bean5302

In many ways, the Twins are in a good place with the ability to eat Donaldson's contract and it's pretty well known the Mets don't have the payroll space. Unfortunately, the Mets also don't have what I would consider a lot of close to ready minor league talent the Twins would covet to entice the Twins to eat Donaldson's contract. Plus, historically, the Twins have been willing to trade prospects to save a little cash in transactions rather than spend cash to acquire prospects. It also doesn't seem likely the Twins would be interested in swapping expensive contracts since Donaldson's contract is short. I just don't have an idea of how this would really work at all.

Falvey is Levine's boss. That much is certain. How much freedom Falvey affords Levine in decision making is a total question mark. The organization of the front office, in general, seems to have confused almost everybody.

Even so, I think Palacios is still hitting well enough to have him take JT Riddle's spot on the Saints after the All Star Break if nothing changes. Palacios may not be on fire, but his overall line has consistently looked good enough. He's been batting about .250 with an OPS north of .800 all month with a few walks and some power mixed in. Over June, over the past couple weeks and over the past week, his OPS has been consistently over .800 regardless of how he got there so it doesn't shout anything is wrong or he's overmatched. Meanwhile, at age 29, Riddle hasn't really shown anything with the bat since 2018 and he's been pretty unplayable in AAA this year. It sucks to see dreams end, but Riddle got a few plate appearances in the big show if this is his likely last hurrah. It seems unlikely the Twins are going to keep Palacios from moving up with nobody blocking him at this point.

I appreciate the article identifying "Falvey" in specific. I see a lot of the "Falvine" out there, but I've gotten the impression Levine is more aggressive than Falvey when it comes to the free agent market from quotes given by Levine vs. moves actually made by Falvey. That said, I'm still not entirely sure who does what when it comes to player personnel because the two maintain such a unified appearance so I could be wrong. I don't think Falvey or Levine are going anywhere prior to the end of their new contract. The Pohlads are an incredibly conservative ownership group and dismissing people under contract just doesn't seem to be a move they'd likely make. It also feels to me the Pohlads have a relatively unique perspective on expected team performance. I really feel they aim for the expectation of being at least a bit north of .500 long term with the hopes they get hot at the right time rather than to make a concerted effort to put a World Series caliber team on the field with the potential it may cost the long term a bit.

Tyler Wells is looking pretty solid for Baltimore this year as well...

I'm actually kind of surprised the Buxton service time issue is garnering so much speculation. In my opinion, it doesn't matter in the slightest here. Buxton has already signed multiple contracts after the service time issue and it's clear he wasn't treated any differently than a dozen high profile players across the league. It's how baseball works right now and grievences against service time manipulation have been unsuccessful. Assuming the Twins felt like they should have or were going to apologize to Buxton with money, they've already done so in recent contracts to avoid arbitration. Based on how the league has been run recently, I'd be really surprised if Buxton was still hung up on it or expected to be further compensated because of the service time issue.

Yep, that part right there. In regard to whether or not 5/100 would get Buxton signed, I'm not sure. I know if I was making the call, I'd be very leary of going more than 3 years $65 million on Buxton because I don't believe he'll be healthy, I think the injuries will begin to add up and cost him that one step and his production will be reduced a lot as a result. I would fully expect that would not get Buxton signed right now which is why I'd be looking to trade him this year. Legitimately trying to move Buxton would also give me a good idea of how other teams value him which could be a big help negotiating an extension if I change my mind. Just my perspective. Luckily for me, I'm not on the hot seat to make the decisions, haha.

We're definitely all guessing. We don't know what the Twins have offered, and we don't know what Buxton has demanded. After all, Minnesota locked in Max Kepler for 5 years $35 million with a $10 million 6th year option. If the Twins were trying to dangle something like 6 years and $45 million in front of Buxton, it would be obvious why he'd be uninterested. Beyond that, nobody knows how other teams might value Buxton. Then there is the concern, for both sides, on what the 2022+ CBA might look like. Just too many moving parts so all we can do is speculate on what the market will bear.

