Otto von Ballpark

Good point! Either way, Sling or Vue, definitely do the free trial first.

It's obviously an underslot strategy, so they can get ?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!? in round two, and #$@$%$^%*&%& in round 3.

Nope. Moya can be eligible as a "replacement" for anybody who's been on the DL for 60+ days (Hughes, Mays, or O'Rourke). I think Goodrum and Tonkin would be in the same boat, since they were not on the 40-man at midnight August 31st either.

What's the bedtime like? It's pretty early at my house. I don't think I'd stretch it until they get further in the playoffs. I actually had to listen to the 10th inning of Game 7 in 1991 on radio in my bed because it was a school night.

Sling TV would have you covered, I think. Their Orange package includes ESPN and TBS, the Blue package includes FS1 and FOX (if your market includes local channels). You can get them both for $40 for one month, no contract. http://m.mlb.com/postseason-schedule You don't even need to use the Sling web site or apps, you can log in with your Sling credentials directly in the Watch ESPN or Fox Sports Go apps if you prefer. Both apps also support Chromecast. (The TBS app now supports Chromecast too but apparently can't authenticate with Sling?I guess you would need to use the Sling app for those games.)

Actually 3. Detroit, Philadelphia, and the Mets.

FWIW, Fangraphs projections give us a 44.1% chance of winning the game. "Season to date stats mode" drops it to 40.1%. "Coin flip mode" gives us 50.2%, for some reason. 538 has us at 37%.

Those, I'm not so sure about. My understanding is that the final 40-man roster all gets rings. Maybe a guy like Heston too who was removed from the roster but finished out the season still in the organization. But different teams do things differently -- the Red Sox gave one to Nomar Garciaparra even after they traded him midseason 2004. Let's hope we can have that debate about Kintzler soon. And of course it gets even more subjective when you get to non-player personnel.

And just barely! The Giants won the last day with a walk-off HR by Pablo Sandoval. A thrilling finish in the race to the bottom!

I think the standard practice is that everyone on the 40-man gets a ring, if not more. So yeah, Perkins would get one. Hopefully we are still discussing that possibility in a month.

Technically yes, last night. But Boston won today, so they have officially clinched the division.

Sounds like you are prematurely judging unknown results too in your second paragraph, just in the Twins favor. You are invoking Polanco for unallocated IFA cash, and I've seen others bringing up Kluber in regards to Watson. The Twins didn't get that here, they got 2 lottery tickets with very low chances of that kind of return. Perhaps not meaningfully different than the lottery tickets already in the system or signable under our original IFA pool. (And in the FO's favor, I don't necessarily think they will deserve further blame if those lottery tickets don't produce meaningful contributions down the line.) I think the only way to really judge a trade like this right now is to assume both sides got fair market value. In which case, it is prioritizing type of return. And for a team with a real opportunity to play meaningful games after July 30 (and not just our own 10% wild card odds, but a much higher chance of staying in the race until the end given the suspect competition), and clearly not dealing from a surplus, it's enough to make me question it. It feels almost like the FO got too cute with a future strategy here, when they should have let the present strategy simply play out instead, and got bailed out on it so far by the unlikely result of us winning the 2nd WC by 5+ games. Still more returns left by which to judge the trade, of course. Our pen in the playoffs, and the front office's efforts to get meaningful future value from Watson and the IFA investment. Probably a small part too in where Kintzler signs and performs versus our own efforts to address our pen this winter. On IFA specifically, even players who are not eligible to sign on July 2nd generally have deals arranged with clubs. Haven't heard anything about the Twins plans for their remaining cash. Other late signings who go under the radar generally don't command big bonuses (like Fernando Romero'a $260k). Not that it is valueless, but it does seem the value of additional IFA money goes down the further away from July 2nd you get, and the further you are under your original IFA cap to begin with. (Personally, pessimistically, I wonder if the money was included as a speculative hedge because Watson alone wasn't valuable enough?)

Not anymore, that rule changed a few years back. Anybody on the 40-man as of Sep. 1st is eligible. The DL trick is actually based on the 60-day DL, it has nothing to do with the 10-day DL that Sano is on. And it has nothing to do with 25-man rosters, but rather adding guys who were in your org but weren't on the 40-man on Sep. 1st (i.e. Moya).

Not quite, Polanco got $700k. But that was 8 years ago, and Thorpe's $500k was even 5 years ago. Also Polanco and Thorpe both signed on July 2nd, but we will only be able to use the Kintzler $500k later in the signing period. This article suggests the Twins are still almost a millon under the cap, even before the added money, and I'm not sure who they will spend it on: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/09/twins-to-sign-venezuelan-prospect-carlos-aguiar.html Obviously we can evaluate those returns over time, but right now it looks pretty much like fair market value for a 2 month rental reliever. Given that, I think I would have rather had the 2 month rental reliever, given the wide open 2nd wild card race and our pitching needs.

I saw a list of about 25 guys in another thread who should be at the game. They might have an extra spot if their buddy Miguel can't make it. If you throw left-handed, you might even be able to sit with them out in the bullpen. There's also a chance they can stick around for some drinks after the game.

Sano Megazord, activate! Will it just count as 1 roster spot, or 5?

