Loosey

Over the last few weeks the Twins trade deadline needs have grown. Going from a few lockdown relievers and maybe a starting pitcher to a front-line starter, a catcher and a few lockdown relievers. Most eyes are on Frankie Montas or Luis Castillo as front-line starters. However with the growing needs the assets needed to acquire everything is also growing both in quality and quantity. Enter Nathan Eovaldi. Depending on how the Twins plan to work this deadline he is a fit for this year. He is a true 2 month rental and will not require the quality nor quantity to a Montas or Castillo will require. Additionally, Eovaldi has playoff experience and has been in plenty of pennant races whereas Castillo may not even know baseball is played is played after the regular season having spent his entire career with the Reds. Eovaldi's numbers this year are pedestrian but are definite upgrades over the likes of Bundy and even Chris Archer and Devin Smeltzer. And, if you take out his horrible start against the Astros where he gave up 5 home runs in 1 2/3 innings the numbers look very good. Even with that game he's pitching similarly to the way he did last year when he was an all-star and finished 4th in the AL Cy Young voting. Trading for Eovaldi would be only part of the trade deadline moves the team needs to make. But if "settling" for Eovaldi instead of Montas or Castillo is what allows the team to fill their other needs in the pen and behind the plate I'm all for it. What would a trade for Eovaldi entail is the biggest question. Louie Varland and Cavaco and a PTBNL on the surface seems to be a good starting point. Would Varland be a prospect the Red Sox have interest in is another question and is Cavaco anything more than future depth at the MLB level? If so, this feels like a richer Carl Pavano type of deal that could pay short and medium term dividends.

If that were the deal on the table and it was the Twins option to accept or reject and it was my call, I would make that trade. Solidifies the rotation for this year and next year and even though there are some good prospects in that deal it's the price of buy a top of rotation starter. That being said, I think the Reds would want more of a headliner in that deal and I don't see that. New top 3 in Rotation when healthy would be Castillo, Ryan, Gray.

Lance Lynn didn't want to be here if I recall. Wasn't he a signed after spring training started? That was the weird offseason where no one was being signed and lots of guys signed late and people were yelling collusion.

"Hey Padres, we have a nice bullpen arm, his name is Emilio." "Have you heard of him before?"

In theory the Twins did replace Rogers adequately with Duran. However, it elevated other's roles which should have been improved through other methods. Also, the injury to Alcala probably hurts them, even if Pagan was supposed to be a bridge to Duran closing having Alcala as setup and Duran to close would have been a very nice back end and push Pagan to 7th inning guy. Instead Pagan is struggling and still being used as setup / closer for inexplicable reasons the rest of the pen has done poorly.

How does this compare to other front offices? Are they usually performing in B-A range? Or are the Twins hitting on a better rate than their peers?

I agree with lots of the comments. What I would do is work out the framework of a deal to get Montas. Then work with his agents to get him an extension he agrees before the trade consumates. It’s the Twins way, I’m not sure what that deal would look like, but get buy out his remaining two years and add 2-3 more years. He doesn’t have the history to demand huge contract yet, but one more year might get him past the Berrios deal. Trade/sign for 4 years wiping our 22-23, for a 4 year $10M in 2022, $12M in 23, then offer $15M for each year of 24 and 25. He gets a shot at free agency at 32. So he gets $52M guaranteed before he hits free agency.

The Twins are diluting his value. On one hand they are saying $80MM is a stretch. But when they turn around and try to trade him any team looking to acquire him will point to that saying he is worth the equivalent of just less than Dexter Fowler if they are going by salary. Just offer him his worth and if he doesn’t live up to the salary oh well, It happens, you can’t hit on a big time signing every time. Sometimes you do other times they get hurt, or just don’t play well enough.. in this case most reasonable fans would be ok as long as they paid him and he got hurt or his play slipped. Letting him go will not be ok with most reasonable fans.

1993 and 2011 main because those were teams that had some expectation to be playoff contenders. Then not only weren't they, it was a precursor to many seasons of losing. Essentially those were abrupt windows being slammed shut.

I didn't follow the minors back then, but I knew of Morneau. I think everyone who followed the Twins knew of him, The Twins had lacked a legitimate power hitter for decades and Morneau was looking like he could be that guy, and was. One Major League moment I remember most was in 2006, the Twins were like 10 games back and and a few games under .500. Morneau hit a game winning Home Run in extra innings against I think Baltimore. From that point on the Twins and Morneau took off. The Twins went 72-36 from that point on and Morneau who was hitting .240 with 11 HR ended the season hitting .321 with 34 HR - and won the AL MVP.

This is great they are developing lower round draft picks into MLB quality pitchers. The next step I want to see if they can develop the high draft picks into top of rotation starters. We will see soon if that happens.

I agree with everything you said 100%. I tried to write something similar but you said it WAY better than me. The one other thing I wonder that I haven't seen mentioned is what if the Twins evaluators believe some of these players are better than Berrios and believe they can make a run at them? If that is the case in the eyes of the front office they potentially added two high-end prospects and upgraded on Berrios if they get one of these guys.

