bean5302

While scouts could be wrong, they're pretty universal on Austin Martin not being suited for center field (range) or shortstop (range/arm). Most scouts expect Austin to wind up at 2B, but that does assume he develops. Interestingly, Falvey has talked about potentially using Martin at shortstop next year so perhaps the Twins have seen more than the general perception of scouts around the league or the Twins simply don't value defense at shortstop much. Since teams can talk about trades during the lockout, but they cannot negotiate with players on MLB contracts, it might be exciting to see what happens at the lockout's end. Trades might come in fast and furious like the deadline. I don't have an opinion on whether or not the Twins should trade Martin. It all depends what they get for him.

You bring your own facts and data. If you can find something, stomp my facts and data into the ground, don't ask me to keep searching for something that proves you're right and I'm wrong. The paper may go back to a time which seems disconnected to what we consider modern techniques, but the research paper was published in 2018. I am not a surgical researcher and I'm not qualified to evaluate the validity of the sample data used. I found articles talking about modern techniques in ACL repair proving to be unreliable or problematic over time and other advancements proving to be non-valuable. I found nothing in my search to indicate ACL repair was almost certainly going to be successful with modern techniques. https://www.healio.com/news/orthopedics/20170712/patients-who-never-make-it-back-after-acl-injury-present-opportunities-challenges According to Robert A. Arciero, MD, professor of orthopedics at the UConn Health Center, studies have shown there is a return-to-play rate of about 63% to 65% for professional football players after ACL injury and related treatment. This is lower than public perception, he noted. The percent of return to play after ACL injury “in high school-aged kids, [is] somewhere in the mid- to high-80s,” Arciero said. “In major league soccer, it is somewhere between 70% and 85%.”

Where's your data? Did you accidentally wipe it away before you flushed this morning?

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/2/128 Meta Analysis showing elite sports players return to sport rates, though the meta analysis included college level players who may have been seniors, etc who may have just elected to graduate and be done or something. Football 78% Basketball 82% Soccer 85% "Among elite baseball players, ACL reconstruction to the rear batting leg was associated with decreased batting average on return to sport" I don't think it's as guaranteed as you make it out to be. Lewis relies upon explosive acceleration, lateral movement and sprint speed to generate a lot of his value at shortstop. A lost step or two would make a big impact on Royce Lewis' potential value, though I do think he'll still be athletic enough. Just have to wait and see.

No, NO! N. O. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! - Calculon

Where did you get the impression the Twins were considering Polanco as the shortstop? Falvey specifically mentioned even considering Austin Martin for the job, but is open to a veteran signing in the exact same way they were last year. https://www.startribune.com/royce-lewis-isnt-ready-so-jorge-polanco-should-return-to-twins-shortstop/600103985/ I mean, it's certainly not impossible, but I haven't seen anything from Falvey or Levine indicating they were planning on Polanco being the shortstop.

He totally could. He could blow Akil Baddoo out of the water, in fact, but the Twins don't have a good reason to rush him to the MLB level because he doesn't need to be on the 26 man or returned to another team. Lewis hasn't played competitive baseball in two years and is coming off a major surgery which can end careers. I'd rather give Lewis Spring Training and a couple months between AA/AAA before calling him up. Like I said, if Lewis gets 400 PA with the Twins, it would signal Lewis simply forced his way onto the roster by playing simply outstanding. That's a great thing.

Well, the Twins had 1 pitcher eclipse 1.9 fWAR in 2021, and they're no longer on the team. Steamer shows Ober and Ryan as serviceable back end rotation arms, which, to be honest, is pretty darn good considering they're both making league minimum. Zips seems as bullish on the pitchers performance level, but less on the innings. A good team would normally be expected to get 20+ WAR from their position players and 20+ WAR from their pitching staff. The Twins weren't too far off in the hitting category, but their pitching was miserable. An embarrassing 8.2 fWAR from the entire staff... and 2.4 of those came from Berrios. The #3 and #2 pitchers were Taylor Rogers had 1.6 fWAR, Kenta Maeda 1.7 fWAR. When your closer, who plays half a season is virtually tied with the best starter still on your team (who is also missing at least 1/2 of next season), that's not a great endorsement for expectations, lol. That said, we'll just have to see what happens. Also, Royce Lewis will not be playing at the MLB level prior to a cup of coffee in 2022 barring some sort of miraculous performance in the minors so any MLB playing time for Lewis should be viewed as a major success, and if he gets 400 plate appearances, that would mean he would have needed to look incredible in spring training and the first month or two of the season.

