Otto von Ballpark

Did I say their success hinged on it? We got a good look at both of them, which we wouldn't if we would have been so strict about positions. It seems like Santana is getting talked about like some kind of very top prospect who was thrown off his game. I think he was and is a lot more of a borderline prospect than most people give him credit for, on both sides of the ball. Those guys get shifted around all the time. He had already played both 2B and OF a little in the minors. Plouffe played some 3B and 2B too. And not every player has some incontrovertible right to play and fail at the primary position in MLB first. Good talent evaluation can avoid a lot of that.

"They must have" seems like a big assumption. What if they were less concerned about specific issues with their AAA pitchers, and more concerned about Boyer's and Robinson's opt-outs? Frankly, given some of this team's roster moves the past few years, I am not sure why we would assume that their April 1st, 2015 moves all had some special purpose and clarity.

Santana came up in May last year, played SS his first few games, and hit quite well from the start. Escobar was already hitting well too. You think the Twins would have been better off benching or demoting one of them for the remainder of the season? We got to see almost full seasons of everyday MLB play from both Santana and Escobar last year. That has value, quite possibly even more value than additional AAA SS reps. At this point, I think the Twins error might be the 2015 waffling, switching Santana back without coming up with a better solution in the outfield. Not necessarily the original decision to get both their bats in the lineup in 2014.

Not all directions are chosen equally, though. For every Gibson, May, Santana, etc. that we're glad to see patience shown, there's a 2014 Florimon, Correia, Burton, Kubel, etc. that never really had much potential or future in Minnesota anyway. I don't see the value in treating both groups of players as worthy of equal patience and time investments.

Didn't do him any good? He had his best season ever at the plate. And what outfield candidates were cost playing time, then or now?

It might not be a worse option, given those assumptions and an otherwise solid roster. But "Jordan Schafer, starting CF" is not a solid part of the roster. If those AB could get Santana's bat back on track, I'd give it a shot before a demotion. There is no reason that Santana couldn't be valuable in the same kind of super-utility role that Escobar is currently occupying.

Saying there's no room for Santana in the outfield right now because of Buxton and Rosario is the same kind of thinking/projecting that's gotten us too much Hicks, Thomas, Mastro, Presley, Schafer, etc. And why couldn't Escobar be there at short when those OF prospects come up? And Santana could be a trade chip or a super utility at some point if the OF really is too crowded. But it's not crowded now, not even close if we're starting Schafer/Robinson (not to mention Nunez and Escobar and potentially Herrmann) and have Arcia and a 39 year old lumbering around the corners, and nobody is forcing the issue in the minor leagues. I don't know, I get what the Twins are doing now, and I probably wouldn't mess with it quite yet, but before I'd send Santana to the bench or AAA, I would probably put him back in the MLB OF first.

And if he really needs more game reps outside of MLB, you can easily get him another 20+ in the winter leagues if you want. But don't deprive him of any MLB action just so he can take an extra 1-2 games worth of minor league reps from April to September.

Not sure I like that "more than 2" threshold. 2 games a week is basically one per series, or 1/3 of the season. That's 54 starts right there, without really taking away playing time from Suzuki (who started 115 games at catcher last year, within 1 game per month of 2/3 time). How many games is Pinto going to catch in AAA? Getting 2/3 of the starts down there will give him 96 for the season, but that's probably close to the maximum for a AAA catcher rather an expectation. With bus travel, more makeup doubleheaders, etc, I suspect the average number of games caught for AAA catchers is lower than that. Pinto himself has never caught more than 74 in a minor league season. So that's a difference of 20-42 starts over a full season. An extra 20-42 starts over 6 months isn't going to mean squat to his defensive "refinement" when he's been a pro catcher for 9 years already. Especially when he's catching AAA pitchers and in front of AAA umpires. I think the advantage of having those starts in MLB, building a rapport with the MLB pitchers and umpires who ultimately will provide a lot of feedback about his future position, easily outweighs a handful of extra AAA games at this point. Not to mention getting AB against MLB pitchers. And given his bat potential, getting Pinto those MLB opportunities is more valuable than giving them to Herrmann who realistically has backup upside.

