LA VIkes Fan

Great article, ‘Nick. It’s all boils down to what you think of the talent on hand and whether you think this team can or will resign Berrios or Rogers. I think the talent on hand is good enough to contend in 2022 and certainly by 2023 IF we add a middle of the rotation free agent starter and a late inning free agent bullpen piece. Trading Cruz and or Donaldson freeze up the payroll space to make those moves. Playing the rest of this year with the young guys given every opportunity helps us evaluate what we have and whether I’m right on the window of contention. I think trading Berrios or Rogers at the deadline is too soon. Evaluate your younger additions over the rest of the season. Trade the expiring contracts, Cruz (and Donaldson if the offer is good enough) to augment things for next year If possible, but really to create openings for young pitchers to audition for 2022.. Make the decision on Berrios and Rogers over the winter after you have time to really see whether contention is possible in 2022. Don’t trade now, it’s too soon..

Guys, we have 6 games in the first 4 days after the All Star break, 15 in the the first 13, and no day off until July 29. We can’t cover that with our normal 5 man rotation. We will need at least 2 starts from AAA guys, one Thursday against Detroit and one Monday against Chicago just to cover the schedule. And that assumes the regular 5 don’t get traded or have to miss a start for injury. We need to start the best we have from the farm, so let’s all get used to seeing these guys.

Great to see this happen . This is exactly the kind of thing the twins should be doing for the rest of the season. Keep him in Minnesota and give him him more than one start unless he shows he isn’t ready. Winder should be next.

Interesting stretch ahead. Do you think that we will see a start from Barnes or Winder in the upcoming 6 games in 4 days stretch with the Tigers and White Sox? Detroit might not be a bad team for them to get in their first start; White Sox not so much. Might also be time to fire up the Uber and get Hamilton, Vasquez or Cano up. There willbe a time where they can replace a guy like Law or Coloumbe after they go 2 or 3 innings following a short start. Time to see what these 5 guys have. It will also be interesting to see if we make any trades over the break or wait until late July. It's hard to trade pitching when you come out of the break with 15 games in 13 days so any trade of Pineda, Happ, Robles or Thielbar probably has to wait until month end. Still, it would create space for a AAA pitcher. I think they can trade Simmons or Cruz whenever they want if they get the right deal. It will be interesting to see if they give Gordon games at SS after Simmons is traded, assuming he is. They've kept Gordon on the 26 man even though he hasn't been playing. I got to think that's because they intend to play him after trading Simmons either at SS or as a UTL. I'd love to see them give him a crack at SS now and then so they know going into the winter if he can play the position. They'll almost have to play him if Donaldson is traded. Interesting times, indeed.

I disagree. I don't think the return at this trade deadline for Berrios will significantly differ than it would over the winter. Past history doesn't show that when it comes to high end starters. Moreover, I don't think the Twins are trading him until they are absolutely sure they can't re-sign him unless someone will significantly overpay. You're probably right about Rogers; over paying for relievers is more common at the deadline. Again, I think the Twins should re-sign him and relievers aren't huge financial investments, at least compared to starters. By the way, I don't advocate for trading Donaldson UNLESS the savings is immediately invested in a long term contract for Berrios. Otherwise, let's keep him. Also, his replacement isn't Miranda, at least not yet, it's an every day position for Arraez. Polanco will stay at 2B and we'll need another short term SS until Lewis or Speer is ready. I think Donaldson stays for now unless we get someone to take the contract and give value. I don't think that's in the cards. . The place where we really need to evaluate before deciding is on the pitching side. Is there a MLB ready starter between Winder, Barnes and Duran? Is Ober good enough to be the #4 or #5 guy next year? If they are, one solid #3 FA starter in the offseason could really make a difference in the rotation. Are any of Hamilton, Vasquez, Cano or even Moran ready to be meaningful contributors in the bullpen? If one or two of them are, then all we need is a high end FA reliever next year. Conversely, if the answer to all of these questions is "No", then we should go for a tear down and re-build and trade everyone we have with value for prospects and hope we hit on some of them. That means a 2-5 year rebuilding window, but that may be what's necessary to build a contending pitching staff. I think we differ in our evaluation of where the team is now. I think the core lineup when healthy is good enough to contend. That means Buxton and Garver back making meaningful contributions. Our pitching is not, and not close. However, if we can find a starter plus Ober to competently man the #4 and #5 spots with ERAs below 5, and we find 2 good relief arms from the "group of 28 year old relievers" (Hamilton is 26, Cano just turned 27, and Vasquez turns 28 in Sept., all a not uncommon time for relievers to show their worth), then I think we aren't too far from a contending team - a solid #3 FA starter and a late inning relief FA and we're in good shape. It sounds like you think we are farther away than that and/or that we already know that we won't be able to re-sign Berrios or Rogers. If you're right, let's tear down and re-build. If I'm right, let's re-tool. My point is we don't enough data yet to make that call and we have 2 months of MLB baseball to get that data. Let's go out and get it. If the cost is the lesser return for Berrios and Rogers over the winter. that's a cost I'm willing to pay. Sounds like you aren't.

