Otto von Ballpark

Delmon Young trade did not look good on paper. Young had a significant sample of MLB PA at that point (and also his AAA PA) which had exposed some vital and not-easily-corrected flaws. Santana trade looked better, but not good. Gomez at least was still more a prospect than a suspect like Young, but Gomez was really the only prospect of value in that trade. Humber? Mulvey? Seriously? It's like Bill Smith said, "I'm trading Garza and Santana, I need some near MLB starting pitchers back" but didn't care whether the pitchers were actually good or not. Would have been better off holding out for a better deal or just taking the draft picks. I'd rather have had a GM who wasn't afraid to let Santana walk, or let Hunter walk without simultaneously overpaying for an alleged "RH power bat" replacement. Bill Smith acted scared as GM (Capps deal is another obvious example of this).

I don't see the point in delaying his MLB debut to the point where he's virtually at his season innings limit, and changing his role and routine at the same time too. Why not shut him down Sep. 1st? They did it with Gibson last year, albeit after sending him back down to AAA in late August. The 25 man roster spot means nothing after Sep. 1st, and the extra ~28 days MLB service time means nothing if Meyer can win a MLB rotation spot next spring (or even a MLB bullpen spot in preparation for a MLB rotation spot), which has to be the hoped-for outcome here, right?

AAA pitches per inning, 2014 Darnell: 16.5 Meyer: 16.4 Johnson: 16.2 May: 15.6 Pino: 15.4 And sample size is not benefitting Meyer here, as he has the largest sample of 2014 AAA IP of this group. Last 7 starts, since late June, Meyer is at 15.2 pitches per inning too. So by that measure, his "command" is improving. (And in regards to that sample size, Pino only has 8 AAA starts this year.) But sure, yeah, Meyer would tax the bullpen too much, which might threaten to throw the 2014 Twins season off the rails! Much better to let him go into spring training 2015 having never faced a major league lineup.

Which goes almost completely against the "protect his shoulder" reasoning that Nick outlined. By the time the Rochester season is complete, Meyer will be at or near his season innings limit. And it's at that point you think it would be a "great" idea to push him for more innings, at more effort (due to higher level of competition), in a different role than his entire professional career to date? Why not do it now (or late June, like we did for Gibson, or late July, like many here assured would happen)? Because we promised a rotation spot to Kevin Correia? Because we don't want to do a 6-man rotation? Because the next 30 MLB IP are urgently critical to our evaluation of Pino?

Meyer missed "more than a third" of the 2013 season only if you don't count the AFL. If you take his IP/GS when he went down with his injury, and multiply that by a full AA season of 27 starts, you get 149.2 IP. His combined 2013 IP of 104.1 is over two-thirds of that. Also, Deduno and Swarzak have pitched about 3 innings each the last 10 games. We have 19 healthy pitchers on the 40-man roster that we can freely shuttle between Rochester and Minnesota (and we're 3.5 weeks away from potentially having them all in Minnesota). We have at least two position players on the 40-man (Florimon and Schafer) who are almost certain DFAs after the season too, if we want to add more pitchers (Guerra, Gilmartin, Oliveros). I do not see "taxing the 2014 Twins bullpen" as a valid excuse for holding Meyer back at this point. What would you rather have, going into the offseason and spring training 2015: Meyer pitching ~30-40 more innings at a level he's already more or less dominated for 112 IP, or Meyer with even just his first 20-30 MLB IP already under his belt? Different player and situation, obviously, but imagine if the Twins had been able to call up Aaron Hicks for the last month or two of 2012 and how that could have benefitted our offseason decision making and the 2013 opening roster! Not to mention how much it could benefit the player, to acclimate to the big leagues in a "lost" season and have a whole offseason to re-calibrate for MLB level competition.

Way too early to care about Diamond. Dude has a 3.3 K/9 for his new AAA team. Liriano may always be somewhat inconsistent, but he's probably a bit of a demerit on the Twins coaches. Worley is looking like a mild demerit too, especially since they basically had a free year to work with him in the minors in 2014 once he cleared waivers.

Don't know if he was ducking them, as much as playing them smart. No reason to trade Hunter when he's affordable, you're in contention, and you can net two draft picks for him (#27 and #31 overall in 2008). Smith should have done the same with Santana and Nathan in 2008. Instead, he forced a trade of Santana and extended Nathan for $14 mil per year. Probably should have extended Mauer earlier, although it takes two to tango, not all players want to sell their FA years at a discount, years in advance (although TR and the Twins did appear to be behind in this trend).

Span has picked it up lately -- don't know if I'd say "crushing it" as his isolated power is at his career mark. But his average is up (and by extension his OBP), and his steals -- he's turning in a similar/better offensive season than 2012 which netted Meyer in return. He should easily be worth 1 year, $9 mil to a contender like Washington.

I know. But he still had less than 3 years service time back then (meaning he could be outrighted once without his consent if he passed through waivers). I am guessing that had his former drafting team not claimed him in Nov. 2012 (and at least 12 other NL teams passed on him), he may have entered the Alex Burnett / Liam Hendriks waiver vortex, where a few teams exchange claims on him and soon after try to pass him through waivers again so they can remove him from the roster but outright him to AAA. My point has been that he's in an even worse spot now (from a team's perspective): not only is he without options, he can reject any outright assignment and become a free agent (not to mention he's 2 years older and no better on the field). Teams hate to lock in guys like that to the 40-man roster if they don't have to, particularly if they are also arb-eligible. Scott Diamond was in a similar spot this past winter but at least he was still pre-arb. Emilio Bonifacio is a far more useful/valuable player and even he cleared waivers and signed a minor league deal last winter. I'll drop it now, but suffice to say, barring a strong finish to 2014, I doubt Schafer gets claimed this winter.

That's not really a fair criteria -- I think Meyer gave up the fewest H/9 of anyone on this list (well, except Hu again). If his walk rate was any better, he'd be a top-5 prospect in all of MLB. I don't think it's fair to make that the threshold for being a top 5 Twins minor league starter for the month of July.

I think perhaps there are too many rookie league guys on this list -- there is just so much variability in performance in those leagues, a dominating 5 start stretch, while it looks cool statistically, just isn't that impressive in context. They are borderline instructional leagues. Outside of Hu, Alex Meyer basically equaled or surpassed everyone else on this list in terms of opponents OPS against, run prevention, and K rate, at a much higher level (as many as 4 leagues higher, at the very top level of minor league baseball). And heck, Tyler Duffey is less than a year younger than Meyer; Mat Batts is only 18 months younger than Meyer too.

I didn't mean to infer he lasted a long time on waivers in 2012 due to (lack of) talent alone. In fact, I noted that his roster status situation was actually BETTER in November 2012 than it is now -- he still had less than 3 years service time, so someone could have claimed him and tried to pass him through waivers again to assign him outright to AAA (much like Hendriks this past offseason, or Parmelee, Worley, etc. this past spring). Now, a claiming team has no alternative to guaranteeing him a 40-man spot the whole winter, a 25-man spot in the spring, and a ~$1.5 mil arb salary (excepting letting him become a free agent again). Letting him pass through waivers this offseason, become a free agent, then trying to sign him to a minor league deal if interested, offers a TON more flexibility for the team. He may still have interested suitors, but I'm not sure anyone would be willing to surrender that flexibility for a 28 y.o. pinch runner. Agreed, and that's how he's spent 6 years on 40-man rosters and accumulated 4.6 years of MLB service time despite a career 68 OPS+ and negative defensive WAR (plus a career .571 OPS at AAA to boot). But there's a limit to chances without any kind of production, and I think getting DFA'd midseason just shy of one's 28th birthday is a pretty clear indicator that your guaranteed MLB roster spot days are over.

Midseason waiver claims are easier, there just isn't much opportunity cost to use the roster spot temporarily. November 2012, he was waived and almost every NL team passed on him. And he was barely a year removed from being part of the Bourn trade then, and actually could have been outrighted to AAA if he cleared waivers. I am highly skeptical that anyone will have room for an older, more limited, more expensive, and less flexible player just before free agency and the Rule 5 draft.

Bartlett played 3 out of 6 games, but no starts and only 4 PA. And his last 3 PA came in an early-game emergency appearance, subbing for an injured Willingham in the 2nd inning. That's basically been Schafer's usage in 2014 too (pinch runner, pinch hit for the pitcher, etc.), averaging less than 1 PA per team game.

I don't know -- for someone else to claim Schafer from the Twins, they'd have to give him a roster spot through the winter and arbitration too. I don't see that happening for a 28 year old "proven" pinch runner, particularly if he doesn't inspire the Twins to keep him on the 40-man roster after this 2014 audition. And if he clears waivers, he's pretty much up for grabs as a non-roster minor league invite to spring training, Twins included.

