Brock Beauchamp

Absolutely. I'm not really bashing FIP, as I think it's very useful. But there are pitchers who seem to defy FIP predictions to varying degrees. Like Santana to a small extent. His FIP/ERA split is .22 runs. Now, that's not a lot and well within a margin of error IMO but the guy has 2400 career IP. If my math is correct, FIP and ERA disagree on ~60 runs over the course of his career. That ain't nothin'. And then you have guys like Nolasco, whose FIP is about .6 runs lower than his ERA. The guy has just shy of 1900 career IP. He has played for multiple teams in multiple leagues so that discrepancy simply should not exist to that degree. Again, if my math is correct, FIP and ERA disagree over a whopping ~115 runs in his case. And that's my point about FIP. I think it's a pretty good indicator of future performance (and often a good indicator of past performance) but there are guys out there that are doing something FIP cannot measure.

I’m sure the old medical staff had its issues and improvements were made in that regard but I suspect most of this ranking system is based on luck and few data points. Not that I’m bashing the Twins medical staff, I’m sure they’re a fully capable group of people. But I didn’t call for their heads five years ago so I’m not going to fall over myself praising them now.

This assumes an infallibility of FIP that I'm not willing to accept. At some point, maybe 700-1000 IP, measurable on-field performance needs to be a major factor. Did this pitcher allow runs or not? As we all know, there are some pitchers who change teams, leagues, and defenses yet still over/underperform their FIP. That leads me to believe FIP is missing something that leads some pitchers to be better or worse than their expected numbers over 1000 or more innings. So we either have to accept that either FIP or ERA isn't an accurate indication of some pitchers' ability. And I haven't really seen the argument that ERA is the truly flawed stat over large sample sizes. But I'd be interested in seeing it made and how it draws its conclusions.

Hey, now. That’s unfair. Granite has power to both first and third base.

I certainly didn’t see that coming.

To point out something else about FIP and Santana, he has overperformed his FIP seven out of the past eight seasons, the lone exception that slightly weird season he had in Atlanta. And a lot of the time, it's not particularly close. While 2017 was his biggest FIP/ERA gap, in five of those eight seasons he overperformed his FIP by .4 or more runs. So why are we assuming that Santana will revert to his FIP (or even that his 2017 FIP was a true measure of his performance)? He's closing in on a decade of showing us that FIP isn't particularly relevant to him, particularly if he's playing in front of good defenses, as he is in Minnesota, was in Kansas City, and (IIRC) was in Anaheim before he left. Another fun fact that's mostly irrelevant but interesting to note: Santana's career low in BABIP was not 2017 but his 2012 campaign with the Angels, where he posted a .241 BABIP... In what was probably his worst season as an MLB pitcher.

Santana was a bit "lucky" but if you dig into his numbers, they weren't that out of line with his career. He allowed a few more flyballs but cut down on line drives and increased his IFFB rate. That BABIP wasn't as out of whack as it looks at a glance and this is one of those cases where I'm unwilling to let the FIP gods rule my opinion of a player. Santana got worse at the things FIP hates (flyballs and therefore, home runs) and better at the things FIP ignores (contact that doesn't drop for hits at the rate FIP expects balls to drop). Even if Santana regresses to his 4.40-ish FIP of 2017, he's a league average pitcher. That is easily worth $13m in 2018. If he manages to pitch 200 innings of league average ball, he'll be worth another $13m in 2019. We're talking about a guy who hasn't seen a significant enough injury to drop under the 175 IP threshold since 2009. I ride that arm until it proves it's no longer capable of doing the job. I'd have a very different opinion of the situation if the Twins had more than two starters I trusted but that isn't the case.

Yeah, this. You can make an argument that Mauer falls under the Puckett clause but it's hard to make that case for Johan. He just broke down, as pitchers often do. On that note, it's hard to believe Joe is still 400 PAs shy of Puckett's career number, has been mediocre-to-bad for 4+ seasons, and still has 3 more career fWAR than Kirby.

I agree with the bolded but the rest kind of loses me. Why do the Twins care about anyone's value beyond their on-field performance right now? To be perfectly blunt, I don't give a rat's ass about Santana's trade value because the Twins made the postseason and Santana helped them get there. Pick up another arm and let Santana help them get to the postseason again. One aspect of baseball fandom I don't really understand is the constant need to maximize trade value in every single player. Some guys give you their value on the field and help you win games and that's what matters. If the Twins were coming off another 72 win season, sure. Trade Santana and get what you can out of him. But why on earth would you trade a guy that can help you win baseball games in the offseason following a postseason appearance when you have one of the youngest rosters in baseball? You go find players to help that guy, you don't just trade him away.* *every player should be traded if the deal just blows you away and/or improves the MLB team

There are certainly doubts about Ohtani's ability to hit MLB pitching but Nishioka comparisons should be tossed out the window. Nishioka was a slap hitter who played in a league where artificial turf is common. Nishioka came to the US after his age 25 season. Nishioka never hit for power. Nishioka was coming off a season where he OPSed .080 higher than any previous season. I don't see a lot to compare between the two, any more than I'd judge Buxton's ceiling based on Ben Revere's career because they're both black and play centerfield.

I can't support trading Santana. He's the type of pitcher you can write 175+ IP in permanent ink on Opening Day. Sure, he's getting older and might regress but I don't care. $13m for 175 IP of 100 ERA+, I'll take it on this team every time. I don't care about 2019's salary right now, I want to see the Twins at least make the ALDS and Santana helps them reach that goal. If you need to trade Santana to convince the Pohlads to take on Darvish, it's time to fire up Excel and show how much money they'll make with an 88-90 win season and 5-7 postseason games, never mind how that sets them up for 2019 sans Mauer and a growing season ticket base. It's time to spend money on this team. Maybe not Darvish money but legit starting pitcher money.

