IndianaTwin

You neglected what I see as another plus in the Shoemaker signing -- not having to rush Happ to get ready. The Twins COULD skip their No. 5 with a couple early off days, but they don't tend to do that. I especially don't see them doing that this year, with the concern about guys who didn't pitch a full year. So with Shoemaker, they can start Maeda on Thursday (4/1) and then have Berrios-Pineda-Shoemaker-Dodnak-Maeda-Berrios in the six-day stretch before the off day on the 9th. So, they could IL Happ at the beginning of the year, avoiding the need to rush lengthening him out. Then, on the 10th, they start the stretch with 12 straight days, so they could start Happ then, or wait until as late as the 15th. By that point, they could have all back and make the decision of whether to go with a six-man rotation for a time or move Dobnak to the bullpen or St. Paul. And by then, someone else could have easily gone down, still leaving them with five stretched-out guys and Thorpe stretched out in St. Paul (assuming he gets the extra option).

In the cases of Dobnak and/or Thorpe, I think you need to keep them stretched. With the late start to the AAA season, the question becomes whether it's easier to keep them stretched out while in the bullpen, potentially helping the team, or at the alternate site.

Never mind on the previous comment...

Hopefully the comment wasn't written WHILE driving. Doesn't Illinois have some laws about that? :-)

if you want a triple header week, the weeks of May 25 and July 6 can get the Saints at Iowa and Cedar Rapids and Wichita at home.

I'll take that a step further, Doc. I went through the 2019 AL stats and totaled the games started by what appeared to be a team's top three starters. They averaged 82 per team, thanks to injuries, etc. Small sample size, sure, but I'm guessing that's pretty typical of most seasons. So basically half your starts from the top 3 and half from "everybody else." I'm with you in saying that I think our top 3 is very close to theirs, but I like our "everybody else" considerably better. And which team is has a better top 3 if one of their top 3 gets hurt? For them, if someone is hurt and the dumpster fire starts at No. 3, they are in trouble. Overall, I think the Twins rotation does more than just match theirs -- I think it exceeds it.

I thought of the 6-man rotation option as well, and would concur on that being more likely (and better) than the pen. Word is that teams are worried about guys bouncing back to a full season after the abbreviated version. In the Twins case, it seems wise to be planning for the possibility of going well into October, something that's less of a consideration for, say, the Tigers. And perhaps especially with the signing of Shoemaker, the Twins are in the enviable position of being able to make this decision based on ability, not necessity. If all six are pitching well, go with that and take advantage of the extra rest. If not, go with five.

Let's just say that my fastball has an above-average amount of vertical drop. (And a pretty high launch angle, both when thrown and when hit.)

They were already outside the umbrella of organized baseball, so they are free to sign with anyone, just like you and me (though at least in the case of me, they are more likely to do so — I’ve found the market for mid-50s knuckleballers sorely lacking).

And though they added him to the 40-man, I’d be a little surprised if they jumped Ober to AAA to start the season, with only four starts in AA and a 79-inning season in 2019 under his belt. The delayed start to the season for AA seems built for keeping minor league guys from needing to a make a significant jump in innings after having a season off from competition.

Uh, Dobnak? If the MLB rotation is Berrios-Maeda-Pineda-Happ-Shoemaker, I’d rather see Dobnak staying stretched out as a starter in St. Paul over being used in the MLB bullpen. Odds are someone from the Saints will be needed to make a Twins start before April is over.

Very well done! I also enjoyed the Randy Bush song. For those interested in baseball-related music, here's a link to an all-baseball show by folksinger John McCutcheon. Included in the show was a lengthy interview with Kaat. https://www.facebook.com/166909916655518/videos/232156791448433

Interesting approach to scheduling. Almost exclusively in six-game series, and every Monday off for travel. Being located in northern Indiana, I like that there's two trips to Indianapolis, one to Toledo.

My top three picks for spending a couple million are Jeffress, Jeffress, and Jeffress, with Clippard a close fourth.

I look at it this way. I don’t want to start the season with a rookie in the rotation. I’d prefer not starting the season with a guy with just 15 career starts in the rotation. With Shoemaker, they can start spring training with the hope of five veterans (Maeda, Berrios, Pineda, Happ and Shoemaker) in the rotation and settle for Dobnak if (when) one of them gets hurt. Without Shoemaker, you hope for four veteran starters and Dobnak and settle for Thorpe or Smeltzer if (when) one gets hurt. To me, that’s a significant upgrade. (I also don’t consider Dobnak for the bullpen. He’ll be needed to start a game for the Twins before the end of April — someone will be hurt by then.)

Hopefully Shoemaker can toe the rubber and cobble together some good performances.

