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bean5302

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Everything posted by bean5302

  1. bean5302
    Okay. Lets stretch this out: Reporter: Are you being told by ownership you cannot add any amount to the payroll at the deadline? Falvey: We're looking at a lot of different options, and if we find the right fit, we'll be open to making a move. I haven't been given a specific number by ownership, but I think we're happy with our roster and our payroll situation if we're not able to find the right fit. Reporter: Has ownership given you a ballpark number for you to add? Falvey: We evaluate every player and opportunity on its own merit. We don't come into a trade deadline or offseason with a set budget range in mind that we're trying to find players to get to a certain dollar amount. Like, oh, we have an extra 10 million we still need to spend to hit our target. It doesn't work that way for us. Reporter: Is there room to add an upper rotation arm like Max Scherzer or a Blake Snell at the deadline? Falvey: I can't comment on specific players under contract with other teams. As I talked about, we look at tons of different guys and try to evaluate whether or not a player is a fit with us here, can they help us win games here, and whether or not we the player's existing team is a willing trade partner for that player. Reporter: There's been a lot of speculation and reporting that ownership is set on the payroll and you'll have to subtract payroll to add even $5MM of remaining salary. Is that true? Falvey: It's going to depend on the specific player involved whether or not they give us a clear advantage. If we're in agreement with ownership about something being a great opportunity to acquire a player who might require us to expand the budget somewhat, I expect ownership would support the move, but again, we're happy with our team as-is, we think it's a competitive team we can take into the playoffs so the bar to add value to the guys we already have is going to be high. I hope you can see how this goes...
  2. bean5302
    Joe Pohlad talked about other organizations being competitive with lower payrolls, specifically mentioning the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays. Joe Pohlad "I think in today's game you can see there are a number of different ways to win," Pohlad said when discussing cutting payroll during the offseason. "You see that both with the Tampa Bay Rays and with the Baltimore Orioles having lower payrolls, turning out very successful products on the field but also investing in other areas of the business. That is something that we are doing. But without a question the television situation is having an impact on our business but beyond that we're just trying to right-size our business. That goes into it as well." Now, the issue with this is nobody else has been as successful as the Rays with their approach. The Rays have terrible, horrible, awful attendance and live purely off revenue sharing. That's their approach. The Twins ownership committed to long term, big contracts like Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Pablo Lopez. Two of those with NTC. You cannot reverse course suddenly after committing to that previous philosophy unless you can push those contracts off the books. Tampa Bay typically runs payrolls in that $70-100MM range, and they trade all their players away with 1-2 years of control left. The Orioles ran payrolls up to $175MM by 2017 before a commitment to a 5 year tank for a rebuild strategy where they were the worst team in MLB. Apparently, the Pohlads missed this part. The Diamondbacks ran payrolls as high as $171MM this year as well, plus $142MM back in 2017. Up until 2022, the Kansas City Royals had even run a max payroll larger than the maximum of the Minnesota Twins, hitting $142MM in 2016. The Guardians pushed to $143MM in 2018 as well where the Twins' max at that point was $121MM (2017). Almost all small/mid market teams will expand payrolls when they have a chance at contending. The Twins... well, the Pohlads have essentially said they won't anymore, but the Twins are NOT a small market team. They're a poorly managed (from an operations standpoint) mid market team. They're on par with Seattle.
  3. bean5302
    If it takes 3 years for the MLB ready guys they acquired to play and none of the players acquired make an impact in the postseason results, not so sure. The NPV of that trade doesn't look great unless the Twins do something in the postseason soon, IMHO.
