1490

My optimistic semi-realistic plan SP Cole (6/200) Berrios (arb) Odorizzi (3/45, 4th-year team option for 18) Pineda (1/10, 2nd year vesting option for 12 - suspended for ~40 games means we'll pay 7.5) Gibson (1/10, 2nd year vesting option for 12) I'm in the camp of making Cole the #1 priority of this offseason, so I'd be willing to pay more for him if necessary. Meanwhile, both Pineda and Gibson are be good buy-low candidates with vesting options. Pineda's absence won't be felt badly since teams rarely really need a 5th starter until late April. The downfall here is that it puts a lot of faith in two fairly big question marks - if Gibson keeps laying eggs or if Pineda regresses, we may be heavily dependent on Smelzer, Dobnak, Thorpe, Gonsalves, or Graterol sooner than we'd like. Either way, I'd assume that by the end of the year, at least one of those five will be in the permanent starting rotation. BP CL: Rogers (arb) SU: Tyler Clippard (2/12) SU: Will Harris (2/14) SU: Romo (1/5) MI: Duffy (arb) MI: May (arb) MI/Long: Littell (pre-arb) 26th man: AAA pitcher of the week The immediate flaw here is the lack of a second lefty. Obviously Will Smith would be Option A for that, but I strongly doubt this front office would be willing to do a 3+ year deal for a reliever, and I think Smith will be looking for at least that. Jerry Blevens is an option too, and Sean Doolittle may be an option, and may be a possible candidate for a one-year-make good contract, but I don't like where either of their numbers are trending and they are as likely or not to be a bust. Plus, Washington would need to decline Doolittle's option for him to even be available. Francisco Liriano wouldn't be a bad option, and it would be worth checking in on him if we must get another lefty, but I'm not not convinced he'll be as nearly effective this as he was last year (that 4.53 FIP doesn't encourage me). Plus, there's that three-batter minimum rule going into effect next year too, which reduces the need of a lefty specialist. So that leaves resigning Romo and getting Clippard and Harris. Clippard is about as consistent as relievers come, and he's arguably been his most effective the past two years. Plus, while he wasn't at Cleveland while Falvey was, the Cleveland tie doesn't hurt. As for Harris, I may be undershooting a bit at 2/14, but I'd be willing to go up to 2/20. Plus, if we get Cole, and already having Gonzalez, maybe Harris can be recruited by his old teammates (or, if we sign him first, he could help recruit Cole). If Harris is too big of an ask, I sure wouldn't mind bringing back Brandon Kintzler on either a one-or-two year deal. IF C: Garver (pre-arb) 1B: ????? 2B: Polacno (3.8) 3B: Sano (arb) SS: Didi Gergorius (4/60, opt-out after year 1) If getting Cole is priority 1 for me, then priority 2 is getting Didi Gregorius. Coming off an injury and his least-effective season, he'll be affordable even with getting Cole. Giving him a four-year deal provides him security, while providing an opt-out will allow him flexibility if he wants an even bigger payday after next year (and may free up the SS spot for Lewis). He's better defensively than Polanco, and would provide great leadership and a winning attitude. This allows Polanco to move to 2nd where he has probably been destined all along. Gregorius will almost certainly be offered a QO from the Yankees, so signing him will resulting in losing a first-round pick. Take that for what it's worth. As for Cron, I'm letting him go and not signing a direct replacement, and doing so opens up a number of fascinating options. I have Sano listed at 3rd, but I figure that he can probably split time between 3rd and 1st all season long, prepping him for a probably-inevitable move to 1st. On days when he's at 1st, Gonzalez or Arraez can take 3rd. When he's at 3rd, Gonzalez, Kepler, or Rooker (or Arraez? can he play 1st?) plays 1st. This will allow the team flexibility to potentially shuffle some of their top AAA bats (Kiriloff, Larnach, Rooker, maybe someone else who emerges, Jaylen Davis-esque) and get them some experience with a legitimate MLB playoff team. With the emphasis on flexibility increasing, and judging on some of the things I saw the Twins do with their lineup last year, I feel like this is a real possibility. (note: if Gregorius for some reason accepts the QO that the Yankees will inevitably offer him, then just resign Cron, or maybe make a 3-year offer to Jose Abreu) OF CF: Buxton (arb) RF: Kepler (6.3) LF: Rosario (arb) Tried and true. I'm not on the "trade Rosie" bandwagon, and I think that his presence on the team is both helpful and important. He's the one responsible for the "Bomba Squad" after all. DH Cruz (12) Duh... Bench C: Astudillo (pre-arb) SUPER-UT: Gonzalez (9) SUPER-UT: Arraez (pre-arb) IF-UT: Adrianza (arb) OF: Cave (pre-arb) (I figure this can be a revolving door with Wade, Rooker, Kiriloff, and Larnach, but mostly Cave) If there is one thing that I don't like about this plan, it is the lack of a regular, full-time position for Arraez. But based on what the team did last year with resting and moving players around, I'm sure he'll have at-bats aplenty. Plus, in the days he's on the bench, there is no player I would rather have pinch-hit than Arraez. EST Payroll - 160mil

I guessed three right away. I had to look up the last one. He was a bit of a surprise...