Mauer forced Little to drink half and half despite being lactose intolerant, convinced Little would get better if he put on weight.

Larnach getting a call before midseason seems unreasonable based on how badly he struggled against almost anything other than a 4 seam fastball last year at the MLB level and how he failed to turn it around after a demotion to AAA. Rooker is much quicker than he gets credit for, but he gets bad jumps on balls. He's probably a servicable corner outfielder, but he needs to prove it was crazy bad luck that kept his production low rather than the shift, etc. Wallner has 40 grade speed with a projection of 35 speed on fangraphs (ouch). He's a DH unless he can improve the athleticism. Garlick could maybe handle a corner spot if given the opportunity. He just doesn't have a lot of track record and he's not a good option for a 4th outfielder because he can't cover center. Kirilloff would be worth a lot more in the corners than 1B. Fangraphs has Kirilloff as a 30 grade speed, though I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion and MLB has him as a 50 grade. Kirilloff managed a 27.4 ft/sec sprint speed (60th percentile in MLB) which is more than enough for the corners. Kepler is a solid corner outfielder. He's dropped some speed in the past couple years so he's probably no longer a valid option in center field like he was in 2019. He's a known quanitity worth starting as an everyday player. Martin is seen as a second baseman by most scouts. He doesn't appear to have the range for center field or the arm for SS or 3rd base. Celestino is a center fielder, not a corner outfielder. It would be a waste to stick him in the corners where his limited bat would do far less for value creation. Considering Buxton is going to be hurt for 80-100 games next year, Celestino is best used as a replacement there. Cave profiles as a AAAA player. Fisher has generated a grand total of -0.1 fWAR in his career. He's MiLB depth as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the farm options are not ready, emergency backups or MiLB depth, IMHO. I think it would be fair to say the Twins have a lot of players who technically play corner outfielder at some level or another. They have precious few proven MLB caliber corner outfielders.

I think career ERA, Wins and Cy Youngs were the stats/awards which most influenced Hall of Fame elections in the 1990s. Strikeouts were neat, but kind of an a boost rather than a main point, I think. You could look at Nolan Ryan as an example. He reigns supreme with 5,714 career strikeouts, but it was the 324 wins that got him to Cooperstown. The 8x he received Cy Young votes helped as well. At least in my opinion.

Well, how messed up it was (maybe is again). There was a revolution in metrics and value during Blyleven's time on the ballot. When he got his first year of eligibility, ERA, wins and Cy Young totals were what was important. Blyleven's 3.31 career ERA wasn't under 3.00, his 287 wins weren't 300 and he'd never won a Cy Young. By year 14, I think a lot of writers were utterly stunned Blyleven hadn't been elected when they started looking at things like WAR. The more metrics advanced, the more they cut through the garbage of politics and made it more clear just how dominant Blyleven was and how robbed he got from playing on bad teams.

Win loss ratio, relative to the team's record, I think, does mean a lot. The reason why wins are typically not considered a valuable statistic is the context is missing. It's not possible to fairly compare pitchers from different teams, eras or even leagues based on wins.

If Blyleven had played on good teams, he'd have won 350 games and 4 or 5 Cy Youngs. Blyleven accumulated the 13th highest total WAR among pitchers in MLB history. 164.8 = Walter Johnson (1907-1927) 163.6 = Cy Young (1890-1911) 139.2 = Roger Clemens (1984-2007) 119.0 = Pete Alexander (1911-1930) 116.3 = Kid Nichols (1890-1906) *109.9 = Tom Seaver (1967-1986) 106.8 = Lefty Grove (1925-1941) 106.6 = Greg Maddux (1986-2008) 106.5 = Christy Mathewson (1900-1916) 101.1 = Randy Johnson (1988-2009) 100.1 = Warren Spahn (1942-1965) *95.9 = Phil Niekro (1964-1987) 94.5 = Bert Blyleven (1970-1992) *Bert Blyleven's contemporaries. Honestly, Bert Blyleven was the second best pitcher in his era (70s and 80s) behind only the legendary Tom Seaver. and pretty even with Phil Niekro. Blyleven was better at his best, but Niekro was less up and down. Blyleven accumulated 49.1 bWAR in a Twins uniform including half-seasons where he was traded from and to the Twins in 1976 and 1985. This is behind only Killebrew, Carew, Mauer and Puckett. No pitcher in history has added more career bWAR in a Twins uniform. Not Kaat, Santana, Viola or Radke (who was much better than you remember and spent his entire career in Minnesota). Blyleven is 5th all time in strikeouts and 9th all time in complete game shutouts.

