Otto von Ballpark

I think there may be a bit of a "self-preservation instinct" at play there, similar to running into outfield walls. Buxton is just so aggressive, even at the plate, I think he is less likely to protect himself on certain plays and pitches. And he's been having tremendous success with that approach at the plate, so who can blame him?

Kind of weird that the Tigers cut Burrows loose, with option years remaining, without much of a bullpen audition. We know ARI, BAL, PIT, TEX, and COL all passed on claiming him too.

Sands is on the IL now too. There is no shortage of AAA reps.

The Twins don’t really have a pitcher they can send out at the moment, though. I guess they could replace Buxton with a pitcher, or Gordon, but that makes it a little tougher to deal with the Buxton and Donaldson situations. They do have an open spot on the 40-man. FWIW, Duffey and Robles weren’t used last night, and the team has an off day Wednesday. It should be interesting to see how they handle the Ober start today, but they might be able to hold off on an additional pitcher for a bit.

I'm a 2021 optimist too, but my take is that while the odds of completing the comeback and going to the postseason are very low, the Twins could still make things interesting.

Larnach has done some nice things, but in terms of the Rookie of the Year award, Adolis Garcia is just behind him in wRC+ and wOBA -- and he has a lot more PA and plays CF. Larnach should narrow the PA gap the rest of the way, but on the flip side, there is still plenty of time for someone like Wander Franco to close the PA gap with Larnach too. Heck, since this tweet, Baddoo has actually passed Larnach in wRC+ and wOBA (and he's not a slouch in OBP either). To the extent that Baddoo's performance feels unsustainable, his BABIP of .375 is identical to Larnach's so far (although he typically had lower BABIPs than Larnach in the minors). On the pitching side, Luis Garcia for HOU has been good although it remains to be seen how many innings he can throw. Apparently, Emmanuel Clase still qualifies as a rookie too.

With the exception of Chalmers, none of those guys were on the 40-man to begin the year — all minor league free agents with zero option years left. I think the first 3 were direct COVID-IL replacements. Every team adds and DFAs a few of these types, every year (and especially this year).

I think your timeline is off by a year. Lynn pitched the full 2017 season for the Cardinals, before signing with the Twins in 2018. (His season missed to TJ surgery was 2016.)

The Red Sox got a tangible benefit out of those deals, though. They got to pay less to very good players and lower their luxury tax hit in many contending seasons (and turned it into a few championships). What makes the Bonilla deal so insane is that there was no on-field benefit. Bonilla was cooked (the Mets were actually releasing him when they came up with the deferred salary deal) and there wasn’t even any luxury tax implications that I am aware of. Of course, we know now it was because the Mets owner was involved in some Ponzi scheme, which explains why it wasn’t rational!

It is kind of misleading. Kazmir’s contract ended after 2018 but it had deferred money. It was a $16 mil AAV deal but they only had to pay him $8 mil per year at the time, and the other $8 mil in a future year. Actually reduced the cost / luxury tax impact of the contract for the team (since they could effectively invest that $8 mil and collect interest on it before they had to pay him, and MLB calculates the luxury tax hit on the present-day value rather than the actual dollars). The Kazmir contract certainly didn’t work out well for the Dodgers, but it wasn’t crazy and it’s hard to argue too much with their overall results since 2016..

And of course, McCullers signed with Houston when they were a clear contender. Twins right now? Not so much.

The Nola and Severino deals are no longer relevant to Berrios, due to the service time difference. McCullers is close -- he signed for 5/85 just 1 year away from FA. Berrios is still a half-season away from that, but he's also ahead of McCullers by some measures -- McCullers's final arb award was $6.5 mil, but Berrios is already at $6.1 mil in his second-to-last year of arb. (Probably because McCullers missed a year-plus due to Tommy John surgery, and has been on the IL most seasons otherwise.) Also, the McCullers deal takes effect in 2022. So including the 2021 arb award, it's more like 6/91.5. So I'd guess the McCullers deal is the baseline, but wouldn't be shocked if Berrios wanted 5/100 right now, or something like 6/110 including his likely 2022 arb salary.

