bean5302

The Twins need to stay healthy, and to stop laying eggs against Cleveland. I'm a lot more concerned about the Twins advancing in the playoffs than making them. I'll probably be furious if they get swept out yet again.

3.74 ERA vs. 3.96 xERA, 4.33 SIERA, and 4.34 xFIP. If Woods Richardson isn't unusually skilled at keeping fly balls in the park, he's due for a lot more regression. Since SWR's pop up rate isn't abnormally good, and he's a fly ball pitcher, it's unlikely he can avoid a regression in his home run rate which shifts him well out of a preferred playoff starter.

Moving is an idle threat. Target Field is a great stadium and relatively new, attendance has been lower recently, but the team is still no where near the rock bottom, and the Twins are only 1/2 way through a 30 year lease which doesn't expire until 2040.

Not much, IMHO. I don't believe in Kikuchi at all as a playoff guy. I'd rather have Lopez, Ryan and Ober on the bump, and I'd suspect most models would feel neutralish as well. My feeling was the Twins needed an "ace" to significantly improve their odds. Scott's great, but how much a lefty reliever impacts the Twins chances is pretty debatable if they're in the hole after the starter walks off the field after the 5th or 6th inning. I believe in Jhoan Duran, Jorge Alcala, and Griffin Jax. I think the Twins have the power in the bullpen they need to keep close games from getting away from them in the playoffs.

Whew. These last couple starts have really put the brakes on the Zebby Matthews train. Not sure if the Twins are having Matthews work on something or if his stuff just isn't playing as well against more polished hitters.

I don't know how many times I've seen the Twins' ownership all lumped together as a singular, static entity. Similar to the entity known as "Falvine" or that childhood couple who got the blended name like Nateiffer or whatever. The perceived sins of the father infect the rest of the family by association like the way people go after the blood relations of presidents. The arguments surround the Twins being owned by misers who hurt the team's chance of being successful because they won't pay competitive salaries. Inconceivably large numbers get thrown around and ranks are used to provide a convenient reference furthering the commenter's opinion. But, just how does the Twins' historical payroll stack up in a visual way? A way which can better illustrate at a glance how competitive they've been. Is Carl the same as Jim? Are the Twins the franchise today as they were 20 years ago? What does 16th or 19th rank look like? See for yourself how the Twins stack up historically, all the way back to 1988 based on data from The Baseball Cube. 2024 data comes from Spotrac so the methodology might be a bit different. You can see some major trends and how baseball competition levels were affected by changes to the CBA and television, etc. Up until about 1990, the differences from the haves to the have nots wasn't so huge. The Twins were right in the thick of things as one of the upper payroll teams. A paradigm shift occurred and baseball competition levels would never be the same. Another shift in the late 90s changed the landscape yet again. Suddenly, the gap became massive, and Carl Pohlad opted for the bare minimum cost philosophy as the Twins secured the lowest payrolls in MLB. Contraction didn't happen, and Twins payrolls rose to about the bottom of the 3rd quartile of teams until Target Field. When Target Field opened, Carl Pohlad was dead with his son, Jim, having taken over. Jim pushed payroll up a full bracket and more closely followed the bottom of the 2nd quartile of teams. Right about dead mid market combined from 2010-2022, but it appears there's another shift going on. Payrolls and revenues are trending up, and the Pohlad family appear to be more committed to trend back to the days of their father, and the Metrodome as attendance falters. Carl Pohlad was a miser. While generous from a charitable standpoint, and an honorable man with multiple purple hearts, a bronze star with clusters and a fantastic personal reputation amongst the people who knew him, he did not accept losses from businesses, and the Twins were a business to him. Carl's first love was football, and he actively attempted to purchase a controlling interest in the Minnesota Vikings, but was rebuffed because he owned a controlling interest in the Twins already. I have to wonder if Jim is getting miserly as he ages? Frustration with attendance and an inability to get a new stadium built led Carl to cut the payroll down to the bottom of the barrel and field more than a handful of terrible, non-competitive teams while threatening to sell the team to a party who would move the franchise out of state or even potentially contract the team entirely. This new philosophy for the Twins' ownership on the back of frustration with attendance potentially signals it's time for the Pohlads to sell the team to an owner with better business sense because Twins revenue shouldn't be as low as it is. Poorly negotiated TV deals, poor marketing and a lack of accountability at the head of the organization have allowed ownership to assume revenues are fixed so costs must be cut rather than understanding how to expand revenues to keep the team competitive with mid-market teams. The Pohlads also appear to lack understanding of how team payrolls work. Joe Pohlad pointed to the Orioles as an example, but Baltimore has fielded a payroll higher than the Twins in 21 of the past 37 seasons (57%) including 3 seasons above the maximum payroll in Twins' history despite a much smaller market than Minneapolis. The Orioles recently employed the tank Astros philosophy of the 2010s initiating a total burn down of their roster with the willingness to field the worst teams in baseball year in and out while undertaking a massive rebuild. Now in a competitive window, Baltimore is once again expanding their payroll rapidly, and I expect they'll surpass the Twins once again next season. Baltimore would never have burned down a team in their prime competitive window. This new (old) Pohlad philosophy is not only a poor look, it's a disservice to the fans, and the taxpayers who built Target Field with the expectation ownership would keep their end of the bargain and fund the team appropriately. It reeks of panic, frustration, poor business management, and dysfunction. If this is what the Pohlads bring to the table now, it's best to find fresh new ownership with a better philosophy.

