by jiminy

the thesis of this article seems to be that the Twins have talent, and everyone agreed they had talent, they have just underperformed. But your position rundown doesn't back that up. their catcher, you point out, is miscast as as starter and is simply doing what he's always done. That's not underperforming. That's the GM incorrectly overvaluing someone. Their solution was Murphy. They seem to be wrong about him, at least so far. But you can't call that underperforming. That's misevaluating. Shortstop, third base, second base, and left field are all positions where the incumbent showed patches of starting-caliber play but the bulk of their career was subpar. You can call it underperforming that the wishful thinking didn't bear fruit. But no projection system concluded that because Rosario, Escobar, Plouffe, and Dozier had patches of good production that they had established a new baseline. Everyone but Twins fans and management saw their body of work and assumed they would regress. And they did. That's not underperforming. That's overvaluing. Buxton simply did what he did last year. Deciding that a guy who skipped AAA and it showed, both last year and in spring training, will miraculously change isn't something you're entitled to be disappointed by. He's still one of the youngest players in AAA, now that he's back where he belongs. Having your backup plans being Santana and Mastroianni does not show much reality-based predictive capacities. Sano has slumped a bit, but not beyond what you would expect for a guy his age, and with his off-season habits. Perkins has been injured twice in the past two years. I guess you could call it underperforming to get hurt earlier this year, but you can't call it a total surprise. The GM publicly announced that bullpen was his biggest concern at the beginning of the off-season, and he was right. But no one can act surprised or let down when his own prediction came true. The starting pitching pipeline does have talent in it: May, Meyer, Berrios, and Duffey could be the core of a good, young pitching staff. I don't see how you can blame them for letting us down, though, when none of them were put in the rotation. Where in this article is your evidence that the Twins were not let down by the GM, but by talented players who let him down and underperformed?

It's not that simple. Letting a flawed young player work on his game at the major league level because you're not going to win anyway is fine, in theory. But what about the bullpen??? Meyer is a time bomb. There is no single player in the entire Twins organization more likely to flame out and have to be relieved in the third inning. That may not be a problem for his development. But every time that happens, there is a cost -- and not just in that game, but in the next several games. You just can't do that to a team on a regular basis. And right now, Meyer just can't be trusted. He could drive the entire pitching staff off a cliff. I just don't get this blaming of management for his inability to be consistent. This was the concern from the day they got him. He has great stuff, but can't master it with any consistency. If only he could get it all under control, think how great he will be. I'm not saying it can't still happen. But the fact that it hasn't is not the Twins's fault. Did jerking him around prevent his development? I'm just not seeing that. They gave him chance after chance as a starter. He would have good stretches, then blow up. They gave him so many chances, and he failed so many times, that he completely lost his confidence. Switching him to the bullpen was an act of mercy. He needed to pitch his way out of it, and he couldn't do that pitching three innings every five days. And it helped. He got to pitch more often, became effective again, and regained his confidence. Not consistently effective, but more often than not. And in the bullpen, if you blow up, it's not a crisis. You get yanked, and get back on the horse the next day. Once they put him in the bullpen, they kept him there all year so as not to jerk him around. That didn't mean they'd given up on him, but that they wanted what was best for his development. So what to do this year? I would be fine with giving up on him and leaving him in the bullpen, where his regular meltdowns aren't a career killer, and his periods of great pitching can be maximized. Between May and Meyer, May deserves a rotation slot at least as much as him. But I am also fine with saying, he still has potentially dominant stuff, now that his curve is working, let's let him start again and see if he matures. With tall guys, it takes a while. REally, the only fault I find is bringing him up from the minors too soon. Three games is not enough to prove you've solved a lifetime of inconsistency. But there were some injuries, and they needed him. I'm sympathetic to the argument that sitting on the bench several days, pitching in relief once, and starting once, was not the optimal way to ease a weak pitcher into a comfortable role. But that doesn't make it their fault that he failed. If he was as good as you all think, and as ready, he wouldn't have failed. Far better pitchers than he have been eased into the big leagues this way. Did that ruin Johann Santana? Of course not. He proved he deserved a more expanded role. Meyer did the opposite. But that doesn't mean pitching in relief once ruined him. All it did was expose that his three good games in the minors didn't mean he was a new man. And that while his fastball and curve are ready, his changeup is not. The injury replacement urgency passed, so they are sending him back down to work on getting all his pitches up to the major league level. This may not have helped him, but if pitching once in relief ruined him, he was not the ace you hoped. Other than that one relief appearance this season, though, I think their plan is fine. Last season, he needed relief from his constant collapses as a starter, and it worked. This season, they are showing confidence in his long term potential by letting him start again. If he can master ALL his pitches for a sustained period in AAA, then, and only then, give him another shot at the majors. But until then, don't risk the entire bullpen on this guy until he shows more consistency.