I think the Twins really need to look at Buxton objectively. 2017 is Buxton's best year not because of productivity, but because he played in 140 games, and it remains the only season he's ever played more than 92. In 2017, Byron managed 4.9 bWAR or 3.6 fWAR as a center fielder. Byron ranks 18th in MLB for center fielders from 2018-2021 with 6.3 fWAR, trailing Max Kepler by 2.4 WAR. Including MilB, here are Buxton's total games played for the years. 2012 - 48 2013 - 125 2014 - 31 2015 - 118 (72 MiLB, 46 MLB) 2016 - 141 (49 MiLB, 92 MLB) 2017 - 143 (3 MiLB, 140 MLB) missed 12% of MLB games 2018 - 64 (36 MiLB, 28 MLB) missed 82% of MLB games 2019 - 88 (1 MiLB, 87 MLB) missed 46% of MLB games 2020 - 39 (0 MiLB, 39 MLB) missed 35% of MLB games 2021 - 30 (3 MiLB, 27 MLB) missed 65% of MLB games Regardless of how freak some of Buxton's injuries may be, there are semi-chronic issues (back, wrist, hamstring, migraines) underneath the broken hands and as Buxton ages, it seems unrealistic to expect his missed games to decrease so expecting Buxton to miss 80 games a year would be fairly reasonable. I think it would be completely unrealistic to expect Buxton to play in 100+ games a season. If everything was in a vacuum, 80 games from Buxton is still valuable. Say 3-4 WAR valuable, but the Twins would still need to keep a player who is able to be starting center fielder on the roster to cover the 80 games a year Buxton will miss. The aforementioned "backup" will A. not appreciate being relagated to the corners whenever Buxton can play B. want to be paid like the center fielder they really are. C. force roster crunches when both Buxton and "backup" are active. There's another important concern with Buxton, and that's his dependence on speed. Besides Buxton's amazing feats in the outfield made possible by his blazing speed, he can expect 20%+ of his hits to come from weak grounders which would be automatic outs for 80% of MLB players. When Buxton's speed starts to decline, he'll be uniquely vulnerable to seeing his WAR plummet because so many of his "hits" are of the poor contact, slow rolling grounder variety. Taking away 5% of his hits from a drop in speed would reduce his OPS by about 50pts along with dropping his superhuman fielding values. Buxton would no longer be an MVP caliber player, even when healthy, and suddenly, he's only worth 2-3 WAR per season because of his missed 80 games. How prepared are the Twins to gamble Buxton doesn't lose that single step as he ages past 30? 2019 = .262/.314/.513 OPS .827 versus .236/.281/.487 OPS .768. 2020 = .254/.267/.577 OPS .844 versus .238/.244/.561 OPS .805. A lot of people wind up gambling a lot more than they wanted to because of the fear of missing out. The "what if???" scenario. I don't think there are a lot of MLB teams out there who are willing to gamble on Buxton and I don't think the Twins are in a position where they can afford to do it. I'd prefer trading him this year or chancing the ability to sign him as a free agent at the end of 2022. Buxton's injury history is too long and too varied for even a full, healthy year to help his image so no matter what happens, Buxton's value isn't likely to increase much.

Like all non-HoF articles about Joe Mauer, they invariably go off topic and seek to argue his HoF likelihood. This topic was, as I understand it, about who Joe Mauer is now, and what he might do for the Twins or another team in baseball next season and beyond. Mauer's distant past (as a catcher) is irrelevant unless some team out there wants Joe back behind the plate and Mauer likes that idea too, both of which seem highly unlikely. Barring significant injury or a terrible season, Joe is going to be in MLB next season. I think that much is almost certain. The question is whether or not it is with the Twins.

Mauer made a clear and obvious adjustment last year. Surrounded by better hitters, Mauer's getting better pitches to hit and he doesn't appear to be pressing as hard as he was. Mauer is swinging at far fewer pitches outside the zone, he's making much better contact, and he's seeing higher hard-hit rates. His K rate continued its 3rd consecutive annual decline, his line drive rate rebounded and he didn't lose any significant speed from the previous season. I think Mauer could have another, better, season this year if he continues to punish teams for shifting against him and his HR/FB rate gets back to where it was for 4 of the previous 5 seasons. I don't think an OPS in the mid-800s and a 3.5-4.0 WAR is out of the question.

It kind of depends on which metric you're using on Buxton. He finished with 5.2 rWAR last year despite fangraphs putting him at 3.5 fWAR. I think Fangraphs underestimates Buxton's defense... A LOT, last year. In any case, I remember looking back at converting OPS to WAR and it was pretty close to .025 = 1 WAR (rough estimate). I expect Buxton will actually only need to hit about .800-.825 OPS for a 6 WAR campaign. 2013 Carlos Gomez managed a .844 OPS for 6.7 WAR with a better UZR/150, but much worse base running. Gomez was not a superior defender than Buxton.

