The Twins Face a Deceivingly Complicated Decision at the Trade Deadline

[Major League Ready]

6 hours ago, Mark G said:

Far more potential?  For every example such as the ones above you could name multiple examples of getting long-term prospects that never see a major league field.  In previous articles about the '17 and '18 deadline trades it was noted we traded away major league assets and received 12 prospects total in return.  Only 4 are left, and one of them is on the 60 day IL.  The other 8 spent very little time or no time at all on the roster.  And that is true across the board in baseball.  Would Escobar have helped down the stretch in '18?  Would Pressley have helped that year and maybe further?  We traded away the chance of making that year better for the prospect of making the years after that better, IF the prospects we got panned out.  A handful did; the rest not so much.  If we take the long term view all the time, the 5th year of the 5 year plan never comes.  When is it time to reverse "17 and "18 and go for now?  If ever, wouldn't now be as good as any?  And if not, then what we see is what we get, not only now but the distant future.  

There are endless examples of trades or free agent signings of highly regarded players that have failed.  That does not in in itself mean the strategy is better or worse than another strategy.   The question we should be asking is how have mid market teams with 90+ win been constructed.  That is arguably the only relevant outcome that should interest us.  Were the most productive players Drafted / Intl Signings / Free Agents / Traded for as prospects or were prospects traded for established players.  We can easily loojk up any successful team on Fangraphs/

 

I have put substantial effort into understanding how mid and small market teams have acquired their high contribution players.  Have you actually studied these teams or are you assuming you have the answers because something make sense to you intuitively.  Go to Fangraphs and look at any of the playoff teams built by teams with equal or less revenue to the Twins.  Count how many were drafted or acquired as prospects.  In almost every case  85-90% of the players over 1.5 WAR were drafted or prospects acquired by trading established players like Escobar / Pressly / Clevinger / Kluber / Sale / Eaton, etc.  5-10% or modest price free agents.  Elite free agents and established players acquired in trade are 5% on average.

[bean5302]

On 7/21/2022 at 2:57 PM, Nick Nelson said:

What an utterly bizarre interpretation of what I said. The original point was that it would be devastating to lose 9 years of Byron Buxton for a handful of starts from Syndergaard based on the completely implausible notion that he would've been the difference between getting swept or winning the World Series in 2019.

Steering this conversation back to the real world, what is the last example of a team trading for an "ace" at the deadline and winning the World Series largely because of it?

Bizarre to point out hypocrisy? If the games are already decided, then the players you have don't matter. 9 years of Buxton is worthless. Literally worthless except the fan interest in his highlight reels because there is nothing Buxton (or any other player) will or could have done to make a difference in any game they play. It just would have been offset by everything else that happened. If the Twins won the game, they won the game because of a different reason. If the Twins lost the game, they would have lost all the same. That's literally your argument. 

Placing a virtually impossible, and irrelevant, qualifier on a legitimate argument that aces matter in the playoffs and world series is ridiculous. Aces are very rarely traded, but elite pitching performances in the playoffs are almost always the recipe for a World Series winner. I can't prove the Twins would have won or made the World Series with Syndergaard any more than you can prove they wouldn't. 

[nicksaviking]

On 7/23/2022 at 1:18 PM, bean5302 said:

 

Placing a virtually impossible, and irrelevant, qualifier on a legitimate argument that aces matter in the playoffs and world series is ridiculous. Aces are very rarely traded, but elite pitching performances in the playoffs are almost always the recipe for a World Series winner. I can't prove the Twins would have won or made the World Series with Syndergaard any more than you can prove they wouldn't. 

Except Syndergaard was not an ace in 2019 and hasn't been since. In fact, he was a below average pitcher in 2019. No one's asking you to prove they would have won the World Series with him, but can you explain why giving away a player like Buxton for a below average starter was going to solve the Twins problem? There would have been a good chance he never even took the hill for that playoff series. Berrios and Odorizzi would have started ahead of him.