Twins Add Prospects Rodriguez, Martin to Roster Ahead of Rule 5 Deadline

[Dman]

10 hours ago, ashbury said:

Because each level is harder the the previous one, this is certainly not the pattern you would expect.  My own rule of thumb is to subtract .100 points of OPS when moving up a level, but human performance isn't nearly as neat and clean as some amateur's rule of thumb.

When the unexpected happens, I like to look at BA on Balls In Play.  Typical players run around .300 in that stat, so when BABIP is really low, .217 at AA for Prato, or really high, .387 at AAA for him, it seems wise to make allowances,  Some call it luck, I call it non-reproducible results, but either way the guy was presumably the same hitter throughout but somehow the balls were maybe going right at fielders the first half of his season, while a few more than normal fell in for him safely during the second half.  Presumably the organization's "eye test" was telling the FO that he was performing soundly, otherwise the mid-season promotion would make little sense.

They say a player is never as bad as he seems when things are going badly, and never as good as when things go well.  The "real" Anthony Prato is likely somewhere between the stat lines of his two half-seasons.

Odd, yes.  And perhaps all that it is.

Sound reasoning.  I agree on the OPS a .100 drop is usually the minimum .150 to .200 the norm at least that first year and sometimes worse than that.  I agree the BABIP is high and unsustainable .320 to 330 is generally the best you can get away with with if you have good contact skills.  Dropping 50 to 60 points of average would hurt even with the good slugging and since he is mainly a doubles guy and not a HR hitter that BABIP could sap some slugging as well.  Still his OBP was good for an extra .150 points so dropping some average not the end of the world given the eye at the plate.

As I well know and others pointed out adding position players on the 26 man for a year is much harder than hiding a reliever.  The Twins have lost a few though over the years Baddoo being the most recent.  The Twins protected the right 4 guys.  Just have to wait and see if someone grabs Prato or not.

Next years Rule V will have more pitchers on it with Raya, Festa and Ohl, possibly MaCleod and Hidalgo depending on the years they have and maybe Mooney again depending on if he stays healthy and performs. Rosario, Olivar and Cardenas will be in the running as position players and with Cardenas and Olivar being catchers they will have to be really careful if they decide not to add them.

40 man spots are valuable so I can see why they didn't add him.  My thinking is was that they are likely trading Polanco and likely one of Kepler or Farmer and they still have two spots left so it seemed safe to add Prato for the year, but obviously they have different plans.

[miracleb]

Salas is already 20 years old and eligible for rule 5?  My hopes for him are starting to fade.    :-(

[chpettit19]

9 hours ago, Devilsadvocate said:

Idk about you but I'd much prefer to have as few players eligible for the Role 5 as possible. It keeps talent in the organization. 

Depends how you're coming to players being eligible or not. If you're able to add a whole bunch of guys to your 40-man to protect them it likely means your 40-man isn't very good, and that's very much less than ideal.

[IaBeanCounter]

The Twins have left 2 slots on the 40 man to add free agents, which I think they will.  The question then becomes who would you would you rather protect Prato or Nick Gordon (no options left)?

[jorgenswest]

5 minutes ago, IaBeanCounter said:

The Twins have left 2 slots on the 40 man to add free agents, which I think they will.  The question then becomes who would you would you rather protect Prato or Nick Gordon (no options left)?

If those are the only choices then I protect Gordon.

Gordon has a career RAA of 0 at 2B, LF and SS. His CF has been 0 over 2022 and 2023. His 2023 small sample stat line at the plate with a BABIP in the 100s was very different than his expected stats based on his contact. I think his 2022 stat line is a better predictor. I would expect that Gordon will help more with his glove and his bat than Prato.

[DJL44]

15 minutes ago, IaBeanCounter said:

The Twins have left 2 slots on the 40 man to add free agents, which I think they will.  The question then becomes who would you would you rather protect Prato or Nick Gordon (no options left)?