My opinion is that there is "no evidence." Just because somebody says something more than once doesn't make it more true. You asked for examples, then when I gave you examples (albeit, I have no idea what I was thinking on Anderson, I was looking at a ton of contracts), you changed the subject. Honestly, we're just not going to agree. Back on topic. The Twins have no interest in Dozier. If he has another great year, he's going to get a 5+ year contract and it's going to be $100M+ and the Twins aren't going to spend that kind of money on a player who doesn't fill an organizational need. If Dozier has a down year, the Twins aren't going to want to give him a long term contract at all. It would take a very bizzare scenario for the Twins to even offer Dozier a contract. i.e. Polanco tanks in his return or tests positive again, Gordon gets hurt and Dozier has a down year enabling the Twins to get him on a shorter contract for WAY less money.

MLB Trade Rumors has been open about over-predicting some players, and sure. Eric Hosmer 8yrs $144M vs. Chris Davis 7yrs $161M (2016) J.D. Martinez 5yrs $110M vs. Edwin Encarnacion 3yrs $60M (2017) Yu Darvish 6yrs $125M vs. Johnny Cueto 6yrs $130M (2016) Lance Lynn 1yrs $12M vs. Brett Anderson 1yr $15.8M (accepted QO 2016) Davis was clearly hotter than Hosmer after Davis posted a 7 WAR season, but the contracts aren't too far apart, especially considering Hosmer's contract also contains opt outs. Martinez might be worth a little more than Encarnacion, but not much. Cueto definitely had the better durability. Anderson accepted his QO despite definitely being superior to Lynn. Just because a player is the best player available in free agency does not mean they're comparable to any other year's best players. In example, Davis was only ranked as the 5th best free agent in his class. J.D. Martinez was potentially the top free agent in his class. Put simply, the 2017-2018 free agent class sucked.

I can't agree with your opinion here. Lynn and Morrison have serious issues for any team to consider. Quite frankly, I see Lynn as a potential upside player, but not a guy I'd want on a long term contract. Lynn with either have a big bounce back or be a back end rotation arm for another year or two before he's out of baseball. Morrison is replacement level. Sorry. He's got absolutely no track record of anything other than 1/2 of last year. A guy comes out of nowhere at age 30 and his game completely changes? Doesn't happen. Morrison slashed .231/.333/.452 OPS .786 in the second half last year (right around his career average). The free agent tracker shows a lot of significant to very large contracts were given to players whose likelihood of delivering long term value is dubious at best http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/free-agents/ Darvish, Martinez and Hosmer are all arguably 3 WAR players with 5+ year, nine figure contracts. Each of them have major arguments against their value and they were the absolute cream of the crop of free agents. Dozier and Blackmon are in an utterly different league.

1. Blackmon is the fan favorite (over Arenado) so there is value retaining him. 2. The Rockies need some stability in the outfield so there's organizational need. 3. Blackmon is the 14th ranked player in WAR over the past two seasons (he's expensive) 4. The Rockies easily have payroll capacity, despite the cheapskate owners. There is no evidence of re-valuing of free agents happening. Just evidence mediocre to below average free agents aren't going to get massive contracts just because they're the best free agents on the market. 1. Brian Dozier is among many other fan favorites. 2. The Twins do not have a need for 2B depth. 3. Dozier is the 13th ranked player in WAR over the past two years (he's be expensive) 4. The Twins do not have the payroll capacity to keep potential up and coming superstars like Buxton and Berrios along with aging, long contract, high priced veterans. Dozier is going to command a $100M+ contract if he puts up another year like his last two. It's going to be a 5+ (probably 5) year deal at an AAV of more than $20M. There just isn't an obvious need to keep Dozier and there are better places for the Twins to spend their money which is why the Twins haven't wasted their time or Dozier's time on an extension. Dozier is not going to be in a Minnesota Twins uniform next year barring some Twilight Zone stuff.

Berrios looked like an ace. There's not much more you can say about it.

Re: Buntgate. Did the Twins think the "2B" was or would be changed to an error which would put the no-hitter back into play? The bottom line is you can't give your opponents an absolutely obvious hit and then complain when they take it.

Rosario has a hit tool which is just insane and he began to mature as a hitter last year. As an article said, he's learning what he should hit vs. what he can hit. Rosario kind of reminds me of somewhat more athletic Vladimir Guerrero, but with a bit less power. If Rosario can continue to build on his discipline, he could have a great career.

