Dear Rocco,

[AWOLNATION_11]

I don't know how much baseball all of us posters have played in our lives, but I just want to note that anyone even sniffing the big leagues does not 'suck' at baseball.  

[ashbury]

28 minutes ago, AWOLNATION_11 said:

I don't know how much baseball all of us posters have played in our lives, but I just want to note that anyone even sniffing the big leagues does not 'suck' at baseball.  

I think we all understand that, and the term is being applied to a higher standard than I was held to when I played.

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, The Great Hambino said:

It can be tough to develop catchers when you only draft one like every five years and your international free agent program is pretty much worthless

Every team does this. The Twins are very much on par with the number of catchers they draft. They're just terrible at developing. But, then again, every team is when it comes to catchers. There's a reason so many catchers stick around on $3 million deals until they're darn near 40 even though they can't hit. Christian Vazquez is going to get a deal next year. Just like Martin Maldonado got one this year.

[The Great Hambino]

6 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Every team does this. The Twins are very much on par with the number of catchers they draft. They're just terrible at developing. But, then again, every team is when it comes to catchers. There's a reason so many catchers stick around on $3 million deals until they're darn near 40 even though they can't hit. Christian Vazquez is going to get a deal next year. Just like Martin Maldonado got one this year.

Every team produces jack squat from their international free agent system?

I understand that catcher is a premium position for a reason.  But the Twins have a serious lack of prospects up and down the system and haven't done a good job addressing it (at least until this deadline; as the dust has settled the catchers have been some of my favorite acquisitions).

I just hope they're not paying $10MM for their version of Vasquez or Maldonado next year.  If the selloff continues into this offseason, I hope finding a high-minors catcher or two is a real priority

[chpettit19]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

I see it differently. The choices they have for the last roster spot is mainly players who kinda suck. They could either

a) fill the last spots with veterans who suck but benching them doesn't hurt their development

b) fill the last spots with rookies who suck, benching them DOES hurt their development

Option b also burns service time, so you get less time from those players in later seasons when they're actually good.

I am not bothered at all that Mickey Gasper, Dashawn Keirsey and Ryan Fitzgerald are taking up spots on the MLB bench while Aaron Sabato, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Payton Eeles play every day in St. Paul. Sabato, Rodriguez and Eeles are sufficiently challenged at that level.

Sabato and Eeles are 26 years old. Well, almost 26 in Eeles' case. What are we saving them for? Their age 34 season? Rodriguez is hurt, again. His season is likely over. So, he's a moot point. But if you're not interested at all in seeing Sabato, Eeles, McCusker, Outman, Fedko, Prato, Miranda, Holland, Pereda, or Cardenas in the majors now because of service time, you're not interested in them at all. I'm not saying you should be interested in them, but service time isn't a reason for any of those guys. They're all already controlled into their 30s. 

The stronger argument is actually the opposite when it comes to those guys. It's that their service time doesn't matter. It's that the decision time is now. It's now or never for them. Rule 5 decisions need to be made this offseason. 40-man decisions need to be made. If they've already decided they're going to DFA Fiztgerald that's totally fine, DFA him now and don't waste the 2 months with him on the bench then make a roster decision on one of those other guys without any information. Are you done with Gasper? DFA him now and get McCusker some MLB ABs to see if you want to keep him on the 40-man all offseason. 

Why waste roster spots and then make roster decisions based on guesses instead of actually using the lost season to gather data and make more educated decisions? If you've made your decisions on Gasper and Fitzgerald cut them loose and get players in here you want to learn about or give experience to. They don't have to be glued to the bench. Quit playing Vazquez. Rotate everyone through and they can all get a ton of experience and you can gain information and make more educated decisions on all of them. I don't believe in the vast majority of the guys I've named in this post. But I believe in the process of making decisions based on less information than you could've gathered even less. And saving service time on guys you control into their 30s already doesn't make any sense at all to me.

[nicksaviking]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

I am not bothered at all that Mickey Gasper, Dashawn Keirsey and Ryan Fitzgerald are taking up spots on the MLB bench while Aaron Sabato, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Payton Eeles play every day in St. Paul. Sabato, Rodriguez and Eeles are sufficiently challenged at that level.

