bean5302

The Twins' defense is a weakness from the eye test and the metric I trust the most. Comparing OAA to DRS and UZR, Minnesota's fielders added anywhere from about 0.00 to 0.20 to the runs allowed of their pitchers. It might not sound like much at first, but it means the Twins' defense allowed their opponents to score 1 extra run every 5th game by UZR. It's a big deal as a single run scored has a massive impact on the likely outcome of the average game. OAA thinks Minnesota's defense was league average ranked #17 at 0 runs saved or lost. DRS has it ranked 25th with -20 runs and UZR has the Twins dead last in all of MLB at -30.5 runs. Carlos Santana gets the accolades as a defensive savant this past season, especially around these parts, since it's a positive for a Twins site. You can see how wild the DRS/OAA metrics are compared to UZR/150, and the trends. In general, I think Santana is an average-ish 1B. Losing him isn't a big deal defensively. The bigger issue is the error rates for the infielders and the lack of athleticism at 2B. Center field defense is the biggest problem in the outfield as the Twins haven't got anything for the 80-100 games Buxton will not play.

The front office sets the hitting philosophy. The hitting coach brings a methodology to carry out the front office's philosophy. It's not clear the front office is changing their philosophy when it comes to developing hitters throughout the system.

Be prepared for lots of call outs on click bait if the writers are sensationalizing topics. A title "Obvious Twins Arbitration Decision - Jhoan Duran" wouldn't have gotten the critical comments about click-bait.

Walker Jenkins honestly has no playing time above High-A Cedar Rapids, and Jenkins struggled out of the gate in Ft Myers after missing 6 weeks with a strained hamstring. Jenkins also struggled out of the gate after his promotion to Cedar Rapids, despite the overall stat line looking good. I'd put his chance of being in a Twins uniform during the regular season next year at 5%. I think the Twins pushed him from A+ to AA too quickly, and I think Jenkins is going to have a rough time in AA next year. Emmanuel Rodriguez could potentially help the Twins as early as May, I'd guess. Minnesota is incredibly thin on center field right now with no control over any player you'd want playing CF on an every day basis after the 60-80 games they might get from Buxton. That gives Rodriguez a huge leg up on chances to make the 26 man. Plus he's already on the 40 man and burned an option last year. The clock is ticking. Luke Keaschall could also get the call mid season depending on how Brooks Lee and Edouard Julien look and if Keaschall absolutely dominates. He's not required to be on the 40 man until Dec '26 so there's no reason to push him and start his clock.

Article title "dilemma" Summary from article: Article Category: Click-bait. There is obviously no dilemma on whether or not to tender Duran. It will be interesting to see how Jax and Duran fare in their negotiations. I expect Jax to go to arbitration if the Twins offer something like what MLBTR predicted (an embarrassingly low $2.6MM) since I sure as hell would with such a laughably low number.

It'd be shocking to me if the Twins traded Larnach this offseason unless it was in a package deal to acquire a different outfielder who could also cover center field. Larnach has a very low ceiling and he's already entering arbitration so he's not bringing back any top 100 style prospects. Emmanuel Rodriguez is a lot like Edouard Julien at the plate with tons of walks and tons of strikeouts. Projecting that type of approach is difficult, and a lot will hinge on how well Rodriguez can cover the plate. Julien struggles to drive balls located over a lot of the plate area, and MLB pitchers will attack weak points much more effectively than MiLB pitchers can. I'd expect Rodriguez to get the call by mid-season if he's playing really well at AAA, but I can't see him getting a job out of Spring Training.

See my comment above about Danny Santana. I'm firmly in the camp that Kirilloff is just SSS hot streak performance, not hurt/not hurt performance. As @nicksaviking asks, please provide the days/weeks where Kirilloff was hurt/not hurt. Also, if you could, please provide the explanation on why didn't Kirilloff have plus power or almost ever take walks in the minors, and why that's different from him not having any plus power or ability to take walks at the MLB level. Arguing (as you say now healed) a wrist injury is related to undiagnosable/treatable mystery back pain is just... I mean, come on... Not to mention every MLB player plays "hurt" through the course of their career or seasons. Luis Arraez just underwent thumb surgery from a torn ligament which had nagged him all year. He produced wRC+ 109 and double Kirilloff's career performance in WAR. It'd be so much easier to accept Kirilloff being a ridiculously over-hyped prospect who isn't an above average hitter at the MLB level.

The Twins can easily capable of keeping Kirilloff at league minimum which saves them $1MM. A 1 week or even a 1 month hot streak is not the same as demonstrating a players expected performance. 5/25-6/10/14 - Danny Santana = 60 PA .396/.418/.547 OPS .965. 8/1-8/24/14 - Danny Santana = 113 PA .343/.384/.524 OPS .908. You'll struggle to find a significantly better period for Alex Kirilloff.

I thought -4 runs below MLB average was "below average" based on my understanding of math. Apparently, you want to die on the hill that -4 is probably above average. I'm pretty confident in my position.

