In baseball terms, Knoblauch for Milton/Guzman was no bonanza for the Twins. Knoblauch had 1 average, 1 good and 1 below-average season for the Yanks before collapsing. Milton had 2 bad, 1 very good, and 2 above-average seasons before getting hurt. Guzman had 1 good season and several pretty awful ones. That's fine return for Knoblauch but it hardly deserves to be in the same article as the Pierzynski trade.

They did get Carlos Silva for Milton, who then gave them 1 great, 1 very good, 1 above average and 1 horrible season.

Still not in the same class as the Liriano trade, I guess.

Walt -- I think you're short-changing the Knoblauch deal. Milton posted 106-113 ERA+ figures in over 200 IP each season while making a grand total of under $3 million. That's a virtually free #2 starter. And depending on your view of Guzman's defense, he provided four not-embarrassing seasons of offense in addition to his one All-Star season, all at a cost of under $10 million.

And as #2 mentions, the Milton trade brought back Silva, who provided solid performance cheaply. (And also Punto, although that may be a negative at this point!) And of course, if we extend the deal beyond just Milton/Guzman, we see Brian Buchanan brought back Jason Bartlett in a trade, who provided a couple more solid seasons at shortstop cheaply, and has now been included in the package for 3 potentially useful players with even less service time.

Agreed it's not as lopsided as the Pierzynski trade, but it is certainly relevant in judging the Twins' front-office acumen, and is probably even more relevant in a discussion of superstar-for-prospects trades.

The Twins also killed in the deal in which they obtained this Todd Jones from the Tigers. They got 19 very good innings out of Jones and stuck Detroit with 212 innings of Mark Redman.

I lived in Minny post Knobloch trade. Their fans were convinced they raped the Yankees. I suggested the Yankees did quite well, considering they kept winning World Series titles year after year. While Milton was pretty good as a Twin, the deal doesn't look like anything to write home about anymore.