Hello, Maeda, goodbye Graterol

There is a lot to unpack in the Mookie Betts trade that burst into the open Tuesday evening, but for the Twins the part that matters is a classic win-now move.

Gone is Brusdar Graterol, the flamethrowing righty we saw for a few innings last September. Arriving is Kenta Maeda, an established major leaguer. Graterol has the higher ceiling; Maeda has the higher floor.

The trade, to be sure, isn't official yet; there are medical reviews to come, and since one of the key components is David Price, who

• missed significant time last season and
• has a lot of mileage on his arm

clearing a physical may not be a mere formality. But assuming the deal goes down as reported Tuesday night, the Twins have a 2020 rotation well stocked with veteran hurlers:

1) Jose Berrios
2) Jake Odorizzi
3) Maeda
4) Michael Pineda (suspended into May)
5) Homer Bailey
6) Rich Hill (recovering from surgery, expected mid-summer)
7) Jhoulys Chacin (minor-league deal)

Even with Pineda and Hill unavailable at season's start, there appears no room for the Randy Dobnak-Lewis Thorpe-Delvin Smeltzer trio of prospects who were penciled into the April rotation as late as Tuesday noon. Of course, we're talking pitchers here, and somebody is likely to come up lame in Fort Myers.

The Twins had not included Graterol in that rotation competition. The plan for him in 2020 was a bullpen role. It's not difficult to see why: he has imposing velocity, a violent delivery and, despite his young age, a growing injury history. In five years in the Twins system, he's maxed out at 102 innings. It's certainly plausible that the Twins concluded that he's not destined to be a starting pitcher period.

Maeda isn't going to hit triple digits on the speed gun. But he can pitch. And with four years left on his contract, he's under team control almost as long as Graterol would have been had the younger hurler remained with the Twins.

But there are cautions about Maeda beyond being a 30-something pitcher:

• He's coming from the National League to the American League; as a rough rule-of-thumb, add a half-run to his ERA for a reasonable expectation now that he's facing lineups with the DH.
• Dodger Stadium is a better park for pitchers than is Target Field. (Counterbalanced by far fewer trips to Coors Field.)
• The Dodgers have consistently shifted him to the bullpen for postseason, partly because of problems against left-handed hitters, and perhaps partly because of innings-related bonus clauses.

I slot Maeda behind Berrios and Odorizzi, and probably behind Pineda once he serves his time. The Dodgers clearly slotted him behind a healthy Hill also. If everything goes the way the Twins want them to, there may not be room for Maeda in Minnesota's postseason rotation either. That may disappoint him -- he is said to have been unhappy with the swingman role in Los Angeles -- but it's a pretty good situation for the Twins.

Contemplating Jhoulys Chacin

In 2017, Jhoulys Chacin went 13-10, 3.89 for a bad San Diego Padres (71-91) team.

In 2018, he went 15-8, 3.50 for a good Milwaukee Brewers team.

In 2019, he collapsed -- 3-12, 6.10 for the Brewers and Red Sox.

The Twins recently signed the 32-year-old righty to a minor-league deal, and it's a reasonable assumption that he's Plan A for the back of the April rotation. Remember, Michael Pineda will be under suspension for the first 39 games of the season, and Rich Hill probably won't take the hill (see what I did there?) until sometime after the All-Star break.

So the initial rotation figures to be, in some order, Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi, Homer Bailey, Chacin and a rookie.

The Chacin of 2019 is useless. The Chacin of the two previous years won't be easily dislodged from the rotation. He'll probably get about seven starts to prove that he's worth keeping.

I like this signing. No, he's not a Cy Young contender, but's that's not the point. He has a higher ceiling than most "disposable veteran" starters. Unless he establishes in training camp that he's truly cooked, he gives the Twins additional pitching inventory and sharpens the competition for the final rotation spot among prospects Randy Dobnak, Lewis Thorpe and Devin Smeltzer, and that's a positive too. He should help the Twins get to Pineda and Hill.

Good-bye, Harper

The Twins created room on the 40-man roster for Josh Donaldson last week by designating Ryne Harper for assignment. On Wednesday the Twins traded Harper to Washington for Hunter McMahon, a 21-year-old reliever who the Nats took out of Texas State in the ninth round of the 2019 draft.

Ninth-round picks usually have something going for them, but they're generally not prime prospects either. McMahon put up some impressive numbers in his scant professional time, but he was old for his leagues. Call him a lottery ticket; he might turn into something, or he might never be heard from again.

