bean5302

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming Kikuchi didn't tell Miranda what pitch was coming and where it was going to be located. Miranda (a rookie with 80 plate appearances and a reputation, historically, for being aggressive at the plate) first needs to make contact with the pitch to push it to the opposite field, and with Kikuchi averaging almost 10 K/9 and a career 15% swinging strike rate generated, he's been pretty successful at preventing contact. Furthermore, Miranda is a dead pull hitter and while it's easy for writers or commenters to say "just hit it the other way" as if players could just change their swing on the fly, in reality, MLB pitchers aren't throwing pitches with the intent of letting the batter dictate where the pitch goes. Want to complain about swinging wildly at a 3-0 pitch with runners on after the last two hitters walked? That's fair. Complaining the Twins hitters didn't hit balls to exactly the most opportune spot during all their at bats, not so fair.

Polanco's been beating the shift this year pretty handily as a LH hitter, but he's been eaten up by it as a RH hitter. 2021 - .267 xBA .488 xSLG .348 xwOBA 2021 - .269 AVG .503 SLG .349 wOBA 2022 - .272 xBA .426 xSLG, .369 xwOBA 2022 - .223 AVG .346 SLG, .300 wOBA Basically, Polanco has been super unlucky so far this year. Last year his xwOBA and wOBA were a dead match, and historically, they've generally been within 10-20 pts across his full season. He's 70pts under expected this year. He's walking far more than he ever has so his actual OBP is almost identical to last year, but the power numbers aren't there, largely out of sheer luck. For example, Polanco's 5 HRs this season would have been 12 HRs if he was playing in Cincinnati's park the entire time, though he'd only have 4 at Yankee Stadium or Kaufmann. At the average MLB stadium, Polanco would have 7 HRs. Aside from that, his exit velocities, barrel rates and hard hit rates are all right about the same as last year. What's wrong with Polanco? Nothing.

Berrios is a good pitcher and while he's been up and down this year (they discussed him having dead arm where his fastball was at 90mph against the Angels) he certainly wasn't pitching poorly today. Movement was awesome, location was great and velocity was there.

I don't think that's true. The front office does not like spending money on relief pitching and they were clearly very interested in moving him last year but he injury prevented it. The front office did make some efforts to sign Berrios, but I think Rogers was going to be shown the door no matter what.

I have a very strong opinion "younger than his competition" is a carryover from failed farm systems of the Twins' past. If a player is going to be valuable at the MLB level, they're generally going to move through the minors quickly and easily. It's expected players are younger than their competition. In most cases, several years younger. Martin is not young for AA. If anything he's average age or even a year older for a high caliber prospect at that level as he's now 23. The article also overlooks just how absolutely embarrassing Martin's defense has been at SS not only this year, but in Toronto as well. It's hard to imagine he could have had a start to the season which would have damaged his stock more. Woods-Richardson's 2021 was a catastrophe during his time with the Twins, but there was every reason to suspect he'd turn everything around this season. Woods-Richardson started the season great, but 4 of his last 5 starts have seen him get hammered with a 5.91 ERA and control issues. Now nearing age 22 and also in his second year of AA, he really needs to turn things around this season or see his stock fall as well.

Desperation is a stinky cologne...

Regarding Duran, he's pitched 16 innings in the past 2 years due to the 2020 lost MiLB season and being shut down almost all of last year with a UCL sprain treated with rest and rehab. He was probably destined for the bullpen this year regardless of whether or not he was going to be pitching at the MLB level. On top of that, Duran wasn't successful as a starter in 2019 at AA (4.86 ERA) or 2021 at AAA (5.06 ERA). I can't explain Baldelli's thoughts on where he pulls or places pitchers.

I'm in agreement with some other comments. Archer was pitching well. Throwing strikes and moving through the batters very efficiently with only 57 pitches. He's gone to 80 pitches with regularity this season so yanking him after 5 innings doesn't seem reasonable, especially when the last 2 innings went 1-2-3 (base running error in the 4th).

FIP isn't his friend huh? Well, if you're going to take your stance negatively on Archer in an post where the subject is wondering if he's becoming a liability based on FIP, here are Archer's last 3 starts 5/28 - FIP = 2.64 5/23 - FIP = 3.39 5/16 - FIP = 3.64 Archer has pitched 34 innings this year across 9 starts. Archer has been limited due to the fact he missed most of Spring Training as he wasn't signed until the 29th. Of the 9 starts, 5 have been at 4.50 ERA or lower and 4 have been FIP 3.64 or lower. Lance Lynn missed most of Spring Training a couple years ago when the Twins signed him and he looked pretty good once he was able to stretch out and get into a rhythm. I'm not a huge Archer fan. I didn't expect he had anything left in the tank when the Twins signed him, but he's allowed more than 2 earned runs only twice in 9 games started, but this post feels a lot more like frustration than facts.

