markos

Another name to watch, mentioned in a different thread, is Cal Quantrill. He is a college guy recovering from TJ surgery. #15 is right around where a lot of injured pitchers end up (Allard #14, Aiken #17, Fedde #18, Giolito #16).

Yeah, weird class. But someone with serious top-10 buzz will be available for the Twins at #15 for one reason or another (poor performance, injury questions, etc). The Twins have a couple of extra picks (#73 & #74) due to failing to sign Cody last year and getting a competitive balance pick. So they have 4 picks between #56 and #93. That should give them some extra money (if they need it) to go a little overslot at #15 for someone who drops. That flexibility is good. Alternatively, it may be worth trying to save some money at #15, and then taking the best HS player available for the next 4 picks. I'm not sure if the depth of this draft would warrant such a strategy.

I think most 'fancy numbers' still think the Astros are the better team overall, so they are still projected to do better than the Twins going forward. But that doesn't mean their playoff odds haven't cratered. Most sites had the Astros favored to win the AL West but now are expecting closer to .500. Fangraph's rest-of-season projections are now pegging the Astros for 81 wins and just a 35% chance of making the playoffs. Baseball Prospectus is even more pessimistic, with just a 29% chance. There was a recent article talking about how the Astros have had the largest drop in playoff odds in baseball: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-astros-are-in-trouble/

I've been thinking for a while now that something like this was bound to show up. The earnings gap between many of the long-term extensions (including the team options) that buy out free agent years and just going through arbitration and free agency has been fairly substantial - and potentially growing. There have been a few bad extensions, but overall the owners have saved a ton of money on them. It isn't surprising that some kind of third-party financing/insurance is trying to fill that gap.

That is a good thing to point out. In the minors, his BABIP was above .400 in both 2013 and 2015 (.500 in AAA!). I expect him to have above-average BABIPs, but .400 is pretty extreme.

For what it's worth, Bryant (Jan 1993) is only 23 months older than Buxton (Dec 1994).

That is probably true. But Bryant is a different class of hitter than Buxton. Bryant's work up to that point: dominating college, low-A, high-A and the fall league in 2013 (wRC+ > 200 at all stops), followed by dominating AA to start 2014 (wRC+ of 220). Going back to your earlier comment, Buxton had a 135 wRC+ in AA. Here is the list of prospects from my earlier list that were worse at the same level: Lindor (109) Swihart (131) Orlando Arcia (126) JP Crawford (121) <- still at AA Polanco (112) Above 150: Seager (154) Pederson (155) Sano (156) Bogaerts (153) Taveras (159) Baez (180) Franco (153) Springer (174) Above 200: Bryant (220) Correa (226) These aren't all exact apple-to-apple comparisons because there are different ages and number of at bats. But broadly speaking, Buxton was both one of the worst performers AND one of the least experienced top prospects to be called up recently.

Based on what metrics are you arguing that he hasn't been rushed? Looking at PAs in AA/AAA, here are the top prospects from the past three seasons who have had fewer PAs than Buxton: Carlos Correa Jorge Soler Here are the prospects who got (or will get) 2x the PAs as Buxton in AA/AAA: Kris Bryant Corey Seager Blake Swihart Xander Bogaerts Javier Baez Gregory Polanco George Springer Orlando Arcia Trea Turner JP Crawford And these are the top prospects that got at least 3x as many PAs as Buxton in AA/AAA: Joc Pederson Francisco Lindor Oscar Taveras Maikel Franco There isn't one single definition of "rushed", so maybe we are talking about different things. I would argue that Buxton received far less development time in the high minors than the vast majority of other top prospects, to his detriment.

A feeling based on hopes and dreams.

How long would you keep him down in AAA? And what would be your criteria for calling him back up? I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations this morning, and - assuming my understanding of service time rules are correct - Buxton's service time clock is going to turn over in ~35 days. I never thought this was remotely a possibility going into the season, but is it time to start thinking about salvaging another year of service time with Buxton? I mean, if you think two months in AAA is reasonable, is it really crazy to keep him there for four months if it pushes back his free agency a year? If I was a cold-hearted, asset-maximizing GM, this is the conversation I'd have with Buxton: "You have until Memorial Day to get your act together. If your performance still stinks, you are going to be sent back down to AAA. You will stay in AAA until you are able to demonstrate over at least 200 PAs the ability to sustain a K% < 20%, BB% > 10% and ISO > .200. If you cannot reach those marks, you will spend the rest of the season in AAA and try to make it in the majors next season. The performance or health of the big league roster will not dictate a potential promotion - only your own performance." It is really hard for me to guess what the right decision is here. He has so much potential and so much promise - but he has been rushed and has struggled so badly. It may very well be that it makes the most sense to give him 400 PAs in AAA to finish out the year. And it may also be the best decision for the franchise as well, to be able to push back his free agency another year (securing his age-28 season). But at the same time, I really do feel like he is only a good week away from turning a corner and actually start playing like the star he is supposed to be.

I used Baseball-reference, though I relied on my own observations about the hard contact. Within the limited scope of a AAA emergency starter making a spot-start, I completely agree that Duffey did the job. However, I took from Nick's article that he thought Duffey showed something more in the start, so much so that he should be considered for a permanent call-up. That was the point I was trying to counter. He might (might!!) be better than Milone going forward, but that's almost entirely based on Duffey's performance from last year, not his 1 strikeout, lots of contact outing from yesterday. And I don't think he showed anything from this start that would justify putting him ahead of Berrios (or even Meyer?) in the promotion queue. (Though I've been a pessimist with Duffey from the beginning, so I'm probably a little biased here.)

