Otto von Ballpark

I'd endorse that, but how likely do you think that is? The Twins didn't ask Correia or Willingham to take a seat in August. (Nor Mike Pelfrey and others who didn't get traded.) Suzuki is definitely in their class, as a pending FA veteran, who likely signed here with assurances about his role and hasn't quite nullified those assurances by his performance to date. I think it's more reasonable to expect the Twins to trade Suzuki in August to a contender than to ask him to take a seat on the bench on September 1st, even if both moves accomplish the same thing as far as freeing reps for younger players. Even if Suzuki was gracious and accepted the bench assignment, he would have every right to be a little upset with the Twins asking him to do that if a trade partner could be found, even if such a trade returned no value to the Twins. He has his 2017 contract to think about too. Future signees and their agents might take notice as well.

I don't think it's strange. Straight-up cutting a player can be, well, rude. It would go beyond any standard convention for dealing with a pending FA veteran in August. To me, that no one has advocated cutting him actually suggests people are approaching this reasonably -- it's not simply some blind Suzuki hate, or generic aggressive "youth movement" pablum. It's not all that different from our previous August trades of Kevin Correia or Josh Willingham. I'd actually eat some of his salary if that was any kind of hold-up for an interested team. That too would be within normal conventions of dealing with a pending FA veteran in August. What is your plan? Keeping Suzuki through the end of the season doesn't necessarily make the catcher position meaningfully better in 2017 and beyond. I think keeping Suzuki through the end of the season, or moving him now to play some younger players the rest of the season, are at worst equal plans in terms of our 2017+ catching situation. Don't confuse this argument with the separate issue of how to deal with the catcher position in 2017. I think most everybody here is in agreement we will need a FA veteran or other new acquisition to man the position on opening day 2017. But that doesn't have a lot to do with who gets the catcher reps the rest of 2016.

I'd say that those situations are a little different than our veteran starting catcher. It is relatively easy to start using Rogers in higher leverage than Abad, or to use Polanco over Escobar when Nunez had already been playing ahead of Escobar much of the season, or to use Kepler over guys coming off their own recent bench/minors demotions (Grossman, Rosario, Danny Santana). It's also fairly easy to demote Milone, he is still under team control and has never signed a FA contract or extension with the team and likely has never received any assurances about his role. It is much more difficult to take a veteran starting catcher (3 years starting for us, plus a lot more before coming to Minnesota), a guy you had to negotiate a FA contract and extension with, and cut his playing time. That's more like dropping a veteran FA starting pitcher to the bullpen (something the Twins have been very loath to do) than it is like shuffling around younger / bench / pre-FA type players.

While a Suzuki trade would likely involve org filler, that is no one's stated purpose for making the trade. To imply such a thing seemed like a massive mischaracterization to me, that's all. The problem with Buxton wasn't his August-September audition last year -- it was throwing him out there as the opening day CF this year, and then recalling him again too quickly after his epic struggles. I don't think anyone is suggesting that Garver should be the opening day starter at catcher next year regardless of what happens this September. Just that he, and maybe Centeno, and maybe even Murphy, and maybe even Turner could perhaps benefit from extra reps down the stretch this season, extra reps they are unlikely to get with Suzuki on the roster. Maybe Turner looks like a viable near future backup and it makes it easier to drop Centeno this winter. Maybe it gets our scuffling pitchers thinking critically about what they want in a post-Suzuki backstop too. This could all be helpful to our offseason planning. Think back to August 2014. We had Kevin Correia starting, and we certainly could have kept starting him for the rest of the season, but we didn't. We traded him for a PTBNL or cash (which became just cash) on August 9th and on the same day started Trevor May. May struggled a lot that game, and had some more struggles down the stretch, but was a better more prepared MLB pitcher in the spring of 2015 because of it, even if he wasn't in our opening day rotation the next year. I am looking at a potential Suzuki trade in a similar light, at this point. I didn't like the Suzuki extension, but by July this year I was a Suzuki backer, to the point where I was considering picking up his option (when I was mistaken about it being a team option). But I feel like there's been enough smoke about his defensive game (middling results with the Twins, plus the trade deadline/waivers stuff) that even though I want a veteran catcher on a cheap short-term deal for next year, I pretty much want to roll the dice on someone other than Suzuki.

This is a massive mischaracterization. Nobody wants org filler, the point of such a trade would be clearing the spot and maybe a little cash. What is pointless is delivering long explanations how org filler isn't worth anything. And yes, most of us believe there is probably a reasonable way to evaluate other catchers with Suzuki still on the roster, but 3 years of evidence has given us little confidence that the Twins will do that properly. Thus, we would endorse a Suzuki trade because it would be a clear signal that the goal (evaluating other catchers) would be accomplished. And we are stating that even if we also don't really trust to Twins to trade Suzuki either, it is just something we'd like to see.

Lackey is a major FA signing that the Twins can't compete with? 2/32? We extended Hughes (and Nathan) for 3/42. Also, Kyle Hendricks is the Cubs ERA+ leader this year, acquired in trade for Ryan Dempster (signed to a 4/52 contract, just like Nolasco-Santana-Hughes). Another modest FA signing Jason Hammel is 3rd, behind Hendricks and Arrieta. Signed for 2/20 plus team option.

