Otto von Ballpark

Actually, I thought they did encourage it, but Vargas refused. Signing Park was probably the biggest piece of encouragement they offered, as Vargas is now effectively buried for 2016 here unless multiple players get injured simultaneously. Much like how they encouraged Kris Johnson and Andrew Albers to go overseas, by signing other free agent starting pitchers.

And it seems his midseason BB/K "improvement" in 2015 corresponded with his performance tanking otherwise. .201/.288/.368, .656 OPS from July through September last season. He clearly has things he can continue to work on in AA.

I don't think it's anything like a "coverup" -- pretty sure clubs aren't even required to publicly report their MLB salaries, which is why you see sites like Cot's and B-Ref using a variety of sources for that information. To do so for the minor leagues would be almost impossible -- sometimes it feels like we are lucky to simply know who is assigned where. And as others have intimated, such a minor league salary database would be of very little benefit since the salaries are pretty uniform (and low). I don't even think such a database, if it existed, would be a particularly good tool for shaming MLB organizations into better practices. The worst parts of the system (poor benefits, unpaid mandatory things like spring training, etc.) have nothing to do with the low salaries.

According to this, they don't get paid for instructional league either: http://nysbar.com/blogs/EASL/2014/10/wage_discrimination_in_minor_l.html That's terrible. I mean, I understand some of the arguments for low wages during the season, particularly when the team helps with food and lodging. But zero pay during spring training, extended spring training, and instructional leagues is blatantly wrong, and I am disappointed that it might take a lawsuit to correct it.

Why didn't Beloit provide those things? Is that something fully left to the local ownership? You'd think a lot of support for that would come from the parent club.

I'd guess that Mejia will appeal, with that as a piece of evidence (although I read somewhere that such "duplicate" failed tests explicitly still count as a new violation, per the JDA?). What's weird, though, is why this was publicly announced *during* his current suspension. Even though he is still subject to testing, I would think they could privately inform the player and team and go through the appeals process quietly first, considering they had another 4 months before he could even start his "rehab" assignment.

On the other hand, he may view that as fair compensation given the risks he was previously assuming while catching.

Not sure who those "some people" are, but they don't seem to be here. Was somebody claiming that Joe Mauer's recent hitting would be bad for a catcher? Actually I seem to hear the exact opposite of that (that, in the hypothetical world where Mauer was still catching, he's be significantly more valuable right now).

This can be checked fairly easily at B-Ref. Glen Perkins, LHB faced by year 2015: http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=perkigl01#gotresults&pitcher=perkigl01&min_year_game=2015&max_year_game=2015&post=1&opp_id=&bats=L&opponent_status=&c1criteria=&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2criteria=&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&orderby=PA&orderby_dir=desc&orderby_second=Name&orderby_dir_second=asc&ajax=1&submitter=1 2014: http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=perkigl01#gotresults&pitcher=perkigl01&min_year_game=2014&max_year_game=2014&post=1&opp_id=&bats=L&opponent_status=&c1criteria=&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2criteria=&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&orderby=PA&orderby_dir=desc&orderby_second=Name&orderby_dir_second=asc&ajax=1&submitter=1 2013: http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/batter_vs_pitcher.cgi?pitcher=perkigl01#gotresults&pitcher=perkigl01&min_year_game=2013&max_year_game=2013&post=1&opp_id=&bats=L&opponent_status=&c1criteria=&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2criteria=&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&orderby=PA&orderby_dir=desc&orderby_second=Name&orderby_dir_second=asc&ajax=1&submitter=1 Maybe someone with a more keen eye than mine can glean more from that, but I don't see a ton of differences -- Perkins got to face Adam Dunn in 2013-2014, but he also got to face Pedro Alvarez in 2015. He was better in 2015 vs Alex Gordon than in 2014, etc. I don't see anything that jumps out as an explanation for 6-7 fewer strikeouts and 8-9 more hits from his 2013 levels. I won't say his 2014 or 2015 represents his true talent level versus lefties, but given the sum total of our quantitative and qualitative observations about him, I also wouldn't count on him being a weapon versus lefties as suggested in the post that inspired this conversation.

By the time the youngsters come up, the current good bullpen pitchers (Jepsen and Fien in particular, May too if he was needed to start) may be gone, and Perkins not far behind. Thus, the youngsters might just be offsetting those losses and maintaining an "OK" bullpen, rather than improving it towards "very good."

League average hitter might be more accurate, although Fangraphs has him trending back on that too (-4.3 batting runs alone for 2015). Add in a little negative base running, and average defense, and it's quite possible to view Mauer's overall performance as below average even before a positional adjustment (which obviously drags him down even further, -0.8 bWAA and roughly -2.0 fWAA in 2015).

