Nuthin Doin’
Posted by SBG on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Joe C. reports that the Twins made no more deals today.
This entry was posted by SBG on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Minnesota Twins. It is one of 2394 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post. Why?
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Fine. Then I'm making no more comments about it today.
Well we already made a huge trade to get Rondell White from the DL, and we will be making a blockbuster for Michael Cuddyer in a few days.
Sadly, Garrett Jones-for-Rondell was the big deal. I'm worried about what we're going to have to give up to get Cuddyer though, I like spots 1-25 on the roster right now.
I'm not sure why I always feel let down when nothing happens to my teams at these deadlines...
Casilla gets the start tonight, right?
If we're lucky. The only way that dumping Castillo helps the Twins in any way is if Casilla gets to be an everyday player in '07 so that he is ready to start out of the gates without the rookie jitters at the beginning of '08.
this news make me sad
I mean we are OH so close to making a run at the playoffs and there is obvious postions that needed to be upgraded. You see the trade of the like of Dan Wheeler for Ty Wiggington and just wonder why we couldnt do something like that
I hope Terry Ryan has a good explaination of things
Terry Ryan watching the Garnett deal go down:
"So that's what happens when you fail to surround a superstar with adequate talent to succeed in the post-season. Years of frustration and regret. Well, anyways, there's no point in adding anyone to my team! As long as I have Mauer and Morneau, a bunch of sub-.700 OPS singles hitters will take us to the World Series!"
Ensberg was had for a PTBNL. You can take this to the bank: the PTBNL is not a real prospect.
Ensberg was traded back to his home state of California. I expect the Twins would have had to out-bid the Padres for his services -- perhaps eating his 2007 salary, or surrendering someone several notches above PTBNL on the prospect scale. Given the Castillo deal and the complete lack of other moves thus far, though, neither condition would have broken the Twins back (or bank).
That said, maybe Ensberg just doesn't have it right now. I would be perfectly willing to accept that judgement on Ensberg from the Twins brass, if they hadn't been so wrong about so many other potential acquisitions, and even their own internal options, so far this season.
Maybe Ensberg is on the Twins radar for the off-season, though. The Padres have a few too many third basemen, it seems, and without a memorable stretch drive, I doubt that Ensberg gets offered arbitration.
Maybe the Twins should also be so petrified of ever making any move that they should never again bother trying to seriously upgrade the team.
This is what I don't understand. Ryan is so obsessed with making perfect trades that he will never pull the trigger on anything major, even if it means dealing from strength. In order to get something worthwhile he will obviously have to give up something worthwhile, which apparently terrifies him. He is like Carl Pohlad's apprentice miser.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Ensberg have any leverage with regard to his destination? He surely isn't a 10-and-5 player, so unless he had a no-trade clause, I don't see how his preference to go home to California is relevant - the Astros would have final say in which trade offer to accept.
If he had a no-trade clause, then obviously that helps explain why San Diego may have had the upper hand.
When I saw they picked him up, I was praying that it was going to be part of a multi-team deal to send Kouzmanoff to the Twins. Or even to send Ensberg to the Twins. Or for the Twins to do something, anything.
Someone at Christensen's blog actually brought up an interesting point. This will be the fourth off-season in a row that we will be looking for an everyday third baseman. How has Terry Ryan failed so completely at plugging such a glaring hole for so long? At what point will he actually decide to part with something tangible in order to get what we desperately need? Why doesn't he care at all?
TR is planning on making a move for ARod in the off-season, and doesn't want there to be a popular incumbent that would make ARod's installation unpopular with the fans.
This will be the fourth off-season in a row that we will be looking for an everyday third baseman.
To be fair, Cuddyer seemed like a pretty adequate solution there at the time. And after 2006, starting Punto this year could be defensible. What hurt was ignoring Punto's (fairly predictable) fall back to earth for so long, and refusing to make adjustments in-season.
I still think that they should have stuck with Cuddyer at 3B.
