ThejacKmp

This concussion wouldn't rob him of a hall of fame career, joe is already a hall of famer. Three batting titles and an mvp while playing gold glove defense at catcher for nearly a decade will get him in. It's unprecedented and puts him in the discussion for best hitting catchers of all time (and with not even a whiff of steroid use). He's a top-5 all time catcher for many, certainly top-10 for most anyone else. What this has almost certainly robbed him of is first ballot hall of fame, which he seemed on a trajectory towards. I can't even think of what he'd have to do to get back in that discussion. I think he'd have to take a late run at .400 or challenge dimaggios 56 games hitting streak to overcome the bitter taste the late career struggles will leave in voters mouths. Maybe some Jack Morris playoff magic (though that's much harder for a batter - particularly one unlikely to hit three or four home runs in a pivotal game. He'd need to hit like .650 in a World Series with multiple game winning hits? Maybe in several playoff series even?). I guess a few more batting titles could do it but again, that seems unlikely. But yeah, he will make the hall. It will take some time to build but the steroid era backup will be done by the time he hits the ballot and an honest look at his career will get him in in year 5-10.

I assume this means you couldn't find any evidence? Teams have scouts for very good reasons - they are vital to the business. But those scouts aren't you or me for a reason. You and I have no dependable "eye test" capabilities because it takes years and years in the field to build those up. However, you and I can sit down with stats and make some compelling points with little to no training beyond our high school math skills. That's why stats are more reliable on blogs (but not in real life, where they are just half of the equation). I cringe whenever I see someone in these forums relying on the "eye test" - it just means they can't be bothered to go find evidence. And it usually means that there isn't any evidence because they're just BSing.

But the eye test when its a guy posting on a blog doesn't really outweigh statistics. If a veteran scout or Twins coach said, "Danny Santana hits better when he plays OF" then I would say, "Hey that's interesting and potentially valid." But no scout or coach has said that because that's crazy talk. If you can find anything about where a guy plays in the field affecting his hitting, please post it. The 3 games is a small sample. Just like Danny Santana's 2014, which was inflated by his high BABIP and the newness factor - but not by how far from the dugout he ran when the Twins took the field.

Show me any stat or find me a quote that shows a correlation between a guy switching positions and hitting better. Because otherwise both of these make more sense than "He plays better in the OF": - He had an unnaturally high BABIP - He was new to the league and scouting reports hadn't adjusted yet Also, last year he played three games in CF. He hit .182/.250/.364/.614. Didn't act as an elixir there. The eye test does not create correlation and it certainly doesn't create a cause-effect relationship. Sano won't hit any different because he plays OF rather than 3B. He may field worse but he won't hit worse. And the Mauer comp isn't comical. A guy switched position (like Santana) and had a dropoff in success. But no one argues that he'd do better if he could just catch again. They blame rational things like age, his batting eye, injury etc.

With Santana you're ascribing a cause effect relationship when we don't even have a proven correlation. Hitting is independent of fielding by all known metrics. Santana hit in 2014 because he had a high BABIP, not because he played CF. That failed him next year but was not caused by him playing SS. Its the same thing with Mauer. He isn't suddenly going to hit if we catch him - his hitting struggles are explained by things which are not related to fielding position.

There is value in having a Danny Santana on your team all year long. If they can teach him all three OF spots (doable) and get him somewhat comfortable at 3B (less doable but less vital), that's a really valuable utility guy since he already is good enough for 2B/SS. And I think that value will stretch this entire year and through next year. The only real candidate to push Santana for the next two years is Polanco and I think the Twins see him more as an everyday middle infielder who might make Dozier expendable next year or fill in if Escobar struggles. After Polanco you're looking at guys like Levi Michael or James Beresford who don't look like improvements and can't play as many positions as Santana. I think Danny Santana looks like a Twin for the next two years - he's not amazingly good but his versatility is useful. I agree with the second part - I don't know that Santana will be on your team long term (three years from now) - but Santana has value now and will play a vital role on this team.

If we followed this advice there would be no Michael Cuddyer, no Aaron Hicks, no Trevor Plouffe. Guys develop late (see Dozier, Brian) and you can lose a ton of value by cutting people too quickly. The Twins shouldn't be blocking anyone to keep these guys but that's not really the case. Tonkin is a good a bet as anyone in the pen, Santana is your best utility guy and Arcia doesn't block anyone (you can have Buxton, Roasario and Sano all playing with Kepler developing in AAA and Santana as a late inning defensive sub for Sano.) In no case is keeping these three something that stops other guys who deserve it.

