bean5302

Woods Richardson is not a prospect, IMHO. He's got 3-4 starts before he drops off the prospect lists as beyond rookie status for next year. If he can keep his mechanics in order, he should be good. If his mechanics fall out of order (which has happened repeatedly over the past 3 years the Twins have been coaching him), he'll fail.

I think you have a personally adjusted viewpoint of what an "Ace" was. All pitchers threw tons of innings in the very old days, but it's been exceptionally uncommon to see complete games over the past 20 years. 10 years ago the Twins had 2 complete games. Hughes (1), Nolasco (1). 20 years ago the Twins had 4 complete games. Santana (1), Radke (1), Silva (1), Lohse (1). 30 years ago the Twins had 6 complete games. Tapani (4), Erickson (2). 40 years ago the Twins had 32 complete games. Viola (10), Smithson (10), Butcher (8), Schrom (3), Williams (1). 50 years ago the Twins had 43 complete games. Blyleven (19), Decker (11), Goltz (5), Albury (4), Corbin (1), Butler (2), Hughes (1) I recognize 2 of the 7 names that threw complete games for the Twins in 1974. An ace, IMHO, is a guy who comes in and gives your team an excellent chance to win the game almost every time they take the ball. Like 80% of the time, they give a team 6+ innings and leave the game with an ERA under 4.00. When a pitcher steps onto the mound and you can automatically expect your team will win the game. That's an ace. If you're asking whether or not we'll see a return to 85mph fastballs and 300 inning pitchers, the answer is no. Not ever.

No challenge for the Twins this year. Things will come back down to Earth for the other opponents. Batters wRC+ MIN 108 (9th) CLE 103 (13th) KCR 97 (20th) DET 90 (24th) CHW 73 (30th) Starters FIP KCR 3.52 (5th) DET 3.54 (7th) MIN 3.59 (8th) CLE 4.41 (24th) CHW 4.57 (26th) Bullpen FIP CLE 2.65 (1st) MIN 3.56 (10th) DET 3.89 (14th) KCR 4.15 (19th) CHW 4.98 (28th) Honestly, with the loss of Bieber, Cleveland is cooked IMHO. Even if their bullpen has been great so far, their starters are struggling and Twins fans know how that works out over the long haul. Relievers wear down. With their best hitter out of the lineup for the next month, and some expected regression, I just don't think Cleveland has the long term horsepower to get it done. The Tigers should just DFA/release Javier Baez. He's really hurting that team. I think they're the most dangerous of the teams in the AL Central, but unless something changes, I think they'll keep declining over the season.

The thing is, if you start looking at Larnach's weaknesses in terms of pitch selection and how you can attack him, Larnach is seeing fewer fastballs and more offspeed/breaking stuff than ever and he's hitting well right now. Still way too much noise in the numbers, but if you start looking at how he's fared over the years, there is a trend of him getting better. I took the BaseballSavant pitch values, adjusted them for the expected number of pitches Larnach would see in the course of a 150 game season and applied a gradient. Last year, Larnach seemed to start clicking with holding his own against enough pitches to be viable. This year, he's made a lot more contact across the strike zone. I don't think Larnach can get any perceived boost to his value before 200-300 plate appearances this year, and I think the Twins are likely going to find a way to give Larnach the opportunity do just that unless he struggles for a while. I don't think Larnach's leash is that long, but if he keeps hitting, it's in the Twins best interest to keep giving him plate appearances.

Varland's had excellent results at AAA so he's likely earn another shot when one of our pitchers inevitably needs a 15 day IL trip sometime this year, but unless his pitches improve in regard to movement or he's able to locate better, don't think his stuff will play as a starter at the MLB level.

Looking at the Twins' schedule and runs produced over their 37 games. 4, 5, 0, 2, 7, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 11, 4, 3, 4, 3, 2, 4, 4, 1, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 16, 11, 3, 6, 10, 5, 3, 2, 3, 6, 6, 11 If you assume games with less than 4 runs is a loss, 4 runs is 50/50, and more than 4 runs is a win, the Twins would be 19-18 on the year. First 10 games 29 runs (2.9 runs), 3-7 Next 10 games 38 runs (3.8 runs), 3-7 Next 10 games 71 runs (7.1 runs), 9-1 Next 7 games 36 runs (5.2 runs), 4-3 Mean: 4.43 runs per game Median: 4.00 runs per game Mode: 3.00 runs per game It's not as wild as last year, but the most commonly scored number of runs in a game is still 3. The big breakout games are still responsible for a lot of the actual run production on the team. Luckily, the pitching has been better than I anticipated it would be allowing the Twins to win a couple extras. The offense just looks like it's springing back thanks to Castro, Farmer, Santana, etc bouncing back from horrible slumps. It's good news they're not all looking permanently cooked like Margot.

