The Jorge Lopez trade doesn't get enough credit for how bad it was

When people look back at the 2022 trade deadline, the Tyler Mahle trade is often lamented because of the players that the Twins gave up in that deal. Spencer Steer is a legitimate major league player, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand looks well on his way. You can certainly be frustrated that Mahle didn't work out with the Twins, it's hard for me to get mad the players the Twins gave away. 

Steer and Encarnacion-Strand were expendable because they were redundant. If not in the Mahle trade, Steer was probably always going to be traded, given the wealth of similar talent in the organization. The Twins liked Mahle, and it stunk that he got hurt, but Steer was always getting traded. His value to the Twins was not the same as it would be for the Reds.

On the other hand, the Lopez trade. The Twins were looking to flesh out their bullpen for a postseason run, so they sent a few prospects to Baltimore to get their all star closer. As you may recall, Lopez immediately cratered in Minnesota. What you may not recall is that one of the players dealt to Baltimore, Yennier Cano, was an all star in the exact same role the Twins wanted Lopez to pitch in, the very next year. 

The Twins would have been better off keeping Cano than Lopez, two pitchers in the same role, as soon as a few months later. The Twins had to give up on Lopez before the end of the year. This was a bad swap. 

But wait, there's more. 

The Twins also traded Cade Povich to the Orioles. Baltimore used Povich to start 16 games this season. He wasn't spectacular, but don't you think the Twins could have used another depth starter this year? He wasn't great, but he did the job and will only get better.

So the Twins gave up Cano and Povich, on top of two other prospects, for about a year of miserable service from Jorge Lopez. They swapped Cano for a lesser talent at the same position, and gave up Povich, who would have been useful even this season. At least Steer and Encarnacion-Strand were extraneous. The Lopez deal actively made the Twins worse. 

Thanksgiving Twins minefields

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. As you read this, you will probably be getting ready to go out for a festive Thanksgiving get together. I hope so. I hope this hasn't found you too late. 

Thanksgiving is always the first major holiday after an election, and as such, is often a minefield when dealing with family who are a little too open with their beliefs with the harbor family can bring, but at the same time, maybe spoiling for conflict. Many people opt to talk about sports when in a pickle like this. Why do you think they play football on Thanksgiving, anyway?

But if football is not your thing, you may be tempted to turn to the Twins. This is a thorny spot as well, especially given the last 12 months or so of Twins headlines. If you absolutely must talk Twins, be sure to steer the talk away from these topics.

Payroll - This has always been a touchy spot for a Twins fanbase that has been groomed to accept a low payroll. Big market teams are bad for spending money, but players taking a big pay day are the worst! We all know this is true, but uncle Randy probably doesn't share this opinion. Randy still holds grudges against Joe Mauer. Besides, railing against the billionaire owners, or talk about income inequality skirts the line with politics a little too closely.

Ownership - You aren't buying the team, are you? And sure, the Pohlads are selling, but it will take some time, and right now, one of the most talked about names is Glen Taylor. I would rather not think about the Timberwolves or Alex Rodriguez right now. 

Injuries - Randy again will chime in about how soft today's players are. Back in his day, a pitcher would go 9 innings every time out, and wouldn't even lose any speed off his 78mph heater. They pitched until their arm fell off, usually around age 28, and then became a disillusioned appliance salesman. Like a real man! And then Randy will go take a nap after eating a third piece of pie. Like a real man. 

Prospects - Unless you are talking to someone you know to be deeply into baseball, you never know what you are going to get with prospect talk. The worst about this are the people who don't view prospects as real people, and treat every MLB player as though they should emerge on the field as a fully realized all star. They will not be able to relate to you about Do-Young Park's article on Travis Adams. Travis Adams went on a journey, both physically and spiritually, but he isn't an Ace yet. 

Target Field - Nothing wrong with the stadium at all, but going down this path might lead to planning to go to a game together. If you think Randy is rough over the holidays, imagine him 2 9 dollar beers in and screaming at Matt Wallner to dive for literally every ball hit in the outfield that finds grass. 

Ha, yeah, that didn't make sense

 Derek Falvey came out today to say, haha, no, the Twins won't be dealing away Carlos Correa. Nor will they be looking to trade Pablo Lopez or Byron Buxton, for that matter. Some New York area newspapers were speculating on the Yankees or Mets looking at trying to acquire Correa from the cash strapped Twins.

They do this all the time, of course. Big market teams believe they are entitled to the best players in smaller markets, but the Twins are still in a competitive mode, so why would anyone begin to think that they three most important, core players of the team would even be on the market?

I mean, aside from the fact that the Twins dropped their salary by $30m last year and already stated they won't be increasing the salary this year. It so happens they are at about the same level already right now. 