I can live with multiple young guys having slow starts, and this turning out to be a developmental year. A bummer, but the future is still bright. Whether Rosario, Buxton, Sano, and Park work out their problems up here or down in the minors doesn't really matter, ultimately, as long as they do eventually. What would bother me would be if they gave the resulting at bats to Murphy instead of Arcia. If he's on the team, and there's a lineup opening, he should be playing, not some veteran stop gap. If they know they don't want him they should have cut him. If they think he has enough potential not to give up on, they should be playing him whenever they can. I have nothing against Murphy but there is no way he is part of the long term solution. If the playoffs are not in the picture, and they are just developing young guys, that should include people like Arcia and Vargas, too, not stop gap veterans. I have no problem with signing Murphy -- at this point, their entire outfield and starting DH are question marks -- as long as he's last in line after anyone with a future here.

It's nice to see an optimistic take on Santana. I'd kind of given up on him. But he's young enough and volatile enough that you can make a case it's too early too think he's stabilized. And if you think his upward trend last year and this spring is sustainable, I'll keep an open mind. I'm not that optimistic -- despite his recent power surge, those plate discipline numbers are so horrendous that it suggests he'd need a wholesale change in approach to fix things. That doesn't happen all that often. But he's young and talented so who knows. Arcia seems to have finally bought that he needs to change his approach, so maybe he can too. For a utility guy, a young, fast athlete with major league experience in both the infield and the outfield is nice to have around. p.s. I think there's a typo in paragraph five, where you say Rosario instead of Santana -- kind of threw me because you'd just been talking about him -- no big deal though, I figured it out.

Under. While their run differential suggests their record was deserved, underlying peripherals suggest it wasn't, and the run differential was produced by lucky bunching of hits both offensively and defensively. That's what they say over at fivethirtyeight anyway, and those guys are never wrong. They do acknowledge that when a team consistently outproduces its peripherals, it probably means something. But another reason for holding back on the Royals is their recent success has been built on incredible health. That could be a genuine team trait -- they are a young and athletic group -- but nobody avoids injuries forever. But the main reason I'm going with the under is the AL Central has gotten really good. There's not a patsy from top to bottom. There won't be many easy days for anyone in this division. The Twins are the best they've been in years and they could be the weakest team in the division--but they're gonna be tough. They don't have a glaring weakness anywhere in the rotation or the lineup -- and if someone does flop, they are as well positioned to plug holes and keep on rolling as any team in the league. Sure, Nolasco had a rough two years but he was hurt--he's no Kevin Correia or Livan Hernandez. But if he sucks, so what? Duffey and Berrios may be their two best pitchers, and they're not even on the team yet. Their bullpen might not scare people but they have two or three years of power-arm draftees lined up for a crack at the majors. Their AAA team could probably outpitch their starting rotation four years ago. If the Royals want to take two of three from the Twins they'll have to earn it. And then they'll have to move on to the Indians' league-best rotation, the thunderous bats of Detroit, and the restocked White Sox. Ninety wins could win this division. But whoever wins it's going to be a dogfight. I wouldn't be surprised if the Royals won the division, or even the World Series again. Which would be fine with me. I love seeing fellow mid-market teams succeed, and I love seeing any AL Central team crush the other division champs. Except the White Sox, of course.

But he hasn't demolished AAA pitching. He hasn't even faced it. We don't know if he can hit an AAA curveball. All we know is he can't hit them in MLB. Seems like it might be worth letting him learn and prove that he can in AAA first.

