Otto von Ballpark

Your description of "it wasn't even close" isn't very close itself. Keep in mind the zone is three-dimensional (and the box you see on TV isn't "official"). In fact, on closer inspection, it looks like the umpire deserves credit for calling it where it crossed the front of the plate, not where it hit the catcher's glove. Here's that pitch crossing the front of the plate on TV: Here's a 3-D illustration of that pitch up to the front of the plate from Baseball Savant: Here's how it was recorded clipping the zone on Gameday: And finally, Karinchak's whole strikezone plot from BrooksBaseball.net (which shows a wider "effective" zone as oppose to the strict rulebook zones above) -- the called strike to Sano is the red square on the bottom border, setting up the lower swinging strike: Really a well-executed pitch/sequence by Karinchak too.

Duffey spent time in the minors in 2016, 2018, and 2019. So by opening day 2020, even though Duffey had played in 5 MLB seasons by that point, he only had about 3 and a half years of MLB service time.

Yes, Maeda was hurt:

I'm not so sure. Nothing against Berrios, but his career high ERA+ is 122, and he's at 103 over 2020-2021 so far. He reminds me of Zack Wheeler -- a solid guy that teams will pursue in FA, but not necessarily deal a top prospect package for. I remember the 2019 Mets dangling Wheeler at the deadline but ultimately held on to him. He's been great for Philly so far, 153 ERA+, but it's a bit riskier to part with prospects rather than cash if a team is hoping for that kind of improvement.

I'd say the difference in returns (between a 2 month rental, or 1.5 season acquisition) could be significant. Especially for players who may not dominate in a short sample, but whose value may be more evident over time like Berrios. (And while Buxton certainly looked dominant over a short sample this year, his permanent health concern might push his value closer to the Berrios model.) Plus, you can only extend a qualifying offer to a player if they play the full season for you. So a team trading for Buxton or Berrios at the 2022 deadline couldn't use the QO as leverage to negotiate a new contract, and they wouldn't get any draft pick compensation if they failed to re-sign them. That could change a bit in the upcoming CBA but it's still a factor in the equation right now.

Duffey's not a pending free agent, and probably isn't particularly valuable at the moment. (Happ is a pending FA but I'd guess he is similarly low-value -- no need to trade him unless we want to free up the roster spot.) The 2018 Twins traded 6 guys around the deadline. Plus they had a few more projected trade candidates like Morrison and Ervin Santana who were derailed by poor performance and health. And performance and/or health could still knock a few guys off your list by the deadline too.

It would hurt less if we could win one of these lotteries sometime!

There wasn't much of a choice today. The only other option was the Thursday after the all-star game, but that would involve rescheduling dozens of different flights as the team will be spread out over the break, and then they all have to play in Detroit the day after anyway -- not much different than this week. Changing travel arrangements for a large group with only a few hours notice is actually pretty difficult. Much easier for the Twins to add a game with 2 months to plan for it. Also, a doubleheader in July with advance notice (and fewer/no COVID restrictions) will easily generate more revenue than a Monday afternoon game in early May scheduled with less than 24 hours notice.

Keep in mind, 2019 was the crazy rabbit ball year at AAA. Gordon's 2019 performance, relative to league, was only a 102 wRC+. A lot of uninspiring AAA teammates posted much higher wRC+ marks that year: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/minor-league?pos=all&lg=2,4&stats=bat&qual=0&type=1&team=16&season=2019&seasonEnd=2019&org=&ind=0&splitTeam=false&players=&sort=19,1 Gordon is certainly off to a good start in 2021, so hopefully he is taking a step forward right now. I think we could give him more than 6 games at AAA to show it's a real improvement, though.

Could they offer some kind of vaccine to fans to make us immune to the Twins recent play? Perhaps they already do, in beer. Not free, though...

Overall run scoring is down this year. Using a relative measure like ERA-, I estimate that he's around 127 after today's start. Here's his ERA- after 8 starts in those previous seasons you mention: 2019: 96 ERA- 2018: 101 ERA- 2017: 122 ERA- The only one that's really comparable is 2017, and Maeda finished that year with a career-worst 105 ERA- as a starter before getting moved to the pen. And far from recovering, his 2018 and 2019 final SP ERA- (100 and 99, respectively) was pretty much the same as his first 8 starts (before he finished both of those seasons in the pen too). Maeda's SP ERA- matched the NL league averages each year from 2017-2019 quite closely (league was 103, 100, and 99. vs Maeda's 105, 100, and 99).

