Article: Brian Dozier: Powerful Asset

[h2oface]

Can't miss ace pitching prospects? Can't miss? I wish there was such a thing.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Can't miss ace pitching prospects? Can't miss? I wish there was such a thing.

I just searched the past five pages of this thread and no one used the phrase "can't miss" in reference to a an "ace" pitching prospect.

[Shaitan]

 

Yeah. When I say "ace pitching prospect", I do not mean a pitcher who will turn into an ace. The likely landing spot of almost every "ace prospect" is #2/3 anyway.

 

My expectation would be a #2-ish level pitcher with an upside of ace and floor of a #3 (barring injury or developmental catastrophe).

 

That clarifies. I think a "Strasburg type ace" would take way more than Dozier. Do I think 2 maybe 3 Top 100 prospects could be acquired for BD, yes. But not a top 5 and probably not a top 10.

 

Maybe it's a selfish fan thing, but I'd rather see BD hitting in the 1-5 slot of the lineup for 2 more years than to get another Meyer type when there are a few #2-3s already in the system. I'm not 100% opposed, but it's a preference. If BD only had 1 year left on contract I would likely say yes.

 

We already have Escobar and Polanco hitting 5th or 6th instead of 7th-8th. I'd rather not bump them  up another spot.

[jsteve96]

 

It doesn't make sense. This team needs a veteran presence to compete and Dozier is the best they have. I really think the team needs to look to deal some of their long list of young talent to find more players to match with Dozier. I think Polanco's struggles at 3rd vs. the Royals is further evidence that he is and should be a second sacker. As a result, I put him at the top of the trade list. Packaging Polanco with another young player or two could yield a quality arm or another veteran position player.

WHY would you want a "quality arm" or "veteran position player" on a losing team over a couple good young prospects? bc you want to lose for another decade?

[sthpstm]

 

If I am getting sick a lot, I don't start lopping off body parts willy nilly because they must be part of the problem if they've been around for the sickness. Instead, I try to identify where the problem areas have been and go about fixing those. Dozier has been up and down but 2B has been pretty low on the list of problem areas for the Twins the past five years. Bigger areas have been SP, C, OF.

 

This is like putting Jack Kevorkian in charge of diagnosing your health problems. You end up dead.

While very clever, this is a bad baseball team, not a sick body.  

 

If you have assets, particularly those that might be replaceable, you have to consider dealing them for the right offer if it helps feel a huge void. I believe most fans would take the tear down efforts of the Cubs, Astros, etc., over the "partial rebuilds" of the Twins, Angels, and others. These now competitive teams didn't hang on to trade-able assets just because they were their good players.

[h2oface]

I just searched the past five pages of this thread and no one used the phrase "can't miss" in reference to a an "ace" pitching prospect.

So sorry. I wasn't on the page of the most recent posts when I posted the comment. Previous comments had referred to "I would say one "can't miss" or established player" and "a can't miss ace from AAA...." (I believe that should qualify as one) and "Top 15 pitching prospect on an org list isn't necessarily cannot miss...." and "I also think if Dozier is traded we get back a pitcher who is one or two on the depth chart plus a catcher who is can't miss....."

 

I guess it was a worthless and paraphrased take that was unnecessary. Please disregard.

Edited August 16, 2016 by h2oface

[MileHighTwinsFan]

 

WHY would you want a "quality arm" or "veteran position player" on a losing team over a couple good young prospects? bc you want to lose for another decade?

 

Look at the Cubs - sound core of young talent punctuated by mature veterans who are peaking or are still highly productive.  Zobrist, Lackey, Arrieta, Fowler, Lester, etc. along with Rizzo, Bryant, Russell etc. is what is key to their success.   I could argue that our losing ways could continue much longer with a complete youth movement because many of that young talent never realizes their potential.  

[ThejacKmp]

 

While very clever, this is a bad baseball team, not a sick body.  

