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While reading “3 Third Baseman Trades that Could Provide the Twins a Productive Bat” posted by Nate Palmer, I got a very interesting idea. The first trade he proposed is one for Rafael Devers, which got me thinking… The Minnesota Twins are in a unique place where depth isn’t quite a concern anymore. If healthy, the Twins have six or so guys on the 40 man roster that could compete for the fifth spot in the rotation, and a crowded outfield littered with guys vying for the corner outfield and bench spots. The looming issue now is trying to wade through the marshes and finding the guys that can be impactful. It is make or break years for guys like Alex Kirloff, Trevor Larnach, and Gilberto Celestino, all of which are entering arbitration soon. If you take a step down, you’re welcomed by the likes of Matt Wallner and maybe Royce Lewis, who should be given an opportunity. Then there’s also the question that arose when the Twins handed out a one year, 11 million dollar contract to Joey Gallo. It almost feels certain that the Gallo deal will force Max Kepler out of Minnesota. Kepler and Gallo are defensive difference makers but both are offensive liabilities. Keeping both will pry valuable innings away from the aforementioned players, and the plus defense Byron Buxton offers in centerfield mitigates the necessity for strong corner outfield defense. One name that has been floating around trade rumors is Luis Arraez. Although reports are connecting him to being involved in a deal for starting pitching, I believe one wouldn’t be too far fetched to think that he could be involved in a deal for a big name hitter. The 2022 American League Batting Champion might have reached his peak value. There’s no question about what kind of hitter he is. Arraez will slap the ball all around the field, and he will get on base frequently. However 2022 unveiled a flaw in his game. When not being the designated hitter, Arraez was primarily penciled in at first and second base with an occasional appearance at third base. The Minnesota Twins have a second baseman, Jorge Polanco. The Minnesota Twins also might have their guy in first base, that being Alex Kirloff, who might be forced out of the outfield. So where would Arraez play? Since the departure of Nelson Cruz in 2021 as part of the Joe Ryan trade, Rocco Baldeli has utilized the designated hitter role as a way for guys to get at bats without being in the field, almost acting as a mini rest day of sorts. The designated hitter role could also be reserved for Byron Buxton, who hit there in 35 games in 2022. Arraez has entered his arbitration years and also has some concern about his ability to stay healthy. He has been placed on the injured list five times since 2020. A growing concern is his knees, which has caused 2 of his five trips to the injured list, with Covid-19, a concussion, and a right shoulder strain rounding out the other three. With La Regadera only getting older, his knees will continue to get worse, trust me. With Max Kepler and Luis Arraez on the “chopping block,” we can start to look for trades. One name that has been floating around recently has been Rafael Devers of the Boston Red Sox (thanks to Nate Palmer for the idea). The Red Sox do not have the best track record recently when it comes to retaining talent. They traded Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers in 2020. They traded Andrew Benitendi exactly a year later to the Royals in 2021. Then in 2022 they lost Xander Bogaerts to free agency and ultimately to the Padres. One similarity that can be drawn from all three moves is that they got paid once they left Boston. Betts signed a 12 year, 365 million dollar contract with the Dodgers. Benintendi received 8.5 million dollars in 2022 from the Royals. Bogaerts just signed a 11 year, 285 million dollar deal with the Padres. Rafael Devers will probably be the next homegrown talent to walk beyond the Green Monster, seeing as he will garner a contract somewhere in the twenty plus million dollar range. The Proposal: The Twins receive: Rafael Devers The Red Sox Receive: Luis Arraez, Max Kepler, A Player to be Named Later Why It Works for the Twins Getting rid of Arraez and Kepler would be beneficial to the Twins long term. Devers would become the starting third baseman which would force Miranda to slide over to first base, where he played 77 games in 2022. First base would probably become Miranda’s long term home anyway, with reports stating the Twins front office has questions with his defense. Why it Works for the Red Sox Unlike the Twins, the Red Sox do have some questions when it comes to outfield depth. Enrique Hernandez has centerfield tied down, while Alex Verdugo (who was acquired in the Mookie Betts trade) will start in left. Max Kepler would replace, funnily enough, former Twin Rob Refsnyder in defending Pesky's Pole. Kepler’s plus defense would bode well in Fenway Park’s spacious and tricky right field. Kepler might also see an increase in offensive production playing in the American League East, which is very left-handed hitter friendly. The Red Sox were plagued with a -52 runs differential in 2022. They would benefit highly from a guy by the likes of Luis Arraez. Heck, any team would. Arraez would give the Red Sox a great presence in the designated hitter role and could allow Trevor Story to return to short while Arraez splits time at second with Christian Arroyo. If the Twins do make this trade, a 300 plus million dollar contract might make more sense. Would y’all take this trade? What would you change? Sorry for the long post. View full rumor

