Sonny Gray Gives Twins a New Jose Berrios

We got rid of Berrios because we were going to be a poor team....... so why not get something for him.   Now we give up a recent #1 pick to GET a similar player (I thing Gray will be rock solid,) to be a poor team.  Makes no sense.

I would still rather have Berrios.   Younger, more durable, and a good dude from all accounts.

I wanted to see how lists put the two of them and I know this is a lot of fantasy baseball listings, but they are looking at analytics as much as anyone. 

Pitcher List  ranks Berrios number 28 over all in MLB.  Gray 56.

Razz Ball has Berrios number 20, Sonny Gray 32 

Roto Ball   has Berrios 21, Sonny Gray 51

Yahoo sports has Berrios 26, Sonny Gray 50. 

Streamer  has Berrios 25, Gray 50

Bill James  has Berrios 13, Sonny Gray 42 

So after all the maneuvering if we were going after another Berrios because we let Berrios go then we not only got a lesser pitcher, but lost a number one draft pick pitcher, and got older.  So let's just say we got a starting pitcher and wait and see what happens.  

1 hour ago, miracleb said:

We got rid of Berrios because we were going to be a poor team....... so why not get something for him.   Now we give up a recent #1 pick to GET a similar player (I thing Gray will be rock solid,) to be a poor team.  Makes no sense.

I think the idea was to extend the Berrios experience until new pitching comes along.  They saw a chance to trade one year of Berrios (for us, one year), get good prospect value, give up much less prospect value, and get two years of Berrios.  It's actually pretty brilliant, and I do believe this was very foreseeable for them in July, and I'm someone who's not all that thrilled with them in general.

Has anyone evaluated what banning sticky substances did to Gray's spin rates?

My thinking is why trade a #1 draft pick to be mediocre?  I mean I like the trade if the Twins were really planning on winning something this year.  But they didn't win last year with Berrios so why would they win this year with Gray?  So let's say the Twins had kept Berrios and tried to resign him like Toronto did.  And then they traded for Gray now I'd be like heck yeah!  Let's go for it.  But this move realistically puts the Twins right back where they were last season.

46 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

I wanted to see how lists put the two of them and I know this is a lot of fantasy baseball listings, but they are looking at analytics as much as anyone. 

Pitcher List  ranks Berrios number 28 over all in MLB.  Gray 56.

Razz Ball has Berrios number 20, Sonny Gray 32 

Roto Ball   has Berrios 21, Sonny Gray 51

Yahoo sports has Berrios 26, Sonny Gray 50. 

Streamer  has Berrios 25, Gray 50

Bill James  has Berrios 13, Sonny Gray 42 

So after all the maneuvering if we were going after another Berrios because we let Berrios go then we not only got a lesser pitcher, but lost a number one draft pick pitcher, and got older.  So let's just say we got a starting pitcher and wait and see what happens.  

That was exactly my thought.  Gray is a low #2 or a good#3.  

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

I wanted to see how lists put the two of them and I know this is a lot of fantasy baseball listings, but they are looking at analytics as much as anyone. 

Pitcher List  ranks Berrios number 28 over all in MLB.  Gray 56.

Razz Ball has Berrios number 20, Sonny Gray 32 

Roto Ball   has Berrios 21, Sonny Gray 51

Yahoo sports has Berrios 26, Sonny Gray 50. 

Streamer  has Berrios 25, Gray 50

Bill James  has Berrios 13, Sonny Gray 42 

So after all the maneuvering if we were going after another Berrios because we let Berrios go then we not only got a lesser pitcher, but lost a number one draft pick pitcher, and got older.  So let's just say we got a starting pitcher and wait and see what happens.  

Fantasy baseball traditionally uses Wins/Saves/ERA/WHIP/K. Saves wouldn't matter when ranking Gray and Berrios. So 25% of that ranking is based on expected Wins and would obviously tell a whole lot less of a story than the pretty articulate article we all presumably just read. 

So we should just ignore that in that time Berrios has pitched in 8 more games, 88.67 more innings, and have average 5.99 innings a start and Gray has average 5.2 innings per start. So penalize the guy for pitching more and claim the guy that pitches less is better? Seems like a huge stretch to make the Twins look good.

I'd rather have Berrios than Gray, but next year we wouldn't have Berrios.

IIRC,  Berrios did not want to re-sign with the Twins.  So for about $8M less per year(even if we could have signed Berrios) we have Gray, Martin, and SWR  vs. Berrios and Petty.  Petty was 4-5 years away "IF"  he ever made MLB.  Martin and SWR both are 2yrs.  or probably less away and both are more likely to make major contributions to the big league club.  Now, this may not have been the master plan from the beginning, but I much prefer how things turned out.  How bout cutting the FO a little slack until they've had more than a weekend to do what they have to do.  If it turns out bad, well then let'er rip.  But there is no way they are finished.

