Otto von Ballpark

Probably meant soak up innings at the back of the pen. Traditional Rule 5 role.

"You just resent him for his success, and that he tells it like it is" according to my Facebook feed...

Bullwinkle was in frequent contact with Russians too! http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/4/41760/1171768-boris_and_natasha_1.jpg

If the speed limit was technically 55, but officers legally couldn't stop anyone or issue tickets for speeds up to 60, would there be any practical reason to describe driving 58 as "over the speed limit"? It was silly for MLB to have such a system (hence why it has changed now), and it's probably silly for us to propagate it.

Reading "A+/AA" there made my heart skip a beat -- thought I had missed some kind of meteoric Harper/Urias rise for Javier last year! Alas, just a typo -- he actually played in the Dominican Summer League.

There should be no real limit. Berrios threw 166 two years ago, and 171 last year -- and given the number of batters he faced in MLB, it was probably the equivalent of 180. Obviously he's not going to rack up 220 innings, but that will be more due to effectiveness and pitch limits. He should be able to start April through September, though.

He could have been called up earlier, he was already on the 40-man roster. Milone, Dean, and Albers all started MLB games for us in August while Mejia was relegated to starting in AAA.

Hughes is untradeable without eating a big chunk of salary, probably for at least the next two years, almost regardless of health or performance.

I don't know. We've seen a lot of "#4 starters" come through Minnesota lately who offered little or no trade value. Milone is a good example, a guy with team control and relatively low salary. Useful at times, contributing league-average performances at the back of a rotation, but never had much value in trade. Some veteran arms that might fit that performance profile too: Nolasco (see what he was traded for in 2013), Pelfrey, Santiago, etc. Obviously if Mejia does well, he'll be useful and he'll have some value. But I'd stop well short of projecting it as "enormous" or "considerable" right now.

I saw the bat signal! Polanco's issue with options actually dates back to 2010. 90 days is the threshold for a "full season" when calculating for a potential 4th option year. All of the rookie league seasons are less than 90 days long, so generally rookie league assignments don't count as "full seasons." But while Polanco technically spent the whole 2010 season in rookie league ball, he actually split it between two rookie leagues -- an early starter and a late ender -- and thus he spent 92 days on an active roster that year. For comparison, Vargas and Kepler both signed the same summer as Polanco (2009), and both were added to the 40-man roster at the same time too (November 2013), but they both qualify for a 4th option this year because neither played a "full" minor league season prior to 2013. They've already used all 3 of their options, and have only 4 "full" pro seasons total. Thanks to 2010, Polanco has 5 "full" seasons and thus does not qualify. So Polanco's usage in 2014 and 2015 did not matter, as far as his options were concerned. He basically burned options both of those years when he was assigned to the minors out of spring training. The only alternative for the Twins at that point to conserve his options were to either leave him off the 40-man roster and exposed to Rule 5 draft, or to keep him in MLB for virtually the whole season. The problem was 2010. Maybe it's not a big problem -- he's more or less ready to stay in MLB in some capacity now -- but it is an odd one that limits our flexibility. I'd be curious to hear what happened in 2010 that Polanco split the season between two rookie leagues. He started in the Dominican Summer League, then moved to the Gulf Coast League -- did they want to quickly get him out of the Dominican for some reason? Even so, I think it would have been possible to assign him back to DSL late in the season on paper, and he wouldn't even have had to report there, and that would have ended his season a little early and kept him under 90 days active. Seems like a pretty big oversight for a guy who was a pretty well regarded international signing (Polanco's $775k bonus in 2009 was actually a Twins record for a few days, until Kepler signed for $800k and of course Sano a few months later), especially considering he stayed in rookie league ball for 2011-2012 too (he wasn't on a fast track like Sano). As always, the Cub Reporter web site offers a great read on the fourth option year rule: http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3521

Also, in regards to Stewart's low HR rates so far in the minors, it's worth noting that he's pitched exclusively in some pretty low HR environments. League HR/9 rates 2014 Midwest League: 0.6 (Stewart 0.4) 2015 Florida State League: 0.4 (Stewart 0.1) (Ft. Myers as a team 0.3) 2016 Florida State League: 0.6 (Stewart 0.3) (Ft. Myers as a team 0.4) 2016 Southern League: 0.6 (Stewart 0.4) Still a bit better than league averages, but by comparison, AL rates have been 0.9, 1.1, and 1.2 the last 3 years. Will Stewart's HR suppression play as a standout skill in MLB? Even Mike Pelfrey and Kyle Gibson have notched above-average MLB HR suppression recently, but it didn't do much to elevate their overall performance.

