bean5302

Opponents are swinging at Alcala's pitches more and they're barreling them up quite a bit. That said, it's not like they've been ripping the cover off the ball against him. I don't expect him to become a dominant closer or something, but I think he'll steady out with some regression away from what seems like some bad luck this year. I am a bit concerned about the K rate drop and corresponding BB rate drop. PTSD from the pitch to contact and avoid walks at all costs years.

Grossman took so much flak for his defense here, yet UZR/150 shows Grossman is and has been an above average left fielder for Minnesota, Oakland and Detroit for the last several years. Kepler's triple had an expected batting average of .910. If it was a hit, it was going to score a run and put runners at the corners in the bottom of the 6th when they're already down 2-0 with no outs. Grossman came within 1 foot of making a great catch which could have saved the game for Detroit. If you're going to sell out, that's where you sell out.

Love the defense and it's hard to tell how much of Rortvedt's struggles at the plate are related to luck as his BABIP is crazy low. He's still fairly young and his MiLB track record suggests he's got the upside of an average-ish MLB hitter if he can work a couple things out. Even as an average hitter at the MLB level, Rortvedt would still be a valuable catcher in the big show.

Balazovic is dealing with a .359 BABIP which suggests some of his ERA is likely from luck this year. That's especially the case when you consider the tiny sample size. Seems like the Twins have Balazovic on a pitch count around 85 over his past 4 starts. Looking at the number of strikes he's throwing (65%-ish), it's surprising to see him not getting later into games. In any case, once the BABIP starts regressing, it wouldn't surprise me to see Balazovic's results start to shine. The pitch/innings limit decisions have to be under the greatest level of scrutiny in recent history with the loss of the 2020 season for most MiLB players. Coupled with quite a few studies which have continued to debunk the innings/pitch limits as being valuable at preventing injury, I wonder how things will look going forward. Can the Twins afford to wait until 2024 to have a pitcher like Balazovic stretched out?

Glad to see a few games out there by Cavaco, and glad to see him hitting the ball. Cavaco performing well would sure be a big relief to the scouting department and front office!

If Happ continues to start, he'll likely have 3 more opportunities before the trade deadline. Assuming he pitches the same as he did last night against the Tigers, that'd reduce his ERA all the way down to red hot 5.49. To get his ERA below 5, he can allow only 1 ER per 7 inning start for the next 3 starts, and I think any team willing to take Happ on for even a PTBNL is probably going to want to see that sub 5 ERA.

Why is there a guaranteed work stoppage? The current CBA expires on December 1. Players and owners should be pretty desperate to prevent that from happening after the huge losses from 2020. I can hope both sides got enough of the bitter taste of not playing they'll figure things out. That said, it really does feel like the MLBPA is totally dysfunctional to me.

I'd simply argue the Twins have never been a team to make a splash at the trade deadline. Actually, I don't think MLB fans generally see a lot of big moves in any given year despite all the speculation. The difficult situation right now is the Twins don't have much of an identity after this year and other division rivals are clearly already better teams with bigger budgets. The current front office has, once again, squandered opportunities to "put the boot on the throat" when they were obvious favories.

The Twins tried to trade Sano as a headliner for Chris Archer. The Rays said no way. Sano had many off field issues, he was missing a lot of time due to injuries, there were concerns about his conditioning and his bat was bad in 2018. I strongly suspect the league didn't value Sano as highly as Twins fans.

Jack Morris for one.

Berrios has the same fWAR as Stephen Strasburg from 2017-2021. Zack Wheelers stat line from his 3 years prior to the new contract in free agency was 3.94 ERA, 3.68 FIP with an average of 154 innings. Berrios is every bit as good as that.

I agree the Twins should be making it a huge priority to extend Berrios up to about the 5 years $125MM or so price point. If the Twins are unable to sign Berrios and they're unwilling to accept a good trade for him is a Twins decision. Watching Berrios walk for literally nothing would be a disaster. I say literally nothing because I don't know if the compensatory pick will even be a thing in the next CBA.

