ThejacKmp

I guess you could argue that the Twins might want to keep Suzuki and try to trigger the option since it would be only 1 year and $6 million and they'd want that since they have no one. However there are a lot of holes in that: (1) As indicated above, it's hard to get Suzuki to 485 plate appearances. One DL stint or even one minor injury that costs him three days and you have no shot. You'd get nothing for him and he's a free agent anyway. (2) The $6 million seems about the most Suzuki's going to make this offseason on the open market. And even if it bumps up to $8 million for example, you'd have to think the Twins would value the prospect they get back more than the outside chance it costs them $2 million more to sign Suzuki. (3) I guess you could argue that Suzuki is going to get more than one year as a free agent, which the Twins may not want. That still seems unlikely since he's 33 going into next year with over 1200 games on his knees and a pretty poor track record for ongoing success. He seems to be in the "1 year deal with a team/vesting option" territory from here on out. And if he isn't and some team gives him 2 guaranteed years, well, you can always get someone similar on a 1 year deal. (4) The Twins don't have great internal options for next year but JRM is a decent option for a bounce-back year and Mitch Garver is doing okay in AA. Neither is amazing but either could be a backup/platoon catcher to a vet you bring in and potentially take the starting job. Trade Suzuki. If they can get Palka for Hermann and Miguel Sulabran (later traded for Eduardo Nunez) for Drew Butera, they can get something worthwhile for a half-season of Suzuki.

I think the keeping Suzuki vs. trading him is a moot point since he has very little chance of vesting his 2017 option by getting 485 at bats. He currently has 212 plate appearances while appearing in 59 games which comes out to about 3.5 plate appearances per game - that's a bit below the average 8 or 9 hitter (who hits about 3.8 times per game) but not unusual since catchers often are pulled for a pinch hitter or get credit for a game appearance when they only catch the last inning or two. Suzuki is unlikely to hit above the 8 hole for any contending team he is traded to. Most teams have played 89 games at the break, which leaves 73 games to go. If Suzuki started 90% of his team's remaining games (that seems unlikely but could happen) and we bump him up to 4 at bats per game (again unlikely but we're creating a most-plate-appearances scenario here), he'd end up with 263 additional plate appearances. That gets him 475 for the year, still 10 under his limit. And again, that's assuming 4 plate appearances instead of 3.5 and 90% of games played. It also assumes that the team that traded for him sees him as more than a one-year solution and isn't actively trying to keep him under 485 plate appearances. If the Twins want Suzuki back next year, they will be able to get him on the free agent market. Wanting him for next year is no reason not to trade him.

Ha ha. I'm not sure if I'd've is technically grammatically correct but I personally love it and fully endorse your use. And that's an amazing record with papers - I think you should be more proud of that than those who write an actual book. Well done avoiding writing papers, they are the worst.

I also love reading these reports - they keep me coming back in this dreadful season. That said, this headline is super deceiving. Berrios didn't almost no-no, he gave up a hit in the 7th and then was pulled. Almost no-no is when a guy gets into the ninth (or maybe eighth if he finishes the ninth?) Keep up the good work!

No offense intended and I'm not trying to start a fight - I agree with the content of what you're saying. But my grammar-OCD forces me to say it's "I'd have", "would it have" and "I would have" instead of "I'd of", "Would it of" and "I would of". It really changes the strength and meaning of your point so I though I'd point it out in case it's just a part of English class you zoned out in (understandable, English classes are often boring - especially grammar ones). Apologies if this comes across rude, it just needed to be said or it would bother me all day. Mazel tov!

This article made me go look at Hrbek on Baseball Reference where I saw he was 2nd in the MVP race in 1984. What a weird year for the AL. The first and third place guys were closers who saved 32 and 44 games. Willie Hernandez seems to have won it because Detroit won 104 games (though Kirk Gibson would likely have been a better choice if that was your criteria - Hernandez only saved 32 games and had a K rate under 1 per inning). Quisenberry finished third even though his K/9 was an anemic 2.9 (2.9!!!!!) - likely because his Royals won their division with 84 wins and there doesn't seem to be a better representative. Hrbek is an okay choice for second but you could make similar arguments for Murray (#4), Mattingly (#5) or Winfield (#8). All three of those guys played for above . 500 teams so there's nothing too amazing for Hrbek, whose Twins finished .500. Perhaps the fact that the AL East race as a romp while the mediocre AL West was close mattered? Perhaps the weirdest thing is that while Cal Ripken hit the same number of HRs as Hrbek, played every game (duh) vs Hrbek's 149 and had a .884 OPS versus a .906 OPS while playing SS versus 1B, he finished 27th in the MVP voting, showing up on only one ballot. His Orioles had a better record than the Twins and though he finished 20 RBI behind Hrbek, he also scored 20 more runs so it doesn't seem like counting stats would be that big of a deal. Ripkin had a WAR 2 points higher than the next player receiving votes. I know MVP wasn't based on modern stats but you would think that Ripkin would do better hitting .304 with 27 home runs, playing 162 games, scoring over 100 runs and driving in 86 runs for a team over .500. Super weird MVP race.

