gunnarthor

You think that but that doesn't mean you're right. Making a bad trade now - and we all agree it's a bad trade - isn't ok just because you don't think you'll get a better trade later. If you don't get your value, you hold him.

How did they get Hendriks? Because they had the money to extend Dempster. How did they get Chapman? Because they had 20m laying around. How did they get Russell? Because they signed Hammel in FA. Yes, they made some great trades but they were able to do them because signing a bad 4/50m pitcher didn't cripple their options. Constantly comparing a 200m+ payrolll team to the Twins is useless. And they didn't make bad trades. They held onto Samardzija when they didn't get an offer they liked in 2012 and saw him pitch worse in 2013.

This has come up several times but the Cubs highest sources of WAR this year came, in order, from FA signings, trades, draft picks.

I think the Cardinals aren't in because they have Wong locked in. Would the Twins take a Wong/Weaver deal? I'm not sure. I don't know what the future holds but I know that I don't want the Twins to make a bad deal now just because it's the only deal in town.

Not really that different. Sickels on Newcomb - "power lefty up to 97 with a plus curve and developing change-up, excellent strikeout and hit rates confirm the stuff but control and command remains shaky". mlbpipeline wrote "Newcomb does have to cut down on his walks to reach his ceiling, but as a Northeast guy who used to divide focus among two sports, he has more upside than your typical college arm. If the control improves, he could even outperform those Jon Lester comps." They had him pretty close to De Leon in their rankings (47 to 33) and his future grades were just as good. De Leon's stuff wasn't graded as well but they liked his command/control. Sounds like a Twins pitcher. Both got 55 FV grades. mlbpipeline reported De Leon's shoulder soreness and "shoulder inflammation."

So they're ahead of us after not having a winning season since 2012? That's some pretty strange logic. Atlanta's entering their 4th year of rebuilding. Not sure if they're ahead of us.

Sure, Santana won't be as good but it's unlikely that Santiago and Gibson are as bad, either. Those three combined for 66 starts, 390ip, 4.36 era and a 4.8 WAR. I think the three of them combined could improve on those numbers as a group. If pitch framing is a thing, Gibson is the type of pitcher who would most benefit.

Those guys still have high ceilings.

It's always fun seeing that a stock you own miss expected earnings and you see it's stock price go up. I guess that only missed by a little!

I'm not too sure how realistic their interest was but I liked the idea of Weaver and Flaherty from St Louis or Newcomb from Atlanta over De Leon. None of those pitchers had De Leon's ceiling but I trusted their floors a lot more. If I thought De Leon would need TJ surgery and come back, that's one thing. But shoulder soreness is such a red flag for me that I'd probably walk away from that guy.

The Cubs spent their way out of the cellar. The Astros had 6 losing seasons in a row - three worse than our worse year - and have topped out at 86 wins two years ago. The White Sox are the very definition of a team constantly winning 71-79 games, having done so in 6 of the last 9 years with two winning seasons (2010 and 2012) and a disaster year mixed in. The Phillies have had four straight losing seasons. They don't seem out of the rebuild yet. The Twins have a very strong offensive nucleus in place that just needs experience. There's no reason to think the Twins can't be like the 2001 Twins or the 2014 Astros. They have a lot of good pieces that should come together.

By this logic, the Twins should trade everyone no matter the return. There was no market for Plouffe, just like there was no market for Dozier. And yes, I was ok with keeping Perkins. If he had stayed healthy in 2015 we probably make the playoffs. That's the risk with pitchers but it was the right risk. There is no reason for the Twins to tank 2017 or not to care about it. We might be a 75 win team, we might be a 81 win team. We won't be a playoff team. That doesn't mean you throw out everything that's not bolted down.

Without doing anything, the Twins will get at least a quarter of their starts next year from people that didn't to it this year. Nolasco, Meyer, Dean, Albers and Milone combined for 45 starts, 282ip a 5.56 era and -1.2 WAR. They are all gone. If Molitor was smart (a big if, I know), Duffey wouldn't get 26 starts (-1.7 WAR) and May would. Berrios shouldn't be -1.6 WAR bad. So a rotation of Santana, Gibson, Santiago, Berrios and May/Hughes/Mejia is already better even without doing anything else. And if the Twins wanted to add a back end starter, they don't need to trade Dozier, they could sign Hammel or Tyson Ross. Moving Dozier for De Leon (admittedly, I'm the low man on him) is a waste of a resource.

You've been ripping the team pretty good in the other thread. The offers for Dozier haven't been sufficient. It's that simple. Move on. If you don't get a good deal, you don't take the bad deal. (And imagine the pessimism around Berrios if he had missed two months last year with injuries, including shoulder soreness. We'd be measuring him for a coffin). How does taking a bad trade move the needle in the future? I cannot get my head around how many times you've asked variations of this question without seeing the obvious problem of it and ignoring everyone who has pointed it out. The Twins haven't gotten a good offer for Dozier. Taking a bad deal doesn't make sense. If you don't get good deals you don't make bad trades. How is that so difficult to follow? The Twins have two top 100 prospects entering the rotation this year. They have two more at AA. They have the #1 pick in a college pitching deep draft. And that ignores Thorpe, Stewart and Romero. The 2019 rotation is probably going to be pretty good without moving Dozier. Moving Dozier MIGHT help but it might not. And moving Dozier will almost certainly make the 2017 and 2018 teams worse unless the return is ML ready NOW.

