Otto von Ballpark

But -- if the Twins rotation outlook is so dire -- doesn't that play into Santiago's leverage? He has to know that at 2/20, the Twins will still be just as interested in November as they are today.

Barring catastrophic injury, Santiago's FA floor this winter is probably 2/16 -- I'll call that "the Tigers Pelfrey line." Even with injury, Santiago's FA floor could easily match either of the "Twins Pelfrey lines" -- 1/4 or 2/11. Not much risk for him in passing up 2/20 right now.

Ah, the "Suzuki principle". I agree that Santiago is unlikely to follow that path. He's got a track record of a consistently average-ish starting pitcher. He may not break the bank this winter, but there's going to be a market for him, and he's going to have options. Suzuki was only a few months removed from backup status (and probably only a few months away from returning to backup status too).

But, Stewart is eligible for Rule 5 this winter. So if you move him to the pen this season and he shows promise, you might have to use a 40-man spot just to keep him around for 2018. Might be better to let him continue starting this season, and try a bullpen conversion next spring? Force other teams to draft "blind" this winter, so to speak? Just a consideration.

Yeah. I would be pretty surprised if Santiago was actually willing to accept that deal right now. It might be the deal he winds up getting this winter, but it's not looking likely that he would get significantly less than that, and I think he'd rather roll the dice in the meantime that he can find a better deal.

In 2017. People seem to ignore he was epically bad to start 2016 too. I suspect even when he's finally "established", he might just be a streaky hitter (which isn't necessarily bad, but probably caps his offensive ceiling a bit).

Park is still on the DL at AAA. With Vargas and Grossman doing well, I don't see an opening for him in MLB either. Guessing it's a bit premature to think about holding a 40-man spot open for him, they will need a 25-man spot for him too and I'm guessing that will only come if there is an injury. I suspect the next 40-man addition would be a relief pitcher, like Baxendale, Hildenberger, Turley, etc. Or even Chapman.

True -- but it worries me because this front office has thus far shown a tendency to clog the roster with these types of pitchers. And they've got an open 40-man spot to play with now...

To be fair, I suspect the cash is roughly the equivalent of the waiver fee.

Although Nunez too was DFA'd at the time. It is quite possible that we could have acquired him even without Sulbaran, using any number of interchangeable assets. It is quite likely we could have instead acquired Nunez for, say, Tyler Jones. Not that I have any problem with the Butera trade, but giving it credit for Nunez and then Mejia is probably overstating it (even if it is technically true in a transaction tree sense).

Sometimes the team resists sending out guys without options, that's all. Not a big deal, but this is different than getting a non-40 man guy like, say, Miguel Sulbaran. Another difference is that Chapman is eligible to become a minor league free agent after the season if not added to the 40-man roster, which might nudge the team to call him up this season for evaluation purposes even if he doesn't necessarily deserve it.

And while Chapman not being on the 40-man is nice, the Twins actually have an open 40-man spot with Tonkin removed. And if we add Chapman at any point, he is out of options which might limit our flexibility.

Actually Santana wasn't claimed -- he was never waived. Likely he would have been claimed by a couple clubs, though, and the Braves offered Chapman to essentially jump the line.

Chapman was available to us twice on waivers back in March. The second time he cleared completely, which is why Atlanta was able to outright him off their 40-man.

Would be nice to leave Duffey stretched out a bit in the pen when possible, though. No real reason to pull him after 3 batters on Sunday, for example.

Not really. The same theory was used to justify inaction by the previous regime. And the big thing we've heard about the new leadership is that they're going to take some time to assess the organization -- I doubt they had collected enough info about our various scuffling/injured AA relievers in their first months on the job to cause them to hold back on the MLB FA market. Especially when signing a better reliever simply would have bumped the last guy like Haley or Breslow off the totem pole, and wouldn't have done much of anything to hold back or block the AA guys. (And the modest contracts awarded to Holland, Storen, Feliz, etc. weren't really an obstacle either.) And frankly, the new front office wasn't completely inactive -- they added ~4 guys to the current pen. Just a disappointing combination of guys.

