Dodecahedron

Putting on my Twins thinking cap here, I suggest the Twins sign Pujols and play him at either 3B or LF. Donaldson can also play 3B or LF. The set of prospects we bounce out of LF can then be the backup catcher or the meatball pitcher in the losses that will follow. The prospects will be OK with this and will continue to be great prospects for the team in the future. We'll just give them the talk where we say, "This is the hard part about baseball..." as we make them change their uniform numbers and move their lockers to the end furthest away from us, over by the trash cans, dirty laundry, and the so-called "jockstrap cemetery." Let's GO!

I agree that it's not luck. The hot streaks in previous years match up well with Buxton being on the field. Now that they're not winning but Buxton is even better, well, most of us are at a loss of words. This team is shaping up to be in real deep doo-doo when Buxton inevitably hits the IL for the obligatory 3-6 weeks. But, yeah, the Twins replaced Molitor with a manager who seems to have the same problems, but has the same problems for completely different reasons. Should Baldelli be fired? No, not really. He's here now, he's young, he can learn. But let's hope Twins brass is having daily retrospectives with him to analyze each game and learn from his mistakes. The great thing about the retrospective process is it does not require any experts to be present, it simply requires those who were there "when it happened" to analyze their decisions and decide to stop making the bad ones. Plus, it only takes half an hour of time.

Yes, the Twins should definitely do this. Pujols was last good five years ago*. Shoemaker was last good five years ago. Thus, there is precedent for signing Pujols, but only if he can block a prospect as Shoemaker did. The Twins can just play the prospect Pujols blocks out of position. Prospects are like rubber, not like real people, they can handle anything. They'll always smile in the clubhouse just for the team giving them an opportunity to wear the uniform. Pujols is the career all-time record holder for GIDP. This would fit on the mantle perfectly right next to the Twins playoff loss record. Why hasn't this signing happened already? Maybe the Twins could convince him to go into the HOF as a Twin if they promise him a statue at Target Field. *He was last great more like 7-10 years ago.

Or, the market still believes Darvish is worth the value. Many in Twins Daily-land have blinders on when it comes to Darvish being injury prone. I would guess San Diego is smarter than that, and simply believes Darvish is worth the risk. That's a fair argument. I would not take on that risk, but I would not fault other GMs for feeling he is worth it. Nevertheless, this is a conversation about large contracts for injury-prone players. It should not be lost on anyone that the Cubs let Arrieta go in order to get Darvish, only to then get Arrieta back and trade Darvish. Strange decisions, yes, but the Cubs might have the best bullpen in the league so heck, why not.

You may have missed my original post. I am talking about signing injury prone players.

The Cubs sell out games even when they don't play well, and even though they play a large number of games in the afternoon when people should be working or in school. This means the pandemic hurt them more than it hurt other teams, of course, but the in normal times the Cubs would not have to cut loose someone like Darvish because they are not fielding a playoff team. But really we are saying the same thing, just attacking it from different angles. The Cubs realized they overpaid.

So, flipping 4 losses to wins to account for Dobnak and Shoemaker's current roles does not get the team near .500? I think it does, right at 15-15. Some of those losses would have still been losses, but let's split the difference and add a game for optimism. If you want to remove gut feelings and do something down the middle based on the actuals, even though those would not have been actuals in the other scenario, you're at 14-16. That's near .500 too. If you think the different roles and different pitchers would have had the same results, in which case I don't know why you would defend Shoemaker or the team, OK, you win.

This is probably what the Twins were thinking. But, to be clear, I am not second guessing, this has always been my opinion. I would add that when I look at Shoemaker's numbers, to me he looks equally good both before and after his injuries. If you ask a Blue Jays fan what they think of Shoemaker, I'm betting the word you would get back is "bust." He was last productive five years ago, and most major league careers are less than five years in length. That's ancient history. There is no shortage of pitchers the Twins could have picked up who were last good five years ago, if that's how we measure #5 pitchers who are worthy of blocking prospects.

We could start using the median instead of the mean. The median for the Twins is a hell of a lot lower, and heck it accurately describes what happens more often by its very definition. Median runs scored per game: 3. Median runs allowed per game: 4.

You are allowed to speak for yourself, of course. To me, the Shoemaker signing was utter nonsense unless the Twins were signing him for the bullpen or for spring training insurance. There is also the small point of, now that things have played out, who was right? It matters that some of us saw this was crazy; sure it matters that some of the groupthink was different, but that groupthink was wrong. The Shoemaker signing did not become insane after the season started, it was always insane. Also, having 4 starters 'locked in' in February is normal. Heck, it's above average for the not only the Twins but for the AL Central. Who the heck panics over the #5 starter in February? That's a spot for prospects. When it comes to Happ, I was never worried about him. If a guy can pitch well in New York, he can pitch well in the AL Central. The Happ signing wasn't the Twins signing some washed-up has-been who failed out of New York, he was performing decently there. Happ was always going to be a solid #3 for the Twins -- he was a legitimate good signing who did not require signing Shoemaker as a backup plan. No one on this team needed Shoemaker as a backup plan, much less as Plan A.

That's 1/3 of it. - You also have to factor in 1/3 for performance of who the other starter would have been. If you assume they pitched as a median #5 starter, there's a couple wins. - You also have to factor in 1/3 for Dobnak's poor performances in the 8th and 9th innings, which he would not have been doing if not for the Shoemaker decision. It's not hard to get to .500.