I had, frankly, forgotten that Harper was still on the Twins roster, which is odd considering that he ptiched in 61 games for Minnesota last season. He's a capable major league reliever, as long as he's not asked to do too much, but as the Twins revamped their bullpen in midseason his role declined, and it was difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a scenario in which Harper made the big-league club this spring. Some other blogger, I can't remember who, said Harper was probably No. 11 on the bullpen depth chart, and you certainly can make a case for that.

So this works for everybody involved. The Twins get a prospect they don't have to carry on the 40-man roster for years for a pticher they had no use for. The Nationals, who have a thin bullpen, add a useful piece for the front end. And Harper, who turns 31 in March and made his major league debut just last year, presumably avoids another season in Triple A -- and remains on a pretty good club.

Two for the Hall

The writers elected two retired players to baseball's Hall of Fame. Derek Jeter sailed in on the first ballot. one vote shy of unanimity; we will now be treated to a cavalacade of outrage that any voter would dare leave Jetes off his (or her) ballot.

Also selected, barely, on his 10th and final chance with the BBWAA, was Larry Walker, the Canadian -born outfielder whose numbers went from very good with Montreal in his early-to-mid 20s to something completely different in Colorado.

It took Walker a decade to get past the understandable wariness. Coors Field is such an extreme environment, so favorable to hitters, that entire mines are required for the metaphoric grain-of-salt skepticism. And writers have had no shortage of equally- or better-justified candidacies to support in recent elections.

Jeter compiled 72.4 WAR (wins above replacement) over the course of his 20-year career (as figured by Baseball Reference's formula). Walker, whose talents had a different shape, had 72.7 WAR in 17 seasons. That's a pretty good match.

That Jeter's election wasn't unanimous, that it took Walker the full 10 years to get to 75 percent -- these things ultimately don't matter. Future visitors to the Hall's plaque room in Cooperstown will find the two side by side. Let us ignore any mock outrage and celebrate their brilliant play.

Managers needed

The spectacle before us today: Three teams with postseason ambitions are suddenly, less than a month before spring training, without managers. One of them has to rebuild its front office. Two of them -- including the one without a baseball ops head -- apparently need a major culture change.

This is intriguing stuff. In some regards the needs of the Astros, Red Sox and Mets are similar. In others, they are not. Let's scroll through and consider the issues involved:

New York Mets

I liked this line uttered on MLB Network by Joel Sherman: This is not their scandal, but they've been splattered by the blood.

Carlos Beltran was hired after a rather lengthy interview process that appears to have emphasized, at least late in the process, inexperienced managers. One of the finalists, former Twins bench coach Derek Shelton, wound up with the Pittsburgh job and is therefore unavailable. Another, Eduardo Perez of ESPN, might still be the pick.

But with pitchers and catchers due to report in a few weeks, the Mets might benefit from an experienced hand who doesn't need months to organize and set up a spring training routine. Dusty Baker, not considered in the initial search, has reportedly emerged as a major candidate.

My thought: Baker should be a candidate for all three of these jobs, but Boston or Houston might be a better fit. If the Mets thought in November that Beltan checked their boxes, they probably should go with Perez, who appears to check the same boxes.

Boston Red Sox

A major market, high-stress environment with a major star eyeing free agency, rumors of a financially-motivated teardown in the offing, a newbie at the helm of the front office and unknown penalties in the offiing.

This sounds like a job for Johnnie B. Baker. who seems to have a way of making problems disappear by walking in the door. The obvious issue is age. Baker is 70. He's so old -- how old is he? -- he's so old he was teammates with Tito Francona.  Not the Tito Francona who manages Cleveland, his dad.

Chaim Bloom, the new Red Sox GM, may wish to go younger and bring in somebody who can be a long-term pairing with him.

My thought: Baker ought to be the guy. No, he's not likely to be a five-year solution. But he is equipped -- if anybody is -- to deal with the current complexities. Install him and worry about the future later.

Houston Astros

If there is substance behind the "they're still cheating" chatter of recent days, if indeed such crucial players as Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman are involved, this team has to have a hard hand at the helm.

Buck Showalter has reportedly already interviewed. He seems the perfect fit for a team that lacks an established general manager and needs a drastic change in attitude and approach.

My thought: Why haven't they hired this guy already? The biggest drawbacks on his well-established record are, in this case, features, not bugs. Yes, he's had clashes with veteran teams; yes, he has been accused of overreaching into areas not in his job description. The Astros can, at least for 2020, not just tolerate those risks but benefit from a bit of a control freak.

