markos

I mostly agree with you, which is why I found it so surprising that Shields passed through waivers unclaimed this past August. Granted, the August market is a little weird as most teams are really looking at their futures. But still, at that point nobody was willing to take him (and his salary) for essentially nothing.

I'm not sure about Michael either. I think he fits the archetype of a player who might be selected, as he: 1) Fits the utility infield role, as he probably won't kill you if he started once or twice a week at any of the three infield positions, especially if you match him up against a lefty. 2) Switch-hits, and seems to have decent walk/strikeout rates. 3) Isn't good enough that you would care if you ruined his development by having him mostly rot on the bench as a 25-man. 4) But if you squint hard you can see the potential upside of an everyday player in the future. But I don't really have any idea how many other players will be available that fit that same pattern. From the list that jsteve96 posted, Nolan Fontana is clearly a much better option. Are there going to be a dozen middle-infielders available that are better than Michael? Or only one? That should factor into whether or not a player is protected or not.

I'm a little surprised Brian Dozier's second half collapse didn't make the list. Perkins had the more dramatic collapse, but he only pitched 20 innings. Dozier played almost every game, batted at the top of the lineup, and had only a .642 OPS (and .275 OBP!) from July 1st on.

The phrase "give up on" is a bit loaded, but I do think that the Twins undervalued Hicks a little bit and traded him away too early. In general, I think that there are enough examples of players figuring hitting out in their mid-to-late twenties that it is good policy to try to hang onto high-ceiling players through age-28. Especially players that seem to be just a half step away from putting it all together. And Hicks is kind of in that boat. He just needs to hit RHP just a little bit better and he becomes an everyday player. If he takes a big step forward against RHP, and adds a little more power like most players do in their late-20s, then he is a real asset. To put Hicks and his struggles into perspective: 1) Torii Hunter two months into age-25 season: 1000 MLB PAs, OPS+ <75 2) David Ortiz after age-25 season: 1200 MLB PAs, OPS+ 103 3) Carlos Gomez after age-25 season: 1700 MLB PAs, OPS+ 73 4) Lorenzo Cain after age-25 season: just 181 MLB PAs, OPS+ 101 - spent most of year in AAA 5) Aaron Hicks after age-25 season: 928 MLB PAs, OPS+ 80

I agree that his BABIP is unsustainable. However, I hope that with regular playing time and more experience he will decrease his strikeouts and increase his walks, which should negate the BABIP regression.

A few more thoughts: 1) For those saying that Hicks only had one good month, it is worth pointing out that his struggles in August and September were mostly due to a very low BABIP - just .245. His rate stats and batted ball stats were solid during those months. If he was less unlucky and closer to his career norm, his overall line for those two months is probably close to a .730-.750 OPS. 2) Someone pointed out Murphy's home/away splits. Ouch. Hard to know how much that matters because the sample size is pretty small, but still... 3) Despite all of the warning signs in Murphy's numbers (high BABIP, huge home/away splits, etc), he was a backup all season, and generally speaking a batter's hitting takes a pretty big hit when not playing everyday. If he is the starting catcher going forward, it certainly seems likely that his numbers might have a small uptick, or at least counteract all the warning signs. 4) Also, Murphy was basically league-average or better throughout his minor league career despite being promoted rather aggressively - he was promoted to AA at age 21. That is always a good sign. It is funny - the more I look into these players, the more I like them both going forward.

Here are some random thoughts: (apologize if these have already been brought up, but this thread is updating fast...) 1) I don't like trading Hicks just because there is a lot of upside yet. So many hitters figure it out in their late 20s, and he has enough tools to turn into a special player. 2) That said, he has had almost 1000 PAs in the majors and hasn't shown much yet. 3) JR Murphy has a .350 BABIP in his career so far. So take his current performance with a grain of salt. 4) He doesn't have pull power - all of his homers last year (there were only 3) were to left-center or opposite field. Is that power going to play in Target Field? Here is his spray chart from the past two season: http://www.fangraphs.com/spraycharts.aspx?playerid=10346&position=C&type=battedball&pid2=10346&ss1=2014&se1=2014&ss2=2015&se2=2015&cht1=hittype&cht2=hittype&vs1=ALL&vs2=ALL 5) Kiley McDaniel and Chris Mitchell both liked him as a prospect/rookie last year: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/under-the-radar-rookie-hitters-on-contending-teams/ http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/evaluating-the-prospects-new-york-yankees/ Mitchell mentioned that based on his projection system Murphy should have been a borderline top-100 prospect. 6) Baseball Prospectus ranked him as an average framer but below average at blocking pitches. Overall, I can see this trade going a lot of ways. Judging it right now, I think I'm a little disappointed, as my gut thinks that Hicks is going to take a big step forward at the plate in the next couple of seasons.

