Otto von Ballpark

Here's what I've deduced. You are correct that no player "sneaks" through waivers undetected. But likewise, your August 2nd plan would not actually sneak anyone through either. The chief problem with your August 2nd plan is your team was just talking to other teams about the player a few hours earlier, and apparently found the offers lacking. Literally nothing has changed since that point, so you probably know what teams will claim the player and what they will offer, and unless you've had a sudden change of opinion, you will have to reject the offer again, pull the player back, and you won't be able to trade them at all during the month of August regardless of whether the market might shift in your favor over the month. Not ideal. So instead, unless a player has a prohibitive salary like Nolasco or Brian McCann and you know they will clear (which is not really the case with Suzuki), you probably wait a bit to put them on trade assignment waivers, just to allow the market to change a bit so you can see some fresh partners/offers. It may not necessarily change in your favor, but I think that's understood to be an acceptable risk once you get to August trade waivers anyway. And while players don't actually "sneak" through waivers undetected, I think teams can time their waiver request to get players through (if not all the way through, at least through to their preferred trade partners) by looking at the standings -- who has waiver priority, and who is trending closer or further from contention. In the case of Suzuki, I am not sure of the Twins exact thinking. Maybe Seattle has gotten close enough to become buyers, but not too close to lose waiver priority? Maybe Seattle, Boston, Cleveland, etc. are doing well enough with their current catching situations that the Twins think Suzuki will go unclaimed, and can then hopefully continue trying to deal him for the rest of the month (if, say, Yan Gomes has a setback, or another player gets hurt, etc.).

3+ WAR full season pace doesn't count as "good"? Because Gomez did that in 2012 and in his time with the Brewers in 2015, in addition to his great 2013-2014 stretch. (He also had such a pace in 2011 although it was more defense with a below average bat, not unlike his 2008 with the Twins.) If you want to claim that Gomez only had 2 great seasons, that would be accurate, although not particularly meaningful -- lots of good players don't have many/any great seasons. Still doesn't mean 3 WAR seasons on his resume don't count towards his good record. He is obviously not playing well at the moment, but that shouldn't overly color our perception of his past solid seasons. If he was in the midst of a 3 WAR season right now, the discussion would probably be about what kind of nice FA payday he was going to get this winter, even after rejecting a QO. 3 WAR can be the mark of a good season/player.

It was really like 3.5 good years (2012 until his trade from the Brewers). League average offensive player, who also plays a good CF, is easily "good." Like 3+ WAR full season pace.

I don't think anyone was limiting the argument fot Meyer solely to team control? I am not sure what the point of that would be. He is an interesting prospect / lotto ticket with 6 years control. Busenitz and a million other players also have team control, but they are not necessarily Meyer's equal in terms of interesting prospect / lotto ticket.

I really question any analysis that suggests Busenitz is the equivalent of Meyer.

Albers doesn't have much service time, but yes, optional assignment waivers were required since it has been 3 years since he was added to a 25 man roster for the first time: http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3525

I think Kintzler is at least Abad's equal in terms of "previous good seasons."

I don't think everyone concerned about the K's wants to dramatically change Sano's approach to cut down on them. I hope he can cut down on them somewhat naturally as he learns the league, maybe with some minor assists from coaches. Think early Miguel Cabrera -- I doubt the Marlins were trying to shorten his swing, yet he cut his K rate in each of his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons, and went from a nice young power hitter, to an absolute beast of a MVP candidate. Now, Sano has a naturally higher K rate than Cabrera, and that is fine. But I don't think it necessarily has to naturally sit as high as 35%.

And of course it's us stat nerds taking him down here...

Yeah, 35% is a bit high if we want him to be consistently good. I think he has to get that peak K rate below 30%. Not sure if this is the team to help him achieve that, of course...

For a guy with a 5.36 ERA, I suspect this is more about keeping his self-esteem while he allows more runs, rather than a mark of effectiveness. Also 5.56 ERA at AAA this year, and career ~4.74 ERA at both AA and high-A... Dean's 2015 is looking pretty strongly like a fluke, I must say.

Spent pen? Kintzler and Pressly haven't even pitched the last two days, and Tonkin and Rogers only appeared once each on Thursday. The only "spent" part of the pen is Chargois (pitched both days) and Albers and Dean. And of course, Albers has already been cut, and Dean should have been optioned for a fresh arm like Light or Melotakis if they were truly concerned about the pen being "spent."

I am okay with O'Rourke, but I would rather see someone else in place of Dean. That might leave us without a true long reliever, but that has been true much of the season (and 2015 too), I am not sure why we would be worried about that now. Plus, O'Rourke, Rogers, Chargois, etc. all have options left, as would Dean's replacement, so if a starter got knocked out early and our pen got taxed, we could swap guys out to AAA. (And of course it will cease to be an issue at all in a few weeks when rosters expand.)

I feel this a bit too, and it is somewhat related to cultural issues. Are the coaches relying too much on Latin American players to mentor younger Latin American players, or African American players to mentor younger African American players? Some of that is natural, I am sure, but the Twins have had enough clubhouse and development issues that I feel like this might be another symptom of the front office and coaching staff failing to adequately bridge those divides themselves.

Dean's chances of staying on the roster until the end of the season are very good. Dean's chances of staying on the roster through December, less so.

I disagree on that last point. No, there may not be a large enough sample remaining to accurately project from, but those can absolutely be meaningful innings for someone. Maybe Melotakis can get his nerves and initial adjustments out of the way; maybe the MLB staff can make something interesting with some tinkering of Wimmers, etc. In fact, your two points seem to contradict each other -- it is a small sample, but if you are relying on the evaluations of coaches over stats anyway, you don't necessarily need a large sample to make those innings meaningful.

That is correct. The point of the comment, though, is that we are under no additional risk of losing Wimmers if we add him today and drop him this winter.

That isn't a fai comparison, because it lumps in the first starts of May's MLB career in 2014 (remember his debut?), and compared them to veterans (except for Duffey of course, who had an unusually good rookie season which hadn't happened yet at the time of May's demotion). Looking at just 2015, the difference is negligible. Especially considering May was actually given less leash / pitch count than the veterans.

I wonder why they waited a day to do this. Also, why DFA? Do they really need 10 days to decide what to do with Albers? AFAIK, he has minor league options remaining too, so we could have just optioned him.

For Wimmers, this doesn't matter -- he will be a minor league free agent after the season if not added. O'Rourke too. Your concern does apply to Wheeler and Baxendale, though.

What the heck happened to Pat Light, the rumored right handed call up whose flight was delayed? Heck, if they didn't want to call up Light or Melotakis or any of their internal options, make a waiver claim like Patrick Schuster. Instead we're treading water with guys guaranteed to get dropped after the season - Milone, Albers, Dean...

I don't think anyone was really making that claim, although one could question whether the bullpen assignment exacerbated the injuries which were ultimately responsible for derailing his career.

And he may not have an OPS much higher than that going forward. He's at .759 since June 1st, .729 since July 1st... Relative to league, that recent performance is actually not much different than his earlier career numbers. MLB non-pitcher OPS was .725 back when Grossman posted his .702, and the average is at .749 this year...

Chargois' ERA was 67.50 before yesterday, was that not close enough?