Bye bye Beltran

That Boston manager Alex Cora would not survive the damning report on sign-stealing in Houston was patently obvious. I did not foresee that Carlos Beltran would never get a game as Mets manager.

So now, with pitchers and catchers due to report in less than a month, three teams, all with postseasons ambitions if not expectations, need managers, and one needs a general manager. Astounding.

The Mets, unlike the Red Sox and Astros, can probably promote a manager from within the organization. Boston and Houston pretty clearly need somebody unconnected to the sign-stealing schemers, and that rules out their current coaching staffs. Any thought of an insider taking over for AJ Hinch or Cora had to be dashed Thursday afternoon when Twitter erupted with a claim that Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman specifically had been wearing patches that could be buzzed to notify them of specific pitches.

True or not, that's the kind of thing the Astros and Red Sox are going to face all season. No accomplishment will be above suspicion. (For what it's worth, Joel Sherman of the New York Post said on Twitter that the Astros investigation looked specifically at those rumors but turned up nothing.)

So Houston and Boston need managers from the outside. Which shouldn't be that difficult if they want to do a short-term hire. The names of Dusty Baker and Buck Showalter came up immediately -- two veteran managers of accomplishment and authority. Showalter has, apparently, already been interviewed in Houston. If the patches allegations have any validity, the new manager will require a taste for confrontation.

Meanwhile, I have no appetite for self-congratulatory "we did it the right way" commentary from anybody on any other team. It smacks too much of the anti-steroid boasts of the past, which too often proved phony. We have no idea how widespread this kind of chicanery was. I cannot believe the Astros and the Red Sox were alone (and yes, I am presuming the Red Sox had an active sign-steal technology system in place under Cora). Thursday afternoon on MLB Radio, former player Ryan Spilsborghs said something like: If you want to unwind this ball of thread further to the beginning, you know where it leads, and the others on the broadcast immediately responded: The 2016 Yankees.

But that's not likely to be dug into. The commissioner has implied that his "Apple Watch" line in the sand is as far back as he intends to dig, because that's where he specifically notified everybody that (a) penalties for electronic surveillance would be far harsher in the future and (b) that he would hold team management responsible for violations. And that's fine -- but it took a player (Mike Fiers) puttig his name on the allegations to get anywhere in the constant swirl of Houston rumors. And it may take another tattletale to get anywhere on other teams as well.

Hello, Donaldson

Josh Donaldson isn't officially a Minnesota Twin yet, but nobody's denying that the deal's in place. A few thoughts, none particularly unique, about adding The Bringer of Rain to the Bomba Squad:

* He is an immediate and significant defensive upgrade at third base, which figures to help the pitching staff. The best gloveman on this team is still Byron Buxton in center; I think Donaldson is the next best defensive player. Maybe Max Kepler is a better right fielder than Donaldson is a third baseman, but I'm inclined to rate Donaldson higher.

*The gain at third may to be offset by a decline at first, which will now be occupied by Miguel Sano. There was a noticeable decline in defense at first base last year when C.J. Cron replaced the retired Joe Mauer; expect another falloff with Sano.

* No matter how one arranges the batting order, this is a scary lineup, with six men who hit at least 30 homers in 2019 (Donaldson, Sano, Kepler, Eddie Rosario, Nelson Cruz and Mitch Garver), supplemented by the impressive bat-on-ball skills of Luis Arraez and Jorge Polanco and the slash-and-dash of Buxton. In my view, the worst hitter of the default lineup is Rosario.

* The default lineup -- outfield of Buxton flanked by Rosario and Kepler; infield of Sano, Arraez, Donaldson and Polanco; Garver catching and Cruz at DH -- leaves no obvious place for Marwin Gonzalez. Rocco Baldelli is not a manager who wants a lineup of iron men, and he's going to make playing time for Gonzalez. But Gonzalez is a weaker hitter than any of the default nine, and other than at first base, he's not necessarily a defensive upgrade anywhere. (Maybe at second, but we didn't see much of Gonzalez in the middle infield in 2019.)

*Adding Donaldson makes fitting Willians Astudillo on the 26-man roster tougher. Figure 13 position players. with the nine default players. Gonzalez makes 10, second catcher Alex Avila 11, Ehrie Adrianza 12 ... 13 comes down to Astudillo or Jake Cave/LaMonte Wade Jr. I'd vote for Gonzalez as the primary fourth outfielder and keeping Astudillo over Cave or Wade, but the Twins may see it differently.