by jiminy

If they really replace the juiced ball with the playoff game as rumored, a lot of guys are going to have bounce back seasons. Good time to take a flyer on some. Smyly has two things that could have been temporary issues -- injuries and the juiced ball. I can see how he could have huge upside as a low risk/high reward candidate. Another guy MLBTR likes for a rebound is Tanner Roark. He's not on this list because he never crashed, and isn't cheap. But they point out he fell from a sub-3 ERA to 4-plus, despite a career high K/BB ratio last year, almost entirely from the long ball. He just got 2/24M from the Jays, which is not peanuts, but I would not be that surprised if he outperforms Bumgarner next year, if MadBum comes to the AL.

Gunnarther's points are all well taken. I would just add a few additional points on the positive side. Regarding your conclusion, "most of the success is because of the players, not the FO or ownership," I think the front office deserves some credit for player development. The hitting and pitching coaches they hired appear to have contributed to significant improvements in velocity and pitch selection among the pitchers, and to improved pitch selection among the hitters. For instance, was Odorizzi undervalued when they traded for him, or appropriately value and he improved while here? Either way reflects well on management. Likewise you credit them for "letting guys like Polanco and Kepler play," which I agree was a bold and correct decision (not to mention correctly assessing their potential and locking them up long-term, which now looks brilliant!) But stating it that way implies that playing time alone was all they needed to become stars. That may be true, but the fact is they improved notably, as did several other hitters, and such is improvement is far from inevitable, suggesting they were also well coached. Perhaps most impressive is the dramatic improvement of relievers like Duffey, May, and Rogers. At the beginning of the year I thought the failure to upgrade the bullpen was egregious malpractice and would doom the season. By the end of the season their bullpen was above average, and those three guys look like core contributors. I'm very impressed by that. They also got contributions from Littell, Dobnak, and Smeltzer, while pulling the plug at appropriate times on Harper, Parker, Magill, and Hildenberger. I'd still like to see Hildy and Romero blossom, but I'm glad they weren't throw out there when we needed wins and weren't delivering. My main point is, while it's definitely significant that 7 of their top 10 WAR players were acquired by previous management, and I'm glad to have that pointed out, I don't think it's inevitable that those previously acquired players would have become so productive without the new coaches. I can't tell how much credit should go to the players and how much to the coaches, and I think you're right to give most to the players. But I do think the player-development staff made a contribution as well, and based on last year, they seem to be good at bringing out the best in their players. And that gives me a great deal of hope for the future.

I don't know if I'd trade Balazovic for Price straight up. Probably not. As you say he's not an ace and is on the downswing, and is expensive. Balazovic has very high upside and will be cheap for years. If Price were an ace who could make you a favorite in a playoff series, maybe, but what starting pitcher on a playoff team would he be favored against? One year of Betts at least has appeal, because he could be a difference maker in the playoffs. But then he's gone. Maybe Polanco and Sano? But only because they have question marks. Either or both could make this deal look very one sided, starting in one year and lasting well into the decade. At least that's a genuine win-now move, though, unlike Price. But it still seems like a lot of downside and only limited upside. I get the rationale for acquirin both because getting Betts is pointless unless you seriously upgrade the rotation. I just don't think he's an ace. Let's see them land an ace or two, and then I'll start getting interested in win-now moves. But adding Betts to a team whose second best pitcher is ... I don't even know, is more of a sinking feeling than a thrill to me.

Here is that article Parker linked to via tweetb above https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/automated-strike-zone-whiffs-at-arizona-fall-league/#.XcAgSIRkfNg.twitter Thanks, very interesting! I think those unexpected stikes that just clip the front or the back of the zone are something people will get used to. If they can adjust to a new strike zone every game, they can get used to a consistent one. And if r consensus is it really seems too big, they can change the rule. If you don't like the rules, don't break them, change them. And as several commenters pointed out, a four second wait for the call is not a four second delay. Catchers don't wait to throw the ball back till they hear the call. And umpires don't shout the call simultaneously with the ball's arrival now. In any case to speed of the computer will only increase. Really, though, the best solution would be to flash the call immediately on the scoreboard. The ump could still shout it out too. But it makes no sense for the computer's call to go only to him. It should flash red or green on the scoreboard the second it registers. Problem solved. The only reason to make the whole stadium wait for him to relay it is to cater to the umpires' egos. Which is exactly what we are trying to get rid of. If the ump thinks there was a glitch and wants to review it he can call for a replay. But there's no reason to delay every call so the ump can think about whether he wants to overrule it, or worse yet, overrule it without even letting people know!

