gunnarthor

Well, if I can trade Dozier next year and get the same deal, why give up the extra year of value? And the issue isn't that I can get 6 years of a #3. If I knew that De Leon would give me 6 years, roughly 1000ip and 11 WAR or so, I'd take that. The problem is that we aren't trading for 6 years of #3 pitching. We're trading for a pitcher whose ceiling is a #3 pitcher but still has very significant risk of missing that ceiling either due to lower performance, injuries or general lack of durability that makes him a bullpen piece instead. So that's why I was opposed to a 1:1 swap. And if Nunez can get me a BA backend 100 type, so can Dozier.

I don't think trading away Dozier for less than how you value him is a good idea. The Twins offense is going to take a big hit if they trade him. If you think De Leon is a #3/4 type, maybe it's better to roll the dice on a ****ty FA pitcher and keep Dozier. I suspect the Twins can trade Dozier later and get something akin to the #70 baseball prospect.

From a baseball fan, not necessarily a Twins fan, it would be really interesting if the Giants were to now get involved and acquire Dozier. Dozier would be the most hated (position) player in a pretty good rivalry. (And the Giants top of the batting order would be Span, Nunez, Dozier). Not sure how much interest SF would actually have since they have Panik but from a narrative perspective, it's great.

Yeah, there really isn't any reason to doubt Steve Adams characterization of the Dodgers offer to the Twins as De Leon "and junk."

I don't disagree but it can be overstated as well.

No, just that we're overly weighing the effect of good defense. The bat is still far more important. A bad glove, good hitting team is going to be better than a good glove/bad hitting team. Ideally, you want both but unless Polanco is a historically bad defender, his effect for a few months won't move the needle much.

I think we might be getting a little too caught up in defense. Yes, it's important but bats are still much more important. The Royals won 95 games (and the WS) two years ago in part because their excellent defenders were hitting. Last year, their were still a great defense but they didn't hit and were a .500 team. If the team has to use Polanco at short, so be it. If he can hit, he won't be a bad player. And if he can't hit, he'll be benched.

I think the bolded part is certainly subject for debate.

I'm not going to comment on everything but didn't the Twins kind of hire a baseball guy to sit in the dugout and manage Molitor? I know it wasn't expressed that way but I thought Falvey/Lavine put a coach in the dugout. Perhaps I'm misremembering. As for Polanco, he's blocked by Dozier. So you either bench him or play him at short or trade one of him or Dozier. I think the FO's plan was to trade Dozier but it doesn't seem likely to happen. So they'll probably run with him for now. In two months maybe he slides over to third, Sano to fulltime DH and Escobar to short.

I think I'm probably the high man on Gordon around here - I think he's in the Kepler/Berrios tier of prospects. Nice article. Really looking forward to seeing him play this year.

I do think if we are going to let relievers into the HOF (and it looks like we are) Hoffman should be there. I'm not sure how much I like putting relievers into the HOF though. Obviously, Jack Morris and Jim Kaat and Kevin Brown were better pitchers than Hoffman or Rivera. Those two were arguably better at their roles but I'm not sure they were better pitchers (in fact, I'm sure they weren't). But that ship has sailed.

Well, putting aside PEDs, ARod is the best but Jones, ARod and Griffey can all argue pretty well for that honor. Mauer gets to argue for #4. But I think Stark's point - that Atlanta got the full value of that pick - makes some sense as well although it doesn't include the $$$ spent to keep him.

But 5 seasons of extra starts seems to offset the rate stat difference, IMHO, and make him a much easier HOFer for voters. Glavine did things that can separate him from Kevin Brown easier than Moose and Schilling did.

Biggio? That seems an odd choice. Not a bad choice, simply odd. Vlad, Suzuki, Griffey are probably my favorite non-Twins.

I think you're under rating Glavine a bit, which I think is a problem of WAR based analysis. Glavine pitched a ****load of innings which is pretty important. Schilling career - 20 seasons - 3261ip, 127 ERA+, 6x all-star, 4 times top 10 cy. Glavine 1988-2002 3294ip, 124 ERA+, 2 cy young, 8x all-star, 6 top 10 cy votes. He basically had a Schilling like career and then had another 1000+ innings at 105 ERA+. We can do the same for Moose. Glavine also has a 3.30 post season ERA in about 100 more innings than the other two, as well. Glavine pitched about two more seasons than those two but threw about 5 seasons more of starter caliber innings. Yes, the other two struck out more batters but that's not the end-all, be-all. WAR has it's limits. Glavine wasn't just a compiler of innings, he was a very good pitcher (and decent hitter for a pitcher - adding about 7 WAR over his career). He had a lot of seasons where he was top 10 in both IP and ERA+ (and he did lead the league in WAR). That's harder to do than you'd think. I'm sure he benefited from having Jones in CF but Schilling and Moose had some good defenders (and explosive offenses) to help them, as well. Schillings career had some ups and downs but Glavine was a pretty constant force and sometimes the best pitcher in baseball (Moose, IMHO, has a much better argument than Schilling). Only 29 pitchers threw more innings in baseball history than Glavine and only about 15 since integration. He won two Cy Youngs (deservedly) and was the ace of some of the best teams in baseball. He was a pretty easy choice for the HOF. That doesn't mean that Mussina and Schilling (and Brown) didn't have HOF careers but Glavine is pretty clearly a HOFer, even if you're just looking at WAR (which has Glavine right above Carew and right below Ryan). 57. Ken Griffey+ (22) 83.6 L 58. Mike Mussina (18) 83.0 L 59. Nolan Ryan+ (27) 81.8 R 60. Tom Glavine+ (22) 81.4 L 61. Rod Carew+ (19) 81.1 L 62. Charlie Gehringer+ (19) 80.6 L 63. Curt Schilling (20) 79.9 R