  4. bean5302
    Castillo DFAd
  5. bean5302
    It's $20MM, dude. I'd like to have a Jaguar F Pace in the garage. I have a Ford Focus. You have to live within your means and if ownership is dictating those means are $20-30MM lower, you make cuts you have to make, not that you like to make. Buxton has a NTC and the Twins don't have a legit CF replacement option. Correa has a NTC and the Twins don't have a legit replacement option (Lewis always hurt, Lee hasn't proven himself, Castro is nearing free agency and getting expensive)
  6. bean5302
    The first steps to Flaherty is looking at his results vs. expected and Stuff+, IMHO. It kind of cuts through a lot of the speculation on whether or not he's the same pitcher getting oddly different results. ERA 4.99 -> 3.13 xERA 5.06 -> 2.95 (relies on batted ball data) FIP 4.36 -> 3.15 xFIP 4.36 -> 2.47 (normalized FIP for average HR rate) SIERA ->4.53 -> 2.59 (relies on batted ball data) His fastball is still league average 98 vs. 96 His changeup is dramatically better 68 -> 94 His knuckle curve is significantly better 93 -> 103 Location+ is slightly better 99 -> 104, and it's all based on fastball location. His other pitches are rarely used. Location and results F-Strike% is up Sw-Strike% is up O-swing is up O-contact is down Flaherty's 4 seamer is moving a lot better this year with a little less vertical drop and finally a little horizontal movement, and the movement has come from active spin rate where Flaherty is getting his fastball to move in unison with the spin he's putting on it. From a Stuff+ standpoint, it doesn't grade any better. That said... The changeup is moving the same, but it grades way higher because it's being compared to the fastball and there's now more separation of the two pitches, and the same with the curve. The change to Flaherty's fastball has made both the curve and the changeup far more effective. In bold are red flags for me. There aren't that many of them, but locating pitches and first pitch strike rates feel like a good/bad Liriano to me. It's tough for me to get on board with a veteran player really changing that consistently.
  7. bean5302
    Reporter: Are you being told by ownership you cannot add any amount to the payroll at the deadline? Falvey: We're looking at a lot of different options, and if we find the right fit, we'll be open to making a move. I haven't been given a specific number by ownership, but I think we're happy with our roster and our payroll situation if we're not able to find the right fit. That's what a direct question/answer would look like. Dodge.
  8. bean5302
    Formed this opinion in April and just kept riding it, right? Here are the series results for the Twins when facing off against likely playoff teams. The Twins are 7-4 in series' against playoff caliber teams since the beginning of May. KCR - W MIL - T CLE - L LAD - L BAL - L May BOS - W SEA - W NYY - L CLE - L KCR - W June HOU - W NYY - L ARI - W SEA - W July HOU - W MIL - L PHI - TBD
  9. bean5302
    Pablo Lopez is the starter the Twins should trade away. The Twins can part with Walker Jenkins to bring in a stud multi-year cost controlled starter to replace Lopez's #2 status or better. Kirilloff shouldn't be traded because he has negative value. He'll be non-tendered. The Twins will also need to move Vazquez by trading prospect value. Paddack definitely needs to go. The Twins should be able to move him for a minimal return due to his low salary (relative). Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober are going to be expensive, even as Arb 1. I'd figure $5MM for Ryan and $4MM for Ober.
  10. bean5302
    You should stick to virtue signaling and/or personal or political ideology arguments on Bauer. He was slightly better than Imanaga (2.76 vs. 2.80 ERA) despite Bauer shaking off 2 years of rust for the first couple games in that league. After that rough start, Bauer was lights out better than Imanaga, who has been dominant for the Cubs this year owning a near identical ERA in MLB as he owned with the Bay Stars. I'd be shocked if Bauer was signed by the Twins. It'd be a great move, though, if the ownership really is screwing the fans and the front office with a hard payroll cap. When you need to find ways to win and ownership is telling you to do it without normal resources, you get creative. Just like Moneyball with the A's bringing in Jeremy Giambi as a sort of talented problem child, accurate or not to reality. I feel like maybe the Twins would want to write in a few stipulations (note for Dave St. Peter and the Pohlad family, writing in some limitations like your ability to pull agreements say, if half the service provided winds up being unfulfilled like with Bally Sports North). If ownership has a problem with it, you throw them under the bus publicly. If everybody is suggesting Falvey should leave and all the other teams want him, it's the right move if done the right way.
