bean5302

Earlier today I posted that Lewis was untouchable as I expected the knee was a minor thing... my opinion is 180* at this point.

Martin routinely grades out at 50-55 speed in scouting reports and that's awfully fringey for CF. A good center fielder should be 60+ speed (plus speed). Most scouting reports indicate it's possible he could handle center field if his instincts can compensate for his physical limitations. Honestly, though I remember reading about scouts universally expecting Martin to be a best fit at 2B due to his lack of range and arm, I just can't find anything to support it. Here's what I can say... I don't agree with using career MiLB numbers in all cases because it can be so apples vs. oranges at different ages, experience levels, and even league trends. Martin doesn't have much sample size in CF and this years' absurd 3.49 number is screwing up his career numbers. It's not a question of "most likely" regression. It's absolute colossal and guaranteed regression. It's more valuable to look at the sample sizes which are... insufficient, but at least reasonable in AA. If we were to compare Celestino (who is fringey as a CF when it comes to range), they do grade out similarly. In AA, Martin has a 2.34 RF/9 in Center Field across 435 innings in AA, but prior to the broken 3.49 this year 2.20ish) In AA, Buxton had a 3.44 RF/9 in a similar number of innings as Martin has at AA. In AA, Celestino has a 2.28ish RF/9 in AA Looking across the league Martin is playing in... Connor Lein (a25)= 2.65ish in AA JP Martinez (a26) = 2.25ish in AA (Frisco Roughriders) Max Schuemann (a25) = 2.60ish in AA (Midland Rockhounds) Cade Marlowe (a25) = 2.37 in AA (Arkansas Travelers) Nick Loftin (a23) = 2.32 in AA (Northwest Arkansas Naturals) Esteury Ruiz (a23) = 2.54 in AA (San Antonio Missions) Okay, I'm done with that. It's super time consuming. The bottom line is Austin Martin grades out as one of the worst fielders, if not the worst fielding CF in his league in AA. His grade is similar to Celestino, who is also fringey in CF. Martin does not possess a great arm or reported bonefide plus speed or supposedly a great first step. When compared to his CF peers in his league, he probably grades out at the very bottom. Could Martin play CF? Sure. Ron Gardenhire started Chris Parmelee in CF one game. It's just that Martin is going to have to make up for his defensive limitations in CF with his bat... i.e. he's not a good fit in CF. At least not in my opinion.

Quality starts are hard to come by with a manager who is notorious for a quick hook regardless of how guys are pitching. Ryan 4/8 Paddack 0/5 Ober 1/7 Gray 2/7 Winder 2/3 Smeltzer 1/5 Archer 0/11 Gonzalez 0/1 Sands 0/2 The entire Twins pitching staff has a combined 10 quality starts in 58 games. Besides that, "quality start" isn't even a good metric the way it's designed because a 3ER 6 inning performance is much worse than a 5 inning 2 earned run performance in regard to the likelihood a game is won or lost. Bundy has 4 starts of 5.0+ innings and less than 2 earned runs allowed. Bundy has 3 truly bad games in 9 starts this year. He has 3 games with an xFIP over 5.00 as well. I'm still not a huge fan of Bundy, but intentionally cherry picking a (bad) stat for which almost nobody in MLB would deliver good results is disingenuous.

Dylan Bundy's Fangraphs page https://www.fangraphs.com/players/dylan-bundy/12917/stats?position=P Scroll down about 1/2 way to the category "Pitch Info Pitch Velocity" You can hover over the heading fields to translate what the symbols mean vFA = "vFA - Fourseam Fastball Velocity - (Pitch Info)" If you're curious about game to game performances, near the top of player profiles, you can hover over "Game Log" in the main header, then select the "Pitch Type" header which will appear below the Game Logs header.

The day I take Griffin Jax, AAAA talent, over Chris Archer against the middle of the Yankees lineup seems distant indeed.

Something I've noticed which is so very different than all previous seasons I've been attending games. The scoreboard is showing close plays on the replay. That never used to happen. If it was a close play that went against the home team, you'd never see it on replay. Guess they didn't want to incite the crowd or something haha.

I'm not a Bundy fan or fan of the signing, but he's had two bad starts, which followed two good starts, which followed 2 bad and 2 good. He's up and down and that's to be expected for a bargain free agent starting pitcher. xFIP on Bundy is 4.01. A guy has a bad week or two and the pitchforks really come out around here. I guess that's fine. After a good week or two, the player becomes the next sure fire MVP as well.

Bundy's velocities 4 Seam Fastball = 90mph Sinking Fastball = 90mph Changeup = 82mph Slider = 80mph Curve = 73mph Plenty of separation there.

