PseudoSABR

Depending on the roster situation, I'd be fine with it, but I think it's unlikely...

Regardless of his age, his experience in the upper minors is limited to this year.

What else happens in September that might enable Garver to reach the majors? Garver's road to the majors is predicated on his readiness, not on whether they trade Suzuki.

Sometimes you need a guy like Suzuki, even having him for non-essential year, to give some one like Buxton (or Garver, Turner, Murphy time to work through their flaws in the minors.) One of the legitimate criticism of the Twins FO this offseason was not signing a non-waiver-wire veteran to hold CF until Buxton was really ready. I'm not sure why Suzuki isn't viewed the same way; he has his warts, but so does any up the middle veteran earning around 6-7mil a season. Here, that Centeno gets less at bats, because that would be the likely outcome if Suzuki was/is traded, seems like no great loss to me. I certainly don't want the Twins to conclude that Centeno is viable starting option after six weeks of good play. (They need to reach outside the organization for catcher. If they end up with lots of good options in a couple years, that's a problem we'd like to have.)

No, it's not. The recent criticism of the Twins FO stems directly from the Twins alleged inability to trade Suzuki for what in many of our minds would be organizational filler. Massive? You've spent the whole thread telling everyone that there's something valuable learned about the Twins FO in their inability to trade Suzuki. That the argument has changed to mentoring and development in the last page or so, doesn't change the premise of the criticism levied at the Twins throughout this thread. In any case, you don't put developing players in the Majors just because the guy at the position currently isn't ideal. Have we learned nothing from Buxton, and others. The goal is to put your developing players in the best position to succeed not to throw them against the wall to see if they stick. What value can we learn from throwing Garver (who has what 50 AAA at bats) or Murphy (who is hovering a tick above the Mendoza line at AAA) out there beyond the probabilistic, 'oh I guess they aren't ready yet.' (I suppose that would afford a new avenue of FO criticism, hurrah!, and I-told-you-sos, thump that chest). (Typically, I find replying to a post in response to someone else objectionable, but given your latitude to in that regard, and your lack of response to my last post when I earnestly asked, "is that fair?", I'll play fast and loose as well. )

Silly Olympians.

This is the only limitation I could find on the number of claims: That's very large amount, and I'm not sure when the week would begin or end. There might be some wiggle-room for gamemanship, but I'm not sure how much. I keep seeing articles using the term 'smokescreen' as strategy of flooding the waivers with players, but I don't see how that would work without some other kind of restriction we don't know about. I still think the most we can make of Suzuki passing through waivers is that teams who could block didn't want to risk getting stuck with Suzuki and his contract. As I said earlier, for teams that actually desire Suzuki it's prohibitive to claim him given the short negotiation window. While there's indication of how much other clubs value Suzuki at his price-tag + trade value, I just don't think it really gives us much clarity of Suzuki's actual worth. For instance, the earlier claim that Suzuki passing through waivers suggests he'd only be able to sign a minor league deal next off season I think is far, far from certain. My point is, and continues to be, I don't think we learned as much about Suzuki as many profess, much less enough to warrant new criticism of the front office. That's fair isn't it?

I still think we're working with imperfect knowledge. Yes, teams can block, but I imagine, that if there are several players on the waivers at one time, a claiming team loses priority for other players once it places a claim on a player (I don't know this to be the case, but it would make sense, and would make less sense conversely). If there's a bunch of desirable/tradeable players on the waivers at the same time, I imagine that there's better chance of sneaking a less desirable (though valuable) player, like Suzuki through. My point isn't that this scenario is likely, but it's one of a number scenarios that discount the meaningfulness of Suzuki going unclaimed, as a direct implication of his (lack of) ability to play defense. (There's doublespeak in terms of criticism of the Twins for not putting Suzuki on waivers sooner/right-away, and then when the timing actually gets Suzuki through waivers, it can't mean that Twins played the situation right, no it must mean that Suzuki is really really awful, like we always knew, and gosh weren't the Twins dumb years ago). So are some (um, everyone) vindicated about Suzuki being a very poor defender, I guess, maybe, sure, I guess, working with the limited knowledge we have, if we make a couple of assumptions, and discount other scenarios, it's probably likely that everyone's belief about Suzuki's defense is mostly confirmed. Bully for everyone, I guess. Way to go. I'd take a PTNBL for Suzuki, that's kind of what I always thought we'd get...

