markos

Cron has historically had zero platoon split - from both sides he is better than Gonzalez. Schoop has a mild reverse split, as he is slightly better against RHP than LHP, and his career OPS against RHP is better than Gonzalez. Rosario's career OPS against LHP is .711. Gonzalez's is .730. The only major upgrade is Kepler against LHP, and he is the one player they just made a long-term commitment to.

This kind of move (adding an average starter on a multi-year deal to be an super-utility player with no clear path the regular playing time) makes it seem like the front office is doing everything they can to ensure that the team's win total is in the 80s - no more, no less, just somewhere in the 80s.

One additional thought about the Machado signing with the Padres: This move definitely puts the Padres on a similar timeline as the Twins as far as competitive windows go. Considering that the Padres have a similar need for high-end starting pitching, they are going to be direct competitors for any high-end arm (or arms) that becomes available on the trade market over the next 6-24 months.

This has been a good thread. A couple thoughts: 1 - I would not describe Myers contract as an albatross. He has averaged 2.9 bWAR/600PAs over the past three seasons. His deal, even at $20M/yr for 2020-2022, is not excessive for that kind of production. And because of that, I think he would be very movable if they do need to shed salary. Hosmer's situation is very different. 2 - I kind of agree with the folks questioning the Padre's front office aptitude. Preller clearly did a terrible overall job trying to quickly build a contender a while back. Then they shifted gears and acquired a ton of assets - which is actually the easiest part of the rebuilding process. The trick is to have the player development system in place to actually turn those prospects into productive big league players, and there isn't a ton of evidence yet that they are going to be good at that aspect. This same paragraph could be said about the White Sox as well. 3 - Speaking of rubbing this in the nose of the White Sox fans, an article in The Ringer today pointed out that the White Sox LEFT AN EMPTY LOCKER in between Machado's pals/relatives Jon Jay and Yonder Alonso down at spring training. Oops! https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/2/20/18232714/manny-machado-white-sox-whiff-free-agency

Those numbers don't exactly pass the sniff test for me. For example, it says that Yankees only had $14M of operating income on $619M of revenue. Looking at their salaries for last year on spotrac, they paid ~$230M in player salaries. Round up, that is $300M. That leaves $305M that was spent on what exactly? They have zero debt. That $305M is more than the revenue of over half the teams in baseball. As a hypothetical, do the 5 Steinbrenner siblings (who are all listed with executive titles on team's front office page) each get $50M/year salaries, which would be an expense that would decrease the team's operating revenue but still be putting money into the owners' pockets? I don't know the answer to where the Yankee's money is going, but there is a lot of it that is going somewhere other than the pockets of the players. Further, their are ex-Yankee front office employees that mentioned that they would be in the black even with a $500M payroll (without the luxury tax).

At least it's not the White Sox...

This is a good list. Regarding #8 (specifically, acquiring a high-caliber starter), do you have an particular names on your radar? Right now, most high-caliber starters are on contending teams, so it isn't at all clear to me who will be available come July.

His age is incorrect. It should be (from Fangraphs) 6/5/1999 (19 y, 8 m, 10 d).

Is the structure, in part, dictated by arbitration? I know they often use player comps (performance + service time) to come up with salary estimates. If they even just had a flat rate for Polanco's deal ($5M/year), could a future arbitration case use Polanco's hypothetical $5M arb1 salary (rather than the actual $2.5M arb1 salary) as a comp when arguing for their salary?

Or alternatively, Polanco is the only player that isn't willing to bet on himself and would rather take the guaranteed money now.

I don't get it either. Polanco was going to be here for the next 4 seasons regardless of signing an extension or not. The front office wouldn't be making a deal with Polanco unless they thought it added long-term value for the team. So it's not like Polanco becomes unmovable in the situation where Gordon and Lewis both break out.

Um... so I really, really want to believe, but Graterol (and prospects like him) seem SOOOO high risk in my opinion. I mean, if you look at the top pitchers by fWAR this year, or even the last few years, the rankings are dominated by college pitchers. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=&rost=&age=&filter=&players=&page=1_50 10 of the top 14 pitchers by fWAR were all drafted out of college. Yet every year, top-100 prospect lists have multiple 19yo-20yo guys with amazing stuff. I don't know what this all means, but I'm just so hesitant to rank such a young pitcher this high.

I think this is a very, very good point. And in the context of the current young core on this team, it is worth pointing out that almost everything went wrong last year, and they still won 78 games. This team has such a high floor right now, so I think it would have made sense for the front office to do everything they could to try to raise their ceiling. Where they are at right now, with a 81-83 win projection, Buxton could break out and have a 8 WAR season like everyone hopes and dreams... and the team will win 88 games and still miss the playoffs.

I am not a fan of Javier - too many red flags for me to rank him this high. He has missed long stretches across multiple seasons due to injuries; at what point do we consider him injury prone? Second, his only real stretch of playing time demonstrated that he has some real contact issues (27% K%), and his overall batting line ended up okay because of a .410 BABIP.

It would be hard to tease this out, but I wonder what percentage of a young player's development comes solely from their physical growth and maturation (bigger, stronger, more coordinated, more endurance), separate from the actual reps and level of competition they see.

My guess: Graterol and Enlow would compare favorably to the pitchers. I have a hard time finding anyone in the Twins organization to compare to Alfaro. Maybe Jorge Polanco.

