bean5302

Just as easy to highlight this to buyers as it is to sellers. If the Ishbia's had purchased the Twins and dumped money into the payroll consistently to put a legitimate World Series competitor roster together, the buzz would have led to fans flooding into Target Field, and the Ishbia's could have ridden the 2 billion in value appreciation themselves. The Pohlad family has only half-heartedly committed to spending money to make money. Instead, quickly growing conservative as they settle for a "competitive" position. Unfortunately, they're completely out of touch with the market base and don't understand how to make a Twins game attractive to prospective attendees.

That's 4 starts in a row from Bradley of at least 5.0 innings and an ERA of less than 4.00. Probably would have been 5 in a row including his first game if not for the ridiculously quick hook from Shelton. That's not a common accomplishment. Pablo Lopez has managed more than 4 GS started in a row that way just once in his Twins career. Same for Joe Ryan and both ended at 5.

Where is the line drawn? Heckling has been a part of sports forever, but as our society continues its march towards the full criminalization of "being mean" where mean is subjective based on political alignment, I think it's fair to consider what is and is not subject of punative action vs. what is poor behavior vs. what is acceptable enough vs. what is good natured ribbing. Historically, people get tossed when they make the game day experience miserable for other fans directly. Generally, that's physical violence (including physical acts like throwing garbage/food/drinks) obnoxiously loud and continuous shouting or cursing. Heavy intoxication and violation of general ball park rules as well. When it comes to encouraging a person to commit a violent act or threatening a violent act, I believe that crosses into the punitive action area. Its reprehensible action which makes the game a hostile and uncomfortable environment for the vast majority of fans around them. I would also say, I could definitely imagine an angry fan from Boston yelling at Duran after a ground out while Boston was getting creamed as much or more than a Twins fan, but obviously being over the Twins dugout side makes that less likely. Also believable is a fan might have no knowledge of Duran's series, and they might just be a piece of work. Believe it or not, I'd wager 90% of people at the game have no clue. For Jarren Duran, he's right. He opened the door up into a dark place where he was exceptionally vulnerable, and people are going to attack his weakness. When trying to shine a light into an area where people have been ostracizised, there's going to be resistence. That's the way of life and human society. Taking a position of leadership and pushing progress means you're subjected to intense criticism. It's up to each person to decide who has an opinion worth valuing. Some idiot who literally paid money just to see you from a distance trying to take advantage of a vulnerability? The sooner Duran sees those people as pathetic, and unworthy of listening to, the easier it will be on him. Duran is also a professional athlete. Fans in the stands are going to look for anything they can to get into the head of a player, and not all fans are going to be decent people. If he can't get over it or he can't turn it into motivation to go 5-5 with 5 HR the next 5 at bats, he's in for a long road. There's no justification for the heckler, but Duran needs to expect there are a-holes out there so he doesn't get to flick off an entire fan section in the hopes the heckler is the only one who sees it.

Catcher framing is the stat people seem to desperately want to be real despite the fact it's all over the place from year to year. The last time I looked it it, tall catchers tended to get high strike calls. Short catchers tended to get low strike calls. Changes to pitching staff seems to impact "framing skill" more than the catchers do.

How I read your response. Stats don't matter. The Twins front office is infallable and is a defensively minded operation. The Tigers must have coveted Kreidler's defense because they occasionally rostered Kreidler as short term depth while he had options. (It must be baffling how they DFA'd a player who has options making the league minimum. I guess the Tigers front office must have accidentally lost track of things...) The Larnach comparison is hyperbole. Your link doesn't work. https://www.mlb.com/tigers/video/tarik-skubal-in-play-out-s-to-tommy-edman-dcmfyg?q=Ryan Kreidler&cp=CMS_FIRST&qt=FREETEXT&p=0 Trevor Larnach, defensive wizard... https://www.mlb.com/tigers/video/cole-sands-in-play-out-s-to-nick-loftin?q=Trevor Larnach catch&cp=CMS_FIRST&qt=FREETEXT&p=3

You hear about Lewis' upside because his upside is MVP candidate. He's played through a lot of injuries, and he's still probably more injury prone when it comes to lower body stuff. Two complete ACL tears in back to back years led to a severe quad strain, led to hamstring issues. The kinds of injuries he sustained, and played through recovery, are completely devastating to the lower body. I'm not sure where you get the idea Lewis has less defensive flexibilty. You could tell Lewis to play any position, he might not prefer it, but you can make him stand there. Same with Kody Clemens. It doesn't mean Clemens is a good defender at those positions and it doesn't mean Lewis would be.

