Otto von Ballpark

I actually thought the innings progression was fair with Santana. Maybe they were about a month late making the change in 2003. In 2002, he was fairly still fairly wild yet, so I suppose you could justify putting him in the pen for the playoffs (and the guy he would have replaced on performance, Joe Mays, did pretty well that postseason). Although as history shows us, when you have a chance to deploy a dynamic SP in the playoffs, it's probably not worth passing up.

No, arbitration has always been based on service time. There was an argument for controlling Johan's innings, based on his Rule 5 bullpen duty in 2000 and his injury shortened 2001. But nothing service-time based.

Thanks for sharing. I doubt many guys see themselves as AAA ballplayers, particularly one who has only played one month of AAA ball in the past 8 years. But it appears Sweeney didn't secure anything more than the standard June 1st opt out. He actually had a March 28th opt out back in his 2013 minor league deal with Boston. His bargaining power was apparently less this year. (And even after he exercised that opt out in 2013, he still had to settle for another minor league deal, resulting in the aforementioned month at AAA with the Cubs.) The Twins might do him a solid and release him at the end of camp, but otherwise, if he doesn't make the Twins roster, his choices will be to become a AAA ballplayer for up to 3 months at our discretion, or retire and sit out another season.

Interestingly, though, Seth's projected line for Suzuki is heavy on AVG/OBP but light on SLG. Relative to league average, Seth's predicted batting average and OBP for Suzuki would be the second and third highest marks of his career, respectively, but Seth has it coupled with a career-low ISO. That's definitely not what the projection systems are saying.

That opt out date has not been reported anywhere for Sweeney. June 1st is actually the standard opt out date for 6+ year MLB veterans on minor league deals, so I would guess it applies to both him and Quentin. It would be rather silly to give an April 1 opt out to a player who sat out the previous season, but never say never (Bartlett). Either player could threaten to retire, of course, then if the team really wanted to keep the player, they'd have to add them to the MLB roster. I'd probably just call their bluff, though, seeing as how you would still own their rights for 2016 (meaning, they couldn't retire and go play elsewhere).

And if they had done that, I'd be more cool with it. With another plus arm in place of one of Abad, Kintzler, etc., we might still have a glut of starters pushing May to then pen, but I think you could be looking at the pen as a potential weapon, and you'd still have the flexibility to flex out May to the rotation whenever needed. Instead, Plan A the whole time appears to be relying on May to make the pen barely acceptable.

O'Day is the same age as Ervin Santana, and is guaranteed less going forward. Same age as Nolasco too, and he barely eclipses Nolasco's total remaining cash (and of course both Nolasco and Santana still have much higher AAVs). "Try again."

Evidence? Lots of solid relievers (Lowe, Benoit, etc.) changed teams this winter for little more than our overall commitment to Jepsen. This is one of those myths that sounds nice in theory, like the catching market being so barren as to necessitate the early Suzuki extension, but it absolutely fails when you actually look at the whole market and not just at the top couple names (who the Twins likely weren't competing for regardless). The Twins fell in love early with the idea of May in the bullpen, just like they became overly enamored with Suzuki as their starting catcher. And then they proceeded to do nothing over a full winter to improve in those areas, or add flexibility to those plans. It's really that simple.

But it would be okay for Milone or Nolasco to go to the bullpen at the end of spring training? Just like it was okay for Pelfrey to do so last spring? You're not making sense here. It is pretty clear that Trevor May never had an equal chance to win a starting job in this "competition" and if you are applying different standards to him than the other candidates (i.e. he can't be moved to the pen at the end of spring training), then that proves my point.

You said May lost the competition. That presumably means you think he was bested by Nolasco in said competition, with two weeks to spare, even if Nolasco isn't the ultimate winner. If they simply wanted to narrow it to two starters at this point, why couldn't it be down to May vs. Milone instead? I don't see how you can ignore the obvious factors other than spring performance (contracts and past usage) that influenced this move.

May lost a competition with Nolasco this spring? Really? He's lost to Duffey so far too?

Generally agreed, although note his roughest start was June 26.

May had a 7.88 ERA in his debut season, and a 4.37 ERA in his second season when he was moved to the pen. Gibson had a 6.53 ERA in his debut season, and a 4.47 ERA in his second season. If you want to add in FIP and strikeout and walk rates, it arguably helps May's case relative to Gibson's too. The stats are not terribly conclusive here. It could just be that May had the unfortunate luck to come along after Gibson and 4 other starters, making him the low man on the totem pole.

Did you read my post? There is a baseball argument there. It's a poor use of resources. We've handed out tons of money to mid-tier FA starters, done almost nothing to acquire good relievers outside the draft, and now we're converting a cheaper and arguably better (certainly younger, with more strikeout potential) starter to relief. I don't care about the player bank accounts, but I am concerned that my team is not handling their resources rationally. That said, given where we are today, having invested in those mid-tier FA starters and having not acquired more relievers, there's probably little else to do but move May to the pen at the moment. But I want to be clear that we've painted ourselves into that corner, and if we continue making decisions like this, it is going to limit us more in the future.

