12 hours ago, Karbo said:

Arraez just couldn't run. In Martins case he has been a good to great base stealer. Then you use the big boppers behind him to hopefully drive him in. 

I will grant you that Martin is much more 'fleet of foot' than Arraez. Still, if you mostly hit singles, you generally need at least two more constructive offensive things to happen to score a run (unless the guy behind you is a big bopper and hits a HR). You need two more singles, a single and a double or a double and a single, a stolen base and a base hit, a sacrifice and a base hit, etc. 
I will also grant you that Martin may steal his way into scoring position, and that is a plus - as it was with Taylor last year. We will see about Martin, but so far he looks pretty punch less and doesn't hit a high enough average to compensate for that.

1 hour ago, arby58 said:

If he were coming out of high school, the expectations would be lower, but he played 3 years of Division 1 college baseball. I'm not down on him, but I think Baseball Prospectus' ranking of him (52) is about right. He isn't a phenom. He needs a full year at AAA, and then we'll see. I'm a bird in the hand guy, and the bird in the hand, having done it at the MLB level (130 OPS+ last year), is Julien.

What does Julien have to do with hies good Lee is?

10 hours ago, arby58 said:

If he were coming out of high school, the expectations would be lower, but he played 3 years of Division 1 college baseball. I'm not down on him, but I think Baseball Prospectus' ranking of him (52) is about right. He isn't a phenom. He needs a full year at AAA, and then we'll see. I'm a bird in the hand guy, and the bird in the hand, having done it at the MLB level (130 OPS+ last year), is Julien.

Julien was nowhere to be found a year ago in any top 100. He is also 2 years older than Lee. 
Lee tore up AA after a short adjust period. Thats why he got promoted quickly. After 5 weeks in AAA, an even shorter adjustment period, Lee tore up AAA in the last 3 weeks of the season. Everything points to him tearing up spring training and AAA if he isn’t on the opening day roster.  Last I checked, mgmnt will play the best players on the 40man and find a place to play them. At almost 23 yo, what says Lee can’t be a perennial allstar? I just don’t understand how fans can dump on him before he ever gets to the show. 
If Lee would have stayed in AA in ‘23 and finished the last 8 weeks with a .320ba and .980 ops everyone including the experts would rank him higher and be mad at the org for not promoting him earlier. 

2 hours ago, Fatbat said:

Julien was nowhere to be found a year ago in any top 100. He is also 2 years older than Lee. 
Lee tore up AA after a short adjust period. Thats why he got promoted quickly. After 5 weeks in AAA, an even shorter adjustment period, Lee tore up AAA in the last 3 weeks of the season. Everything points to him tearing up spring training and AAA if he isn’t on the opening day roster.  Last I checked, mgmnt will play the best players on the 40man and find a place to play them. At almost 23 yo, what says Lee can’t be a perennial allstar? I just don’t understand how fans can dump on him before he ever gets to the show. 
If Lee would have stayed in AA in ‘23 and finished the last 8 weeks with a .320ba and .980 ops everyone including the experts would rank him higher and be mad at the org for not promoting him earlier. 

There's a very nice analysis of Lee at MiLB Analysis by Nick Richards. He delves into the numbers for last season and has the warning that "The scouts love him, but so do lefty pitchers. Was he really climbing out of the Triple-A crater, or was that noise?" He then suggests that "Brooks Lee needs to repeat Triple-A and do at the level what he did at Double-A: slowly but surely improve." He concludes with "So he will get on base and have a good BA, but his power will be only solid, and don't expect speed. A decent prospect, but not a world-changing one." 

That sounds about right to me. The difference between Julien and Lee is Julien isn't a prospect - he proved to be an excellent MLB hitter in 2023, with a 130 OPS+. If the Twins had a team full of 130 OPS+ hitters last year, they might have won the World Series.

10 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

What does Julien have to do with hies good Lee is?

Sooner or later there is going to have to be a decision on who plays regularly and where. Lee is a bit of the odd man out at the moment, IF Julien is seen as the regular 2B and Correa and Lewis are at SS and 3B. While most of the scouts would agree with the first three in the pecking order for the Twins, I suspect that Lee could wind up elsewhere via trade more quickly than 1 or 3 on the list.

3 hours ago, arby58 said:

There's a very nice analysis of Lee at MiLB Analysis by Nick Richards. He delves into the numbers for last season and has the warning that "The scouts love him, but so do lefty pitchers. Was he really climbing out of the Triple-A crater, or was that noise?" He then suggests that "Brooks Lee needs to repeat Triple-A and do at the level what he did at Double-A: slowly but surely improve." He concludes with "So he will get on base and have a good BA, but his power will be only solid, and don't expect speed. A decent prospect, but not a world-changing one." 

That sounds about right to me. The difference between Julien and Lee is Julien isn't a prospect - he proved to be an excellent MLB hitter in 2023, with a 130 OPS+. If the Twins had a team full of 130 OPS+ hitters last year, they might have won the World Series.

Left handed pitchers love Julien a bit more than Lee. Lee is a switch hitter but stronger from the left side  and stronger against righties. No question that Lee has significant development ahead of him. I have made the argument before and will continue to that advanced prospects sometimes do better if challenged more. Guys that get a taste of the varsity can then understand what it will take to stay there and some thrive right away. Some need to bounce back and forth. Do the twins need Lee in ‘24. NOPE. Can Lee force them to bring him up by developing his weaknesses and advancing his best skills. Absolutely.  
A year ago, many on this site ripped Julien and still do for inadequate defense. Prime reason to leave him out of the top 100 prospects as well. He is now rated the #8 2nd baseman in MLB. His defense was above league average in Aug-Oct. All of that development happened in about 100 games played against the best.  He still can’t hit LHP but I bet he is spending time right now working on his greatest weaknesses. 
When Lee comes up, we will know 2 things, he has the confidence of mgmnt to be here and he is better than he was last year.  What he does with it is up to him. I’m betting that he will be here for a long while. 

3 hours ago, arby58 said:

Sooner or later there is going to have to be a decision on who plays regularly and where. Lee is a bit of the odd man out at the moment, IF Julien is seen as the regular 2B and Correa and Lewis are at SS and 3B. While most of the scouts would agree with the first three in the pecking order for the Twins, I suspect that Lee could wind up elsewhere via trade more quickly than 1 or 3 on the list.

Or assets get shifted around internally. We got 6-8 more infielders that will be developing and at the same level that Lee is at rn so this type of discussion in going to carry on for years but the names will change. Some will fail. At least 1 could/should/will be better than Lee and stick longer.  At least we are drafting the right kids so we can talk about cool stuff like this.