SomeGuy

The last hearing I believe was 2018 with Kyle Gibson over 350k (which they also won).

The Twins should have some leverage here. Boston really wants to cut payroll before the season starts and LA needs mookie for their all in push especially after already trading Joc Peterson. The Twins should threaten to walk away.

MLB Trade Rumors has a reader poll on grading the trade from each teams prospective. I gave the Twins B, its a win now move that improves the team but not an earth shattering improvement. Gave up someone who will probably be good sometime in the future. In the context of win now this is a good trade, it might look worse in the future if people don't consider how this was a going for it move in 2020 and they only look at talent gave vs talent received. From the Dodgers prospective it is hard not to like it. But this is even more of a win now move than the Twins. I gave it an A but if they don't win the world series and lose Betts to FA then the long term outlook might favor the Red Sox. I am calling Price over Maeda as a wash, talent wise Price is better but they lose a year of control, pay him quite a bit, and he is older and showing it health wise. For the Red Sox I am using the context of they accomplished the goal of cutting payroll, they added two good young players that are MLB ready or really close. They got something for Betts before he tested Free Agency, much better return than a qualifying offer. I think they are planning more for 2021-2025 than 2020 and this is a nice trade for them. I gave them a B. As it stood when I took the survey Twins B 42% A 23.55% C 20.98% D 8.98% F 4.44% Dodgers A 63.28% B 26.32% C 7.31% D 1.62% F 1.47% Red Sox C 29.9% B 27.81% D 16.36% A 14.47% F 11.46% https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/02/grading-the-mookie-betts-trade.html

I think the post is saying he is most likely getting a one year deal. He should be looking for a one year deal to rebuild value, prove he is healthy, etc. I believe he wants to try FA again next offseason when he is not coming off a 1 inning season or 14 innings combined over 2 seasons. He isn't guaranteed to be a free agent again next offseason but I think it is the smart choice for him and pretty likely. His situation screams rebuilding team taking him for one season and trying to flip him for a prospect in July. He could join someone like the Mariners and not have much competition at all. If he is healthy and pitching okay he would probably get traded to a better team too. I could also see someone adding an attractive team option for 2021 to try to lure him but they would only pay that if he proved himself. If he proved himself he might be able to beat that option year and get a multi season contract next year. His decision should center on which team offers the best opportunity to pitch but I don't think that the Twins are that team. I would be happy if he did sign but I don't see the fit. He would be joining a competition for what might be only a 1st half gig. There has to be better opportunities out there (Seattle, Baltimore, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, etc,).

I would think Mike Fiers is the one who will lose clubhouse credibility from it. I wouldn't tell him any secrets if he was my teammate. He broke Omerta.

Unless the method used wasn't exclusive to home games.... The possibility presented by the electronic device conspiracy would pretty much enable anyone to do this anywhere. You could have someone in the stands sending signals directly to the batter etc. There is nothing to implicate the Twins but like PEDs it can be fair to wonder about things outside the known violations.

How do we know we weren't cheating is what he is saying. The Red Sox improved on the system in 2018 by eliminating the not so subtle trashcan approach the Astros used. For all we know Gonzalez found a new way too. It is believed that using tech to steal signs was more wide spread than 2 teams. He is just raising the question that maybe Marwin brought ideas of how to do that. Nothing suggests this actually happened but it could have happened. The Astros got away with it and we only found out because of a rat. Pretty much every player admits that if they can steal the other teams signs they will. So i don't think it is outside the realm of possibility that the Twins did but it is unlikely. Finding out that at a minimum 2 of the last 3 world series were won by teams cheating but not learning about it until well after the fact suggests how easy it is to get away with this.

An interesting note before saying that Marwins 2017 was solely a result of cheating, we know that the trashcan usage began mid season. Below are Marwin's splits for 2017. 1st half .308/.391/.576, wRC+ 160, BABIP .338 2nd half .299/.363/.485, wRC+ 128, BABIP .348 May was by far his best month with an insane .382/.461/.737, wRC+ 217 https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/texas-sports-nation/astros/article/How-the-Astros-cheating-scandal-played-out-14972308.php

There isn't much the league can do to the players now. Punishing them with suspensions would punish teams that were not part of it. If anything fine them but I think the GM and coach fell on that sword and it is over. They couldn't perfectly assess who was guilty or to what degree players were involved and now the collateral damage to innocent teams is a factor. Did Marwin Gonzalez have control over the guy banging on the trashcan or did they do that at their own discretion? Don't know. Why would the Twins want to void the contract? He is a major part of the team, I think we are happy with what he did last year. His line was almost identical to his career line. The Twins weren't expecting anything more than he did last year. The Twins should do nothing and enjoy another season. 2019 .264/.322/.414 Career .264/.319/.418 Separate thought. Had the Astros just accepted the punishment and kept both manager and GM on board for 2021, I think the Red Sox and Mets would have done the same thing. Their owner wanted so badly to disassociate himself from it that he set the precedent for punishment. The League did a thorough investigation and thinks just 1 year fits the crime.

