bean5302

That is misleading no matter how much bold or all caps shouting you use. First of all, Martin wanted to play SS. Falvey actually sat down with him in the 2021-2022 offseason and talked about it. Martin was likely to be given the opening day SS duty for 2022 with Kyle Farmer brought in as a failsafe before the Twins stunned MLB by signing Carlos Correa. Btw, Martin hasn't played a single game at SS in two years. While the Twins might have deployed Martin at SS in 2023, a sprained UCL made the hard throws required from the far side of the infield dangerous, and that pretty much ended Martins career at SS. Once Martin returned from "rest and rehab" on his UCL, the Twins deployed him at 2B and OF. Second, Martin has pretty much always played a significant number of games in the outfield, all the way back into college. college 2018 - 1B 18 games, LF 15 games, CF 13 games, 3B 9 games, Catcher 4 games, SS 2 games 2019 - 3B 51 games, 2B 13 games, 1B 4 games 2020 - CF 12 games, 3B 4 games -------------------------------------------- pro 2021 - CF 46 games, SS 43 games, 2022 - SS 84 games, CF 19 games, 2B 7 games, LF 1 game, RF 1 game 2023 - 2B 39 games, LF 14 games, CF 12 games, SS 0 games

2023 Popkins was told to make all the hitters hit home runs, who cares about strikeouts? He very successfully did that. The all or nothing Falvey approach failed against disciplined veteran teams. 2024 Popkins was told strikeouts are now bad so hitters need to completely rework their approach at the plate. Now focus on optimized contact at every plate appearance, and Popkins got those results. Popkins gets fired because the Twins' offense tanked down the stretch with a poorly constructed roster, and he immediately gets hired by the Blue Jays because Popkins gets the results the front office asks for... 2025 The Twins put Borgschultes in at hitting coach and want to focus on situational hitting. I can't say Popkins is a great or a bad hitting coach. It just seems to me he got exactly the results the front officed asked him to produce, and that's pretty damned impressive.

I don't have any real issue with the Twins' bullpen over this season. The Twins went with a very talented core. Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, and Brock Stewart. Stewart was predictably injured, but the talent was there at the top. Behind them is middle relief. I'm not sure how good people expect "middle relievers" to be as they're a dime a dozen out there as evidenced by how they get paid. The aging, but as reliably solid as a lefty reliever could be, Caleb Thielbar, was brought back in case Kody Funderburk didn't pan out. Fortunately, it was a good call to protect against a Funderburk meltdown. Unfortunately, Thielbar melted down in a way nobody expected. Coming off his previous 4 years of 179 games pitching 174.0 innings, Thielbar owned a very good 3.21 ERA and 3.16 FIP. A span of years where his ERA had never been above 3.49, and his FIP had never exceeded 4.46 over a full season. The bullpen was universally praised despite being very cheap. The entire bullpen cost about $13.5MM out of the gate. Minor roster shuffling throughout the year probably had the bullpen close to $15MM, and they delivered 6 WAR for that. The bullpen was not the problem last year. Lopez being terrible for 1/2 the year, and other rotational gambles by Falvey along with a manager who lost the team and a inconsistent hitting were the issues. It's delusional to expect an overworked bullpen to pitch 4 scoreless innings to win a 2-1 game because the starters can't pitch deep (or even throw a baseball hard once they wear out at 100 innings on the year), and the offense certainly isn't going to plate any more runs,

