Trov

From the moment the trade with Yankees happened, I said this is not the last move we see from Twins this year. They freed up money from Donaldson to hopefully sign a SS, most likely it looks like Story, who I have not been big on, but we need something. For the right price I am fine with Story but he has a ton of red flags over next few years. I also believe Twins will look to move Sanchez as well for possible pitching, not sure if that move is out there though. I have a feeling the FO have ideas of where Sanchez could go, despite making statements they are happy to have him. Of course if follow up moves fall through and we are left with hole at SS and Sanchez as catcher or at least backup, I would say this was a huge fail. Donaldson was fading quickly, and his calfs could go at any moment. I am looking forward to hearing how the Yankees clubhouse deals with Donaldson and Cole together, as they had huge beef on social media last year, with the sticky substance issues.

I wonder if this was the plan when we traded with Texas, or after that got done Yankees came knocking. It seems like they could have done a three team trade, and maybe that was talked about but things just did not work out, so we had to go the path they did. NO way is the FO done with this deal. We get weaker at 3rd and catcher to just get a big contract out. It makes no sense as we still have hole at SS and go with a lessor 3rd baseman or unproven guy. I know Story is rumored, and read Twins have little plans to keep Sanchez, not sure if he will be released or they will try to trade him, but that leaves hole at backup catcher now too.

As soon as I heard of the trade with Yankees I said no way is that last of what FO is doing. I said most likely it means they are either doing another trade with a guy on a big contract, or they are going after Story. I also said I bet Sanchez gets flipped as well. If this happened pre 2019 we would be singing praises of the OF to get Sanchez. However since the second half of 2019 he has been terrible on both sides of the ball. He has shown some power still but overall he has been terrible. Garver has not been healthy, but when he was last year he was putting up some good numbers again.

The second I saw this trade I said they are going hard after Story. Then I saw shortly after, that Twins are inquiring about Story. I wondered if the trade was planned when they traded with Texas, or after, Yankees came calling and Twins just went with it. Essentially, they traded Garver, Donaldson, and Rortvelt for Sanchez and Urschella. They saved some money on Donaldson to hopefully move on someone else. If they do not bring in Story, who I have been against for anything longer than 4 years, then I have no clue what team is doing.

The answer to why is they seem to like bat first corner guys with little defense. Why not add to the group? That would be why there may be interest. That being said, I assume your question was more to why add to the group. That I have no answer to really.

I at first thought the lottery would not fix tanking, because rarely do you have a clear number 1 pick, once like every 10 years will you have a pick that is so clear number 1 people would really care if they got it. However, lowering picks if you routinely stay in the lottery may have the desired affect. The Kumar rule may not address his issue, but there was no rule in place that he would have to get contract at 75% slot value. I think it is a good rule for both sides. It will make all the teams get a chance to see the physical and they can decide to take the risk or not, and if they do the player gets a deal no matter what, if they want to take it. Sure it may lead to some guys dropping more than expected, but that is a risk the player will have to decide. If they do not share the info they will run risk of no offer at all, like Rocker got.

I wonder if the minor league camp that was going on will affect how a team was looking to go. Maybe a guy they were willing to trade for someone is no longer available. Maybe someone they were not looking to part ways with now is available. Maybe some of the non-roster invites have impressed enough they will not feel the need to bring in someone else. I was expecting signings and trades to happen very quickly as camps open in a couple days now. So far nothing that is disappointing to me.

Looking forward to the slew of trades and FA announced in the next 24 hours. I personally was surprised, it sounds like the actual players were less concerned about the issues than the heads of the union. I think the owners waited them out enough that the rank and file players that would see little from the changes in luxary tax line change did not want to risk missing too much time and money. Even more so when over the last decade jobs for 32 plus year old players are dropping quickly.

If it is like the minor league rule, assuming it is. If the time runs out the umpire issues a ball to the batter. Similar there was rules that made step offs limited per at bat when runner was on, and doing it too many times would result in a balk. To my knowledge there was no limit to hitters calling time, but that has always been up to umps if they want to grant it. I have seen times where batter steps out but no time is granted. I would bet the ump will be less likely to grant the closer the clock winds down.

