bean5302

The rotation is a long, long way from fixed. If we sign Rodon. If Winder performs. If Balazovic performs. If Ober doesn't have a sophomore slump. If Ryan doesn't have a sophomore slump. If Bundy is able to hold down his spot in the rotation until either Balazovic or Winder is ready. There are 5 ifs in the rotation right now. They're all ifs. I think some are a high probability, but the rotation was horrible last year and the 2 best pitchers aren't going to be pitching for the Twins this year. The one signing the Twins made was a guy who signed on a contract so small, many teams would happily cut him before the end of Spring Training. I'm optimistic about the rotation this year, but I'm also prepared for it to potentially come apart.

You're really going to need to elaborate on this one. Almost no losses weren't a direct result of his in-game management. See what I did there? LOL. I don't actually know where Baldelli ranks. I don't like him much as a manager based on his decisions on playing time and bullpen, but Baldelli isn't in charge of roster construction so his hands are tied a bit.

All players have slot bonus over $100k for the first 10 rounds. Players signing outside of the first 10 rounds are following a dream. $100k split over 2 years (this is common practice) along with the standard agent cut of 5% off the top would grant them $45k in year 1, with the full $10k of agent expenses deducted along with the standard deduction of $12k. Their taxable income would be more like $20k so about $3000 in total taxes. Net take home of $45,000 with the additional short income from MiLB in the draft year. Year 2 would be even easier. Take home more like $48,000 despite the loss of deducting agent fees because of the increased salary during the playing season. I'm not sure why swinging a baseball bat renders people incapable of even the most basic fiscal responsibility the players' non-baseball peers show. Even a temporary job during the offseason will bring home an easy $10k more, annually. So for the first two years, a 10th round selection signing at slot would be taking home (after taxes) $50-60k per year. If a player invests the signing bonus into a sinking fund drawn down evenly over 5 years, they'd be about $35k annually, take home, for 5 years. On top of that, they'll now get free housing for 6 months out of the year.

Well, it actually wasn't much of an extension. Sano was under team control for 2020-2021 already. the "extension" bought out Sano's arbitration years and 1 year of his free agency (2022) with 1 additional year of free agency (2023) as a team option. Do the Twins wish they hadn't done it? Sure, but it's not like Sano wouldn't have remained on the team last year (what would have been his final arbitration year). In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. I'd guess Sano would get $5-8MM on the free agent market right now so the Twins are really only overpaying him by a few million for one year (provided we have baseball this year...)

I see Jhoan Duran as a Fernando Romero type right now. Way, way overhyped. First, I feel it's a longshot Duran avoids being relegated to the bullpen... and that's if he can actually get guys out in the high minors enough for him to earn a spot on the big league roster. I might have Duran in the top 20 Twins prospects right now, but probably not in the top 15.

Sub-600 OPS and far below average defense at shortstop. I don't understand the interest here. Robertson looks like MiLB depth who is likely to be released if there aren't injury concerns and our prospects move up.

In regard to food availability, there are more options now like Uber Eats and Grub Hub (though they are expensive), Amazon Fresh and Door Dash which can deliver groceries even in the middle of the night. Still, having good food available is an upgrade at what would be a fairly moderate cost. That said, with team provided housing, I have a hard time believing there won't be kitchens pretty much universally available at this point for home games at least. Many communities have rental kitchens, but even those that don't would allow for an employee to order healthful options from local grocery store deli's to put together team meals or a team could have a traveling team food truck for that matter. There are certainly some better solutions to the issue.

This is not true. Appel denied having to deal with most issues because of his big signing bonus.

The answer to the question is... Yes. The Twins seem very incapable of developing shortstops who can field balls cleanly. I don't understand why the error rate for Twins infielders, particularly shortstops is so high, but it's an obvious issue in my opinion.

I wonder if I misplaced a zero or saw $5MM someplace else and just rolled with it? I agree, $500k would be easily absorbed into any MLB team.

