Otto von Ballpark

Perkins as a starter is an interesting comp -- I primarily remember him as a low-K starter in MLB, but he did rack up 9-10 K/9 as a starter in his early minor league seasons. Perkins was older as a college draftee, of course, but he was a faster riser so they are pretty much on the same timeline now -- Perkins was only a few months older than Gonsalves when he made his AA and AFL debuts. Gonsalves is notably taller, though.

It has been reported that Vogelsong can opt out "just before the start of the season" if he doesn't make the Twins 25 man roster. I suspect he would exercise that opt out rather than accept an assignment to Rochester at this point (he hasn't been assigned to the minors in ~6 years, so he's probably still looking for an MLB job). Not sure about Tepesch -- I haven't seen it reported either way. Breslow also has an opt out, same as Vogelsong, and while Breslow did accept a few minor league deals/assignments last year, I suspect he's looking for a MLB opportunity with his new arm slot too. If they have a rough spring, I could see them accepting minor league assignments, but negotiating another opt-out for the end of April too.

I haven't had to chance to see Turner in the infield, but the metrics all love his ~290 innings of work at 2B in MLB so far, despite only 5 scattered starts at the position in the minors. Not sure what conclusions you can draw from only 2 MLB starts at SS, both dating from his MLB debut in 2015.

No doubt that Turner over-performed in some areas last year. But he doesn't need to sustain anywhere near a 147 wRC+ to be valuable. And he's got a minor league track record that says a sustained ~120 wRC+ is absolutely do-able (unlike, say, Danny Santana).

As for Polanco, I don't think the lost option or the lack of AAA SS reps last year really matter much. Will be interesting to see what they make of him as am asset, and if trying to maximize their return on Dozier leads them to squander Polanco (playing him out of position or benching him a lot). Will be interesting to see what they are really thinking about the SS position for 2017 too.

To add to Chief's point, while it is unlikely for any specific 32nd rounder to become a MLBer, it isn't unlikely that you will see some marginal MLB contributors in those late rounds. Just like getting a base hit is unlikely in any specific at-bat, it doesn't make it a "success" when a MLBer gets 1 hit in 4 AB. It's more like the baseline. The Twins these past 10 years or so have had plenty of these marginal baseline "successes" -- a 32nd round utility guy, a minor league deal turning into a competent reliever for a couple seasons, a Scott Diamond having a brief run of effectiveness, etc. But every team has those "successes." What makes a team good is how much/often they succeed beyond that baseline, and the Twins have been pretty deficient in that regard.

To be fair, Polanco's options had to be exercised those years, unless we wanted to keep him in MLB virtually the whole season (or leave him off the 40-man entirely to be selected in the Rule 5 draft). TR didn't burn really burn any options on him. Polanco only has 105 days of MLB service time, and he's played in 78 games with 63 starts, so he hasn't ridden the pine too much. The worst stretch was the week of April 26 to May 3 last year, when Polanco had 1 PA in MLB. That was around the same time Kepler was called up to ride the pine too. Polanco was still mostly relegated to the bench in his next 2016 call-up (23 PA in 16 days later in May), but he did start everyday after his late July call-up (54 starts in 60 team games).

Probably meant soak up innings at the back of the pen. Traditional Rule 5 role.

If the speed limit was technically 55, but officers legally couldn't stop anyone or issue tickets for speeds up to 60, would there be any practical reason to describe driving 58 as "over the speed limit"? It was silly for MLB to have such a system (hence why it has changed now), and it's probably silly for us to propagate it.

Reading "A+/AA" there made my heart skip a beat -- thought I had missed some kind of meteoric Harper/Urias rise for Javier last year! Alas, just a typo -- he actually played in the Dominican Summer League.

He could have been called up earlier, he was already on the 40-man roster. Milone, Dean, and Albers all started MLB games for us in August while Mejia was relegated to starting in AAA.

I don't know. We've seen a lot of "#4 starters" come through Minnesota lately who offered little or no trade value. Milone is a good example, a guy with team control and relatively low salary. Useful at times, contributing league-average performances at the back of a rotation, but never had much value in trade. Some veteran arms that might fit that performance profile too: Nolasco (see what he was traded for in 2013), Pelfrey, Santiago, etc. Obviously if Mejia does well, he'll be useful and he'll have some value. But I'd stop well short of projecting it as "enormous" or "considerable" right now.