 

If you have assets, particularly those that might be replaceable, you have to consider dealing them for the right offer if it helps feel a huge void. I believe most fans would take the tear down efforts of the Cubs, Astros, etc., over the "partial rebuilds" of the Twins, Angels, and others. These now competitive teams didn't hang on to trade-able assets just because they were their good players.

 

It's a metaphor and I think it works - you're arguing that the Twins get rid of anything that was a part of the team the past 5 years because it is part of the problem and I'm saying that it would be like cutting off your arm because your foot is broken. Some discretion is required.

 

No one is saying "Don't trade Dozier." If you get a good deal, do it. What we're saying is that saying,

"Dozier has been with the Twins for the past five years so he's part of the problem and needs to go" is crazy-talk. Brian Dozier has been a good player for the Twins but because no one player can carry a baseball team, the Twins have been bad. We may very well need to trade him but him being part of the Twins bad stretch has nothing to do with that decision.

 

I guess I'm not sure where you get that the Twins have had a partial rebuild. They've been rebuilding for a half decade. They haven't bottomed out like the Astros did but if you go by that model than no one ever rebuilds; the Astros approach was pretty revolutionary and we don't know yet if it's repeatable. We'll see in three to five years when the Braves/Phillies/Reds come out the other side of the tunnel.

 

Not all rebuilds work out like the Cubs and Astros did, some have sputtering starts. The Cubs got lucky with Arrieta and have the financial muscle to go buy pitching, freeing them to focus on drafting position players only; their rebuild is hardly a template for the Twins to follow as its more geared towards the Yankee/Boston/LA crowd. The Astros have had things work out a bit better after bottoming out much harder; they've had some of their draft picks come to fruition a bit earlier. Wait two years and you may like the Twins rebuild better - the Astros made some expensive trades for a closer and for Carlos Gomez that should come back to hurt them long-term. The Twins have played it slower and that may turn out to be the best approach.

 

I guess my main question would be what tradable assets did the Twins have and not deal? Mauer has been a toxic asset every since his catching career ended. Plouffe has never had a ton of value and Dozier has more value at the end of this season than he would have had the past several years. The Twins had no quality P, SS or C veterans to trade and have frankly done well flipping bit guys like Hermann and Nunez for value. In the OF, the Twins flipped Revere, Span and Hicks for young prospects over the past few years, just like what other rebuilding teams do. I guess I don't see any players the Twins have clung to over the past five years that they should not have. The problem is just that the Twins haven't had good players. That makes a rebuild slower.*

 

* Plus, we all forget that the Twins had a nice season last year, chasing a wild card into the last series of the season. This year has been tough but we should remember that what happens over the next few years will either make 2015 or 2016 an aberration. It's way too early for us to tell which of those it will be so we should temper our negativity and pessimism.

[ThejacKmp]

 

Look at the Cubs - sound core of young talent punctuated by mature veterans who are peaking or are still highly productive.  Zobrist, Lackey, Arrieta, Fowler, Lester, etc. along with Rizzo, Bryant, Russell etc. is what is key to their success.   I could argue that our losing ways could continue much longer with a complete youth movement because many of that young talent never realizes their potential.  

 

Hard to compare to the Cubs - they're just a different market with a different owner and do things so fundamentally differently. Epstein gets a ton of deserved credit but it's a lot easier to do a rebuild when you know you can basically ignore pitching and depend on the owner to buy it when your position players start to coalesce. The Cubs got lucky with Arrieta but if they hadn't, the likely would have been in on David Price this past offseason. It's a super awesome way to rebuild but it's not really something that the Twins FO has available to emulate.

[MileHighTwinsFan]

 

Hard to compare to the Cubs - they're just a different market with a different owner and do things so fundamentally differently. Epstein gets a ton of deserved credit but it's a lot easier to do a rebuild when you know you can basically ignore pitching and depend on the owner to buy it when your position players start to coalesce. The Cubs got lucky with Arrieta but if they hadn't, the likely would have been in on David Price this past offseason. It's a super awesome way to rebuild but it's not really something that the Twins FO has available to emulate.