I think coin flip severely underrates Arcia's chances in a post-Hicksian world. I can’t see the Twins not keeping Arcia unless he absolutely implodes this spring training. Especially because Danny Santana making it means that one of their infield utility guys can also play OF relatively well. That means your 4th OF doesn’t need to be a defensive sub and there’s no one who can compete with Arcia as a bench bat (well Kepler, but he’ll start in the minors). That’s Arcia’s real time to worry – when Kepler is ready Arcia will be the guy who makes the most sense to go.

are you equally worried the Twins could be playing a shift and 3B Sano chases a pop fly into short left center field where he collides with CF Buxton? Cuz maybe Sano should catch so there's no way those two can ever collide. You can't base defensive lineups off of worst-case scenarios.

This first part may be true but I can't see the second. Santana fulfills a valuable role being able to play all over the field, I can't see them having a significantly better option at utility guy so I don't see how he's off the roster.

All of the criticism of Suzuki's inevitable fall back to earth is valid. That said, there weren't any better options out there so I can't fault the Twins too much for it. At least Suzuki gave a young pitching staff and locker room some continuity? I'm just glad that they have a new younger option who looks to have a good chance to be league average or maybe a bit better. Excited to see Murphy take the job over more and more as the year develops.

But hey, it doesn't really matter. Have a good weekend!

I read your post. You said "Suzuki was never that good of a hitter in MLB, he was always below average in Oakland by OPS+." You used OPS+ to say that he wasn't a very good hitter in MLB. I countered that OPS+ is perhaps a bad stat to use for discussing how good of a hitter a catcher is because it compares him to all positions and not just catchers. Then I offered a better way to decide if he was a good hitter at any point in his career, concluding that for the first three years of his career he was a good hitter. I don't see an issue. You sited OPS+ to talk about his hitting - I countered that OPS+ is not a fair way to measure a catcher's hitting.

Agreed. The one that bothers me the most is that any poor hitting infielder or catcher becomes a defensive wizard. Drew Butera was the best backstop ever and Nick Punto was robbed of so many Gold Gloves. That said, I imagine that there is some truth to workload wearing a catcher down. I just don’t think it trumps “he’s gotten old and was average to begin with.” They did give Pinto 7 starts compared to Suzuki’s 17 in September of 2014. So they lightened it some. The fact they didn’t do more might say more about their opinion of Pinto than Suzuki’s workload.

I read your post as you saying that the Twins were not a well-run team. Looking back I can see that maybe you were not saying and it's just worded in a way that leaves room for interpretation. My apologies if I focused on the well-run part and you meant that sarcastically. I think we end up on the same side of this - that the concept of rest being some magic elixir isn't really proven and that baseball teams do things for larger reasons that may not translate to OPS. Overall, I just find that criticisms of the Twins catching situation are overwrought. We got dealt a bum hand with Mauer's concussions and have played it relatively well all things considered. There hasn't been any panic and the Twins did okay with the Suzuki signings (yeah 2015 was bad but there really wasn't anyone better available so at least they got some continuity for the pitching staff and kept a respected veteran voice in a young clubhouse). There are things to criticize but catching isn't one of them. Sorry if I misinterpreted the tone of your post!

I don’t think it’s fair to say that Suzuki was never a good catcher by citing OPS+. That’s OPS+ compares him to all position players rather than to other catchers. Early in his career, Suzuki was a pretty good hitting catcher. That has of course faded, which is why the Twins were smart to go get his successor. To show this, here is Suzuki’s rank among catchers for each year of his career. I kept it to guys who caught over 100 games to weed out the occasional catchers. I imagine that means we missed some guys but they seem like pretty reasonable parameters. 2007: 9th out of 26 2008: 13th out of 24 2009: 8th out of 19 2010: 13th out of 20 2011: 17th out of 20 2012: 21st out of 24 2013: 22nd out of 26 2014: 11th out of 28 2015: 22nd out of 25 Those first three seasons he was a solid hitting catcher. After that he became slightly below average and then way below average (with the exception of 2014, a glorious year where the Twins got a bargain!) This isn’t to say that Suzuki is a great catcher or the future of the Twins – just that saying he was never a good MLB hitter is false. He was an above average hitting catcher at the beginning of his career.

