markos

But his overall AAA OPS last year was .790-ish, which for reference was way better than Jake Cave last year. And on par with Jorge Polanco's career AAA numbers.

The 14 AAA games are not brought up as evidence that he achieved some new stratosphere of performance; it is evidence that he was back to good health. I guess opinions vary here, but I'm still perfectly willing to say that Buxton, when healthy, is at least an average big league player. Yes, the peaks and valleys are sharp, and his overall performance is less than I had expected. But we have almost two seasons - over 230 games - that show that. The idea that 100 injury-riddled PAs in 2018 erased all that and he's now below Johnny Field on the depth chart is crazy to me. In your opinion, what would constitute "success" as far as Buxton's performance going forward? If he settles in as, say, Jackie Bradley Jr or Addison Russell, would you say that the front office's decision worked?

To the crowd arguing that this situation is Buxton's own fault, what else could he have done at the end of the season to force a callup to the majors in September? He was dealing with injuries, and once he was finally healthy and playing everyday at for the last two weeks of AAA, he had a .996 OPS. He has had two full seasons where he has shown he belongs in the majors. And honestly, what can happen between now and April 1 that will prove to you that Buxton is ready for the majors next year? I think anyone who thinks that the Twins were in the right because of Buxton's 2018 performance also has to think that Buxton needs to start 2019 in AAA as well. I understand that there are a lot of varying opinions here, but I think that punishing a player financially for trying to play through injuries and coming back to quickly from injury is an extremely bad move. At this point, what motivation does Buxton ever have to play through a nagging injury or come back as quick as he can from injury if he knows that it will be held against him? I also think this is going to affect future contract negotiations.

I have to admit that I really like what the Phillies have done this offseason. They've probably added 7-8 wins between the Segura trade, McCutchen signing and moving Hoskins out of the outfield to replace Santana.

There is certainly a non-zero risk that Gibson could get injured between now and July. That needs to be factored in. Gibson could be a completely worthless asset in 6 months.

I think you are seriously discounting 2017. They were maybe a little out over their skis, but they had a positive run differential for the season and were actually a net-negative in one-run games. And they had like 35 fWAR as a team, which was more or less in line with their record. It's not like the Mariners this past season who were WAY, WAY, WAY over their underlying indicators. And the offseason following that season is what bugs me more than anything else about this front office. They had the youngest group of position players in the AL, and many of the young guys appeared to be breaking out. Most other franchises - even small market teams - have aggressively tried to upgrade the top of their roster when on the cusp of competitive window by acquiring long-term, high-talent assets. The Brewers were in basically the exact same position as the Twins, and they went out and acquired Yelich via trade and Cain via FA. The Pirates just traded a bunch of talent for Chris Archer. The Phillies are trying to jump start their contention window, and they just traded for Segura. The Padres signed Hosmer and are seemingly involved in every big trade rumor going right now. Basically every single season since they started winning, the Astros have used their prospect depth to acquire more players for the top of their roster. And going back a few years, the Royals traded Wil Myers for James Shields and Wade Davis. Speaking for myself, I think there is an abundance of evidence that this front office hasn't believed in the Buxton/Sano/Kepler/Rosario/Polanco/Berrios core from day one, and that their long-term strategy (if there is one) is to tread water until THEIR prospects show up.

I dislike this move for three reasons: First, I don't like the fact that the Brewer's - a front office that has nailed way more transactions than the Twins in the past two years - had an opportunity to tender him a contract (with a need at the position) and basically said, "thanks, but no thanks." Second, this move (combined with the Cron signing and all the moves last offseason) just give the impression that the front office thinks the core of this team is fine, and all they need to do is backfill on the margins. And I just disagree with that so strongly. This core is good and has upside, but it needs to complemented with more players that are stars, or at least solidly above-average. Last season, the gap in talent between the Twins and the top teams in the league was roughly 20-25 WAR. Even in you pencil in huge rebounds from Sano and Buxton, this team still has a big talent gap. In fact, the gap is large enough that it will probably be a multi-year project to close that gap. Which is why it is all the more important to be making moves that will pay off in 2020 and 2021 as well as this coming year. Schoop and Cron, while fine in a vacuum, at best replace Escobar's and Mauer's production from last year. And neither move really helps next season. This team is just spinning its wheels. Third, since I feel like this is just a move to maintain the status quo, I don't see the need to be a first-mover in the 2B market when there are like 8 roughly league-average options available in free agency. They are really betting on Schoop for some reason.

Santana can still play 1B well. He is not a liability out there.

Yeah, betting on Cron is betting on that his huge HR/FB rate spike is real and sustainable. A lot of his other stats didn't really show much change.

I also don't think Santana is the answer, especially at his current price point. But I don't think you are giving him a fair shake here. He has been average or better at all the baserunning metrics for the past 4 seasons, and he has graded average or better at first base defense by all the metrics as well. And if you don't trust the defensive metrics, the Statcast sprint speed data has him exactly the same as Joe Mauer last year. And the gap between him and Albert Pujols (the slowest guy on the list) is basically as big as the gap between Santana and Buxton. He is not a Molina. Further, while CBP does help with HRs, its small dimensions suppress singles and doubles. Given that power isn't really Santana's game, the ballpark probably didn't give him a many favors. And while I know that ballpark effects are a contentious topic, Fangraphs at least has Target Fields as a more hitter-friendly park than CBP over the past 5 seasons.

My two cents about a hypothetical Cano-Diaz trade. Cano+Diaz is roughly value neutral. Diaz's surplus value basically cancels Cano's underwater deal. I'd ask for $45M from the Mariners to offset some of Cano's salary, but I'd specificly require it to be spread across years 2021-2023. So Cano's contract essentially would become: 2-yr, $48M deal 3-yr, $27M deal In return, I'd send Nick Gordon and one of Meija, Stewart, Gonsalves, Thorpe.