Kepler gets regularly platooned so I'm not sure why you think otherwise? Over his career, Kepler has significant splits RHP and LHP, though the splits have narrowed over the years, ironically as the team has trusted him less and less because Broken Macro Baldelli's spreadsheets demand he immediately have security remove all the team's lefty hitters from the stadium the moment an opponent starts warming a lefty up in the bullpen. In fact, he watches the opponent's pitching coach and manager closely for movement towards the bullpen phone. Baldelli & Falvey 2024 - vs. LHP 61 PA (1.4 PA/G), vs. RHP 250 PA (3.1 PA/G) Ratio 24% 2023 - vs. LHP 97 PA (1.6 PA/G), vs. RHP 394 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 25% 2022 - vs. LHP 119 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 327 PA (3.1 PA/G) Ratio 36% 2021 - vs. LHP 129 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 361 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 39% 2020 - vs. LHP 53 PA (1.6 PA/G), vs. RHP 143 PA (3.0 PA/G) Ratio 37% 2019 - vs. LHP 163 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 433 PA (3.4 PA/G) Ratio 38% ------- Molitor & Falvey 2018 - vs. LHP 167 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 444 PA (3.0 PA/G) Ratio 38% 2017 - vs. LHP 137 PA (1.8 PA/G), vs. RHP 431 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 32% ------- Molitor & Ryan 2016 - vs. LHP 133 PA (2.2 PA/G). vs. RHP 314 PA (3.2 PA/G) Ratio 42% Personally, I don't know as Kepler had much trade value. League average bat, good defense, but $10MM for a guy on a 1.5-2.0 WAR season path really deletes the surplus value.

Let's look at the ACTUAL trade. Flaherty valued at 9.3 traded to the Dodgers for 19.60 of assets. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/173210 Fedde was more complicated since he was moved with Kopech. Fedde +19, Kopech -0.7 was moved for 8.00 of total assets. What are the Twins prospects valued at close to the deadline? Jenkins = 58.3 Rodriguez = 46.6 Lee = 38.7 ----------------- Julien = 27.6 Keaschall = 20.7 Flaherty Actual Value Trade 19.60 Wallner = 17.6 Matthews = 15.1 Festa 13.4 Fedde Actual Value Trade 8.0 Gonzalez = 8.0 Raya = 5.1 Keirsey = 2.9 Now BaseballTradeValues is imperfect, but for major prospects and players, it generally lines up pretty closely with what actually happens. The Twins' top 3 were worth anywhere from 200% to 700% of what the actual trade compensation wound up at. Keaschall on his own is valued higher than any player traded. I don't care how terrible a GM is, turning down a compensation package which starts with a player worth more than any other guy moved is pretty nonsensical, and being a GM isn't an easy job to get. Generally, a lack of complete insanity is part of the mix.

