Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

jkcarew

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    5,091

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    5

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by jkcarew

  1. jkcarew
    Yes, But there are a decent number of professional middle infielders...including players that have not yet had the opportunity to post a qualifying 750...that have materially better offensive upside than Adrianna...that have the potential to provide a pretty good bat in the role. Go get one of them...or at least explore the cost. Not easy, but I didn’t insinuate that it should be. And I agree that if we define “can OPS 750” to mean “has had qualifying seasons OPS’ing 750”...then you’re not realistically going to acquire that for the utility role.
  2. jkcarew
    What? As recently as 2016, the Twins extra infielder OPS’d 758. An if Polanco had been designated the extra that year...he OPS’d 730. They won 83 games. I want a guy with a better offensive upside in that role. They exist. So I guess ignorance would be bliss in my case.
  3. jkcarew
    Suggesting the Twins acquire two more guys that can play around the infield and OPS 750 displays an ignorance of the talent landscape? Adrianna OPS’d 700 once, in a very limited number of at-bats...last year he was at 680...and it got worse as he was exposed more. Is he anywhere close to one of our biggest issues? No. Is he fine if the role is limited? Yes. Do I think it’s realistic that your extra middle infielder can be materially better than Adrianna which was the subject of this article? 100% yes.
  4. jkcarew
    This. Seems to me that to compete these days with the way 25-man rosters are trending, you need to have 4 players among the 3B/SS/2B positions that can be consider "starters"...that you can play nearly every day depending upon match-ups and who needs rest...and/or that you can bring off the bench late with some reasonable expectation of offense. To me, if the Twins expected to win something meaningful in 2019, they'd acquire a legitimate 2B/SS...AND they would sign Escobar or the next closest available facsimile. (Gordon would be the emergency plan, unless traded...with Adrianza off the 40-man). I don't expect this to happen.
  5. jkcarew
    I agree with this. But, the bet that results in cutting bait and reloading relies on the 'failing' assets having some semblance of reasonable value. The 2018 fail was so epic in the case of these two (and the roles so key to the future), that the FO is almost forced into a 'wait-a-bit-more' approach. Truly painful. Maybe that just argues that the FO should consider themselves forced to go all-in around them for 2019? Not an easy/obvious call for the 2019 off-season, IMO. How the Buxton and Sano sagas have unfolded since they took over, has to be the absolute worse nightmare that either Falvey or Levine could have imagined when they took the jobs.
  6. jkcarew
    Deal remains on hold...maybe administrative...maybe the cash? As of now, the Mets parting ways with their 4 and 5 prospects (one of which was a #6 overall pick), plus another high-velocity young arm. That's too much, IMO...almost no matter the cash. It's not like the contract won't look horrible 2-3 years from now just because you got $60M back in 2018 as part of the transaction. But this falls under the category of a reasonable 'win now' move, IMO...the Met's being a team that automatically has a chance in the NL give their starting pitching. However, I would think this would end any speculation that the Mets would trade any of the top starters?
  7. jkcarew
    I was thinking the same thing...punching bag that he's become, I can see us pining nostalgically next year for Grossman's 360-370 OBP. The Twins OBP last year was 318. It seems scary to contemplate it going lower. Then again, the astonishing thing to me is that 318 was actually middle of the 2018 AL pack. And next year, it will probably be top half. It's the Apocalypse. You don't have to go back many years at all (10-15) to find a 318 team OBP being the worse in the league...by a wide margin.
  8. jkcarew
    Well, an aging first-baseman/DH who costs 24M and OPS+'s 115 (realistic expectation for Cano in 2019) is better than what we've had. And I'd love to have Diaz...so, I would have liked a shot at doing that deal. I would have given up about what the Mets did. Which is not much. (I assume, once named, the prospects will be of the Thorpe/Gordon/Gonsalves/Stewart/Rooker ilk...if not, I think they gave up more than they needed to.) Coming off an 89-win season, the Mariners part ways with one of their best young players...for the sole purpose of getting out from under a long-term contract. Not a great look for the game.
  9. jkcarew