RBI is a function of team performance which is why a lot of people tend to favor other stats. "Clutch" or essentially AVG wRISP hasn't been shown to be sustainably different from a players normal AVG, and a good AVG wRISP does not directly correspond to a high RBI total. Team A .274/.350/.445, Player Y = .264/.322/.473 wRC+ 118 RISP .233 = 47 RBI Team B .218/.293/.381, Player Z = .286/.347/.402 wRC+ 112 RISP .382 = 31 RBI Player Z is one of the best hitters on Team B, but he's not quite as good at the plate overall than Player Y. In his favor, Player Z also has an unsustainable batting average with RISP of .382. Yet, his RBI total is pretty poor at 31. Player Y is a middle of the pack hitter on Team A and he's hitting marginally better than Player Z. Player Y is especially weak with RISP with his .233 average. Still, he's on pace for close to 100 RBI this year. RBIs are generally a function of how good the teams overall lineup is, not a function of how good a particular hitter is. Also, a good hitter in the middle of the bad lineup gets no protection. The hitter is unlikely to see good pitches to hit because opposing pitching staffs will just pitch around the good hitter. Walks only produce RBI when the bases are loaded. Relying on counting stats and reputations for being "clutch" is how a lot of fans (including myself) believe pedestrian players get into the HoF.

Chris Sale was was better than Berrios and Boston got 3 full years of control over him. I think Berrios is a very good pitcher, but that expectation seems out of reach. I think a Berrios package might bring back 3 top 10 prospects in an organization which would include a top 50 MLB, another top 100 and a 6-10 ranked organizational prospect.

Berrios is worth a "sky high" return. In any case, if the Twins are actually serious about competing in the future, Berrios would be a really, really good player to lock down. Of course, we don't know if Berrios is interested in staying here. If it's true and Berrios is seeking a 5 year 100MM-125MM contract as eluded to above, he's worth it. If the Twins aren't willing to pay it (I suspect they're not), then they really should trade him and take what they can get. 2022's free agent pitching class looks like it has some very serious short term talent like Verlander, Scherzer, Kershaw and Greinke. I'm not sure how much Verlander would command, but if the Twins front office maintains its extreme aversion to long term pitching commitments, Verlander wouldn't be too expensive and will likely be seeking a 1-2 year contract. Greinke would probably a bit more since he's not coming off TJ, but he's certainly command less in an equal health situation. Obviously, Kershaw is going nowhere, but it felt like a disservice not to include him. Also, can I just say how fantastic it is I can't imagine Kershaw finishing his career as anything but a life long Dodgers player? The Mauers and Kershaws of the game are so rare these days. It definitely seems cool to me.

Very few people would dispute Simmons being a great fielding shortstop, but he's on a 1 year contract and his bat looks like it's in significant decline. Simmons has really struggled to make good contact and seems to be struggling to catch up to fastballs. I agree a sure fire starting shortstop will likely cost more than Simmons' $10.5MM in free agency.

You're quite right. Berrios didn't pitch 9 full innings and strike out all 27 batters on 81 pitches while also batting instead of a DH and hitting 4 solo homers to score the only runs during the game. Clearly, lots of blame for Berrios here as any Twins pitcher would know the defense behind him all wear concrete mittens in the field. He should probably just retire if the Twins don't DFA the bum by tomorrow. It's not like anybody would give the guy even an MiLB contract when he's pitching 7 inning games with 1.29 ERAs and 1.59 FIPs. Honestly... starts like Berrios' effort today win Cy Young awards. Do you think maybe you're just a little annoyed with the Twins and taking it out on a guy? LOL

I do see some calls for Sano to play 3B, but I'm having a hard time seeing the Twins ever putting Sano back into the field at a position other than 1B unless it's an emergency. Putting aside the high risk of him developing injuries, he's had no significant time at 3B since 2019 and he was awfully rough in the field even back then. This year, in 3 games started and roughly 4 games played, he has 3 errors at 3B with a 72.7% fielding rate. That would correspond to over 100 errors in a single full season.

Kepler's ISO in 2019 was .267, ranking 13th in MLB of 135 qualified batters. His wRC+ was 121 ranking 49th of 135. In 2020, he ranked 48th and 82nd of 142, respectively. This year, Kepler is at ISO .231 and wRC+ 101 ranking 37th and 132nd out of 217 batters with 200 plate appearances or more, respectively. Kepler is not an empty power guy (assuming you mean HR or nothing), in my opinion. There are those handfuls of players with averages across the season significantly lower than Kepler with ISO's much higher and high K rates where it's a 2-3 outcome event at the plate. Kepler's K rate, typically, isn't bad and he usually has more doubles than HRs.