Kirilloff has a flatter, line drive swing like Joe Mauer or Trevor Larnach, not a loftier, fly ball swing which leads to home runs like Matt Wallner. Kirilloff's power has not been sapped by wrist injury, it was never a thing to begin with. 2016 - Rookie Ball ISO = .148 2017 - Tommy John surgery 2018 - A-Ball ISO = .274 2018 - A+ ISO = .188 2019 - AA ISO = .131 2020 - N/A 2021 - MLB ISO = .172 If you look at Kirilloff's stops along the way, he only demonstrated plus game power in A-Ball back in 2018. Nowhere else did Kirilloff show plus power. This is similar to Trevor Larnach's junior year at Oregon after which the Twins drafted him or Joe Mauer's burst of power in 2009. The hype machine has always spun at 10,000rpm for Kirilloff. I don't think there's any question Kirilloff gets non-tendered, and I don't think the Twins will pursue negotiating even a league minimum offer after non-tendering him. They might bring him back on a MiLB deal, but it's possible a team out there gives Kirilloff a 1yr league minimum.

The answer to the question of why relievers get pigeon-holed includes players suggesting they want to be pigeon-holed. Emotions are relevant impact baseball on and off the field, and regardless of whether or not you think relief pitchers should just be robots, they've said they're not. 1. Humans like routine, and baseball players are human. It's not just relief pitchers; there are many quotes every year about players wanting to play a specific position or wanting a specific role like a starter wanting to pitch deeper into games and how a specific role impacts them mentally or physically in their preparation. 2. Players like to get paid, and the "save" stat is used to determine pitcher compensation in arbitration, and the "closer" title gets relief pitchers dramatically larger contracts. 3. Teams and MLB also like closers because they're especially marketable. Now onto addressing your position about the value of relievers being used as soon as any high leverage situation presents itself (which is not something I've even talked about, though the strawman highway construction project in here that I didn't requisition or agree to purchase would suggest otherwise...) 4. The exact same scenario in the 5th inning and 9th inning present different leverage factors. The further into a tight game you get, the more impact a relief pitcher's performance can have on the game. i.e. you use your best reliever in the 6th inning out of desperation. If the exact same scenario exists in the 9th inning, the 9th inning scenario is much higher leverage, but you have to go to your mediocre reliever. Additionally, you could find yourself in a much higher leverage scenario in the later innings. If it's an absolute must win game, you have to roll the dice in the 6th inning with your closer because you don't know what will happen in the future, but it's a gamble. Over the course of a 162 game season, there's a fair chance the house wins at predicting the future vs. waiting until you know for certain you have high leverage and your team is very likely to win. Reserving your best pitchers for when the game is on the line is theoretically reasonable. If the Twins were to deploy Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran in a 1 run game in the 5th and 6th inning and the 9th rolls around with the game tied and the Twins put Steven Okert in to close it resulting in walk off Twins loss, I suspect both of you would absolutely lose your minds about how Baldelli "wasted" Jax and Duran. That's just me speculating, though. Using Cleveland as the example, I'd suggest the way Cleveland played the entire year is more relevant to the regular season usage of pitchers than a short, must-win, risky playoff series. Throughout the year, the best bullpen in baseball (as you put it, @chpettit19) was deployed with a fairly dedicated closer (47 saves led AL) and fairly dedicated setup guy (33 holds) and most of the time, it was Gaddis who immediately preceded Clase.

Did some numbers on that not too long ago. It probably depends on what Kepler does after his career is over since he didn't win any major awards, and wasn't part of a World Series team or anything like that. He's in that Koskie, Dozier, Smalley range for production; none of whom are HoF'ers for the Twins right now. He's also in striking distance of Justin Morneau, but Morneau was a superstar with the Twins where he won an MVP, and he was a fan favorite in addition to being been heavily involved with the Twins since his retirement. Torii Hunter is well above Kepler in production, in addition to being the face of the franchise for quite a while, and that's before he came back for a swan song, and got involved with the team post-retirement as well. If Kepler just rides off into the sunset, which seems more in line with his personality he's shown so far, I'd say he's a long shot. If he comes back to the Twins in a major capacity post retirement, he'll likely get in.

Find some quotes to that effect. The quotes I've seen from pitchers is they prefer some form of routine. Aside from that, I don't think I've ever seen anybody advocate for anything other than setup/closer roles. I'm not advocating for anything; just repeating what pitchers have talked about in the press.

Statcast ranks his "caught stealing" at -3 runs vs. average in 2024 for runners trying to steal 2B. A lot goes into whether or not teams attempt to steal bases, and the overall CS vs. SB, whether or not an attempt to throw was even made, etc. Vazquez's numbers are poor because his arm is very weak. His pop time and exchange is good to great, but his arm just doesn't have the juice, ranking 50th of 63 catchers in MLB rated by Statcast.

I suspect none of these guys are in the budget if Jax and Duran return. Between the two, that's about $8MM in bullpen expenses. Falvey seems to like his bullpen below $15MM total.