I'll be a bit of a contrarian amongst the other 'play the young guys' crowd in that I'm actually hesitant to call up legit prospects, like Rodriguez, only for them to marinate in this toxic clubhouse. 

But this is absolutely the time to give non-prospects like Sabato, Eeles, Schobel, Prato and Winkle their shot along with the younger guys most are ready to pull the plug on like Miranda, Julien, Martin and Larnach. Unlike the touted top prospects, these guys all know this could be their last or only chance. The team has already washed their hands of this season, so even if the odds are long, seeing if even one of these guys can figure it out is worth the effort.

If they're already looking towards the future, what on earth are Jonah Bridie, Mickey Gaspar and Ryan Fitzpatrick doing here? Unless you somehow think you can flip them for relievers in the off season, I'm not sure why you keep Clemens and Keirsey on the roster either. 

[chpettit19]

4 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

Every team produces jack squat from their international free agent system?

I understand that catcher is a premium position for a reason.  But the Twins have a serious lack of prospects up and down the system and haven't done a good job addressing it (at least until this deadline; as the dust has settled the catchers have been some of my favorite acquisitions).

I just hope they're not paying $10MM for their version of Vasquez or Maldonado next year.  If the selloff continues into this offseason, I hope finding a high-minors catcher or two is a real priority

When it comes to catchers? Yes. I mean, not every team, but the vast majority.

Yes, the Twins need more catching prospects, but most teams do. That's the point. All I was arguing against was your claim that the Twins' problem stems from them not drafting enough catchers or getting enough from international free agency. I simply pointed out that they draft and sign as many catchers as everyone else. They just aren't good at developing them. Which is obviously a problem.

The Vazquez deal was awful from the start. They paid him like a 2 way star and he isn't that. It was a terrible decision. I never endorse a position specific approach to minor league talent acquisition, but understand that many fans around here are obsessed with gaining more catchers. Veteran defense only catchers are incredibly easy to find every season. For very cheap. 

But we're getting off the topic here. Continuing to catch Vazquez this season doesn't make any sense to me unless you're throwing one of the young guys and think he'll help. But they let Adams throw to Jeffers yesterday so that clearly isn't their thought process. It'd be Gasper, Pereda or Cardenas if I were running things.

[jorgenswest]

I will make the assumption that two starts a week isn’t enough for development, if you are a young player getting 2 starts a week you are probably better off getting 5 or 6 starts in AAA.

That makes me wonder if there are any teams making sure every player routinely gets 3 starts a week. I want to look at that model and roster construction. Is it heavy in platoon? If it is platoon do the left handed bats rarely get opportunities against left handed pitching? Are there a lot of players with positional flexibility? I want to see if it has led to success.

In my search it would help if I had the metric “no appearance” so I would have three data points. I need games started, games off bench, and no appearance.

[USAFChief]

I hope to hell Rocco doesn't waste any ABs on Fitzpatrick or Gaspar.

 

I mean, the situation is bad enough. Let's not waste development time for Lee by giving some of it to Ryan Fitzpatrick. 

I dont have much hope Lee is going to reward that playing time down the road, but his chances are 1M times greater than Fitzpatrick. 

 

[DJL44]

31 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

if you're not interested at all in seeing Sabato, Eeles, McCusker, Outman, Fedko, Prato, Miranda, Holland, Pereda, or Cardenas in the majors now because of service time, you're not interested in them at all.

I'm mostly not interested in them at all. None of them are tearing up AAA. I posted elsewhere that most of those players are not on the roster because they didn't hit as well as Gasper, Julien, Martin or Roden. I have no idea why they acquired Outman, but I expect he'll be up after they gain his age 33 season.

Cardenas is the one player on your list I actually am interested in seeing but they couldn't dump Vazquez, so they'll keep him in AAA for the rest of the season.

Roster spots are a consideration for keeping Culpepper and Jenkins in the minors. Gonzalez might come up in September.

31 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I'm not sure why you keep Clemens and Keirsey on the roster either. 

You keep Clemens on the roster because he's one of the few guys who seems to know how to play baseball. Also, if I had any intention of trading more pitching this offseason, I'd try to make the defense as good as possible for the last two months of the season.

It looks like Keaschall is going to get regular playing time. That's one more on the development list.