Neither. Add someone better than either of them. I'd also like them to upgrade some of their marginal pitchers (Balazovic, Henriquez, etc)

[IaBeanCounter]

4 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Neither. Add someone better than either of them. I'd also like them to upgrade some of their marginal pitchers (Balazovic, Henriquez, etc)

I don't disagree, but this article is about putting players at risk of the rule 5 draft, none of the listed players were pitchers.  I used the Prato/Gordon choice as most commentators feel Prato is at risk and looking at the position players Gordon seemed to be the most likely to be DFA's to add someone.

[Danchat]

10 hours ago, miracleb said:

Salas is already 20 years old and eligible for rule 5?  My hopes for him are starting to fade.    :-(

That's how it goes for some international kids. Yunior Severino, for example, would have been R5 eligible for the 3rd straight year if not added to the 40 man (or could have signed in MILB free agency I think).

[Devilsadvocate]

9 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Depends how you're coming to players being eligible or not. If you're able to add a whole bunch of guys to your 40-man to protect them it likely means your 40-man isn't very good, and that's very much less than ideal.

Players become eligible after X amount of years after signing with their team (based on their age when they sign). 

That being said, any team would prefer to have 0 players eligible for the Rule 5 in any given year. To put it simply, if you have no players eligible (obviously unlikely), there is 0 risk of losing talent within your organization.  

Perhaps I misunderstood your reply, but I don't see any situation arising where a team would be happy to have lots of players eligible or selected from their team via Rule 5 draft. 

[D.C Twins]

Domo Arigato.... see ya Mr. Sabato!

[D.C Twins]

I love Rule of 5 season... because it always makes me think of Santana which of course makes me smile!

[Fat Calvin]

On 11/15/2023 at 12:39 PM, ashbury said:

Would Keirsey provide any certainty? 

I see you take issue with the word, "uncertainty."  It wasn't my first choice.  I first went with: "With our center field situation,"  But I thought "situation" was too vague.  So, I went with "uncertainty."  How about "precarious," or "unstable?"  What ever word is used, the truth of the matter is, in this case, it would behoove the Twins to protect a promising center fielder like Keirsey in the high likelihood of another Buxton injury.   

(I hope you like the word: "behoove.")

[chpettit19]

8 hours ago, Devilsadvocate said:

Players become eligible after X amount of years after signing with their team (based on their age when they sign). 

That being said, any team would prefer to have 0 players eligible for the Rule 5 in any given year. To put it simply, if you have no players eligible (obviously unlikely), there is 0 risk of losing talent within your organization.  

Perhaps I misunderstood your reply, but I don't see any situation arising where a team would be happy to have lots of players eligible or selected from their team via Rule 5 draft. 

They are only eligible if they aren't put on the 40-man roster. If you're able to protect a whole bunch of guys from the Rule 5 it's because you have a whole bunch of open 40-man spots. Having a whole bunch of open 40-man spots means your team is likely not very good.

I wasn't suggesting teams want a bunch of guys unprotected who are likely to be picked, but if the reason you don't have to worry about the Rule 5 is because you can add 10 eligible guys to your 40-man you're likely having some really bad records with your major league team.

I was just saying that simply saying you don't want guys able to be picked is missing context. There are some situations where it's not a great sign that you don't have any eligible players.

[stringer bell]

Part of the reason for protecting players is the probability that they would be lost in the Rule V draft. Pitchers and (IMHO) catchers are more likely to be claimed. It is difficult to keep a position player on a roster for an entire season unless the club isn't really interested in winning. 

The four guys the Twins put on the 40-man would have been near-certain claims by other teams. I don't know if any of the players they didn't protect will be claimed. 

Looking at the 40-man as of now, there isn't much depth or upside in the pitching and they have no player who profiles as a healthy center fielder. 

