Otto von Ballpark

I would shocked if Milone was dealt even for a PTBNL this month (EDIT: meaning an actual PTBNL, not a "PTBNL or cash" which becomes cash). Given his season performance and current role, he'd probably be lucky to be considered in the same category of waiver-trade reinforcement as Cotts, Correia, Carroll, etc., none of whom fetched a player in return. Far more likely, someone would simply agree to pay his final month's salary of ~$750k, and maybe give us some nominal cash in addition (akin to a waiver fee).

Milone could earn almost as much as Santiago in arbitration, I'm not sure why they'd pick him over Santiago. Milone is at $4.5 mil right now, and while a raise after his 2016 season seems unlikely, Wilson Ramos managed a $1.8 mil raise through arbitration after his 66 OPS+ season last year. And after all he has been through here, I have to imagine that Milone would sign elsewhere if we attempted to non-tender him in an attempt to sign him cheaper outside arbitration.

Jeremy, this is highly misleading. Rosario's 2013 strikeout rate only trends the wrong way if you include his midseason promotion to AA. His first half stats at high-A (itself a promotion from his 2012 level) indicate a career low strikeout rate (12.6%), lower even than his pre-injury Beloit rate.

Looking at the Beloit game logs, after return from the injury, Rosario walked 4 times in 33 games. While less than his earlier season rate, it was not unprecedented up to that point in Rosario's career. In his first 37 pro games back in 2010, Rosario walked only 7 times. In his second pro season, 2011, he had a similar stretch midsummer of 27 games and only 4 walks. He drew more walks outside these stretches, but why? Was it really because he had a natural gift for working the count and taking a walk? If so, why did he have extended stretches of low-walk aggressiveness? Which one was his real natural skill/approach and repeatable at higher levels? Maybe he was just a pretty good hitter otherwise at those lower levels, and opposing teams went through extreme stretches of challenging him and pitching around him? I suspect low-minors pitching is not nearly as skilled at "pitching around" hitters as compared to upper-minors and MLB pitching, so even some aggressive hitters can take walks in such circumstances. And the following season, 2013, Rosario followed similar patterns -- only 4 walks in his first 100 PA at high-A, followed by a stretch with a much higher walk rate. It's highly likely that, for whatever reason, that was just the kind of hitter Eddie Rosario was at those levels, and quite unlikely that he was a dramatically different hitter before and after his injury.

Seth, any idea why Milone is still on the team? I have to think his current value is near zero, and he's almost a guaranteed non-tender this winter. Seems like emergency/spot starting duty could be handled by Albers, Dean, and Mejia, no? And we could use Milone's spot to get a look at other options?

It would have been Wheeler on 3 days rest -- he pitched Sunday, so rest Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Also, Wheeler is in a tricky spot -- while it would be neat to get a look at him in MLB, by adding him now we could quite likely risk losing him from the organization much earlier. If he stays off the roster, the only way we can lose him this winter is if another team claims him in Rule 5 and is willing to give him a 25 man roster spot for all of 2017 -- a fairly high hurdle to clear. If, on the other hand, we add Wheeler to the 40-man and we later want to remove him, we would risk losing him to any team with an open 40-man spot themselves -- a much lower hurdle to clear. It seems counter-intuitive at first glance, but for a player with limited upside, which Wheeler appears to be (his K/9 is still lower than league average at AAA, as it has been pretty much his entire minor league career), the better play to keep him is often to wait to put him on the 40-man roster.

I wouldn't use the term "helped" in this context. The Twins sold him. The Twins leveraged their control over Albers to profit, including an unwritten handshake agreement with other MLB clubs to deny Albers a chance with any other organization in North America. That's "helping"? Albers likely received a short-term profit too, given the reports of his "upper six figures" salary in Korea, but it's far less clear it was a net benefit to him. He likely lost his best chance at a shot in MLB, including more MLB service time and further vesting in the MLB pension. And by his own admission, his Korean team messed with mechanics and contributed to his poor performance there, jeopardizing Albers' future chances and earnings too. I'm glad that Albers enjoyed the experience culturally, and I am sure he like most pro athletes is pretty accustomed to being moved around like chattel. But that doesn't make it right. In particular, I think the handshake agreement among teams not to claim players being sold overseas is quite unfair to the players, and we provide tacit support for that agreement by labeling it as "helping" the players.

The problem isn't Albers, though. It's Milone. Milone should have already been dropped in favor of a more interesting reliever auditioning for 2017. In which case, Albers would be called up as the 26th man to start today.

Sadly, no. Regular season games only become "suspended" once they are "official" (5 innings). Yesterday's proceedings are completely washed away.

