gunnarthor

Well, putting aside PEDs, ARod is the best but Jones, ARod and Griffey can all argue pretty well for that honor. Mauer gets to argue for #4. But I think Stark's point - that Atlanta got the full value of that pick - makes some sense as well although it doesn't include the $$$ spent to keep him.

But 5 seasons of extra starts seems to offset the rate stat difference, IMHO, and make him a much easier HOFer for voters. Glavine did things that can separate him from Kevin Brown easier than Moose and Schilling did.

Biggio? That seems an odd choice. Not a bad choice, simply odd. Vlad, Suzuki, Griffey are probably my favorite non-Twins.

I think you're under rating Glavine a bit, which I think is a problem of WAR based analysis. Glavine pitched a ****load of innings which is pretty important. Schilling career - 20 seasons - 3261ip, 127 ERA+, 6x all-star, 4 times top 10 cy. Glavine 1988-2002 3294ip, 124 ERA+, 2 cy young, 8x all-star, 6 top 10 cy votes. He basically had a Schilling like career and then had another 1000+ innings at 105 ERA+. We can do the same for Moose. Glavine also has a 3.30 post season ERA in about 100 more innings than the other two, as well. Glavine pitched about two more seasons than those two but threw about 5 seasons more of starter caliber innings. Yes, the other two struck out more batters but that's not the end-all, be-all. WAR has it's limits. Glavine wasn't just a compiler of innings, he was a very good pitcher (and decent hitter for a pitcher - adding about 7 WAR over his career). He had a lot of seasons where he was top 10 in both IP and ERA+ (and he did lead the league in WAR). That's harder to do than you'd think. I'm sure he benefited from having Jones in CF but Schilling and Moose had some good defenders (and explosive offenses) to help them, as well. Schillings career had some ups and downs but Glavine was a pretty constant force and sometimes the best pitcher in baseball (Moose, IMHO, has a much better argument than Schilling). Only 29 pitchers threw more innings in baseball history than Glavine and only about 15 since integration. He won two Cy Youngs (deservedly) and was the ace of some of the best teams in baseball. He was a pretty easy choice for the HOF. That doesn't mean that Mussina and Schilling (and Brown) didn't have HOF careers but Glavine is pretty clearly a HOFer, even if you're just looking at WAR (which has Glavine right above Carew and right below Ryan). 57. Ken Griffey+ (22) 83.6 L 58. Mike Mussina (18) 83.0 L 59. Nolan Ryan+ (27) 81.8 R 60. Tom Glavine+ (22) 81.4 L 61. Rod Carew+ (19) 81.1 L 62. Charlie Gehringer+ (19) 80.6 L 63. Curt Schilling (20) 79.9 R

I was really surprised by Manny's vote total. Apparently about a quarter of the voters don't care at all that he had two failed PED tests during the testing era but they also didn't seem overly supportive of Sheffield, who wasn't quite the bat Manny was, but was close.

I don't like the Raines election because it's just the compiler argument. But, at the same time, it's nice to see more guys from the 80s get in. It's a bit surprising so many Expos are in and not enough Tigers but ... Vlad's a worthy HOFer and I wish he had gotten in but it's pretty clear he will. Bagwell and Pudge getting in is pretty good news for the PED guys who have rumors but no direct failed test. Seems a bunch of voters don't care as much as other voters did. I think Moose is the most underrated candidate on the ballot. He's the Blyleven of this generation but, at the same time, it's not hard to see why. Maddux, Glavine, Johnson, Clemens and Pedro averaged something like 4,260ip, 4 cy, 101 WAR, 307 win, 628 starts. Guys a notch below - Moose, Schilling, Brown etc are going to look bad. I wish guys like Walker, Kent, Martinez had more support. I'm not sure if they are all HOFers but they certainly deserve more discussion that is gets bogged down by the steroids/Schilling/new candidates every year.

I think Brock hit it on the head - we will know in ST if Hughes is back. If he's throwing 88, maybe it's time to discuss a buy out or at least a bullpen role. But if his velocity is back, he can be a 180ip, 1.5-2.0 WAR pitcher. That's not great but that's certainly serviceable in today's MLB.

Brock, how old are you? If you're not near retirement age, I don't think you should overly worry about diversifying your investment. Just buy 3k of something and let it ride for 20 years. Also, you might want to consider some of the Vanguard admiral index funds - it requires a 3k minimum investment (I believe) but the admiral funds have a pretty good return and many reinvest profits like a dividend. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=0623 Obviously, everyone is different but I'd stay away from trying to make a quick 10% and focus more on longterm quality investments. If you invest 3k and sell when you have 10%, that's only $300, minus any fees and minus the tax hit (I think it's around 20% if you own it for less than a year), so that $300 gets cut down pretty fast. It's better to have a system in place where you are constantly adding to your portfolio.

