mikelink45

Desperation?

How about the fact that the product is not worth the investment? Give us better FA and we get more action. Do you want to have Moustakis? Most teams have a player who is already as good as he is - one year does not make a star. Lynn, Cobb, Darvish, Arrieta would be a good rotation, but they have enough flaws that the asking price as the best of a yuck group is not worth paying unless you are willing to throw your money away in year three. Martinez - bust out year or a bust next year. Show me more. Hosmer - the phantom gold glove - he is a younger version of Mauer and did not have years as a catcher to push up his value. I'tl wait for another crop.

No - I understand what you are saying, but I am not excited by these either. See what I posted for Spycake. No team does better by taking someone else's player than they do by developing their own. I prefer a Mauer contract for someone we develop than a Pujols contract for someone else's star that is about to fade.

I can only state my beliefs and as you have seen I try to find whatever I can to substantiate them so let me offer this blog - https://www.fangraphs.com/community/be-wary-of-long-term-deals-for-free-agents/ The title is beware of long term free agents - to which I say - AMEN brother. "The overall numbers for the group though was not promising. Whether this is due to many of these players aging which could be highly likely, or just never getting settled with a new ballclub. It seems teams looking at signing Free Agents to deals of 3 years or longer should not expect much out of the players." Or the next report that says, "Seven players signed deals worth at least $100 million in guaranteed salaries. Eight players signed contracts that gave them the right to opt-out of their deal at some point and re-enter the free agent market if their value goes up. Middle relievers and bench players made multi-year deals a standard for players who used to have to go year to year. This past winter was, by any definition, a league-wide spending spree. But as we approach the end of the first year of these contracts, there seems to be one developing theme; the teams that spent the most money in free agency probably wish they hadn’t. With only a couple of exceptions, the high-end range of last winter’s free agent class have been soul-crushing disappointments. Let’s just get right to some numbers. Here are the 13 players who signed for at least $70 million over the winter, and how they’re performing this season." https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-so-far-disastrous-crop-of-2016-free-agents/ This is where I stand. Since I cannot influence the Twins I only stand on the side lines and say - don't do it.

The trade of Blake Griffin from the Clippers to the Pistons is a reminder of how debilitating these maximum contracts can be to teams in any sport.

Don't forget the all star veteran leadership team - Hunter, Cuddyer, Kaat, Morneau...that is now part of the Twins front office.

If you project Vargas' numbers over a full season his HR total matches Napoli, Bautista, and Holliday. Cheaper, younger and better batting average with the same number of HR. The choice is easy for me. Fourth outfielder would be Granite for me because I value defense very high. I really have a broken record on this years FA class. NO - No - No. But then, the major league clubs are saying the same thing. This is not a great year for FA and they need to reduce their costs to sign new deals.

I would be happy with a 2 -3 year Darvish deal, but I think it will be twice that long. If the Twins want to take the plunge I am in no position to oppose it, but I will remain skeptical of his value long term. I see our young players peaking in 3 years, not this year, and when they do they will be really good and I want a pitching staff at that point that matches their bats and play in the field. Only Dozier and Mauer are on the otherside of that curve. We have so many stats showing the age 27-28 years are peak value for players and I think that will be true for our Twins. We might have some current players off the roster, a few players like Rooker and Lewis on it, but we should really be a good team for a nice 3 - 5 year run. Will Yu be there? And if he is, will his contract block someone else who should be in the rotation at that time?

I am sure I am coming off as a Darvish hater - I am not. I think he is overrated, about to start his career slide - Arrieta too. And I do not want him signed for more than three years. I have enjoyed all the debates and counter arguments. Now I am anxious like the rest of you to see where he ends up and then it will be two years before my apprehensions can be tested.

30 teams - 100 prospects. If we have three on the list we are equal with the league when we have more than that we have some real value in the system. Six is an excellent showing. All of these observers know more than I do, but I am pleased with how we rank.