I honestly don't think Buxton will ever steal 30 bases. It's not that he couldn't -- I just think there are several things against him. There's both the tendency for Rocco not to use stolen bases a lot and and the fear of injury, but there's another factor as well. Because of the power that he's developed, outfielders have to play him deep. Because they are playing him deep, his bloop singles become doubles and he's already on second. It's for the same reason that I don't think he'll ever lead the league in triples. Outfielders are playing him deep, so there's less chance of splitting the gap or having the outfielder needing to run a long way to field the ball.

The notion of one team “winning” a trade and the other “losing” a trade is a false dichotomy. In baseball trades, as in life, the goal in negotiation ought to be for both sides to “win.” In this case, I think the Twins “won” in that they fulfilled a need in having a top-notch starter in place. The Dodgers didn’t need that particular piece, but wanted more prospects for the future. So far, it appears that he is developing into what they were looking for, so they may have “won” as well.

I've been for Clippard all along for veteran stability. It's hard to see Thorpe winning a starting job over Dobnak, so with no options, he may indeed be the elephant in the room, as Doc says, and headed to the pen. But between the first seven you listed, Clippard and Thorpe, I'd take the chance that at least one pitcher out of nine will open the year on the IL. I'd like to see another starter brought in on a major league contract and perhaps another on a minor league deal. Whether or not that happens, Dobnak and Smeltzer need to stay lengthened out as starters, so if they don't make the rotation, they'll be at St. Paul.

With $40MM on the line for the second year, it's hard to imagine Bauer opting out after one year. But I agree that Gonsolin and May would be incredibly expensive. BaseballTradeSimulator.com suggests that it would take either Kirilloff or Lewis plus someone like Sabato or Celestino to get May. To get Gonsolin would require only Duran or Balazovic plus Sabato or Celestino. But Price could be interesting, depending on how much cash LA adds. To the OP, from what I understand, Boston is already is covering $32M of his remaining salary, leaving only $32M for the Dodgers or his new team. The same simulator says that Enlow should get Price and $15M of the remaining salary. I think I'd do Enlow for two years of Price at $8.5M per year. The issue is that I'm not sure that's enough salary relief to be worth it for the Dodgers.

Ash, we've been in agreement on the Cruz signing. But it's still a topsy-turvy world, and maybe the (logic) of two people don't amount to a hill of beans. But this is our hill. And these are our beans! It's small sample size with just 60 games, but here's what I found in a look-thru of the league's OPS at DH. (In case you didn't catch it, you can hover over a team and see the OPS and the number of PAs by each person who played the position.) Minn (Cruz, .997), KC (Soler, .809), Cle (Reyes, .800), Det (Miggy, .743), Bos (J.D. Martinez, .709), LAA (Ohtani .657), and Chicago (Encarnacion, .631) all had one person who got at least half the team's PAs. Without knowing how injuries played out for teams, it appears that those were the teams that used the "primary DH" approach. It's just that Cruz was so much better than them. Three of the others were above the league average and three were worse. Whether by design or the result of injuries, the other eight teams were using the "rotate guys through the spot" approach. The issue is that to do that, you have to have enough good hitters to make it work. No team did, apparently. The most regular DH for NYY (Stanton), Balt (Nunez) and Tor (Vlad) all were at least .867, but none had more than 94 PAs, so that left about 150-160 PAs to be spread out over other guys. Each of those teams scattered those PAs over at least nine guys. When you do that, you're almost certainly going to have some guys that were lousy, and they each did. (FWIW, the Twins had seven guys besides Cruz who got DH PAs, but they only totaled 38 PAs. Three had just one and two more had four apiece.) The five remaining teams not only spread out their PAs out, they did it among lousy hitters. The OPS of the most common DH for those teams was .717, .704, .654, .485 and .455. You noted that on average the Twins more than a .200 advantage at that spot. Also worth is noting is that even if Cruz drops .100, the Twins would still have had the best DHs in the league by .033 over the second-best team and at least .081 over every other team. So to your original point, if you can spend $13M and have a reasonable likelihood of creating that kind of significant advantage at any spot in the batting order, do it.

Can't wait until we sign Palbo Sincheeze.

Who knows how these things work, but Susan Slusser tweeted mid-afternoon that the Giants could use a left-handed hitting outfielder with options, and a few hours later the Twins have picked up what seems like an asset. To me, that sounds like Anderson wasn’t even high on their radar, but they had already done enough due diligence to call SF and say, “How about Wade for Anderson?” This seems like another instance of an opportunistic front office sneaking in to make their team incrementally better. I think making lots of moves that each make the team incrementally better is the M.O. of Falvey and Levine, and I like it.

Guy struggles as a starter for the Giants. Then starts to look good as a reliever. Then gets traded to the Twins. So help me, but if he stands on the mound and does the bpbpbpbpttt thing before he pitches, I think we got us a keeper.

Nope. In another post earlier this offseason, I suggested the FO asking for a Word version of Maeda's contract so they could do a search-and-replace, swapping Maeda's name for Hill and having the same arrangement for him. If he does enough to cost us $10M, cool problem to have!