How much credit one should get for cleaning up a mess of his or her own making is a question I encounter a lot with three little kids in the house.
You spilled juice all over the floor but you wiped it up? Hey, accidents happen. Good job taking the initiative to clean it up, and try to be more careful next time.
In high-level sports decision-making with millions of dollars at stake, the question can be trickier. But in the end, there is usually at least partial credit given. Finessing your way out of a bad decision is not as good as making a better decision in the first place, but it is certainly preferable to allowing the problem to persist.
That's how I graded the Twins trade with the Yankees just before the season started, whereby Minnesota dealt expensive third baseman Josh Donaldson and newly acquired shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa plus catcher Ben Rortvedt for third baseman Gio Urshela and catcher Gary Sanchez.
Urshela and Sanchez are useful players, and their production relative to Donaldson (OK but not great), Kiner-Falefa (.603 OPS) and Rortvedt (60-day injured list) has made the trade feel like a wash right now in terms of just on-field accomplishment.
But as I talked about on Thursday's Daily Delivery podcast, shedding Donaldson's baggage — financial and otherwise — is the tiebreaker in favor of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine.
The Twins bosses erred originally in giving Donaldson such a massive contract (four years, $92 million guaranteed) before the 2020 season. He was already an aging power hitter on a team that just set a home run record. He was overkill, a redundancy at best.
And his agitating style, while entertaining and effective at times, rubbed some teammates and executives the wrong way. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that so many Twins have talked so glowingly about this year's chemistry, both with new additions and subtractions.