 

Royals then.  Trade their number one prospect for two pitchers who become key to their two World Series appearances.  

[sthpstm]

 

It's a metaphor and I think it works - you're arguing that the Twins get rid of anything that was a part of the team the past 5 years because it is part of the problem and I'm saying that it would be like cutting off your arm because your foot is broken. Some discretion is required.

 

No one is saying "Don't trade Dozier." If you get a good deal, do it. What we're saying is that saying,

"Dozier has been with the Twins for the past five years so he's part of the problem and needs to go" is crazy-talk. Brian Dozier has been a good player for the Twins but because no one player can carry a baseball team, the Twins have been bad. We may very well need to trade him but him being part of the Twins bad stretch has nothing to do with that decision.

 

I guess I'm not sure where you get that the Twins have had a partial rebuild. They've been rebuilding for a half decade. They haven't bottomed out like the Astros did but if you go by that model than no one ever rebuilds; the Astros approach was pretty revolutionary and we don't know yet if it's repeatable. We'll see in three to five years when the Braves/Phillies/Reds come out the other side of the tunnel.

 

Not all rebuilds work out like the Cubs and Astros did, some have sputtering starts. The Cubs got lucky with Arrieta and have the financial muscle to go buy pitching, freeing them to focus on drafting position players only; their rebuild is hardly a template for the Twins to follow as its more geared towards the Yankee/Boston/LA crowd. The Astros have had things work out a bit better after bottoming out much harder; they've had some of their draft picks come to fruition a bit earlier. Wait two years and you may like the Twins rebuild better - the Astros made some expensive trades for a closer and for Carlos Gomez that should come back to hurt them long-term. The Twins have played it slower and that may turn out to be the best approach.

 

I guess my main question would be what tradable assets did the Twins have and not deal? Mauer has been a toxic asset every since his catching career ended. Plouffe has never had a ton of value and Dozier has more value at the end of this season than he would have had the past several years. The Twins had no quality P, SS or C veterans to trade and have frankly done well flipping bit guys like Hermann and Nunez for value. In the OF, the Twins flipped Revere, Span and Hicks for young prospects over the past few years, just like what other rebuilding teams do. I guess I don't see any players the Twins have clung to over the past five years that they should not have. The problem is just that the Twins haven't had good players. That makes a rebuild slower.*

 

* Plus, we all forget that the Twins had a nice season last year, chasing a wild card into the last series of the season. This year has been tough but we should remember that what happens over the next few years will either make 2015 or 2016 an aberration. It's way too early for us to tell which of those it will be so we should temper our negativity and pessimism.

I actually did not say that everyone who was part of the past 5 years should go; that was someone else. And I think it's wrong thinking as well.

I don't care about the past 5 years; they were bad, but they're the past.  What's the future? Can it be improved if Dozier is flipped for a valuable, longer term piece?  Is he, Ervin Santana, and others going to be at their peak in the offseason and are they likely to be waning by the time we can really compete? 2015 was clearly not the beginning of an upward trend but a blip, some luck, in the midst of lost years.  

 

[Mike Sixel]

 

Hard to compare to the Cubs - they're just a different market with a different owner and do things so fundamentally differently. Epstein gets a ton of deserved credit but it's a lot easier to do a rebuild when you know you can basically ignore pitching and depend on the owner to buy it when your position players start to coalesce. The Cubs got lucky with Arrieta but if they hadn't, the likely would have been in on David Price this past offseason. It's a super awesome way to rebuild but it's not really something that the Twins FO has available to emulate.

 

Right, every team that is good is lucky or has an unfair advantage...that's really unfair to the people running that organization. the Twins have Buxton, the cubs have Bryant...the Cubs traded for Rizzo, as a matter of fact, we had a HUGE LONG list of people the Cubs traded for on a recent thread. This isn't luck, this is great execution of a sound plan.

 

The Twins traded for three starting pitchers (May, Worley, Meyer) and have nothing....were they just unlucky? Whose fault is it they had NO assets to trade, if not their fault?