I don't get it either--I mean I get those who advocate scorched earth for some perceived oppression (poor whites)--but such a group is severely limited in terms of it's share of the actual (voting) population, and most Americans will surrender an ideological victory to do the right thing (or my hopeful (naive) belief in my neighbors suggests). I think this election might shape up to be more like 2008 than 2012; the polls showed Obama ahead by 3.1 yet he won by more than double that. McCain bet on far-right-wing turn out (very similar to the same population targeted by Trump) in nominating Palin; the polls didn't quite capture the gravity of McCain's misjudgment in picking Palin. (See the first chart in this recent 538 article, an article professing it's not sown up yet to be fair) Nationally, Clinton leads by six or seven points with lots of undecideds, but on the state level, the polls show a wider gap (for instance the recent Florida poll showing Clinton up by 9). My take is that people will hold allegiance to a supposed conservative victory until the very moment when they just can't do it, defying what the polls could capture. Many have suggested, and I'm starting to get hip on it, though still not convinced, that Trump knows all this. And his recent hiring of Bierbert's media mogul might be more about sustaining a national and fervent Trump brand post election cycle than winning the Presidency. Trump might accept he can't win the Presidency, but he can collect the Tea Party and many Republicans that he can mobilize later to whatever weird narcissistic end he sees fit. There's some conspiracy theory here, but there's also some mix of Occam's razor and Godwin's law. Trump can lose by 20 points and still carry more than a third of electorate that is totally beholden to him; that might make the campaign worthwhile as scary and cynical as it is to suggest.

That face. There just aren't words in the English language to convey the emotion/attitude of this man. In any case, that's pretty clever meme, and in such short turn around too.

Speaking of Shadenfreude, I give Trump's lawyer from today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2XotbLTfD0

So Trump is hoping to turn things around with Steven Bannon of Breitbart news? According to this account, Trump looks like he's doubling down rather than righting the ship.

Everyone agrees that Suzuki isn't a good defensive catcher; but the contention that I took issue was that the Twins are somehow blind to it. The Twins can both understand Suzuki's pronounced defensive limitations and still be stuck with him for the lack of having better options (yes, somewhat their own doing). But we're already going back in-time to criticize the Twins for things that happened years ago. If you feel vindicated by Suzuki passing through waivers for your assessment of his defensive ability, I guess bully for you. But professing that vindication--ad naseum--does nothing to advance any kind of conversation, and is chest-thumping I told you so masquerading as germane analysis. I mean it almost seems like those who were angered that the Twins didn't trade Suzuki before the deadline are now the ones telling everyone how worthless he's always been. (I think the waiver process and tactics are far more complex than this conversation is willing to concede. Again, because we are blind to 95% of the information, people will espouse themselves Wise Masters based on the known 5%). My own take is that teams knew what the Twins were currently demanding for Suzuki and that a deal was less likely to get down in a 48 hour window than over a course of weeks if he passed through waivers. The timing of the waiver probably had something to do with informal discussions between the Twins and other teams. And what if he actually gets traded for something of value, does that confirm that his defense is somehow viable? Heck no. Yet somehow, the inverse is true....

This is all fair. But it's criticism that isn't germane to him passing through waivers. It's criticism that's been repeated ad naseum in every Suzuki thread for three years. Not every event in the transactional time-line should occasion what's already been said and is generally agreed upon. I wish posters (not necesarrily you) would pick their battles (or places to criticize) with some discretion. There's too much neener-neener, see I told you the Twins were stupid about this that and the other thing around here. The losing season is bad enough, but the haughty hindsight criticism in nauseating.

My impressions of Rum may have been colored by my experience Freshman year of college with this guy: http://www.thegrocerygirls.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/a/captain-morgan-coconut-parrot-bay-rum-750ml.jpg I'm a dry whiskey guy. Rum is way to sweet for me. But I can't say I've ever had any high-shelf Rum. Oh and the chugging Long Island Iced Teas in my twenties thing, probably didn't help either.

Didn't peg you for a Mojito man; you seem more like a pina colada guy.

Do people actually drink rum? (Especially on the rocks). And Mojitos are stupid.

https://gfycat.com/NeedyDisfiguredDamselfly (I can't figure out to just post the gif; even after reading the thread in the appropriate place.)

I don't think waiving Suzuki and him going unclaimed says anything about what the Twins think of Suzuki's defense. They brought in Murphy who should have been the starting backstop by now but can't hit (whom they gave up another up-the-middle player who also can't hit). There really wasn't that many options to take at bats away from Suzuki, yet he'll still fall short of the necessary PAs to vest his option. Suzuki can both be bad at defense and the Twins can know that he's bad at defense. Unless this is more criticism from something the Twins shouldn't have done two years ago...

Had Mauer played in another era he'd likely either be still catching or retired due to his concussions. That his injury was a concussion, a brain injury which still too little is known, I think will factor in HOF voters minds.

ಠ_ಠ

Darren Wolfson, on his podcast, asserted that Rob Antony will not get the job (right around 2:30 mark); in the same podcast he presented an interview Antony (this might be the same TV interview). He also said the Cherington is very, very much in the mix...

I was gonna go all caps, but I thought the extra exclamation point muddled the tone pitch perfect. That said, Kepler's stroke combined with his pitch recognition at least give the foundation for a better player than a third outfielder. I mean when you're in the business of prognostication, you probably hedge your predictions regularly, and are rarely convinced--the operative word Sullivan used--anyone will be a star.

Sell high!!

Agreed. http://65.media.tumblr.com/8ce3298067ff66c58a1d80caef06d816/tumblr_o4x9iqtWFS1qz8z2ro1_500.png