Otto von Ballpark

This past winter, Norris was traded for two guys: a 24 year old starter who was where Trevor May is now, without the stalls, struggles, and ERA-FIP discrepancy, plus a 23 year old reliever who was where we hoped Nick Burdi would be after this season (12.7 K/9 and 1.25 ERA in AA, plus 9 K's vs 3 hits and 1 run in his first 8 MLB innings). I guess the A's also threw in an interesting albeit older A-ball starter (who is apparently injured now? hasn't pitched in 2015). I don't think the Twins have the pieces they are willing to trade to land Norris. And the Padres may not think Hedges is ready for prime time yet anyway (and Norris's value probably won't change if the Padres wait a year to deal him).

The Eddie Guardado reunion in 2008 didn't go so well, although admittedly it didn't cost much (Mark Hamburger).

I think Springer turned down such an offer. (The controversy being that the Astros were using a potential call-up as leverage in the contract talks.) The recent Springer and Polanco examples suggest that some prospects are still willing to take the risk of going year-to-year. But that doesn't mean a Sano contract isn't worth exploring, even if we have to make a more aggressive offer than what Longoria got (which was pretty insanely team-friendly).

Correcting myself: Marte had slightly over a year's service time when he signed, sorry. (I was confusing him with fellow Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco, who was widely reported to be in extension talks before his MLB debut, although he ultimately did not sign anything.)

Nope. Longoria signed his extension 6 days after his MLB debut: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/al-east/tampa-bay-rays/ It was for 6 years, plus 3 club options.

It IS realistic to extend right now. See my post above. And you don't have to guarantee $130 million to do it (although you also probably don't get 12 years either).

Well, they did give up their starting CF (Austin Jackson, who has since struggled), plus 4.5 years of perhaps a lefty Trevor May type (Drew Smyly), plus an 18 year old, top 100 SS prospect (Willy Adames). Although they did get 1.5 years of David Price in return, including the ability to trade him again or get a compensation draft pick.

I am not sure what counts as "legitimate prospects" but it is quite possible to trade for bullpen help without pulling a Ramos-for-Capps. Jon Rauch was an excellent bullpen acquisition, as was Brian Fuentes. Even Todd Jones back in 2001 wasn't bad, although he was too little, too late.

I assume your post is missing the smiley face?

It has happened a lot more often than that. Starling Marte Jon Singleton Chris Archer Salvador Perez Matt Moore Anthony Rizzo Evan Longoria And that's just off the top of my head. All of these guys signed contracts with less than a full year of MLB service time (a few of them with practically zero). Additional players have signed with less than two year's service time too (Span, Tulowitzki, Starlin Castro, Jose Tabata, etc.). It's been a trend in MLB, unfortunately one that the Twins were not ahead of the curve on (could have come in handy with Mauer and Morneau), and unfortunately one that the Twins have been unable to take advantage of recently with their lack of impact prospects reaching MLB. But Sano is an ideal candidate. 15/80 is ridiculous, obviously, but some kind of a 6 year deal with a few club options is both possible and probably beneficial to both sides, very soon if not right now.

Their career minor league slash line is similar, but look at it by level -- Fryer's line is propped up by his A-ball performance 7 years ago, and also dominating a partial season in AA at age 25. Herrmann beats Fryer in AAA performance handily (.730 OPS to .654), with a .028 advantage in AVG and a further .046 advantage in ISO, with similar K and BB rates, and without the benefit of getting to repeat AAA three times from ages 27-29 as Fryer has.

"Crushing the ball"? Fryer has 7 extra base hits this year. 1 in April, 2 in May, 3 in June, and now 1 (a HR, his first XBH that wasn't a double) so far in July. I guess looking at his game log, his 2 doubles in May were on May 2nd. So I guess he did have 3 doubles in his first 7 games this year, but that was still only good for a .130 ISO, lower than the *career* AAA ISO for Herrmann, or the 2015 AAA ISO for Pinto in a terrible year at the plate for him.

The Twins certainly have guys they should be able to remove from the 40-man -- but how does adding another such player make that easier? If anything, it makes it harder -- Fryer is unlikely to be removed from the 40-man in the next month -- or it makes it more likely that Pinto is dropped instead. My primary concern is that the Twins think this might "fix" their catching deficiency. For the bullpen equivalent, it would be like if they had just added Jason Frasor or Scott Atchison instead of O'Rourke. It's at best a sideways move that doesn't address the actually issue and further clogs the 40-man.