OAA doesn't report Urshela as playing shortstop, even if they're comparing him against shortstops because he's lined up in an area a shortstop would normally play. If they're going to compare Urshela's play against shortstops, OAA should record Urshela's position as SS for the play. It doesn't. Basically, OAA doesn't tell you anything of value about a heavily shifted 3rd baseman. Does it tell you how that shifted 3rd baseman performs against his peers in regard to defensive value? No. Isn't that how most people use defensive metrics?

Martin's value has tanked pretty hard by this point. Martin continues to show virtually no power so his plate value is quite limited and his inability to field are well documented. That's not to say he won't put it together, but he's not exactly young at this point. Age 23 at AA is expected, even a little older than expected for a top prospect. Scouts have universally panned Martin's ability to cover SS and CF. Those were always pie in the sky positions for Martin who supposedly lacks the outright speed to cover center and lacks the arm to cover SS. Ultimately, he's projected as a 2B candidate because of the arm. I'm going to assume "best" in this article is not synonymous with "highest value." I think the best trade chip is Luis Arraez or Jorge Polanco. Maybe Trevor Larnach if opposing teams buy the fast start again this year or Max Kepler. Positions where we have some depth or log-jamming in effect and players with a lot of surplus value.

I'm not super optimistic on Megill, but I don't see any reason he shouldn't get opportunities while he's getting results and other Twins relievers are struggling.

I don't know. This feels like a have your cake and eat it too kind of thing. It boils down to this. Would you rather have the best relievers available when the Twins are up 6-5 or down 5-6? If the Twins are losing in the 6th, even with their absolute best relievers stepping onto the mound, they're still significantly less likely to win the game. At the top of the 6th, the Yankees were a 65% favorite to win and the leverage index was pretty low. Is that when the very best relievers are the best choice? I feel like they'd likely be wasted in that scenario because the Twins were required to score more runs... and lo and behold, they didn't anyway.

Defensive metrics are notoriously unreliable in small sample sizes; often needing multiple years of results to get a clear picture of how well a defender plays a position. I pretty much consider RF/DRS to be garbage stats for infielders because they doesn't account for the shift. The result is the metrics artifcially increasing or decreasing a player's defensive contribution. Twins fans like DRS and RF because these stats inflate popular players who are poor defenders like Jorge Polanco. UZR is a better, although still flawed, metric. It relies upon a scorer making a determination regarding whether or not a shift was on and only counts plays where the shift was not active. This means small sample sizes are actually even smaller. In my opinion, firmly relying upon UZR takes 2 full years of defensive play. OAA is brand new to infielders as of 2021 and is a stathead's dream that records distances the fielder travels to get to balls, how fast the runner is advancing to whichever base and the distance the fielder has to throw, right down to where the fielder is positioned. I have a huge problem with how OAA adjusts for position though. i.e. Urshela would be treated as a shortstop (not a third baseman) if he was on a shift and playing where a shortstop would typically play. In my opinion, it's a major flaw in the metric when you're comparing players who play the same positions directly against one another. In other words, if the Twins heavily shifted to the first base side 100% of the time, Urshela's OAA would be judged against shortstops, not 3rd baseman. Unless I'm misunderstanding the metric (which is possible). I, personally, like UZR/150 the most for infielders right now. It's not perfect, but with a few years of data to look back on, it seems like Urshela is probably an about average 3B.

Buxton was a good pick. It's not like the Twins, or anybody else, could have predicted how much Buxton would struggle with injuries. Buxton's physical talent level was absolutely elite and he's not only made his way to the big show, but provided a lot of value. I wish the writer would have clarified, the values posted here are bWAR. In many cases, the difference between fWAR and bWAR can be substantial.

Well @Nick Nelson, I'll place the Twins coaches, managers and Byron Buxton's knowledge and experience of how serious his injury up against your speculation that it's impossible for Buxton to slump.

Rortvedt can not catch a break this year. Strained oblique to start the season and as soon as he got healthy, boom. Arthroscopic knee surgery to clean up a meniscus. In the surgery world, pretty minor... but there's always the potential a minor knee procedure takes a lot more time to heal than expected (Mauer, 2011). Since Ben started the season on the 10 day IL into mid May, it was easy to retroactively move him to the 60 day IL. He's expected back around the All Star Break.

The Minnesota Twins front office? I mean, they're the ones who wanted a solid starting catching option in case last year wasn't an aberration from Jeffers. Sanchez was much maligned for his defensive skill, but he was clearly open to some coaching and changes, if perhaps only after being traded and seeing his stock plummet. To me, Sanchez has looked as good as the Twins could have hoped this year, and Jeffers has looked like I expected him to look after how he played last year, albeit his ISO is a bit lower than what I'd expect. It's also a bit early to make a final determination on Jeffers, though, at only 138 plate appearances so far this year.

