Twins Trade Luis Arraez for Marlins' Pitcher Pablo López

41 minutes ago, Shaitan said:

Lots of obsession with "batting champion" as a phrase. 

Arraez is great. But he hit .314. That's not exactly Puckett/Mauer/Carew territory.

I'm not too interested in the batting title, but rather comparing his BA and OBA to the league averages, and how productive his outs were--strikeouts don't move runners, but some outs do. 

And I knew he was playing hurt in the second half of the season.

JcS

53 minutes ago, Joey Self said:

I'm not too interested in the batting title, but rather comparing his BA and OBA to the league averages, and how productive his outs were--strikeouts don't move runners, but some outs do. 

And I knew he was playing hurt in the second half of the season.

JcS

Louie seems to be dinged up by the end of every season. 

A lot of discussion about Arraez not being a lock to stay on the field. Seriously? It seems to be a FO trait to ignore that. Lopez is of the same ilk. He has missed significant time in his career with a pair of right shoulder strains and a rotator cuff strain. But he finally pitched a full season in 2022, throwing 180 innings across 32 starts. Many of the pitchers that they have signed or traded for came with known questions about health, and several are out for significant time as the bet was lost. Do I have to name them all? And our Twins were the team that ignored and bet on Correa to the tune of at least $200 million that he will not be a problem when even a guy like Steven Cohen, who throws money around with seemingly reckless abandon, bailed on him. Arraez hit .316/.375/.420 in a career-best 144 games in 2022. He was out only 18 games. I bet they sat Correa about that just to let him rest. 

Who is a "lock" to miss no games? Not many. Maybe none. I hope Lopez can stay healthly for at least 2 years, as that is a year less control than Arraez had left. And we need him to excel and not blow up immediately like the other Lopez..... and Mahle and Paddack. At least Maeda lasted the short 2 month season before his known instability in his arm started giving him trouble in 2021 and then gave out and we lost a good year and a half, leaving only 2023 left.

Yep. We always hope the players will stay on the field. 

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Which ace do you think is getting traded right now? I can't think of one.

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8 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Having a rotation of #3 starters gives you a good chance of making the post season.  The problem is matching up in the post season once you get there.

Arraez was just not good enough to get an Ace.  It takes a package that is really going to hurt to get an ace and we can't make team's agree.  They want to keep them as badly as we would like to acquire them.  The return of a very good pitcher a top 100 prospect and a third player with a high ceiling is a very good return.  Obviously, this trade has the potential to good badly just like any other trade.  However, the addition of two high ceiling prospects provides the potential for this trade to be very productive trade for the Twins.  I hate to lose Arraez but this is the type of deal, especially with Julien, Martin, and Lee getting close, that can make us better for many years.      

Having a rotation of #3 starters when other teams in the division have #1 and #2 starters along with #3 starters will make it hard to see the postseason. But with injuries, who knows.

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

Which teams in the division have a better pitching staff? Maybe Cleveland. Anyone else close?

I would take the White Sox with Dylan Cease (Cy Young runner-up) as their Ace over the Twins as well. Giolito has been pretty reliable averaging over 30 starts a season for the last few years although he had an ERA over 4 last year, they also have Lance Lynn, Clevinger and Kopech who all have career ERA under 4. But as I said before, injuries are always something you can't predict.

I was surprised to find the rancor for this trade. 

I wasn't sure that Miami would to a 1:1 trade much less give us a good prospect and a lottery ticket as well!

I too very much enjoyed having Arraez on the team, but he is a bit one dimensional and we happen to have a glut of infielders up and coming. Miranda can now start his move to 1st base which is where he needs to end up.

BOTH teams could 'win' this trade and I hope they do because it would mean our new additions AND Arraez were playing well. 

I am also now satisfied with our pitching depth going into the year which is big. 

The Arraez-Lopez trade seemed inevitable for about the last month but the conversations started in 2022. Miami took a hard stand at some point with the Twins and narrowly focused on Luis Arraez as the must have player in any trade. I suspect a fair number of names were exchanged. I was hoping for a wider trade that included Edward Cabrera or just an acquisition of Cabrera. The Marlins were only interested in Arraez and the Twins felt that Cabrera was too much of a risk in exchange for Arraez. Thus it is Lopez for Arraez and the Twins also managed to also acquire two fair prospects. It's tough to lose Arraez but pitching is the main currency in MLB. The Twins look more solid with the current pitching staff today.

