Jorge Lopez traded to Twins for pitching prospects (edit)

[interloper]

 

[Surhoffan17]

1 minute ago, dtk9119 said:

So I guess now we can say they're "punting" the season?

If Hays and Mountcastle start hitting again and Bautista can fill the closers role I don't see that much drop off. Now if they trade Santander too...

Well, I think Santander will be traded.  Even though Bautista can certainly close, it's one less set up guy.  Maybe Baumann will come up and be solid in middle relief.  Clearly, Elias isn't believers in us for this year.  

[LookinUp]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Funny how when folks approve of a deal/decision made by Elias no one says anything but when someone questions a deal/decision we suddenly don't have enough information to judge.

Newsflash, we never have enough information but we're still allowed to have opinions based off the information we have.

Fair point. I just think we should get some information on the 4 guys we got back before we lose our minds. 
 

I don’t love this trade. I just don’t know how to grade it, yet. One person speculated it’s a future cost cutting trade. I would obviously be unhappy if that was the motivation. I just doubt that’s true.

[TommyPickles]

So it seems like the overall take from the Hangout is:

-Mancini trade netted a slightly better than expected return.

-Lopez trade netted a slightly worse than expected return, especially considering he wasn't a free agent until 2025.

More or less?

Edited August 2, 2022 by TommyPickles

[yark14]

I think we could have gotten this same return if we had traded Cionel or Akin instead.

[baltfan]

For those of you citing where these various prospects were on the Twins' Fangraphs prospect lists, note that Bautista was #34 on the Orioles list coming into the season.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/baltimore-orioles-top-45-prospects/

[Yardball85]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I would be excited to get Povich and Rojas for Tate…not for Lopez.

Agreed.  Thought Lopez as a closer with a 99 mph sinker and controllability, had more value. 

[interloper]

1 minute ago, TommyPickles said:

So it seems like the overall take from the Hangout is:

-Mancini trade netted a slightly better than expected return.

-Lopez trade netted a slightly worse than expected return, especially considering he wasn't a free agent until 2025.

More or less?

That's about where I'm at, yep. 

Now trade Santander. 

[Frobby]

I hate to wimp out on this one, but this is a wait and see for me.   Obviously Lopez is a guy who could have helped us in 2023 and 2024, when we hope to be legit contenders.   Elias didn’t have a gun to his head to make this trade.  Therefore, I can only assume that his staff has a high opinion of these four pitchers (or at least a couple of them) and thinks the return is more likely than not to outweigh the benefits of keeping Lopez.  Time will tell if they’re right.   Elias & co. seem to have very specific things they look for in pitchers and try to develop - I assume these guys meet their criteria.   

So, do I look at this trade as a no-brainer, obvious win?   Not at all.   It could be a significant loser.  But, we’ll have to wait and see what Elias got here.  

Meanwhile, I have complete faith in Bautista handling the closer role, and I think we can handle the other late relief roles adequately.   We will take a bit of a hit in performance the rest of the year, but hopefully not too much.  Maybe we see Hall in a relief role soon?

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m curious why people think there is regression coming?

 

All of his numbers are good.  Traditional and analytical.

Is it because he sucked as a starter?  That means nothing right now.

Andrew Miller went from being a lousy starting pitcher to a very good reliever over a six season stretch. There's no reason to think Lopez can't follow a similar track. I was ok with trading Lopez for a good return.  

My mind is still open on this trade, but this doesn't feel like a trade package where you have to make a deal considering Lopez is under team control through 2024. 

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, baltfan said:

For those of you citing where these various prospects were on the Twins' Fangraphs prospect lists, note that Bautista was #34 on the Orioles list coming into the season.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/baltimore-orioles-top-45-prospects/

And?  Are we now to assume that Lower ranked prospects will just vault up quickly because one player did it?

[baltfan]

The Twins Reddit board seems to think they didn't give up much.  How much they know, who knows?

 

[baltfan]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

And?  Are we now to assume that Lower ranked prospects will just vault up quickly because one player did it?

No we aren't but we are to assume that Fangraphs puts pretty low values on relievers.  People thought Bautista could be something coming into the season.

For the record, I don't really like this trade.  I don't see the high end upside arm that I would like to see for Lopez, the Orioles are still in it, and I am worried about the message this sends to the players.  Mancini trade was excellent.

Edited August 2, 2022 by baltfan

[billw76]

30 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

And there isn’t any reason to think he will fall off a cliff either.

It's an underwhelming trade, but there is definitely reason to think Lopez won't fall off a cliff. His track record before this season isn't good, even though that was mostly as a starter.

I would have liked to have gotten more for him but if this is all we could get after an all star appearance, I can't see his value getting much higher unfortunately.

[Sydnor]

4 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Based on what?

I think there is an implicit bias against waiver claims like Lopez because he didn’t come up through the system and people haven’t been following him through the minors. I think guys like Lopez, Urias, and Mateo aren’t valued as highly by the fan base for that reason, and people are less likely to believe that a guy like Lopez actually was miscast as a starter and is in fact a dominant reliever with underlying numbers that suggest he will remain a dominant reliever going forward.