JT Chargois hasn't distinguished himself? I know he had 2/3 of a bad inning in the majors but we can all agree that's a small sample right? In 26.1 minor league innings this year he has an ERA of 1.02 and has struck out 36 (12.3 K/9) and walked only 9. Last year he put up a 2.62 ERA with a 9.9 K/9 and only 25 walks in 48 innings. There is absolutely no reason to think that JT Chargois will not be the Twins closer of the future. He has better stats than Nick Burdi and is closer to the bigs.

If he had allowed two three-run homers, his numbers would look average as well. We can't fault guys for home runs they haven't given up

This may be stupid but since an unsigned pick becomes a compensatory pick one slot lower in the next year's draft, is there any point to the Twins saying, "Screw you Braves, we're picking Ian Anderson 15th and offering him $2 million"? Ian Anderson then has to decide if he wants to be in the majors or go to junior college and wait a year. The Twins either get the same pick next year (small loss of a season of development but not too awful - especially for a loaded system like the Twins who don't desperately need the infusion of talent right away) or get a very good prospect who agrees to sign for $2 million because he wants to start his pro career. And they screw over the Braves. Perhaps the reason not to do this is it hurts your reputation with prospects and agents? Though I can't see how, it's gaming the system the same way the Braves would be.

And if he does, you can no longer afford him because he's a year away from free agency, has done it two years in a row and you're competing with every other team in the league. You just don't get that same deal if you wait a year - you'd be paying $20 million per year. The Twins aren't going to do that - if they wanted to keep Phil Hughes longer, after that season was when to do it, right or wrong. The Twins didn't extend him into his mid 30s, they extended him a few years of his early 30s - gambling that Phil could remain a #1/#2 and would at least be worth a #4 if he regressed some on HR or BB rates. It turned out to be a worst case scenario but hey, that's life. You take risks and hope they pan out. This one was reasonable and the outcome doesn't make it a bad one.

I'm saying go look at all of the free agent catches. Outside of trading for Lucroy or signing Russell, it was a bunch of retreads and guys who profile to be similar to Suzuki. And yeah, some have performed better. But the point is that before you had the benefit of hindsight, none of them looked like they would provide substantially better performance than Suzuki. Catchers who become available, almost by definition are pretty weak hitters with a lot of miles on them. Suzuki wasn't a great choice but there weren't a lot of good options. It's kind of like when you're buying a $1000 car. Yeah in hindsight you could have bought the civic which ran another three years but there was no way of knowing that the civic was better than the accord - they were both $1000 cars.

Sorry, was at a wedding all weekend. I'm glad you found the article but I don't see much in there that changes my mind. I'm always siding with a guy knowing his body well enough to know he doesn't have it. If the pen had done its job, this wouldn't be much of a story. We're once again looking to assign blame in hindsight. That said, the Twins should be sending him to the pen after hearing this. If you're not feeling well enough to go more than 70 pitches, it's pen time.

Disagree on all of those being “paying for a career year”: Mauer: you had to sign Mauer. You built the stadium in large part because you argued that you couldn't keep Santana/Hunter because of the Dome. You can't get rid of Mauer even if you wanted to. He doesn’t fit the “paying for a career year” model, he fits the “paying the guy who got you a sweet stadium” model. Suzuki: I think the Twins looked at the free agent market for the next offseason, looked at what it would take to trade for a catcher and decided that Suzuki was as good as any other option. And I think they were right. Look at the free agent signings the past two years. If you weren't signing Russell Martin, you weren't getting anything better than Suzuki. I think they paid him a bit extra because they wanted continuity for pitchers. Hughes: They gambled he had turned a corner. They paid #4 starter money for a potential #1 starter. I liked that gamble, even if it has failed miserably. Dozier: That contract just bought out his arbitration. You can argue they should have done more or waited but it's hardly a crazy contract - they maintained some cost certainty and Dozier saved himself from getting hurt. On TD we mostly wanted the Twins to sign him longer - we seem to be wrong so far this year, not that we'll ever admit it!

Well you missed some solid gold! Never said he was Arrieta, just saying that they were in the same boat. Arrieta was a good prospect who consistently flamed out. Another team took a flier on him and it worked out. Not a crazy comparison - just a point that you sometimes find an ace in the rubbish bin. See Han Joleo above . . . he phrased it well!

Yeah. Issue with waiting til 1 year left is you'd pay a TON more if he had repeated it. It was a gamble and it hasn't paid off. It's a hard situation. If you move him to the pen, he's unlikely to get back to starting this year since he won't have a chance to push himself for it. That said, maybe next spring is the best time for him. I personally think that he should hit the DL for two weeks sometime soon. After two weeks, give him a start or two to see if it helped and then it's time to think about the pen for this year.

