Otto von Ballpark

They might get insurance money this year -- it seems like surgery usually triggers it. Probably nothing huge, though.

O'Rourke certainly brings the K's versus LHB: http://minorleaguecentral.com/player?pid=594951&split=3000&type=pitcher But while Rogers has a lower K rate versus LHB, he does have a higher ground ball rate and lower BB and HR rates: http://minorleaguecentral.com/player?pid=573124&split=3000&type=pitcher Probably room to give them both a shot. (Do we really need all 3 of Nunez, Santana, and Escobar right now? Hey, just noticed that Escobar is now listed under "Outfielders" at the Twins site, hooray...)

Unfortunately, Pressly was one of the more trustworthy arms in the pen. I actually wouldn't mind 13 pitchers if it meant we were auditioning potential bullpen upgrades...

Yes, I agree. A lot of posters in this thread, though, seem to think otherwise.

But if you hope to contend in 2016 or 2017, you will probably need to address the catcher position from outside the organization (there's almost nothing from within right now). Lucroy would do that, in addition to fortifying the 2015 team. He's not a band-aid or rental. Obviously that doesn't mean we should "overpay" to get him, but a pair of non-elite prospects (even good ones, like Kepler/Polanco) should not be out of the question if we like Lucroy.

9 WAR over 12 years is probably pretty worthless, when compared to a starting-level player. Maybe I should have phrased it, as nice as they are as prospects, neither Kepler nor Polanco is probably likely to average 3 WAR per season over 2.5 years as you project for Lucroy (which is still a hefty regression from his 5 WAR per full season average from 2012-2014). Again, even if the Brewers are in full rebuild/sell mode, I think it's extremely unlikely they would accept a package headed by Kepler/Polanco for Lucroy. I doubt the Twins find a cheaper way to get a projected 3 WAR catcher in the near future either.

That's a real nice narrative, but I am not sure it is the actual truth. Suzuki was a below league average hitter every single year of his career before coming to the Twins, you don't need a fancy narrative to explain why he's even worse at age 31. Even last year there wasn't much "pop" in his bat (his ISO was only marginally higher than this year). I highly doubt extra rest is going to make a significant difference for him. Lucroy obviously has some questions to answer this year, but the dude is 2-3 years younger than Suzuki, and is coming off a combined 126 OPS+ over the previous 3 seasons. He's got a much longer way to fall than Suzuki ever did, meaning he's got a larger range of expected usefulness.

Trading Kepler and Polanco is "selling the farm"? They're both having nice seasons at AA, but neither has ever been on a top 100 prospect list, Sickels had them both rated as B- before the season, etc. They're not elite. Even as decent prospects, odds are pretty solid they don't produce as much career WAR as Lucroy will over the next 2.5 seasons and Smith will over the next 4. And the rest of this proposal is rubbish from the Twins side -- Arcia is a failed prospect at the moment, Duensing has negative value, and Garver is nothing right now. Pretty sure Milwaukee would laugh at this proposal from the Twins, which should tell you it isn't anywhere near "selling the farm." I know we love "our prospects" and these guys aren't bad prospects, they just aren't THAT valuable as baseball commodities.

Suzuki's batting line this year is almost identical to his 2013. (And not far off from 2012.)

Minor league deal with Oakland.

I think you completely misunderstood my point there. The goal is talent acquisition, and the Twins were in a prime position for acquiring more top talent freely in 2013 thanks to their draft position and international bonus pool. (And probably in 2014 too, given their projected 2013 MLB record.) High-cost trades were not the only or even the best way to restock our system. Granted, Meyer was closer than the arms we drafted/signed in 2012 and would go on to add in 2013 -- but that closeness advantage is perhaps neutralized by giving up a 3-4 WAR MLB player signed cheaply for the next 3 seasons.) My other point is that given the poor condition (pitching-wise) of our system at that point in time, while the absolute benefit of adding any prospect is real, the *marginal* benefit of adding one non-elite prospect set to debut at the AA level probably wasn't that great. (Similar to how the *marginal* benefit of, say, Greinke to the 2013 Twins would not have been as great as to the 2013 Dodgers.) Perhaps it's fairly outweighed by the marginal cost of losing a long-term MLB asset, but I think you can also make a valid argument otherwise, without any need for hindsight.

Pressly actually came from the Red Sox, not the Braves.

Pat Dean is valuable? He's a 26 year old LHP with zero MLB experience and a career 5.4 K/9 in the minors. I would think every team in the league has multiple Pat Dean in their organization. And what benefit would they gain by trading for one? Have there been any trades of that level of player for international bonus money? Here's one I found, but for a 22 year old pitcher: http://www.camdenchat.com/2015/5/18/8622599/orioles-news-chris-lee-trade-international-bonus-slots Here's another one for 22 and 23 year olds from 2 years ago: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/07/angels-acquire-minor-leaguers-from-mets-for-international-money.html

Gibson's 29 innings were coming back from TJ surgery, which he did more or less successfully. Hence why he returned to his #68 rank on BA's top 100. He didn't have Meyer's upside, but he got a similar rank because he was closer to MLB and his floor was higher. And I bet the Twins thought Berrios had upside when they drafted him, as well as Thorpe, as well as Stewart and Gonsalves the next summer. Even if they were further away than Meyer, it doesn't mean that the only method of acquiring upside pitching prospects was trading good long-term MLB assets. (And CF didn't really have excess talent once they traded Revere a week later, which was a much better trade because Revere was a much worse player than Span. They especially didn't have the depth in the OF overall at that point -- think of all the awful guys we trotted out in the corners the past few years.) Again, this was far from Bill Smith's worst trades, but it certainly looks like TR was pushed out of his comfort zone when he made this deal, no hindsight required. (I would guess a candid TR would agree with that statement.) Doesn't make it a bad deal, but it does mean it was questionable, both then and now. I really don't see what's so controversial about that.

