Cup of Coffee

February 4, 2020: Silver Fox

77 Comments

After going without it for a year, I finally got a little status back with the airlines. The resentment from my forced exile was somewhat abated by getting bumped up for both legs of a connecting flight back to ORD. Oh, how I missed dat status.

77 thoughts on “February 4, 2020: Silver Fox”

      1. Pretty sure, the letters going the other direction all fit with featureless, unsophisticated, bovine, agrarian and rubes.

          1. Oooooh. Yup.

            This took you pointing it out for me to process, but... well played, Twayn.

    2. I've been tossing around the idea of seeing Kraig Johnson at the Aster Cafe tomorrow night. Dan Murphy and Marc Pearlman are joining him for a mini Golden smog show.

    3. I saw that announcement and thought it would be so cool to see, but I'm not traveling to Chicago for it.

  6. Per ESPN:

    Minnesota's Andrew Wiggins would have to be included in almost any (D'Angelo) Russell trade package.

    It wasn't entirely clear who's requiring Wiggins to be included (it might be a salary cap thing), but if the Wolves can rid themselves of Wiggins while simultaneously acquiring Russell, it would be the trade of the century, even if it means getting rid of Covington.

          1. Maeda would be a solid rotation piece this year. I guess it all depends on how long he is under team control. Graterol is still an unknown who could possibly bust. I did not think he would be a starter with current delivery. He could end up a dominate reliever.

          2. 4 years left at $3 million per year. If he continues to pitch as he has, that is a nice contract for the Twins to take on.

                1. I hadn’t realized Maeda wasn’t a free agent until 2024. This makes me feel quite a bit better about the deal. If his escalators are tied to performance metrics rather than pure raw innings or something, then you want to be paying the upper end anyway.

                  That said, he’s only exceeded 150 innings twice since joining MLB.

            2. Maeda is going into age 32 season and is guaranteed $12M over 4 years. He has a career 105 ERA+ and 3.71 FIP. Zack Wheeler, who a lot of fans were pining for and who the Twins went after this offseason, is going into his age 30 season and has a career 100 ERA+ and 3.71 FIP. The Phillies signed him for 5 years, $118M. Maeda has a career 9.8 K/9 and was at 9.9 last year. Wheeler is career 8.7 and was 9.0 last year.

              1. I agree that Maeda's contract is better, but any calculation of the overall value of these two pitchers has to factor in Maeda's acquisition cost. (It may still come out looking favorable, but the picture is incomplete without the loss of Graterol.)

                1. True. That difference in contracts is $106M. I think it's a safe bet that Graterol won't be worth that by the time he's no longer under team control by the Red Sox.

          1. Dido. Could Graterol become great? Sure. Could Graterol become Alex Meyer? Sure.

            Edited to add: or Fernando Romero?

              1. Taking the under on every top prospect is probably the smart bet. Smart bets don't win World Series or get you superstars. At least not very often.

          2. I hate this. Graterol is a risk, to be sure. But ginormous upside and the downside is you send him down.

            I get that this is about winning now. But the margin here is pretty thin even in the here and now, and almost all of the upside risk just got sent to Chavez Ravine. Or Beantown, I guess.

            1. I don't think the upside is really all that great with Graterol. I mean, I like the guy, but the upside is a great reliever. The Twins just flipped a potentially great reliever for a cheap #3 SP for the next 4 years. That is a trade you make every time.

              1. And... relievers lately. How many of them are consistently good year to year. Very few are dominate over a 4 year period. Odds are sooo very long he will be one of them. Love the guy, but trading an area of strength for an area of need is a huge part of the value of this trade.

                1. First of all, he's 20 and already had a cup of coffee.
                  Maeda is entering his age-31 season. You are comparing a veteran at his peak in the NL to a kid at ages 16-20.
                  Second, he averaged over 9 K per 9 innings in the minors. And hasn't yet turned 21.

