nicksaviking

I'd guess folks would be interested in Grichuk to play CF, but I don't trust players with a half season of success after several years of average at best production. Unlike most years, I think I just want the team to stand pat. For one, I don't want to give this front office another shot at whiffing on trades. For another, they continue to play the vets instead of the higher ceiling young players. I don't need the underperforming vets replaced with other vets when they have almost completely disregarded the already bought and paid for internal options.

I feel bad for Rockies fans. Pittsburgh is more dysfunctional, but that's due to the worst and greediest owner in the league. These guys seem to be trying, but are just really bad at it and have no grasp of building something sustainable.

One season with a losing record this century, along with 16 playoff appearances and two World Series Championships will do that to a club I suppose. Did I sound jealous? I totally wasn't. Couldn't be further from jealous.

That's their MO, the big name players leave or retire only when their contract is up. Then they sign or trade for more of course. In a vacuum I could care less about speculating about players who surely won't move, but we've seen this game before. We discuss what it would take to trade for a big name player, then when that player doesn't get traded, a certain segment of the fanbase gets out the pitchforks and starts calling ownership and the front office a failure for not getting it done and the other posters 'apologists' when they point out it was never going to happen.

They could certainly trade for pitching too, but it would likely be in the offseason, and they'd be trading their own prospects.

The Cardinals freely spend in free agency and this year's crop of usable free agents is almost entirely starting pitchers. They'll be in on most of the big names. The Cardinals have had dozens of HOF/elite type players in the last two decades and haven't traded a single one since 2003.

Yeah, too often the reading stops there. Today - The part of the interview omitted from the above post: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/st-louis-cardinals Of course, there are no bigger names the Cardinals could put on the trade market than their star corner infield tandem of Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. Mozeliak declined to declare either player categorically untouchable but strongly downplayed the possibility of moving either. “I don’t have any intentions of trading anybody like them,” he said. “If you’re willing to listen on anything, you have to understand (anything’s possible), but I doubt that would happen.” As he subsequently noted, both players have full no-trade rights, and it seems very unlikely a St. Louis team gearing back up for 2024 would want to part with either of its top two position players regardless. Friday From St Louis beat writer Louis Gould https://www.stltoday.com/sports/professional/mlb/cardinals/cardinals-at-the-break-what-lessons-from-disastrous-first-half-can-fix-flaws-for-2024/article_b1727806-219c-11ee-9012-070d5964bb94.html They do not wish to divest themselves of their core, and already at least two teams have been told the Cardinals are not interested in trading outfielder Lars Nootbaar or Jordan Walker. The Cardinals are also not looking to shed salaries or jettison their high-cost stars, preferring to add pieces around cornerstones Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt for the coming season. Both have no-trade clauses, and Arenado said he’s not been approached. Two weeks ago Katie Woo of The Athletic https://www.si.com/mlb/cardinals/news/could-cardinals-actually-trade-star-paul-goldschmidt-st-louis-insider-gives-update-pat3 "The concept has been floated around plenty: Goldschmidt, last year's National League MVP, a respected leader throughout the sport and a likely Hall of Famer, could be a potential trade candidate this summer. In theory, the idea makes sense. Goldschmidt's final year of his five-year, $130 million contract is next season. He will turn 36 this summer. The haul for Goldschmidt would be massive. The Cardinals could jump-start whatever degree of restructuring they feel necessary. "The reality? Not happening, and that's even without taking into consideration Goldschmidt's no-trade clause. As (John Mozeliak) stated, the Cardinals are avoiding a rebuild. They aim to contend next season. If that's the organization's goal, the last thing it needs is young, unproven talent. The Cardinals need experienced, established names to complement the young talent already rostered."

I think everyone is missing the part where they say Goldschmidt and Arenado aren't being traded. They need pitching, and there's plenty available in free agency next year and they're trying to get some by trading rental players right now. They aren't tearing this down, they're just gearing up for next year.

They also already said they won't trade Goldschmidt or Arenado, so this is strictly a sale of rental players. Most of whom I'd have no interest in. Jordan Montgomery being the exception.

They should because year-to-year he's an extremely unreliable, high contact soft-tosser. So here's hopping they DON'T sell high on him and rue the decision next year, like the Tigers did when they held onto the similarly smoke-and-mirrors Matthew Boyd in 2019.

If they think none of the options in AAA or AA could be better than those three, they must already know they've messed up. Why not at least try something new and hope for the best? And there's no reason to worry only about options on the 40-man, there are numerous options to DFA or 60-day IL.

Honestly, the excuses used to continually shoehorn Kepler into the lineup is going to tarnish how we remember him. They're making his last impression with us as the guy who's blocking the more talented young players? He would have been better remembered as traded, DFA'd or fallen back into a rotational bench role instead of forced to play villain.

Just a thought, but Sonny Gray may be the exact type of free agent pitcher the Twins could and would sign. They won't do long term contracts, and they'll never get the Verlander/Scherzer/Kershaw type of grey beards who do sign short deals, but Gray seems similar to the Charlie Morton/Chris Bassitt type and it seems like the Twins have been interested in those guys in the past. With a bunch of younger and more electric free agents in his class, this may be the rare situation where the Twins could offer their short 2-3 year, bigger money up front type deal during their exclusive negotiating period and the pitcher might actually listen. Another thought is that Sonny Gray perhaps dropped that retirement nugget hoping the Twins will consider the possibility of no QO compensation. The hint about retirement could have been for the sole purpose of enticing them to trade him now.

