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I don't think Rosario's BABIP is a major concern. He had a large drop in the second half and was a better hitter: BABIP wRC+ 1st half .354 97 2nd half .315 98 Sano is the interesting one for me, will he take step's to be the Miguel Cabrera type of hitter and maintain the .380 BABIP, with power and walks or does he take the Adam Dunn turn - power, walks, K's and low average

Milone > Jessie Chaves ERA+ 2015 ERA+ Career Milone 106 99 Chavez 96 87 Chavez traded for Liam Hendriks - K/9 of 9.9 Even Milone had a k/9 in the bullpen of 18 and a save (okay it was only 1 inning, but.. . No chance they don't tender him. He has value, but I don't think they are shopping him.

Milone = JA Happ, and he just signed for 3-$39, so he should have some trade value.

The Twins have spent draft picks on college relief pitcher and then try to convert them to starter. Now they have a surplus of back of the rotation starter and lack relief pitching. It's time to start using those arms in the bullpen. Veteran relief pitchers end up being just as much as a gamble as the young players. So go young with your bullpen, use the money to fill other needs - maybe stop signing mid-level starter and go big on a front of the rotation starter.

I'm not following what the Twins are doing with this signing, but I think we have finally replaced Chris Colabello

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/10/offseason-outlook-san-diego-padres-7.html Norris is 26, so it cheating a little bit but Hedges is 22. With the current young players coming up, I don't think a short term catcher is the best option. Like nearly every other position on the diamond, the Padres have some trade options behind the plate. Derek Norris is slated to make $3.4MM, so moving him could free up a bit of money, and Austin Hedges represents an MLB-ready replacement. However, the team could flip the defensively gifted and well-regarded Hedges in a trade to fill another hole. Norris had his worst season at the plate in 2015, so they could be selling low, though on the other hand his throwing improved quite a bit. On a thin catching market, he’d draw interest, and Hedges is superior defensively.

I think they should call the Padres and check on Derek Norris or Austin Hedges. SD has some bad contracts (not interested in Shields) and we might be able to flip Nolasco. Maybe Hicks, Polanco & Nolasco for Norris and Upton. Without the money from LA for the Kemp contract, they might be looking to remove some contracts.

Agree, doesn't matter if it's 47% or 95%, it would be wrong. But since I'm not up for sainthood anytime soon, it's seems like after a very good career and the day after announcing his retirement, this probably isn't what this board should be about. And Bernadino had every right to ask the question the first time, but after the second and third time, you are kind of being a P_ _ _ _.

We are from Minnesota, we wouldn't actually say what we believed. Just be critical of anyone who does say what they believe.

Just 3 years ago, 47% of the voters in Minnesota agreed with Hunter and voted against same-sex marriage. I hope we don't classify 47% of our population as horrible people. Hunter was a great Twins player, I'm glad he was able to finish his career here. Look forward to seeing him go into the Twins HOF.

According to fangraphs, here's Mauer's ranking among players over 500 innings: DRS UZR DEF 21 of 31 18 of 31 23 of 31 I seen a lot of discussion about how horrible Hunter is in the field and here's his rank of RF over 500 inning: DRS UZR DEF 24 of 30 12 of 30 15 of 30 The DEF stat according to Fangraph is one of the building blocks of WAR. Like WAR, DEF is useful when looking at grouping of players that play different positions. Hunter's over DEF is -5.0 and Mauer's is -9.5. If we are going to talk about Hunter being poor defensively, we can't be offended if someone calls Mauer a poor defensive 1B.

Here the 2015 ranking at qualified 1B for Mauer: DRS: 15 out of 21 UZR: 12 out of 21 I just don't see calling someone in the bottom third of the defensive stats as being a poor defender is very controversial.

According to Fangraph, they believe that, but it's fair not to believe it. Just like it would be fair not to believe the WAR or other calculations.

Defense (Def) is the combination of two important factors of defensive performance: value relative to positional average (fielding runs) and positional value relative to other positions (positional adjustment). In order to properly evaluate a player’s defensive value, you need to know both factors and adding them together and providing it on the site saves you a bit of legwork. Def is a useful statistic to consider because saving a run in left field is easier than saving a run at second base because the average baseline of performance is much lower. If you were to just look at fielding runs, you would be underrating defenders at more difficult and important positions. There’s no reason why you can’t look at the two components separately, but we offer the option to simply use Def to make comparisons among different position players easier. Why Def: There is no reason why you should use Def instead of looking at fielding runs and the positional adjustment separately, but if you want a single measure of overall defensive value, our Def stat does the trick. The important thing to remember is that all of the leading defensive metrics (UZR, DRS, TZ, etc) are presented relative to the average defender at that position. This means that a +10 defender in left field is 10 runs better than the average fielder in left field. A +10 defender at shortstop is 10 runs better than the average shortstop. These are not equal because the average shortstop is a better defender. My understanding is it gives a comparison between position based on the above descriptions. So with Hunter being a -5.0 and Mauer being a -9.5, Hunter has a higher defensive value. Is that not correct? So it's hard to rip Hunter for his defense and defend Mauer for his defense.