I am never a fan of looking at MLB drafts on who we took versus who was taken some time after. It is even worse when you use large gaps, like top 5 to end of first round. The reason I say this is there are many things that go into a decision to draft someone, and without looking into all those reasons it is hard to really compare. That being said, I would agree the 2011 and 2014 drafts as good comparison type drafts. The reason I say that is the gap is not large, and the players played same positions, which meant the analysis of the team clearly was off. I actually remember the 2014 when Turner was talked as high as 5 for the Twins as well. Now, Mitchell and Story were not 100% comparison because Story was high school pick, and Mitchell was college, but as point out many were not high on Mitchell and questioned the pick at the time. I know for the 2014 draft a knock on Turner was he was not expected to stay at SS, which finally has happened him shifting but he has done very well for himself in the majors, while Gordon has barely played at this level, but similar to 2011, they are flipped flopped in high school versus college. Gordon was projected to be higher floor and stay at SS, but everyone was wrong on that. For 2010, it was clearly a miss, and I think I recall he was considered the same pick and we missed out on some top HS arms that panned out, at least a little in the comp round. But to compare a college pitcher to a HS OF, it is hard to compare. Yes, we could have, and if could do again should have drafted Yelish, however, we have no clue if he would have developed the same either. 2012, yes Seagar has higher WAR, but I would not say we got that one wrong, and no one was thinking Seagar was the number 1 pick in that draft, like Buxton was. If Buck could stay healthy he would have higher WAR than Seagar. 2013 comparing a guy that was top 5 rated to a guy that went comp round is just hard to say we should have taken the comp round guy. Sure, he has panned out well, and knowing what you know now most teams would have taken Judge over why they did, but it is not like everyone was saying Judge should go early, and we missed. 2015 we clearly blew that, but again Bueler was missed by many. There was 7 pitchers taken between Jay and Bueler, so again it was not like we were most likely between the two. That all being said, that was the old FO and they have been out and for good reason, they were missing more often than hitting. However, most GM's actually miss, very few will hit on most picks.

The war chest is common for unions to off-set the lost money in a work stoppage so people are less forced to accept less. The owner could end the lockout out any moment and start the season under the old CBA and until the players strike. The work stoppage was coming because the two sides were way to far apart. The owners were worried of a repeat of 95, where the strike ended the season and post-season. Yes, the fans would blame the players for that, but the two sides should not care who the fans blame because losing fans will hurt both sides. It is not like the fans will put in a vote and say we side with this group and that side wins the CBA they want. For the most part, fans do not care how the money is split, we want competitive entertaining baseball.

MLB, who claims they make little money, just announced a full new money stream. Poor timing when you are trying to claim you cannot cover certain money things for players because they cannot afford it. This will be more fodder for players to attack about money they are not getting. I personally hate MLB and their media rights. There is a reason they got sued for the streaming of games. It is crazy that if have a sports package that has out of network sports, MLB will have your games blackout and make you pay them for the MLB streaming. What is the point of having an out of network sports cable or satellite package if the out of network games are blocked?

The reason for wanting to cancel the rule 5 is because the non-40-man roster players are in camp. Very few teams are allowing scouts in because of fear the guys up for rule 5 will have made a jump in talent that the scouts will see and take a player they may not have normally looked it. The rule 5 is normally in December where all you have to go on is last years numbers, but this year, it would be possible a player improved over the winter and the teams are worried they will lose a player they would not normally done so. This makes some sense as the 40 man gets set with what you think other teams might do with a player, and it is too late to make those adjustments.

I have long advocated that a floor and cap would fix issues, as they get based on actual revenue and there is a true sharing. The info of the revenues get shared with players to set the numbers. Many of the issues is lack of transparency. My current union contract talks have that same issue. Management claims they cannot meet the demands because of lack of money, but will not show the books as to why that is the case. This leads to mistrust. I agree with the fact that if the players cared about all the players they would care more about a floor. If you expand the tax level all that will happen is the top few players will get a little more money. The teams that spend no where close to that number will not suddenly start spending more. Also, most teams could sign a guy to 20 mil or more, or raise what they are paying their players a little more and not pass the level. The tax level is not what is keeping teams from signing a vet for a few more million a season. The problem is the players have always said no cap ever, and will never budge on that. They do not want to limit what they can get paid, but they stupidly agreed to the tax level. Which is basically a soft cap that most teams will not pass, they do not want to throw away dead money. Really what should help all players is that money from the tax and the revenue that is shared with smaller market teams needs to be spent on players, that is the biggest issue. The smaller market teams take the shared money, but then still claim poverty.

I would hope that would not count, at least it will not in my mind.

