Trov

He must not have had many teams knocking on his door. He will be down the depth chart here, and unless he really plays well, he will not see much playing time here. I do not expect much from him, other than playing in St. Paul with possible play when injuries hit. Good luck to him, and maybe he impresses and can be flipped for something later in the year.

First it is when the season is delayed, because it will be. Then it really depends on how delayed it is. I would assume if only by a few weeks, it may be part of the agreement, but may do some built in DH to make up, or just cancel them. Most likely they will need to rewrite the schedule if they cancel games. I expect a full rewritten schedule with a reduced amount of games, just how many will be the question.

I really wish both sides would stop releasing media statements, in some effort to get fans on their side. Fans really do not care how the money gets split up. We want to watch baseball, and in small and mid market games we want to see our teams keep their home grown talent not the continued revolving door of trading them away or manipulating service time. We want to see the best players play and good games. The bickering on how OUR money gets split up between billionaires and millionaires really does not help fans care. The more I read and see coverage of each side releasing statements for the fans, it just makes me angry. Do either side understand that if we the fans just stop watching then there will be no money to fight over? Maybe, the fans should call on a lockout/boycott of games for like 1 month after the game returns. No watching, to attending games, all season ticket holders cancel their tickets. I think the two sides should take the fans input into these since they keep wanting to tell the fans how great and reasonable their proposals are. I propose, all tickets to attend games get cut 50%, all players and manager contracts get cut 25% or they are required to donate 25% of contracts to charities in the community. All food at stadium is sold at 10% above cost. If the two sides really care what I think that is my input, until they want to hear my input, leave the talks behind closed doors.

Cavaco was only higher on the list because of his draft status, but even then he was not very high on many lists. He was seen as a very high risk high reward kind of pick. He is still young and can grow, but I am not optimistic on him. What really sucks is a SS from college picked the exact next pick is looking like he will be making majors next year, Cavaco still has a couple years before you call him a complete miss, but he has not shown much so far. We will see what next year brings.

Kepler is who he is. He is not going to out of no where become some great hitter that gets MVP votes. He will be serviceable with good defense. He will not out of no where rake against lefties. He tried to change his approached last year to be more complete hitter, only to struggle and try to go back to old style. If he can get back to who he was before his attempted adjustment he will be fine. I am a fan of trying to adjust to get better, but some players just need to be who they are. I remember Jaques Jones years ago as lead off hitter was not typical. He would attack first fastballs, similar to Kepler. Jones was great at attacking first fastballs. Then he said he was going to take more walks and work counts more. He did this and got many more walks, but his average dropped and his OBP dropped too. His walks doubled. This happened because he was not attacking first fastballs, which many times is best pitch to swing at. His change in approach hurt him overall, because the pitchers did not change their approach to him, he just was trying to change his to get better, but it backfired. Sometimes if things are not broke, do not fix it. Yes, getting better should be the goal, but sometimes it does not work and you need to return to what does.

First, I think the idea is okay, if a floor will be imposed without a solid cap, why have a solid floor. I think the penalties would need to be different for players to like it though. One, the revenue sharing should get split up to players somehow, not just left in the league or with the large market teams, and maybe even just shared with the players on the team. I would also think there should be something based on how many players are on pre-arb timelines. Meaning, if a team has a lot of pre-arb players they should not be as punished, if at all. The reason I have issue with a floor, without a hard cap, is it will force some teams to spend more on players just to get above the floor. That will lead to lower talent players getting paid more, which is what the players want, but then the high level players will start to point out they are so much better than the lower talent guys and they now need to earn more. It will not help with competitive balance, it will just cause some teams to pay more for less.

How do we know his elbow will be fine going forward? You said he has generally been healthy, so we have nothing to judge how he will bounce back from it, or if it will be lingering issue. Even if he does bounce back, very few SS stay elite on the other side of 30. Also, what evidence is there that he will produce anywhere close to the same level of offense with Twins as he did in CO. His home road splits are terrible over his career. I have not done a deep dive into each park, and how he may compare to Target Field, but his history has shown he does not hit well away from Coors Field. I commented saying I would be fine on a shorter term deal for him, but I think any team that signs him to anything more than 5 years will really regret anything after 5, and may regret anything after 3. Maybe I will be wrong, but I feel Twins cannot take those long term risks.

