bean5302

Paddack had surgery in mid May as I recall so expecting him back before mid August is aggressive. It could happen and everybody will probably have a better feel for it by the start of the season, but I don't bank on UCL repair guys returning before 15 months. For example, Maeda seemed to be on the path to return in 13-13.5 months, even with a brace they were hoping would get him back faster.

I just threw up in my mouth a little....

I'm a season ticket holder. It's a fun and entertaining venue, even if the Twins hasn't played well. I go for the game, not for the team so to speak.

The Twins waived all online ticket fees earlier this year, but I'm not sure if that's still in effect. I get promo offers via email pretty frequently (I think I recently shut them off because it was too frequently). There were some $5 ticket deals in the Twins promo emails. I'd suggest signing up for them if you were looking for a great deal.

At a glance, he looks like a younger, better version of Drew Strotman by the numbers. Henriquez generates a lot of whiffs, but as you say, there seems to be something batters are really squaring up. It's also not like Henriquez is super wild. He's only hit two batters since May 22, and those two were in back to back games. I suspect Henriquez is just lacking command of a pitch or two and it gets clobbered from time to time, but it's just a guess. Consistent high strikeouts and whiff rates with pretty solid walk rates. Just a lot of hits. It's not a combo seen much. But, I'm just guessing. Giving up a ton of hits feels like a bigger problem than struggles with walks so I haven't really been that into Henriquez.

Buxton had another career tying year. I'm not sure what people expected of him. Buxton playing DH shouldn't have impacted the team. I've talked about this before, but Buxton cannot be counted on for more than 80 games a season. 100 games is probably Buxton's ceiling so if the Twins were going to lock him up long term, they needed a MLB caliber starting CF on the roster besides Buxton. Therein lies the problem Buxton doesn't cost $15MM. He costs $15MM plus another starting caliber CF because Buxton misses so many games, the 2nd CF is a requirement. Conventionally, Buxton more than made up for his contract, but considering the real cost for a team having Buxton is the 2nd center fielder, it's a little murkier IMHO. All that doesn't matter though. Buxton is here and he's here to stay for many, many more years.

Yeah, I'll bite. Scoreboard.

Nick Gordon is better than Acuna this year, just sayin'

At least it's over now. The season is done and the Twins are all but statistically eliminated. With 15 games to play and the magic number 9, the Twins would basically need to win out and for Cleveland to go worse than 8-7. That is not happening. Even if Cleveland went 8-7 (or worse), the losses must not come against the White Sox who are 3 games up on the Twins as well.

I have a tendency to expect what @gunnarthor is saying, but I do think discounting Ryan's ability to improve is a bit premature. I think Ryan could improve since his secondary offerings were not utilized heavily in the minors. That said, I think there are far more starters like Ryan who back up a promising rookie campaign with a sophomore slump or permanent decline as the scouting reports become more clear on pitcher's capabilities and batters start sitting on weak pitches they know are coming.

and then Gordon went and played like a high schooler the next game making what should have been a double-error fielding + throw on the same play lol

I think I've addressed this myth before, but Canterino was never close to leading college baseball in innings or anything like that. As I recall, he averaged between 5-6 innings per start his whole college career. There were several pitchers well ahead of Canterino in innings in the Big 10.

If the payroll is actually $155MM, the Twins are going to likely lose quite a bit this year. I expect the Pohlads are going to seriously reign in the payroll. $120MM, max, but probably more like $100MM next year if I were to guess. That means they have much less they could spend. But is Falvey the one who will be in charge of choosing where to spend it? C - Jeffers 1B - Arraez $8MM (with the bonus for Arb pool and his All Star game) 2B - Polanco $8MM 3B - Urshela $10MM SS - Lewis $0.7MM LF - Larnach $0.7MM CF - Buxton $15MM RF - Kepler $8.5MM DH - Miranda $2MM (bonus pool) UO - Celestino $0.7MM MI - Gordon $1.5MM (bonus pool) BC - ? Bench Bat - Kirilloff $0.7MM SP - Maeda $3 SP - Gray $12MM SP - Mahle $10MM SP - Ryan $2MM (bonus pool) SP - Varland $0.7MM BP - Duran $2MM (bonus pool) BP - Lopez $4MM BP - Thielbar $2MM BP - Alcala $0.7MM BP - Jax $0.7MM BP - Megill $0.7MM BP - Winder $0.7MM BP - Ober $0.7MM Where are the Twins looking to upgrade? It's tough to say. Lots of question marks, and it seems like the roster above will probably be north of $90MM. Maybe the bonus pool is paid out at the end of this year rather than next? I'm just guessing at those values.

