Otto von Ballpark

You might be right. 0.83 leverage index last year, roughly the same as Tonkin, Boshers, and O'Rourke. Not much higher in 2014-2015 either.

Unfortunately no 4th option on Polanco. The Twins somehow managed to roster him for 92 days in 2010 by splitting his season between two rookie leagues, so it counted as a "full season" for him when it did not count as such for Vargas or Kepler. So Polanco is out of options now, and thus guaranteed a 25 man roster spot this spring.

The Cardinals got the direct benefit of the hacking, but any harm the Astros suffered would have also been an indirect benefit for the Astros competitors in the AL. It is hard to judge from here, but I wouldn't be surprised if MLB made that determination. Remember the Cardinals weren't just getting info to help themselves, there was some intent to hurt/punish the Astros too (remember that leak of documents?).

One more thought: I wonder if there was some value in converting a single-position guy to a pitcher (or pitchers) who would have a wider market? Simply put, a team only needs one second baseman, but they need 5 SP and many aim for multiple quality RP too. It seems like a pitcher wouldn't necessarily have to hit any great upside or WAR projection to replicate Dozier's apparent market value at a future date. Obviously it would still have to be weighed against the other factors discussed upthread, but it was just an angle I didn't recall seeing explicitly mentioned.

May's back problems were widely reported in 2015, they were cited as the reason he couldn't pitch back to back days (and I think a few times he required multiple days off?).

May should have an option left. But I doubt he would need it to stretch out at the beginning of the season, every pitcher will be stretching out just the same in March.

Mejia wasn't #93 on any proper list. He was #93 on BA's midseason list which excluded gtaduates AND new signings/draftees. Probably closer to 130 in the full universe of prospects, which might be closer to 175 in terms of value than to even 73. Was that Law who had De Leon at #73? I know he is not high on his stuff, but I would be pretty surprised if that was #73 just based on stuff and stats alone (excluding age, health, and durability as you listed separately).

I can't speak for the skeptics, but this sounds like it would involve double-penalizing De Leon for a few factors. In other words, it would be awfully hard to justify a "back of the top 100 list" ranking if you were truly ignoring age and health and durability. Also, by the time you get to Mejia's rank, the ranks cease to be all that meaningful. Sickels would usually list ~100 guys who all had a claim to be ranked 125-175 or whatever. No matter how much one is skeptical of De Leon being an elite prospect right now, there is basically no argument for putting him in that class in terms of rank or value.

You lost me at describing Vogelsong as a "step forward".

It's much easier to find a return that is equal to or greater than a lower value. The Nunez trade, or the Butera trade, or whatever, while producing good returns relative to the asset, don't have much bearing on the odds of a getting a prospect like De Leon.

Better nickname: Bull Dozier or Ponce De Leon?

Sure, but that is more of an org thing. The Dodgers as a whole probably have a lot of info on Dozier. The Twins had info on De Leon I am sure. But the minor league pitching coordinator for the Dodgers probably had very little special knowledge about Dozier.

Knapp knows Dozier really, really well?

Perkins technically shouldn't count either. He agreed on a one year deal for 2012 to avoid arbitration, but then in March 2012 signed a 3 year extension on top of that for 2013-2015. Two years later he signed his next extension, in March 2014.

There is no 25 man roster right now. Just 40-man. Nobody is accumulating service time. And when the season begins and service time starts counting again, De Leon will not gain MLB service time if the Rays choose to send him on optional assignment to the minor leagues.

Any WWIII comments should still stay in the Trump thread, though.

And then I'd interject that TR likely tried calling the Dodgers, but when he picked up the phone he heard the sounds of Jack Goin's dial-up modem.

Let's not forget when Wolfson reported that the Angels were interested in Dozier: https://twitter.com/DWolfsonKSTP/status/802266986004746240 I wonder how that conversation went?

That's hardly a list that inspires extra caution when dealing with Friedman. Heaney was virtually never property of the Dodgers -- he came from the Marlins and went to the Angels in what was essentially a 3-way deal. (And the shortcomings of this trade are the reasons the Dodgers were looking for 2B help this winter -- they traded away Dee Gordon, and acquired Howie Kendrick who promptly collapsed.) Peraza and Montas (acquired for Peraza) were property of the Dodgers for only a few months each. LA was the second org to trade Peraza, and the third to trade Montas. Schebler was a 25 year C+ throw-in to get Montas. Montas and Cotton seem like a solid haul for 2 months of Rich Hill and Josh Reddick; Holmes is understood by all to be a project. All roughly B prospects, none seem like they were traded at any inflated value. You might notice they've mostly traded prospects acquired from other organizations and not their own. But I'm not sure how meaningful that is -- at the time of the Heaney trade, the Dodgers didn't have any top pitching prospects except Urias. At the time of the Peraza trade, the Dodgers didn't have any top infield prospects except Seager. Those guys were universally considered elite, it's no slight on De Leon that he is not in that class, and not particularly meaningful that the Dodgers were unwilling to trade those two guys in what were decidedly not blockbuster trades (the Dodgers acquiring 1 year of Howie Kendrick for Heaney, and Montas plus Thompson and the now DFA'd Micah Johnson for Peraza and Schebler). I mean, Rays fans circa 2008 could have made this same argument about the Twins -- they had never traded a prospect or young player that became much of anything. Bowyer, Tyler, Harbin, Kielty, Kinney, Valentin, Padilla, Sears, Buchanan, Kinney, Valentin, Redman.... But they would have been fools to let that discourage them from trading for Matt Garza.

Here's the Twins bullpen depth chart over at MLB.com: There would be little excuse for failing to roster Chargois out of spring training, regardless of whether we sign an additional reliever or not. We don't even have any non-roster invitees yet on the level of Abad or Kintzler last year. I don't know if Smith is the guy to add, he wouldn't have been my first choice, but this is a fairly uninspiring group and we're running out of options and time to help augment it.

I'm pretty sure Rick Knapp, despite his other professional baseball knowledge, knows about as much about the actual proposal as you or me. Heck, the "1-for-1" assumption was probably baked into the question that Berardino asked him.

Teams often don't throw that Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half. If your odds of success are low, and it doesn't mean the end of the game/season/pursuit of a second baseman, you don't need high odds of it backfiring to make it a bad idea. If the Dodgers judge that the odds of the Twins accepting a particular offer is virtually zero, why should they ignore that judgement and just chuck up the offer anyway? That would seem like poor negotiating, ignoring information learned in the negotiating process, unless there was really no tomorrow -- i.e. they felt there was no way they could work with their backup option in Forsythe, which was clearly not the case here.

Presumably if they were right and Dozier continued hitting at a high level, the market would adjust and value him accordingly. So we could trade him then if we wanted. An extension would be another determination that would need to be made. Do they peg him to age like Kinsler, Zobrist, etc.? I don't endorse it, but that's Brock's point. It is internally consistent.

Is that philosophical? We're on a baseball message board. The actions and inactions of our favorite club can please or disappoint us.

Disappointment does not mean blowing it.