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Even having said that the Twins easily could've afforded the kind of value the Mets gave in the Bassitt trade, I don't think they really gave up more here. Getting Gray and IKF in two days without giving up any high-minors pitching seems to indicate that they're trying to be relevant for 2022 but also ramping up for the next few seasons.

Fair point. It does seem like this deal could be indirectly helpful with a trade for starting pitching that the Twins are almost certainly looking to make, particularly if you buy the higher end of Henriquez' evaluations. He now adds to their minor-league pitching depth if and when they have to trade from that depth.

Just read the Fangraphs writeup on Henriquez (which maybe is what you're referring to) and yeah, it's encouraging. They rank him between Canterino and SWR and say he could be a candidate for the rotation at some point in 2023.

In some way, trading for Kiner-Falefa is a better hedge against the variance in Lewis' outcomes than either a big multi-year free agent (e.g. Story) or a one-year stop-gap signing (e.g. Iglesias, I suppose) would be. If Lewis is going to be a long-term SS, IKF doesn't really block him, but does provide a plan for 2023 if Lewis takes a while to get back up to speed after the injury. However, I was surprised that IKF had only 2 years of contractual control left. Which means that if Lewis isn't going to stick at short, by late 2023 they're gonna need another plan.

Counterpoint (though just one person's opinion, of course): This would be the wisest thing to do, because the assets required in trade would be significantly less. That's favorable for (however much they claim not to be rebuilding) a "retooling" team with a serious need for stability in its rotation in the short term.

Pretty sure there was one offseason where Buxton was a consensus #1 or close to it in global prospect rankings.

Since a Montas deal is mentioned here: The more I think about the Twins' possible moves for their starting rotation, the more convinced I am that the best place they and the Athletics match up, and the kind of deal they should make, is a deal for a starter with one year of team control. (Chris Bassitt or Sean Manaea, if we're looking at the A's.) This is for several reasons: - Teams across the league value years of control. We see that not entirely across the board, but consistently in trades across the league. A soon-expiring contract versus multiple years of control has a real effect on the trade return for even a good player. I've heard speculation that the Twins are specifically averse to acquiring players with only a year of team control, but even if they are, they're hardly unique in that valuation. A team trading with them also will expect that players with less control will cost less in return. - When Falvey and Levine say the Twins aren't rebuilding, I believe them, and good for them for trying that course. However, it's not hard to see this as a re-tooling and transitional time for the organization, with a bad 2021 season putting their immediate contention into doubt, several of the last homegrown core players either having left in the last year (Berríos, Rosario) or potentially leaving within the next (Sanó, Kepler), and the next wave of top prospects mostly in the high minors. - If they're going to invest in a pitcher in trade, I'm sure they'd like to get someone they could rely on for a few years, but the Twins' biggest need for pitching is right now. They have Maeda coming back next year (possibly sooner, but closer to full strength next year) and a handful of prospects with decent chances to claim starting spots a year from now. It doesn't take super-wishful thinking that they'll strike gold with all their prospects, just taking the odds that at least one of Duran, Winder, Balazovic, or Canterino will be ready for starting job within a year. With all that in mind, it really just makes sense* to focus on pitchers who'd fill a big need right now while requiring much less top talent to acquire, and thus leaving that top talent to keep retooling (not rebuilding!) with. I don't imagine it would take nearly the equivalent of the Berríos package to land the likes of Bassitt or Manaea. And if the alternatives are pitchers with 2 years of control (Montas, Gray, Castillo etc.) they might try to sell a 1-year acquisition on extending or re-signing with the team just as well as a 2-year acquisition. ___ * (to me, a person who never has run a baseball team and never will)

I like the idea of a trade with the A's for pitching quite a bit, but there have been some trade ideas floated with the A's sending two starting pitchers in the same deal, and I'm skeptical of whether that's realistic. This takes that a step farther with Oakland sending THREE starters away in a single trade. Reasons for skepticism IMHO: - The possibility that Oakland will sell off some players this winter to reduce payroll is persistent enough that there's probably something to it, but some early rumors included a target number for a pretty radical payroll reduction that I don't think was ever substantiated. So our expectations for an A's sell-off may be exaggerated; trading some guys won't necessarily mean tearing down their roster. - If they're going to trade several valuable players, moving them in separate deals would increase the talent pool and choices they have regarding the players who come back in the trades, and could increase the value they get back overall. It's hard for me to see why Oakland would do that deal, especially when it sends away Kaprielian, who could be an in-house replacement if and when they did trade other pitchers (the ones closer to free agency.) It's also not clear to me that the Twins would prioritize acquiring a new third baseman, even though Chapman is a really good one—Donaldson's 3B defense isn't really an issue right now and there's a reasonable chance that Miranda or Lewis ends up playing there...

