bean5302

The Twins need top of the rotation arms and it doesn't matter where they come from. Minnesota has the back end of the rotation covered, but they have nothing in the 1-2 slots. I'd expect the cost for the favorites in the comments to look about like: Gray = 3yrs $40MM (may well resign with Rockies) Stroman = 5yrs $135MM Ray = 4yrs $100MM I'd want Stroman, maybe Greinke on a 1 year deal sub $15MM, but I think the Twins could go out and get Scherzer or Verlander on a short deal easily enough. There are a lot of moving parts at the moment so nobody can really predict how Minnesota will make moves this offseason, just things they might do.

I read an article recently that talked about the offseason before the 1994 work stoppage. Didn't really impact the signings as much as you'd expect. With the kind of information which has been talked about, it honestly benefits teams like the Twins the most. Teams with the ability to spend up to $150MM, but who are still going to fall short of a reduced luxury tax floor. A lowered floor may reign in the top spenders who push $180MM and above.

and I liked your post for this part

Yeah, the defensive metrics really require somebody to devote a lot of time to understanding not only how the metric works, but also factors which influence their accuracy. Simply taking a limited sample size of Range Factor or especially Ultimate Zone Rating and using it in a vacuum can lead to really dramatically unfair perceptions.

I'll be honest. I'd much, much rather move Sano and allow Donaldson to platoon at DH/3B while Miranda platoons 3B/2B/DH.

Of these guys, Semien would be my choice. Bleacher Report predicts 5 years and $125MM and that feels about right. Semien would be ages 31-35 in that contract and would be expected to potentially move off SS by the end of it. Semien's move to shortstop was to maximize the value of Bo Bichette rather than a mark against Semien. Semien's sprint speed was 28.6 ft/sec last year placing him in the 87th percentile for MLB players and just 0.1 ft/sec slower than Trevor Story. Bleacher Report also predicts Trevor Story at 5 years and $150MM. That feels like a signifcant overpay coming off his down year and the trend down over the past 2 years for Story, especially considering his batted ball metrics suggest Story was good, not great hitter this year in terms of exit velocity, barrel rate, etc. I certainly would not pay more for Story than Semien right now, and I wouldn't go more than $100MM for Story. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2948617-fresh-predictions-for-top-2021-22-mlb-free-agents-with-offseason-approaching You couldn't pay me to touch Baez.

Lemme shorten this down for you (Lewis). Lewis hasn't played competitive baseball for two years, had rock hands when he was playing and couldn't hit. He's got excellent athleticism and an awesome work ethic and attitude. The hopes are it can transform him but the "expectation" of Lewis turning into not only a starting caliber MLB player, but an All Star or MVP caliber shortstop, isn't warranted right now. Martin and Miranda are very unlikely shortstops. Martin lacks the speed and arm. Miranda has never played significant time at shortstop in the Twins' system and he's thought of as an average-ish 3rd baseman. That's not a huge endorsement to try him out at shortstop.

That trade suggestion makes me puke. Donaldson (3.2 bWAR) + $15MM to Milwaukee (2 years Total Salary = $13.5MM per season) Bradley, Jr. (-0.7 bWAR), Henderson (4th Rounder), Wiemer (MLB Top 200ish, rising fast) (1 year Total Salary = $9.5MM) Donaldson's metrics suggest he should have had a 4+ WAR season and a OPS/wRC+ in the 140s if not for extremely poor luck last year while Bradley, Jr. was worse than a AAA replacement player and will cost the Twins $10MM. Bradley, Jr.'s decline is not a fluke, his K rate is trending south, and while his exit velocity and hard hit rates looked good, the barrel rate, HR/FB rate, and pop up rates were all poor suggesting he was making poor contact between firing off worm burners and soft liners or fly balls. With Bradley, Jr.s extreme pull tendencies, the shift robs the would-be eyesight of all those fast grounders and turns them into outs. Again, in this day and age of baseball with the shift and over 400 plate appearance to flatten out the luck fueling his abysmal season's wRC+ 35, it's not a fluke that Bradley, Jr. had a terrible season at the plate. Maybe not wRC+ 35 terrible, but certainly far, far below average. Donaldson at $13.5MM per season would be a steal on its own. Henderson is a long shot more akin to the Twins pitcher selections of old relying on movement and control, Wiemer probably has more to offer than Wallner or Sabato, but he's certainly not something like a top 5 Twins prospect (or probably top 10 right now). I view Bradley, Jr. as a Jake Cave at this point.