The Twins have tasked Conner Prielipp with learning a curveball. I think his results are going to be a little dicey for a while. I still think Matthews will get the nod before Prielipp as the Twins have clearly been working with Matthews on the sinker while abandoning the changeup. When you miss hang a sinker, it ends up in the seats, and that's exactly what's been happening for Matthews. We'll have to watch Rojas, too. I think Rojas could pass both of them on the depth chart if the Twins like what they see in terms of strike throwing, but the Twins worked changing Rojas' stuff up and around last year after they acquired him, too. AAA doesn't feel like the right place for prospects to learn how to pitch to me, but the Twins seem to like it that way.

Kriedler is a known entity. Can't hit, like at all. Is that why people think Kreidler is some sort of defensive wizard? Because he can't hit so he must be good at something? Savant shows declining speed from 60 grade in his rookie season to 50 grade now. Kreidler can't cover CF any more than Larnach can. Kreidler's arm is 50 grade. His speed is 50 grade. Like... sure, he's more athletic than Brooks Lee, but he's probably inferior to Austin Martin. Then again, he's been atrocious at the plate so he must be good defensively, right? It's not like Kreidler's defense at SS the past 3 years in AAA has been otherworldly or something. Schobel was a better SS in AAA last year than Kreidler was by a substantial margin. Kreidler is better than Brooks Lee defensively. He's much, much worse offensively. He does not have the speed to cover CF. If you like Manny Margot in CF, you'll love Kreidler.

Matthews is throwing harder in AAA right now than he was in MLB in 2024. He's clearly tinkering with his repertoire. Four seam fastballs generate strike outs. Sinkers generate ground balls, not strikeouts.

It was never about whether a pitcher can succeed at 88-89mph for their fastest pitch. It was about whether "Ober" could succeed, and whether it was a good idea to let him re-learn to pitch with reduced velocity at the MLB level. There's a "chance" Ober can be successful at 88-89mph despite his poor performance when that happened last year. The argument is basically moot at this point. There aren't any pitchers in AAA trying to force their way into the Twins' rotation right now.

I don't think Breslow has shown an appetite for the Twins' asking prices for talent. I don't think the Twins would part ways with him for anything the Red Sox would be comfortable offering. In addition, Brooks Lee's history doesn't suggest he has a bat which plays at SS, let alone 3B. He's had some nice games recently, but the batted ball data thinks his results have been unwarranted. Brooks Lee has not been an MLB caliber starting position player so far in his career. He's not a viable option for 3B in my opinion.

I'll take results, too. But 1 or 2 game sample sizes are worthless when considering actual results. Because pitchers can't just work out of a jam whenever they feel like it or every home run would be a solo shot, and GIDPs would happen 10x a game.

Step 1, git gud. Emma was below average in AAA until his 2HR game. If guys aren't raking in AAA, they're not going to push anybody off the MLB roster. wRC+ 130 in AAA is probably going to translate as league average in MLB. Guys like Jenkins and Kaelyn Culpepper need a couple hundred plate appearances with quality production as a "prove it" as far as I'm concerned. Gonzalez has been too slow to really play OF, though he's supposedly got a strong arm, and his ceiling is probably pretty low for the Twins, especially, given Target Field's tall right field wall. It wouldn't be a TD post without at least some criticism of Wallner, though he hasn't been playing well. But, it's April 17th. If the Twins are going to demote him, just trade him to a team who has more belief in Wallner's game.