No one knows.

In a parade, the wife of the Mayor of New York tells Yogi he looks cool despite the heat. He responds, "You don't look so hot either."

What is the latest estimate on the return of Hughes?

For a September run at the playoffs as a player who has never player Major League Baseball before? I have my doubts that he is... but even if he is, that doesn't mean it isn't a gamble to bring him up...

Three questions... 1. Who ever guaranteed that Berrios will automatically make the team better in any capacity? 2. If called up to start, who on staff deserves to be replaced for a playoff run by a player yet to make his MLB debut? 3. If called up to relieve, is he honestly going to have much of a positive impact on the outcome of the season? Perhaps Ryan made a mistake in not calling him up three weeks ago, or earlier. Too bad. That's the past. This is now. Let's not compound that mistake by attempting to make him a key cog in a playoff run. Or calling him up for the sake of calling him up.

This makes a lot more sense as a measure for player ability, but what is the reasoning behind 10 runs ~ 1 win?

Arbitrarily? No, of course not. It would be divvied up more along the lines of Bill James' Win Shares (he still doesn't allow free use of that statistic, correct?) If WAR is a context-free, individual statistic, then it needs to be measured using something that is individually quantifiable (or at least a number that isn't intrinsically baseball-related). Wins are not individually quantifiable, because individual players don't win games, teams do. VORP seems like it captures my idea better than WAR (runs are a lot more individually quantifiable than wins, though not totally). Why isn't VORP more widely used? I'm not as familiar with it.

Thanks for the response. I don't know how I missed that, but that does make it a lot better. It seemed like 7.4 was pretty low... That also makes me feel better that there is some type of standard of how many wins a team of replacement level players ought to have. Still, can't we avoid those outliers and things that kinda mess up the idea of WA? Why not simply calculating a team's total WAR based on their record compared to that .320 winning percentage, then divvy it up appropriately among players? Wouldn't that fix outliers like Boston?

Greetings, I am 1490, I am a four-year lurker for Twins Daily, and this is my first post. Why now? Well, frankly, I feel like I can actually contribute with a valuable discussion that I don’t think has really ever been had since I’ve been lurking (perhaps it has and I missed it, but I digress), and as I was browsing B-Ref the other day, I stumbled across something that perturbed me quite a bit about WAR. I like advanced metrics. I like them a lot. I believe they have had a fantastic impact on the sport and is beginning to force the average fan to consider baseball matters more thoroughly in order to keep up (in other words, it forces people to use their brain more, which is always good). But I’ve never been super crazy about WAR. I like the idea behind WAR, but I believe it needs to be replaced, or at least adjusted, as the “end-all statistic” of a player’s worth. Why? Well, the whole idea of WAR is based around how much a team is bound to suffer by losing that player and being replaced with an average replacement level place. This implies that there is some idea of a uniform value of a replacement player. It may fluxuate from year to year or based on position, but over the course of a single year, it should be uniform. In my mind, this implies that in one given season, there is a uniform standard of how many wins a team entirely composed of replacement level talent. Perhaps that team goes 50-112. Perhaps 65-97. Perhaps something else. Whatever. But in any event, different teams should not have different ideas of what a “replacement level player” looks like. Well, the 2015 Minnesota Twins have a cumulative team bWAR of 7.4 currently, sitting at a .500 record of 59-59 (I’ll round and call that 7 WAR). In other words, if the Twins consisted of entirely replacement level players, they would have a record of 52-66 (extrapolated to a full season to be 71-91). OK, so I should be able to check a team with a record of 52-66, and they should have a cumulative team total of zero WAR. Luckliy enough, the Boston Red Sox have exactly that record. However, not only does their cumulative team total not equal zero WAR, but it equals 15.6 WAR, over twice the Twins total. So a “replacement level team” for the Bosox would currently have a record of 36-82 (or 49-113 over 162 games). So to recap, the record of a replacement-level team in the 2015 season could be 71-91, or it could be 49-113. I say that is an unacceptable disparity. Those two teams were the only ones I checked (I can check more if need be, and probably will to satisfy my own curiosity), but hopefully it is enough to illustrate the point I am trying to make (that WAR must be either fixed or discarded). How can this problem be solved? Well, I have ideas, but I’ll save them for another post (this one is long enough already). Thoughts?