  11. bean5302
    Lopez owns a 4.86 ERA right now. 9 Quality Starts in 20 games. Ryan has been terrible in the 2nd half of each year of his career. His last 5 games he owns a 5.34 ERA. 11 Quality Starts in 20 games. Simeon Woods Richardson. The xFIP and SIERA scare me a little. 6 QS in 17 games, though Rocco "quick hook" Baldelli has something to do with that. Woods Richardson is the kind of pitcher who could slot into a playoff rotation. Bailey Ober is not one of the guys you want in the top of the playoff order 1-3 guys, but he's not the worst #4 option. What the Twins are missing is the guy who is supposed to slot in at #1. Having 2 #4's and 2 #3s isn't how we get to 4 playoff rotation arms.
  12. bean5302
    Duran I was talking about it with fans at the game. Splitter, splitter, splitter, curve. Splitter, splitter, splitter, curve. Splitter, splitter, splitter, curve.
  13. bean5302
    Sorry I didn't make that clear enough. The fact a fielder who is very good at positioning gets dinged for it vs. a player who positions terribly, but makes up for some of it with athleticism gets rewarded is the greatest flaw in OAA. It's why I feel OAA is the worst metric to use on its own; it doesn't tell you what actually happened, and whether or not a fielder's play results in more real outs than average. It's probably also a big reason why OAA is the least reliable metric with the greatest swings from year to year.
  14. bean5302
    MLBTR is reporting the F.O. is suggesting there is essentially zero payroll flexibility for the Twins like many folks have commented on this site where I've poo-pooed such comments as being overly dramatic. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/07/twins-reportedly-working-with-payroll-limitations-at-trade-deadline.html I've emailed my Twins season ticket rep and let them know ownership decisions may very well decide if I "right size" my attendance next year.
  15. bean5302
    Blake Snell got a $150MM offer he passed on last year. He's going to get an offer far above $30MM. $125MM is probably the floor. There's only 1 legitimate way Snell is picking up the $30MM option, and that's if he's going to miss the whole 2025 season.
  16. bean5302
    Snell throws a lot of balls and walks quite a few guys, but he owns a career 3.31 ERA and 3.46 FIP, is left handed, and can completely dominate even good teams. Snell entered the season without any spring training, signing with the Giants on March 20th. Snell was aggressive at being part of the rotation right away, and his overconfidence simulated games were equivalent to game action really showed. I wouldn't be interested in Snell if he were still pitching like Montgomery was. He's now looking like the potentially elite arm the Twins need, and the Twins should be aggressive at acquiring him. The Giants have hinted it'd be valuable to them to get Snell off the books for future luxury tax reasons, and Snell's struggles out of the gate and lingering risk of the $30MM player option should keep his value lower. If the Twins can't make this type of deal, I'll be hoping it's Falvey's last year here.
  17. bean5302
    While I agree Falvey botched the offseason going back to quantity over quality, what were you expecting the Twins to add? The Twins essentially added Farmer, Margot, Santana, Topa, Jackson, Okert, Desclafani, and Staumont off the top of my head. They were fairly active this offseason, they just didn't make the right moves IMHO. The payroll was right around where people expected after November's announcement. $125-135MM.
  18. bean5302
    It depends on how valuable you view Royce Lewis. It depends on 3 things. Control years. Expected performance. Expected future salary. Zac Gallen for Eddie Julien straight up would be about right by Baseballtradevalues. I'd make that trade all day every day, but the Diamondback's GM just said they expect to be buyers, and they're especially interested in controlled starters. So are the Dodgers and some other teams out there. The Twins are probably in a better spot looking for rentals due to the future payroll considerations with Correa, Lopez and Buxton eating up $70MM on their own next year.