The main 3B filter on Fangraphs combines the total stats for everyone who played at 3B. So in the Twins' case, the 3.6 WAR is spread over the 830+ PAs that Plouffe and Nunez had last year, even though most of Nunez's PAs were at SS. If you use the 3B Split instead, it tallies the stats for the players only when playing 3B. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=6&season=2015&month=39&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

The demand side is the problem. Third-base is absolutely stacked right now, and 14 teams were able to get 3+ WAR production, and an additional 7 teams got 2+ WAR. So for the majority of teams, Plouffe represents basically a lateral move at best. For example, does it really make sense for the Padres to upgrade from a 2 WAR Solarte who is making peanuts to a 2.5 WAR Plouffe? And though Plouffe is cost-controlled, he isn't necessarily cheap - he will probably make ~$20M over the next two seasons in arbitration. It is unfortunate that right now the teams with 3B needs are either rebuilding, have a young or expensive incumbent, or are in the division.

Two thoughts: 1) I don't think the Braves and Brewers are in the market for Plouffe. They both seems to be in the middle of rebuilding, and they are probably more interested in acquiring and keeping young, cheap players rather than giving them up to acquire a player like Plouffe. 2) I'm surprised you didn't mention the Angels. They are have hole (Freese is leaving in free agency) and are in a win-now mode. They have a potential internal replacement in Kyle Kubitza, but Plouffe seems like the kind of player the Angels would be interested in (veteran, good defense).

I think that framework might gain some traction with a three-way trade. I don't think the Brewers have any interest in Plouffe themselves, but if you could get some other team to join the trade, then maybe it would work. Twins get Lucroy Team X gets Plouffe Brewers get prospects from Twins and Team X. I still think the Brewers are going to want (and probably get) at least 1 top-50 prospect in return for Lucroy.

Apologies if you already know this... Fangraphs calculates each minor leaguer's wRC+ relative to the league they are in. So Vielma's wRC+ of 93 puts his offense about 7% worst than average in the Florida State League. It is a nice feature since the various minor league levels have such different run environments. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa657416&position=SS

I threw out the general population stat to indicate that at some level height matters. If the vast majority of people are under 6'2", but the vast majority of elite MLB pitchers are over, then height provides at least a very crude tool to differentiate players. The question is where is it useful and where is it not. I agree that there does not appear to be a height bias at the MLB level. But does it exist in the with prospects? Or drafting? Or with signing 16-year-old international kids? Hopefully this example will demonstrate what I mean (and oh my god this is so far off topic...) "Short" defined as 6'1" or less, and all numbers made up... (X% - Y to be read as "X% of Y are 'short'") Scenario 1: 95% - the general population 80% - all baseball pitchers 50% - pitchers for competitive hs traveling teams, college, etc 25% - pitchers good enough to be drafted/signed 25% - pitchers who reach AA 25% - pitchers who make the majors 25% - pitchers who qualify for the ERA title 20% - pitchers in the top 10 in league ERA In this scenario, height is clearly not a good indicator for any player acquisition. If a pitcher is good enough to be drafted/signed, beyond that height doesn't really matter at all. Scenario 2: 95% - the general population 80% - all baseball pitchers 50% - pitchers for competitive hs traveling teams, college, etc 40% - pitchers good enough to be drafted 35% - pitchers who reach AA 30% - pitchers who make the majors 25% - pitchers who qualify for the ERA title 20% - pitchers in the top 10 in league ERA Here, height does matter, as at every step the population of pitchers gets progressively taller. This scenario would indicate to me that height does matter to some degree, at least in the fact that it correlates with success. I don't have any data to know what the actual numbers are. But my theory is that at a certain age/level (maybe 22/AA), height stops being meaningful. But prior to that it is meaningful, primarily because it is a proxy for identifying which young pitchers will develop the stuff necessary to succeed in the majors. Obviously height isn't the only thing that matters, or even one of the main things. But when dealing with draft/signing/trade decisions, when all other things (stuff/results/health/etc) are equal I would go with the tall pitcher over the short pitcher.