There has always been a few pitchers that work quickly, one that always comes to mind for me is Mark Buehrle. He would get the ball, the sign and throw in just a few seconds. He was a good pitcher overall. Even when guys were on base he took little time between pitches and his games were very short. Personally, I am all for the pitch clock because I feel it has got crazy out of hand with how long some guys take. It will also lead to a new cat and mouse game when runners are on. As it will also have limited step offs and throw over. If it is like the minor league rule, you could only have 2 throws over or step offs, unless the runner took off before the pitch was thrown. I think there was a gray area of what was considered running going, meaning the runner could not just walk way off the base after 2 throws over. It will lead to more running game maybe but more trying to catch a guy too with pitch outs after 2 throws over. I do think the game needs to speed up, as it has dragged on. I always enjoy being able to do other things and not miss much going on, but at the same time I do not like 3.5 to 4 hour games every night. I think it will take time for the pitchers to adjust to it, but once they do there will not be much of an issue, and we will just accept it as part of the game now. I get that baseball has never had a clock of any kind, and that is part of the great part of the game, but at some point you need to not just let the game drag on forever. The game will continue to lose younger fans who want action. If this will make action happen I am all for it.

The pitch clock has only been active in minors for like a year. It was used some in Arizona fall league and stuff, but it is not like the minors have used it for several years where most players have used it. It sped up the game last year in the league it was used by like 20 min last year I read. I am all for the pitch clock, and will lead to some gamesmanship by pitcher and runner in some cases, that will be fun. For the base size, the purpose is by increasing the size of the bases it will make it slightly easier to steal a base. You would cut down the distance between bases just a few inches, but they did it in minor leagues and think it had small increase. I do not think it will make all that much of a difference at this level though. Most teams stopped running because the risk reward was not there in most cases. Maybe if the risk is lowered though with the smaller bases it will be. They need to get rid of the lefty throw over where they can lift the front leg and throw over. This will really increase stolen bases. For right handed guys you look at feet, front foot goes up you can run, but for left handed guys you cannot make that call until the front foot either goes toward home or crosses the back leg. This leads to many guys either not running at all, or just going on first move and pitcher deciding to throw over then.

I think you have the basics of the rule, and I think that is basically what the minors did. My main question is what does a violation equal, and does it have to be a violation need to affect the play? For example, the out of the base path rule is not that you need to be within so far of the line between bases or you are out, but that you cannot deviate from the direct path of the base to avoid an out. So, if the runner runs way outside the path, as long as no one is trying to tag him, he is not out, or if he is not trying to get in way of a throw. Again, I have no real issue implementing a rule, but I am more concerned on how it is worded and enforced. I think really the best they can do is keep the infielder in the dirt. How about this though, what if there are infielders on both sides of the bag, but the second baseman is a few steps in the OF because the runner is super slow and can field those ground balls? Will he need to be on dirt until contact is made, or when pitch is released? Does this apply to corner guys trying to take bunts away can they come in on the grass? See what I mean, so many questions based on the just a simple rule.

We all know the CBA really comes down to money, but part of it will be rule changes. We already know about the DH change. The most recent player proposal makes it clear a few other changes will happen. The size of bases, pitch clock, and anti-shifting. Base sizes is expected to lead to more steal attempts, so more action. All for that. Pitch clock is expected to lead to less waiting around and think it includes less throw overs, which will lead to more base stealing as well, maybe more pitch outs. That part of game will be interesting to see how it develops. What I wanted to write on is where I think most people will be split, the anti-shift rules. First, I am all for allowing shifts, and wish they did not make a rule to stop the defense from putting themselves in a place to get an out. I think the shift needs to be defined, and I think most would refer it to when a middle infielder plays on the opposite of the traditional side of the base, or an infielder plays in the outfield. At least those are the "shifts" I think people want stopped. Not the shift of where the OF plays, the corners being in to stop a bunt, or on the line to stop a double, or the middle infielders closer to the base at "double play depth". The reason you need a definition is if you are going to make a rule you need to decide where the line is drawn. Defenders have always moved based on the situation. There are even times teams would bring in a 5th infielder, will that be outlawed? Will a corner guy playing in on the grass be outlawed? Will the middle infielder playing just to the side of the base, essentially up the middle like what most teams did at end of Mauer's career be outlawed? Will a SS be able to play more in the hole against a righty, or a 3rd baseman playing more off the line against a lefty? I get why MLB wants the change, it should lead to more offense, because over the last decade the hitters have failed to adjust to the change. Back in the day, many hitters would just work the shift and get the hit that was given to them, but now, the hitters, for the most part cannot adjust to the shift, and the hitters cry foul. Instead of just adjusting and getting the free hit. We are rewarding bad hitters with a move like this. Where I am more worried is how the rule will be worded, and how will it be enforced. If an ump feels the rule is violated what will be the result, an automatic hit? What if the hitter does not even hit to where the offending player is? For example, lefty is up and either the SS or 2nd baseman violates the shift rule, but the hitter hits a fly ball to left or center, does the violation mean anything? Will special situations mean special exceptions? Will just the middle infield guys get addressed or will other positions? I guess I have always been a fan of let the 7 fielders, pitcher and catcher need to be where they are, play where they want. Let the hitter try to hit where they are not. I mean if I am a fielder I know 75% of the time a guy hits it to a certain spot, but the rules tell me I cannot stand there, it gets frustrating. What happens after this will the players that hit liners caught at the wall complain that the OF starts off to deep and we should make them start closer in? How about like KC used to play Mauer way on the LF line and Joe could never get a hit down the line, should the OF be limited on where they can start? I am not against the rule change because I personally enjoy the shift, I am against it because of putting one in will be difficult to really make I think and will lead to many more issues than it may solve. It seems like it will happen no matter what, guess we will see what the rule looks like and how it really works. I hope it has the planned affect of more balls in play for more action, my guess it will not though because the guys that really get affected by it, do not hit a ton of balls in play on the ground anyways.

