Otto von Ballpark
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The advance requirement is so teams actually know who is available in the Rule 5, which would be difficult if teams were protecting their players at the last minute. The "revision" I am suggesting doesn't actually add anyone for protection, just removes a player. Happens all the time as free agents are signed or waiver claims are made, doesn't seem like it would be functionally different to drop a guy and immediately make a Rule 5 selection. In any case, answering my own question, I think they can drop guys pretty late. I see Ortiz was officially released the exact same day we drafted Jose Morban back in the 2002 Rule 5 draft. EDIT TO ADD: I did find this, though: "A player cannot be sent outright to the minors on the two days prior to the Rule 5 Draft and on the day of the Rule 5 Draft up through the conclusion of the draft." http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3530 So if you wanted to keep the player you are removing (outright to minors if he clears waivers), you can't do it in the 2 days leading up to the Rule 5 draft. You could release him like we did with Ortiz though, but that makes him a full free agent.- 115 replies
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Reynaldo Rodriguez just re-signed with us as a minor league free agent, those players are eligible to be picked in Rule 5 but it's pretty rare. R.A. Dickey is the notable example of that, although he was a knuckleballer who had extensive MLB experience at the time. No one is going to select the soon to be 30, zero MLB experience, 115 wRC+ at AAA 1B Reynaldo Rodriguez.
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Since tomorrow (Friday Nov. 20) is the deadline to protect players, we should see a lot more comprehensive lists after that. Unfortunately, the Twins are 17th in line. It's usually very slim pickings by that point -- even the guys that "stick" at that point in the draft tend to be low-upside players, and they often don't really stick but the teams negotiation a trade (like Scott Diamond). We are probably better off just protecting an extra guy of our own. How late can we drop a player to make room for a Rule 5 selection, though? Could we DFA someone like Achter the very day of the draft if a name we like is still on the board as our pick comes up?
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I don't believe there is any provision to protect more than 40 players for the MLB phase of the Rule 5 draft, even after one of your unprotected players has been selected. I don't think I've heard of such a provision for the minor league phase either (although the minor league phases are pretty all-encompassing, isn't Brian Buscher one of the great minor league phase success stories? ).
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Thanks for the clarification. Given you are describing his performance relative to expectations, I think that's much better described as pleasantly surprising/unexpected rather than ridiculous. Which is good, but probably well short of vaulting him to the top 15 or so among Rule 5 eligible players. Teams don't draft players in Rule 5 on the basis of how much they exceeded expectations at AAA. How many players entering their age 27 season have been selected in the Rule 5 draft, much less stuck with their new team? Outside the odd cases of RA Dickey and Andy Oliver (who both had previous MLB experience), I can't recall any. Protecting Dean due to "improvements of his breaking pitches" (which only manifested themselves in his results on contact in a AAA pitcher's league and not in K% or BB%), against draft history and Dean's own track record, would indeed be crazy. Glad to hear you wouldn't do it, but I hope your's and Jeremy's prediction about it doesn't come to fruition. Nothing against Dean, I absolutely hope he gets an MLB shot somewhere, heck I wouldn't even mind if he got some mop-up innings for the Twins in 2016. I just don't want us to lock him into a 40-man spot right now, not when we should looking to add talent ourselves via Rule 5, free agency, and waivers.
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Ridiculous? Dean had a nice ERA, but it's considered a pitcher's league. Just among qualifiers, he was behind 38 year old Randy Wolf, Michael Bowden, and someone named Greg Smith. The top 15 is pretty much a who's who of non-prospects except Henry Owens and Erik Johnson -- you can even find former Twins property Scott Diamond and Kyle Davies in that group: http://www.fangraphs.com/minorleaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=2&qual=y&type=0&season=2015&team=0&players=0&sort=5,a This is without even considering peripherals and FIP. Also, Rule 5 is generally a place where teams grab talented guys who have underwhelming recent minor league stats, not a place to target guys whose recent minor league stats likely outpaced their talent. I'd be shocked if Dean was selected, and will be disappointed if the Twins protect him. Not only could it also leave someone else unprotected, but it could prevent us from making our own Rule 5 selection, and perhaps most importantly, ties up a 40-man spot likely for the whole 2016 season that we could use on waiver claims.
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Morneau somehow slashed his K% to a career low at age 33. For all the talk about needing to hit for power, I'd love to see what Mauer could do by reducing his K% back to his early career levels.
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Good point. Even with our college reliever draft strategy not starting in earnest until 2012, that's not a good record. (And not many of them look like they will start 2016 relieving in AAA either.)