I'd bring Rogers back as the closer and maybe sign a setup type guy similar to Trevor May.

Honestly, the number of teams interested in a good defensive catcher who can OPS .900 is pretty long. There's a reason a 28 year old Realmuto got 5 years and $115MM. Garver has the same issue as Buxton right now, missing half the year all the time. He just needs to put together 2 qualified seasons, keep playing like he has and Garver will be in line for a six figure deal.

Celestino's performance at AAA was very encouraging. With the Saints, Celestino's walk rate was near his career best at 11.4% and his strikeout rate was a palatable 20.4% showing a good enough eye at the plate, and while his .356 BABIP suggests he may have been lucky, the lack of good batted ball data from the minors makes it hard to tell if Celestino was just making hard contact and hitting line drives.

Agreed. AA is a big leap forward in terms of talent, but I think the biggest difference is going to be how the AA hitters barrel balls. That said, the leap from Low-A to High-A is pretty big too, in my opinion. MLB >> AAA > AA >>> A+ >> A- > Rk If Varland is able to produce similar results at AA without a significant jump in walk rate, I'd be fully confident in him having some success at the MLB level. It seems like the only thing which which derails pitchers above AA is control.

I honestly believe the league batting average is a function of the focus on drafting and developing 3 outcome hitters. It leads to more fly balls, which typically have low batting averages associated with them rather than factors which are outside the hitters control like pitchers or shifts. That's why I chose to compare Donaldson to himself rather than mention the league trend :)