This seems overly negative. I don't think you can say this is due to things being well-run or not - it seems like confirmation bias where you're looking to cast blame because it fits your thesis about the Twins front office. They may or may not be bad but the catching situation isn't the proof. Firstly, the concept that rest would help is just a theory, not something based on all of the facts. It also ignores that a catcher's hitting is not the biggest thing they do. Suzuki may not be the best defensive catcher but by all accounts he works well with the pitchers. The Twins have not had good backups the past few years (because most teams don't) and have been trying to develop young pitchers for the future so Suzuki has been the best choice most of the time. His hitting may have suffered but that's the price you pay. The real thing this comes down to is that the Twins were not ready to have Joe Mauer move out from behind the plate in the manner he did. We all knew he would eventually but I imagine the Twins plans didn't involve concussions and a sudden "he can play no more games at catcher ever" situation. They figured they could slowly phase him out from behind the plate over several years and cushion the blow of replacing the irreplaceable. He could even be the backup for a few years. What happened instead is just bad luck - you can't plan for everything. It was especially poor luck because the Twins had traded Ramos a few years before (in an aside, that trade has not been as bad as it should have been with Ramos not really developing into a stud catcher. But still bad.) With no good in house option the Twins were screwed. It's just hard to find a good catcher, there aren't that many of them. Unless the Twins were going to sign a Russell Martin (which they weren't and which likely wasn't a good idea anyways) or trade multiple key prospects for a very good catcher (which you probably shouldn't do when you're a rebuilding team), they were stuck trying to draft a catcher for the far future while working off of the scrap heap in the meantime. Suzuki was as good of a gamble as anyone else and it worked well one year and poorly another - pretty much what you'd expect. And the future looks good. I for one am glad the Twins took the approach they did this year. None of the many catchers they've drafted looks ready yet and they knew Suzuki was at the end of his tether. But they didn't swing for the fences by trading multiple key prospects for a Lucroy or someone like that. Instead they hit a single and traded from a position of strength to find someone who has a strong chance to be a league average catcher. You can make good arguments that they should have gone with some other catcher but Murphy is a defensible target. He likely won't be a star but he'll be a capable catcher for the next four or five years, giving the Twins time to develop their young guys. There are many things I think you can criticize the Twins Front Office for but the catching situation doesn't jump out to me as a big one. They got dealt a tough hand by the Mauer injury and they've made reasonable choices since then. The future looks reasonably bright, which is all you're really asking for.

I don't worry as much about not having a good third catcher and certainly don't blame TR. The Twins have never had a good third catcher - most teams don't. Chris Hermann, Drew Butera and Eric Fryer types are the typical third catcher. John Hicks is no better and no worse than that crew. It would be a waste of resources to have a good third catcher lined up (at least until MLB inevitable moves to expand rosters to 28). The Twins are actually in a much better spot at catcher than years past - you can make arguments for two guys to be league average catchers. Usually our backup can't hit his own weight.

I mean, let's cool down a bit. Carlos Quentin was signed with no risk to provide an insurance policy in the case of multiple injuries to start the year. If say, Sano tweaked a hammy and park struggles, Quentin is not a bad option to be the 4th or 5th of/dh for the first two weeks. The twins aren't going to lose Arica because of this.

I would much rather see the Twins take a shot at Johan Santana. His days of starting are over but wouldn't he be nice as a left handed reliever out of the pen, a place of need for the Twinkies? A nice little bookend to his career?

I hope you're not talking about Brian Dozier because the plural in "a penchant for hot starts and slow finishes" indicates that there have been more than one of these types of seasons which is categorically untrue.

Wait is professional baseball more white than youth baseball? I can't think that that is true. Hicks has spent his whole life dealing with race, I'm sure, but I can't see how professional baseball was suddenly some different beast. Yes Black and Latino players are also a minority. But there is a long history of African American players in the majors and a long history of African American players helping each other out. MLB teams are (belatedly) getting official Spanish translators for every team but most teams have had a coach and players who can help Latino players transition. Heck, it seems like half the Twins team now speaks Spanish, which is awesome. Before Kepler was signed, three Germans had been signed by MLB teams, all the year before. Only one was in the minors for over a year. He ran into no Germans at any stage of the minors - maybe a teammate who spoke a bit of high school German? The food was different, he was thrown into U.S. high school - he had to adjust to a whole new culture on the fly. At age 16. He basically did the transition Park will make next year (minus the language) but a decade younger. What bothers me about what you're saying is that it focuses so much attention on race rather than experience. Race plays a big part of experience but you're making it paramount. Aaron Hicks grew up in the United States and is comfortable with its culture. He's grown up in a baseball-centric world and spent his whole life playing against the same kinds of people he plays against in the minors. Professional baseball was a continuation of his experience to date. Kepler may be a pasty white dude but he'd had none of that experience and the transition to professional ball was absolutely more jarring. This isn't the place to have some discussion of what race means in baseball and society but I don't think Max Kepler being white detracts from the fact that he had to undergo a sudden cultural transition upon moving to the states that Aaron Hicks never did (if you want to view it through a racial cultural lens, he's spent his whole life transitioning into that culture).

