bean5302

The giveaways have gotten very cheap. Unless you get to the game early, you wouldn't even get the fridge magnet schedule the last couple years. It's pretty embarrassing.

Jordan Montgomery wasn't a guy I wanted to target since I just didn't feel like he was elite. At the price points pitchers went, Sonny Gray was a no brainer. Just another round of Derek Falvey and the shiny things distracting him. I also thought Snell/Boras were absolutely out of their minds seeking $200MM, but I'd have been interested in him on a pillow deal, just not as late as he finally signed or for the money in the current year because he'd have missed at least the first month for a reasonable team. The Giants decided to toss Snell out there without any Spring Training, and... imagine this now... it didn't work out. Snell's only making $15MM this year, FWIW, it's that $17MM signing bonus payable in 2026 that gets nuts. In regard to their performances: Chapman is exactly what you'd expect. On pace for a 4 WAR season with a bit better than an average bat and good defense. Scorching good deal for SF at just 1/$18MM (3/54 total with player options) Bellinger is good. wRC+ 117, playing solid CF. His value is down because the Cubs are DH'ing him, but he'd be a 5 WAR pace guy playing CF full time. He's on a one year deal, and he'll be opting out. Good deal, even at 1/30MM. Snell was allowed to pitch right out of the gate and he clearly wasn't ready. Plenty of time for him to rebound, and quite frankly, I don't think the Twins would have been on board with him pitching MLB without an extended ramp up in the minors. I think he'll opt in, but that opt in could actually be a bonus for SF next year. There's also plenty of time left this year for Snell to right the ship as the K's are there, he's just missing too often. I don't think declaring this a bad/good deal is possible yet. Montgomery is the tough one. His velocity is down, which turned some K's into BB's and HRs. He'll be opting in for next year almost certainly as his vesting option has vested. So one great deal, one good deal, one questionable deal and one bad one.

Feel free to look at the MLB payrolls real quick. There's plenty of "silly money" being handed out across the league. 9 teams are over the luxury tax threshold this year. The issue in this past season's case, and previous under Boras, is teams weren't willing to buy in on one year wonders or ignore a bunch of red flags like they didn't even exist. We also saw this the year prior with Correa's deal dropping from 13/350 with SF to 6/200 with MN. Boras has been pushing the market to ignore red flags, and it seems like he's found the limit after the players seemed to massively overplay their hands. Contracts had been getting longer and longer, but I think that trend is cutting back.

Fun game at Target Field. Didn't get there enough for the whopping 5,000 caps that were supposedly giving away. My friend 12% wanted one and we were way before game time, but no matter.

Yeah... for a broken down a31 middle reliever, LOL Plus Nick Gordon had 8x the career WAR as Kirilloff...

Fact! Bears eat beets. Bears... beets... Battlestar Galactica

I'd like Kirilloff for Skenes more...

I don't exactly agree. The problem was this front office's (and Baldelli's) ironclad belief in a huge platoon advantage to the point it was acceptable to assume pretty much all left handed batters were nothing more than platoon specialists, and the failure to understand an average left handed batter is not better against RHP than a good right handed batter. This front office (which Baldelli is tied to) A) Constructed a roster designed around platoons, wasting limited resources B) Never gave their LHB the opportunity to prove they could hit LHP. C) Deployed platoons poorly, in ways that would always limit the success of their strategy D) Annoyed me, personally, on at least 3 occasions. <--- this is the real dealbreaker.

Getting meatballs in the MiLB system helps make guys look a lot better (Chris Parmelee)

I consider Lopez to be pretty similar to Jose Berrios in terms of value. Even though Berrios is chided against for his 2022 campaign (5.23 ERA, 4.55 FIP, 4.21 xFIP), Toronto went 23-9 (.718) in the games he started that year. Berrios gave the Blue Jays a quality start (5+ innings ERA under 4.00 or 6+ innings 3ER or less) in 19 of those contests. Lopez has long been an up and down pitcher without many long streaks of dominant starts you'd associate with elite starters (aces). Sonny Gray opened the season with 6 consecutive stars allowing 2 ER or fewer, and 9 of his first 10 games doing that. He only allowed more than 3 ER in 3 games last year, and only 2 with more than 4 ER. Lopez did have a similar (but less impressive from an ERA/FIP standpoint) 6 game run as Gray last year, but he had 8 starts allowing more than 3 ER, and 7 of those more than 4 ER. If you reframe expectations for Lopez to be Berrios, Lopez's rough start is a lot easier to accept, and a lot less worrisome than if you expect Lopez to be a front line starter.