Using the baseballtradevalues.com page as a jumping off point, here are a few trade proposals to see what reaction people might have. Rather than go after the top of the market for Montas (28.1) or Mahle (22.9), working out one, or preferably two of these trades for slightly lower targets could upgrade the rotation, bullpen, and possibly outfield depth. Trade proposal #1, w/ Angels Twins receive: Noah Syndergaard (4.7), Archie Bradley (-1.1) Angels receive: Steven Hajjar (2.4), Edouard Julien (1.7), and Aaron Sabato (1.5) Trade proposal #2, w/ Orioles Twins receive Jorge López (5.6), Trey Mancini (1.9) Orioles receive Noah Miller (4.8), Marco Raya (3.9). Note Felix Bautista is 9.6; upgrading Miller to Wallner (7.7) could net Bautista. Trade proposal #3, w/ Royals Twins receive Josh Staumont (12.7), Whit Merrifield (1.0) Royals receive Matt Wallner (7.7), Keoni Cavaco (2.4), Blaine Enlow (2.2) Note Scott Barlow 13.5. Trade proposal #4, w/ Giants Twins receive Carlos Rodon (13.0) Giants receive Spencer Steer (14.0), David Festa (1.9) Updated to add one more… Trade proposal #5, w/ Rockies Twins receive German Marquez (12.2), Tyler Kinley (1.1) Rockies receive Austin Martin (11.0), Cade Povich (1.6), Jermaine Palacios (0.5) Could folks see any of these trades working?

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.

Let me preface what will undoubtedly be a long entry by saying I am a Dozier fan. I have spoken to him at Spring Training a couple of times and like the young man. I believe he has been the Twins MVP for each of the last four seasons (counting this one) and I have no doubt that he is the team's best player at this point. Certainly, he isn't flawless, but the Twins need more players like Brian Dozier, not less. Over the course of this long, horrible season, Brian Dozier has often been a hot topic of conversation in Twins Territory. He isn't shy about stepping up to a microphone, my wife and daughters think he's good-looking and he's been a regular with the club as their second baseman for four years. If someone casually follows the Twins, they know who Dozier is, so it figures that he would be a topic of conversation. Let's see why Dozier has been discussed so much and what I think should be the conclusion for the topic: First of all, as the Twins started the season, Dozier couldn't get it going. After a bad second half in 2015, Dozier came out of the gate slow in 2016. Through all of April and May, Dozier barely reached .200 and the signature power was lacking. Had the league figured him out? Was the 28 year old (turned 29 in mid-May) regressing already? Should he be benched or put at the bottom of the order? My thought, then and now, was that it is a long season. If a guy is a good player, he'll come out of a funk. Robbie Cano had a similar stretch at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 and Cano might be a Hall-of-Famer. Along for the ride early in the season was the question whether BD was too pull-happy and if he used the whole field, he would be a more consistent and productive hitter. My thought was that Dozier needed to be able to hit the ball with authority when he was pitched away and as the season has progressed, he has accumulated some oppo hits and several to the middle of the field, the key being that he hit the ball hard, not a lazy popup or routine fly ball. Moving on, Dozier has spent most of the season hitting #1 or #2. Many have thought it wasn't ideal for a guy whose calling card is big power for his position to hit first or second. My thought then was that the Twins simply didn't have a better option. Dozier takes some of the longest at-bats on the team, he's walked a fair amount since arriving in the majors and he's a good base runner who doesn't clog the bases for those behind him. Ideally, he should have hit lower in the order to make a few more of his homers multi-run shots and I think that where Dozier hits in the lineup in 2017 will be a hot controversial topic if he is in a Twins' uniform next year. As the season rolled toward the All-Star break, the call to sell and rebuild the Twins included Dozier's name prominently. He had some value and the club is/was going nowhere in '16, so cashier him for a prospect or two and let Jorge Polanco handle second base. In June and July, Dozier recovered from his slow start. He put up a great line in June, posting an OPS for the month in excess of 1.000, he slowed in July, hitting only .240 but still putting up an OPS of .824. Trade Dozier at the deadline? Didn't happen and IMHO shouldn't have happened. He hasn't slowed down much since his monster June and with a team-friendly contract and relative youth, his value should only be higher in the off-season or at next year's trade deadline. Another topic that has emerged is defense. After a truly stout year in 2013, Dozier's defense has been categorized as below average by most metrics. While I don't believe Dozier is elite defensively, my eyes tell me he is in the average range. He makes a few outstanding plays (probably more than any other Twins player) and doesn't get to some balls he