ashbury

No mention of Royce Lewis in this analysis? While he certainly belongs foremost in the shortstop discussion, his name comes up often as a possibility in center.

The way it strikes me, Doug Fister is the same as Hand, but doubled.

That's often how it is done, but doesn't have to be. 1) What's important for platooning isn't the batter's handedness, but how he does against pitchers of one hand versus the other*. Garver seems to have a normal platoon split in his time in the majors, doing a little better against lefty pitchers (but hardly futile against righties). But Jeffers showed an opposite-platoon split in his short time in the majors last year, and his 2019 and 2018 in the minors were likewise. For practical purposes, Jeffers's results looks like he hits as though he were a lefty. 2) Platooning at catcher isn't like at other positions. You might platoon in left field because you don't have a satisfactory guy to play there everyday, which would be one's normal preference - so you cobble together the equivalent, from two players with complementary abilities - but you would not platoon two stud hitters in LF just for the sake of lefty/righty splits, instead you'd find some solution that gets them both in the lineup, or trade one of them. But at catcher, it's a given that no one is enough of an ironman to start 162 games. The ideal for catcher is to have two guys who both hit so well that you're happy to have either one start on a given day, and can decide perhaps on a given opposing matchup on the mound that day if both are rested. It is possible we have that situation right now, if Garver bounces back, and Jeffers proves to be the real deal. * A few pitchers likewise have reverse platoon splits, which complicates the record-keeping a bit. I imagine advanced analytics teams have this detail sorted out by now.

There was even a squirrel at Target Field a year or two ago (and of course one who lives here at TD now).

Give 'em all metal parts like the rod that's in our first baseman's leg!

You forgot to say my name 3 times to make me appear, but I'll post one for ya anyway.

When traveling to the US, it's important to bring your own stash due to the widespread shortages faced here.

Isn't the period supposed to go inside the quotation mark?

I think Scott Boras is one of the more astute minds concerning the business of baseball. In fact, I think he would make some team a great general manager, except that not even the Yankees or Dodgers could afford him!

I tried to start a blog of my own but people told me I was overqualified. Now I understand.

I don't see Marquez and Gray as interchangeable targets. Gray has one more season of team control; and the fact that Marquez signed a nice extension suggests that Gray (and not the Rockies) was the one unwilling to come to terms for a similar deal. Seems like Gray wants to test free agency. Unless the Twins have some secret sauce that the Rockies don't have for getting people to sign, we'd be trading for just one year of Gray, and I think I would save Sano for a different trade target than that.

It's nice to dream, but that contract says to me Colorado has Marquez on the inner-circle of their Untouchable list. Is he mentioned anywhere in the rumor mill?

A top notch DH can be a cost-effective way for a mid-market team to fill out the lineup card. Nelson Cruz is Exhibit A. Paying $20M a year for that doesn't count as cost-effective, though - that kind of money needs to come with a good glove included (or, preferably, a pitching arm instead of a bat), and Ozuna's glove appears to be not really stellar. And if they would spend that kind of money on a corner outfielder with middling defense, they should have just kept Rosario for less.

Make that small edit, and everything else he wrote still stands, IMO.

I dislike RBI as a measure of a hitter as much as most of the rubes here, as you flatter yourself to call us. So I feel qualified to offer a little counter-commentary. Let's look at WAR instead. That's a good rube analytics number, right? Over on baseball-reference.com's Twins page, if I take out the positional component of the offensive WAR and just look at raw offense, I see Nellie's contribution at 2.3 wins over replacement for the past season. The corresponding number for the team as a whole was 7.5. 2.3 divided by 7.5 gives 30.7%. So I'll see your 30% and raise you. Have a little patience before calling names, friend.

Rule-5, I agree. My side comment was limited to the waiver machinations.

From my perspective as a fan of a team, my first instinct is to feel the same way. Over the course of several years discussing such moves here, I've had impressed on me that certain roster rules like waivers and Rule 5 are intended for the benefit of the minor league player, and so I've become a little more philosophical about it. / It still bothers me when I can't reason out a tangible benefit to the player, though - such as repeated waiver claims and re-waivers that result in the player becoming simply a minor leaguer in some new organization.

The IL can help soften the burden of carrying a player who can't yet contribute, but not entirely eliminate it. From MLB.com's glossary: "A Rule 5 Draft pick can be placed on the Major League injured list, but he must be active for a minimum of 90 days to avoid being subject to the aforementioned roster restrictions in the next campaign." I believe there might be exceptions for cases of major injury that overlaps the end of one season and the start of the next, but that second season must involve the player being on the active roster to complete the 90 day minimum (and maybe those exceptions became viewed as loopholes and have been eliminated because I couldn't actually find mention of them anymore).

Good one, RBStu. You had me, right up to the very end. Yeah, like a Borat thing. Let's see how many rubes drive eastbound on I-94 and fall off the edge, as a result of your article. Epic prank. Hope the witness protection program, or whatever you use to hide, works well in the aftermath.

The Rays-Rangers trade looks like Tampa Bay adjusting their prospect pool toward greater positional flexibility. No pitchers among the 5 players on the move.

I was reacting mainly to your comment about some kind of hidden magic in an arm. But there's no "versus" when looking at who is coming and who is leaving. The major league phase is based on 40 protected players (plus all the players not yet eligible); there's some possible talent to be had there. The AAA phase comes after a great many additional players are then protected. Every player taken by every team in the AAA phase is viewed as organization filler. The AAA phase isn't some 3-dimension chess match between opposing GMs and their armies of scouts and analytics types. It's just filling in empty spots. We lost a couple of arms during the major-league phase - filling in this way is perhaps more convenient than signing someone to a minor league contract. Again, maybe your comment about "magic" wasn't to be taken too seriously.

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.