Many people are down on Donaldson thanks to his good, but not exactly great performance at the plate this year compared with his $21MM payday over 2021 and still guaranteed for the next two seasons. The expectation is his legs have all but given up with him coasting into his mid 30s on a big contract as another aging star fading out. The thing is, his batted ball data says Donaldson was absolutely getting the shaft. Donaldson is actually having a career year in terms of the metrics. He’s annihilating the baseball with the best barrel rate and exit velocity of his career, he’s launching it at an optimal angle, he’s striking out less than he has since 2016 and still walking in the top 10% of all baseball. The expected markers say Donaldson should be performing at the plate like his 5+ WAR seasons of old, but the results just weren’t there. Is it luck, is it the shift, the lead plates in his shoes or high speed worm burners instead of towering fly balls coming off Donaldson’s bat? Before we get into the analytics, what were Donaldson’s results compared to his peak years from 2015-2019 and his career averages? Looking at Fangraphs data: AVG OBP SLG ISO OPS BB% K% 2021 .247 .352 .475 .228 .827 13.6 21.0 Peak .276 .382 .541 .265 .923 14.0 20.5 Career .269 .367 .505 .235 .872 12.7 20.0 The glaring issue is really the batting average which drives both the AVG and SLG components of OPS, and there’s good news in regard to Donaldson’s results on the surface here. He had the lowest BABIP of his entire career last year by 10 points at .268 with his previous low of .278 coming way back in 2014 before he turned into the MVP caliber hitter he became. Donaldson’s BABIP was also nearly 30 points lower than his career BABIP of .295. There are factors which influence BABIP from running speed to batted ball type to exit velocity and launch angles and as hitters push into their 30s, sometimes their eyes and legs show it. Swing and miss increases, walks taper off, balls don’t pop off the bat like they used to and that extra time to get to first base turns one time hits and doubles into outs and singles. Donaldson’s walk and strikeout rates remained right at his prime levels so it seems unlikely his reactions and eyes have aged. Let’s look into the rest. 2021 vs. Peak years of 2015-2019 reveals line drive rates (17.1% vs 19.1%), ground ball rates (43.0% vs. 42.1%) and fly ball rates (39.9% vs. 38.8%) are right where they should be, but Fangraphs shows a potentially insignificant increase in pop up rates (12.9% vs. 10.6%) and drop in HR/FB rate (18.6% vs. 22.4%). Pop up rate increases and decreases in fly balls which turn into home runs can come from luck or be used as a signal a player just isn’t hitting the ball as well. Is Donaldson hitting the ball as hard as he used to? Yes, actually, even harder. Using Statcast data on Baseball Savant, Donaldson’s 94.1mph average exit velocity ranked 4th in MLB and his 17.4% barrel rate per batted ball event ranked 8th in MLB. Donaldson’s 52.7% hard hit rate from Statcast (balls hit over 95mph) was good for 11th best in MLB where Fangraphs had his 40.2% hard hit rate ranked 17th across all qualified MLB hitters using the much tougher Baseball Info Solutions algorithm. The bottom line? Donaldson was an elite MLB batter in terms of walk rate, exit velocity, hard hit rate and barrel rate. He also had a near ideal 14.6% launch angle. Even looking into Donaldson’s average fly ball distance didn’t reveal any obvious changes from his peak years. Based on the advanced batted ball data and metrics, nobody could be as angry about the results as Josh Donaldson himself. He was hitting the ball like an MVP, but getting results which don’t even look All Star level. Plotting Donaldson’s batted ball data out against the rest of MLB… It's clear, Donaldson is putting all but the other elite MLB batters to shame in the way the ball rockets off the bat. Donaldson’s numbers are all obviously heads above the top 10% batter thresholds. There aren’t any accidents when it comes to ranks… and about those ranks, Donaldson’s page on Baseball Savant has enough red marks (top 10% in MLB) on it since 2015, including this year, to make you think the website was broken. That said, even if a player is hitting a ball hard, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’d be expected to produce at a high level. Hitting a whole bunch of 100mph worm burners isn’t going to do much for a player’s OPS. So how about those expected results? They’re impressive and Donaldson seems to be the victim of bad luck right across the board. If you’re still not into wOBA, .385 would probably correspond with an OPS+ or wRC+ in the mid 140s. For calculating xOPS, I used xBA + Donaldson's actual walks and hit by pitch data along with his xSLG. Actual Expected AVG .247 .266 SLG .475 .533 OPS .827 .901 wOBA .353 .385 Homers 26 30 Of course, some players simply don’t seem to track consistently with metrics. There are pitchers who routinely and significantly outperform or underperform their FIPs, for example. What about Donaldson? The graph below paints a very clear picture. His xOPS has typically been better than expected, but his xwOBA is almost always pretty close to expectations. Keep in mind that 2018 and 2020 were small sample size years for Donaldson. This past season was the first time in his career that Donaldson was way off his expected wOBA, and it was the first time his actual production was significantly below his expected wOBA. The next item up for me is always the shift. According to Fangraphs’ data, Donaldson hit .289 against the shift this season, but his overall production against the shift wasn’t great at wRC+ 81 in a somewhat small sample size. It seems like his walk rate and ISO tanked. Since we are still dealing with quite a bit of randomness in regard to Fangraphs’ shift reporting and small sample size, I don’t think there’s much to take away from it. That said, Fangraphs showed a higher shift rate deployed against Donaldson than he’d ever seen in his career by a mile even though Donaldson isn’t strictly a pull hitter. Considering Donaldson was certainly effective at recording hits against the shift, I don’t think the shift is the reason for the lack of production. Finally, how about speed? Well here’s one place where Donaldson is in obvious and serious decline. Being one of the slowest players in all of baseball can have a serious negative impact on batting average and slugging percentage. Back in Donaldson’s heyday, his sprint speed was in the 26.5 ft/sec range, putting him into a pretty solid average runner category. It’s dropped precipitously the last few years placing him as one of the slowest runners in all of MLB this year with a miserable 24.5 ft/sec. It takes about 4 seconds on average to run from the plate to first base. In 2021 Donaldson was 10 feet and 2 strides away from the bag when 2016 Donaldson or this year’s Brent Rooker would have crossed it. The gaps continue to increase on an attempt at a two bagger. Donaldson reaches 2nd base in his prime 17 feet ahead of today’s Donaldson. Doubles have to be no-doubters for 2021 Donaldson. This plays into defense, too as Donaldson’s range has fallen from average-ish to very poor this year. Fangraphs UZR indicates Donaldson was unplayable at 3B this year with a UZR/150 of -19.4 due almost exclusively to his fall off in range. Baseball Reference, as expected, graded him much better using Range Factor as the shift artificially hides how poorly Twins fielders actually perform by providing Twins fielders with more opportunities to field balls which would have otherwise slipped through the gaps. So what was Donaldson missing from his production which he should have seen? Was it the missing doubles from Donaldson scrambling down the basepaths like a car running a dragstrip dragging two flat tires? Seemingly, no. Donaldson managed 26 two baggers; maybe a tick higher than typical career expected rates. Honestly, it seems like singles and home runs are what’s lacking. Looking at the hit spray chart, I counted 11 doubles which could very well have been home runs, depending on the field where Donaldson hit them this year. Baseball Savant’s expected home runs for one thing sat at 30. That correlates with how many home runs he would have hit at the average MLB ballpark given his individual, real fly balls. If he played all his games in San Diego, he would have hit 36 bombs. Surprisingly, Target Field seems to be a poor location for Donaldson this year with just 27 expected based on his batted ball data. Considering Target Field doesn’t typically punish right handed hitters like it does lefties with that tall right field wall, I’d chalk this up to a straight up fluke. It’s worth noting a few unlucky doubles turning into home runs helps Donaldson somewhat, but his iron boots would prevent him from wheeling around 1st to stretch that single out for an extra base so some stat lines are likely to drop off from his absolute prime, which is to be expected as Donaldson navigates through his mid 30s. Let’s summarize this up. Donaldson his crushing the baseball and he had the worst luck he’s ever had in his career in multiple ways. From hits which should have been home runs to balls having eyes for pillowy soft gloves instead of green fields, nothing seemed to go right. His batted ball data is undeniably elite and he’s hitting the ball as well as he’s hit it in his entire career, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in decline. Seemingly chronic, frustrating calf injuries and age have sapped his speed to diminish his defensive value and undoubtedly stolen some extra bases or even a couple singles. The Twins are likely looking to move Donaldson this offseason, even if they have to eat some of his contract, but it may be foolhardy to sell low on a player who may well have a couple more 4-5 WAR seasons left. There are other DH options taking up space on the roster who might be less expensive to move and likely to produce less at the plate. If Donaldson crushes baseballs yet again next year, it would be unfathomable for the bad luck to continue and nothing would be crazy frustrating to watch Donaldson start a couple more All Star games wearing the wrong uniform while the Twins pay for it.

