Twins Acquire RHP Sam Dyson from Giants

Did the Twins get the best RP at the deadline?

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/twins-get-best-reliever-traded-at-deadline/

They share Texas with only one other team, Texas has the 2nd highest population in the US. Over 29 million people.  MN has 5.6M, IA has 3.1M SD and ND both have under 1M. Houston is in a whole different league of market. They get a ton of fans from Louisiana too, maybe Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, or Mexico as well.

Houston is considered a small market team. Their TV deal was botched. At one time, Rangers and Astros games were available all over the state. That's no longer the case, and for a while most residents in Houston could not watch them play on TV either.

But even before all that stuff, they were not considered a big market team. Though the team is drawing fans now, this was not always the case. During the short time I lived in Houston, I was surprised at how little attention they got in the local media. The Rangers are not big draws historically either, mind you.

Honestly I'm not sure Houston is much of a sports city. The Oilers struggled to fill the seats, and although the Texans declare every game a sellout, when you watch footage the stadium is half empty so these are sellouts on paper only.

They share Texas with only one other team, Texas has the 2nd highest population in the US. Over 29 million people.  MN has 5.6M, IA has 3.1M SD and ND both have under 1M. Houston is in a whole different league of market. They get a ton of fans from Louisiana too, maybe Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, or Mexico as well.

I moved out of Houston 31 years ago, but when I lived there (and the Astros were winning) baseball was just kind of a quaint diversion until the Oilers season started. The interest level in baseball was pretty low even when they made it to the NLCS against the Phillies. Unless things have changed a whole lot, population overestimates the level of fan support that shows up in attendance and TV ratings. (Does anyone have data on that?)

Are you just talking the metro areas? Because the Twins draw fans from 3 other states (the dakotas and Iowa). The Astros have another MLB team down the road in the same state. I don’t think the size of the market has anything to do with it. They’ve just been a much better team and have marketable players (Verlander, Cole, Springer, Altuve, Correa, etc).

Dallas is "down the road" from Houston in the same way Hibbing is down the road from Minneapolis.  The Astros market also probably includes much of Louisiana, as well as San Antonio, which is the 24th largest metro area on its own.  Let's stop pretending Houston is a mid-size market all of the sudden.

I moved out of Houston 31 years ago, but when I lived there (and the Astros were winning) baseball was just kind of a quaint diversion until the Oilers season started. The interest level in baseball was pretty low even when they made it to the NLCS against the Phillies. Unless things have changed a whole lot, population overestimates the level of fan support that shows up in attendance and TV ratings. (Does anyone have data on that?)

I have relatives in Houston who are Astros fans and they seem to think the 'stros are pretty popular. The Astros were 6th in MLB revenue last year, behind the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs and Giants. 

The Twins' share of those three states add up to less than a million people.

 

The Houston metro area alone has 1.5 million more people than the entire state of Minnesota.

Which doesn't count San Antonio or Corpus Christi or Austin or New Orleans

Houston is considered a small market team. Their TV deal was botched. At one time, Rangers and Astros games were available all over the state. That's no longer the case, and for a while most residents in Houston could not watch them play on TV either.

 

But even before all that stuff, they were not considered a big market team. Though the team is drawing fans now, this was not always the case. During the short time I lived in Houston, I was surprised at how little attention they got in the local media. The Rangers are not big draws historically either, mind you.

 

Honestly I'm not sure Houston is much of a sports city. The Oilers struggled to fill the seats, and although the Texans declare every game a sellout, when you watch footage the stadium is half empty so these are sellouts on paper only.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/estimated-tv-revenues-for-all-30-mlb-teams/

This is from April 2016, but it puts the Astros at $60M (top 10), compared to the Twins at $37M (bottom 10)

Forbes also put their 2015 revenue at $270M, compared to the Twins at $240M.  I'm going to bet the Astros are doing more than that now, while the Twins are about the same.

If 

Twins did enough to be a credible playoff team.

 

They won't win the World Series this year but at least they might win one playoff series and get their young guys some good experience.

 

Look at Houston and realize what a team needs to compete with the Dodgers, Red Sox and Yankees: great starting pitching, long lineup, quality defense at every position and a knock-out bullpen.

 

We ain't got that.

If the Royals can win the World Series, so can we.

If

 

 

If the Royals can win the World Series, so can we.

The Royals had a shut down bullpen.

What’s BS about it? We know Greinke had Minnesota on his NT clause.

I don't buy they would 1) pay the salary that would have been required and 2) given up the prospects needed to get him.  Neither of those items seems very Twins-like to me.  

I actually am ok with the moves they have made.  I like the fact they are building a strong foundation that will hopefully sustain them going forward! 

So optimistically: We play the Yankees in the ALDS. Berrios pitches us to two wins and we bash our way to a 3rd. The Indians take out the Astros somehow. We beat the Indians in the ALCS. We play someone other than the Dodgers in the WS.

I want a rematch with the Dodgers. I have been waiting since Koufax pitched 2 complete games in 3 days, game 7 on 2 days rest, and crushed my hope and dreams when I was 10 in 1965. I have been waiting a long time for it. 