About the TV contract -- I believe it is undervalued, but it's not the management's fault. My memory of the negotiations was the Twins were holding out to create their own cable network, like the Yankees. This would have provided a major new revenue stream indefinitely. They were undercut in these negotiations by public pressure, including some government officials, who complained bitterly over the temporary TV blackout imposed by their opponents. This was done to undermine public support, and it worked. But it was a bitter example of short-term thinking overpowering long-term thinking. The Twins had a vision for a much better long-term model that would have maximized TV revenue forever. And they weren't allowed to hold out for it. I guess you could say they should have held out anyway and taken a huge PR hit, alienating their fans, and being turned on by government, but I don't think that's fair. And my memory is the state was even going to legislate that they get the games back on TV asap. My memory is vague though. Anyone who remembers this better than me please speak up. But my impression is, they took the long view, and the smart view, and were hung out to dry. Caving to FOX is now hampering their ability to compete and will continue to do so for many years. I'm not saying they don't have the resources to compete -- with the new stadium and revenue sharing they have plenty to field a much more expensive payroll and still turn a profit. But since the discussion touched on local TV revenue, I think this is one you can't hang on them.

Thanks for this! I don't think I've ever seen this point before and it totally changes my perception of this oft-stated stat!

The thing that's different about Meyer is his prospect star hinged upon him becoming something other than he was. His problem today is command and walks. His problem when they got him was command and walks. His stuff was so good, people couldn't help thinking, imagine how good he could be if he could command his pitches! But he couldn't. And he still can't. So what's the lesson of that? Not that people can't improve. They do. They learn new pitches, like Johan Santana. But do they ever really learn control? They must, since people keep hoping, even expecting them to. But do they, really? No one is coming to mind. Ryan, I guess, was a late bloomer. But he had literally the best fastball in the game. He could afford a few walks. It took him years to get his ERA down, though. I feel like I've seen a million cases of people with bad control not panning out. I don't feel like I've seen magical late career improvements very often, if at all. Not in control, anyway. It's like in the NFL, when people draft boneheaded quarterbacks with strong arms, thinking, imagine how good he'd be if he only knew where to throw it. That doesn't work very often either. My point is not to be pessimistic. On the contrary. It's to say that Meyer's problems don't necessarily present a warning about those other guys, except in the most general sense. None of them are being asked to do something they can't do, or haven't done already. Just to get stronger and be able to do it longer and for more innings. And that, thank goodness, happens all the time.

I have more regrets about May in the bullpen then Meyer. May actually has some success as a starter. Meyer has never dominated for a full season even in the MINOR leagues! His control problems have always been the big, obvious hurdle to success. And he has just not turned the corner. He came into 2015 as a top prospect, based on the assumption that his control problems would improve -- and he had his worst control problems ever. This is not to say he won't ever solve this. But he has had years and years to do it and hasn't yet. There is no reason to assume promoting him will make those problems go away (they tried that too). I like Meyer in the bullpen because if he starts to fall apart, you can just yank him and throw him back out there the next day. As a starter, you have to wait five days. If it's a short start, he doesn't hardly get to pitch at all. The bullpen is better for him, because he can get back on that horse and get back to work. And it's better for the team, because if he pitches great for a few innings, the team benefits from a great short outing, and if he flops, you nip it in the bud without creating a crisis for the bullpen to solve. I think there is a much stronger case for someone like Chapman to start. He is really good, and you could triple his innings. May, over the course of his career, tends to do much worse the third time through the lineup. These problems seemed to be diminishing in his last stint as a starter, so he deserves another chance. With Meyer, though, using him in short doses is just the safer route at this point. It lets you maximize his good innings, while minimizing his bad ones. If he truly works out his mechanics, or whatever was preventing him from consistent command, sure, give him another chance. But in the meantime, if he has value in the pen, make the most of it. It's probably the best chance for him to improve anyway. Win-win. It's also his best chance to reach the majors. Would you risk a two inning start and demand seven innings from the bullpen? I wouldn't. But I'd happily bring him in for as many strikes as he can muster before he starts missing the plate. That would be fun to watch, with much less downside.

I don't think it's reasonable to charge Park's entire posting fee to this year. I think it should be prorated over four years. The entire commitment was 24.85 million over four years. To me, for budgeting purposes, that looks like 6.21 per year. Counting the entire posting fee this year makes his cost look like 15.85 million this year and 3 each of the following four years. I would instead consider his cost each year to be 6.21, and this this year's payroll (so far) to be about 110.