I fully agree he is not likely to be a starter, but can fill a decent ben roll. First, I remember when 93 was considered fast, not a determent to a pitcher as too slow. My how times have changed, and I am not that old. Radke averaged 89 on his fastball and got the job done just fine. Second, the speed is not super important if the breaking pitch is that good you throw it more often and just use the fastball to change up things sometimes. As long as you can spot corners.

MLB teams have exploited international kids for years. Yes, some kids get huge sums of money, but most of the time that money is taken by corrupt people if the kid does not get out of the country. These kids are brought to baseball academies owned by teams where the kids are taught basic English and baseball. They do not learn anything of real educational value. For the lucky few that emerge and get signed even for just 6 figure deals do hit the jackpot, but most of the kids never get signed or sign for only 5 figures move to US and get used in the minor leagues because it is either do that, or manual labor in their home country because they passed up all possible education because they had athletic promise. Is it a better life than if they went to school, I cannot answer that. However, MLB has tried to put the spin on their academies as some great thing they are doing for the country, but the money they spend there does not get spread around it stays with very few people. Sure, without them some of these kids would never get found and never make it to MLB earning millions to help give back to their country if they want to. However, there is a very dark side of these as well. I hope with the international draft there will be less of this, but most likely not.

First, both sides are to blame, as both did not reach an agreement. The players could have chose the owners offer, and the owners could have chose the players offer, but neither did. To say it is all the owners fault, in my mind, is just not accurate. I will agree the owners are not opening their books to prove what they actually make. That is a huge issue. Do not claim you barely make money, but refuse to actually prove it. That being said, the owners should not be expected to lose money owning a team, just because they could afford to. Fans need to remember that there are 30 teams and they have different interest too. Even the players have different interests. There are large market owners, that would love to not have the luxary tax or have it higher like the players want. However, there are small market owners that despite winning with little payroll still never get many fans in seats. Then there are the teams in the middle. Each has what they would like to see. Personally, I would like to see as much parity in the sport as you can get, and I would love to see top players staying with their teams, no matter where they come from. I hated the early 2000's where most of the top guys went to either Yankees or Red Sox, with a few going to other teams. Now, I cannot see the owners books, but I believe that some of the smaller market teams cannot sign some of the free agents and be a profitable business, without getting revenue sharing. I could be wrong, and most likely they could spend more. The players are claiming they only care about making the game more competitive, but their proposals, outside of a draft lottery, which in baseball is a really who cares because rarely does the number 1 pick end up being the best player in the draft anyways, just does not make sense for competitive balance. The players want to raise the tax level and lower the penalty for breaking it. Well, very few teams any given year are within 20 mil of the number, meaning it is not what is stopping a team from signing some, but other factors. What those factors are, I cannot say. Lifting the tax number and lowering the penalty will just put the top few market teams back into looking to sign each top star and being able to outbid the lower tier teams. The players are concerned about service time manipulation, which they should be, but decreasing years to FA, combined with higher tax line, will just make teams hold guys in minors even longer. Teams tank or not be competitive for a couple of reasons. One, they lack the current talent in their system to compete against other teams, so they keep their top prospects down to have longer team control when they do have enough talent to compete, and they do not want to waste money and years of service on losing seasons. Two, more revenue sharing, international signing money, and more draft picks, getting the comp balance picks that they can use or trade. Both sides are to blame for this, I would argue the owners more so, and I do not blame the players for their stance. That being said, the players could accept what is offered, not saying they should. Regardless of how this shakes out, I just hope it does not go back to the top market teams signing every major FA again, with a splash here or there from other teams. What the players should really demand is not that the tax line goes up, but that the revenue sharing from it, has to be spent on players. Meaning every dollar that goes to other teams from revenue sharing must go to signing players. Not sure owners would go for it, but it gets you closer to what players want, better contracts across the board, not just bigger for the top few. It would help keep teams more competitive.

