Otto von Ballpark

Great post, hope this gets promoted for more discussion. I was about to pull similar data myself -- although I probably would have expanded it beyond the AL, and mainly just used cumulative WAR totals (and maybe percent of a team's total WAR). But the $/WAR stuff is interesting too. It confirms what I was suspecting in another thread recently: that not only have the Twins largely ignored free agency, they've also done quite little internationally. They are WAY too dependent on the draft (and perhaps not that great at drafting, as evidenced by weak prospect lists pre-Buxton).

Just looking at your first example, Viola started 22 games and pitched 126 innings for his -0.1 WAR. Extrapolate Gibson's -0.8 WAR from his 10 starts and he's quite a bit worse. Actually all of your pitching examples have this problem. Looking at ERA+ would be better, and Gibson is notably worse than all of them (although to be fair he had fewer starts/innings than everyone except Garza). The only way to excuse it is the injury and small sample size. Hicks fares a bit better in these comparisons. Although I do note that all of your comparables had much lower K rates, both as rookies and through their minor league careers.

I too distinctly remember Moses pitching, probably my earliest Twins radio memory in 1990 (probably the July game that year).

Shields' option is definitely being picked up. The Royals aren't THAT stupid. Garza and Johnson would top my free agent wish list, and Hughes would be a good pickup too for the right price. Here are some good lists of potential free agents after the season: 2014 MLB Free Agents: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com Potential Free Agents for 2014 | Cot's Baseball Contracts

No Pelfrey in the list? Also, I think a primary criticism is that the Twins self-imposed budget and short-term contract limit were unnecessary and not in the best interests of the on field product. So I would hesitate to rely much on those factors in his review.

Matt Lawton had feuded with the Twins front office before -- they had some notable differences in contract negotiations, and he was going year-to-year until free agency (which he was set to get after the 2002 season). I also recall some grumblings from the front office about Mark Redman, a lot of it stemming from his 2001 injury and rehab -- I think the implication was he was taking too long. Your TR quote offers some support for this. But whatever the motivation, the Lawton-Reed swap was definitely one of TR's bolder moves, although it was also fairly prudent, as we had a lot more confidence in our OF prospects at the time than our SP prospects (and rightly so). The Redman-Jones swap was less of a bold move, and perhaps a bit misguided, as Jones predictably made almost no difference to the 2001 season, while Redman did produce a couple more decent cheap seasons. But Redman never had much value, as evidenced by his future trades and releases, and as Hawkins was melting down, the 2001 Twins bullpen was indeed in rough shape. (As compared to 2010, when the bullpen was actually pretty solid but simply lacked a "proven closer" when they traded for Capps)

He's a lot younger than I remembered (same age as TR). MacPhail had the "old school" baseball family roots, so he wasn't an "outsider" shaking up the game, but age-wise, he was not unlike Theo Epstein back in the day. It's also easy to forget that Tom Kelly is only 3 years older than MacPhail. They were quite the young combo back in '87 and '91. The later 1990s were not particularly kind to either of them... That said, I think the odds that Gardy or TR is dismissed after this year are very low, and the odds that MacPhail returns are extremely low. Ownership may not like losing, but they like these guys, the budget they are following (Smith's spending that they've reined in), and the profits they are producing.

I don't think Duensing has been anything special against LHB since 2010, although I don't have his platoon splits broken down by starting/relief, so correct me if I am wrong. It might be why he's not a LOOGY right now. I'm guessing he either stays and re-signs cheaply or is non-tendered.

Whoops. I posted in the blog entry before I saw it promoted to an article.... Twins Daily - Alex Meyer's "Rough" Start

Great report. I think this is why I love pro baseball (and this site): there is so much more action and so many more stories with the minor leagues added in.

I did an informal survey of MLB ballpark batting practice viewing in the forum, thought I'd link it here too: http://twinsdaily.com/minnesota-twins-talk/5919-15-get-into-bp-early-6.html#post98730

Actually, this was Tito Francona, Terry's dad.

Sorry, I am still not seeing this. Last year, the Twins had 3 starters with positive WAR (Diamond, DeVries, and Deduno), and they posted a collective 3.5 WAR in 59 starts. That leaves 103 starts and approximately -8.2 WAR (ugh) for our other 2012 starters. Replace that with the four new guys (2 WAR over 99 starts in 2011/2012), and that's a 10-win improvement. That's a solid improvement, probably optimistic compared to most projection systems, but still less than your lowest projected improvement of 15 wins. (And Duensing and Swarzak aren't making up the remaining 5+ WAR in the bullpen either - probably 2 WAR max there.) You pretty much have to project significant improvement for Hendricks, a strong debut by Gibson, and big rebounds for Worley and Pelfrey to get to 15. I'm not sure how you'd get to your mean projection of 21 -- even if all 162 starts were started by equivalent pitchers to Diamond 2012 (a pretty crazy optimistic projection), that would still only be a 19 win improvement over 2012.

