kab21

Where else are they going to spend the money? Sign another aging middle of the rotation pitcher in the offseason? Wait 2 offseasons outbid everyone for Lucroy (a 30ish yr old catcher)? Money saved on payroll is only useful if it is spent on something good. I can't think of many better places to spend the money. Everything about Gibson says sell high right now. If he is the centerpiece for a deal that brings in an MVP caliber bat to fill the Twins 2nd worst positional need then I make the deal quickly. The only tough part is that losing him and Santana (in the playoffs) sets up a mediocre rotation.

I started doing some research a few years ago with the Coors effect and how using splits is misleading. The first thing you need to consider is the benefit that Coors gives. The perception is that the benefit is totally due to the ball going further and the field being bigger. That is only part of the story. Before the batter even hits the ball he is at an enormous advantage for two reasons. Opposing pitchers tire more quickly at elevation and opposing pitchers all of a sudden don't have the same movement on their pitches making it much easier for home hitters to hit the ball. Opposing hitters enjoy some of this benefit but not nearly to the same extent (backed up by K and BB rate comparisons of home/opposing hitters home/away stats). So part of my theory (and what my initial stat analysis showed) is that part of the reason Rockies hitters struggle on the road (the big splits) is that all of a sudden the ball is breaking a lot more than usual and they aren't able to adjust in the course of 1-2 road series. When given a longer period to adjust (like being traded/FA) their non Coors stats improved. Brock posted some stats a few pages ago that are misleading about Holliday. His Busch numbers are extraordinary when compared to his Coors numbers. Of course his BA is down at Busch. A) park effect BA league wide is down 15 pts from his Rockies days C) Holliday is in his 30's for most of his career at Busch The only questions regarding a Tulo trade is how much has to be given up and if he can be healthy. The health part of the equation is the only reason that the Twins can even consider a deal w/o buxton/Sano in it or even consider it all. The money really doesn't matter. Mauer/Santana/Nolasco are all FA's by the time Buxton/Sano (and most young players) are in arb. In the next few years the Twins don't have any big contracts or extensions to commit to since arguably almost every position except catcher, SS and front line starter are filled mostly with young and cheap players. FA is a horrible place to spend money and the Twins aren't going to be going after a 150-200M starter regardless if Tulo is here. Saving money on seasonal payroll is only useful if you have somewhere good to spend it later.

He isn't anywhere near a top 100 list in my book. I know Sickels left him in his top 75 midseason list but I don't see it. Shane moved him down to #11 on the Twins list behind Minier. I think that is more accurate. It is possible that there is a GM (like 1 or 2 out of 30) that still really likes him though. Duffey has mediocre K rates in the minors with average stuff. that isn't a big chip despite his MiLB success. that is more of a Liam Hendriks prospect.

Meyer and ABW are quite different as you state but Meyer has almost no trade value other than a buy really low. He is a 25 yr old that has completely fallen apart with a long history of shoulder problems. He isn't a bigger piece in a trade right now. ABW qualifies for this rule since he is the prospect that nobody wants on the team but he is somehow thought to be a desirable commodity since he hits a gazillion HR's with a .300 OBP. But really the basis for each rule is that the players are not actually players that the Twins community (and the proposer) believes in long term so they are trying to trade them off as a sell high. The only problem is that these flaws are obvious to the entire baseball world. It is really hard to sell prospects that aren't performing.

I am pretty happy with Gordon's turnaround. It is a little superficial since it only included 5XBH and 3BB but at least he is getting singles. It's a start.

I have created a new rule. See the other thread.

First let's briefly describe the Duensing Rule. The Duensing Rule harkens back to the Battle Your Tail Off days before Twins Daily existed. It was coined (by myself I think) when every trade proposal included Duensing and Casilla. Both of these players had some isolated MLB success but neither were particularly valuable MLB'ers and nearly every visual and SABR analysis showed they were depth guys. Somehow amateur GM's (all of us - myself included) thought that by including these spare parts in a package they could get something good in return. The Meyer Rule doesn't replace the Duensing Rule even though we may actually part with Duensing this offseason. The Meyer Rule is for prospects and young players that were fairly well regarded but have struggled significantly for the last year or two. This board is littered with proposed trades with Meyer, Arcia, ABW and a few others. It is like we are assuming that other GM's are living under a rock for the last year and haven't noticed that Meyer was so bad that he got moved to the bullpen and has had mixed success (very little lately). He is not a desirable commodity for top tier players. A GM might be willing to buy low but not if they are selling a good player.

zero guys that I would rank in the top 100 for a borderline AS on a cheap 1.5 yr contract?

You are going to need to give up someone desirable to get Gomez (a 4-5 WAR player on a cheap contract). I am not sure you can get w/o putting Berrios into the equation but possibly if you made a package of Polanco, Kepler and one of Stewart/Gordon/Meyer/Gonsalves. I really don't see this being enough. These are all fringy top 100 prospects and Gomez has become a legit star. I like the idea of buying low on Segura. He has stuggled in the last 1.5 yrs but I like his skillset and he had to deal with the loss of a son last season. Segura is kind of an Alcides Escobar type (less speed but more pop) and wouldn't be surprised if he was putting up similar numbers.

Imo - Buxton should go down to the minors when he returns. He was called up to fill a black hole (CF) even though he wasn't quite ready. So far Hicks is claiming CF so the black hole is filled (for now) and Buxton can work on stuff. Batting order Dozier Hunter Mauer Sano Rosario/Plouffe Rosario/Plouffe Suzuki - unless a trade happens Escobar/Santana Hicks - this kind of makes Dozier a #2 hitter the 2nd time through and makes a lot more sense than getting a far inferior hitter the most AB's by needing to make Dozier #2 or #3

This was the 2nd rd pick. They lost a competitive balance pick for Santana and they haven't had one of those before. I didn't use a straw man. I used your exact words - hole in the pipeline. This is pick #77. I have about the same odds of hitting a dartboard while drunk and blindfolded as pick 77 becoming a valuable MLB player. And they get to throw that dart next year so it's the delay of a year for picks that need 3-4 years to make it through the system anyway. This is almost a trivial issue.

If you need to reload when you can then don't make big trades for one year rentals like Zobrist. If you need to save cash then don't re-invest that cash in slow DH's that don't have power. That is the problem with the moves. They make no sense from a bigger picture of the arguments presented. Here is the even sillier part of the trade. Lawrie is cheaper but he actually becomes a FA before Donaldson. Assigning value to Graveman in a trade for a borderline MVP candidate is almost like the Duensing rule. He is still just a toss-in.

You are drastically overstating the hole in the pipeline. They lost a dart. They didn't lose an entire draft or two.

You are going to have to give up far more than that to get Zobrist. You can't tell us how bad Santana is all season and then flip and say that he is valuable as a centerpiece for a legitimately great player like Zobrist. 2 struggling RP'ers certainly aren't the main pieces of the trade.

If it's his last rodeo then yes I care that he is playing everyday. If he is playing everyday then he is sharp when an injury happens and he gets called up and he is more likely to be successful. I would wait 3-4 weeks and see if an injury opens up a spot. Sano's injury might have done that solving this dilemna.

Why are the Twins trading MLB players for Clippard? Buxton should go back to the minors and Hicks is the starting CF. I think it would 1 of the Gonsalves, Kepler, Hu, Thorpe, Polanco, Gordon or Stewart types for Clippard. Toss in another one or two for Phegley.

No, I'm worried that Arcia can't consistently hit when he plays everyday. I think he is set up to fail getting 6-8 PA's/wk. I would try to set prospects up to succeed.

Pek almost has to play until he gets injured and he really isn't a bad player. The coach just said that Garnett could be a 20 minute/night player (not on back to backs) this year. that leads the 3 youngsters (+2 more) to getting a minutes squeeze.

this was not the common opinion at the time. there were many that thought Lawrie and Donaldson were not going to be that far apart starting this year (national writers and on this board). They were continuing to fall into the trap that young players always make X amount of improvement and they were drastically overstating Donaldson's decline because he was 30(ish). Basically they were Beane's sheeple. the butler signing completely debunked any possible theory that the A's made the trade because they were under financial pressure. At least Barreto has been awesome. He is a 19 yr old in High A (albeit Cal league) with a .800 OPS at SS. He should be a top 25 prospect by the end of the season. that doesn't make up for Donaldson but it's something.

I think it might actually be in Papelbon's best interests to not be the closer for the rest of the season. He has a 13M vesting option (55 games finished this year or...). I think he can get that for 2-3 years in FA and cash in one last time instead of risking a bad year next year and getting much less. Regardless he isn't really an option for the Twins. Perhaps RiverBrian's guys and they could be had for a lower ranked prospect.

They won't trade Papelbon for whatever they can get. They will trade him for a pretty solid prospect since there are about 20 teams in the playoff hunt and only a few sellers. I would be all about Papelbon but the cost is going to be someone good.

I concluded that the A's offseason consisted of making moves for the sake of making moves and shuffling players. I particularly didn't like the Donaldson trade since part of it was defended as him getting expensive but then they signed Butler to more money. However I loved the Norris trade to SD for Hahn since Norris is a terrible catcher and they had a catching platoon replacement ready to go. I have since given up on baseball blogging but here is the original - https://fantasybaseballrebooted.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/what-were-the-athletics-thinking/ I have given up since I already blog 5-10 times personally and write 5-10 articles for my waterfall/hiking guide. I really don't want to be writing more articles even if baseball blogging is fun.

I'm not sure how you took that out of context but the OF'ers are playing everyday. That is the point. There aren't days off and AB's going to the wasted and redundant bench players that could otherwise go to Arcia. Those bench players are getting their AB's in the infield. I would like to add a LH power bat to the bench but not Arcia. Arcia should play everyday when called up.

I am not convinced that Eddie would have moved off of 2B if the following two things didn't happen. #1 - Dozier broke out and locked down 2B blocking Eddie at the position (and Polanco became a better MI prospect behind him) #2 - The Twins OF didn't completely fall apart last season and that became a position of need for the foreseeable future. Yes, his defense wasn't very good but I think he would still be there if the Twins had a black hole of ineptitude there and hoping/praying that anyone would be decent enough to actually look like an MLB starter.

The point isn't that Robinson is valuable as a PR. The point is that somebody needs to be the 25th player that doesn't play but is available. Arcia shouldn't be that guy. Robinson has 5 PA's this month. Nunez hasn't played in the OF this month. Escobar has started 1 game in the OF this month. Santana hasn't played in the OF this month. Mixing him in from time to time isn't going to happen and he should be in AAA until a starting spot opens up due to injury or someone else being sent down.