Thrylos

Here is what I think, based on what he said in an interview in Puerto Rico (details here) He clearly said that what he tested positive now was in a pill. And he took the same pills (presumably by prescription) when he was hit on the face and broke his jaw while in Beloit. Those pills were for pain (not for "healing".) And standard procedure to prescribe them for these type of injuries. I think that the sticking point is whether this time he had a prescription (he did last last time). And this is what the MLB is investigating. If he did not have a prescription for narcotic painkillers (Percocet or whatever) then it would fall under the street drug category. Hard to see someone prescribing opiates to treat throwing arm tendinitis though...

Per Doogie Wolfson, not MLBTR. They just reiterated what Doogie reported.

Tied. With 21 years Walter Johnson and Harmon Killebrew. Killebrew spent his 22nd season in the majors with the Royals. Good stuff Seth!

Castro who? Fidel is dead and Juan retired

The point is that with similar numbers in 2013 facing similar competition, May is not deemed MLB-ready for 2014. Unlike May, Yoon Suk-min is not a prospect. He is at his peak. And his peak is a AAAA pitcher and the Twins have plenty of those. The May comparison is a way of saying that what Suk-min can do now, so can May.

I was talking about their 2013 numbers: 2013 Yoon Suk-min: 4.00 ERA, 87.7 IP, 28 BB, 76 K, 91 H, 1 HBP, 1.37 WHIP, 7.80 K/9, 2.72 K/BB 2013 Trevor May: 4.51 ERA (3.79 FIP), 151.2 IP, 67 BB, 159 K, 1.42 WHIP (.329 BABIP), 9.44 K/9, 2.37 K/BB I don't care what he did in previous seasons, but he has regressed this season and the reason is injury that allegedly was suffered because of poor mechanics. Feel free to take that risk, I'd rather go with May. As far as Boras' clients go, Jeff Manship was one too

His numbers (at maybe a lower level of competition) are slightly below those that his 4-year junior Trevor May put this season at AA. No, thank you.

Polanco maybe. I never understood the love for Santana (his upside is utility, maybe.) His career OBP in 6 MiLB seasons is .318, short of Florimon's .321 in 7 MiLB seasons. SLG% and OPS is kind of irrelevant with these guys. Goodrum has played 4 seasons of pro ball and he is still stack in A ball... He should had been in New Britain by now. Hard to project whether he will ever be a major league player at this point. Levi Michael looks like more like a first round bust as every season passes. Not much depth.

Not exactly a sample size of 1. Lots of PAs and def reps in there, because the comparison is minor league careers and seasons.... I guess one can describe an entire baseball career as sample size of 1

Past 3 years: Saltalamacchia: .235/.288/.450 95 OPS+ (2011), .222/.288/.454 97 OPS+ (2012), .273/.338/.466 118 OPS+ (2013); 3 seasons average: .244/.306/.457 104 OPS+ Player X: .238/.305/.392 91 OPS+ (2011), .235/.301/.455 106 OPS+ (2012), .254/.309/.392, 94 OPS+ (2013); 3 seasons average: .243/.305/.414 98 OPS+ Player X is a year younger than Saltalamacchia. Saltalamacchia does have better SLG (and pretty much identical BA and OBP), but his SLG is park-factor based as seen by the OPS+. Saltalamacchia is slightly better than player X who is one year younger. If Saltalamacchia is worth a 3/30M contract, how much should one sign player X for? 3/24M fair just based on the (unbiased) numbers? I think so if Saltalamacchia goes for that much. Figure out who player X is and then based on the numbers and your personal bias against that player, figure out whether Saltalamacchia is worth that much. Hint: Player X is a Twins' player.

I think that there are several examples of position players and pitchers who were successful for a short term, several examples of position players and pitchers who were not successful at all and exactly one (Ichiro) maybe 2 (Matsui) who were successful in the long term (like a 5+ year contract). The jury is still out on Darvish, but starting pitchers like Nomo and Matsuzaka were figured out after a couple of seasons and were average to bad afterwards. Too much risk at that price.

and DH. But is Saltalamacchia this guy? This season he hit .273/.338/.466. Last season a Plouffeian: .222/.288/.454. And his career numbers (including 2013) are: .246/.310/.428. And I assume that his left hand bat (he is horrible from the other side) will regress at Target Field. Allegedly he is great at pitch framing, but I wonder how much of this is the Red Sox jersey vs. Saltalamacchia... Is this kind of production worth $10M? Is this kind of production going to be much better than a mix of Herrmann and Pinto? $10M a year better? I doubt it.