I have been very much against Story for his reported asking price or expected signing number. I would not want him for very long term at a huge number. Now, if he is willing to accept say a 3 to 4 year deal at a reasonable per year number I would be more open. He is aging, declining in numbers on both offense and defense, has terrible home road splits. I am fine with checking on him for short term, but doing a 6 to 8 year deal is way out of question. I think they Twins would greatly regret that long of a deal and be tied to an aging sub par offense guy that gets moved off of SS, and by end of deal fans will be so happy he is gone. Clubs like the Twins cannot take big swings and misses on long term deals. Even high market teams like Angels who have had many swings and misses start to pile up and never pay off in long run. Story comes with a huge buyer beware tag in my opinion.

I think Gordon will have the biggest potential impact with the team. Mainly it is based on the fact that he can play most positions. He may be asked to step in at CF when Buxton is hurt, fill in different infield spots too. He has a history of slow adaption to each level, but has always grown and been good at each level when healthy.

In all trades, if the price is right you should do it. However, this trade really questions if the price will be right. As noted, Rays always seem to know when to trade someone, getting Glasnow for a trade of Archer, who was terrible after his trade. Snell was not good after his trade. Davide Price is one of only a few guys that got traded by Rays that had good value after they left. I am always hesitant to buy from the Rays. Selling to them is not so bad, but trying to get an established player from them always seems to work out for Rays. That being said, if the price Glasnow is low that you can wait for a year to use him, then take a flier on him. However, why would Rays trade him at lowest of his value? They never do that, and they would not take pennies on the dollar for him. I believe they would much rather have him come back some time end of season, if healthy to showcase him and trade next off-season. If not that, then they would wait until next season and trade mid-season unless they need him to compete and feel returns are not worth it. They have been known to let guys walk too. My guess only way Rays trade him now is if teams are really betting on him coming back at same level, and they will sign him. Should the Twins be willing to deal for an injured Glasnow at a price of a nearly if not fully healthy Glasnow, because I highly doubt Rays will sell for cheap.

I believe a couple of things have really affected baseball over the years. One, the cost of going to games has increased so much that it makes it hard for a family to go. It used to be really cheap to go, and you could go to several games a year. Now, a family rarely has the money to go more than one or two times. Two, the game has not evolved with the changing viewing of fans. As teams have learned what makes winning more likely, it is dropped the excitement of the game a ton. The fact that a game may take into 4 hours with little action has affected some fans in my opinion. Further the lack of evolving for the fans in terms of entertainment. You never have sound bites of players really getting excited. If you see a player watch a HR or something like that they get dogged and say they are breaking unwritten rules. NFL used to be called the "no fun league" because when players danced after getting a touchdown or other things they were flagged. Now, the league said hey, we have a whole group of fan base where they pay money in a video game to have dances to show off, why not allow are players to do the same. Baseball has evolved to have less balls in play, and more pitching changes. Less stolen bases, less bunting, overall just less stuff going on. For the most part in some games is basically a HR derby on how can hit more. If baseball does not look out, it will really drop down in popularity, and as players leave to play other sports then you will lose even more fans too.

I would say there is movement, but it is very small movement. On the major issues both sides are still very far apart. This is not good and needs to make huge movement soon, or we will lose games. The fact that the owners are not willing to share their financials with players keeps that distrust going. It suggests that they are taking a much larger slice of the pie and are worried once the players see it will upset the players. This may be true, under the why are you hiding this info kind of thing.

Who was giving up on him? I know his early part of his career was not good, but it give up on a guy after one bad half a season, even more so in first pro ball experience shows some short sighted view on prospects.

So if a pitcher does not have success in post-season then they are not HOF worthy? Fact is other than post-season numbers, Koufax post season numbers were great, but Sanata's was not terrible as a starter. He only had 1 bad game, rest were above replacement level. It is not his fault the team did not advance, or failed to score for him at all. My point in my post is careers were in line of seasons, and overall numbers were on par, but no one questions Koufax should be in hall, but very few, as shown by 1 and done vote, think Santana should be in at all. It makes no sense to me. I hate the post season argument, as some great players never get to play in post season. Mike Trout is most likely a first ballot guy, but only has 1 post season series, with 1 hit in 12 at bats. Should he be left out because his post season career to this point has been terrible?