I say the Twins take a chance and actually give us the ANSWER to this question. Jettison/trade Pineda and Happ and put Barnes and Winder in the rotation with Berrios, Maeda and Ober. Dobnak and Thorpe are your AAA depth when they come back from injury. Move on from Robles (trade), Colome (trade or DFA) and Theilbar or Coloumbe (trade) and call up Hamilton, Vazquez and Cano. Pitch the starters every 5th day and use the relievers like real relievers in 6th and 7th inning situations. When inevitable 10 day IL stints occur, hope that one or more of the presently injured or AA guys like Sands, Duran, Caterino or Moran can fill in. Let's be Darwinian - may be the best guys win! My guess is that Winder will show enough to be penciled into the 2022 rotation along with Ober, but Barnes will be more of a 6th starter/long man/ AAAA guy. In the bullpen, Hamilton and Cano will be middle relief arms next year and Vasquez will be another long man/AAAA guy. But what do I know? Let's settle this in the arena!

Thanks. I guess my point really is that it’s just too soon to make that retool versus rebuild decision because we haven’t evaluated what we have in the upper minors in really the only way and evaluation should matter: putting them on the MLB roster and seeing how they perform. It may be that we bring up the four relievers, two starters, Miranda and Rooker as I suggest and they all fall flat on their faces. Then I think a bigger rebuild is probably necessary. On the other hand, we give them all an opportunity and find one starter, a couple of bullpen pieces, and that Miranda is for real, and then I think we’re in retooling mode because we don’t have as many holes. That’s why I would advocate a relatively quiet deadline of trading expiring contracts for prospects to open up playing opportunities for our high minors guys. One exception would be trading Donaldson but only if that money is used to sign Berrios. Pineda, Robles, Happ, Colome, and Simmons are not likely to be on the 2022 Twins team, and Cruz is at best a 50/50 shot. Let’s at least move these guys even if the return is less than inspiring to create opportunities for others so we can really evaluate where we are and not just be guessing in the off-season.

Interesting analysis. While I think you’re probably pretty close regarding the lineup, I think you miss on the bullpen and the rotation. You allocate $3 million to two bullpen signings without discussing whether any of the group including Hamilton, Vazquez, Cano or Moran can fill one or both of those slots. I think we can replenish the bullpen to a decent level internally and really only need one bullpen signing at a higher level. In other words, I would take $5 million and sign a quality bullpen pitcher knowing that my mid-level bullpen people can be from Internal sources. Hopefully there will be promotions in August that will give these guys a chance to see where they can fill those slots. Similarly, I do think there’s a chance at least that Winder or Barnes (or Dobnak for that matter) can fill the number 4 and number 5 slots along with Ober. If they can, then we can allocate $20-$25 million and sign one quality starter and one quality reliever, thereby raising both groups. In the lineup, your analysis shows how dependent we are on a bounce back/improvement from at least two of Kepler, Garver and Sano, AND both Kirilofff and Larnach bring the real deal in their second full seasons. Both those things need to happen to have a top 10 lineup, otherwise it’s pretty average at best. I could squint hard and see a 90 win team next year if the young guys work out. If they don’t, it’s an 80 win team. That’s why you need to promote aggressively for the last two months of the season to give guys experience and see what you have. I don’t think you can make a decision on a retool versus rebuild until you have done that and have at least some MLB experience to go on.

Well, these last two series have really shown how wide the gap is between this year’s Twins and this year’s White Sox. They just have substantially better start pitching, a better bullpen, and a better lineup. Time for us to retool or we’re going nowhere against these guys for the next few years.