What makes you think Martin has ceiling above what he showed? 2022 AA = .241/.367/.315 OPS .683 ISO .074, wRC+ 89 2023 AAA = .263/.386/.405 OPS .791, ISO .141, wRC+ 106 2024 MLB = .253/.318/.352 OPS .670, ISO .099, wRC+ 94 His barrel rate was 1.1% and ranked #362 of 365 players with 200+ PA last year bottom 1%. His hard hit rate of 33.0% was #283, bottom quartile. His 87.2mph average exit velocity ranked #274, which was also bottom quartile. His 108.8mph maximum exit velocity ranked #271, which was also bottom quartile suggesting he tapped into all he had from a raw power standpoint. He's basically Luis Arraez, but Martin's contact rates are much worse so he strikes out 5x more than Arraez, and the result is a major cap on Martin's potential. Defensively, Martin has played a fair amount of OF. His most common position at Vanderbilt was outfield in 2018, shifting to primary 3B in 2019, and returning to the outfield as a primary position in 2020. He's played 200 professional games in the outfield since his drafting. It's not exactly new. While there is certainly some room for growth defensively, he was outright bad in the outfield. It'd be a major coup d'etat to see Martin just become average defensively because of his good, but not great speed and weak arm. He'll never be average in CF as he's severely stretched to cover it based on his good for a regular MLB player, but poor speed for a CF. He's similar to Matt Wallner, but without the arm.

As important as the fact the Twins had no desire to play Camargo is the reason why. The .212/.290/.403 OPS .693 line generated in the extremely hitter friendly AAA International League was good for a wRC+ 76 rating. Almost as bad at AAA as Vazquez was at MLB, and Camargo isn't known as great defensively. Camargo is a borderline bust right now. The Twins haven't had a catcher prospect break through to the top 20 since Ryan Jeffers was a prospect. There is zero depth down there. Of course, part of that is Falvey pretty much forgot the catcher position even existed after he drafted Jeffers in 2018.

Seeing some rose tinted coke bottles used as glasses here. Martin was literally -0.2 fWAR. That's not solid. That's not encouraging. That's DFA -> outright off the 40 man levels of performance sooner than later. I think we've seen what Martin is capable of at AAA, and his absolute ceiling is probably in that 1 WAR class. Martin's approach at the plate and his swing is never going to generate much power, and against MLB pitchers, he's going to take limited walks while striking out a fair margin. It all adds up to an MLB average bat ceiling. Unfortunately, as has been the case at almost every level and position as Martin was coming up, his defensive instincts were weak again with the Twins. He's just so raw for being a guy who was in AA back in 2021.

I compared him to his peers. Not guys who got a handful of plate appearances because most teams have a primary catcher and a true "backup" rather than the Twins full platoon approach. Christian Vazquez is a starting MLB catcher earning $10MM a year and playing over 300 PA a season. But I'll go ahead and take the sample size down to a 120 plate appearances to get to your number which is now like comparing a starting outfielder to a AAAA 4th outfielder who occasionally gets a PA. The median hitter, Luis Torrens with a whopping 130 PA ranks #30 at wRC+ 90. He was a little above average defensively and produced the same value as Christian Vazquez at 0.8 fWAR on the season. If we increase the sample size to 200 PA (which is pretty much the minimum for a legit sample size) we have 45 catchers and the median half way between #22 (Logan O'Hoppe) and #23 (Carson Kelly) is wRC+ 100. Again, catchers are average hitters. Christian Vazquez ranks #52 of 60 catchers with 120+ PA last year. Only 1 catcher with more than 158 PA was worse at the plate.

Agreed. Popkins followed the plans laid out by the front office and he got scapegoated.

Right. If there is depth on the roster, Willi Castro's flexibility potentially adds value. AAA replacement players are not legitimate "depth." A full example. Willi Castro is playing RF (3.0 WAR) because Matt Wallner (4.0 WAR) is hurt. Royce Lewis at 3B (3.0 WAR) gets hurt so the Twins move Castro to 3B (3.0 WAR) instead of playing Lee there (0.0 WAR). Austin Martin moves to RF (0.0 WAR) to cover the position. The Twins lose 3 WAR to have Martin replace Castro in RF. The Twins gain 3 WAR to have Castro cover 3B to prevent Brooks Lee from playing there. The Twins call up Deshawn Keirsey from AAA to keep the bench warm and get coffee from the locker room. (0.0 WAR) Castro gives a net +0 WAR for flexibility.

