Otto von Ballpark

I'm not zooming out, except to put your single-year changes in context. If he dropped in a rate from 2017-2018, but his 2018 rate still matched his 2015-2016 rates, how meaningful is that? You're the one who's using Kimbrel's 2017 as a barometer of his skill, when 2017 was basically his career year in many respects.

Berrios is still on track to get a Severino/Nola type deal next offseason (he was a year behind them in service time). Not sure about the Buxton comps at this point...

Well, if you wait to make your moves until late July, and they don't work out, you don't have much recourse. As opposed to signing a guy now, which wouldn't preclude making further moves in July. Or if one of our good SP goes down in the next two months and that becomes the priority, we may not have the resources to get both a top SP and top RP in trade. So having already procured one in FA becomes advantageous. Plus we may need multiple relief additions, depending on how one feels about the current pen's staying power. And home field advantage! I should also say the division isn't locked up, to stave off any jinx.

This would be interesting, although there is plenty of selection bias -- a guy who's injured the first half of the season would be expected to perform worse the second half of the season. Likewise, a guy who goes unsigned until late may not be that good to begin with -- which could apply to Kimbrel too, of course, although his circumstances do seem fairly unique. It's not like a lot of pitchers of Kimbrel's caliber have signed notably late before, so I don't know if there's really any meaningful data here. Clemens and Pettitte did all right signing late, although I don't know if I want to lump Kimbrel in with them! What names were you thinking? (Warning: it's a pet peeve of mine to see Lance Lynn mentioned in this context! )

It's not an issue with team-friendliness or not. It's how the contracts are structured. They front-loaded Polanco and Kepler this year so they'd have more money to spend a few years down the road. They could just as easily back-load their next two extensions for 2022-2023 to keep the 2021 payroll in line, if they so desire.

I wouldn't be surprised if a reliever is traded in June either -- but it probably won't be a great one. Last year the Royals moved Kelvin Herrera on June 18 (a trade I was interested in from the Twins perspective, at the time), but of course that trade was a bit of an outlier, and those Royals were a 104 loss team while Herrera was a pending FA making $8.5 mil. For guys that are better than that, or have additional control, I don't see teams moving them to "get ahead of the market". The August trade market was largely irrelevant for such players anyway.

This sounds like a "perfect is the enemy of the good" situation. A reliever like Kimbrel on the upswing for multiple seasons is going to cost more than 3/43, either in money or talent. And again, it's not an either/or. There's plenty of room in our bullpen, we could have still made a trade even after signing Kimbrel.

This is more data without context. Kimbrel's GB% improved from 2016-2017 as much as it declined from 2017-2018. LD% roughly too. And his fastball velocity -- 2017 was the best year of his career. His 2018 velocity, while a drop from 2017, still equals his career mark per Fangraphs. And his average exit velocity actually DROPPED from 2017 to 2018. And his 2018 mark was still a tick better than his career mark (in the Statcast era, anyway). His barrel % improved a tick too from 2017-2018. His 2018 xOBA seems to be in line with his 2018 xwOBA, and his career marks. Maybe 2017 is the outlier? He was great in 2017, but he was still quite effective in 2016 and 2018 too, enough to justify 3/43 with no draft pick comp, I should think.

Perez was sidelined for part of 2018, but he threw 185 innings in 2017 and 198 in 2016 and did just fine in August/September those years. (Plus 165 and 167 combined majors/minors innings back in 2012 and 2013, respectively.) Even in 2018, despite missing May and most of June, he had 102 innings total and likely could have had 117 or so if not for his bullpen demotion in September. Seems doubtful he's seeing effects of overuse before reaching 65 innings in 2019. He's also had 5, 6, and 5 days of rest before each of his last 3 starts. Since he joined the rotation, only 4 of his 9 starts have been on the standard 4 days rest.

I finally found a baseball Oscar Corporan signing by the Twins at this weird Czech baseball site "mlbcz.com": http://www.mlbcz.com/tym.php?tym=min&akce=transakce But no further info beyond his age, height, and weight. Although using Google Translate on the mlbcz.com home page tells me that Josh Bell was named "Batsman of the Moon".

Without context, not much? I mean, Hader was 185th in ground ball rate. Doolittle 172nd. Felipe Vasquez was 166th in line drive rate. Betances 189th. Knebel was 147th in first pitch strike percentage. Treinen 164th. Robertson 168th in strike percentage. Britton 185th. Britton 183rd in BB%. Chapman 186th. Kimbrel had many very comparable ranks in 2016 and 2017 too, particularly in LD% and GB%. These measures, at least among relievers with 40+ innings, don't seem to correlate that strongly with success. At least not compared to the following: Kimbrel: 6th in K% 14th in K-BB% (Duffey's favorite!) 5th in opponent's average 20th in WHIP

Doing well, there's also Britton, Ottavino, Holland, and Kelley. (And in fairness, Blake Parker would fit into this group too, last night notwithstanding.)

Isn't it more appropriate to just divide total wins and losses by ten to put them in "football terms"? By that measure, the Twins are 4-2, and Cleveland is 3-3. (And Cleveland has both head-to-head games left to make up ground.) FWIW, Cleveland's 10 game records: 7-3 5-5 5-5 4-6 5-5 4-6 1-0 (so far) You wouldn't call that 1-2-3 so far, relative to the Twins 6-0.

Is it just me, or does it look like the guy in the first photo should be busting the guy in the second photo for something? Maybe we all could stand to bust our younger selves for something...

