nicksaviking

Larnach's career AAA OPS is only .737. Obviously it's possible to improve on that at the majors, but there are other players they can start trying, I don't see why the best option isn't to cycle through these players until they find the right ones. They don't need to keep going back to Larnach. When you're a college player, 1st Round Draft status five years removed shouldn't be of any consideration when evaluating young talent. If Larnach has value, even as a complementary piece, I don't see much harm in moving him now.

Funny, I complain about the Twins roster, then I see a trade like this and am thrilled that neither of these guys are on my team.

I'm not giving up on Larnach, but now is the time to trade him. His value is still tied up in his draft equity, and at this late point in development, I think pedigree is an unwise metric. Normally I'd give a young guy a longer leash, but the Twins have plenty of unheralded players like Chris Williams, Anthony Prato, Jair Camargo, DeShawn Keirsey and Yunior Severino who are all hitting as well or better, mostly better, than Larnach ever did in the upper minors. When there are open spots on the 26-man, I think at this point the team should be seeing what the other guys can do.

My favorite part about traveling is trying the local beer. It’s really fun to see the effort and creativity local brewers put into their craft. Food too, but mostly the beer.

https://nypost.com/2023/07/27/mlb-trade-deadline-biggest-names-left-on-the-market/ The Padre tear down is inevitable; I thought it would be after 2024 but maybe, they start with one now? I have a real distaste for the half-season hero's that are currently being floated around as trade targets. Everyone wants a right handed bat, and Soto is another lefty, but does that really matter if he hits .824 against lefties? Clearly he would cost more than anyone could stomach, but I don't want half measures. I HATE half measures. From my view, guys like Jeimar Candelerio, Lane Thomas, CJ Cron and Adam Duvall do not win this team a championship and that is the only thing I care about at this point in my fandom. But Soto might be that guy to put the team over the top. Heck, with this rotation, he might make them a front runner parked in the #3 spot in the lineup with the team's other young bats feeding off the momentum of such an all-in move. Could the Twins get him? I doubt it, I think they'd need some top pitching prospects, and the best the Twins could do is offer Ryan or Ober, who I think that would be counter productive to part with this year. BUT, if the Padres were willing to listen with a package headlined with Lewis or Lee and some combination (heck all of) Larnach, Varland, Encarnacion, SWR, Festa, Winder, or whomever they have an eye on would probably have me nodding in agreement. I honestly think 2024 is the year this team should be chasing because I think the young guys who are currently leading the team need a year to learn how to carry the load, but Soto would be here next year. 2023 could be the build up to 2024 being a legit contender.

Trading Larnach in a package sounds like a great idea to me. Just not for a platoon right handed bat. Try to make meaningful moves, not half measures simply because you’ll face a left handed starter a couple times a week.

I think there’s a broader issue here, because basically ALL of the the Twins league-wide known names are streaky. Not just Buxton, but Correa, Gallo, Kepler, Polanco and Vazquez. There’s no Kent Hrbek, Joe Mauer, Torii Hunter or even a Michael Cuddyer who for their careers basically hit the same all year long. Seriously, look at these guys’ career splits by month, it’s a roller coaster ride. Maybe you could use this to plan ahead, but these guys all run somewhat predictably cold and hot.

It’s how they, and most clubs build sustainable winning teams since this game began. Even the top 1/3 teams. I think the actual production gap between average vets, and unproven young players is almost entirely a mental construct built on fear of the unknown.

While I'm with you and would like to see them spend the money, I can see a couple of near term and long term issues with them doing this. As for the Jenkins situation, that could have been a Catch-22, or perhaps 2 Catch 22s. First, if they'd have gone against their organizational prerogative about not spending it this time, Boras would most certainly make them do it every time they sign one of his clients. And honestly, waiting until the last minute instead of paying more is surely something I'd do. Heck, I'm doing it right now biding my time waiting for some tickets to go down at a later date. Second, if they'd opened up that can of worms, would have they been able to give that money to the HS kids? Or would Jenkins and Boras said, 'Nah uh, if you're opening up the wallet, I'm going to want it all.' Not a Boras critique at all, for anyone thinking it was.

