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jkcarew

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Everything posted by jkcarew

  1. jkcarew
    I don't care how many starters we have if we can get one better than everyone except our best one or two....or even three. The objective isn't to have a lot of starters, the objective is to have good ones. It all comes down to cost of doing that...and that's why this is taking so long...or may not happen at all.
  2. jkcarew
    I'm sure all will be forgiven if the Twins make amends the next time the parties agree to sit down and talk extension. For instance, the Twins could offer, say....$60.375M over six years with a player option. How can you doubt, when the FO is on such a roll?!
  3. jkcarew
    Very legitimate sentiment, IMO. While, I probably side with those that feel we're seeing amateur hour unfold over in the Red Sox front offices....I don't think that exactly means that the medical records are 100% definitely irrelevant to this story. First, let's not pretend that we necessarily know everything in those medical reports...or that the Twins have made a practice of transparency with fans and media regarding Graterol's arm. Of course, they haven't. That's not the way things work. Meanwhile, there have been plenty of smoking guns in Graterol's young career. So, is it possible things might be at least a little worse than we assumed? That maybe reliever isn't a short-term choice, but a necessary long-term approach to manage injury risk? The fact that Boston should have been able to infer that the medical records would have issues based on public knowledge and Minnesota's willingness to trade him for Kenta Maeda...well that doesn't exactly say "but, the medical records are fine".
  4. jkcarew
    Every pitcher has a tough stretch or two...Berrios’s numbers are his numbers. The ‘concern’ regarding the Twins pitching has been, for the most part, how it stacks up in the playoffs. It’s relatively easy (in 2019, it was historically easy) to have success in the regular season playing in the AL Central. If your best starter is struggling to be a top 20 pitcher, you’re going to be at a disadvantage in the playoffs...and probably right out of the gate.
  5. jkcarew
    They all WANT to be starters. This will be a huge year for Balazovic. To stay on track, he needs to get up into that 120-130 inning range. This is where Graterol faltered. I like the odds of the 6-5 guy that throws 95 MPH better than the 6-1 guy that throws 101. We’ll see.
  6. jkcarew
    There's a perfectly good reason the Twins have not been (were not) in a hurry to walk away from this. Graterol isn't a starter. Maeda is. And Maeda's contract is a perfect fit for the Twins, given the Twins remain desperate for starting pitching beyond 2020. We have both the Twins and the Red Sox staring us right in the eye and saying Graterol isn't going to be a starting pitcher. I'd rather we were talking a corner outfield prospect...but, I've moved beyond Graterol as a "front-of-rotation" starter prospect quite a while ago, while many here apparently haven't gotten there yet, despite mounting...and mounting...evidence.
  7. jkcarew
    That's because it shouldn't be mentioned. For one thing, it didn't happen last February, it happened in 2015, when Verdugo was 19 years old, and the incident became more widely known as Verdugo got closer and closer to being a major league player. Funny how that happens. The allegations are that he was at a house where a sexual assault occurred, not having participated in the assault. Bottom line, it doesn't play a part in this story. I don't think any of us expect that major league teams would or should conspire to blackball players for incidents that didn't result in even charges being brought.
  8. jkcarew
    Tick tock...tick tock. My bet at this point is that the Dodgers step up to save their deal(s) by offering more to the Red Sox...and the Twins are out of the deal. Maeda (or more likely other pieces) go to the Red Sox from the Dodgers, and the Twins are on the outside looking in. Better than overpaying...but disappointing relative to where we thought we were 48 hours ago.
  9. jkcarew
    Agree on the potential willingness to pull trigger sooner rather than later on a bench bat role given his age...but fwiw....it's not at all obvious to me that he's going to be a superior offensive player to Cave, and we can assume he's not going to be defensively superior. Cave was a 112 OPS+ guy last year (111 career now)...and also out-hit Rooker at Rochester last year. I guess his right-handedness could play in a platoon situation...(although, Cave even indicated the ability to handle left-handed pitching last year, in a small sample). That kind of power gives him a chip and a chance, though.
  10. jkcarew
    Huh? And how do you have time to serve as a moderator for Twins Daily and also be a member of the US house or senate?
  11. jkcarew
    Conclusion...the Red Sox have no leverage? We'll see.
  12. jkcarew
    The simple act of holding Price costs you an incremental amount that is at least 50% greater than what Maeda will cost you even if he's great. There's no way to look at Maeda's contract as anything but attractive. Certainly plausible enough to qualify as leverage.
  13. jkcarew
    ?? Price is due over $30M base this year. Maeda's base is $3M and change. Even with incentives, it's not close. The simple act of holding Price costs you an incremental amount that is at least 50% greater than what Maeda will cost you even if he's great. There's no way to look at Maeda's contract as anything but attractive. Certainly plausible enough to qualify as leverage.
