ashbury

However you write it up is fun. I'm interested in following the progress of individual players - the stars mostly, but any surprise contributors are fun to see in this Alternate Universe.

Twelve one-pitch outings is interesting. Guys like Tony Fossas and Jesse Orosco each had a couple dozen such appearances over their long careers as LOOGYs, and yes your blog post prompted me to go take a look, but Flores is in exclusive company of a sort with that on his resume. I'm not sure what it SAYS, exactly, except that major league managers had a particular kind of usage in mind when they sent him out there. It's kind of the domain of the LOOGY - the only righty I noticed with a bunch of one-pitch appearances was Brad Ziegler (but I may have missed somebody because I briefly scanned).

You're both right to call out that last paragraph. What I had in mind was a comment made by another TD member in another thread, and I thought by prefacing what I said here with "if" in a couple of places would be clear enough, but obviously (now) it wasn't. I do think it's a possibility that there is more going on here than just payroll considerations, but I've not seen anyone reputable offer whispered scuttlebutt about Vazquez's own view.

CS% is one aspect, but simply how often opponents tried to steal is a valuable metric, and during Mauer's tenure behind the plate teams never ran wild on the Twins. Instead the low CS reflects extra caution. Once Joe stopped catching, attempts (and successful steals) crept up.

Maeda pitched while hurt in April. After he came back in June, his ERA was 3.36, going 6-4. But apart from the bad April, the record shows he didn't cover a ton of innings as starter. Across 16 starts he averaged just a hair under 5.1 innings. Going into any Maeda start you have to expect a burden upon the bullpen. If the FO wants to continue the strategy of putting less burden on the bullpen, I could see that as the deciding factor of whether to invest the necessary resources to keep him. Much depends on what the FO ends up doing to fill the rotation, before making a final judgment on how they assessed Maeda.

At the moment I count 19 position players and 17 pitchers. In past seasons this FO, like many of their counterparts, have entered the season with 21 or 22 pitchers under contract - there might even have been a moment or two where it was 23 or 24. It would not surprise me at all if every one of the current 17 makes it through to at least Spring Training - if they need room for a 22nd arm they might by that time have traded away one of the veteran bats perpetually being discussed, or one of the marginal bats like Nick Gordon, before they would part with one of the pitchers mentioned in this article.

Still in the theatrical realm, Bugs Bunny's changeup would make him a hall-of-famer.

Good point, and it raises a further question: at what point does that draft pick become a commodity to the team? When the ink is dry on the ex-player's new contract? Or is there some point later when assignments are made officially?

I was expecting a fourth year that would have nudged the total contract value close to $100M or possibly a little higher. It may be that Sonny meant what he said when telling us that money wouldn't be the deciding factor, if indeed someone else offered more years. Of course it's relatively easier to stake out the high ground like that, when life changing money is assured no matter what. But not that many players take less than the max, at least from all appearances, so maybe it's not "relatively easier" after all. These guys are tremendously proud human beings, and money is one way they keep score. Good luck in St Loo, Sonny!

That observation is fair at one level, but short-circuits any attempt to discuss why or why didn't the FO take some particular action.

He would have accepted $20+M and tried again in free agency next year. Or if by some miracle he went ahead and signed for the $24M for 2 years, the draft pick the Twins receive would be well outside of the first round. Terrible gamble for practically no payoff.

The investment of $30M in Vazquez was pretty clearly intended to pay for starting-caliber play at catcher. That didn't pan out. If they had it to do over, maybe the FO would choose someone/something different. But that's now water under the bridge. Every FO makes regrettable choices, and rarely do they get do-overs. The remaining $20M investment still provides a floor. Vazquez's 2023 performance, especially in the second half, was credible as a backup catcher. If Vazquez disappears somehow during this off-season, that floor of backup performance still needs to be acquired, because the third catcher on the 40-man roster currently does not provide a floor at all - Camargo may prove himself but his downside remains "AAA only." If it's true that Vazquez is so upset about his zero playing time in the post-season that he's demanded a trade, and if that resentment sticks, then Rocco made a nearly $20M mistake in October. Disposing of Vazquez would cost assets at approximately that level, because you can't give him away at his salary; or clubhouse distractions if he stays and kvetches have a cost too. But at the moment I'm not sure that this is more than someone's supposition, and it would be both regrettable and surprising if Rocco somehow failed to "read the room" on that particular lineup choice for 6 games.

The pitcher with higher ceiling will be offered way more than 2 years. Too rich for the Twins' blood in that case.

Enough to void his own contract and seek out a new deal with someone else, say $6M total contract value for a couple of years? I imagine the Twins would be receptive if he offered that solution. If he wants the full $20M he may have to swallow his pride and see it all play out. $14M or whatever is a lot to walk away from. And does he want to continue playing when he is 35 and older? Then he'll need to get over the butthurt and keep his performance up to major league standards for the next two seasons, to keep that next contract in sight.