Optimistic ceiling? Probably occasional All Star, bat first, corner outfielder. A Josh Willingham, Michael Cuddyer type. The advanced stats and metrics painted some unpleasant things for him this season, but he's still got a season to make some adjustments.

He turned 31 like two weeks ago. Not sure if 2 weeks into age 31 is pushing well past 30. He probably even remembers as far back as his 29th birthday 13 months ago?

Perkins was a 5 pitch pitcher who dropped pitches, increased his velocity and fastball separation from his slider, making the slider a functional pitch, in an era where a 96mph fastball was a big advantage. All that while dealing with Rick Anderson's nonsense. So many things had to work out for Perkins. Is it hypothetically, theoretically, maybe possible Jax could do the same? Sure. Is is plausible? Absolutely not.

I agree with this take. Joe Ryan is a back end starter with mid rotation a logical absolute ceiling. 1% Griffin Jax has a BABIP of .167 the first time through the order, leading to his lucky results. His FIP is 5.10 and xFIP is 5.36. Sorry, but he's a perennial emergency starter. Jax becoming a shut down closer? 0.1% Kirilloff an MVP playing 1B? Kirilloff may have a great hit tool, but he doesn't take walks and he hasn't shown the 40 HR potential necessary to be a legit MVP threat at first. A player getting MVP nods is going to have to OPS 1.000 or close to it at 1B or DH. Chance? 1% Lewis has (had) the athleticism and that makes it hypothetically possible he could join the team mid-season, but Lewis would have to totally transform his game at the plate where he was terrible at high MiLB levels and in the field where he was even worse. Chance? 3% Buxton has the physical tools and he's shown bursts of crazy high production at the plate. I don't expect him to ever play a full season, but there's maybe a 10% chance it happens. If the full year happens, it would be easy for him to outproduce his average and get into MVP territory. Chance? 5%. Those are pretty good odds for a predicting a single MVP season.

