The Twins at year's end

Today is the final day of 2015. It wasn't a bad baseball year at all, and certainly better for the Twins than the previous four.

It's been a while since the Twins made a noteworthy move, and I suspect the rest of the offseason will be quiet. Terry Ryan and company made their moves early:

• They traded Aaron Hicks to the Yankees for John Ryan Murphy, a move that added a young option behind the plate and opened center field, presumably for Byron Buxton; and
• They signed Korean slugger Byung Ho Park to, in a roundabout way, fill the lineup gap opened by Torii Hunter's retirement.

And we have the outlines of the 2016 lineup, rotation and bullpen:

C: Kurt Suzuki and Murphy
1B: Joe Mauer
2B: Brian Dozier
3B: Trevor Plouffe
SS: Eduardo Escobar
LF: Eddie Rosario
CF: Buxton
RF: Miguel Sano
DH: Park

Rotation: Tyler Duffey, Kyle Gibson, Phil Hughes, Tommy Milone, Ervin Santana

Bullpen: Casey Fien, Kevin Jepsen, Trevor May, Ricky Nolasco, Glen Perkins and probably two others, at least one a lefty.

The bench is a bit up in the air, but either Suzuki or Murphy will sit when the other catches, and Eduardo Nunez and Danny Santana are likely to have jobs. That leaves one spot, probably for an outfielder.

Obviously, this outline presumes that Buxton is the center fielder. I believe that's the best route, and I believe that's how the Twins will break camp.

Chapman and the new domestic violence policy

Last summer the players union and the commissioners office agreed on a domestic violence policy that gives the commissioner a great deal of latitude in suspending a player (and sets up an appeals process with an independent arbitrator.) Three cases have emerged this offseason at initial tests of the new policy, involving Yasiel Puig of the Dodgers, Jose Reyes of the Rockies and Aroldis Chapman, now of the Yankees.

The Chapman case may present the biggest challenge to the new system because it

• is, along with Reyes and Puig, going to set a precedent; 
• includes a significant escalating factor (eight shots fired in an unoccupied garage) and 
• comes at a crucial point in Chapman's service time. 

As detailed here by Sports Illustrated's Jay Jaffe, a suspension of more than 40 games will push back Chapman's eligibility for free agency a year, giving the Yankees control of his contract in 2017; a suspension of less than 50 games will effectively deem Chapman's misadventure less serious than steroid use.

That it's the Yankees with Chapman now and not the Cincinnati Reds further heightens the scrutiny on Rob Manfred. Just as there were suspicions that the Alex Rodriguez suspension was handled in a manner calculated to please the Yankee ownership, which wanted out from A-Rod's contract, there are suspicions that Chapman's case will be handled in the Yankees favor.

And what would that be? A suspension between 40 and 50 games -- long enough to bind baseball's hardest throwing (and perhaps most effective) relief pitcher to the Yankees for one more season, short enough to have him available for more than two-thirds of the season.

The slight return the Reds got in the Chapman trade suggests that most teams decided they didn't want the star's behavioral baggage. I also suspect most teams don't want to see the Yankees effectively rewarded for embracing him.

On the Aroldis Chapman trade

Aroldis Chapman struck out 116 batters in 66.1 innings
in 2015 for the Reds. He'll pitch -- if he's not suspended
-- for the Yankees in 2016.

Aroldis Chapman's fastball is the stuff of legend. Example: Last season the Cuban lefty fired 452 pitches clocked at 100 mph or more; the next highest was Kelvin Herrera of the Kansas City Royals with 143.

Even in an era of big radar gun numbers, Chapman's velocity is astounding. Nobody brings the heat like Chapman,

On Monday the rebuilding Cincinnati Reds traded Chapman to the New York Yankees for four comparatively unimpressive minor leaguers: right-handers Caleb Cotham and Rookie Davis and infielders Eric Jagielo and Tony Renda. None were considered to be among the Yankees' top prospects, although Jagielo did make the Eastern League (Double A) all-star team last year.

The reason, of course, is the domestic violence investigation(s) involving Chapman from an Oct. 30 incident in Davie, Florida, in which it is established he fired eight shots into a garage wall. It's not the first eyebrow-raising incident involving Chapman and a woman; in 2012 a stripper was found bound in Chapman's Pittsburgh hotel room while Chapman was at the stadium. She was charged with filing a false police report; I have no idea how that all was resolved. 

Chapman may or may not be charged in the Florida incident. He may or may not be suspended by MLB under its new domestic abuse policy. I don't really care. I won't criticize the Twins for not pursuing a rare talent who fires a gun during an argument. There's enough smoke around Chapman's fire to decide to avoid him.