Duffey looked mediocre at best. Yes, the Nationals have a good record, but their overall offense is pretty mediocre - their team OPS+ (91) is actually lower than the Twins (95). And their offense is particularly weak when Harper isn't in the lineup, as was the case on Sunday. Duffey ended up with only 1 strikeout, just 5 swinging strikes, allowed 37% of batters to reach base, and gave up a lot of hard contact.

I disagree with this on two different levels. First, the biggest question mark is durability - will his arm/shoulder will hold up to throwing 90+ pitches every five days for six month. Second, throwing a single pitch at 94 doesn't necessarily mean that he maintained his velocity. What was his fastball sitting at for that inning? If he was mostly 90-91 with one pitch at 94, that is very different than if he was 92-93. And one pitch doesn't really indicate how well his overall stuff held up. Was his slider still sharp? Was his command good? In the College World Series game he started last year, his velocity was fine throughout the game, but his slider got flat and his command deteriorated. Hitting 94 is better than not hitting 94, so I agree that it is a good thing. But I just don't think that single pitch, in and of itself, is very helpful in determining how Jay is transitioning to the starter role. A little helpful, better than the alternative, but not a huge deal without more context.

It is hard for me not to get really excited about Stewart's start. Sure, it would have been better if he wasn't repeating the level, but I mostly don't care. The strikeouts are finally starting to show up - it might be a little extreme to say that this changes everything, but it changes everything. Now he just needs to stay healthy. Meyer has teased like this before. I've been hurt too much, so I'm just going to pretend like it isn't happening again...

I'm not convinced that Park won't continue to be overmatched by better pitching, but he certainly has the power to crush mistakes. Hopefully he will continue to see, and take advantage of, mistakes going forward.

If he keeps throwing 14K shutouts, that list is awfully short. LaMonte Wade strikeout update: 48 PAs, 4 Ks (8.3%), 6 BBs (12.5%).

I think there will likely be a good pitcher available at #15. Over the past 5 drafts, that has been where a lot of "talented arm but injury/consistency/etc caused him to slip" pitchers have ended up: At 14: Kolby Allard (2015) Tyler Beede (2014) Jose Fernandez (2011) At 15: Sean Newcomb (2014) Braden Shipley (2013) At 16: James Kaprielian (2015) Touki Toussaint (2014) Lucas Giolito (2012) At 17: Brady Aiken (2015) Brandon Finnegan (2014) At 18: Phil Bickford (2015) Erick Fedde (2014) Sonny Gray (2011)

What do you think about guys like AJ Puk and Alec Hansen? Both had 1-1 buzz prior to the spring, but both have had terrible and/or injured springs. Keith Law, in his latest top-50, has Puk at 13 and Hansen at 38. Put another way, is TJ + unknown performance (Quantrill) better/worse/same as (maybe) unknown injury + bad performance (Puk & Hansen)? I'm definitely intrigued by both, which means that I'm in the unfortunately position where I'm kind of hoping they perform okay but not great over the next two months so they will be available at #15.

Part of the current problem is that the good hitters right now (Mauer, Escobar and, to a lesser extent, Dozier) are split up in the order. Those three have predominately batted with the bases empty, while others (like Sano, Park, Suzuki, Murphy) have had the majority of their at bats with runners on. I wonder what the difference in runs scored would be if Escobar was batting in the #2 spot between Dozier and Mauer.

One thing I've been closely watching is Lamonte Wade's plate discipline. Last year he finished the year with 11 more walks than strikeouts, which is a really strong indicator of future success for later-round draftees. So far this year he is +2. He is a little old for low-A, but one to keep an eye on.

I'm thinking along those same lines, but with a slightly different horizon. Basically, they need to be "in contention" by the trade deadline. If they are close, then they can make the team better via trades and then (hopefully) make up ground by beating up on teams that have fallen from contention over the last two months. For example, last year the Mets were 53-50 at the trade deadline and then went 37-22 the rest of the way. So my goal for the team is to be above .500 at the trade deadline. 53-51. That works out to 53-45 between now and then, which is basically a 88-win pace over a full season. That's doable.

From the Hardball Time Annual article I mentioned above: Historical WAR value of pre-free agent seasons for BA prospect grades: 80 - 25.0 75 - 18.0 70 - 11.0 65 - 8.5 60 - 4.7 55 - 2.5 50 - 1.1 45 - 0.4

In the 2016 Hardball Times Annual, Jeff Zimmerman wrote an article that looked at historic scouting grades from the Baseball America top-100 and calculated the subsequent WAR for each specific grade. While everyone can always disagree about how to correctly calculate value, at least this methodology looks at the historical record and comes up with values that are better than arbitrary. And I think it will provide more intuitive results to your work here.

BP's Bryan Grosnick noticed a similar issue with BP's own predictions: three ROY candidates but still finishing last. He looked at the historic record of teams with multiple ROY vote-getters. Most of the teams ended up doing pretty well, but there were a few exceptions. The most interesting exception was the 2008 Marlins: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28840

In the 2016 Hardball Times Annual, Jeff Zimmerman wrote an article that looked at historic scouting grades from the Baseball America top-100 and calculated the subsequent WAR for each specific grade. While everyone can always disagree about how to correctly calculate value, at least this methodology looks at the historical record and comes up with values that are better than arbitrary. And I think it will provide more intuitive results to your work here.