Never!

Interest, sure, but trading value? Not likely. For this level of pitcher, trades don't necessarily correlate well with FA contracts. Remember when Nolasco was still relatively cheap and effective for the Marlins in 2013? They didn't get anything from the Dodgers for him (3 suspects who were DFA'd with a year), yet a few months later Nolasco got 4/49 in FA and it wasn't considered out of line. Also I suspect the Angels shopped Santiago a bit before they traded him to use. Nolasco + Meyer probably sets the bar for Santiago's near future trade value, no?

Also, not only is Molitor unlikely to bench Suzuki if he is an option, but we may have made an implicit or explicit promise to Suzuki that he wouldn't be the backup here. It may not be a practical plan to say he can mentor from the bench. Or, he might prefer to be traded instead.

"Real value" except you can't trade him -- he is likely above market value in arbitration. Best case is a non-tender and a re-sign at a lower amount, if you to get value from Plouffe in 2017.

There was an article recently about Suzuki being happy with his young family in Minnesota. Now, you'd think a month or two away to pursue a championship wouldn't matter that much, especially when he is a free agent after the season anyway. But there it is.

No, waiver priority is determined entirely by record (and league). A team can claim multiple players at once with the same priority, the only issue would be that if they were awarded the claims, and the other teams didn't revoke the waiver requests, they may have to clear multiple roster spots at once. I could see it being another issue with expensive players - you may not want to potentially be stuck with two large contracts (although such players usually go unclaimed anyway), but it doesn't really add much risk to claiming a fairly cheap player like Suzuki.

But is he much more of an asset than Nolasco + $4 mil + a buy-low prospect with an option remaininf? Because that's what we traded for him (for 2017, anyway). Personally, I don't see 5 starters better / more trustworthy than Santiago, so I bet they plan to keep him. Think of him as a Milone replacement, now that Milone has gotten a little too pricey for his contributions.

I posted something like your waiver theory earlier in thread. It has some truth, but what you ignore is the blocking aspect. Even if they didn't think they could come to deal with the Twins in 48 hours, Detroit or Seattle knew that a simple claim would have 100% prevented Suzuki from going to a rival with a questionable catching situation. They passed. Suzuki's value may not be zero, but it is darn close. He may still get traded, but almost certainly for the standard fringe "PTBNL or cash" August waiver trade return at this point (Cotts, Correia, Carroll, etc.). As to your last paragraph, if a contending team had traded value for Suzuki to be their catcher, or had even cared enough to put in a claim to block him from going to a rival, that would absolutely be evidence suggesting at least 1 or more teams think he is still viable at the position.

Yes, but spring training can be a very sparse sample, especially for a nonroster invite.

C'mon, don't sugarcoat it.

Garver is Rule 5 eligible this winter. Turner too. Both 2013 college draftees.

We should see Dansby Swanson in Atlanta tonight -- a fairly aggressive promotion (he was good but not great at AA): http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/08/braves-to-promote-dansby-swanson.html

Well, Sale, Quintana, and Rodon all came up quickly too, and it's hard to argue with their results too much. The White Sox like to develop guys at the MLB level. Even if they fail, it's not necessarily a bad decision -- they may have failed later anyway, and there is value to the White Sox to know that sooner rather than later. I definitely disagreed on Fulmer, but I've got to respect the White Sox commitment to this particular plan/method of theirs.

Probably not a realistic option to start coming out of spring training, but he could be a very realistic option during the season. In which case, you might as well see him this fall, it could inform what kind of veteran starter you need to target. (Remember, Garver has to be added to the 40-man in November anyway, so it costs virtually nothing to promote him now.) It doesn't even have to produce much data to be a more valuable course of action than letting Suzuki play out the string as the starter.

Yeah. Heck, it might be less about evaluating catchers, and more about evaluating our pitchers away from Suzuki. Some of them have hardly ever known another MLB catcher.

Whoever started this HOF tangent should be tarred and feathered! Agreed?

I think it is germane. This is our best piece of evidence yet that other teams don't see Suzuki as a viable defensive catcher. Which has some value when re-evaluating past decisions, and is something we really need to consider if we are looking at re-signing him, or even letting him play out the string as starter this year.

Suzuki also costs $1.5 mil through the end of the year, and could be preventing someone else from getting reps behind the plate in MLB. Murphy was the chief candidate and hasn't exactly made a case for himself at AAA, but Garver has hit well in his first few games there and might deserve at least a look in September, and Turner might too if we plan to protect him on the 40-man roster anyway. Might be nice to get a little data on how our pitchers respond with a different receiver too.

I don't quite agree with all of that (Milone is not a worse version of Albers, for example), but I do agree that the Twins could have helped Albers much more by letting him seek another MLB opportunity after 2013, rather than cashing him in by selling him to Korea. (I elaborated on this point in another recent Albers thread.) I don't really have a problem with how they've used him otherwise, assuming they don't recall him again this year.