8 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Really hard to compare innings between the AL and NL when the pitchers hit and were taken out of games for pinch hitters while AL pitchers didn't have to worry about that.

On a low key note, because don't get me wrong I think Gray is a good pitcher and would have loved to see the Twins pair Berrios and Gray up together in the same rotation.  However, now looking at it, is Sonny Gray an injury risk?  I mean he only threw 135 innings last year and had a 4.19 era, that's even more of a red flag since he pitched in the NL and they get to face a pitcher a couple times every game instead of a Nelson Cruz type.

I hope he's ok, but it's kind of concerning to me.

2 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Twins came out with a similar ML pitcher with an extra year of control for cheap, a 5th overall pick, and a borderline top 100 prospect while giving up the ML pitcher with less control and a 26th overall pick. That's a win for the Twins in a vacuum.

I'll take Berrios and Petty over Gray, Martin, and SWR. 

1 minute ago, Wax off said:

I'll take Berrios and Petty over Gray, Martin, and SWR. 

Like I said earlier, I figured they traded Berrios because they weren't going to be competitive this year, maybe in a year or two.  That's why the long term deal for Buck and a rotation of a bunch of young dudes to prepare them for next year or the year after 

But if you were planning on being competitive this year.  Then I'm ok with the Petty for Gray deal, and then they should have kept Berrios and had a good 1 - 2 punch.  

But if they are going to be a middle of the pack to the back of the pack type of team then I'd rather have kept Petty and gone with the young guys to see what they can do at the MLB level.  Because Gray, Bundy, and some guys like Dobnak aren't going to get it done.  I suppose if they are in the back of the heap at the end of the season Gray can be shipped off to a contender for some prospects once again.  But they won't really know what those prospects have so it will be like re-setting once again.  JMO

Their career WHIPS are both 1.22, FWIW. I dont think the two are exactly apples to apples, but if Gray stays healthy, he is a Berrios-esque SP for the Twins for the next two years, at better value. Gray stabilizes the SP staff but does not add value relative to a Berrios. The major difference between them is age and contract, and only time will tell if it works out longer term. Berrios seems more durable, it's been 7 years since Gray reached 200 innings, but pitching in NL obviously had a lot to do with that.

Overall, it seems the Twins are leveraging their prospect pool for more favorable contracts with Berrios and Donaldson trades. At best, they stabilized the SP staff and roster, but I dont see where we are adding value either positionally (and in the catching dept, have probably subtracted value), or in SP. If they land another competent SP, they will have a fighting chance at .500, but I cant see much more than that.

I dont see this as much a FO issue as an ownership issue, restricting value and length of contracts seems to me to be ownership decision, not FO decision, but that is speculative on my part. Whatever it is, the new CBA seems a lot like the old already. 

2 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

If you're comparing/combining the trades it was Berrios and Petty for Gray, Martin, and SWR. Now I don't like the Gray trade if they aren't going out and adding more (Story and another pitcher) for this year as he doesn't add nearly enough to compete yet. But as a comparison of the trades the Twins came out with a similar ML pitcher with an extra year of control for cheap, a 5th overall pick, and a borderline top 100 prospect while giving up the ML pitcher with less control and a 26th overall pick. That's a win for the Twins in a vacuum.

You should throw the also completely unrelated Cruz trade in there because it makes your argument better.

Can anyone name a high school pitcher the Twins drafted in the last twenty years that became a 1 or 2

3 minutes ago, MesaTwinsFan said:

Can anyone name a high school pitcher the Twins drafted in the last twenty years that became a 1 or 2

Berrios

Gray is not Berrios. No where close. Once upon a time, Gray was better, but that was like 8 years ago.

Now, Gray is far more volatile, dramatically less reliable and his velocity is dropping. There's a reason Gray is on a $31MM and Berrios is on a $131MM contract. See that extra $100,000,000.00 on Berrios' contract? It means something.

1 hour ago, Drew said:

Fantasy baseball traditionally uses Wins/Saves/ERA/WHIP/K. Saves wouldn't matter when ranking Gray and Berrios. So 25% of that ranking is based on expected Wins and would obviously tell a whole lot less of a story than the pretty articulate article we all presumably just read. 

Note that I have many sources listed including Bill James.  I would not discount their opinions 

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

You kind of left off getting Martin and SWR in your analysis there.......

I'd deal Berrios and Petty for Gray and Martin and SWR. Especially if Berrios didn't want to sign an extension. Also, Gray costs less next year than Berrios. 

SWR and Martin still have to prove themselves - would you trade them for Petty?