bean5302

Assuming you mean OPS over .700 rather than OBP? Haha. Wallner is OPS'ing about .860 for the past 40 games. Over 1.000 for his past 20 games. That said, I think the Twins will wait to recall him until Margot slumps again. To me, it seems like Wallner's struggles were probably mental.

I don't think there's any likelihood Bellinger commands $30MM AAV on a multi-year deal at this point, and he'll definitely be looking for a long term contract. If he finishes the year at a wRC+ of 117, I'd think he'll get something around 5-6yrs $100-150MM or so. The Twins don't have the pockets for it, IMHO, though. I was hoping they'd pry Jarren Duran away from the Red Sox this past offseason.

If any team grabs Abreu, they'll pay league minimum because the Astros have to cover the rest of the contract amount. i.e. Twins sign Abreu and they pay him $760k for 2025, the Astros need to pay the balance of his $19.5MM owed. if the Twins sign Abreu and they pay him $19.0MM for 2025, the Astros need to pay the balance at $500k owed. Thus, no team will sign Abreu for more than league minimum. I'm sure a team will bring him in on a MiLB deal. The Rockies seem like a good fit. The Rockies owners are idiots who won't part with any of their good players who they control for long, but a guy like Abreu might be able to find his game and hit a few home runs with the help of Coors Field to attract enough attention to flip at the deadline.

The Astros had no GM/Assistant GM when Abreu was signed as Jim Crane declined a 1 year contract in Nov. 2022. Their owner negotiated the Abreu contract himself so there's no real reason to hold a non-existent GM accountable. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/06/astros-release-jose-abreu.html#:~:text=1%3A05pm%3A The Astros announced,to Abreu on that deal.

It's true! Gallo went 4-4 with a BB on 8/12/23! That was one of 8 multi-hit games for Gallo last year. Wallner has 2 of those in his past 10 games. Gallo also got hits in back to back games 11 times last season. Wallner's done that 8 times in his past 10 games. Last 10 = .341/.420/.818 OPS 1.238, 10.0% BB, 24.0% K Last 20 = .269/.370/.641 OPS 1.011, 13.0% BB, 22.8% K Last 40 = .233/.330/.533 OPS .863 11.9% BB, 31.2% K It's clear Wallner has heated up in AAA and probably gotten past his mental wall.

It is hard to follow, and there are philosophical questions which come into play as to who gets credit for drafting and development. For example, based on what I read, the Twins get all the credit for drafting and developing Joe Ryan despite the fact they did neither thing, and Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober are the reason the Twins were moved so far up rankings somewhere or another in the evaluation. I appreciate the authors efforts to quantify the development in a meaningful way. These types of projects are enormous undertakings that are probably best left to data sites and active databases. Maybe Fangraphs will take up the data processing at some point in the future.

A mid rotation starter who's been struggling a bit isn't what I'd be excited about.

The Twins need a left handed platoon bat like a submarine needs a screen door. If they want a lefty bat, all they have to do is look down to St. Paul (Wallner), (Julien) or Wichita (Rodriguez). As far as pitchers are concerned, the Twins probably don't need the depth as adding to the top creates depth and provides the team with a playoff caliber starter they honestly need. I don't think Severino is probably that guy anymore, even if his results are decent. He's not the ace he looked to be 5 years ago.

It's super straight forward. Q) Is Varland a legitimate option as a rotation arm? Yes -> Keep him pitching in the rotation in AAA to see if he can get better results. No -> Move him to the bullpen and hope for the best. We're probably on answer "No" regardless of whether or not skimming the box score made him look good in his last start. He didn't miss bats against one of the worst teams in baseball, had a 108mph rocket ship come off one of his pitches, allowed a 12.5% barrel rate (terrible) and had an average exit velocity of 91mph (terrible). Even after the game when he was interviewed, he wasn't at all unhappy about coming out after 5.0 shutout innings. You could tell he knew he was lucky not to have owned a few crooked number innings out there. Depth isn't a concern. Varland is either a legit MLB caliber starter or he isn't. Wishing he was simply because there aren't other options doesn't transform Varland into a good option.

No team in baseball wouldn't want to add a 4 WAR (All Star level) player. Guess All Stars are "good" not "great" Both Bellinger and Chapman are on pace to perform at about that level. Btw, no Twins position player on the team put up 4 WAR last year. Being angry about a team spending $3.5MM-7.5MM per WAR for a one year contract on a well known, veteran player who isn't in the twilight of their career in free agency is highly unusual to say the least.

I think it's great Woods Richardson took note of his lack of performance and took steps to address it. For years the Twins had been trying to get him to adjust and stick to better mechanics, but the way this article words things makes me pretty concerned about the coaching situation in the minors. Why did Woods Richardson have to approach the coaches? Why wasn't this brought to him before as a "you should try this because you're not good enough to make the big show as you are"? Is it not the job of coaches and the development team to identify ways to correct or improve pitcher performance? I've considered the situation as SWR being uncoachable until he finally realized he was about to wash out, but perhaps it's the Twins' development team which needs some additional management? Woods Richardson, I think, has saved the Twins rotation. I don't think it's an overstatement, despite some of the commenters thinking the statement is just hyperbole. Pablo Lopez has been pitching like Dallas Keuchel, there was a major downgrade to our rotation from last year watching 3 of our top 5 opening day pitchers walk (Gray, Mahle, Maeda), and the front office sourced zero external replacements. This left the rotation depth razor thin, relying on a failed starter who was moved to the bullpen (Varland) to slot back in when a dubious option (Desclafani) went down for the season before ever pitching a game. SWR has gotten results like we'd expect of Lopez, while Lopez has pitched more similarly to what we would have expected from Varland, Desclafani or Woods Richardson himself. There's no good reason to suspect the results to continue as they have been up to this point as SWR has a 4.09 xFIP right now, and he hasn't generated a lot of pop ups to make the HR/FB rate stay well below average, but the Twins' position in the standings would probably look a lot more bleak if he hadn't come up and put on his best MLB ace costume for a few starts now. The 97mph fastball from last game might suggest there's more velo in the tank and more ceiling to find in his game, but I'm already a bit concerned with durability of suddenly adding 3-4mph one day in Spring Training, let alone 7mph+. Hopefully, SWR remains healthy and continues to improve as he learns to pitch with this sudden and unexpected added velocity.

No, he wasn't doing well in AAA to end the season. He was doing poorly. From 8/1+ in AAA last year: 4.80 FIP. The 1.28 WHIP (acceptable) came with an unsustainable .239 BABIP. For example, on 8/2, Woods Richardson went 4 innings with a 0.00 ERA, but he walked 6 guys (13.5 BB/9). The results on a quick surface looked better, but what was really happening underneath was not. Based on the underlying 20% K rate (poor), 13% BB rate (terrible), and the expected home run rate based on fly balls, I'll continue to believe all Woods Richardson's box cars had derailed through the entire season.

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.