                  Have I mentioned he's coming into his age-21 season?

                  So we traded a guy with huge potential for a guy being touted as a number 3 starter? A very good third starter, but still.

                  19 starts in 19 appearances in his age-19 season. 11 starts in 18 appearances in the minors this year. Why would anyone pigeonhole him as a reliever?

                  I seem to recall that Johan was not a full-time starter his first four seasons in the Majors. Johan was not nearly as good in the minors as Graterol.

                  1. I don't think his upside is as high as many others think. Just read an article that 68 minor league players hit 100 mph on the radar gun last year. It's no longer super rare to do so. He doesn't look like a starter to me, he doesn't have a 3rd pitch, his delivery scares many scouts and it would take us 2 more years to build up his innings as a starter. Could he be a starter? Maybe, but it's a low percentage gamble. Yes, high upside, but there is a lot of risk. Most scouts label him as a reliever, and honestly, relievers kind of come and go. I know it's not sexy, but this is a very smart move that gives us payroll flexibility and rotation depth. Smart move in my humble opinion.

                    1. Johan's third pitch might have been better than Graterol's second. Graterol & Santana's body types are very different, too, which makes a difference to some observers. Add in his Tommy John in 2016 and the shoulder issue, and I can understand hesitation to see him either as a viable starter or even a reliever without a certain degree of risk. On more than one podcast I've heard Joel Zumaya's name invoked, as in "Maybe the Twins should just tell him to throw as hard as he can, while he can."

                    2. To be fair, TANSTAAPP. But there was a reason Johan was a Rule 5. He wasn't all that good in the Houston system. And he wasn't Johan until his third season in Minnesota, when he turned 23.

                      Graterol could bust. And Maeda could end up delivering more WAR to Minnesota than Graterol does his whole career, particularly if Graterol ends up in the bullpen. I just wanted another shot at the magic.

                  2. I think Grateral might have been a high price for Maeda, but how many chances are the Twins going to have to try to improve on a 101-win season? I love that this FO decided to take a risk and trade a prospect for someone to help the team now.

                  3. Who was the last Twins prospect to come up and pitch at his age? Rich Garces. It took awhile for him to "put it together" and I'm happy to let the Red Sox hope Graterol develops more quickly.

              2. Twitter and comment sections are very against this trade mostly because of strikeouts.

                Maeda has more SO/9 in the Majors than Graterol has in the Minors. Hmmmm.

                1. Graterol has struck out 26.8% of batters faced in the minors; Maeda has struck out 26.4% of batters faced in the majors, which is 4.4% above MLB average.

        4. I guess I really don't have much to add. Maeda looks like a good, but not great, starting pitcher. Graterol pitched very well through AA. He pitched did not do as well in AAA or the majors, but it's very few innings, and he's twenty-one years old. It could be "Can you believe we traded Brusdar Graterol for that guy?" Or, it could by "Can you believe we traded Brusdar Graterol for that guy!" Time will tell.

  10. So, rotation looks like this:

    Berrios - team control through 2022
    Odorizzi - One year contract
    Pineda - 2 year contract - 2021
    Bailey - 1 year contract
    Maeda - signed through 2023
    Rich Hill - 1 year contract

    In the wings: Chachin, Thorpe, Dobnak, Smeltzer (One of these will be the 5th starter til Pineda gets back).

    If Rich Hill comes back and looks good and Bailey is solid, I could see Maeda bouncing between the bullpen and rotation as he has that history with LA. This does give us a lot of flexibility and depth.

    1. If Rich Hill is at all healthy, it will be Homer Bailey the odd man out. I mean, odds are pretty good that one of the other five will be hurt or struggling, so it will probably work itself out, but all things being equal, Bailey is definitely the sixth man in that rotation. And he might not even be put in the bullpen. They might just trade or DFA him after Hill is ready.

  11. A friend invited the jalapeno to the Wild game tonight. When I said he could go, I was NOT expecting the game to go into overtime!