I have to admit, I really like the deal for the Phillies. I'm biased against oft-injured A-ball pitchers, so the idea of getting arguably the best catcher in baseball for the next two seasons for a high-risk pitching asset, a catcher than has been a below average hitter despite having a .405 BABIP, and another low-level flyer seems like a no-brainer to me.

I don't disagree with your point about pitching, and I'm not going to go to the ramparts in order to keep Granite on the roster at all costs. If they claim a pitcher with some decent upside, or if they sign a veteran, I'm not going to throw a fuss if they waive Granite to make space. He isn't my personal #40 guy on the roster, but he is probably #37 or so. Anyway, at some level they made the right choice in waiving De Jong since he passed through unclaimed. Regardless, my point was more about providing explanation as to why his is still on the roster. I think there is upside there. Granite has a fairly obvious piece (hitting for any kind of power) missing from his current skill set that's preventing him from being a decent big league player. But, fortunately for him, it is a skill that players pick up (especially in their late 20s) all the time. (Contrast that with Tyler Austin, where the conversation is that he needs to cut his K% by 20%. How many players - at 27yo - make drastic cuts to their strikeout rate?) And if it is obvious to me, it should be obvious to the Twins development staff. Hopefully, they sat down with him at the end of the season and basically said, "Look Zack, your current game won't work in the big leagues. You need to change your swing and approach to generate more power, and we will help you figure this out." And hopefully that is what he has been working on all offseason, and will continue through spring training. And if it doesn't happen, he is gone next November. Or sooner if they need the roster space. But the path, though unlikely, is there.

Sure, that's exactly what I mean. Guys like Denard Span (12 HR in 2400 minor league PAs) and Brett Gardner (9HR in 1700 minor league PAs) are examples of the path I'm thinking. If he can up his ISO to, say, .110 from his current .075, he could be an everyday player. It probably won't happen, but I think it is worth the opportunity cost of having him on the 40-man roster for the next 9-14 months.

Not a huge fan of Thorpe after seeing him live in the Future's Game last year. Relative to the other top prospects in that game, he was hit hard, struggled to miss bats, and just didn't have the stuff displayed by other pitchers. He topped out at 94, and was mostly 91-93, which for a single inning stint wasn't very impressive - most other pitchers in the game sat 95+. And just seeing him pitch, his physique (shortish and stockish), handedness, mechanics, and relative stuff immediately made me think of Brian Duensing.

Probably because it isn't uncommon for a power spike to occur in a player's late 20s. And that is basically all Granite needs to be a productive big leaguer.

If memory serves me correctly (certainly not a sure bet...), there were a confluence of minor issues with Turner. First, there were questions about his power projection. Remember, this was before the juiced-ball/statcast/launch-angle revolution of the last few years completely upended traditional expectations for player power development. The idea that Turner would end up showing 20hr/season power in the big leagues (and have a higher ISO in the majors than he managed in college) seemed like the absolute high end of his power projection at the time. But now we basically have to just take it in stride - almost everyone has 20hr/season power now. Second, not everyone was convinced he would stay at shortstop due to arm strength issues. Third, I think he had some lingering injury issues his junior year before drafted. Anyway, I think it was less prospect fatigue as much as concerns that he would be more like Billy Hamilton than he ultimately ended up.

Unfortunately, walk rate in the low minors has extremely low predictive value for future performance. Chris Mitchell (who had a stat-based prospect ranking system at Fangraphs and was eventually hired by a front office) ignored walk rate almost completely until AA. And for reference, Buxton and Sano both had BB% and K% rates in Cedar Rapids very similar Baddoo last year.

There is a lot of work that has been posted at Fangraphs and other websites about the expected value for both draft picks and prospect rankings. Draft picks: A model by Jeff Zimmerman predicts that the #5 overall pick on average produces ~6 WAR over the first 6 years of the players' careers. Looking at the 25 #5 picks prior to Gordon, only 11 achieved > 1 WAR for their career. Prospect Ranking: Gordon has primarily been in the 50-100 range of prospect list. That lines up pretty close with his draft capital. Research by Craig Edwards (and others) suggests that players in that range, on average, produce ~6 WAR over their first 7 years of team control. Further, ~50% bust (less than 1 WAR), and only 10% turn into stars (>3 WAR per year). Anyway, if we just look at what history would predict Gordon should produce at any point in his profession career (based on his draft position and prospect rankings), the expected value isn't that high. I think getting one or more average or better seasons from him would be a huge win in all honesty, and greatly exceed any hype he has had in the past.

I trust (as far as one can) the Castro projection, so I think that part is fine. I don't trust Steamer's projection of Garver - BP had him at 0.3 WARP last year vs 1.3 for Fangraphs, based on dismal framing numbers. So if Garver is actually closer to replacement level than an above-average like Steamer is suggesting, then having those backup PAs go Castro instead (who is better than Garver when including framing) is carryover improvement. Astudillo is a wildcard in this exercise... I'm not exactly sure how to model the PA difference. Castro is likely to bat 8th or 9th. Realmuto could bat as high as 2nd, and likely top 5. So even if they play the same number of games, Realmuto could get 50+ more PAs. But most of those extra PAs will come at the expense of other players in the lineup, so it isn't as simple as subtracting the difference between Castro and Realmuto's projections.