Brock Beauchamp

D'oh. I didn't realize that MLB players were an option. Thought it was prospects only. In that case, I'd take Mauer... Probably. Things get a lot murkier at that point.

May is the type of guy you continue to start until you've expended every opportunity to make him an MLB starter (and then you try one more time just for the hell of it).

Buxton? No way. He has less than 200 PAs as a professional. Meyer and May (I assume that's what you meant), both have huge question marks surrounding them. You can't say Sano has question marks and then gloss over the much more significant question marks surrounding every Twins pitcher in the system (and Buxton, who is as raw as they get). Hicks is a good player but he doesn't project to be anything extraordinary. A good player, for sure, but not one of the best in baseball. Arcia? I mentioned you can make an argument for him if you favor immediate production, as he's been a better hitter than Hicks and is a year younger. But Sano is very young for his level, hasn't hit under .800 at any level (and cleared .900 most seasons), and projects as an 80 for power. He's pretty much a clear-cut choice here.

I found this quote about Strasburg: So, I guess mid-June is the point the service time changes. I guess that makes sense, as the difference between one year of service time and a full season is about 10-12 days. Extrapolate those 10-12 days over six years and you're looking at a little over two months to keep the number under six years of service time.

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd go find the actual amount of time required to defer service time a year. It's an interesting situation with Gibson, though. It appears that they could easily extend his service time a year if they were so inclined. They could just as easily ship him to the minors as DL him. I wonder what the Nats did with Strasburg, as he will be a FA after the 2016 season, which puts him at seven years of team control.

If not Sano, who else is a viable candidate? The Twins don't have many impressive pitchers (and each have question marks) and Sano is more of a sure thing than anyone not named Arcia (or, if you stretch the term a bit, Hicks) in the realm of position players.

Almost anything looks better than last year's starters but Gibson still isn't going to draw in a significant amount of fans (unless he vies for RoY honors).

Sano has to be the choice unless you need help sooner, at which point I'd choose Arcia.

Here are the rules. Service Time (MLB) - CBARules Also, Liriano was under team control for seven years (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012). An interesting situation because I was under the impression that if a player went on the DL with the MLB club, he continued to accrue service time. Maybe that changes at the end of the season, at which point he can be "sent down" and then DLed? edit: his 2007 season must have counted as service time. He has 6.1 years of service, which looks about right if you start the clock mid-season 2006 and continue through 2008, at which point his clock stopped when he went back to the minors. Resume later that season and that puts you somewhere around six years today. So, yeah, you can keep a player longer than six years but it takes more than a few weeks of minor league time to do it. Maybe half a season... Which doesn't really "solve" the Gibson debate, because he will probably end somewhere around half a season of service time.

Pitch tracking in ST box scores is inaccurate. A hit/out is one pitch, a K is 3, a BB is 4.

Kyle Gibson is not Johan Santana. He'll probably end up more of a #3 than a #1. He's not going to draw much of a crowd unless he goes absolutely bonkers in his rookie season and there's no real reason to expect that to happen.

I'm almost certain that DL time counts as service time if the player is on the Major League roster when put on the DL.

I edited my post to include JJ Hardy, funny that you should mention him... But are the rules different when the DL is involved?

I want to focus on this for a bit because I have a question. What are the rules regarding shutting down a player mid-season? I know that it's either against the rules or extremely bad form to send down a player that is going to be DLed (which I assume is what will happen to Gibson). The Brewers caught a lot of flak for "stealing" a year of service from JJ Hardy by sending him down for three weeks. If they can send him to the minors mid-season to essentially shut him down (and thereby temporarily stopping his service clock), I have absolutely no qualms with that.

Sure, they dictate what they're willing to spend but in the Mauer situation, they basically had to agree to pay him whatever he wanted. Mauer had them bent over the barrel in that "negotiation". He was a once-in-a-lifetime hometown boy coming off an MVP season when the team was moving into a new publicly-financed stadium. They basically had to pay whatever he wanted to retain him. Thankfully, Joe was a pretty reasonable guy and almost surely signed for less than he could have demanded on the open market.