Objectively valuing Vazquez vs. his peers looks about like this: Controlling run game - Below average Blocking pitches - Average Catcher framing - Anywhere from good to excellent (depending on the metric you use) Vazquez is an average to very good defensive catcher based on which catcher framing metric you use, and how much you believe in catcher framing. From a plate side of things, he's just plain abysmal to the point it totally offsets even the best of his defensive metrics. Contrary to the popular belief, the median catcher was an average hitter last year. #16 of 32 catchers with 300+ PA was Francisco Alvarez wRC+ 102. Vazquez ranked a miserable #31 of 32 catchers with 300+ PA last year in wRC+ at an unplayable 60. His offensive value cost the Twins 17 runs vs. the average MLB batter. Now, Vazquez's fans like bringing in arguments like "game calling" which has been debated in regard to how much that's in the hands of the catcher with the Twins, and it's a stat which has utterly eluded attempts to quantify it as a meaningful device in recent years. Furthermore catchers can use "cheat sheets" nowadays to see data on which batters struggle with which pitches. In all honesty, it seems most of the game calling is from the analytics department and coaching staff these days. The other argument which Vazquez's ardent supporters will bring up is "veteran leadership." It seems to be a factor which is also non-quantifiable, which is why it's so often brought into discussion. Christian Vazquez is a bad MLB player, but the Twins don't have any depth behind him (thanks, Obama!) so the Twins cannot move Vazquez without acquiring an MLB caliber catcher to replace him. The net savings of paying another team to take Vazquez (because of his negative trade value) and the Twins signing another catcher to replace Vazquez would be minimal. That's why he's likely to stick around.

Was Gordon (who was very bad) really that much worse than Margot at $4MM or Farmer at $6MM? I advocated keeping Gordon because he was league minimum, had versatility, and his bat was good in 2022. There wasn't much to lose, and there were better places to spend money.

Not sure why Miranda is the whipping boy around here? He posted slightly positive UZR/150's (a metric which is stable much faster than OAA) at 1B both in 2022 and 2024 (he didn't cover the position in 2023). Miranda doesn't have a particularly strong arm and he's slow. He doesn't have the physical skill set to excel at positions apart from 1B. I think there is a little more left in Miranda's tank. He's cheap, I expect he'll be average at 1B where the Twins have zero good depth, and he's controlled for many more seasons. What exactly does trading a cost controlled starting caliber position player at league minimum salary help with? Nothing.

Moneyball is about embracing analytics. Every team does this now, but for the Athletics, the method represented a major advantage over other teams. The Athletics would have been even better with analytics AND a big payroll. I'm not sure what relationship analytics methodology has to the Royals' rebuild... which came after being in back to back World Series' in 2014-2015. The Royals are a legitimate small market team who have a short window, but they expanded payroll when they were in the window. Only the Astros (who did their own full rebuild prior to them becoming a dynasty), and the Dodgers have been to the World Series more than the Royals in the since 2011.

I'd be happy with an every day regular player. A perennial MVP would be nice, but seems a bit greedy, haha

Willi Castro can only play 1 position at a time, and he's playing every day so no matter where you move him to, you're automatically subtracting Castro from starting in the preferred location. The only way Castro adds significant value with flexibility is if the Twins have adequate depth at the position Castro is vacating. This type of scenario is the only way in which Castro's utility actually adds value. Castro is the 3B and he's worth 3 WAR there and he's worth 3 WAR in LF. The 3 WAR starting LF gets hurt. The Twins' hypothetical 4th outfielder is only worth 1 WAR The Twins' hypothetical utility bench guy is worth 2 WAR at 3B. Result = Left field is neutral instead of losing 2 WAR by putting the 4th outfielder there, 3B loses 1 WAR with the utility guy covering Castro's primary position, Twins are up a net 1 WAR. In the scenario above, if the bench guy is worth 1 WAR, the Twins gain nothing. They're just reorganizing the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks. Basically, positional flexibility from an every day player is worthless if you don't have depth behind the flexible player: you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul as they say.