And sure, the Pohlads are notorious for their frugality, their cynical dedication to making a profit over any other goal. They are selling the team, and have no vested interest in the future of the squad. A sale won't be completed, certainly, until next season. This is going to be one last grab at either cash or wins, and they've never really cared about wins.

But it's a total fabrication  that Carlos Correa is on the market, just because Joel Sherman threwe it out there. 

But who said anything about Lopez or Buxton, Derek? 

ALL HAIL ZOLL

 The Twins have had a couple of bits of significant news filter out today. The first is that Dave St. Peter, longtime president of the business side of the Twins organization, is stepping aside after over 20 years in the role/ Derek Falvey's portfolio will expand to include this role as well as the president of Baseball Operations title that he's always had.

In more baseball focused news, the Twins also promoted Jeremy Zoll to the role of General Manager. While you try not to get a complex about the fact that he was born in 1990, and what exactly have you been doing with your life, he is a veteran of the organization, starting as the farm director in 2018, and has been involved in trade negotiations, such as the Sonny Gray success, and the Jorge Polanco extremely mixed bag. 

Zoll has a history in player development, but not really in scouting, to go along with that bit of history with trade negotiations. If I were to read into the immediate future, based on this history, the Twins are expecting to base their success on building from within, rather than via players outside of the organization, but that isn't exactly news at this stage, is it?

The other shoe that dropped was St. Peter stepping aside. He's only 57, so this wasn't a retirement. If I had to guess, it has to do with his long time employers stepping away from the team he has worked for for so long, and seeing now as a perfect time to explore something else, or perhaps to continue his work with the Pohlads in a different venture. 

That it is happening now for one of two reasons. One, the Twins went to the General Manager meetings without a general manager, and were embarrassed, or two, St. Peter wants to start the countdown. I wonder then if that means the Pohlads are making progress on a sale. There were some rumors that Glen Taylor might be a suitor, and maybe, just to pull at every string, this might be related to the ongoing arbitration over the sale of the Timberwolves. 

Regardless of what falls out of this, the first major shoe has dropped in the Twins offseason that will have many such instances. Zoll is the GM now. All hail Zoll. 

A creative offseason.

Back in the pandemic days, I was still writing in a more corporate blog environment, and I got a copy of Out of the Park 21, which I used to simulate the season that we lost. That old site pretty much burned all my old posts after I declined their generous offer of "only write about facts or gambling, or else" but I still have that copy of OOTP 21 (the Twins made it to the playoffs, and were swept by Tampa).

I had heard rumors about the evolution engine in the historical game play, and I was fascinated. I created 16 teams and placed them in random cities and have just been simulating, trying to see what would happen. For about 60 fake baseball seasons, the league expanded every once in a while, but it didn't see any teams relocate, which I thought was a little strange.

Then, I realized I didn't set the financials of the league to advance with time, or to carry over year to year, so I adjusted those, and completely throttled the league, because now, every team had a budget from one year, and salaries were about to match those of 60 years later. Free agents were not getting signed, and it was going to take time for all these teams to work their way up to viability.

And then, right in the midst of this slow transition, the league expanded, and two teams were added. These two teams didn't have the weight of the previous financial expectations built into their budget, and were basically shopping in the free agency market by themselves. For two seasons, now, these two teams have signed every free agent that has been signed. Every one of them.

For me, that is a perfect analogy to MLB if, say, the regional sports network model collapsed, and a certain subset didn't have the revenue stream they had had, and others in the league were unimpacted and able to spend, virtually unchecked.

Oh, that's exactly what happened! The Twins will have to set out of free agency, for the most part, as will other teams that lost the RSN revenue. With more teams looking to conserve payroll, the market for free agents is going to be severely restricted. And if that's the case, who is going to be out there taking on contracts? Some teams will be trying to cut payroll themselves, and others will be filling up on their own free agents, rather than trading for help.

Who is providing salary relief? The story of the Twins thee last couple of weeks is that they need to trim payroll before they add more players, but I haven't seen anyone ask if that's even possible, given the way the financial gulf between teams is right now. The Twins have said they will need to be creative to make their payroll work in 2025. Part of the creativity will involve finding any partner willing to make it work.

First base, a mystery, an opportunity

 If you ask 5 different fans, you'll see 5 different opinions on where the Twins should seek to improve their roster for 2025. A lot of this has to to with the with the limit budget. By necessity, the team will have to prioritize, rather than addressing all of their holes, so which spot is the most important? 

Both Carlos Santana's well deserved Gold Glove and Alex Kirilloff's undeserved injury driven retirement brought mor attention first base. and how the Twins are going to fill that spot. usually relied on for a boost of steady offense, and commonly used to hide poor defenders. The Twins, historically, have had good defenders at first, from Hrbek to Mientkiewicz to Morneau and Mauer, and now Carlos Santana. Kirilloff was poised to be one of those players the Twins would try to hid, in part because of bad defense, but also because injuries were already slowing him down.

