Brock Beauchamp

His power is almost certain to regress but I look at a decrease in overall swings, a decrease in swings outside the zone, and a guy who is laying off breaking balls and see a player who has a floor of an acceptable stop-gap solution at second with an upside of 2-3 wins on a yearly basis. The key to Brian Dozier is not getting lucky with homers, it's not swinging at bad pitches. Players who don't swing at bad pitches rarely play their way out of a lineup.

Sano, yes. But I think it's pretty safe to predict at least a 100 OPS+ from Arcia at this point.

Which is a fair opinion. Hell, I'm not even sold on Drew myself. But Pedro Florimon is not an acceptable long-term starter at shortstop. Full stop.

Particularly when that additional cost comes in at $5-6m per win, which is the typical going rate for free agents. The problem with Reider's cost benefit analysis is that Florimon has little room to improve. That's not opinion, that's just sound analysis of players of his type, history, and age. He's probably close to as good as he'll ever get. Hell, there's just as good a chance that he will regress in 2014 as there is that he will improve. The reason few want to pick up a centerfielder or a third baseman is because the Twins have legitimate "cost benefit" players in the organization at those positions. As soon as 2014, Miguel Sano could be a 3+ win player at the league minimum. Aaron Hicks is just as, if not more, likely to post a 2+ win season than Florimon for the league minimum. But in 2015 and beyond, Hicks has a ceiling of 3+ wins annually while Buxton has a ceiling of... well, the moon. It makes no sense to pick up players at those positions, and that's not even mentioning that no free agent in their right mind is going to want to sign with the Twins, knowing that Hicks/Buxton/Sano are champing at the bit to take away their position at a moment's notice. You could make the argument that Pinto is another cost benefit player, as he posted some impressive MiLB numbers and had a strong September (though I personally put no stock in that). That leaves one position on the diamond where the Twins have no players in the minors and a bad player on the MLB roster that is unlikely to improve in a meaningful way. That position is shortstop. This isn't about "winning now", though that could be a nice side effect. This is about replacing bad MLB players who have little or no chance of meaningful improvement at the position. Sure, Florimon might clean up a few of his defensive errors... But he's still going to be an awful hitter, which means he will always be a pretty bad baseball player. He would have to be Ozzie Smith defensively to compensate for his lack of a bat (though it should be noted that even Smith was a better hitter than Florimon by a pretty healthy margin).

How on earth can you rationalize saving a starting spot for Florimon but mention centerfield as an "open spot"? Aaron Hicks has TEN TIMES the potential of Pedro Florimon and is three years younger. You save roster space for the Aaron Hicks of the world, not the Pedro Florimons.

My brain cramps every time I think of Mike Piazza not being in the HoF. Seriously. What the @&!$. Sure, he was a lousy defender. But damn, a career 143 OPS+? I don't care if he wore his mitt on his head. His bat gets him in no matter what.

I like the guy who voted for Jacque Jones more than I like the guy who voted for Morris but not Maddux. That's just embarrassing.

Which is a fair opinion. Personally, I'd rather see the Twins go after positional help like Drew than another pitcher like Garza. If they need another pitcher after this season, then go get one at that time. Right now, I think a rotation of Nolasco/Hughes/Pelfrey/Gibson/Meyer has a pretty good shot at being above average in 2015-2016.

I don't think Dozier is likely to improve significantly on BABIP, just pointing out that he wasn't very lucky in 2013 so regression is not likely to come from that area.

I was editing my post to reflect fWAR as you were responding. I like bWAR for pitchers (I prefer to gauge what actually happened over what *should* have happened when comparing performance) but when it comes to positional players, fWAR is the better metric, IMO.

Stephen Drew's WAR over the past several years: 1.6, 2.0, 4.7, 1.7, lost season (-0.3), 3.4. Pedro Florimon posted a WAR of 1.3 last season, almost entirely on the back of his defensive play. To put it mildly, I'm skeptical of judging any player based entirely on his defensive WAR, particularly if it's not a full season. In short, Stephen Drew is an improvement over Pedro Florimon.

He will probably regress power-wise (nobody saw that coming) but his BABIP was only .278. If anything, he was slightly unlucky on batted balls in 2013.

Drew isn't a perfect player, no arguments here. One of the most interesting parts of him is his recent ineptitude against LHP. He was never a good hitter against southpaws but only in the last two years have his splits really turned ugly. Is that a trend or a blip in his career? Probably a trend but it's not necessarily a sure thing that he continues to post an OPS under .600 against lefties. It's something to cause a bit of concern, for sure.

It's almost impossible to read through my post history and draw the conclusion that I am a "win now" advocate at the expense of longterm contention. Any international FA signing is not going to help for several more years. That doesn't conflict with Drew. A free agent next year is a possibility, but the Twins are looking at giving up a first round pick next offseason if they need help. If you're balking at giving up a second round pick now, I can only imagine how you'll feel about giving up an 11-20 pick in 2015. Anything involving a trade for an established player will have the Twins dealing off a prospect far more valuable than a mid-30s draft pick. Dozier is not an MLB shortstop. We saw how that worked last season. He's a capable 2B. The Twins should let him continue to fill that role. Looking through those options, they're more expensive to the longterm health of the team than giving up a second round pick in 2014.