I get the point you are making that some times closers were better suited there, but I have a couple of issues with your post. First, starters have much more of an impact on the game overall than a closer, just by pure fact they pitch more innings. Also, you point out the first out is not same as last out with bases loaded in 1 run game, but in that example, the closer let the bases get loaded most likely, maybe not if there was a huge lead and they had to come in before lead was blown. I see you also used the WPA number, which I am not a fan of. First, it is weighed much heavier for relief pitchers if they come in when someone else got them in a jam and leave runners on base, but starters get less credit for having a quick 1 2 3 inning. Closer get boost for coming in close game, but starter gets less credit if they pitched a shutout in a game where the team scored 10 runs from them. So the starter did great by not allowing a run, but WPA is lower because his team scored a lot of runs. WPA is fine to compare with other relievers, but I do not like comparing to starters. I guess I would ask you this. In 2004 through 2007, both were on the team. If you would have had to pick one to keep, which player would you have wanted? If you can say Nathan because he may have had a higher WPA, but WPA does not mean someone other than Nathan may not have got those outs. I would take the guy that pitched 911 innings versus 281. Satana had 3 times the amount of innings. Sure, where some of his lower leverage, yes, but so where Nathans.

100 Percent Santana was the bigger snub. He was one of the best starters for several years of his career. He had injuries, that may have been because the Mets needed a no-hitter and did not care if his arm fell off, that cut his career short. If you look at another HOF pitcher in a similar situation, Sandy Koufax, Santana had similar career numbers and both had injury issues that cut career short. Johan pitched in less games, but had a higher WAR for his career. Their win percents of wins of starts made are 39 percent for Santana and 41 percent for Koufax, so nearly the same. K rates were about the same 8.8 to 9.3 per 9 innings. Career ERA is not far off either. The issue was Koufax ended at top of his game, where Santana peak was before the injury ended his career for good. However, they both played 12 seasons as well. I was shocked when Santana was a 1 and done on the ballot, how did voters completely dismiss him when he has about the same, if not slightly better than other HOF pitcher. It was just crazy.

I think they will have to be more aggressive after the CBA, but I do not mind waiting until after the CBA to make FA signing moves. We do not know what the CBA will look like and how that may affect contracts going forward. The owners and players were so far apart on ideas it would be hard to think the status quo is going to happen. We will see how they act coming out after the lock out ends, when it ends.

Jason Tyner, the 1 HR wonder. A first round pick from Mets that ended up with Twins getting his 1 career HR in over 1300 career at-bats. I remember it was in Cleveland and barely made it out. How about Dave Hollins, who we traded for future HOF David Ortiz, lets not mention it was not because of Ortiz time with Twins though. I fondly remember Midre Cummings too, because he hit a walk off extra inning hit against Cleveland at the dome, when I was there with good seats as a teenager on dollar dog night, the first year they had it and there was no limit. We were terrible team, and Cleveland was winning divisions over and over, so the walk off win was sweet end to like 4 hot dog night.

First ballot for Ortiz shows the voters no longer care about the DH thing at all. For a long time, DH guys were never in because voters felt they were not real players as all they did was hit. If they were a DH most of their career they would be dogged for it. I felt Ortiz would get in, but was not thinking first ballot. I agree with the article that Ortiz may not have had same HOF path if Twins kept him. Not only did he hit well during season, but he was a post season monster that may not have happened in the Twins line up, but maybe would have. I wanted Twins to keep Ortiz and felt he was going to be great when he could stay healthy, he kept having hand and wrist issues with Twins, holding him back. When he was released it was not like every team jumped on him. From what I recall he was a later signing with Boston, and was not brought in as a starter. He actually did not get much time at first. He only played in 128 games, still finished top 5 MVP votes. He was not a starter to being season, but eventually took over as full time guy. He split a lot of time between 1b and Dh at that time too. Should Twins have kept him, for sure, and I said that at the time. However, it is not like at the time every team was jumping to bring in Ortiz. Maybe it was his health, as he never broke the 130 games with Twins, or maybe it was the park, or coaching staff, but he clearly was a different player with Sox.

Personally I do not think shifting guys to pen for health reasons is the way to go. Unless you plan to give them always 1 day off or more between outings. I do not believe the way an arm works is it has only so many throws before it breaks down, maybe it does work that way, not a doctor. However, the modern pen guy is expected to pitch around 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of innings a starter throws. However, they also are expected to throw in higher leverage situations, less warming up, and they have many times they will warm up and not come into a game as well. I believe for some the wear and tear on arm can be similar. Now I am not saying there is not possible evidence that having a guy come out of pen will help get more overall innings over a career, and possibly more important ones as well. However, I think most that transition well, like Perkins, it is because the limit their pitch mix and give more to each pitch. He once said he felt he could go all out each batter because did not have to save himself for later in the game.

