ashbury

I don't disagree with any of the points here. And it was fine to use Ohtani as a parallel to Murphy, because both would cost an arm and a leg. Shortstop Cruz, ditto. I was pushing back on the notion that Murphy was an overpay versus Ohtani. 3 years versus 1, up-the-middle versus DH when he bats - just not a useful comp. (Ohtani as a pitcher makes him a unicorn for comparison purposes anyway.) Ohtani in 2022 would have improved our DH production somewhere around .100 OPS points compared to Arraez/Buxton/Miranda (Sanchez is just a brain fart in that role that I'm not even going to consider him). Murphy would have improved our catcher OPS by more than that, albeit for fewer games. You improve overall team OPS any way you can. Comparing Murphy's bat to an outfielder's is just not relevant; he would have improved our team OPS, pure and simple. Anyway, I'd love to have Murphy catching or Ohtani pitching and DHing, and it's not gonna happen, so there we are.

My guess is that it comes down to technicalities that the Players Association might not look kindly upon. If Correa doesn't opt out by the specified date, he is obligated to play for the Twins in 2023 for the stated salary. The Twins verbally saying they will let him negotiate and then work out a sign-and-trade is just that, a verbal commitment, and might not be enforceable. I'm personally a stickler for having things in writing, and the paperwork I've ever signed is dwarfed in magnitude by the dollars being discussed here, so I can fully understand if Correa tells the team, "nice idea, but I can't go along, because while I trust you it sets a dangerous precedent for other players." Which might be a polite way of saying, "I can't trust this proposed process myself."

Salami, huh? I don't believe it. Sounds like a lot of baloney to me.

Good plan, until those other teams rebrand.

A reason the trade values site is so believable is that the valuations take into account the number of years of team control, and the cost of the remaining salary commitment. These are things a real GM has to consider too. If you trade for Ohtani, you pay $30M* for 2023, and then after that he leaves. If you trade for Murphy, you have him for 3 years at arbitration prices, which will likely total less than Ohtani's 1 year. 1 year of a superstar versus 3 years of a better than average player at a key position. Strictly player versus player for one year you'd take Ohtani and so would I, but factoring in all the roster and salary considerations makes it a considerably closer decision... which the trade value you quoted seems to reflect. Having Murphy's .759 OPS in 2022 means not having Sanchez's .659 for part of the season, and/or Jeffers's .648. Let's don't even think about Sandy Leon. A hundred points of OPS, when the glove is good, is pretty big. We're on the same page, though, that the Twins aren't trading productively for either of these gentlemen unless they get awfully creative. *I'm going from baseball-reference.com, on this

The word 'or' makes me reflexively want to say Yes, but the word 'thinking' leaves me confused.

You mean to say, actually redefining the brand meaningfully. Yeah, nah.

A nothing burger, to me. This can't be the most important part of the rebrand.

Pretty inaccurate view you were given. Derek Falvey pitched in college ball. Thad Levine played college ball. Rocco Baldelli skipped college ball but went on to finish third in the AL Rookie of the Year. I don't know who else your coach friend has in mind that runs the team, or what axe he feels the need to grind. I have my complaints about the FO but the stereotype of guys with thick glasses at the computer screen, incapable of understanding what athletes do from personal experience, is far off the mark.

If Oakland wants some of our can't-miss-bat busts (Sabato, etc) and one of the 99 middle infielders we drafted #3 and below in 2022, go for it. That probably won't get the job done, and if the conversation starts and ends with Brooks Lee and/or legitimate pitching prospects then I don't see it happening.

Turning double plays doesn't correlate strongly with winning. Just look at the list. Not just a one-year fluke either. That site offers stats going back to 2007; the top DP team that year finished dead last in the NL. I wouldn't put Jeffers or Miranda or Larnach at SS, but it could be that anyone reasonably competent to turn grounders into outs on a reliable basis is good enough, and the main thing you want in this day and age is the bat.

When doing a retrospective of 2022 it seems a little strange to have no mention at all of Caleb Hamilton, perhaps in the same breath with Sandy Leon, even if he is now with the Red Sox due to a waiver claim after season's end.

Teams don't want left-handed batters. They want batters who succeed against right-handed pitchers. Contreras does that just fine.

Turns out throwing water balloons is a capital crime in Maricopa County, wasting water dontchaknow, so just send a memorial donation to our widows.

