ashbury

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That could have been Scott AldrED, 1996-97.

Semien has a better glove than Marwin Gonzalez, but on offense their resumes (prior to Marwin joining the Twins) look similar. So I echo the opinion offered above, to be skeptical. Only 1 year means there's not much risk, but I'm not thinking the reward upside is that high either, and $15M sounds like top dollar.

You and Aaron Gleeman are idiots, and went to ten-dollar colleges at most. Omitted from the list were Tom "Ed" Edens and Dave "Ed" Edwards. You may be interested to know that the advertisements I received on this page were for ED medications. Since ad placement draws on possibly tenuous inferences from cookies on a computer, perhaps the degree of interest will be muted.

I've long felt there were players who could be described in a similar way, though I've never taken the time to try to quantify it. Some players do things that bring wins your way. However, these players may also do things that bring losses your way, and thus on average they are, well, let's say average. Basically, if you're a cellar-dwelling team, such a player may be interesting to you, because a few of them may be a quick route out of the 100-loss wilderness and let you reach .500. However, to go above .500, you eventually need to move on, to the scarcer player who brings the positives but not the negatives. I guess the same holds true for reaching the post-season versus excelling in it. Win Probability Added is a rough cut at this form of analysis, though not for fielding - it offers a positive and a negative component to plate appearances, which when combined gives the aggregate rating. WAR and its relatives, by contrast, just gives an aggregate. My thinking along these lines has been more about starting pitchers - some guys bring Cy Young stuff to some of their starts, and then in other games they can't find the plate, and though they tantalize you with potential they never do much better than .500 ball. But there's no reason a position player can't fit that profile too - Eddie will occasionally save your bacon with a laser throw to home plate that nails a Bosox runner carrying the tying run, but at too many other times will endure wasted at-bats where he eats out of the pitcher's hand. I've loved rooting for Eddie because he seems like a genuine good guy. But if the team moves on from him, I think I understand their thinking.

Three of the comps you offered saw significant innings in center field. There is a premium in contract value for that ability. I'm not sure Reddick's team would commit to that same contract, if they had to do it over again. Myers's contract was pretty controversial when it was signed, wasn't it? No one is saying Eddie's not a major leaguer. But the money he's due from arbitration looks pretty rich for his skill set, and these comps reinforce my view rather than change it. Our FO probably views it as a close decision - but at the end of the day they have to decide - they can't do a blend of yes and no. As has been speculated elsewhere, putting him on waivers could be a last attempt to actually keep him, due to the weird financial rules in the sport.

This is where the NFL runs circles around baseball. Football celebrates their heroes, and they don't worry about watering down their HoF, because putting in heroes never does that. In baseball, we spend lots of time saying "he wasn't good enough." Tony was good enough. Send him in.

The HoF has two purposes: to recognize fame that was created by performance, and to confer fame because of performance. When you look at his body of work as a catcher, Joe's an easy Yes for me on both counts.

If Story can be signed to a contract the Twins would find palatable, why would the Rockies want to trade him?

Coming next: the Dumpster Fires that were the 2011-14 and 2016 seasons.

Eddie struck out fewer times as a percentage than any other regular on the team except Arraez. Nellie ranked worse than league-average. Eddie's balls-in-play percentage was better than league average, as well. Those aren't necessarily the criteria by which I would judge players, but even by your criteria, I don't understand choosing Cruz.

I'd have to say Killebrew, first and foremost.

A very odd mix of overly conservative picks and flat-out gambles. I stuck with Terry Ryan longer than some, but this resume is pretty bad, especially considering that Ryan came from the scouting department when he was elevated to the GM role. The gambles didn't pan out, and ironically the safe picks didn't even achieve the assumed floor. I don't know if it was a failure of evaluation, or of development. Total System Failure covers both, though.

When we discussed this before, I basically talked myself into believing that no one ever takes a catcher in the Rule 5 draft anymore. Obviously, the Twins FO did not listen to my inner monologue. I hope Rortvedt proves to be a capable callup for when injuries strike, because they usually do. I fear that he's still a bit raw.

