Gleeman: Q&A with Minnesota Twins GM Thad Levine
From SABR member Aaron Gleeman at Baseball Prospectus on August 15, 2017:
As part of Baseball Prospectus Night at Target Field on August 5, Minnesota Twins general manager Thad Levine joined us for an interview and audience Q&A. The following is a transcript of his interview with me, which has been edited for clarity and brevity, as the entire session lasted more than an hour and was over 10,000 words when transcribed. You can listen to the unedited, hour-plus Levine audio, including the audience Q&A, on the “Gleeman and The Geek” podcast.
Aaron Gleeman: We should start with the trade deadline stuff that everyone wants to talk about. What are the mechanics of a trade? What I mean is, I think they showed this during the Moneyball movie—we see these long phone calls where you’re behind a desk—but is it? I’m assuming at this point, are people texting? Are they Gchatting? Are you on Snapchat? How do the actual ABCs of a trade discussion happen at this point?
Thad Levine: Most of it’s done through Tinder. You don’t get off the ground quickly, no trades. A lot—too much, in my opinion—is put on the profile picture. Actually, none of that’s true.
I think what you’re talking about is it’s significantly evolved over even my career and certainly people who have been in the game a lot longer than I have, where there are 29 other teams that we need to keep track of and that we want to negotiate deals with. I feel as if our responsibility to our ownership group is to be able to negotiate with all 29 of those clubs. You don’t want to alienate relationships with any of them. Believe it or not, there are teams out there who’ll say, “I can’t deal with so-and-so because they don’t treat me fairly,” or “We have a bad relationship,” or you’ll hear a team say, “We just can’t trade within our division.” And I think we view that as, I hope everyone feels that way, because we want to beat you then, because we’re going to be able to trade with 29 clubs.
Read the full article here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32521
Originally published: August 15, 2017. Last Updated: August 15, 2017.