Otto von Ballpark

I think you are mixing up a couple rumors. It was a Syndergaard rumor in 2019 that included Buxton, and neither was traded. But that same summer, the Mets acquired Stroman from Toronto for a price many fans thought their teams could have beaten. I don't remember if it was ever reported what the Jays may have asked the Twins for.

FWIW, career ERA+ through age 32: Morris 115, Maeda 109 Maeda has obviously been better in his last 12 including postseason, although over the last 12 starts of his age-32 season, Morris had a 68 ERA- too. Maeda's ERA- for 2020 was 60.

Nick, I think you are being a little harsh on Morris here. He was brilliant in both the 1984 and 1991 postseasons; he was mediocre in 1987 but it was only 1 start. He was dismal in 1992, but he was also 37 years old and at the very end of his line as an effective MLB pitcher -- something not yet included in Maeda's career numbers. Through 1987, his age-32 season (same as Maeda in 2020), Morris had a 3.00 postseason ERA (albeit in only 4 starts). Through 1991, that went down further to 2.60. It was only the 1992 postseason that drags Morris' career postseason numbers down, and not coincidentally he was completely done as an effective MLB pitcher after that point. Maeda has also accumulated most of his postseason innings out of the bullpen so far, which still count of course but that furthers the oranges-to-orangutans nature of the comparison. Through age 32, Maeda has 4 career postseason starts just like Morris did, but with a 4.60 ERA in them.

Also emblematic of 2020: the White Sox were the only offense that the Twins and Berrios faced in the regular season that ranked higher than 20th overall in runs per game. Our non-White Sox opponents hit a combined .228 overall. Berrios had a 25.1% K%, but among teams that had a combined 24.9% K%.

FWIW, due to the fully unbalanced schedule, evidence suggests the Twins disproportionately faced very poor offenses in 2020. B-Ref thinks an average pitcher, in Smeltzer's spot, should have had a 3.91 RA9. So Smeltzer's decent FIP was likely still worse than average. Also, as strikeouts continue to skyrocket (the K rate was 24.9% in the central divisions last year), I wonder if it is easier for pitchers to post better FIPs.

There would be no real cost to taking back Wells and Baddoo -- just $50k each (after we received $100k each for them from Baltimore and Detroit, respectively), and neither would have to go on the Twins 40-man roster this season. Of course, they'd also have to clear waivers (with Rule 5 restrictions attached) before the Twins could get them back.

Are you referring to “Fox Sports Net Chicago”? That was also abbreviated as FSN Chicago, but it hasn’t existed since 2006 (when its Minnesota counterpart was still FSN North).

Unfortunately that article is a bit outdated. Since then, it has been announced that this service won’t be available until 2022 — and they’ve become rather coy about what they will be selling directly (it may not be access to all games): https://thestreamable.com/news/sinclair-wont-bring-rebranded-fox-sports-rsns-direct-to-consumer-until-2022

My intent isn't to debate who's essential and who's not. I'm just wondering how you expect to flip the guys you list for meaningfully more "essential" players. I think you admit it yourself when you doubt that Kirilloff -- arguably the most valuable player on your list -- you doubt that even he could be the centerpiece of a Castillo trade -- so why are you criticizing the Twins over it? And the Twins did ship out our 5th OF (Wade) for what we hope becomes our 5th reliever, but there are limits to what you can achieve with deals like that. As for Musgrove, sure it may have been nice to get him, but out of the 28 teams who failed to acquire Musgrove, where do you think the Twins rank in terms of SP need? Our whole starting staff has had better ERAs than Musgrove over each of the last two seasons! Musgrove is an interesting breakout candidate for sure, but despite coming from the Pirates, it's doubtful that he's going to turn into a stud like Cole -- maybe more like Odorizzi upside? And if no other team was willing to give the Pirates a prospect close to Larnach (if that's what the Pirates were after), maybe the Twins were right to not give them that either. FWIW, the top guy the Pirates got back is a CF prospect valued similarly to Celestino at baseballtradevalues.com -- and I'm not sure it's clear that the Pirates would have preferred Celestino and a Twins package (Celestino might be the safer bet but the rebuilding Pirates may prefer to take on more risk for potentially more upside). And Odorizzi and Maeda show that the Twins aren't afraid to make these kind of deals, and they've done pretty well in them, so I'm just not sure of the criticism, at this point. Especially in a thread about Baddoo and Wells.

No one is debating your analogies. But if you want your specific claim about the Twins to be discussed seriously, I think you need to name specific players that you feel are "non-essential" and the specific "more essential" players we should have swapped them for.

Cot's has it at $125 mil: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QXhMYkMxJE1VJvZiNMS1X7OHPFNaIVUjd-m1ZBCzHL4/edit#gid=1520401900

Quite a few already: https://www.mlb.com/twins/roster/transactions

Not much Rule 5 success at all since they changed the eligibility rules in the mid-2000s. Still too early to tell, but Elieser Hernández looked good for the Marlins in 2020 and should begin 2021 in their rotation again. He was selected out of A-ball from the Astros before the 2018 season. FWIW, Tyler Wells actually had 6 games and 32 IP at AA (and did very well). In terms of experience, that's probably equivalent to Pressly's 14 relief appearances at AA before we selected him in Rule 5, and maybe some other guys. Of course, Wells has 2 years on the sidelines since then, although I'm not sure it's anything crazy like Nick Burdi yet -- just TJ in May 2019 and then the pandemic shutdown in 2020. On that note, Baddoo probably could have logged some time in AA in 2020 if not for the cancelled minor league season. So in terms of experience, that could shift his past Rule 5 comparables a bit, although obviously not enough to meaningfully improve his MLB success forecast at this point.