I'm quite worried, personally. There's nothing inevitable about success in the minors translating into success in the majors. In Buxtons's case, there were very specific things he couldn't do last year, and it seemed like pitchers took advantage of them. Until he learns how to handle those pitches, he'll just keep getting out. It's not just a matter of time. He has to change. He has to start being able to do something he has never been able to do before. That doesn't scare you just a little? I'm not pessimistic, I actually think he probably will adjust. But it's no sure thing. Plate discipline is one of the most stable things in the game. You rarely see people just suddenly be able to hit outside curveballs, or lay off them, or whatever. I'm hopeful Rosario will improve his plate discipline, too. But it would be a pleasant surprise, not an inevitable next step. Buxton's minor league numbers are very good, but another writer pointed out that his power numbers are to a certain extent really speed not power, and his on-base percentage could be based on minor league pitchers who don't know how to take advantage of his weaknesses. If you have one weakness--just one--big league pitchers will focus on that. Look, he wasn't the number one prospect in baseball for nothing. He's obviously got talent, and the best evaluators in the game think he will handle big league pitching just fine. But Delmon Young was the top prospect in the game once, too. Sometimes you just are who you are, and potential just stays potential. I understand the optimism, and I share it. But I also have a lot of fear. His debut did not go as well as Sano's, and it wasn't that small a sample size. And hey, even Sano is not a sure thing yet. I like his chances better than Buxton's, though. At least for 2016.

If Mauer regresses to his career mean numbers, that would be the best news of the year!

I think this is a really interesting point. Most of the focus has been on his offensive decline late in the season. That's certainly glaring: a drop from .841 to .631 in OPS 1st to 2nd half last year, and from 19 HR to 9. But what if this decline was health related? What if he was playing banged up? Wouldn't that affect his fielding as well? Before I tried to interpret the decline in his season by season fielding stats, I'd want to see them broken down month by month, or at least 1st half vs. 2nd half. If he fielded well in the first half of the season and then declined, I'd speculate it was health related and be optimistic he could rebound. If not, I'd speculate the three year arc was meaningful. Anyone know where to find split stats for fielding? Either way, a few more days off seems a wise precaution.

That has always been the argument to me, too -- until I looked at the stats Nick posted above. According to the numbers, May is NOT a better SP than Milone. And not just the third time throught he rotation, when he gives up a .907 OPS, which should give anyone pause, even his biggest fans. He's not even better the FIRST time through the rotation. Does he have more upside? Sure. Given his age its fair to weight his last starts more, which were extraordinary. But more upside does not necessarily mean more production. A near sure thing like Milone is very, very valuable. Especially at his price, which is low. You need to look not just at value but value to salary ratio, and Milone is a big plus there. Given that his trade value is low, too, I hope they don't dump Milone just to make room in the rotation for May. The numbers say that could weaken both the bullpen AND the roation. This reminds me of when the Tigers dumped Fister, because they didn't need him. You can never have too much pitching. The only reason to trade someone is if they bring back someone you need even more. I don't see that happening with Milone. That said, you only have so many roster spots, so I'm not going to second guess them if he's the guy to go. I just wouldn't be in any hurry, that's all.

You mean, until Buxton happens? CF doesn't seem to offer much opportunity for Santana long-term. It's great he can fill in there, but it doesn't counter the argument that his best chance to help is as a utility man, it reinforces it. He may have talent, but right now he can't seem to hit, field, or improve his plate discipline. He's got a long way to go before he deserves a spot on a major league team. His 2014 makes me retain hope, even if it was BABIP driven. But his 2015 means he has to prove he can do it again before he deserves another shot at the show. I wouldn't cut loose a guy with no options to make room for this guy. Not till he turns it around. His 2014 was already an outlier when it was happening. All that's happened since is he's regressed to his minor league history. At this point he's nothing more than a lottery ticket to be more than emergency AAA help. Not trying to be negative -- people do turn things around. Dozier was mocked. Span was mocked. Neither showed much in the minors, or in their statistical history, but the scouts insisted there was something there, and they were right. Santana's got the tools. He has a shot to be the next Eddie Rosario. Of course, Rosario also has a chance to be the next Santana. Not as a fielder, but his plate discipline and K rate aren't much better. If pitchers find a weakness there's not much wiggle room to stay above average. Jeez, I am being a little too negative here! I think I need lunch.