The "total population" I was referring to was the population of all baseball players worldwide, not just the much, much, much smaller group of MLB pitchers who qualify for the ERA title. Only 5% of the men in the world are at least 6' 2", yet they make up the vast majority of MLB pitchers.

78 pitchers qualified for the ERA title last year. 56 were 6' 2" or taller. Of the top 10 by ERA+, only 2 (Greinke and Gray) were short. My own pet theory is that taller pitchers are more likely to be able to generate the "stuff" (velocity, movement, etc) necessary to be a successful major league starter - the population of "short" players is much bigger than the population of tall players, but tall players make the larger portion of successful pitchers. That's probably why height is used as a proxy when drafting HS-ers and signing Latin American players. It is probably less of an distinguishing factor when drafting college players, as they have already gone through several years of winnowing. And once players reach (or are on the cusp of) the major, height doesn't really matter too much.

I think Wade should be higher. As for my reasoning, one common thread for over-achieving later-round college draft picks is an elite ability to control the strikezone in the minors, ideally with a very low strikeout rate and more walks than strikeouts. Some names that fit that profile: Dozier, Matt Carpenter, Matt Duffy, Brett Gardner, Brock Holt, Ben Zobrist and Sam Fuld. And since it sounds like Wade is athletic and can play a legit centerfield, he seems well on his way to being at least a 4th-outfielder. Granted, almost all of his success was in Rookie ball, so we will have to see how his plate discipline maintains as he is promoted. But right I would be tempted to rank him ahead of the two high school kids they drafted in the 3rd and 4th rounds. As for Michael, I do think there is a legitimate chance he is drafted in the Rule 5 draft if left exposed. As Thrylos has mentioned, when he is healthy he has been able to hit pretty well at AA. He is a switch-hitter, and if he can adequately play all the infield positions, he may be a decent and cheap bench option for a lot of teams. And in some ways his injury-prone nature may make him more inviting, as teams can probably expect him to spend a decent amount of time on the DL, which will make it even easier to keep him stashed all season. So I also hope they protect him.

While it is rather obvious that high velocity is neither necessary nor sufficient for MLB pitching success, I don't think there is any question that it has some valuable as a predictor of success. Since 2011, there are 677 starters that threw at least 100 innings in a season. Running a quick correlation with ERA- and FIP-, there is a correlation between velocity and success. It isn't terribly strong (.35 for FIP-, .23 for ERA-), but it is stronger than GB% and similar in strength to BB%. It lags rather far behind K% and other swing/chase metrics (O-Swing%, Z-Contact%, Contact%, SwStr%). As other people have already pointed out, getting strikeouts (or at least swinging strikes) is probably the more important skill than pure velocity. Of the above sample, ~20% averaged at least 93 MPH with their fastball. As a group, the 93+ club was significantly above average (90 ERA-) and made up 27% of all the above-average pitchers (ERA- < 100). Basically, that group was 67% more likely to be above-average than the <93 group. Looking at elite seasons (ERA- < 80), the difference is even more pronounced. The 93+ group had 38% of the elite seasons, which means that a pitcher throwing 93+ is 245% more likely (assuming I did my math correctly) to have an ERA- of <80. Even though we can all come up with examples of great pitchers without great velocity, in all actuality they are rare and difficult to predict ahead of time. Dallas Keuchel has been amazing while barely cracking 90 MPH, but two years ago no one was predicting he would be good, much less one of the best pitchers in baseball. And at this point nobody knows who the next Keuchel will be. That kind of ends up being the crux of the problem - it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to look at a high school or college kid sitting 90-91 and know that they will have the right combination of stuff, control, command, pitch-ability, deception, projection and moxie to consistently miss bats against major league batters. Sure, that kid might become an ace, but the probability is much, much lower than a kid throwing 95.

