Otto von Ballpark

Uh, Ryan Madson had 5 great years in row before he came to the Royals, just missed a lot of time with injuries in between. Buddy Boshers (and Dan Runzler before him) has neither that upside or likelihood of success. Nothing wrong with either signing, but if we are hoping to uncover the next Madson somewhere, we should be aiming higher. (Rich Harden was a bit closer to that level of potential.)

I don't know if there's that much more profit to be had, but it's an interesting question. They've got a good revenue floor in the new stadium, and the Twins are the only ticket around in town, and on TV, in this area for a good portion of the year. A serious push for the World Series, or even a 2015 Blue Jays type run, could put the Twins in a pretty good bargaining position to extract more from FSN and local ticket buyers.

Yeah, but given where Jay is coming from, I'm not really sure he will be in position to be a Plan B in 2016 if he goes into it as a starter. I don't think you'll get enough information from him as a starter at lower levels to know if he can be an MLB pen asset, and if you are waiting for Plan A's to fail, I don't think there will be enough time left to switch him back to an accelerated relief path that ends in MLB in 2016.

I don't get the argument that MLB FA relievers are too unpredictable to be worth $20 mil -- but somehow college relievers are worth a ton of top draft choices? Draft slots are very valuable resources too.

Then why invest a ton of top draft picks for those 60-70 innings? That's my point, you should be drafting to find players that are harder to get by other means. That's generally not the case for relievers, the Royals pen has been comprised of a few failed starters, a 10th round draft pick, an international guy, a minor league free agent, a Rule 5 guy (and now an MLB free agent, in Soria), etc.

Yeah, like the Fien tender, there is nothing wrong with this move by itself, but it still represents zero progress on a bigger move. And if history is any guide, it's perhaps a sign that there will be no bigger moves. Obviously minor league free agents (or Tim Stauffer, or Kurt Suzuki, or tendering Brian Duensing) shouldn't have stopped them from bigger additions the last 4 winters, but they apparently did.

It's not just the ownership to me -- I get the impression from everyone in the organization that we don't really mind losing or falling short of big objectives, as long as we do it "our way" with "our guys." Yearly first round playoff disappointments didn't really make a dent in our approach; it takes an epically bad rotation, bullpen, or 4 season record just to make any changes -- that's not coming from ownership, I think that's the whole organization working in their comfort zone, but missing a lot of opportunities. I like that we're not changing the guard every couple years, that can be brutal to watch (Gophers, T-Wolves, etc.), but the "Twins Way" doesn't seem appropriate for a highly competitive field either. I think there is a middle ground here. - We don't have to fire the GM or manager every couple years, but we should be able to regularly get some new blood in the mix, especially when our GM retired and might do so again (and our second in command has iffy baseball instincts) - We don't have to bid on elite free agents (although every once and a while probably wouldn't hurt), but we should be able to be more proactive in the market rather than reactive - We don't always have to be late to implement a strategy or exploit a market I like our familiar faces like the local hardware store, but Major League Baseball is a global commercial enterprise, not my local town ball team. A loyal group of experts in this field should be able to experiment, innovate, grow, and be aggressive, together, in pursuit of common goals in a competitive field, more than the Twins have attempted to do.

The original Suzuki contract was fine, with Mauer out we needed catching depth. And even the over-reliance on Suzuki early that season, in the midst of his career year, was defensible too. But the extension was clearly terrible. Not because it was a financial burden or anything, but because it short-circuited any other attempts to address the position. Suzuki was the everyday starter down the stretch in 2014, and we made zero attempt to change that going into 2015. Basically, the commitment to Suzuki put TR in denial about our catcher needs going forward, a denial which took at least a year-plus to undo.

I don't think the Twins were ever banking on Pinto, except perhaps as a potential Mauer time-share partner pre-concussion (a Doumit replacement, if you will). They left him unprotected as a minor league free agent after 2012, gave him the most meager of looks in 2014, then extended Suzuki basically as soon as they could that season. Those latter two points are critical. At that point, Mauer was no longer an option, the Twins were rebuilding, yet they didn't invest anything in a viable starting catcher of the future, and in fact delayed any such attempts with their extension commitment to Suzuki. (At least until now, hopefully, with Murphy.)

Difference is Jay was a college reliever. He's probably not going to be on a starting pitcher fast track through the minors. He probably won't reach AAA as quickly as Sale or the Cardinals pitchers, which will make it harder to predict if he could actually make the immediate jump to the MLB pen. Heck, if he is still starting come July, they will probably have to think about shutting him down due to an excess of innings rather than aggressively promoting him.

To call up Jay early this season would be quite the rush, though, I don't think the Cardinals have quite done that. I think all of their examples already had success as starters at AAA before joining the MLB pen. Hard to see Jay on that path this year -- he's going to need significant starter innings at a lower level if there is any hope for him in that role. And from there, it might be very hard to gauge when he might be ready to skip up to the MLB pen (and risky because if he wasn't ready for the MLB pen, you'd be starting his option clock early).

