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bean5302

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Everything posted by bean5302

  1. bean5302
    If the Twins keep Polanco, Arraez and Donaldson should be traded because their talent is worth more to the Twins in prospect/player capital than their abilities are worth on the field. The Twins have decided Gordon and Palacios are not MLB shortstops which leaves the Twins with nothing they can rely upon at the position in the minors for a couple years. Unfortunately, one of the best targets for shortstops, Brandon Crawford, was just re-signed by the Giants leaving the options for a short term quality SS in free agency down a major option. The Twins are going to need to figure out a way to get a good player for 2-4 years at the position. Considering Simmons has remained on the roster this long, I have a very bad feeling they're going to bring him back.
  2. bean5302
    Yeah, the video is available over at MLB.com. Unless Larnach has a 6 foot vertical, he wasn't catching that ball which literally bounced off the right field wall about 12 feet off the ground. By the time Larnach got to the warning track, it should have been obvious it wasn't a ball he was going to catch, but I don't think Larnach has hardly any time in RF. Polanco should have been charged with an error on that play. On a single to RF with runners at 1st and 2nd, Larnach hit Sano as a cutoff to home... and Sano promptly threw to 3rd when there was a runner who was standing half way between 3rd and the plate allowing another run to score. It was guaranteed to be at least 1 out if Sano throws home there. Honestly, tough to blame Gant for really any of the scoring, lol.
  3. bean5302
    Thought I caught a Lewis Thorpe fastball reading of 88mph for a split second on that Twitter link? I hope that's not the case. The biggest concern on Thorpe is the velocity. At 88mph, he doesn't have the stuff to play at MLB. He needs to be up in the 90-92mph range or he's not worth looking at because he'd just be throwing batting practice. Palacios with 2 hits and 2 stolen bases, but not enough for the Wind Surge. It's becoming comical at this point.
  4. bean5302
    Jorge Polanco is indeed a gold glove shortstop in the making until you look at his stats. Polanco has the worst UZR/150 of any qualified 2B at -11.2, largely driven by having the highest number of fielding errors of any qualified 2B and the 2nd worst error rate overall. UZR ignores plays where the shift is on and likely impacted the play, but that's subject to a human scorer's opinion. Range Factor has Polanco much better off because of extremely high rate of assists in the field. I suspect his range factor benefits from the enormous amount of shifts the Twins run. RF doesn't care if there is a shift or not. In short... until Polanco drops the error rate which has absolutely plagued him throughout most of his career, he's not going to be a great defender anywhere in the infield.
  5. bean5302
    If Birdsell was ranked about 85th in the country before the season was having a great season before the shoulder issue. If he is able to return and pitch the same as he did to start this season, he's likely going to raise his draft stock into the top 2 rounds. Even if the Twins were willing to shell out $150k or something (slot for round 10), it's selling hugely low for Birdsell. The only way it's worth it for him to do that is if his shoulder is a permanent issue, which will take 2-3 years to really find out. In the meantime, he graduates college and gets a 3 year head start on his career. Not a lot of true personal risk to a sophomore college player until you get into that $250k+ range, I'd say.
  6. bean5302
    Nobody, including the Twins front office, views Cave as a legitimate starting center fielder. Name the young 4th outfielders who can play center field we have on the roster. Celestino, who looked awful and overmatched in his time in the big show so far. Tada! All done.
  7. bean5302
    Yeah, I think the argument that a cheap free agent comes with no risk is taking a very narrow viewpoint on the situation. Assigning anybody a 26 man roster spot without options or team control already comes with a substantial risk. In order to make the playoffs, a team needs each player on the 26 man roster to put up about 1.75 WAR on average. Considering teams often carry 8 man bullpens who definitely won't average more than 1 WAR per reliever, that means teams need to get 2.25 wins from their starters and position players on average. Giving a spot on the 26 man roster to a starting pitcher who isn't expected to produce at least 2.25 WAR means you're counting on the rest of your rotation and position players to make up for it. Essentially, signing a cheap rotation pitcher means you need to pay for the salary AND doubly-so if the pitcher can't produce at least 2.25 WAR.