It might depend on how motivated Oakland is to cut payroll. Probably the rumors from early in the offseason, that they'd radically slash payroll to as little as $40-50 million, will end up being overblown. Maybe those rumors have people imagining the As' players coming cheaper than they really will. Arráez is more valuable than a "grab bag" player IMO, and Sands is just below the top tier of Twins pitching prospects. But I see your point - how much less valuable is Montas in trade than Berríos? Montas has less of a track record, and midseason urgency may have driven up the price for the Jays to trade for Berríos. But if you think they're loosely comparable, then Lewis or Martin would likely be in the trade conversation at least. If anything, that could be an argument for trading for Bassitt or Manaea. Those guys having only one year of team control left shouldn't matter too much to the Twins right now, when they need starting pitching so badly, and it would keep the acquisition cost lower.

Maybe the consensus among predictions for Rodón's contract is that he'll take a short-term deal to prove he's healthy - I probably haven't read enough of the pundits to know - but one counterpoint to this was in Fangraphs' free agent predictions article: because of his checkered injury history, teams might want a longer-term deal, in order to get more chances at the "good," fully healthy Rodón. That's assuming he's healthy now.

[Cute kid shrugging "why not both?" picture goes here]

The guy is a full decade younger than Happ and was good less than 2 years ago. They got him for the price of a middle reliever. I don't mind this as a back-end rotation addition at all. The fact that it happened within an hour of Stroman signing somewhere else...that part is discouraging.

Re: the list of free agent starters, didn't Gausman and Stroman both take qualifying offers last year?

Yeah, it's not hard at all to see that working. With the borderline 40-man guys, it could be a little tricky because the Twins now have less than 2 days to decide whether those guys are worth adding—knowing they could be trade bait but otherwise will take up a roster spot—and if they don't add them, those players suddenly become less valuable in trade when another team might have a crack at drafting them in a few weeks. Hopefully the Twins FO has had enough conversations to have some feel for how other teams value the likes of Severino, Vallimont, etc. Maybe there's a way to work this out by putting those guys on a PTBNL list along with some non-Rule 5-eligible players too.

When Oakland's readiness to deal those 3 starters was reported initially, I was more interested in Montas because of the extra year of team control, but I'm coming around to Bassitt and Manaea more now. Being in their last year of arbitration will keep the cost to acquire one of those guys lower, and adding a starter for one year may not be such a problem when Maeda is coming back and the odds are that at least one pitching prospect who isn't ready in 2022 will be ready in 2023. What about Dobnak plus a higher-upside minor leaguer or two for a trade like this? Oakland would value the cost certainty of Dobnak's contract, and if they're really selling off this winter they'll likely need some MLB-ready players back in trades.

I could see the Reds waiving Miley as an indication that they're more likely to keep Gray, i.e. if the two pitchers make about the same salary, they prioritized the one they rate higher.

Matt Garza did. That's the one example that springs to mind. It was 15 years ago, so your point still stands, but also to another point above, draft picks debuting that fast isn't really common with other teams either.

As long as this thread has grown to encompass trading for young pitchers as opposed to signing older ones: I just went to Baseball Trade Values dot com to play around with Twins/Marlins trades; apparently their front page features recent trades that people have calculated, and this was at the top: "Twins get: Jesús Luzardo, Max Meyer; Marlins get Ryan Jeffers, Trevor Larnach" The values their system calculates are about even, but this seems like an case where those values wouldn't line up with what both teams want from a deal...but holy hell, that would be great to see as a real trade.

I bet the $25M allotted here is already higher than other estimates we're going to see for Ray. He was great this year, but he hasn't been consistently this good and had a clunker in 2020.

Lefties with particular vulnerability to home runs are a tough fit for Target Field (which has played well for right-handed pull power over the years, though those park factors can change over time) - so signing Heaney seems like asking for trouble. But I like E-Rod as a target.

Not opposed to that either. Iglesias was mostly an example for comparison, as another player who's been demoted due to defensive struggles this year (and I'd bet on "fixing" a formerly great defensive player before one who's always been stretched.)

Here's another angle. Would you rather the Twins obtained, this offseason, Torres, who has been considered stretched at shortstop for several years and will cost one or more players in trade, or José Iglesias, who was considered a plus-glove SS for years before a sudden decline on defense that led the Angels to release him this year, and who will cost only money to sign?

I read in an article about Iglesias' release that his defensive stats were way down this year. It seems like a few years ago he was regarded similarly to Simmons for great defense. If there was good reason to think this year was a fluke or statistical noise, Iglesias would be a great stop-gap to replace Simmons next year - but it seems risky if he ends up being one more middle infielder whom they don't really trust at shortstop...

That's Pineda in that picture. Which is also a little ridiculous since he's injured and may or may not pitch again this season. And maybe, just maybe, there doesn't need to be a picture of a Twin on an ad about "the race to the postseason" at all...?

He just HAS to have meticulously styled sets and a dozen extras busying themselves in the background of a tracking shot every time he makes a mound visit. I, for one, am sick of it.