bean5302

Ah the flashbacks to Jim Hoey.

Palacios went 2/4 as well. I really think it's time for him to get a promotion to AAA as he's risen out of the doldrums recently and is back to hitting with an .802 OPS over his last 8 games. I'd like to see if he can keep it up at AAA since he's apparently now the only potential options the Twins might view as a shortstop in the system for the next couple years considering the Twins are apparently attempting to turn Gordon into a center fielder? Trading Rortvedt would be a move that would leave the Twins without a 3rd MLB caliber every day catcher on the roster. He's got 3 options left and he's a potential starting MLB catcher in the future with excellent defensive ratings. Rortvedt was also drafted as a bat first catcher so it's expected he has some tools to work with and there's a fairly decent MiLB track record when it comes to being potentially an average MLB level bat. He looked outright overmatched in his time with the Twins, but that'll give him a great idea of where he needs to improve and time in AAA will allow him to work on his game. Garver misses a lot of time so having only 1 good backup option on the roster is tough. Keeping Wallner in Ft Myers this long seemed a bit conservative given how long he's been in the system and considering how he was drafted. Wallner was a comp round draft pick out of college as a junior and it's technically his 5th professional season so if he's not ready for AA pitching by now, it's probably not going to happen. Hopefully, the Twins move him up a level so they can better evaluate his potential future. His big numbers in Ft Myers reflect a wRC+ of 189 so far. Nothing left to prove considering his age, draft position and level of experience. Varland's performance is pretty exciting for a dark horse candidate to be a starter at the MLB level. He's already exceeded a lot of expectations by getting it done at Fort Myers before moving up to Cedar Rapids. If he pitches continues to pitch this well the rest of the season, I could see him starting next year at AA. Love to see the home run by Cavaco considering his lack of power has really held him back at the plate. I've looked into his numbers in fielding though... and wow. I think the Twins need to make some major coaching changes in the low minors. Yet again, another horrible fielding shortstop. Cavaco is literally the worst shortstop in the league with the highest error rate and lowest RF/9. At .900 fielding percent, that means he's booting/air mailing 1 in 10 balls that come his way and it contributes to a dreadful RF/9 of 3.01. Utterly no excuse for that level of incompetence. Compare Cavaco's fielding percent and RF/9 to his peers. .900, 3.01 - Cavaco (a20, 2019, 1st round) .920, 4.07 - Winn (a19, 2020, 2nd round) .932, 3.52 - Martinez (a19, 2018, Dominican Republic) .915, 3.56 - Escotto (a19, 2018, Dominican Republic) .960, 3.89 - Nunez (a20, 2019, 2nd round) .913, 3.18 - Garcia (a20, 2017, Dominican Republic) .933, 3.50 - Johnson (a22, 2019, 4th Round) .977, 5.22 - Fryman (a23, 2016, 37th Round) .951, 3.33 - Volpe (a20, 2019, 1st Round) .944, 3.40 - Workman (a21, 2017, 14th Round) Most of Cavaco's peers are as young or younger with the same or less college level or professional experience. Cavaco sits dead last in defense. Why are Twins shortstops incapable of developing defensively?

Appreciate these writeups, Seth. I doubt many people know how much work goes into this type of thing they may gloss over, but I know it's usually hours, not seconds or minutes.

It's really great to see Miranda put it together and he had the advantage of getting in nearly 150 plate appearances during the 2020 season through Puerto Rico leagues to work on his game. It's hard to put together 331 plate appearances of dominance on luck in general, but Miranda's run has shown reasonable peripherals as well. Miranda's BB and K rates have gotten even better at AAA, it's very encouraging. I'd be totally confident in Miranda as the real deal if it weren't for the Chris Parmelee's.

Center fielders don't really need to hit well. Buxton himself only managed a wRC+ of 93 in his career year 2017. Looking over Celestino, his sprint speed is well off the pace for a premium CF. He's just about identical to Jake Cave in sprint and speed to first. I did notice Gordon is exclusively playing CF these days. Guess the Twins are trying to figure that possibility out. Nothing super concrete to offer at CF, though. That's for sure.

I would really not like the Twins trading Kepler. He can cover center field if necessary and has an above average bat. Solid 3.0-4.0 WAR player over a full season, cheap and under a long term contract. The Twins have control of him for 3 more years and if he continues to put up 3-4 win seasons, the Twins will be giving him at least a QO. Kepler is the kind of stable season contributor who fills out your roster and allows you to move other pieces around.

