Mets Want BOTH Kirilloff AND Lewis for Noah Syndergaard….

We’ve found out recently that the Twins have been in on trade talks with the New York Mets for Ace pitcher, Noah Syndergaard. He has years left on his deal, he’s young, he has flowing locks, and he’s available. That’s exciting…. until you realize that their asking price is so ridiculous, one has to wonder how serious they really are. Lavelle E Neal wrote about said Noah Syndergaard asking price in Friday morning’s Star Tribune:

The Mets, according to sources, are eyeing both Lewis and Kirilloff as part of a package for Syndergaard, who has two more years of arbitration remaining. The additional years of control allows the Mets to demand a high price for Syndergaard, the pitcher with flowing locks nicknamed Thor.

I had to check around myself this morning to make sure I wasn’t reading LaVelle wrong… Royce Lewis AND Alex Kirilloff? But, it’s true. That’s what the Mets want right now, in exchange for Noah Syndergaard….

via GIPHY

This is exactly why I refuse to nail the Falvin Train to the same cross that we have already nailed the Pohlads and Terry Ryan to… at least until this trade deadline hits on Wednesday. If that’s the asking price for Noah Syndergaard (who has over a 4.00 ERA this season) then I’m laughing all the way back to the drawing board, if I am Derek Falvey and Thad Levine.

But hey, I’ve held a lot of sales jobs over the last 10 years of my life and there is one thing that every sales person is taught. Top-Down Selling works. If you start with Kirilloff OR Lewis + some other pieces, it’s difficult to go up from there. That tells the Twins that they might be able to sneak Syndergaard to Minnesota without giving up either of those top-2 prospects…. but when you start the negotiations needing BOTH of those guys… well now Falvine knows that AT THE VERY LEAST, you will need to include one of those guys PLUS much more to land the Mets ace… You set a precedent when you start your negotiations with a high price tag like this.

So now, I’m jacked up to see what happens next week when these prices start to get more competetive, like I wrote about yesterday. 

Do the Twins go big and give up Lewis OR Kirilloff for Syndergaard? Or, can they sneak Stroman+ out of Toronto for significantly less? Do they go the cheaper, in exchange for a short-term fix like Bumgarner?

No matter what, it looks like the Twins are definitely looking to add a front-end starter, which is exactly what they need to do. Get at-least one back-end bullpen guy and a front-end starter before this deadline rolls by. Do that, and Twins fans will be so bought in, you’ll need to raise ticket prices just to keep Target Field from reaching fire code capacities.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan