bean5302

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.

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...