I wonder about the perceived value vs. actual value of packaging top players, but packaging Simmons and Pineda or something like that might make sense and improve the quality of the prospect to high level (but still sub-elite). Which does a team value more, a few mid level prospects or an elite prospect? I expect teams value their elite prospects more so they'd be unwilling to sacrifice elite prospects for players they could get non-packaged with a couple mid level prospects. It's not like good relievers (though Rogers is excellent) are hard to find and Berrios or Buxton were already going to command an elite prospect by themselves. I don't see a team morgaging their entire future on a 1.5 years of Berrios and Buxton or giving up an extra elite prospect for throwing in Rogers.

Because they owe him, at a bare minimum, $12MM next year. ($9.25MM guaranteed + $2.75MM buyout for 2023's team option). I'm sure the hope is Sano gets on one of his patented hot streaks through the end of the year and the Twins can use that to trade him or justify keeping him on the roster next year.

If the Twins feel Contreras is somebody they want to play over cave Cave, they'll release or trade Cave instead of screwing him over and earning the angst of the rest of the clubhouse and veterans across the league. Contreras' metrics across his limited MiLB experience at CF are similar to Cave's, but Contreras hasn't played CF as a primary position and hasn't played center at all this year. I'd say Contreras' bat profiles as maybe league average ceiling right now. It's worth noting Cave has been significantly superior at the plate over the past couple years in his time at AAA (OPS .984, .972) to Contreras (.891). Cave has a higher batting average, double the walk rate and a much lower strikeout rate. Cave's had a rough couple seasons comprising a grand total of about 200 plate appearances where before that Cave showed roughly league average play in center field with a slightly above average bat.

Gotta be fun for Contreras to get a big feature article like this. I also appreciate these writeups, though I'm pretty skeptical of Contreras getting called up. He's not currently on the 40 man so that'll make things more difficult and there are some big red flags in the batting profile, but if he's able to put a couple things together, who knows?

Meh, I'm fine with that's happening. The Twins aren't good this year, but the free agency class for 2022 is amazing. I continue to be irrationally optimistic the Twins will become a different team and use all the extra money to make a couple big signings instead of making 15 medicore to bad signings and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks while log jamming the talented guys in the minors.

Click on the article link first, then the podcast at the bottom of the article. The link is definitely to a podcast from like 2018 when Joe Mauer and Escobar were on the team haha.

Plus the $2.75MM for the Twins buying out his option.

Buxton is not a free agent and will not be a free agent at the end of this year. I think the speculation, even though it's fun, about what Buxton might command in the free agent market right now is interesting, but moot. In regard to that, if Buxton was a free agent this offseason, I can't imagine any team in baseball offering him more than 1-2 years. The only way Buxton gets that big AAV along with several years is to play a full season and produce more value in that season than he's ever done in his career. Buxton's situation makes it really hard for the Twins to extend an offer which would likely keep him. Since Buxton is virtually guaranteed of $25-30MM over the next two years between his 2022 salary and the QO he's going to receive, it makes a big impact on how low of an AAV he'll accept on an extension. Even if Buxton remains very good, but injury prone while playing 1/2 seasons from here on out, he'll still make $70MM over the next 7 years. However, Buxton putting together 2 full seasons in 2022-2023 would put him into a position to cash in hugely. I'd think he could pull in $170MM over the next 7 years on a 5 / $150MM year deal. A mid way point where I think Buxton would sign is 7 years $125MM, but if he remains injury prone or slows down, it's an albatross contract for the Twins similar to Jason Heyward's contract with the Cubs. Thus, the Twins cannot reasonably offer Buxton significantly more than the low end of Buxton's value over the next several years and Buxton can't accept what the Twins can reasonably offer.

It's tough to speculate what the Padres would offer for Berrios. They may well be more interested in Maeda because of cost. I'd see the Padres being intrigued by Kepler and Rogers, too. I just have zero faith in the front office to recognize the position the team is in right now. I get the feeling the front office thinks we can compete largely as-is, like back in 2011. The White Sox are likely monsters and Detroit is ready to build. The Indians are better than us this year, too. The Twins are not going to be playing in the weakest division in baseball like they were in 2017-2020. The same talent level will not get the job done in 2022 like it did in 2019 when career years showed up out of the woodwork like the 87 and 91 WS teams. Side note, Darvish is not on the IL, and he dominated in the two starts immediately after the sticky stuff change. He then came down with forearm tightness and spent some time on the 10 day IL before coming back and pitching 5.2 innings of 2 run ball on the 20th.