Fair, accurate, consistent calls? The horror! The vaunted "human element" is nothing but mistakes, bias, and petty shows it dominance. The wrong call is never preferable to the right call. Period. I can't wait.

I'm tired of being expected to fawn over Buxton for how hard he plays. As I see it, he routinely and intentionally risks injury in unnecessary and counterproductive ways. Who does that benefit? Not the team. It almost cost the Twins the division this year. That's not heroism, that's selfishness. The idea that he is willing to risk his body for the benefit of his team and his teammates is the opposite of what I see. He is risking his team's success for the benefit of his ego. The team had to ask him to play deeper so he wouldn't crash into the walls so hard? How about just stop crashing into walls so hard? But no, instead he puts on 30 pounds of muscle, from some delusion that makes him injury proof? And no one can call him on it or what, he'll pout? It's embarrassing. If you want to talk about who is exploiting the service time rules, how about Buxton intentionally damaging his team's prize asset, his body, knowing that he will continue accruing service time even while on the shelf? I think Buxton is one of the best players in the league, but I would have serious reservations about signing him to a long term contract unless there was a significant discount based on injury risk. According to his past history, you should expect to get about half the games you pay for from him. That's how much he should be projected to be worth going forward. Anyone who pays him what he's worth at his best for seven years, not for his actual history of intermittent production, is going to get hosed. I've seen no indication from him he intends to protect himself. Even estimating you'll get half the games you pay for is optimistic, because that's assuming he keeps getting back on the field after each injury. Look how long his shoulder took to heal. And he's young and healthy. As the damage accumulates, he'll come back slower and slower, as in, slower to heal, and less productive. Look what concussions did to Mauer, Morneau, and Koskie. What are Buxton's chances of playing as long as they did, at this rate? Morneau and Koskie retired early, and Mauer had to move to first base. Buxton isn't moving to first base. He's either going to have agree to pull up and let a ball drop now and then, or he's going to be out of the league by age 30. The idea that he got screwed out of service time in a year he hit .156/.183/.200 while playing in 28 games is crazy. Yes, he's an all-world fielder, when healthy. Yes, he has tantalizing spurts of good hitting. But I don't think he should have even been on the big league team until he proved he could hit major league pitching. When your team is as bad as the Twins were, why promote a guy before he's ready? He was promoted too early in hopes that he would learn to hit in the majors. It didn't work. He should have been in AAA until he was ready to hit consistently. His major league service time should have been earned when he was actually contributing to his full potential, and the team was good enough for it to matter. I think he'd have made more money over all if he had been allowed to focus on learning his trade in AAA and was promoted when he was ready to be a star. His arb numbers would be huge, and his free agent payday would be monstrous, if his track record was that of a star from day one, not a spotty disappointment with flashes of potential spread over five years. The only reason he was in the majors was to dangle something worth watching in front of the disheartened fans of a 90 loss team. A number one prospect in baseball shouldn't take five years to break a .728 OPS. I think the Twins have been wasting his service time, personally. I don't think he accrued too little service time in the past five years, I think he accrued way too much.

To me the only player I can see the team crumbling if they lost him is Berrios. There are so many good hitters that no one of them is indispensable. Berrios is the only indispensable player on the team, IMO. The other player they could not have done without this year is Rogers. I know the hitters carried the team; as a group they are clearly why they won the division. They just had so damn many of them! Doesn't mean any one of them didn't contribute hugely. It just makes any one of them less crucial. When you have five 30 HR guys, losing one means you still have four. The team doesn't fall apart. Take out Cruz and you still have seven 20 homer guys and ten in double digits! You could live without him. I'm fine with saying it's Cruz, or Kepler, or any if those guys. They all came up huge. Just depends what you mean by most valuable. If it means, couldn't have done it without then, I'd put Berrios and Rogers above them. If it means, how much did they contribute, you have a wonderful problem because so many contributed so much. But my top five would probably be Berrios, Rogers, Kepler, Cruz... and then either Odorizzi, Polanco, or Garver. Damn, that's a solid team when Sano and Buxton don't make your top eight! No disrespect to them!