Tampa may have extended him super-early though too. And maybe they wouldn't have to trade him quite yet...

It shouldn't be viewed as Happ AND Shoemaker vs Flexen. It should be Shoemaker vs Flexen, really. (Or if you want to say Happ vs Flexen, I'd assume a better option than Happ would have been signed to be the #4). Just looking at #5 starters in this specific circumstance -- with a #6 like Dobnak ready to step in, plus a few prospects -- there isn't a bright line distinction between Shoemaker and Flexen. To the extent that Flexen is more of a wild card in terms of performance, Shoemaker specifically doesn't offer much health/durability to counter that either. (I think Happ does, which is why you'd need to improve the next spot ahead on the rotation to justify swapping him out.) And there's nothing wrong with choosing Shoemaker over Flexen, although our track record with 1 year vet SPs isn't good enough to warrant disqualifying a guy like Flexen either.

No, I meant his overall numbers were good in the others (unlike Shoemaker). Every back-of-the-rotation pitcher has bad non-disaster starts, so it would be unusual to claim otherwise.

I'll just bow out of this tangent by saying you're under-estimating the risk of any back-of-the-rotation options, even on contending teams. Sometimes that's guys like Shoemaker, sometimes it's guys like Colby Lewis, sometimes it could even be a guy like Flexen. The Shoemakers are way more plentiful, but that doesn't mean the Flexens are automatically disqualified from consideration. Shoemaker wasn't a bad option on paper either, so I'm not blaming the front office for too much here, but I hope they are looking at young guys who are successful foreign major league alongside the 1-year vets they've signed so far, when faced with openings like this.

I'm not arguing Flexen is the equal of Mikolas, or even comparing their talent at all -- just that neither was particularly good in their limited pre-Asia MLB innings. The context of the discussion was the claim that no contending team would ever give a guy like Flexen a chance to be their #5 starter. Mikolas is a better pitcher, with the better foreign resume, but that hardly disqualifies Flexen. FWIW, you're quoting FIP for a 1.2 IP season in there, but even the small 3 year totals miss a lot of important context: Mikolas was a college draftee with 4 months of AA/AFL experience, plus a full MLB spring training, before he made his MLB debut in low-leverage relief. And after he struggled with control a bit, walking 9 in his first 13.2 innings, he got to go to AAA for awhile before coming back up to MLB (again in low-leverage relief). Flexen, on the other hand, was a HS draftee with a month and a half of AA experience -- no AFL, no MLB spring training -- before he was thrown into an MLB rotation for an extended period. Again, not comparing their talent or equating their performances, but if you had to explain why one of these guys had a longer struggle with outlier control/performance issues during their early MLB exposure, it wouldn't be too difficult. That's why samples like these aren't disqualifying once you're evaluating their performance from another professional league. Of course, if anyone thought Flexen was really a 7.1 BB/9 pitcher like he was with the Mets (after 2.9 in the minors, and 2.3 in KBO), they shouldn't have touched him with a 39 and a half foot pole! But I'm guessing his KBO experience addressed that concern quite a bit, even if there were (and still are) remaining performance questions.

Again, no one claimed he's front of the rotation material. He signed for 2 years, $4.75 mil total. But at that price, I think he was an intriguing alternative to signing Shoemaker at #5. (Also, while KBO is not close to MLB talent-wise, I think it's encouraging to see a young guy go into a very unfamiliar environment and succeed like that, perhaps more than similar success at AAA in America. Obviously you'll want some scouting to back up the numbers too.) Never claimed that, of course. Just noted the similarity to Shoemaker's disaster start, yet the gulf between the overall lines. He may well falter in the future -- most back of the rotation pitchers do, at some point -- but I think it was an interesting, low-risk signing, the kind the Twins may have to explore if they can't figure out what they are doing wrong identifying/coaching MLB veteran SP on 1-year deals.