Honestly, it comes from the desperate need some people have for Buxton to be the greatest hitter in MLB history. The moment Buxton doesn't put up MVP caliber numbers at the plate for more than a week, I guarantee you there will be an article speculating Buxton's injuries are at fault. Any injury. Even a minor injury from a month and a half ago. As has been my position for years, Buxton is probably a wRC+ 120ish hitter with declining, but still elite, speed and he will never play another full season in his entire career. He's a 3 WAR player in a normal year and a 5-6 WAR player in a full season.

I get the same sense of entitlement in this article as the "What's wrong with Jorge Polanco" thread. The acknowledgement the metrics don't show a problem and that slumps happen, but no actual acceptance of the fact sometimes luck gives you slumps. There is an expectation Buxton either hits a home run or steals all the bases consecutively after inevitably getting on base because he deserves a 1.000 OBP around here. Scarcely anybody had a word to say about how Buxton was too injured to play in the 10 games following the slide where he was hitting .317/.391/.805 for an OPS 1.196. How bad is Buxton's knee? Well, his sprint speed shows a significant, but not crazy, drop off this year, from 30.0 ft/sec to 29.1 ft/sec, but Buxton is getting older and hitting balls very hard. Despite his barrel rate being down a little, his average exit velocity is tied for a career best. Buxton probably isn't 100% (he doesn't look 100% watching him in person at games), but he's seeing and hitting the ball well and if his injury starts getting worse, I'd expect the Twins to move him to the IL.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming Kikuchi didn't tell Miranda what pitch was coming and where it was going to be located. Miranda (a rookie with 80 plate appearances and a reputation, historically, for being aggressive at the plate) first needs to make contact with the pitch to push it to the opposite field, and with Kikuchi averaging almost 10 K/9 and a career 15% swinging strike rate generated, he's been pretty successful at preventing contact. Furthermore, Miranda is a dead pull hitter and while it's easy for writers or commenters to say "just hit it the other way" as if players could just change their swing on the fly, in reality, MLB pitchers aren't throwing pitches with the intent of letting the batter dictate where the pitch goes. Want to complain about swinging wildly at a 3-0 pitch with runners on after the last two hitters walked? That's fair. Complaining the Twins hitters didn't hit balls to exactly the most opportune spot during all their at bats, not so fair.

Polanco's been beating the shift this year pretty handily as a LH hitter, but he's been eaten up by it as a RH hitter. 2021 - .267 xBA .488 xSLG .348 xwOBA 2021 - .269 AVG .503 SLG .349 wOBA 2022 - .272 xBA .426 xSLG, .369 xwOBA 2022 - .223 AVG .346 SLG, .300 wOBA Basically, Polanco has been super unlucky so far this year. Last year his xwOBA and wOBA were a dead match, and historically, they've generally been within 10-20 pts across his full season. He's 70pts under expected this year. He's walking far more than he ever has so his actual OBP is almost identical to last year, but the power numbers aren't there, largely out of sheer luck. For example, Polanco's 5 HRs this season would have been 12 HRs if he was playing in Cincinnati's park the entire time, though he'd only have 4 at Yankee Stadium or Kaufmann. At the average MLB stadium, Polanco would have 7 HRs. Aside from that, his exit velocities, barrel rates and hard hit rates are all right about the same as last year. What's wrong with Polanco? Nothing.

Berrios is a good pitcher and while he's been up and down this year (they discussed him having dead arm where his fastball was at 90mph against the Angels) he certainly wasn't pitching poorly today. Movement was awesome, location was great and velocity was there.

I don't think that's true. The front office does not like spending money on relief pitching and they were clearly very interested in moving him last year but he injury prevented it. The front office did make some efforts to sign Berrios, but I think Rogers was going to be shown the door no matter what.

I have a very strong opinion "younger than his competition" is a carryover from failed farm systems of the Twins' past. If a player is going to be valuable at the MLB level, they're generally going to move through the minors quickly and easily. It's expected players are younger than their competition. In most cases, several years younger. Martin is not young for AA. If anything he's average age or even a year older for a high caliber prospect at that level as he's now 23. The article also overlooks just how absolutely embarrassing Martin's defense has been at SS not only this year, but in Toronto as well. It's hard to imagine he could have had a start to the season which would have damaged his stock more. Woods-Richardson's 2021 was a catastrophe during his time with the Twins, but there was every reason to suspect he'd turn everything around this season. Woods-Richardson started the season great, but 4 of his last 5 starts have seen him get hammered with a 5.91 ERA and control issues. Now nearing age 22 and also in his second year of AA, he really needs to turn things around this season or see his stock fall as well.

Desperation is a stinky cologne...