The Cubs opened wallet wide for Yu Darvish in spite of his injury risk, though there was some buyer's remorse there as he has since been traded. I would guess the Cubs are still on the hook for part of the contract, but I haven't looked. The point is, the market may have changed for risky players. Of course, if Buxton plays 120+ games and plays near his peak ability for the next two years, he will make some major bank. I think we can agree Buxton will get an above-average contract somewhere, even if the next two years are just more of the same.

The Shoemaker signing baffled me. Block a starter for Shoemaker? Hm. Why? He is worse than any option the Twins had. After thinking about it, I assumed Shoemaker was going to be a bullpen piece or perhaps cut after spring training. But then he wasn't? And Dobnak was coming in to pitch in the 8th and 9th innings so that Shoemaker could start? Hm. Why? The one seemingly small decision of signing Shoemaker and having him start games, while pushing Dobnak into a nonsensical role given his skillset cost this team how many games? By my calculations, this would be roughly a .500 team if not for this one daft set of decisions over the frigging #5 starter! Let that sink in. This is a classic example of management overthinking things and causing massive problems and chaos that cascades into everything else. At this point, who knows if Dobnak will be able to pitch decently again before next year, shattered confidence in prospects is a real thing. This isn't Monday-morning quarterbacking either. None of us, and no other GM or manager, would have made these decisions. We were all confused by this as it played out, we all saw this coming. (Though I think we are surprised by the scope of the impact, of course. We expected a rocky road, not a massive crater.)

The pitch framing metrics were designed to keep umpires honest and make them accountable. Largely this has succeeded, yes there are still bad calls and bad games but it's not like it was 10-15 years ago. Yes, I strongly believe the Twins were bounced out of the playoffs more than once in that era by bad-intentioned umpires. I'm not sure where Garver and Jeffers rank for pitch framing, so I can't say if this is what they are trying to do. In any case, the best pitch framers get one extra strike per game. There was a strong narrative that this was a huge difference maker, there were many vocal pundits around saying what a huge difference this was. Logically we knew this was never the case. We have enough data now to show that no team has gone deep in the playoffs solely due to the performance art of the catcher. Umpires have vastly improved their ball-strike accuracy in the last decade, but not due to catcher finesse. It's due to umpire accuracy being measured.

This is your opinion. I think Baldelli shoulders much more of the blame. He legitimately seems to be out of step with the players. You could say Baldelli is in his own bubble. It's clear to see with the pitching that has not adequately assessed who should be pitching where and when. The front office shoulders more blame as well. Yes they had good intentions, and yes they used the same method to build out the bullpen that they used in previous years. Personally, I expected this year's result in those previous years too, so although I was not happy with the bullpen this year, I held back on judging it. As for the players, I'm sure none of them want to be hitting or pitching as badly as they are. Let's be serious, would any of us be building a team around the likes of Kepler, Sano, Polanco, Shoemaker, Colome, etc.? Yes, all of us would probably have kept one or two of these guys around, but not all of them. For me, the biggest disappointment is Polanco, but I can't honestly say any of the others would still be on this team if I were in charge. Not that getting rid of all of them now is the answer, gutting the team by cleaning house is a recipe for disaster. The Twins should be looking to improve continuously by moving a couple of these marginal pieces year over year. In any case, the players are who they are. Blaming them for that is not productive, unless we know they are not taking the job seriously. If any of us believed, for example, that Kepler was a difference-maker, that's on us. The Twins team of the 00s had a lot of turnover, but kept improving. Sure, the late 80s teams had roster consistency, but they also had a team of all-stars and were setting attendance records.

If Buxton is made out of glass and not worthy of a big contract, but he is very worthy right now, keep him until the end of his current contract. If he is not worthy of a big contract, he won't net a big return in a trade.

I would wait until the team has more divisional games under their belt before selling. Trading Buxton now guarantees a 100-loss season. Heck, maybe 110 losses. Yuck.

Buxton is still an injury risk, so it seems doubtful the team would get anywhere near his ceiling or even median value in a trade. There is little question the Twins took a dive when they tried this the last time and traded off Santana. If the Twins and Buxton cannot agree on long-term contract terms, if I were the GM I would just keep him as long as possible. Give him whatever he asks for in arbitration next year, do a qualifying offer the year after, then let him go. The Twins would get his peak years and some other team can give him cash to watch him decline. But hopefully the two sides can come together to keep him in a Twins uniform.

Trading for relievers is scary. If the Twins pull the trigger and make a trade, I'm hoping it is strategic beyond "These are the players who seem available." The Twins should be trying to solve a problem at a deeper level than, "Stop the runs." The Twins should analyze what the gap actually is before throwing more players at it or they will not solve the problem, and losing prospects without solving the problem is a bad thing.

Right. Heck, it can just be one or two more batters. Anything to move a bit closer to the finish line.

So you admit that Colome was a free add-on for trying to dump someone else's salary. This is more evidence to suggest that Colome is a cancer.

Seems like the goal with Arraez was to have him bat lead-off and "field wherever." With Buxton finally stepping into the leadoff batter role, I would think this bumps Arraez down the depth chart more than anything Sano and Kiriloff are doing. Provided Sano and Kiriloff can drive in runs and get on base, of course.

The Rays paid his salary that year for him to play for Seattle, an odd choice for a team trying to save money. Later, the Mariners traded him immediately at the end of the year, in spite of him pitching quite well for them. The Mariners never game him a dollar. The other players involved in these trades are far from impressive. Very strange considering how well he appears on paper. The Twins either did not ask questions about his personality, or they did ask but didn't care.

Given the bullpen problems, sounds like Happ is not a fit for the team. The team needs starters they can lean on.

It's OK to use your eyes and ears to see if a pitcher needs to be pulled instead of a pitch count.