When it comes to Martin, the Dozier comp is with the bat felt fair (and it's one I thought about in the back of my mind), but I'm not as sure after looking him up. Dozier developed a fair amount of pop at age 23, though it was in lower level play than Martin, and Dozier was an 8th round pick, not a guy who was scouted so highly or considered so close to MLB ready. Dozier also talked about how he changed his swing. The 800 lb gorilla is also that... Dozier was passable, defensively. Dozier's RF/9 at shortstop was generally around 4.50 in the minors, and not unplayable at the MLB level at SS back in a time when the Twins cared about defense. Martin's RF/9 was more like 3.25, after he cleaned up his defense significantly. He was still the worst SS in the league by a mile. Martin cannot even come close to handling the position by the limited metrics. Dozier also adapted his swing a number of times to squeeze every inch of life out of it he could. Martin's had 1-1/2 to adapt his swing to showcase some of the raw power scouts believed he had and it hasn't worked. Not only is Martin's hit tool looking suspect, but his power never materialized. Dozier a22 2009 (R) - .349/.414/.422 .837 OPS wRC+ 139 a23 2010 (A) - .278/.347/.338 .685 OPS wRC+ 95 a23 2010 (A+) - .274/.352/.354 .706 OPS wRC+ 106 a24 2011 (A+) - .322/.423/.472 .895 OPS wRC+ 151 a24 2011 (AA) - .318/.384/.502 .885 OPS wRC+ 145 a25 2012 (AAA) - .232/.286/.337 .623 OPS wRC+ 70 I have no idea what to think of Balazovic's struggles other than... his stuff just didn't play at AAA. He's had a couple nice starts to end the season. One at the end of regular season and one in the playoffs. The previous regular season start saw him put a bunch of guys on base who just didn't score. Nobody gives up that many home runs with working stuff. It just cannot happen. I haven't seen a prospect tank that hard, ever. But, hopefully, he can put together a much, much better campaign next year or the Twins can move him to the pen. I didn't expect anything from Canterino. He's just always been hurt. No changes there now. Somebody talked about a JT Chargois comp a while back. It does kinda feel that way. I'm not at all excited about Canterino at this point. He needs more proof he can be effective outside the low minors. Canterino may have a sparkly ERA at AA, but he walked 5.8 per 9 innings. That will not age well. Could be instability in the elbow like Duran seemed to be dealing with last year, but one can only hope.

Who are these detractors you speak of? The ones who say Ryan has a #3 caliber rotation arm ceiling? That's me. Ryan is currently a back end starter. That does not preclude him from having great games and I think it's great that he's pitched so awesome. Kevin Slowey had a 4 game run in 2008 that looked like this: 4 G, 29.0 IP, 0.93 ERA, 24 K, 2 BB Kyle Gibson had a 3 game run in 2014 that looked like this: 3 G, 21.0 IP, 0.00 ERA, 16 K, 5 BB Randy Dobnak started had a 3 game run in 2019 that looked like this: 3 G, 16.1 IP, 1.10 ERA, 13 K, 3 BB Dylan Bundy, who has constantly been crapped on by the staff and fans of this site opened the season with: 3 G, 15.1 IP, 0.59 ERA, 12 K, 1 BB I like Joe Ryan. I think he'll stick in the Twins rotation and he's inexpensive. I also remember he got hammered in his two previous starts before these last 2 really great games he's spun.

Having Arraez fade so hard down the stretch again is tough. He looked great to start last year, but faded late in the summer in 2021, too. .296/.365/.381 wRC+ 109 in the first half .292/.348/.371 wRC+ 100 in the second half, .271/.314/.333 wRC+ 80 in Sept/Oct.