Fangraphs ranking include UZR & DRS in the ranking. You wouldn't want to rank hitting by one stat like RBI. Mauer is better than Alvarez. but being better than the worst shouldn't eliminate questions about him defense, The first part in fixing a problem is recognizing you have one. Being ranked in the bottom of your position should indicate a problem, especially at the age of 32. And pointing that out doesn't make you a reporting hack or a Mauer hater. The predictions that Mauer would rebound in 2015 were wrong and the fall in 2014 was very unexpected, so now going into 2016 and expecting him to rebound seems to be unlikely. Time for a team looking to be a playoff team to have options that don't include Mauer in the everyday lineup in case the trend continues. That's just life in the big leagues.

He a below average hitter (wRC+ was 94) and the only 2 position you can play him at are first and DH. Don't you think a team trying to get to the playoff should shoot for higher production from these offensive positions? Hitting like a utility infielder in offensive spots is not beneficial. His contract is guaranteed but if you want to win, his playing time should not be.

? - according to Fangraphs among qualifed 1B, Mauer was 13th out of 21 players in fielding. Torii Hunter was 7th out of 18 RF and everyone says he a horrible fielder.

It's funny how Souhan is the villian for suggesting a .265 hitter without any power might not be the best option at first base for a team looking to get into the playoffs. And this should be off-limits from discussion because Mauer was great 5 years ago. The silliness might just be how over protective we have become of any discussion related to Mauer.

We agree that the team is playing above the talent level, why can't that be because of leadership? To say players are the only as valuable as their WAR is really missing a lot in valuation of a player. Like I said previously, do we really think Nolasco is 2 times more valuable than Mauer this year?

WAR doesn't actually relate to wins. The Twins total WAR as a team will be higher in 2014 than 2015 but the Twins will win 10-15 more games. I think the win total is more the indication the team is better than the WAR stats.

His leadership value will be different in each clubhouse. If the Cubs feel they already have the leadership, it's not valuable to them. Molitor believes it was valuable to the Twins. The last 4 years, we have watch a team quit during the second half of the season and this year they sure had a lot of opportunities to do the same but something was different. And from what Molitor says, he believe Hunter was a major reason for the difference. If the Twins make the playoffs, it just might be worth $50-60 million for the team, they just didn't have to pay that - I bet tne Nationals wish they had some better leadership in their locker room.

It’s understandable for Molitor to value a leader like Torii in the lock room. A Manager needs player leadership to help create the culture he wants and it seems like Molitor really values Hunter in that respect. You can’t complain about the results, the team has contended all year with few players at a level would want to see next year. I think we sometime undervalue the non-statistical contributes players make. The fangraph valuation of players is interesting but not very realistic. Here’s an interesting one – Nolasco’s 32 innings are worth $7.3 million and Mauer’s 153 games are worth only $3 million. Given Hunter’s production this year, I do think he is going to get offers around $10 next year.

More likely scenario: Mauer continues a slow decline and people continue to make excuses for the decline.

So it was 2 years after Morneau was concussion free and Mauer was a few months? You just can't compare one concussion to another. Some players come back after the 7 day DL stint, why don't we compare Mauer to them? I think it's clear that Morneau concussion was more serious. He was only able to play 68 game the following year, while Mauer had no concussion issues the following year and other than his ab injury he played the whole year. You can see reasons for a decline in Mauers prior to the concussion, his strike rate was increasing since 2010 and it wasn't because the increase in power. In 2013 he had a career high in BABIP which helped keep his average up, if it was around his career average he would have hit below .300 We don't know if Mauer has any concussion issues, so why do we continue to say that's the reason for the decline? Maybe it is something else and if it's just getting old fast or lack of conditioning, no reason not to discuss it without people getting defensive.

Didn't Sano start out the year hitting below .200 in April and really didn't start to heat up until mid-May? Considering he had missed all of last year, it's hard to fault the Twins for not bringing him up sooner.