I'm not sure I follow. If you are assuming the new guys are simply replacing the same 54 starts, there is no way they are adding 15 to 26 team wins. The Twins were 20-34 in those 54 starts last year. Your lowest projection has the Twins winning 15 additional games in that sample, apparently going 35-19 with the new guys, which is a winning percentage even higher than the Detroit's winning percentage in Justin Verlander starts last year. That's not happening. I think innings and runs allowed with Pythag records might be the best way to do this. Or even just eyeballing WAR -- the four guys last year posted a combined -4.4 WAR in 54 starts. The replacements posted 2 WAR over 99 starts, or 1.1 prorated to 54. That's a 5.5 WAR spread, so it suggests 5-6 additional wins with the new guys. That seems a lot more reasonable (unfortunately, it only takes the team record up to 71 or 72 wins).

I like it. Willingham is a good option too because he's not incapable of playing in the field like Thome and others, so you still have some flexibility (i.e. you wouldn't need two backup outfielders with Willingham on the roster). I'd be curious if Willingham would be interested -- some players are averse to being a full-time DH, which may be a reason why he came to the Twins in the first place (a team that is historically averse to having a full-time DH). Hopefully Arcia and/or other improving youngsters make this a viable option later this season.

Thanks for the work. I would be interested in seeing more detailed math. How exactly do you apply those extrapolations, both to the new starters and the returning ones? For example, the new starters had 99 starts for their old teams, and they are replacing Twins who only started 54 games in 2012.

Also, looking back at my list, I'm not really seeing any players where the Twins might regret how they approached their service time. Milton and Guzman could be candidates, two guys who received the Mauer/Hicks treatment and opened their first seasons at the MLB level. Both struggled as rookies, respectively, and it would have been quite easy to argue that both should have spent at least half of those seasons in the minor leagues, if not the whole season. But in the end, both made significant progress in their second season and signed multi-year contracts covering their first year of free agency anyway, just like Mauer. I'm very confident that if Hicks turns out to be a quality major league regular, he will do the same and this service time issue will be mostly moot.

That's true, although it's less of an issue at the start of their careers (and it probably has even less effect now that the draft and international signings have spending caps). The most notable service time issues I remember are several years into a player's career, like Hardy, Perkins, and maybe even Lohse when we optioned him to AAA in 2006. Bartlett was close in 2006 and perhaps it contributed to his eventual trade. Otherwise, you can almost always justify keeping a complete rookie down a little longer -- Hicks made that tough for the Twins this spring, but Wil Myers made it easy for Tampa with a pedestrian spring performance.