The A's are not tearing it down. They have an affordable, playoff-level roster, to whom they are adding Luzard, Puk, and Manaea, virtually free. They are like the Twins but with three low-cost ace pitchers already in the fold. They made the playoffs the last two years with a rotation of castoffs. Next year they are going to be monsters, without even straining their budget. But most other teams would happily lower payroll if given young prospects in return. We are extremely well positioned to pick up a costly veteran in a salary dump. We could throw in a high-upside minor league pitcher like Duran or Alcala who they could sell to their fans as a better long-term investment in their rotation, which would probably be true, and we could get an ace. And we probably should, since our offense is ready now. Let's just hope it's not Archer redux. The truth is we could afford Cole as a free agent, and two more good veterans. That 70M in unspent budget still would leave payroll well below 50% of revenue. They could afford to spend well more than that while making record profits. They socked away quite a lot during the losing years, claiming they were waiting for the competitive window to open to spend. Well it's open. Time to spend. Adding a reliever or two might be wise too. Graterol should be in the minors developing as a starter. To compete sustainably they'll need a few pitching prospects to turn into underpaid aces. Hopefully he and Balazovic pan out, so when our lineup gets pricey and we start losing hitters, the rotation will provide enough cheap innings to stay competitive. And guys like Lewis, Larnach, Kiriloff, Rooker, and Javier can replace the hitters who hit free agency.

Two games, not to games

I agree that to be down to games without getting your best pitcher off the bench is troubling. Was there a more important time in the series than bases loaded in the third? Why not use Rogers then? To save him for a potential save station makes no sense. That inning cost them the game and probably the series. Rogers was their best chance of getting out of that jam.

The only way Perez would have a prayer against the Yankees would be if he surprised them with a completely different pitch selection than in his past few months. That would be a creative strategy: throw him out there for three bad months with a terrible mix of pitches and pitch locations, then switch it up in the playoffs. Maybe those first 7 effective starts were an experiment that worked so well that when they got a big lead, they put the strategy under wraps to save till October. Hmm. If the options are believing that or starting Dobnak, I'm taking Dobnak.

Wow, that was a very compelling argument! Well done. The combination of spacing out the bullpen games, and starting a right-handed, ground-ball pitcher in Yankee stadium, does indeed seem like a sensible approach. I can't think of a better option.

Garver at first sounds great! Especially if they can re-sign Castro. It lets you play both without giving up the DH in case of injury, and gets more ABs for Garver, while protecting again concussions and knee damage.

When you put it that way, I'm thinking, no? Seriously, that is kind of odd.

Nice that the only reliever they used was Dobnak, who pitched the final three innings. Everyone else got a rest.

I'd love to see him get a little rest. If they still had a 10 game lead he'd be on the IL, resting up for the playoffs. But even in the thick of a pennant race, I'd still rest him. He's not helping much when he's getting hammered.

