bean5302

Except it's a MiLB deal instead of an MLB deal at like $4MM where Falvey would subbornly keep the player on the roster as if there was a turnaround coming and Baldelli would play them every day just to troll the fans.

In a vacuum, and when done properly. Baldelli didn't do it properly. There is no legitimate use of a 26 man roster spot for a part time LHP-only platoon specialist DH on a well run team.

Shoulder surgery at the end of March last year with a typical recovery period of 12 months. Nick Paparesta indicated it was likely Canterino will take longer than that. Honestly, I'd be surprised if he was on the mound prior to the end of Spring training. It's a 2 year MiLB contract, but I'd say the odds Canterino ever pitches in the big show are very long.

The problem is Falvey was hoarding clock time on all of them rather than calling them up last year to get a look at them. Even if they weren't ready, Falvey committed to a path of gutting the entire bullpen with no money to rebuild it, and the waiver wire guys we brought onto the 26 man to finish the season aren't solutions for the future. Can't have your cake and eat it, too. On top of it, I've seen some conflict in the front office when it comes to how pitching depth is to be utilized. Falvey has been on record multiple times talking about Prielipp as a reliever while Zoll has been clear he wants to use Prielipp as a starter. There doesn't appear to be any strategy whatsoever for this team right now. It's Falvey's job to create one and carry it out. Anybody from this site could do the job Falvey has done with the roster after the trade deadline was over last year.

Spotrac has him at 3yrs $32MM. MLBTR had him at 2yrs $18MM. Dominguez is not elite so he won't be able to set market demands with a ton of suitors, but spending on relief pitchers hasn't been Falvey's typical MO.

I see some comments about Fangraphs and interacting with it. If you're devious enough, you can make stats or sites like Fangraphs say whatever you want them to say. For 32 players with a "primary position" of 1B with at least 400 PA, Eric Wagaman put up the 2nd worst wRC+ For the splits argument, please take a look at the plate appearances last year. Players get a lot more plate appearances vs right handed pitching than left handed pitching. Then you look at 1B splits in general. There were 28 primary 1B with 120+ plate appearances (SSS) vs left handed pitching last year. Wagaman's .783 OPS ranked 59th percentile for RHH, and 64th percentile for LHH (higher percentile is better). Basically, Wagaman was "above average" against left handed pitchers, but hardly elite. When you consider he's only going to see 25% of his plate appearances vs. lefties and he can't hit righties in a position where your performance at the plate is the most important thing in your profile, he's not a significant asset on paper. On top of that, Baldelli v2.0 is our manager so we can expect the same kind of substitution nonsense we saw last year where opposing managers would feint a move, Baldelli would overreact and cripple the line up for the rest of the game using an ill-advised substitution trying to play the stupid platoon game. Wagaman was terrible against 75% of the pitchers he played against. Wagaman was "above average" but certainly not great against the 25% of the pitchers who were lefties.

Perfect example of my biggest complaints about Falvey. Doesn't understand how to operate within a budget. Give him a budget and he'll use it, but he'll squander it with his desperate need to sign every name he possibly can. I can't imagine what the inside of his house looks like. Probably like a Big Lots exploded in there.

This is kind of gross as I'm not normally in the conspiracy thing, but it almost feels like a move to save $50,000 in an outright waiver claim fee because I can't see any other team taking the claim. I do like the 114.5mph Max exit velo, but Wagaman's been a worm burner generation machine. It makes no sense to me unless Falvey thinks some coaching can get Wagaman to start generating fly balls. Very high contact rates for pitches in the zone, doesn't swing a lot at pitches outside the zone, but never takes a walk.

My point was the Twins seem to be following the Colorado Rockies roster model, except spending less. Spending less doesn't make bad strategies better. I posted an image the other day which surprised me. In the past decade, no team in the bottom half of spending has won a World Series. Team in blue, won a World Series Team in green, made it to the world series. Division in blue, won a League Championship (made a WS) Division in green made it to a division champsionship. Teams do not have to spend $200MM to make it to the World Series. But if they can't get at least to about league average, it's not happening anymore.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Following the Colorado Rockies model (but you know, spending 20% less, cause the Scrooge McDuck moneybin is getting a little low...) always leads to success. I'm glad the Twins have figured it out!

