ashbury

That bullpen doesn't look like it's going to strike fear in too many opponents' hearts. Duran is the exception of course, but other than him, some guys are going to have to step forward. Jax in particular is one I'm skeptical about. His splits last year suggest he feasted on the less-capable hitters - batters in the #3 slot OPSed above 800 against him. Of course slicing and dicing relievers' numbers leads to pretty small samples, but in this case it matches up with my eye-test that capable hitters don't really struggle against him. Maybe he takes a further step forward in 2023 though.

Then that's not insurance. It's a lay-away plan at the department store, or something.

I'm glad you didn't lead with this phrase because I would have been too busy laughing to read the rest of what you had to say.

You sound like an analytics guy.

I'm going to throw in another angle that I think supports yours. During Terry Ryan's second tenure as GM, I got to hear him fill in for a scheduled panel discussion, and he spoke at length about being a GM. I wish I had had a recording device! But one thing he said stuck with me even if I'm sketchy on the details. I think he was fielding a question from the floor about Delmon Young. Ryan responded by saying that there were a lot of major league players even today who could hit .400, if the games were played twice a week. For me, that encapsulates the dilemma these athletes face. Sure, they need to find and stay in a rhythm. But the game is exceedingly taxing when played six days out of seven most weeks, for week after week. They don't call it the long season for nothing. (I wish now that I could go ask him about his reasons for why Ted Williams could still do it in 1941. Being in the majors at age 22 probably had something to do with it.)

In my defense, I dashed off a few thoughts in response both to the comments below the article, and to the article itself. After a few minutes I decided I didn't arrange it very carefully, and my point may have been missed. While you were writing your reply, I was revising the organization. See if you find it a bit more coherent now.

Rocco and his spreadsheets. Rocco and his spreadsheets. Rocco and his spreadsheets. Rocco played baseball. At the highest level. And he excelled (third in Rookie of the Year voting at age 22) until injuries took their toll. Derek Falvey played college ball, on the field and not just the video game version. Thad Levine played college ball. To insinuate, as some do, that management is oblivious to the realities of dealing with injury is just beyond the pale. Rocco could correct any misapprehensions that the FalVine duo might have, except I doubt it's been necessary. The author of this article played baseball at the college level. too. All these points of view come from direct experience of what works and what doesn't when injuries occur. Such POV may differ because humans differ and because experiences differ and because no one has the full picture. I would love a panel discussion of the topic among these four (or of course many others equally well positioned to talk about it). It's dangerous to slice and dice batting records too much (small sample sizes become smaller) but in 2022 Buxton's OPS as a DH was above .800 while the DH performance of the rest of the team was under .750. He did better as DH than the sainted Luis Arraez. No one prefers that Buxton DH, but it's a strategy that isn't doomed to failure when he's not 100% physically. I don't think the strategy especially "worked" for him in 2022, partly because the injuries weren't confined to playing defense, but that doesn't mean it was wrong-headed and conceived by idiots. Tweaking the approach may pay off. But there's a lot of nuance where injuries are involved - "let's get it fixed" is nice in principle but 1) it's not like taking a car to the shop and having the mechanic's diagnostics tell you it has low compression in cylinder #2, and 2) getting it fixed may mean season-ending surgery versus letting him limp (no pun intended) through the season if he can. I'll add that to me it does matter when in the season Buxton plays. If they are on track for a playoff appearance, it can be worth some sacrifice during the regular season to have him be as close to his peak as possible in October. Of course, if resting him results in closely missing those playoffs.... maybe it all just wasn't meant to be that season.

This touches on a downside to the strategy: the opportunity cost. If several of your roster spots are taken up with "projects" of varying types, and you know only a percentage will pan out, then you spend a lot of major league innings finding out, and incurring losses in your season record while you stay the course. If you invest in "projects" who can figure things out at the minor league level, this cost with the big club's pennant race doesn't occur. Of course there are no guarantees in human performance, and the "sure thing" players on your roster may not reach expectations either. It's all a matter of degree, not black-and-white. But when you load up on high-ceiling injury risks, it's possibly a bit cynical to then moan "oh the injury bug hit us again," .

