Otto von Ballpark

Pretty much. If his OPS+ stabilizes somewhere north of 110 or so, a desperate team might not mind him as a cheap high-OBP DH option. Like post-catching John Jaso. But with his OPS still steadily dropping, nobody is going to bite quite yet (at least not for any return the Twins would find meaningful).

Technically, I don't think you can release an injured player in-season? I think you can only DL them, then you have to wait until they are healthy before you can release them, or until after the season when you can simply choose not to offer them another contract. It's only ever an issue when you want to add someone to your 40-man midseason, but it's full and the guy you want to cut is on the 15-day DL. You pretty much have to wait then or find someone else to cut (or convince the player that he needs to be on the 60-day DL). But, not an issue with Milone right now, we have other open 40-man spots, and it's late enough in the season where a 60-day DL assignment would probably be justified if we needed another spot.

I think the waivers secured on Milone back in May were no longer valid after we outrighted him. Otherwise you would see players get outrighted a lot more frequently. (Waivers being valid for a longer period probably means you can waive a player in May, but keep him on your roster and choose not to outright him until later. I don't think it means you can waive them once in May, and then outright them and re-add them as many times as you want the rest of the season without securing waivers again.) With over 3 years service time, Milone actually had the right to refuse his outright assignment back in May, but not without also forfeiting his salary, hence why he accepted the assignment. I think the same thing would apply now if he cleared waivers again. Of course, his remaining salary is much lower, but so are his odds of finding a better placement yet this season. Even if he accepted our assignment and became Rochester's hired gun, de'd still be a free agent after the season unless we added him back to the roster and offered him arbitration.

Even if it made some sense from the Twins perspective (not sure that it does, of course), how in the world would this make sense from A-Rod's perspective? He almost certainly will have multiple offers to join better teams in a limited role in September, if he wants. The only way the Twins could get him would be to add him now before roster expansion (which most agree would be a bad idea, it would necessitate dropping someone from the 25-man roster), and/or to promise him more playing time, which most agree would also be a bad idea. Thus invalidating the reasons why he might have been interesting to the Twins in the first place...

I'd rather get aggressive and promote him to AAA, or maybe send him to the AFL. If Gonsalves has virtually no chance of opening 2017 on the MLB roster, there is no sense in letting him take away a 40-man roster spot from someone else this winter (and guarantee that an option will be burned in 2017).

5.5 games out, with 25 to play. Long odds. Only 5 games head-to-head with the team they are trailing, although they are the last 5 games of the season so that series could be interesting if they can stay somewhat close. http://www.milb.com/standings/index.jsp?lid=117&sid=t534 http://www.milb.com/schedule/index.jsp?sid=t534&m=9&y=2016 We already sent you Buxton, what more do you want? If Milone is healthy, maybe we can waive and outright him again.

I'm really stumped why Milone wasn't waived/released/traded (with salary eaten) on August 1st. He had no chance to rebuild value for a better August trade while he was in a mop-up role. And even if a starter got hurt in August, we'd almost certainly get better value out of auditioning someone like Mejia or Wheeler rather than rolling the dice one final time on boosting Milone's value for trade (something he's already failed at multiple times).

15-day DL right now, and then 60-day DL as soon as we need the 40-man roster spot, would have the same effect as releasing him (except he couldn't return for another team this season, obviously).

Nick was chosen 46th overall, Zach 26th. In their rankings the month before their respective drafts, BA had Nick as the #27 draft prospect, and Zach at #30. http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/2014-top-100-draft-prospects-list/#vcyFkzD0xxjKHDm1.97 http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/may-5-2016-top-100-draft-prospects/#8sLPm3tWLxx6JebO.97 Although I did see their mock drafts putting Zach as high as 9-12, compared to Nick around 22-23. Still doesn't mean Nick couldn't have been moved up the ladder a little faster than he was...

Insurance is paying for part of the contract now. I doubt it is a contentious issue between owners and players, these are pretty rare cases (expensive players getting permanent medical prohibition from ever playing again). Albert Belle? 15 years ago. Puckett? 20 years ago. And of course, insurance helped those teams too: https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-62632688.html 99% of injured baseball players can rehab and attempt to play again, rendering your complaint moot.

Wheeler was previously on the 40-man roster, and cleared waivers once when he was removed. Obviously he was struggling at the time, but that suggests he isn't particularly valuable, even if he is better than Dean. You figure if someone would be willing to give him a 25-man roster spot for all of 2017, they would have been willing to give him a 40-man roster spot last year. I really haven't crunched the numbers on the 40-man situation this winter, maybe there's easily a spot for Wheeler, I don't know. But my point is, sometimes it is better to challenge other teams to take a guy in Rule 5, particularly with a guy like Wheeler (and perhaps Gilmartin before him).

Plan to DL a pitcher? Did they let Boshers throw hurt? Boshers still has options, we could have sent him down after Game 1 if we wanted, no need for DL games.

Wheeler doesn't necessarily need to be added this winter, unless you think he's a likely Rule 5 pick and one you can't afford to lose. Pat Dean was in a similar spot last winter, and I was critical of the Twins for protecting him perhaps unnecessarily. Wheeler is probably better than Dean, but I'm not sure if he's better enough to warrant a Rule 5 investment by another team, in which case we could conserve the roster spot.

Can he play twice on that 1 day if we have a doubleheader?