Unless the plan is for Polanco to be at 3B and Julien 2B, there's really not much to lose by calling up Lee other than service time. I mean is there really much downside if the only other options they'll consider is Farmer and Castro? Call up someone anyway. If not Lee, than Severino or Prato; one of the guys who'll need a 40 man decision this off season.

If I owned this club, I wouldn't trade low on Miranda. He's not striking out, his BABiP is crazy low and he's seeing fewer pitches this year than last. I think whatever the change in hitting philosophy or coaching was this year is impacting him more than many of the other hitters, and if there's a possibility of front office and managerial changes, I'd let the next group take a look at him first. Basically, I don't trust those in charge to make these calls at the moment.

I'm not giving up a better prospect just to take two players the Twins could easily DFA. If the Twins won't take on the 11M or so left owed to Bellinger, they shouldn't be trading for him. I'm also not sure why the Cubs would be interested in Gallo and Kepler. Wouldn't they rather just eat some of Bellinger's contract for a better prospect and give their own young players at bats rather than rostering two guys who won't be there next year?

Can't do it if they're trying to win with Kepler, Gallo, Farmer, Solano, Taylor and Castro on the roster. Correa, Buxton and Vazquez's contracts will keep them on board certainly. Obviously you can't dump them all and expect to win, and I'm not pinning the blame on all of these veterans. However, my position has always been that the team will do better with an influx of youthful energy than they will by counting on 'veteran leadership'. I know the optics would make it look like waiving the white flag, but I think the only shot at pulling out of the funk is to throw caution to the wind and turn the show over to the next generation. I'm not expecting others to agree with me.

Yeah, at a certain point, the ages of these players become a question mark. I would say that I'd give this era of 'old' prospects a bit more leeway than most, for two reasons. The first being that all of these guys lost a year during Covid, the second being that the current front office has put way more veteran roadblocks in front of their promotions than the last couple of front offices. That second one I don't particularly like, but will give the organization props for at least putting an effort into the free agent market and creative trades, even if I don't care for the vets they've chosen more often than not.

Yeah, it's a risky proposition for sure, especially getting back the prospects since they are the unknown. If I were to guess, I bet most trades end up with the side getting the veteran finding out he was never going to be the difference maker they thought he'd be, while the side getting the prospects finds out that they weren't worth the hype. At least looking back at Twins trades that's how it usually seems to be. Less than half are either 'good' or 'bad' in the larger scheme of things, most are just a pointless wash. But with Falvey already saying that the team isn't looking to make big additions, and with Pohlad the Younger saying he expects more from the current group and there's a sense of urgency, my money is on the idea that ownership has already told the front office that they're not getting another shot to flub a big trade; they've made their bed and they're going to have to win with the players they already have, or someone else will get a shot to do it.

Not to mention I still want to see Chris Williams, DaShawn Keirsey, Seth Gray, Anthony Prato, Jair Camargo and Alex Isola before the Twins lose them for nothing. These are the type of non-prospects the Twins have had success with in the past. They won't have much trade value other than 3rd or 4th pieces, but about every other year one of these guys turn into Ryan Jeffers, Luis Arraez, Mitch Garver or Brian Dozier. This team needs to start getting creative or they're never going to get actual auditions. Move the young guys around the diamond just to see if their bats will play, then figure out the defense if/when they show they'll be a useful offensive piece.

For sure. Trading Gray now when most people would think their job is in jeopardy would be the nerves-of-steel move. I'd rather keep him myself, but trading him would absolutely show stones.

I'd be in favor of moving Julien around between 2B, 1B and OF. Maybe he ends up looking solid if given enough reps in the corner OF. I'm up for giving him reps at 3B too, but I'm much more forgiving about defensive mistakes than most are. This isn't a problem that goes away when Polanco is gone, there are plenty of other young players who are already pushing for roster spots, so I'd experiment now while Julien's bat is needed in the lineup. Of course if it turns out he's one of those players who's offense tanks upon day-to-day position uncertainty, then I'd just put him back at 2B and regroup and re-evaluate in the offseason.

I'm not advocating for trading Gray, mostly because I don't think he'd get nearly the return we'd like, but doing so would be the opposite of Panic. This article has it completely backwards. The bold and aggressive move would be to pivot to the younger guys and sell off expiring contracts. Panicking would be staying the course hoping the vet bats turn things around and save everyone's jobs.

Not to mention, Betts was and still is a HOF caliber player.

I agree, I think Cubs fans are going to overvalue Bellinger as much as Twins fans will overvalue Gray or whomever else might be made available. Five years ago players like Bellinger may have gotten a big return, but no sane GM is going to sell the farm for a guy who's shown a half season of improvement after two seasons of being a complete train wreck. That said, I'd happily get in the bargain bidding once the Cubs acknowledge at the last minute that they aren't going to get nearly as much as they're surely demanding now.