Takes two to tango. Most teams generally aren't eager to deal players the Twins might consider "essential" in return for prospects we deem "nonessential." And rebuilding teams with the most roster space, like Pittsburgh, may not have many/any players who would be "essential" for the Twins anyway.

Not to take away from your general point, but actually Johan only spent about 2 months in the minors for the Twins, at the beginning of the 2002 season where he learned his magic from Bobby Cuellar. After his Rule 5 season in 2000, Johan somewhat controversially made the Twins opening day roster in 2001, in the bullpen, and spent the entire season either on the MLB roster or (mostly) on the MLB disabled list.

If the first half of spring training is any indication, 2021 might favor pitchers overall as 2020 did -- and we might see yet another record strikeout rate. 2021 spring training: .246/.337/.420, 24.7% K 2020 regular season: .245/.322/.418, 23.4% K By comparison, here was 2019's numbers. 2019 spring training: .261/.333/.438, 22.3% K 2019 regular season (non-pitchers): .256/.327/.443, 22.4% K

What constitutes "buying a championship"? It's an interesting question. The Marlins top position player in 1997, by bWAR, was home-grown Charles Johnson; #3 was Gary Sheffield who wasn't cheap but they acquired him by trade way back in 1993. Only 3 of their starting 8 position players were FA signings, although 2 did pretty well (Bonilla and Alou). On the pitching side, they were led by Kevin Brown who was indeed a FA signing, albeit a year earlier and he was probably considered more of a workhorse than a star until he excelled for the Marlins in '96 -- his 3-year Marlins contract was relatively conservative compared to the megadeal he signed with the Dodgers later. Alex Fernandez was their biggest FA signing of all, and was solid in the regular season although due to a shoulder injury he didn't even pitch in the World Series that year (and indeed his career was pretty much done after that). And I'm not sure how to count an international FA guy like Livan Hernandez -- he was a high-profile Cuban defector, of course, and got a big contract for an amateur, but it wasn't very big at all compared to domestic FA deals (or even the top domestic amateur deals signed in 1996 -- hello, Travis Lee! ). After signing, the Marlins even developed Livan in the minors for a season too. Overall, they did jump to 5th in MLB payroll in 1997, although that same payroll would have only ranked 11th in 1998 -- so they were a bit of the inflation curve.

I'm not sure anyone rates Gleyber Torres super-highly with the glove -- I think it's more that his bat already offsets some of that and could improve even more. Torres and Polanco may rate similarly at short so far (-10.7 and -10.9 UZR/150, respectively), but Torres has a cumulative career 121 wRC+, which tops Polanco's career high to date (120, career 104). ZiPs projects Torres at 132 this year (and also projects some defensive improvement, it appears -- after all, Torres just turned 24 and only has a season's worth of innings at short, compared to Polanco who has 3.5 times those innings and is turning 28 -- and was just replaced at short, albeit by a great defender).

It was reported back in January that the Reds asked for Gleyber Torres, in return for Castillo:

We say the Reds aren't likely to be competitive, but: 1. That hasn't stopped them from playing to win the past few years (and they finished 2nd and made it into the expanded playoffs last year). 2. The NL Central could be really, really bad. The Fangraphs playoff odds page projects the Reds at 79 wins right now -- but they also peg the Cardinals winning the division with only 81 wins. 18.2% chance at winning the division for the Reds. The Reds lost Bauer to FA this winter, although they were somehow only 6-5 in his starts last year, despite his microscopic ERA. They also traded Raisel Iglesias, but he was a pending FA reliever. They've got a pretty uninspiring lineup though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they fail to compete and have to consider trades this summer, regardless of their intent now.

Not at this time, no. We may not know unless the coaches decide to disclose it themselves.

If their primary duties are not related to major league spring training, then there may be no need to replace them right away.

Bump! Free MLB.TV for T-Mobile customers has been announced for 2021 again. The redemption period starts on Tuesday March 30th, and usually lasts for 7 days.

Old post, first time seeing it, but Maeda only faced a pitcher 7.3% of the time in LA -- it's not quite an even distribution since the pitchers bat last and SP often get removed before that spot comes up the same number of times as the higher lineup spots. (And of course pitchers are regularly pinch-hit for as well.) And while Maeda certainly dominated pitchers (74 K in 166 PA!), that was offset a little bit by pitching some out of the pen in LA too (58 K in 168 PA, or 34.5 K% as a reliever, vs 25.8 K% as a starter). Also league K% has been climbing -- actually it was *much* higher in the 2020 AL/NL Central divisions, which Maeda faced exclusively in 2020 without a DH, than it ever was in the wider NL with pitchers hitting: 2016 NL: 21.5% 2017 NL: 21.9% 2018 NL: 22.6% 2019 NL: 23.0% 2020 AL/NL Central: 24.9% FWIW, the rest of MLB only had a 22.8 K% in 2020.

AT&T TV still includes FSN. A little pricey compared to the other streaming services ($85), but it's month-to-month with no contract. (AT&T TV also offer a contract option, but personally I think it is a worse deal.) Supports up to 3 streams outside your home too, if you want to get creative...