Actually this is demonstrably false. If he's a non-closer reliever, he will make less than a mediocre starter. Tommy Milone just got $2.8 mil and now $4.5 mil in his first two go-arounds in arbitration, and he's actually been optioned to the AAA each of the last 2 seasons too. A non-closer reliever, even a good one, will likely only get half that. And for May, that assumes he stays healthy the next two years too). And in the meantime, as a reliever May has almost zero leverage to get a financial guarantee in advance. Consider Kyle Gibson, who after 2.5 years of decent starting pitching was #1 on Jeremy's "Ten to Extend" list, looking at an estimated potential guarantee of ~$30 mil already. Gibson could probably go to the team and guarantee himself $20 million today, with a million dollar signing bonus up front, and be completely set for generations no matter what happens to his pitching arm tomorrow. Next winter, May will have an identical amount of service time to Gibson presently, but with much of it spent in the bullpen, he will have almost zero leverage to get such a guarantee. And like I said in a previous post, this isn't an argument that the Twins should be concerned about May's bank account. It's just a fact that May will earn less and have less security in a relief role, especially early in his career. If you want to bring the team argument into it, consider that it is a poor use of resources given the market. Good relievers can absolutely make notably less than mediocre starters. Darren O'Day has had one of the most effective four year runs of relief pitching ever, and got $31 million this winter, about 60% of the guarantee that Ricky Nolasco got two years ago. After his Detroit deal expires, Mike Pelfrey will have received almost as much as O'Day ($27 over four years). Even a more "elite" setup arm in Andrew Miller, signed to close in New York, only fetched a $36 mil guarantee. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how relievers have less market value than starters, calling into serious question the Twins strategy of making big FA investments in mid-tier starters, generally refusing to make any investments in adding outside relief help, and in fact converting promising cheap internal starting talent to relief roles instead.

I have been presenting it more as a fact, because some folks here seem to be disputing that fact. But if you want to look at it as an argument, consider that relievers (particularly non-closers) are generally less valuable on the open market than starters. And then ask yourself if it's the best use of resources to generally refuse to sign or trade for a reliever, and instead convert a young starter -- arguably your best starter in terms of strikeout ability -- to the role.

Fan salaries are irrelevant to this discussion. The $1.3 million estimate I provided isn't May's current salary -- he wouldn't be due to receive that for another 2 years. And in the meantime, if he stays in a non-closer relief role, he would have almost zero leverage to get any kind of reasonable arbitration buyout extension, to sacrifice future earnings for some kind of guaranteed minimum. So in the short term, being in the bullpen means Trevor May is probably pitching without a financial safety net for at least the next 2 years, more so than he would be if he was starting.

Actually that would be a factor for May as early as his arbitration seasons. Getting only $1.3 mil in his first big payday (like Fien & Jepsen) rather than $2.7 mil (like Milone) kind of sucks for the player. Especially when he could get hurt at any time and that could be his peak earnings.

Interesting, thanks. I was suspecting that might be the direction they go -- last year they needed a setup man in August, but they might figure they have that addressed by others now (return of Perkins moving Jepsen back to setup, a healthy Fien and Pressly, probably Abad and possibly Kintzler. If Nolasco makes the rotation and Duffey goes to AAA, May might be the only reliever seen as capable of pitching multiple innings. Might be seen as a way to avoid the back issues he had after moving to the pen last year too...

I wonder if they still see May as a top setup guy. If they don't carry a true long reliever, I could see them using May more for longer relief assignments, assuming Perkins, Jepsen, and Fien are all healthy (plus Abad and Kintzler if they make the club).

But you could at least put butter on it, right? Was lutefisk offered at the same buffet? I'd check myself, but "norwegian-food-reference.com" seems to be down right now...

Generally agreed. Quentin and Sweeney can't even opt out of their minor league contracts until June 1, as I understand, so there is no real imperative to add them to the roster for opening day. So we can easily afford another chance for Arcia. That said, Arcia is looking more and more like a bust every day. It happens sometimes. He obviously didn't have the past MLB success, but a lot of people here made a statement similar to yours about Joe Benson a few years ago. Arcia is closer to Benson circa 2013 right now than he is to Ortiz circa 2002-2003. Arcia was already around replacement level even with his early career power. If Arcia's power is gone (and it largely was in 2015, .107 ISO in MLB, .090 in the second half at AAA, .000 so far this spring), that's a pretty bad player.

Are you sure you don't mean lutefisk (a jelly-like fish dish)? Lefsa is just bread, and I've never seen it characterized as gross. Lutefisk, on the other hand, is almost universally characterized as gross...

Well, Beltran is almost 39 years old, and posted a -14 Rfield last year. And as mentioned by another poster, he's a FA next winter, and Ellsbury missed significant time last year (and got benched for the wild card game). And Gardner, the healthiest one, is just returning from an injury today himself, and has been the subject of trade rumors. I think it's quite likely that there could be a starting job there, very soon for Hicks, if his performance warrants one (as well as if/when there is an injury).

See my post above -- I think Seth overstated their chances a bit, although they could certainly sneak onto those rosters.