  14. jkcarew
    Why doesn't Boston have leverage? They probably feel like they 'have' to deal Betts...and want very badly to make the Price deal. But it doesn't have to involve the Twins. Heck, they could simply decide to take Maeda instead of Graterol. Done. Lot's of things could happen that would take the need for the Twins participation out of the equation.
  15. jkcarew
    Levine to Flavey.... "who knew anyone looked at the medical records!?"
  16. jkcarew
    I'd be a low-teens guy on Rooker. The 2019 number are inflated...both in terms of what the International league was in 2019 (there were 4 guys at Rochester last year that slashed better than Rooker)...and in terms of his unsustainably high BABiP. In 2018, as a 23-year-old in AA, he was .254/.333/.465. That's not bad, but it's not great either. And he's 25 now. Could be a late bloomer like Garver (was Garver ever ranked as high as #9?)...but Rooker has a much slimmer margin of error. Guys that can hit for power and play a bad corner outfield or first base are a dime a dozen. Catcher, not so much.
  17. jkcarew
    I don't think the arbitration outcome impacts how the future plays out in any way. But I do think the arbitration process presented us a snapshot of where the parties are at this particular time. And it doesn't seem that they are close. Still time. Seems Jose is betting on himself, and seems that the Twins are not yet ready to go to the elite money level for him. Both seem reasonable positions to me, but it also seems that the better Jose does in 2020/2021, the less likely he is to stick here beyond free agency. I guess that could be looked at as a good thing.
  18. jkcarew
    Yep. Arbitration is a very well-defined process. The process is the process, the steps the steps. It could even be looked at as a 'positive' that the Twins came in so close to the number Berrios's team presented. But, I can't help feeling that there is a 'bad' to this...that being simply that it got all the way to arbitration. This might have been an opportunity to get parties to talk extension...but it seems likely that nothing must have been imminent along those lines. At least to me.
  19. jkcarew
    I agree. FWIW, I base that on the fact that 2020 went all the way to arbitration. Not on the outcome of the arbitration.
  20. jkcarew
    Whatever criteria is used for age...Enlow comes out much younger than the last three pitchers who appear on these rankings...almost 4 years younger than Thorpe... and between 1 1/2 to 2 years younger than Canterino and Colina. Very much a work in progress with high upside, which is exactly what you would expect Enlow to be at this point and given his draft status.
  21. jkcarew
    "(Wallner) got in a healthy 291 plate appearances as a pro at age 21. The results weren't necessarily amazing, but they're almost eerily similar to those Alex Kirilloff put up in his own Elizabethton debut, as a first-round pick in 2016. I think we all recall what followed in the (delayed) encore." Granted, he's 'only' coming in at 14th, but let's not go there. Apples and oranges. Wallner was 21 coming off 3 years of D1 competition in a very good conference. Kirilloff, 18, coming in off of facing high-school competition...in Pennsylvania no less. Kirilloff's debut performance was vastly more impressive than Wallner's. I agree with keeping Javier in this neighborhood...for now.
  22. jkcarew
    Thanks for doing these! Just fun and interesting. I'm with Tom on Colina. A hard-throwing 5-11 (if that) guy that can rack up innings to be a year-after-year reliable starter? Doubtful. Not never...but doubtful. FWIW...we question a 21-year-old Graterol because he's never been able to exceed 102 innings pitched in a season. Colina's max is 109 innings...last year was less than 100. I would evaluate him lower as a potential guy on the back end of a bullpen.
  23. jkcarew
    I don't think this post-season necessarily indicates that the strategy isn't going to work in the long run. One of the things about the twins top position prospects is that...at least right now...I don't know that any trading partner could consider them that 'close'. You'd have to find a team truly tanking/rebuilding to give up a win-now asset for those prospects. Even for a team like Boston, Graterol is really the only prospect the Twins have where Red Sox management could look their fans in the eye and say, "we going to be better at 'x' (presumably the back-end of the bullpen) in 2020 because of this guy". I see this move as opportunistic...solving not just a 2020 problem, but a 2021, 2022, etc. problem as well, even if it costs you an arm. But, probably most importantly, it's not at all obvious that the Twins still consider Graterol a starting pitching prospect. (Note: might also be worth noting that it's within the realm of possibility that the Red Sox would have been willing to ask for someone like Jaylin Davis to headline a package...seeing as though they were losing an athletic corner outfielder in the deal, and Davis could be considered 'close'...instead of an arm. But the FO had already dealt Davis for pitching.)
  24. jkcarew
    If you think Graterol is going to start in the future, you project his future value a certain way...and you hate the trade. If you think he's going to be a reliever, you project less future value, and you're more likely to love, or at least like, the trade. IMO, it's pretty obvious where the Twins projected him. Could they be wrong? Yep. But judged on the information we have today, I like it. I do hope Boston isn't able to play this into the Twins having to give up more, though.
  25. jkcarew
    Ensuring that Gordon started the season on the IL... just another example of the brilliance of the current FO.
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