Sure, but the reliever on his own probably costs Kirilloff or Lewis. Cano+Diaz costs maybe Nick Gordon.

On the flip side, ask the A's, Brewers, Royals and Orioles what it is like to have a reliever with a sub-2.00 ERA and a 40%+ strikeout rate. A team can pencil over a lot of roster issues if the back end of the bullpen basically stops giving up runs.

What the Brewers showed is that an above-average rotation isn't necessary if you have a reliever (or two) that just plain stop giving up runs. The A's this past season, and the Royals and Orioles teams of recent years, have also followed this pattern. But that just shifts the focus from finding top-end starters to finding a reliever or relievers with essentially 1.00 ERAs.

I know. I was pretty disappointed by this myself. The way I see it, this team need to make some high-variance moves in order to move the needle enough for them to be legitimate contenders with the Indians/Astros/Red Sox/Yankees with this current core of players. And it turns out that the off-season has had some reasonably costed, high-variance moves! Donaldson to Atlanta on a 1-year deal. The Paxton trade. Both of those would have looked good for this team.

There is the obvious way of drafting/developing your own prospects, but personally, I'd like to see them target youngish big-league pitchers with ace-potential and trust the development staff to raise them to the ace level. That is basically what the Astros did with Cole, the Indians did with Bauer, the Tigers did with Scherzer, and the Yankees are trying to do that with Paxton. None of those deals required a top-10 prospect.

This is extremely disappointing to me. Certainly seems like Paxton's price was within reach for the Twins.

Sure, we don't know exactly. But I think we can acknowledge that uncertainty and still agree that given the facts that we do know (that it was reported that the Twins and Escobar had some extension discussions, that Escobar signed a deal without actually reaching free agency, etc), the most likely scenario is that the Twins offered less than what the Diamondbacks offered and Escobar ultimately accepted. And speaking for myself, I think it is fair to question the decision making process for the Twins. From all outward appearances, the Twins had a solid, high-floor, extremely well-liked player who was willing to sign an extension at (in my opinion) extremely team-friendly terms, and they decided to trade that player away at the deadline instead.

The following just speculation on my part, but I don't think it is unreasonable speculation that... 1 - Escobar had SOME conversation with Twins while he was still a member of the organization about potential extension options - either during the past offseason or maybe even before the trade deadline. 2 - If the discussion with the Twins was for more than the Arizona offer, he would have waited until free agency and re-explored that option. If the rumors were true that there was talk of an extension with the Twins while he was still here, it is very surprising that he would have not accepted the Twins offer in order to reach free agency, but then turn around and accept an equal or lesser offer right on the cusp of free agency.

Was it a fluke, though? They obviously weren't counting on him, but they liked him enough to give him a 40-man spot despite not having any options left, which says a lot for a NL team when talking about a 1B only player. More generally, the Brewers have made a lot of roster moves since Stearns took over, and they have hit on a lot of them. There are probably ten quality players that they acquired either for free via waivers or for very little via trade: Travis Shaw Jesus Aguilar Manny Pina Hernan Perez Jonathan Villar Keon Broxton Chase Anderson Junior Guerra Freddy Peralta Jeremy Jeffress Plus they hit on their biggest moves this past offseason. Plus they hit on moving Hader to the bullpen. I think they have a long enough track record of successful moves - for multiple season across all levels of the organization - that I'm willing to say that it is less about "luck" or "flukes", and more about successful player analysis and development. And it is something I really wish the Twins could emulate: the ability to grind out team improvements in transactions across all levels (veteran-for-prospect, veteran-for-veteran, wavier pickups, rule-5, free agency).

mlbtraderumors have put a lot of work into their arbitration model. The brains behind the model, Matt Swartz, is a PhD economist that has done consulting work for MLB clubs and is well-respected within the baseball analytics community. Last's years estimates followed by actual for the Twins: Twins (7) Eduardo Escobar – $4.9MM v $4.85MM Kyle Gibson – $5.3MM v $4.2MM Ryan Pressly – $1.6MM v $1.6MM Ehire Adrianza – $1.0MM v $1.0MM Robbie Grossman – $2.4MM v $2.0MM Trevor May – $600K - $650K They were off by about $1MM on Gibson and $400K with Grossman, but otherwise nailed the contracts. Overall, I'd say that is pretty solid. Probably within +/- 10%.

Clay Davenport calculates some crude advanced defensive metrics for minor league players. You can find an example here for Nick Gordon. http://www.claydavenport.com/ht/GORDON19951024A.shtml His data is not the most user friendly, but in the first table you can see "68-SS -1 28-2B 2" That means that he calculated that Gordon was -1 runs at SS and +2 runs at 2B this year at AAA (relative to the average AAA SS). I'm not 100% certain of the details, but I'm pretty sure that it is calculated base on play-by-play data, which is cruder than the methods used for calculating UZR or DRS. The subsequent tables are all translations to attempt to project future ability. And for reference, Gordon has slightly better defensive numbers than Polanco. http://www.claydavenport.com/ht/POLANCO19930705A.shtml

Do you know off the top of your head if Buxton is arbitration eligible after this season regardless of whether the Twins call him up in September or not? I'm assuming that he will be Super-2 if he is not called up...

He has a .238 BABIP so far in August. K%, BB%, ISO all look fine during that time frame. As many have already alluded, he may be tiring, but I'm leaning more towards a string of bad luck.

I don't think he will ever play 2B again full time. He might be okay at 1B/DH, but he was never very good defensively, and now he's been dealing with knee issues. All that said, depending on where the Twins end up with Mauer/Sano/etc next year, I could see a scenario where he makes sense on a 1-year deal.