bean5302

If we reversed the projections on Larnach and Wallner, I think I mostly agree. Both Buxton and Bader have long injury histories, and honestly, Larnach has his own durability issue history. Buxton will not play more than 60-80 games in CF this year. It's just not going to happen. Bader probably will miss 50 games this year based on recent seasons. If Bader is out at the same time Buxton is out, which is fairly likely, we'll see a substantial drop off in CF defense. Bader last 4 seasons injury history 2021 - April 1 - 10 Day IL - Strained forearm, Missed 4 weeks 2021 - May 25 - 10 Day IL - Hairline rib fracture, missed 6 weeks 2022 - June 27 - 10 Day IL -> 60 Day IL - Right foot plantar fasciitis, missed 3 months 2023 - March 30 - 10 Day IL - Left oblique strain, missed 5 weeks 2023 - May 30 - 10 Day IL - Right hamstring strain, missed 3 weeks 2023 - Sep 18 - 10 Day IL - Right groin strain, missed 2 weeks 2024 - July 24 - Day to Day - Mild ankle sprain, missed 1 week. Overall, I think the OF defense for the Twins will be good this year, but how good will depend a lot on Buxton. Bader's going to play a lot. If Buxton defies all the odds and has another year like last year, Bader's going to be covering a lot of corner OF time and defense should be pretty epic.

As of right now, I think this is how things will "probably" look. I think Martin will get the nod over Keirsey because Martin can play in the infield, but Baldelli may prefer to have an additional lefty option with his obsession on platooning. I suspect his is Martin's audition for replacing Castro. It's possible Lee could beat out Julien, but the Twins don't need Lee's switch hitting from the right side of the plate option this year. C - Jeffers (R) 1B - France (R) 2B - Julien (L) - 1 Option 3B - Lewis (R) - 2 Options SS - Correa (R) LF - Larnach (L) - 1 Option CF - Buxton (R) RF - Wallner (L) - 1 Option DH - Miranda (R) - 1 Option UO - Bader (R) UI/O - Martin (R) - 2 Options UI/O - Castro (S) BC - Vazquez (R) I expect guys like Gasper and Keirsey to be injury replacement depth.

Too small of a sample size to really get a good feel for France's ability in the regular season. The first cuts are done, and better players/pitchers are going to be getting more time going forward. Brooks Lee '23 ST .333/.351/.611 OPS .962 wRC+ 151 '23 MLB .221/.265/.320 OPS .585 wRC+ 62 It's easy to feast off pitchers who are trying to ease into velocity, test new pitches or practice hitting specific locations where they're struggling. That's Spring Training. Unlike most Spring Training players, Ty France is fighting for his spot on an MLB roster. He has to show his abilities and there's high pressure to produce. While other players who are guaranteed spots can focus on improving their weaknesses and making adjustments, France has to take every at bat as if it were the playoffs. In any case, he's making the team. I'd be stunned if he didn't after Baldelli's comments earlier this year, and Baldelli will likely keep putting France in there day after day no matter how poorly he performs, just like we saw with Carlos Santana out of the gate last year.

I'd prefer Brooks Lee to see at least 200 PA in AAA this year. Lee hasn't demonstrated a lot at the plate at the AAA level. He had that 100 PA last year before his call up, but apart from that, his other experience in AAA/MLB has not been good. I'd like to see him get some every day playing time and prove his bat has taken a step forward. He's got plenty of options and time. Julien is on his last option. He did technically get votes for RoY in 2023 and he produced the highest fWAR of any of Falvey's drafted position players in Twins history. Here is Eddie "doesn't know how to hit any more" Julien's track record: 4/23 - .222/.276/.444 wRC+ 96 5/23 - .229/.333/.457 wRC+ 116 6/23 - .296/.381/.407 wRC+ 122 7/23 - .369/.461/.723 wRC+ 222 8/23 - .237/.352/.303 wRC+ 91 9/23 - .210/.396/.432 wRC+ 137 4/24 - .223/.330/.500 wRC+ 136 *5/24 - .181/.272/.194 wRC+ 41 Demoted - Worthless - No good - Can't hit anymore - Trade him for a PTBNL *5/1-5/15 last year - .243/.364/.270 wRC+ 94 Literally. He had a two week slump at the end of May last year and his career was over around here. The rug was yanked out from under him in favor of golden child, Brooks Lee, and that was pretty much that. Julien was terrible in September last year, but he was solid in August. He's not been terrible in ST this year. I've never been a huge fan of Julien's, but seeing just how fast people turned on him reminds me of Brent Rooker. They're two totally different players with different skill sets, but it's the same vitriolic scenario where TD atmosphere switches the hype machine to a new target and aggressively writes off a player with plenty of potential after a small sample size of struggles.. The projection models all expect Julien to be above average at the plate. BTV literally has Julien about on par with guys like Luke Keaschall and Zebby Matthews in terms of value.