[sthpstm]

 

Look at the Cubs - sound core of young talent punctuated by mature veterans who are peaking or are still highly productive.  Zobrist, Lackey, Arrieta, Fowler, Lester, etc. along with Rizzo, Bryant, Russell etc. is what is key to their success.   I could argue that our losing ways could continue much longer with a complete youth movement because many of that young talent never realizes their potential.  

But aren't all of these guys recent acquisitions that they added once their turnaround began.  They weren't long time Cubs.  If Dozier can bring you core pieces for 2018 and a couple of years after, trade him and then add what you need when you get closer to competing.

The Twins have a lot of nice, potential pieces in the low minors.  If things go well by 2018 you can look to trade these assets and/or sign FA's to supplement your core. But you have to trade veteran players at peak value, before their decline, if you're not competing and not likely to compete soon.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Is this a real post?

 

So, Mike Trout is part of the problem in LA?

 

it is a team sport.

is there a Mike Trout in that list? Mauer is by far the best on that list, but stopped being remotely close the day he was diagnosed w/ concussion. Now he's a real good player but not elite. Is he a "problem"? No, but this is a crappy team filled with average at best veterans. Plouffe, Dozier, are never going to move the needle when this team has so many pitching holes

[jsteve96]

 

Look at the Cubs - sound core of young talent punctuated by mature veterans who are peaking or are still highly productive.  Zobrist, Lackey, Arrieta, Fowler, Lester, etc. along with Rizzo, Bryant, Russell etc. is what is key to their success.   I could argue that our losing ways could continue much longer with a complete youth movement because many of that young talent never realizes their potential.  

first, your talent has to be ready. Arrieta we can all agree was a lucky pick up. Zobrist and Lackey we signed after the Cubs had the 2nd best record in baseball. So the only moves that was made ahead of time on your point were Fowler and Lester,  and they were Free agent moves. they gave nothing up for their future. if they traded for such players they would likely have to have given up Bryant, Soler and Baez. they only got Russell because they traded samarjza. they played it exactly right. sadly no Lester on free agency for Twins, but their "Fowler move" could very well be Wilson Ramos. if they make that move they will be following the cubs process just right. get a big name SP in FA in 2018

[ThejacKmp]

 

Right, every team that is good is lucky or has an unfair advantage...that's really unfair to the people running that organization. the Twins have Buxton, the cubs have Bryant...the Cubs traded for Rizzo, as a matter of fact, we had a HUGE LONG list of people the Cubs traded for on a recent thread. This isn't luck, this is great execution of a sound plan.

 

The Twins traded for three starting pitchers (May, Worley, Meyer) and have nothing....were they just unlucky? Whose fault is it they had NO assets to trade, if not their fault?

 

Not saying unlucky. I'm saying that the Cubs are not a fair comparison to the Twins. They have the resources to not worry about drafting pitching and focus on the much more projectable position player talent and then buy pitching later. They didn't worry about drafting the Stewarts and Jays because they don't need to develop their own pitching (any that happens in later rounds is just a bonus). That's a really smart development plan but it's not really something any team can emulate.

 

The luck comes in with why the Cubs are so good so quickly. Arrieta was a nice lottery ticket (much like Johan a decade ago) and he fast forwarded the Cubs development a year or two early (last year was a shock for most people, that year was likely expected to occur this year or next). As a Cubs-are-my-#2-team fan (and that's not a new bandwagon thing I feel the need to point out, my mom's family is from Chicago and I've been a Cubs-are-my-#2 fan for 30 mostly rough years) I'm very happy about it. I just don't think there's some big lesson for the Twins in the Cubs success.

 

Your last question is both fair and unfair. It's fair to say that there is accountability for prospects in trades not working out. The Twins didn't make great selections with their trade picks (though Revere's lack of development and Span's up-and-down injury history hardly make the trades total losses) and should get some blame for that. But we also forget that trading for prospects is a crapshoot. You can do everything right and still come up short. So we should temper the blame a bit - they were both pretty good trades on paper and the thought behind it is not to blame just because it didn't work out.