If the Twins are committed to a World Series attempt, they need to be in obvious build mode. They're not right now. This is not a team for which expectations of .500 ball or playoffs, let alone a potential World Series run is reasonable. The team's on the field product resembles a team at the tail end of a rebuild, the point at which a team identifies what they've got and what they need to build. What they've got as playoff caliber guys right now. Byron Buxton, Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez. What they've got as respectable every day players who aren't going to lift the team, but they shouldn't be concerned about upgrading. Ryan Jeffers. After that, it's debatable whether or not they've got guys who will hold the team back, tread water or push the team into the playoffs. That's 22 other positions on the opening day roster which are question marks. The Twins running out a status quo team is reckless and inconsistent with Tom Pohlad's comments.

College Football literally generates more revenue than MLB so it's going nowhere. From what I can tell, it's a recruitment tool for colleges and a way to float other athletic programs which do not generate revenue but are considered an enrichment to culture.

Bailey Ober got terrible results with his slider compared to "average" results for other pitchers using a slider. The slider and his fastball had the same xwOBA of .360 (bad). The sweeper looked much better in the xwOBA, but few pitches can function in a vacuum unless your name is Mariano Rivera. The sweeper depended on the slider for effectiveness. If Ober stops throwing the slider, the sweeper becomes much more predictable. As this article points out, Ober needs to throw harder. Whether or not he can now that he's entered into his 30s and needs to build back strength from a season long injury is another question.

Falvey's house desperately needs a coat a paint, but he's put it off for 5 years. His insurance company is threatening to cancel his policy. Luckily, he stumbled across some old paint from the 80s at a garage sale for cheap and he got right to it. Somehow he gets criticised even though he painted the house! The insurance company never should have asked him to paint, but darn it, now they.... oh, they cancel his policy just like the Pohlads should have canceled his contract.

Donaldson's contract would have been a bit of an albatross for the team, but they made out pretty well on the long side flipping Mitch Garver and Josh Donaldson into Gio Gonzalez and Gary Sanchez. Donaldson's last year with the Twins was pretty productive. Correa's first contract was great for Minnesota. It's the second round which got ugly fast. No team in baseball will develop their entire World Series caliber roster in house. Free agency is a necessary evil from a front office perspective. Burning $20MM on a handful of 0-1 WAR guys is worse than spending $20MM on a higher end, quality player who will still help the team even if they take a step back. I especially, especially believe this when it comes to starting rotation. My message to the Pohalds, pack up shop and sell to an owner fans will support if you can't be competitive.

A tool I really like is the SRS in sports reference. Average point differential and strength of schedule. It's far from perfect, but it feels like a fairly neutral way to compare teams. Any team scoring 18+ did enough to deserve a CFP nod. Under that and it gets murky. Gophers' best season was 11.73 in 2019. 6.78 Tulane 10.66 James Madison 13.75 Oklahoma 14.71 Alabama 16.20 Ole Miss 17.82 Texas A&M 18.44 Georgia 19.41 Miami 20.33 Oregon 23.00 Indiana 23.60 Texas Tech 24.05 Ohio State Notable overlooks: Notre Dame 21.79, Utah 17.88, BYU, 16.44, USC 15.99.

Not listening to me = the ask was so disproportionate they scared off other teams. This is the process by which Falvey has traditionally operated, even when it was obvious there was a need to move contracts off the books. It covers up for Falvey's incompetence by currying favor with the fanbase who always want to keep every single player which has suited up for more than 1 consecutive year with the club. Like the Twins are going for it!!! No, they're actually just squandering their assets.

Impossible to really tell what's up this coming year. AL East looks like a real juggernaut, but they'll be feeding off each other. The Royals are a wildcard in terms of what they might spend. Unlike the Pohlads, the Royals ownership was willing to expand the payroll into the top 1/2 in their window. Today that'd be $165MM-ish. The Tigers probably have the best baseline of any of the teams, IMHO. Baez's hot start evaporated when his expected metrics luck ran out and Detroit is as weak as the Twins when it comes to SS as a result, but Detroit has the most stable "base/floor" of any team in the division, I'd say. The Twins players have shown enough that each player on their own could have a monster season, but expecting a whole bunch of them to take a step forward or rebound at the same time is the part which is a 1:100 scenario. I've seen utterly nothing from this ownership shift suggesting it's not just business as usual. Big additions this year seem extremely unlikely. The team has no bullpen, and nothing but questions in the infield. The Guardians gamblers really messed that team up. They truly do have a tightwad for an owner so replacing important, cost controlled players all of the sudden is not their strength. Not sure how this team performs as well as it does. White Sox are terrible and are probably going to be terrible again, but their infield lineup is stronger than you'd think. No pitching staff, sketchy outfield.