It was wRC+ 112 a couple weeks ago :p That said, yeah, I think Kirilloff is probably a little below league average if he's not platooned, and a little above league average if he is platooned. That's probably just who he is. Right now, he owns a career fWAR of 0.4 in 818 plate appearances and 225 games, but a lot of fans have been pulling his bandwagon out of the mud for years to keep riding it.

Accuracy vs. consistency. It's been part of the game for the pitcher and hitter to be able to identify the strike zone, and as I pointed out just a minute ago in a Vazquez article, catcher physical dimensions seems to have a pretty major impact on balls/strikes called because umpires can't see through catchers. A consistent strike zone means more to me than an accurate strike zone. In the ump scorecard posted above, the umpire was 96% consistent calling balls/strikes. Robo umps aren't perfect right now as camera angles and locations vary a bit from stadium to stadium, and hitters vary their batting stances a bit.

Just put Jeffers in Center Field. It's called "positional flexibility" and the Twins are all about it!!! Jeez. Get with the times...

www.baseballreference.com www.spotrac.com

+1 runs = 0.1 WAR. Let's put that into perspective. Catcher blocking = +1 or 0.07 per game (ranks 19th BaseballSavant) Blocks above average Easy +1, Medium +1, Tough -1 He's basically average-ish at blocking pitches/preventing wild pitches. Caught stealing? 20%. MLB Average = 22%, and teams aren't holding back in trying. When it comes to catching runners at 2B, he's been good (not great) at 33% (Ranks 10th +2 BaseballSavant). The problem is he's missed catching a runner at 2B while runners at 3B were just waiting to steal home... and it's happened multiple times this year resulting directly in runs against the Twins. He's basically average-ish at controlling the run game. His techniques are good (pop/transition), his arm is not. Catcher framing he's again, average-ish. He's at +1 (ranks 18th BaseballSavant) or +1.8 (ranks 9th at Fangraphs), having a mix of better/worse than average zones. That's to be expected as Vazquez is short. Unexpectedly, he's not getting the low calls this year. Generally, tall catchers get the high calls, short catchers get the low calls (see Freddy Ferman). Catcher framing isn't particularly repeatable from year to year, either. A big component of catcher framing seems to be related to a catcher's physical size (height). He's basically been better than average (not close to the top) at catcher framing if you consider it a skill or repeatable. Game calling. I tend to not care for rCERA. It's not repeatable. Last year, Vazquez was -3 (one of the worst in MLB), this year +1 as of right now 12:01pm at 5/10/24 on Fangraphs.com, though Vazquez does appear to have a trend of being slightly above average. Of the 49 catchers who've caught at least 100 innings this year, Vazquez ranks 9th at +1. Except +1 is from 9th-19th. Meaning the difference between the 9th best catcher and the 19th best catcher is less than 1, which is less than 0.1 WAR. It's just not a relevant stat when it comes to evaluating player value because it doesn't move the needle at all. Vazquez's minimal defensive value over an dead average catcher doesn't remotely offset his black hole production at the plate.

Cron didn't disappear, he's been playing as a regular until this season. He's just consistently been a free agent veteran high floor kinda guy.

Last 15 games for Carlos Santana. .245/.322/.509 OPS .830 wRC+ 133 Last 15 games for Kyle Farmer .269/.345/.423 OPS .768 wRC+ 122 Last 15 games for Manuel Margot .161/.182/.226 OPS .408 wRC+ 13 Last 15 games for Willi Castro .383/.403/.683 OPS 1.087 wRC+ 206 <--- has options Last 15 games for Trevor Larnach .367/.418/.592 OPS 1.010 wRC+ 186 <--- has options Last 15 games for Jose Miranda .300/.340/.480 OPS .820 wRC+ 134 <--- has options Last 15 games for Austin Martin .227/.292/.364 OPS .656 wRC+ 90 <--- has options Last 15 games for Alex Kirilloff .140/.208/.233 OPS .441 wRC+ 28 <--- has options When I look at players who could potentially be cut, I look for guys who are being used as situational players who are used as defensive replacements, pinch runners, platoon guys. Santana isn't part of that mix. Margot is clearly the most likely to get DFA/released, but I think Austin Martin and Alex Kirilloff are both more likely to be optioned. While Wallner's numbers are looking better over the past handful of games, he's still not taking walks. After how unimpressive he was through Spring Training, and how absolutely lost he was at the plate for the first month of the regular season, he's probably going to need to rake and show plate discipline for a solid 100 PA before he might earn a recall if there aren't other developments. Larnach came into the season as injury depth for the Twins, but as a potential role player for some teams. He's surprisingly raking right now on his last option which could really boost his value if he keeps it up so Wallner has an extra logjam in front of him at this point.

