bean5302

I understand what you were looking at, and on the surface, it made sense. Just digging in a little further makes the odds a lot longer because the Giants don't just have to make up 3.5 games to get into the playoffs. The Giants have to pass the Mets, Diamondbacks (division), Cardinals and Pirates while preventing 2 teams right behind them from gaining ground (Cubs, Reds). 5 of 6 of those teams are not in the Giants' division. The Giants have zero head to head games against the Mets, Cubs or Pirates. They've got 2 series against the Diamondbacks and a single series against the Cardinals and Reds. So much has to go right for them. It's like calculating playoff odds for the Vikings near the end of the season, haha.

Blake Snell + Taylor Rogers + Cash = Eduoard Julien + Marco Raya

First off, I think we can all agree that it won't make any difference if the Twins were not to do a single thing at the deadline if they were to win the World Series with what they've got. It's extremely far fetched in my opinion because our starters just do not line up well against playoff caliber rotations. It could happen, though. Royals in 2015 weren't juggernauts in the rotation. Second, I don't care if the Twins win the World Series and then go .500 for 2 years. For those folks who don't want to mortgage the future that they didn't even know they had 3 months ago, you have a very different philosophy than me. You use the old Pohlad philosophy. "Be competitive" is the goal. Base Goal, play .500 baseball. Elevated Goal make the playoffs. Reach Goal = Win the division. Hate it. So opposed to that line of thinking that I'm sometimes even personally annoyed when I see that opinion. I'd like to see the Twins try to win a World Series. Winning a World Series is worth more than every single prospect in the entire Twins' system combined, IMHO. The impact it has on the potential revenues and payrolls change the bracket the Twins can operate within. It changes everything. Third, cash flow and value are not the same. If your house is growing in value but you're racking up credit card balances because the house payment is $1,000 too high, you're not talking about how well you're doing with the house. A steady company losing money who has a stock price going up isn't excited about their financials, either. Team valuations are largely irrelevant. Cash flow is what matters. Based on operating income, the Twins have lost money since 2019. 2019 profit. 2020 huge loss. 2021 break evenish. 2022 big loss. 2023 medium profit thanks entirely to the playoff run. 2024 appeared to be setup to break even EoY if the Twins didn't make the playoffs based on 2023's numbers to me. Dave St. Peter and the 7 new fans he's added to Twins baseball vs. the 2,000 he's chased off might have a better scoop on that. Did we beat Wheeler? No. Did we beat Skubal? No. We beat their teams in their latest regular season series' though. That's playoff baseball vs. regular season baseball. Our #4 and #5 are better than their #4 and #5 and our #3 is a push so we wind up winning. It doesn't matter. We don't even get to that #4 guy because we're bounced in 3 straight loss games. Even with great efforts from our starters, we didn't score many runs against those ace pitchers. That's why you need to fight ace pitchers with ace pitchers. This is why the Twins will probably get smoked in the playoffs right now like EVERY SINGLE OTHER SEASON IN THE PAST 20 YEARS other than last year when we had the competitive 1-2 combo Gray and Lopez. Just like in 87 when we had Viola and Blyleven. Just like we had Tapani, Erickson and Morris. The top end rotation of World Series competitors is almost always stacked. There are rare exceptions, but 90% of the time, you need studs in the 1-2 rotation spots.

I through WAR in there just as a reference. You don't get to 8 WAR (BRef bases it on ERA+) without being pretty outstanding, regardless of the era.

Nice to see Jenkins producing some XBH, even if today's 2B was really a single and a throwing error. Jenkins' ISO is starting to climb back up to respectable. Gabriel Gonzalez has been hitting the ball much better as of late as well. It's good to see. Unfortunately Emmanuel Rodriguez's day to day status continues as he just can't seem to shake that nagging thumb sprain.

3 ER in 5 innings isn't good. That's a 5.40 ERA, and Varland owned a 1.60 WHIP, also very poor thanks to 4 walks and 4 hits in just 5 innings. He's cooked as a starter and the sooner the Twins move him out of the rotation, the sooner St. Paul has room for Andrew Morris.