Woods-Richardson was an MLB's #93, Fangraphs' #76, Bleacher Reports #78 prospect in 2020/entering 2021 and was the cornerstone of the Marcus Stroman trade. While he's unranked this year among top 100 lists, he hasn't really changed. There's little surprise Woods-Richardson's struggled with control after losing 2020 and half of the 2021 season due to just sitting on a bench for his name to be called in the Olympics. People can point fingers all they want in regard to fault for that situation, but as a young prospect developing mechanics, the loss of playing time is about the worst possible thing which can happen. It also would explain why the Twins put him on the Development List rather than assigning him directly to AA after he arrived back from Tokyo last year. Woods-Richardson's MLB scouting report lists his pitches as Four seam fastball, curveball, slider, changeup. I haven't seen much in regard to scouting on his slider, but what's out there indicates it's an MLB caliber offering, just not his best. Woods-Richardson's curveball and changeup both have plus potential. Basically, Woods-Richardson has the stuff to get the job done and has shown impressive performances into the high minors despite aggressive promotions. There's some projection potential left in his fastball and the Twins have been very successful so far in getting a little extra velocity from mechanical adjustments on other prospects. There's a reason Woods-Richardson was so highly coveted by the Blue Jays and by the Twins. The negativity directed at his stock is unwarranted at this point.

$5MM is not chump change when it comes to operational expenses. The entire front office staff of most teams is probably in the $10MM / year area. Beyond that, those players are not really playing, anyway because there's no open spot on the field, and honestly, no room in the dugouts for 140 players per game of rookie league play. Funding teams operational expenses out of personal assets is a no-go for business owners and baseball team operating incomes are pretty modest. $5MM is 20% of all estimated operating income (operational profit) for many teams. I wondered that as well, but only players on the 60 day IL are removed from typical rosters and I found no record of MLB changing the roster size when they contracted a leagues worth of teams. It makes sense as forcing teams to make 30+ immediate cuts to contracted talent would have been pretty draconian. In addition, there are already teams under 150 which means it's entirely possible to do it. In short, 60 day IL doesn't seem to factor in.

Why would any team ever pick up a released or waived player? I'm just guessing at possible reasons MLB might be doing this in the same way I'm guessing they're deep pocket teams with the resources to spend, I'm also speculating maybe it's the cost of housing. It's all assumptions, either way which brings me to my real complaint. It's a cryptic request from MLB in the middle of an extremely contentious CBA negotiating process and the cryptic nature of the request provided fuel for the fire of discontent and public anger (not that public outrage is hard to stir up these days).

Well, the commissioner is saying they have no plans to reduce the roster size right now so we're talking about $0 in savings. Even if they reduced it to 150 (the maximum), only something like 5 teams have 180+ players on the roster. Most have fewer and some have less than 150 already. It just feels weird to do this from a cost savings aspect. If a young Jose Altuve or Albert Pujols was cut, they could just move on to one of the independent or summer league teams which were removed from MLB affiliation, yes? Or instead of coming up through the Astros, maybe Atuve gets a tryout with the Twins because the Astros relinquish their rights. The biggest mess of this is there was no explanation from MLB for which I'm aware. It was just a blunder of a delivery regardless of their intent. It could be for anything from cost savings due to new housing requirements to forcing teams to stop hoarding players they're not willing to play to increase competition for free agent minor league prospects or just simply balancing the farm systems so deep pocket teams can't control an extra 30-40 players over small market teams.

It'll really be exciting to see Lewis take off in the minors this year. Listening to him in interviews he says all the right stuff and it matches with all the information out there on him. Fantastic work ethic, great personality, born leader, 5 tool athleticism. Just everything fans want to see.

The owners recently proposed the commissioner should have the power to reduce MiLB roster size maximums to 150, down from 180 during the season and 190 during the offseason. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/02/mlbs-cba-proposal-included-ability-to-reduce-number-of-available-minor-league-roster-spots.html#:~:text=Currently%2C teams are permitted to,including the Dominican Summer League). Of course, fans critical of owners and the commissioner immediately framed it as a dirty cost cutting measure by MLB. While the proposal supposedly comes with no expectation to enact the 150 player maximum, it's hard to understand why the commissioner would need the ability to reduce MiLB roster sizes if he had no intention of using the ability... The roster size limits apparently do not impact the international rookie league (Dominican Summer League). After the MiLB team contraction, the leagues and roster limits for leagues is as follows. AAA = 28 AA = 28 (total 56) High A = 30 (total 86) Low A = 30 (total 116) Rookie = unlimited Some quick math suggests MLB teams would be allowed to have 34 players on the roster in rookie ball at 150 with some teams under 150 and some teams are in excess of 180 players on the roster. I'm guessing the additional rostered players may have come from hanging onto players in the eliminated minor league teams. Essentially, MLB teams are rostering players who don't actually play for them. I'm not sure if that's good or bad (team control over players they don't actually use) and I'm not sure how much those players get paid since they're not actively on a MiLB roster or playing games for those teams. I suspect the cost savings which might be seen by this measure could be for providing housing for MiLB players? If MiLB housing money comes from pooled resources rather than the teams directly, it might explain MLB's interest as the MLBPA's proposals severely curtail revenue sharing money. I also don't understand what business the MLBPA has deciding on MiLB roster sizes, but I suppose it's just part of the bizzare pseudo-relationship the MLBPA has in determining rights for players they don't actually represent.