Right. Sanchez throws out more base runners than MLB average and dramatically better than Jeffers. Sanchez allows fewer passed balls and wild pitches than MLB average, similar to Jeffers. Sanchez is ranked above average at pitch framing this year a bit behind Jeffers = Sanchez sucks defensively. The stats actually do not support the opinion Sanchez being a poor defensive catcher. The argument Jeffers is a significantly better defensive catcher than Sanchez seems to have no merit from a stats standpoint. Sanchez's bat does seem to have gone ice cold again over the past couple weeks, which is a bummer, but I sometimes wonder if Sanchez uses custom printed Twins Daily staffer images on his toilet paper... Nice to see Ryan pitching deep again. Good things happen when Baldelli lets the starters who are on their game continue to pitch and go into the later innings. I can't help but feel the division title would be in play had Baldelli extended this opportunity to other rotation arms.

Brooks Lee to make the jump to opening day starting shortstop directly from essentially 114 plate appearances at High-A where he was passable-ish at SS for the level. Yeah, that's not happening, lol. The level of desperation in this fanbase is getting pretty incredible haha

Right. You didn't say Larnach was better than Buxton. You said Larnach was one of the highest rated defenders before getting hurt. Since you didn't provide any "ratings" I had to go get some defensive metrics (which are not of any value for Larnach in the sample size he played). I just grabbed UZR/150, which suggests Larnach is as good as Byron Buxton. The metrics say Larnach is Buxton. We all know he's not and nobody in their right mind would think Larnach could possibly be remotely as good as Buxton as a fielder. But... that's what the metrics say because of SSS error. It's the same type of thing I run in with Buxton superfans on this site who expect Buxton OPS 1.300 and produce 10 WAR per season. When I point out Buxton isn't he greatest hitter in MLB history, they all complain of the strawman I've created and they never said Buxton was better than everybody in MLB history. ...but you kinda did, even if you don't realize it. Anyway. Larnach would maybe be an average left fielder had he been able to play. He'll likely never be a highly rated defender.

The Twins are officially under 1% to make the playoffs with the loss last night according to Fangraphs. Now 7 games back of Cleveland with only 2 games to play against them. 3.5 games back from the White Sox. The White Sox play a 3 game series against Cleveland sandwiched between the current and next series against the Tigers. Once you get to the point of almost needing your competition to sweep and then get swept along with you winning out... it gets preeeeeeettttyyy bad. That said, definitely have to hope the White Sox sweep the Guardians and the Twins win the last two against Cleveland as well. Since the Twins have 6 games against the White Sox this year. Chicago should be a better team, but they certainly haven't played like it. Twins' elimination number is 11, folks. 11 losses or a combination of wins for Cleveland and losses by Minnesota. If Cleveland goes 6-11 (.353) to end the year, the Twins must go at least 13-4 (.765) to win the division.

Gordon earned two errors on that play. 1 fielding, 1 throw. He only got knocked for the throw. Makes up for the BS call last night he had one overlooked today. That was bad.

...and with that, the Twins season moves onto the ventilator. 6 games back, 2 games left against the division leader and 17 remaining in the season. Game 2 started now. Another loss or two in this series and it's time to shut Buxton, Kepler and Polanco down for the rest of the season.

You're a bit late to the "complain about Gordon's defense party" even if we include the BS error call from last night. At 2B, Gordon's stats are universally average or above average. UZR, RF, Total Zone, Outs above average. They're all neutral to positive. This is driven by his better than average fielding percentage for a 2B and his solid to above average range and arm. The sample sizes are too small to really take much from the advanced metrics so just looking at fielding percentage Gordon .986, Polanco .979. Aside from that, Gordon's bat has been very valuable this year and well above MLB average at wRC+ 114, OPS+ 114. .275/.318/.428 OPS .746 if you like the more traditional metrics. All Nick Gordon has done this year is to provide solid defense at a bunch of random positions while bringing a valuable MLB caliber bat to the show. How valuable has he been? Per plate appearance, better than Jorge Polanco, Ron Acuna, Jr., Eduardo Escobar, Javier Baez, Gleyber Torres, Josh Donaldson, Gio Urshela, Bobby Witt, Jr., Jose Miranda, and a whole host of other guys you may know or have heard about. I don't know if Gordon can sustain it, but he's played very well this year. Every bit like a legitimate every day starter on a playoff caliber baseball team.

Spin rates just indicate some potential. It's one "small" factor in a pitch's value. More important: Pitch recognition. Pitch location. When the pitch breaks. The direction the pitch breaks. Pitch velocity.

Sorry, I couldn't find a more relevant statistic for a REAL ballplayer like chew spit distance or creepy mustache length or pissed off face stare/intimidation factor.