Minnesota Sports Forum

longstrangetrip wrote:There's no question that the last three nights have been devastating...we lead the best team in baseball on the road all three nights, and we end up 0-3. Even worse, the teams we are chasing for the division and the WC are all winning...we're now 51/2 behind Cleveland and 4 back in the WC. No good.

All that said, our schedule gets much easier now, and I want to see how we do in the next two series...not to mention none of the teams ahead of us are world beaters (although they are hot right now). I want the brain trust to be looking at unloading players who can yield a great return, but wait until the last moment to pull the trigger. The race gap(s) could be much tighter in 3-4 days. If not, pull the trigger.

Yeah LST there shouldn't be complete panic losing a series to a team that's 40 games over .500. The Twins can still make up some ground playing teams in their division. Santana hasn't been as sharp recently I don't know if that matters much or not. He was going to go through a down stretch basically any good player will during a long season.

Twins dealt John Ryan Murphy for Minor league reliever Gabriel Moya. This makes the Anthony Recker acquisition make more sense. I wonder if that opens up a 40 man roster spot.

monsterpile wrote:Twins dealt John Ryan Murphy for Minor league reliever Gabriel Moya. This makes the Anthony Recker acquisition make more sense. I wonder if that opens up a 40 man roster spot.

It's too bad Murphy never worked for us, but I love what I see in Moya this year. Only 22 and a lefty, he's 17 for 17 in save situations in AA with a .82 ERA and 68 K's in only 43 innings...wow! Lefties notoriously take longer to develop, so is there a chance we just traded Murphy for our closer of the future? I love this deal.

Edit: Seth Stohs knows as much as anyone I follow about minor league prospects, and he doesn't seem very excited about this deal. I'm not sure why considering Murphy wasn't going anywhere for us and Moya has great stats as a 22-year-old, but I'm going to temper my enthusiasm.

I like the trade

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Twins dealt John Ryan Murphy for Minor league reliever Gabriel Moya. This makes the Anthony Recker acquisition make more sense. I wonder if that opens up a 40 man roster spot.

It's too bad Murphy never worked for us, but I love what I see in Moya this year. Only 22 and a lefty, he's 17 for 17 in save situations in AA with a .82 ERA and 68 K's in only 43 innings...wow! Lefties notoriously take longer to develop, so is there a chance we just traded Murphy for our closer of the future? I love this deal.

Edit: Seth Stohs knows as much as anyone I follow about minor league prospects, and he doesn't seem very excited about this deal. I'm not sure why considering Murphy wasn't going anywhere for us and Moya has great stats as a 22-year-old, but I'm going to temper my enthusiasm.

I looked at Murphy's hitting stats and they were very meh for a AAA catcher and that's not good because he was Doing well earlier in the season. Garver is absolutely killing it with his bat regardless of what position he plays. It's still AAA but yeah. Even if it's just a flyer on a pitcher that's fine at this point. Having jpuneyman vet catchers as backups or Castro makes more sense to help a young pitching staff than having another young guy. They also let Rolfing go. He was worse than Buxton has been this year at the plate but he was at AA....

Just got drinking with some good friend who work for the Twins scouting department. Pretty reliable sources, but the Astros are pushing very hard for Ervin Santana. The Astros have a ton of expendable assets so I could see the fit. Also was told don't be shocked Kintzler is traded, he said that Kintzler will bring a better haul than what the phils got for Neshek. The vibe I got from him but I could be wrong but the twins will be mild sellers this trade deadline. They said Managment can't believe how good the team is actually doing and that Terry Ryan left the twins basically in a dumpster fire with no starting pitching depth at the AAA level. One of them actually praised Bill Smith, he said you know he was the one to sign Sano and Drafted Dozier and we had a long discussion why he was wrong lol

Jester1534 wrote:Just got drinking with some good friend who work for the Twins scouting department. Pretty reliable sources, but the Astros are pushing very hard for Ervin Santana. The Astros have a ton of expendable assets so I could see the fit. Also was told don't be shocked Kintzler is traded, he said that Kintzler will bring a better haul than what the phils got for Neshek. The vibe I got from him but I could be wrong but the twins will be mild sellers this trade deadline. They said Managment can't believe how good the team is actually doing and that Terry Ryan left the twins basically in a dumpster fire with no starting pitching depth at the AAA level. One of them actually praised Bill Smith, he said you know he was the one to sign Sano and Drafted Dozier and we had a long discussion why he was wrong lol

Thanks for that, jester. Lots of talk about Santana to Houston, so I wouldn't be surprised if this happens. I don't know what the short and long-term plan is if Kintzler leaves, so I hope that doesn't happen without a great return.

Love it. This year was a good surprise but we are not making the playoffs so let's sell well we can. I think the future of this team will be made in what we do now to acquire some assets.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Jester1534 wrote:Just got drinking with some good friend who work for the Twins scouting department. Pretty reliable sources, but the Astros are pushing very hard for Ervin Santana. The Astros have a ton of expendable assets so I could see the fit. Also was told don't be shocked Kintzler is traded, he said that Kintzler will bring a better haul than what the phils got for Neshek. The vibe I got from him but I could be wrong but the twins will be mild sellers this trade deadline. They said Managment can't believe how good the team is actually doing and that Terry Ryan left the twins basically in a dumpster fire with no starting pitching depth at the AAA level. One of them actually praised Bill Smith, he said you know he was the one to sign Sano and Drafted Dozier and we had a long discussion why he was wrong lol

Thanks for that, jester. Lots of talk about Santana to Houston, so I wouldn't be surprised if this happens. I don't know what the short and long-term plan is if Kintzler leaves, so I hope that doesn't happen without a great return.

Souhan has brought up Bill Smith a few times on his podcast saying how people do dump on Bill Smith and rightly so but he brings up Sano and some other move he was responsible for that actually was a good one. He says fans should realize it's possible Bill Smith may have done some good things for this franchise but most people have no interest in that after those deals he did went south. On the other hand when Ryan took over the team there were some real problems with talent at every part of the organization. It seemed like there was a lot to fix. Hopefully these new guys are going to make some of the right moves. So far it's been encouraging.

Jester did you have any thoughts or info on Moya?

bleedspeed177 wrote:Love it. This year was a good surprise but we are not making the playoffs so let's sell well we can. I think the future of this team will be made in what we do now to acquire some assets.

You're probably right, bleed, but I'm not completley giving up on the playoffs. We're only 4 games out of the WC, have proven to be remarkably resistent all season when things looked bleak, and now face a month of games against sub-.500 teams. Michael Rand points out the weak schedule ahead in this morning's Strib, and remimds us we are donw with the Red Sox, Dodgers and Astros...against whom we went 3-13. If we trade Santana and/or Kintzler, I will throw in the towel. But if we don't, there's no reason we can't play .750 baseball the next month against the poor teams we have ocming up...and that would put us right back in the race.