Otto von Ballpark

Polanco actually pinch hit and played an inning of shortstop anyway, and presumably he participated in all of the usual pregame activity, so I'm not sure how much rest he really got. Nothing near the rest he'll automatically get today and Thursday (off days).

Is there something special about April 12th? We didn't wind up needing De Jong on Saturday, but the odds of needing him that day were almost certainly higher than the odds we'd find a path to playing time for Austin in the near future. Austin has been a walking DFA candidate for awhile now. That it finally happened on April 6, rather than April 12, or April 1st, doesn't seem all that important of a distinction.

It's handy to have a "flex spot" on the 40-man, but hopefully they don't have to use it many times -- that would mean both the MLB club is desperate and the 40-man players in the minors are all hurt or performing poorly...

They needed both a 25-man AND a 40-man spot to add a guy for Saturday's game. They could have made an extra move, I suppose: option someone (I'd pick Harper before Garver), DFA someone already in the minors (Duffey?), then add De Jong.

It was noted in the De Jong thread that today was only the 10th day of the MLB season. So all of the pitchers on the 40-man were ineligible to be recalled until tomorrow, unless there was an injury and someone went on the DL IL. And if they decided to drop Austin for a pitcher, that frees up a 40-man spot too, so they might as well use it on someone.

That's fair. I certainly wouldn't have put him out there in the rain last night, that's for sure! But with Buxton out, no DH, and in good weather, it's probably worth considering, to get him 2-3 guaranteed PA in a good lineup spot.

It's not necessarily an either/or proposition. He could be poor out there, but not so bad that a few innings would be disastrous, and also wear down easily. Cruz's worst UZR/150 season was -8; -12 Rtot/yr, -13 Rdrs/yr. It's possible he could still perform close to that for a few innings on fresh legs, but the longer he is out there, the worse he gets -- and the risk could spill over to affect his bat and health.

Michael Reed just cleared waivers for the Giants and elected free agency -- but then re-signed with them on a minor league deal. (The Giants are probably a better opportunity for Reed than the Twins are for Austin, though.)

Could be an age/health issue too. Maybe Cruz would wear down from too much OF play, but in short spurts (perhaps measured in innings rather than games), he could be passable. Looks like the Mariners gave him 4-5 starts in RF each of the last two seasons. Batting near the top of the lineup, he could get more PA than defensive chances -- and you would eventually sub him out depending on the game state. (Looks like he only played 1 complete game in the OF for the Mariners the last two years).

Before we punted the season? There were opportunities quite early, when Castro got hurt and then Sano was sent down with Polanco still out. He had power to go with that .276 AVG at AAA too. I would have liked to see him get some regular MLB reps no later than June, when the team could have used a spark.

You should have tweeted this to Mitch!

Does a guy who hits 50 HR one season, and only 40 HR the next, need an "excuse" to explain the drop? Does it necessarily mean he had less talent in power hitting the second season? I subjectively agree the 2018 Indians weren't as good as the 2017 team, but I don't think "minus 11 wins" is necessarily an accurate measure of that drop. Has any MLB owner ever publicly stated how much money they made from their team? Yes, it's pretty standard for MLB owners to say they're losing money, or at best, breaking even. That's not to say Cleveland is going to go on a spending spree now -- but I'm guessing they are fairly comfortable staying at their current level, and wouldn't need a whole lot of incentive to push up to 2017-2018 levels again. The owner crying poor certainly doesn't convince me otherwise.

The Red Sox are already $30 mil above the threshold, or in other words, $47 mil ahead of Houston. The Cubs are $16 mil above the threshold too, $33 mil ahead of Houston. Houston's only in 7th place in luxury tax payroll, and there's a big gap between 3rd and 4th place. Also note the Astros payroll already has a bunch of relievers earning $4-8 mil on short term contracts in addition to Pressly -- if any of them were extended or replaced at those prices, it wouldn't actually increase their luxury tax liabilities above 2019 levels either. The Astros aren't even close to a spot where a contract like Pressly's would have serious luxury tax implications. Obviously Falvey is going to say it was too good to pass up, because he didn't pass it up. What else is he supposed to say? It may even have been a solid prospect return for a 2019 asset, but it's still costing the Twins in 2019. Think about it this way: if the Twins could flip those two prospects today for a dominant reliever making under $3 mil in 2019, you'd also have to consider that pretty strongly, no? We could use that player right now, and if things go south, we could still flip him at the 2019 deadline (assuming we didn't extend him affordably ourselves). I think that illustrates the cost of this deal to the Twins pretty well. And unlike the other prospects we acquired at the 2018 deadline, those two Houston prospects will have to make up this 2019 cost for this deal to turn out well.

102 win teams generally regress in the win column. And the 2018 Cleveland club had little incentive to try to win that many again -- as it was, they still won the division by 13 games with only 91 wins. I wouldn't put too much stock into the owner's assessment -- that's pretty standard fare for MLB owners, who want to appear benevolent in public. Likewise, Kluber and Bauer being available for a high asking price doesn't mean much either. Obviously they weren't comfortable keeping the opening day payroll around $130 mil but neither were the Twins. I don't see them slashing it it further quite yet -- in fact, if they are in the race I wouldn't be surprised to see them add salary in-season as they did several times in recent years.