[ashbury]

7 hours ago, Fat Calvin said:

I see you take issue with the word, "uncertainty."  It wasn't my first choice.  I first went with: "With our center field situation,"  But I thought "situation" was too vague.  So, I went with "uncertainty."  How about "precarious," or "unstable?"  What ever word is used, the truth of the matter is, in this case, it would behoove the Twins to protect a promising center fielder like Keirsey in the high likelihood of another Buxton injury.   

(I hope you like the word: "behoove.")

I know it must have looked like nitpicking, but I latched onto your word as simply a rhetorical device in my reply.  Including Keirsey on the 40-man adds less in my view than it obviously does in yours, whether that metric be "certainty" or "value" or "wins".  His ability to contribute is not at all certain, for me.

Maybe DaShawn's got some more growth left in him, but he'll turn 27 years old pretty early next season, and the odds are that he is what he is, as a hitter.  He was drafted as a 21-year old from college, and while his first year in the minors was okay, he had a disastrous 2019 and then of course had no 2020.  From 2021 on, he's been kind of a poster child for my rule of thumb with hitting prospects - up to a certain age they gain about .100 of OPS due to experience plus physical maturing, while each league level gets about .100 harder.  Strictly an empirical observation I've tucked away for many years now, but in his case it matches up almost eerily, when he moved up from high-A to AA in 2022,  then repeated AA in 2023 and was later promoted from AA to AAA.  His AA OPS of .850 and AAA OPS of .739 suggest he might have been somewhere around .650 if he'd been brought up for a cup of coffee in the majors.  (Such numbers would have been Small Sample Size so I would not have discarded my rule of thumb had he OPS'ed .400 or 1.000 of course.)  I don't know his defensive skills except that he's supposed to be a pretty good center fielder, but the bar is set pretty high at the major league level to be better than average on defense in CF.  And would an average/good CFer who OPS'ed .650 be any kind of difference maker, or would he be on a par with someone like Andrew Stevenson, who was easily obtainable for AAA when the need presented itself, and who had actually better batting numbers than Keirsey did at St. Paul?  Keep in mind that MAT OPSed .720 this season with splendid defense, and we're still looking for an upgrade over him.  Keirsey looks like a notch below MAT, if my rinky-dink projection is anywhere close.

The 40-man roster is a difficult constraint for a good team.  In a world where the limit was instead 50, Keirsey might be one I'd protect.  I've followed him since draft day, and I like him.  He's got skills, which is to say he may wind up slotting in as a AAAA player or better, for a few years.

But there are 38 names on the Twins' roster, last I heard or checked.  Suppose the budget allows signing Kevin Keirmaier (never noticed the name similarity before).  I'd rather have him for 2024 than Keirsey.  Would you?

If they don't sign any kind of experienced and good defender for CF, and if they lose Keirsey, I'll be real disappointed in the FO's judgment.  I don't expect either outcome though.  Most teams have someone like DaShawn in their systems, and could just promote them, without the constraints that drafting a rule-5 player puts on them.

One other angle.  Suppose the Twins did add Keirsey to the roster, and then needed to replace him after signing a veteran like Keirmaier.  I believe roster rules hold a special case for that, and they must actually keep Keirsey on the 40-man, or else DFAing him is not simply putting him on the waiver wire but actually offering him free agency.  I think that little wrinkle is true until Opening Day, or maybe the start of Spring Training.  I'm shaky on the exact rule but there is something like that involved.  It adds a bit of complexity to the decision, and is why you don't see a bunch of shuffling of marginal prospects on the 40-man like you do with waiver-wire pickups.  A team drafting him in Rule-5 must keep him all season, or return him, or work out some other mutual agreement; but a team signing him to a free-agent minor-league contract could just keep him in reserve at AAA free and clear, off their own 40-man, much as the Twins can do now if he doesn't get drafted away from them in a few weeks. 

All in all, adding Keirsey to the 40-man is a riskier move than it first appears.

There, that's the long version of my reply to you.  Since you asked.