Mikolas did not have "success in MLB prior". He was a mop-up reliever with an empty ERA (bad FIP) as a rookie, but predictably struggled following. He was also a reliever in the minors. Mikolas had more success overseas, but Flexen was cheaper and younger coming back too. Flexen also has a strong argument that he was rushed -- promoted straight to MLB after only 7 AA starts as a rookie, when he logged the bulk of his bad MLB performance in front of the worse defense in MLB by far. Only got 1 MLB start each of the next 2 years. (And his AAA experience those 2 years were under poor conditions for pitchers -- the PCL and the "rabbit ball" 2019 IL.) As for not being the norm, there aren't many MLB pitchers who go to Asia successfully then come back. So the rarity is probably more of a sample size issue, rather than contending teams rejecting such pitchers in favor of Shoemaker types. Thad Levine's 2010 Rangers brought back Colby Lewis from Japan and went to the WS the next 2 years. Again, no one is claiming Flexen is top of the rotation material but fan reaction would not have been materially different to him taking Shoemaker's spot at #5, with Dobnak at #6. There are other ways to augment a staff, of course, but this FO doesn't look like it's having much success on the 1-year veteran deals. Every team brings in creative/upside bullpen options, every year. Ours just universally stunk this year. (As did a few of our less creative options.)

St. Louis brought in Miles Mikolas in 2018 under similar circumstances. I think you underestimate the #5 starter depth that even "teams trying to win the World Series" have to sign every year. The Braves picked up Anibal Sanchez in 2018 but aren't having as much success with Drew Smyly now. Heck, even the Yankees acquired 2 guys for their rotation who barely pitched the last 2 years and they might be dealing with the consequences of that now. Unless you're loaded like the Dodgers, your #5 guy probably has some significant question marks. Shoemaker did too. No one is saying that signing Flexen instead of Shoemaker would have been universally applauded by the fanbase. But it would have represented some creativity / upside risk that perhaps the FO should have been more open too.

You might not have noticed, but Flexen pitched in Korea in 2020 and was one of the best in the league: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mariners-sign-chris-flexen-from-kbo/ 63 ERA-, 58 FIP- (that's the Fangraphs version of ERA+, 100 is still average, but lower is better) in the KBO regular season, and even better in the playoffs. He wouldn't have been a headline addition but would have been a decent low-risk/upside gamble in the Shoemaker spot. Flexen's 2021 numbers so far have been dragged down a bit by one disaster start -- but unlike Shoemaker, he's been pretty good in the others. Even with that disaster start included, Fangraphs has him at 102 ERA-, 93 FIP-, and 1.1 fWAR (using FIP) or 1.0 RA9-WAR (using actual runs allowed) in 12 starts (or about 2.8 fWAR prorated to a full season). For as little as they are paying him, they've already likely gotten their money's worth.

Yes, Enlow will be Rule 5 eligible this winter if he’s not placed on the 40-man roster.

FWIW, Littell got the opener start for SF tonight and gave up 4 hits and 2 walks to Arizona without retiring a batter. Charged with 4 runs, and the next reliever stranded both inherited runners.

More evidence: Seattle is 5 wins ahead of their BaseRuns record (which is a Pythag record using estimated runs scored/allowed -- so removing the effects of sequencing or clutch hitting/pitching). The Twins are 4 wins *behind* our BaseRuns record. https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=BaseRuns

You claimed Dobnak pitched in the 8th and 9th when Baldelli should have used our "best bullpen guys". So I listed "the only time he pitched in the 8th inning of a close game". That was the April 13th game I mentioned. Dobnak pitched the 6th and 7th of a tie game, retiring all 6 batters he faced on only 15 pitches. He did give up 2 doubles and 1 run to begin the 8th and ultimately took the loss despite completing that inning with no further runs allowed. Dobnak never pitched the 9th of a close game this season. Surely you are not arguing that the 8th inning leading by 14 (April 5th), leading by 8 (April 28th) and trailing by 10 (May 1st) should be the exclusive innings of our "best bullpen guys"? And when Dobnak pitched the 10th on opening day, the only other relievers left were Alcala and Thielbar. Dobnak was not selected over our "best bullpen guys" that day.