I understand the comments about how bad the Twins could be if we trade away the vets. The real question though is what are the choices here? I think you have to start with the idea that the team as presently constructed is simply not good enough to contend for a division title, and a ways from being able to contend for a World Series title. If we assume that the goal is to get into contention hopefully sooner rather than later, what do we need to do? I think the best and quickest path really has three elements that will negatively impact this year and maybe next year. First, we need to provide playing opportunities for the next wave of talent to see what we actually have. That means trading Pineda, Simmons, maybe Cruz, and Robles, and trading or going the DFA route with Happ, Colome, and maybe the 34 year old Theilbar. Sano and Kepler should also be available in the right deal but we shouldn't just give them away because it's possible they will rebound. We need to provide playing opportunities on an every day or close to everyday basis for Larnach and Kiriloff, and at least part time opportunities for Gordon, Jeffers, Miranda, and maybe Celestino. On the pitching side, Ober needs to stay in the rotation, and I would like to see Winder and Barnes get at least 10 starts in August and September. I would also like to see Andrew Vasquez, Ian Hamilton, and Yennier Cano getting regular work out of the Twins bullpen starting on August 1, not to be sent back down at the first sign of trouble. . Second, we need to re-sign the unsigned part of the core of the next few years' team - Berrios, Buxton and Rogers. That may mean we have to trade Donaldson or not keep Cruz around in order to have the financial flexibility to pay the roughly $40 to $50 million a year those three are going to command on the market. I would love to do both, sign those three and retain Cruz and Donaldson, but I think that's going to be difficult for ownership to swallow. To me, signing those three is the key to being able to contend over the next 2 to 4 years. Without them, we probably need to go to a complete tear down and rebuild. Third, we have to find at least one free agent starting pitcher over the winter that can slot in no farther down the number three in a contending rotation, or a similar guy that we can get by trading prospects other than those listed above. That's probably a $15 to $20 million a year guy. I don't have any names to throw out there because I don't know who's going to be available this winter, but I'm thinking a pitcher with a profile similar to Lance Lynn or Dallas Kuechel as compared to a Trevor Bauer or Marcus Stroman. I think if we do those three things we have a chance at having a contending team in 2022 and a very good chance of a contending team in 2023. I think this also means that the 2021 team is going to be pretty bad and may only win 65 to 75 games. I can get behind that though, if there is a real plan to retool the team and make us competitive in the next year or two. I think one bad year is a small price to pay given where we are now. What I can't stomach is the idea of keeping these mediocre veterans around so that we win 75 or 80 games instead of 65 or 70 games in 2021 because all that's going to do is set the necessary retooling back another year.

I don’t believe Berrios will be moved at the deadline unless there is a significant overpay by some team. I think he will be traded this winter and then only if he rejects whatever best and final offer the Twins put out for him. I don’t think LaVelle Neal necessarily has “inside information“, but his column in the Strib says Berrios is looking for five years, $100 to $125 million. Frankly, in today’s MLB he is worth that and the Twins should pay it. That may mean the team trades Donaldson to free up payroll space. I’m all for trading Donaldson even if the return is mediocre IF the money is immediately used to sign Berrios. The rest of the expiring contracts crowd is not particularly inspiring and probably won’t generate much more than lower level prospects with the possible exception of Nelson Cruz. Even there, his market is limited because he can’t play in the field so there may not be much there either. Still, I would trade those guys for prospects for two reasons. First, prospects are better than no return at year end. More importantly though, it would free up playing time for the younger guys particularly on the pitching side. The rest of the season should be about evaluating talent so we can fill holes in the off-season for next year. Frankly, winning and losing is secondary.

I like that idea. I think the chances of getting much pitching talent for Donaldson at the deadline aren’t very high. Make the deal if we can, but in the more likely event that we can’t, the off-season is the time to make that decision.

Trading Donaldson is the right move IF the savings are used to re-sign Berrios and/or sign strong starting pitching of of the free agent market. If the Twins will do that, the return is almost irrelevant ; it's the salary relief that helps the most. My thinking to trade Donaldson and use every dollar saved to re-sign Berrios.

I agree with the basic premise - this team has enough core talent to re-tool rather than having to rebuild. I also agree with your analysis of who’s in that core with one exception - Polanco is a necessary core player that we should not trade unless someone offers strong young pitching with upside. We need his bat and we’re going to possibly need him to play SS the rest of this season and next assuming we trade Simmons. I think this Board has underrated Polanco and overrated Kepler for years. Polanco is a starting caliber MI on a contender (better at 2B to be sure but a passable SS). Kepler is a 4th OF on a contender unless he finds something soon. I’d love to see someone sit Kepler down and tell him we want him to hit .260-.280 with 15-20 HRs, NOT .230 with 25-30 HRs and see if he can alter his approach. Donaldson is the tougher call. I just think that we’re going to need to trade his contract to free up payroll to sign Berrios. If I’m wrong and we can have both AND Buxton, then only trade him if you can get some young pitching in return. Your bottom line is absolutely right though, all of this depends on whether we can re-sign Berrios, Buxton and, to a certain extent, Rogers. If we can re-sign at least Berrios and Buxton, re-tooling is the way to go and I like the plan. If we can’t, time for a re-build. The timing isn’t now though, not at this trade deadline. Decision time is this winter when we’ll know where we stand with the 2/3 key guys.