Dave Henderson and the A's dynasty

The death this weekend of Dave Henderson prompted me to look back at the 1988-92 Oakland A's, a dynasty remembered mainly for its role in baseball's steroid explosion and for its continuing influence on bullpen use.

"Hendu" wasn't a great player, although he lasted 14 years in the majors. He had bounced around -- Seattle, Boston, San Francisco -- for seven seasons before landing with the A's and was a full-time player in only two of those seasons. He did have some moments of high drama for the 1986 Red Sox -- his two-out, two-strikes, game-saving, series-saving, ninth-inning homer off Donnie Moore in Game Five of the ALCS about as dramatic as it gets. But still, seven years and basically a bit piece.

Then he signed with Oakland as a free agent after the 1987 season, and his career changed. To that point, Henderson was a .253/.316/.429 hitter.

In 1988, his age 29 season, Hendu hit .304/.368/525 with 63 extra base hits, 95 RBIs and 100 runs. It was easily the best season of his career, and even though he regressed sharply the following season, he rebounded with solid seasons in 1990 and 91 before injuries and age did him in.

Henderson was Oakland's regular center fielder for four seasons, 1988-91. In those four seasons, the A's won three AL pennants and one World Series (and were highly favored to win the other two). They won 390 games in those four seasons, 306 of them in the first three, the pennant years.

They were the Bash Brothers: Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire in the middle of the lineup, of course, but they also had (for a couple of years) Rickey Henderson in his second go-around in Oakland, plus Carney Lansford at third base, Terry Steinbach behind the plate, Walt Weiss at short, the aged Dave Parker for the bulk of the designated hitter duties and a rotation anchored by Dave Stewart and Bob Welch. That's a strong roster.

And the bullpen. This was the team which which Tony LaRussa invented the one-inning closer. Managers had, for about a decade, been trying to restrict bullpen aces to save situations, cutting back from the almost insane workloads of the early 1970s. But most aces were still working two or even three-innings at times. LaRussa used Dennis Eckersley differently, and within a couple of years everybody else was aping him. The A's expanded the number of relief pitchers they carried to accommodate the restricted use of the closer; everybody else quickly followed suit. The rise of seven-man bullpens and multiple lefty relievers pushed platoons out of the game.

Dave Henderson didn't have much if anything to do with that aspect of the Bash Brothers A's, of course. I don't know if he had anything to do with the steroid culture either. But he was a key piece of a a team that deserves to be remembered.

The Sunday Funnies

It's a couple days after Christmas, and Rickey Henderson was born on Christmas, so it's time to unwrap a Rickey Henderson story.

When he was on the Yankees in the mid-1980s, Henderson told teammates that his condo had such a great view that he could see “The Entire State Building.”

Tracking the Luis Castillo tree

There is one former Twin on the BBWAA's Hall of Fame ballot this year: newcomer Luis Castillo.

Castillo will be a one-and-done guy on the ballot, and that's as it should be, even if the most similar player to him in Baseball Reference's "similarity score" is enshrinee Johnny Evers. Evers was a debatable choice himself, and nobody else on the list is in, But Castillo was a fine player for a few seasons: three-time Gold Glove winner, two-time All-Star, regular on the 2003 World Series winning Marlins, two-time NL stolen base leader.

Castillo played second base for Minnesota in 2006-07. The Twins picked up the second baseman from the Marlins for a pair of minor league pitchers (Scott Tyler and Travis Bowyer) who reached the majors but didn't do much, and he was a significant part of the "pirahanas" team that had such a glorious season in 2006.

When the Twins fell out of contention in 2007, Terry Ryan -- in what I beleive was the last significant move he made in his first term as general manager -- traded Castillo at the deadline to the Mets for a pair of minor leaguers. Outfielder Dustin Martin never reached the majors, but catcher Drew Butera did.  Butera spent part or all of four seasons with the Twins, and then they traded him (another deadline deal) in 2013 to the Dodgers for minor league lefty Miguel Sulbaran.

Sulbaran finished 2013 in low A for the Twins. The next April, the Twins traded him to the Yankees for Eduardo Nunez, who remains on the big league roster as a bench piece. So a decade after the Twins traded for Castillo, the move still has a presence.

The North Pole Reindeer's new stadium

The past couple of Christmas posts have taken advantage of the amusing Baseball Reference page for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

The page has not been updated; the most recent stats for Rudolph, and the other reindeer on his powerhouse team in the Holiday League, remain 2014's. But The North Pole Reindeer's official web site reveals the new Nicholas Field stadium, reportedly on schedule for opening day 2016. Looks like a good place to watch a game.

Merry Christmas, all. And thanks for visiting.