Thanks for the link! I'm not usually into speculating about trades, because they almost never happen as envisioned, but I am completely buying that San Diego is an intriguing match. They stretched their payroll to stock up on veterans and bombed. It's hard to imagine they wouldn't love the chance to shed some of that salary. And an ace pitcher, a catcher, a reliever are exactly what the Twins need. The fact that they are overpaid works in our favor here. The Twins have been sitting on a cash cow for years, stockpiling cash from their subsidized stadium. They are now good enough where it makes sense to spend some money. The playoffs are in reach. Shields, Norris, and Kimbrel or Benoit could be difference makers. And the Twins have more prospects than they have room on the field for. A motivated trading partner, eager to shed salary at the very positions we're welling to spend to improve, might be just the ticket. Their GM is if nothing else a bold trader (that's how they got into this mess). Why not? The post above says they need a shortstop. Maybe Polanco? Or sell high on Escobar? They could use a third baseman, and the Twins are itching to move Plouffe to open a slot for Sano. The Twins have a ton of young outfielders. I'd start with Rosario. On the one hand, he's a proven performer, not just a prospect. On the other hand, his plate discipline and walk rate are low, so we may be seeing his ceiling. I like him, but I'm more intrigued by Kepler and Buxton. If they are excited about Arcia or Vargas, those guys are going to have a hard time finding playing time, especially now that they have park. Clear the logjam. I know that won't do it, and we'll have to part with some people it hurts to lose, too. But you don't have to give as much talent if you're also offering salary relief. Kimbrel and Shields may be worth their salaries, barely, but the odds are they're not. So we're not talking a huge dip into our talent pool unless they pick up some salary. I would hope the Twins would pay all the salary and keep the best prospects. They can afford it. That stadium cost them almost nothing, once you add up that they are paying their small portion of the stadium costs from the naming rights -- meaning they are paying almost nothing at all! (Why did we give them naming rights???) But the deal was, we give you a ton of money, and you give us a good team. So do it. And build it with money, not by mortgaging the future and trading away young talent for old. We've waited long enough. Shell out the money, take their overpriced stars off their hands, and win now!

Somehow these awards make the Twins seem a lot farther from a championship than I felt before. Partly that's watching the playoffs. Games are being won there by truly dominant pitching performances. Who would provide that for the Twins? Who will next year? Having a winning record is nice. Not having black holes in the lineup or the rotation anymore is really, really nice. Being competetive and in the playoff hunt is great, too. But realistically, do you see this team being competive in the playoffs if they did make it? I can see the offense coming together enough to play with anybody. Especially if Dozier makes some adjustments, Hicks doesn't fade again, and Buxton figures out how to hit a curveball. But who would match up with the other team's ace? Or the other team's number two? You might get to a guy like Keuchel or Price now and then, but not consistently through three rounds. Sometimes you've got to be the one to shut the other team down. I just don't feel like this team is one opponents would fear in they playoffs. The last time I heard that was when we still had Liriano and Santana. I remember a friend who is a Yankee fan (not his fault, he was born there) wanting nothing to do with them in a five game series. But I think the Yanks would LOVE to have faced the Twins this year. Not saying they can't become champions. They just have a ways to go. Their rotation and lineup are mostly set for next year. So how are they going to make the next leap?

That's funny, that's exactly what I was going to suggest -- or at least wonder about, I'm not in the business and wouldn't know. But when I learned to drive, my brother made me pull away from the curve, then pull back and stop the car. I then had to tell him EXACTLY how far my tires were from the curb -- and then get out and look. Over and over. It was brilliant. There is no better way to get a sense of space and distance than to guess, and check. So my uneducated thought was, he should stand in while a pitcher throws whatever he wants. He has to, 1) predict where the ball is going to end up when it leaves his hand, 2) show EXACTLY where it passed the plate after it does so, and 3) have a coach show him where it really went. Over and over. Why not? If the problem is not knowing how far a ball is going to break, or not being able to gauge exactly where it actually ends up, work on that. The more times you say, it went right here, the better your eye will get, right? Oh, and Delmon Young not mastering something has no bearing on how anyone else will do. I give him credit for trying, if he did this, but it surprises me. He never struck me as the learning type or the listening type. This is just going from what I read, but I thought he was notorious for refusing to listen to coaches. Perhaps everything I read was wrong, and he was a student of the game, but the impression I got from the presss was he was pigheaded and refused to adjust. But whatever -- he's just one guy.