[ThejacKmp]

 

Royals then.  Trade their number one prospect for two pitchers who become key to their two World Series appearances.  

 

Yeah. Sometimes trades work out and sometimes they don't. We're too end-result focused. The Twins trades made sense at the time and just because pitching prospects are volatile doesn't mean that the trades were bad. You hope that team doesn't lose heart and is willing to make the same trade again in the hopes it pans out better.

 

The Royals had a trade that worked out well (in unplanned ways too, no one expected Wade Davis to become the best reliever in the game) but that doesn't mean there's some inherent difference between the Royals Way and the Twins Way. Both did their homework and rolled the dice.

[jimmer]

'The Twins didn't make great selections with their trade picks (though Revere's lack of development and Span's up-and-down injury history hardly make the trades total losses)'

 

Span trade was a 100% lost for the Twins.  Not only in value for what he was worth versus what he was paid, but also taking into account that, in four years since he was trade, we STILL haven't replaced him AND then what we got for him became a total BUST.

 

Guy was worth over 70M in the last three years we would have had him (under the contract he signed with us before he was traded), and he was paid around 20M.  That's 50M surplus value and we got a player who hasn't done anything.

 

 

So yeah, 100% lost on the trade. 

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by jimmer

[ThejacKmp]

 

I actually did not say that everyone who was part of the past 5 years should go; that was someone else. And I think it's wrong thinking as well.

I don't care about the past 5 years; they were bad, but they're the past.  What's the future? Can it be improved if Dozier is flipped for a valuable, longer term piece?  Is he, Ervin Santana, and others going to be at their peak in the offseason and are they likely to be waning by the time we can really compete? 2015 was clearly not the beginning of an upward trend but a blip, some luck, in the midst of lost years.  

 

I think I confused you with the guy I was replying to - because you replied to me and seemed to continue his argument. He'd said: 

 

"Everyone who has been a core player of the 99+96+96+79+9x teams, should be treated as part of the problem.  If Dozier, Mauer, Plouffe, Suzuki etc are not part of the problem, who is?  The kids?"

 

That's what my post was a reaction to and I think the metaphor fit.

 

I think we mostly agree. Dozier should be shopped this offseason because a controllable piece is coming up behind him and Dozier will have good value if a team needs a 2B.

[Mike Sixel]

I could trade Revere or Span for pitchers....the difference should be, we should expect the GM to be right more than I would be. 

 

Anyone on this board could have followed that process, the Twins followed it twice, and failed both times.

 

As for the Span trade, John Bonnes did research, tall pitchers, other than 1, don't work out. The Twins didn't just roll the dice, they rolled 1 die, and tried to get a 7.

[Vanimal46]

 

I could trade Revere or Span for pitchers....the difference should be, we should expect the GM to be right more than I would be. 

 

Anyone on this board could have followed that process, the Twins followed it twice, and failed both times.

 

As for the Span trade, John Bonnes did research, tall pitchers, other than 1, don't work out. The Twins didn't just roll the dice, they rolled 1 die, and tried to get a 7.

And that 1 example is what most point out when talking about Meyer and his potential resurrection... But, Randy Johnson! 

[jimmer]

 

And that 1 example is what most point out when talking about Meyer and his potential resurrection... But, Randy Johnson! 

 

yeah exactly. being able to only point to one guy and say it worked for him is actually a point against it happening not a point for it happening.  there was this ONE tall guy and he ended up an inner circle HOF pitcher...:-)

 

[ThejacKmp]

 

2015 was clearly not the beginning of an upward trend but a blip, some luck, in the midst of lost years.  