From Wiki: If the Twins choose to rotate Gibson back to the minors mid-season, I'm fine with that. On the other hand, I don't see any problems with starting him in Rochester, either. At the end of the 2013 season, he's probably going to end up at the same place anyway. The guy had 90 pretty mediocre innings in AAA before getting injured. I don't see the harm in giving him a few more in what will probably amount to a lost season anyway.

The Twins don't dictate market value. The market dictates value and after the 2009 season, Mauer's value was the highest it had ever been. The agent negotiates based on perceived value and the team has to work with that number or an agreement will not be reached.

Yes, let's just ignore that 2009 Joe Mauer was "the best player in baseball" and that 2010 Joe Mauer was "an extremely good player". No, that wouldn't affect anything.

And my point is that if you have one more year of team control, you extend that "buy out time" by another year, as well. It shouldn't be the only driving force in deciding whether a player is going to join the ML franchise but it should be a consideration, particularly in a case like Gibson where he can't pitch more than 2/3rds of a season anyway. And do you know why this is a "manufactured" situation? Because the Twins already employ this strategy. Outside of Joe Mauer, is there a player on the Twins who didn't see their service time extended by a year by shuffling them from the minors mid-season? Justin Morneau, Denard Span, Jason Kubel, Johan Santana, etc... All guys who started their seasons in the minors before getting a call up. And if Mauer had one more year of controlled service time, chances are that buy out would have been extended through 2011. One more year of flexibility would have been nice. Why would a team buy out a guy only through his arbitration years? It doesn't make sense for either side.

The Lake Show shirt is much higher quality, actually. It's lightweight but it's of a very high-quality blend that won't shrink and should hold up well over time. One of the reasons why DC's shirts are a little more expensive is because we don't print most shirts on low-quality fabric. The red 1991 shirt is of a mid-quality... Don't let the weight of the shirt influence how your perceive its quality. I own a few shirts made of similar fabric to the Lake Show and they have held up very well... Far better than my heavier, lower quality t-shirts.

To ground my point, you need to look no further than Joe Mauer to see the importantance of cost-controlled years. The team had to sign him after the 2009 season, which increasingly appears to be a career year. Now what if the team had that extra year of control over him and was allowed to re-sign him after the 2010 season? Over the course of that contract, they probably would have saved $20m. He's not a $180m player if you sign him after the 2010 season.

You can't honestly tell me with a straight face that having an extra year of control over a player isn't important. Some players will test the free agency market no matter what you offer. They'll get a 3-5 year deal that extends far beyond their prime years for doing it, too. And you don't believe that a player's team control influences whether they sign through their arbitration years? If you have three years of team control left, signing a four year deal might make sense. If you have two years of team control, why would you sign that four year deal that buys out two prime years of your career that might seriously hurt your chances to sign a 4-6 year deal afterward? Plus, you get them for one more year. Not the 2-3 it may require to sign them beyond arbitration. One year. If the player flounders or gets injured (particularly important in the case of pitching), you can jettison the pitcher with little harm done to the franchise. And while arbitration in year 5-6 may not give you big discounts, it still gives you a sizable chunk of money to use on other players (depending on the player in years 5-6 of arb, they may only get 80% of their open market value... a $10m player saves you $2m in that situation). But mostly, it's about the years. The team gets an extra year of control over the player. Some players, it doesn't matter. They may sign an extension. But if that player is going to test the free agent waters (basically, any Boras client), that one year of control is extremely valuable. And in the case of Gibson, he can't pitch the entire season anyway. What's the harm in letting him shake off a bit of rust in Rochester? No matter how well he pitches in 2013, his impact on the team will be marginal because he won't make more than 20 or so starts.

Seth, I appreciate your truly bizarre abbreviation of "Wednesday" in this thread title. On topic: beisbol!

The Trevor May & Kyle Gibson Fan Club or Someday, We Won't Have to Chase Balls So Damned Often.

He's hit well late in games against second tier pitching early in Spring Training when pitchers are rusty. I love how well he's done but c'mon, people...