Twins 6, Mariners 2: Berrios Cruises, Gimenez Bruises

Yeah. Being able to see him play over the past few years, I don't know if Buxton has a read feel for where the outfield wall is. In the video above, I don't see him even looking.

Wilks? No is my response - give one of our young guys a chance. What is the love affair with waiver wire pitchers?

Wilk isn't on the 40 man either.

Yeah, but he's entirely disposable. Gonsalves is not.

If Gonsalves was ready, I don't think we'd be seeing Wilk right now.

The days don't line up for a regular start, but how unusual would it be to call a guy like Fernando Romero up for just the doubleheader? It would seem like a win win, especially when the alternative is Adam Wilk, who you can't expect a whole lot from anyway.

Polanco was already using those options -- he had to be added to the 40-man in November 2013 to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, thus he had to be optioned to be sent to the minors out of spring training in 2014 and 2015 (and 2016) anyway.  Calling him up for a few days in those seasons did nothing to affect his option or contract status (other than give him a couple days service time).

 

Like Randy Rosario this year -- he was already on the 40-man, so the option was already used this spring.  So calling him up and sending him back down later this season was a "free move" as far as options are concerned.

To collate a bunch of posts about my comment, yes and no.

Polanco was burning the options anyway but he often came to Minnesota, sat for a few weeks, and then was demoted again. That's not a useful development cycle, especially considering Polanco's age at the time.

It's slightly different with Romero because he won't be sitting but I still have some of the same problems with the idea: if a guy isn't ready, he isn't ready. Romero doesn't even have a lot of time at Chattanooga yet, only 12 starts. His numbers look pretty good but aren't eye-popping. He's still only 22 years old.

While one or two starts wouldn't likely kill the guy, things have a pretty high probability of getting ugly if he was facing MLB hitters. And while lots of prospects recover quickly and shrug off blatant failure, it can also set a guy back weeks or even months if the outings were truly disastrous.

I just don't see enough upside in him starting right now to risk that situation.

he's not ready because he's not up? We don't know that. No one knows that. At least he should be in AAA, but this FO isn't promoting anyone right now. 

It's pretty commonplace under the new draft signing rules to keep your MiLB rosters largely in place until you begin inserting draftees into the system, forcing a bunch of players to slide up a level. I suspect we'll start seeing promotions in the next few weeks.

And it's not as if Gonsalves has been destroying Southern League hitting. He had a nice start last night but went only 5.0 innings his previous two starts.

Polanco never came up that long in 2014 or 2015.  He came up 4 separate times those seasons, for the following number of days each:

 

4
2
1
3

 

That's 10 days total over those 2 years.  And he started 4 MLB games during those 10 days too, plus 4 other appearances, so he wasn't completely parked on the bench.

 

April/May 2016 he spent more time on the MLB bench, as did Kepler. But not the previous two seasons.

Ah, okay. I could have sworn he spent two weeks on the bench the first time he was called up.

Not about Romero, but --

 

When a certain player gets called out as deserving a promotion, we often hear "the club knows what's best for these guys, maybe there is a specific thing they are working on with a specific coach, etc."

 

But then it seems to apply across the board to everyone, and we hear generically that "the club doesn't move up guys until midseason, after the draft."

 

I believe the former is a pretty rare circumstance, and the latter is the most common case, but it's not a terribly inspiring way to run a club, even acknowledging that a lot of clubs do it.

 

There are basically 8 pitchers at AA who have a good case to get a test at AA, and very few guys at AAA who seem to be earning a spot there, much less deserve any consideration for a MLB spot appearance.  Seems kinda silly to hold every single one of those AA guys back until July, just because of the calendar or because it would require finding some org filler to backfill their vacated spot.

I mean, that's fair, but there has to be some kind of opportunity cost at play here as well. You want to keep your MiLB clubs happy so you don't just throw darts at a board when acquiring org filler. Someone has to go out there, dig into the options, and spend the time making it all work.

Whereas if you just wait a few weeks, the only thing you need to worry about is who to cut, not who to acquire.

In the case of Gonsalves, I think the team might make an exception if he was destroying the league. But really, he's been good and only has six starts on the season. He's not even averaging 6.0 IP per start. He's also returning from injury.

Is that a guy you spend energy on to make sure he jumps a level and reorganize some of your MiLB pieces while your entire organization is focused on something much more important (the draft)? I'm not sure it is.

As we all know from our daily lives, some things simply don't get done in the here and now due to larger priorities at hand. If Gonsalves was truly forcing the issue, I could see more legitimacy in questioning why he's not in Rochester.