whosafraidofluigirussolo

The beginning of Baldelli's postgame that I watched certainly supports the conclusion that the pitching changes were predetermined to get Pérez some work. A little jarring for the manager to say that point blank.

Maybe more than this, I wonder what they were thinking about Fernando Rodney, who wasn't pitching that badly and for whom they got quite a bit less in trade last season than they did for Pressly. Not sure the Rodney Experience wouldn't be more beneficial than one additional stockpiled prospect at this point. I wish that, if Romero's going to go back to Rochester, they'd let him get back into the rhythm of his old role rather than settling into a new one.

From the MLBTR article reporting the same: As in most cases, he suggested, the team’s interest is twofold. “Having those guys under control for longer than what they presently are would be a good thing, in our minds,” said Falvey. Likewise, he added, “it’s helpful to know you are going to be able to plan out a number of years with a lot of young players.” How is that "twofold" reasoning not just saying the same thing two different ways? (As I read it again, I think this is less of an case of the convoluted corporate-speak we sometimes get from the FO and more of an issue of slapdash MLBTR writing.)

So far, with the moves of the Falvey/Levine front office that I haven't liked or that have seemed questionable in restrospect -- e.g. trading Rodney for a light return when he had an option year and the team would need bullpen help again this offseason; jumping early on Schoop when Lowrie ended up signing a reasonable 2-year deal and Gonzalez still hasn't signed -- at least the reasoning behind the moves has seemed fairly apparent. Pérez is the first move where I really don't see the logic. I can squint and kind of see some reasons (which have been covered in these comments already) but they don't convince me this move was better than no move would have been.

Would Andújar push out whichever of Austin or Cron doesn't lose a roster spot to Cruz? He comes with probably even more speculation that he has to move off 3B than Sanó does.

The Lynn trade between NYY and MIN was completed not long after this. I wonder whether and how much that imminent trade might have been a factor. MLB Trade Rumors suggests the Yankees might be viewing Lynn as a long reliever upgrade over Warren. With these 3 trades happening in close succession you can squint and almost see it as a 3-team trade.

No, s/he doesn't like the 2010 Giants.

I checked Gameday just in time to see someone named Scott Barlow strike out Sano, Escobar and Kepler on 10 pitches in the 12th inning. Is this guy a secret bullpen ace or was every Twins hitter trying to take the lead with one swing at that point?

I'm not sure what to make of Darvish's reported contract vs. what the Twins could have offered, because the AAV clearly is lower than expected, and if they didn't offer more than $21M/year that seems like a big mistake - but would we have wanted them to top that total value if they weren't willing to go six years? That would have meant topping $25M/year over five years. And depending on how easy the reported incentives from the Cubs are for Yu to reach, the $21M/yr actually may not be the right point of comparison. In other words, there's a way to read these numbers where I understand why the Twins would balk. Arrieta might be the most interesting domino to watch now. He seems to be perceived as the closest thing to Yu's tier among free agents, but also something seems to be keeping teams away, presumably more perceived risk of fast decline. With Darvish's deal known, I wonder if a shorter deal for Arrieta at slightly higher AAV would end up being a compromise - palatable to teams and ostensibly still a win for Boras. The Twins' new pitching analytics guru came from the Rays. If they acquired any of Cobb, Archer or Odorizzi I would tend to trust their valuation of whichever one pretty confidently - though perhaps that would also help the Rays' case to get more value back in trade for one of the latter two, since the teams might be assumed to value these guys similarly. I think I recall a stat geek wrote somewhere about Odorizzi having a high swing-and-miss rate that hadn't translated into great K rates or overall performance yet. That seems like an interesting indicator of some remaining upside.

I guess I wonder what distinguishes the hard-throwing reliever with questionable control they took from the one(s) they lost. First instinct is I'd rather have Bard still in the system than Kinley, but that probably has as much to do with valuing the guy I've heard of as anything.

How's Castro doing vs. lefties this season? Seems like they could have afforded to use one of the two RH-hitting catchers on the bench here.

Rooker's not going to be a way over-slot sign at 35, though, is he? Is there something else coming at 37 to use more of the pool money?

As of this morning (4/17), Santana's start on 4/15 leads the majors in Game Score, with 92. The next 3 are tied at 86 - interestingly (though not surprisingly, given the small sample of games) all from this past weekend. http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/topperformers/_/type/pitching

Is it possible that "Vargas at third" signals that that's a joke?

What about Polanco leading off instead of Buxton? I'd bet on Polanco's on-base skills and strike zone control right now.

BB-Ref lists it as "AY-ray AY-dree-an-zuh" for some reason. Names are not as phonetically regular as most of the Spanish language is, but I'd put money on that not being how his Venezuelan mama has ever pronounced his name.

"Trade for Urias straight up" is the new "move Mauer back to catcher"

Apparently the Padres at #3 took a player who hasn't played above rookie ball: http://twitter.com/jjcoop36/status/806861913418305536 Hoping/assuming that guy isn't the return for trading the 1st pick to San Diego...

Fangraphs recently posted an article about the current minor league free-agent position players projected to perform best next year under a particular statistical projection system that I'm not "under the hood" enough to care to read about. 4 of the top 10 are catchers. Take it for what it's worth. Maybe one of them can be what people seemed to hope the catcher Hicks would be last year.

I streamed a bit of the presser at work (mostly Falvey and Levine's few minutes each of introducing themselves, and a couple of the first questions.) Their answers weren't too substantial; they said the "right" things without saying much. What got me was a sense of "this is really happening"--like, although the hires were first rumored and then announced weeks ago, just knowing there were people set to take those roles somehow didn't make changes in the organization's decision making seem real. Seeing those guys in front of a press conference made it actual: everything we read and hear on personnel decisions, transactions, and the state of the team will, for the most part, have Falvey or Levine as its sources now. Hearing them begin to speak on behalf of the Twins drives home that there is a change at least in the voices driving the operation, and based on that likely broad-scale changes in direction as well. I like it!

A dearth is exactly what they don't have.

WOW, that first Jake Mauer quote is manager cliché gold. And he's a pretty young manager too...must be a natural.

The Tigers have registered more of their players as trademarks than the Twins have. Seems like a pretty well-constructed lineup for the Twins against a lefty, though.

Yeah, pretty much what alarp said... The La Russa and Stewart hires are only the model for the collective Twins fan base's hope if you squint and see them as names with cachet and outsiders to the organization. I think the general desire (on this board and I imagine elsewhere, as I think the perception of the Twins management as clay-footed is widespread at this point) is to get candidates whose shine comes from already having worked in front offices, preferably analytic-leaning ones. I also question whether either ownership or realistic fans will create pressure for a quick turnaround. The last GM already diagnosed "total system failure" and most of the core of the next good team, probably, is young and will be together for some years to come.

I'm not sure why Vargas would be considered any less than dead even with Park in contending for a future roster spot at this point.