Otto von Ballpark

I don't think that's right. Mauer didn't even play 20 games at DH until 2009. We could have signed Thome after 2002, or dealt for him after 2005, but I think we were just too frugal/conservative to invest in external solutions at the position until at least 2008 or so, when TR stepped down and Target Field was on the horizon. And by then we had Kubel.

FWIW, it seems like Joe (and Dozier) only played like 2 games during the week, which makes it a little hard to highlight their accomplishments during said week.

I agree that Mauer is a strong candidate, but I was about to disagree that he was "hitting like old Mauer." Because he's not really hitting like "vintage" Mauer, of course -- but perhaps he is hitting like "vintage" Mauer aged to 35 years (as of tomorrow, happy early birthday, Joe!). Mauer through age 30: 135 OPS+, 134 wRC+ Mauer age 34: 115 OPS+, 116 wRC+ Compared to: Mauer age 31-33: 103 OPS+, 99 wRC+ Obviously off to a hot start this year, but it seems primarily walk and BABIP driven. I expect he will settle into a batting line like 2017. I don't know if it's the concussion symptoms clearing or what, but he seems to be back on a more graceful aging curve in 2017 and so far in 2018.

Actually there were 2 AB in question. The 3rd inning is the one you brought up, but the 7th inning is what Steve was quoting run expectancy for.

You think Mauer's Twins from 2004-2010 (or whatever) were held back because of challenges in roster construction?

That's scoring *A* run, meaning 1 single run. What about the chances for scoring multiple runs? That's probably the important one, being that we were down 4 runs in 7th inning at the time. Although I'm not ragging on Mauer here. He was facing LHP Andrew Miller, a walk to bring up RHB Sano is probably just fine.

The game was televised nationally on FS1. Tonight's game is on ESPN.

Hard to do alternate reality. On paper, Prior would have likely helped in 2003, but our offense was shut down pretty well in the ALDS that year. 3 runs in game 1 behind Santana, then only 1 run each in games 2, 3, and 4... not sure if Prior could have helped. 2004 might be a better year. Prior was hurt early in the season, but returned for the second half and finished strong. Would have meant AJ at catcher, and no Joe Nathan at closer, but I think we would have survived those changes, just like we survived Mauer's injury. The offense did reasonably well in the ALDS that year but we scuffled behind mediocre to poor starts from Radke and Silva. Seems likely that adding Prior to that team could have at least set up a Game 5 full rest start from Johan. But vs the Yankees, we probably would have found a way to screw it up regardless. (Had we advanced, it would have really changed history -- no Red Sox comeback vs NY...) It's a bit more of a stretch to look back at 2002 -- would we have promoted Prior in time? Would he have contributed that quickly for us? But if he could have replaced Rick Reed, either overall or in the playoff rotation, that might have helped. Reed struggled in both of his starts that postseason, putting us in a 2-1 hole vs Oakland, and preventing us from going to LA up 2-0 on the Angels which would have prevented the series from ending in LA. Prior was still decent in 2005 but fading by season's end, and the Twins finished well behind Chicago and Cleveland. By 2006, of course, Prior was cooked, and Mauer was greatly out-performing AJ too. Target Field was finally approved in May 2006. I don't think that would have been affected much.

Well, Otani also threw 66 pitches in 2 innings. That's pretty high-stress.

More or less, for 12 years or so. But actually, Prior was pretty incredible his first few years in the league, and they predated Mauer's arrival. It's an interesting thought experiment to wonder if Prior would have improved our playoff fortunes in 2002-2004. I assume Seth will address that in part 2.

For one spot start that was very likely to be cancelled. The first real shot is still going to Hughes. This was overwhelmingly about staying with 4 starters as long as possible. I guess they prioritized that over getting Hughes active as quickly as possible, but we've known that since March.

I believe teams get a 26th man for special regular season games in Puerto Rico, Japan, etc., and that 26th man isn't subject to the 10 day rule.

We could have used Miller Park in Milwaukee this weekend (the Brewers are on the road).

If they had Mejia start Friday, they could option him back down afterward. Had they activated Hughes, there would have been no way to get him off the roster afterward. They would have been stuck carrying 5 starters whether they wanted to or not.

Yes, they could backdate it to opening day. So he'd be eligible to be activated as early as the 61st day of the season.

"If you see spam, say spam!"

I have a theory that the Twins printer keeps cutting off the last few reliever names on Molitor's roster sheet...

Was just thinking about this again. Looking at the 2017 schedule (still waiting on an updated magnet schedule ), it looks like Fox Sports North owned the rights, but declined to broadcast, 8 games -- and they were all weekday afternoon games. Even one versus the Yankees. This suggests that weekday afternoon games, from a TV rights standpoint, are significantly less valuable, perhaps barely break-even from a broadcaster profit perspective. The Twins TV deal is worth about $40 mil annually per this article: https://www.twincities.com/2016/02/12/local-tv-deal-doesnt-hamper-twins-payroll-team-president-says/ But that can be adjusted based on schedule, postponements, national broadcasts, etc. If the average game is worth something like $250k to FSN, and a weekday afternoon game is significantly less than that, changing just 4 games from evenings to weekday afternoons could cost the Twins up to $1 mil. Not a huge sum in modern MLB, but also not something you necessarily give away for vague, undefined benefits either. I'd guess that most MLB teams schedule the bare minimum number of weekday afternoon games as required by the league/union. (I don't know the numbers and thus magnitude, but there is likely a similar effect with suites and even season tickets. Those cost far less than TV rights, of course, but they are in larger quantities so they could add up.)

Of course, Berardino has reported it the other way more recently too: https://www.twincities.com/2018/04/05/ervin-santana-could-be-sent-back-to-hand-surgeon-for-another-look/amp/

Grossman only needs 10 AB, right? He's all set!

But by the same token, aren't the postponements not that big of a deal either, in the grand scheme of things? Even with lousy April weather, ddds are there won't be more than 1-2 postponements -- and they were probably nudged into the one Sunday because they could make it up in just over a month.

Some of us, sure, but weekday afternoon games have the lowest attendance. That's pretty much a fact. (I know, I've been part of a few "record low Target Field crowds" on weekday afternoons ) If it costs them anything, what's the upside for changing? Their best path to revenue is probably -- 1) TV rights, 2) advance suite rental, and 3) rescheduling for an open date later in the season. I think I understand your personal preference, but logically I can't see asking them to give those things up to potentially improve comfort for a small segment of lower-revenue fans.

You might be under-estimating what they make from these night games. A lot of their revenue is probably suite rentals and of course TV rights, where people are protected from the weather and greatly prefer a 7 PM start to a weekday afternoon start. I don't know if any club outside of Wrigley Field can afford multiple weekday afternoon games per week, particularly during "school months".

Moving everything back a day is a non-starter. If you had to postpone the Thursday game, you'd have to turn people with Friday tickets away from a Friday game, and then do the same Saturday. It would be a logistical nightmare to reschedule 3 games as opposed to just 1. Note that they only really care about being able to immediately reschedule the opener, because it is a special/premium game. They don't care about rescheduling the others for later in the season (and it appears they actively wanted to do that with Sunday's game).

But if you don't arrive at a deal, couldn't that also be a failure of negotiation? I guess there is still some time with these guys, but it is getting more difficult every day. And while it would be understandable that they couldn't come to an agreement with every guy in the same offseason, it seems puzzling that they couldn't even make a deal with one of them.