Talking trades at the GM Meetings
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - When it comes to gutsy trades heading into the 2023 season, you aren't going find one that tops the one executed by the Twins and Marlins.
Pablo Lopez (and two minor leaguers) in exchange for Luis Arraez.
It was the kind of value for value deal that simply hard to find in this world deal-making, fraught with significant risk, but necessary reward. It also represented a mindset new Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow will have to start getting his head around if true foundational players for 2024 are to be found.
As Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey explained, easier said than done.
"Obviously, the one everyone wants to talk about is the Pablo, Luis Arraez trade," Falvey said Tuesday from the GM Meetings. "Why those trades don’t happen very often is because when a player is established already at the big league level and is loved by your fans and is already part of your environment, everybody knows them. It’s a little different when it’s a prospect that might be part of the future and he gets traded out. You can get burned in that trade just as bad in that trade as the other trade, of course. I think the point is if you constantly work from a place in fear when you trade I don’t think you are ever going to take a risk that will make you a lot better. Now, you might fail sometimes. That’s part of the job. That’s what you sign up for. But what I have gotten comfortable with over the last seven, going on eight years, doing this, you have to recognize there is risk in everything you do. You have to decide, are you willing to take that risk and if you don’t take that risk sometimes you are going to miss on some upside. Sometimes you’re going to fail and end up on the wrong side of it. I have been on the wrong side of trades, too. But ultimately you hope you win … You hope you’re on the plus side most of the time."
(To hear Falvey talk trades, go to the 17:30 mark of this audio)
Getting to the point where a chief decision-maker can embrace the aforementioned approach is a complicated matter.
For starters, there is understanding the timing and tempo of a deal. Former Rangers GM Jon Daniels tells the story of waiting a few days to think about his team's deal for Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett only to have the Red Sox swoop in and secure the players with their own proposal.
Falvey can relate.
"That has happened before for me," he said. "I don’t have anything that glaring, but I have had some small examples in my career where it felt like we were going to trade for a reliever and now it’s gone and I learn that lesson. That’s what experience supplies. That cadence."
Then there is the newfound responsibility and acceptance that these deals go on your permanent record. And, most importantly, coming to grips that nobody is going to get all 'A's' when it comes to winning trades.
"A few years. It was not I was particularly comfortable with," Falvey said when asked how long it took for him to accept that not every trade was going to be a slam dunk. "Here’s the difference: In my experience in Cleveland over the years, when you’re in the No. 2 or No. 3 or No. 4 or No. 5 seat, whatever job you’re doing, you’re recommending that to somebody. Now, I cared about it. I didn’t go home not worrying about whether this was going to work out for us. But ultimately when you finally shift into that seat and it’s your responsibility and it’s you, it does change. I don’t know how to describe that exactly, but you feel it differently. Then you don’t sleep. Then you think about it. Then you worry about it. Then you have to answer questions about it. But if you think about that part of the equation, you will never make a trade. It will paralyze you.
"You have to find a way to just, not put blinders on, but you have to say, ‘What is our process? Why are we doing this? What are our reasons? I know this is hard’. Knowing when you learn to pull the trigger on it is something you learn with experience. My first couple of years you miss on some because you’re waiting too long and you’re still trying to vet some more of the market and you want to make sure you’re not missing. Or there might be one other deal we can do with this player I haven’t vetted yet. You start to understand the cadence of when a team is ready to go and press go, and then you can sometimes you can run it to the end quickly."
Now, it's Breslow's turn to experience the dynamic.