If you think of the games as coin flips, you'd need to get specific results of 6 flips in a row to force a tiebreaker, 7 in a row to move the WC game to Boston. That's a 99.2% likelihood that NY hosts the wild card game. What level should that rise to before we consider it a "foregone conclusion"?

We're on a baseball message board -- of course the front office deserves some criticism! I concede that they made the 2nd wild card and didn't need Kintzler to do it. The loss of Kintzler may not be a factor next week either but I'd feel better going in if we still had him. Ultimately my concern won't be so much about the results though as the process. And I'm not sticking a fork in the FO or anything either, it's just a concern that rises a bit above simple disagreement for me. But yeah, it's been a great year so far, I've had fun following and discussing this team.

Please let's not resort to this kind of argument. "Likes" for long articles do not mean agreement and especially not full agreement with every point in the article, or whatever conclusions you are now inferring from the article. The Twins weren't likely to make the postseason after the trade. But they weren't likely to make the postseason just before the trade either. Depending on your threshold for "likely" it could be argued that no team was particularly likely to win the 2nd wild card (tops in the Fangraphs "coin flip" odds was 28%), but we knew that one of them would, and a few would stay close until late. Some of us just wanted to be best positioned to stay in the race, and best compete if we did happen to make it.

Rarely is one player the "delta between being legit". And if you want to argue that, Kintzler in a WC race is a lot closer to being a meaningful "delta" than Watson or a late international signing will likely be. And the trade return is almost immaterial to this debate. The only evidence we have at this point suggests it was a fair market return, neither a fleecing nor being fleeced. If the Twins turn out a hidden gem in Watson or in a late international signing, I'll be sure to revisit this, but for now I have to assume they were just fair market pieces for renting Kintzler for a playoff chase. And in that case, I think I'd rather take my chances with Kintzler in that chase.

1 & 2. Our team composition was changing. Buxton was showing up, Gibson wasn't going to be THAT bad, etc. Not enough to make us world-beaters, of course, but certainly enough that we could hang with that mediocre competition. 3. Our now-bWAR leader Buxton, who had been heating up at the plate at the beginning of July, missed the last 2 weeks of that month. Even so, 2 weeks before the deadline, we took 2 of 3 from the Yankees. We actually won a game in Houston. Our final 3 losses in July were 1-run walk-off losses, which suggests some bad luck. Buxton returned August 1st. 4. "Teams" plural coming on strong? Outside of the top 4 in the AL, I think it was just the Royals among the 2nd wild card contenders that could be characterized as "coming on strong". And of course that was based on a 9 game win streak, 8 of which came against Detroit and the White Sox (including 3 walk off wins, which suggest some good luck). And we knew they were limited, had restrictions on buying, and still had to play us a bunch head-to-head. July records KCR 16 10 SEA 14 12 OAK 12 14 TBR 12 13 DET 12 14 BAL 12 14 TOR 12 15 TEX 11 14 MIN 10 15 LAA 9 13 Not a great month, but nothing that screams to me "fear the Royals! Sell!" 5. Every team in that group had some severe limitations to buying, at least buying enough to discourage potential competitors. If they weren't discouraged by us buying Jaime Garcia, why should we be discouraged by them buying Jeremy Hellickson or Trevor Cahill? 6. I assume by "play in game" you are referring to the wild card game? If so, it's a postseason berth. While teams would obviously prefer to win the division, I think teams still take the wild card, even the 2nd spot, pretty seriously.

I never said the Twins were definitively better than the Angels. Point is, they weren't definitively worse, than them or any of the 2nd wild card contenders as of July 30. And the only one that had anything resembling a definitive record advantage as of that date was the Royals, a team whose weaknesses we knew well and he had a lot of head-to-head games with which to make up ground (which we ultimately didn't even need). And I think I clarified in a later post -- we didn't need to suddenly play well AND every other team to play worse. That happened, and we won fairly comfortably by 5 games. We really only needed one of those things to happen, or some mildly version of both, to stay in the race until the end.

Brock, I feel like you and others are basically saying the Twins were right to sell because in order to stay relevant, they needed to play great AND see a bunch of teams collapse/falter. But that's not right. That happened, and we actually won the 2nd wild card fairly comfortably. If just one of those things happens, we are still in the hunt. If neither happens to quite the degree that they actually happened, we are still in the hunt. At close of play on July 30, we trailed KC by 5, Tampa by 2.5, and Seattle by 1.5, with ~55 to play. We weren't likely to win it, but it wasn't necessarily going to require any miracles either. We were in the thick of it, with no sleeping giants poised to awaken (no, the Royals were not sleeping giants who awoke in late July).

What team in that group would you have forecast to have great post-July 30 success? None of those teams had a good case of separating from the pack. Maybe it's unusual that there is so much mediocrity in the AL now, but there is. And that was apparent in July. Didn't mean the Twins had a great chance, but it meant they had a decent chance. And the Twins FO should be expected to know that and not disregard, even if historically unusual.

Have you seen the Angels pitching staff? Ricky Nolasco? As of late July, they were pinning their hopes on the healthy return of Alex Meyer. That was supposed to intimidate the Twins into selling? I feel like you keep bringing up hypotheticals that don't match anything the Twins should have known about the field as of July 30.