It's generally considered that hitting to pitching would be much easier. You can take a long time off the mound and come back to it successfully (Matt Bush being a recent example), but I'm not sure if you can put down the bat for years and come back so easily. Rick Ankiel did it, but just barely -- in the NL, he was getting reps at the plate throughout, and he had a pretty severe drop-off on the mound that prompted the switch.

Other teams weren't already relying on a shaky group of relievers before adding Belisle. Like I said, Belisle would have been a fine signing if he was the one low-upside addition to round out a pen -- problem was, he was about one of four low-upside additions to an already low-upside group here. It would be like saying, hypothetically, that other teams had interest in Chris Gimenez as a backup catcher -- that wouldn't excuse us signing him to be the starter!

Harvey is definitely off his peak, but we're still dealing with some small samples here. He was doing pretty well through 3-4 starts this year -- it's primarily the last 2 starts that have inflated his ERA and BB rate, and lowered his K rate. Last year he was off his peak too, but his FIP was still solid. I'm not a PitchFX guy, so maybe there are more troubling signs there? I'd buy that he's not likely to be an ace again anytime soon, but I could see a bounceback to effectiveness happening pretty quickly.

Rucinski has an option remaining too.

Yes, Pressly has an option remaining.

I would have stretched out Duffey more. Hadn't pitched in a few days, with an off day coming up on Monday, yet Molitor used him for only 3 batters on Sunday. Really not sure what the plan is with Duffey anymore -- do they still seem him as a starter long-term? Can he be asked to throw multiple innings out of the pen? When Belisle is your "second best reliever" that should be reason enough to try to use Duffey more creatively, and not just make him another one-inning middle relief guy. By pulling Duffey, we guaranteed we'd have to dip into our shaky pen for at least two more guys to finish out the game.

Yup. I have no problem with signing Tepesch and Rucinski for AAA depth. Problem is, they aimed so low at the MLB level, they "needed" to call on Tepesch and Rucinski so early, for completely predictable reasons. Individually, rostering Haley, keeping Tonkin, signing Belisle, and signing Breslow could have each been defensible moves. But the combination of all of them, to pair with already modest pen holdovers in Kintzler, Pressly, etc. -- that was clearly poor planning.

While I agree it is too early to make any conclusive judgments on the new front office's performance, I think they are getting a bit too much credit here for making "quick cuts". Sure, we all remember the embarrassing Kubel/Bartlett reunion tour, but otherwise in recent years, I think the old regime regularly made similarly timed cuts as the new regime has been doing. Almost exactly a year ago, Milone, Fien, Graham, and O'Rourke were all dropped. A year before that, Milone was optioned ahead of Trevor May. Tim Stauffer went on the DL on May 1st that year, later came off the DL for 3 weeks and was cut. Oswaldo Arcia survived until June 17 last year, but it was only his first year out of options, and the team was basically out of the race 2 weeks into the season so it didn't really hurt to give him extra rope as compared to Danny Santana this season. The old front office didn't cut Tonkin, but Tonkin was actually pretty effective (albeit in low-leverage work) up through TR's firing last year, so there was no real reason to cut him. It's still early, but I am concerned that the new regime hasn't taken a decidedly different roster approach than the old regime -- moving Duffey semi-permanently to short relief in the pen, Belisle, Breslow, Haley, Tepesch, Rucinski -- these are all very "old front office" style moves to assemble a pitching staff. I understand some prospects aren't quite ready, and Tepesch/Rucinski are pretty standard AAA depth types around the league, but I am disappointed that a greater effort wasn't made to add better MLB pieces this offseason to address/avoid this scenario.

I was just about to revive an old Tonkin thread to ask about this. Pulled mid-inning for a position player has to be the kiss of death.