There will be significant eyes on Alex Kirilloff and others who were either injured or underperformed last year. If the Twins were correct on their evaluations of players like Jeffers, Kirilloff, Miranda, Gordon, Larnach, Kepler, and Gallo the offense should be solid. I expect Royce Lewis to contribute this season, starting in late June. Finally, we should all keep an eye on Julien to see if his bat is ready for MLB.

28 minutes ago, SwainZag said:

Curious....I see the term "ace" and "#3 starter" flung all over these boards.  What makes a guy a #2?  

https://www.minorleagueball.com/2017/9/28/16377142/1-2-3-4-5-starters-what-does-that-mean

On 1/20/2023 at 2:54 PM, Vanimal46 said:

Love this trade. What’s not being discussed enough is the massive upgrade of Lopez and full seasons of Ober/Mahle vs. 60 Bundy/Archer/Smeltzer starts last year. 

On 1/21/2023 at 12:09 PM, Mike Sixel said:

Truth. They just replaced a year of Bundy with a year of Lopez, and got a very good prospect and a lottery ticket? I can't believe they got a number 3 pitcher, a top prospect and another young guy in return. 

Lopez June - October last year essentially was Dylan Bundy. 

23 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

 

Lopez June - October last year essentially was Dylan Bundy. 

I guess you can throw out the early season but ERAs were down across the league. Bundy had an ERA in the 2s for March/April.

I think it is far better to look at a three year sample for projecting forward than truncating the previous year.

13 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I guess you can throw out the early season but ERAs were down across the league. Bundy had an ERA in the 2s for March/April.

I think it is far better to look at a three year sample for projecting forward than truncating the previous year.

It's not much of a truncation; he pitched like a fringe back end guy for 2/3 of last year. He spent large chunks of 2019 and 2021 either injured or ineffective as well. Lopez is probably a better health bet than Archer or Bundy and his upside is clearly higher, but neither of the aforementioned guys cost Luis Arraez; that's going to color how this upgrade is viewed. 

2 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

It's not much of a truncation; he pitched like a fringe back end guy for 2/3 of last year. He spent large chunks of 2019 and 2021 either injured or ineffective as well. Lopez is probably a better health bet than Archer or Bundy and his upside is clearly higher, but neither of the aforementioned guys cost Luis Arraez; that's going to color how this upgrade is viewed. 

I see a pitcher with an ERA 19% better than league average over the last three years. How many starters in the league have performed better over the last 3 season? It has to be top 50 and maybe top 30. Those starters are hard to find and expensive to acquire. Bundy’s ERA over the last three years is 14% worse than league average.

I wouldn’t look at a partial season of data for Lopez anymore than I would look at the drop in the performance of Arraez as the season progressed. Partial seasons project forward poorly. We simply disagree on the significance of that split in projecting performance for this year. Some see Bundy. I don’t.

39 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I see a pitcher with an ERA 19% better than league average over the last three years. How many starters in the league have performed better over the last 3 season? It has to be top 50 and maybe top 30. Those starters are hard to find and expensive to acquire. Bundy’s ERA over the last three years is 14% worse than league average.

I wouldn’t look at a partial season of data for Lopez anymore than I would look at the drop in the performance of Arraez as the season progressed. Partial seasons project forward poorly. We simply disagree on the significance of that split in projecting performance for this year. Some see Bundy. I don’t.

 

And how much of that is buoyed by time missed in 2021? The meh stretch I pointed out last year is as long, or longer, than his entire year in 2020 or 2021. Why are those partial seasons not considered poor projectors as well? 

I understand, probably a good pick up for pitching which we always seem to need. But yes as a fan I really miss Arraez, he really was a team spark plug and just super fun to watch when he was hitting! Loved the way he would fight off pitches and rack up a pitch count until he could get a base hit.

Good trade - would have been even better if we would have thrown Pagan as well if we really wanted to make our team better.

On 1/20/2023 at 2:22 PM, CRF said:

Can't say I'm thrilled. I don't think I trust our FO when it comes to trading for pitchers. I hope it works out. Seems to me, we could've gotten more in return from them with adding some additional pieces. Maybe one of the other starters? Anyway, I'll miss Arraez, he was a lot of fun to watch. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years down the road, he's got a handful of batting titles. I know that's not a particularly valued stat any more, but he's a very good hitter and the power numbers will get better too.  Best of luck to him. 

It's mixed. Odorizzi, Joe Ryan and Maeda worked out pretty well. Certainly their trades for pitchers have worked out better than their free agent signing of pitchers.