Otto von Ballpark

I don't think the poster is trying to compare players by using blown saves -- simply illustrating that there is very little variance in the end result of a closer's primary function, converting save opportunities. Jon Rauch converted 85% of his save opportunities in 2010, virtually the same as Perkins now or Nathan pre-2010. Rauch wasn't as a good of a pitcher, of course, but for the primary limited task of maintaining a lead for the final inning of a game, you don't have to be as good to get similar results. The better offensive comparison would be getting a runner home from third with less than 2 out (and assuming the infield is playing back). The best hitters will usually drive home 1 run in that situation; lesser hitters will often also drive in 1 run; not a lot of variance given those strict parameters and goals.

Ah, the Dodgers. Every selling team's favorite trade target. Not sure if fWAR is the best measure of bullpen performance. Dodgers rank #13 in MLB in bullpen xFIP (and much the same in ERA/FIP), virtually tied with the Cardinals, Tigers, Nationals, and various other contenders. The Dodgers have an awesome closer (13.5 K/9, 5.25 K:BB rates the past 3 seasons), a 175 ERA+ setup man, and a shutdown lefty. They may be looking for help but pretty sure they're not looking for a blockbuster bullpen acquisition. Plus, Perkins future affordability is of less value to a big spending team like the Dodgers. Toronto's bullpen ranks pretty low, but a closer inspection shows that its two biggest offenders (7+ ERA guys) have already been replaced. I don't think closer deals will come much better than the Huston Street deal. If they did, I'd probably move Perkins -- holding onto a closer in the face of such an offer would be a misallocation of resources, similar to our 3/42 extension for Joe Nathan -- but I don't see it happening.

Would folks here accept the Padres return for Huston Street? http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/07/angels-to-acquire-huston-street-from-padres.html 1. 22 y.o. 2B, 2010 "sandwich" pick (37th overall), ranked #93 overall and #1 among Angels prospects by BA preseason but scuffling a bit this year in AAA (only .247/.323/.400 in PCL, albeit with improving K and BB rates) 2. 23 y.o. reliever, ranked #4 among Angels prospects preseason, 2012 3rd rounder, 13.5 K/9 career thru AA 3. 20 y.o. SS, .300/.353/.397 career thru high-A 4. 22 y.o. starter, 2013 4th rounder, decent K numbers so far but BB/9 spike to 5.6 in first taste of high-A I guess the Padres also threw in their 2013 6th rounder, a college reliever, it appears.

When has any team really regretted trading a closer? It's probably the easiest "starting" spot on a roster to affordably replace -- the Twins have done it over and over the past 14 seasons. Of course, that fact also limits the likely return for Perkins in trade, regardless of when you trade him -- and it means his 4+ seasons of control aren't adding as much value for him as compared to a starting pitcher or position player. I think Perk and Dozier are well-liked by the front office and the marketing department, and they are controlled for a long while. Neither is getting shopped now, and neither is likely to inspire overwhelming offers.

It was indeed reported that Nolasco is eligible to return Wednesday July 23rd (although he last pitched on July 6th, so July 21st was his 15th day of inactivity...).

Thanks for the update. This is what I've been speculating, unfortunately. And I am really not convinced that the trading deadline is going to open up any more spots -- the open spot is Pino's (and Johnson's, at the moment). Would love to see them used on actual prospects.

I don't wish to run Joe out of town, but I actually think that would be fascinating. Would you foresee the Twins eating any money at all in such a deal?

Also, to those that point to Dozier's age-26 improvement as a good sign that Plouffe can do something similar, let me suggest that Plouffe already has, at age-25 in 2011 (offensively, as well as 2012-2013 defensively). And the result of that was transforming him from a .720 OPS AAA (AAAA?) hitter and marginal MLBer, into a .720 OPS MLB regular. I am enjoying what he is right now and into the 2015 season, and not waiting for him to get even better or worrying about trying to fit him onto the 2016 team.

No doubt. That's why he has value -- right now he appears to be a fairly cheap ~100 OPS+ average defense everyday third baseman. My point in this discussion is, for 2015-2016+, if you take out the "everyday third basemen" part of that description, he takes a decent value hit. His value is NOT based on the idea that he's particularly likely to suddenly over-perform his career averages for an extended period beginning at age 28.

And he was an all-star!