The Giants (53-55) were 4.5 games back from a playoff spot and have 6 teams ahead of them for 3 Wildcard spots, and two teams are only 1.5 games back from the Giants. They're 10.5 games out of the division lead. The Twins were 4.5 games back from winning the division and they would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. Braves WC1 +5.0 over Giants Padres WC2 +4.0 over Giants Mets WC3 +3.5 over Giants ------------------------------------- Diamondbacks +3.0 over Giants Cardinals +2.5 over Giants Pirates +1.5 over Giants -------------------------------------- Giants Cubs 1.5 behind Giants Reds 1.5 behind Giants Totally different scenarios. The Giants aren't totally out of it, but they're well outside the playoffs given how many teams they need to pass. You have to assume at least 3 of those 6 teams ahead of the Giants for the Wildcard will start distancing themselves. It's a tough row to hoe.

Lopez = Viola? Viola was as good as Johan Santana in his prime back then, and he put up 8.1 WAR in 1987. Lopez is a fine mid/back end #2 when he has a good season. Blyleven put up 4.4 WAR in 1987 and was close to the Cy Young in 1989 with the Angels. Later career Blyleven was still very good, just not generally elite. Blyleven (ERA+ 115 in 1987) is a good comp for Lopez (ERA+ 117 in 2023), not Viola. No player guarantees victory, but having a strong 1-2 is a huge plus. If the Twins lost Lopez or Ryan without making a move, they'd almost certainly be a one and done team IMHO.

It's been 4 years since Snell was pitching in the AL East. In 2020, this was the Twins team: SP1 Berrios, SP2 Maeda, SP3 Dobnak, SP4 Hill, SP5 Pineda Cl - Rogers, RP2 - Clippard, RP3 - Duffey, RP4 - May, RP5 - Alcala, RP6 - Romo, RP7 - Thielbar C - Garver, Jeffers 1B - Sano, 2B - Arraez, 3B - Donaldson, SS - Polanco LF - Rosario, CF - Buxton, RF - Kepler DH - Cruz Util - Cave, Gonzalez, Adrianza 5 of the 25 people on that team remain on the Twins 26 man/40 man. With so much turnover, I don't know as the teams would be the same, but I suppose the stadiums would be.

If he did, he'd have an extension, and he wouldn't be on the lame duck status. GMs getting to their final year = hot seat. Joe Pohlad basically stated the Twins needed to be advancing in the playoffs. That was the new bar right now.

It comes down to a couple things IMHO. 1. The AL Central does not look like it's going to be AAAA level anymore. 2. Playoff appearances are far from guaranteed even in a weak division (2021-2022 for example). 3. Playoffs are different from the regular season because you only face the best starters. Fangraphs talked about the value of wins in an article. Wins aren't worth the same to all teams. A 60 win team getting to 61 wins is not the same as a 89 win team getting to 90 wins in terms of value. It's not what an ace does for you over the course of the regular season. It's what they do for you in the playoffs. 1987 - The Twins weren't a great team, but they did have 2 very strong starters. Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven. 1991 - The Twins were a good team and they had Kevin Tapani and Scott Erickson leading the rotation. Having 2 great starters, and even better if you have a 3rd very good pitcher, makes it so much more likely to win a playoff series when a single run has such a huge impact on the outcome of winning percentage when it's critical. It's also worth noting. What happens if Ryan or Lopez goes down? Does the rotation still have the oomph it needs to be competitive in the playoffs?

Fairly different scenario. Mahle was a guy producing back end arm numbers who the F.O. thought would be a mid rotation guy away from Great American Ballpark. He came with multiple years of team control and a cheap salary. Falvey is on the final year of his contract, and he was put on notice last year that expectations were raised. If the Twins miss the playoffs, it seems unlikely Falvey keeps his job. If the Twins fail to advance in the playoffs, it's pretty questionable Falvey keeps his job. There's a lot of reason to be aggressive here.