If the Twins could pull off deals with any of these guys I would call that a win. That being said they have not done these types of free agent deals in the past history. However, I can't recall a time the team has been in a situation like it is in right now. 2011 was quite different in my opinion, the team basically got old all at the same time and their 10 year run stopped. This year seems like it may not be the end of a 2 year run, but instead a reset. A lot of pieces are in place and maybe the front office has runway now to make some moves to build it back up in a year. In the midst of winning sometimes it did feel like the team didn't want to pay free agents because they had in house options they were waiting for or other players they knew they needed to sign in a 2-3 years. With all that, I still think Buxton is my #1 priority. Then go from there. Sign a front-end starter, resign Pineda and bolster the pen. I think that puts the Twins in Wild Card territory again next year and positioned to take a bigger step in 2023.

Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t deal Pineda. There seems to be a mutual respect between the team and him and probably a decent chance they could re-sign him after next year. Obviously that isn’t guaranteed, I believe that was what people thought with Escobar a few years back too. Getting anything for Happ and Robles is a win. Scherf seems like a guy who could be a decent middle reliever in a year basically replacing Robles role. Overall I’d give the Twins a B at the deadline.

I really do not want them to Trade Buxton. Sign him and build around him. I do like the Berrios deal. If SWR is as good as we hope could he be in the big league rotation next year?

Implied the $200M figure? They haven’t directly. But by not paying guys their worth they imply that can’t afford to pay market and in turn make it seem like market value would make overall payroll too high. Just the way I read into it. Maybe I shouldn’t write my thoughts on what I think they are implying. Or write it in a different way.

It seems Buxton’s side was fine with $80M base guarantee. It’s the escalators they disagreed on. Here is a snippet from The Athletic. If that’s true, the Twins should be able to either up the guarantee or the escalators. Even though talks broke off it seems they aren’t that far off.

I had backed out Buxton and Berrios in my calculation because their arb #'s wouldn't be included if they were given new contracts. So if you remove their $16M it's $78M. I was still off by $13M. But you can find away to sign at least Buxton. A Donaldson trade and eat 50% of this contract adds back $10M, I could see Kepler being traded if Buxton is resigned, that's another $6.7M. What I was trying to say (poorly) is they can still build a very good team even with paying Buxton market value. If they hold Berrios next year and go for it they can add starters and BP help. The front office makes it seem like if we sign either one of them we are going to be a $200M payroll to be competitive and that is just not the case.

Whether what he is saying is true or not Buxton says he wants to stay here. If true the Twins need to pay him what he is worth. Not 70 cents on the dollar. I like my job and want to stay here but if I had a contract that renewed every year and I was offered 60-70% of what I would get elsewhere, I would leave. Now the Pohlad/Falvine dynamic is something I think fans should keep an eye on. I get the impression Pohlad hasn't set a hard self-imposed salary cap for this team. So, Buxton could and should be offered a market value contract. And if Falvey and Levine are trying get a super star for cheap and end up losing him because they want to spend the savings on 3 mid-rotation starters Pohlad may fire them both. Even if there is a "soft" self-imposed salary cap is say $150MM, they only have around $50MM (pre-arb) committed to players in 2022 So closer to $65MM probably. That still leaves a huge chunk of money to fill out the roster with star players like Buxton and possibly Berrios. I guess I'm confused as to what/who they plan to spend payroll on if it isn't Buxton or Berrios.

I honestly think Pohlad will step in at some point and force a Buxton signing. He says he normally stays out of the baseball business and let Falvine do what they have to do. But Buxton is the face of the franchise, a guy who is an MVP candidate when healthy. Falvey and Levine seem to try to overthink things when the obvious answer is the right one. Hopefully, they will be given their orders, sign Buxton and stop screwing around with him.

The Twins have just as much chance to sign him in the off-season as they did 3 days ago. He will be a free agent at the end of the season and every team will have a shot at signing him. That doesn't change anything really. However, he will be 42 next year and will likely command $10M+ again. As great as he is at some point the bottom will fall out. And I would personally be fine if that happened while he was a Twin on a 1 year deal.

Nelson Cruz did deserve better, and the Twins gave him better by sending him to a legitimate World Series contender.

What I like about this trade is it helps to possibly build the rotation next year and at least add 1 back of the rotation arm assuming they don't trade Berrios. Now they can go into next year with Berrios, Maeda, (Free Agent?), One of these guys and possibly another internal arm and have some additional young arms waiting. So this trade may signal they are holding off on Berrios deal and are actually building for next year and not tearing it down.

My question would be who's spot would he reasonably be taking if he was the 26th man? Likely not a prospect since I'm guessing the 26th man will get a hand full of at bats every week or so. So who would be a better player to have as a utility type guy who you know can perform at an expected level while getting maybe 120 at bats during a season? I can't think of anyone on the current 40 man who fits that mold. Maybe they find a true corner infielder who can be a real backup to Donaldson and Sano, but outside of that i think La Tortuga at least starts the season with MLB club. Addtionally, he has had COVID, so he may still have anti-bodies and that possibly could be looked at as a favorable thing since it's one less medical/COVID issue the team may have to rely. Again, who knows if he still has anitbodies and how well they work long-term, etc, but odds are it has some protection and one less player to worry about.

In all reality, Cleveland is apparently shopping Clevinger. What sort of premium would the Twins have to pay being in the division? What does a package look like? I’m guessing its one of Kiriloff or Lewis as well as Balocivic plus additional prospects. Maybe I’m overpaying but it might be worth it in my opinion.