Alex Kirilloff needs to Step Up

[bean5302]

12 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

The season is just over 40% over. By the end of 2024 Kirilloff might have made himself an important part of the Twins' future or he might have played his way to a non-tender. 

So far, the pedigree and the projection have far exceeded the performance. There is still a spot wide open for him to seize in 2025, but if he doesn't perform and soon, he'll probably be in another organization. 

Kirilloff is even further down the depth chart now than Trevor Larnach was coming into the season. It'll take a minor miracle for him to see another season in a Twins uniform. He's had 900 plate appearances across 4 years in the majors where he's been consistently below average at the plate, shielded from LHP, and a butcher at every defensive position he's played. To top that off, he's coming up on arb2 status. This time, there's not even a mysterious injury to provide an excuse.

He's a highly likely trade/non-tender guy, and if traded, it'd be for a PTBNL or something like that. Kirilloff is emergency depth for a different MLB team.

[chpettit19]

10 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Offseason, midseason, beginning of season. It doesn't matter. Same exact argument. When Kirilloff wasn't able to swing the bat effectively, he got put on the IL, he didn't get pushed to struggle through injury like top players because Kirilloff provided no on the field value. 

Kirilloff has been essentially the same hitter every season with supposed different injuries (barring his unsustainable BABIP 2023). It's not a coincidence. Just like it's not a coincidence every time he puts on a Saints uniform he's not hurt anymore and he hits well, only to be "hurt" by putting on a Twins' uniform. Let's be realistic here. Kirilloff's biggest injury has been MLB pitching.

Kirilloff is now in the minors because he earned another demotion after his bat still didn't play after 900 plate appearances in MLB. He's arb2 and out of options next year. Guess who gets non-tendered in November, just like his older version clone, Nomar Mazara did?

That first paragraph is objectively false. I don't know why you're so against the idea that he played injured. There's a difference between an acute injury (I was able to swing fine yesterday, but not today) and a chronic injury (I couldn't swing fine yesterday or today). He returned to the Twins lineup on June 17th 2022. He didn't play in the 2nd game of a double header on June 28, but played in every other game until July 31st. He returned to the field on August 1st. He played in 94.4% of the team's games during that time period before he had to stop so they could shorten a bone in his wrist because it was causing him so much pain. There was fear this injury or the surgery could end his career right then and there. The stance that he was just playing through things like everybody else does and wasn't playing injured is complete and utter nonsense. The idea that his wrist problem just popped up and he got put on the IL is simply false. His bone didn't suddenly grow longer on July 31st. Although, I'm not a Dr so maybe I'm just unaware of that being a thing that happens to people in their early 20s.

Does any of that mean he may just not be good enough now? Nope. But the idea that he stopped playing the second he was hurt defies logic and reality. You can both admit that he played injured and may not be good enough. I don't know why you're so against that. He may not be good enough. Being arb-2 and having fewer than 900 PAs is not a good situation (Mazara had over 2000 by that point since he's the comp you want to use). Cutting guys of his status before they reach 1000 PAs is not what any team wants to do. But it certainly may be what happens. I just hope Bryce Harper 2.0 can show up and take over for Nomar Mazara 2.0.

[DJL44]

29 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I just hope Bryce Harper 2.0 can show up and take over for Nomar Mazara 2.0.

Mazara is certainly more likely than Bryce Harper. If you look at Kirilloff's comps on baseball reference the top 3 are Jason Kubel, Mitch Moreland and Todd Benzinger. Moreland was a good fielding 1B so he's probably optimistic.

[chpettit19]

6 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Mazara is certainly more likely than Bryce Harper. If you look at Kirilloff's comps on baseball reference the top 3 are Jason Kubel, Mitch Moreland and Todd Benzinger. Moreland was a good fielding 1B so he's probably optimistic.

I wasn't suggesting Kirilloff is going to be Harper 2.0. The other poster believes Matt Wallner's comp should be Bryce Harper. I was just referencing that.

I don't have any idea what to make of Kirilloff. I think he's a talented kid, but he's broken right now. Same with Julien. Kirilloff, to me, looks like he's pressing. Looks like he's trying to swing his way through his struggles and is just swinging at everything. Definitely needs a reset. If you told me at the end of the year he'd have a 110 (or higher) OPS+ for the Twins and is squarely in their plans for 2025, I wouldn't be shocked. If you told me he ended up with an 80 (or lower) OPS+ and is going to get non-tendered, I wouldn't be shocked. Same with Miranda, Wallner, Julien (although they wouldn't be non-tendered cuz of their options), and Larnach. This is pretty typical stuff for inexperienced MLB hitters. The league finds your weakness and make you look terrible until you can fix it. No idea where Kirilloff's numbers will be at the end of the year. I won't be shocked by any result.

[Shaitan]

And Wallner seems to be heating up in AAA again.

It seems like an endless rotation of Kirilloff/Larnach/Wallner where none of them makes MLB adjustments to earn and keep the everyday job.

