The Twins Made A Decision About Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien, But It May Not Be The Right Choice

[h2oface]

This situation reminds of the year the Twins traded both Span and Revere because of centerfield/outfield depth, and then didn't have an outfield as injuries and slumps piled up. Now we back to back years trade second basemen for the new shiny hope, and lack of depth.

[Mike Sixel]

41 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Are we crippled if Margot doesn’t play CF.

Julien plays ONLY 2B! I really like Eddie!! He’s not performing at the plate - nowhere near good - that’s a fact or he wouldn’t have been sent down after the Manager stood behind him and said “he needs to work things out here”.

He hit 7 HR’s in 24 games and hasn’t hit one since April 25th……through June 2. 4 good weeks don’t make 10 acceptable weeks…..he has stunk at the plate for the most part for 30 plus games.

His OBP is almost 80 points lower than last year and 55 of those points are batting average DROP.

He strikes out trying to walk, routinely. He needs to figure out a way to be more of a complete hitter with 2 strikes - coaching, mental refresh, something! What???? Seriously do not believe sending him to the plate in the Show & having him work it out now makes sense. If he gets help & then can still get plenty of opportunity from July 1 forward, that seems smarter. He can be back as soon as June 14 series if that makes sense - he’s not banished from the Roster.

The converse situation………They DFA Farmer - Julien pulls a hamstring 3 days later - they are scrambling……Castro loses position flexibility & Lee isn’t ready……..It’s only June 3rd lots more changes to come.

Playing crappy players in case good ones get hurt is silly. You aren't winning with crappy players anyway. 

Are we sure this one month of data tells us more about Eddie than the previous 5 months? I'm not. 

If Margot can only play the corners, and not hit, I'm not interested in him being on the roster. It isn't about being crippled, but having the best 26 guys playing. Not having massive black holes getting lots of at bats......like when Margot, Farmer, and Vazquez are all in the lineup. That's 1/3 of your lineup almost an automatic out at this point. 

Wallner outhit Margot and Farmer and Vazquez, and doesn't have a job. Julien, even more so. Martin outhit all three of them, out of a job. Margot has put up negative fWAR, as has Vazquez, and Farmer has put up zero. That's three replacement (or worse) players....Farmer has over 100 ABs, and now Julien isn't on the roster....

[RpR]

17 minutes ago, h2oface said:

I keep hearing about his defensive prowess, but so far this year he is tied for last in MLB, tied with 4 others with the most errors - 4 - (and that is just what he has been charged with, we have witnessed more that are hidden by charity worker scorekeepers). But that may be the best we have. Which is a problem. Reputation precedes him, for sure. But........,

The same charity people who blamed Santana for poor throws from he pitcher; makes the plays Kirilloff could not make.

He is better than the alternatives, at worsrt.

I will admit who ever scores the Twins are either horribly biased or simply poor at their job.

[KirbyDome89]

51 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Are we crippled if Margot doesn’t play CF.

Julien plays ONLY 2B! I really like Eddie!! He’s not performing at the plate - nowhere near good - that’s a fact or he wouldn’t have been sent down after the Manager stood behind him and said “he needs to work things out here”.

He hit 7 HR’s in 24 games and hasn’t hit one since April 25th……through June 2. 4 good weeks don’t make 10 acceptable weeks…..he has stunk at the plate for the most part for 30 plus games.

His OBP is almost 80 points lower than last year and 55 of those points are batting average DROP.

He strikes out trying to walk, routinely. He needs to figure out a way to be more of a complete hitter with 2 strikes - coaching, mental refresh, something! What???? Seriously do not believe sending him to the plate in the Show & having him work it out now makes sense. If he gets help & then can still get plenty of opportunity from July 1 forward, that seems smarter. He can be back as soon as June 14 series if that makes sense - he’s not banished from the Roster.

The converse situation………They DFA Farmer - Julien pulls a hamstring 3 days later - they are scrambling……Castro loses position flexibility & Lee isn’t ready……..It’s only June 3rd lots more changes to come.