Yeah, the Orioles clearly won that trade, and Cano is helping them this year, but he never looked like someone who was going to have sustained MLB success. I don't see this being a trade we rue for long. The only caveat to that would be, why are his walks so significantly reduced? If that's permanently fixed, maybe he'll be a guy who bounces around for years. But if there was a fix, it appears to have crippled his strikeout numbers, and as a reliever, that's certainly going to come back to bite him later.

Yeah, I don't know why they don't try. Seven of the nine pre-arb batters the Twins have used this year have an OPS over .800. Miranda has unexpectedly been the one to struggle and Larnach is merely at .715. Except for Jeffers, they've all been shuttled back and forth from St. Paul regularly, so it's not like the promotions and demotions are doing any kind of psychological damage. I don't understand why going back to that well until it dries up isn't their first choice..

I'd be more than happy to take a scissors to the 40-man to make my cuts should the front office find it too hard to stomach.

If they don't find any RH bats they like at the deadline, and so far I haven't seen much to like, hopefully they turn to Prato or Chris Williams. Though looking at splits against left handing pitching, Prato would be the clear choice of the two.

If they are unwilling to bench or cut the veteran corner outfielders, what is there to do? I've also yet to hear a realistic name that people would like who wasn't a poor player last year. Evaluating these players solely on how they have played for four months with their current team is a poor way to predict how they'll play on the new team.

To play when and where? I've seen no inclination of this team to even platoon Kepler or Gallo let alone replacing them.

Keirsey should be long gone from Wichita too. It's not like the Twins are swimming in CF options.

I'm sure the Angels feel that their only chance at keeping Ohtani is by making a long-shot playoff run. It seems like they're throwing away the future for an improbability, but without Ohtani, there probably isn't much of a future regardless of the prospects.

No one was picking Fried in the top five. Appel was the near consensus top player, but once the Astros and Twins went with HS kids, he fell because everyone knew he was going to require #1 money to sign. So the Twins dodged the landmine that should have been the obvious choice by skipping him. Giolito would have been a contender to go #1 but he wasn't pitching due to a UCL sprain. This organization seems to get dragged over the coals already for disregarding UCL issues.

Nor anything equivalent to a GM or owner.

Moncada got crushed worse than Max Kepler after 2019 de-juicing. He was supposed to be the big power threat that would also strike out a ton. Then the ball stopped flying off his bat but he still struck out a ton.

I guess I don't get all the Lane Thomas hype. He's hit well most of this year, but for his career, he's really average, yet I see people talking about giving up Wallner for him? Wallner already looks like he could be the better player, yet Thomas would be getting the short end of whomever he's platooning with. I'm not giving up anything of use for a platoon guy who's starting twice a week. And for anyone thinking his early 2023 season is an omen of things to come and not an outlier of an otherwise nondescript career, his OPS is back below .700 this month; it already looks like he's reverting to his career norms.

Emmanual Rodriguez and Walker Jenkins? I don't see it at all. Looks more like Jose Salas and Devid Festa to me.

Yeah, underwhelmed to say the least with what the White Sox go back. If the Twins traded Sonny Gray for both of those guys, the pitchforks would be out, and rightfully so.

Hopefully Chicago's next rebuild goes as successfully as their last one. Man, they got so many high end prospects the last time they tore it down and none of them clicked at the same time. Now, the only long term pieces they have from that era is Luis Robert and an Eloy Jimenez who barely plays in the field any more and is probably a two month slump away from not having his option picked up. The Twins were the most obvious losers of that ball de-juicing after the 2019 season, but that was clearly the same kind of roster the White Sox were going for when they traded for all of those extremely high ranked prospects.

Seems like a class move by the Twins. And whether it ends up being a good move, a calculated move or a bad move, don’t underestimate the message this is sending out to players currently on other teams.