Gibson has seemingly had talent beyond his results since his TJ, seemingly 100 years ago, and every year people expect this is the year Gibson figures it out. He's no longer a spring chicken (he's 30) and he's been trying to sort of reinvent himself quite a bit over the past few years. I think it's reasonable to temper expectations given that Gibson is probably a somewhat better version of Nick Blackburn. Throwing 59 of 102 pitches for strikes and working from behind most of the game will usually result in you getting shellac'd so the results don't necessarily line up with the actual performance. I'm not complaining that the Orioles put up a bunch of zeros against the Twins while Gibson was on the mound, but I just don't think this was some sort of epiphany for Kyle.

I think the Twins are in the very same mode they've been in for most of the past 2 decades. Be competitive, but very risk averse. This is a team which is solidly in the mid-market arena from a revenue potential standpoint, but with the risk aversion a small market team exhibits. I think the Twins' general approach has been, try to field a competitive team and hope some magic happens, and I think the mentality is driven by ownership far more than the front office. Sustained "competitive" teams are possible for a mid-market club. Sustained World Series contenders is not.

A1 = 5.55 A2 = Kind of. There were 14 qualified starters with ERA's of 4.49+ last year. It's not that starters posting 4.50 ERAs are rare. It's that pitchers who post those ERAs for consecutive years are rare. A guy can have a bad season driven by luck. BABIP, a couple of his solo shots wind up being grand slams instead... those make big differences in ERA. Teams look to shed pitchers who pitch at that 4.25+ level because they make it awfully hard to win games. 6 innings and 3ER (4.50 ERA) is treated as a quality start, but it's really not. Your team will probably allow at least one more ER over the last 3 innings of the game (ERA 3.00) which means your team needs to score 5 runs to win. The probability of scoring 5 runs in a game is far lower than 4 runs. Actually, that's the very basis of the "Ace" for the playoffs discussion. An Ace is expected to give you 7 innings at 2 ER. A #3 will give you 7 innings at 3 ER, which is still a solid start, but the expectations of winning are probably 80% in favor of the Ace's team at that point.

I was under the impression Darvishes escalators were cy young awards. If he wins 2 cy Young’s, the $150M will almost certainly be money well spent. It’s possible Darvish melts down. I don’t think he will. I think he’s ripe for a really nice few years. I’m guessing 2-3 years as an ace, plus 2-3 years as a #2 and 0-2 years as a #3 would be completely reasonable. That’s be worth it.

I can understand the desire to be positive and optimistic, but I am just totally unimpressed with this off-season. The Twins needed an ace, not 12 number 3s. It feels like the ghost of Terry Ryan. Darvish went CHEAP and Darvish is what the Twins needed. Every season, the Twins spend about $35-40M on additional salary for rotation arms. This has been the case since, I think, 2013. Phil Hughes, Mike Pelfrey, Kevin Correia, Ricky Nolasco/Hector Santiago, Ervin Santana and now Lance Lynn. Odorizzi was a big jump in payroll as well. It doesn't matter to me if the Twins have new dumpster fires eating the $35M in salary up every two years. It matters to me the Twins could have spent the money more efficiently. In any case, this year's probable rotation had a simple mean 4.87 FIP (4.68 when Hughes is replaced by Santana) which would keep them at an identical rank of 23rd of 30 teams (or 22nd of 30 teams) based on last year. Berrios = 3.84 Lynn = 4.82 Odorizzi = 5.43 Gibson = 4.85 Hughes = 5.43 Santana = 4.46 FIP There's always the chance multiple arms take a step forward and Santana comes back without regression to his mediocre to poor FIPs, but I've long since learned if, if, if, and if happens isn't a great scenario for trying to predict your teams playoff or World Series potential.

MLB has shown an open willingness to punish players without the type of evidence necessary to prove accusations in a legal setting before, either probable cause or beyond a reasonable doubt. MLB conducted over 20 interviews and given the current political climate, you can bet they didn’t take their decision lightly. There’s absolutely no reason to doubt the quality or integrity of the MLB investigation. MLB didn’t say “Sano’s accuser was full of ****” or something of that nature. The investigation was almost certainly very thorough, but it was obviously unable to uncover any solid evidence Sano acted inappropriately. This was never going to be about a “sexual assault” as police would have been handling that investigation. It’s not MLBs duty to investigate crimes. It’s MLBs duty to investigate personal conduct and determine whether or not a player has violated personal conduct rules, which isn’t limited in scope to crimes. There just wasn’t significant evidence OR perhaps there wasn’t significant interest from the accuser to pursue punishment. We don’t know, and we never will. It would be nice if people had a shred of respect for the hard work of MLB investigators and the process, though.