How did you manage to miss every single scouting report ever written about Larnach?

Larnach's ceiling is bat first, above average value (3 WAR-ish) starting corner outfielder. wRC+ 120-ish territory. He's been stunningly better against breaking balls this year than last year and he's continued to mash fastballs. Perhaps equally as surprising, Larnach's sprint speed has improved. His acceleration is still excellent for his top speed, but he's definitely gained a step over last year and you can see it in his splits, but he's still not "fast" he's just not among the slowest outfielders in the game. All that said, we're talking a very small sample size this year as evidenced by the fact his numbers didn't look nearly so good until just recently, and last year's sample size was pretty big.

Archer was a late signing (March 29th) and was not stretched out. The Twins obviously have him on a pitch (80) or inning cap (4.0). Considering fans were fawning over Ober and Ryan last year when their ERAs were right about what Archer's is today, it seems a little out of touch to decide Archer is worthless. He's had 3 good starts in a row based on FIP. 4 of his last 6 starts have been solid enough based on ERA. I'd think he was stretched out enough at this point where he should be able to pitch normally so I'd like to see him be given the opportunity to pitch deeper.

Palacios hasn't been hitting with any power so far this year, but his last 10 games have been much better with a .297/.381/.460 slash for an OPS of .841. Palacios was very consistent for most of the year last year, but definitely slumped in the last month. Hopefully, he identified an issue and was able to correct it. I don't view Palacios as having a role with the Twins long term at this point unless Gordon were to be moved, and I think Gordon is likely more versatile. It's a good opportunity for Palacios to make a little bit of a splash and garner some interest.

In general, I'd only look at players who the Twins would still have control as fair game in this one so Gibson and Cron wouldn't be on the list for me. Tyler Wells definitely would be with his 3.71 ERA starting games in the AL East. I really didn't like the Twins exposing him to the rule 5.

I consider Nick Gordon to be a great utility player because he's inexpensive and will likely stay that way while being able to fill in at shortstop and center field. Exactly the type of asset who is valuable to fill in at premium defensive positions for 10 day IL stints and rest days without breaking the bank. I don't think Gordon is likely going to be the kind of player you want starting every day on a playoff team, but players like Kirilloff and Miranda have nothing to do with Gordon as neither can cover CF or SS.

The Twins increased the padding thickness in 2014 in response to Aaron Hicks and Sam Fuld giving themselves concussions by running into the center field wall. The new padding was thicker (4") than most stadiums so I'm skeptical the padding on it's own is the issue. Running at high speed into the wall and hitting it at an awkward angle is going have risk of injuries. Perhaps the wall construction itself behind the padding is stiffer than other stadiums, though, necessitating special order extra, extra thick stuff.

I have it on good authority Lewis asked if he could have the wall padding removed entirely because he was going to show that wall who was boss and he didn't want the wall to have an excuses for losing the fight. He'd never even looked at the wall before the game. He always averts his eyes because he wants to have all new immersive experiences.

Wait... what? Are you saying Royce Lewis' crashing into a wall and bruising his knee is related to him not playing last year while he recovered from a torn ACL? For the record, Lewis returned to action about as quick as possible from surgery last year. I can't remember anybody suggesting the Twins were holding him back unreasonably and should have taken chances with Lewis' recovery, but maybe my memory isn't perfect.

Re: safety issues. Violent crime is up in downtown Minneapolis despite it being dramatically less busy. On top of that, there's the perception of Minneapolis as a whole (Uptown is a friggen disaster). Plenty of people experienced bricks being thrown through windows at restaurants they were dining at downtown restaurants when the Floyd riots started. Those types of experiences don't just get forgotten in days. Seemingly every month businesses announce they're closing due to safety concerns in Minneapolis and the owners of the businesses are scared to even speak about it. I'm close friends with a number of service industry workers who simply won't take jobs in Minneapolis because they do not feel safe based on their actual personal experiences. I'm talking about people who've taken solo trips to Africa and often travel out of the country alone... So is it really that bad? Maybe, maybe not. Reputation is what matters and people aren't going to risk getting held up at gunpoint, shot, carjacked or assaulted to find out, regardless of their shadowboxing skill level... I haven't been shot yet, but I do understand why people are afraid of Minneapolis.

Fun games like that will make for great memories Cavaco can look back on when he hangs up the cleats. Now that he's been moved off SS to 3B/DH, I think the book on Cavaco has largely been closed. He's a non-prospect, but I'm certainly not rooting against him.