Vazquez has provided value in the same way a AA or AAA catcher promoted to MLB would technically provide value. He's a black hole at the plate, but average-ish defensively.

I agree with Chief here. Martin was way late on making the call, and Julien can't watch Martin for a signal while he's he's back tracking the ball. Julien was in a far better position to make that play, Martin lacked situational awareness there.

Miranda will likely move to DH in my opinion since Santana has been hitting well over the past couple weeks. Not sure how the Twins will handle the roster crunch, but Austin Martin is the most likely to be demoted IMHO.

I don't know what "ramping it up" means? Lewis started hitting off the tee and doing fielding work 2 weeks ago along with his running progressions including sprinting. I doubt he's too far from a rehab assignment right now.

Playoff caliber teams. But apart from that, WAA/WAR is a pretty poor choice because it doesn't give you expected performance in game starts. It gives you performance over time/games pitched so by your method a 4.50 ERA pitcher with 600 innings has more value than a 3.00 ERA pitcher with 100 innings. I'd rather have the previously injured ace starting in the playoffs.

Texas Rangers rotation last year for the World Series. Nathan Eovaldi $17MM Jordan Montgomery $25MM Max Scherzer $43MM Andrew Heaney/Dane Dunning. Those top 3 guys are not back end starters.

Lots of praise for Lopez, but he didn't look sharp to me. He got outs he needed, and the Mariners couldn't string anything together, but a lot of that appeared to be luck based. Also not a fan of bringing Funderburk back out for the second inning again as he just doesn't seem to be cut out for going back to the mound after a break in the action. I don't have a great angle on home plate pitches, but it seems like Jeffers could have caught more than half the pitches after the 6th inning with his glove rather than letting them all bounce off the backstop to get it done, but it's hard to be terribly critical with the way he's been hitting. Jeffers just continues to crush baseballs, and while his xwOBA swears he's getting extremely lucky, it's his K rate which is most impressive to me. It's nothing like it used to be. Jeffers is only striking out in 17.5% of plate appearances this year. For a guy who has a career K rate near 30%, it's certainly eye opening. This team just always seems to have a spark waiting to happen. That catch by Correa off Miranda's glove was really fun to watch. Talk about awareness and concentration!

He's an absolute lock for Twins HoF. Any player who sticks with the team and is a regular player for 5 years is enshrined. Virtually a guarantee since the Twins have so very rarely actually held on to players more than 5 years throughout history. Once a player nears free agency, they've always been traded. That's how guys like Cuddyer get added.

So you're saying no discussions, speculation, analysis? Personally, digging into this kind of stuff is interesting, and Kirilloff's overall track record is getting pretty long now. 818 PA .254/.313/.416 OPS .729 wRC+ 102.

Kirilloff's tough to gauge. If he's at the .750 end of the spectrum, he'd probably be like short timer Nomar Mazara, but if he can hit at a .780 level, he'd be more like low cost journeyman for bad teams, CJ Cron. A lot may depend on whether or not teams reconsider Kirilloff as a viable corner OF as his defense at 1B has been rough and his bat honestly doesn't play at DH, IMHO. Brandon Belt is way better than Kirilloff so they're not comparable, but do keep in mind he's now a36, and I think the expectation around the league was Belt was going to be looking for a contract in the $10-12MM AAV range. A lot of fans want 2023 Kirilloff to return, I just don't buy his .374 BABIP against RHP last year. Kirilloff has a much better likelihood of being a consistent starter if he's playing outfield where a .750 OPS, and average defense can push his WAR to 1.5-2.0.

Cannot fathom the number of blackmail pics Margot must have on the front office and Baldelli. I'll be at the game today in the sun so it should be warm enough.

He has not been a #2-3. Ryan has been a #4. Career ERA / FIP / xFIP coming into this year? 4.05 / 4.01 / 4.01 For playoff caliber teams Ace = 0.00-3.40 #2 = 3.41-3.69 #3 = 3.70-3.94 #4 = 3.95-4.19 <--- Joe Ryan #5 = 4.20-4.49 Something like that.