You point out one of the biggest issues in baseball is that some teams own their own networks making much more money for games and some are in much smaller markets meaning they get less to have games shown because less viewers means less advertising money. Since the owners of the teams that have more money coming in will not want to share with the smaller markets, that is one issue. Even though if all the small market teams folded there would be no league for the large markets to earn money, that is why they are willing to share some, but not a full on pool. However, if the owners were willing to pool most of the money, if not all, and do a 50/50 split, that would be fair. Then you have a cap and a floor, and let the players basically set up how they want the money doled out. However, the players since FA started they have always said a cap is a non-starter, despite wanting a floor. You need both really. However, the players have wanted a full open market from the jump, not capping what players can earn. It worked when teams like the Yankees were willing to buy the top FA every year for record deals. However, once teams started to see how much money they were wasting on bad contracts to old players, they started to say, well why pay the vet top dollar, when they are not helping us win that much, and we can get someone for so much cheaper and get similar wins. In a full free market, you are worth what teams are willing to pay you. You may say I am worth x dollars a year because the numbers I put up, but if no team is willing to pay it, you are not worth that much. I remember when J.D. Martinez was a FA. Only the red sox had much interest in a long term deal. Everyone said he was going to Sox all along. He tried to say other teams had interest, but they did not. Finally, he had to settle for what Sox offered, or take less money for a team that would have offered say a 1 year deal. If few teams have interest in a particular player it makes it hard for the team to pay huge sums, because you know few other teams even have interest. However, if you have a floor, then teams will spend money because they have to. Contract talks would go much smoother because teams would not try to low ball players, but would say well I need to spend x money and this guy is worth so many wins to my team so why not spend so much on him. This would take away the thought of, can I save more on a rookie or young guy that will give similar output. Saving money will no longer be a driving force.

Much like Ashbury said the three true outcomes was not meant to be the stat to judge people by. It was just meant to be another number to judge players by. Some players have taken it to extremes. Adam Dunn was one of the first in my memory. Joey Gallo is a recent guy. Personally, I find the huge strike out numbers by hitters annoying. I like to see balls in play and people running bases. I understand there will always be guys that are sluggers that do not run and they are there to hit HR. I just do not want a team full of them. Similar, I am not a huge fan of FIP for pitchers as a judgment of their pitching. Many people have shifted to pointing to FIP as a sign of how good someone pitches. I get why people like the stat, but it does not measure when the three true outcomes happen. For both hitters and pitchers, the three true outcomes can happen any at bat, but they are not equal depending on when. For example, maybe a pitcher only strikes out 6 guys per 9, but he gets strike outs when he needs to. Like when a runner is on 3rd and less than 2 outs, he gets the K, but when bases are empty he allows the ball to be in play. I believe some pitchers these days go into every at bat looking for the K, using up a ton of pitches when you can try to induce weak contact early in count, and until you get to 2 strikes never really looks for swing and miss stuff. Same with hitters. Tervor Plouffe is one I loved to point to about how his HR did not tell his story. In 2012 he hit 24 HR, and people were excited that maybe we had a power hitter on the rise from him. One he followed that up with 14 HR each of next 2 years with more PA, but even when you looked at that year, he had 55 RBI. 24 HR with only 55 RBI is crazy low. Meaning most of his HR were solo shots, and normally were when game was not in doubt, either up a lot or down a lot and he was getting lessor pitchers grooving fastballs to get through the game. If a player is hitting HR in meaningless at bats but striking out key situations, like runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs in close games. That is not good. All stats only tell part of a story and no stat should be used as the key stat to look at, but just used to see the whole picture.

This is exactly why I never understand why so many people freak out about failed drafted players. Every GM has draft fails and draft steals. Sometimes it may be the organization and sometimes it is the player. Sometimes a player comes in and looks like a HR then they fall off out of no where, where others take several years to finally click. Every time people discuss draft picks in baseball I always ask them who they would have drafted, normally they have no clue, or they put out a name. Well you should keep track of that name and see who missed or hit. Unless you can point to someone you would have taken instead just complaining about missing is dumb. Every draft you will find guys that never made it to MLB high in the 1st round, and you will find guys late in first or late in other rounds that are all-stars. Baseball draft is one of the biggest crapshoots in all of sports. The funny thing is no one remembers when a GM reached and hit early in the draft, but they remember when you take the expected guy in your spot and miss.