There must be a slew of delusional south siders driving up those odds because lol. The White Sox are a promising team but probably not in 2018 and almost certainly not postseason-bound.

I have very little faith in Gibson's ability to hold sustained performance but I don't give much thought to his age, as he was drafted out of college, had TJ surgery, and generally hasn't pitched all that much for a guy approaching 30 years old. What I do know is that the Twins' pitching staff is pretty bad and spending $4m-ish to see if Kyle's second half is for real borders on no-brainer territory. I'd rather see what Gibson has in him than most/all of the free agent reclamation projects available this winter, all of which will cost as much or more than Kyle. Go find a better pitcher to front the rotation with Santana and Berrios and let Kyle (and May) get a shot at the back of the rotation. One of the available arms/prospects (Gonsalves, Romero, Mejia) should be able to step in if both those guys falter (which I assume will be the case with May, who should probably open the season as the long man on a contending team).

I firmly believe Berrios will be better than Santana in 2018. Add another guy in front of those two and Santana is suddenly third in the pecking order. It's not a perfect scenario to have a guy like Santana as your third best option but it won't kill the team, either. If Santana is going to be something close to league average, you'd really want that guy fourth in your rotation (though that's not out of the question, either, given the Twins options in Gibson, May, Gonsalves, Mejia, et al).

That's fine but you realize that large of a drop is unlikely, right? Santana can fall quite a ways and still be league average. People scream about Santana's FIP as if it was some astronomical number last season. It was 4.46, which is right around the median FIP for the AL in 2017. That's well within the range of anomalous season-over-season swings and just 0.3 higher than his 2015 FIP. FIP is a useful tool but if you're breaking down a performance into decimal points, it's not the be-all, end-all of pitching measurements. Last season, Santana's numbers were largely static. He walked and struck out hitters at a pace in line with his previous career numbers. His groundball rate stayed the same. Where he made improvements are blind spots in FIP: line drive rate and IFFB rate. But his FB rate jumped higher, which leads to more home runs, something FIP hates. Maybe he can continue that trend of generating more weak contact but allowing more flyballs. Maybe not. Maybe Santana "reverts" to a normal flyball rate and his IFFB and LD rates also revert to previous numbers... But that still gives you 2016 Santana, a FIP darling. It's not so clear as "FIP is right" because not all contact is the same, yet FIP treats it as such. On top of all that, why should we assume FIP is right at all about a flyball pitcher playing in front of this Twins outfield? If Ervin is healthy, he's likely to be a league average starter or better. Sure, he's getting older but he also appears to be one of those rubber-armed pitchers whose decline is always in question but never seems to arrive as suddenly or harshly as we expect. Remove his suspension season and the guy hasn't pitched fewer than 175 innings since 2009. That's nearly a decade ago.

Sure, it's the goal, but it's probably an unrealistic goal in a single offseason that isn't loaded with starting pitchers. Get one guy better than Santana. Get one reliever that's legitimately good. That's the baseline from which to work. If you achieve those two goals, pursue another good reliever and starting pitcher if they're available (a reliever should almost certainly still be available at that point). I mean, look at the free agents available this winter. How many are better than Santana enough to matter? Darvish? And... Arrieta? Maybe? Then you have another guy who gets to pick his team and isn't swayed by money because he's not going to get enough for it to really matter. So three guys. The Twins will be lucky to get one of those guys.

Gibson is one guy. There are 3-4 other guys who have the ability to post league average numbers. For the record, I have absolutely no faith in Gibson, was merely using him as an example of a guy who has the ability to be not-awful.

I think this is setting a pretty lofty goal for one offseason and such moves should vault the Twins into the discussion of top 4-5 teams in baseball. If you acquire two pitchers better than Santana, Ervin becomes your fourth-best starter before anyone throws a pitch (meaning that all the guys in the mix for fifth starter haven't surpassed him yet). Even if you think he's a league average or slightly better pitcher, that means the Twins have four guys at or above average with a pretty solid chance of adding a fifth guy with the same performance level at some point in the season (maybe even by Opening Day if Gibson turns out to be legit). That's... a really good baseball team.

There are so many factors here - many of which we don't know - that I don't put the Twins above or below most teams (though I believe New York has an advantage over everyone else). The Twins have a lot going for them: 1. Lots of cap space to give him $3m+ 2. One of the youngest and most promising teams in baseball 3. Room to DH Ohtani and a pitching staff bad enough that he'll get plenty of opportunities 4. Great facilities 5. New front office with a forward-thinking mindset But, hey, it's still Minnesota. That in itself may be a deal-breaker to someone with aspirations of New York or Los Angeles.

Is there any timeline on a decision? I haven't seen anything.

An interesting aspect of this deal is that if you're confident Darvish brings you Ohtani, it makes all the sense in the world to wildly overpay for Darvish, up to as much as $200m. Yu could see the market for his services go insanely out of proportion thanks to Ohtani. Dropping an extra $40m on Darvish is a no-brainer if it locks you into Ohtani at $500k for several seasons.

Well, this is good for everyone involved. That frees up Eduardo Escobar money (well, close to it) for the Twins next season.

Yeah, i want a theee year guy if I’m going to loot the farm. I don’t think the Twins peak until 2019 at the earliest.

I mean, probably. My primary question is whether the organization is so down on him that they'll take anything for him just to move on.

Same here, but I put Stewart's chances of sticking on a 25-man roster for a full season very low. Like Which raises the next question: does the new front office like Stewart enough to take him back or would they work out a deal with the claiming team?