BeefMaster

One minor complication to calling up Albers - he's not on the 40-man roster (which is currently full), so they'd have to waive someone to do it. At this point, though, I don't really see any reason not to run Butera through waivers - Hermann appears to have passed him up on the organizational depth chart, and the fact that Butera's got a guaranteed contract for more than the minimum might dissuade other teams from claiming him anyway.

Maybe this doesn't count because it wasn't a particularly big contract or particularly good prospects, but the Twins have thrown salary relief into a trade before - they picked up most of Brendan Harris' contract when they dumped him on the Orioles in the JJ Hardy trade.

One thing that makes me skittish about trading Span: If you're going to trade an asset as valuable as Span, you need to make sure you're getting proper value in return for him. If they're looking at good-field-no-hit middle infielders or back-of-the-rotation starters, I'd just as soon hold onto him and deal Revere (who teams may value higher as a player on the rise, as much as I'd hate to see him go) or see if you can get someone to overvalue Morneau instead.

Is this actually true? I was under the impression that WAR calculations are scaled based on the percentage of a players' appearances at that position - for example, if Mauer gets 200 PA as a catcher, 200 PA at first, and 200 PA at DH, he'd then get 200 PA worth of the positional adjustment for each position when calculating his WAR. As thorough as FanGraphs and the like are in their calculations, that seems like a pretty obvious one - it's not like Mauer's the first guy to play more than one position in a season.

It's essential that they get someone called up tomorrow, so they can put him on the playoff roster!

This only applies to salary arbitration, not to contracts that are created outside that process. If Morneau agreed to it, the Twins could legally extend him for the league minimum; they would just have to agree to the deal either before offering arbitration or after Morneau becomes a free agent.

I don't think you can even consider giving Morneau a contract extension before next season (if even then). If Chris Parmelee is for real, Morneau's a man without a position, much like Parmelee is right now. If Parmelee turns back into a pumpkin next year, then Morneau might be worth giving another year or two, if the Twins don't have anyone else to put there. However, five years strikes me as borderline insane - frankly, any more than two years seems like too much, given his health history. Also, all this assumes that the Twins don't trade him for prospects next year - if the team isn't in contention, he's the most likely trade bait on the roster.

Seth, you can't mention "independent league Kansas City" and not point out that they're called the "T-Bones", which George Costanza will agree is an excellent nickname.

Not a big fan of the "no personal attacks" rule, just because it seems unnecessarily restrictive. Yeah, I get that "Jeff Gray is pitching poorly, as evidenced by his horrible xFIP" is much nicer to say than "Jeff Gray is a pile of horse excrement (because I can't say the s-word)", but there's some element of passion that comes with being a sports fan, and I think there should be some level of discretion there. In my internet forum experience, I think personal attacks on fellow posters are a far greater concern than personal attacks on public figures - while the latter certainly don't reflect well on the community, they're also generally nothing more than harmless venting in most cases. It's not a strong objection to the rule, but I think it's also something that seems a bit restrictive if it's enforced in a black and white manner. Ultimately, I think the last rule is the only truly necessary one - if there's something you guys think is inappropriate, for whatever reason, then do what you need to do. I'm not a terribly frequent visitor here, but I think I can speak for plenty of Twins' blogosphere consumers when I say that we trust you guys to make good decisions, regardless of formal policy.

The fact they have been outrighted means they must have cleared waivers, so you're probably right. That doesn't necessarily mean no one wants them - it means no one wants them at their current salary. If someone wanted to sign Blackburn to a minor league deal (or, less likely, a major league contract for the minimum salary) in the offseason, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the Twins would grant him his release to pursue that.

Thought experiment: Would the folks who are complaining about Mauer's approach be making the same complaints if Span took a walk in that situation? If not, why not?

I'd guess either of those reasons is behind it. Generally, if a player doesn't have enough seniority to decline a minor league assignment (which neither Nishi or Blackburn do), teams will go ahead and use them as AAA roster filler. You may as well get SOME value out of that sunk cost, and if nothing else they can buy when the team goes out to dinner. The Twins are generally good about granting a guy his release if he could get a shot with another team, but I'm reasonably certain neither of these guys are getting major league offers anytime soon.

If the strike zone varied side-to-side, that implies that home plate no longer defines the zone... that seems like a pretty huge change.

Mauer NEVER had a swing like Morneau's or Willingham's, even in 2009 - almost all his homers that year were line shots to the opposite field, most of which barely cleared the wall. He probably would've lost a bunch of homers if the Twins had left up the plexiglass in the Dome. He's never been a pull-for-power guy, and if the Twins thought that he would become that based on 2009, that was a colossal failure in scouting. Look at his numbers from 2009 to 2010, when he moved to a home park with deeper fences: In 2010, he hit 19 fewer homers but had 13 more doubles than in 2009. He was still driving the ball basically the same as before, but they weren't making it over fences as often. Between those two years, he lost 30 points of OPS on the road and 300 points of OPS at home.

Valencia is pretty clearly not as valuable a player as Span. Yeah, he's a better fit for a team that needs a third baseman, but a team that's in contention (and likely to be the other end of a rebuild trade) isn't likely to have a third baseman who's clearly worse than Danny Valencia.