The player option doesn't hurt anybody that badly, though. 2024 - $5MM remaining --------------------------------------- 2025 - $15MM (player option) 2026 - $17MM signing bonus, non-transferable SF has to pay 2027 - $15MM deferred from 2025. The acquiring team only has to pay $15MM for Snell in 2025, skips 2026, then has to pay $15MM in 2027 deferred. It's an easy player option to absorb.

Prielipp turns 24 in January. Not sure what his inning limits will look like, but I doubt he'd be able to be a full time starter prior to 2026. I think the Twins will probably try to keep him a starter. Maybe 40 innings this year?

I don't think depth is a concern for the Twins. They're an incredibly deep team, IMHO. The issue is the top of the rotation, as has been the case seemingly almost forever outside of last year.

I suspect the Giants are A) holding out till the last minute to make a decision on selling B) holding out for the best offer. Snell may wind up with the Yankees since they were all-in on him this past offseason. The thing is, it won't take much for the Twins to beat any even mostly unreasonable offer. So they should frigging beat the offer.

The term "quality start" originates from the idea the start gives the team a good chance to win the game, and that origin dates back to 1985 where pitchers routinely went 7-8 innings and 6 innings was a short outing. When allowing 3 runs, 6 innings vs 7-8 innings actually makes a huge impact on game outcomes as the bullpen wouldn't be expected to give up a run in 1-2 innings, though they would be expected to give one up over 3 innings, statistically. If you need 4 runs to win the game, the team will win 60% of the time. If you need 5 runs to win the game, the team wins 40% of the time. I tend to view starts of 5 innings or more with an ERA of under 4.00 as "quality" in my book in the current time frame. So while Joe Ryan totally earned a "quality start" the 3 runs in 6 innings didn't give the Twins a great chance to win the game, though it wasn't a bad start by any means, either.

Seriously, though. Every pitcher is going to have a rough day now and again. Matthews' FIP was 4.76, standing at the highest value it's been all year long. Thanks in part to a .533 BABIP, the 9.00 ERA was pretty unsightly.

Blake Snell is the target for the Twins. No other player makes more sense to turn the Twins into a real World Series competitor. Snell, Lopez, Ryan, Woods Richardson with Ober as a 5th starter for a long series if needed. That should hopefully be a rotation stronger than last year's come playoff time. With a shift away from the super strikeout prone lineup last year, the Twins have more steady run production as well.

Falvey is pretty notorious for waiting too long in the offseason. Just have to see what he does at the deadline.

Really tough to gauge what Blake Snell is worth. Baseballtradevalues has Blake Snell as 0.4 surplus which is nothing. Like PTBNL, but that isn't accurate at all. Honestly, I think a 6-10 prospect gets Snell. Maybe a couple 11-20s. He shouldn't be that expensive, especially with SF itching to get him off the books.

Fangraphs shows Randy Dobnak has 3 MiLB options remaining. He got a 4th option year since he accrued so little time.

I think Funderburk and Kirilloff could both be activated a couple weeks before the 60 day time period, and artificially forcing players onto the 60 day IL gets the MLBPA worked up. Since MLB has started to crack down on Phantom IL stuff, it's risky as well.

I don't have any problems with trading him if the Twins won't use him, though I would prefer the Twins trading 2 starters out of the rotation this offseason so Dobnak is good depth. MLB teams might want to get that peek at Dobnak at the MLB level before they'd be interested though. It's a real interesting scenario.

Not. Even. Close. The small advantage (if any advantage at all should Miranda see regular playing time at 1B) in WAR for Santana's defense over Miranda's is not worth the better bat Miranda brings. Jose Miranda has all of 50 innings played at 1B the last 2 years. Santana is a switch hitter, but the only side he can actually hit well is from the right side against lefties. He's been below league average against righties in recent years. Miranda hits both righties and lefties.