Okay, my estimate of 5 was wrong -- I missed BAL and KC, since they're so far out that B-Ref doesn't even list them in the wild card standings. Still, at 7, slightly less than 25% of teams is well short of "half not even pretending to try" like you said. And of those 7 teams, 4 of them (BAL, KC, SEA, and MIA) have virtually nothing to offer, in terms of quality relievers. DET has Greene, TOR has Giles, and SF has Smith. They each might be the best trade chip those teams have to offer in 2019. Do you really think they're going to part with them in June, a month before the trade market heats up, for less than a great return? Giles and Greene are still controlled for 2020 too, so their clubs have even more incentive to hold out for the best deal possible. Not every team values stockpiling 40-45 FV prospects. Edit: the teams that try to get ahead of the market will likely be the ones with the less valuable assets to sell too.

That's right, I'm the one who said they weren't particularly meaningful. K-BB% absolutely can be meaningful, but noting it for half a season of a reliever, especially without also noting their K%, isn't particularly meaningful. Half a season of a reliever is also prone to HUGE fluctuations based on 1-2 games. The poster who cited Kimbrel's stats from July 27 to Sep. 30, where Kimbrel had a Duffey-esque 21.7 K-BB% over 19.2 innings? Well, within that sample, from July 28 to Sep. 25, he had a 31.3 K-BB% over 17 innings -- almost exactly the same as his career rate of 31.8. So which is the meaningful one going forward? Is he a "project" now, comparable to Duffey, based on those 2.2 innings?

That's an overstatement. There's still very few teams (5 or less?) that I could see selling good pieces today, short of an overwhelming offer, and even those teams might prefer to wait to see if the market develops in their favor. It's not likely that the White Sox are going to send you Colome for a modest return right now, for example -- they can do that at the end of July if they want. Or even the Giants and Will Smith, who has a real chance to be the premium RP trade target come July. So you may have to overpay to add a quality piece, especially if you want to do so before the end of July.

To the extent that the late start penalty is a "real" risk, I'd guess it's probably more than offset by the risks of relying solely on finding a match in the trade market. It wasn't necessarily an either-or proposition. We had a chance here to get Kimbrel in addition to making an aggressive trade (and we'd likely have had a month of 2019 MLB performance data on Kimbrel informing our trade decision making too).

I think the "late start" penalty might be over-rated. It's such a limited sample to base it on, and people citing Lance Lynn as an example is a real stretch -- he honestly didn't perform that differently in 2018 than he has in 2017 or 2019.

For the record, I don't mind missing out on Kimbrel that much either. I really hate investing that much in a reliever, although if ever there was a time to do it, this 2019 Twins season looks to be it. Hopefully they're willing to make some other aggressive moves!

I don't see them losing any members of the core over 1 extra year at $16 mil. I think they could have structured deals for the core, like they already did with Kepler and Polanco, to accommodate signing Kimbrel, even through 2021.

I mentioned in another comment, but I'd actually be somewhat encouraged that his second half regular season struggles were almost entirely with control. Even during that stretch, he was still striking guys out and limiting hits at roughly his career rates. (And 40% of his walks from July 27 to the end of the season came in just 7% of his innings, suggesting the control problem may have been more isolated than consistent?) And his postseason, while he made Boston fans very nervous, he ultimately wound up 6-for-6 in save opportunities, he stranded both of his inherited runners, and preserved his one tie appearance too. All while facing 3 of the top 4 offenses in baseball. (Admittedly he didn't get tested with any 1-run leads, which made his job much easier!) Of course, I'm no scout, and if I was a GM I wouldn't hire myself as a scout. There's going to be a lot more to see and consider about him than his stat line. But from a fan's perspective, just looking at his stat line, I don't see *too* much cause for concern. I wouldn't want to do 5/75 for him or anything, but 3/43 with no draft pick compensation, and 2 extra months to evaluate internal options before committing, seems like a pretty solid deal.

Sure, but if those metrics aren't particularly meaningful, is that a point worth illustrating? I mean, who's really looking at a half season of a reliever's K-BB%, without also considering their K%? (Not to mention HR rate and leverage)

First of all, the Dodgers did not surrender the #31 pick. They actually got the #31 pick, protected, in addition to their #26 pick, for failing to sign a pick in 2018. They only forfeited the ~64th pick for signing Pollock, but also picked up the ~78th pick for losing Grandal to offset the loss. Second of all, not all QO players are equal. Through 2 months, a starting position player could have 200 PA, or a SP could have 11 starts. A reliever may only have 20 IP. So yeah, a team could more easily gamble on a RP to save a draft pick. (And the Cubs already had a closer worth gambling on covering a few of those innings too -- Morrow was expected to return before now.) And it's not just the draft pick for these big-money clubs -- it's also the luxury tax. The Cubs not only saved their draft pick, but also ~$6 mil off their 2019 luxury tax payroll by gambling with those 20 RP innings. That could be significant. Since the start of QO compensation in 2013, only 4 teams have surrendered a draft pick to sign a reliever. The two most recent -- the 2018 Rockies (Davis) and Cardinals (Holland) -- both had an extra, protected "Competitive Balance" pick before round 2, AND both received comp picks after round 2 for losing players. That more than offset their forfeited 2nd round picks. Of the two other teams, the 2015 White Sox (David Robertson), had a protected top-10 pick, and also signed another QO FA so in effect they may have only had to forfeit their third round pick (82 overall) to sign Robertson. And the 2013 Nationals (Rafael Soriano) had MLB's best record in 2012, so only forfeited the ~30th overall pick (before all first round picks were protected) -- that still looks pretty bad, but I'd guess that teams have learned a bit more about how to value these picks and FAs since then too!

Were you not trying to imply similarity in recent performance between Kimbrel and Duffey? It certainly seemed that way to me, and I thought it was obvious and egregious enough that it deserved correction. I don't think that is necessarily cherry-picking. Edit to add: if you believe the Duffey stats were irrelevant to your larger point, then consider my response less as a rebuttal and more as advice to leave them out. Including them weakens and obscures your main point.