His 3rd start was nice from results. It came with a 6.12 xERA and a 4.73 xFIP and an 18.8% barrel rate. The FIP was good because none of the barrels somehow found their way to the seats. Torkelson in the first inning with the 375 foot warning track shot with 2 runners on. Greene with a double high off the wall in right/center at 394 feet in the 3rd. In fact, all the contact in the 3rd was 94mph+. Advanced metrics are designed to tell you expected results even in a teeny-tiny sample sizes. Abel had 3 good starts last year where the results and metrics lined up as reasonable. Advanced metrics don't ignore or attempt to excuse results like your 2nd paragraph. Working out of a jam isn't a thing. They don't care about results, they care about what should have happened (based on their design formula). Of course, there are times when some (or even many) advanced metrics simply can't capture certain aspects of players' games. Players who consistently underperform or outperform the advanced metrics. It's not common. I don't need all the metrics to be outstanding or something. I'd like to see a large majority of the metrics pointing to "good" games. I consider that 5.0+ IP, with an ERA-like value of 3.99 or less.

Abel's had a single good start by way of results and advanced metrics lining up. I think the rose tinted glasses from Spring Training are making their way into this article. I have high hopes for Abel, but I'd like to see some consistency over 3-4 good starts in a row before I get too excited.

4th year in AA, 5th year in the system out of college, and a .510 BABIP. He's getting lucky with doubles and it's blowing up his stats. It is fair to give him some credit in terms of batted ball quality. His pop up rate is dramatically down and he's whiffing less. Pitchers are throwing him junk out of the gate though. Only a 43% first pitch strike rate. Working from 1-0 all the time helps a guy out.

Feels like a stretch.

Jenkins showing a little more velo this year with a 112.0 exit velocity shot already. That's creeping up there into the 60 grade raw power area after his best of 110.1 last year at AAA. He's not making a lot of quality contact right now, but it's only 50 PA. I'll be concerned at 200 PA, but not much before then. Emmanuel Rodriguez is my biggest concern in the minors. He's already burned this 3rd option and the Twins didn't trust him in the big show this past offseason or out of Spring Training. He's cut down his K rate yet again this year, now to a reasonable level. The walks vanished with it, but I think this is a more sustainable approach. Seeing the power return as well. If Emma can keep that K rate down in the 25% range and manage to produce, the Twins are going to have to give him an extended look in the big show. Outman is clearly the guy who needs to get cut, but Emma needs to be playing every day when he comes up. I'm just not sure where the plate appearances are going to come from.

He was wondering how Maurer vs. Mauer became a thing. @Seth Stohs it comes from the same place as the extra R for Warshing clothes or Warshington DC? LOL

I think a lot of people agree with you, but I'm not one of them. I feel like there's a desire to include Senators players because... well, they stuck around for more than a year or two while Griffith ran the great players out of here.

Matthews isn't landing first pitch strikes and he's working on other pitches, probably because he's throwing his fastball only 25% of the time. His velocity is higher than it was 2 years ago so I'm not worried about it.

Nothing to see here. Twins are 11th in MLB in starter innings pitched per game at 5.27 They've played more games than most teams so they have more innings pitched. Philadelphia is 14th at 5.19. Seattle is number 1, averaging 5.95.

Matthews is showing a wild deviation from his pitch selection, and he's falling behind hitters a ton in AAA this year. He's only throwing his fastball 26% of the time with a paltry 54% first pitch strike rate. While the article talks about his velo being down from last year... it's actually up a tick from 2024. Some concerns, sure, but 1-0 vs 0-1 makes a huge impact on a pitcher. Liriano in 2010 owned a 62% first pitch strike rate. ERA 3.62, FIP 2.66. In 2012, he had a 53% first pitch strike rate. ERA 5.34, FIP 4.34. In 2013, he was back up to 58% and had a 3.02 ERA, 2.92 FIP. I'm not willing to say Matthews is cooked as a starter. Moving him to the pen feels like a knee jerk reaction, and risky strategy when the Twins don't have good injury replacement depth right now. Guy was in Cedar Rapids less than 2 years ago.

Who is backing up the MLB rotation after we move all the starters to the bullpen? Ober and SWR are rocking those eyesore ERAs as it is, and we're definitely going to need 10 starts from somebody who is not currently in the rotation even if we're willing to live with non-competitive performances from 2 of the 5 rotation arms. Rojas and Prielipp? After that, there's nothing in St. Paul I'd consider potentially MLB worthy.

I've been concerned about SWR for a long time. I'm not at all concerned about Keaschall right now since players who are "defensively versatile" in Twins-speak often take a couple of years to improve their glovework at a relatively static position.