I had the distinct pleasure of watching the Thursday and Friday games with @USAFChief, plus I stuck around for the morning game on Saturday. Here are some observations, going from memory since I didn't maintain my commitment to run a scoresheet for more than about two innings - I'd never earn a living as an advance scout, with too many instances I have to sheepishly mark WW on the scorecard ("wasn't watching"). Maybe Chief will speak up to correct any misinformation I offer here. It was fantastic to have Martin and Julien play two games each, and especially so when the game they overlapped had them manning the double play combo. Martin played CF on Thursday and I don't recall him being really tested in that game. I think there was one play where a throw home would have been an option but he took the arguably smarter play of throwing to second to prevent the batter from taking a free base. There were two or three base hits that dropped in, where my reaction was "Buxton would have had that"™, and that is partly joke and partly impossibly high standards due to being spoiled. I'd certainly prefer my center fielder to play within himself rather than dive and miss and give up the four-bagger (*cough* Jake Cave *cough*). All in all my general impression was that Martin will not be more than "adequate" there in CF, but he was okay. Julien at second base on Friday likewise didn't really get tested as far as I recall. I see the box score lists him for what must have been a strike 'em out throw 'em out double play, so good for him to complete that. Isola. He played catcher on Friday, and as I just mentioned he did nail a runner going to second. But he has this annoying habit of usually lobbing the throw back to the pitcher. Makes me wonder if his arm is less than 100% and he's favoring it unless he has to put something on the throw, while Chief is of the opinion they wouldn't put him out there in that case so it must be the Yips and is just a mental thing. Since the AFL is all about instruction, I can't believe the coaches are just watching him do that, on throw after throw (even with men on base), this late in the fall season. As it is, I consider Isola to be Not A Prospect at catcher, unless and until this is corrected - in the majors I imagine other teams exploiting the flaw every game or so. And if he's not going to be a catcher in the majors, the bar is set pretty high for how good his bat needs to become. Bentley. As the story above tells, he had a pretty rowdy couple of innings on Thursday. Live arms that lack command are kind of a commodity in the minors and at age 24 he's not exactly young so he needs to harness this pretty soon. Peguero. I also didn't see a lot to like about the guy we acquired along with Sonny Gray. Sorry, but I'll be surprised to see him reach the majors, and nothing in his two appearances made me think different than that assessment. Olsen. Wow, I did not know the back story on him. I'll be rooting for him, for sure, just on a personal level, and the game he had on Friday was pretty nice. Still, I didn't see something about him that stood out as being a future major leaguer, although that afternoon Chief and I were more interested in finding shade on the first base side of the ballpark and so our vantage point wasn't really the best for looking at pitch movement, as he's no fireballer. Good luck to Jon and if he reaches the majors then I'll remember that "I saw him when". Oh, and that Saturday game. I was hoping for some difficult chances at second or short, to get a feel for what to expect from our possible DP combo of the future. Well, again there weren't any challenging plays that I noticed, to see how their range is or how their throws are when the going gets tough. However, there was a "room service double play ball" hit to Martin, who fielded it cleanly and ... threw wide to second. Julien got credit for the putout of the runner, which I thought might have been a gift from the umpire but give Julien credit for staying with it. But my impression of Martin in that game was, again, he's stretched to be anything more than "adequate" at shortstop. He's going to have to hit like he's done in the AFL, if he's going to be an asset while not playing an up the middle position. Finally, Julien disappointed the Friday home crowd, because In-N-Out Burger has a promotion where occasionally a player is named before the game that if he hits a double then everyone in the crowd gets a coupon for a free burger (the legendary Double Double, I don't know). Edouard hit a single that game but that wasn't good enough so Chief and I departed burgerless. In the game on Saturday our DP combo led off the game so they accounted for the team's first run when Martin doubled and Julien immediately drove him in. In N Out picked the wrong Twin and the wrong game, those jerks.

We all want pitchers like Morris. It was very exciting to get him, and even more exciting how it panned out. You didn't address my point. How do you propose to get another Morris, the way we got him? Usually what you get that way is another Archer or Bundy or Shoemaker.

Morris is the exact opposite of the big time contract being discussed. He signed for one year, kind of a make good deal to rebuild his value, and indeed departed after walking off the mound in Game Seven, to a team with a higher bid. Imagine if Archer or Bundy had bounced back to stardom. This Twins FO already is signing Jack Morris types of contracts. Those just aren't panning out.

Gaetti was more the one with that POV, as I recall.

Tommy Herr is just waiting by the phone, waiting for that phone call to solve the Twins' second base problems.

I thought Brian just explained why it won't.

The author of this article has gotten a lot of discussion mileage out of what he probably thought was a throwaway introductory sentence.

115 will not totally astound me, if Correa moves on. "Sometimes you just can't get free agents to take your money." -- Terry Ryan