markos

I love the idea of a weekly highlight article like this. Please keep it up!

I'm not sure this exactly answers your question, but this is my current analysis of Rosario's defense: When Rosario was first called up, I also assumed that he was a legit centerfielder that would be a real asset in the corners. But I've changed my mind for a number of reasons. It is easy to dismiss defensive stats, especially in small samples (though the statcast data may actually turn the corner on this - too early to tell). But with Rosario we almost three full seasons of data that tell a pretty consistent story. Further, it is backed up by some of the statcast metrics. - Statcast has been tracking the sprint speed of players for the past three seasons. Rosario's sprint speed readings have deteriorated every single season. His speed is no longer close to the average centerfielder and is barely an average corner-outfielder. He is slower than the almost-34 Denard Span, and he matches up close to guys like Justin Upton, Michael Conforto, and Aaron Judge. - Every single defensive metric (UZR, DRS, Statcast Outs-Above-Average, FRAA from BP, Clay Davenport) agreed that Rosario was somewhere between average and below-average last year. - If you pull out his arm statistics from 2015, every single metric throughout his entire career has agreed that Rosario is average-at-best when it comes to making plays. - I don't watch a ton of games, but this matches my eye test. Looking at the facets of outfield efficiency (first step, raw speed, route effiency, judging the wall, glovework), I can't say that I think Rosario is definitely above-average in any area. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he isn't bad in any area either. Just kind of average. Given his average raw athleticism, I think it is hard to make an eye-test case that he is above-average. Projecting forward, I think there are signs of concern: there is evidence that defensive ability peaks in the early-twenties - Rosario is now 26 - and his sprint speed has already decreased three years in a row. If those trends continue, I wouldn't be shocked if he settles in as a below-average-but-not-dumpster-fire outfielder by the time he reaches free agency. Something like 5-15 runs below average per season - i.e. more Melky Cabrera than Brett Gardner.

This is my interpretation of the front office's thinking with the Rule V draft: - Hard throwing right-handed relievers are not a rare comodity across baseball. Every team has multiple guys in their minor league system that can throw hard but lack the results/durability to be a difference maker in the majors. Some small subset of those guys will have the light turn on and be dominate. Predicting the breakouts is hard - maybe impossible - so it is best to maximize chances. - Burdi is damaged goods to a certain degree. Have Atlanta nix the trade due after seeing his medicals is a pretty big red flag. - Given the above, there was a good chance that Burdi or Bard would have been passed over in the draft. - Even though they were drafted, there is a decent chance (maybe 50%) that they will be returned. - There were probably some players that they really like and were hoping would drop to pick 20. I'm not convinced that Kinley was the #1 guy on their board from the beginning. So playing that all out, there was a chance that by opening day the Twins would have all 3 players in their system, with only the Rule V pick taking up a 40-man spot. Additionally, there was also a chance that one of the players that they really liked would have dropped to #20. That is the best outcome, and conveniently also the outcome with the most roster flexibility. The risk was that they lose Bard and Burdi for essentially nothing, which is what might happen (there is still a chance that one or both gets returned). But given the rates at which Rule V draftees get returned (and Burdi's medicals), I think it was a risk worth taking. To sum up, I'm not convinced that they like Kinley more than Burdi or Bard. I think they went with the roster decisions that maximized the potential upside and roster flexibility.

Very solid move. Obviously doesn't solve anything for next year, but definitely a good move looking forward.

First, I think Cole has a fairly reasonable floor - he was an innings eater last year but still manage ~3 WAR, and prior to that he has averaged at least 4 WAR/200 innings. So that is good, especially considering where the Twins rotation is. Second, I think there is still a lot of upside. He just completed his age-26 season, so he is younger than anyone on the free agent market. He throws HARD, averaging over 95+ on his fastball. He has all the ingredients to make a leap in the next two seasons. It obviously isn't a given that he will, but he certainly can. And it isn't unheard of for pitchers to take their game to another level in their late-20s: Scherzer, Arrieta, and Kluber all went from slightly-better-than-league-average to Cy Young contender at age 28. That is the bet I'm making when I'm advocating for Cole. So that is what I think we are getting. A reasonable floor over the next two seasons with legitimate top-of-the-rotation upside. I think that is a good bet for the Twins to take right now.