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If you don't have room on your 40-man, and you choose not to make room, the player would have to pass through waivers and be outrighted anyway. Otherwise, I suspect you would be able to make room for a newly-acquired player and add them to your 40-man roster, thus giving them Rule 5 protection, at any time. (The player you drop from the 40-man would then have to pass through waivers and be exposed to Rule 5 if unclaimed.)
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Thanks for the info on Dean, Seth. If they protect Dean, after leaving Gilmartin unprotected last winter, I think that will indeed be crazy. Nothing against him, but Dean is 2 years older than Gilmartin was last year (and still a year older than Gilmartin in absolute terms too), not to mention the obvious performance differences.
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Yes, if they are on a 40-man roster on draft day, they will be protected, regardless of which organization originally added them to their roster. I think the Nov. 20 add deadline is in place so teams can't do a ton of last-minute protections to cause confusion, that's all. Guys can still get dropped from the roster and made eligible for Rule 5 after that date, and I suspect you would have the opportunity to add/protect any newly acquired players after that date too.
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Seth, the suggestion is that the player would spend the minimum of 90 days active in 2016. So no, they wouldn't be subject to Rule 5 restrictions beyond 2016. And it's happened before, just not to the Twins. Arizona had Oscar Hernandez, the #1 pick in last year's Rule 5 draft, on the DL until July 4th this year, activating him just in time to meet the 90 days requirement by season's end. EDIT TO ADD: Atlanta did it with Daniel Winkler in last year's Rule 5 draft too, although he was recovering from TJ surgery and didn't make the active roster until September. So he will need to spend ~60 days active in 2016 to remove the Rule 5 restrictions. I'd guess it's gaining momentum as a strategy, particularly as more pitchers get TJ surgery. Don't know if the Twins current guys would be particularly attractive candidates, though.
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I assume he meant before the July 31st deadline. Cotts wasn't acquired until August 21st.
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Hasn't Dean been Rule 5 eligible the previous two winters? Can't say I see him as a likely pick this year, much less as a guy who could stick, he will be 27 in May and has career K/9 rates of 5.0, 4.8, and 4.9 at A, AA, and AAA, respectively. Unclaimed, a team would stand a decent shot at getting him as a minor league free agent next winter.
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The writing was on the wall last year for Pinto to make this list. Not surprising at all to see him regress in AAA and have no place on the Twins team, and perhaps not even in the org anymore. Is he due in Venezuela soon? Would be nice to see him get back on track, for the sake of his future MLB job prospects: http://m.eluniversal.com/deportes/beisbol/151111/tigres-esperan-a-josmil-pinto-para-el-fin-de-semana
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I noted that Burton was good, as well as Fien. But those two, plus Boyer, are about the only successes of this strategy for the Twins over the past 4 years. The idea that we should employ that strategy only, to the exclusion of multi-year reliever deals, with an iffy pen entering an expected contention year, is a stretch.
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This is where I think a lot of the disagreement lies. I think you are vastly overrating the success of the Twins recent strategies in bullpen building -- perhaps not realizing the span of time that their few success stories have covered? Going back over rosters and spring training invites, here are the FA bullpen candidates the Twins brought in from outside the organization since TR took over again in 2011. 2012 Jason Bulger Jared Burton Casey Fien Jeff Gray (technically a waiver claim, but I will include him anyway because we love him ) Esmerling Vásquez Matt Maloney Luis Perdomo 2013 Rich Harden (not sure if he should count as a starter, since he never pitched) Rafael Perez Bryan Augenstein Shairon Martis (technically purchased the previous summer) Virgil Vasquez Tim Wood Mike O'Connor 2014 Aaron Thompson Matt Hoffman Yohan Pino Matt Guerrier Mark Hamburger 2015 Blaine Boyer Tim Stauffer Obviously the star of this group is Fien, who not only has been an acceptable arm, but was also controllable for a bunch of pre-arb seasons at the time of signing. Burton was solid too, but controllable for fewer years and not as cheaply (since he was already arb eligible and only 2 years from FA). Both of those signings were almost 4 years ago already. Outside of that, Gray and Boyer are the only ones who survived the MLB season, and of course Gray was terrible and Boyer is now a FA again. Over 4 years, that's not a record that suggests bullpen improvement is more likely by this method than a multi-year FA deal in 2016.
