ashbury

> That said, having Kennys Vargas hitting behind him all season should allow him to see a few more pitches. Do minor league managers play those kinds of games (double meaning sort of intended)? My impression is that their job is to get their players to develop, and/or see what they've got, and part of that would be to encourage them "go after Sano [or any other good hitter] with your best stuff", regardless.

If you use the search box in this website and type "Slama" you'll find that this is among the most frequently raised topics ever. In a nutshell, the Twins' brass have stated that they don't think his tools translate well to the majors - of particular note is that many of his strikeouts are of the "called" variety and they don't think he'll have the same success with that up with the big club. That sounds to me like a glass half-full/half-empty dilemma, but Twins scouts have more experience than I, and I suspect Slama would bear out their forecast.

Looking things up... Swarzak is more than 2 years older than Gomez, which makes a lot of difference in desirability. And all the Indians got was what looks like a fourth round draft outfield prospect who didn't excel in AA at age 23 and maybe is viewed optimistically as "perhaps a change of scenery will help" - upside at this point might be as a fourth outfielder. I think it was Bill Veeck or Frank Lane who had the phrase "dog and cat trade", which is what this one sounds like. Yes, the Twins might get "something" for Swarzak but it won't affect the Twins' fortunes significantly.

Sure, single-A first-rounders can still fail - and established center fielders can get a second concussion and lose their trade value in an instant. In a few years we'll know in hindsight who won this trade. I still disagree with rating a trade at the time it's made by what level the prospect is at. Once a blue-chipper reaches AA and has success you can rarely get him for the price of an average major league CFer which Span is.

It still not 50-10=40. Getting a fielder's choice instead of a DP, not making the tag on a good throw to second to allow a steal, etc, will rack up missed outs and extra bases gained. I already said that I'm personally in the "give me range" camp, but I think the Steady Eddies of the world are of value too, and an assistant GM who likes them shouldn't be branded as deficient.

I didn't offer any analysis, and I'm not sure you read the beginning to my last sentence in which I said he's not the Joe Mauer of pitching in different words. Rating prospects by what league there in was my point. First round draft picks are very tough to pry away. Edit: there -> they're

He'll be involved in plenty of training. Potty, if nothing else.

Nonsense. Do you think Stallone or Schwarzenegger are video games? And look at their success in team sports. Teams like the Twins are missing a trick.

> for ! single A player. I stopped reading here and wished I had stopped sooner. Suppose the Twins had traded away Joe Mauer in 2002. Should the fans of the receiving team complain that they got a single-A player and nothing more? I don't know (or believe) that Meyer is at Joe's level, but the designation is useless.

In fairness to Antony, that's not exactly what he was saying. Many plays can be below-par and not show up as an error. Turning a routine DP, versus a slight bobble or a poor pivot, for instance. Now, with a young player, I'd personally prefer the guy with huge range who is prone to errors, because I figure the latter piece is teachable but the former is not so much. But it's not crazy-talk to look for a don't-beat-yourself player - that assumes the already high standard of a MLB middle infielder. I haven't looked at zone ratings and the like for a while now, but gaining 100 more outs a season seems really hard, compared to that standard.

Nice summary - looks like the information is available on places like baseball-reference.com but pulling all the pieces together really aids the understanding, that the strength of the minor league system really is building up from the bottom and will take a while longer to help the parent club.

Too bad he turned to a life of crime and had to be dealt with by Batman.

Lenny Faedo and Terry Felton get some votes from this corner. If you want to expand to big letdowns, which is mainly what Huskey was, add Tommy Herr as well.

tl;dnr

I can see two main objection to a 6-man: a) it takes innings away from your best, or two best, or three best starters (not an issue for a last-place team like the Twins who lack a defined ace), and it takes away an available relief arm, making it usually necessary to add another pitcher to the staff (already discussed). So I think the main time it would make sense to go this route is if you have a rotation composed entirely of 5.00 ERA innings-eaters - guys who can be counted on to usually give you seven innings at which point they've given up 2-to-5 runs, which you then turn over to the bullpen depending on how much you are ahead or behind. A rotation of fragile-armed starters is kind of the opposite of that criterion. Also, I would prefer to do it with a manager who was more comfortable with an 11-man staff (when using 5 starters), and that is a rarity these days. If Gardy would go to the 6-man rotation only if he had 13 pitchers on the roster, and given his preference for 3 catchers, it would mean also the batting lineup needs to be nearly set with productive regulars at every position, which is far from the case, again this shaping up as a last-place team.

