FrodaddyG

So, now you throw out a trade of a useful asset for not good players as an example of a move to "upgrade" to the team. Nothing screams "take what I say seriously" quite like that.

No, this is a response to you saying that bringing in another marginal catcher is a useful move when the team has a glut of identically marginal catchers already in the fold.

Can they wait and find some non-****ty players to trade Doumit for?

So where the **** does yet another catcher go until Doumit hypothetically gets traded later this summer? Carry 4 catchers at AAA? Yet again, awesome roster composition.

So your response to "We have too many question marks at catcher!" is "We need to bring in more question marks at catcher!"

So bring in a 7th question mark, and a 6th catcher on the 40-man? Sounds like excellent usage of roster spots.

1.) They paid Butera. Nobody else will take on that money for him. He's a Twin for the season. 2.) Herrmann could fill in as a backup catcher in a pinch. More minors ABs would be optimal, but worse comes to worse, he'd be serviceable in limited, third-catcher ABs. 3.) Are you saying that they should try and trade Doumit NOW? If it happens, it'll be possibly near the trade deadline, and guess who has had another "half a year" in the minors by that point? We're aware that Butera sucks, but the Twins have committed to him, and screaming that they should bring in a marginal-at-best upgrade just for the sake of bring in a marginal-at-best upgrade is pointless.

Are you insinuating that somehow the Twins need MORE catchers added to the mix?

Sounds pretty on-the-ball.

And each player's results are independent of one another, unless we somehow get to have two players go hit during every plate appearance. (And, really, the chances of any one of those players having a career year is probably less than 50%.)

I agree that if 7/9 of the lineup have career years, they'll probably do all right. Now, what are the chances of flipping heads 7 times in a row?

You realize why people think you're being a bit silly, though, don't you? IP is a purely quantitative stat. It tells you nothing about what transpired during the time frame that the pitcher was on the mound, just that he was out there. It's like someone using ABs as the primary measure of a hitter.

Yeah, why bother factoring in the injury that made the guy miss a year when talking about durability?

Equally useful pieces, obviously.

And that's why I didn't include anyone from 2008 on in the stats I threw together. It seemed plenty bleak just using through 2007.

Twins hitters taken in top 5 rounds since 2000: 2000: Tag Bozied, Edgardo Lebron 2001: Mauer, Jose Morales 2002: Span, Michael Thomas 2003: Matt Moses, John Woodard, Brandon McArthur 2004: Plouffe, Mark Robinson 2005: Henry Sanchez, Andrew Thompson, Paul Kelly, Michael Moore, Steve Tolleson 2006: Parmelee, Benson, Garrett Olson, Whit Robbins, Devin Shepherd 2007: Revere, Danny Rams, Angel Morales 2008: Hicks, Tyler Ladendorf, Daniel Ortiz, Nicholas Romero 2009: Derek McCallum, Tobias Streich 2010: Niko Goodrum, Eddie Rosario, Nate Roberts 2011: Levi Michael, Travis Harrison, Tyler Grimes 2012: Buxton, Adam Walker I cut it off at first 5 rounds, but the line could be drawn anywhere depending on your preference. I'm not sure that I'd say it's primarily guys from other organizations that have struggled. In the span of 2000-2007 (2008 class now just rolling into the big leagues with Hicks) the Twins only got, by my count, 7 hitters at the top of the draft who ever saw big league ABs. Of the seven, four of them are Plouffe, Parmelee, Benson, and Jose Morales, who are either still relatively unknown commodities or known non-commodity Jose Morales. Minus the jackpot of taking Mauer at #1, they have gotten two guys who profile as MLB regulars, and one of them is Ben Revere, whose ideal position would probably be a 4th OF on a good team. That's out of 23 non-Mauer hitters taken. None of the ones I see on the list ever went on to do anything with a different organization, either. I'm not sure how you'd define "bust", but "being out of baseball without ever sniffing the high minors" would be a good start, and many, many of these guys fit that bill.

Maybe they'll bring back whatever advance scouts they gave the credit to for the ridiculous RISP stats they had a few years back. They've apparently been AWOL since then.

Because it's usually on the far left of the stat line?

Sounds like it's probably just details being hammered out. Maybe the money changes slightly, but I'm guessing it ends up within $5M of the announced extension value. (Still not bad money if you can get it.)

I'm sure I'm stepping out on a limb here, but there's probably more than a few reciprocating this feeling.

No. He really, really wouldn't.

Lots of Mexican drone strikes happening also?

I think Smith would be more concerned with actual cakes.

Book that.