Worse than a team with a catcher who OPS'd .575 with average defense except for the instable "catcher framing" metric? As has been pointed out, Twins pitchers have gotten better results with Jeffers behind the plate in terms of runs prevented than the framing genius which is Vazquez. I'd be fine giving the backup catcher role to Gasper or Cartaya or Camargo or Winkel because there are plenty of other options if the backup catcher looks bad at this point. At least one of those guys will be a 0 WAR player this year, Vazquez will be a negative WAR guy. Or heck, Grandal is still on the FA market. Get him on a cheap deal. The world of catchers is not Christian Vazquez or a plywood cutout painted to look like a catcher.

I don't know. I would rather the Twins move Paddack since I don't think he's going to produce as well as other rotation options, and I could see another team swapping a contract savings nullifying player back to Minnesota in the process. It's just going to depend on what other teams are offering.

You taking the 800 career HRs and 150 career WAR seriously... Perhaps you also believe Aaron Judge's biggest concern is a poster on TwinsDaily's respect, too? LOL

Tarik Skubal Tigers +350 Garrett Crochet Red Sox +375 Cole Ragans Royals +900 Logan Gilbert Mariners +1200 Jacob deGrom Rangers +1200 Pablo Lopez Twins +1800 Framber Valdez Astros +2000 Shane McClanahan Rays +2000 Hunter Brown Astros +2000 Max Fried Yankees +2500 Luis Castillo Mariners +3500 George Kirby Mariners +3500 Tanner Bibee Guardians +3500 Kevin Gausman Blue Jays +3500 Bryan Woo Mariners +4000 Joe Ryan is about on par with Bryan Woo in odds. 15x lower than Skubal. Ryan has never put put Cy Young caliber numbers (sorry but a 3.55 best career ERA isn't getting it done and ERA is king for the Cy Young). Only 1 of the past 36 Cy Youngs handed out have an ERA that even starts with a "3" and that was Rick Porcello's 3.15 in 2016. On top of the performance being out of the Cy Young hopeful realm, Joe Ryan has also never pitched more than 161.2 innings in a season, and there hasn't been a Cy Young award granted to a pitcher with less than 167 innings in the past 2 decades. I know every year Joe Ryan is viewed as a 15 year old prospect who the Twins just drafted 3 years ago out of middle school and they somehow developed him on their own with no outside influences, but maybe... just maybe, it's time to accept the 29 year old veteran has already far overshot his expected ceiling of a borderline #5 starter. In order to even be considered a solid #2 arm, Ryan would have to see his performance take a major leap forward again. To put him in the Cy Young conversation is the same as putting Byron "Faster Version of Mike Trout" Buxton into the MVP conversation.

Christian Vazquez is not an MLB caliber catcher. We do not need an MLB caliber catcher to replace him.

I can see it now as Wallner is making his acceptance speech in Canton, OH, having hit 800 career home runs and registered 150 career WAR. "My only regret is MinnInPA on the TwinsDaily forums never became a believer because I wasn't able to put up 7 consecutive seasons with a 1.200 OPS AND simultaneously get below 25% strike out rates. Both Aaron Judge and I were talking about that the other day. It was the happiest moment in Judge's life when he finished the 2024 season under a 25% K rate for the first time in his career. Sure, the MVP went to Judge in 2022, but it was hollow. His K rate was 25.1%. He'd never get MinnInPA's respect with half efforts like that."

