bean5302

Owners agreed to remove the compensation picks from qualifying offers two weeks ago. Owners also agreed to free agency at 29.5 or 6 years, but I believe MLBPA pulled that request after MLB agreed to it. Owners moved up from $180MM to $220MM for the luxury tax ceiling. Owners have offered an increase in pre-arbitration salary of 11% base, and an additional bonus of 60% to the top 30 pre-arb players. I think those are most of the concessions owners have made since their offer in December.

I see a lot of opinions... which don't seem to match reality here. Bauer is in your face. That's going to get people to not like you in a world where feelings are more importantant than facts or actions. I spent all of 10 minutes just now and the overwhelming message I got about Bauer is he was extremely helpful and went out of his way for teammates who approached him. He doesn't sugar-coat and he's direct. Once people actually talk with him, they understand him better and respect his views. In regard to what he does in the bedroom, I don't really care. I think it's kind of sick people do want to know or care.

So does it matter at all if baseball isn't played who made what moves? No signing has any value unless games are actually played and trades typically don't happen until after the signing process because teams don't know where they really stand. Discussions on trades can continue throughout the lockout meaning there aren't necessarily hasty moves. There could be dozens of trades which have already essentially been consummated and the moment the lockout ends, the signatures get added to the documents and all is said and done so there's no need for things being done hastily.

Herein lies the problem. Bauer paints the picture this was a total hit-job on him. If his statements are truthful, I think it's a huge ask to expect him to come to terms with his own culpability in the PR disaster as I think any innocent person would be terribly angry at how things have turned out. It would be hard to get through those feelings and recognize the responsibility he has for the situation existing. Bauer is pretty unapologetic about his positions, but I do hold the unabashedly outspoken in high regard in todays society so long as they speak truth and from a knowledgeable position. It's a rare bird who challenges the status quo.

This year is a huge year for the front office in my opinion. They need their farm system to produce. Hard to do much of that when there is no baseball being played, though.

My, isn't that rich? I worked with a corporate office close to NYC with executives in NYC. Urban New Yorker's perceptions of anything outside the NE and California is truly epic to behold. I was asked, literally, if we still had "Indians" out here and by somebody else about polar bears. These were educated, masters degree holding corporate employees. It goes both ways.

Wheeler said he declined the White Sox's offer because he preferred to stay on the East coast. Nothing about Philly in specific to my recollection. The difference reported was $118MM in Philly vs. $120MM in Chicaco. The offers were essentially the same.

I think Donaldson would have benefitted from a longer stint off recovering from his calf injury last year, but the Twins just didn't have the guys on the roster they wanted to cover the position. Glad to see Sano managed more plate appearances than ever before. I don't like to see anybody missing games because of injury.

The difference in Wheeler's contract was negligible. Reported as less than 2%. As was pointed out, at equal dollars or insignificant differences, destination factors in. Had Minnesota offered Wheeler 5 years and $130MM, he'd have been in a Twins uniform, guaranteed. Probably any team apart from the Pirates or Marlins get Wheeler with that offer. Speaking of... those are two places I'd say nobody wants to play.

More than even the disagreements on the CBA, this topic has the likelihood of devolving into something nasty. I have no idea what MLB will actually do. Even if the civil court case against him failed and the criminal case against him resulted in no arrests or charges. It seems pretty obvious the district attorney's office did MLB a solid by taking a very, very, very long time to review a case where no charges were filed. The expectation was probably to wait until the new CBA was official. I expect the Dodgers will be pushing MLB to make a retroactive suspension to July 2nd so the Dodgers can try to recoup money they've spent and have a case to terminate Bauer's contract under the Morals Clause; however, Bauer will certainly challenge this in court, and I also expect the court would rule in Bauer's favor with the potential for special damages. If MLB declines to discipline Bauer, the Dodgers really don't have any grounds to do anything. Since the Dodgers threw Bauer under the bus, and then backed over him a few times. I see absolutely zero chance Bauer plays for the Dodgers again at this point no matter what happens. Assuming MLB can't find a legitimate basis to levy any further punishment on Bauer, this will leave Los Angeles with two options. Eat Bauer's contract and release him or trade him. The Dodgers might find a willing trade partner in Texas as the fan base is the most conservative in the MLB and probably the most likely to accept Bauer, and Texas would know they'd have LA by the balls so LA would still wind up eating a massive amount of Bauer's remaining contract (it's obvious Bauer would exercise his player options at this point). Would I welcome Bauer playing for the Twins? Yes. I have no issues with him apart from his hot-headedness, which isn't much different than Josh Donaldson IMHO. In regard to the allegations by Ms. Hill? I wasn't there. I have no idea what happened, but a civil court judge ruled it was a consentual relationship and there weren't any arrests or criminal charges filed. That said, I don't think Minnesota would wade into the political backlash considering Minneapolis' public woes as of late.

