Did the Twins Win or Lose the Trade Deadline?

If Happ and Robles do quite well with their new team, in my  opinion that shows the Twins coaching staff is a detriment.

"There is no winning! Only degrees of losing."  Danny De Vito ~ The War of the Roses

For the Twins, there was no winning at the trade deadline. Selling places you at the $5 table with the forsaken and the lost. The Twins don't have a team to compete in 2022 and you have to question if they have an ownership group that will allow them to compete ever. High quality starting pitchers cost at least $25 million a year and you need three of them at a minimum. Do the Twins want a seat at that table? History, recent and distant, says no. Berrios is just Johann Santana 2.0.  

Twins fans have been duped by a few meaningless divisional titles. Winning the worst division in baseball means nothing. Do you think otherwise? The playoff record dashes any dissenting view. Even that empty prize seems completely unachievable now. Stack our roster versus the White Sox'. Tears shall flow into your beer. 

The Twins will soon celebrate the thirtieth anniversaries of their last World Series victory and their last playoff relevance simultaneously. They will do so without irony.

For the Twins, it's always about "Wait til next year." That sign should permanently hang, year after year, over Target Field. 

Moving a pitcher like Berrios isn't a W, almost by definition. The Happ and Robles moves were unexpected but also very unlikely to yield anything. There isn't really any excuse for holding onto Pineda, the "respectability," angle for Auguest & September is laughable. The return for Cruz was impressive. 

The context is really, when broken down to the rub, did they do well. You can't be happy or feel good that Cruz and Berrios are gone. And I am not going to debate on extension offers/efforts for Berrios. I hope nobody else does either. That ship has sailed. On top of that a] we really have no idea about said offers or Berrios's hopes/demands, and b] I grudgingly accept that unless he was blown away by an offer, he is determined to test FA, which is his earned right. But I know I am sad to see the guy go after watching since he was drafted.

What grade would I give the results? I'm giving the EARLY results a solid A. I think it's way too easy to simply claim the FO got quality back because they traded high quality. The FO COULD have botched the return by insisting pitching only, and missed out on a top talent, or, they could have done the old "quantity vs quality" route we have seen in the past. 

They added THREE talented arms with real potential and what would seem to be solid floors with some good to even high ceilings. Don't give me some ACE arguement. Nobody drafts or trades for an ACE. You get good arms and develop them and some, here and there, turn out to be an ACE. The rest turn out to be a solid 1-3 and quality 4-5. A few turn out to be quality BP pieces and sometimes superior ones. (Of course some wash out, not ignoring that fact).

Disk from the Cardinals is LH and breathing with high SO numbers and some control issues, He is also only 24yo and at AA with a little over a season of milb rookie and low A ball before missing 2020 like everyone did, I wish I knew more about him but haven't been able to find much in way of his "stuff" after a couple quick searches. But for Happ? A flier is a win.

Gant is not old. He may have been a DFA by the Cardinals.  He's a body they picked up. Maybe he's one of those guys who find something and click with a different organization and different coaching. Maybe he's gone tomorrow, Doesn't matter. Happ is gone and they got a young LHRP as a flier. Enough said.

Not going to lie, I'm intrigued and stunned by Scherff from Boston without even knowing what he throws. He's only 23yo and was their 5th round selection in 2017. He didn't pitch until 2018 where he put up fairly pedestrian numbers at rookie and low A ball. Same with 2019 at low A and a single appearance at A+. Again like everyone else, he missed 2020. This season he was moved to the pen and began the season at A+ where he looked really good before moving to AA a few weeks ago. He has been pretty much outstanding since the move to the pen. Bullpen arms have value too. And for a 2 month rental on Robles, this MIGHT be more than just a cheap flier.

A grade for the FO?

Not sure what I can add to what I already said. They sure didn't blow the moves they made.

