW 37-69 (-21.5) KC 33-73 (-25.5) Next Three Games Thu: Off Fri vs. KC, 7:10 pm CT: Jake Odorizzi vs. Heath Fillmyer Sat vs. KC, 6:10 pm CT: Jose Berrios vs. Burch Smith Sun vs. KC, 1:10 pm CT: Ervin Santana vs. TBD Last Three Games CLE 6, MIN 2: Deadline Day Ends in Defeat MIN 5, CLE 4: Awesome Sauce! BOS 3, MIN 0: Fenway Free Fall Continues

Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs) Kyle Gibson: 53 Game Score, 6.0 IP, 3 ER, 6 K, 3 BB, 58.2% strikes Home Runs: Logan Morrison (14) Multi-Hit Games: Max Kepler (2-for-4, 2B) WPA of 0.1 or higher: Morrison .107 WPA of -0.1 or lower: Rosario -.127, Mauer -.133, Belisle -.202 We’ll get back to the game in just a sec, but I have something more important to address first. Earlier today, Nick Nelson wrote a valuable piece as it relates to what to watch for moving forward. He noted seven particularly critical Twins players, but I’ve got something else I wanted to pass along that’s worth watching: I think Kyle Gibson may be growing a mustache (maybe). I dunno, you tell me … https://twitter.com/BaseballByTom/status/1024479108556877824 OK, back to the action. Gibson exited this game with the Twins tailing 3-2 after six innings. In came Matt Belisle. Gulp. Of the six batters Belisle faced, three of them got hits and another was intentionally walked. He gave up two earned runs on three hits and got two outs. Belisle has now surrendered 16 earned runs in 17 ⅔ innings with the Twins. On the positive side, there were a couple of noteworthy comebacks out of the bullpen. Addison Reed made his first appearance with the Twins since July 10. He pitched a scoreless inning … but also topped out at 90.4 mph. Trevor May pitching in the major leagues for the first time since September 11, 2016. He gave up a run on a pair of hits over his inning of work and clocked in as high as 95.6 mph. Jose Ramirez was just incredible, as he has been all year for Cleveland. He was 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, three RBIs and a stolen base. Postgame With Molitor https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1024501967110860801 Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: AL Central Standings CLE 58-48 MIN 49-57 (-9) DET 46-62 (-13) CHW 37-68 (-20.5) KC 32-73 (-25.5) Next Three Games Wed vs. CLE, 12:10 pm CT: Adalberto Mejia vs. Carlos Carrasco Thu: Off Fri at KC, 7:10 pm CT: TBD Sat at KC, 6:10 pm CTL TBD Last Three Games MIN 5, CLE 4: Awesome Sauce! BOS 3, MIN 0: Fenway Free Fall Continues BOS 10, MIN 4: Twins Blow Lead in Spectacular Fashion

Like Dozier, Forsythe is on an expiring contract. His inclusion in the deal seems to be 100 percent about money moving around. Raley was the No. 19 prospect in the Dodgers' org per MLB Pipeline. Smeltzer was not included in LA's top 30. Raley, 23, has spent all season with the Dodgers' Double-A affiliate, and has posted a .275/.345/.477 line while splitting his time between first base and the outfield. He's been particularly hot of late, hitting .303/.366/.529 (.896 OPS) in July. He bats left and throws right. He was drafted in the seventh round back in 2016. Smeltzer, the Dodgers' fifth-round pick back in 2016, has also spent his entire season in Double A. The 22-year-old lefty has a 4.73 ERA, 1.35 WHIP and 3.53 K:BB ratio over 83 2/3 innings. He made 14 starts to open this season, but his most recent nine appearances have all been out of the bullpen. In his first two seasons as a pro, Smeltzer averaged 10.1 K/9 over 153 innings, but that figure has dropped to 7.2 K/9 so far this season. Dozier, of course, was set to be a free agent this upcoming season. The Twins could have extended him a qualifying offer, a one-year deal somewhere between $17-$18 million. If Dozier turned that deal down and went on to sign for more than $50 million, the Twins would have received a draft pick in between the first and second rounds. If his eventual deal would have been for less than $50 million, a pretty safe assumption at this point, the Twins would have gotten a pick between the second and third rounds. With this deal the Twins have added another couple of pieces to the system, but if the value Dozier brought back was any indication of what's to come once he reaches free agency, it seems to me at least it would have been likely he and his camp would have accepted the qualifying offer. So what happens now? It'll be interesting to see if Forsythe sticks around as a hopeful waiver trade deadline piece for the Twins to market to other clubs. There's not an obvious replacement for Dozier at second base. The leading option was Ehire Adrianza with Gregorio Petit, Taylor Motter and Nick Gordon all factoring in somehow from Triple A.

Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs) Ervin Santana: 27 Game Score, 5.1 IP, 4 ER, 1 K, 2 BB, 68.2% strikes Multi-Hit Games: Miguel Sano (2-for-3, 2B, BB), Mitch Garver (2-for-4, 2B) WPA of 0.1 or higher: Garver .271, Magill .180, Sano .171, Polanco .158, Rodney .147, Moya .131 WPA of -0.1 or lower: Rosario -.156, Santana -.278 Let’s go around the horn … First Base Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1024130397867659264 Mitch Garver has been on a tear. This guy needs to be in the lineup as often as he can handle. On the days he’s not behind the plate, the Twins don’t have a better DH option on the team than GarvSauce. One of the funnest things about these next two months will (hopefully) be a lot more moments like this one. Second Base This team needs Miguel Sano, and I’m not just talking about the 2018 Twins. He showed some positive signs in his third game back from the minors tonight. He hit an RBI double in the second inning, singled in the fifth and made a great catch going back on a ball in foul territory. Sano also led off the bottom of the ninth by drawing an eight-pitch walk. Gotta take the good with the bad. Yes, he also struck out. He was also picked off by the catcher at second base. It was an eventful day at the office. Third Base Ervin Santana looks like he’s in survival mode. In his first two starts back, he’s been throwing tons of changeups. He’s gone to that pitch 61 times among the 185 pitches he’s thrown in these two starts. Last year, he only went to the changeup around 10 percent of the time. The fastball’s just not back. Ervin topped out at 90.9 mph. He only got four swinging strikes on his 88 pitches. The fact that he’s been able to limit the damage as much as he has is a credit to his willingness to adjust. Home Plate In case you missed it, the Twins traded Zach Duke to Seattle and dealt Lance Lynn to the Yankees. Adalberto Mejia will take Lynn’s spot in the rotation and Addison Reed was activated off the DL. With the bullpen shuffling and this game being tied late, we got to see some different looks from Paul Molitor. Gabriel Moya bailed out Santana in the sixth inning, recording the final two outs with two runners on base. Then, Molitor went right to Trevor Hildenberger, who worked a scoreless seventh. Taylor Rogers came out for the eighth, but after giving up singles to two of the three batters he faced, Matt Magill came in. Yes, Matt Magill. He came back out of the witness protection program, or where ever he’d been, and pitched in the eighth inning of a tie ballgame. He retired the next two batters to end the threat. With the top of the Cleveland order coming up in the ninth, Molitor turned things over to Fernando Rodney. He was very on brand. He walked leadoff man Francisco Lindor on four pitches. https://twitter.com/Cut4/status/1024128241882132480 Lindor advanced to third with one out and then just when you were convinced it was all going to come crashing down … a strikeout. Then another walk. Then he fell behind the next batter 2-0 … and struck him out. Never a dull moment. This may have been the final time we’ll see Rodney in a Twins jersey. If that’s how it goes down, this was pretty much a signature game to remember him by. Postgame With Molitor https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1024137486656651264 Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: AL Central Standings CLE 57-48 MIN 49-56 (-8) DET 45-62 (-13) CHW 37-68 (-20) KC 32-73 (-25) Next Three Games Tue vs. CLE, 7:10 pm CT: Kyle Gibson vs. Trevor Bauer Wed vs. CLE, 12:10 pm CT: Adalberto Mejia vs. Carlos Carrasco Thu Off Fri at KC, 7:10 pm CT: TBD Last Three Games BOS 3, MIN 0: Fenway Free Fall Continues BOS 10, MIN 4: Twins Blow Lead in Spectacular Fashion BOS 4, MIN 3: No Escobar, but at Least We Still Have Belisle