In a historical basis, which is something I particularly enjoy, this era of HR and K affects how we compare modern and past performers. Do pitchers with a high K rate in this era deserve to be seen as better than the historic pitchers? Look at this chart to see the Strike outs per year in Baseball - http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/histrk4.shtml This chart only goes through 2013 when there were 36,710 strikeouts in MLB - almost half and half NL and AL which makes no sense with the DH in AL and pitchers batting in the NL. Inn 2003 there were 30,801 strike outs 83% of the 2013 total. In 1993 there were 26,310 - 72% of the 2013 total. The year I graduated from HS - 1963 there were 18,773 strike outs - 51% of 2013. In 2017 there were over 40,000 whiffs. ​So are the pitchers better? Are the batters just swinging for the fences. Have people believed the nonsense that a K is no worse than a put out? How does a pitcher in the year I was born - 1945 compare with todays pitchers when the MLB total for strikeouts was 8000? ​Saying the pitchers strikeout rate is better than a pitcher from the past does not make him better. But it does point out that a pitcher like Nolan Ryan with 5700+ Ks in an early era was really amazing. In 1973 Ryan struck out 383 batters - there were 10,507 strike outs in the American League that year. He was responsible for 3.6% of the leagues strikeouts. Last year Chris Sale had an amazing year with 307 K's! In the AL there were 19,946 strike outs. Sale struck out 1.5% of the league total.