Does anyone think that Santana might be better at the plate if he plays outfield? A variation on what we heard about Dozier and Plouffe when both were moved off short?

I don't think bringing up Buxton implies contention. In fact, it may very well imply the opposite -- we are not contending, so we can afford growing pains in MLB. Similar to how Guzman & Milton skipped AAA in the late 90's, and Vargas last year. That said, the guy needs to return to a baseline of acceptable hitting before any such promotion, particularly in K and BB departments.

First opportunity to play full time? Schafer basically met or exceeded his August-September 2014 Twins playing time in his first three MLB seasons, multiple consecutive months in each of 2009, 2011, and 2012. He deserved to be the primary CF option about as much as Alex Presley and Darin Mastroianni (two other marginal acquisitions who the Twins quickly made their primary Hicks fallback options). I have no problem with leaving Buxton in AA for now, but the idea that anybody in the Twins organization "deserves" the CF job right now is crazy. Ever since the Span trade, they have repeatedly given the CF job to guys who didn't deserve it, and failed to acquire anybody who actually would deserve it.

Weird that you object to the word "deserves" but then apply it Schafer. Dude has 6+ years, over 1400 MLB PAs and another 500 in the minors in that time, that clearly demonstrate he does not deserve an MLB starting opportunity anymore. (Not to mention his defensive credentials, which suggest he is stretched in CF.) Also, in defense of Souhan, the word "deserves" is only in the headline, which he likely did not write. The word does not appear in the article. The strongest statement that Souhan seems to make is "the Twins might have to consider rushing Buxton to the majors."

I assure you, any decision to bench Schafer is not based on a small sample size. In fact, the decision to play him, and make him the sole presumptive Hicks alternative this spring, was probably based on a small sample size.

Santana was actually a AAA shortstop at the time, and played SS in his first few games in MLB. But he hit well, so they wanted to keep his bat in the lineup as well as Escobar's. (And the CF play may have been bad, but the LF/RF play was atrocious at that point. If the best pitching prospects are in A-ball, that's another thing suggesting TR didn't get good value in this trade. He already had A-ball prospects, and was in the process of adding more via the draft and internationally for free. He didn't really need to unload a good longish term MLB asset to get one more such prospect at that point in time. A better/closer prospect, perhaps. Or multiple A-ball prospects.

Pretty much. Darnell is pitching out of the pen right now too.

Span and Santana absolutely could have been in the same outfield. When they decided to break in Santana in the OF last year, they had Hicks in CF but Kubel, Parmelee, and Nunez starting in the corners. (Willingham and Arcia came back shortly thereafter, but one of them could have easily taken the DH spot that we then signed Morales to fill.) Or Escobar could have started more in the OF, with Santana at SS. Either way, adding a better player to the roster almost always means more better players play. And if Span's value was still low after 2012 due to his concussion (although he had a pretty strong year in 2012), that's another factor where TR probably erred. We probably could have have gotten a similar or better return on him a year or more later, barring a collapse (which would have been quite unexpected, given his 2012 results). And of course we would have had the benefit of his services for another year. I think it was some combination of guessing wrong on Span's health/forecast, under-valuing defense, and over-valuing adding one more piece to the farm at that point. Not a terrible deal or a franchise crippler by any means, but I could see Span plus a more interesting/aggressive approach in the rotation getting us closer to .500 in 2013-2014 without handicapping us beyond those years.

Tyler Mason confirms: I think I've been a part of a few record-low crowds at Target Field already. (That's the power of the secondary ticket market in action!)

I say this as someone who probably endorsed the Span trade, although I did have my reservations about getting only one prospect (ranked #59 by BA) in return. It has been very interesting to re-visit the deal, though, especially given what we've learned about TR's approach since then.

