ashbury

It has to be plausible, though, or it could backfire. If Odorizzi or Paxton thinks, "Shoemaker? yeah, right," it will just burn bridges for the team. And they can't be caught bluffing. This isn't poker. If they don't sign Shoemaker, and don't sign someone at least as good, next year's "Cruz" won't take the bait.

Dear Mr. Astudillo, I am happy in retirement, and yet certain thoughts continue to nag at me. I studied all the sabrmetric writeups I could find, likewise I picked the brains of the best coaches I knew, and without exception the received wisdom was to work the count in one's favor and then feast on the predictable heater that the pitcher would have to come in with. Unless the pitcher is a complete newcomer, he will know not to challenge major league hitters with a fastball right down the middle on the very first pitch. Get a 2-0 or 3-1 count, and then pounce! Unfortunately, what I found was that even the veteran pitchers would usually throw a pitch with something on it, but nicking the strike zone just enough. And then they would do it again, with a different pitch but the same result. So, invariably, I found myself in a frustrating 0-2 hole, and though I would battle back and often get on base, there was always this undercurrent of worry that maybe I was a little too cautious, a little too passive. My day is past, of course, but for younger players still trying to sort things out for themselves, I ask you, Mr Astudillo: what is your advice? - J. Mauer

Of course, by staying the same they actually *are* getting better, because it's another level harder of competition. They're playing Beat The Clock, because this kind of growth seems to go until around age 24 or 25 as a rule of thumb. I'm not capable of fundamental scouting. When assessing what scouts say, given reasonably good results for touted prospects, I give a lot of weight to age. Enlow's rank here doesn't bother me.

Goodenuf for Letterman, goodenuf for me.

Both these gentlemen were born in the month of November, Rooker three years sooner than Kirilloff. I don't think you bother playing service time games with a 26-year old.

Who among the players is out of minor league options? My impression is that the FO has done a really good job of keeping roster flexibility in this regard, with next to no marginal players who will have to be on the active roster or risk being lost via DFA.

I don't know what level of performance it would take to get my attention, but the players I spotchecked with similar OPS to him this year are a motley collection who washed out of low-minors ball, mainly. Couple of guys with higher OPS in similar playing time had a few less total bases because bases on balls are not counted in that particular stat - we know La Tortuga doesn't like to walk. I'm glad he hit well there - better than not doing so - but the competition does not seem to be strong, below AA probably, so an OPS under 1.000 may not indicate much of anything for major league purposes.

No mention of Waddell in this list? I think he's on a par with Gibaut as a DFA candidate.

With few exceptions, free agent contracts are like this. It's called the Winner's Curse; if you bid high enough to win, you've outbid everyone else's analytics models. Some people wanted to pool the money spent for Cruz, for Happ, for a few others, and go after a big name starting pitcher, for $25M or so. Guess what. The pitcher who all the front offices with unlimited analytics wanted got an offer for $40M, as it turns out. Putting that kind of money onto one pitching arm is kind of a risk too. Your competitors don't allow you to make it less of a risk even if you had hoped to. You can field a team of all minimum-MLB salary players, and perhaps not even have to finish in last place owing to the oddities of the CBA. And then to do better, or at least improve your chances, you can choose to spend money this way or that, but with few guarantees. If you choose not to risk any money, you take a PR hit with the public. Every non-minimum salary represents a decision and an opportunity and a risk - we pay Buxton $5M this year and he could be MVP or turn up lame again, et cetera, et cetera. For every regular on your squad, you have to have a backup plan. What do we do if Buxton is injured? What if Simmons doesn't hit a lick? What if Berrios suffers his first serious injury? What if Cruz hits .200 with 2 homers for the first six weeks? That last one actually seems the easiest to deal with - you go back to giving Rooker a full-time shot, or perhaps Kirilloff unless his glove is so good he earns LF, or else you go back to DH-by-committee which many would prefer as plan A anyway. DH is covered for unwelcome contingencies better than any other position. But in exchange for this risk at DH, consider that the Twins led the AL in 2020 by a large margin at the DH slot in the lineup. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/team_compare.cgi?request=1&year=2020&lg=AL&stat=OPS Incredibly, the league as a whole obtained only an OPS of .719 from their DHs. The Twins had a .200+ OPS advantage at that spot in the lineup, most games. It would be an interesting study, which I won't undertake right now, to understand why teams did so poorly in a role they collectively have the most control over. Anyway, what's a natural way to try to replicate that unfair advantage? Maybe ask the same guy to try it again. And even if he slides a bit, it would be down to league average, where we no longer have an advantage but merely are competitive, and hope some of the other 8 batters step up. If he fails completely? See the contingency planning above. As a wise man named Lieutenant Frank Drebin once said, you take a risk getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan. Signing Cruz is a $13M risk I happen to like, even as I recognize that Cruz could finally turn into a pumpkin and we end up turning to alternatives.

That was my initial reaction too - that a year from now, the guy we got is more likely to retain (small) non-zero trade value than the guy we gave, if we had kept him. After looking more at Anderson I'm now thinking he's pretty likely to have no value in a year, either. Still, that makes it potentially an even trade. And for once we get pitching in return for a position player, instead of what seems like always the other way around.

Last time I was this excited about getting a player for less money than his peers were getting, we signed Josh Willingham as a smarter alternative than Michael Cuddyer.

Nice article, Randy Stuart. You leave Sean Stosh in the dust.

Hope so.

Cooper, during the period Jun 22 to Jul 11, 2010, during an otherwise fine season for Texas, Cruz put up an OPS of just .631. Can you run a similar analysis on those 18 games and figure out what in the heck was ailing him?

I like high BA and OBP as much as the next stat fiend. But the case would be stronger for Arraez if he had actually scored a more intriguing number of runs. Last year he was on a 162-game pace of about 80 runs scored. He was under a 100-run pace in 2019 too. When does the magic happen? You know what's an even easier way to score runs, than getting on base? Hitting the ball over the fence. And Arraez basically doesn't do that at all.

I'm highly satisfied to learn this news. Every contract is a risk. Good contracts provide opportunity, and I see this as a good one.

Concur. Moreover look at Ozuna's track record and compare it to Cruz's track record before he joined the Twins - I have this feeling that we'd be paying top dollar and getting essentially the equivalent of Eddie Rosario for it at least some of the time, if we signed Marcell to a multi-year deal.

Probably no worse than some less-capable hitter we use in place of him. / I certainly hold open the possibility that 2021 Cruz himself will be less-capable than 2019-20 Cruz.

A related possibility is that they have a handshake agreement already, for $X million if there is no DH in the NL, and $X+Y million if there is, reflecting what both sides probably agree is the differential of a larger market for his services. Or perhaps an understanding that he can explore with an NL team if the opportunity arises, and the Twins can match the best offer. Of course if the Dodgers offer crazy money, he is gone. I just don't take the relative silence as meaning anything more than the parties see eye to eye, but are waiting for an event that is outside either party's control.

I've never seen a more blatant pump-and-dump. Once the stonks of these three players tick upward a bit, short them for all you can muster.

We all surely desire that the sample size become greater, and scoring more runs would seem a means, as much as an end.

I like the signing of Simmons. But before we crown the Twins the new kings of run-prevention, I just want to point out that Simmons's five-year contract with the Angels resulted in their team ERA being roughly league-average his first three years and then below-average for the final two. And they had zero winning seasons in that span. They had a winning season the year before Simmons arrived, with Erick Freaking Aybar playing SS.

There's a decision regarding keeping him around? For the coming year? Really?