I think @Brock Beauchamp said essentially the same thing... but Sano owned a wRC+ of 91 at the All Star break. Cruz comes with a more stable track record and he's cheaper. Guessing 1 year $8MM, assuming he doesn't retire. I think he may have to settle for much less if the season is delayed (which is appears is marching towards increasingly likely) as I think the perception is older players take more time to get up to speed on the reflexes, etc. If the lockout continues much longer, I could see Cruz needing to take a 1 year $5MM deal with incentives.

I mean, Sano is on a one year prove it deal anyway. His value has been pretty modest in general for a few years now. If he was a free agent today, I doubt he'd get more than a 1 year $5-8MM contract. He's 1 bad year from taking a MiLB contract.

I don't think the Twins would hesitate to move Sano, but I think whomever they're going to move has already been decided and the trade probably already set up. Just waiting for the lockout to end before it can be announced. I think the order of likelihood of trade from highest to lowest is Rooker, Sano, Donaldson

I've also heard people believe the Earth is flat and that Russia isn't being aggressive and that truckers aren't blockading Canada because of mask mandates. The head of the MLBPA is officially on record the revenue split is acceptable. It's 50/50 split and MLBPA has no issues with the numbers which had been provided by MLB owners. Clark addressed the conspiracy theories in 2015 and 2018. “Despite what you may have read or heard at any given time, the quote-unquote ‘player share’ is as close to 50-50 as it has been in a long time,” Clark said. https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred

I'm cautious about Miller. I want to see some production before I get too excited.

A search I made suggested that MiLB are not paid and have not been paid for participating in Spring Training. So my argument is above is at least partially wrong. MLB is arguing MiLB players should not be paid and they do not have the intention of paying them.

Yeah... so the position has nothing to do with MLB planning not to pay players in Spring Training and everything to do with increasing their leverage in a pending class action lawsuit MLB will likely win. MLB is seeking to invalidate one of the arguments in the lawsuit, not necessarily make real changes. In other words, MLB is arguing it shouldn't "have" to pay the players, not that it is trying to "not" pay the players. In any case, companies make moves like this all the time. Years ago I ran a website which evaluated products and specialized in a specific manufacturer. The company sent us a cease and desist order and we were forced to make some changes. We didn't make any money and you could decide they were being ridiculous using all their power against a tiny little internet site, but you'd be wrong. Defending their structure and legal rights is required in all instances, not just whenever companies feel like it. If a company doesn't defend it's rights, those rights can be considered abandoned. By the way, MLB's argument seems pretty strong under U.S. law in my opinion and it's more reflective of laws which allow employers across the country to abuse workers. Fix the laws, don't expect companies to operate as charities.

Side note, the owners failed to offer a counter proposal after what could hardly be described as an offer by the MLBPA and I think would be much better categorized as an inflammatory statement lowering their request from $105MM to $100MM for pre-arbitration bonus pool. Not that the haters of the MLB owners would have thought about this, but other than the $100MM reduction to revenue sharing initially proposed by the MLBPA and their subsequent reduction by $30MM (which owners dispute is accurate), the $105MM bonus pool would also come out of revenue sharing making the proposal tantamount to a $170-200MM reduction in revenue sharing overall proposed by the MLBPA. To be honest, it's hard for me to respect any position critical of the owners and supportive of the MLBPA's positions in negotiations right now.

and those are large cap index's you're talking about. The mutual funds which are based on the S&P 500 are considered Large Cap Blend funds which are not aggressive, and you're talking about groups of stocks similar to mutual funds rather than individual stocks like Amazon or Tesla. In addition, if you're talking about internal profits, rates are typically much higher than you're expecting across many industries. Financial companies expect a ROE of approximately 12-14% for example, @Ted Schwerzler. It's common for me to speculate about things I'm not an expert about, but where I've formed some sort of hypothesis, but it seems you're really out of your element. It's easy to create scapegoats out of successful businesspeople, and depending on the complaint, your mileage may vary on how accurate it is.