My only concerns about Donaldson are how he performs on the field and how he impacts the roster. At $23MM per year, he takes a big chunk out of the Twins' payroll. Is that $23MM better spent elsewhere is the question I ask. I remain concerned about Donaldson's ability to stay on the field and about the value he's going to add as he ages into his upper 30s under the contract. As far as 3B is concerned, the most likely replacement candidates on the roster are Nick Gordon and Luis Arraez. Gordon has largely been ignored as a prospect for the last couple years, but is holding his own at the MLB level right now with a very small sample size. I think Gordon is probably the better of the two as a defensive option at 3B, but Arraez is a proven, MLB worthy hitter. I wouldn't expect either to be an All Star caliber 3B so expecting them to totally replace Donaldson seems far-fetched. Digging into the MiLB system, Jose Miranda is the obvious top 3B candidate, but like so many others, the Twins absolutely refuse to pick a position for their prospects to actually play... doing those prospects an enormous disservice in my opinion. Nick Gordon has the arm strength and agility to be a shortstop if only the error rate could be reigned in... and with nobody close in the minors, it sure would be nice to be able to dream of Gordon regaining weight, staying healthy and fixing some of the error rate to evolve into a SS. In any case, I think Donaldson is about a 3-4 WAR 3B across a full season. I think Arraez would be a 2-3 WAR 3B. The question is can that $23MM be spent somewhere else to make the Twins better overall than the 0-2 WAR they'd be losing? I think it could be.

Kepler gets a lot of flak on the forums for not being an All Star. I don't see him being the Twins' problem and his contract doesn't suggest to me he's being paid to be a core part of the lineup. If Kepler turns into his 2019 self, I think it's safe to say the Twins would have gotten one of the biggest steals in MLB at $7MM per year. Right now, today, he's an above average hitter for MLB in terms of wRC+, and it doesn't seem to me it should generally matter much where the production comes from. Kepler isn't an automatic out at the plate with a sky high strike out rate: he's not a swing at anything kind of guy as he walks quite a bit. Kepler's swing looks beautiful, but as a lot of analysis out there has shown, it doesn't travel through the contact zone as well as it looks and that leads to a lot more poor contact. My expectation is he's probably going to remain a relatively low average hitter with a bat somewhat above league average. I'm not sure what you're really wanting? .280/.360/.390 OPS = .750 instead of a normalish kind of line for him of like .225/.320/.430 = OPS .750?

I'm not a huge fan of Donaldson and I didn't like the signing when the Twins made it. I still don't like the signing and agree the Twins would be better off if they could trade Donaldson, keeping in mind there is a 5 team NTC. I don't know as the Twins could find a taker for Donaldson right now, though. Not without paying a big portion of the contract, but he is tearing the cover off the ball recently. Another couple weeks of hot production could be enough to tempt another team into taking a big majority of Donaldson's contract on.

I feel like any realistic chance the Twins had at the division or playoffs this year was really overblown over the past couple weeks. The White Sox were scuffling a little bit skewing the numbers the Twins' way, and the Twins won a few games. It was wishful thinking in my opinion. The Twins are a bad team this year and it's not a luck fueled fluke. That said, I don't think Donaldson was anything other than his classic self out there and fans and the front office need to come to terms with that if they're having issues with his behavior. Honestly, I've seen a heck of a lot more embarrassing behavior from Carlos Gomez in a Twins uniform, and Go-Go almost always got a pass owing to him just being enthusiastic and old fuddy duddy stick in the mud fans just not appreciating fun.

I'm also speculating, but I think it implies other teams feel strongly Minnesota's season is done and we have a lot of talent under short team control which teams are usually eager to flip and contenders are very interested in acquiring.

Miguel Sano isn't going anywhere. No team in MLB would want him on the roster and if the Twins did put him on waivers, he'd pass through, and the Twins would be on the hook for his contract because Sano would decline an assignment. Another team would offer Sano a MLB contract at league minimum (maybe) or he'd certainly get a MiLB contract with an opt out. The Twins aren't losing anything by putting Sano into the lineup at this point except the potential Sano can turn things around to the point he could either be serviceable next year or at least be moveable this winter. Aside from that the comparisons to a HoF caliber player like Ortiz has grown pretty long in the tooth, I think. In regard to Kepler, he's young and under a long contract. He adds defensive value and the Twins are going to continue to send him out to play through at least the end of this year. Kepler played hurt for a good portion of the year and missed 3 weeks recently with a very short rehab assignment.