jay

Danny Santana and, further behind him, Jorge Polanco have a ways to go before you could call them proven MLB options. It'd be a shame to see the best SS since JJ Hardy dealt away at this point. He can provide a lot of value even as depth for the IF positions. Not sure what the return would be, but the farm system has all kinds of depth already. We need more quality MLBers.

Which is interesting, because you could realistically say that's the goal of sabremetrics -- get more production out of your players than would be expected.

What are your thoughts on the 2017 lineup?

You're right that Rosario out hit Hicks thru A ball. We've also seen the Twins put a lot of weight on success in AA as a big hurdle to being ready for MLB. Rosario doesn't have that (yet).

Are you sure? (which one he's done, if either)

I agree with the assessment of Hicks and Schafer. I'd disagree on Rosario. In hindsight, most think it was detrimental to Hicks to throw him into CF for 2013 -- so why do the same now to a guy that has shown less than Hicks did at that point? Hicks could at least say he had AA success on his resume.

We know that more prospects turn in to busts than All-Stars. I hope to be wrong, but I do believe Mr. Hicks is headed for the former. Few prospects in the history of MLB have been able to become successful regulars after the size of struggle he's had at the MLB level.

It's probably not. The signing bonus pools for each team are sized on their previous year performance, so hypothetically it was supposed to provide an advantage to teams that are struggling. In reality, some teams have blown past the bonus pools with little regard for the penalties due to the perceived value of these prospects even after the penalties. I'd welcome a draft and increase in the eligibility age for these int'l kids. The challenge there is that individual teams wouldn't have much of an incentive to run academies like they do now. MLB would be wise to maintain that development system at a league-wide level.

C Suzuki / Pinto 1B Mauer / Vargas 2B Dozier / Escobar SS Santana / Escobar 3B Plouffe / Escobar LF Arcia / Hicks CF Buxton / Hicks RF Sano / Hicks DH Vargas / Pinto B Pinto B Escobar B Hicks B specialist SP Hughes SP Santana SP 3-5 TBD

Can't hack it? The guy has had more than a little bit of success.... that's a bit premature, no? A little rib tweak early in ST is nothing. The sore elbow that affected his results at the end of last year is the one to watch and be concerned about.

Why is Arcia going to move back to RF? I keep on seeing this used as a fault to bringing in Hunter and a negative in Arcia's development, but I don't see what it is based on. Why wouldn't he stay in LF?

Happened again just now. Automatically directed to the Apple App Store for PPBS (no benefit of putting their name on the web again). The ad was further up on the page, so I couldn't have possibly clicked it accidentally. Mobile, iOS8.1.3.

Four years guaranteed with options on two years of free agency would be ideal, but yeah, it might take five years guaranteed to make sense for Dozier. I don't see it taking no less than six just because of Kipnis and Carpenter. Dozier hasn't quite reached that level.

Team options, which is what I'd want to see, aren't committed..... How big is that risk, really? I think you're overstating it. This "tons of risk" you're talking about is no greater in the other direction. If an extension discounts his currently projected arb rates, it's hard to envision overpaying by a handful of millions per season anywhere short of a career ending injury.

Given that roster age as of Opening Day is what was being discussed and is also a commonly accepted practice in identifying a player's season age, it would be fair to use that over whatever later cutoff you used. The point mostly remains, so...

Great post. Those first two free agent seasons, likely on team options, would be much closer to a total of $25M with an extension than a projected $38M... and that's in addition to not being locked into two more years past that. Pretty sure that's worth a bit more than $5M, not to mention a discount on the arb years as well.

Probably... but we're specifically talking about the difference in average age for the Twins from 2014 to this year, so I'd say it's relevant.

74-year-old Torii Hunter is probably skewing that a bit. Lot of the other "old" guys are in the bullpen and we've got a solid group of flamethrowers that will be looking to replace them shortly. I'm not concerned by the average age.

You're taking moderate statements and making them sound extreme. No one has said cripple or anything remotely like that. Where's this '$5M on the high end' figure coming from? Examples or precedent? That seems very low.

It would be quite a surprise if they gave him 6 years outright. These extensions are usually through the arb years, plus options on FA years. That's exactly where a good chunk of the value in an extension lies. At the team's discretion, they can hang on to him at what will likely be far below FA rates in both term and dollars.

Fair point on the first one. Is there a known way to adjust xFIP for framing? The Twins pitchers underperformed to their collective xFIP as it was and that's basically saying their xFIP should have been even better due to the fewer strikes/strikeouts and more walks with the framing they got. The second one still seems relevant. It's not defense impact on xFIP, it's defense impact on xFIP minus ERA. So, how much of that difference is attributable / correlated to defense and how much is luck (ie LOB%) or something else.

I'm going to lose my mind if this site automatically redirects me to the iTunes Store for Panda Pop Bubble Shooter one more GD time.

Not for me. To me, it's two parts -- first, free up additional resources to do extensions like this with other young players or add external talent in the upcoming years and, second, gain option years for what could likely still be productive seasons (32/33/34?) without having to offer an overpriced, backward looking, overly-long free agent-type contract or extension after arbitration.

Any one know of a study that correlates xFIP-ERA to framing and/or defense in general? I'd be curious to know if and how much we could point to framing or defense as the root cause for the difference between a pitcher's expected results (xFIP) and actual results (ERA). Relevant to all of our chatter about the outfield defense as well.

FTFY.