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I went to the 2013 MLBTR Free Agent Tracker, and out of 74 non-Mariano relievers listed who didn't sign multi year deals that winter (basically everybody on the market other than the guys jorgenswest highlighted in this article), only 16 pitched even 1 relief inning at replacement level (0+ bWAR) in 2013 for an MLB club that signed them that offseason. By comparison, 17 of the 27 contract seasons for those multi-year relievers met that (admittedly low) criteria. The most non-multi-year relievers on that list signed by a single team that winter was 5. On average, only one of those would meet that low criteria, perhaps wasting multiple roster spots and evaluation opportunities in the process. Only 38 innings per season average for the multi-year relievers, over the life of their deals? Try 14 relief IP on average for the rest of the market. Based on this data, I see no reason why a team with a weak pen but realistic plans to contend should completely shun the multi-year FA relief market over $4-$5 mil annually, especially when successful examples of this team's single-year FA reliever strategy seemto be limited to 2 guys (Burton and Boyer) over a four-season span.
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That makes some sense, Kwak, but 2/12 or 3/15 FA deal is pretty low risk too, and might save us from scrambling to find another Jepsen available and give up talent for him at the trade deadline.
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Compared to what? Again, neither Cameron nor jorgenswest offer any point of comparison. By definition, it's pretty hard to think of a single 3/15 or so contract as being risky, much less incredibly risky. How many teams regret signing the relievers referenced in this article? How many of them even remember signing those relievers? All of those guys were in the upper levels of our system in 2015 too, and took a step backward. Shouldn't that be a lesson to count on them less than we did entering 2015? Chargois has an excuse that he was coming back from injury, but he alone isn't that great at the moment, and the other guys don't have any such excuse. Oliveros is a minor league free agent now. I guess that's the type of guy you want to bring in? Maybe re-sign Boyer if he was willing to take the one-year Stauffer deal? Seems to me that will be more likely to repeat 2015 than improve upon it. How much better would the 2015 Twins pen have been if we had ponied up for Gregerson or Neshek? And it's not an either-or thing, the Astros signed those guys, found a waiver claim in Will Harris, called up a young guy like Velasquez, etc. Twins can do that do. I just think finding at least one guy in FA gives you better odds at filling out a competent pen. If it turns out that our young guys are demanding a promotion by performance, and Perkins and Jepsen are fully healthy and effective, and May isn't needed in the rotation, and the Harden/Madson injury flier actually makes good, and Mark Lowe or whomever is healthy on a 2/12 or 3/15 FA deal, that will be a good problem to have, and no, I don't see the 2/12 or 3/15 as notably hurting us or reducing our flexibility.
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My point about Broxton and League is that the signing clubs were considering them as possible closers. They probably bid higher and more aggressively for them with that understanding. I haven't seen any relief FA suggested for the Twins with a Broxton or League level contract, so I don't think it is really fair to use those deals as comparables when considering how much money we would be risking.
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Not trying to silence you, but you were repeatedly attributing things to Cameron that were not his (Cameron had no "non-closer" criteria, Broxton "signed the deal that Cameron is taking about" but Broxton isn't part of Cameron's article), I was frankly confused by that and I didn't want to hijack the thread to try to figure out what was going on. Looks like you were confusing the original Cameron article with jorgenswest's own data here? Like I said, I just didn't quite know what you were saying.
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I am all for being critical of specific FA arms at specific prices, but the general ban on FA multiyear reliever deals for the 2016 Twins advocated by this article is pretty off base, in my opinion. The Twins pen was so shaky, with so many question marks even at the top, with such little progress from our bullpen prospects in 2015, that the Twins absolutely can't afford to pass on the market on principle.
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FIP is what is being used to define the 0 WAR players and the monetary valuations in this article, so it is fairly important here. In any case, FIP isn't even the biggest issue with this analysis, see my other posts above. The Twins aren't in a place where they need bullpen arms? Did you see last season? How in the blazes could anyone conclude that? You really look at the 2015 season and say hey, we got Jepsen, let's just try this same thing again?
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And there's probably more adjustments one can make. Gorzelanny started 10 games his first season in Milwaukee, and had only a 0.6 leverage index during his two years there, suggesting he was acquired to be a swingman or mop-up man rather than a set-up man. Frankly, Burnett might skew toward Fujikawa-level gamble too, as he missed time due to elbow inflammation and had minor elbow surgery just before signing his contract, which was quite low considering his age and coming off a 1.5 bWAR season. As noted previously, Affeldt was tremendous in the 2014 postseason for the Giants which was not included in his value estimate. Affeldt was also part of the Giants defending World Series champion in 2012 when he signed this contract, and another Giants title in 2010, so his value was probably greater to San Francisco than anywhere else which probably inflated his contract. jorgenswest called him arguably the biggest value suck on this list, but I strongly suspect the Giants disagree. Also, the analysis omitted the value from Soria's excellent option year (1.7 bWAR), and his two good to great trade returns during the life of the deal. Simply put: we are nowhere near proving that an expected contender with a weak pen is better off avoiding the free agent set-up market.