You can blame the owners for waiting the 43 days to send proposal as an issues, however, I blame both sides for how we got here, and how it will go. Unlike in NBA or NFL where owners and players understand that when they work together to make a better product it will bring more money into the league and more money to share. Those leagues know if you make a larger pie each will get more pie no matter how you cut. MLB and players do not care how big the pie is, they want to larger slice and do not care that their slice is smaller because they made the pie smaller due to their own issues. The players have proposed things, that they claim is for helping make the overall product better, but it really is just to put more money into top players pockets, and allowing the top market teams to load up on more talent. The owners continue to want to pay the least amount they can. If the players and owners really care about having competitive games, balance of teams, and keeping players in home grown teams to help build fans support of players, they would work on a hybrid agreement between NBA and NFL. The problem is, the players will never agree to a cap, but they are demanding a floor. How can you expect there to be a floor without a cap. In other leagues they have them, and they are based on league revenue, where the players will get a percent of the money teams make. If I was an owner of say Tampa Bay, I would be 100 percent against a floor, without a cap. This is because the high market teams could outbid for the top talents as they do already, forcing the lower teams to pay more for lessor talent, because you have to spend it. This is does not help balance. Also, what if the floor is above what a small market team makes because the players want to get rid of the revenue sharing that goes on as well. I have long said this will be a long stoppage that will go into the season. This is because both sides want to win against the other, and not come up with something that is best for both. Fans want to see the best talent at the MLB level, and want to see their teams compete late into seasons. This is best done when talent is spread across teams, not all in one team. This is also best done when there is little incentive of teams to keep talent in the minors until they have built up enough to make a push. Tanking is not an issue in baseball, as the number 1 picks are never for sure MLB players. However, teams will not try to win and keep top players in minors, not using up years of control, if they know they have little chance of making playoffs. The problem is neither side can see how bad this will be for both until it is too late.

It is hard to compare 2 guys from 2 different eras and one that played a much shorter career and played very different positions. If you look at just offense Carew was better overall. However, Puckett played CF. The metrics may not like him all that much, gold gloves back then went so often to high offense guys that would make a high light play now and again without any major errors. However, he still played it at least to a point that people felt was above average defender. Carew played two of the lower defense positions. 1b was the place you stuck a guy because you wanted his offense but defense was lacking so just asking him to mostly catch it. That to me is where Puckett starts to catch back up. Where I decide Puckett would get the edge just barely is what he did in the playoffs. Even taking away his Game 6 stuff, he was awlays willing to take the big moment and do what he could to carry the team. He did not buckle under the pressure of post season. Not saying Carew did, but his numbers were much worse. You could not go wrong with either on a team in their prime, if I had to pick one though, Puckett would get the nod just barely for me.

His overall offense was not the problem. It is 1, his drop in defense, which was a main reason we targeted him because he was going to be good defense at 3rd. Now, he is below average at 3rd and most likely will be playing a lot of time at DH. His slugging is lower than expected in part because he cannot run. I know he is choosing to not run to stay on the field because his calfs could act up anytime he runs faster than mock turtle. You can live with no speed if he starts hitting more HR, not that 26 is terrible, but he hits at top of line up and will fully clog the bases. I will never want him on base in front of Buxton because that will take away Buxton's speed if Donaldson is on base. I would like to see Josh hitting after Buxton though. I think people were just down on Donaldson because he was a big contract, but not thinking about he is pretty much what we were hoping for on offense, just taking a step back on defense is a big issue and his complete lack of running to keep him healthy.

Is there a consensus that playing SS is what caused Polonco's injury issues and that playing 2nd base will make it that much less likely he will have them? I am not saying we need to move Polonco back, but when healthy his bat plays well anywhere, and despite being below average defense, his bat is above average to level it out. Now, if there is a strong belief by the medical staff that SS is what led to the ankle issues then I would agree to keep him off of SS.

To go along with the fact Greene could have been SS as mentioned, he also pitched in LA for high school. Scouts will always look at areas kids play as well. Petty pitched out east where the best player in the world once played but dropped late in the first round as well, because scouts worry about the big fish little pond thing. This would be even more of an issue with a guy like petty who throws so hard. Very few people can hit that speed, so put him in an area where talent is considered lower, there is concern he is just looking good against less talent.