I own a few good dividend stocks like WFC and DE. I think the big banks (USB, GS, JPM) are relatively safe returns in this market and I like oil (HP is a oil rig company that I've owned in the past). If you don't want to own oil or banks, something like Pfizer might be of interest. I don't own any Pfizer but it has a solid dividend and there are people out there that think Pfizer is a potentially great buy IF a few things happen.

While a few players probably played themselves out of the HOF (Jim Kaat) I think voters don't weight the bad seasons as much. Old traditional type voters will like Mauer as an MVP and only catcher to win a batting title. New type voters will latch onto his strong WAR totals like Jaffe at SI has. He'll get in.

Um, have you met TD?

"Greene’s father, Russell, took him to skid row when he was 10 so Hunter could talk to homeless people and understand that “each of them had a story and were once a child like me with dreams,” Hunter said. The outings had a lasting impact." That sounds like a pretty remarkable kid. Not sure if some of that isn't hype or exaggeration but it's nice that's he doing something at his young age.

I think hard hit is a bit different than power, correct? I could be wrong but I thought hard hit had more to do with squaring the ball up (probably measured in mph off the bat) rather than .iso or some other metric. The problem with Mauer has been that he's not hitting the line drives anymore, he's rolling over to second base every other at-bat. As for his percentages, his career hard hit % is around 33 and his 2013 was one of his higher years and his 2014 was one of his lower. He had a 31% last year. So I'm not so sure how much value this is worth, at the end of the day. He's not the hitter he was, regardless of cause.

I'm not sure you can place it on his concussion - he was also aging and dealing with a bunch of injuries over time. Most players see their hard hit % decline as they get older.

Trying to time the market has never worked for me. The safest thing you can do is in invest in boring index funds. After that, research the company (and sector) so you understand how it works (Tata Motors was a huge hit for us once we understood what it was doing). Buy it when you can and just hold it until you actually need the money for something else (buying a home, paying off debt, retirement). If you're selling, it means someone else thinks the price you're selling at is a good price to jump in at. And they might be smarter than you. They are certainly smarter than me.

Well, I think Joe still makes the HOF. He'll end his career with more than 2000 hits, 3 batting titles and an MVP. Tim Raines also had a very small peak and it looks like he'll get into the HOF. Mauer won't be a first ballot guy but he'll get in. As for the next few years, I think he'll have flashes of old Mauer and I really hope he has one more 4 WAR season in him but I suspect the next two seasons will look a lot like the last two seasons.

I don't know. I remember in 06 the Twins wanted Soriano and offered Garza, Baker and another prospect to Washington. On the other hand, considering the angst of trading Ramos and Hu, I suspect the we'd probably offer Romero and leave it at that.

Yeah, maybe. I'm sure they knew that they'd have to give up something of value but I am a little surprised about the reports. De Leon is ok but De Leon and Stewart is a deal breaker? So maybe there's something to your theory. In any event, it looks like the Dodgers will move onto Kinsler or Forsythe. I wonder what rumors we will hear about those dealings.

Don't give up on 2017 doesn't mean they'd be competing for a playoff spot. We're not that 2012 Astros. We have the pieces in place for the most part. They just need to play.

Yeah, I'd have him higher too but he is recovering from an injury. Callis at mlbpipeline just had a prospect inbox where he said Buehler is his pick for best break out from injury, or something like that. Callis is pretty high on Buehler.

If you have that kind of confidence in De Leon, you should also have it in Berrios.

Again, I think you're putting words in people's mouth when they didn't say it. I've seen no one suggest that the Twins will compete in 2017. And a way to make sure you stay bad is to trade away your best players in bad deals.

On De Leon: "On the pitching side, righthander Jose De Leon must prove he can handle a starter’s workload after running into durability issues the last two seasons—but he has mid-rotation starter potential." Both fangraphs and BA have highlighted his durability while putting his upside at the mid-rotation. Not a future ace. This isn't a top 10 SP prospect. He's a fine prospect but he's not Berrios. He's certainly not Giolito.

I think you're misrepresenting - or taking out of context - most people's views to create these arguments. Most of us are ok with trading Dozier but only on the right deal. Chitown was pretty clearly stating that a De Leon package wasn't sufficient for the cost of Dozier. And he's right, the Twins with De Leon and minus Dozier would be worse than the Twins with Dozier and no De Leon.

Sure. It makes sense that Bellinger would be on a Twins ask list. But the bigger issue is what should the Twins receive. From all these reports, the Dodgers sure had a big list of people who weren't going to be included. Bellinger, Alvarez, Stewart, Verdugo, Urias, Buehler, Lux. There's not a lot to love if you take all those guys away. Sheffield is a reliever. Calhoun is a DH (if the Twins think he can play third, that's a different thing). Smith and Diaz are at A ball. Sborz? De Jong?