I don't have any issues with the Twins running with the pitchers they have and rebuilding. I don't have any issues with the Twins trading for front end rotation arms and competing. I do have a problem with the Twins log jamming their older prospects behind mediocre at best arms who the Twins will refuse to release in a timely manner. It's time for the Twins to prove they have the arms or prove they're willing to bring in the arms. It's that simple to me.

If these pitchers are ready and the reason the front office isn't going after high quality, proven, front end starters is to avoid roadblocking the pitchers we have, then no additional starters should be signed. This article reads like having your cake and eating it, too. We've got 3 rotation spots locked up already. Signing more would just be log-jamming our prospects behind mediocre pitchers instead of log-jamming them behind elite pitchers. Even more pointless. No idea why the Twins signed Bundy if they have all these arms ready for 2022, but lets look into them. Balazovic was challenged to make adjustments to use his breaking pitch and changeup more instead of relying so heavily on his fastball. He wound up inconsistent and ineffective down the stretch. He's never spent time at AAA. Duran has arm issues, pitched only 16 innings last year and couldn't get outs or throw strikes at AAA. He shouldn't be considered a starter candidate before 2023, if he doesn't need surgery. If he does, we won't see him as a starter until 2024. Winder seems like he's ready for an MLB rotation spot. He had "dead arm" or a shoulder issue down the stretch and a rough go of things at AAA, but he's honestly probably the most ready of the prospects. Sands, like Balazovic may be ready to make the jump from AA to the big show, but I'm sure the Twins would like him to see action in AAA. He only pitched 80 innings last year due to an undisclosed injury. Vallimont can't throw strikes and can't get outs. Woods Richardson barely pitched for us. I'm really not buying the story on him just needing to work out to pitch again. He had a month off pitching. It doesn't take 2 months to get ready to pitch again. I like him as a prospect, but there's no chance he's ready before the end of 2022 at the earliest. Something's amiss here. Stroatman can't throw strikes and if he tries extra hard to throw them, he gets crushed. Canterino's elbow is awfully sketchy. He pitched only 23 innings in 2021 and didn't make it above A+. 2023 at the absolute earliest in the rotation. Varland is a great story, but there are a lot of tempered expectations because of what he was when drafted. Does Varland have the stuff or does he just have adequate polish to succeed in the low minors? He hasn't pitched above A+ ball. Listing him as a potential MLB pitcher in 2022 isn't realistic, but I suppose it's theoretically possible. Of the list, I would say Winder and mayyyyyybe Sands could take a rotation spot day 1. Balazovic could join the rotation in maybe June after a couple months at AAA? Woods-Richardson could get a cup of coffee. I don't see Canterino or Varland joining the rotation before 2023 and Duran, Vallimont, Stroatman are probably bullpen guys.

Mattingly's fielding percentage was almost always higher than Hrbek's and popularity and fielding percentage were how people won Gold Gloves back then.

Royce Lewis is the prospect I most want to follow in 2022 (please let there be a full 2022). Wallner is a fringy prospect unless he can manage the strikeouts a little better. His AFL appearance hung out at 30% as I recall, which is better than I expected and against competition which is historically better than A+ ball. I sometimes wonder why prospects like Wallner don't invest more time into conditioning. If he had some better wheels, he'd rise a lot in terms of potential value. Some comments in here about Rooker, but I'm not as concerned about him. The advanced metrics showed he had really lousy luck in 2021. His expected numbers were much higher than the actual results. Here's hoping he not only takes a step forward in 2022, but the luck evens out.

Looking back at Hrbek, you see just how good he was. It's just pretty shocking to see him as a 1x All Star and the fact he was #2 in MVP voting without even making the All Star Game in 1984.