Baseball Reference's HoF monitor is pretty good with comparisons on this stuff. 55.2 career bWAR (60 bWAR used to be an automatic yes, but it's turned into 60 bWAR merits consideration over the past decade it seems.) Mauer's career WAR is 156th in all of baseball history. There are 236 people who've been inducted as players. 39.0 7yr peak bWAR, which is a bit on the low side only when compared with other position players Compared to the only 16 HoF catchers, Mauer is better than average 55.2 vs. 53.7 bWAR career and significantly better with 39.0 vs. 34.7 peak bWAR. If he hadn't gotten the concussion, Mauer would likely be a 1st ballot HoF in my opinion. That's the trajectory he was on and voters do take that into account. Injury altered or shortened careers get weighted in the player's favor a bit. In addition, a quick peek at the BRef leaderboard is pretty eye opening. You have to scroll to get through it all. Comparing Joe Mauer directly to specific players, especially historical figures from different eras in baseball, doesn't make much sense to me. I expect Joe Mauer will get in. He was one of the biggest names in baseball and was one of the best players in baseball long enough that his reputation precedes itself.

After your response, I spent about 15 minutes searching and eventually found the interview. https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/04/30/tim-anderson-white-sox-speaks-out Tim Anderson compared himself to Jackie Robinson because Tim Anderson is breaking the barrier of fun and I saw this comparison being made by Anderson several times since. Essentially, Tim Anderson is just like Jackie Robinson because Jackie broke the color barrier and Tim is breaking the celebratory barrier. Two takes on that. First, Tim Anderson comes across as disrespectful towards Jackie Robinson to me. Comparing what Jackie Robinson endured to the chastising for high flying bat flips seems tone deaf to me. Second, there have been a lot of baseball players who've been very expressive and broken those types of barriers before. Honestly, the Latin American players have led the way on the celebratory and emotional expression front in MLB for the past decade and have made a major impact in softening the unwritten rule blowback from emotional outbursts. I can't find anything which supports your position.

So Josh Donaldson just randomly knew about a 2019 interview Tim Anderson gave where Tim Anderson compared himself to the next Jackie Robinson (one of the greatest baseball players of ALL TIME)? Come on. This absolute obsession with making everything racist is gross. That said, I will stand 100% corrected if such interview comment did not occur.

There are 150 position players who've played more than 90% of the games so far this year. Like 100 who've missed 2 games or fewer. Across the league it's uncommon to just sit guys who are healthy. Injuries happen and the Twins have had some very injury prone guys the last few years.

Regardless of what the Twins have said they were interested in doing, Lewis has played shortstop in 22 of his 24 games in St. Paul. The only other position was DH. I expect Lewis will continue to play SS almost exclusively. Polanco - Starting 2B, can we all agree the Twins aren't going to cut/trade him to play Lewis? Correa - Anybody okay with giving Lewis the starting SS job? The Twins "could" DFA Correa and I DO expect a team may well claim that contract on waivers because of its potential upside, but there's a risk the Twins eat $100MM on this... Not happening. Furthermore, trusting Lewis is as good as perennial MVP candidate Correa today or this year is... well... pretty aggressive. Arraez - Utility infielder. He has 2 options remaining, but let's get real. Arraez has proven himself to be a better than average MLB starter over the course of 275 MLB games. He's not getting demoted so Lewis can play. Even if Arraez was traded, the Twins have been primarily using him as a DH because there's already a shortage of space for infielders. Urshela - Arb 2 ($6.6MM). He has no options remaining so he cannot be demoted, but he has limited to no value right now. If the Twins were to DFA him, he'd probably pass through waivers, decline his assignment and become a free agent and the Twins would be on the hook for his contract. I don't know as this would be a terrible move, but certainly uncharacteristic of the front office to cut bait and eat that contract so early in the season. This would push Lewis to 3B Gordon - He's technically played SS a little this year, but he's not the starter and won't be. He's a utility fielder who often comes in as an injury or defensive replacement and doesn't see every day playing time. He has no options and would refuse an assignment so he'd be gone and Lewis replacing him means occasional play rather than every day opportunity. Miranda - Demoting him really doesn't open up any positions for Lewis, TBH. I guess Urshela could be moved to 1B and Lewis to 3B, keeping Arraez at DH but I'm sure the Twins badly want to get a look at Miranda after his performance explosion last year at AAA. Kirilloff being ready to be recalled would put the Twins right back into the same spot. Lewis can't be the reason Kirilloff stays in the minors, either. Honestly, Lewis playing every day shortstop at AAA makes the most sense while the Twins sort out the roster picture on a larger scale. Minnesota has created some nasty log jam situations, but nobody expected Lewis to perform like this. Absolutely nobody. If somebody in Spring Training had come out and said Lewis would be OPS'ing .800 at AA so far this year, 95% of fans would have been ecstatic. Saying he was going to be OPS'ing 1.000 at AAA and continuing to rake at MLB would have been met with questions regarding sanity.