Austin has seen big league time with the Yankees over parts of three seasons, hitting .230/.287/.459 (.746 OPS) over 85 games. The bulk of his time has come at first base, but he's also played some in the outfield. Rated as the 77th-best prospect in the game prior to the 2013 season by Baseball America, Austin has a much more impressive .270/.347/.479 (.825 OPS) line in 202 games in Triple A. The biggest thing holding him back has been, stop me if you've heard this before, strikeouts. Austin has struck out in 39.6 percent of his MLB plate appearances and 27.0 percent of his PAs in Triple A. He'll fills a need in the Twins org right now as a right-handed bat capable of mashing lefties. Austin has hit MLB southpaws to the tune of a .292/.365/.596 batting line over 104 plate appearances so far. Rijo, a native of Venezuela, has posted strong numbers in his 125 1/3 innings so far as a professional. He has a 2.80 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and has averaged 8.4 K/9 while only issuing 1.0 BB/9. So far this season, Rijo is sporting a 10.67 K:BB ratio (32 strikeouts and just three walks over 39 innings). The bulk of his work has come with the Yankees' Appy League affiliate (same league as Elizabethton). Lynn had a frustrating free agency roll into a frustrating first month for the Twins. Lynn had an 8.37 ERA through his first five starts this season, but has been much more stable since, posting a 4.12 ERA over his last 15 starts. Though Lynn's disappointing overall performance contributed to the Twins getting off to a poor start, this has to be considered a positive way for things to end. Not long ago it would have been unimaginable that the Twins would land this kind of a package for Lynn.

Snapshot (chart via FanGraphs) Jose Berrios: 41 Game Score, 4.2 IP, 3 ER, 6 K, 3 BB, 57.5% strikes Home Runs: None. Multi-Hit Games: None. WPA of 0.1 or higher: None WPA of -0.1 or lower: Dozier -.193 Let’s go around the horn … First Base Just back on July 13, the Twins dismantled Nathan Eovaldi, who was pitching for the Rays at the time. They scored eight runs and forced him to throw 65 pitches in just 2 ⅔ innings. We sure this was the same guy? Eovaldi, making his debut with the Red Sox, was an absolute buzzsaw Sunday afternoon. He threw seven shutout innings, giving up just four hits without walking a single batter. It took him just 82 pitches, 62 of which were strikes (76.8 percent). Second Base Jose Berrios was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. He lasted just 4 2/3 innings and needed 106 pitches to do so. He only gave up three runs, but it could’ve been much worse. The Red Sox tallied nine hits and drew three walks off Jose. A moral victory isn’t much of a consolation, but it was nice to see him wiggle out of some trouble. Third Base Adalberto Mejia was impressive. Even with Berrios struggling, this was still a winnable game. Gabriel Moya recorded the last out of the fifth inning before Mejia kept the best lineup in baseball silent for the final three frames. He gave up just one hit, did not walk a batter and struck out four. I’d be willing to bet for his efforts Mejia will get a one-way ticket back to Rochester. Seems to be the way things have been going this year. Home Plate The bats couldn’t get anything going. Miguel Sano is going to be under the microscope, and deservingly so. He was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, but it’s not like his teammates did much better. The Twins had just four hits: singles from Jorge Polanco, Robbie Grossman and Jake Cave to go with a double by Eddie Rosario. So ends a series which started so positive and ends on a low. One brilliant game from the Twins followed by a walk off, a blowout and now this frustrating affair. There’s not much to say in losing a series to a great Red Sox team in Fenway, but toss the trades into the equation (even if they brought back good value) and these last three days have been a tough pill to swallow. Knowing this 2018 Twins team, they’ll probably follow this up by sweeping Cleveland. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: AL Central Standings CLE 56-47 MIN 48-56 (-8.5) DET 45-61 (-12.5) CHW 37-67 (-19.5) KE 32-72 (-24.5) Next Three Games Mon vs. CLE, 7:10 pm CT: Ervin Santana vs. Shane Bieber Tue vs. CLE, 7:10 pm CT: Kyle Gibson vs. Trevor Bauer Wed vs. CLE, 12:10 pm CT: Lance Lynn vs. Carlos Carrasco Last Three Games BOS 10, MIN 4: Twins Blow Lead in Spectacular Fashion BOS 4, MIN 3: No Escobar, but at Least We Still Have Belisle MIN 2, BOS 1: Gibby the Great