Brock Beauchamp

The Fangraphs 2021 projected standings have the Twins with a slight winning percentage edge, .547 to .540. Basically a tie.

My thoughts exactly. Take a flyer on a guy that might pay dividends at a useful position while giving away a guy who will only lose value in the coming months because there just isn’t room for all the OF in the upper system.

Likely because they feel Wade’s value is only going to depreciate if he stays in Minnesota.

Huh. Okay. Bummer, I like Wade but it’s hard to see a future for him in Minnesota.

No, but also believing modern stats are infallible is little better than quoting RBI when discussing player projections. Modern stats are superior to what came before but even if they're 98% accurate (throwing out a random number here, not saying they're that accurate) that still means they're inaccurate for 2% of players. If players like Ricky Nolasco can routinely underperform their peripherals, it stands to reason the opposite can be true as well. I don't think it happens often - and it happens far less frequently than the anti-sabr crowd says - but it still likely happens because we don't have a stat that captures everything that happens on the field, much less one that captures what happens between a player's ears.

All things being equal, I think the Twins prefer guys with all those shiny expanded peripheral stats. But smart small and mid-market teams zig when conventional baseball zags. Colome has significantly outperformed his FIP in roughly half his seasons played. He has outperformed his FIP in all but one season. This isn't a two year blip of aberrant performance, he has some ability to outperform peripherals year after year. And if that allows the Twins to get a $7-8m pitcher for $5m, I do that all day long. On top of all that, the Twins have shown they can pluck a pitcher from even the best-run MLB franchises (say, the Dodgers) and make that pitcher even better with a few tweaks. And the Sox are a well-run franchise but they're not the Rays, Dodgers, or Yankees.

And it's entirely possible that happens, it's just my belief this is a very low risk gamble... but it's not entirely without risk. Then again, there's also risk of Rosario significantly regressing in some capacity so keeping him comes with its own risks.

I agree on WPA and hitters, actually. But I'm not the one who brought up pressure and clutch performance, either. It's not something I really believe in for hitters so my point was to show how it's mostly bunk, not because I believe Rosario is either clutch or un-clutch. Regarding Late & Close versus High Leverage (WPA), you're missing the most important component: weighted plate appearances. Late & Close treats all late and close PAs the same. High Leverage weights the most important PAs and grades them according to expected outcome versus actual outcome. In the same inning, one can see PAs of wildly different values based on score and situation. Late & Close would judge these two PAs identically. - Eighth inning, no outs, down by two runs, bases empty. - Ninth inning, two outs, down by one run, bases juiced. Whereas High Leverage would grade those two PAs *very* differently.

How? Odorizzi pitched like a dozen innings last season.

Also not my first choice but I find it hard to argue with the terms of the deal.

A starter or reliever, maybe, but I’m skeptical of both.

1 + option for Colome, I can get behind that deal.

If the Twins have the money, I’d prefer Odo or Paxton but after the Colome signing, their budget might be more in the Hill range and while not my first choice, I’d be pretty okay with bringing him back.

Which they just got!

Agreed, especially given that the MLBPA rejected MLB's schedule proposal, which means the 2021 season will revert to the normal five postseason berths per league. The White Sox are expected to make *huge* strides this season and they were already pretty good last season. The Twins could easily win 92 games and miss the postseason entirely. Go get Paxton or Odorizzi. Make it happen, no team is going to coast to the AL Central title in 2021.

Using baseball's historical position usage isn't a great argument, as we've found out baseball was really wrong about fielding for a really long time. The fact that baseball put bad fielders at the corners for decades didn't change that it was a bad idea or that huge gains couldn't be found by using more athletic players at those positions, as we've seen most smart teams utilize in the past few seasons. Players like Delmon Young just don't make it in MLB anymore because they require monster offensive stats to compensate for their defensive incompetence. Manny Ramirez would be a dedicated DH/1B today because he's losing so much value in the field with his -30 (!!!) UZR/150 numbers. Outside of one season (2019), Rosario wasn't a terrible fielder but he was pretty bad. All I'm saying is that the 2021 Twins will need less offense from LF because their starting left fielder is going to make up some ground defensively from what Rosario has brought to the team in recent years. Just plugging in Cave is probably worth somewhere around half a win defensively and Cave is actually pretty similar offensively to Rosario, though Jake needs to be protected against lefties much more than Eddie so some kind of platoon would need to be used. Rosario's OPS+ from 2017-2020 is 114 and Cave's career OPS+ is 107. Outside of the required weak-side platoon, we can reasonably expect Cave to be similar in value to Rosario in 2021, never mind the potential gains we could see from one of the top minor leaguers if one of them hits the ground running. After all, Keith Law has Kirilloff ranked *seventh* in all of MLB on his prospect list.