I don't disagree. Archer is clearly the superior pitcher, but he is also probably 3 times as expensive. Given his combination performance, age, salary and years of team control, there is a strong argument that Archer is the most valuable pitching trade asset in baseball right now. I'm intrigued by your Sano, Gordon, Jay for Archer & Longoria suggestion. That seems about right considering that the 32-year-old Longoria is probably underwater for the remaining 5 years of this contract.

I would make that trade for Cole in a heartbeat.

This is a good point. It does kind of feel like they exchanged a quarter for two dimes.

Fangraphs just posted about the trading international bonus money for prospects. More thorough than my earlier comment: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-do-you-get-for-your-international-bonuses/

The Orioles, White Sox, Mariners, and Dodgers have all acquired legitimate prospects (show up on the team's prospect list) in exchange for international bonus pool money. It doesn't happen a lot (and these might be the biggest international money trades made so far), but it isn't unheard of. https://www.lonestarball.com/2017/7/15/15976792/texas-rangers-trade-yeyson-yrizarri-for-international-bonus-pool-money https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/mariners-trade-thyago-vieira-to-white-sox-for-international-bonus-money.html https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/07/orioles-acquire-yefry-ramirez-from-yankees-for-international-bonus-money.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bs-sp-orioles-international-bonus-trades-20170802-story.html https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/07/rangers-acquire-international-bonus-slot-from-mariners.html https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/07/blue-jays-acquire-slot-money-from-dodgers.html

While I definitely recognize and appreciate what the new front office is doing, at this point I would hardly characterize it as "crushing it". I was initially going to comment that they are an essentially "replacement level" front office, but that probably doesn't give them quite enough credit. However, all the moves Nick sites - the draft, the trade-deadline deals, the recent moves with the international bonus money - are all moves that I would expect any reasonably competent front office to make. And if you look around the league, I think the vast majority of teams have front offices that are making the equivalent moves given their circumstances.

Thanks for the followup.

So you are saying that Sickels just made up all the stuff about the disabled list and shoulder impingement? Romero did skip a start in early-August. Was that for the same dead-arm issue? I don't mean to be snarky here. I trust Sickels a lot - he seems to be a straight-shooter when it comes to his analysis, and he draws from a lot of sources inside the industry. His analysis of Romero heavily focused on the injury issue. Seth and Steve both said it was actually a big nothing-burger. I'm just trying to reconcile this discrepancy.

Seth didn't mention anything about Romero's injury. From Sickels's writeup on Romero: https://www.minorleagueball.com/2017/10/24/16537288/minnesota-twins-top-20-prospects-for-2018 "Age 22; solid season in Double-A with 3.53 ERA, 120/45 K/BB in 125 innings, a mere four homers allowed; campaign ended on a down note with poor pitching in August (8.38 ERA) punctuated by a trip to the disabled list with a shoulder impingement; status unclear at the moment; when healthy combination of plus stuff and command could make him number three starter or impressive power reliever. ETA 2018 if healthy" Romero's peripherals also point toward injury instead of tiring at the end of the season. He didn't strike out less that 22% of the batters he faced in any game for 2 straight months (averaging 28% overall), and then went 14%, 0%, two week break, 8%, 12%, shutdown for the year. Does anyone have an update on his health?

There is middle ground here. Even if the Twins are confident that Santana is going to produce ~190 innings with a 100 ERA+, they should do the due-diligence to see if any other team wants to bet that he will repeat his 210 inning, 130 ERA+ performance from last year, and they should price him accordingly. The Angels, Mariners, Orioles and Rangers are all in "win-now" mode with windows that are quickly closing, and they all desperately need starting pitching. If you could get Seattle, for example, to offer Kyle Lewis and Edwin Diaz, I think they should make that trade and try to replace Santana's innings with a mid-tier starter (someone like Vargas, Garcia or even Sabathia). Basically, I don't think Santana is untouchable, and the Twins should be confident in their own talent evaluations to take advantage if another team wildly overvalues one of their players.