Yeah, they kinda are. They're playing a below average bat at a position (corner OF) that demands an above average bat, and they're getting no defensive value to boot. That's awful. 

If you truly believe this organization has nobody capable of stepping in short term and providing Kyle Farmer-esque production you should be screeching about removing this FO....

[darin617]

It was the right decision to send down Julien. Not hitting over .200 and the walk numbers are down as well. A demotion is good motivation and gives him time to work on his weaknesses. If the Twins are to be viewed as a playoff team you can't have players with obvious problems at the plate and his defense at second isn't top shelf either. 

I hope he can figure things out and be back with the Twins before the All-Star break. He also needs to worry if Brooks Lee keeps hitting Julien may be an odd man out.

[h2oface]

1 hour ago, RpR said:

The same charity people who blamed Santana for poor throws from he pitcher; makes the plays Kirilloff could not make.

He is better than the alternatives, at worsrt.

I will admit who ever scores the Twins are either horribly biased or simply poor at their job.

I didn't read some of the other comments, hadn't gotten to them in progression yet, and then I deleted what this responded to to a dot as I didn't want to piss off the censors that requested us not talk about catchers here, but I see I was too late. I suggest we both edit to a dot as there is no delete option. I never liked signing Santana. Happy for you that you do. Still, sorry I didn't delete what you responded to before you now have not let die. (Santana IS part of the demote Julien discussion, though, as he was an option as well, and I will always go by if you can get your glove on it you should catch it).

[RpR]

7 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Wallner outhit Margot and Farmer and Vazquez, and doesn't have a job. Julien, even more so. Martin outhit all three of them, out of a job.

LOL, when, good grief stick to realiy.

Wallner

 

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, darin617 said:

It was the right decision to send down Julien. Not hitting over .200 and the walk numbers are down as well. A demotion is good motivation and gives him time to work on his weaknesses. If the Twins are to be viewed as a playoff team you can't have players with obvious problems at the plate and his defense at second isn't top shelf either. 

I hope he can figure things out and be back with the Twins before the All-Star break. He also needs to worry if Brooks Lee keeps hitting Julien may be an odd man out.

League average as a hitter for the year, and above average defense this year.......he's a median 2B right now. 

[JD-TWINS]

9 hours ago, DJL44 said:

I don't think Julien will be in AAA long but I'm also not sure he can work on what he needs to improve in AAA. I don't know if the AAA pitchers will use the same strategy to try to get him out because I'm not sure how many of them actually have the command to be successful using that strategy. I do hope Julien plays against every LHP in AAA to try to improve that weakness.

Not trying to be smart here but Eddie needs to focus on hitting RH pitching as that is where he’s been at .190 for the past 6 weeks……it’s also who he’ll be facing when he comes back up.

He needs to add some level of being able to be more aggressive on pitches in the zone and not just try to outguess the pitcher.

Hitting a home run or three in AAA might help his mental make-up as it’s been since April 25th since he’s had one of those.

[RpR]

6 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Hitting a home run or three in AAA might help his mental make-up as it’s been since April 25th since he’s had one of those.

Not striking out at the much dissed Gallo level is the problem.

Hitting home runs in AAA means little.

[Linus]

Absolutely the correct decision. Both for the Twins near term and Eddys long term. 

[JD-TWINS]

11 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

League average as a hitter for the year, and above average defense this year.......he's a median 2B right now. 

If he was a 29 year old he’d be a bum is my assumption? ……….As mentioned previously, he hasn’t hit a home run since April 25th so taking those 7 HR’s and blending them over 10 weeks of play is just fooling oneself into thinking he’s a “league average” hitter. How is .207 over the year & zero power for the last 60% of the season a league average hitter……..? If he was League average he’d be in the line-up Tuesday night.

Can’t imagine that Martin wouldn’t be more effective at 2B at this point……but that shouldn’t be the bar.

