ashbury

Chief said the Opener has disappeared. I should leave the followup to him.

Keaschall, boo!!! Sac fly??? We wanted another Grannie!

Are you trying to jinx it and give us a triple play?

An Opener is a completely different concept from running a bullpen game. The difference being, who comes next and for how long.

Almost prophetic. Instead, an anti-jinx.

Nice post. GRAY!!!!

When in doubt, paraphrase Dorothy Parker. "What fresh hell can they come up with?"

(Not watching live, and I misread the game report. Never mind.)

We will learn something. I'm willing to stick my neck out that far, but no farther.

I've tried to avoid speculating about personality issues but this is the thought that's crossed my mind too: that he's resisted the suggestion to accept a 15-day IL stint, and he's resisted accepting a full-time bullpen role for a long enough time to find out if that suits him. That's not something the team is likely to come right out and tell us, likewise the pitcher, so I hate putting much stock in mere speculation. But if he's snapped up on waivers in a week or so, we won't have much to go on besides that. The manager and the pitching coach couldn't change his mind? That wouldn't be a positive mark for them. Like I said, speculation leads down rabbit holes I don't wanna go, because I lack accurate information.

I'm glad we're back to the main point, instead of reassessing the 2021 trade for the umpteenth time. The DFA on Saturday remains baffling to me, and the lack of a trade announcement today takes away one of the primary excuses that I could come up with. They are cutting ties with a 25-year old who has a two-year track record of enough success to count as value by most metrics - until this clunker of a year. We are missing important information.

I'm confused. Which "previous regime" are you referring to in this? Falvey's, with Zoll representing the new regime? Or Terry Ryan, prior to Falvey?

An interesting thought-experiment would be to consider how the Blue Jays front office would think if they were in the TC market and the owners were named Pohlad.

I started to edit the above, but feared someone would reply to the first version before I could finish. It's not very good, and here is what my evolving opinion looks like at this moment: That is a fair "other side of the coin". They extended Byron Buxton during the off-season after the Berrios trade. Does that mean it was "one or the other, not both?" for their home-grown stars? Ugh. Other than Buxton, it seems to me they piddle away what they DO spend, $5-7M at a time on players who can not possibly be difference-makers, just place-holders due to some present exigency.

That is a fair "other side of the coin". Wake me when the Twins spend that $131M through 2028 on players of higher caliber than Josh Bell and Victor Caratini that they wouldn't have otherwise had. Seems to me 1) they won't reach $131M, and 2) they piddle away what they DO spend, $5-7M at a time on players who can not possibly be difference-makers, just place-holders due to some present exigency.

I just explained why that is simply not true. You have to think like a front office.

I disagree. You overlook the value of incumbency. Good players frequently sign extensions with their current team. "We like your client. We hope he likes playing for us. Here is a market-correct offer for X years, covering his last year of arbitration plus X-1 years. It's possible he could squeeze out an additional $X million by going through free agency, but our offer removes all the risk involved in going that route. Please give your client our warmest regards, and let us know what you and he decide." Paying market rates for players is more expensive than paying for young talent. But there is a value in "we have him, and you don't," for players like Berrios who belong, at worst, in mid-rotation for a championship-caliber club and possibly #2 or even #1 in specific cases. No team wins awards for the most efficient use of budget space - you use the budget space you have (or are comfortable with) to amass talent. The Twins obviously were not going to make an offer Berrios was willing to accept at that time - that was clear from every report seen in the press. So trading him for high-value prospects made sense for them. But the Jays were operating on a different plane and such a trade made sense for them in a different way. They traded prospects for 1.33 years of current control plus the chance for more. It turns out $131M was the Jays' commitment. If seems entirely plausible the Twins found such a number way too rich for their blood. The trade made sense from both sides, and with a chance for a time-window much longer than the nominal 1.33 years of remaining control. And I think it's entirely fair to count all of the WAR he's given the Jays. It kills me that the Twins can't commit $131M to one of their home-grown stars.

PREDICTION Go big or go home when making bold predictions.

I believe the panel would also have accepted a Dennis Green gif.

This is why MLB keeps the stats for us, so we don't have to rely on small samples and personal recollection. I'm of the opinion that there is a negative trend for the Twins like people suggest. But all baseball data is "noisy" and there will be outliers in either direction. So it's hard to make the case because the trend line won't be absolute. Even with good, accurate, complete data, it's still hard to separate the wheat from the chaff when looking for something.

Feels like an article written two series ago, with W-L records updated while it waited in the queue for publication.

I don't have any more inside-information than anyone else here. When faced with an inexplicable decision, I tend to assume there is information I am missing, rather than complete stupidity. So my answer is "I don't know" but here are the nuances. 1) Granting a request for a release seems extremely unlikely. Terrible precedent to set. "Wait, you mean I could just ask out, like that one guy last year, Sam, Simon Whats-his-name, did?" 2) I wouldn't even want to speculate what kind of off field issue could have happened. 3) Might a trade be in the works? The DFA was announced on a Saturday. Maybe the trade partner doesn't like to conduct business on a weekend, or maybe there are league rules I'm unaware of. This possibility will play out early tomorrow if it is the case. 4) Maybe there won't be another shoe dropped publicly and we'll never know. I'll continue to believe there's more to the story that neither party wants to divulge.

Has to be more to it than that. This franchise has always been about stewardship of resources, and exposing a player needlessly to waivers goes against their very grain. Outman remaining on the 26-man roster is exactly such an example, and he's a much less-valuable case. I'm expecting some other shoe to drop shortly regarding SWR.