Duffey did well, although this is part of the reason pitchers really want strikeouts instead of balls in play. Duffey faced 5 batters that inning and didn’t get a single K (although he struck out the side the following inning).

While relatively minor in terms of WAR, it's a very interesting trade to analyze. There are a couple other factors worth considering: 1. The Twins traded Pressly in 2018, but then turned around and traded minor league assets for relief help at the 2019 deadline. Had they kept Pressly, maybe those assets could have gone toward bolstering the lineup and rotation instead. Hard to imagine what would break the playoff curse at this point, but a different approach in 2019 (and 2020) could have helped. 2. Alcala and Celestino could easily out-produce Pressly over the span of their team control years -- but if those performances come in seasons when the rest of the team is poor, they may be less valuable than Pressly's 2019 could have been to a postseason team. 3. I'm not sure how to phrase it, but piggybacking on #2, I think future WAR can often be "discounted" a little bit compared to present WAR. Maybe "opportunity cost"? If Alcala contributes 1 WAR to the 2022 pen, that's nice -- but it's not as if we would have been 1 WAR worse in 2022 if we hadn't made the Pressly trade. Four years of FA, trade, and development decisions would have all changed a bit in that alternate scenario, and we probably could have come up with a 2022 alternative that provided some percentage of Alcala's contribution. Enough that a slight edge in WAR may not be enough to tip the scales toward the Twins side of the ledger -- some plus performances from Alcala and Celestino might be necessary for that.

Law’s “scoreless streak” with 5 out of 5 inherited runners allowed to score seems like a fitting distinction for the 2021 Twins. (5 hits and 4 walks in 3 innings over his 3 appearances prior to last night.) Law’s current 5.51 FIP is the third-worst among active Twins relievers, ahead of only Alcala and Anderson.

Sounds like this rule is pretty easy to work around — promote them to AAA for one day, then promote to MLB. Even easier for the Twins than most teams, with their AAA club often playing next door to the MLB club. On Cano, he is intriguing but it doesn’t take much to generate Ks these days — and I imagine that is even easier when you are way older than the other guys at your level. Remember Nik Turley’s crazy K numbers in the minors a few years ago? Still, probably worth pushing to AAA at his age and going from there, but I won’t try to project too much from his minor league K numbers at this point.

Thanks! This is going to be very helpful.

Looks a little weird on mobile — screenshots attached.

I've got to hand it to the White Sox -- they're kind of fun to watch right now. As a Twins fan, I had hoped/expected them to be fun in a trainwreck kind of way when they hired LaRussa and spent big money on a closer. But as a baseball fan, I can appreciate that they have a very interesting mix of players -- of different styles, from different backgrounds. They're far from perfect, but they're coming together in an effective way at the moment.

A couple things: 1. Seems like it was a reasonable decision to delay the minor league season in 2021. Look at all the protocols and hoops that teams and facilities had to jump through -- it would have been a lot to ask organizations to simultaneously make those arrangements for minor league parks while spring training was going on, and to have them ready around MLB opening day. 2. All other teams had to deal with it too. 3. How much does it matter? Yes, pen reinforcements often come from the minor leagues, but not always. The Twins added 3 effective relievers in 2020 without any minor league season (Wisler, Alcala, Thielbar). Ryne Harper made the team for opening day in 2019. The far bigger problem is that most every reliever on the MLB roster has performed poorly in 2021. I don't see how MLB is particularly culpable for this issue the Twins are facing.

Thanks for the tip! Looks like you don’t even need MLB.TV to get that $20 price on MILB.TV at this link: http://www.milb.tv/yearlydiscount And it appears you can stack a 35% military or student discount, which could make it as cheap as $13? You do have to create a free MILB.TV account first if you don’t have one already (it is a separate account system from MLB.TV/MLB.com).

Stashak optioned today, Derek Law added to take his place.

Of course, before 1995 it was harder to make the playoffs at all, and before 1969 it was very difficult. The Twins missed the postseason 3 times in the 1960s with 91 wins! In those days, a bad start would doom your season. Since 1995, there have been a fair number of WS participants with 88-92 wins, and one as low as 83, so it’s a little easier to recover from a bad start these days than through most of baseball history. The whole league seems to be a bit more even in 2021 so far (no team starting better than 18-12), and as another poster mentioned, our division in particular is still wide open. Still better to win than lose, of course!

That means we are second in line for waiver priority! Let's check the waiver wire... hmmm, Albert Pujols?

That's a different Murphy -- Sean Murphy. John Ryan Murphy is currently a free agent, although he did see some action for the Pirates in 2020 so perhaps it's too early to consider him "unofficially retired."