He’ll be back within a month if/when he responds in St. Paul.

[JD-TWINS]

37 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yeah, they kinda are. They're playing a below average bat at a position (corner OF) that demands an above average bat, and they're getting no defensive value to boot. That's awful. 

If you truly believe this organization has nobody capable of stepping in short term and providing Kyle Farmer-esque production you should be screeching about removing this FO....

Apparently not, since they are on a 91 Wins pace without Lewis since the 3rd inning of game 1. That’s w/o ever seeing DeSclafani and Varland going 0-4 in 4 starts. Duran down, Topa down, Correa down, Buxton down & Wallner disappearing, along with Julien not performing……not to mention the hated Margot - Farmer - Vazquez trio.

Somebody’s gotta play. Kirilloff is coming around again…..Santana has steadily climbed ………Margot has hit .254 - .274 - .264 the past 3 seasons ………he was hitting .150 a few weeks ago and is trending in the right direction as he’s now at .209…..I’d expect .230 by All-star break.

[h2oface]

17 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Apparently not, since they are on a 91 Wins pace .......

Pace. There is no pace. Just streaks and daily play. Calculating pace never really means anything. Should we go with the pace calculated from 7-13? How about 24-16? But projecting a final win total using today's W-L % is the one? Pace is really meaningless.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

8 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

That would leave Farmer getting splinters in his rear end.  

Are modern day benches backwards compatible in splinter functionality?

[JD-TWINS]

Just now, h2oface said:

Pace. There is no pace. Just streaks and daily play. Calculating pace never really means anything. Should we go with the pace calculated from 7-13? How about 24-16? But projecting a final win total using today's W-L % is the one? Pace is really meaningless.

Seriously?

After 1/3 of the season it appears they have a great shot to Win 91 games.

How’s…..the math tells you they would be expected to win 91 games?

They have won .559% of their games and that projects to 91 Wins, is that more eloquent?

My WAG is they will win somewhere near 91 games.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

8 hours ago, bespenson said:

Why not have Lewis play second base, at least against lefthanded pitchers. That would give the Twins a pretty powerful lineup...Lewis, Miranda, Buxton, etc. Lewis was a shortstop originally, should be able to shift to second easily despite being on the opposite side of the field. Miranda seems to be quite adequate fielder at third (should learn how to better tag runners approaching third base). Just a thought. I know is supposed to be the forever third baseman for the Twins, but... that can wait.

 

Lewis clearly has the positional flexibility to cover second, and i think i am surprised that hasn't been brought up by more people here. How frequently? I don't know, but i can't see them not doing it if it is the easiest way to the line up they want.

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, h2oface said:

This situation reminds of the year the Twins traded both Span and Revere because of centerfield/outfield depth, and then didn't have an outfield as injuries and slumps piled up. Now we back to back years trade second basemen for the new shiny hope, and lack of depth.

I don't think moving on from Span & Revere is what killed the Twins in 2013; they were awful with a staggeringly bad rotation that relied on Correia, Pelfrey, Diamond and the smoke & mirrors of Deduno. There were too many problems in the lineup far beyond Span being gone to make up for. And the immortal Ben Revere and his career 7.9 bWAR wasn't the answer. That team was just bad.

And Polanco has been worse than Julien this year, so we haven't exactly been hurt by moving on from him. And I'm still happy to have Pablo. This really doesn't resemble 2013 much at all, which was a bad team team and had been a bad team for a while and would continue to be a bad team because we couldn't develop pitching, spent little, and our best players got hurt while we got little from the farm system. This team has a winning record, is coming off a division win and some playoff success, with real pitchers and some young players rising.

Julien will be ok, I think, and a reset isn't unfair. I'd like him to get a little time at 1B while he's in AAA with Brooks Lee coming up, but we'll see.

It's fair to be frustrated about the Twins keeping veteran assets that aren't playing well as we get later in the season. Margot is looking better in a limited role...but it's such a limited role that I have to wonder if you can keep him around. Farmer is having the same problem. At least Farmer is still a solid defender, but if he can't mash LHP any longer he's going to be starting his coaching career sooner than maybe he planned.