Good point about the biggest position of need at the deadline being shortstop. And it turns out not trading for a shortstop was a brilliant call -- it would have cost us Escobar's spectacular second half, and possibly having him as a starting shortstop next year. I will say, though, that it was clearly a mistake to stick with Danny Santana at shortstop as long as they did. It clearly was not working, and they were very stubborn about doing something about it, even when it suddenly mattered. Switching to Escobar a month or two earlier could have won the wild card. So why didn't they? It clearly wasn't on-field production. One factor was probably the assumption that this was an audition year; they're not going to win anyway, so you may as well see what you got with the rookies. And it turned out to be the right gamble with Rosario, right? I was fine with that. But even I would have bailed much, much earlier on Santana. Let the poor kid work it out in AAA, that's what it's for. Was it his surprising success last year? It shouldn't have been a surprise that didn't last! And Molitor knows how to read modern statistics. I don't think that was it. The worst reason would be because Molitor announced in the preseason that the job was his, and he was sticking with Santana all year. You don't sacrifice the team's success to save face. Better yet, don't make pronouncements like that. If you want to give him a long leash to work out the kinks, fine. But never promise to do anything that hurts the team. If it was embarrassment or pride or credibility that made him stick with Santana longer than he wanted, that's sad. Tragic pride, you could even say, like in Greek dramas. But I have too much respect for Molitor to think that was the main reason. It might have been part of it, but it's not enough. My guess is it was also partly a reward for playing out of position last year in centerfield. He sacrificed without complaint, came through anyway, while learning on the job, and now deserved a fair shot at his real position, where he might be even better. That's honorable, I suppose, to pay someone for their loyalty -- but clearly wrong. It has to be all about the team's success. I'm okay with trading present day struggle for future success, but not with trading present-day struggles for past efforts. His job is to win, damn it. His players know it. You don't lose your team by winning, but by playing favorites. Did it help Danny Santana to play 88 games, at a .524 OPS? I don't see how. But more important, if that's your priority, you've got your priorities wrong. Especially if those 88 games of .524 OPS cost you the playoffs. Which, frankly, it might have. If other teams were demanding a ransom in prospects for a bullpen arm who may or may not have been better than Tonkin, fine, stand pat. If a starting catcher costs you Kepler or Buxton, and you don't like the catcher enough to bite, fine. But they had another shortstop that whole time already on the team. A shortstop with a .721 OPS in 133 games last year. And they sat him for 88 games, in favor of a rookie who happened to have a .405 BABIP the year before. (When I looked up his 2014 BABIP the page that came up was titled, BEWARE OF DANNY SANTANA BABIP REGRESSION. So no, his struggles should not have come as a surprise to a modern-day front office.) I don't know if promoting Berrios would have won them the division or not. I cut them slack on that -- I respect not rushing player development, and their eventual promotion of Duffey turned out to be nothing less than brilliant. If I had to single out one thing, I'd say it was those 88 games of .524 OPS from Danny Santana, when a better player was right there next to him the whole time.

very interesting comparison of the pitching under Allen and Anderson. What those numbers seem to indicate is that the pitching was equal or slightly worse in every category except ERA. The biggest divergence is that last year's pitchers gave up an extra three quarters of a run despite having a significantly LOWER FIP. The most obvious explanation for the difference in ERA is fielding. This fits both the numbers and the eye test. In every category that is independent of fielding, they didnt seem to improve, yet their ERA improved. These numbers point to fielding as the difference. Likewise the eye test would suggest that substituting fielders like Rosario, Hicks, and Buxton for Arcia, Willingham, and co. would help the pitchers' ERA. The numbers bear this out too, with the league's lowest WAR in outfield defense paired with a near league high fly-ball pitching staff. This is not an indictment of Allen at all. His emphasis on changeups seems a legitimate part of the narrative, and there have been a surprising number of rebounds from ugly play by several members of the staff, who in past years might have just bottomed out. But the above comparison seems to single out fielding as the biggest difference.