I agree it's a trend but I don't think it's a trend of him not wanting to finish games or not being a guy who wants the ball. It's a trend of him not being healthy and trying to work through it unsuccessfully. He's a guy who has been around for a while and has seen guys hurt themselves and the team by pushing themselves when something feels off. I've never seen Hughes pull himself from a game. He never demanded the Twins pull him last night either - he just was honest about where his body was. As to the last part, I'm sure it played a small role for the Twins (who doesn't want a character guy like that?) but I can't think it's why Hughes made the decision. It's such a small thing it doesn't tip the balance - he's just a class act who wanted to earn what he got. I think it gives him a little leeway here.

Who cares if he was in the bigs for 8 years or 3? He was 28, an age when baseball players frequently hit their prime. If there’s ever a good time to sign a pitcher to a five year deal, that’s it. You don't make an awful point about the larger picture but you're losing the context because you're all hindsight-focused. Phil Hughes was an elite prospect who had trouble putting it all together (much like Jake Arrieta). He had flashes of dominance as a starter and reliever but finally put it together. It wasn’t smoke and mirrors either – his FIP was lower at 2.65 and he’d made fundamental changes to how he pitched that spoke to a pitcher on the rise. You can make a good argument that they should have just played out the two years on his deal but sometimes you have to take a gamble. The reward (a potential ace or very good #2 pitcher for #4 starter money) was worth the risk. It’s easy to forget because we’re looking at the worst-case scenario of any free agent signing (injuries which are bad enough to make a guy suck but not so bad that he just doesn’t pitch) but the floor for Phil Hughes seemed pretty good. He seemed like at worst a #4 pitcher, just what you’d be paying him. And by all reports he’s a good character guy, someone your young pitchers could learn from. He also had extra value because he has experience pitching out of the pen in a high leverage role if you need to shift him later in the contract. But the biggest reason it wasn’t a bad deal was that if you're the Twins, chances to lock down a potential ace for an extra two years don't come around every day. They don't sign the Lesters and Hamels of this world. The Twins found a prospect who was putting it together and made a reasonable double down with low risk and high reward. Just because it didn’t work out (no one could predict that he would lose velocity at age 29 and start to not even seem like a starter) doesn’t make it a bad decision. It’s easy to say in hindsight that the extension was terrible but we need to remember the context it was signed it. It was a reasonable gamble and the contract isn’t going to cripple the Twins going forward. It sucks it hasn’t worked out but Hughes was not a terrible decision.

Mauer's injury tendency? You're cracked. Young Mauer tore his meniscus his first year. Starting with his real first year in 2005, he averaged 133 games per year the next six years. During that time he hit the DL list exactly twice. That's very good for a catcher. Saying that young Mauer had an injury tendency is craziness. Sheer craziness.

I dunno. He got paid mid-rotation money when he was coming off a season where he was a legitimate ace. He was young and was a good prospect finally finding his legs and pitching like scouts long though he could. If he was a #1/#2 starter for the contract it was a great deal but he only had to be a #3/#4 starter for it to make sense. I remember the reaction from press and on TD being, "Huh, that's a pretty fair deal for both sides. I hope it works out." Hindsight is 20-20 and it's easy to call this a terrible decision now but I think that's misguided. Sometimes a move doesn't work out and it's tempting to reflexively call it bad but we need to be wise enough to look back at the context in which it was made.

Opens up opportunities for some young starters too. And if it works out long term, that gives you another rotation spot for the Gonsalves/Jorge/Stewart/Jay/Thorpe generation that should be sniffing the majors by the middle of next year. Yeah $12 million is a lot to spend on a bullpen arm but if he can be an okay setup guy we can live with that - especially with cheap young pitching. That control should be nice out of the pen in tight mid-inning situations. Rotation end of next year: Santana Berrios Duffey Gibson? Meyer? Gonsalves/Jorge/Stewart/Jay/Thorpe? I can live with that. Hughes going to the pen due to injury might turn out a good thing in the long run.

What is this history? I have no concept of what you're talking about. I think it's actually pretty admirable that he didn't do the typical tough guy act and stay in a game as he became ineffective. He communicated his health with the team and that may help him in the long run. We've seen too many guys pitch badly through pain and hurt the team. Phil Hughes was a class act not to pitch the extra 1/3 of an inning in 2014 and he's a class act to put the team ahead of himself here.

I mean, the article above literally laid out why the deal made sense at the time. Just because something doesn't work out doesn't make it a bad decision.

Pretending like we can look at his stats this season and call this some egregious mistake is where the point is missed. Stats are great and fun but the level of certainty people on this thread have about how horrible this decision is is pretty laughable. We don't know the whole story and are not professional baseball coaches - but that isn't stopping anyone from pontificating. This is John Hicks 2.0. Let's freak out about a minor baseball move that means nothing in the grand scheme of things and which we couldn't possibly have all the information on or understand the thought process behind!

Right. Because he didn't throw any bullpens or anything in the minors and the Twins pitching coaches are a bunch of robots who have to depend on game data since they have no experience that might tell them if a pitcher has what it takes to contribute to a team with a crowded minor league bullpen pecking order.

I did not know that two guys could get a blown save together while giving up just one run. I guess it kind of makes sense but I had never heard that before. You learn something new every day.