Make It Official! Twins 8, White Sox 6: Bats Back Sheriff in Return to Rotation

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, wabene said:

My single biggest complaint with Rocco by a large margin is his early pinch hitting of left handed batters leaving the likes of Margot to face rightys in the late innings.  

This is among my pet peeves, and opposing managers manipulate Rocco damn near every other game.

[Riverbrian]

14 hours ago, ashbury said:

A hot bat in June but not July as yet, and a first baseman's glove when he's not DHing.  Severino doesn't belong in a tangent about Farmer.

While Lewis is out. It can be done. 

1. Move Brooks Lee to 2B,

2. Miranda 3B

3. Castro plays multiple positions. 

4. While Santana has been doing well... I have no complaints. He's not Freddie Freeman and doesn't deserve the playing time that Freddie Freeman gets. Santana is 2nd on the team in AB's and he can yield playing time with a .704 OPS against right handers. 

5. Larnach and Kepler are also not Freddie Freeman either so the DH spot is also in play. 

[Riverbrian]

17 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

AA & AAA are great but many guys excel in the minors and don’t play much in MLB. There are tangible reasons in Management’s opinion that he shouldn’t be hitting against LH pitching, at this point in his career

I have no doubt that the front office, scouts, analysts, coaches are all better at this sort of thing than any of us. They do this for a living. 

But there is a very very very strong argument against your point in support of justification on the basis of managements opinion. 

No matter how much they know and they know a lot. They are still wrong often because the job is hard and performances are not guaranteed.  

Did they expect the numbers that Farmer has produced this year when they picked up the 6 million for this year?

Did they know that Wallner, Julien and Kirilloff were going to struggle. If they did... why did they bother breaking camp with them? they could have  just given our best hitter Jose Miranda a roster spot out of spring training instead? 

In hindsight do they sign Joey Gallo again. Did they know Correa would OPS .711 in 2023 immediately after signing for 200 million which is the largest contract by far in Twins history. 

 

 

[chpettit19]

15 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

I have no doubt that the front office, scouts, analysts, coaches are all better at this sort of thing than any of us. They do this for a living. 

But there is a very very very strong argument against your point in support of justification on the basis of managements opinion. 

No matter how much they know and they know a lot. They are still wrong often because the job is hard and performances are not guaranteed.  

Did they expect the numbers that Farmer has produced this year when they picked up the 6 million for this year?

Did they know that Wallner, Julien and Kirilloff were going to struggle. If they did... why did they bother breaking camp with them? they could have  just given our best hitter Jose Miranda a roster spot out of spring training instead? 

In hindsight do they sign Joey Gallo again. Did they know Correa would OPS .711 in 2023 immediately after signing for 200 million which is the largest contract by far in Twins history. 

 

 

I always like to just point to the Rockies as proof that the guys running teams aren't automatically right. I'd bet money that a group of TD members could run a team every bit as well as they do out in Colorado.

But, to be fair, that's likely mostly an ownership problem so I shouldn't be too harsh on the FO folk.

[Riverbrian]

48 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I always like to just point to the Rockies as proof that the guys running teams aren't automatically right. I'd bet money that a group of TD members could run a team every bit as well as they do out in Colorado.

But, to be fair, that's likely mostly an ownership problem so I shouldn't be too harsh on the FO folk.

Every front office aren't automatically right. 

I was just thinking this morning after watching Joey Bart hit a grand slam that San Francisco would love to have Joey Bart in the lineup against the Twins this weekend. 

Every team makes these mistakes. 

The Twins have chosen to protect left handed hitters against left hander pitchers and the roster was set for this purpose.

It doesn't mean they are right but I'm sure they have some data that suggests they should.  

 

[JD-TWINS]

On 7/9/2024 at 4:20 PM, Road trip said:

So, as a regular Wallner advocate, I actually agree with this.  We don't know.  Perhaps he can make adjustments, perhaps not.  We can't know until he gets those few hundred MLB at bats.  Right now he has 300.  Let's give him a run of another 200-300 to see what we have?  Thus far, its a career OPS+ of 131.  Pretty good.  Like, only Royce Lewis has a better career number on this squad (unless you want to count Brooks Lee).

Wallner (and also Martin) is a completely different case than say.... Margot, because we have enough data to know exactly what Margot is.  2791 career MLB at bats and an OPS+ of 91.  His hot June is just a tiny data point in his career at this juncture.  Margot didn't suddenly figure out MLB pitching in June, any more than he completely forgot how to hit back in April.  Now if Margot was still fast and could play CF, or even was an above average corner outfielder, well you could live with a below average bat.  But he isn't, and yet this "platoon bat" has played more games in the OF than any other Twin this year (what a depressing statistic).  He will be 30 before the end of the year.  He will spend the remainder of his career as a placeholder at best.  That's fine if your squad has places that need holding, but when Martin and Lewis come back from the IL the Twins need to free up some places to at least give the team a chance to improve.  

Agree that Margot isn’t turning into some fabulous run producer as of June 1. Regressing back toward his norm……per the 2800 AB’s.

What I don’t get is all the angst about how many games he’s played “outside of the platoon” and how he has too many AB’s v. RH pitching? He’s a poor option v. RH pitching - everyone knows that. Rocco knows that.

Does “forced into action” mean anything?

Julien sucks, Castro removed from OF play and stationed at 2B - Kirilloff to IL - Wallner can’t hit in April, sent down (biggest issue) - Kepler out most of 3 weeks, IL - Larnach bad toe can’t be brought up, IL - Buxton out with knee problems, IL - Lewis out 58 games, Quad, IL and Castro at 3B many games, no OF play - etc………..often no left handed options for corner OF action or no other option in CF. Martin could have played a bit more, & in hindsight, may have.

The FO & Baldelli brought Margot in, as you (not some) are well aware …….that’s been stretched! ………he pinch hits and the pitcher gets replaced with a RH - good baseball by the opponents.

I don’t really care if/when he gets replaced……I trust the Team to do what they think is best……just seems he & mgmt. get a lot of static for something that became unavoidable with circumstances of other’s health.

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

just seems he (Margot) & mgmt. get a lot of static for something that became unavoidable with circumstances of other’s health.

Unavoidable?

In one breath you point out management specifically targeted Margot and then in the next call it unavoidable?

Rocco PH'ing Margot only to see him end up facing RH relief pitching twice is unavoidable?

Margot having more PAs than Christian Vasquez, who catches every other game. Is unavoidable?

 

I call shenanigans.