You're looking at his 2020 stats, where High Leverage was a meager 39 plate appearances. His career number is a fair amount lower at 91, using a sample size of 539 plate appearances. And I don't think anyone here is undervaluing Rosario's bat - he's pretty good offensively and maybe slightly above average for a corner outfielder - but offense is only part of the game and Rosario is pretty bad at the other half. If Kirilloff (or Larnach or Rooker or whomever) can post an OPS+ around 100 and play better defense, they're likely of a similar value to the Rosario we've seen the past couple of seasons. My over-arching point is that the Twins are likely a better team with Happ (or Simmons, choose either) and Kirilloff for the same money as Rosario.

High leverage is based on Win Probability Added, meaning the win expectancy of the game based on a single plate appearance. A PA in the second inning of a 6-0 game is extremely low leverage while the game literally rides on a two out, bases loaded PA in the ninth inning behind by one run, making that PA worth *a lot* in WPA. And Rosario didn’t fare particularly well in high leverage situations, meaning that he didn’t perform very well in plate appearances that dictated the outcome of a single game.

Tesla is definitely overvalued but they still pour a MASSIVE portion of their revenue into R&D. While they need the offsets right now, it's a big assumption they will continue to need them in future years as they roll out more mass-market BEVs like the Model Y (just gaining production momentum now) and Cybertruck. As they increase production across more models, their R&D costs should decrease proportionally, by a lot. And there's no sign of Tesla slowing down, they're extremely well positioned in the market and everyone else will be playing catchup for a minimum of several years. The only company I thought could challenge Tesla in the short- to mid-term was GM but after releasing the promising Bolt 5+ years ago, they sat on their hands for years. I don't get WTF they were thinking but that's an entirely different conversation.

I never fully understood why so many believe Rosario is a better player under pressure. We can all certainly agree that Eddie is an intense player but given his plate discipline, or rather lack thereof, I'm not sure an "amped up" Eddie is a good thing and could make a minor argument the opposite is true. Career OPS+ of 100 as a baseline for the following career stats (lower is worse than overall career line, higher is better than overall career line): RISP: 98 Bases Empty: 102 Men On: 98 2 outs, RISP: 85 (yikes) Late & Close: 104 High Leverage: 91 All of those "clutch" stats have Rosario as a worse hitter than his career line, excluding Late & Close. Which makes sense as a spectator who has watched Rosario for many seasons. While he certainly had some very memorable moments, I also remember watching him miss a head-high fastball before walking back to the dugout or rolling over on a bad first pitch in a critical situation countless times. Guys with little to no plate discipline certainly get a lot of opportunities to make an impression - which Eddie must have done for many here - but when combined with all those bad, mostly forgettable plate appearances, his numbers in the aggregate suggest he was mostly neutral in critical situations and pretty bad in a few critical situations.

B-Ref had them tied in rWAR last season while fangraphs had Lindor a full win higher in fWAR. And it was a shortened season that had Lindor well down from his typical offensive season and Rosario a tick above his typical offensive season, which is to be expected in a season that short under such conditions, and it’s probably not a good indicator of future performance. I put much more stock in the 2018-19 numbers which tell us Lindor is a significantly better hitter and a vastly better player. Now in dollars to performance, that’s a rather different argument but something well outside a field performance comparison, which was the initial comment I responded to.

Lindor is a slightly better hitter, plays a premium position, and plays it *much* better than Rosario does his non-premium position. While Cleveland needed a corner OF (for like three seasons running) and Eddie fills that role just fine, he is in no way, shape, or form a replacement for anything about Lindor, who is better at pretty much everything baseball.

Since you seem to know everything about me, you surely know that I’m actually quite a fan of Rosario but I’m also smart enough to realize that paying for mediocrity at a position of excess is not something successful mid-market teams do on a regular basis, as it’s generally poor use of limited resources. I have no desire to see Rosario leave the team but using Rooker/Kirilloff/etc in his position and utilizing that additional $7.5m to acquire another player at a position of need likely means the Twins are a better team than they are with Rosario for $8m. PS. Eddie Rosario has all of one 30/100 season in his career so yeah, okay.

$8m is more than I expected, good for Eddie. While I hold zero love for Cleveland, I hope he does well and continues to get paid.

Seventh in all of MLB? Wow, that's entirely unexpected.