Otto von Ballpark

It's quite possible Mauer would have done it, if we made a better offer earlier. By the time we got around to respectable offers, he was within a year of full FA. To me, hometown discount is less about how much the contract is for, but rather when it is signed. Of course, the calculus is different with a pitcher, you will probably never want to sign him to as long as a deal as a position player. But perhaps you can get an early arb buyout deal like Chris Archer.

I generally like the Twins promotion timelines, buy I wish they called up Sano the same day as Correa. Slow April or not, he was ready by early June. Instead we had our worst month of the season in June, giving Vargas one last chance...

We've been over this elsewhere, but it is probably not that big of a difference for pitching prospects. Very few pitching prospects have ever been held back for service time reasons, and virtually zero in the Bryant and Longoria fashion. Berrios is good, but he might be an odd choice to be the first pitcher to get that treatment. I think it is highly unlikely Berrios comes up after 12 days this season, unless it is a general luck of timing. Even Sano didn't come up at the super 2 date last year (and it might have cost us the playoffs). And Buxton only came up then due to a clear injury. And those guys are more elite than Berrios, with a more stable future projection as position players too.

Yes. And hopefully the new rule encourages players to put more emphasis on achieving that perfection, instead of just avoiding injury.

I'm not sure is a big difference in this regard. I was poking through MLBTR archives recently, we obviously had tons of rumors about signing Hunter and Buehrle. And of course tons of rumors before many of our mid season trades. I think our perception is colored because we don't participate in that many trades, we often try to sign our big FA early in the off season, and when we do pursue trades, they are for less interesting guys (my MLBTR archive search also revealed zero rumors about Jepsen, involving any team, from 2015 prior to our trade for him). So if there were a better 3B market this year, I wouldn't be really comfortable crediting the Twins tight-lipped nature if we didn't hear any activity around him. Of course, it is a moot point since the 3B market was terrible.

Technically, there were a lot of rumors about a Span trade from midseason 2012. But I agree there wasn't a market for Plouffe this winter, I am not concerned if they didn't shop him.

The article quotes the new rule as including the following requirement for a legal slide: "being able to and attempting to remain on the base at the completion of the slide". Morneau clearly failed to do that, no? I could see a similar slide working, though it would require not leaning so heavily off the bag toward the fielder (which would have spared Morneau the concussion too).

Really? Molitor said that? Post-concussion, he started 118 of 128 team games when he wasn't on the DL in 2014. Did Molitor really go to him after that and push for him to be in the lineup more? Dude has a .732 OPS and you want to push him to play hurt so he can be like Gehrig or Ripken? Not sure if it really meant anything. 149 games started pace in 2014, and 154 games started in 2015. 1 extra game started per month? And of course, pre-concussion, that criticism was bunk. He was a catcher, that's why he wasn't playing "full-time." And 144 games started in 2012, and 145 games started pace in 2013 before the concussion is pretty darn good, given the time he was still spending behind the plate.

I don't know. He's probably aware it's an undeserved criticism, I don't think he'd let it be a big factor in this. He got undeserved criticism for his pre-concussion production too, but I don't think he's ever let that influence him. And to me, this isn't about publicly disclosing an injury, or taking time off, or whatever. The solution may have just been a more sensible scheduling of his off days, trying out sunglasses earlier, other treatments, etc., behind the scenes. Your everyday #3 hitter has to be able to tell his manager and coaches something so basic about his condition, and the team likewise has to be able to get that information from its everyday #3 hitter.

And in that case, the runner wouldn't be trying to initiate contact with the fielder, and it would be OK. You might as well argue that throwing at a right-handed batter's head is OK too, because a pitcher might throw the same pitch as a pitchout against a left-handed batter.

FYI, nobody here actually drew any strong conclusions from Fangraphs's defensive projection for Buxton. Somebody took a shot at it after positive comments were made about his defense. On other threads, I don't think anyone has drawn any strong conclusions from the Fangraphs projections except about the general range of our team-level projection, of which Buxton's defense is a relatively small part. It's a little annoying when folks go well out of their way like this to take shots at stuff.