Why haven’t we had a cowboy movie or series about baseball? It did occur in the old and wild west. We know that Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp refereed boxing matches and Bat Masterson went on to NY to be a sports writer. But who talks about baseball in the old west? Baseball spread throughout the Old West around the late 1840s, and in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings—America’s first professional team—departed westward from St. Louis on a rail tour. In describing their game with the local Eagles the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in terms no modern sports page would use: “It is easy to see why they adopted the Red Stocking style of dress, which shows their calves in all their magnitude and rotundity. Everyone of them has a large and well turned leg and everyone of them knows how to use it. https://truewestmagazine.com/sports-in-the-wild-west/ In 1845 Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. began to accumulate his reputation that would lead to a dubious place in the baseball HOF. He was among the organizers of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, and with some associates published a set of rules and regulations that became the foundation of modern baseball. Cartwright, who had worked as a bank clerk, bookseller and volunteer fireman in New York City, joined the 1849 California Gold Rush and despite rumors did not spread his rules of baseball wherever he went. In Minnesota Territory in 1857 (the year before statehood) Minnesota staked its claim in professional baseball. An organized ball club formed in Nininger City (now a ghost town in Dakota County). During the Civil War, soldiers—mostly Yankees, though some Rebels—played baseball. “The New Orleans boys also carried base balls in their knapsacks,” Will Irwin wrote in a 1909 Collier’s Weekly article. “A few of them found themselves in a Federal prison stockade on the Mississippi. They formed a club.” Union soldier George Putnam recalled that once during a baseball game in Alexandria, La., enemy troops attacked, placing the outfielders in mortal danger. The left fielder and right fielder managed to get back to the dugout, but the Rebels shot and captured the center fielder before the Yankees could repel the attack. At some point in his career famed gambler/lawman Wild Bill Hickok reportedly rooted for the Kansas City Antelopes. Legend has it he even umpired one of their games while wearing a pair of six-shooters. General George Armstrong Custer was a baseball player and fan – his brother was the better player and in the 7th Cavalry was Captain Fredrick Benteen who had played for the St Louis Cyclone club. At that time, for reasons I cannot explain, the game was considered a northerners game, but it really was universal. Not that Benteen’s family could prove it. His father said it was useless and a waste of time and when Benteen went on to a successful union career his father said, “I hope you are killed by the first bullet fired, and that the bullet will be fired by one of your Benteen cousins who will be fighting for our glorious cause!” During the war the game was played both north and south (and by the way was not created by the Union officer Doubleday despite some erroneous rumors. Union Private Alpheris Parker of the 10th Massachusetts wrote “the parade ground has become a busy place with the officers and men playing the baseball game with such ardor that it borders on mania.” Confederate Private Maynard Dial of Virginia wrote “we were playing the bat ball game with such intensity that we didn’t notice the musket fire. All of sudden, the Federals rushed us and we had to jump for our weapons. In so doing we lost the only baseball in camp.” This mania for baseball followed General Custer and his brother Tom Custer who was considered one of the best pitchers in the Union Army. We also know that in 1874 Custer had a baseball team play in SD when he broke the treaty with the Lakota over the Black Hills and came in to the area now known as Custer SD. While in Dakota Territory between 1873 and 1876, the club played other military squads as well as civilian teams. On July 31, 1874, during Lt. Col. George Custer’s Black Hills Expedition, the Fort Lincoln Actives defeated the Fort Rice Athletes, 11–6, at the site of what is now Custer, S.D. “The enlisted men,” according to historian Brian Dippie, “whiled away the long summer day playing a game of baseball—a genuine Black Hills ‘first,’ including a dispute over the umpire’s impartiality.” A fascinating convergence of dates is 1876 where the baseball players of the seventh infantry died at the Little Bighorn in the same year that the National Baseball League was formed. In February of 1876, eight teams left over from the National Association of Professional Baseball Players banded together to form the new league and professional baseball was on its way. To prove the baseball connection, we know that Company H Sargent Joseph McCurry was the Benteen Club’s pitcher and considered the 7th’s best player and was critically wounded and would never play ball again., Private William “Fatty” Williams had signed a contract to play with Pittsburgh at the end of his hitch. http://weeklyview.net/2013/04/18/baseball-and-the-little-bighorn/ Early pro ball could be found in the west in 1884 when the Kansas City Cowboys played in the Union Association. In 1886 a team using the same nickname played a one-year trial in the National League, finishing with just 30 wins and 91 losses (36 of the latter by a single pitcher, Stump Wiedman). The league dumped the Cowboys in favor of the Pittsburgh Alleghenys (today’s Pirates) the next season. “Most baseball played out West in the 19th century remained amateur or semipro, including the barnstorming games of the Nebraska Indians. Founder and promoter Guy W. Green recruited several of his players from the Omaha and Winnebago reservations; nine of the 12 players on his first club in 1897 were Indians. On June 25 of that year the squad traveled to Lincoln and trounced the University of Nebraska team, 18–12, before an enthusiastic crowd. Through 1914 (Green left in 1907) the Nebraska Indians played across the country, often calling to mind the atmosphere of a Wild West show. The team was good, too, reportedly posting a record of 1,237 wins, 336 losses and 11 ties.” http://www.historynet.com/baseball-in-the-west-2.htm “In the coal-mining town of Krebs, Indian Territory, on July 4, 1882, players used sacks of hay and cans for bases as 300 people watched the home team defeat nearby Savanna, 35–4. In 1889 future Hall of Fame pitcher Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity starred for Krebs and helped spread interest in the game to places like Tahlequah, Muskogee, Eufaula, Checotah, Vinita and Wagoner. The land rush that prompted the formation of Oklahoma Territory in 1890 (Indian Territory remained the eastern part of what in 1907 would become the state of Oklahoma) also scattered baseball diamonds in new places, including Guthrie, Stillwater, Kingfisher and Oklahoma City. Clothing merchant Seymour C. Heyman started Oklahoma City’s first professional baseball club in 1902, but it was another two years before the Mets, part of the Southwest League, became the first team there to play a full season of organized baseball. Subsequent minor league teams in Oklahoma’s capital city have included the Indians, Senators, Boosters, 89ers and RedHawks.” In Minnesota we continued our baseball tradition with the North Star Club of St. Paul with another team across the river in Minneapolis. One of the most interesting notes from this era was captered in Homer Croy’s 1949 book Jesse James Was My Neighbor, which told how the Cole-Younger gang “went out to see a baseball game between the St. Paul Red Caps and the Winona Clippers. September 7, the gang made the very unwise choice of robbing the bank in Northfield, Minn., that landed the three Younger brothers—Cole, Bob and Jim—in Stillwater Penitentiary. “In 1875 the all-white Winona Clippers fielded a black pitcher/second baseman named W.W. Fisher. And in 1883 John “Bud” Fowler, a black player who hailed from Cooperstown, N.Y., saw action at various positions for the Northwestern League team in Stillwater (presumably not within sight of the imprisoned Younger brothers’ cells). Minnesota claimed its first major league team in 1884, when St. Paul played nine games in the Union Association (a league that lasted just one season). But the state didn’t host another team in the majors until 1961, when the Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis and became the Minnesota Twins.” Around Tombstone in 1882, , a civil engineer from Massachusetts named George S. Rice had baseball on his mind. While Wyatt Earp chased the “cowboys” Rice started a “team called the San Pedro Boys at his Boston and Arizona Mill, following that up with the Tombstone Base Ball Association squad. After much practice, his “tossers” opened their season on May 12 with a loss to a Tucson club.” Chick Gandil and Buck Weaver of the 1919 black sox played for Douglas, AZ in 1925. By the 1870s soldiers were playing ball at Wyoming Territory forts, and towns like Laramie and Cheyenne had organized teams. The latter sported such names as the Black Stockings, Nonpareils, Benedicts, Eclipse, Bachelors and Indians. There are more teams and more stories, but the fact is – baseball was part of the old wild west.