*From 2024's "The Board" first team, Orioles. 3/5 top 5 position players for the Orioles had at least one 70 grade tool. All 5 had at least one 60 grade tool. *From the White Sox, 60% of their top 5 position prospects (going all the way down to 11th in their system because it was mostly pitchers) had a 60 grade tool. *From the Athletics, 60% had a 70+ grade tool. 60% had a 60+ grade tool First 3 teams I checked and 6 of the first 15 prospects had at least one tool better than any prospect in the Twins' system.

There have been some out of touch whoppers about Joe Ryan over the years on TD... this is the most extreme. Maybe Chris Paddack will win it instead of Joe Ryan? Actually, I think Dylan Bundy will make a comeback and win it. Yeah!

What is with these extreme positions on Castellano? This false dilemma where the Twins have to decide whether or not to roster him today and if they do roster him, they're going to be required to keep him all year or use him as their closer. It's like Castellano keeps leaving burning bags of excrement on doorsteps around town or something. I don't care if Castellano is walking people right now. We don't even know how the Twins are having him pitch right now. Are they asking Castellano to throw pitches he needs to work on or are they trying to have Castellano locate pitches in certain spots. Spring Training, especially for young pitchers, is not generally about winning games or getting elite results; it's about getting into a mechanical rhythm and getting a feel for pitches. Pablo Lopez is walking 7.27 per 9 (15.3%) in Spring Training which is triple his rate last year. The staff will evaluate his stuff, his control and his command to determine where he might be able to be used.

Funderburk isn't going to get a chance at making an appearance on the 26 man until he starts throwing strikes. Last year was a real catastrophe for him and he's fallen off way down the depth chart at this point. The biggest reasons he's on the 40 man is he has options and throws lefty.

So potentially 300 prospects in MLB with a 60 grade tool from Fangraphs, and the very highest rating the Twins have in the entire franchise is 65 grade.

The Twins are in a good spot for CF in my opinion. I've noticed there's a serious dearth of MiLB talent at the CF position. More and more teams seem to be trying to shoehorn questionable grade defenders into the position favoring bat over defense.

What I took from this is the Twins don't have a lot to brag about. A 60 grade tool for prospects is fairly common.

Personally, I still think Gasper is a long shot to make the roster. He's got 3 options and there's no rush to see him at the MLB level. I also don't think what the coaches are saying about Gasper is that he's good defensively so much as he's reliable and hard working so he's adequate in regard to making the basic plays defensively so I think the "good defense" is old school is a bit out of context. So many of the comments over the past couple months on TD have been about how they don't even need to see Gasper play to know he sucks defensively. I'll take some observations about Gasper being adequate at this point. Gapser has clearly made an effort to be more aggressive at the plate, and that's the single most important thing I've seen from his results.

If the trade costs Zebby Matthews would you just do it? It's all about what the asking price would be (assuming this could happen). I don't see the reason the Phillies wouldn't demand a significant prospect. Castellano is in the Twins' top 20, and he may be valued higher than the #16 rank he holds on MLB. There's a roster crunch for all the teams right now. The Phillies might bank on getting Castellano back for free, just like the banked on nobody really having eyes on him for the Rule 5 draft. Philadelphia is in a more powerful position than the Twins in this scenario since the Phillies aren't losing anything they have.

It's Spring Training. Pitchers are going to force pitches which aren't working for them at this point because the pitcher wants to get a better feel for the pitch. Results for a pitcher like Lopez are far less important than his velocity. Lopez's fastball velocity was 95-96 today. I'd be concerned if Lopez's velocity was 92-93mph, but it's not.