I wasn't seeking to "prove my point" so much as explain context matters and my point was never "19 years old" to begin with. You misinterpreted something I wrote taking it more literally than it was intended.

No changes, just some steady opportunity. He was already the hitter he became with the A's. He didn't develop, just got steady opportunities. Rooker certainly demonstrated a lot more game power in his post high school years playing in college and summer league than Rosario as a high school pick playing pro ball, but it's hard to compare the two because of their paths. Very few. Organizations don't cast aside a slugger like Rooker who was dominating high minors, had much higher expected results than actual, demonstrating very good exit velocities. Speaks more about Falvey than it does likelihood a young slugger will develop. Even Rooker himself has no shot at the HoF. He's 30 with 9 career fWAR. I think he could end up with maybe 30 career WAR? Really an outstanding career overall, but only 1 in 100 players make the HoF. More like 1 in 300 these days. When I last reviewed Jenkins' performance and compared him with his peers (high 1st round picks out of high school), he fell in the middle ground. Could be elite, could be nothing at the MLB level. Feels like a Max Kepler kind of player to me, which in and of itself is pretty awesome. Just too early to really know.

"Young for his level" as a generic statement used to pretend an experienced, multi-year professional still has potential because they're barely younger than the average minor league baseball roster filler guy is one thing. A 19 year old excelling at AA has multiple aspects to it. First, they're many years younger than their competition, not a year or two, second, they have little professional baseball experience. A 19 year old having an above average performance first full MiLB season in AA would be exceptional, especially finishing the way Rosario did. Context matters.

Without a doubt my biggest pet peeve in all of analysis for the farm is "young for his level" garbage. If a player is not "young for his level" he's not a prospect at all. Every single legitimate prospect in baseball is "young for their level" by the end of their first full MiLB season. Borderline prospects are at least a year younger. Legitimate prospects are at least 2 years younger than their competition. Top prospects are at least 3-4 years younger than their competition. Avg age FCL (rookie ball) a20 A ball (a21) A+ (a22) AA (a24) AAA (a26) Gonzalez is pretty capped out frame-wise. Solid 110mph max EV in AAA, but nothing plus in the raw power area and his .ISO/history suggests he's maybe a 15 HR full season guy at the MLB level. At age 21 and on the 40 man, I think he's the most likely to see significant action this year and to be able to adapt to produce some power. Fedko is probably a AAAA player. He's got a couple hiccup seasons as he moved up the levels and that's not normal for a player who is going to be able to adapt to MLB caliber pitching. The 87.6mph EV at AAA at age 25 doesn't project well. He's a non-prospect, but solid MiLB depth guy with an outside shot at getting some emergency injury replacement time in the big show. Rosario is a non-prospect in my book atm. While he finished the year on a super hot streak, he was only passable from April through July putting up numbers which only would have been impressive at age 19. Only when the calendar transitioned into August did he make any waves on his 2nd major go 'round through AA at age 22. Maybe he can pull a Matt Wallner and turn himself into a legit late blooming threat as he matures, but not a likely outcome. The Twins have log-jamed about 436 corner OF's at AAA like Falvey love, love, loves to do. Leaving him off the 40 and exposing him (while all teams passed over him) shows Rosario isn't viewed as a legit prospect by the Twins so he's unlikely to force anybody out of St. Paul to get playing time. Olivar hasn't shown plus power. He had an ISO of .148 last year in AA with 13 HR in 407 PA. At age 23 last season, he's only a prospect because he's a catcher. Basically none of these listed guys are a real power threat at the MLB level next year. If there was a player who I think could add some pop from the right side with an epic start, it's Kaelyn Culpepper.

I think the state of the Twins for opening day will say a lot about Tom Pohlad's trustworthyness. This team, as it's currently constructed, looks very much like a team built on half measures. Exactly what Tom said he wouldn't do.

No he doesn't. IKF can't cover SS and they hit the same. Put IKF at SS and you'll see 0 WAR. Put Lee at SS and you'll see... 0 WAR.

The Twins' weakest position is probably shortstop and they've seemingly addressed it by pretending Brooks Lee might be able to cover the position.