I thank Yu for the most fun I have had in a long time. So many comments, so many of you quoting me to argue and debate. This is what the Hot Stove is supposed to me. Thanks to all the postings, and to all the debates.

I am really more interested in innings pitched. The pitcher who gets outs for the most innings saves the rest of the team and it usually means that they are being effective.

At some point the teams with the big dollars run out. The Yankees and Dodgers and Cubs cannot sign everyone. You can see that this year. But every year the other teams talk themselves into spending too much because, if I don't someone else will.

I like the age cut off and it is really nice to see how you pared last years list before creating this years.

I would prefer to see how a pitchers K rate varies from inning to inning. Does it go up when the sluggers like Sano flail away. Is it really high in 1 or 2 innings which would make the pitcher more of a candidate for relief appearances. Does it go away in the fifth and sixth?

I understand what you are saying. As a self employed person I have a lot of uncertainty, but at the level of these contracts if have is base and half is incentive - I think they can survive.

I do not know how to make this case for TD except in this short blog. I love the ability to discuss, debate and disagree without antagonism. ​As you have seen and responded to - I am the anti Darvish guy, at least in years 3 and beyond and the likes and the responses have been wonderful. This is what a sight like this is best at doing. I choose to be the contrarian and I have tried to express that as many ways as I can. Should I pull all of my statements together here? ​But that is not my point. It is the wonderfully civil discourse that has happened that really pleases me. Do I care if you all agree? No. I just want an ability to challenge the prevailing attitude. ​I want to say no without being angry or responding to your disagreement in an angry way. All of the comments are spread throughout the various posts and dialogues and I have truly enjoyed every argument and challenge. ​Thanks to all of you and to TD.

Thank you for complimenting my arguments, although they cannot be that good if I can not convince you. I would love to see a performance based pay that goes up and down - when is the last time that happened?

k/9 is another misleading stat- how many times does he strike out 9. It is like the other data. Great start, poor finish. We can live with that but not for a pitcher like this at this age if we are going for 5 - 6 years.

I must continue my contrarism this year as the dialogue continues to be about spending money on Free Agents. Sure worked out well for Pujols, Carl Crawford, Prince Fielder, Jacob Ellsbury, James Shields, Ubaldo Jiminez, Edwin Jackson, Jason Bay, Oliver Perez, Josh Hamliton, Alex Rodriguez, Mike Hampton, Barry Zito and Seattle's signing of our old friend Carlos Silva for four years or even the Mets huge final contract for our new HOF member - Johann Santana. This 2013 Bleacher Report look at the success of $100 million contracts should give you shivers - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1880902-evaluating-the-success-rate-of-mlb-contracts-over-100-million I like a good pitching staff. Seldom do teams buy a staff. The Yankees have tried for years, but Severino got promoted from the minors and now they fill in around him. Pitchers blow out arms, pitchers lose speed, and all players just grow old - I know as I am recovering from my third joint replacement right now - my doctor who knows me says I just wore them out! Darvish pitching record does not show me great trends. I would be happy with a shorter and cheaper contract with some of the next tier of pitchers after Darvish and Arrieta, but even they do not excite me now. Santana will regress - if not this year, in the next two at which point the big two will probably regress and the development of our younger arms will be arrested. There will be free agents in a year or two. Then we will have some of our young guys ready and Pineda providing us with at least an interesting story. But not now. The same people who have acted like Mauer's salary came out of their personal savings now want to line up another overpaid vet who will collect paychecks beyond the value of their performance.

No one is better and that is the problem. I want better options. Sometimes the second or third option is the right one. If we get him I will be fine - why not. But would I sign him - no. Do I believe in him - No. I do not think he will be better than Santana was this year. I truly believe that the Astros did more than steal his signs. The really good pitchers who demand the kind of contract that he wants can say here is my - fastball, curve, etc - try and hit it. Darvish cannot. If I am wrong and the Twins get him I will be happy, but this just feels really wrong. The only thing worse for me would be to sign Arrieta who is on a quick down hill slide.

Thanks for a really thoughtful reply. You are right - this is the value of TD. For me, this year is a weak FA class and we do not need to be trapped by that fact. We are not desperate. Lets see Pineda and the rookies and then examine another better set of free agent options.

There is more to acquisition than the fact that someone is a free agent. I have grown very skeptical of the value of free agents. They are very much like gold fever - everyone is going to get rich, but in fact everyone cannot. Trades may cost prospects, but that causes them to be well thought out and if the player is not past prime which most FA are the team will benefit.