It's not clear that Pressly brought the best return -- both TD and MLB ranked Duran from Arizona notably ahead of the other prospects we acquired at the deadline, Sickels gave Maciel from Arizona the same letter grade as the two from Houston, etc. But even if you believe he did, he only brought that return *because he wasn't a two-month rental*. It wasn't a traditional deadline deal, so your rhetorical question "If you don't make that trade, what trade do you make at the deadline?" makes no sense. Trading him impacted our 2019 chances, as well as 2018, regardless of whether we extended him. Adding a dominant reliever to this year's Twins pen for less than $3 mil salary would be pretty great. There's a reason why most deadline deals don't involve trading good cheap assets from next year's team. The Astros are still $17 mil under the threshold yet this year. Cole is a FA after this season, but they'll shed $40 mil in salaries after this season too, and the threshold goes up, which could put them at $60 mil under the threshold after this season. After 2020, Springer is a free agent too, but they'll be shedding $50 mil at that time too. And the threshold isn't even close to any kind of hard cap -- the penalties for simply exceeding the threshold aren't that severe, unless you go way over ($40+ mil) or stay over for multiple years. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KggX-IVrw6TywbOR6OIooQyxAY1MpTlnq88PqnNkuWQ/pubhtml They can easily sign a few relievers to Pressly-like extensions for $6-8 mil a year, and still have room to re-sign Cole or Springer or find replacements.

...the other 4 trades we made around the 2018 deadline? The ones that didn't involve 2019 assets?

I wouldn't say 0%. Imagine if someone last year said, "the Twins keep signing Matt Belisle -- there's no way reliever X will go unclaimed" yet I'm sure some reliever X's went unclaimed. The Twins acting irrationally with Belisle, and the Royals with Duda (the Royals signed him last year too), does not necessarily mean that every player we fans see as equal or better than Belisle or Duda will likewise get claimed/signed. FWIW, Vargas cleared waivers (on his second attempt) last spring. Exact same age as Austin is now, with virtually the same career MLB OPS/OPS+. Pretty similar career AAA OPS figures at the time too (Vargas .815, Austin .834). I prefer Austin's power skill over Vargas's slightly better K% and BABIP, but I wouldn't say it's enough to guarantee Austin would get claimed. (I don't think it's a guarantee he'd clear either, though.) A big factor is being out of options. Once Austin has spent a few weeks on the Twins bench, unless he is raking in those limited ABs, it will make it harder for another team to claim him as compared to now, because they won't have the luxury of getting him up to speed in spring training or minor league games -- he'd have to go straight onto the MLB roster immediately.

I suspect this too, yes. I think Austin would be claimed if he went on waivers now, or even if he cleared, he could elect free agency (since he's been outrighted once before) and probably find a decent spot to land on a minor league deal. But if we wait a few weeks, other rosters will be set, and he's probably less likely to be claimed, and less likely to find an appreciably better minor league deal than simply going to Rochester.

Okay. Because I don't think this roster necessarily represents a departure from any of that. We haven't cut anyone with "scholarship" and I don't think this roster suggests a shorter leash/scholarship for Hildenberger or Reed (any more than their poor 2018 seasons would have shortened it). Honestly, it could just be a simple matter of Reed (or even Magill) being hurt, and not wanting to expose Austin to waivers yet, rather than any kind of strategy to make the pitching staff lean and shorten leashes.

Generally, though, it seems like they weren't moving regular guys into that 12th or 13th mopup spot -- they mostly just rostered 12th or 13th quality guys to begin with (the Rule 5 guys, Hughes, Breslow, etc.). Going down to 11 is still good, but I don't think it means regular guys have a notably shorter leash.

I'm intrigued -- and I certainly prefer this over the recent "12 pitchers including a random Rule 5 guy" configurations we've seen -- but I wonder if they can actually leverage these bench guys well? Also, why would you say it means no pitcher gets a long leash? On a game level, they may get more of a leash since there's 1 fewer pen option available. On a season level, I'm not sure it means anything about pitcher leashes -- they'll almost certainly be subtracting a position player and adding a pitcher when Perez moves to the rotation, so I'd think the bench player leashes might actually be shorter.

Everything? Battling his tail off, sure... but what about, blackmailing his tail off? (Or worse?)

In other reliever news, the Twins released Tim Collins on Friday, who was promptly signed to a MLB deal by the Cubs. To make room for Collins, the Cubs designated ex-Twin Brian Duensing. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/03/cubs-sign-tim-collins-designate-brian-duensing.html

Did they "really overpay", though? Alcala's likely upside might be becoming Pressly a few years down the line. The other guy was in rookie league ball. I don't think it was a bad return, but I don't know it was something that we just couldn't refuse. Especially if we wanted to contend in 2019 but had no plans to invest much in pitching -- a guy like Pressly could be really valuable to a club like the Twins right now, no?

While they're at it, they should take the numbers out of drinking too -- no more 3.2 beer!