bean5302

No, it really can't if Duran is committed to wanting a shot to start. Starters get contracts 2-3x as long as relievers and the annual value is 2-3x greater. Forcing Duran to pitch out the pen when he hasn't had a chance to start and wants to will not only cripple Duran's potential career earnings, it will severely damage the Twins' relationship with the pitcher while utterly gutting the potential on field value to the franchise. It's a totally different story if Duran comes to the conclusion he pitches best out of the pen and grows comfortable there like Trevor May did. Largest reliever contract in history? 5yrs $86MM to Aroldis Chapman. Largest starter contract in MLB history? 9yrs $324MM to Gerrit Cole. Highest Reliever AAV? $18MM to Liam Hendricks Highest Starter AAV? $43MM to Max Scherzer Recent HoF inductees. Highest Starter bWAR? Greg Maddux 107 bWAR mean avg 4.7 bWAR Highest Reliever bWAR? Mariano Rivera 56 bWAR mean avg 3.0 bWAR

This is the same kind of article I would have expected to see back in like 2013. Mauer isn't a leader because he's not vocal enough! Buxton isn't a leader? The guy is learning Spanish to better communicate and be more inclusive with his teammates. Hard to get a better example of leadership. https://www.inforum.com/sports/pro/twins-center-fielder-byron-buxton-dives-into-new-challenge-learning-spanish Correa isn't a leader? The guy makes his opinions known on team roster decisions and how much he values players. Several players have talked about playing with Correa and how he inspires and helps them. The Twins just aren't a great team. They're a good team dealing with a lot of injuries to guys who were expected to be core players this year like Buxton, Sano, Larnach, Kepler, Ober and Paddack and several players they were really hoping would step up and deliver on their potential like Lewis, and Winder. The Twins are 8th in MLB and 4th in the AL in batting WAR. It's clear why they're not winning games, and that's pitching. Now, when it comes to pitching, Minnesota's bullpen has been a huge issue, compounded by the short appearances of their starters which is certainly part front office and manager game philosophy.

That's not good. The word was the Twins had been working with him to regain velocity, but if he's struggling at under 90mph at this point, after having a very well rested arm, that's pretty damning. From MLB.com At his best, Woods Richardson is an intriguing combination of size, stuff and feel for pitching. The Twins are working with him to regain the velocity on his fastball, which still features good movement but averaged only around 91 mph in 2021. He touched 96 mph, so the organization thinks more consistent velocity is in there if he can access it. His curve, an upper-70s downer, is a tick better than his low-80s slider, but it’s his changeup that is his only plus pitch right now, thrown with good fade and deception. https://www.mlb.com/prospects/twins/simeon-woods-richardson-680573 If Woods-Richardson can't at least get his fastball into the low 90s, I'd be surprised if he would be effective at the MLB level. Veteran pitchers who've mastered their craft and have years of experience against MLB competition to know what works can often pitch effectively enough without the velocity, but for a rookie? That's a very tall call and one reason I'm not high at all on Cole Sands starting.

Duran wants to start. His manager? Condescendingly and dismissively jokes about it. I love the supportive attitude, especially after management took a pie to the face from their best starting pitcher just a couple days ago and then immediately after, yanked another starter who had a shutout going at 71 pitches just to have the reliever cough up a run in a game the Twins lost. I think Duran should be given the opportunity to start next year as his innings have ramped up nicely this year and he's been able to handle the workload. He was always a starter in the minors and he can dial it back from 103 to 99 and be effective. You're talking about the potential of having an ace under long term team control for cheap. The first truly legitimate ace developed in the minors by this organization since... ummm Viola? Duran is worth about 3x more to the team as a starter. Duran has been everything and more than I expected. I didn't have high hopes for him based on last years walk rate and getting so used to prospects being highly praised for "stuff" that just didn't translate with results in the minors only to discover it got even worse at the majors. Duran's had poise, shown command and control and wipeout pitches which have totally owned opponents and this is his rookie season. He could continue to get better.

The bullpen gave up 2 earned runs in 5 innings. 3.60 ERA. Can't expect them to allow fewer runs than that. I don't think it's anybody's "fault." The Twins scored 3, allowed 4. That's a tightly contested, well fought ball game where neither team did a lot more or less than expected.

Throws as hard as Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, but starts to look like batting practice, eh? Seems like a strong strike against Falvey for signing the guy if he's an opener and not a starter.

It's not concerning to me if the Twins make a playoff run this year.