.911 OPS isn't good enough for you? Yeah, sounds about right from the ultimate Matt Wallner hater, LOL

This is what I took away from it. Sucks for us this year (not that other deals didn't get done), but it reinforces the White Sox maintaining a terrible GM, which I like, and the Tigers making bad decisions, which I also like. I actually think the White Sox were a plausible self inflicted foot injury in this case because I do think that's the most dysfunctional organization in baseball at this point, and Fedde has another year of control. With the Tigers? I don't buy it. Flaherty was a true rental, they're not making the playoffs this year, and it gives the Tigers an opportunity to weaken a division rival in the future. The level of incompetence necessary to take a far lesser deal isn't reasonable to believe. Falvey was a lot better in his PR mode interview where he talked about the in division aspects, but ultimately, there were moves which were made and moves which could have been made by a team really going for it.

Word is the Financial Excellence Banner is next. All fans in attendance will receive the special promotion "Gate Entry Fee" only payable via a debit card to avoid the credit card fees.

I don't understand how you connect Wallner and Larnach as similar except they're both lefties and typically play corner OF. Larnach is a line drive hitter with average pop, but poor OBP. He has obvious glaring weaknesses against almost anything other than a 4 seamer, but he destroys 4 seamers. He's slow, has a weak arm, but great baseball instincts that keep him from being unplayable in the outfield. Wallner is a fly ball hitter with elite power and good OBP. He's not weak against any pitches, but he doesn't excel against any, either. He's pretty fast, has a cannon arm, but poor baseball instincts which is the only thing keeping him from being an elite fielder. Larnach is a backup corner OF or a starter on a team with some injury issues or that is not trying to compete. Wallner is a potential All Star. They're just not similar.

Duffey had a couple really nice seasons for the Twins, but everything just kinda went poof and disappeared.

Wallner's hit LHP in the past like in 2022 when he OPS'd .911 against them in 150+ PA. I recall Julien and Kirilloff have always struggled against lefties so I don't have much hope of them turning things around, but Wallner is not going to improve while being constantly shielded from the experience.

Oh yeah, Wallner's almost certainly never going to get down to 20%. But 28-29% can totally happen. He was at 31.5% last year, and I do think the very bad umpiring early this year messed with his head.

Stewart's on the IL again, this time with a "right shoulder strain" instead of "right shoulder tendonitis." It makes sense as his velocity was down 2mph. I just don't have any faith he's going to be back this year given how long his bout of tendonitis took him to shake out, and how many setbacks he had. Even if he was healthy, and you could make the argument the Twins' bullpen is deep, I'm not sure openers are justified, to be honest. Starting pitchers as a whole are much better FTO, and mostly, openers were used to help middling quality starters, not your best guys. In 2024, the starter median FIP is 3.63 first time through the order for 148 starting pitchers with 20+ innings pitched FTO. Top 30 - 1.76-2.95 31-60 - 2.99-3.38 61-90 - 3.40-3.90 91-120 - 3.92-4.52 121-148 - 4.54-7.89 Agreed that offense is not reliable in the post season. They're going up against elite starters as laid out above. A 25% chance of an ace leaving the game with less than 5 innings or an ERA above 3.99, and that excludes all the old school 6.0-6.2 inning 3 earned run starts (6.0 inn = 4.50 ERA, 6.1 inn = 4.27 ERA, 6.2 inn = 4.05 ERA). Aces almost never have a true clunker.

Wallner's K rate was 31.5% last year. The K rate will come down. He's only had 403 PA at the MLB level, still really like a rookie. Aaron Judge was mentioned in this article. His first full season? 30.7%, then 30.5%, then 31.5%. It wasn't until Judge's age 28 season that his K rate dropped below 30%. Wallner has solid plate coverage and he's not weak against any major pitch types with 80 grade raw power. He will figure it out, and he'll keep improving.

