Twins Acquire RHP Sam Dyson from Giants

Were any impact arms even traded today?

Other than Greinke, of course. But he wasn’t coming here.

They were available. 

The FO chose to wait until the deadline to address the bullpen. They had to know they were bound to pay more. 

I mean, perhaps they were technically available.
But doesn't the fact that they weren't moved imply that the prices might have been unreasonable?
It's not like the Twins are the only team that could use impact arms.

I'm sure they were higher than MN would've liked, but that's the situation they put themselves in. Again, they had to know prices were going to be higher at the deadline. 

But in my book, it seems Falvine doesn't like taking risks, and that's pretty disappointing.

I think you specifically mean trade risks.

I'd say relying on resurgences or growth from Schoop, Sano, Buxton, Perez, Castro, Kepler, and that Cruz would stay consistent at age 39 was a pretty big risk.

I said Twins organization. I said it is likely they are part of the reason. I actually never said only reason. What is the MOST LIKELY reason? Since, he does have cold weather cities not on his list......

 

And no, it's not the same as saying Sano is lazy, not even a little. 

Saying it's "part of the reason" is like saying the Earth being flat is "part of the reason" that the moon landings were fake. 

You have not and cannot explain how Falvey and Levine are to blame for the Twins being on Greinke's no trade list. It's not a rational thought. 

Of course. But we're not looking for one reason that covers all. And weather is a completely plausible reason for some, including MN.

Quick, name all the teams that have had multiple games cancelled by snowstorms in the last two years...

Throwing in the towel already? Underdogs win often enough and they are more fun to watch when they do. For example, in the last 25 years wild card teams have gone to the world series 12 times and won 6 times. 1987 Twins and 1991 Twins were something like 130-1 against winning it all. I am guessing adding a couple bullpen arms gets the Twins from 15-1 against down to 13-1 against. In other words these Twins are 10 times more likely to win the World Series than the other two Twins teams that actually did win it. Ok, I am playing a little loose with the numbers and we are getting way ahead of ourselves. Make the playoffs first. I am fine with our chances once we get there. Afraid of Greinke? The guy is great but he is 3-4 in the playoffs and has a 4.04 ERA. Well, that's against great teams right? Against the Twins he is 5-9 with a 4.64 ERA.

Interesting you write this. This offseason I really wanted to put $100 down on the Twins to win the World Series. The first line I saw was 100-1. After they signed Cruz and Parker (kidding) it dropped to 70-1. I never got around to it (and frankly, don’t really know how), but it would have been a fun thing to follow.

Getting Greinke to go with Verlander and Cole is amazing. What a staff.

I know this is about the Twins but for some reason I am not excited. But I am okay with the move.

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”.

Whoops.   Was talking about the 2014 wild card Royals that barely won the wild card game and won 8 straight to get to the WS where they went 3-4.   They were 9th in the AL in scoring and dead last in the major leagues in home runs hit.   That was the team I was talking about and no one was giving them much chance.   Point being you can win in a large variety of ways.   Power, speed, patience, starting pitching, relief pitching.    Mostly its about getting hot.   I can easily imagine our rotation giving us quality starts and bullpen holding leads and our offense scoring a lot of runs against anyone.   Of course, I can imagine them getting swept.   Its part of the game.   Are they going to win it all?   Probably not.   Thats actually true of every team.   Can they win it?   Of course they can.

Interesting you write this. This offseason I really wanted to put $100 down on the Twins to win the World Series. The first line I saw was 100-1. After they signed Cruz and Parker (kidding) it dropped to 70-1. I never got around to it (and frankly, don’t really know how), but it would have been a fun thing to follow.

Its worse for me.   My secretary went to Las Vegas and I told her to put $50 on the Twins to win it all.  She misunderstood and put it on the game that day and we got smoked.   Lost the $50 immediately and the chance to win over $1500.

All of these new trends are going to add up to an ugly work stoppage IMO. Teams will continue to value prospects because of cost certainty and the system in place to depress their salary. Players are going to be upset because the system was set up to reward tenured MLB players and owners are no longer holding up that end of the deal (fairly so).

What we're seeing (boring free agency, constipated trade deadline) are all symptoms to a much bigger problem in the near future.

You're not wrong... I hear NFL fans saying "oh no, the CBA's up in a year or so, there's gonna be a lockout!" But really, the MLB is in far more trouble in my humble opinion. There's just something inherently wrong with teams owning players' rights for 6-7 years and then the player finally gets to hit free agency... from ages 29 to 32 sometimes.

Dear Twins FO,

Congrats on Dyson boys!

You were so wise to hold on to all of your high level prospects and avoid starting pitchers like Stroman because the Mets paid such an ASTROnomical cost. And ANY cost for Minor would have been too high!

And your starting playoff rotation....it weakens our knees just thinking about it...

Enjoy those 3 playoff participation ribbons you will earn over the next 5 years while you hoard prospects!

Love,

Houston FO

There is a difference between high prices and unreasonable prices.

Again, the Twins aren't the only contender who needs impact arms.
You saw the Yankees pitching staff when they were here, are you suggesting they also don't have what it takes to pull the trigger?

It seems quite evident to me, that if players that every contender could use don't get moved, then the prices weren't simply high, they were unrealistic.

NY went out an signed Ottavino and Britton this offseason. The Twins claimed Blake Parker off waivers. The Yankees have one of the best set of late inning arms in baseball (Chapman, Britton, Ottavino) while MN has Rodgers and some other guys. To say NY was/is as desperate for impact arms isn't remotely true. 

I'm so tired of hearing "team X didn't get this player so the Twins weren't going to either," or "if team Y showed interest it wasn't somebody MN should've targeted." The Twins opted to ignore adding bullpen arms over the offseason. The internal shuttle isn't the answer and they've had to move outside of that to make waiver claims on journeymen arms. 

There's really no excuse for this team to be in the situation they're in now. If the idea was to "see what they had," before adding then the FO had to know they'd pay a premium at the deadline. Period. If there was never any intention to add the kind of arms this bullpen needs, they should've signed 2 lower tier pitchers during the offseason and potentially saved prospects and/or added a few games in the standings, especially in July. 

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.

It will be a tough task for sure, but remember how impossible it seemed in 2002 that the young Twins could compete or even beat the A's star rotation of Mulder, Zito, Hudson? Those three were stars at the time

Dear Twins FO,

 

Congrats on Dyson boys!

 

You were so wise to hold on to all of your high level prospects and avoid starting pitchers like Stroman because the Mets paid such an ASTROnomical cost. And ANY cost for Minor would have been too high!

 

And your starting playoff rotation....it weakens our knees just thinking about it...

 

Enjoy those 3 playoff participation ribbons you will earn over the next 5 years while you hoard prospects!

 

Love,

Houston FO

IALTO

I hate this trade.  A potential career's worth of Wu Tang jokes/references right down the toilet.

Absolutely spot on. Take anything Doogie says with a grain of his "self-serving-sources" salt.

 

As that fictional chemistry genius Walter White once said:

 

"Name one thing in this world that is not negotiable."

Hmm...quoting a fictional character who committed numerous felonies using firearms about how to negotiate. Interesting rhetorical device.