In other news around the league, ex-Twin Eduardo Nunez holds the major league record for most times running out from under his Covid mask.

So, Wahpeton?

I guess there are questions about his defense? But maybe a one-and-done player has scope to improve under coaching in the pros?

Reno has a metro area population of around 475,000. They are one of the smallest AAA markets, and after a decade-long honeymoon period with robust attendance, they have fallen off in recent years, with the second lowest attendance in the PCL in 2019, third lowest in all of AAA. Fargo-Moorhead is slightly more than half their size, under 250,000. It'd be a steep climb, to make it financially there. If MLB suddenly decides to completely subsidize AAA, then it's their choice, but all signs are that they want a lot of local buy-in. I'd invest in an independent-league team in Fargo, if offered, but not AAA.

The migraines worry me more than the on-field injuries - that latter classification can be improved somewhat by modifying his behavior, but I don't think they have a handle on the former. And my thinking is that the migraines are not simply an on/off switch, but a spectrum of disablement, that would explain why there are periods where he seems unable to recognize pitches, and other times he can. I'm sure the team has better medical analysis than my guesswork, though.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it. But he played until he was 39, so it's not like he retired early. He played long enough, and very well, but not quite well enough for HoF standards, and as a result he comes up "2 seasons short" because he needed to pack about 10-15% more into each of the seasons he did play. He didn't need 2 more seasons including the outs, he needed just the productive parts of 2 more seasons. The 110 OPS+ pretty much sums that up. He was 10% more productive at the plate than average, which considering the average MLBer is damn good. But not HoF good.

WAR, which has been mentioned a few times, is a quick and dirty indicator to help suggest who should get closer scrutiny and who shouldn't. But for HOF purposes, the indicator I like better is WAA - Wins Above Average. On b-r.com it's basically WAR adjusted to take away a couple of "wins" each year to reflect an average player. As with JAWS, Torii doesn't fare too well with WAA - b-r.com ranks him 352nd all time among hitters that way, while WAR likes him a great deal better at 187th. Basically WAR is an indicator of the ability to remain at the major league level, while WAA gives more of an idea of the ability to excel relative to his peers. WAA doesn't "penalize longevity" - Henry Aaron does just fine under either measure - but it does seem to weed out players who simply racked up workmanlike seasons. For me, the difference drops Torii from "marginal HOF candidate" to "I'm not going to invest further thought." Sorry. Really good player, loved him on my team, but he's not going in. / edit - in answer to a question just above about who else on the Twins isn't in, Tony Oliva is an excellent counter-discussion. Tony's career was tragically short, and his WAR is lower than Torii's (43.1 vs 50.7) and yet his Wins Above Average is higher (20.2 vs 16.4). I'm not going to put a guy in the HOF based on one all-around number, but Tony's the one I would look closely at before Torii. Of course, Tony's been looked at closely, for decades now. Tough call IMO. I'd vote yes on him, but HOF is partly about emotion.

I can tell this discussion isn't serious because there is no mention of Backyard Baseball.

I believe that's for 4 years, if the contract goes its full length. b-r.com has him earning $6.4M in 2021 and $8.4M in 2022. After that, ties can be cut with a $1M buyout; otherwise the succeeding years are $8M and $10M. That kind of money sounds about market-correct for a high-end utility type, if that terminology makes sense, who is past the years with zero contract leverage. Marwin made a little more, for instance, as a full-fledged free agent.

Story is a desirable upgrade, but a year and then he walks is a tough one for me to pull the trigger on. And I'm not super interested in trading much of anything for a utility player. Also, I would much rather the Twins trade from an area of oversupply, and pitching in the farm system isn't that. So, I am most favorable to #2. I always want more pitching. Two corner outfield prospects seems redundant and something another team wouldn't go for, but it's where we are stacked up the most, so that's worth a try; the two pitchers additionally mentioned in the package represent what we'd hope might someday turn into what we'd be receiving in return, so I'm OK with including them. This all presupposes the professional talent evaluators don't think Hader's control problem in 2020 is permanent.