...why do you think MLB increased revenue sharing from 30% to 50%?

and 50% of the revenue of the top teams goes to the bottom half, some of whom have built that welfare check right into their budget (Tampa Bay Rays) Look at the NFL and compare it to MLB in terms of teams which make the playoffs. In any case, you just said the top teams get the least amount of WAR from free agency? There are different models to building teams in MLB.

Those two are a bit of a dichotomy. In a vacuum, he doesn't swing a ton at pitches outside the zone, which is good, but he's at the very lower ranges of acceptable for swinging at pitches in the zone, and that's compared to MLB hitters who are up against much better pitching. So Severino is pretty picky about what he swings at, and despite that, his contact rates are very poor. It's nice that his contact rate against strikes was much improved this past season because it was horrible in 2023. Severino was roughly league average in AAA over both 2023 (wRC+ 100) and 2024 (wRC+ 101 with a .321 BABIP). His walks were marginally up (9.8% to 11.9%) and his strikeouts down significantly (36.6% to 27.3%), but that came with a massive drop in power production (.278 ISO to .180 ISO). Despite him being just 24 years old, 2025 will be his 9th year in an MLB organization. Severino failed to pan out as a 2B/3B or... as the Twins delusionally hoped, SS. He has shown some flashes at the plate, but apart from an absolutely scorching June, he was pedestrian for a prospect or borderline unplayable (wRC+ 63 for Aug/Sep) last year. There's just not much to project for him. If the Twins weren't in a major payroll crunch, he'd likely be a DFA candidate.

There is no significant lack of parity. Even small market teams have shown a willingness to expand payroll into the top 1/2 of MLB when their window is open. Just because the Pohlad's have ignored that doesn't mean it's not right in everybody's face. The Royals pushed opening day payroll to $140MM (top 1/2) in 2017. The Orioles pushed opening day payroll to $164MM in 2017 $143MM in 2018, both (top 1/2). The Diamondbacks opened 2024 at $157MM (top 1/2) Even iron lock wallet Cleveland expanded to $134MM in 2018 (ranked #16) used Stevetheump cause it's easy. https://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm Once teams start building and their core appears competitive, teams go out and spend on free agents and then pick up big name targets at the deadline which push their payrolls up into the top half. Having a team which just starts building turn in a surprise season to make and advance in the playoffs isn't super common despite the Royals' surprise success this year. The build process identifies key missing pieces to turn the Pohlad definition of competitive (a .500+ ballclub) into World Series hopeful team, and even small market "competitive" teams are willing to trade and spend to fill the gaps. While the Pohlad family likes to run a .500 team with an ultimate goal of winning the division, almost all other teams in baseball are aiming for a World Series.

Rosario is striking out a lot and not walking enough to compensate against low minors pitchers, certainly lower caliber than what he played against all year. He wouldn't be in the AFL if the Twins didn't need him to show more, and I'm not sure what else they could be needing for him to show against lesser competition. This is his 4th professional season. BB and K rates stabilize pretty quick. Wallner is an example of plate discipline issues and how they have to be handled. I wasn't looking for a comp for Rosario since the two players have almost nothing in common. Kala'i Rosario is like a borderline top 20ish top 30ish prospect for a reason. It's great to see him hitting well, but I'd like to see him improve on the part of his game that will prevent him from hitting well enough to make MLB, much less succeed there.