My bad, it was from another reliever-related thread...

Achter is better than O'Rourke against lefties? Maybe in BABIP but I might trust K rate to translate a little better to MLB. Career wise, O'Rourke has double Achter's K rate vs. LHB, plus slightly lower BB and HR rates.

The original context was someone else suggesting Rogers needs to continue starting because he's our #5 next year. Berrios was just an example of another option, but your post listed many more options. And of course Rogers can return to starting next year if necessary.

Just as likely to get a hit, perhaps, but not as likely to reach base. Sano has 3x Nunez's walk rate. Plus, as you mention, Nunez is much less likely to get an extra base hit (and a double with a man on base, or even a solo homer, could end it). Also, Nunez didn't steal until 9 pitches later, when there was already 2 outs. If you're not going to steal immediately, and get two chances to drive in the runner from second base, I think I'd leave in Sano.

Achter isn't particularly dominant against either side, though. If you are going to carry 12 or 13 pitchers, you should have room for a good lefty specialist. (And if everybody is carrying that many pitchers, there aren't many pinch-hitting options on the bench, so your specialist will get to face some LHB, or at least force a manager into a questionable substitution.) A bullpen needs a generic righty or two, but you don't need 3-4 of them.

To be fair, Nolasco and even Santana were kind of low-end signings among major FA SP (and Pelfrey was positively bargain bin). I don't think that shows FA SP are a "complete crap shoot." If you look at $70+ mil FA SP signings at MLBTR's transaction tracker, they are actually pretty good: http://transactions.mlbtraderumors.com/widget/transactions-tracker&link=true&widget=true&amount=70&amount_type=4&type_ID=7&positionType_ID=9&value_verbiage=1&lang=41 I realize that list is incomplete (Cliff Lee?), but still, Zito is the only standout bust in that group of 10. Everyone else turned in multiple solid seasons in their original contract period (or it's too early to judge). The bust rate increases in lower salary groups, as you would expect. Not really a crap shoot at all. Obviously due to their salaries, they're probably not going to provide the same "value" as a good pre-FA pitcher, but they can still be pretty good for what they are -- IF you are smart about your investments. Two of the biggest duds -- Zito and Hampton -- were fairly easy to identify by their peripherals. A few more recent questionable signings (Verlander's and Sabathia's latest deals, Bailey, Porcello, Cain) have been extensions, where teams were probably a little too eager to lock up their own guys. Actually going big-bucks on an outright FA seems to work more often than one might expect (conventional wisdom suggests the best SP won't ever reach FA). I think the Twins backed themselves into a corner and had to commit to Nolasco at these terms out of desperation. (And then had to repeat the exercise with Santana in large part due to Nolasco's failure, although I believe Ervin to be the better bet.) If we had maintained any kind of decent starting staff and/or stable of SP prospects, we probably could have waited out the market for a better deal or fit, or saved our resources for a shot at a real ace like Scherzer. I don't think our staff would be better today if we didn't sign any FA SP at all, though.

Does Sano's helmet fly off when he runs? Nunez had 30 SB per 162 games in the minors (26 in the majors), versus Sano's 12. Of course, Sano had a lot more XBH (but he also had significantly more walks, so he probably was on first base roughly the same amount). I am sure Nunez is faster, but I don't think Sano is a slouch when it comes to speed, at this point in his career. If we really need a SB and think we can get it (and indeed Nunez did get it last night, albeit late in the AB), I guess the substitution is OK, but otherwise, I think I would stick with Sano in a tie game -- the marginal gains on other baserunning advancements are probably low.

As good as he has been against LHB in the minors, he's been pretty mediocre against RHB. Not unlike O'Rourke, really.

Pretty sure Rogers would be happy to relieve if it got him to MLB this year. Just like I am sure Glen Perkins was initially fine with bullpen duty back in 2006. Seems it's only veteran MLB starters that object to it. If we want to audition O'Rourke first, that's fine, but I would have started the process sooner. A good April with terrible peripherals shouldn't have bought Thompson 2+ months leash.

Pavano was hurt in NY too, no?

To be fair, Frasor's inherited runners scored percentage this year is exactly the same as the overall league rate (31%).

To be fair, Nolasco stole nothing, unless you think he's not following the terms of his contract in good faith.