ashbury

Players taken in the AAA phase don't have the roster restrictions on them that the first phase has. It's roster shuffling and nothing more.

Good call on De Geus. Rangers took him #2.

There won't be. The Appalachian League as a whole is switching over to be a summer college league along the general lines of the Cape Cod.

Don't be a negative nelly.

Also, the cool thing about math rules is that the feeling tends to be mutual. Math rules don't care about you - they just are.

The problem with each and every one of the non-tender guys is that the team that knows them best passed on the unilateral decision to keep them. Still, the case laid out here is intriguing, and perhaps is a better fit for the Twins than for other teams whose needs in CF are either greater or less.

You just have to make sure to use at least 3 such players in the rotation. If Player A is half the hitter that Cruz is, and Player B is half the hitter that Cruz is, and Player C is half the hitter that Cruz is, why, that's 150% of Cruz's production right there! Let me explain to you sometime how I get 200,000 miles of use out of a set of four tires plus a spare that are rated by the manufacturer for 40,000 miles which I rotate every few days. It's just math.

Welcome! We'll be counting on you for scouting reports.

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?