In the wake of Aaron Hicks being named the Twins starting centerfielder, many fans have expressed disappointment that the team did not send him to the minors to further delay his major league service time. As little as two weeks in the minors would have delayed his potential free agency a full year; roughly three months in the minors could have also delayed his arbitration eligibility an additional year too. But how important is that? The value of an extra year of team control, before free agency, is probably best supported by the case of JJ Hardy. When Hardy was struggling for the Brewers in 2009, the team sent him to the minors briefly, ostensibly to work things out, but more likely to delay his free agency from after 2010 until after 2011. This demotion came despite Hardy having already been a MLB all-star and multi-year starter. Had the Brewers retained the services of Hardy, the direct dollar value of that extra year of control would have been minimal: final-year arbitration players are generally paid very close to market value for that season. However, when they sought to trade him after the 2009 season, the additional year of team control certainly appealed to potential trade partners. The Brewers parlayed that into reasonable return from the Twins in Carlos Gomez. The extra value to be gained in trade was quite a short window, though; had the Brewers tried to trade him earlier in his career, his performance in the potential extra year would have been more difficult to predict and thus worth less. And trading him just one year later, the Twins certainly did not fare as well as the Brewers. The value of that extra year of control is also challenged by the career of the Twins' own Joe Mauer. In 2004, Mauer, like Hicks this year, skipped over AAA and opened the season with the Twins. Barring a demotion, this meant Mauer projected to be a free agent after the 2009 season; had the Twins given him two weeks at AAA, that free agency could have been delayed a full year, until after 2010. On first glance this seems to be a costly mistake by the Twins in the handling of a future $23 million per season player. But because Mauer proved to be a very good player early, the Twins agreed to a multi-year contract after his third season anyway, avoiding arbitration entirely and buying out his first free agency season of 2010 for a very reasonable amount. It's doubtful that two more weeks in the minors would have affected the terms of this contract. Had Mauer taken longer to establish himself in the majors, though, it could have given the Twins an extra year to decide whether to keep him long-term. And Mauer's example further highlights how Hardy's extra year of control came at some cost to the Brewers. Aside from obviously upsetting Hardy and likely ruining any chance of negotiating a good deal with him later, the Brewers went year-to-year on one-year arbitration contracts with Hardy. This means they likely paid Hardy closer to maximum value in those seasons, as compared to the Twins who probably got a slight discount over this method in their multi-year contract with Mauer. Going year-to-year also exposed them to the risk that Hardy would have a "breakout" or "career" year and get an inflated arbitration award above his "true talent" or "market value" salaries -- just imagine what the Twins would have had to pay in arbitration after a season like Mauer's 2009! (Probably something like... his current annual salary. Oh well!) So while two weeks in the minors for an extra year of control is of little cost to a team like the 2013 Twins, it seems to also provide relatively little and very speculative future benefit. But what about three months in the minors, to delay the player's arbitration eligibility? A Tampa Bay Rays blog recently discussed this very topic, in regards to Wil Myers: Wil Myers and Super Two - DRaysBay They concluded that delaying the service time of a projected 4 WAR player (like Myers) for 3 months would save the team $15 million over those 7 seasons of team control. Obviously, this number would be much lower for a player with a lower projected contribution (arguably Hicks), and also lower if a multi-year contract is sought to cover arbitration seasons, like Mauer. And it doesn't include the major league value the player could provide over those 3 months (admittedly not too significant to an unlikely contender like the Twins) as well as the potential player alienation factor and how that affects future contract negotiations. Even if Hicks turns out to be a good MLB player, the hard cost savings may be as little as a few million dollars over the course of his first 7 seasons, while also inviting the alienation and year-to-year arbitration salary spik risks as dicussed above. Finally, all of this is moot if the player does not develop into and remain a quality major league regular for seven seasons. Even recent Twins like Jason Bartlett, Lew Ford , and Juan Rincon, who all looked quite promising at the beginning of their respective careers, wound up providing little major league value beyond seasons four and five anyway. And Hicks has yet to establish himself in the majors (or above AA) at all. While his performance and development track are always worthy of debate, starting Hicks in the major leagues this season should be of little concern to Twins fans from a long-term financial perspective. * While researching this post, I compiled a list of "significant" (2+ WAR season), mostly "homegrown" Twins of the recent era (1998-present), and how the Twins approached their 6 years service time of team control. The list wasn't terribly useful for this post, but is presented below because, hey, I took the time to write it. Position players: Lawton - year to year, traded during year 5 (age 29) Koskie - signed through year 6 (age 31) Hunter - signed through year 8 (age 31) Guzman - team declined option on year 7 (age 27) Mientkiewicz - traded during year 5 (age 30) Jones - left after year 6 (age 30) Pierzynski - traded after year 3 (age 26) Ford - released after year 4 (age 30) Mauer - signed through year 7 Morneau - signed through year 9 Punto - signed through year 6 (age 30) Bartlett - traded after year 2 (age 27) Cuddyer - signed through year 8 (age 32) Kubel - signed through year 7 (age 29) Span - signed through year 7 (age 31), traded after year 4 (age 28) Pitchers: Radke - signed through year 10 (age 31) in middle of year 6 (age 27) Guardado - signed through year 9 (age 32) Hawkins - signed through year 7 (age 30) Milton - signed through year 7 (age 28), traded before that year Mays - team declined option for year 8 (age 30) Santana - signed through year 8 (age 29), traded before that year Lohse - year to year, traded during year 5 (age 27) Rincon - year to year, released during year 6 (age 29) Silva - signed through year 6 (age 28) Crain - signed through year 6 (age 28) Guerrier - signed through year 6 (age 31) Baker - team declined option for year 7 (age 30) Nathan - signed through year 7 (age 33) Liriano - year to year, traded during year 6 (age 28) Slowey - year to year, traded after year 4 (age 27) Blackburn - club option on anticipated year 7 (age 32) Perkins - club option on year 9 (age 33)

Wow, that's some cool data! It would be really interesting to see how the Twins compared across the league, but I'm not sure if such thorough data like this is out there for other teams...

Interestingly, the 1984 collapse was Ron Davis' age-28 season, and the 2001 collapse was LaTroy Hawkins' age-28 season. Obviously they rebounded a bit differently...

This write-up really needs a closer look at 1984. A rare season where the Twins were in contention, and in key consecutive games on Sep. 27-28 at Cleveland, Davis blew the save in the 8th inning and lost the game in the 9th both times, mathematically eliminating the Twins from the pennant race (leaving them 3 GB with only 2 more to play). Davis was hardly the only weak link on that club, and certainly not in the legendary Sep. 28 loss, but he took the official loss in both of those games and definitely was the poster boy for the Twins collapse that year.

Frankie Rodriguez was definitely overrated as a prospect and had a dismal career, but in retrospect, his 1996 wasn't too bad -- he was basically an average back-of-the-rotation starter that year over nearly 200 innings (topping 200 innings if you could a stint in the bullpen), given the elevated offensive environment of the time. Walbeck deserves this because he was near Butera-level with the bat in the majors, despite a better minor league track record, yet was handed a starting job in the majors for several seasons.

I don't think anyone is saying these players are bad compared to the population as a whole, or even the entire universe of pro baseball. But among players who were on the Twins major league roster, some players had the worst performance (or the worst performance-to-expectations ratio). These are those players.

You could probably do a whole series based on just the 1995-1996 Twins teams. Matt Walbeck would probably be a good choice. On the 2000 Butch Huskey team, I've always had a soft spot for Sean Bergman -- saw him beat the Yankees in New York that year. Off the top of my head, Steve Carlton's Twins-only performance would certainly qualify him for such a list, and it might be interesting to learn more about his time with the team (having occurred just before my serious fandom).