If you strip away the A-Rod contract (and remove the Roger Clemons one year deals), the broader upward trend holds. 1) Highest AAV in 2000 was Kevin Brown at $15MM. Highest AAV in 2009 (again, non A-Rod) was CC Sabathia at $23MM. Increase of 53%, which is ~4.5% increase per year 2) Highest AAV in 2009 (again, non A-Rod) was CC Sabathia at $23MM. Highest AAV in 2015 is Cabrera at $31MM Increase of 38%, or 5.1% per year. 3) Cabrera signed his first big deal in 2008 with a $19MM AAV. He just signed an extension that is a $31MM AAV. 63% increase in only 7 years (7.2% per year). 4) Only 6 players in 2010 had ever reached an AAV over $20MM. Now there are 39 players. I will concede that 8% salary inflation is probably too much, but I definitely think that at least 5% is what we are seeing right now. If trends continue, I don't see why good-but-not great players won't be getting $30MM AAV in 6 years, just like how $20MM AAV contracts are given today to players like Choo, Porcello and Sandoval.

Here are a couple of articles on Fangraphs about recent extensions. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-freddie-freeman-deal-as-a-market-correction/ http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-perfectly-reasonable-christian-yelich-extension/ In the first article, Cameron points out maybe 6 total deals in the last few years (out of 50 total) that could be considered fails. Also, 8/$73MM to someone with less that 2 years of service time would be really close to other deals. Looking over the list of extensions, the biggest contract for someone with less that 2-years is Andrelton Simmons with 7/$58MM. Other deals for the likes of Yelich or Rizzo are more in the range of 7/$40-$50 with at least one additional option year. Sano's deal is a little more expensive, but given baseball salary inflation and the extra year, it isn't way out of line.

I think the deal that Seth laid out has a strong probability of saving the Twins a ton of money. Just looking at the arbitration years, Chris Davis just make $25MM over his three seasons, and he only had one superstar year and was actually pretty bad during his pre-arb seasons. Davis's arb seasons were in 2013-2015, whereas Sano's arb seasons will come in 2019-2021. Baseball salary inflation is pretty fast (8%-ish), so it wouldn't shock me that $25MM in 2013-2015 is $40MM in 2019-2021. And that is the baseline of a decent slugger with one great season. Imagine if Sano is actually really good, and then the arb numbers are probably $50MM-$60MM. Seth's deal limits his arb years to $25MM, which I think is easily a $15MM saving, and likely a $30MM or more.

Yes and no. From a straight WAR perspective, he is basically replacement-level, which would indicate that he isn't providing any value. However, the Twins are 20th in the majors for production at first-base. The position is really weak this season, and there are a lot of teams (Cle, Oak, StL, Col, Mia, Sea, TB, Pit, Hou, Was, Phi) who would be better off is Mauer had been their everyday firstbaseman for the season. So it is by no means great, but there is value in being better than many of one's peers at a position. Contrast the Mauer at first with Hunter in RF. One can argue that Mauer and Hunter have been equally valuable (or not valuable) this year, with maybe Hunter being slightly better by certain metrics. However, only two teams have been worse than the Twins at RF this season - KC and the Cubs.

I don't think Royals fans minded making it to the wildcard game.

I disagree with this. I think there is a real risk that the 2016 team will be worse (record-wise) than this year's team, mostly because I don't think this year's team is nearly as good as their record may indicate: - Fangraphs (using Baseruns estimate) and Baseball Prospectus (using their Adjusted Standings) both say that this team should be on a ~70 win pace. - Since they were 32-21 on June 4, they have been 22-30 - a ~70 win pace. - Just looking at April, June, July and August, they are 34-44 - a ~70 win pace. - Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus both project a rest-of-season winning percentage that would be a ~70 win pace. Basically, this is a 70 win team that had an incredibly fortunate 27 games in May which allowed it to still be in contention, and their "success" will encourage the front office to just bring everyone back and try it again next year, even at positions (SS, C, bullpen) where the team desperately needs improvement. It certainly seems possible that the 2016 team could play better and still end up with a worse record.

Seems like about the going price when one looks at the other deals involving relievers this deadline (Clippard, Lowe). Jepsen might be the worse of the relievers, but I don't think Hu is significantly better than any of the other arms dealt in those other deals (Meisner, Wells). I don't think this is a huge overpay.

Baseball reference has a nifty table that shows where each team is ranked compared to the "average" WAR for each position, and how far away they are from average. SS is the worst position for the Twins. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2015.shtml