IndianaTwin

Thanks for that correction. I assumed that the 4.027 in baseball-reference.com was at the end of 2018, but in looking back, I see that it's from the beginning. And does being non-tendered toss the service-time calculation out the window? Does that mean that Cron is also not controllable? Either way, I still think they are good signings.

Random, but not necessarily deep, thoughts on an overcast Dec. 10... Two signings by Dec. 10 doesn't feel like "standing pat." The front office M.O. doesn't seem to focus on making massive moves. Its needle-moving seems to come in the form of nudging. Maybe it's because I'm paying more attention, but it seems like this front office is much more active than in the past. The cumulative effect of many needle-nudging moves can be significant. They also don't make moves that box themselves into a corner. Cron and Schoop are one-year signings, but they are controllable. With a good year in either/both cases, they are back in 2020. With a bad year, we are glad they weren't two-year signings. It's also only Dec. 10. Sins of omission we can't measure, but it seems they've made very few, if any, sins of commission that they couldn't/didn't move on from relatively quickly. And Darvish would be at least one move that we could call a sin of omission in not pursuing more aggressively, but it seems like a good choice in retrospect. I think of the Royals of a few years ago. I don't follow them closely, but it seems like they had a number of highly regarded guys who came up and seemed like disappointments when they didn't turn the team around immediately. But by staying with them, they were able to finally supplement at the right time and had a couple of really fun years. It would be kind of fun to have a nice, shiny Machado at SS. But if the choice is Machado, Austin, and three relievers from Rochester for a combined $35-$40 million vs. Schoop, Cron, Austin, David Robertson, Joakim Soria, and Zach Britton for a similar amount, I'll take the latter. It's only Dec. 10, remember. This morning, the Twins were listed among nine teams interested in J.A. Happ. Jon Heyman just listed the Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays, AND... your Minnesota Twins. Given his age, I think he'd be an awesome overpay signing at two years, plus an option. Will it happen? Who knows, but it's just Dec. 10. I'd rather overpay on him for two years than for five years on this year's Darvish.In other words, if March 28 brings me something like Castro & Garver; Cron & Austin; Schoop, Polanco, Sano, and Ehire; Rosario, Buxton, Garver and Cave; Berrios, Gibson, Happ*, Odo & Pineda (Romero/Mejia); May, Rogers, Reed, Robertson*, Soria*, Britton* (Romero/Mejia, rookies), I am very much on board. And I think it's still possible to get there. It's only Dec. 10, remember. Then, it will be easy enough to make follow-up decisions in June or July on whether to go the rest of the way in with a minor league system that's still pretty loaded and a budget that isn't overworked. If most of the guys HAVEN'T come through, we'll be glad we didn't go all-in. (*Placeholders -- insert your preferences, but these are some of mine.)

"Rhett Bolinger of MLB.com ran through some of the closer options for the Twins. Among the seven options he highlighted, I think Joakim Soria is the guy who aligns with the Twins in terms of need and expected contract. He’s 34, so it’s not like you’ll need to give him a long-term contract, but he does have 220 career saves. Last season he had a 3.12 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 11.1 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 (4.69 K:BB ratio) for the White Sox and Brewers. MLB Trade Rumors projected he’d get a two-year, $18 million deal." Soria at 2/$18MM and David Robertson for 3/$33MM would be awesome in my book.

I was also thinking of options like this and was coming up with something similar. There's gotta be a software out there that draws a circle around each defender showing the radius they can cover and that can be superimposed upon a hitter's spray chart. It would be fun to play with. Similarly, I wonder if it would make sense to play Hamilton and Buxton in left and right so they could cover foul line to alley and make CF small enough that a slower guy could cover it. Or with Rosario, he could play a very shallow to take away singles and allow the SS and 2B to split wider to shrink the 5.5 and 3.5 holes. (Of course, maybe it would make sense to have Buxton be the shallow guy so that he's farther away from any walls!)