[KirbyDome89]

59 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Apparently not, since they are on a 91 Wins pace without Lewis since the 3rd inning of game 1. That’s w/o ever seeing DeSclafani and Varland going 0-4 in 4 starts. Duran down, Topa down, Correa down, Buxton down & Wallner disappearing, along with Julien not performing……not to mention the hated Margot - Farmer - Vazquez trio.

Somebody’s gotta play. Kirilloff is coming around again…..Santana has steadily climbed ………Margot has hit .254 - .274 - .264 the past 3 seasons ………he was hitting .150 a few weeks ago and is trending in the right direction as he’s now at .209…..I’d expect .230 by All-star break.

Pace is your rationale for continuing to feed ABs to a below average corner OF bat? Yeesh...

This team is one more rough Yankees series away from being on pace to finish with a worse record than last season. Arguing that their current win rate insulates this club from the negative effects of giving playing time to replacement (or below) level players is ridiculous. 

[h2oface]

1 hour ago, JD-TWINS said:

Seriously?

After 1/3 of the season it appears they have a great shot to Win 91 games.

How’s…..the math tells you they would be expected to win 91 games?

They have won .559% of their games and that projects to 91 Wins, is that more eloquent?

My WAG is they will win somewhere near 91 games.

Sure. Seriously, pace means nothing.

Today's projection in the books. But it was well documented here on these pages that the season was over at 7-13,  🤥 and the projection when that was settled was there was a great shot to win 57 games and go 57-105! Hence, pace means nothing. It is all about when you project it, and all it takes is a 12 or a couple 7 games streaks either way to make it all mean nothing. But yes, it is a thing to do.

(Sorry, I have no idea what your WAG means. I googled WAG and baseball and it is supposed to mean Wives And Girlfriends  -  Wives & Girlfriends of Professional Athletes)

[JD-TWINS]

19 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Pace is your rationale for continuing to feed ABs to a below average corner OF bat? Yeesh...

This team is one more rough Yankees series away from being on pace to finish with a worse record than last season. Arguing that their current win rate insulates this club from the negative effects of giving playing time to replacement (or below) level players is ridiculous. 

So who is your left field choice that insulates them from not making the Playoffs?

They were 6 games over .500 on September 5th for the first time last year……..if they’re swept in New York, it hardly sinks the Team’s chances.

I’m not suggesting that Margot is a star, but last year most fans (nearly 100%) wanted to lynch Max Kepler by this time of the season…..Margot is historically a better average hitter than Max and now he gets to platoon to fit his ability v. LH pitching. I just think it’s silly to think Margot being on the Team is going to sink it …….and that there is no potential for improvement.

Is Julien a below average?

Vazquez below average?

Farmer below average?

Was Kepler below average last year?

Do you cut half the Club every 6 weeks?

Rake up the acorns in your yard.

[$tryf4Life]

11 hours ago, GNess said:

Interesting ideas being shared here. Seems that a secondary and maybe more important related facet to this is the now competition between Julien and Lee for the future at 2B. 

I would venture to say that position players struggling to hit will always open the conversation, competition and debate for the future of the position. 
 

The end goal is still to win a championship. 

[KirbyDome89]

9 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

So who is your left field choice that insulates them from not making the Playoffs?

They were 6 games over .500 on September 5th for the first time last year……..if they’re swept in New York, it hardly sinks the Team’s chances.

I’m not suggesting that Margot is a star, but last year most fans (nearly 100%) wanted to lynch Max Kepler by this time of the season…..Margot is historically a better average hitter than Max and now he gets to platoon to fit his ability v. LH pitching. I just think it’s silly to think Margot being on the Team is going to sink it …….and that there is no potential for improvement.

Is Julien a below average?

Vazquez below average?

Farmer below average?

Was Kepler below average last year?