  8. bean5302
    Speaking of OPS .822.... Palacios has now reached base via hit or walk 11 games in a row and owns an OPS of 1.068 over that span with a 10% BB rate and 12% K rate despite a BABIP of .212. He also has a season line of .261/.350/.472 OPS .822 wRC+119 while playing error free infield for 24 straight games, with 20 of those at shortstop. I mean... what do you need to do to replace a negative fWAR shortstop?
  9. bean5302
    Not uncommon for a guy with 2 years of college eligibility drafted in the 11th round to bet on a comeback and a much higher draft position later. MLB doesn't even list a slot value for 11th rounders which I could find. With Birdsell having been shut down due to a rotator cuff injury, I'm sure the Twins weren't going to offer a ton of money.
  10. bean5302
    I'm not sure I care if the Twins develop an ace. I mean, great if they do, but it's hardly necessary. The Twins front office just needs to make a sales pitch to the Pohlads and be willing to sign a top rotation arm. It's not like the Twins don't frequently have $20-40MM on the roster in 2-4 rotation arms they signed every year. Just make it 1-2 rotation arms for the same cost.
  11. bean5302
    All this is probably Joe Mauer's fault anyway.
  12. bean5302
    Honestly, not much I disagree with here, either. I think Miranda should be closer to #3 at this point because I do weight on field performance a little heavier than some. I'm definitely wanting the Twins to give starts to Miranda at 3B and it looks strongly to me like they're playing the service time game right now. I can see the bullish take on Cavaco as he did have a couple months where the bat started to click a bit and he's had so little playing time.
  13. bean5302
    Hopefully Landon Leach doesn't have another injury showing up. He doesn't really have any time left to waste. Same boat as Royce Lewis, but Leach hasn't had any success above Rk level where Lewis did well at A+ already.
  14. bean5302
    Not sure about that. I looked back at the old articles in the dead zone of the season when Baddoo was picked and there were a couple people not excited about him being exposed. The overall concensus wasn't one of concern though. That said... it's not the fans who need to make the right calls on who to protect. It's certainly expected MLB franchises and the Twins front office would have a better idea of talent under their control.
  15. bean5302
    Dobnak didn't have the level of success or the strikeout stuff Ober had in the minors. I think Ober has much better stuff and, as a result, a much better chance of sustained success provided he stays healthy.
  16. bean5302
    I think Ober has a real shot at sticking in the rotation. I saw a comment above about long term #4-5 starters, but those guys are almost non-existent in MLB. By definition, those back end rotation starters only need to take 1 step back and they're out of the rotation or baseball entirely. All it usually takes is one full year of scouting reports to expose a fringe pitcher's stuff to make it look like batting practice and there are always a bunch of fringe arms ready at AAA to step in for league minimum. Until the scouting reports catch up, even a fringey AAAA pitcher can eat enough innings and keep the game close enough. Some home town examples like Slowey and Blackburn come to mind.
  17. bean5302
    I think Cave's beard is a major misstep professionally. It makes him look like he's in his 40s and there's no way painting yourself as a decade and a half older than you are when you're a fringe MLB player is a good idea in my opinion. Unlike a lot of Twins fans, I had no issues with the Twins keeping Cave, and I don't think keeping Cave had much to do with Wade being traded. Cave's performance at the plate across 2018-2019 was just as good as Buxton's 2019-2020, but Cave definitely performed awful last year in a small sample size so it was reasonable to expect a rebound. That said, the Twins aren't using him anymore, and I don't think it's likely he's on the roster next year so I don't understand why he's on the roster right now. He has 29 plate appearances in the past 2-1/2 weeks since his rehab assignment ended and he was recalled.
  18. bean5302
    I think it's perfectly fine to have Noah Miller at 15. He's projected as a shortstop and given high grades for his smoothness at the position. I honestly don't think there's a lot of difference between 15-30 in the Twins system. There's a lot of medium quality depth and it's hard to judge a lot of these players as significantly better or more likely to contribute than another.