So we get the hot hand (or the least cool, anyway). Larnach looks good this year. Let's hope he's finally made the jump. The clock is ticking close to 1000 AB for Kirilloff. Then I imagine we'll see the next wave of OF prospects fighting for LF.

(I'll keep the 2025 Kepler talk out of this discussion since it's pure speculation anyway.)

[longtimefan]

stick a fork in him, he is done, been an automatic out lately

[ewen21]

On 6/11/2024 at 4:39 PM, bean5302 said:

Kirilloff hasn't played injured. He's played "hurt" like every other baseball player has done, and it's no coincidence he performed essentially the same regardless of the type of injury; whether it's a wrist or a shoulder or whatever else. Basically a little below league average at the plate.

The sample size on Kirilloff is pretty big at this point, and we have seen sustained production from him, just not sustained, unsustainable production. Last year was an outlier where Kirilloff enjoyed a BABIP 35 points higher than his career efforts.

Kirilloff has mediocre power. He doesn't take walks. He's basically Nomar Mazara, who was out of baseball at age 27. The difference is the Twins didn't put it together as quickly as the Rangers did so the Twins are the White Sox in this scenario.

Liked for honesty.

There is a problem with how players “ascend” through the pipeline in our system and there has been a tendency for anyplace talking Twins to talk up prospects.  
 

Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco are recent examples of players who never really got to where the Twins and many prognosticators thought they’d be.  A lot of people expected those guys to be part of a strong homegrown core by now.  I never saw it because I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t keep my fandom on default optimism.  We now see players like Julien, Wallner and Kiriloff fall off or regressing this year.  I know it happens but it seems to be happening a lot with this team.  

I do not believe Kiriloff will be an everyday player unless he starts turning it around fast.  He doesn’t have speed, his power is suddenly off, he doesn’t hit for average, doesn’t get on base, isn’t a particularly good fielder.   I think you’re right, bean

 

 

[Mike Sixel]

44 minutes ago, ewen21 said:

Liked for honesty.

There is a problem with how players “ascend” through the pipeline in our system and there has been a tendency for anyplace talking Twins to talk up prospects.  
 

Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco are recent examples of players who never really got to where the Twins and many prognosticators thought they’d be.  A lot of people expected those guys to be part of a strong homegrown core by now.  I never saw it because I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t keep my fandom on default optimism.  We now see players like Julien, Wallner and Kiriloff fall off or regressing this year.  I know it happens but it seems to be happening a lot with this team.  

I do not believe Kiriloff will be an everyday player unless he starts turning it around fast.  He doesn’t have speed, his power is suddenly off, he doesn’t hit for average, doesn’t get on base, isn’t a particularly good fielder.   I think you’re right, bean

 

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-dog-ate-my-prospect/

 

[ewen21]

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-dog-ate-my-prospect/

 

Did you write the article?  Otherwise I’m not interested 

[Mike Sixel]

1 minute ago, ewen21 said:

Did you write the article?  Otherwise I’m not interested 

It looks at all the teams and how they do at developing players, so you can see how other teams do also.....It ranks the TWins very highly....we just don't pay enough attn to other teams to really do comparisons on our own, IME.

[ewen21]

6 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

It looks at all the teams and how they do at developing players, so you can see how other teams do also.....It ranks the TWins very highly....we just don't pay enough attn to other teams to really do comparisons on our own, IME.

Was there anything I said about the particular players I mentioned that was wrong?  Start with the first four, all of whom wouldn’t apply to right now.

 

With Julien, Wallner, and Kiriloff I suppose we will see but for right now they’ve regressed.  Would you not agree with that?

 

 

[ewen21]

To be fair, at 58 years of age with 50 years of watching baseball behind me, I’m now a skeptic when it comes to prospects, projections and rating systems for prospects.

 

I don’t think Kiriloff is as good a player as the Twins hoped.  I was optimistic last year but the current developments have me feeling skeptical.  This is a crucial point in his career.  He’s almost 27

[Azviking101]

It is not normal for 25-27 year olds to need to head down to the minors for a few weeks to get things sorted out. Twins have done a ton of that over the past couple years and twins fans are always giddy about the idea of that really righting the ship 

More often than not, it just means that they’re not a quality major league player. It could be the result of years of injuries, not enough effort, or not enough talent, but we need to be prepared for the fact that most prospects are not good mlb players and anyone hopping the bus to St. Paul over and over again is probably soon to join that list. 

[Squirrel]

4 hours ago, ewen21 said:

To be fair, at 58 years of age with 50 years of watching baseball behind me, I’m now a skeptic when it comes to prospects, projections and rating systems for prospects.

 

I don’t think Kiriloff is as good a player as the Twins hoped.  I was optimistic last year but the current developments have me feeling skeptical.  This is a crucial point in his career.  He’s almost 27

Prospects have always been and always will be a crap shoot. Many more fail than succeed and even more rare are the ones who are great. And many are late bloomers. Some are early bloomers. Some end up being injury prone. And I don't think analysis tells you a whole heckuvalot when it comes to trying to 'crystal ball' choosing the best ones. The Twins have done fairly well, but are far from perfect. Every single team has many failed prospects.