 

I couldn’t disagree with this more. There’s no way you can say 2015 is “clearly” a blip because we don’t know what the future is, we need more data. To demonstrate let’s go to believable-pretendland:

 

In 2017 Berrios establishes himself as a top-of-the-rotation star and Duffey and Gibson rebound to become above average #2/#3 starters. Santana and Hughes fill out a rotation that keeps the Twins in games and ends up a Top-10 rotation. The bullpen bounces back as May is a dominant late-inning guy again and a combination of smart reclamation projects and young power arms makes the late innings a good time to be a Twins fan. On offense, Sano hits 40 HRs and is a top-5 MVP candidate. Kepler doesn’t have a sophomore slump and Buxton starts hitting in the .260s and cuts down on the Ks. JRM is an average catcher, Mauer has a bit more luck with BABIP and is an OBP machine. Polanco, Rosario, Escobar and Park/Vargas all are solid contributors and make the Twins a tough lineup 1-9. A playoff-hunt 2017 gets the Twins hungry for 2018, when an infusion of young starting pitching talent (say Gonsalves, Jorge and Romero) along with Gordon/Vielma and some solid supporting depth in the OF set the Twins up to be a serious contender for the next 5-8 years.

 

That’s not an unreasonable scenario. If this happens, 2015 will be viewed as a harbinger of the future: the Twins started to promote the players who would make them competitive and took a run at a playoff spot. It took a few years to get everything to fully gel but it's clear that in in 2015 the pieces started assembling for the next dominant Twins era and we got a taste of the sweetness to come.

 

Now before people go off, I get that there is an equally/more plausible negative picture. But that’s not my point, my point is you can’t say what 2015 is until you look at it in a broader context.

 

As another example, I remember having a big argument with my roommate’s girlfriend in 2008 when Bush was leaving office.* She was incredibly liberal and I was more of a liberal libertarian. She kept insisting that Bush would be viewed as the worst president ever and I kept saying, “You don’t know the future and can’t say that. What happens next will color how we view Bush.” And I think the last eight years has shown that I was right to say let’s wait. Bush isn’t going to end up on Mount Rushmore but he seems incredibly liberal compared to the Republican candidates of the past 8 years – I bet she wishes he were the nominee now! The U.S.’s struggle to contain ISIS and the continuing presence of terrorist attacks make Bush’s failures in that arena of foreign policy more understandable. Domestic politics have gotten more partisan and make the Bush era seem like the Good Old Days - he was ready to talk a compromise on immigration reform etc. Bush isn’t going to win Best President ever but he’s likely settled in to something around the middle of the pack, likely where he belongs.

 

The point is that you need the context of the next 5-10 years to even begin making reliable judgments on what something means in a presidential legacy. Same thing with the Twins. We can’t tell what 2015 will mean until we know what happens to Buxton, Sano, Duffey and Berrios in the future. If they pan out, it was a taste of things to come. If they don’t, it was a sad moment of what-could-have-been.

 

*I certainly don’t want to argue politics here so let’s not do that. This is just an example in non-baseball terms.

[Mike Sixel]

Actually, there are many reports out there saying Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents ever...

 

As for your scenario, I think saying it is is likely that Twins have a top 10 rotation is a bit off. I'll bet you any amount of money that doesn't happen, unless they trade for 1-2 different starters. I mean, your scenario is basically, "if everything goes right, they'll be really good". Isn't that pretty much true for every single team?

[BD57]

It would be wonderful if politics stayed out of here - especially knowing that anything critical written about certain politicians of a different political persuasion would yield howls of protest, etc. ....

 

BEYOND ALL THAT ... 

 

I don't like trading someone who a contender would be happy to have in its lineup / rotation in the hope that someone you get back might develop into a a player a contender would be happy to have in its lineup / rotation - not when your current roster is otherwise devoid of such types.

 

I know, that's a "duh" for most folks.

 

That still holds true in the case of "hope you get 2 back" trades - it just seems that, more often than not, you take a step back . . . . . you lose the guy who you know is "contender quality" and, more often than not, do no better than 'break even.'

 

A team like the Twins, which isn't prepared to out-bid others for the "A-List" free agents, has to identify & develop talent internally.

 

IMO.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by BD57