Santana and Kirilloff departing in one fell swoop opens an amorphous hole that could be filled in a number of ways. They could bring back Santana, and hope for more defensive wizardry, and to continue the relationships he built with the team. This is a good chance, though, to address a glaring weakness the team had down the stretch: reliable production.

The Twins don't need a superstar hitter, they just need a professional hitter, that can steady the team in rougher spots. And the beauty of it is, all they need is hitter, they don't necessarily need a hitting first baseman. Willi Castro, Edouard Julien or Jose Miranda can be shuffled, with any of them playing an infield spot up to and including first base. 

That's why I described the hole as amorphous. It's not a difficult hole to fill. It can be filled by a lot of different players. I'll give one example of a free agent outside of MLB Trade Rumor's top 50. Randall Grichuk is not a first baseman, but fits the bill as a veteran bat. He is a right handed hitter that has played both corner outfield positions in recent years after starting in center field. This would force Castro into the infield, where he i a better fielder than Miranda or Julien at their chosen position. Either could move to first base, and problems begin to be solved.

Grichuk has a career average of .250, and a bit of pop in his bat. While he had a terrific year for Arizona this year, he did it at 1.5m, and while he will be getting a raise, at his age 33 season, it won't be substantial. Especially after the Twins pare their payroll a little bit, Grichuk, or one of the many other bat forward free agents, will be affordable, and will help flesh out the necessary depth for a long season.

The biggest hole is at first base, but that hole can be filled without adding a first baseman. 

Twins hurtle into the offseason

 I don't know if I remember the offseason starting as hot as this years has. It's not like the Twins have done a lot, or undertaken some major moves, but there have certainly been a lot of decisions at the beginning of the long winter, and some other news that will help to define the course the team will take.

The first bit of news was Thad Levine's departure, but the biggest thunderbolt was the news that the Pohlad family will bee looking to sell the Twins. The news has been met with positivity, however there is still no buyer known to be in place. In the mean time, the cheap Pohlads, with a reduced TV contract are still in place, and now, they will feel no consequences for jilting their fans.

We've been told that the Twins will be able to expect a similar payroll versus last year, but I am not optimistic that that will be matched. 

Of course, there is no signal of that yet, just a bunch of small moves that will presage what could be an active offseason. Derek Falvey, undoubtedly will be pulling all the levers available in order to put together the best roster he can, and at the beginning of every offseason, the first move is clearing out some peripheral players who may not be as productive as their salary would foretell. 

Kyle Farmer and Manuel Margot were not retained, while Max Kepler, Carlos Santana and Caleb Thielbar are free agents. Most surprisingly, Alex Kirilloff decided to retire, after a short career plagued by persistent injuries. The team did decide to retain Jorge Alcala, by picking up his $1.5m option. The next step will be arbitration hearings and agreements, and then we will be off to the races. 

There will be an imperative to reduce payroll and I'm sure that Chris Paddack and Christian Vazquez are on the top of most lists, which leads me to believe that payroll is going to remain unchanged. Neither Paddack nor Vazquez stand to bring back much in return, and still retain some value for the organization. The Twins would likely have to eat salary, which defeats the purpose, or pair a prospect in order to simply offload the player, which then weakens the farm, which is likely where the Twins need to build from, all while getting nothing back but salary room and another hole.

Minnesota fans are often hung up on free agency, and will lament the teams' likely inability to be active in the market this year, but it's not an efficient use of limited resources. A million here or there might add depth, but a team like the Twins isn't going to fill major holes with superstars very often. Carlos Correa stands as a glaring exception, and even now, both he and Byron Buxton took discounts to re-sign with the organization. The Twins aren't going to pay market rate for a difference maker.

Derek Falvey is likely hoping for a job with the team even after the Pohlads are gone. The best way to secure that is with young talent that will outlive the Pohlad regime. While there is certainly plenty already on the payroll, I would expect any moves to improve the team to involved pure baseball moves. Prospects for prospects, or young major leaguers going one way or another. The current salaries won't bother the Pohlads, and the increasing salary over the years would be someone else's problem.

There has already been quite a bit of shuffling, and it looks like there is going to be a substantial bit of turnover. This may be a chaotic offseason for the Twins, and the flurry of moves from the outset sure sells that opinion. If my instinct is right, that most of the moves are going to be the pure baseball moves I called out, they can take a while. It's busy right now, but that doesn't mean the Twins will be making their big moves any time soon. For the moment, they've certainly been spinning quite a few plates.