Or we could have landed some washed up, proven veteran who is off the team by now for Kepler, Polanco, Garver, and Rosario. Or would you rather we had traded Berrios and Buxton? Where would we be then? The ONLY hope for this team to compete for championships is for several prospects to strike gold. We will never, ever pay for a star at every position like the Yankees and Dodgers can. I was against trading Graterol, Balazovic, Duran and Alcala for some slightly above average, soon to be expensive starter and closer at the deadline because while that MIGHT have helped us in the playoffs this year, those guys are our ONLY chance at having a playoff quality rotation in three years. We'd never buy one ace let alone three on the open market, and if even we did, we couldn't afford to keep all our young hitters. We are about to have a starting pitching crisis as early as next year. We have one young, cost-controlled, playoff quality starter. We need a bunch of young pitchers to pan out, for cheap, and for the long term, or we will soon be watching our historically great lineup stroll away for greener pastures. So sure, if you knew in advance Gonsalves, Romero, Stewart, and Jay would be the ones who wouldn't pan out, and traded them, while savvily holding on to Berrios, Rogers, Kepler, Buxton, Rosario, Polanco, Garver, then you'd have outsmarted the world. But generally the guys you want to keep are also the guys other teams want. I don't remember anyone beating down the door for Gonsalves. There were always worries his stuff wouldn't play above AAA. Same with Stewart. Jay was always a questionable pick who failed first as a starter and then again as a reliever. When was he worth an ace? Stewart was a high school pitcher who flopped. There was one year where Romero was a hot commodity. He could have landed something. So could Berrios, though. Should we have traded him while his value was high, too? Trading Romero while his value was high looks great now that he can't even get AAA players out. But he never was a sure thing. His control always was, and still remains, questionable. He never had the years of sustained success in the minors that Berrios had. I think he was a bit overhyped because we were desperate. Still, he was ranked very highly for a brief period, and could have netted something. But not an ace. Another interesting thought experiment would involve trading Buxton and Sano when they were both top five prospects in the entire league. That's about the only way we could have gotten a long-term, cost-controlled ace. In retrospect, that looks pretty good. They are both long-term injury risks, and will both cost a truckload of money to keep long-term. They may yet be MVPs but we'd have to pay them for it. And Buxton seems dead set on smashing himself into things, while Sano seems destined to tear a hammy or hurt his back picking up his glove. Even after trading them (at peak value) you'd still have most of the lineup that is tearing up the league today, and could afford to keep them around a while--nd the money it will cost to sign those two long-term could go to extending the ace we traded them for. Wow, I guess I've circled back to your point after all! Maybe trading a few guys at peak value is the way to go. But I still don't think the four guys you mentioned would have landed the big fish you wanted. None of them ever had much trade value except Romero, and that was just for one year. He came out of nowhere and quickly flamed out. He was never going to land an ace all by himself; the odds were better of him becoming one than netting more than a reliable receiver or middle of the road starter. And honestly, high velocity hurlers with poor control are a dime a dozen. I'd love for him to live up to the hype and lead us to a title, but I'm not holding my breath.

re: "there are people who think the concept of sportsmanship is entirely outdated" Since when is responding with violence to an unknowing violation of some obscure, dubious etiquette rule "sportsmanship"? True sportsmanship would involve experienced players explaining to their younger teammates how to show respect for their opponents, and if a rookie unintentionally offended someone, having them apologize. Which is exactly what the Twins did. Sportsmanship is not angrily trying to impose your will on others through violence and intimidation, especially if they meant no harm and/or did nothing wrong.

The pitcher should have been ejected. You can't just assault somebody because they hurt your pride. Grow up.

Rest him!!! What's the point of making the playoffs if your ace is a wreck? But it's not like resting him would cost them the playoffs. The improvement over the stretch run would likely make up for the missed starts.

The wild card is no sure thing now either. They are just 1.5 ahead of the Rays, and 4.0 ahead of Oakland. Oakland could add Puk, Manaea, and Luzardo, and they have been almost as hot as Cleveland without them. If Cleveland doesn't cool off they might not even make the one-game playoff.

Buxton's refusal to take care of his body could literally cost them the division. I wonder if that would finally cause him to reassess his recklessness.

Actually I do think it's a smart plan. Many, many people were howling for them to trade guys like Graterol for bullpen help. They took a lot of heat for refusing. I'm glad they held out. Graterol might contribute more to the bullpen THIS YEAR than a trade target like Dyson. But if we'd shown we were serious about winning now, we'd either lose that reliever next year, or pay him a market rate salary, completely offsetting the chance to hire a similar reliever for the same salary as a free agent. Instead, we have six years of cost-controlled pitching from a guy who already touches 100mph at age 20 and could be part of a playoff-quality rotation for years to come. I'll take that trade any day. Or in this case, that non-trade. I'm hoping to see Graterol in the pen this year for the pennant run and playoffs, and in the rotation with Balazovic and Duran two or three years from now. In the meantime, rookie relievers often start really strong and can be difference makers in the playoffs. Not a sure thing obviously but neither is Dyson, or Greene, etc.

Another example is the Archer trade. I think most trade offers you just need to be able to walk away. I'd rather see the Twins as they look now, with the only help coming form the minors, than their future gutted for a dubious star like Archer or Edwin Diaz.

Is there any chance someone like Graterol or Duran might make a late season appearance in the Twins' bullpen?