True, a statistical comp to Morris would be difficult. And a contract comp might be difficult too, as now obviously guys are scoring 6-7 year deals. It was basically a one year, aggressive make-good type of deal for a former superstar, with little downside risk (two player options at lower salary, for a workhorse starter). You can probably find a few moves that fit that profile in the last 15 years, but sadly the Twins haven't made them.

Again, not sure about that. The 2000s teams got a 2-3 time Cy Young winner in the Rule 5 draft, almost hit on another one as a lotto ticket in Liriano. We had two future MVPs come up at exactly the same time (Mauer and Morneau). We got thoroughly fantastic returns on trading Knoblauch, AJ, and Milton, got surprisingly good seasons out of guys like Lew Ford, Boof Bonser, etc. Joe Mays' peak. The last hurrahs from Shannon Stewart and Jim Thome. Obviously a lot of that we credit to good scouting and development, but the extent of those successes, and the timing, often involved a good deal of luck, the same "luck" that formed the core of the 1987 and 1991 teams (Puckett, Hrbek, Viola and his trade, Shane Mack, etc.). The 2000s teams didn't get lucky on the FA front like the 1991 team, but again, they didn't often try. Kenny Rogers was acquired under very different circumstances than Jack Morris (Rogers was actually paid less in 2003 than Morris in 1991, if you can believe that.) Or even Bert Blyleven on the 1987 team. Rondell White in 2006 made little more than Chili Davis in 1991, and rather than get replaced after a historically awful first half in 2006, we actually re-signed White for the same amount for 2007! (And let Jason Tyner start a pair of postseason games at DH...) We had Mauer, Morneau, and Santana together at their peak from 2006-2008 and did very little with it. We had Santana with Hunter, Radke, Koskie etc. for some years prior to that too, and at least a little bit of Mauer, Morneau, a reborn Lirano for one year, etc. after that, and did very little with those years too. But we never made a trade like Blyleven or Smiley, and never paid a FA like Morris or Davis. Hard to blame the lack of attempts on luck.

Well, the 1991 team didn't have to make a deadline deal. Had Chili Davis performed like Rondell White 2006, or Jack Morris like Kenny Rogers 2003, or Kirby Puckett gotten injured like Justin Morneau 2010, or Scott Erickson blown out his elbow like Liriano 2006, perhaps they would have? Unrelated, but I just noticed the 1988 team broke camp with two 43 year olds, Joe Niekro and Steve Carlton, only to release both within a month. Maybe that was MacPhail's "Bartlett and Kubel circa 2014" moment?

I caught the reporter who published this story on AM 1500 this morning. Got me thinking, how did 2 years pass from Mauer's return to baseball activity, before the team knew what specific challenges he was facing at the plate in his post-concussion state? I admire certain parts of the Twins culture, like a fair amount of loyalty and patience, but I could do without other parts, like minimization and conflict avoidance. (As a repressed Minnesotan, I've had to work at overcoming those myself too.)

Quite possibly, but we were outbidding other teams for Morris, it wasn't like we were alone in our valuation of him. And it was actually a creative deal, ahead of its time. $3 mil for 1 year, plus two 1 year $2 mil player options. Got him on a discount with less future risk than Detroit's offer, or Toronto's eventual deal for him. Would be interesting to come up with a modern comp for that player and deal. Not sure it is Hunter, and I'm not sure TR would have been pilloried too much over it..

Certainly there was luck on Morris' side in 1991, but that was an aggressive expensive deal. Rogers was an uber cheap leftover at the end of spring training. And Morris was only one of three aggressive, expensive top SP adds during the MacPhail era (with Blyleven and Smiley). Kind of dwarfing Rogers and Reed from the TR era. Making their own luck?

