3 Twins to Watch for Potential Regression in 2025

1 hour ago, Craig Arko said:

Statistical regression (to the mean) works both ways. I’d put Lewis, Julien, and Lee on the list as well, To improve. 

I would put Julien as not leaving AAA, and Lee coming up late if at all.

Now players have roller-coaster careers, even if he later years is is a kiddie roller-coaster, but the WHOLE team last year at the end just collapsed, almost as if there were a jinx.

Now when I was young the talk was: I wonder how well player x will do, or I Hope player x, y or z has a real good year.

There was not beer farting about : OH ----- is getting old;  these veterans are blocking young crapshoots....

What will be, will be and there is nothing any one here can do about it , except maybe prepare their May Whine.

1 hour ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

Among pitchers, Duran scares me.  In 2023, he was ridiculous.  Nobody could touch him.  In 2024, with just a little velocity lost, he was just "good".  Lose another tick and he could be in real trouble.  Personally, I would trade him.  Now is the time.  You have Jax as the closer and a lot of solid bullpen arms.  He could correct himself and be back to his unhittable ways, but I would rather let someone else worry about that. 

I'm not overly concerned about Duran given the general small sample size and volatility of a high leverage relief pitcher. My main concern would be his conditioning, to me he looked heavier last season.

I didn't get to see a lot of his games, but in the games I did see, he induced a lot of weak contact, leading to several infield hits and/or plays not being made behind him, which in turn led to big innings. He also gave up a lot of contact on pitches outside the strike zone, which generally meant foul balls that prolonged PA's instead of K's.

2 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

It’s baseball. There’s no crystal ball for FO personnel nor TD contributors. Pretty sure, and I think you are as well, that the FO evaluates talent, position depth, upside, & floor for each player. There’s always “opportunities” but will they pan out? We suggest things - personal thoughts……..FO gets hired & fired based on their abilities over a large sample to perform like a crystal ball.

I understand you’d like action v. no action. Not sure who the players that held value last year that were not moved (Kirilloff/Julien?)? To me, Julien was a really nice find after ‘23 & fully expected .250 BA - .350 OBP - 20 HR in ‘24………he was pathetic after April 27. Not sure how any talent evaluator can see that type of thing coming with no change in the player’s health?

Anyway, I too hope we pull off a nice trade or two!

Agree that the employees do evaluate and that it is tough. My issue with the Twins is that often we see similar players filling roles, good hit/less glove. This along with overlap, which I try not to second guess because I'm not a fan of that. There are players best suited to utility roles. Farmer and Castro come to mind. They are good because they can step in as regulars for an injured player. The Twins carried both last year plus multiple guys who played the same positions. There is no such thing as too much depth on one hand but there are also opportunities to trade when the overlap involves players who are too similar. Naturally this is difficult. The trade of Arraez was a good example of a good trade. The Polanco trade was bungled, not because of the loss of Jorge or the poor return but because he should have been bundled with one or two others for a significant guy or sent solely for a prospect. So it is complex, that is for sure. An example of gambles by division foes are  the Guardians trading Naylor and Gimenez and the White Sox trading  Crochet. These trades were not about money, they were done to improve their teams. Sorry for the sloppy ramble.

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

Castro had a nearly identical bat in 2024 as he had in 2023. Castro put together 2.5 fWAR in 2023 and 3.1 fWAR in 2024. bWAR is broken for most positions IMHO.

Yes, "Castro had a nearly identical bat in 2024 as he had in 2023."  However, he played in 34 more games in 2024.  I am sure you know WAR is a cumulative stat so why are you surprised Casto's WAR was higher in 24?

29 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

I'm not surprised.

I was responding to the comment by @JD-TWINS who was expecting positive regression due to Castro's drop off from 2.7 WAR in 2023 to 1.6 WAR he was apparently attributing to an OPS change.

I got it now.  I thought you meant WAR was broken.  I missed the bWAR part because you were using fWAR stats.  My bad. 

6 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Not sure I understand this? Castro should have been mentioned on the list of potential guys to regress, that’s my assumption. 

He played in too many games (158) in 2024 and that wore on his sharpness at the plate and it chipped away at his health. I’d like to see him get another dozen or more days off for a total of maybe 140-145 games.

In my opinion, that nobody will probably share, is that he regressed in 2024. He played 124 games in ‘23 with a WAR of 2.7……he played 158 games in ‘24 with a WAR of 1.6. He hit .247 in ‘24 & his career average is .248. His OPS was 33 points less in ‘24 than the previous year.

Obviously nobody has a crystal ball, but I think Castro will have every bit as good a year in ‘25 with a probable uptick……….. needs a little more rest sprinkled in through the season.

i doubt it

Sometimes the best trades you make are the ones you don't.  However, the glacial rate this FO moves at only inspires doubt that they even have a plan.  The moves they've made to this point are so far toward the fringe that we as fans have every right to be frustrated.

Throughout their ownership of the Twins, the Pohlad family has never given off a vibe that winning clearly outweighed the bottom line.  That's why the Twins as an organization, in the current environment doesn't deserve any benefit of the doubt. 

There are opportunities out there for the Twins to shake up their roster and clearly improve the team.  The fact that we as fans have to cling to the hope that acquiring a 29 year old minor league C/1B from the Red Sox in the hopes that THIS is the move that lights a fire under our off season shows how deep in the gutter of despair we are.

New ownership can't come soon enough.  But this is our reality at this time.  I love coming on here, reading the articles even if I don't like what is suggested.  It's talking baseball !!  And to me, that's never a waste of time.  But I do have to admit, it's sometimes frustrating, and the current ownership /front office doesn't give the TD staff much to work with.

I'm at the point where I'm expecting an article on losing Caleb Thielbar and how badly that will affect our future bullpen.  Wait...WHAT ?!?!?

Anyway, how about an article that takes a deep dive into the chances the Twins have of signing Roki Sasaki and/or if there is absolutely NO chance.  We're within 2 weeks of a decision and when you factor in the cost of acquiring a talent at his level, he's the biggest FA available this off season...including Juan Soto.  EVERY team could possibly end up with him.  What are the Twins chances?

"Smart roster management and a deep bench could help the team weather any storms that come their way."

Well, with Rocco providing the management and the over-use of the bench in 2024, platooning at every whim, we know how good this worked in 2024.