I think this trade helps the Twins. I have always liked Bartlett and thought he could be a long term piece, it seemed apparent and this confirms it, that the Twins always viewed him as a stopgap and I think this is trade is indicative that they think they have something in Trevor Plouffe and my guess is they hope that someone from the Casilla/Punto/Harris can hold down the spot until Plouffe is ready to be called up either in September or Spring of 09. This trade also effectively fills the DH position (moving Kubel and his bum knee into a full time DH) which the Twins have sorely lacked for YEARS.

Matt Garza also seemed very reluctant to listen to Rick Anderson and his doctrine of mixing in changeups. When Garza was mixing in the off speed pitches he would do well, but then he would fall in to the “throw harder throw faster” mode where he just wanted to over power every hitter and he would end up getting toast.

The ONLY thing that truly worries me is Young’s plate discipline. Unless a hitter has a natural plate discipline (ex: Mauer) the Twins hitting instructors have a long history of not exactly emphasizing plate discipline (Jacque Jones, Hunter, etc) and I fear that Young’s “free swinging ways” could run rampant and become a real problem. Again it comes down to how teachable he is and that remains to be seen.

But on the surface, the Twins organization seems stacked with prospects like Garza (Swarzak seems to be coming along nicely) so trading from what I as a fan view as a strength for a potential super star position player (something the Twins sorely lack outside of the M&M boys from the big club down to single A) is one I am happy they made.

Whether or not this trade works out for Minnesota I for one will not criticize it, every trade involves risk and I think this was a very smart “risk” that the Twins took.

While I will always be thankful to Terry Ryan for saving the franchise, the Bill Smith era has me genuinely excited!

Saying now that Jones, Clement, Morrow are no long untouchable…whats he trying to do to this organization, destroy us on his last year of his contract, just though id throw that in there since were talking about trades. whats a hypocrite.

I don’t recall Bavasi ever naming any specific player as ‘untouchable’, so how is he now a hypocrite?

Not really, terry, because you’d leave the roof down and the tensile structure should be fine, as there’s no area for the wind to load. The field would get kinda screwed up, but the building isn’t going to fall down.

Tarantulas don’t attack and kill people (well I guess they could kill someone who is allergic to them), but many people still find the idea of tarantulas to be creepy….

By the way, keep the snooty grammar correction posts coming. They’re exactly what I look for when coming to baseball blogs.

Numeric information is never a substitute for judgment and reasoning. Rather it’s used to calibrate our thinking. The deference we give numeric information depends on the quality of the numeric information.

Sorry ’bout that.

[too high of an internet tough guy factor]

JOE: (To Piripero) Get three coffins ready.

MAN: Adios, Amigo.

MAN 2: We don’t like to see bad boys like you in town.

MAN 3: Go get your mule. You let him get away from you?

JOE: You see, that’s what I want to talk to you about. He’s feeling real bad.

MAN 3: Huh?

JOE: My mule. You see, he got all riled up when you men fired those shots at his feet.

MAN 2: Hey, are you making some kind of joke?

JOE: No. See, I understand you men were just playin’ around. But the mule, he just doesn’t get it. Of course, if you were to all apologize.

(The men laugh. Joe moves the poncho aside, exposing his pistol.)

JOE: I don’t think it’s nice, you laughin’. See, my mule don’t like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you’re laughing at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you’re going to, I might convince him that you really didn’t mean it . . .

(Pause as music builds, men draw their guns. Joe draws his and fires five shots, then holsters his gun.)

JOHN BAXTER: I saw the whole thing. You killed all four of them. You’ll pay all right. You’ll be strung up.

JOE: (Draws gun again) Who are you?

JOHN BAXTER: I’m John Baxter, sheriff.

JOE: Yeah, well, if you’re the sheriff, you’d better get those men underground. (Lowers poncho and walks off, passing Piripero.) My mistake. Four coffins.

Fistful of Dollars, 1964…

Oh ya…

You might want to consider that they didn’t trade Delmon Young for Matt Garza. It was a six player deal. Minnesota got the best player in the deal, and then Tampa got the next three best players after that.

Win-Win.

This is a great distillation of the trade. BTW, I think it was Neyer who indicated in a story that he didn’t think this qualified as a blockbuster trade. I think it should. How often has a prospect rated as highly as Young been traded?

I sure hope I used correct grammar in this post haha