[chpettit19]

3 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I'm mostly not interested in them at all. None of them are tearing up AAA. I posted elsewhere that most of those players are not on the roster because they didn't hit as well as Gasper, Julien, Martin or Roden. I have no idea why they acquired Outman, but I expect he'll be up after they gain his age 33 season.

Cardenas is the one player on your list I actually am interested in seeing but they couldn't dump Vazquez, so they'll keep him in AAA for the rest of the season.

Roster spots are a consideration for keeping Culpepper and Jenkins in the minors. Gonzalez might come up in September.

You keep Clemens on the roster because he's one of the few guys who seems to know how to play baseball. Also, if I had any intention of trading more pitching this offseason, I'd try to make the defense as good as possible for the last two months of the season.

It looks like Keaschall is going to get regular playing time. That's one more on the development list.

Which is totally fine. Like I said, I wasn't telling you to believe in any of them. Just saying that service time wasn't a useful reason to not call them up. I don't really care about "tearing up AAA," though. I think minor league numbers are significantly overvalued by fans. Both on the good and bad side. Luke Keaschall had a .727 OPS in AAA when he was first called up. Most definitely not tearing up AAA. Gasper has ripped AAA apart for 2 straight years and I don't think there's many people who are fighting for him as a key part of the Twins moving forward. Shoot, Fitzgerald has a 118 wRC+.

I really hope they're not waiting to gain Outman's age 33 season. I hope it's more of a "rehab" style thing for him. He hasn't gotten regular playing time with the Dodgers so I hope they're just letting him get his timing back. The odds of them paying out all his arb years is miniscule. He's not good enough. His age 33 season shouldn't be a worry at all.

I agree Cardenas is the player I'd be most interested in on that list, but if you're going to plant people on the bench to rot, Vazquez would be the first guy I'd do it with.

[farmerguychris]

Great - but like others on here - Rocco doesn't control who's on the roster.  I expect as a competitor, he wants to win and put the best team on the field.  But - that doesn't line up well with seeing what we have in some of the young guys.

We have a lot of pretty bad baseball coming up - I expect we'll learn a lot about our future regardless of who is in the lineup in the past 3 days.

[jorgenswest]

So far the best stat I can find to see how the team utilized the entire roster is games started and games subbed. I wondered which AL teams had the most players with significant starts. Teams have played about 112 so I cut it in half to 56 and took off 10% to allow for injury/illness and landed in 50. Royce Lewis has 52 and it seems he should be found in that group. The median for the AL is 9 players with 50 or more starts. There are four teams with more than 9 players. Two with 10 players and two with 12 players. The Rays are of the teams with 12 players. That didn’t surprise me. The other is the Twins.

 

Edited August 5, 2025 by jorgenswest
I needed to clarify that I used the AL

[jorgenswest]

I also looked at how teams utilized their bench in the AL. The Twins are fourth in using a player of the bench behind Chicago, Seattle and Detroit. Their players off the bench are second in OPS behind the Angels who have used their bench the least. They are fifth I. Stolen bases and tied for first in sacrifice hits. I a, not sure how to measure the impact on defense. There are a handful of players used 40 times off the bench. They all bring defense/speed skills and Myles Straw is among the leaders. Keirsey has been utilized 46 times from the bench. That leads the AL.

I also looked to see how many players in each team had started over 100 games. The Royals have 5 players playing nearly every game. Most have at least 3. The only team without a player that has started 100 games is the Twins. Trevor Larnach has 96. Next are Correa and France at 91 so the trade deadline was not a factor in them reaching 100.

[Riverbrian]

Part of the issue has been dealt with. 

Keaschall up - Keirsay down. 

We can watch the utilization of Julien now. 

[stringer bell]

Apparently Gasper and Fitzpatrick are bench sitters, who might pinch-run (Fitz) or pinch-hit (Gasp) and perhaps get an inning as a defensive replacement here or there. I guess I'm on board with that, although I still believe there's a small chance that Gasper could be a good major league hitter.

In the charred remains of the bullpen, it appears anyone with some semblance of a live arm will be given a chance and maybe one or two guys will step forward. Very encouraging outing for Hatch yesterday for example. I don't know if there is anyone in the organization who can step in and be a reliable bullpen arm for the rest of the season and guys like Kody Funderburk will get another look. Best wishes to him.

