KGB

All these trades for pitching the last couple years, make me wonder when the "pitching pipeline" is going to kick in.

Pitching in the AL East is a little bit harder than the AL Central.?

It's not ideal when your most irreplaceable player is also your least dependable player.

Owners did propose a $100 salary floor with a lower tax limit to increase revenue sharing, but it was rejected by the players.

You don't have to care what the players want, but they are still going to negotiate what they feel is best for them. The owners have already offered up an age limit to start FA without service time, so if it's going to be accepted, it's going to be lower than 29.5. If you think either side is going to negotiate what best for the fans and not for themselves, you have learned nothing from past agreements.

I'm not sure an "or" policy would work because you could still game the service time like the Twins did with Buxton and delay his FA. I think gaming the system is what players want to avoid. But you could do an "and" policy. 27 and 3-4 years service. Also, with this in the discussion, I don't see how Buxton signs until after the CBA is agreed. He might get FA if they change the rules.

Did we still win the Happ trade?

I think the takeaway is not to do what the Twins did in 2017. The were a playoff contender and the FO sold at the deadline. If they had strengthen the roster, maybe one of the new players gets hot and wins a series for you.

At the time, the David Ortiz decision was correct. He cleared waivers and ended up doing okay.

If Falvine is wrong on either side, he is gone. Plus MLB will have a new contract with the players which will make the decision even more difficult.

Leaving Dobnak in the rotation wouldn't been a decision based just in spring training. He earned it based on the prior two years and contract extension. Shoemaker should have been the one who had work out of the bullpen to start.

Robbie Grossman went from a horrible fielder to a Gold Glove finalists in one year after leaving Minnesota. Eddie has all the tools to be a good fielder, I wouldn't be surprised to see him turn it around.

They included the draft pick because both the Red Soxs and Dodgers didn't think Graterol was enough for Maeda. Instead of offering another top prospect, they offered the pick. The Dodgers offered money instead of additional prospects. Do you think the Twins should have walked away from the deal because they got money instead of a additional prospect? They do need to draft and develop players but also can't hold all the prospects. They do need to make them available if they want to make trades.

I just can't believe it played out the way you think. First of all, if the FO had to go to ownership to get approval and if they didn't disclose the bonuses, they should be removing the FO not reworking the deal. So I'm pretty certain if ownership had to approve the deal, they were fully aware of the bonus. The teams was set to take on the full contract in the 3 team deal, it wasn't the Twins who backed out. Boston backed out, leaving the Twins to deal directly with LA. LA only had the Twins in the 3 team deal because Boston wanted Graterol, so they went and got him. After the deal blew up, taking back a rookie for the Twins is a lot easier than keep Madea for LA, so they had an incentive to make the trade. Since the Twins already said yes to the straight up trade, it hard to believe they later came back asking for more. I think it more likely the changes in the deal were made by the Dodgers and not the Twins.

The original Graterol/Madea trade was just a pass through for LA, so you can't really compare that to the final trade. The Twins were clearly ready to accept a straight up trade without any money coming back since that was the first trade. When LA was making the trade directly with the Twins, they clearly wanted to get additional assets. Considering they had to include additional players in the Boston trade, they may not have wanted to give the Twins additional players and the money was better option for LA and helped offset what they sent to Boston. I don't get why people are getting huge up on the money returning. If the option is getting the money back or not making the trade, what would you have wanted them to do?