But I am going to respectfully disagree with Tom, Nick, Seth and Matt (via their statements in podcasts), I just can't downgrade the results of the moves made because the FO didn't do "enough". I just don't believe there was a market for Simmons, having probably his worst career year. Rogers being hurt took him out of the trade market. I don't think you could have moved him even if you wanted to. (IMO, they wouldn't have unless blown away for various reasons). I think Pineda would have brought back SOMETHING if moved. And while I am about 70-80% certain a re-sign has been discussed, a trade and re-sign may have complicated that idea. And call me foolish if you will, I kinda like the comments from the Twins as to reasons for keeping him. Value vs flier/prospect and the such I'm OK with this.

Trading Kepler made no sense to me unless blown away. And I've spoken about this before, so will leave that alone.

For a lot of reasons, moving Donaldson would have been smart and nice. I only heard 2 rumors of interest. MAYBE there was more? But how much do you have to give up $ wise if you're the Twins to make any move? They guy has been durable and productive in a lousy 2021 season. IF his attitude doesn't go all to hell next year, he could be of far more value than the $8-10M you might have saved by trading him and "buying out" most of his contract.

So I get the, "we could have done even more" objections, but I disagree. 

"Tough to imagine the Twins contending in 2022"! Give me a break. You guys are all so doom and gloom. The Twins should and will contend in '22. Our lineup is too good to not contend. Just need a little help with our pitching. I will say, '23 should be the year we really put it together, but no reason to think we can't contend next year. We should have contended this year, were it not for a fluke of everything that could go wrong going wrong. 

Tough to call trading your best hitter by a mile, and your best pitcher by a mile a win.

However, given Cruz is in his 40s, and Berrios looked kind of set on leaving after next year, tough to dislike the return on those trades.

Still hope to keep Buxton, got a decent core, Kepler, Polanco, the catchers, Donaldson. They are a few pitchers away from at least .500 ball. Won't miss Happ or Robles.

Glad it wasn't a fire sale. So I think the front office did a nice job of gaining assets at the expense of the best but short term players on the team, while keeping a core to rebuild around.

B

As my brother-in-law likes to say whenever he's asked if he likes the food: "I'll let you know later."

How can people keep buying into the Twins "philosophy" of building a competitive team?  This same crap has been going on for decades.  Failure to retain good players then when it's time to pay them market salary they dump them off for prospects.  We are always left with prospects and their devolpment and potential.  How can you say we won or lost until we see what happens to them?  Most of these prospects rarely see a major league park much less being a good major league player.  You cannot compare a 20 year old with no experience to an 8 year MLB.  This is lunacy; Twins style!

21 hours ago, roger said:

I wonder about those above who are critical for the Twins talking about trading Buxton.  We don't know the context of how that happened.  As I read it, they received calls inquiring about Buxton.  Well, if someone calls you are gonna take it.  Doesn't mean you ever considered moving him which is what the end result was.

Also agree with the general consensus that I will miss Berrios, a lot.  But after reading a national report that said the Jays got robbed and Nick's piece on Martin, I am excited that the return was big...really big.  

As for winning or losing at the deadline, is a win for me...big one.  The two pitchers from Tampa for two months of Cruz is a huge return, much bigger than most expected.  Furthermore, it would not be a surprise if at least one of the two is pitching every fifth day at Target Field next spring.

If the reports I read are true, the Twins won the Berrios trade even though we will miss a special young man.  Who knows, maybe the Twins go out and offer market value a year from this winter and he comes home...although I agree that would be contrary to how they usually do business.

As for the Happ and Robles trade, I am amazed they got anything for that duo.  Yes, they had to eat an unknown part of their contracts for the next two months, but to get any return is flat out robbery...IMO.  And they got an actual major league pitcher as part of the Happ return.  To be honest, I don't understand either of these deals.