Here is the evidence. Sorry to use ERA but FIP in the minors isn’t something I care to go find since baseball reference doesn’t have it. ERA is good enough, especially with the K rates. Elizabethton: Berrios (age 18) 1.29 ERA, 14.1 K/9 Duffey (age 21) 1.42 ERA, 12.8 K/9 Cedar Rapids: Berrios (age 19) 3.99 ERA, 8.7 K/9 Duffey (age 22) 2.78 ERA, 7.3 K/9 Fort Myers: Berrios (Age 20) 1.97 ERA, 10.2 K/9 Duffey (Age 22) 4.02 ERA, 6.0 K/9 New Britain/Chattanooga: Berrios (Age 20) 3.22 ERA, 8.2 K/9 Duffey (Age 23/24) 3.41 ERA, 7.6 K/9 Rochester: Berrios (Age 21) 3.08 ERA, 9.1 K/9 Duffey (Age 24) 2.75 ERA, 7.5 K/9 Duffey has also given up more HR/9 at every step of the way. The key thing to me is the age thing – Duffey is young to be making it to the bigs and Berrios is over three years younger but Berrios is still better the whole way up. Duffey still has had a very nice minor league career (he’s recovered nicely from a dip in strikeout rate which I'm sure has a rational "he was working on his changeup" explanation) but only one of these guys looks elite. Duffey is merely a very good prospect (for which we are grateful) while Berrios is a guy you can have Cy Young dreams about.

Duffey was promoted because he had more experience (AAA at the time) than Berrios (AA at the time), because the Twins didn't want Berrios to pitch too many innings and due to service time considerations – not because he was better than Berrios. You have to remember that Duffey originally came up for just a spot start or two due to injury but as he pitched well and guys who had been scuffling were unable to come back, the Twins stuck with him. It’s kind of a strange thing where the guy you're most excited about (Berrios) doesn't get the call because you don't want to start that clock for just a few starts (if someone had been done for the year I imagine you would have seen Berrios because it would be worth the service time/innings things to see him push the Twins towards the playoffs). To Duffey's credit, he took the chance and excelled, putting himself in a position where he'll need a terrible spring to not make the MLB rotation. (Which is funny because if the MLB staff had been healthy last year and Duffey wasn't called upon, he'd have no shot at the rotation this year because Berrios would be the guy up first - he'd be stuck as the second guy up). Don't get me wrong, I’m super stoked about Duffey and if he can turn into a solid #3 starter (or maybe a poor man’s #2?) it will be amazing for the Twins. His emergence is one of the best storylines of last year for the Twins. But he’s not better than Berrios. J.O. is three years younger and has been better than Duff Man at every step of the organizational ladder. He has borderline elite strikeout capability and again, is sniffing the majors at age 21. Berrios could be a #1 starter if everything breaks his way. Duffey is a fun prospect but Berrios is better in every sense of the word. Service time is the only thing holding him back at this point.

To follow up with Arcia being a more important part of the Twins long-term success than we might think, if Mauer continues to struggle (and I’ve still got hope he comes back but its fading fast!) and moves into some sort of a bench/platoon/elder-stateman role in 2017, Arcia provides some nice insurance. If he seizes the day this year at age 24, the Twins could have a super fun lineup in 2017: R Buxton CF L Kepler RF R Sano 3B L Arcia DH R Park 1B L Rosario LF R Dozier 2B S Escobar SS R Murphy C You can easily quibble about the order there since that’s super hard to predict a year out (Arcia in the 4 hole is a best case scenario, Rosario and Kepler could easily flip, Dozier in the 7 hole seems like something the Twins might not do to a veteran fan favorite) but that’s a really fun right handed/left handed mix however you arrange it. And there’s so much power there. That’s also not even taking into consideration guys like Vargas, ABW, Polanco, Danny Santana or a rebounding Mauer being in the picture. Arcia is a key guy for the Twins future who is a bit forgotten. Rosario and Kepler and maybe Mauer are all guys who could potentially be really good LH hitters in 2017 but none of them profiles to be a middle of the order 30 HR/yr slugger like Arcia. If he develops this year that lineup gets super scary in late innings when you can't match relievers on them easily.