My thought is that any effort to improve the defense starts and ends with the infield. Last year they were top-5 in converting flyballs and line-drives into outs, but bottom-5 in converting ground balls and popups into outs). But there isn't a super obvious path to do so his offseason (next offseason, with both Dozier and Mauer potentially moving on, is a completely different story). I guess I could see an argument to trying to acquire an elite defensive SS in place of Adrianza and starting that player (with a Mauer-1B, Dozier-2B, Polanco-3B, Sano-DH alignment) on days when Gibson is pitching and in the late innings. That moves the needle a little bit, but it isn't a huge change.

There is some evidence that Rosario has taken a legitimate step backwards speed-wise this past year. Based on the StatCast data, his top end speed was almost a foot-per-second slower than past seasons; it places him behind Kepler, and way behind Granite and Buxton. Speed isn't the be all, end all for outfield defense, as route efficiency makes a big difference as well. But I've never thought that route efficiency is a huge strength of Rosario's - obviously not a glaring weakness, but I just don't think he is elite at it. As recently as last off-season, I was firmly in the camp that Rosario was a legitimate centerfielder, and the obvious choice as a backup at the position. But now I'm not so sure. If you look across the entire gamut of StatCast fielding data, Rosario is a lot closer (both tools-wise and in efficiency) to guys like Michael Conforto and Justin Upton rather than true center-fielders.

Not only Jay and Stewart, but look at the Astros. They took Appel over Bryant, and only thanks to collective bargaining rules were able recoup the value of the Aiken pick (which turned into Bregman). They were lucky that Aiken turned down their reduced offer.

The Dodgers have a team option for 2018 for $8.5M. As much as Forsythe struggled this year, I would presume that they will exercise that option.

If Buxton is willing to sign that deal, don't hesitate. Seriously, that would be a HUGE steal for the Twins. That contract pays out for the Twins if Buxton produces over 7 WAR over the next 7 seasons. I will take that bet.

I'd add the Angels to your list.

I think John's $28M estimate is way too low - probably half what would be required. As others have already pointed out, Buxton and Sano both already received multi-million dollar signing bonuses, so their league-minimum salaries understate their financial security. Then if you look at other comparable players who recently signed, several (Andrelton Simmons, Christian Yelich, Rougned Odor, Kevin Kiermaier) have signed for at least $50M guaranteed. Francisco Lindor reportedly turned down a $100M deal. Finally, I think that most players (and agents) are expecting the Machado/Harper/Kershaw free agent class to completely reset the salary scale. So I think some of that expected jump will need to be baked into any long-term offer. If I'm advising Buxton/Sano/Rosario, I'm suggestion two options. Either take a cheap deal without giving up any FA years (think something like a 4yr/$20M deal); or, take a massive deal that covers FA years or has team options (think something like 6yr/$80M with $20M option years). Anything in between is giving up too much earning potential.

That is only counting successful sacrifices that get marked in the box score as such. There isn't anyone (to my knowledge) tracking sacrifice attempts - successful or not. A manager that calls for a lot of sacrifice bunts with a team that is very bad at bunting may not end up leading the league in the sacrifice bunt category but still wasted a lot of opportunities.

Baseball Reference has a pitcher-vs-batter page: https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=hildetr01 For this, I just downloaded to excel and calculated the two separate groups. I was too lazy to go through the 20+ batter with multiple PAs and move their 1st PA into another column, though each batter's hyperlink lists the PAs.

So I'm still concerned about Hildenberger's staying power to anchor a bullpen. Batters who have faced him only once: 76PAs, .374 OPS, 30% K%, 5% BB%, 0 HRs, .200 BABIP Batters who have faced him at least twice: 63PAs, .850 OPS, 21% K%, 0% BB%, 2 HRs, .404 BABIP * NOTE: I wanted to split every plate appearance into two buckets: first time facing Hildenberger, and second (and later) time facing him. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get that data without manually sorting through the plate appearances for the batters who faced him multiple times. I'm too lazy to do that. So the above data is a derivation of what I wanted, but it isn't exactly correct. Sorry for being potentially misleading. Don't get me wrong here. I think he has shown enough to be penciled into the bullpen going forward. He throws strikes and gets ground balls. He should continue to be able to provide some decent innings, but I'm hesitant to rely on him to continue to work high-leverage innings next year. Basically, I'm fine if he is the third or fourth best pitcher in the bullpen next year, but not if he is their best or second-best pitcher.