IndianaTwin

Actually, Louisville was a charter member of the National League, though the Grays only lasted two years, 1876 and 1877. Then the Louisville Colonels were part of the NL from 1892-99. Honus Wagner spent his first three seasons with the Colonels in 1897-99. The Colonels were one of four teams contracted from the league in 1990. Their owner gained controlling interest of the Pirates and took 14 players with him, including Wagner, Fred Clarke and Rube Waddell. Oh, and the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association were based in Louisville. With Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel, they were the winningest team in the ABA over its nine-year history, but didn't get picked up by the NBA in the merger.

If the options are... A. Give up SWR for Grisham and pay the $4.9 million he's projected to get through arbitration. B. Re-sign Taylor for the same $4.5 million he got this year. I'll take Taylor, keeping SWR in the process.

Including parking for free at the Mall of America and taking the light rail for $4.50 round trip.

And fun is the point, right? I'm with you.

Why would we want to pay attention to Buxton's 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (and even the first two months of 2023) when we can fixate on his last two months? /s

With apologies to George Strait, I was starting to think that all our exes live in St. Louis.

Related, we could ask who was the best Rule 5 draft pick ever. It would seem to be either Christy Mathewson, drafted by Cincinnati from the Norfolk Phenoms in 1900, or Roberto Clemente, drafted by the Pirates from Brooklyn in 1954. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_5_draft

It would be interesting to know the backstory on the negotiations. I'm trying to put myself in each team's situation. For the Twins, what's the gain in negotiations. They got the benefit of Miami kicking in the money, but if wanted Santana, they could have just taken him. Did they go to Miami and say, "If you've got someone you want, you can pay us $50k so we don't take him. You can't just give us a check for $50k, so let's work out the mechanics by doing it as a draft and swap." Did Miami come to them ahead of time and say, "We've got a guy we really want. Can we work out a trade so you don't make a deal with some other team instead?" Is that what happened, or do we know more to the story and why it went down that way?

Based on Dobnak’s three data points, it seems his performance has been pretty flat.

Or did you mean Dobnak?

As @ashbury notes, they essentially did this by making a Qualifying Offer. Gray knew he had a multi year deal in front of him. I don’t know what the number is, but I’m guessing a one-year extension had to be at least $30M to get him to even consider taking that in favor of the multi year deal he was going to get.

Are you suggesting that they should have offered Gray 4 years at $25M? Or kept the 3 years that St. Louis gave him, but offer a higher AAV? Because it would have taken one or the other to outdo the St. Louis offer. And given the proximity of St. Louis to Gray's home, it might have even taken doing both.

I posted much of this on another post, but it applies here as well. I think the biggest obstacle to Mauer’s selection this year is the ballot itself. Because of the rule limiting voters to 10 picks, there is by definition a defined number of votes available. Some voters regularly use all 10 of their votes, but a significant number do not. Additionally, players tend to gain votes from year to year. When a writer votes for someone in a given year, they will tend to vote for them until they are selected or use up their eligibility. With these bits (and others) in mind, here’s why I think he will come up short, even though I think he should receive the honor. This year's returnees... These are guys who were on the ballot last year and are returning. It's a strong group of returnees, with Helton (6th year this year, 72.2% last year), Wagner (9th, 68.1%), Andruw Jones (7th, 58.1%), Sheffield (10th, 55.0) and Beltran (2nd, 46.5%). Of those... I think Helton gets in -- virtually everyone who is that close makes it the next year. Wagner will get close, if not in, for the same reason. Jones has been climbing particularly quickly. He only had a little over 7 percent his first two years. I think he will take another big jump. Last-year guys almost always have a jump, so that will boost Sheffield, though I doubt he gets all the way to 75%. I think Beltran will take a significant jump as he gets further away from the Astros scandal. Exiting from last year... Only Rolen (76.3%), Kent (46.5%) and five single-vote guys left the ballot, so there were not a lot of votes freed up. Virtually everyone who voted for Rolen (and more) will vote for Beltre, so his exit won’t help Mauer. This year's newcomers... Beltre is a given. If he gets even 90 percent, he will have used up the Rolen votes and a significant number of the Kent votes by himself. Besides Mauer, the rest of the newcomers are Chase Utley, David Wright, Bartolo Colon, Matt Holliday, Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Bautista, Jose Reyes, Victor Martinez, James Shields and Brandon Phillips. That's a much stronger group than last year's first-year guys (Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez and then guys like John Lackey, Huston Street and R.A. Dickey). For example, Lackey had the second-highest WAR of last year's newcomers, but nine of this year's first-year guys had a higher WAR than Lackey. Conclusion... I think Mauer belongs in, but because of all those factors, I don't think there are enough votes available to get him in this year.

That the Cards made a quick offer that he found acceptable. Which may also affirm that he was being honest when he said it wasn’t all about the money. And I’m cool with that. For all we know, he may have made the first offer. His agent has a sense of the market. I could easily see someone like Gray saying, “You are near my home, and I like a lot of things about your franchise. If you give me 3/$75M, I’ll sign now and save us both a lot of handwringing over the winter.”

This FO signed Castro.