  19. bean5302
    It's sample size, luck, and defensive shift changes. xwOBA is like a more wide reaching stat than something like BABIP. Consider it ERA vs FIP, but a bit more advanced. Maybe like ERA vs SIERA. 2024 wOBA vs xwOBA Correa = .383 vs .362 Castro = .343 vs .331 Buxton = .354 vs .330 Miranda = .379 vs .345 Santana = .332 vs .326 Jeffers = .339 vs .322 Lewis = .430 vs .400 Kepler = .311 vs .308 Julien = .305 vs .298 Larnach = .330 vs .353 Lee = .297 vs .304 Wallner = .351 vs .313 Vazquez = .225 vs .249 Farmer = .256 vs .277 While you can see a single season variance, especially with this just being a little more than half season so far, seeing a trend where xwOBA diverges substantially from actual wOBA isn't common. When it comes to defensive metrics, they're measuring totally different things. OAA replaces the actual player with a fictional, hypothetically average fielder with average reflexes, average, acceleration, average speed and an average arm. Then it simulates what would have happened if the hypothetical fielder was asked to make the play vs. what actually happened, but positioning and instincts can make enormous differences in the outcome of a play. DRS and UZR are pretty similar. They use IDENTICAL datasets. They section the field into zones, then assign positions to their expected zones. The metrics give bonus modifiers for making a difficult play or botching a routine play, but UZR limits the modifier while DRS does not. UZR also uses scorers to report when shifts are employed and it throws that data out. DRS separates batted ball data more aggressively, but it separates the data sets so much you wind up with super SSSS which might sit at the edges of statistically relevant. Basically, UZR is steadier, but it might blend a bit too much while DRS is less steady, but subject to additional error. RF/9 says fielders of position x are involved in the making of outs y times. If a fielder is involved in more or less outs than league average, they're better or worse than league average. It's vulnerable to shifts like the Twins employed so frequently because it increases the rate at which some fielders are involved in plays.
  20. bean5302
    I'm not alone in that the likelihood I renew season tickets for next year may well hinge on the Twins' trade deadline moves to add a legitimate playoff rotation arm. Another solid start from Blake Snell last night. He's the guy the Twins should be targeting. Not a career #4-5 guy. Snell's on a $15MM salary this year, and it's highly likely he opts out of his contract. The Giants are 48-53.
  21. bean5302
    Jose Miranda is better than Carlos Santana. Miranda would have directly replaced Santana's plate appearances. The implication Santana has provided some sort of major lift to the team is looking at his play in a vacuum.
  22. bean5302
    Kikuchi is not a playoff caliber starter. He's never had an ERA below 3.86 in his career. His career ERA is 4.69. His career FIP is 4.64. I'm tired of hearing about him. His sparkly FIP is a total outlier, and there's no way I believe he continues it.
  23. bean5302
    Agreed. Odds are pretty much maximized for a bunt in that situation, especially if the batter has wheels.
  24. bean5302
    Balls and strikes would have to be considered useless using that same thought process. The fact an official scorer occasionally thinks a play is an error where you don't think it is or vice versa doesn't invalidate the entire process. Official scorers are paid MLB employees subject to performance reviews and a complaint review process. The process they use isn't just some fan sitting in a seat somewhere drinking a beer and watching the game.
  25. bean5302
    Your (revised) 20/20 hindsight is operating at 1000% here. Coming into the season, this was the expected bullpen and their 2023 ERAs. Jhoan Duran 2.45 ERA (elite) Brock Stewart 0.65 ERA (elite) Griffin Jax 3.86 ERA (good) +Jay Jackson 2.12 ERA (elite) Caleb Thielbar 3.23 ERA (elite) Kody Funderburk 0.75 ERA (elite) +Justin Topa 2.61 ERA (elite) + Steven Okert 4.45 ERA (poor) It was expected to be a super elite bullpen. Which high priced, FA bullpen arm were you wanting to replace one of our projected 26 man roster guys with that you think ownership's budget restricted the Twins from signing. Depth options were even good as some of the rough ERAs were expected to rebound. + Josh Staumont 5.40 ERA (poor) Jorge Alcala 6.23 ERA (poor) Cole Sands 3.53 ERA (good) +Daniel Duarte 3.69 ERA (good) +Diego Castillo 6.23 ERA (poor) +Matt Bowman 9.00 ERA (poor) The Twins experienced a whole host of injuries to the bullpen through Spring Training and early in the season. Despite that, the Twins' bullpen ranks: 7th of 30 in FIP = 3.69 8th of 30 in ERA = 3.64 Still one of the better bullpens in baseball.
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