I'm not sure that's true. The players I think the lockout hurts most are those on the fringe. The 40 man guys who cannot play or get a shot in the MLB. Meanwhile, the minor league players can continue to advance and those appearantly fringey guys may never get their chance at the big show as a result.

I disagree with that take on Rooker.

The Rangers, Cubs, Yankees, Twins, Astros, Brewers and Dodgers were all in on Darvish and Darvish had several $100MM plus offers. The Twins were not among them as it eventually leaked out. The final, widely agreed dollar amount for Darvish from the Twins? 4 years and under $100MM ($96MM as I recall) The Cubs offered more. The Brewers offered more. The Yankees offered dramatically more but pulled their offer after Darvish didn't respond within 48hrs. Framing it as the Twins were in the final 3 suggests they were close, and they weren't.

I think Bill Smith made quite a few moves which were highly out of character for the way the team was typically run and more in line with a team aiming for the World Series so I gave the organization the benefit of the doubt there.

I have to... that video... did that guy ever hear about leg day? LOL!!!!

Levi Michael was far, far superior to Cavaco in his MiLB performance. I thought Michael was going to be taken in the rule 5 when he was left exposed in 2015 after his .804 OPS performance in AA. I don't think Michael was too far off from some MLB appearances with the Mets in 2018.

Cavaco is half a season from being declared a total bust and I think he could be released at the end of this year. Enlow and Lewis were both protected, and that should tell folks all they need to know about how they're viewed. Lewis and Enlow have been severely hampered by injuries, but even so, they're viewed as high end prospects.

While both sides certainly have their faults, owners especially for what I feel is inflaming tensions prior to the start of the negotiations and the asinine full team control until age 29.5 first offer back in September, since then, in my opinion, it's been almost all the MLBPA throwing a temper tantrum.

The MLBPA didn't counter-propose either. They left a one penny tip on a $20 bill. It was a direct insult.

Since MLB isn't played in Minnesota from November through March, I guess that probably doesn't factor in much...

I wonder how minor league signings for MLB veterans works in regard to the MLBPA? If owners went ahead with replacement players, Beckham isn't technically represented by the MLBPA right now is he? Not sure exactly how that works.

I'd say yes and no. For a veteran player wanting a commitment to championship caliber teams? Absolutely. The Twins have shown for over a decade they will not commit the resources necessary to take that next step. It's not like players and agents don't know this. On the other side, I honestly believe the fans have a great reputation and the organization is known for treating people well and for at least a baseline of competitive play recently. It's probably not seen as a bad place to play ball in general.

Winder was highly scouted but lost velocity in his sophomore year at VMI. It resulted in him falling way down the draft ranks and the Twins picked him up in the 7th round. Most scouting reports on Winder are from draft time. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/josh-winder-comes-on-strong-at-instructs/ Since then, Winder has added 5mph to his fastball and improved his changeup due to the increased velocity alone. Plus his breaking pitches have supposedly gotten better. Winder could have 3 plus pitches at this point, and that's top of the rotation potential.

Several of them, but not the ones who are closest to MLB. This isn't throw all the prospects into the rotation and see what sticks. This is put 2 prospects who have dominated the upper minors into the 2 open rotation spots and rely upon the depth arms like Dobnak, Strotman and Jax if needed rather than log-jamming all the talent behind broken down retreads when the Twins aren't going to compete anyway. Either the Twins are going to be a team who builds through prospects or a team which builds through top name free agents. We know for a fact the Twins are not the latter. So if the Twins are going to build through prospects, they need to be willing to put prospects onto the MLB club. Ryan and Ober proved the validity of rotation arms coming up from the minors last year.

You're missing a lot. Like a lot, lot, lot. Like almost all of it. MLBPA dropped requests that the owners had already agreed with.