Bundy should be going 6-8 innings a game. His pitch counts are almost always very efficient. In the process of debating and researching the TTO theories, the stats on how frequently average pitchers are asked to go out to the mound for the 6th inning, and the answer is very frequently. Nearly 80% of MLB starters, on average, are on the mound in the 6th inning. My concern is the extreme shifting in Bundy's pitch counts at this point. I knew Baldelli was pulling him early and with few pitches, but I had no idea how drastically different Bundy's pitch counts have been. Bundy's workload has varied by over to 60% in back to back games. He's seen games where he's thrown 107 pitches and games where he's been pulled at 58 for seemingly no reason. On average, Bundy can only guess how many pitches he's going to throw as the average difference in his pitch count is almost 25% from game to game. This cannot be good for his health. Arguments the Twins are limiting innings or pitch counts etc to protect their pitchers seem unreasonable to me at this point. It seems the only reason behind the moves is the commitment to winning each and every game with the philosophy the front office and manager have agreed to follow. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong.

Yep. All Palacios has done was put together a remarkably similar campaign in AAA as he had last year in AA. 2021 AA OPS = .779, wRC+ 109, 9.8% BB, 23.6% K 2022 AAA OPS = .796, wRC+ 111, 7.7% BB, 25.0% K Unfortunately, his fielding at SS is pretty poor. He's got just about the lowest RF/9 in the league and his fielding percentage is rough as well. I really don't understand why the Twins struggle so greatly when it comes to getting their shortstops to stop booting balls, but it's become clear to me it's an organizational problem.

If we're nitpicking... I know Bundy isn't people's favorite pitcher around here, but it's rough when you give him all the earned runs the Rangers pitching staff allowed, too. Earning 3 earned runs in a 2-1 win smacks of malice. LOL

Cole Sands struggles with control. I was at the aforementioned game where Sands went 3 innings against the Blue Jays and it always felt like Sands was just on the edge of getting annihilated, frequently missing his spots by wide margins. Maybe Sands can be a long reliever, but I'm not sold on his MLB level skills in longer outings. Sands average fastball went from 91mph to 93mph when he was given 1 inning appearances.

Bundy's pitch counts from beginning of the year to current. 67, 71, 79, 94, 74, 54, 85, 95, 67, 66, 107, 60, 83, 58, 77, 88, 77, 78, 65, 65, 71. Bundy's been pulled from games where he'd allowed 0-1 runs anywhere from 65 to 107 pitches. Doesn't seem like a pitch count limit to me.

Where would they market when nobody cares about going to the Twins game? LOL. There are so many great options to get into the game for individuals, families, special occasions, with combinations of food or drink, etc. The truth is, nobody even bothers to look which says a lot about the interest level in the Twins.

The Twins do have a great option for avoiding the schedule that as well. The Monthly Twins Pass is $60. Gets people into any/all games that month. Not sure how successful it's been, though.

Love to watch Arraez's plate appearances. Something's always going to happen, and often, it's something good or great. Looking at that chart, Larnach's whiff rate is scary considering his EV, but Larnach has drawn a fair number of walks, too. I'm hoping Larnach's early year successes against the slider and sinker weren't just SSS mirage, but when I isolate his performance against the slider, he crushed it in April and then started struggling after that.

Oh really? As a season ticket holder, my experience is very different than your perspective. I've gone to many games solo because I couldn't give my extra seat away. I had to ask nearly a dozen people if they wanted my seats free tonight as I have other obligations. Also speaking as a season ticket holder, the stadium was 1/3 to 1/4 full for the first 2 months of the season, even on nice weather days and on weekends, and it was absolutely dead from an ambiance perspective as a result. It hasn't been until recently the stadium has been energetic. The Twins were selling $5 seats to games and it was literally cheaper to get seats for the Twins than the Saints. So, from my personal observations as a season ticket holder who's attended many games this year, it is hard to get people to go to the game.

No. He's a rookie and there's plenty of reason to question whether or not he's playing a little above his head right now.

It's defense and base running related. First base has a negative defensive value in general, Miranda has mostly played first, and not very well. When Miranda has played 3B, he's actually right about league average in a very small sample size. If Miranda was a full time 3B and his defensive value (BIS DRS for bWAR and UZR for fWAR), Miranda would probably be around 2.0 bWAR/fWAR right now. Basically, 3B is worth +2.5 runs for Fangraphs and 2.0 runs for Baseball Reference and Miranda's been neutral at the position. 1B is worth -12.5 runs for Fangraphs and -9.5 runs for Baseball Reference. The net spread ranges from 11.5 to 15.0 runs in a full season between 3B and 1B. Miranda has 1/4 of a season at 1B so he's been hit with -3 to -4 runs by playing 1B instead of 3B. In addition, Miranda hasn't played 1B very well by Baseball Reference's standard (BIS Defensive Runs Saved) at -3 so far vs. neutral at 3B. The net spread for bWAR is -6 runs defensively vs. where he'd be if he exclusively played 3B and that's 0.6 bWAR. Base running costs him another run for bWAR for a total hit to WAR of 0.7. Something about like that anyway. Do keep in mind he's only started about 65 games this year. In a full season at 3B, he's pretty close to a 5 WAR pace right now.