I'm not sure if this is a fully accurate re-telling here. "The Twins helped him get signed in Korea"? They sold him to Korea. I am sure the Twins gave some courtesy to Albers to approve the move, but let's not pretend like the Twins didn't profit from the transaction, and of course the Twins leveraged their handshake agreement with other MLB clubs not to claim players being sold overseas, thereby limiting Albers' ability to pursue other opportunities in North America at the time. The Twins did the same with Kris Johnson, and tried to do it with Colabello and Vargas too. The fact that Toronto signed Albers after a disastrous season in Korea, and even gave him some MLB time, suggests that he might have been better off if the Twins had just tried passing him through waivers after his nice 2013 season -- another MLB team may have claimed him and given him more MLB opportunities earlier. But in that case, the Twins would have only received the nominal waiver fee, which was certainly much less than what the Korean team was willing to pay. So the Twins used their leverage on Albers, telling him he could stay at AAA way down our depth chart, or he could make some decent cash overseas. (And I suspect the Twins may have exaggerated the "writing on the wall" about Albers place on the depth chart to encourage him to accept the Korean deal -- the 2014 Twins did manage to give 30 starts to Pino, Deduno, Swarzak, Darnell, and Johnson, none of whom threw another pitch for the Twins, and only one of which -- Johnson -- brought anything back to the Twins upon leaving, also getting sold to Korea.) Not blaming the Twins -- it's just a reality of the system as it is presently constructed. But let's not gloss over it either. There are plenty of other positive elements to the Twins-Albers story that we don't need to inaccurately represent this particular transaction.

Centeno's wRC+ is 87, which is indeed league average for a catcher this year (86). But it's only 123 PA, and he has no track record to support this level of offense performance. Most notably, he has 2 HR in those 123 PA this year, after hitting only 4 in 1665 career minor league PA. Those HR alone are almost entirely fueling a more than doubling of his minor league career isolated power (.129 compared to .061) -- never mind his gift triple the other night that got Carlos Gomez DFA'd... By comparison, Fryer had a 93 wRC+ in 124 PA as a Twin. These things happen. Now, with good defense (I too have no idea on this front), it's quite possible Centeno remains a viable backup -- since about 2010 or so, he has maintained solid batting averages in the minor leagues, so he likely won't be overmatched too often. But it would be a stretch to even consider him as a starter, or even relying too much on him in the backup role.

But wasn't his walk rate basically back to normal the next season at high-A? Within normal variation? A difference of ~2 percentage points is far from statistically significant on its own, setting aside the sample size and level differences. And his K rate was actually better the next year than his pre-injury rate. Plenty of players have to adapt their game in different ways as they move up the ladder. The idea that a partial season of Rosario having a 9% BB rate and 14% K rate at his first stop above rookie ball was somehow supposed to represent his true talent baseline for the rest of his pro career is not one supported by your limited data or common sense.

I am not sure I get this argument at all. Rosario actually had a better K rate the following season in high-A. And his walk rate was just fine until he got to AA a year later. Was he maybe a bit rusty when he returned in 2012? Sure. But there is really nothing else to see in the data here.

Considering that Rosario wasn't even at the plate when he got hit in the face, that's kind of an odd suggestion.

I think they would resume the game from this point on a different day. I think they changed the rules a few years ago so partial games didn't have to start over. Of course, if they don't find a date to resume it, and it is meaningless to the final standings, it may get wiped out anyway...

Sounds like a sample size issue, especially if he is better on the road this year.

I think in their most recent FA power rankings, MLBTR suggested Ramos keeping up his hot streak would guarantee his 4th year. Not necessarily require a 5th.

Calling him up in September is easy once you've made the decision to protect him on the 40-man this winter (which is also an easy decision if he hits well at AAA, heck probably easy even if he doesn't). Only thing hard about it might be if they want Centeno and Murphy to battle for their 40 man lives this September, although that obviously has little to do with Garver's performance.

It's not a tough decision at all. The alternative to leaving Garver off the 40-man roster is seeing him selected in the Rule 5 draft in December. Turner is in a similar predicament, and will be a harder decision.

True, but I don't see the need to wait. How many innings is a reliever going to see in September? Might as well give them August too, the extra reps will probably be more valuable to the player and to the team's planning than us potentially getting out from under the last $750k on Milone's contract this season.

You shouldn't. Milone still has no real place on this team, now or going forward. We should absolutely be looking at other pitchers in that spot, whether it's a 40-man guy like Melotakis or Mejia, or even if it's just guys like O'Rourke again or Wimmers before they can elect minor league free agency this winter.

FWIW, the Nationals apparently haven't approached Ramos about an extension yet, so I'm not sure they intend to be serious bidders (although logic would dictate that they should be). I'm not sure the Tigers and White Sox will have the capital to spend that big either (and as it stands now, neither would have a protected first round pick like the Twins). Boston should be a big one, I am frankly surprised they haven't addressed the position already for the 2016 stretch drive. I just haven't seen FA catchers get bid up out of scarcity so much -- Martin and McCann had solid cases to earn their contracts. The general concerns and limitations about the position seem to keep the market in control? There just aren't a lot of grossly overpaid catchers.

You seem to be missing the point that Garver has to be added to the 40-man roster in November anyway, or likely lost in the Rule 5 draft. The Twins don't really have the option to leave him off the 40-man roster until next year. And I highly doubt the Twins would draw a firm line at 3 catchers, but not 4, on the 40-man, unless the FA catcher in question was marginal, in which case it's more of a question about quality rather than the number of catchers on the 40-man.

Sure. Martin got 5/82. My wild Ramos guess earlier was more like 4/60. Of course, Martin was 3 years older than Ramos at the time too...

Still not sure why we didn't stretch May out after his last DL stint. We had to keep running Milone out there in a lost season? Had to keep running Nolasco out there so he could "help" us trade Alex Meyer?