What is an “Ace”? There is no accepted definition for a pitcher earning the moniker “ace” which leads to all kind of friendly to less friendly debates when the declaration pitcher A is or is not an “ace.” For me, an ace pitcher needs to have a few things on their resume. 1. An ERA of 3.39 or lower or a combination of history and FIP/SIERA/xFIP which suggests their ERA should be in that category 2. Long streaks of starts with 5.0+ (usually 6.0+) innings and ERA’s under 4.00 in those starts. We’re talking a bare minimum of 4, but often 5 or 6+ games in a row. 3. A pattern of starts which suggests the long streaks are earned by seeing consistent starts with FIPs below 4.00. The basic gist is a pitcher where you don’t hope they pitch well, you just expect it’s a near automatic win when they start for you. A pitcher you have confidence to deliver a great start against whatever team or opposing pitcher they start against. Item’s #2 and #3 separate “aces” from pitchers who’ve been lucky over a few starts or are up and down where you don’t really know what to expect from them on the mound. Jose Berrios was never an ace in my book. At his peak, he was a back end #2 or high end #3, but his bonus was just how much of a work horse he really was. He’d generally go 3 starts between hiccups like a typical mid rotation guy. Again, it’s the difference between expectation and hope. Taking a look at the top 5 fWAR starting pitchers with 70+ innings (gets us to 128 total) this season and compare them to the Twins’ starters, you can see clear distinctions between what I consider to be an “ace” level pitcher, and our rotation. Ober has been the best starter for the Twins this year, but it’s clear he’s in a different class than the “aces.” I’ve also added trade interest kind of guys. Fedde, Flaherty, Kikuchi, Eflin, Eovaldi, Sears, Rogers, Lorenzen and Berrios' 2021 to the mix for comparisons. Berrios was that borderline #2 guy. He mostly pitched well enough to deserve a #2 monkier, but the results weren't quite up to how consistent he needed to be on the mound. QS2 is my definition of a qualified start. 5.0+ innings pitched, ERA of 3.99 or lower. If a pitcher leaves the game with an ERA under 4.00, there's a good chance their team only needs to score 4 runs to win the game, and that should happen well over 50% of the time. If they leave the game with an ERA of 4.00 or higher, there's a good chance their team will need to score 5 runs or more to win the game, and that has a dramatic impact on likelihood of a win. Every run allowed by a team between 0 and 5 causes a major shift in likelihood of winning, and that's just a fact. Allowing more than 5, well, the odds shift less and less because you're already hosed if you have to ask your offense to put up more than 6. FIP2 is the same, but an FIP of 3.99 or lower Max Streak is the number of starts in a row where the pitcher manages a QS2 Streaks 4+ is how many of those 4 game streaks the pitcher has put together this year Some guidelines you'll probably start recognizing if you look at pitchers in this way 70%+ on the QS2/FIP2 with 5+ game streaks is about the land of the ace. 60-70% is the land of the #2 with 4 game streaks 50-60% is the land of the #3 with 3 game streaks -------------------------------------------------------------------- below the line are not really playoff caliber starters. They're guys who might get a start, but not guys you want starting a pivotable game. 40-50% is the land of the #4 with less than 3 game streaks 39% and lower is the land of the #5 with less than 3 game streaks Bailey Ober has been the best pitcher on the Twins this year, but he's a clear gap away from the land of ace pitchers. He's probably in the #2 starter category right now, really pitching well. Lopez is next in line, but he honestly falls into the #3 bracket so far this year as he hasn't been consistent enough yet. Hopefully, he's better in the second half. The Twins really need him to step it up. Joe Ryan has consistently performed under his FIP, and he hasn't been reliable when it comes to putting up my definition of a quality start. He's pretty similar to 2021 Jose Berrios, though a bit less reliable. Borderline in the #3 category, I'd say. SWR is a bit of an oddball. Totally unreliable with good start, bad start, good start, bad start. No idea what you're getting with him, right on the border of #3-4 for me. Paddack falls into the #5 rotation arm category. The 35% FIP2% is just too bold to ignore. All in all, I'd say the Twins have a mismatch at the top of the rotation against other playoff teams, but we're deep with quality starters after that. Lopez and Ober are the key to the Twins playoff rotation. If Ober can keep it up and Lopez can pick it up, we may roll into the playoffs with 2 #2 guys, and a solid #3. Not quite where you'd like to be, but competitive. If Lopez sticks where he's at, the Twins will likely be at a clear disadvantage in the first 2 starts for the series, and potentially the 3rd. If the Twins' bats can bail them out in game 1 of a playoff series, I like the Twins' chances against almost any other team. If the opponent's ace skunks us out of the gate like Wheeler or Skubal did recently, we're going to have a real tough row to hoe coming back IMHO.