But they weren't going to start aggressively auditioning other guys in Albers' absence either. So it doesn't much matter either way.

If they're higher on other prospects or new acquisitions than Wheeler, they may need/want to remove him. Obviously, if we like Wheeler long-term, go ahead and add him now. But if we are at all on the fence, it could be better to wait, save the 40-man spot for someone else this winter, and force other teams to use Rule 5 if they want to take Wheeler away. (Assuming we have enough better prospects to fill the 40-man this November, of course.) Putting him on the 40-man just to get a look at him probably isn't a good enough reason, you've got to want to keep him there. Now, guys like Wimmers and O'Rourke, they will be minor league free agents after the season if they are not added, so it's a different calculus. We've got less to lose by adding them to the 40-man for a quick look, with an eye toward dropping them if they don't impress and we have better uses for the spot.

Since the Twins were making progress (overall) and only in the 5th year of their rebuild under TR, his firing suggests maybe a bigger problem is ownership? Their expectations, and maybe capricious / reactionary judgements? Firings for the sake of PR? (Don't worry, I don't expect you to reply, more just offering discussion points for the community.) I've long advocated for some outside blood in the organization -- not necessarily wholesale changes, but bringing in an outside deputy for TR a few years ago would have been nice, and a proactive look ahead to a post-TR era (and avoiding another Smith era). But when they didn't do that, it didn't make much sense to me to fire TR when they did. If you've given him this long, you might as well give him another year (especially if they really are still committed to Molitor for 2017). I hope the new head of baseball ops, whoever it is, gets on more solid footing with ownership in regards to these issues.

8 years is probably a little high for most of those. They were bad for a long time, but that's not necessarily how long the rebuilds took. The Pirates won 94 games and made the postseason in 2013, Huntington's 6th season as GM. Cleveland won 92 games and made the postseason in 2013 too, only 4-5 years after the trades of Lee and Sabathia, respectively. 6th season after their last postseason. The Nationals were bad for a long time, so it's a little hard to pinpoint, but they won 98 games and made the postseason in 2012, their 6th season out of the MLB orphanage. Really the only 8 year rebuild in that list was the Royals, who didn't make the postseason until Dayton Moore's 8th season at the helm. (Of course, he also inherited a historically struggling franchise.) Not that the Twins were doing too badly yet on this score, 2016 being TR's 5th season back at the helm. 6th season since their last postseason.

Kintzler and Abad are not remotely equivalent assets to Will Smith -- career 11.9 K/9 in relief, controlled through 2019.

I'm not disagreeing with your larger point, I have no problem calling up Albers. In fact, I'd rather he was starting the second game, and Milone was dropped for a reliever who could stick around longer.

Albers isn't getting the spot start. Milone is. Berrios is starting the first game (and he probably wishes it would start raining now, judging by the score). Albers is just an extra bullpen arm for game 2. So there's not much to reset, Milone will presumably go back to mop-up duty and Albers presumably back to AAA.

I don't think there was any great wisdom involved -- Albers isn't starting, so we had some other 26th man options on the 40-man, chiefly Pat Light or Mason Melotakis from the upper minors.

That's my opinion of what they're hoping too. I just don't see it as likely, and not worth holding back auditions for, say, Wimmers and O'Rourke.

Albers does indeed get added to the 40-man roster -- only players on the 40-man roster can be recalled as the 26th man. With the 60-day DL guys, we still have 3 open spots on the 40-man, though, so it shouldn't be of too much concern, although it might limit us if we were really committed to auditions for Garver, Wimmers, O'Rourke, Wheeler, Baxendale, etc. But evidence suggests we're not committed to that, regardless of Albers.

I would respectfully disagree with you there, Jack. I don't think there are many people here, at Twins Daily, basing their opinion of Antony's GM readiness solely on that interview. (I think if there were, you probably wouldn't bother commenting here!) We can be a critical lot for sure, but most of us on Twins Daily back up our opinions with more evidence than that -- not perfect, obviously, but generally the best and most complete evidence we have available as fans. In this case, the evidence comes from the likely cause of Antony's problematic 2010 interview -- his suspect record as assistant GM here during the difficult years of 2008-2016. For example, I personally thought the Delmon Young trade was likely a disaster the day it happened, and while I don't know if Rob Antony may have cautioned against it privately, the fact that a full two seasons later, he still publicly claimed that RBIs were more predictive than slugging percentage... well, I highly doubt that Antony cautioned against the Delmon Young trade. It's far more likely he was a proponent of the trade, as well as later moves driven by similarly problematic narrow vision such as Ramos-for-Capps, Hardy-for-Hoey/Nishioka, and the Jason Bartlett reunion. In that case, the interview is just one piece of evidence among many supporting a larger case, that Antony might lack the ability and curiosity to quickly learn and adapt as befitting a modern head of baseball ops in MLB. This extends into your second point, about someone from outside the organization with the same job duties as Antony. If such a candidate had likewise not distinguished himself or his organization in the creative thinking and management practices associated with heading a modern MLB organization, over an 8 year opportunity as #2 in command, most Twins Daily posters would recognize that and oppose him or her equally as much as they might oppose Antony. I don't doubt that some fans offer more shallow judgements, but I don't think it's the norm around here. (And I suspect those that do, go even shallower than you suggest -- I would guess most such fans are rather unaware of Antony's 2010 interview or even the timeline of his Twins tenure.)