Viola had a much better peak than Kaat, plus the Cy Young plus the World Series Championship with the Twins. You mention Kaat's 131 ERA+ in 1966, but Viola did that or better 3 times with the Twins in his 8 years. 1984 = 131, 1987 = 159, 1988 = 154. Viola's peak 5 years with the Twins produced 24.6 bWAR vs. Jim Kaat's best 5 years at 15.5 bWAR and his entire 15 year career with the Twins at 31.1 bWAR. Quite frankly, Frank Viola was just a much, much better pitcher than Jim Kaat. Kaat made it to the HoF, but I wouldn't have supported it. He belongs in the Hall of Good, one step above the Hall of Pretty Decent like Jack Morris.

If I had a ballot, I think it would look like this: 1 Curt Schilling x 2 Barry Bonds x 3 Roger Clemens x 4 Scott Rolen x 5 Billy Wagner x 6 Todd Helton x 7 Andruw Jones x 8 Manny Ramirez x 9 Joe Nathan x 10 David Ortiz x 11 Alex Rodriguez x 12 Tim Hudson x 13 Omar Vizquel 14 Jeff Kent 15 Sammy Sosa 16 Andy Pettitte 17 Mark Buehrle 18 Torii Hunter 19 Bobby Abreu 20 Gary Sheffield 21 Carl Crawford 22 Prince Fielder 23 Ryan Howard 24 Tim Lincecum 25 Justin Morneau 26 Jonathan Papelbon 27 Jake Peavy 28 A. J. Pierzynski 29 Jimmy Rollins 30 Mark Teixeira On the bubble, but no - Sammy Sosa, Jeff Kent, Bobby Abreu, Gary Sheffield. These guys were all steroid era players who rapidly declined when testing was implemented. If players show that kind of pattern, they're going to need more than the bare minimum to get in. On the bubble, and yes - Tim Hudson, Joe Nathan, Billy Wagner. Hudson's career 56.5 bWAR is in that 50/50 historical category, but he was dominant to start his career and managed to have a couple really nice years after his prime to pad out the stats. Nathan was arguably the best closer in baseball for 6 years from 2004-2009 and returned to back it up for a couple more years with the Rangers. Wagner wasn't as dominant as Nathan, but he pitched a more innings and managed to have a peak bWAR of 19.8 across 7 seasons. Show me a reliever averaging nearly 3 WAR per season for 7 years and I'll tell you they're a Hall of Famer. If a player was so far above the threshold as to be automatic, I don't care about the PED usage during the steroid era. Clemens and Bonds needed those PEDs to more than double their value in order to not be basically automatic. I've changed and softened my stance on the issue. The fact is we don't know who used and MLB allowed it to happen and then leaked confidential testing documents. The NFL, NHL and NBA have all handled their PED issues far better. Rodriguez initially gave me some pause. He cheated during the testing era, but you know what, he paid the price. A huge price for cheating. If a player wants to cheat now, that's fine. When they get caught and suspended and lose $40MM and a year of playing time, that's good enough for me.

I took a look into Larnach a couple months ago. It looks like he struggles against almost everything except 4 seam fastballs and curveballs. The problem appears to be that Larnach doesn't recognize pitches. He had an 18.1% called strike rate which is the 3rd worst in MLB with 300+ plate appearances, and he doesn't make contact when he does swing. His whiff rate is in the bottom 4% of MLB players. Larnach's whiff rate on breaking pitches is 55% and offspeed is 54%. I'm not saying there's no hope for Larnach, but it sure seems like he has a major uphill battle to fight. It's also worth noting Larnach has generated impressive power numbers only in his 2018 college junior season. He didn't show big HR power in high school or his earlier years of college and he hasn't shown it again since that junior season. The biggest concern I have is he couldn't hit AAA pitching, either. Again, small sample size with only 62 plate appearances in 14 games, but a 10% walk rate and 30% K rate in AAA with a .176/.323/.373 isn't doing anything to make me feel like Larnach has the ability to turn the corner. He had 300 plate appearances at the MLB level to see much better control and pitching and work on his game so that AAA should have been easy mode.

Not at all what I said. I took the high road. I'll just block you now.

Fair enough. I'll concede.

Pierzynski is a one and done. He was never great, and his counting stats aren't remotely close to there either. Pierzynski is about on the same plane as Greg Gagne.