bean5302

Celestino will be 23 at the start of the season and he hit well at AAA across 211 plate appearances. Backing up Buxton could be viewed as sitting on the bench and playing every once in a while or I view it as when Buxton gets hurt and goes down for an extended time, that's when Celestino takes his place. I don't know as any amount of raking at AAA guarantees success at MLB because AAA pitchers don't necessarily expose the same weaknesses as MLB pitchers will. I think the question of whether or not Celestino is ready for MLB will be settled at the MLB level. He's proven he was able to adapt to AAA pitching and that's all we learned.

8.35 ERAs and 13.7 hits per 9 at age 28 are pretty compelling reasons to question his ability to provide value at the MLB level. There's also 2019 and 2021 results in AAA with ERAs of 4.47 and 5.14 while allowing a ton of hits there as well. He hasn't been impressive at any time in the high minors.

Meh. Doesn't matter. I'm not sure why this is some sort of shrewd move regarding Cave. I have nothing against Cave personally, I just don't see the interest in having him in the system at all at $300k or $800k. Unless there's a dramatic change in his production, he's not even a good option as a utility outfielder. A 28 year old relief pitcher project is one of those, "sure, why not" signings.

Severino is a legit #1. He's an Ace and that's how NY views him. His shoulder/lat issues in 2019 were a concern and his long return from TJ have been rough. That said, he's proven his dominance in back to back years at the MLB level.

Some definition for folks who may not know what tender means. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/contract-tendered Contract Tendered Definition To "tender" a contract to a player is to agree to give a contract for the upcoming season to a player who is under club control. Players on the 40-man roster with fewer than six years of Major League service time must be tendered contracts or they will be considered "non-tendered" and immediately made eligible for free agency. Contracts must be tendered to both arbitration-eligible and pre-arbitration players, though the latter group has no say in its forthcoming salary. Tendering a contract to an arbitration-eligible player does not mean that the two sides set a specific salary, but rather that they agree to come to terms on a salary between the date of the tender and late February. If the two sides cannot come to terms on a salary or multi-year deal, an arbitration hearing will be held and a panel of arbitrators will determine his salary. The offseason deadline for clubs to tender contracts to eligible players typically falls in early December. Example Having accrued more than five but fewer than six years of service time, Brandon Moss was eligible for one more round of arbitration following the 2015 season. The Cardinals tendered a contract to Moss and ultimately agreed to a one-year, $8.25 million deal with him to avoid arbitration.

I think the actual question is does he stick on the ballot for more than one voting cycle. The answer is still no. Morneau is an outstanding guy by all accounts and there are few, if any, Twins who I've rooted for harder, but at 27 career WAR as a position player, he won't stick on the ballot.

I think Celestino makes the best "backup" for Buxton. Gordon is probably best as a utility player rather than the kind of player you want to rely upon as a starter trying to fill the hole Buxton will likely leave in the lineup for 80-100 games next year. Celestino will be in his age 23 season and he proved he could hit at AAA. I don't believe a player can learn to make the adjustments they need to make for MLB pitching while playing in the minors. Either Celestino will be able to hold his own and make the adjustments he needs to make at the MLB level or he won't. Kepler's sprint speed has dropped off a bit and he posted his worst mark last year at 27.4 ft/sec, down from the peak 28.2 ft/sec in 2016. The median CF with 100+ opportunities sprint speed in 2021 was 28.4 ft/sec. So Kepler was a tick below average at his peak a few years ago, but now, he'd rank as 24th of 28 in that list. Kepler's UZR/150 has plumetted in CF over the past few years as well, though it's a pretty SSS. Sprint speed and their rank in the aforementioned list. Buxton 30.0 ft/sec (1st/28) Celestino 28.3 ft/sec (17th/28) Gordon 27.9 ft/sec (20th/28) Cave 27.9 ft/sec (20th/28) Kepler 27.4 ft/sec (24th/28) Rooker 27.3 ft/sec (25th/28) Larnach 26.5 ft/sec (28th/28)

I don't think Buxton's contract is likely boom or bust exactly. I don't expect he'll ever be healthy, but he'll probably produce enough to make him valuable. The contract's incentive design will allow it to be moved as well so it shouldn't cripple the Twins.

Let's keep the Paul Molitor "dust" he was using early in his career away from all our players.