I think everything depends on whether the Twins get a good offer and whether or not they reasonably feel they can extend him. If they're competent, they're in hard talks with both Buxton and Berrios right now.

Or traded to somebody else. There's no guarantee the Twins keep those pitchers. I'd non-tender Thorpe and Smeltzer. If they stay available, maybe sign them to MiLB contracts as AAA roster filler with an chance to see MLB action due to injuries. The Twins can also non-tender Coulombe, Astudillo, Cave and Garlick to bring them back in MiLB contracts if desired. That's 6 spots easy. Add in guys like Colome, Law, Happ, Minaya, Simmons and Robles who are either free agents or not really worth paying in arbitration and you start finding a lot of spots opening up.

I'm not insinuating the Twins have a 2 man bullpen, I just that I think Rogers and Duffey are important to keep and are among the highest risks for the Twins to trade because of their cost.

I have no concerns about the Twins bullpen in 2022 so long as they extend Rogers and keep Duffey, which they should absolutely be doing. There are always a ton of cheap relief arms available in free agency and tons of options for relief arms in the minors.

Here are my preferences, if possible, keeping in mind it takes 2 to tango and the Twins have no control over whether or not any of the impending FAs will actually be FAs since their current teams are all just as likely to extend. Trade: Polanco, Sano (eat $11MM), Buxton Acquire: Syndergaard Extend: Berrios, Rogers ($10MM 2022), Syndergaard (20 MM 1 year), Refsnyder (750k) Sign: Verlander (20MM 1-2yr AAV), Baez (20MM AAV), Cruz (12MM AAV) Release/Nontender: Cave, Garlick C = Garver, Jeffers 1B = Kirilloff 2B = Arraez SS = Baez 3B = Donaldson UI = Gordon LF = Larnach CF = Celestino RF = Kepler UO = Refsnyder DH = Cruz SR = Verlander, Berrios, Syndergaard, Balazovic, Winder, Maeda RP = Rogers, Duffey, maybe a couple other FA relievers. The rest of the bullpen from our system. This probably puts the Twins at $140MM (assuming they eat Sano's contract). If it's too much $$, might have to trade Donaldson and go with Miranda. Edited this because I forgot to put Maeda into the rotation (assuming 1 pitcher is down all the time)

It's also worth considering the baseballs themselves are different between the minors and majors and pitchers often have to make adjustments when the come to the big show. I'd think the Twins would want to see him in person this year given his age and fringy status.

xFIP is probably one of the best metrics for a SSS out of MiLB. BABIP, LOB, and low HR rates are not relevant for xFIP. Even so, xFIP still has potential weaknesses. No stat is perfect.

I have no problems trading Rooker, but in order to get meaningful value, he's going to have to play at the MLB level and prove his MiLB numbers aren't a mirage at the MLB level. Sano is super hard to quantify. He's had a couple great seasons, a good season, a couple weak seasons and a couple outright clunkers. The weak and clunkers make up 4 of his past 5 seasons. It's who Sano is today that has his playing status in 2022 in question. Had Sano committed to being prepared to play 3rd base at a high level, I sincerely doubt we'd be having any such conversation right now. There's no doubt in my mind that Sano could be in the same category as Bryant and Machado. Unfortunately, Sano didn't have that commitment and as a player who cannot play a defensive position outside 1B, all his value is built into his bat making his leash very short when it comes to struggles at the plate.

Gratz to the winners! An open and active community is key to keeping it active on sites like this one!

It wasn't about Rodriguez not being worth his contract. Rodriguez was the best player in baseball at the time and he was worth his contract. The Yankees just couldn't really afford to take on the whole contract and the Rangers weren't going to eat a significant part of the contract without big compensation so the Yankees, shockingly, sent a great young player named Alfonso Soriano. Soriano was already a 2 time All Star coming off consecutive 5 WAR seasons at age 28 and he had 3 years of team control left. That's why the Rangers were willing to pick up $67MM.