bean5302

Kepler was also playing a little beat up for a while because of other injuries. A lot of Kepler's value in 2019 came from him playing so much center field. I'd expect Kepler to play a bit better down the stretch and post a 2.0 WAR season or so. I think everybody was hoping Kepler was going to be a perennial All Star, but the Twins certainly aren't paying him for that level of production. It would have been a Christian Yelich style steal of a contract had Kepler taken a major step forward.

I don't feel bad if guys were picked up from the waiver wire. That means another team wanted to assume their control/obligations. I just really find it unacceptable to see a guy be under team control until he's 35.

Yeah, that's utterly horrible. I'd be eliminating that in the next CBA hands down if I was the MLBPA. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/free-agency#:~:text=Definition,the two parties can agree. "Players become free agents upon reaching six years of Major League service time or when they are released from their organization prior to reaching six years of service time. A free agent is eligible to sign with any club for any terms to which the two parties can agree. If a player with fewer than six years of service time signs with a club, he remains under the control of that club until reaching the requisite service time to reach free agency -- even if the contract he signed does not cover the remaining years until that point."

Question in general on Chargois. While he's shown as being under team control for like 4 more years, the Dodgers released him in 2019 and that should have made him a free agent in full right there, shouldn't it have?

I'm actually way more concerned about our middle infield defense. I feel like somebody brought up Cavaco's struggles a couple months ago and I responded with players in A ball often have defensive stumbles. Then I went and looked at Cavaco again the other day and realized maybe it was only Twins prospects who stumble so badly in the minors. We have a very long history of horrible shortstop fielding that goes all the way back to Trevor Plouffe. Polanco, Gordon and Cavaco appear to have have rocks in their gloves with Lewis being mediocre and even Palacios' error rate isn't good despite all his experience. I'm starting to wonder if Gordon's defensive woes are a function of poor coaching. That kind of stuff will kill a team for years.

I remember when Sano was expected to be a great third baseman with an elite bat. Then maybe just a solid 3rd baseman with a very good bat. Then, well, at least his athleticism and reach will make him a great 1st baseman and he'll still have a good bat. Well, maybe he's passable at 1st base, and if he's just solidly above average at the plate. I mean... how bad can a first baseman really be, and he had a great year a couple years ago! Ah ****... well, we can put him at DH and his bat is still league average after a nice 2 week hot streak. That's what we all expected, after all, and maybe the $9.25MM is an ever so slight overpay for a guy who has a negative fWAR, but negative WAR values never hurt a team! The only way Miguel Sano should be on the Twins' roster in 2022 is if they don't expect to compete.

I see a lot less criticism of Rooker lately, but I wonder why? Maybe because in just 6 games he's hit for .348/.444/.826 OPS 1.271 and that tiny sample has now pushed him to an above average MLB bat for the season at OPS+ 113? I mean, this isn't going to continue, but he's also walked 11% while striking out only 19%. If Rooker puts together a good run down the stretch, it would be hard to argue against his long term potential and it will be, yet again, another strike against the front office for not recognizing existing talent.

I'm really glad Maeda is pitching far better as of late. If there's a guy who should have a chip on his shoulder to prove he's the real deal, it's Maeda. Being paid peanuts long term, traded for a likely high upside reliever and not respected as a starter on his former team. He really is quite the underdog and I like those guys succeeding and breaking molds.

Ah the flashbacks to Jim Hoey.