  19. bean5302
    Wallner's 23 years old with a BB rate of only 7.3% K rate at A+ of 35%. Wallner shouldn't be in the top 30. Compared to Daniel Palka, same age, same level. D. Palka: .280/.352/.532 wRC+ 135 9.7% BB, 28.5% K Wallner: .277/.338/.555 wRC+ 137 7.3% BB, 34.4% K I wouldn't say Wallner is absolutely a bust at this point, but he needs to make an enormous change in his plate approach.
  20. bean5302
    Kepler's fine. He's clearly pushing at the plate, and I do believe some of his critics have a point with the "sell out for the home run" going on, but Kepler is not the problem. He's a 2.0 WAR player if you have him in RF. That's fine, especially given the fact he's only making $6.5MM per year. Kepler's contract raised a lot of eyebrows, but not because Kepler wasn't worth it. It raised a lot of eyebrows because of the potenital Kepler's contract could turn into another Yelich contract where the player was vastly underpaid because teams in MLB have such ironclad player control, paying extremely productive players peanuts through their prime. Kepler didn't turn into Yelich. It's good for baseball, but bad for the Twins that he didn't. Fans are acting ridiculously when they're upset Kepler isn't an All Star making $6MM a year.
  21. bean5302
    Sano's not a kid anymore. He's been in the big show for 7 years now and I do believe he may be getting a sense that his career is teetering on the brink, but things are going to need to bounce his way and he's going to need to put in effort and dedication he's never remotely come close to showing in his MLB career. If Rooker figures out how to adjust, Sano could find himself under Rooker on the DH depth chart. He's blocked at 1st by Kirilloff. He's blocked at 3B by 70lbs, Donaldson, Arraez and Miranda. If Donaldson isn't traded, it's hard to imagine him not slotting over to DH in an attempt to keep him healthy. Arraez and Miranda would then pick up 3B.
  22. bean5302
    Those weights are from about 10 years ago. He didn't put on much weight for quite a while, but his power has really come on this year. No idea if he gained muscle mass over 2020.
  23. bean5302
    Simmons is going to have to take a MiLB deal at this point, and a guy like that doesn't provide an obvious plan at SS for 2022. Not sure why some people feel watching horrible veterans play instead of potentially excellent rookies makes for more entertaining games, but hey, whatever floats their boat.
  24. bean5302
    Astudillo is a known quantity. He'll be 30 in two months so he's not some prospect who could find another gear. Honestly, I think Astudillo would potentially be able to keep a utility spot on an MLB team if he dropped 50-60lbs, but he's more likely to find a niche on a MiLB contract as an emergency catcher someplace.
  25. bean5302
    In regard to Sano's consistency, his year to year performance has been: 2015 - Great 4.5 WAR full season pace 2016 - Awful 0.5 WAR full season pace 2017 - Good 3.0 WAR full season pace 2018 - Awful (1.0) WAR full season pace 2019 - Good 3.0 WAR full season pace 2020 - Awful 0.0 WAR full season pace 2021 - Bad 1.0 WAR full season pace. Hard to get much less consistent. Thing is, Sano only has one playable season in the last 4 years. He's also clearly in decline meaning there aren't probably any bounce back (good) years left and his defense was so bad at 1B this year, he's likely slated for the DH going forward. His exit velocity is the 2nd lowest of his career and even though his K rate is down, he's not getting on base anymore. Chris Carter was never as good as Sano, but never as bad, either. Chris Davis, in the 4 years prior to his huge contract was 7.1 WAR, 1.1 WAR, 4.9 WAR, 3.1 WAR producing more value than Sano's career best in 3 out of 4 seasons. Davis has (6.0) WAR over the past 4 seasons and still has 40% more lifetime WAR than Sano. I agree Sano isn't a huge problem for the Twins because they don't need to play him. Eating $12MM to release him before spring training next year wouldn't break the franchise, and if he continues to hit the ball well through the end of the season, keeping him on the roster for depth won't really do any major damage, either. My projection of Sano seems pretty reasonable.
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