Yeah, it's a very good plan, but I'd rather have them add Kazmir instead of Santana at this point. But that is a detail. The issue is having the Twins cut ties with the likes of Willingham, Doumit, Mastroianni and such, which they will never do.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- I think that it is fair to say that Brian Dozier's 2013 season (especially his power numbers) was not expected by many based on his fairly disappointing 2012 rookie season and his fairly flat minor league career. But was there anything is his path through the minors that could have acted as a leading indicator potentially predicting his 2013 breakout season? After he was drafted in the 8th round of the 2009 draft Dozier moved in a pretty typical path through the Twins organization for a 22 year old: Rookie leagues in 2009, split between A and high A in 2010 and split between high A and double AA, in his age 24 season. That was the season when Dozier finally got it all together. Here is a graph of his OPS and ISO throughout his career http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7298/11016136206_480115753b_o.jpg His age 24 season shows a noticeable increase in his OPS and, especially, his ISO that doubled from previous marks and was approaching the .200s . His power (but not his OPS - which means that he still potentially has ways to go in the major league level) was very similar to that exhibited in his age 26 MLB season (2013). Also to be noted that Dozier, after his 2011 season, continued the success in the AFL: .296/.358/.454 (.821 OPS, .158 ISO). He did have a setback in 2012, but that whole Twins' season was a setback. Let's superimpose the above chart with a chart that shows the OPS and ISO numbers per season of another Twins' player and align them for age: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7358/11016251843_6ecb81ef87_o.jpg As you can see, this player has started his professional career earlier that Dozier did and had similar moderate success. However, like Dozier, in his age 24 season (at AAA instead of Dozier's A/A+) had a major breakthrough with increases in OPS and ISO to close to all-star levels. Actually at the same age, at a higher level of competition, his OPS and power numbers were better than Dozier's, which makes me believe that he will potentially have a season similar to Dozier's 2013 next season. The player? Eduardo Escobar Also of note is that Escobar (like Dozier in 2011) is continuing his breakthough 2013 season in the Venezuela Winter League: .302/.348/.519 (.867 OPS, .217 ISO) at the time this was written How about fielding which was another strong suit of Brian Dozier's ? Here are the MLB career numbers for Dozier: .992 FP% 2B (1255 Inn), .964 FP% SS (732 Inn), UZR/150: -0.7 2B, -5.0 SS, RZR .832 2B (MLB best 2013: .842), .796 SS (MLB Best 2013: .876; Florimon .838) and Escobar: 1.000 FP% 2B (149.7 Inn), .951 FP% 3B (287.7 Inn), .959 FP% SS (281.2 Inn) UZR/150: -6.0 2B, -16.2 3B, 5.1 SS. RZR: .813 2B (MLB best 2013: .842), .641 3B, .814 SS (MLB Best 2013: .876; Florimon .838) Both Dozier and Escobar do not make many errors. UZR/150 does not like Dozier and Escobar in 2B and 3B, but likes Escobar at SS. Revized Zone Rating has Dozier near the MLB top at second base abd Escobar above average at both 2B and SS (but not that great at 3B). Noted that Escobar's defense at SS is close to Florimon's as far as UZR/150 and RZR are concerned, but he is making fewer errors than Florimon. Could Escobar be the Twins' SS of the near future and Escobar & Dozier the Twins double play combination for a while? Time will tell, but if Dozier's very similar career is an indicator, it looks like a very true possibility, starting with the 2014 season. http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3696/11017192645_3f60120173_z.jpg

Actually I agree and I think that he might have some potential. Other than the fact that last time he pitched 200 innings was 6 years ago. He is one of those rare guys whose fastball got faster than ever last season (well, "fast" is relative.) At this point, he might be a better investment (and shorter term) than Arroyo for that number 3 spot. But still need 2 better pitchers.

This team (replacing Mastroianni for Willingham, Presley for Hicks, Colabello for Doumit, Pinto for Morneau and Tanaka for Pelfrey, Tonkin for Perkins and Hendriks for Duensing) from the 96 loss team, might have another 96 losses. You need to improve the team and not make Tanaka the Mauer of the rotation. Plus, he is as sure a thing as Alex Meyer is at this point. Similar numbers (if you don't count W-Ls) at similar competition level... This team needs to keep the pen as intact as possible, get 3 new SPs, maybe a bat or 2 and strengthen the bench. What you are doing, makes everything (other than a single pitcher) worse than 2013.

Correct. Diamond's ceiling is a LOOGY

I do. I am totally comfortable with both Herrmann and Pinto as far as catching goes, and I have seen them catch (in addition to this season) about a dozen times each. This is not like Drew Butera will be the starting catcher (again)...

Check his HR/FB against LHB in that link. 18.9. This is too high and will regress towards 10-11% which would take care of 10 or so of those 23 HRs. So he would likely give fewer HRs that the 5-7 less you are thinking... But I agree, TF kills lefty HRs, unless they are Thome or Arseeya

Sure they do. Math: 2013 Revenue ($215M) plus $25 M in additional media revenue is $240 M 52% of that is $125 M. The Twins have about $60 M committed including arbitration increases Thus they have $65 M a season to spend. They can afford him, but the question is, should they?

Common sense says no. But for one who signs Correia to a two year contract might make sense to do it. A couple things about Arroyo (and the numbers in detail are here - at the end) : Compared to SPs in his draft class, like Halladay and Washburn, he went a relatively small number of games over 100 pitches and only in 13/385 games over 120. Also, he is not throwing hard. These two things make me think that there might be more life in his arm that in those of his draft classmates. But 3 years? And (even scarier) would Arroyo be treated as the anchor of the pitching staff and the big offseason acquisition? He is a solid number 3 pitcher in a competing team. Nothing much. No thanks. If that's the best pitcher the Twins could get, I'd rather see Alex Meyer pitch.

They added a catcher: Eric Fryer. Jumping into conclusion from a week's (or two) of plate appearances (and in a foreign country for Herrmann) does not make much sense. And C should be fifth priority for the team (behind adding three starting pitchers and maybe a SS)

So you like Rosario as an OF but not Pinto as a C? Pinto produced more than Rosario in the minors in higher levels the past 2 seasons (and in the majors.) Seriously.

Sub Correia with May (because they have to start him) and I don't mind if that is the 2014 rotation...