I think Clemens is a special case--he's performed well enough in a bigger sample size to merit a tryout for next year as a platoon bat with utility versatility. Yes, he'll be 30 next year and I thought when acquired the only reason he was in MLB was because of his father. 

[lecroy24fan]

22 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Apparently Gasper and Fitzpatrick are bench sitters, who might pinch-run (Fitz) or pinch-hit (Gasp) and perhaps get an inning as a defensive replacement here or there. I guess I'm on board with that, although I still believe there's a small chance that Gasper could be a good major league hitter.

In the charred remains of the bullpen, it appears anyone with some semblance of a live arm will be given a chance and maybe one or two guys will step forward. Very encouraging outing for Hatch yesterday for example. I don't know if there is anyone in the organization who can step in and be a reliable bullpen arm for the rest of the season and guys like Kody Funderburk will get another look. Best wishes to him.

I think Clemens is a special case--he's performed well enough in a bigger sample size to merit a tryout for next year as a platoon bat with utility versatility. Yes, he'll be 30 next year and I thought when acquired the only reason he was in MLB was because of his father. 

I see what you did there. 

[mrtwinsfan]

On 8/4/2025 at 9:03 PM, jorgenswest said:

I have watched and am very aware that I have no idea.

I remembered the wrong AAA pitcher praising his work behind the plate. It was Ohl after his July 10 performance. My optimism comes from Ohl’s comments. They are much more valuable to me than my eyes watching on TV.

I remembered the wrong AAA pitcher praising his work behind the plate. It was Ohl after his July 10 performance. My optimism comes from Ohl’s comments--- you think a pitcher would talk NEGATIVE about a teammate ??  WAKE  UP  - Mario Gasper gotta go

[KirbyDome89]

On 8/4/2025 at 10:06 AM, Vanimal46 said:

I’m mostly fine with the position player side right now. We’re triple checking that Julien isn’t going to work at the MLB level… Lee and Lewis on the left side of the infield. As we already knew, there is nothing substantial to call up for C or 1B. 

The pitching is where I have an issue at the moment. I don’t know why we are wasting opportunities and roster spots on Urena, Ramirez, Tonkin, and Davis. None of them have upside, nor a future on a rebuilding team. Call up the youth and get their feet wet for next season. Raya is already on the 40. Prielipp, Culpepper, and Morris are Rule 5 eligible this winter. Get them all up and see what they can do. 

I was told that's how you build bullpen "depth." Keep sinking innings into past their prime journeymen with zero future here while arms you've invested in find their way off the 40 man. Makes sense right? 

[jorgenswest]

27 minutes ago, mrtwinsfan said:

I remembered the wrong AAA pitcher praising his work behind the plate. It was Ohl after his July 10 performance. My optimism comes from Ohl’s comments--- you think a pitcher would talk NEGATIVE about a teammate ??  WAKE  UP  - Mario Gasper gotta go

I think he wouldn’t go out of his way to praise. I certainly value it more than my eyes watching. There is so much that goes on with the catcher position that really isn’t measured well. I am reminded that several organizations didn’t think Brian Harper was a catcher. I am also aware that the coming ABS system is going to reprioritize skills needed from a catcher. I would have used these two months to give Gasper time behind the plate over Vazquez. They could have given him 15-20 starts in the last 56 games after the deadline. The chance of success is low but the reward of finding an inexpensive number 2 catcher going into the offseason would be worth that risk. I would risk those starts with the small hope of avoiding another Vazquez like commitment.

[karcherd]

The Twins just told us what they think of Gasper, he is not a catcher.  So he has no position and can't hit.  What is he doing on the roster.

[SwainZag]

13 hours ago, karcherd said:

The Twins just told us what they think of Gasper, he is not a catcher.  So he has no position and can't hit.  What is he doing on the roster.

He's 29, he earned a small shot at the majors based on his AAA track record.  He played for 8 years in the minors, the Twins have given him 49 PA...which haven't gone well.  25% have come after the season was lost, the rest came in April after he earned a shot in ST with his bat.  

That being said, Mickey....great mustache, you got your chance and I applaud the organization......but let's move on.  If he is here next week, I'll grab the pitchfork.