Sounds like the Twins might be getting ready to call some guys up and they need some MiLB roster filler.

When I look deep into Balazovic's numbers, he wasn't generating a ton of swinging strikes. 40 strikes total, with well under half coming from swinging and looking combined which suggests a lot of balls being fouled off. In my experience, at bats with tons of foul balls often end in strikeouts or home runs. Considering just how awful Balazovic has been this year, I'm guarded in any optimism, but it's hard to believe some of Balazovic's struggles haven't been mental. Here's hoping he can build on the performance and confidence inspires better results. Woods-Richardson moving on up to AAA is exciting. I'm really interested to see how his stuff plays against more experienced batters who generally take more professional at bats than lower in the minors. Here's hoping Woods-Richardson proves his mettle quickly in St. Paul. It's been quite the whirlwind for him between all the trades, downtime and the Olympics. I bet he can practically taste his first MLB start.

Fangraphs 2022 - https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2022-in-season-prospect-list/summary?sort=-1,1&q=julien Click on the little black note/letter/clipboard icon to the right of his name for the report. Click on his name for his page and you can see his rated tools above his stats. MLB 2022 - https://www.mlb.com/prospects/twins/edouard-julien-666397 Prospects Live 2021 - https://www.prospectslive.com/lists/2021/4/3/minnesota-twins-2021-prospect-rankings Takes a second to load, but scroll all the way down to Julien and click on the blue clipboard icon to the left of his name to expand his scouting report. There are 3 I found quick. He's graded as a 40 run/field type of guy. Scouts tend to repeat the same numbers and they can certainly be off, but right now, it's universal on him. I think Fangraphs had an article where they talked about him recently as well where they note even Julien knows his value is in the bat.

It's a tough one between Miranda and Duran, but I'd take Miranda as of this point. Joe Ryan is well behind in my opinion.

This was the reason Nelson Cruz got Joe Ryan in the first place. Tampa Bay isn't exactly inept at developing pitching and they knew Ryan's MLB ceiling was limited even with his great fastball if his secondary offerings didn't improve. The Twins won the Cruz trade no matter how you look at it, but if Ryan cannot improve his secondaries, he'll be stuck as a #4-5 guy for his career. Still a steal for a few months of Cruz and what will at least amount to a nice MLB career like a Nick Blackburn.

fWAR shows 1.0 and 0.6 while bWAR shows 0.0 and 0.2, respectively. That said, the Twins haven't done Bundy or Archer many favors by allowing them to accumulate WAR. The only reason starters provide so much more value than relievers is innings. The fact starters are expected to go TTO and Baldelli almost always pulls them before then means the Twins have chained Bundy and Archer's WAR production significantly. No innings = no WAR. When it comes to calculating true value, I don't think the $8MM per WAR calculation is any good at all. It doesn't reflect true contributions to the team and it doesn't reflect what the team was hoping to buy. Teams have been trying to buy WAR closer to $6MM historically and a starting pitcher producing 2.0 WAR is just treading water in terms of actual team contributions. A typical team needs about 90 wins to make the playoffs. That's about 45 WAR. Starting Position Players - 9 at 2.0 WAR Starting Rotation Players - 5 at 2.0 WAR Bullpen Players - 8 at 0.5 WAR Utility Players - 4 at 0.8 WAR Injury Replacements - 10.0 WAR Less than that, and the team is short on WAR to make the playoffs and another player has to carry the load. A starting pitcher who can't get to about 2 WAR on the season is a net negative on a team's playoff chances, which is why signing those 1.0 WAR types of players is a waste of money. I think Bundy's ERA and WAR would both be quite a bit better if he hadn't gotten the early hook all the time. There have been many, many games this year he should have trotted back out for another inning or 3.

The MLB leader has 24 starts this year. Bundy has 20, on pace for 30 starts Archer has 20. on pace for 30 starts Ryan has 19. on pace for 27 starts. Gray has 17. on pace for 24 starts. I'm not sure if your world is realistic based on what you're writing. Do you expect relievers to never allow a home run? Jax has 44 appearances. In 39 of those, he allowed 0-1 runs... Thielbar has 46 appearances. In 43 of those, he's allowed 0-1 runs... and only 1 of the games where he's allowed more than 1 run has occurred in his last 44 appearances. Why not throw Jhoan Duran under the bus like Thielbar and Jax? Duran has 3 games where he's allowed more than 1 run too. We ditched Joe Smith, who had only allowed multiple earned runs twice this year, lol. 20% of the runs Smith allowed was from the fielders knocking balls down with concrete gloves. Perhaps you think that's sustainable and good relief pitchers are guaranteed to go out there and go 3 up and 3 down all the time? In any case, Baldelli has been afforded several reliable relievers. He elected to use Duffey and Pagan all the time instead of giving Bundy or Archer another inning. Duffey still has the 3rd most innings of our relievers...