tvagle

This is just part of the full story, which can be read at Zone Coverage here.
 
In case you've been under a rock over the past four days, you've no doubt seen the widespread reaction to how the Minnesota Twins handled the trade deadline.
 
It hasn't been great!
 
But most of it isn't rooted in facts or solid rationale. And I get it; fans are fired up because they get to know these players and then one day they're gone. I don't want people to lose sight of this even though I don't watch the Twins through the lens of a fan anymore.
 
All I'm really saying is that if people want to voice their opinions loudly where they're open to being consumed by others, they should be rooted in facts, you know?
 
But instead of replying to every single Facebook commenter lamenting the current ownership under "Carl" Pohlad (yeesh) or the fact that Brian Dozier was the only reason they bought tickets and never will again, I thought I'd just try to debunk as many of them in one fell swoop so that when you're caught between a rock and a hard place with one of your relatives ranting about the "cheap" Twins, you can share this link with them and we can both make this world a better place.
 

 
So this is really the foundation of it all. The Twins moved Dozier because he's a free agent at the end of the year, and at the time they traded him, they had less than a 1 percent chance of making the playoffs according to industry sites Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs and FiveThirtyEight.
 
The long and short of it is this: The Twins did right by Dozier in letting him go play in a pennant race, and did right by themselves by opening up some spots for guys to see a little more playing time down the stretch.
 
The same thing is true of Escobar, who is having a career year and no doubt wants to see what the free market has to offer before deciding where he'll sign.
 
When push comes to shove, these guys were going to be free agents anyway, and if they find their way back to Minnesota in the offseason, it was going to happen anyway.