I don't think he showed enough with the bat at AAA yet to earn him a major league roster spot - he turns 27 in May so the clock is definitely ticking for him. And his all-around abilities won't get a chance to shine if he's slotted at DH (the subject of this article).

Back when Adopt a Prospect was a thing at TD, Aaron was my guy. Good luck to him in the next phase of his life.

If we had 5 Sonny Grays (24 GS times 5) we'd have also suffered through 42 starts by Chi Chi González. Ha.

Too late for him to get even, anyway.

Glad to see that you found this bio useful. I want to put in a good word (probably yet again) for the Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project, which publishes short bios like this one, more than just a couple of paragraphs but less than book length, always footnoted and subject to careful fact-checking and technical editing. If a person wants to look up a player of any prominence, beyond just the stats found elsewhere online, this link is always a good start: https://sabr.org/bioproj/ Usually a player's page on baseball-reference.com (which has strong ties to SABR) has a link near the top to his SABR bio. Or, just remember that SABR has a "bio" project and use Google to look up the starting point.

A good bat for a good arm is almost always a favorable deal. It's especially so if the FO keeps to its policy of drafting bats in the first round. (Not that Arraez himself was a June draftee, but I'm talking about the respective pipelines.)

There's two of him? Great!

Why isn't the runner on first declared offside if he arrives at second base before the catcher can throw the ball there and let the second baseman attempt the tag? That's how it is in soccer - the defense has to be given a chance to attempt the play, a rule that evolved in the spirit of fair play. One sport is not automatically a comp for another sport. You assert that it is, but it is not. You have to think about why each particular rule exists. The burden is on the person drawing a parallel between the sports and their rules, not on the person responding. So of course my connection of the offside rule in soccer is silly, for exactly the same reason. As for my dislike of the offside rule, I am invited to go root for a different sport, and recognize that a different spirit of fair play exists that I don't happen to subscribe to. And as with many rules, a spirit of fair play is behind allowing a smaller batter to have a smaller strike zone. That's a rule for no discernible reason I happen to like.

Once we have robot umpires, it won't be long until we're watching robot players, amirite. I realize some of you may think this to be a strawman argument. But this is the 21st century, and we have the technology: I have constructed a robotman argument.

This is not the Twins Daily I joined ten years ago.

Very good point.

There is nothing inherently wrong with 8 outfielders on the 40-man, so long as at least 3 and preferably 4 have minor league options so they can be sent down. I believe Celestino, Wallner, Larnach, and Kirilloff can all be sent to St Paul at will, with Buxton, Gallo, Kepler, and Gordon all rooted to the major league roster. So the current array of outfielders is viable, although a bit left-heavy as we all acknowledge. There is no absolute urgency to deal Kepler or anyone else, though it's an option. My one worry is that we have only 2 catchers on the 40-man. The first time one of the catchers gets an owie that requires multiple days of recuperation (Injured List or otherwise) someone from AAA will have to be added to the 40, and that will mean removing someone unless that injured catcher goes on the 60-day IL. Doubtful it would be a pitcher who gets jettisoned, so that means an outfielder would have to be moved somehow. That's a risk that is settled if one of the outfielders is himself injured first and put on the 60-day IL, but the timing could work the wrong way and cause an unwanted move. We ran out of outfielders in 2022 so having 8 gives some sense of comfort that a slate of 4 performing at a major league level can be cobbled together at any given time. I don't like trading away up-the-middle players or prospects, so I'm not interested in moving Celestino, even though at present he has his warts. About to turn 24, the 2023 season will be fish or cut bait time with him, I suspect.

I was saying "I was a hipster before it was cool," before it was cool, and I found this obscure little article about Alexy which you might find interesting reading.

Noah Miller has zero impact on current major league roster decisions. He just turned 20 a couple of months ago, and his single-A batting record was a BA in the low .200s with minimal power. Don't know what the scouting reports are on his progress with the glove but he's a long way away. That doesn't mean he isn't a good prospect.

You were sleeping in high school detention and dreamed you were in medical school.

Entertaining offers? How about $10, plus Brian Duensing as a sweetener?

Where can I score a sweet discount on a Giants or Mets jersey with Correa's name on it?