Agreed. It's hard to be worth less than PTBNL or cash considerations, and that's where Kirilloff is today. The question is whether or not Kirilloff is here next spring since he's on the path to DFA. Regardless of how negative my take on Kirilloff is right now, going down to AAA might allow him to make some major adjustments to his stance and swing which could potentially open a new door to him. Gotta do something if he wants to play again in the big show.

We're not playing last year over again, though. We're looking at what players are doing this year. Lewis RHB vs. RHP = .318/.375/.909 OPS 1.284 Miranda RHB vs RHP = .285/.323/.491 OPS .814 Larnach LHB vs. RHP = .256/.321/.436 OPS .757 Kirilloff LHB vs RHP = .203/.271/.392 OPS .663 Julien LHB vs RHP = .207/.309/.367 OPS .676 Kepler LHB vs. RHP = .235/.300/.390 OPS .690 Margot RHB vs. RHP = .182/.260/.242 OPS .503 Seems like Lewis and Miranda are just fine not being platooned... because they're better than the lefty bats who the Twins would actually use as platoon hitters against RHP.

I don't think the Twins would have let Snell start out of the gate like the Giants did, and I suspect there are more than a few teams keeping a close eye on the NL West standings and last year's Cy Young winner. Snell could be a good trade target for the Twins at the end of July.

You're not sorry so why say it unless it's obvious sarcasm? Also, why apologize to me? I might not even be one of the people you initially insulted. The backhanded "I'm so smart nobody can tell I'm throwing insults at them" posture you've taken is a bigger insult than the thinly veiled intent of your comments in the first place. Side note, I'm not at all mad, and my comment has nothing to do with baseball at all. It's a pet peeve of mine when people debate the validity of the person making the argument rather than the subject of the debate, and that's what you've done in the comments I take issue with. I can be hypocritical doing the same thing from time to time, but I try hard to avoid it.

I like Thielbar's commitment and his attitude about it all. He's an easy guy to cheer for, but as you say, he can't be used in medium/high leverage right now. He's working a lot higher up in the zone with his fastball to try and compensate for what he thinks is a lack of rise, but I think that just results in the batter expecting the pitch to land high and it actually landing high so the batter puts the right swing into motion to zero in on the pitch. His rise isn't elite on the fastball, but it's been far above average this year. His real issue is probably control/walks, and with him aiming higher, he's going to get more pitches called balls, dropping him behind in the count and forcing him into bad situations.

Kirilloff is not in the same category as a guy like Wallner (352 PA, wRC+ 129) or even Julien (602 PA, wRC+ 124). Julien, by the way, was always at the very edge of sustainable plate approach methodology. There's nothing new about that. Everybody following metrics and Julien knows he was riding a razors edge, but he could still put it back together. Julien's struggles are exactly what scouts and fans alike are concerned about in Emmanuel Rodriguez's somewhat similar results. Also, Julien worked hard at improving his defense, and although I'd still grade him as pretty rough looking, he's definitely improved. Kirilloff (884 PA, wRC+ 100) was already arb eligible this past offseason, he's 27 with 900 MLB plate appearances across 4 years under his belt. Larnach (830 PA, wRC+ 99) is closer to Kirilloff in terms of how much of a longshot a player might be to turn it around since Larnach had about 700 plate appearances coming into this season, but Larnach has great baseball instincts which allows him to be relatively neutral as a corner outfielder. I never expected Larnach to show what he has this year with the reduced K rate pushing his bat to a different level, but I always accepted Larnach gets the most out of his game his limited athleticism can grant him. Larnach is also still a long shot to keep producing, but he's at least earned a long look. Conversely, Kirilloff continues to drop routine fly balls, position himself incorrectly, and miss infield grounders. On Tuesday, I watched Kirilloff awkwardly misplay a throw to first by Jeffers to catch a runner leading off too far. I cringed as @RpR popped into my head while I thought "Santana makes that play." Of course, after Kirilloff didn't truly want to accept responsibility or say the right things after costing the Twins a playoff game vs. the Astros last year after a defensive flub at 1B, he could have gone all in this offseason learning 1B, but it doesn't seem like he did. Alex Kirilloff has a very low ceiling, even if he does reach his potential. With a swing designed to produce line drives rather than fly ball home runs, an inability to take walks, no athleticism, and poor instincts, he's at best a 1.5 WAR DH or 2.0 WAR 1B if he improves everything about his game as his absolute ceiling in my honest opinion. I made the Nomar Mazara comp for Alex Kirilloff on another thread. If you look at the two from an expectations and career batting results standpoint, it'd be impossible to tell them apart without a hint at who was who. Certainly other teams have prospects who are a flash in the pan or struggle from time to time. I saw some pretty ridiculous comps in here, though. Julio Rodriguez? That Julio Rodriguez? The one with 12 career WAR at age 23 who is wRC+ 96 this year while still on the path for 2.5 WAR campaign? Jackson Holliday? 36 plate appearances from the 20 year old who the Orioles are manipulating service time rather than demoting because of his results; he's a comp for Twins prospects struggles? Colt Keith is 22 with 206 PA... If we want a comp, we can use Spencer Torkelson (1318 PA, wRC+ 91). He's also only 24, but he's probably more of a bust than a guy with a hiccup. Not all prospects work out. Kirilloff is one of those who is a long shot to ever produce enough with his bat to justify more than a journeyman status like C.J. Cron, but even that level will require Kirilloff to learn to play defense and improve his bat a little. If the Twins DFA'd Kirilloff today, it'd be shortsighted, but it's unlikely they'd regret it.