Actually, Santana finished 2013 with perhaps his best extended streak of minor league hitting ever (.856 OPS from July 27 onward, 157 PA). Selective endpoints for sure, but roughly last calendar year, Santana's got a .803 OPS in 485 PA, .392 BABIP, with BB% and K% more or less matching his 2014 MLB rates so far. Biggest drag on that is obviously his .630 AAA OPS from the beginning of this season (even then he had a .377 BABIP).

Just to give you an idea where Santana is at, he's got 211 MLB PAs so far with a .859 OPS and a 46:11 K:BB ratio. Pinto at 211 PA had a career .869 OPS and 50:25 K:BB ratio. This was just about 3 weeks before he was demoted this year. (Also brought to mind 2005 Jeff Francouer, OPS of .966 after 211 PA, 42:8 K:BB ratio.) Interesting thing about Santana's minor league career is, it doesn't look particularly streaky. August was his best month by OPS in both 2012 and 2013.

The flip side of that, of course, is that due to their record, the 2014 Twins shouldn't really care if Parmelee has to play CF for 50 PA over 2 months, or Hermann/Polanco/Escobar/Nunez/Arcia etc. And in less than a month, they can all be on the active roster at the same time too. That said, I'm all for taking a flier on Schafer. I'd even be willing to sit Escobar some to get a look at Schafer in CF (and by extension, Santana at SS).

Not quite -- arbitration awards are only 1/6 guaranteed before March 15, I believe. That's how the Royals signed Bonifacio last winter to $3.5 mil (actually avoided arbitration, but same rule applied), and were able to cut him in February and only pay him ~$600k. Given that Schafer has been terrible this year, he probably won't get much (if any) raise in arbitration, say $1.5 mil? Then the Twins could cut him by March 15th (I think) and only owe him $250k. The 40-man roster spot over the winter should be the more valuable thing. I wouldn't be surprised if we cut him and tried to re-sign him to a minor league deal.

If Farris was added to the 40-man right now, he would only burn an option year if he was sent back to AAA for 20 days, which would be pretty unlikely since the AAA ends in about 30 days anyway.

To be fair, Parker, you've had similar articles this year about Plouffe and Parmelee, both of whom have reverted to career norms shortly thereafter. (Actually, maybe you should stop posting these articles about Twins who are hitting well. Post a few about good White Sox hitters for a change. ) Mechanical changes leading to a temporary different result, while not "luck" in the traditional sense, is probably pretty close to "baseball luck" as commonly understood. That said, I pretty much agree with you, although the ground-ball rate and lack of power trouble me to a degree, especially since the walk rate increase isn't that huge and he's not likely to have a lot of protection in the Twins lineup. Seems like pitchers and fielders are going to have a lot of latitude to adjust on this guy, and I'm not sure if any of his changes are significant enough to withstand those tests.

Seth, I love your content here, but you keep exaggerating Meyer's issues at AAA, in comparison to other pitchers. "Terrible" control and command? AAA strike percentage, 2014: Pino 64% May 64% Meyer 62% Darnell 62% Johnson 61% For comparison, MLB strike percentage, 2014: Hughes 73% Nolasco 63% Correia 62% Deduno 62% Gibson 61% Terrible is Pelfrey at 55%, or perhaps Liriano at 57% back in 2011. Almost every starter in the league is between 60-66%. Meyer's BB/9 this year is a career high, and about 25% above league average (and K/9 about 40% above average), but even that's a bit unfair to him due to the pitch limit he's had most of the season. Dude's had 11 starts with 0-2 ER allowed this year where he's been pulled with a pitch count around 80 or lower, and his BB/9 in those starts is 3.3, below league average. Basically, the pitch limit gives us the full effect of his poor/wild starts, and limits the quality of his good ones. If he was permitted to continue pitching in these starts like a normal pitcher, he would almost certainly have a walk rate right around his career (and league) average. Nothing about Meyer's season deserves the adjective "terrible" except possibly his lack of an MLB promotion so far.

Royals series aside, we have a team OPS+ of 92 on the season, and a team ERA+ of 94. There are problems on both sides of the ball.

His bat seems OK, but the metrics are grading his glove as pretty terrible that last two years. I could see his bat falling quickly too as he leaves a good hitting lineup. Probably shouldn't be anything more than a stopgap DH, assuming he's willing to play for cheap. Same goes for defending NL batting champ Michael Cuddyer, really.

If we call him up at all in 2014, he should make Super-2, thus get 4 arbitration awards rather than the usual 3. That's not really at issue for us (although Oakland could have made a case for leaving him in AAA longer, given their full rotation). The issue is when he becomes eligible for free agency. Probably not as contentious, because it is not as immediate.