    Only in Minnesota I guess does it seem like a good idea to get more first-base at bats for a league-average hitter. How 'bout we just get a first-baseman that can legitimately thump? Dodgers played 16 post-season games last year, Bellinger started at first-base in exactly zero of those games. Because the Dodgers wanted to win, and they found a first-baseman that can hit like a first-baseman. The Romero comments make sense to me. There's a pattern, and it's getting close to the time the Twins need to make a call on how to get Romero contributing for more than half a season. Astudillo is refreshingly unique. He's also a career 760 OPS guy in thousands of minor league and foreign at-bats. In 93 at-bats last year, his SLG was 100 points higher than his MiLB/foreign career, and his HR rate was nearly 3 times his that track-record. I think the fact that any of us are intrigued by the thought of him being an (nearly) every-day player, says much about what the 2019 line-up would look like at this point in time.
  10. jkcarew
    Would you really have both Austin and Cron on a 25-man at the same time? It’s pretty hard to imagine that as a good thing, IMO. Maybe simply not love at first sight with the FO for Austin...and this is another potential option.
  11. jkcarew
    "I don’t think it’s a good thing in the grand scheme of things that a competitive team from the prior year is already apparently throwing in the towel for 2019." Welcome to the unintended, yet completely predictable, consequences of TV contracts and revenue sharing....when combined with no real regulation of team player salaries. The intent of the sharing was to level the field for talent acquisition and development. But no amount of 'revenue sharing' will ever get us to 'revenue equal'. So, sharing doesn't solve for the imbalance without accompanying (and effective) governance of team salaries. Meanwhile, the real-world outcome is that...with less than 30% of revenue (on average, and shrinking) coming from gate receipts, and long-term TV contracts signed/sealed/delivered...there's precious little incentive (in any given year) for a 'small/medium' market owner to do anything other than pocket the money. It'll get worse before it gets better.
  12. jkcarew
    Agree, and good points regarding Wade. He's really only a no-brainer in the sense that he was way more likely to get chosen than the other's (save for Gordon and maybe Jay). On the other hand, it's not at all obvious that Wade would be better than Grossman in late-inning at-bats, or better than Cave all-around in a longer-term role. The larger point is that, with those two, plus Granite and Michael Reed already on the roster...how many reserve outfielders can you afford on the 40-man?...and how many can bat left-handed? For sure, not that many. You have to believe one or two of these names will be gone by spring training. With regard to Jay...given the pool of guys that need protection (not much there), and given the pitching jetsam and flotsam that already litters the 40-man (and can be eliminated without pain)...the Twins need to be absolutely POSITIVE about Jay to not protect him.
  13. jkcarew
    Agree on what the strategy is trying to do. But if the impact is only "limited" (sequencing)...it makes it all the more likely (or risky) that unintended consequences, or poor management of the strategy, will eliminate the benefit. Full transparency...I hope it fails. Or at least I hope it isn't hugely successful. It's far from stupid...I'm not saying that at all. But frankly, this is an unfortunate time, IMO, for more innovation that make it even harder to put a ball in play, easier to strike out, harder to score runs, more likely to see a greater number of pitchers in a game. Looking for some innovation that does the opposite, right now.
  14. jkcarew
    And you wouldn't have had to use the opener. And you could have let the 'starter's' pitch count dictate how many additional pitchers would need to be used. Bottom line, you are committing to a second pitcher before you have the information that is available to you in the 5th/6th inning (or the 4th for that matter). It will ultimately result in more pitchers getting used, and further stretch the concepts of what can be done with a 25-man roster. Maybe it won't be material. Maybe it will. Managers will always want the back end protection and the protection for tomorrow's game. Like many things that end up being smart, it's might not necessarily make for a better game. I fear this will be the case with anything that results in more pitchers on rosters. The jury is out...but it definitely looks like we're going to find out, which is fine with me, I can't predict exactly how this will play out.
  15. jkcarew
    The sequence matters when you score score a boat-load of runs early and have a 8 run lead in the 5th inning. In that case, you've burned through an arm that you didn't need to burn through. The data will tell the tail on whether/how much this is effective, and at what cost in terms of how rosters are managed and what that may impact (e.g., bench offense). We don't have that data yet. But it looks like we're going to get it. I have no problem with the Twins trying it with their marginal starters.
  16. jkcarew
    Interesting. Thanks. And my argument would not be that Gonsalves has no chance based on the debut, or even that I would have Stewart ranked higher than Gonsalves. Just that based on the small sample my eyeballs experienced this fall, I wouldn't put a distance of 13 prospects between the two, as Seth has here with Gonsalves at 7 and Stewart at 20. But that's what makes these things fun!