There's a lot more than those 3. Victor Martinez, Jim Thome (later career), and Travis Hafner were all successful recent full-time DH's in our division. Later career Frank Thomas too. Chili Davis. Harold Baines is a DH legend. Rafael Palmeiro even won a Gold Glove one year while DH'ing.

Outside of his missed month in the middle of 2014, May has hardly even missed a pro start for 7 years. There is absolutely no reason why he can't pitch 167 innings this year (his current pace).

Mauer and Hunter 2.0 as potential building blocks? The 2015 squad is still much older than the 2001 team. I think the average age difference was like 3 years on opening day. The 2001 team was much better too -- they had the second-best record in MLB until after the all-star break that year, second to only the 116 win Mariners.

And that doesn't apply to the Twins...? Gilmartin was better against LHB at AAA than Darnell. But we didn't look at either in relief in 2014, and we only protected Darnell for a relief conversion. I am sure they didn't want to expose Darnell to waivers, but given the SP we were acquiring/extending at the time, they should have had the foresight to try this lower tier of starters in relief before the 2014 Rule 5 decision point came about.

If the Twins thought Gilmartin was that close to "Rule 5" worthy, then he almost certainly should have been protected and optioned to AAA over some of the suspects we chose to protect instead, regardless of their decision on Graham. Not auditioning Gilmartin in 2014 seems like pretty poor resource management. Look at the 2014 innings we gave to Burton, Swarzak, Correia, Deduno, Pino, Guerrier, and Johnson, most of whom were unlikely to return in 2015 anyway. Even most of the auditions we did give -- Tonkin, Achter, Thompson, and Oliveros -- seem like they were too brief to be particularly useful, as we protected all of them through the winter but outside of Thompson's April, they have provided almost nothing for the 2015 Twins.

You're both misinterpreting what I wrote. I was responding specifically to this claim by Oxtung: "At the time of the Meyer for Span trade the Twins didn't have a single pitcher that projected higher than a backend starter." That is either demonstrably false, or requires such a ridiculously strict standard as to be almost meaningless. If Kyle Gibson, healthy again and a consensus top 70 overall prospect at the time, does not "project as more than a backend starter", I would guess most teams in most years fall into that same boat. Thus not so dire as to compel a team to swap a long-term MLB asset one-for-one for another prospect. I am not saying the trade was obviously wrong or bad, but it was "iffy" at the time, and not just because all prospects are "iffy." I think there was some combination of: -- under-estimating the value of Span (which was largely in position/defense at that moment, although with demonstrated offensive upside from his first 2 MLB seasons) -- over-estimating the value and readiness of Meyer (who had a similar draft position and prospect rank as Gibson, and was also behind Gibson's level at the same age) -- over-estimating the ability and readiness of Hicks All of which were known factors at the time. Again, doesn't necessarily sink the trade, but questioning it is definitely not just a hindsight thing. I guess the other factor was how long we were planning to rebuild -- if you're looking to punt the next couple seasons anyway, losing Span isn't as big of a deal, although still he was unlikely to lose much value playing in Minnesota another year (I think years of cost control are not as important as current ability on the trade market, which is why Glen Perkins and his contract would be unlikely to net significantly more than closers on shorter deals).

I doubt a demotion from MLB to AA happens "often" after a player has 400 MLB PA and some AAA experience, although I am sure it's not unprecedented.

And Rogers is Rule 5 eligible this winter too, so we should probably take a look at him now to avoid Gilmartin redux (or Darnell redux, where we give him the 40-man roster spot before his bullpen audition).

Just looking at box scores from this past week, Rochester is still giving lots of corner OF / 1B / DH playing time to Wilkin Ramirez, Reynaldo Rodriguez, Eric Farris, Nate Hanson, and Jose Martinez, all age 28 or older, all with OPS's .720 or lower. Seems like there is plenty of room to play Vargas, Sano, Kepler, Hicks, and Arcia there, if so desired.

AA? Why AA? Vargas had a 130 wRC+ in AA last year, identical to his mark in high-A the year prior (and with better K and BB rates in AA). And he had a 165 wRC+ in his brief AAA sample this year (albeit with a higher K rate).

Again, if you want the offensive numbers plus your eye test to tell you that Fielder and Hosmer are roughly equal overall contributors, you're going to have to convert your defensive evaluation to a runs scale somehow (or some kind of scale where it can be directly compared with your offensive evaluation, it can be called "runs" or "player points" or "baseball bucks" or "scouting scale" or whatever). I'll chose runs as my scale, let DRS and UZR do their work, and then use the eye test to gauge small samples, correct for outliers, etc. Can you clarify? I don't know what this means.