Summary from Jim Callis at the time of the draft last year. Callis: “Hunter McMahon is a red-shirt sophomore, 6’3’’, 185, former Tommy John guy, has had Tommy John in his past, but it’s a good arm action, he’s up to 94, sinking and boring action on the fastball, he’s got good life on the changeup too, and a curveball in the upper 70s with some nice break on it as well, so he’s kind of interesting."

We don't know for sure what levels of interest he has received. Maybe he is sitting on major league contract offers. The rumor mill is running on very little information here. I wouldn't take the Twins interest in a non roster invite as the entire market's mindset. It is likely that he is taking a lot more into consideration than just accepting any offer thrown his way. He is probably looking at teams training staffs, what pitching plan they would think is best (innings limit, planned skipped starts), best path to a rotation spot, etc.

Listed as an acute strain which he appears to be completely healed from....

But there are many other teams with much clearer paths to the rotation where he doesn't have 5 veterans and 2-4 other candidates to compete with. He shouldn't pick a destination where he is banking on injuries or a short suspension to open a spot for him. He needs to pitch as much as possible to reestablish himself and he will want a rotation spot that is all but guaranteed. The Twins can't offer that.

The trouble with needing him most in the first quarter of the season is that he is likely to show some rust after missing the last 2 seasons. I wouldn't view the Twins as having an easy spot for him to claim especially in the 2nd half of the year. The worst thing for him personally would be to waste another year because he was passed up on the depth chart for a contending team that can't afford to have patience with any rust or an ineffective starter. If he isn't cutting it and we ask him to move to the pen or AAA it would be a blow to him next offseason too. He seems like a great candidate for a rebuilding team. He wants to KNOW that he will have a spot for the full season to rebuild his value. I'm guessing a rebuilding team grabs him with the hopes of flipping him in July. He isn't in the position to pick the team that gives him the best chance at the post season or world series right now.

Those "major calf injuries" are listed as Left calf tightness and left calf strain. Sounds like you're over-selling them. Last year, he did not hit the IL with any calf injury. If you are referring to him missing a game or two with soreness in April and he went on to have a healthy and great season then what is the big deal? Players miss a day or two with soreness all the time.

I wouldn't really categorize Donaldson as at the "tail end" of his career. He will be younger than Cruz is now at the end of the 5 year deal. I expect the Twins to use the same caution with trading prospects going forward. They will pull the trigger on some trades if we are in a position to win but they won't overpay or leave us in a position where the farm system is not a strength.

I would rather see the AL drop the DH. Every position needing to bat seems like the purest form of baseball. Most catchers are terrible hitters too, should they get a sub? If we can't stand to watch pitchers hit why let these guys hit? Some teams are okay with having a great fielding catcher that is awful at hitting because they view the position as that important defensively. There are a few all around great catchers but most are a balancing act of can his defense justify his lack of offense or can his offense justify how badly he hurts us with his defense. This balancing act is present in every position but more so in catcher which is easily the worst hitting position. Maybe we can adopt the beer league softball rules of courtesy runners too. I think pitchers could be better hitters if teams put more effort into developing pitchers into hitters. Maybe Ohtani and the handful of prospects that are being allowed to try to stay at both will change that. Hopefully these pitchers will see a pay advantage in the NL if they prove to be a passable hitter too justifying more pitchers to focus on their hitting.

We haven't seen anything suggesting that it was used on the road and I'm not sure how easily that could have been done. Personally I doubt they used the system on every pitch of every home game anyway because that would seem too obvious. If the batter can hear the trashcans then the pitcher and catcher probably can too. Some pitcher or catcher would have caught on if trashcans were hit every time an offspeed pitch was called. We have no idea how often it was used but I'm guessing it was less than people think. Probably key moments of key games. A couple of caveats to the Ryan Pressly bit, his ERA was 6.11 before the May Home games against Houston, he was already in a poor stretch. I really doubt the Astro's used this system continuously throughout games when they were thrashing an opponent like those 2 games against the Twins (16-8 and 17-6), unless they wanted to get caught. He later pitched 2 scoreless outings in Houston for what its worth. According to the Houston Chronicles the sign stealing operation was not on a direct to batter level in May when Pressly got lit up by the Astros. Start of 2017 season: Employees in the Astros’ video replay review room begin using the live feed from the center-field camera to attempt to decode and transmit opponents’ signs. Astros bench coach Alex Cora begins to call the replay room to obtain sign information. Circa June 2017: A group of Astros players, including veteran Carlos Beltran, discuss improving the sign-stealing operation and communicating them directly to batters. The trash-can banging system to communicate pitches begins.