Maybe Cuddyer will be our big 3B acquisition?
I still think that they should have stuck with Cuddyer at 3B.
It doesn't really matter, though. Even if Cuddyer was over at 3B, that would simply open a massive, gaping hole in RF. It's downright pathetic how few good or even merely adequate offensive players this organization has above A-ball.
I feel a rant coming on...
I feel some empty seats at Twins games coming on.
Naaah. Now we can just relax and enjoy baseball. Everyone can make fun of Punto, watch Casilla and the young arms develop. It'll be fun to see if Morneau can hit 40. Mauer's got to get on a hot streak.
I think they are going to sign Santanato quell the riot.
I wanted the Twins to sell. I was hoping they'd move Silva and Rincon, but no dice today.
Apparently before he was traded Teixeira turned down an 8-year $140 million deal. Good God, is Morneau going to want more than this as well?
Forget his inactivity at the deadline. TR's failure to lock up Morneau over the winter was a colossal mistake.
Where did you see that Teixeira turned down such a deal? (I am not surprised, given that he's a Boras client, but rather curious)
Here's the low-down on the offer. Many thanks to Tom Hicks for continuing to drive up contract prices.
I think I wrote a few posts ago that I felt the Twins would do nothing at the deadline and really they didn't. The Castillo move wasn't much of anything, as it was more of a salary dump. I wrote while in the back of my mind I was hoping desperately the Ryan would at least try to package some of his soon-to-be-free-agents with a prospect to pick up one or two worthy offensive players. So I am not surprised, but I am still terribly let down. I like Terry Ryan, but the inactivity drives me nuts.
All time Great Cover Your Butt move by Terry Ryan.
Action without impact at its finest.
Yeah I think I'm getting sick of the standard Terry Ryan moves. I think I'd like him to be a little more like John Schuerholz.
The more I think and read about this Castillo deal, the less I like it. If that was all we could get for our starting second-baseman, then why not just keep him for two more months? It's at least possible that he could end up being a Type-B free agent, and that compensatory pick would certainly look a lot better than the two scrubs we got from the Mets. As it is, the Twins basically gave him away for two players that no one seems to think have much of a a chance at making an impact.
The best spin I've seen applied to this deal (frankly, the only spin) was that it was a classy treatment of the veteran Castillo - sending him to a contender as a magnanimous gesture. While certainly noble, I don't see much value in proving to veterans that the Twins are a high-class organization - ostensibly to make it easier to attract free agents - since the Twins are basically non-players in the free agency market.
This deal feels an awful lot like giving away Doug Mientkiewicz for Justin Jones - that single-A Cubs pitcher who was later released outright in the minors. We got literally nothing from that trade except clearing space for Morneau. Forgive me for not viewing that as good value. It wasn't like he had an albatross of a contract that the Twins were shedding.
As far as it being a favor to Castillo, he made it clear that he wanted to finish the season with the Twins. He was upset to leave, and the rest of the team was upset to have him leave. Besides disrupting the all important team chemistry, it potentially undermined any efforts Ryan may make towards resigning Hunter.
Aside from saving the two million dollars that Carl Pohlad desperately needed, basically nothing positive came from this move.
This deal feels an awful lot like giving away Doug Mientkiewicz for Justin Jones - that single-A Cubs pitcher who was later released outright in the minors. We got literally nothing from that trade except clearing space for Morneau. Forgive me for not viewing that as good value. It wasn’t like he had an albatross of a contract that the Twins were shedding.
At least with Mientkiewicz, he wasn't an expiring free agent. As I recall, the Twins had a ~$4M commitment to him the next year that they dumped when they got rid of him, plus his salary for the rest of the season.
That, and Justin Jones was at least a marginal prospect. He had more potential than the two new non-prospects combined.
I think it's right to view this trade in a similar light, but this time around it's less money, worse return, and making way for a player who isn't as talented.
Like I said before, no comment.