After Gausman went off the table for 5 years $110MM and Eduardo Rodriguez at 5 years $77MM without the Twins checking in on either, I'm crazy skeptical the Twins giving more than lip service here. Robbie Ray said "They called and offered 4 years and $60MM every day for 5 days in a row so my agent angrily told the Twins to stop getting new Google Voice numbers every time we block the previous one."

If Buxton was worth high dollars on the open market, teams would have been offering the Twins something good to trade and Buxton would have been shipped. Nobody really wanted Buxton that bad outside the Twins.

I'm not sure what to make of the signing and reasons behind it. It's clear there was huge pressure on the Twins to make this happen, but I don't think it happens if the trade market for him was hot with teams willing to offer the Twins elite prospects. Those MVP bonuses could be huge, but Buxton has never finished above 16th in MVP voting in his career. Still, $15MM/yr for a 3 fWAR player isn't going to kill the team. There's always the outside chance Buxton becomes healthy and the contact becomes a real steal.

Maybe, but it didn't help better players than Hunter like Fred McGriff.

Hunter's not even close in my book. He had a very long career, but was steady "good" rather than great. 5x All Star in 19 seasons just doesn't get it done. Hunter's very best season is the average season for the 7 year peak of an average hall of famer. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hunteto01.shtml Hall of Fame Statistics Gray Ink Batting - 29 (1020), Average HOFer ≈ 144 Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 58 (371), Likely HOFer ≈ 100 Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 34 (249), Average HOFer ≈ 50 JAWS Center Field (36th): 50.6 career WAR | 30.8 7yr-peak WAR | 40.7 JAWS | 3.5 WAR/162 Average HOF CF (out of 19): 71.9 career WAR | 44.8 7yr-peak WAR | 58.3 JAWS | 5.4 WAR/162

Right. Now is the player in a position to make a play because of the play or because of the strategy? Range Factor and SDI don't isolate the player performance so it's hard to judge how well a player performs. Polanco is arguably the worst shortstop to play more than a single full season there in the past 20 years. Making Polanco "good" would have required a miracle. Shifting's impact on grounders and soft fly balls is well documented. It's not speculation. RF and SDI don't attempt to count for the shift.

The player doesn't deserve the credit when the team is telling them where to stand so the ball travels directly to them. The shift artificially increases the number of opportunities fielders have to catch balls because it doesn't give you a clear indication on how good the player is. The shift can impact Range Factor dramatically. The top shifting team last year would have been expected to see a reduction in batting average on ground balls and soft liners by approximately 6% overall. That's a 6% increase in opportunity for an infielder to make a play. Between the top and bottom shifting teams, the difference would have been 4%. How much of a difference does that make? It could easily drop RF/9 by .15 points as a shortstop turning a very good SS into a pedestrian one. If the Twins were to think Simmons was good because of his Range Factor or SDI, but it was actually due to the Twins' shifting and positional strategy, it would cause the Twins to misjudge Simmons' value. In that case, the Twins could plug a supposedly inferior shortstop from a team which employed a less successful position or shift strategy into the Twins' system and the new player would also perform just as well as Simmons. It's about properly valuing players.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_2021.shtml Looking at the 2021 voting, I wouldn't be surprised if Clemens (61.6%, 3rd most valuable pitcher of all time), Bonds (61.8%, 2nd most valuable hitter of all time) and Schilling (71.1%) were all elected in their 10th and final year. If voters have been holding out for the last time on the ballot for some of those names, it could wind up costing weaker candidates like Nathan.

I would really love Baseball Reference or another major data site to create a "PED re-profile" tool which would re-curve performance based on expected exit velocity changes. It would be totally unfair because you don't know who was using, but I think it would be helpful all around. If 10% of OPS improvement was PEDs, if you re-curve the players who've been tainted, maybe it would help the fringe guys get more recognition and separate the HoF regardless of PED use guys from the guys who might not have made it. Sheffield, Ramirez, Sosa probably don't have the numbers to get in with that adjustment.