So for me its a huge win.  Yes, there were others they didn't move.  But did anyone expect them to be able to move Donaldson and his huge contract?  Was a bit surprised that Pineda wasn't traded.  Left me wondering if they will sign him to a two year extension before the year ends.  But not knowing what, if anything, was offered for Pineda and others makes it hard to say they failed by not trading someone because if the offer wasn't adequate it makes sense to say no.

Pretty much somes  up where I'm at. Don't get the hate for Donaldson. He is now one of 3 bats in the lineup that give the Twins good ABs every time up. Sure Miranda is getting close, but a year ago no one knew of him. 

Too bad Rogers got hurt, as I'm tired of him blowing games. To be fair to him, he is miscast as a closer and would be better off as 7th or 8th inning guy. 

I am not a fan of this FO at all but I will say that they did have a good day at the trade deadline.   Hate to see two of my favorite current Twins players leave but we did get very solid return in both.   I think there is a strong likelihood that Cruz will be back next year as well.

I'm sure we could have traded Pineda, Simmons, and Donaldson. And others. And I'm sure there were inquiries and possibly offers. But I don't fault Falvine for keeping them. The fact that they didn't get traded tells me that no satisfactory deals were forthcoming. We were sellers and should have been, but that doesn't mean we should have sold at a loss.

If the NL adopts the DH for next year there will be no more Loogies.

On 7/31/2021 at 11:48 AM, mikelink45 said:

Trading Happ is an A+.

Trading Berrios is a statement that the Twins will not commit to pay for a quality starter.  No matter how people debate his ACE status (a worthless discussion) he is the best we have now and the best we have had since Santana. 

You are assuming that he was willing to resign with the Twins, which we never got any indication of.  The Twins tried at least 3 times (that we know of) to extend him and he rejected every overture they made to him.  By all accounts he wanted to test the open market, free agency.  That screams I want to get out of Minnesota.  The Twins would have been absolutely foolish to just let him walk in free agency if that is the case.  They made the right move in trading him while they still had a chance.  

Thrilled to get rid of Happ and Robles, two of the pitchers who I least enjoyed watching this year.

2 hours ago, laloesch said:

You are assuming that he was willing to resign with the Twins, which we never got any indication of.  The Twins tried at least 3 times (that we know of) to extend him and he rejected every overture they made to him.  By all accounts he wanted to test the open market, free agency.  That screams I want to get out of Minnesota.  The Twins would have been absolutely foolish to just let him walk in free agency if that is the case.  They made the right move in trading him while they still had a chance.  

No that assumes that we could have signed him for the same value the market will set, but even without it, it assumes that Berrios would have given us the rest of this year and all of next year with better results than any other pitcher we have or will get.  He did just pitch six shut out innings for Toronto.  It also assumes that if we had kept him we would still have gotten an extra draft choice so in reality we gained one prospect and lost 40 starts. 

IMO the trade deadline comes down to 4 factors. Now, this offseason, 2022 season, and the seasons after that.

As of 8/2/2021, it is a high grade, they got prospects for guys that won't do anything this year (meaning they are out of the playoff hunt) and hopefully freed up some to see some young guys.

The rest are all incomplete. They have some huge decisions on the 40 man this offseason, and they added more to those decisions by the guys they brought in.

2022, will come down to if they are good next year, and if they are and they need a starting pitcher, would it have been cheaper to keep Berrios, or did that trade give them the extra resources to get somebody else?

and after that, who knows, the odds say it won't matter, Berrios wasn't going to sign, and the guys they got won't be stars.

On 8/2/2021 at 11:51 AM, mikelink45 said:

No that assumes that we could have signed him for the same value the market will set, but even without it, it assumes that Berrios would have given us the rest of this year and all of next year with better results than any other pitcher we have or will get.  He did just pitch six shut out innings for Toronto.  It also assumes that if we had kept him we would still have gotten an extra draft choice so in reality we gained one prospect and lost 40 starts. 

Realize this is very old, but extra draft choices are a total crap shoot.  And yes it WAS assuming he was willing to resign with the Twins which he clearly wasn't.