People are human with stress factors and emotions which get mixed into their thought processes. Joe Nathan talked about not wanting to close because of confidence issues when he returned from TJ. There is extra pressure associated with closing. It's all on the pitcher, no chances to come back, etc. Many pitchers have talked about the added stress of closing or the benefits of knowing their position and their job rather than just being tossed around in the bullpen and never knowing what's coming next.

If the front office feels Prielipp needs to be restricted at high school inning levels (55-60 innings) even in good health, I don't see the Twins working him out as a starter at all. Since the Twins had Prielipp starting and pitching multiple innings last year, it doesn't suggest they see him that way. He is not a 2-3 pitch mix guy. He's a 3 pitch guy with all three profiling as potential plus offerings which is why the Twins want him to start. A good starter is worth 3-4x as much as a good reliever. I don't think we're going to find any common ground on the rest of your arguments.

If Prielipp remains healthy. If Prielipp absolutely dominates AA through the All Star break If Prielipp gets promoted to AAA soon after that If Prielipp then dominates AAA into September If Prielipp impresses the coaching staff and front office with his stuff, as much as his results If Prielipp is approaching his innings limit If Prielipp isn't wearing down at that point and if the Twins are in a position where they're coasting (either way out of the playoffs or way in) or the Twins aren't desperate for an arm Then, yes, Prielipp might be in the 'pen for Minnesota. ...that's a lot of ifs, and the results part is certainly not guaranteed for a guy who has just 23 innings at A+, and that was more than he's pitched in a season since high school in 2019. My hopes for Prielipp is a healthy season where he can earn a promotion to AAA and exceed 80 innings. That would be an incredibly successful season already.

Keeping Canterino on the 40 man says as much about the Twins' system as it does Canterino.

You should go and play the lottery. People win it all the time!

I don't think Festa will ever be an efficient starter. He doesn't have any pitches which are truly "plus" right now in regard to movement and velocity, and he doesn't have a big mix of offerings to keep hitters off their toes so playing too much in the zone is going to get his stuff hard launched around the ballpark. He's got a borderline plus pitch in his slider, and Festa's been able to locate and sequence his pitches to get whiffs outside the zone, and thereby avoid damage.

I don't know why the writers of this site create fringe narratives, and then push those narratives until they become accepted as fact or likely to happen scenarios. Connor Prielipp is not going to be in the bullpen next year. The Zebby Matthews scenario was so extreme, it actually brought an unranked prospect for the Twins??? to national attention. Guys don't go from A+ to MLB directly. Prielipp pitched 19.1 innings in Cedar Rapids last year. It wouldn't surprise me if he started the season off at Wichita next year, but we've seen how the Twins handle injury prone, high ceiling, young starting pitching prospects (Marco Raya). It's a slow build starting with 3.0 inning starts, just like we saw with Raya last year (and progressed to by Prielipp), and I suspect Prielipp will see 3.0 inning starts out of the gate this coming year, then start building to 4.0, then 5.0 inning starts with a pitch count limit of 50, then 60, then 80. Of course, the buildup only continues if he's able to stay healthy. It feels highly unlikely the Twins will reverse the approach and have Prielipp pitch 5.0 innings out of the gate, then swap him to the bullpen to limit his innings while simultaneously moving him through AA and AAA all the way to MLB along the way. That's assuming Prielipp doesn't have a hiccup against dramatically superior competition at AA or AAA. Prielipp in the Twins' bullpen seems so dramatically far fetched at least before the end of the season right now it doesn't even bear discussion, IMHO. Morris looks like a guy who could be a contributor to the rotation mid year, but I'm skeptical Raya is in that boat. Morris was solid at AAA, but his FIP/xFIP was in line with ace Randy Dobnak's. Competition at the AAA level turned quite a few Morris strikeouts into walks. Morris will need to improve his K rate or reduce his BB rate to project into the MLB rotation. I expect Matthews will start the season in AAA as well, and the Twins will probably be seeking to add a depth veteran arm (or two if they can move Paddack). Raya had major problems issuing the free pass towards the end of the season with his strikeout rate also dropping once Raya started getting the opportunity to pitch a little longer. I think he's still a big bullpen candidate even though the front office finally gave the green light to exceed 50-60 pitches.

The front office is responsible for evaluating talent, and they failed miserably. Period. Rooker would have been the best player on the Twins last year by a mile. The only situation Rooker needed was consistent plate appearances. The Padres had no room on the roster for Rooker so he was in AAA where he put up a wRC+ 137. The Royals thought they could pass Rooker through waivers despite his wRC+ 206 because of Rooker's age and reputation damage from the Twins view on him, deeming Rooker less valuable than AAAA studs like Trevor Larnach and Alex Kirilloff. The Twins already trashed Rooker's value by giving up on him too early (which just goes to show how valuable reputation and prospect rankings really are to a player).

Fastball avg = 95 Changeup avg = 88 Slider avg = 86 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/david-festa-701581?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb

100% agreement. It's part of the issue with all the "trade Vazquez" articles/posts. I really wish the Twins would have given Farmer some time behind the dish this spring since he was drafted as a catcher, and he was starting games at catcher just a few years ago. It might have really changed the situation.