Wasn't sarcasm for this exact quoted reason. Dobnak got a very fast and lucrative offer to lock him up long term. What would have happened had the Twins not been more aggressive with extending him than 99.9% of all players? Let's be honest, Dobnak would be a MiLB free agent right now or playing in Korea/Japan or something like that. I'm glad Randy made generational money. I'm glad he should be 100% financially secure for the rest of his life with no need to ever uber anybody around again. From everything I've read, he's a great guy to know. The feelings on this site are not personal towards Dobnak. Randy suffered a pretty nasty injury to his most important finger on his throwing hand, and from what I've read, it's a permanent damage situation. While I think everybody here wishes him well personally, they also fault the Twins for jumping the gun on Dobnak given the imposed spending limits and other front office contract decisions which have hindered potential roster improvements. We've all seen Randy's stuff at the MLB level. It doesn't play because his pitches don't have enough separation from one another, and his sinker just doesn't have the bite it used to. That's how it is. Dobnak should be incredibly thankful he's been able to work through his injuries and try to reinvent his career all while under a guaranteed contract playing in a city next door to the MLB team with the potential of pitching in the big show any given week. The Twins have given him opportunities, but they haven't worked out.

Eddie Julien is holding his own so far with a 12% BB rate and 16% K rate which I like to see. That K rate drop is encouraging. Julien's swing rate is up slightly, but I'm not sure the K rate can hold as he's only seeing a 28% first pitch strike rate so far. Brooks Lee wouldn't take walks last year and he's not taking them in ST, either. Wallner's numbers look rough again this spring, but a .000 BABIP on like 15-20 balls in play seems insanely unlucky. Still 3 weeks to go and competition levels will get much tougher in the next week or so as fringe players start getting reassigned/released.

I've compared Keirsey against his center fielder peers in the divisions he's played for RF/9 for years. Same divisions. Same lineups/hitters as other center fielders saw. Keirsey has been low range to high range "mediocre." The good 'ol eye test is always based on a handful of catches and opportunities where fielding metrics are based on every single opportunity, hundreds of them. The fielding metrics don't ignore bad plays or amazing plays because they're pulling for a prospect to be better or worse. Baldelli made it clear in his statement that Keirsey wasn't close to MLB caliber 2 years ago... at age 26 (already beyond legit prospect age). Keirsey says he's made major adjustments and Baldelli says he sees them. How much of those adjustments are related to Keirsey lacking the ability but being highly polished, I don't know. What I will say is guys transforming from non-prospects into quality MLB players in their late 20s is almost unheard of. What is common is a luck fueled career year (.370 BABIP) or polish making a player look like they're MLB caliber despite lacking the actual ability, and this is why I haven't had faith in Keirsey's out of the blue performance at the plate last year. Anthony Prato anybody? If Keirsey keeps hitting well in AAA this year, he'll get his shot. Both Buxton and Bader are highly injury prone, Larnach is probably best suited to DH due to his lack of speed, and the Twins are thin at proven quality in the infield which likely sees Castro playing mostly there.

This is really tough. I couldn't find anything in the CBA specifically pertaining to this issue, and the "full rights" trade scenario has appeared on the MLB.com website since 2020 (found snapshots from 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 on the waybackmachine) so this clause existed in error for 5+ years? It also makes sense to me to have the full rights provision. In the full rights trade scenario, the player is never DFA'd, never removed from the 40 man, never waived. I tend to trust what is documented on MLB.com since I've run into plenty of executives, management, etc who have been incorrect in their assumptions across my professional career. In any case, Castellano's much higher profile now after being selected in the Rule 5 by the Twins. There are a ton of teams who'll be looking into him. Even if the Twins could work out a deal with Philadelphia, it'd be expensive, IMHO. Much more expensive than people are expecting here. Castellano was arguably better than every single Twins pitching prospect not named Zebby Matthews in AA last year (including Andrew Morris). He's not going to make it through waivers, and the Twins would have to give up something pretty substantial when there's just no need to do it. If Castellano is as good or better than Ronny Henriquez or Kody Funderburk, that's the bar. The Twins have another 3 weeks to evaluate his stuff. If it looks good in ST, but he's bad in MLB blow out games, fine, DFA and see if they can get him through waivers (won't happen now).

Of course they would. Julien is on the same value tier as Jose Miranda, SWR, Zebby Matthews, and Luke Keaschall.