No doubt the 1991, the team got lucky, WS winners generally do, but they were fairly aggressive at patching holes and adding depth going into that season. And I have a feeling they might have sought significant improvements mid season had it been necessary, kind of like they did the following winter, dealing for Smiley when Morris left. The 2006 club, not so much. They got lucky too, with Liriano pitching like Cy Young and Mauer and Morneau becoming sudden MVP candidates. Of course, they handicapped themselves early by starting Castro, and then by mid season it was abundantly clear we were contenders but our SP depth was non existent, and our DH pick up was dreadful. No adjustments made, however. 2010 had plenty of good luck too. Morneau played out of his mind, and Liriano re-emerged. Sadly, though, again no major moves made mid season after Morneau went down (except Capps, trading our only viable MLB catcher behind Mauer, setting up 2011...). In fact, we seemingly did very little to expect a different playoff fate than we had met the previous 5 trips. I have a feeling the MacPhail might have sealed the deal on a Cliff Lee trade sometime in 2009 or 2010, done something to address the Morneau situation, and finally have given us a puncher's chance vs NY. I have no real idea what this discussion is about, but that's my post, and I am sticking to it.

I imagine Sano playing the OF might, at times, resemble a man with allergies trying to pet a dog.

Holy cow, I had no idea it was that severe. http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=e932452e That might also have something to do with Stewart's ground ball rate -- I doubt many guys are swinging for the fences under those conditions. And of course, Stewart's total run prevention (including unearned runs, which are especially questionable at lower levels) was notably worse than team/league average in 2015. It wasn't a disastrous season by any means, but it wasn't a particularly good one either in any respect, even accounting for Stewart's age. Barring a dramatic spring turnaround, he almost certainly should start again at the level in 2016.

Together, I think they have some relevance here, as a basis for comparison. They both involved our international scouts, we got them both by blindly outbidding other MLB teams for them, and after all that, we came to similar financial arrangements with both too. Obviously, that doesn't mean they are similar players or have the same chances of future success, etc. But I think it's fair to point out the processes that brought them here are similar. In fact, controlling for those factors is probably the only way the Twins will learn where they improved (assuming the Park experience goes better than the Nishioka one, which it almost assuredly has to).

That's my theory too. Well, Gardenhire and others (Anderson, Antony, etc.). When you read about Antony's esteem for RBI as a player evaluation tool in 2010, and think back to the Delmon Young trade in 2008 (91 RBI as a rookie!), you can't help but think he was voice that Smith was relying on more than TR ever would, when it came to big decisions. Anderson perhaps butting heads with a young Matt Garza in 2007 too, then Gardenhire bemoaning his lack of speed in the infield at the end of 2010, followed shortly by the trade of JJ Hardy and acquisition of Nishioka. There were probably other voices behind the scenes as well, although I suspect guys like Radcliffe and others probably stuck the draft and minor league side of things.

I don't if "abysmal" is quite right. Last place in 1990, but we won 74 games. Tapani, Guthrie, and Erickson all pitched less than full seasons in 1990 but were really solid when they took the hill. Similar for Shane Mack on the offensive side, a Rule 5 bench player to open 1990 but a plus starter by the end. We were also expected to address the sink hole at 2B with 100 prospect Knoblauch. Not to mention holdover standout performers Puckett, Hrbek, Harper, and Aguilera. (Plus Junior Ortiz and his .335 batting average ) There was a solid basis for optimism that year, or they wouldn't have been so aggressive in free agency.

That's the beauty of the internet -- nobody wins. Thanks for doing your best to help Twins baseball from the inside. I have a blast talking about the team, even when I'm complaining. Oh, and thanks for chiming in here, of course. It's fun.

Only marginally, -0.7 runs (not wins) over a full season compared to a league average CF. Maybe 7% of a single win? It's hard to create a system to project defense at all, let alone for such an inexperienced player. I don't blame Fangraphs for not being able to capture that in a quantitative fashion. Besides, they have Sano as a league average RF so that probably balances things out.