Good analysis. Unfortunately, we now know what Kepler brings to the tablein a normal year- 2019 being the outlier- verygokd OF defense and a below average slash line of around .235/.315/.425 (.740). He's even worse this year but Im hoping this tear is the bad outlier the way 2019 was the good outlier. Can’t hit left handed pitching to save his life. Sounds like a platoon player at best, really a 4th OF on a good team. So, what to do now? Probably nothing. Trade him if you can get a good return, but we probably can’t. We don't have anyone pushing him that hard since Sano is so bad he’s giving up 1st base to Kiriloff. Keep him and see how much we need him next year unless we get a good offer.

I completely agree. There’s actually a foundation of a decent to contending team here if they can just add some starting pitching. Let’s clear the decks of expensive contracts to guys who aren’t really performing or aren’t really long term pieces and use the money thus winter to sign a FA pitcher, shortstop, and, most importantly, our three key after 2022 free agents.

We do have some decent short term pieces to trade in Robles, Simmons, Happ, and even Cruz. I think what teams are waiting on is to see whether the Twins will trade what they really want - Berrios, Buxton and Rogers. Other teams are going to want to be sure those three are not available before they pivot to the short term veterans typically trade at the trade deadline. My view is you keep the three main pieces and try to sign them over the winter before you even consider a trade unless you are overwhelmed with an offer that includes MLB ready players with significant upside. The veterans are worth trading since they are unlikely to be here next year, with the possible exception of Cruz. I would also really seriously consider trading Donaldson, not because of the return as much as because of the money it would free up to hopefully help sign the three guys we really want to keep.

I will at least be consistent - trade Donaldson and use every cent of the savings to sign Berrios. The return is basically irrelevant; the point is to free up payroll for the player we need to keep the most.

I think we're stuck watching Sano create a breeze at least for the rest of this year and next. No one will take him because of his contract and I don't think any team will give us anything of substance for him even if we eat the contract. He is like the overpaid NFL player on the team up against the salary cap. Everyone knows your only choices are to keep him and play him or cut him and pay his salary with all the other teams able to pick him up for basically nothing. I think there may be a team or two (Miami with Rowson?) that would be willing to take a shot at unlocking his potential but not if they have to give up a prospect or pay any money to do it. Why not? Because they can just sit back and wait to see if we cut him, and they can have a basically free shot at unlocking that potential. The Twins aren't going to cut him and eat his contract, especially since it's possible he would go somewhere else and actually perform in the manner his talent dictates he should perform, thus making the team look really bad. We're stuck with Sano unless there's a team out there really salivating over the prospect of turning him around and even then we probably have to take back a similarly bad contract/player in a trade. All of the options with Sano are equally hideous. He is likely to be around for the foreseeable future.

Well, that was ugly. An ugly end to an ugly series. And now it is officially over. Nothing left for us to do but debate the extent of the necessary housecleaning, who should get a shot, and who's head should roll as result of all this. The good news is that we all have Twins Daily to debate these and other critical topics. That will be my primary source of Twins entertainment for the rest of the season. It sure won't be the team.

Extremely well said. My proposal is no guarantee of success, particularly in the short term. What I think is that 3 things have become pretty clear. First, the team as presently constructed is not good enough to contend. This year isn't just because of injuries, off years, etc., it's because we aren't good enough talent wise. Second, we have some talent in the pipeline to help but we don't know enough about what we have on the pitching side to understand our medium or long term needs. Third, re-signing Berrios, Buxton and/or Rogers is a big key to deciding if we need a shorter term re-load or a longer term tear down and rebuild. My view is that this year is essentially a throw away and should be used to evaluate prospects. We're doing a good job with that for Larnach, Kiriloff, Gordon, Ober; need to add 4-5 more starting and relief pitchers to that list, plus Miranda. The upside is that trading vets allows us to do that and opens up the possibility of financial flexibility to sign our own and other FAs in the offseason to fill holes. The downside is that if you think this year's team is bad now, wait until the vets are gone. It's going to be worse and might be a lot worse. I think it's worth that short term pain for the potential medium and long term gain. I don't see that it really matters if we win 60-70 games or 70-80 games this year. Both are non-competitive. What I really don't want to see is us fielding a veteran non-competitive team and THEN deciding to start over with younger players on the way up ( or at least that's the hope). All we've then done is waste time because that locks us into a non-competitive team in 2022 and maybe even 2023. A few wins this year isn't worth that. We have a chance to turn this year's lemon into lemonade by using this season to develop guys. The lemonade may not taste good this year (probably won't), but there's a better chance it will be palatable in 2022, 2023 and beyond if we use this as a developmental year and try really hard to sign the 3 internal free agents who can actually make a real difference on the field ( in Buxton's case, when's he actually there). That's where I start.