I saw the bat signal! Polanco's issue with options actually dates back to 2010. 90 days is the threshold for a "full season" when calculating for a potential 4th option year. All of the rookie league seasons are less than 90 days long, so generally rookie league assignments don't count as "full seasons." But while Polanco technically spent the whole 2010 season in rookie league ball, he actually split it between two rookie leagues -- an early starter and a late ender -- and thus he spent 92 days on an active roster that year. For comparison, Vargas and Kepler both signed the same summer as Polanco (2009), and both were added to the 40-man roster at the same time too (November 2013), but they both qualify for a 4th option this year because neither played a "full" minor league season prior to 2013. They've already used all 3 of their options, and have only 4 "full" pro seasons total. Thanks to 2010, Polanco has 5 "full" seasons and thus does not qualify. So Polanco's usage in 2014 and 2015 did not matter, as far as his options were concerned. He basically burned options both of those years when he was assigned to the minors out of spring training. The only alternative for the Twins at that point to conserve his options were to either leave him off the 40-man roster and exposed to Rule 5 draft, or to keep him in MLB for virtually the whole season. The problem was 2010. Maybe it's not a big problem -- he's more or less ready to stay in MLB in some capacity now -- but it is an odd one that limits our flexibility. I'd be curious to hear what happened in 2010 that Polanco split the season between two rookie leagues. He started in the Dominican Summer League, then moved to the Gulf Coast League -- did they want to quickly get him out of the Dominican for some reason? Even so, I think it would have been possible to assign him back to DSL late in the season on paper, and he wouldn't even have had to report there, and that would have ended his season a little early and kept him under 90 days active. Seems like a pretty big oversight for a guy who was a pretty well regarded international signing (Polanco's $775k bonus in 2009 was actually a Twins record for a few days, until Kepler signed for $800k and of course Sano a few months later), especially considering he stayed in rookie league ball for 2011-2012 too (he wasn't on a fast track like Sano). As always, the Cub Reporter web site offers a great read on the fourth option year rule: http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3521

Also, in regards to Stewart's low HR rates so far in the minors, it's worth noting that he's pitched exclusively in some pretty low HR environments. League HR/9 rates 2014 Midwest League: 0.6 (Stewart 0.4) 2015 Florida State League: 0.4 (Stewart 0.1) (Ft. Myers as a team 0.3) 2016 Florida State League: 0.6 (Stewart 0.3) (Ft. Myers as a team 0.4) 2016 Southern League: 0.6 (Stewart 0.4) Still a bit better than league averages, but by comparison, AL rates have been 0.9, 1.1, and 1.2 the last 3 years. Will Stewart's HR suppression play as a standout skill in MLB? Even Mike Pelfrey and Kyle Gibson have notched above-average MLB HR suppression recently, but it didn't do much to elevate their overall performance.

While obviously more encouraging than other possible outcomes, I don't think 9 starts of league-average K rate, repeating a level, counts as a "breakout".

According to this, it is essentially always by team record, with league only as a tiebreaker, except for trade (August) waivers: http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3525 And another link: http://www.purplerow.com/2009/2/19/762532/mlb-transactions-part-thre

For what it's worth, we're not talking huge differences here. The difference between a team ranking 19th and 23rd in a batting isn't that big of a deal. If that's an example of park factors overstating something, then park factors aren't a big problem. Although the future of park factors could be a lot cooler: https://baseballwithr.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/improving-park-factors-through-statcast-data/

Looking at it further -- if you ignore pitcher batting, the Twins were 22nd in offensive runs at Fangraphs. This includes batting (23rd) and baserunning (8th) and park adjustments: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=np&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=6&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=6,d By raw OPS for non-ptichers, the Twins were tied for 19th: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=np&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=9,d 8th in the AL in OPS, but down to 11th in wRC+ or batting runs, so we must be getting dinged for park factors?

It appears you are using just overall WAR for batting, so this isn't quite correct. Fielding is already part of a batter's overall WAR. If you sort by Offensive runs (the "Off" column at Fangraphs) -- that has the Twins at 17th: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=18,d Of course, that puts the whole "positional adjustment" in the Defense column, which probably isn't right when NL teams have pitchers batting instead of DHs. NL teams have 15-20 more runs for positional adjustment than AL teams. Adding those in, that would push two NL teams ahead of us, so perhaps more accurately we could be considered 19th in "batting". So I think batting was still our (relative) "highlight" of 2016.

Yeah. These moves may be more about seizing an opportunity to painlessly clear roster space rather than immediately adding talent. Heck, we just passed on Ehire Adrianza on waivers a week ago (after the Giants DFA'd him and the Brewers claimed him).

Given that Belisle is 36 years old and hasn't been a high leverage reliever since 2013, I am not sure he has "a long high leverage career in front of him" anymore either.

You might be right. 0.83 leverage index last year, roughly the same as Tonkin, Boshers, and O'Rourke. Not much higher in 2014-2015 either.

Perkins technically shouldn't count either. He agreed on a one year deal for 2012 to avoid arbitration, but then in March 2012 signed a 3 year extension on top of that for 2013-2015. Two years later he signed his next extension, in March 2014.

There is no 25 man roster right now. Just 40-man. Nobody is accumulating service time. And when the season begins and service time starts counting again, De Leon will not gain MLB service time if the Rays choose to send him on optional assignment to the minor leagues.

Teams often don't throw that Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half. If your odds of success are low, and it doesn't mean the end of the game/season/pursuit of a second baseman, you don't need high odds of it backfiring to make it a bad idea. If the Dodgers judge that the odds of the Twins accepting a particular offer is virtually zero, why should they ignore that judgement and just chuck up the offer anyway? That would seem like poor negotiating, ignoring information learned in the negotiating process, unless there was really no tomorrow -- i.e. they felt there was no way they could work with their backup option in Forsythe, which was clearly not the case here.