And may as well go through the Yankees and Astros to get there. Be a champ by beating the best. That's the way to do it.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/estimated-tv-revenues-for-all-30-mlb-teams/

 

This is from April 2016, but it puts the Astros at $60M (top 10), compared to the Twins at $37M (bottom 10)

 

Forbes also put their 2015 revenue at $270M, compared to the Twins at $240M.  I'm going to bet the Astros are doing more than that now, while the Twins are about the same.

Yes, the Astros recent run of success has been filling the seats, and even better the newer ownership is not afraid to spend the money.

The Royals had a shut down bullpen.

And a mediocre offense that got hot for two weeks. Twins have the best offense in baseball (ranked by OPS & HR anyway). 

Greinke's real advantage is that he can kinda hit if HOU makes it to the series.

I think his real advantage is his pitching. The bat is a bonus.

In a best of 5 series, the Astros are going to roll out Verlander, Cole and Grienke. How do you not get swept?

Love the move for the 'Stros, not much the Twins could do there. However, it might be a learning experience. The Astros have a deep farm system with tons of young talent blocking them at the MLB level. So while the Astros did indeed give up big prospects, they've got young guys like Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa anchoring that team at ages 25 and 24, respectively.

When you draft and develop talent that can succeed in the majors in their early 20's, and continue to draft and develop talent behind them, Grienke and Verlander trades can happen on the regular.

The Royals had a shut down bullpen.

They also had great defense.   But they also had mediocre starting pitching and no power.   They were 1 out away from being 0-1 in the playoffs because they were that close to losing the wild card play in game.   They also had guts enough to say we don't care if other teams are considered better than us.  We are going to battle anyway.   Also, like pretty much every WS winner they got hot at the right time and had some luck.

Not gonna lie, totally unintentional! Hoping for plenty of clean innings from him, though...

We'll know better after the dust settles...

The no trade clause just means that Greinke would have to be involved in the trade discussions and/or approve the trade. Until I hear it from Greinke that he would have nixed a trade to the Twins, if there was one offered, I take this as just another writer trying to be somebody on twitter. Didn't Verlander have to approve the trade to Houston? Yes. No trade clauses just give the player final say. It never means that the list, if there is one, or even a full no-trade clause, means a trade can't happen. To say, or infer such, is a bit irresponsible, I think.

"Verlander, 34, has a full no-trade clause and had to approve a deal to Houston, which he waited to do as negotiations played out, wanting to make an informed decision based on all options. ............
........"We thought the deal was dead," Astros owner Jim Crane told MLB.com. "We had tried previously. He's a quality pitcher. I think he's excited to come. He was a little reluctant and eventually made the right decision. We got him for a couple of more years and the team's intact."

https://www.mlb.com/news/astros-trade-for-pitcher-justin-verlander-c251757752

They also had great defense. But they also had mediocre starting pitching and no power. They were 1 out away from being 0-1 in the playoffs because they were that close to losing the wild card play in game. They also had guts enough to say we don't care if other teams are considered better than us. We are going to battle anyway. Also, like pretty much every WS winner they got hot at the right time and had some luck.

What are you talking about?

The Royals won the AL Central by 12 games in 2015. And they had the second best starter RA/G in the AL. I wouldn’t call that “mediocre”.

Glad they got some bullpen help, but would have liked to see more. Giants ended up selling, but kept MadBum and Smith. Weird.

The Blue Jays were sellers too, but didn't trade Smoak or Giles either.

If the Twins would have acquired Giles and Smith on top of Romo and Dyson, it would have really solidified the Twins' bullpen. Romo and Dyson are nice acquisitions, but I"m not convinced that they'll put the Twins over the top.

Overall, a pair of nice moves and the team is better today than it was. I would have preferred someone a notch above Dyson, but he was a fine addition.

The fact they didn't make a move for a rental LH is a bit puzzling. Thinking they like Thorpe and Smeltzer quite a bit and will roll with them.

Except for Stroman and Greinke, no real big action at all. Kind of a weird deadline this season.

Overall it's an underwhelming deadline for the Twins. "Better than nothing," wasn't exactly the bar I was hoping to clear. The bullpen improved, but that needed to come from the top down, not the bottom up. 

3 weeks ago a Romo + Dyson deadline wouldn't have been met with much fanfare. The near hysteria over potentially only acquiring Romo shouldn't mean any move the FO made todays pushes the deadline into acceptable territory. 

They share Texas with only one other team, Texas has the 2nd highest population in the US. Over 29 million people.  MN has 5.6M, IA has 3.1M SD and ND both have under 1M. Houston is in a whole different league of market. They get a ton of fans from Louisiana too, maybe Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, or Mexico as well.

I see a lot more Rangers fans here in OK, but there are a few recent bandwagoners around

I think it was an acceptable deadline. I’m not thrilled but it was acceptable.

Acceptable as in the back end is better now? Yes.

Acceptable as in they acquired at least one impact arm, or did enough to feel decent about the pen making a playoff push? No.