To be fair to Doc, he's not a Mauer basher looking for a new angle -- I can tell he's a genuine fan. And I hope Joe hears some messages like this in his circles. But, it's quite possible we are making a bigger deal of this concussion than necessary. Joe says he's had trouble picking up the ball at times the past couple years, which is disconcerting, but we still don't really know the degree to which that is true. He could be having trouble identifying the pitch for purposes of hitting it successfully but still have the same ability to bail to avoid a beanball, which would lessen his risk of life-changing injury to about the same as it is for other players, or his own risk before the concussion. In that case, there's really no new danger to continuing to play. Of course, as Mauer himself says, pro athletes are wired a bit differently, so it's quite possible Mauer is incapable of making that objective assessment.

Do we really need 3 articles about Mauer's vision? After there was already a lengthy forum thread about it too? I know sometimes there are different articles coming at a topic from different angles, stats, etc., but that doesn't seem like the case here (the only stat involved seems to be Mauer's day/night splits). I guess the site authors have a degree of autonomy, and that is cool, but it seems like when a big news story hits, you could better coordinate things like that. Especially when the topic is a sensitive one like this, where the discussion could go off the rails, it seems counterproductive to spread it over so many duplicate articles as it makes it harder for the community to self-regulate itself (although maybe duplicate article fatigue will just kill all the discussions too). Maybe one author is put in charge, and solicits pieces from the other authors with a deadline? I don't know. Obviously not a big deal, but just something I've noticed that has made me wary about participating before, so I thought I'd mention it. Thanks!

I doubt the end-of-game issue is any kind of factor. Teams have such short benches that they probably aren't pinch hitting much for anyone. Thrylos actually included some pitch observations in his original post on the subject, so it's not all stats based. I also don't think teams can afford to wait too long for reliever stats to stabilize.

Unfortunately, Perkins and Abad both have that reverse platoon split, and might be the two LH RP most likely to make the roster...

Of course, I didn't say otherwise. I just used those names as examples. Same principles apply to the other spots.

Sorry, I didn't mean that at all. Just meant they played him too much to the detriment of the team, that's all. Probably should have at least kept him on his routine of 1-2 days off per week, etc. Wouldn't have solved anything, but would have given others some opportunity (maybe Sano comes up a month earlier last year), lessened the pressure on Joe, and made it easier to transition him to a part-time role if needed. Instead, they tried to make him into an iron man.

To be fair, a lot of teams take that kind of approach, which is why you don't see many trades of significance from March until July. But it seems that sometimes the Twins apply this philosophy as long as November through July...

That's a tough one. I think the team deserves much of the blame for the latter issues, they have no plausible deniability here and as I mentioned above, they used Mauer more than ever before last year, which just seems like the wrong way to approach this.

Consistently? Jepsen and Cotts last year, then... Todd Jones back in 2001? I guess Bill Smith added Rauch, Fuentes, and Capps, and to be fair the Twins didn't really have a need for another reliever in most of those TR years, but then again, I'm not sure we have enough data to say much here. I'm not sure if it's anything more than the fact that relievers are generally cheaper to acquire than other positions, especially now that draft pick compensation has mostly been removed from them.

I thought he was healthy because he and the team said he was healthy, and he was getting more playing time than ever before in his career. If his vision was regularly blurry last year, it's pretty inexcusable to push him like that.

Morneau had his disastrous comeback in 2011, but then had a 112 OPS+ in his first full year back from the concussion, and had largely abandoned power hitting by the time he won his batting title in Colorado. Mauer doesn't have that option. It would be nice to see him cut his K's down like Morneau did, though, and squeeze some more effectiveness out that way. And Span's hitting issues started before his concussion, and he was only 30 when he "bounced back" (likely had nothing to do with the concussion, though). It seems Mauer has fallen harder, longer than those guys. This news about his vision isn't encouraging either.

Again, that's not what we're arguing, though. If this was 2012-2013 and you want to say that their height/build means that much, fine. But here we are, 2-3 years later, and Berrios has quickly adapted, stayed healthy, and dominated, and while Stewart has modestly "held his own" he's actually regressed in performance with some questions of injury, all over the same ages. That easily balances out any generic historical indicators about their height/build, not only when looking at the floor but also in any meaningful estimate of their ceiling. It would seem most prospect evaluators other than Law agree with me too. Nothing against Stewart -- he's still a fine prospect to have and he may well reach that ceiling yet, and I am rooting for him to do so. There's no shame in losing a comparison to Berrios right now.

I'd be surprised by that. Remember, Jay has yet to start a game or pitch a "full" (6 month) season. I would be surprised if they didn't plan to shut him down by September 1st in his first season starting. Had he been a starter in college, it would be a different story, obviously, but I can't see them promoting that aggressively during the first year of the conversion process. Thus, I'd read the ETA more as late 2017, when the conversion is further along and he's clear to pitch the whole year.

No argument here, but we didn't acquire such a pitcher this winter, and it's unlikely that our internal RHRP will be ready (and trusted) by opening day. If deploying O'Rourke can help us squeeze out some early season victories in the meantime, so be it. If he's only displacing another interchangeably mediocre RP like Abad, Kintzler, or even Tonkin if they are truly sour on him, it's not that big of a deal.