I was really surprised by Manny's vote total. Apparently about a quarter of the voters don't care at all that he had two failed PED tests during the testing era but they also didn't seem overly supportive of Sheffield, who wasn't quite the bat Manny was, but was close.

I don't like the Raines election because it's just the compiler argument. But, at the same time, it's nice to see more guys from the 80s get in. It's a bit surprising so many Expos are in and not enough Tigers but ... Vlad's a worthy HOFer and I wish he had gotten in but it's pretty clear he will. Bagwell and Pudge getting in is pretty good news for the PED guys who have rumors but no direct failed test. Seems a bunch of voters don't care as much as other voters did. I think Moose is the most underrated candidate on the ballot. He's the Blyleven of this generation but, at the same time, it's not hard to see why. Maddux, Glavine, Johnson, Clemens and Pedro averaged something like 4,260ip, 4 cy, 101 WAR, 307 win, 628 starts. Guys a notch below - Moose, Schilling, Brown etc are going to look bad. I wish guys like Walker, Kent, Martinez had more support. I'm not sure if they are all HOFers but they certainly deserve more discussion that is gets bogged down by the steroids/Schilling/new candidates every year.

I think Brock hit it on the head - we will know in ST if Hughes is back. If he's throwing 88, maybe it's time to discuss a buy out or at least a bullpen role. But if his velocity is back, he can be a 180ip, 1.5-2.0 WAR pitcher. That's not great but that's certainly serviceable in today's MLB.

Brock, how old are you? If you're not near retirement age, I don't think you should overly worry about diversifying your investment. Just buy 3k of something and let it ride for 20 years. Also, you might want to consider some of the Vanguard admiral index funds - it requires a 3k minimum investment (I believe) but the admiral funds have a pretty good return and many reinvest profits like a dividend. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=0623 Obviously, everyone is different but I'd stay away from trying to make a quick 10% and focus more on longterm quality investments. If you invest 3k and sell when you have 10%, that's only $300, minus any fees and minus the tax hit (I think it's around 20% if you own it for less than a year), so that $300 gets cut down pretty fast. It's better to have a system in place where you are constantly adding to your portfolio.

I own a few good dividend stocks like WFC and DE. I think the big banks (USB, GS, JPM) are relatively safe returns in this market and I like oil (HP is a oil rig company that I've owned in the past). If you don't want to own oil or banks, something like Pfizer might be of interest. I don't own any Pfizer but it has a solid dividend and there are people out there that think Pfizer is a potentially great buy IF a few things happen.

While a few players probably played themselves out of the HOF (Jim Kaat) I think voters don't weight the bad seasons as much. Old traditional type voters will like Mauer as an MVP and only catcher to win a batting title. New type voters will latch onto his strong WAR totals like Jaffe at SI has. He'll get in.

Um, have you met TD?

"Greene’s father, Russell, took him to skid row when he was 10 so Hunter could talk to homeless people and understand that “each of them had a story and were once a child like me with dreams,” Hunter said. The outings had a lasting impact." That sounds like a pretty remarkable kid. Not sure if some of that isn't hype or exaggeration but it's nice that's he doing something at his young age.

I think hard hit is a bit different than power, correct? I could be wrong but I thought hard hit had more to do with squaring the ball up (probably measured in mph off the bat) rather than .iso or some other metric. The problem with Mauer has been that he's not hitting the line drives anymore, he's rolling over to second base every other at-bat. As for his percentages, his career hard hit % is around 33 and his 2013 was one of his higher years and his 2014 was one of his lower. He had a 31% last year. So I'm not so sure how much value this is worth, at the end of the day. He's not the hitter he was, regardless of cause.

I'm not sure you can place it on his concussion - he was also aging and dealing with a bunch of injuries over time. Most players see their hard hit % decline as they get older.