Problem is, aside from Meyer, those pitchers you mention have already "stepped up" to that level (Hughes and Gibson pretty much all season, Correia the past 2 months, and Pino for his month), yet we're still a sub-.500 team. Same with Dozier -- he's been more or less fine all year. We need serious stepping up beyond these guys to suddenly and dramatically improve our record. We'd probably need at least 3 of Willingham, Morales, Mauer, or Arcia to get super-hot immediately to get on that kind of a roll (and we still might need unexpected high-level pitching from Johnson/Nolasco, or great debuts from Meyer/May, to make it happen). None of these 4 hitters have shown any kind of sustainable offense yet this season (Willingham and Arcia arguably didn't in 2013 either), so I'm kinda doubtful it all clicks for them at the same time now.

You are "dis-remembering" a bit -- the first Aguilera trade brought back Frankie Rodriguez (oh how I wish we had gotten the "other" Francisco Rodriguez! ). He was once ranked #9 by BA, but that was as a low-A shortstop. His ranking had fallen as he switched to pitching and climbed the ladder, although he was still BA's #36 prospect before 1995 (although I think prospect rankings were much less accurate at the time). However, warning signs were there: he was pitching out of Boston's AAA bullpen for some reason, and his K rate had actually dropped in the AAA pen, and control issues were evident. Plus, Aguilera returned to the Twins that offseason to be a starting pitcher. If he had stayed in his closer role, I suspect a return to the Twins may not have been his preferred destination. And there was no rinse and repeat -- the second Aguilera trade brought back Lohse, but Aguilera did not return to the Twins (he retired after just one more season anyway). Additionally, it's widely understood that it was easier to trade veterans for prospects in the mid-90s than today (veteran salaries were relatively cheaper, and there were no restrictions on draft or international bonuses). If Suzuki brings back a Sean Gilmartin type (to pull a name out of a hat), and is even slightly less likely to return... is it worth it? Especially if know you won't trust Pinto in the job in 2015 (or you may not trust him to break in young pitchers the rest of 2014, for that matter)? Not saying I would do it, but it seems like the Twins would prefer extending him rather than trading him.

Two years from now, Plouffe will be just over a season away from free agency (hits FA after 2017 season), and probably commanding $5+ mil in his final arb seasons. Plouffe has some value as a 3B. He has less value as a more expensive short-side platoon corner OF. I didn't think that would be a controversial statement!

That would represent the Twins best 13-game stretch of the season so far. And that's not even including the 5-1 run just before the break (which by itself matched the Twins best 6 game run of the season), which would make for a 14-5 run in total. For comparison, when the Royals briefly vaulted themselves into 1st place on the back of a 10 game win streak, they had a 14-4 run. Detroit reclaimed first place with a 16-5 run. Basically, such runs are generally the domain of the better or most surprising teams in baseball. Do you really expect the Twins to establish themselves like that over the next two weeks? What players are going to be the ones to majorly step forward the next two weeks to make it happen? I don't see them achieving that predicted record as a run of the mill team just hanging in the race. I am glad that you nailed your prediction just before the break, but that was only for 4 games. Take it one series at a time, man!

If Arcia keeps hitting like he has in MLB 2013-2014, he will be another candidate for total replacement, not part-time augmentation.

I was just pointing out it's wasn't quite an 8-year dry spell. Actually, since Plouffe was handed the position in 2012, it was really only 7 seasons between him and Koskie. And between Cuddy, Crede, Punto, and Valencia, the Twins got cheap Plouffe-like production at the position at least 5 of those 7 seasons. Twins combined 3B MLB OPS rank 2005: 21 2006: 26 2007: 30 2008: 21 2009: 22 2010: 24 2011: 21 2012: 15 2013: 23 2014: 20 Hate to say it, but Plouffe's 2012 HR binge still looks like the outlier here, not Plouffe overall.

4 WAR seasons at 1B will basically require him to get back to his career average slash line (.320/.401/.461) and play 150 or more games every year. Replacement level is pretty high for 1B. Above 4 WAR is almost out of the question, I would think. Given that he's on pace for 1 WAR in 2014, I think 3+ WAR seasons might be the better target.

Hey, we're only X games behind these non-playoff teams! And we have a better farm system than them too!

