Otto von Ballpark

Mike Schmidt started out with a low average and lots of strikeouts, true, but even as a rookie he was providing tons of walks and power, making him almost a league-average hitter overall (95 wRC+ as a rookie) despite a low .249 BABIP (his career BABIP would be .280). That's not a comparable career start to Buxton (48 wRC+ and trending down). Besides, a hitter with the profile of Buxton, starting his career with the average and K's of rookie Mike Schmidt, but without the walks, power, or "bad luck" suggested by a low BABIP, is not something from which to draw encouragement.

That's a little unfair -- the poster described the first two innings, you reply as if to refute his description of the first two innings, and then you include Meyer's pitch count from the third inning where we all admit he struggled a bit. Meyer threw 36 pitches during the first two innings. Maybe not exactly "cruising" but not unusual either, and certainly acceptable given the results of those innings. Nolasco threw 31 pitches during his first two innings Sunday. After two innings, Berrios' pitch count has sat at 37 and 42 for his first two starts. After 3 innings on Monday night, Berrios' pitch count was 61. And that was with the benefit of a double play on the last pitch. Is 66 pitches for 8 outs that much different? Then Berrios settled down for perhaps his quickest inning yet in the 4th, facing the Astros 6-7-8 hitters starting with Preston Tucker -- the exact hitter and lineup spots that Molitor pulled Meyer before.

I don't know that our 40 man is really that full. For example, given the depth at their positions, Pat Dean and Kennys Vargas have virtually no future with this club, yet still have 40-man roster spots. And with Berrios added, there are no imminent prospect promotions that will require a 40 man spot either (and we may have a player on the 60 day DL by that time too).

But you are not buying a share of the future earnings, directly. You are buying a share of Fantex and you get whatever they deign to give you. That is the dupe, because most observers would assume the former.

I thought Scherzer took out some kind of special insurance when he declined his extension with Detroit?

Yeah, I think it's a mistake. Not a huge one, but a mistake nonetheless. The kind of baseball discussion point that has been going on since time immemorial. Back to my original point, I hope I have finally been clear that nobody claims Molitor or the Twins are actively hoping Meyer will fail.

Am I really not being clear? I feel like I am being clear. The Twins don't hope Meyer to fail, but their belief in the likelihood of his success right now is influencing their priorities. So they're putting a lower priority on putting him in the best position to succeed than other priorities, like having a emergency arm at the back of the pen for another extra inning game, or setting up the rotation for Santana's return. This isn't unique to this situation or to the Twins, it's something that literally everybody does, everyday. And it might make some things a little harder for those people and things that get assigned that lower priority, like Alex Meyer in this case. What exactly isn't clear about that? I'd honestly like to know.

That's fair. But I suspect somewhat overrated. The Twins opted not to promote Meyer either of the last two Septembers to "bear witness on the bench", even though it literally would have cost them almost nothing (a league minimum paycheck and some days service time for a prospect likely controlled through his age 32 season anyway). And he bore witness on the bench last summer briefly already. And the promotion of Kepler to "bear witness on the bench" (I like that phrase ) was also timed quite oddly, given how he already bore witness on the bench (do judges do that? ) last September, and he had all of 2 career games at AAA when it happened (and a lot to prove at that level yet, like Meyer as a SP this year except for different reasons). And his appearances, like Meyer's, felt a bit more happenstance (i.e. starting against a tough lefty, then sitting for over a week) than you would imagine for a careful, considered introduction of a prospect to the MLB world.

Judging how you interpreted my post above, I suspect you may be jumping the gun at interpreting other posts as fitting your neat little "paradox." The team has appeared unwilling to promote/use Meyer at fairly obvious times (i.e. when the pen was struggling last year, or to get his feet wet with expanded September rosters the last two years). Now they have promoted him, seemingly prematurely as he looks to bounce back as an effective starting pitcher, and they have been very hesitant about actually using him. To the point where they appear to have scheduled his first and perhaps only start according to Ervin Santana's expected return date rather than Meyer's own usage schedule. I'm not alleging any ineptitude or anything nefarious, either of the team or of the posters here, and I would suggest you do the same. Facts and opinions are often quite a bit more complicated than they seem.

No. I thought I was clear, but I guess not. It's obviously not about wanting someone to fail, the Twins don't want that, and we fans don't want that either. It's about not trusting someone to succeed, and the decisions and priorities one makes based on that level of trust/confidence. I am sure Molitor and company would love nothing more than for Alex Meyer to throw a great game tonight, but evidence suggests that they do not believe that is particularly likely, and thus have been putting priorities about Meyer's development (i.e. the timing of his promotion and MLB appearances so far) well below other priorities like, say, stashing an emergency arm at the back of the pen, or setting up the rotation for the easy return of a disabled veteran. (Sounds patriotic when I put it like that ) They are going to Meyer tonight ahead of Milone, which is definitely something in Meyer's favor. It's about the bare minimum they could have done, though, given what little else they have done with him since his arguably premature (this season) promotion -- if they were going to promote him this early (this season), he needed to get some kind of look before they would potentially send him back down. A little like Max Kepler getting that one last start before getting sent back down.

Love the glasses! New favorite minor leaguer.