Romero only got to 145 innings last year. I think a plan that targets more than 165 or so is unlikely to come to fruition. If he’s in the rotation for 32 starts, that’s only 5 innings per start, which is less than ideal. In an earlier post, I suggested using him as the designated reliever for Odorizzi’s first 10 or so starts, with the intention of him finishing the game. Assuming he’s been effective, then slide him into the rotation at the next appropriate time (the next injury or suckage on the part of one of the starters). It may take a couple of starts to restretch him out from 3-4 innings to being a full-time starter, since he was probably throwing about 60 pitches or so, but that’s not insurmountable. Maybe a time or two in those first 10 games, you pull Odo after 4 innings to keep Romero stretched out a bit. That’s probably about 35 innings in relief, leaving about 130 innings for the remaining 22 times through the rotation, which is close to 6 innings per start, closer to what we’re looking for. It also holds out the opportunity of him still being available in a playoff run. If he’s in the rotation from the beginning, I don’t think it’s realistic to have much left in October if we get there. Berrios, Odo, Pineda, Gibson, Mejia, by the way. I’ve separated Berrios and Gibson since they are the most likely to go deep enough to give the bullpen a break. I’d be glad to upgrade from Mejia. I’d also be okay with targeting this group as the rotation for the first 50 games or so, which gives enough time to see whether it’s worth going after a rental. And while I’m at it, I’ll take David Robertson (3/$33M) as my highest priority and one more from among Familia, Britton, and Ottovino (same), plus a flier on Soria (1/$10 + option 1/$8M). Offensively, success largely rises and falls on Buxton and Sano, so my primary focus is on 2B with Cron in the hopper.

25 and almost 23. Essential to keep reading this one to them. Then when they complain about their day as a nine-year-old, you can say, "Let's just move to Australia."

mikelink45, on 26 Nov 2018 - 6:35 PM, said: How can I comment intelligently... Still new here, huh?

“Cron Bomb” when he jacks one in the second inning. “Cron Dong” when he pops another in the fourth. Repeat as necessary.

I was hoping someone else has kids. Or is married to an elementary school teacher.

In that case, I think this was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad* signing. *Hold on while I look for my thesaurus.

Are they going to use an Opener out there?

I don't drink, but if I did, I'd have to say that my stein fel(d)t pretty good about these choices.

Also, Nick Senzel.

57 worked pretty well, however.

Well played, Mauer.

You get a "like" from me just for teaching junior high for 25 years. It didn't matter what you said after that. But I do agree with you on that part too.

But speaking of Bam Bam, I'd think that a Rocco would certainly be a step up over mere Pebbles.

"...Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily,..." Understatement of the year. When I first took my son a few years ago, I think I crossed the Mass Turnpike about eight times trying to get there. I felt like Chevy Chase in London. But thanks for this. This kind of experience is a ton of fun. I was in Kansas City while the Royals were in San Francisco for the weekend series in 2014. We went to the Power and Light District during the game, and it was the most fun non-Twins baseball experience I've ever had. I happen to have a work trip to Hartford, Conn., this weekend, so I'm suspecting something of the same if we sneak up to Boston for an evening.

I refuse to pay for any Internet news site. Well, except for one. I hope TD never needs to go the pay route, but this site is awesome and makes being a fan much more fun, so I'm making an exception for the Handbook. I've placed my order, with payment, and look forward to the reading. Think my boss will notice that I have "Meeting -- Thad and Derek" on my calendar and all of next Friday morning is blocked out?

He only needs 23 more HRs to be the all-time leader among guys born in Germany. That wouldn’t be the wurst news.

I remain pretty intrigued with Mejia. Once a top-100 prospect. Good minor league numbers, while always significantly younger than the league average. Good, but short, starts in Minnesota this year. Left-handed. Though they shut him down, the injury was described as minor, and there was really no point to rushing him back, other than for tryout purposes. I'd rather he be fully healthy for 2019. (Also, that I was the last one on the Phil Hughes and Mike Pelfrey bandwagons should not be held against Mr. Mejia.)

David Robertson. He's been about as consistently excellent as they come for about about eight years.

