It takes a special set of circumstances for a baseball team sitting 11 1/2 games back in it's division on August 15th to make national news. Something truly huge must happen, in the vein of a perfect game or bench-clearing brawl, to put something so irrelevant at center stage. The Twins had one of those rare occurrences last night, when Jim Thome smacked home runs #599 and #600, making him one of only 8 MLB players to accomplish that feat.
That was a nice moment for a guy who, by all accounts, is truly a class individual. It provided a great moment for his family, and offered the average Twins fan a nice distraction in the waning weeks of this lost season. But beyond getting a warm fuzzy for a few hours, there's not much meaning in those Thome moonshots. Sure they helped beat the Tigers, but anything done against Detroit at this late date will no doubt fall into the too little, too late category. The team is dead, and has been for awhile, now the last pleasant distraction has passed, and all we have to consider is a franchise coming off it's worst season in a very long time.
Pondering the future is what makes the other newsworthy move of yesterday, the trade of Delmon Young to the Tigers, stand out more in my mind than Thome's accomplishment. It would be ridiculous to put the two of them on par in terms of importance as players, and that's not my goal. I'm simply saying that Delmon's future is one we needed to be concerned about as Twins fans, whereas Thome's tale is probably coming to a close. As fun as his tenure was here, and as cool as it might've been to see the milestone reached in a Twins uniform, it's important to remember that Thome's record is a personal milestone. Keep in mind that far more of those 600 hurt us than helped us. Much like Mauer and Morneau's MVP awards, you can put a plaque on the wall and admire the individual performances, if that's your thing, but none of it brings the team any closer to a championship.
To be clear, I have no particular love for Delmon Young. Although I defend him during his time here, it was always driven by his youth, potential, and the hope that he would develop into a player who would help the ballclub. Not because I enjoy rooting for ballplayers who come off as aloof and disengaged, or because I enjoy watching left field being patrolled by a guy who ran like a horse on roller skates, but because he offered potential that just about every other young player in the organization lacked. Every fan had watched Delmon regress back into flailing incompetence this season, and every fan had read tales of his impersonal or standoffish interactions with coaches, nobody who follows this team would call themselves a "fan" of Delmon Young.
But that doesn't change the fact that this trade was poorly timed.
The Twins essentially got nothing in return for a guy who finished 10th in AL MVP balloting last season, and I'm still awaiting some sort of logic defending this move that I can agree with. The baseball media and bloggers in this town greeted the move witha parade of snark, quick to point out how flawed Delmon was as a player, and how much he would not be missed. Phil Mackey, who's work I enjoy, wrote a good piece illustrating the roller coaster that was DY, but it still leaves me cold. For all of the solid reasoning offered about why he'd probably never regain his 2010 form, or could not be counted on to live up to a big deal, I still have to ask, what was the harm in waiting?
Here we, with 6 weeks left in a lost season, everything that colud've gone wrong has gone wrong, the team is going nowhere, and it's time to start thinking about next year. I suppose that Young's presence in the lockerroom could've been so toxic that they felt they needed to move him on the spot, but if that was the case, why not a month ago? Predicting future value of baseball players is a tough job that I know little about, but I do know that in the general art of negotiation, limiting options is the best way to ensure you won't receive fair value. The Twins locked themselves into dealing with a single team by waiting until after the non-waiver trade deadline had passed, then compounded it by not pulling the player back and waiting until the offseason, when some other deal could've bee crafted without restriction.
I meant what did this guy do that he needed to be shipped out of town so fast, sleep with somebody's wife? If the Twins didn't want to pay him next season, then they could've let him walk, but I'd be willing to bet the offseason trade market would've delivered at least the same two mediocre relief pitchers that they got in return. Frankly I don't understand the logic of not giving it one more season with Young at $5 million, just to see if a contract year might help him recapture his motivation. Are there really so many great hitting options that are demanding to be played on the rest of this roster? In the minors? You don't have to look too far to find a Minnesota Twin who's significantly underperformed his contract this season, and several others don't have a season in their history that measures up to Delmon's 2010 campaign.
Which brings me to the general point, is the "Twins Way" of centering the team around low-key, high-character players limiting their thinking here? Meaning, did Delmon get traded simply because he was difficult to coach? Nobody would disagree with the thought of getting guys with good character on paper, but this is sports, and a lot of times the d-bags are the most talented guys in the room. Over six months and 162 games, it's easy to see how a grating personality could hurt clubhouse atmosphere. But it's equally easy to see how a lack of fire could lead to an environment in which personality trumps production.
It's true that there are not many concrete examples to offer, but the list of players who have anecdotally been tabbed as "not a good fit" grows ever longer. This season alone, I've heard it uttered regarding Orlando Cabrera, Matt Garza, Kevin Slowey, Orlando Hudson and several others. Now that's not a list of guys to lament losing, but some of them are solid major leaguers with successful careers. Toss in comments about coaching style from David Ortiz, among others, and it makes a guy wonder a bit about the priorities of the franchise.
Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, all good players who seem like good guys, but nobody's going to confuse them with Earl Weaver when it comes to fiery motivation. For what it's worth, I'm probably a terrible judge of what would make for good atmosphere on a ballclub. After all, I'm just a reactionary fan, offering outside opinion without the perspective to back it up, and my bi-polar approach to things would probably burn everyone out by June.
But as a retort, I'll just say that this game takes all kinds, many organizations with many different philosohies and personality types have made their way into the winner's circle. History has proven the Twins approach to be effective, at least to a point, and piling on in a down season is not the goal here. I just can't help but think they got frustrated in this case, and let personal issues trump the business of baseball.
Say what you will about Delmon Young, but there can be no disputing that the man could hit a baseball. Maddeningly inconsistent as he might've been, selling at the lowest point possible is bad business. Acknowledging that there is probably more to the story, I just don't understand why this move had to be made now.
Cross your fingers that it doesn't come back to bite us in the ass.
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