I can't imagine they'd send down Rosario because he's not getting enough playing time in Minnesota, and then call up Kepler to replace him. (Although I guess they did let Kepler ride the pine once already this year, hopefully they at least let him get going at AAA before they do that again.)

Rosario's results are comparably bad to Buxton's, but the process isn't. Rosario is a bit of a victim of a .203 BABIP. His BB and K rates aren't good, of course, but they're basically the same as last year. He probably does need to play every day, although it could probably come at the expense of Danny Santana (and hopefully Molitor would feel no great urge to bat Rosario leadoff).

Obviously this is true, and I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting otherwise. However, it's not unreasonable to suggest that their expectations and preconceptions are affecting their usage of him. Molitor is on record as preferring Meyer in the bullpen -- is he more concerned about setting up Meyer for a successful start, or about lining up the rotation for the return of Santana/Gibson?

Baez was striking out 30% of the time in AAA, so jumping to 41% in his first taste of MLB wasn't that strange. He also drew more walks, showed more power, and was the victim of a well below average BABIP (.248, not unlike Trout 2011) in his first taste of MLB. And of course, Baez hasn't achieved any sustained success yet either. He's got a decent-looking 111 wRC+ since he came back last September, although it's propped up by a .431 BABIP. Adjust that down to .350 and is he even a league average bat during that time? Feel free to adjust the K criteria down proportional to league average, I'm still not sure you will find many/any star level players that began their careers as poorly as Buxton has at the plate. Like I said, he's far from a bust or a flop or any such thing yet, but I don't see how you can't adjust his ceiling down a bit at this point (due to a combination of his epic struggles, plus the fact that his ceiling was set so high to begin with).

That's where I'm at too. Far from saying he's a bust or a flop or any such thing, but he's got a lot of work ahead of him just to achieve a solid career, much less stardom. (To say nothing about his projected health and consistency through his career.)

This was addressed at length in a recent thread. That 2011 Trout season was actually pretty encouraging - reasonable K/BB rates and great power, especially after his first 3 week stint (47 PA). Despite a low .247 BABIP, he was almost league average with the bat (87 wRC+) thanks to his power and K/BB rates alone, a far cry from the MLB production Buxton was providing. Put another way, I'd be a lot less worried about Buxton if he had a 20% K rate and a .238 BABIP, even if it produced the same poor overall stat line. And he probably wouldn't be in AAA right now with that K rate, especially if it was trending in a better direction.

To be fair, the big recent "Buxton is a flop" thread was actually an error of semantics, really -- the thread starter actually said "My prediction is that he will just be around league average at the plate but stellar in the field" which is quite different than a "flop" to most folks, but it is less than the star predictions that have been made about him over the past few years. Buxton's 1-30 start in rookie ball was just that -- 30 AB, with a modest K rate but an insanely low BABIP of .048. Yes, it was incredibly premature for anyone to be worried about that, given the sample size and BABIP weirdness. But his MLB start is something else, though -- a larger sample of nearly 200 PA with insanely bad K and BB rates. A perfectly normal BABIP of .308, respectable power with a .121 ISO, but a 48 wRC+. It's obviously still early in his career, he may turn out great, but I'm not sure there's much precedent for an elite prospect starting this poorly in MLB and still turning out great. Given that rocky start and his injury tendencies, his realistic upside might be a Carlos Gomez career path now, rather than the hoped-for Andrew McCutchen. Again, not a bust, but something less than what many predicted.

It's a little more nuanced than that, but you are probably on to something. Chris Herrmann has a career .736 minor league OPS, obviously a little older as a college draftee, but that age-adjusting performance is a very different argument than "hit at every stage of his career." (And Murphy's first plus performance at AA came at age 22, versus age 23 for Herrmann, so it's not like their timelines were way off throughout.) Murphy's minor league success as a plus hitter is primarily limited to 2013, when he posted a 116 wRC+ split between AA and AAA. His MLB success with the Yankees seemed to support that, although there were some K% and BABIP issues.

Let me know if you want to switch, I could run these numbers for every player/team/year/month/etc. which would give this analysis a lot more context.

You can even look at it by month, for an even comparison to Seth's numbers: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2016&month=4&season1=2016&ind=0&team=8&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=15,d But as you can see, only 37 of our 77 relief appearances even met the threshold for SD/MD designation. Maybe there should be a "neutral" number in between?

Yeah, I could see Suzuki falling just short like Hughes did for his IP bonus a couple years ago, and then they pick up the option or negotiate an extension anyway.

I get your general point, although Cervilli, Castillo, McCann, Vogt, Perez (for defense), etc. can probably make a case too.

Suzuki is currently on pace for only 376 PA, well short of the 485 needed for his option to vest. Suzuki could actually accumulate PA at his 2014 rate the rest of the season and still fall just short of vesting (he'd finish with 483 PA). And given that our 2014 team runs/game mark was higher than 2015 or 2016 so far, that might be a safe bet? In any case, the only way Suzuki's option vests is if we want it to vest (which is a real possibility, but one pretty much separate from the quality or playing time of our backup).

FYI, this was discussed a bit already on the main forum: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/22226-investing-in-duffey/ Don't players already have the option of buying "insurance" on their careers? That would cost more money upfront, but could cost a lot less long-term, and wouldn't involving duping naive fans via Fantex.