OK, I guess that's one person who was ok with the proposed deal.

This debate is somewhat surprising to me. Everyone agrees that the Dodgers offer of De Leon was not enough for Dozier. Not a single person has said that they think the FO should have taken a De Leon for Dozier swap. No one has suggested that their was an offer out there that was sufficient for the Twins that has been credibly reported. And yet people are ripping the FO for not trading him.

Yeah. The part where Sickels wrote "Players who exceeded rookie qualifications are not included. The list does include 2016 draftees" I read as "Players who exceeded rookie qualifications are not included. The list does not include 2016 draftees."

Guess that makes sense, Sickels is the high guy on De Leon but that list also excluded draftees. But it's probably a fair guess that Sickels will have him in his top 10 when he gets around to his 2017 list.

Who has De Leon as a top five prospect?

Yeah, I don't disagree but WAR isn't an ideal stat in the first place so I'm not really overly concerned with going with 4 WAR (and the margin of error in WAR might make it moot). I'm a big hall guy so there's a lot of ways I would consider a season a "HOF season" but I just used WAR for Raines b/c his supporters tend to think very highly of that stat. My problem with Raines is that his high level of play basically ended in 1987 and after that he went from HOF caliber player to just solid player. I think he needs more HOF seasons. It is of course a moot point since he'll get elected this year but I think that's a victory for compiling over seasons.

A few points. First, Raines peak (83-87) was better than most of these guys but that becomes a question of what do you want in your HOF? If you just want a 5 year peak than guys like Raines, Mauer, Utley, Hernandez are HOFers. I think you should have more. I used 4 WAR because I think 4 WAR is a good shorthand for a HOF season (considering Rainers supporters like WAR). Torii Hunter was an excellent player. He played 17 seasons, has over 2400 hits, 9600 AB, 110 OPS+. Damn good career. In those 17 seasons he topped 3 WAR 12 times but only topped 4 WAR 4 times. So I think 4 WAR is a nice dividing line for a HOF season. Others may differ. But I don't like the compiler argument - Raines has X WAR so he's a HOFer. I think the argument should be a player had X number of HOF seasons. How to you count a HOF season? Lots of ways but 4 WAR is a good shorthand. Raines had 6 HOF seasons. Now, those six, by WAR, were very high level HOF seasons so if you want to give him extra credit, fine. Neither of us has a vote. But his peak isn't that unusual. Dawson and Raines peaks, by WAR were actually pretty close. Dawson has a lead over a 10 year period and they are tied for 12 year period (both got 57 WAR in 12 years). Raines was slightly better at the end, and didn't have the cliff that Dawson did. But considering the inaccuracies of WAR, the two are essentially tied after 10000 PA with Dawson having a slightly better peak and more HOF (4 WAR seasons) in fewer seasons. McGriff had 7 seasons, he was traded in 93 but I was wrong with Radke, he and Raines both had 6 seasons of 4+ WAR (although that accounts for 50% of Radke's career). At the end of the day, Raines is getting into the HOF because of his run from 83-87. After 87, he only had one more season where he finished in the top 10 in OBP. His offensive decline was hidden by playing in the offensive explosion of the 90s. For five years he played like an absolute HOFer but a lot of players have done that. (And, in fairness to him, the strike cost him a lot in 81 where he may have had another HOF season and I might be overly valuing his decline years and not recognizing the really strong years). I don't dislike Raines in the HOF - the 80s have been ignored a lot and not enough players from that era are in but I wouldn't vote for him.

I remember thinking he'd break out last year and we'd all be really excited about him but it was Blankenhorn who did while Cabbage struggled. Really hope he puts it together.

Raines has really had a heck of an internet push that others probably should have had. Raines argument is the old compiler argument but instead of wins we're using WAR without context of # of seasons it took to amass it. Andre Dawson, who people tried to keep out, had a better peak. Raines had fewer 4 WAR seasons (while playing in more seasons) than, among others Jack Morris, Dawson, McGriff, Brad Radke, Bernie Williams, Kenny Lofton, Ian Kinsler ...

As I see it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the Twins biggest defensive problems last year were (in some order) Sano in RF, Grossman, Danny Santana and Suzuki. This year it looks like the Twins have one player who can be really good defensively and a bunch of players in the average to below average but no obvious disasters like last year. This year, our OF should be Rosario/Buxton/Kepler. Buxton probably grades out as a very good fielder and the other two might be average. Combined, that's probably a good outfield? In the IF, Sano is a liability at third but not nearly as bad as he was in RF while Polanco, Dozier and Mauer are all around average but none are really good or really bad? Castro is supposed to be an upgrade over Suzuki.

Why is everyone ready to jettison Grossman? Sure, his defense is crap but he can take a walk - something our team lacks. I trust his hitting ability a lot more than I trust Vargas and (sadly) Park right now. As a back-up DH/4th or 5th OF, he's not bad - esp if Molitor uses him in a platoon.