The dilemma I see is that if the Twins still want a veteran catcher on the 40-man, rather than trust the backup role to a rookie plus have no obvious candidate for promotion in case of injury, then whatever team they think will take Vazquez off their hands, why wouldn't that team just go after whoever the Twins have in mind to go after? Nobody inexpensive is going to be markedly better than Vazquez was last year, and someone projected to perform at the same level will cost less. The Twins could eat some or all salary to entice a Vazquez trade, but that defeats the purpose of getting salary relief. I'm predisposed already to look pretty skeptically at whatever the Twins do, if a change is made at catcher. Especially a year from now, if Vazquez bounces back even a little with the bat.

I suppose the chances are around 1 out of 6. Wait, another ALC team? Make that 4 out of 29.

I wanted to wait a day or so and see if others would chime in. I hope you took my questions as constructive - in keeping with your original comment in this thread, I could see playing a role in fostering this project. But it's a potentially huge open-ended project and I could see it getting bogged down in efforts not going toward what would make it a success. First define success. You used Camilo Pascual as an example, and I have to point back to the rather excellent bio on the SABR page for him. That one's an outlier, because it was written by Peter Bjarkman, who made it his obsession to know everything about Cuban players of that era. What could our Wiki page for Pascual do besides just point to the bio, plus b-r.com for the full stats? Pascual aside, Gagne and Mack and a bunch others like them are great opportunities to provide something new - but who will actually do the digging? Each one would be hours and hours of work, in my experience.

If BABIP is baseball IQ, big name players across the majors routinely get smarter and dumber and then smarter again year after year.

I think it will take more than proposed, to pry Carlson away from St Loo. I wouldn't expect they are super motivated to trade him, but MLBTR does mention him as a possible candidate, due to a piddling $1.8M salary. I'd offer Keoni Cavaco, Aaron Sabato, Alerick Soularie, Jose Salas, and if they insist on pitching, add Francis Peguero. Not sure I'm serious? Neither am I. I think it's time for some minor league housecleaning and I would pitch it as these guys needing a change of scenery to excel. I would not apply much pitching capital in acquiring an outfielder unless he's a difference maker.

You would think, with all his money, he (Jim, not "Bob") could afford to pay someone to drink his alcohol for him before he drives. I'm not going to further fact-check whether this would actually help the situation, since it's so obviously true.

"You have to have a catcher, otherwise you will have a lot of passed balls." -- Casey Stengel

I may have asked some of these the last time you brought up this idea. What do you see as the biggest un-met need this effort would rectify? Significant players already have decent-quality bio pages on regular Wikipedia (hell, Anthony Slama's page isn't bad and he's not significant at all), so is the motivation a bunch of "one spring training Brian Duensing autographed a ball for me, and I traded it right away as a sweetener, LOL" personal reflections? Top Twins prospects have Wikipedia pages. Brooks Lee's page is good, and Charlee Soto hasn't thrown a pitch for the Twins but he has a rudimentary page. Will what TDers do, be better than these? Also on "regular" Wikipedia, someone seems to be keeping up with the better Twins prospects on a page called "Minnesota Twins minor league players". ERod, Canterino, etc. Will this new TD-Wiki really only be bringing truly obscure prospects to light? What to do with significant players like Steve Carlton, Bartolo Colon, Dave Winfield, Jim Thome, who had relative cups of coffee with the Twins - strive for complete bios, or strive to focus on what they did as Twins, or just let whatever happens happen? Pages about players collectively - for example there is a Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame (not the Cooperstown one) that doesn't seem to have a standout presence on the internet - might the Wiki have an ability to set up a page that brings all that together? I suppose a "Twins in Cooperstown" page likewise. Probably there are other such "articles" people could want to write, at a "meta" level one step up from individual players themselves. Where to draw that line? Walter Johnson. Do we draw the line at 1961? I guess what I come down to is: would the same effort be better spent, improving existing Wikipedia pages, and creating from scratch new Wikipedia pages for the few players that no one else is creating each year?

His skillset exhibits strong polarities. - He strikes out a lot + He walks a lot - His defense has improved to, ahem, adequate at second base + His bat stands out among second basemen - His BABIP was awfully high in 2023 and will surely come down + Some few players maintain a BABIP well above .300, and those skew as Hall of Famers - He had real problems against major league lefties + He didn't exhibit the platoon problem at AAA So it's little wonder if people can argue the side that they feel is most important, and not see eye to eye with one another. All in all his youth and his success in the majors have me unwilling to bet against him, and all the negative areas are things that could get better with experience. For me, he's a keeper. If you chose to trade him, you could probably get a lot.

In 32 starts in 2023, Burnes made it into the 7th inning 9 times. In 32 starts, Gray made it into the 7th inning 10 times. Burnes covered 9.2 innings more than Gray, over the course of the season. The difference is not night and day.

He clearly belongs in my HoF, but like others I suspect he won't be first ballot.