While obviously more encouraging than other possible outcomes, I don't think 9 starts of league-average K rate, repeating a level, counts as a "breakout".

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2017/2/13/14598358/top-200-mlb-prospects-for-2017-minor-league-ball 42. Gordon 56. Gonsalves 85. Romero 92. Kiriloff 99. Jay 185. Diaz

Gordon at 60, Gonsalves at 99 De Leon at 29 http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-top-100-prospects/#rbtZqp3GSzbwjCXZ.97

Thanks! I was remembering the position player date, I guess.

It will be very soon -- the day that pitchers and catchers report (Feb. 18?). It would open up a 40-man spot, but it wouldn't make him eligible to return earlier -- players who go on the 60 day DL at any time in spring training can't be activated until the 61st day of the regular season. So it wouldn't make sense to DL him before we have a replacement ready (maybe his spot would go to Breslow at the end of March?).

They would have gotten the waiver fee otherwise, right? This is probably nominally a bit higher than the waiver fee?

10-and-5 no trade protection is the exact same as a contractual full no trade protection. Sometimes though, contractual no trade clauses are only "partial" -- that is, a list of teams a player can't be traded to without his consent. Still, either full or partial no-trade protection must be waived by the player before a team could put the player on waivers, according to the Cub Reporter link I posted earlier.

Kepler was outfield first, with later reps at first: http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=kepler001max#standard_fielding::none

I only hope I have "no trade" protection on this team, or a prohibitively high salary.

Yeah, Perkins plus Breslow could put the squeeze on someone. Could be Rogers to AAA because he's a fellow LHP, but they'd need a 40-man spot too so it could be also be Tonkin DFA'd or Haley returned to Boston, neither of which would be ideal moves to make on April 1st (Breslow's presumed opt out date). I've got similar worries in the rotation, where I am sure Hughes will also aim to be ready and Vogelsong will be trying to make the roster too with a similar opt out date as Breslow. Could May and Berrios both wind up in AAA to open the season? May still has an option remaining (he was optioned out of spring training in 2015, but only spent ~14 days on optional assignment that year so he didn't burn his last option year).

"No trade" protection indeed affects waivers. For outright assignment waivers (removing a player from the 40-man): http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3530 A player who has a "no trade" right (full or partial) must waive his "no trade" right before he can be placed on Outright Assignment Waivers. Same with August trade waivers: http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3528 A player with a "no trade" right can refuse both a waiver claim and a trade assignment Pretty much the only way to get Mauer off the roster would be releasing him, but we'd still owe him his full salary.

Without a waiver claim or a trade, you'd have to release Mauer and pay him his full salary to get him off the 40-man roster (and he'd be a free agent at that point, you wouldn't have the ability to outright him to AAA). He has enough service time that he can refuse any outright assignment off the 40-man roster.

You can't rescind a player from outright assignment waivers. You can only pull a player back from trade assignment waivers, and they only exist from August until November. http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3525

Outright assignment waivers are not revocable. That's just trade waivers. http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/designate-for-assignment Also, I am pretty sure there is a rule that you can't add a DFA'd player back to your 40-man if you've already filled his vacated spot. Otherwise you could easily abuse it for temporary roster crunches. Found a reference to it here: http://www.thecubreporter.com/08042015/why-player-designated-assignment-and-then-optioned-minors a player who has been Designated for Assignment can be returned to the club's MLB Reserve List (40-man roster) and optioned to the minors only if the Designated Player was not replaced on the club's MLB Reserve List (40-man roster) by another player after being Designated for Assignment. It was only really applicable if a team needed to secure "optional assignment waivers" on a player before they could option them to the minors. So they might DFA the player in-season just to replace them off the 25-man roster while they secured those "optional assignment waivers", but not replace them on the 40-man. Those waivers were pretty obscure, though (Andrew Albers was an odd Twins example), and according to the Cub Reporter, it looks like they have been removed in the new CBA: http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3525