Your 25% LHP is roughly accurate, in terms of total PA against. But how valuable is a .676 OPS bench/pinch hit option vs RHP? 75% of the time, he will have negative value in this role. Not to mention, who are you going to bench 25% of the time for Plouffe vs LHP? Mauer at 1B? Arcia in RF? Not particularly realistic/desirable... maybe if we're stuck with Parmelee in LF, but then our goal shouldn't be to find/keep a decent sub for Parmelee -- it should be to replace him with a better starter. Still think we will be way better off trading Plouffe to a team that needs a 3B patch as soon as Sano is up.

Actually, Cuddyer in 2005 at 3B was pretty much equivalent to Plouffe's present-day production (his defense was worse, but probably comparable to Plouffe at the same age in 2012). Factoring in defense, Joe Crede in 2009 was better than Plouffe. So Plouffe is better than Tony Batista, Luis Rodriguez, Brian Buscher, Mike Lamb, Brendan Harris, non-2006 Punto, and non-2010 Valencia. I don't think anyone here would dispute that, but it says nothing about Plouffe's place on the Twins going forward.

You thought Dozier should go to the All-Star game based on his career body of work, and not his career-best season so far in 2014? Or are you suggesting that because Dozier improved dramatically at age 26, that bodes well for Plouffe improving at age 28?

Plouffe has been basically average compared to MLB 3B OPS in 2014 and 2012, and was ~5% below average in 2013. But average doesn't mean permanently acceptable -- the average includes a lot of bad players (injury replacements, backups, rookies, over-the-hill vets). I think it is better to look at ranks, with a lower PA threshold than batting title qualifiers to account for injuries, rookies, etc. With 300 minimum PA (or 200 so far in 2014), Plouffe has ranked 23, 25, 21 among 3B at Fangraphs going back to 2012. He's pretty clearly in the bottom 25-30% of MLB third basemen offensively. Funny you mention Middlebrooks because he lost his starting job from June into August last year, lost it again during the playoffs, and finally lost it yet again right away this season. And Plouffe doesn't make much, but it's not "no money" anymore -- $2.3 mil this year, probably $3-4 mil in arbitration the next couple years. That said, I don't think he should be replaced now, or even spring 2015, but he's really just a patch to Sano at this point. And I doubt his bat/salary would play in the corner OF regardless of his glove.

Plouffe's OBP is set to be a career high by .008 -- if it doesn't continue dropping. Isolated discipline? .005. BB%? 1%. All dropping since April. His ISO is set to be a whopping .010 ahead of his 2011 pre-HR binge figure too. These are improvements that are better than nothing, but they are razor-thin at this point. I didn't mean to ignore the swing% and spray charts, I am just not expert in them. Hopefully they prove to be better indicators than the evidence from April that he had dramatically become an OBP machine either, or the evidence in 2012 that he was a HR monster... Nothing's inherently wrong with an OPS+ of 101, I just noted his wRC+ of 101 generally ranks in the bottom half of MLB 3B, and ranks much lower (around #30) at 1B, LF, and RF. That's not terrible as a patch when you have no other options, but he's not much of an asset moving that way on the defensive spectrum. Hopefully by midseason 2015, there won't be many reps available for Plouffe at 3B, and perhaps even fewer at 1B. I don't particularly mind if he sticks around as a bench player after that, but I would be tempted to flip Plouffe for whatever I could get and give full-time jobs to younger, higher-upside guys in the corner OF spots.

Good question. If not an automated script, I can't imagine the ESPN probables are anything more than a mildly speculative data entry thing, though. If there was any interesting info being sourced by professional writers, I feel it would be published as an article, no? Not buried on a team schedule (their league probables drop-down only goes 6 days beyond the current date).

2013 was actually his worst year in terms of power and discipline, so being marginally better than that in 2014 is welcomed but not terribly meaningful. And his "above 100" OPS is 101. I believe it was 99 before Sunday's game. His career mark is 96, and he's been between 91-106 every year. For a streaky hitter, he's actually been quite consistent in his year-end results. His offensive levels look perfectly sustainable for the next couple years -- but that ~100 wRC+ level ranks about 15th among qualified MLB 3B, maybe 20-25th among regular (300+ PA) third basemen. Does that modest offensive level have any value from a right-handed, $4 million, 29-30 year old corner OF?