Darvish had one bad performance in Houston but that was directly after he had an equally bad outing in LA. It wasn't the first time he stunk it up in the post season either as he pitched poorly in his only 2016 playoff game as well. From my understanding it was beating on the trash can meant an offspeed pitch is coming, doesn't Darvish have like 8 offspeed pitches with differing velocity and movements? Then he got a big contract anyway, one the Cubs probably regret. There isn't a way to assess the scope that this caused but I don't think any pitcher lost a substantial amount in arbitration because of a few innings against Houston. Arbitration is more complicated then one bad outing causing a player to lose substantial amounts of money. And if we found any players that were actually sent down after playing houston at home, it probably wasn't going to hinge on that game. You don't tell a prospect "if you can't perform against the best offense in their home ballpark, then you don't have what it takes." IF there was even anyone sent down after playing them it was probably a depth move to begin with. The player to player effects are likely minimal (aside from the benefits the Astros saw in ARB and FA) and the only real concern is whether or not they would have won the WS without it.

Sports Illustrated had this tidbit indicating that at least 8 teams might have been guilty of this. In the kind of informational archeology reminiscent of The Steroid Era, baseball is learning what happens when “gaining an edge” pushes into new frontiers. Two sources familiar with the investigation, which lasted three months and included more than 70,000 e-mails and 60 interviews, said various Astros personnel told MLB investigators about eight other teams who used technology to steal signs in 2017 or 2018–such was the culture of the time. This reminds me of the Pineda pine tar incident where it was so painfully obvious that the league had no choice but to oppose it. They were probably telling him couldn't you just put it in your glove like everyone else.

This is a league with dozens of active domestic abusers, steroid users (cheaters), etc. I expect them to land on their feet in 2021. We just signed Pineda who is currently serving a suspension for cheating, how is that any different? Nelson Cruz cheated as well but he was forgiven and many teams have wanted him on their team since then. Plus this situation is more guilty by association since there doesn't appear to be evidence of them planning or orchestrating the sign stealing directly. Hinch deserves the suspension more than Luhnow but I think both continue their careers immediately after this is over. When teams fire their coaches or gms this year they will surely think about how effective Hinch and Luhnow were when sifting through the other fired or inexperienced candidates available. Luhnow “As the Commissioner set out in his statement, I did not personally direct, oversee or engage in any misconduct: The sign-stealing initiative was not planned or directed by baseball management; the trash-can banging was driven and executed by players, and the video decoding of signs originated and was executed by lower-level employees working with the bench coach. I am deeply upset that I wasn’t informed of any misconduct because I would have stopped it.” Hinch "As a leader and Major League Manager, it is my responsibility to lead players and staff with integrity that represents the game in the best possible way," Hinch said in part of his statement. "While the evidence consistently showed I didn’t endorse or participate in the sign stealing practices, I failed to stop them and I am deeply sorry. MLBTR In brief: Manfred found that a 2017 scheme to convey signs to batters in real-time “was, with the exception of Cora, player-driven and player-executed.” An ensuing effort “to decode signs using the center field camera was originated and executed by lower-level baseball operations employees working in conjunction with Astros players and Cora.”

Any guesses on who scoops them up for 2021? Hinch - Seattle or Detroit? Luhnow - Colorado?

It may not be accurate to position this development as the result of Minnesota’s disinclination toward spending at a certain level—rather, Donaldson may simply have another preferred destination in mind, with the Braves and Nationals reported as two other clubs that have made four-year offers. Miller’s sources indicate that Donaldson “has not appeared interested in signing with Minnesota, and the team has begun investigating other options.” -Trade Rumors

His AB weren't too low but I agree with your point about his injuries limiting his 2019 production a little. 2014 285 2015 344 2016 484 (2017 455) 2018 489 2019 425

Remove his 2017 season and he had a typical season last year. I don't really view him as a bounceback candidate, but a solid utility player. fWAR 2014 1.3 2015 1.5 2016 0.4 2018 1.5 2019 1.4 OPS 2014 .727 2015 .759 2016 .694 2018 .733 2019 .736 wRC 2014 37 2015 46 2016 53 2018 66 2019 56