diehardtwinsfan

I'll drink to those. I still think the win total will largely depend on a Sano/Buxton bounce back. I'd be curious what the over/under numbers are on those guys.

There's a nice amount of power in the middle of the order, and with Cron and Schoope behind Gonzalez, I have to think he sees a lot of good pitches... Castro is probably going to be a black hole... I'm not expecting much from him this year. Hopefully, Garver makes enough defensive strides that Castro finds himself more of in a backup role as time goes on. If Buxton and Kepler can finally break out... that will be a nasty lineup.

Converting a pitcher to a starting 3B is pretty impressive in my opinion.... Going to go out on a limb and say it doesn't work out

I don't think they get rid of Austin. I think he goes north.

it's spring, so we have to take it with a grain of salt, but I have to admit that I'm warning up to this move... and I didn't like it at first... Hope Perez proves me wrong.

I think the why is pretty straight forward. He's not going to the NL, and there weren't many teams with a gaping hole at DH in the AL. This is a good fit... now let's hope that father time is kind enough to let him play at a high level for 2 more years.

I don't have a problem with the minor leaguers not getting a pension (though I do agree with your point about a guy who's been in the system for 10 years). Also, pensions don't kick in until retirement age, not when the player quits baseball. I do, however, have a huge problem with minor leaguers not getting paid a living wage. Pensions typically kick in once you've put in enough service time with your organization to qualify, so I can understand that, though a lot of major leaguers probably don't need it... that's a different issue. I really hope that they do something to fix all of this when the next CBA gets negotiated.

I like these rule changes.

nice post. I love the updates. Keep them coming!

yeah, and I think we were a bit behind the times in that capacity, so I think this is good... I could see that showing a change over the next couple seasons of some of our busts who suddenly start living up to their talent... one could hope.

Austin will be in ahead of someone... My guess Adrianza or Astrudillo.

I know I saw something somewhere that we had the highest offer out there for Kimbrel. Not sure if anyone else has swooped in yet, but I'd be curious if that was still the case.

I think my problem is that the reliability takes years to accumulate, and I'm not sure I trust the logic in that statement. It's not like there aren't tons of defensive plays available each year. 600 PAs for a batter ultimately leads to what... 400ish chances for a defender somewhere? Granted, there's 9 defenders on the field, but times the 9 batters in the lineup, you still have plenty of players with far more defensive activity then at bats. Yes, I know some have far less too, that's the nature of the game, but I'd think at this point they would be able to come up with something. It's quite literally 600 PAs against 400 or so defensive attempts per player on average. That's enough of a sample size to determine something. My problem with all of this, to be honest, is the concept of luck that gets thrown into this way way way too much. When Buxton or Kepler posts a low BABIP, I don't think it's b/c it's simply that he's unlucky. What we view as luck is simply variation within the top 1/100th of 1% of people, and in that case, Buxton is performing like someone in the 1/50th of 1% of people. It can trick someone who doesn't recognize the skill required to perform in the range of what we could call random variation. It will take an adjustment for them to perform within that range. You see players saying this all the time, but we get lazy and call it luck. This was a long time ago, but I remember reading a paper on how easy it was to build design into a series of numbers and make it look random. I think, at least to some extent, we're dealing with much of the same problem in trying to quantify these types of things. We want to chalk up way too much to randomness that is skill because we cannot see the skill in the numbers due to the fact that we are dealing with the top .0001% of people on this planet who happen to possess this skill. I'm not sure it's as simple as needing more years. I think it requires a better eye both physically and mentally.

well, Sano was not very good in 2017 and 2018, so that's not really a surprise. I don't like how his 2019 has started, that's for sure... Hopefully he's back in May and hitting quite well.

They could also be looking at 16 year olds who have taken steps forward. Not many teams have a ton of cash right now, and those guys are available too. They could get 5 or so Graterol types for the money they have right now.... Obviously those are not sure things, but there's plenty of good IFA talent that came through on cheap bonuses.

so do international dollars carry over to the next season or do they have 800k available that they must use to get someone yet this season?