I don't know if they did the right thing or not. But while service time may have been a factor, it was certainly not the only factor under consideration. Also being weighed were his innings limit, his development, his major league readiness, and the cost of losing a player to fit him on the 40 man roster. Basically, they could had had Berrios for a very small number of innings at best, and the cost would have been significant. There's no guarantee he would have been better than the options they already had, or than Duffey. They said he needed to work on a few things to really make it in the majors. They may have been right. Jerking him between the bullpen and the rotation might have harmed his development and/or health, and since he'd never relieved before, would have been a big gamble during a pennant race. Yet using him as a starter would have meant they only had him for a handful of games. Rookies thrown into a pennant race sometomes do well, sometimes don't -- more often don't. And then when Hughes comes back, who do you sit? And who do you cut from the roster, and lose forever? How do you know you wouldn't be better off with those two guys than Berrios? I'm very open to the idea that he could and should have been promoted a month or two ago. But at this point, the gains would have been so marginal, if any, that it would not be worth the cost. Maybe they waited too long; maybe they thought they were out of it, and now regret it. Hey, I thought they were out of it. Remember, they were sinking like a rock. Now that they weathered the storm, and are still in the hunt, it may turn out they should have gone for it and promoted him six weeks ago. But it's not a sure thing either way. Before the focus turned to Berrios, the nonstop clamor and impatience to promote was focused on Buxton, and how did that turn out? He, too, was destroying the minor leagues. But once in the majors he was totally overmatched at the plate. Before that, it was Arcia who was being idiotically ignored -- until he failed to hit AAA pitching any better than major league pitching. Personally, I'm fine with leaving Berrios in the minors till next year. He's 21. Either Hughes, Nolasco, Santana, Gibson, Pelfrey, Milone, May and Duffey are enough, or they aren't. I can't get that exercised about not promoting a kid who was in AA a few months ago into the heat of a pennant race. If your chances at the playoffs depend on a gamble like that working out, your chances aren't very good anyway.

Nunez is arguably the best shortstop on the roster right now. Not saying that's a good thing, just that they are not likely to jettison him.

Thanks, Parker, I love these analyses -- I always see more after you've pointed stuff out. It is really noticeable in the older clips how he's only using the top half of his body, not his legs. He does seem to use his whole body more. In a previous post on Hicks you pointed out how he didn't plant his front foot, but just rolled over it. That doesn't seem to have completely stopped. His high step does seem to help his timing and to involve his whole body. But another benefit of the step, I thought, was you start to move your whole body forward, plant your foot, and transfer that forward momentum to your bat. I don't see that happening with Hicks. Do you think planting his front foot instead of rolling over it would help? Not knocking where he is now -- hey, I'll take it -- just wondering if you see the upward trend maybe continuing even further.

This is kind of how I feel. What's been fun is seeing young guys produce. Trading young guys for mediocre veterans would not be fun. To me, the time to mortgage your future is when you're going for a championship. Not when you're going for a wild card. I think the Twins have a realistic shot at the playoffs; but I think that's true with our without a trade. What I don't think is that they're one or two players away from being the best team in the league. Not even close. So why make yourself worse to chase a mirage? If this team has a shot at a championship, it is through building long term with young talent. Trading away young talent is not the way to a championship. It's moving in the opposite direction. Am I categorically opposed to trading prospects for upgrades? Of course not. But not if it means trading away people who are likely building blocks to a championship team. And I'd be much happier about a trade for someone who might be here a while. Given their actual prospects this year, I'd rather see them take a chance on a young flame thrower from our own system in the bullpen than a veteran. Either approach could succeed or fail. But throwing a minor leaguer in their improves our chances next year, by gaining him experience, while the other approach involves losing a player forever. If you're trading people with real value, it should be for a catcher or shortstop who could fill a position of need long term. Beyond that, I'd stick with Mets type trades--low level prospects for marginal veterans--or just promote from within.