Thanks for these links. Good reading. Here’s an interesting one as well: https://www.cooperstowncred.com/will-ted-simmons-ever-make-hall-fame/ It makes a pretty convincing case for Ted Simmons being deserving, yet the Jaws link you cite clearly show Mauer above Simmons. Simmons fell off the writer’s ballot after one year in what the author claims was the most-stacked ballot in 30-some years. He’s been within one vote of making it from the Veterans Committee. Which points to a significant part — guys are affected by the quality of the rest of the ballot. Fortunately, as I look at the upcoming list, my sense is that the ballot will be not be particularly loaded. Lots of Hall of Very Good guys, but after you take out the first-ballot guys like Jeter and Rivera, I think he stacks up pretty well. https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/future-eligibles#2019-eligibles

It feels like most of these threads have been going in circles, so I don't know whether to post this in the Buxton thread, the grading Molitor thread, or the grading the front office thread. So I'll do it here. I was concerned too with the "no people skills" comment, particularly after reading the response from Seth, who seems to be basing it on real conversations rather than on what we read and speculate on. In grading Molitor, however, I do wonder if "people skills" is one of the positive things he brings to the table, and that's something that is going to be really tough for us as fans to judge. I don't get to see games, only listen on the radio and read the esteemed words of TD posters. But my sense is that Molitor does seem to relate to the players. His excellent pedigree is going to get him off to a good start, but that will wear off soon. As I posted elsewhere, however, he doesn't seem to throw his players under the bus, and in his interviews, he always seem to have their backs as a person, even when he acknowledges their misplays or poor choices. As Exhibit A, I'll use this example from Sunday's game talking about DeJong: “He asked about going back out for the fifth,” Molitor said. “Rightfully so. I had no problem with that. He was in the right frame of mind in terms of him saying he felt great and wanted to keep going. But no, we decided to set it up the way we did and went with it. And [Zack] Littell did a nice job coming in.”As Exhibit B, I'll note that it would have been easy to let the wheels spin off when they were 22-30 and on pace for 69 wins, but he was able to right the ship enough to go 39-36 in the next stretch and get within sniffing distance of .500. Unfortunately, they've gone 4-12 with a trade-depleted September roster playing against a lot of playoff teams since then, so low-to-mid 70s seems like the most-likely ending point. But still, after the lousy start, there were a few of us at least thinking that there was a chance of closing on the Indians. We also complain that Molitor doesn't change, but as Exhibit C, I'll note the change in bunting patterns. Anecdotally, it's seemed like he's bunted less this year, and the stats bear it out. At present, the Twins are on pace for about 19 non-pitcher sacrifice bunts after averaging 27 the last three years. To me, that at least hints at him being told to knock it off by the Analytics Folks and generally following instructions. Those sound like "grading Molitor" comments, but I'm posting them here because so many of the "getting it wrong" comments have focused on Molitor's still being here. Others have focused on a perception of their mishandling the Buxton callup situation. In another thread, I said: I think Levine was a straight shooter with his comments. I paraphrase his message as, "We made a tough decision, and Byron and his agent have their right to be disappointed. We would be disappointed if he didn't want to come up to the majors. We still believe Byron can help us, so we are going to do our part to make it a good relationship going forward." And I applaud them for not trying to force such a conversation right now -- those chats rarely go well when they happen in the heat of the moment.I haven't seen anyone reference this article -- if they have, I apologize for the repetition. But this article seems to suggest that they have been doing due diligence in reaching out to Buxton. http://www.startribune.com/twins-try-to-clear-the-air-with-byron-buxton/492822311/. We haven't heard Buxton's side, but that may be okay. If I'm the Twins in this situation, if the conversation has indeed gone well, my suggestion to Byron would be to say, "Look, we've made good progress in this conversation. Let's agree to keep working at it, and let's agree to keep our conversations to ourselves -- we don't want either of us to get burned by being misinterpreted by the media. When can we talk next?" That's a mature response on the Twins side, and if Byron is on board with that, his "not able to be reached for comment" response is a good one. All that to say that I'm in the "glass five-eighths full" category. After this season, I'm not quite as far as the person above who said it was three-fourths full, but I still think the trajectory is heading in the right direction. This doesn't seem like a front office that's going to make the big splash. Rather, they seem like a group that is going to make lots of moves with the hopes of improving themselves incrementally and winning more than they lose. As Exhibits D and E, how many other teams signed six free agents last winter or traded seven guys since mid-August?

Something seemed weird as I typed his name! (And I guess we don’t control him, do we? :-) ) Go with Moya there instead.