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

Sure is the right decision, at least in my opinion.  Julien needs to learn what Arraez did so well, ie, foul off close pitches when he has two strikes until he gets one he can whack.

Kid can have a great career.  But it ain't gonna happen if he keeps watching strike three.  And now, let the race begin to see who wants the Twins 2025 second base job the most, Julien or Lee?

It is the only option that makes sense, how does cutting a backup player help the Twins lineup or defense? How does cutting or demoting an outfielder help out? I mean the only other real option was cutting Santana.

Probably the right decision but I would have preferred a dfa of Margot.  But I knew they weren't going to do that.  IMO this shows in part some of the pitfalls of playing prospects, ie young players, like him and Miranda and kiriloff and larkin and others only part time.  By being so rigid on the left right platoon and giving the quick hook to players because of some analytic controlled mandate by Rocco is hurting the players development.  How can you look in the mirror and say you are sending a player down to get more everyday at bats then they sit almost half the time while on the big club?  I think the Twins have done a great disservice to their prospects and not getting near enough production out of their veterans.  I don't think this is a long term solution for utilizing your prospect base.  

25 minutes ago, Whitey333 said:

By being so rigid on the left right platoon and giving the quick hook to players because of some analytic controlled mandate by Rocco is hurting the players development.

Come on, nearly every part of this sentence is wrong. The "mandate" to platoon is not a Rocco thing alone, it's clearly an organizational philosophy from the top to bottom. Also, the reason they platoon is because it works -- look at any left-handed hitter, unless they're a superstar, a league-average right-handed hitter is better than them against lefties. There is no evidence letting a lefty flail away against lefties leads to some magical development where they can suddenly hit left-handed pitching. Gleeman had a great article about this a few weeks back you should check out, platooning just makes the most sense.

9 minutes ago, arby58 said:

Given that Santana is second on the team in HRs, RBIs, Total Bases, and Walks (and plays better defense at 1B than anybody else on the roster) that isn't happening. Yes, I know he also has the second most at bats and his OPS is still below .700, but he is not a DFA option.

Agree with others that Julien needs to add some two-strikes hitting ability and the current depth provided by Margot and Farmer means they stick around a little longer. IF Lee gets healthy and/or Julien performs and Wallner gets it back together, both Margot and Farmer might not see the second half of the season, at least not from Target Field.

Oh I agree they were not going to DFA Santana, I was just saying there were only 4 possible scenarios. Leave Lewis in AAA (not going to happen), Demote Miranda(wasn't likely with the way he has been playing), Demote Julien or DFA Santana. Makes no sense to talk about Farmer since he is basically the last player on the 26 with some positional flexibility and Miranda (3B/1B/DH) and Julien (2B/DH) don't have really have that.

Twins made right call doing this!!

32 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

I think Farmer will be in games more or at least sooner as circumstances evolve in the games. I do think this is an opportunity for Farmer to prove his worth,

I am not saying you are wrong, but this would be one of the dumbest things in baseball I have ever seen, bring up your youngish super stud and this requires one of the worst players in the major leagues this year to play more?

If Farmer gets more playing time because Lewis is healthy, the FO should be fired immediately, because if there is so much playing time for Farmer, at least give it to Lee to let him start figuring out MLB pitching. (He can't be any worse than Farmer)

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.

Miranda did play quite a bit of 2B in the minors...he's not great at either 1B or 3B. Why not give him another look there on occasion?

1 hour ago, Dman said:

I have always been a big Farmer backer, but I admit that I am frightened when Farmer is in the game especially with Vasquez as that is two near automatic outs in the lineup.  I honestly don't think they would miss him much if he were gone as they could add Helman who plays every position and can't hit much worse than Farmer has if they needed that type of player.

That being said Farmer has had some tough BABIP luck this year at .211 which has to rise and with that hopefully the slugging which is at a pathetic .239 with no HR's and only 7 doubles it is a brutal .513 OPS right now.  Still his approach hasn't changed as he is walking at a 10% clip and only striking out at 20%. There is a solid chance for a turn around in the numbers.  Given the choice made I sure hope Farmer can start making some noise with the bat.  Having two black hole bats is generally a real rally killer for the team.

Farmer has an CBA of .200. It is not like that is much of a difference than .163

16 minutes ago, Dman said:

Which begs the questions why keep Farmer at all?  Keep Julien at second and then you have Castro to fill in at any spot and not be stuck at 2nd base.

Because the front office is extremely adverse to losing control over what they see as an asset. 2022 fell apart when we didn't have enough legitimate outfielders to hold things together (that team was tied for 1st on September 4th and finished 14 back) and they've clearly taken the position that they're never going to let the floor drop that far out again. Which I don't think is unreasonable, even if all of their decisions in trying to maintain a floor with veteran signings haven't worked out too well with guys like Gallo and Margot. I think the problem now is that once you get into June, that level of depth becomes less vital, you fall into the sunk cost fallacy when you keep hoping veterans will rebound and you can extract value from them, and organizationally we have more options in the high minors with young players that are able to perform as well if not better.

they're guarding against injuries to high levels and risking on-field performance in a different way now.

40 minutes ago, Dman said:

Which begs the questions why keep Farmer at all?

He can come in and catch an inning if they pinch hit for Vazquez. That's not a compelling reason but it's something.

Keeping Kyle Farmer is basically acknowledging that Brooks Lee still needs to develop in the minors for at least a couple of months. The other infielders in AAA (Castillo, Helman, Prato, Severino) are pretty bad, not players you want to promote to the big leagues if there is another infield injury.