  12. Weird. I can see the thumbnail of my comment responding to Phyllo and zoom, but it doesn't show up in the thread.

    Sean signal?

      1. Forget it Jake, it's Timberwolves. Because when you can trade your second best player on a team friendly contract for spare parts and a 1st round pick in a bad draft, you do it.

    2. To me, the most surprising thing about this is that Nene is still in the league.

      I feel like I said that 3 years ago

  14. burning down the house

      1. Came here to say the same thing. This is like changing out the deck chairs while the leak in the pool goes unattended.

        1. My best guess is that this is a move to try to sweeten the Wiggins to GS deal. But I've been a Wolves fan long enough to know that the Wiggins deal (especially based on reports that GS is walking away from it) isn't going to happen, this streak will push to 20 games, and this summer will be KAT demanding a trade.

          1. The good news is, and I strongly recommend anyone take this approach, that this is the worst franchise in the history of sports and stuff like this is the chaos and incompetence that has kept things interesting over the years.

        2. Frankly I don't know enough about NBA to know if this was a good trade or not. But Brit Robsen had a mildly positive take on it so there's that. If it means Wolves create space to trade Wiggy to Golden State, well then hell yes it is a fantastic trade.

          1. I really can't see GS taking on that contract for a swing man when (*checks*) they have one of the best swing men in the league already, who already plays defense at an elite level and is one of the best shooters ever.

            GS looks to be tanking this year so they can refresh and reload when the Splash Brothers are fully healthy.

      2. Given his contract, they honestly might be better off cutting Wiggins versus trying to trade him. The only scenario that would have made sense to me is swapping bad contracts, but getting a shorter contract in return. Like maybe exploring Wiggins-for-Paul, but considering how well OKC has done this year, I guess they weren’t looking for a tank commander.

        Maybe they’ll surprise me with a deadline deal, but I feel like Wiggins is a summer trade candidate more than in-season. Best case scenario is finding a team that cleared cap space for a free agent but missed all their targets and needs a “win-now” move they can sell fans/ownership.

        It also seems like KAT is Love 2.0 to me. Dude can put up big numbers and will be an All-Star multiple times, but I don’t see him in the KG tier of superstars. I know GS has a positional log jam, but DLo isn’t the #1a kind of player that I think you need to pair with Towns to really have title aspirations.

        Ultimately I just don’t trust the Wolves with Taylor in charge.

        1. Can Wiggins be released? Aren't NBA contracts guaranteed? They take the cap hit either way.

          I'm to the point that I don't even care if they trade Kat. It feels like he'd rather get his numbers than do the dirty work to win. It's embarrassing to watch him arguing calls while his guy runs down the court.

          1. I basically agree about KAT. Like he seems like a Love kind of player that will be on some All-Star teams, put up numbers, and can be a #2 or #3 option on a championship team, but ultimately isn't in that superstar tier where you have to do everything you can to build around him. Trading KAT would seem like OKC trading Paul George away--sure George is a great player, but he wasn't the only option for them going forward, and Minnesota could probably get a boatload for him. It also seems like it would be a nice rebuilding option to have draft picks that are not depending on your team tanking. Like if you could build up a portfolio of other teams' first-round picks while generally trying to build a solid rotation that could eventually complement a special player--should you ever be lucky enough to land a Curry, LeBron, etc.--means you can at least instill a winning mindset in the team rather than exist in a limbo where you want the team to learn how to win but also not win at the same time.

            1. I think you are underselling the value of a guy who regularly puts up the numbers he does. 26.7/10.8/4.2 this season and 22.7/11.8/2.7 career.

              By multiple measures, he was a top-ten player last year and has been a top ten or fifteen player this year, even with the chaos. Give him a really good pg and some decent wing players, and he will be a stud.

              I like Love a lot, but he has proven that he is not a 1 or 1a guy on a championship team. KAT can be because he has the low block game that Love lacks.

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