I don't have nearly the experience or behind the scenes baseball knowledge anybody playing or coaching/managing in MLB has. I can tell you definitively Joe Mauer was better than Drew Butera or Mike Trout was better than Ben Revere because I can evaluate the players compared to other players. I don't need to be a position player or catcher to do that. I also don't need to be an MLB manager to second guess decision making which appears bizarre or that other teams openly criticize (like the Yankees broadcasters recently). Btw, baseball coaches, managers and players were not the ones who developed the best stats used to evaluate game performance. Writers and stat heads and geeks were. The very same stats that Baldelli and this front office live and die by, and the stats which have totally changed how baseball is played. Your comment is nothing more than a smoothed over, pompous attempt at gatekeeping who gets to speak or have an opinion, and how much of an opinion, based on the criteria you have chosen.

Wallner had a wide range of outcomes on that "double" since it landed in the glove of the CF'er but popped out as he hit the wall. It could have been an out. It could have been a stand up triple instead of being called out at 3rd (looked safe to me) as Wallner slow trotted out of the box thinking it was a home run. Not sure Martin has what it takes to succeed at the MLB level, but he's certainly shown huge improvement at the plate in AAA since his demotion. Martin's AAA triple slash before today looks like a video game. .305/.470/.407 OPS .877, 22.9% BB, 8.4% K (yes that's the correct ratio) wRC+ 142. After a SSS slow start in A+, Doncon is already rebounding. Nice to see the bat heating up as he's not Noah Miller in the field.

Kirilloff is even further down the depth chart now than Trevor Larnach was coming into the season. It'll take a minor miracle for him to see another season in a Twins uniform. He's had 900 plate appearances across 4 years in the majors where he's been consistently below average at the plate, shielded from LHP, and a butcher at every defensive position he's played. To top that off, he's coming up on arb2 status. This time, there's not even a mysterious injury to provide an excuse. He's a highly likely trade/non-tender guy, and if traded, it'd be for a PTBNL or something like that. Kirilloff is emergency depth for a different MLB team.

The Phantom IL is not going to happen with Thielbar. This is especially the case with a front office who'd be easy to suspend considering their Lame Duck contract status situation. Aside from that, AAA is not a magical cure all or fountain of youth which fixes career twilight pitchers like Jay Jackson and Caleb Thielbar.

Thielbar looks cooked to me. He just doesn't have it, and he hasn't had it for a while. Looking at reliever ERA isn't great because the inherited base runners allowed to score isn't part of their ERA. Thielbar's FIP looks real rough for over a month now, and it was only serviceable before that. His xFIP has been bad all year. Rocking a 2.04 WHIP on the season after today due to hitters , that puts him as the 3rd worst in all MLB among relievers with 15+ innings. He's in the bottom 25-35% for a whole host of numbers on BaseballSavant as well so it's not like it's all luck, either.

These articles are not a terrible idea, but they're way too early. I'm assuming there's a push to try and get an article for all 30 MLB teams, but many teams, like the Pirates may not be sellers.

Offseason, midseason, beginning of season. It doesn't matter. Same exact argument. When Kirilloff wasn't able to swing the bat effectively, he got put on the IL, he didn't get pushed to struggle through injury like top players because Kirilloff provided no on the field value. Kirilloff has been essentially the same hitter every season with supposed different injuries (barring his unsustainable BABIP 2023). It's not a coincidence. Just like it's not a coincidence every time he puts on a Saints uniform he's not hurt anymore and he hits well, only to be "hurt" by putting on a Twins' uniform. Let's be realistic here. Kirilloff's biggest injury has been MLB pitching. Kirilloff is now in the minors because he earned another demotion after his bat still didn't play after 900 plate appearances in MLB. He's arb2 and out of options next year. Guess who gets non-tendered in November, just like his older version clone, Nomar Mazara did?

Did Jay Jackson fix his missing velocity, too? 3 games to fix a completely flat slider in St. Paul. I just don't see how that wasn't something the Twins could have addressed during normal bullpens.

Sometimes the moves this front office makes are just perplexing.