Sure. The popular opinion on this board is Buxton is an MVP level talent. A guy who could put together an 8-10 WAR season if he was healthy. He's played 140 games twice (2016 split between MLB/AAA and 2017). 70% of Byron Buxton, based on popular opinon here is 5.6-7.0 WAR or so over a full season. So like, Mookie Betts or Bryce Harper. Those guys are a little spendy and the Twins are not going to do it. I think you could probably move Marcus Semien to center field. It sounds like he's going to get over $200MM any day now. The Twins hear $100MM or more and they panic.

Listen, if you're unwilling to accept Jake Cave is a potential Hall of Famer, late bloomer... ?

Bonds is the figurehead for the steroid era. The proof that steroids create legendary career performance (even if it doesn't actually do anything remotely close to that). It's not fair Bonds has been so ostracized, but his extreme success actually works against him. Bonds was so good that people hated his success; they were jealous, and his surly public persona made it even worse. People actively wanted Bonds to fail. That's my opinion.

There are some key differences. Canseco named Sosa and Canseco's got some credibility. Sosa was also named in an affidavit by Jeffrey Novitzky, an IRS agent who led the BALCO investigation, though it seems it was only specific to amphetamines. Sosa also played virtually his entire career in the steroid era. There's a lot more than a maybe/maybe not positive test for Sosa. That said, the outrage over steroid and PED use in 2009 was far greater than today. Do keep in mind, BALCO was literally 20 years ago.

I really like Joe Nathan, but the gap between Nathan and Rivera is cavernous. A quick glance down the bWAR lists: Dennis Eckersly (HoF) = 62.2 Mariano Rivera (HoF) = 56.3 Rich Gossage (HoF) = 41.6 Lee Smith (HoF) = 29.3 Trevor Hoffman (HoF) = 28.1 Billy Wagner = 27.8 (2019. 16.7%, 31.7%, 46.4%) Joe Nathan = 26.7 (2022) Francisco Rodriguez = 24.1 (2023) John Franco = 23.6 Jonathan Papelbon = 23.3 (2022) Craig Kimbrel = 21.9 (still active) Rick Aguilera = 20.7 Jeff Reardon = 19.0 Troy Percival = 17.0 I think Nathan has an outside shot at the Hall of Fame. He wasn't good in the post season, blowing a couple games with an 8.10 ERA in just 10 appearances with 10.0 innings pitched. I don't think that's going to be working well for him. He was definitely right there with Mariano Rivera as #1A and #1B from 2004-2009 and I think Nathan gets in if he didn't go down with TJ in 2010. Now, he's really pushing the limits. There are a lot of closers who are around him in saves and WAR who fell off the list fast.

Patrick Arnold (creator of "The Clear THG) "...Yes, people back then did test positive because of supplements, and occasionally it was for nandrolone, which I think (Ortiz) is alluding to, but not verbatim," Arnold told the Daily News yesterday. "If he could say it was nandrolone, I'd say, 'OK, you may have a case.'... https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/balco-chemist-david-ortiz-supplement-tale-feasible-article-1.395677 Ortiz does not appear in the Mitchell Report. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_named_in_the_Mitchell_Report Anonomous drug testing in 2003 contained inconclusives, not just positives. "Ortiz claims he did not know his result came back positive. As one of the 13 or more inconclusive results, that makes sense because Ortiz’ name does not appear in The Mitchell Report. As Schmidt wrote yesterday, “All players who tested positive in 2003 were told that their tests had been seized by the government, according to the report presented to Major League Baseball by George J. Mitchell ….” The report never cites Sosa, Ramirez, or Ortiz “ maybe because they didn’t test positive. At any rate, that’s as plausible as Schmidt’s vague sources." https://cantstopthebleeding.com/no-smearing-in-the-press-box-iii-big-papi-vindicates-cstb-blowhard-michael-s-schmidt-commences-damage-control Just because you don't like facts or something doesn't align with your opinion does not make it satire.

Ortiz hasn't talked about it much at all. He said he believes he may have tested postitive due to an over the counter supplement. The chemist who created the THG (The Clear) is on record saying it's feasible an over the counter supplement could have triggered a positive. In addition, the Mitchell Report also may have contained names of players who may have tested inconclusive. Ortiz didn't show any changes to his body type or decline in production with the implementation of testing. So you don't know for sure he tested positive or what substance it may have been that caused the inconclusive or positive result. Aside from that, Ortiz played his entire meaningful career in Boston and never tested positive there. You have a very strong opinion despite having almost no information to back it up.