You have the right attitude for a road trip through the midwest. Enjoy all the off-the-beaten-path sights to see. I have a long and not very interesting story to tell regarding an ice storm and a cafe in LaSalle.

He strikes out too many people.

Team payrolls were about half of what they are now, so no, it was somewhat of a bargain-basement signing. Didn't work out, but it's hard to hate the guy.

I'll put you down as another vote to Free Anthony Slama .

> 6. Fresh blood in the rotation allows starting pitching to improve dramatically with a group ERA a little above 4. This would get the rotation back to about MLB-average and, despite an increase in IP, result in -100 runs allowed. I thought about this some more. Unlike your analysis position-by-position for the batters, the situation for starting pitching cries out a little bit for "show your work". Here is my rough cut at it. The Twins employed 12 different starting pitchers in 2012, none of whom had a full workload of 32 or 33 starts: so I grouped them together in approximately 32-start bunches, which happened to work out neatly except I had to split Duensing's year into two slots. Hopefully, the following arithmetic doesn't contain major mistakes (I had to guess in a couple of spots), the assumptions I made are sound (e.g., 6+ innings per start from a successful staff), and the work is reasonably self-explanatory. Sorry, I don't know how to change the font so that columns of numbers line up; the bottom lines and differentials are meant to be in units of Earned Runs, in keeping with your analysis. The conclusion I draw is I don't really see where a savings of 100 runs is possible from the 2013 starting staff in its current state. Around 50 seems the best to hope for. This is because DeVries and Deduno had better ERAs than we probably choose to remember, limiting the upside possible from upgrades. Starters going deeper into games somewhat skews these run counts (100 runs by a #5 starter going 6+ innings all the time is obviously better than the guys in 2012 giving up 100 in only 5 innings), but I think you have already taken this into account by assuming fewer runs given up by the relief staff given a lower work load in your bullet item #7. Starts ERA ER Diamond 27 3.54 68 Swarzak 5 8.10 21 --- 89 2013: Diamond 3.50 80 Diff: -9 Blackburn 19 7.39 81 Vasquez 6 5.68 20 Marquis 7 8.47 32 --- 133 2013: Worley 4.00 90 Diff: -43 Liriano 17 5.31 54? Pavano 11 6.00 42 Duensing 4 6.92 15 --- 111 2013: Correia 4.50 100 Diff: -11 Deduno 15 4.44 39 Walters 12 5.69 39 Duensing 7 6.92 25 --- 103 2013: Gibson 4.50 100 Diff: -3 DeVries 16 3.99 38 Hendriks 16 5.59 53 --- 91 2013: Some guys 4.50 100 Diff: +9

> Now, this all assumes the team stays healthy and we don't see regression from any of the folks not named here (looking at you, Josh Willingham). Cast an eye in Diamond's direction as well. (Not just because he's one of the few 2012 mainstays not mentioned, but because he seems like a serious regression risk.)

It's nothing very deep; I just think Smith looks like Fred Flintstone.

From the article: "I’ll be interested to watch Sano in the High-A this season to see if his swing and miss troubles are mental (poor choices about approach and pitch selection) or physical (pitch recognition issues, swing breaks down)" How does a scout differentiate?

Count me in. Lately the Adchoices bits are more "aggressive" - you have to rollover to see the annoying parts, and there is a 3-2-1 countdown, but if you are inattentive (as I am) and let the mouse wander off of the scrollbar, you get the popup before you realize it. Maybe the "solution" (that Adchoices wants) is for the page layout to have them at the center of everything, so that it's away from the scrollbar. The whole thing is a bitter pill, even if I understand why the TD team wants to see some revenue. Correction: the Milk ad seems to pop up when I first enter a forum page, even if I have carefully kept my mouse away - in keeping with the OP's observation. It was a Scotch Tape ad (also AdChoices) I had seen yesterday, and communicated to John Bonnes, that seemed only partly anti-social because it gave a short count-down before popping up. To me, "rollover" is inherently antisocial if it results in a popup or audio; I want to click before anything overt happens.

Not when there is still me to love: