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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    From Passan: I hate doing it,” said one of the many general managers who has engaged in service-time manipulation. “But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing my job.” It stands to reason teams care about this all the time. Let's stop treating the Twins as an exception. You can still disagree with the move without making them a villain relative to other teams.
  2. TheLeviathan
    Cute, you have no evidence but take issue when I post an example. What you have is a narrative (Twins = outlier) and nothing but speculation. Whereas I have examples and the very real value of control to teams to support my contention. Yeah, I'd drop the tangent too.
  3. TheLeviathan
    Just because you don't hear it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Buxton has high name recognition and I'd acknowledge it's more rare for a player like that. Although, Profar was a high name recognition guy for a long time and Rangers fans might have felt much the same way Twins fans did. We don't hear much of these sorts of things because it's more localized to particular fan bases. The average baseball fan probably heard and cared about the story roughly as much as they did about Vlad Jr. It's only really a big deal here. It's barely getting a fraction of the national attention Kris Bryant did, for example. As for Drury, my point there was to show that the Yankees do care about service time. Even for a guy that most people see as a rotational/bench player. Also, it was suggested that it was unique that Buxton had this happen at this point in his service time, but Drury has had a lot of major league at-bats to be left languishing in the minors in the name of service time. I'd all but guarantee this happens more regularly than we know around the league and even with the Twins. Team control is seen as a highly valuable component to a player's value, it only stands to reason that teams would incorporate it heavily in many of their roster decisions.
  4. TheLeviathan
    Or just less publicized and easier to hide. At the end of the day it's about keeping them down a certain amount of time to protect team control. We only see the surface of how much it is considered and only rarely do teams even come close to acknowledging it. The career starting decisions have a couple reasons for being more widely publicized, but the practice is hardly limited to that. I literally searched "Yankees service time" and got an example from this year that dispelled the notion you were throwing out there. The noted examples are numerous enough, I imagine that is but the tip of the iceberg. And you don't have to do much reading to hear GMs acknowledge it anonymously.
  5. TheLeviathan
    Here are the Yankees actively jerking around Brandon Drury over a similar issue. It even mentions how they kept Torres down for similar reasons. The suggestion that big market clubs don't care as much or don't do this is flat out false. Everyone does it. All the time. To all kinds of players.
  6. TheLeviathan
    No, you spoke of how the union would treat Buxton based on whether he was officially a member or not. That's irrelevant. As for the rest, debuts are the most common, but do you really think teams aren't considering that factor other times as well? That they make a July call-up, send the player down, and then just stop considering service time the second or third time they are called up? The debuts just get the most coverage, but service time manipulation is happening constantly to players. And no, we know that all teams play service time games. Not just the small market teams, as Bryant is a glaring example of. Makail Franco is not exactly playing for the Tampa Bay Rays either. And I could go on. Players might feel burned by interactions they personally have with some organizations, but what the Twins did to Buxton matters diddly squat to Machado. Any player that tried to say "I won't sign with a team that manipulates service time" - they'll have to sign with the St. Paul Saints.
  7. TheLeviathan
    The union isn't battling things whether a guy is officially union or not. They fight based on ownership over-reaches. So I can't see how that has any significance. The Bryant grievance was still filed, whether he had played in MLB or not. This one will be filed just the same. And the result will likely be the same in both. You can argue the circumstances are rare, and I'd agree with that, but service time manipulation is something all teams engage in. That is common, though it comes in many forms and with many lame excuses.
  8. TheLeviathan
    I think the only difference here was the Twins openly citing service time. Otherwise I think this exactly what every other team would do. Sox and Jays are doing it too. Cubs might have the most glaring example ever. Didn't impact them one bit in FA.
  9. TheLeviathan
    Since every team is a bad actor in this regard, would it really matter? Cubs did it with Kris Bryant, didn't seem to hurt them. Just one example of many.
  10. TheLeviathan
    The best way to attract talent is with money. Dave St. Peter said it himself - the vast majority of the time the dollars do the talking. This will have zero impact on FA or any other contract negotiation outside of Buxton. And with Buxton it only matters if he becomes a functional starting baseball player beyond his defensive game.
  11. TheLeviathan
    Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong...but aren't error totals for infielders largely considered irrelevant because the playing surfaces are garbage?
  12. TheLeviathan
    Buxton is angling to be the league's first Designated Defender.
  13. TheLeviathan
    He's probably done as even a half-season elite bat. His age and position would indicate that the time was coming due soon.
  14. TheLeviathan
    The value of team control is that Buxton cannot walk no matter how good he is. We all hope he becomes an MVP player, but we're a long way off from that. We had two MVP months, let's expand that to 3 or 4 or 5 before we get too far down those roads. Most of Buxton's time in the big leagues has been closer to AAAA player than MVP. And that isn't even discussing the recurring migraines, wrist injuries, and other health concerns that seem to really debilitate his progress. And despite all those concerns, the FO still chose to give up a meaningless September because they believe 2022 Byron Buxton is valuable to the Twins. That's a belief in his future. It's too bad they didn't spend more time saying that.
  15. TheLeviathan
    I'm curious how you think he's a phony? In part, I think the optics look bad because of how open and honest the FO was with the public about the move. I'm not sure they are phonys, whether you agree with the decision or not. They were awfully candid about their reasoning IMO.
  16. TheLeviathan
    I think you're giving fans way too much credit. The bar for angst is much lower. Look no further than the trade deadline, of which you were a part. What would've been different is they would've had a legitimate leg to stand on. I think they should've spent more time talking about how Buxton couldn't even be relied to play every day since the wrist injury - that should've been front and center in their reasoning. We all know service time is a major factor, but so is health.
  17. TheLeviathan
    All the same issues plagued him even when healthy. I had bought shares in Buxton taking the next step too...but injuries are not the only thing that derailed him. Old habits and a bad approach seemed to rear their head too.
  18. TheLeviathan
    I agree the messaging has been poor. I advocated shutting him down after the wrist as well, this was a lost season then. Though I think leaving him no chance to rehab might have lead to the same angst of today.
  19. TheLeviathan
    He was also not walking and striking out a bunch. Those are much better indicators of a sustainable performance than slapping some singles around. Sorry, he was not dominant. His 150 ABs down there have yielded a .765 OPS and a 42-9 strikeout to walk ratio. That's a player who still hasn't figured it out.
  20. TheLeviathan
    So you want the Twins to hand him CF next year? People, we're losing our minds here.
  21. TheLeviathan
    Money is a factor, but team control means he can't walk away because of money. You can plan on him being on your roster, that has far more value to the organization than the dollar amount attached to his name.
  22. TheLeviathan
    Dozier is still not hitting well. Why, and at what price, would you want to extend him? You kept telling us his binge was right around the corner and he's running out of time for it.
  23. TheLeviathan
    Also, yes, New Mexico is awful, but a lot of good teams looked bad the first week. The Gophers won with a bunch of true freshman and looked pretty good. They won't make real noise, but it's definitely a positive. But holy crap New Mexico, I've seen Pee Wee teams tackle better. That Winfield return was a clinic in awful tackling.
  24. TheLeviathan
    He had two great months. He has had many more lousy months. If we have to trade him because he's so awesome and won't resign here - I'll take that problem. Right now he's filler in a trade at best. His career numbers offensively are simply not good. And the sample is no longer small. These are facts. Facts I hope change, but facts.
  25. TheLeviathan
    Gaining one year of service time is actually extraordinarily valuable if Buxton becomes a competent to good major league hitter. The problem, of course, is that we have very little evidence so far that he will. What we have is a bunch of us wishfully thinking our plan with him will bring that Byron out for 162 games, but none of us know with any certainty what would work. I hope this plan works. And if it doesn't, I hope the next thing we try works. There is clearly talent there, but there are now over 1,000 PA that indicate he may be a bust. Let's hope this strategy, and whatever they do in the offseason, reverses that.
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