Twins, Rockies Talk Tulowitzki

I do agree, there is risk here........but I'd still consider it.

Its hard to imagine a better candidate in all of baseball turning into an albatross in the next 1-2 years. All the red flags are there (injury history, declining power, increasing K's, etc).

 

He couldn't stay on the field in his 20s. I'd wager his 30s will only get worse.

Even with his injury in 2014 he still put up a 5.4 WAR.

Tulo WAR numbers:

2009: 5.4

2010: 5.6

2011: 5.2

2012: 1.2

2013: 5.3

2014: 5.3

His K rate and BB rate this year are a bit concerning, but I think he can rebound, nad also that may be the reason why the Twins can get him at a bit of a discount now instead of having to give up a Sano like prospect. At 30 years old  he very likely still has another 3-4 elite seasons in him before the real decline happens.

I'd be interested in trading established major leaguers for Tulowitzki (Ervin Santana, Tommy Milone and Trevor Plouffe?) but young talent not so much.

 

Maybe they would bite on a quantity-over-quality package of Danny Santana, Adam Brett Walker, Alex Meyer and Kohl Stewart but unlikely

Milone doesn't have any real value on the trade market, Santana won't get traded 3 starts into his Twins career and the Rockies already have one of the best 3rd baseman in the game, Plouffe is of no interest to them.

They aren't giong to take a bunch of current AAAA types like Santana, Walker and Meyer for him, and Stewart is just too far away to headline a deal.

Fwiw his career and 2015 road splits would be the twins 3rd best OPS in the lineup right behind Sano and Dozier. Considering he is a 5 WAR a year player and the combo of Escobar, Santana and Nunez is about a 1 WAR player you instantly have a much better team.

He's so good, that he still puts up 4-5 WAR every year.....every stinking year. And his OPS outside Coors only looks bad compared to the ridiculous numbers in Coors. those numbers are still very, very good.

I understand the counter argument, but at some point you play to win. I was hoping a year that you are 9 games over .500 after the ASB would be one of those years, but I guess we can just wait until next year, when the next reason to try not to win comes up.....

Also while I would love for the Twins to pull off the trade, I think the mets are the more likely destination, they desperately need some bars and have an absurd amount of young pitching and prospects that could be traded.

Remember E Santana cannot pitch in the 2015 playoffs should the Twins make it so moving Gibson is especially counter productive this year. Mad props if they can unload Nolasco in ANY sort of deal and my gut feeling is that Polanco is a better player than D Santana so reluctant to see Polanco moved at this point. So I'd probably do Berrios, Nolasco, D Santana for Tulo.

Getting Tulo not only helps compete in 2015, but in 2016-2020 as well Brock... He likely adds 2-3 wins on his own in 2015 over the current SS solutions the Twins have, if they don't include Gibson in the trade I don't see how you can say they are making their holes worse and the team worse.

Playing to win only makes sense when you feel you have a solid foundation, not because you're eight games over .500 largely due to luck and good timing.

 

If the Twins pick up Tulo, they still don't have a competent playoff rotation, they still have huge question marks in the outfield and DH, and they still have a giant blackhole at catcher.

 

If anything, all of those problems are worse because you had to give up so much to get Tulo in the first place.

 

He's a good player and I'd love to see the Twins acquire someone of his ability but the team is too flawed and the price too great to pull the trigger on that move in 2015.

 

I mean, if they can somehow manage to convince the Rockies to take a bunch of expendable players in the deal (Meyer, Polanco, Kepler), then yeah, you do that... but that's not reality. The price for Tulo is going to start with Buxton, Sano, or Berrios. That's too steep a price on a flawed Twins team. They need those pieces to round out all those flaws.

and you plan to fix those flaws, w/o making a trade next year, how? Who is the FA C or SS or SP they will sign to magically create a team w/o a flaw?

yes, they have been lucky, but what are the odds they are lucky next year? They have banked these wins, wins they don't have next year or the year after.........should they just give up that asset for the year?

If only Mauer wasn't......you could slide Tulo to 1B when Gordon is ready. That would be nice.

 

 

If the Twins pick up Tulo, they still don't have a competent playoff rotation, they still have huge question marks in the outfield and DH, and they still have a giant blackhole at catcher.

Gibson, Hughes, May could be a halfway decent playoff rotation. How do they have a huge question at DH? Have you not seen that Sano kid they called up?

OF, I wouldn't call those huge question marks, if one of Hicks or Rosario start to struggle you have Arcia and Buxton ready to step in. Catcher can be fixed by trading a PTNBL type for AJ.