should, perhaps because of shifting, maybe because the position of shortstop has been in flux since he became a second baseman, maybe because in three of the last four years, the team never had a shot at contention. I don't know. In checking BB Ref, Dozier lags in zone rating, but is above average in runs saved. I see it as a wash, making Dozier average in the field. I'm waiting for someone to refute this, but in the final analysis, defense probably is an "eyes of the beholder" topic. Since the All-Star break, Brian Dozier has been en fuego. He's hitting .320, with an OPS of 1.091 and a mlb-leading 21 homers. I guess that puts to rest the "first half player" meme that was circulating among the diehard fans remaining. The question that stems from his performance both the cold April and May and his elite performance since is what to expect going forward. I have turned over in my mind what the most likely trajectory of Dozier's career figures to be. One extreme is Dan Uggla, who like Dozier wasn't highly regarded, got a chance in his mid-twenties and became a star in large part because of his power numbers. Uggla fell off a cliff in his early thirties. An opposing example is Jeff Kent. Kent was an okay player, but not even a full-time regular until he was 29. Starting from age 30, Kent won an MVP, was an All-Star five times with three different teams and posted OPS+ numbers over 119 every year until he was 39. This seems to be the extremes for power-hitting second basemen. Is Dozier going to be productive for most of another decade or is regression going to meet him around his 30th birthday? My answer is that no one knows for sure. It appears to me that Dozier has made adjustments to become a more complete hitter without diminishing his best asset--home run power. IMHO, it makes him a candidate to sustain high-end performance, although the end of 2015 and April-May of this year give a good argument that he could turn into a pumpkin at any time. In the last few weeks as the tumult in my life has moved Twins baseball on the back burner, I've managed to check the box scores, cluck over the disastrous pitching and watch highlights of games. Dozier has been front and center continuing his power surge. He now projects to exceed 40 homers and if he hits just one more long ball, he will have hit more in a single season than any Twin since Harmon in 1970. 40 homers would be a Top Ten season in franchise history dating back to the Senators who started playing at the turn of the 20th century. Only Harmon and Roy Sievers (once) have ever hit 40 homers in a single season in franchise history. Dozier is projected to score and drive in over 100 runs, also a rare feat, especially for guy who has hit first or second most of the season. He may or may not make 40 homers, 100 RBI or 100 runs, but on such a bad team those numbers stand out big and bold. Although I'm not a big fan of WAR, it does represent a quick and dirty assessment of value and Dozier's 5.6 WAR for this season is in the Top Ten in the league. Because the season has been so bad, I don't think Dozier has gotten the attention he deserves for his huge season. He won't win a Silver Slugger or MVP, he won't win the HR championship or set any other records, so there hasn't been any national coverage, but his overall season and particularly his production since June has been off the charts. Now in the season's final month, most Twins fans are thinking about the future (with good reason). Augmenting a terrible rotation is Priority One and trading Brian Dozier to get pitching help makes sense, since his value should be at an all-time high. This argument is buttressed by the play of Polanco, who has hit over .300, showing good on-base skills, but a questionable glove at short or third. I believe Jorge Polanco is best suited to second base and I believe adding him for Dozier wouldn't be all bad since Polanco is a switch hitter and wouldn't be prone to long slumps with his swing and approach. However, unless the payoff is monumental, Brian Dozier should be the Twins second baseman next year. He has had a season for the ages despite the wreckage around him, he's only 29 and if the last 100 days are an indication, he might get even better. Finally, he's been a solid citizen off the field. If the club wants somebody as the face of the franchise, they could do worse than Mr. Dozier. Just a couple more thoughts before I summarize--Dozier has been durable. Since becoming the team's second baseman, he hasn't been disabled and has missed only a handful of games with injuries. Secondly, my observation is that he is a good teammate. He doesn't sulk, cheers for his mates, appears to like their company off the field (loved the State Fair video) and despite having strong religious views, doesn't put that in the face of his teammates or the media. I have mentioned many of these thoughts in previous threads on the forums of Twins Daily. I find this player to be fascinating, especially in light of his minor league career and low status when drafted. I think Brian Dozier is a fine player who hasn't gotten the appreciation he deserves for this, his best season. I will continue to be a Dozier fan, hopefully as he continues to be a Minnesota Twin, but even if he's traded. In the event that he is traded, I will be pulling for the players acquired in return and hope they make the Twins better.