Ultimately, I don't agree with giving these types of awards to non-Twins players. Following the logic of Berrios being the pitcher of the year, the Twins hitter of the year would be Nelson Cruz as he posted a wRC+ of 141 with the Twins this year. Neither player is on the Twins now or finished the year with the club. It just feels like a slight to the players on the club currently. This is rough to say, but I think Kenta Maeda is the pitcher of the year for the Twins since I wouldn't consider Berrios because he didn't finish the year as a Twins player. Maeda had obvious rough luck while he kept the Twins in the game most of his starts and he did it while pitching hurt.

The biggest difference here is the Twins know Buxton is an All Star level talent. He'll likely play at the ceiling of David Ortiz's value every single year where Buxton remains a qualified batter and there is still an outside shot for Buxton making the HoF. With Buxton's scorching hot streak to end the season, he once again fanned the flames of his MVP potential and, I believe, altered his potential trade value and contract negotiation strength completely. That's likely great for trading him and not so good for signing him. Somewhere in the 29 other teams across baseball is a front office who will believe Buxton can remain healthy and they'll be tempted to trade the farm for him and Buxton won't have a say in the matter. If the Twins do sign Buxton, the center fielder will have a lot more strength to bend the Twins' offer up in terms of guarantees and the incentives. The Twins making a bad trade where Buxton lives up to his potential will at least erase the David Ortiz talk. Buxton will be the new worst trade of all time Twins fans quote whenever a player they like leaves the organization for someplace else.

The Twins have 2 potential Hall of Famers who started young in Minnesota in the past 40 years, David Ortiz and Joe Mauer. Of course, lost in the conversation is the fact the Twins didn't draft or originally sign Ortiz. He was traded to the Twins from the Seattle Mariners for Dave Hollins. Seattle signed Ortiz as a free agent out of the Dominican Republic. Part of the obsession with Ortiz is just how terribly the Twins have drafted, developed and retained players across recent baseball history. Had the Twins retained Ortiz and watched him blossom into the hitter he became at Boston, they wouldn't have been able to keep him under contract anyway because they would have lost him to free agency in 2005. I suppose the Twins would have traded Ortiz instead of watching him walk, but the 3 pitch to contact depth arms they would have targeted in exchange would have flopped anyway.

Rooker's speed and route running were both above average. "Them's the facts" as they say, but the data also shows he takes way too long reading the balls off the bat for an MLB outfielder. Larnach has an above average arm, but all the assessments seemed to point to Rooker having an average arm. I do feel like there's a pretty negative perception of Rooker which seems to allow for a bad play here or there to really be burned into people's minds. His UZR/150 is definitely rough this year at -8.9 in LF; however, it was only in 264 innings. A full season is about 1200 innings. He's getting a bit long in the tooth to improve his defense, but it may still be possible. I agree his bat is the important part of the package.

I don't think a multi-year deal would probably be necessary for Duffey. It feels like most mid-inning relievers wind up on 1 year contacts and that's what Duffey was this year. I think a 1 year $3-4MM deal sounds about right to avoid arbitration. I'd absolutely sign him. He's cheap and I'd expect him to be at least an effective mid-innings guy with upside if he figures out what went wrong this year.

I feel like the Twins were virtually identical to Tampa from in regard to the revolving door of names until the Target Field era. The Rays have a very serious stadium placement issue, though Florida teams seem to have widespread fanbase issues in general. I do expect a payroll floor to be agreed upon in the next CBA so Tampa will have to spend more, but I half expect that to be leverage for new ownership/stadiums to be pushed in Tampa, Oakland and Pittsburgh.

I don't think they would. Tampa generally doesn't trade their players until they have 2 or fewer years of team control. The Twins have 4 more years of control so Tampa would never actively push that move. Sano, Garver, Berrios, Rogers, Buxton and Kepler would be gone by the 2022 trade deadline.