Didn't the Twins admit a few years ago that they weren't properly scouting for pitcher health in the draft? http://www.sportsbusinessnews.com/node/2020

Then why do power arms on the free agent market often sign for as little as 2/11 (Mark Lowe)? Even Andrew Miller, arguably one of the best in the league, only signed for 4/36. It's obviously nice to have power bullpen arms, and they can help you win games, but it's not clear teams should be investing high draft picks in them, particularly with the Twins success rate in that department so far. Among the oft-cited Royals pen, none of them were drafted high as exclusive relievers.

Also Puckett is his starting choice for "centre field", although Kirby never played CF behind Hawkins (at least not in a regular season game), only RF.

I'm guessing Hawkins felt obligated to include a true "utility" guy on his bench, hence Hocking. Although his bench also includes Mike Trout (!) and Derek Jeter, so who knows. A-Rod is his starting shortstop, although he was a full-time 3B by the time he was teammates with Hawkins, 5 years removed from his last start at shortstop.

But he keeps his MLB salary and benefits that whole time. Obviously they'd rather just stick on one team's roster, but when that's not an option, I suspect the players prefer the DFA carousel to being outrighted immediately to AAA. After the Twins waived him in 2013, Alex Burnett managed to get over 2 more months on 40-man rosters, including some days of MLB service too. Not bad for a guy who was out of affiliated ball a few months later anyway.

Since he came up to AAA two and a half years ago, Beresford has played 2570 innings at 2B, and 20 innings elsewhere. He's not viewed as a utility guy, and thus I doubt he gets a cup of coffee on the MLB bench this year. Teams generally don't call up emergency backup 2B, they want a guy that can handle multiple spots (Bernier has managed to play multiple positions in each of his 3 brief appearances with the Twins). Or they call up a projected starter already on the 40-man, of course. I suspect Beresford is back because he's guaranteed a AAA job here, and/or he's more comfortable with the Twins placing him elsewhere than hitting the open market himself. According to this old article from Seth, Beresford has been a minor league free agent for each of the last 4 winters: http://twinsdaily.com/articles.html/_/minnesota-twins-news/minnesota-twins/get-to-know-james-beresford-r2403

True, I misspoke about electing free agency. Of course, the player can both refuse the assignment AND not elect free agency, which is overwhelming the most common approach taken by MLB veterans in such situations: Nolasco will either stay on the Twins roster, get traded to another team's roster, or get released.

Few openings are ever "genuine" when you are dealing with the quality of players sent through waivers.

Nolasco refusing a minor league assignment and electing free agency would be the equivalent of releasing him, we would still owe him his full salary.

I think if Pressly stayed healthy, there's a decent chance we wouldn't have ponied up to add Jepsen, so I'm not sure it was much of a factor. Also, while generally effective, he still wasn't seeing many high-leverage spots, and was only sporting a 7.2 K/9 rate, a 3.9 BB/9, etc. He still profiles as more of a middle to back end reliever, which the Twins have no shortage of; he's got an option remaining, and I suspect we may use it.

I don't know if it is likely we will have another suspension and injury the first week of the season, though. The 2014 rotation lasted over a month, and after Deduno subbed for an epically bad Pelfrey, there were no other changes until almost midseason. Even in 2013, with a lot of marginal starters, the rotation was set for almost the first two months, save for Hendriks taking Diamond's first few turns after offseason surgery. In 2012, the opening rotation didn't see much change either until Liriano got demoted to the pen in mid-May.

Beresford already has 2.5 years of AAA ball, and he's on his second minor league free agent contract. Even Doug Bernier back in the day got his first cup of coffee after just over a season of AAA play, and he had a lot more impressive "utility man" bona fides -- Beresford is going on 3 seasons of almost exclusive 2B play. If it was going to happen with Beresford, you figure it would have happened already.

A few notes: Arcia, Santana, and Vargas aren't getting pushed out because of a numbers game, they were just bad last year. Otherwise there would absolutely be spots for them to contribute in 2016. And I don't think you're going to get "high-end talent" for a guy like Walker (or in the past for Santana or Vargas either). A few years ago for Arcia, maybe, but the current equivalent to 2012-2013 Arcia (young top 100 prospect excelling at an advanced level) is Kepler, not Walker. Perhaps Polanco too. Or you're going to dip into lower minors guys like Gordon, and it's a lot harder to predict if you will need them down the road. And for what, two years of McGee at ~$12 mil salary? I'm not opposed to a potential trade, but I don't really understand it if we're not even going to seriously compete in the FA market first.

Not sure it's that big of a deal, a player can only be outrighted once without their consent anyway. If it happens to Achter, he will get to elect free agency after 2016 unless he is added back before then, regardless of where he lands on the merry go round. Also not sure it is good for the player. By the time he would be returned to the Twins, he may be further down the depth chart here than in Philly. And any attempt to disincentive a team from claiming him is bad (and removing the potential for outrighting would do just that). I think Achter would rather stay on a 40-man roster and get those benefits as long as possible, regardless of how many hats he has to wear in the process.