1. Can the Twins move Vazquez? - Yes. But as pointed out in 5,000 comments over the past month where moving Vazquez has been brought up as some sort of legitimate option, the Twins don't have anybody who can backup Ryan Jeffers if Vazquez is moved so moving Vazquez doesn't help in a vacuum because the Twins would just need to sign another free agent. 2. Can the Twins afford to give up on Alex Kirilloff? Kirilloff is literally hurt more than Buxton, came across awfully irresponsible and selfish last year, and he's never posted a season with more than 0.6 fWAR. I don't know where this concept of Kirilloff "potential" originates. He'll be on a MiLB contract for 2025. 3. Where does Edouard Julien go? AAA until he proves he's taken a major step forward unless the Twins field some calls from a team that's really high on Julien over the offseason. 4. Who backs up Carlos Correa? Despite the criticism of him being hobbled up, Correa was one of the more durable players in baseball from 2020-2023 ranking 73rd in all MLB. The most likely bet based on how the Twins shuffled things this year is Brooks Lee, even though it shouldn't be. 5. Do the Twins trust Royce at 3B? No. They answered that loud and clear while taking a big dump on the young face of the franchise. But for the OAA metric supporters around here, Royce's defense was above average there. 6. Can the Twins find a RHB platoon bat for LF? Sure. The Twins love platoon only, minimal value guys. The rest of the league doesn't value them much so the Twins should be able to pick up dumpster dive who is slightly above average against lefties. 7. Can the Twins find a legit starting CF to backup Buxton? Yes, but it's going to cost them a fair bit of prospect capital. 8. Is Wallner ready to put it together? Yeah, he already did. Wallner had a terrible April and first half of May. Having a bad month or two is normal. The fact Wallner raked again when he came back is all anybody should have needed to see. The Twins could have called Wallner's number a month and a half earlier than they did, but the team let him hang out in AAA because Larnach and Miranda were hitting, and for whatever reason I cannot comprehend, they still wanted to see Alex Kirilloff play more. 9. Will one of Lopez, Ryan or Ober be moved? No. I don't think Falvey has the guts. 10. What did the Twins learn about building a relief core? That you can and will get unlucky sometimes.

Actually, if you look at Kepler since Baldelli took over as the manager, it's clear the Twins were platooning him more and more. His ratio of PA per game vs. lefties and righties started shifting. Since Kepler was a veteran, he seems to have gotten some leeway.

The point is a 5% BB rate and a 40% K rate against mostly low minors pitchers doesn't work, and it's not an improvement over his 10.7% BB vs. 30.4% K rate at AA this year. Honestly, I'd be concerned if Rosario wasn't doing damage in the AFL since the competition level is certainly lower than AA where he spent almost his entire season. Plate discipline vs. more contact is pretty much potAto, poTaTo, but I'd still lean towards calling it a plate discipline issue. It's the same issue Matt Wallner had in A+ ball with a 9.5% BB, and 33.3% K rate when he was essentially put on notice that he had no future in the game without learning to take walks despite Wallner "doing damage." Meanwhile a "make more contact" issue is Emmanuel Rodriguez with his high K rate but even more absurd walk rate.

Yep. The "Twins way" isn't the only or even possibly the best way. In fact, I think teams should construct lineups based on the name on the jersey (best players) rather than the spreadsheet which tells them which number hits from which side of the plate. Ramirez (SHB) vs. RHP wRC+ 121 Kwan (LHB) vs. RHP wRC+ 125 J Naylor (LHB) vs. RHP wRC+ 124 Fry (RHB) vs. RHP wRC+ 94 Gimenez (LHB) vs. RHP wRC+ 90 B Naylor (LHB) vs. RHP wRC+ 78 Example. Despite being a righty, Jose Miranda has hit RHP much better than he's hit LHP over the years, but in 2024, despite raking against righties (wRC+ 142), and struggling against lefties (wRC+ 60), Baldelli continued to standard platoon Miranda. Jose Miranda (RHB vs. RHP) wRC+ 113, career Jose Miranda (RHB vs. LHP) wRC+ 91, career

Kala'i Rosario is an interesting prospect in that there's some stuff to like, but the plate discipline projects as unplayable. I'm not sure what the Twins are looking for in Rosario in the AFL as I suspect he'll return to AA next year, but an 8 K to 1 BB ratio is surely not it.