It's kind of hard to figure out Johnson's contributions, but correct me if I"m wrong, but it's pretty rare for guys to be hitting their 2018 max velo in ST? Usually that happens well into the season... It sure seems like they have a coach who using the laws of physics to maximize a player's velocity.

The players contented they are entitled to that revenue growth because profit sharing is really the only way you can negotiate any of that to get around the anti-trust issues in play. I don't think it's that unreasonable for players to look at overall revenue as that target... and like it or not, the product on the field certainly drives a good portion of those revenues. I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that the current players haven't had any role in creating said fortune. That would be true for every generation fo players if that's the case.

I think the part you miss in this is that MLB drafts employees. Due to competitive balance, they effectively restricted where employees can work during most of their careers as well as what they make in that timeframe. Like it or not, that necessitates a union and CBA. That's the only way around what is a blatant anti-trust violation, and if that exemption went away, baseball as we know it would be gone too. Simply put, you cannot compare my employer (MSFT) to MLB... because in my industry, you don't have google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. defining a process to decide where I'm working. That's a pretty big difference, and it's why you're not comparing apples to apples. It's why a CBA exists (it has to). It's why players are effectively entitled to a share of the profits because owners and players have to negotiate things like pay, and that will always be centered around profits. This has nothing to do with socialism vs. capitalism, and truthfully, both concepts fall short in this scenario due to the above reasons.

not to make a silly point here, but the replacement player is of itself a somewhat mythical creature. It's a construct. It's not like our AAA farm is loaded with them. Guys will either out perform the replacement player or underperform. Very few will actually be a 0 WAR guy. Gonzalez, as I see it, allows us to not give a ton of at bats to guys who are much closer to replaceent player, or even below it. I like that.

A few things: I don't think people quite get how much worse catchers are at hitting than other positions. Castro, if healthy, is probably a league average hitter, which is significantly better than most catchers.I like our major league depth. I think all 3 of our guys have upside. I do think Garver could work on his defense, but he's making strides there and given his bat, I'm content to be patient. Astrudillo is a bit of a wildcard still, but I woudln't be surprised at all if he's the #2 catcher behind Garver in 2020 if he can pick up where he left off (though a .350+ BA is probably not sustainable).I wouldn't be surprised at all if Castro is traded at the deadline, especially if Garver and Astrudillo are doing well. Astrudillo will eventually get a call. May not be at C, but if he's hitting, I have to think they move on from Castro. He's not good enough to get a QO in my opinion, so this might be an odd scenario where he's moved at the deadline even if we're doing well. I could see that as a part of a 3 team trade where the prospects go elsewhere but we end up with some ML help if we're contending, or just a prospect if we aren't.I'm not very high on our minor league depth. I really like Rortvedt and Jeffers, but both still have question marks and the system is pretty barren outside of them. Jeffers bat looks like it will play in the majors, but he still has strides to make defensively, and Rortvedt's bat is not a sure thing (though I think we all agree that it has some upside). Not only that, but Rortvedt is just getting his first taste of AA this year, and he may start again in Fort Myers. I do hope that they have a similar strategy to last year and draft several college catchers or even a HS catcher if you see one fall to the right place.

I would love more teams, but I think baseball is going to need to fix its wealth distribution issues to make this work. They would need some sort of revenue sharing and a salary cap. Big market clubs will oppose the revenue sharing, and the players union will oppose the cap. Baseball has some serious structural issues it needs to address.

agreed... but I personally hope he tears the cover off the ball all season long.

and now we have them both... I like Astrudillo, and I think he could play a key role on this team over the next few seasons, but he's got options... that's valuable as well. There's no doubt in my mind that he wont' get chances at some point this season, it just may not be on opening day.

yeah, I have to think Adrianza is gone and Astrudillo will be in AAA now.