I mentioned Baker in the post. Swarzak or Slowey, take your pick. Those are the only two second rounders who had any kind of impact in the past ten seasons. Slowey had a better single season, Swarzak looks to have a more significant long-term impact. In the past decade, the Twins have had 13 second round picks. Together, they have combined for a 6.6 career WAR. If people are that concerned about losing a second round pick for a legitimate MLB player, they need to re-read the first two sentences of this paragraph.

If both players pan out, I don't see how the Twins keep both. A decision will probably be made on one or the other anyway. At least if they're on the same service schedule, they're more likely to peak at the same time. Either way, I don't think it's a significant issue. Yeah, it would suck if Sano missed that much development time, I'm just pointing out that it's not the end of the world.

Again, calling Drew a platoon player is ignoring that he's very strong against RHP. 70% of a typical player's PAs come against RHP. Platoons are not equal. The RHP-masher is far more valuable than the same guy against LHP. And if it's that big of a concern, platoon Escobar and Drew. That way everybody stays fresh and there is no significant defensive drop-off between the two players. It doesn't even force the Twins to carry an additional player. Escobar is probably there anyway.

For comedy's sake, here are the most similar batters to Pedro Florimon through age 26: Virgil Stallcup (974) Benji Gil (972) Reid Brignac (964) Ken Hamlin (960) Jose Valdivielso (959) Andre Robertson (953) Ron Gardenhire (950) Steve Huntz (949) Artie Clarke (949) Marty Perez (949)

I didn't miss the point at all. You're comparing giving up a bonafide impact MLB player for two years of another MLB player to giving up a second round pick, which rarely pan out to be impact players. In the past ten years, the Twins' biggest second round success story has been Anthony Swarzak. No one is arguing that the Twins will contend in 2014. We're simply saying that given a couple of breaks, this team could be a fringe contender and that Stephen Drew could help that scenario come to fruition. Besides, it's not as if Stephen Drew goes away after 2014. He could easily help this team return to relevance in 2015 and 2016. He's not an old man and he doesn't hamstring this team's payroll significantly. What you're paying Drew in 2015 is offset by Willingham and Correia leaving after 2014, which still gives the Twins payroll flexibility going into next offseason. What it boils down to is this: 1. Pedro Florimon is not a good baseball player. He is at the age where improvement is very unlikely. 2. The Twins have no internal prospects on the horizon that will improve the position significantly. 3. The Twins need better baseball players. Stephen Drew is a better baseball player than Pedro Florimon.

What is almost surely going to play out in the coming weeks: 1. Nothing until Tanaka signs. 2. Tanaka signs, 5-6 losing teams are very disappointed. 3. Left few/no options, those 5-6 teams start aggressively bidding on Garza and Santana. 4. ??? 5. Profit! Garza and Santana are basically guaranteed four years, probably five. Neither will sign for total money under $70m.

Cuddyer was a vastly superior player to Plouffe. That's why he continued to get playing time. Cuddy posted a .779 OPS as a 25 year old. He had a career .868 MiLB OPS. Some of us weren't only confident in Cuddyer figuring it out, we were screaming for him to get more playing time from the get-go. Plouffe, eh, not so much. He has a bit of potential but nothing like Cuddyer.

You simply don't know that. Say the Twins get rebound years from Willingham, Plouffe, and Hughes while Hicks and Sano post solid campaigns. This team goes from also-ran to borderline contender almost immediately. Going into a season, you either punt or give yourself the best opportunity to win that doesn't cripple your long-term plans. Drew doesn't hurt the Twins' longterm plans in a meaningful way. He costs a bit of money and a second round pick. That's hardly a king's ransom. The fourth best prospect in baseball (which Myers was at the time) and a guy who is MLB-ready is nothing like a hypothetical second round pick. Nothing at all like it, actually. In the past ten years, here are the Twins' second round picks: Ryan Eades, Mason Melotakis, JT Chargois, Madison Boer, Niko Goodrum, Billy Bullock, Tyler Ladendorf, Danny Rams, Joe Benson, Paul Kelly, Kevin Slowey, Drew Thompson, Anthony Swarzak. Is this what we're really concerned about losing? Combined, those guys have a career WAR of 6.6. You have to go back 11 years to find the last Twins second round pick that really impacted the MLB franchise in Scott Baker.

Yep. If he has a good season, you're looking at a Stephen Drew 3+ year contract to keep him. If he has a bad/mediocre season, you've missed the playoffs again and it doesn't really matter and you have to do it all over again. I just don't see the point, really.

In some ways, this isn't the worst news in the world. First, position players aren't really negatively impacted by TJS and they recover more quickly than their pitching brethren. That means Sano would be back and ready to play by Opening Day 2015. Second, that would put Buxton and Sano in lock-step with one another through their six years of service time. Sure, nobody wants to see Sano go down for a season (or something close to a season) but this isn't disastrous news should it actually occur.

I agree with the rest but I really hate that people are using Dozier's entire 2013 and predicting regression. It's only a piece of the story. Dozier was abysmal the first two months of the season, posting a .609 and .513 OPS in April and May. Then he changed his stance with Bruno and posted an OPS around .800 for the rest of the season. That wasn't a fluke. You can draw a line in the sand the day Dozier made that change to his approach and he was a different player after that day. He finished the season with a .726 OPS. Given what happened last season, if he stays healthy, I think a .710-.730 OPS is his floor with a ceiling of around .800. Predicting regression below .726 doesn't make any sense given why he improved last season.