That's my conclusion? No. Span was a few wins better in 2013, and likely a LOT of wins better in 2014 as more of our OF options turned disastrous. With 2015 still to come. I think there is a great argument that we didn't get enough for Span, simply because multiple seasons of control is not highly valued in most trades. Austin Jackson, with less than half as much team control remaining (1.3 seasons, versus 3 for Span), netted David Price with equivalent team control, or many years of MLB ready Smyly/Franklin (depending on how you parse that 3-team trade). We got one guy, BA's #59 prospect, with no experience above A-ball and who was by all accounts a year or two away from the big leagues, even assuming good health. It's the same thing when people see a reliever get traded, and say "Think what we could get for Perkins and his X seasons of team control!" But teams trading for closers and starting CF, presumably in win-now mode, don't have much incentive to pay full freight in trade for anything more than the next year or two. I think TR undervalued Span. Could be an extension of undervaluing defensive stats, as we have a lot of evidence of that since. He also over-valued adding another lower-minors pitching prospect to the mix at that time. When we traded Span, we had already drafted Berrios, Duffey, Rogers, among others, signed Thorpe and Hu, and had already guaranteed the favorable 2013 draft position that got us Stewart, Eades, Gonsalves, etc. And a week later, we added May too (not to mention Gibson who was rated equally or higher than Meyer by most prospect lists and was basically ready to debut in MLB). Not to say Meyer wasn't a better prospect than many of those guys, but 3 affordable years of Span was an awfully high price to pay to get him -- and only him -- at that point in time. 3 years of Span to buy a prospect who is at least a year behind your top pitching prospect, and probably only a year ahead of your others.

As far as I can tell, the three Dominican players who recently tested positive did not play in the DR Winter League this past year. (Although the one American who tested positive did.) Playing the DR isn't the problem. It might be getting shots or supplements while in the DR that is the problem. And it's probably a very stupid thing to do, especially if you already have guaranteed multimillion dollar contracts for the upcoming season like Mejia and Santana did. Or even if you are on a 40-man roster at all, presumably the team employing you at that point is willing to invest in whatever legal shots and supplements you want, at that point. If there isn't already, every MLB org should probably tell all of their players (majors and minors) to not take a shot or supplement that doesn't come from the team (and any exceptions should be cleared by the team). Unless, of course, teams are willing to look the other way while their guys take offseason/offshore PED risks...

The games were in Cedar Rapids, so I wouldn't expect any Beloit cameras.

You are comparing Span to most of our CF in 2013-2014, but there is no reason that Span could not have offset corner OF options instead. For example, Fuld and Santana (and even Hicks) could have played the corners in 2014 -- Kubel and Colabello should have never had to sniff the OF (and perhaps not even the roster at all), and they were a combined -2 WAR in 2014 according to Fangraphs. Doumit, Parmelee, Arcia, Herrmann, and Thomas are a few more guys who could have been more optimally deployed these past two years too. (Also could have influenced the signing of Morales last year, if Willingham and others were more free to DH.) And in 2013, we STILL had a wide-open rotation spot to begin the season, even after signing both Corriea and Pelfrey and trading for Worley (if you recall, Pedro Hernandez and then PJ Walters seemed to get that spot in the early part of that season, with another -1.6 B-Ref WAR). No reason they couldn't have added an additional starter (and if fact probably should have, given the question marks and low upside in the rest of their rotation at the time). I don't think it would have made us a contender or anything, but I think you are underestimating the benefit of having a very good player on one's roster.

I haven't done Legends Club yet, but I took my parents to a game in the Dugout Box seats. Padded seats just like the Legends Club, a smaller club/lounge, but much closer to field and the players. Similar ticket prices as the Legends Club too (above the opposing team dugout, 3rd base side, can drop as low as $30-40 if you are patient). (Just be sure to find a service level elevator so you can skip the long walk up and down the stairs to these seats!) Otherwise, I've heard good things about the Legends Club too.

Not my point, but: Not sure why you would subtract KC, he and Greinke are not mutually exclusive. There was plenty of room for both him and another FA pitcher in our 2013-2014 rotations. Greinke could have displaced one of the negative WAR rotation spots those two years. (Actually signing someone like Greinke makes it less likely that we need to sign someone like Nolasco and/or Santana, lessening the burden of his contract.) Also, Span almost certainly would have displaced negative WAR outfielders, so that would be an additional couple wins too.