I agree with this entirely. I’ve said on other posts that the most important decision is to decide whether or not you can re-sign Berrios and Buxton for something that makes sense. Having said that, I would be willing to do a slight overpay for both because I think they are the two most critical pieces on the roster if we want to be contenders in the next 2 to 4 years. I think the alternative if you can’t re-sign those two is to go with the tear down and rebuild route. I think what I outlined still makes sense if you go for the tear down and rebuild except that you probably trade Rogers since he should bring a good return and will be older by the time you’re ready to contend again. Same goes double for Nelson Cruz. I think the rest of it works regardless of whether this is a reload or a rebuild. With all of that said, I don’t think this month is the time you have to make that decision unless you find out for sure that re-signing those two is just not going to be an option. I think the better time to make the trade is in the off-season anyway because I think we will get a better return and that gives us time to actually try to negotiate the deal. I do agree though, that before the start of next season you need to have a firm decision made on resigning Berrios, Buxton and Rodgers.

You're right about that although it does save the remainder if their salary for the season (except for Shoemaker). Hopefully that will help ownership commit the dollars necessary to keep Berrios, Buxton and Rogers for the next 3 years. To ge clear, my approach would be to trade these guys, use the Donaldson/Kepler money to sign Berrios (20-23m) and part of Buxton (the remaining 7-10m). We then promote internally rather than use FA to fill out next year, and use the FA/last year money we spent for this year (roughly $36 between Simmons, Pineda, Happ, Colome, and Robles) for the rest of Buxton (10-13m), and Rogers (8/9m). That should leave 14-17m for a mid-rotation FA starting pitcher and keep payroll flat. Increase payroll by 12m and we can keep Cruz, which I would like to do to stabilize the lineup. Internally, Gordon, Arraez, Polanco, and Miranda cover the middle infield and 3B, Larnach, Buxton, Kiriloff, Refsnyder, and a now minor leaguer (Celestino or de la Trinidad) the OF, Sano/Garver 1B, Jeffers/Garver/Rotvedt C. Hamilton/Cano/Moran/Vasquez/Stashak/Thorpe/Smeltzer fill out the bullpen behind the 4 we keep. The rotation still is an issue with Berrios, Maeda, 14-18m FA, followed by some combination of Dobnak, Ober, Jax, Duran, Winder, Sands, Smeltzer and Thorpe. Frankly, I think thats a better team than the current one for the same price, and one thats more fun to watch. And that assumes the trades don’t get us a MLB ready prospect. My view is that engaging in a significant sell off of veteran talent by August 1 does not have to mean a complete rebuild next year. If we follow this kind of a blueprint, we can still field the competitive team next year with a good future beyond next year. The rest of this year will be pretty painful to watch But at least we can use the latter half of the season as development time to give us a running start toward 2022 and 2023.

I think we sell but not because of the chances of a great return. It ain't happening. We sell to free up payroll that we use to re-sign Berrios and Buxton. That’s why we sell. Keeping guys because we aren’t going to get a great return is the height of short term thinking. Gone - Donaldson, Happ, Simmons,Colome, probably Kepler. Hope to get something but probably not. Doesnt really matter. Gone if we can get a bag of baseballs (DFA) - Shoemaker. I’d like to keep Cruz for next year since he isn’t likely to bring much. Use the money to sign Berrios, Buxton, and/or Rogers.

It’s very good to see Winder and Miranda moved up to AAA. I would really like to see Winder get five or six starts at the MLB level this year and Miranda get 100-150 at bats. Let’s see if one or both can help us in 2022 or if they need more time and 2023 or 2024 is a more realistic timeframe. There should be some opportunities for both after the trade deadline assuming we move a veteran or two. I’m a little surprised that neither Andrew Vazquez or Ian Hamilton has gotten an opportunity to pitch out of the bullpen with the Twins yet this year. Both seem very dominant this year in AAA and I believe both are around 27 so now is really the time to find out what they can do. Again, this may just need to wait until the second half of the season but it sure seems to me that both those two guys should get at least 6-8 weeks of time in the Twins bullpen this year to see if they can be part of that pen next year. There certainly will be a need for bullpen depth next year and this year would be a great time to find out if these two guys can be part of that depth.