So far, Mauer appears on track to be a unanimous selection: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!54244&authkey=!AGrU1OUsbz4WHyU Both ballots posted include him. (Then again, both are listed as "sample," so maybe the file is just being set up to test formulas. At any rate, that's the link if folks want to follow along.)

I agree. It should. My point is just that the math of the rest of the ballot can make a huge difference in how soon a guy makes it, and Mauer is hurt by the strength of this year’s ballot. Perhaps the classic example is Carlton Fisk. He’s still No. 4 among catchers in JAWS and one of those ahead of him is Pudge Rodriguez, so Pudge Fisk was No. 3 on that list when he retired. He’s a no-brainer first-ballot guy, right? Nope. He had the unfortunate situation of entering the ballot with Ryan, Brett and Yount. There weren’t enough votes available for Fisk, so he had to wait until the next year. Circumstances like this are the argument for not being limited to 10 votes per ballot. As others say, a HOFer is a HOFer, no matter what the rest of the ballot looks like. Fisk shouldn’t have had to wait, just for having retired the same year as a bunch of legends.

Last night on MLB Network, the talking heads compared the five-year peak of Mattingly with the five-year peak of Mauer and noted that Mattingly didn't get close at all. Then one said, "Mauer will get some points because he did this as a catcher." "Get some points" because he was a catcher? That he did this as a catcher is his point!

This year's returnees... It's a strong group of returnees, with Helton (6th year this year, 72.2% last year), Wagner (9th, 68.1%), Andruw Jones (7th, 58.1%), Sheffield (10th, 55.0) and Beltran (2nd, 46.5%). Of those... I think Helton gets in -- virtually everyone who is that close makes it the next year. Wagner will get close, if not in, for the same reason. Jones has been climbing particularly quickly. He only had a little over 7 percent his first two years. I think he will take another big jump. Last-year guys almost always have a jump, so that will boost Sheffield, though I doubt he gets all the way to 75%. I think Beltran will take a significant jump as he gets further away from the Astros scandal. Exiting from last year... Only Rolen (76.3%), Kent (46.5%) and five single-vote guys left the ballot, so there were not a lot of votes freed up. Virtually everyone who voted for Rolen (and more) will vote for Beltre. This year's newcomers... Beltre is a given. If he gets even 90 percent, he will have used up the Rolen votes and a significant number of the Kent votes by himself. Besides Mauer, the rest of the newcomers are Chase Utley, David Wright, Bartolo Colon, Matt Holliday, Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Bautista, Jose Reyes, Victor Martinez, James Shields and Brandon Phillips. That's a much stronger group than last year's first-year guys (Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez and then guys like John Lackey, Huston Street and R.A. Dickey). For example, Lackey had the second-highest WAR of last year's newcomers, but nine of this year's first-year guys had a higher WAR than Lackey. Conclusion... I think Mauer belongs in, but because of all those factors, I don't think there are enough votes available to get him in this year.

Fair enough. Maybe another way of saying it is that if we were ranking them, I'd have Lewis at 4 and Ryan at 5, but that's semantics. We're on the same page in thinking it would take a haul to include Ryan.

I’m not too interested in any of these guys in November. However, I add Nick Senzel to the list and would have some interest in him. I do talk to Hudson’s and Trevino’s agents, however, and let them know I may have interest if they are still on the board in February. In general, I like the two-year rehab deal for Woodruff, but I don’t see it happening in a budget-tightening year. I

Thanks. I’d flip Ryan and Lewis in your groupings, but other than that, you saved me a lot of keystrokes, particularly with your last paragraph.

If that works with Moran, I'd consider trying to do the same with DeLeon.

I saw it as chips, which I think is disgusting on a burger. Then again, I thought the same about putting mac and cheese on a burger until I had it at a roadhouse on Highway 81 in South Dakota. Boy was I wrong. Though I have strong opinions on many things, I don't on Gordon. He seems too far down the pecking order to be of much value, and I don't see him having much value to other teams, though he might turn into the next Akil Baddoo. Though not an issue now, I suspect Gordon's roster spot will be of more value later in the winter than he is.

(For ease of reading, I moved the guys who've debuted into their own line in the quote above.) One of the key points for me on this list is that we shouldn't get our shorts wound too tightly when one or more of these (maybe even one of our favorites) gets moved for pitching. For example, if Baseball Trade Values is anywhere close to correct, Lee would get us a stud pitcher with a couple of controllable years. For reference, it would be a pitcher in the range of Pablo Lopez's four controlled years. Or Tanner Bibee's five years or Gavin Williams' six for Cleveland.* It seems Lee is seen as untouchable by some on TD, but I'd gladly trade him for a starter like Lopez, Bibee or Williams. A second key point is that having prospects like this is part of developing the "Pitching Pipeline."** Our two best starters for next year are both trade pickups, and I'm good with that.*** *I know the likelihood of an intradivisional trade of this nature is very low -- I was just looking for some pitchers with a lot of control and similar perceived value, and they were the first ones I came across Likely you can find examples on teams that are better trade fits. **This needs the little "Trademark" mark thingie, but I can't figure out how to go Superscript. ***This comment is not intended to highjack the thread and take it in another direction as we argue whether or not the Twins have developed this "Pitching Pipeline."