Don’t get me wrong, I’m almost always one of the baseball aficionados who thinks that an MLB team should always be willing to explore trades for any of their players. Whether it’s a fan-favorite longtime veteran or a highly-touted top prospect, the front office wouldn’t be doing their due diligence if they said a player was untouchable.
But even if the club is open for business, so to speak, that doesn’t mean that they need to churn good players constantly for the sake of value and prospect re-fertilization. Sometimes, there just isn’t enough juice that can come out from squeezing that orange repeatedly.
Enter a pair of Minnesota Twins’ starting pitchers that have found themselves swirling in some early-offseason trade chatter. Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober were bright spots for the Twins when they took the mound, and their emergence as rock-solid middle-of-the-rotation arms who still have the upside to be frontline starters is a major asset for any team.
If the Twins can count on these two (along with staff ace Pablo Lopez) to anchor the starting rotation for the foreseeable future, that would be the envy of most other teams in the league. Does that mean Minnesota has the best rotation in the game? No, of course not. Still, countless successful teams establish the foundation of strong rotation, whether it’s the juggernaut big-market teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers or the low-budget perennial contending Tampa Bay Rays.
Having three above-average starting pitchers in a rotation is the most effective way to raise a ballclub’s floor. Just look at this year’s team, where nearly every other department struggled at one point. The team still won 82 games, as painful as that was. Much of that has to do with their rotation that ranked in the top five of the American League in fWAR (12.6, fifth-best), strikeouts (9.22 K/9, best), and WHIP (1.21, fifth-best).
Even with potential financial limitations looming, I keep coming back to the notion that I would really try to avoid dealing either of these promising starting pitchers.
I can see the benefits of a deal coming together. I really can.
First, it likely means the Twins must demand a significant return. Maybe that’s an elite package of prospects or younger, cheaper players. Maybe it’s one year of an ace-caliber arm. Maybe it’s part of a bigger trade that dumps other less-desirable contracts, such as Chris Paddack’s $7.5 million or Christian Vazquez’s $10 million guarantee.
Whatever the case, if Ryan or Ober are not on Minnesota’s roster come Opening Day, it means some other exciting talent has joined the picture.
But is that worth pulling the rug out of the starting rotation? At that point, it starts to feel like the team would be asked to jump on one foot while already balancing on thin ice.
Can that work? Maybe, but we’ve seen what can happen to a good team when ownership pulls the floor out from underneath them. Doubling down on that type of uncertainty would be a pretty big gamble.
That’s not to say Ryan and Ober are “sure things” to keep being valuable and productive. There is no such thing when dealing with pitchers. There’s just so much opportunity for prolonged injuries, stalled development as they approach their 30s, and general wackiness that can turn what feels like a certainty into a big question mark.
Each pitcher has its fair share of uncertainty (Ryan’s health, Ober’s lack of a strong fastball). But they also offer the upside of the most highly coveted assets in professional sports — not just one strong arm but multiple, who are inexpensive given their output over the last few seasons.
So unless they get more of that in return, along with other enticing pieces in the package — be it another prospect, young player, or salary relief.
Still, I find it hard to believe the juice would be worth the squeeze.