Some of both. The Twins need to pound the Guardians into the ground for my personal happiness. I'm not sure why I dislike Cleveland so much, but I just don't like that city to have nice things. It has to remain the same as the hastily made tourism videos.

In defense of Falvey, he further improved his PR making it seem like probably Detroit and Chicago were asking for a lot more from the Twins than other teams intentionally because it was inside the division, though it makes no sense from a rental perspective as it doesn't make the Twins better next year if they get Flaherty or some other rental. Falvey is definitely better in interviews and in front of the camera than, say, Dave St. Peter, Joe Pohlad or Thad Levine.

It's not a rationalization. Also, there's more than 1 version of WAR, and the exact opposite happens when you look at fWAR.

Yeah, that's some optimism there. Gray had a 3.34 ERA at the break, and he's had a couple rough starts in a row. His FIP is still light years ahead of Ober. Take a look at their game log FIPs and you'll see a stark difference between the two. Gray goes out and consistently puts up FIPs which line up with ace level performance (low 3s or below). 13 of Gray's 19 starts have an FIP of 3.33 or lower. 8 of Ober's 20 starts are like that. Ober is pitching well this year, and especially lately with the help of some positive regression. A big key to Ober's improvement is being more efficient. He's getting deeper into games than last year with similar pitch counts. He's not in the same category as Gray, and I don't think he'll get there. That said, Ober looks a little improved over last year and he's making the case to be a playoff starter.

Looking at the list is a little unsettling right now. The Twins aren't in as good of a position as I had expected them to be by now. We're probably not going to catch the Yankees for WC1, and beating the seemingly ever impossibly lucky Guardians feels a bit unlikely now. Fangraphs has the Twins at 80% to make the playoffs, but just 22% to win the division. WC2 & 3 are tied with the Twins and Royals. Seattle (and Houston) and Boston are in striking range of a wild card berth and the Rays aren't totally out of it yet, though they totally raised the white flag so the likelihood of them hanging around is low. https://www.mlb.com/standings/wild-card/league 4 potential spots for the Twins to make the playoffs. 6 teams vying for them.

The irony is the Pohlads just potentially shot themselves in the foot in regard to profit. This penny pinching will potentially have significant ramifications on fan interest next year.

Sonny Gray was runner up for the Cy Young, not Lopez, and Gray has proven his ace pedigree with a 3.30 ERA and 3.27 FIP over the past 6 years. Pablo Lopez got 11pts out of a possible 210pts last year in Cy Young voting to finish 7th. Same 6 year span 2019-2024: Some ace performance level 3.15 ERA, 2.90 FIP Tyler Glasnow 3.16 ERA, 3.14 FIP Corbin Burnes 3.23 ERA, 3.10 FIP Zack Wheeler 3.30 ERA, 3.27 FIP Sonny Gray Gotcha some #2-ish guys here 3.42 ERA, 3.88 FIP Marcus Stroman 3.48 ERA, 3.91 FIP Chris Bassitt 3.76 ERA, 3.03 FIP Dylan Cease This is what #3s look about like 3.91 ERA, 3.85 FIP Nathan Eovaldi 3.97 ERA, 3.60 FIP Pablo Lopez, Ace & Cy Young Favorite! 3.98 ERA, 4.11 FIP Jose Berrios Lopez obviously became the guy he is today after his first two seasons, and if you throw those out he'd now potentially slot nicely into that mid/back #2 category. 3.78 ERA, 3.49 FIP. Not even close to ace territory.