  17. jkcarew
    Don't know why you'd do away with the leagues. Doesn't solve anything...other than the DH question, and the DH discrepancy hasn't proven to be a huge issue over time. IMO, you should not only retain the two leagues, but do away with the inter-league play. In 2020, we don't need Mike Trout to play in our home ballpark in order to 'see' him play. I do like the idea of reducing the schedule when you add the two teams. Also, IMO, with the improved access to global talent, MLB could withstand expansion without a huge drop-off in quality of play. Whatever quality of play issues currently existing are the result of how the game is approached/played...not a thin global talent pool.
  18. jkcarew
    No to DeGromm. Only because I'm from the school that one major award should go to a pitcher, and one to a position player. This, IMO, regardless of the implications regarding what WAR might have to say in terms of the 'valuable' part of the MVP. I don't think there is a right/wrong here. Just preference. Maybe it's time to change the system: Pitcher of the Year; Batter of the Year; Player of the Year. The first two would/should have more objectivity and be highly data-driven. The last, basically, becomes the replacement for the current MVP...along with all the subjectivity (pitcher/non-pitcher, pennant relevance, etc., etc.). This also would be better in the event the Shohei Ohtani thing becomes real/common/enduring.
  19. jkcarew
    Why still the large gap between Gonsalves and Stewart? We know Gonsalves has had the better minor-league career to date. But so MUCH better that we would ignore Stewart's initial promise, his youth (actually a few months younger than Gonsalves), not to mention our own eyes when watching how the two responded to major league hitters this fall? I'd probably have Gonsalves lower and Stewart a bit higher...but might have Gonsalves rated slightly ahead based on his potential for more swings and misses if he ever develops the ability to get ahead major-league batters....which is a pretty big if at this point. Unless the reports of Rortvedt looking solid defensively have been premature/false...he's too low.
  20. jkcarew
    66 comments on the claiming off waivers of one Michael Reed. This site never lets me down!
  21. jkcarew
    There's still hope that Sano can become a Puig-like player in terms of offensive production. We're definitely at a point where consistent 120-130 OPS+ production out of Sano would be a significant win, both for him and the club. Also, interesting that the Dodgers didn't see fit to start Puig in 3 of the 11 games in the NLDS/NLCS rounds...and was replaced in a 4th. A 120 OPS+ (Puig 2018) and a great arm amounts to not much more than a nice piece when you have 5 OF options with better OPS+ than Eddie Rosario produced this year. And this a team that is not that close to being as good overall as at least 3 different teams in the AL.
  22. jkcarew
    It's hard to admit as a fan of the Twins that a rebuild would be the best path...especially so seemingly early in the Buxton/Sano era. But, IMO, past failures can't inhibit future actions. Just because the last rebuild was so recent and/or didn't work, doesn't mean that rebuild can't be the correct path faced with the current situation. Having said that, I do think that the choice of approach for the Twins in 2019 is NOT easy/obvious. But I think another year of half-measures is very risky. Going half-way and hedging and hoping...in either direction...is the exact recipe for winning 75-85 games a year and never accomplishing anything meaningful.
  23. jkcarew
    Yes, we 100% disagree on everything above (Twins relative to top of AL)... Except for that part there at the end!
  24. jkcarew
    That's one way of looking at it. But, I'd disagree in this era...or at least at this particular point in AL history. 2019 isn't going to be anything like 1987. Three great teams in the AL and (at least) one extra round to negotiate in the playoffs. The AL was anything but unpredictable in 2018, and will be similar in 2019. Houston, Yankees, Boston, are not good teams, they are championship-caliber teams that are not all going to fall of the table in 2019. Meanwhile, the Twins are not currently in the universe of these 3 teams. Could the Twins go all-in and steal a central-division crown in 2019? Maybe. I'd just as soon see a plan to REALLY compete, and to do so for an extended period of time with young and controllable talent. I'd love it if that plan gave us a chance to win 90 games in 2019. But if it doesn't, it doesn't.
  25. jkcarew
    Good article, Tom. After nearly two years of inconsistency and half-measures, the FO has been indicating the type of approach you describe for a number of months now. It's been pretty consistent since the all-star break. And the hiring of a very young manager with zero managing experience at any professional level, and whose outstanding trait is that he's highly "relatable"...fits right in with this approach. In lieu of my club annually operating at the top of the FA market (which isn't going to happen, not consistently over time)...I like this approach better than year after year of 'patch-and-hope'.
×
×
  • Create New...