Do you cut half the Club every 6 weeks?

Rake up the acorns in your yard.

There isn't one. The goal is to maximize your odds of making the postseason, and having your better players soak up more of the available innings/ABs does that. 

I wasn't suggesting that whatever happens in NY makes or breaks this season, I was pointing out how fragile your pace argument is.

Kepler posted a .926 OPS in the 2nd half of last season. If you think Margot is going to "turn it on," to that level, don't let me stop you from arguing, but you're on an island. His current OPS+ is 58, and his career average is 90 (15 points below Kepler's btw) so sure, he can "improve," but we're still likely talking about the needle moving from sub replacement level to merely replacement level, which is problematic. 

[Mike Sixel]

30 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

So who is your left field choice that insulates them from not making the Playoffs?

They were 6 games over .500 on September 5th for the first time last year……..if they’re swept in New York, it hardly sinks the Team’s chances.

I’m not suggesting that Margot is a star, but last year most fans (nearly 100%) wanted to lynch Max Kepler by this time of the season…..Margot is historically a better average hitter than Max and now he gets to platoon to fit his ability v. LH pitching. I just think it’s silly to think Margot being on the Team is going to sink it …….and that there is no potential for improvement.

Is Julien a below average?

Vazquez below average?

Farmer below average?

Was Kepler below average last year?

Do you cut half the Club every 6 weeks?

Rake up the acorns in your yard.

You're suggesting not making changes based on six weeks, yet you like sending Julien down after three bad weeks, after last year and the start of this? 

[RpR]

1 hour ago, sampleSizeOfOne said:

Lewis clearly has the positional flexibility to cover second, and i think i am surprised that hasn't been brought up by more people here. How frequently? I don't know, but i can't see them not doing it if it is the easiest way to the line up they want.

He is not a good SS, he is no better at 3rd than Miranda, and you want him to be bad at 2nd? 😱

Leave  him where he is.

[DJL44]

3 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

How is .207 over the year & zero power for the last 60% of the season a league average hitter……..? If he was League average he’d be in the line-up Tuesday night.

Just for context, MLB average is .240/.311/,387 for an OPS below 700. Most league average hitters will have a month-long stretch this season where they hit 30 points above or below that.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

3 hours ago, RpR said:

He is not a good SS, he is no better at 3rd than Miranda, and you want him to be bad at 2nd? 😱

Leave  him where he is.

My impression is Lewis has a top notch glove, and they could use him at short if they had to. No, he isn't going to displace Correa, but he'll hold his own wherever he plays. And while there is wisdom in letting him settle into one position, and he is plenty good enough to deserve that, i still expect Rocco won't let his versatility go to waste.

[Riverbrian]

10 hours ago, sampleSizeOfOne said:

Are modern day benches backwards compatible in splinter functionality?

I don't know. Splinters was just used to suggest that Farmer would sit a lot based on the proposed scenario. 

Let's try this instead.

Farmer's watch will be telling him to get up and walk around during games. 

That one might be better. 

[jmlease1]

10 hours ago, h2oface said:

Sure. Seriously, pace means nothing.

Today's projection in the books. But it was well documented here on these pages that the season was over at 7-13,  🤥 and the projection when that was settled was there was a great shot to win 57 games and go 57-105! Hence, pace means nothing. It is all about when you project it, and all it takes is a 12 or a couple 7 games streaks either way to make it all mean nothing. But yes, it is a thing to do.

(Sorry, I have no idea what your WAG means. I googled WAG and baseball and it is supposed to mean Wives And Girlfriends  -  Wives & Girlfriends of Professional Athletes)

WAG = Wild-Ass Guess.

(Think this started as military slang?)

[MABB1959]

14 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

All of these things point to this being the right thing for the player because he needs a mental refresh.

Do you think going up and down affects confidence?  Always being on the bubble most likely adds additional stress, but they are MLB players.  So frustrating that it seems we will never see the true lineup.  Wish for just one week they could send out the same lineup.