Palacios went 2/4 as well. I really think it's time for him to get a promotion to AAA as he's risen out of the doldrums recently and is back to hitting with an .802 OPS over his last 8 games. I'd like to see if he can keep it up at AAA since he's apparently now the only potential options the Twins might view as a shortstop in the system for the next couple years considering the Twins are apparently attempting to turn Gordon into a center fielder? Trading Rortvedt would be a move that would leave the Twins without a 3rd MLB caliber every day catcher on the roster. He's got 3 options left and he's a potential starting MLB catcher in the future with excellent defensive ratings. Rortvedt was also drafted as a bat first catcher so it's expected he has some tools to work with and there's a fairly decent MiLB track record when it comes to being potentially an average MLB level bat. He looked outright overmatched in his time with the Twins, but that'll give him a great idea of where he needs to improve and time in AAA will allow him to work on his game. Garver misses a lot of time so having only 1 good backup option on the roster is tough. Keeping Wallner in Ft Myers this long seemed a bit conservative given how long he's been in the system and considering how he was drafted. Wallner was a comp round draft pick out of college as a junior and it's technically his 5th professional season so if he's not ready for AA pitching by now, it's probably not going to happen. Hopefully, the Twins move him up a level so they can better evaluate his potential future. His big numbers in Ft Myers reflect a wRC+ of 189 so far. Nothing left to prove considering his age, draft position and level of experience. Varland's performance is pretty exciting for a dark horse candidate to be a starter at the MLB level. He's already exceeded a lot of expectations by getting it done at Fort Myers before moving up to Cedar Rapids. If he pitches continues to pitch this well the rest of the season, I could see him starting next year at AA. Love to see the home run by Cavaco considering his lack of power has really held him back at the plate. I've looked into his numbers in fielding though... and wow. I think the Twins need to make some major coaching changes in the low minors. Yet again, another horrible fielding shortstop. Cavaco is literally the worst shortstop in the league with the highest error rate and lowest RF/9. At .900 fielding percent, that means he's booting/air mailing 1 in 10 balls that come his way and it contributes to a dreadful RF/9 of 3.01. Utterly no excuse for that level of incompetence. Compare Cavaco's fielding percent and RF/9 to his peers. .900, 3.01 - Cavaco (a20, 2019, 1st round) .920, 4.07 - Winn (a19, 2020, 2nd round) .932, 3.52 - Martinez (a19, 2018, Dominican Republic) .915, 3.56 - Escotto (a19, 2018, Dominican Republic) .960, 3.89 - Nunez (a20, 2019, 2nd round) .913, 3.18 - Garcia (a20, 2017, Dominican Republic) .933, 3.50 - Johnson (a22, 2019, 4th Round) .977, 5.22 - Fryman (a23, 2016, 37th Round) .951, 3.33 - Volpe (a20, 2019, 1st Round) .944, 3.40 - Workman (a21, 2017, 14th Round) Most of Cavaco's peers are as young or younger with the same or less college level or professional experience. Cavaco sits dead last in defense. Why are Twins shortstops incapable of developing defensively?

Appreciate these writeups, Seth. I doubt many people know how much work goes into this type of thing they may gloss over, but I know it's usually hours, not seconds or minutes.

It's really great to see Miranda put it together and he had the advantage of getting in nearly 150 plate appearances during the 2020 season through Puerto Rico leagues to work on his game. It's hard to put together 331 plate appearances of dominance on luck in general, but Miranda's run has shown reasonable peripherals as well. Miranda's BB and K rates have gotten even better at AAA, it's very encouraging. I'd be totally confident in Miranda as the real deal if it weren't for the Chris Parmelee's.

Center fielders don't really need to hit well. Buxton himself only managed a wRC+ of 93 in his career year 2017. Looking over Celestino, his sprint speed is well off the pace for a premium CF. He's just about identical to Jake Cave in sprint and speed to first. I did notice Gordon is exclusively playing CF these days. Guess the Twins are trying to figure that possibility out. Nothing super concrete to offer at CF, though. That's for sure.

I would really not like the Twins trading Kepler. He can cover center field if necessary and has an above average bat. Solid 3.0-4.0 WAR player over a full season, cheap and under a long term contract. The Twins have control of him for 3 more years and if he continues to put up 3-4 win seasons, the Twins will be giving him at least a QO. Kepler is the kind of stable season contributor who fills out your roster and allows you to move other pieces around.

I wonder about the perceived value vs. actual value of packaging top players, but packaging Simmons and Pineda or something like that might make sense and improve the quality of the prospect to high level (but still sub-elite). Which does a team value more, a few mid level prospects or an elite prospect? I expect teams value their elite prospects more so they'd be unwilling to sacrifice elite prospects for players they could get non-packaged with a couple mid level prospects. It's not like good relievers (though Rogers is excellent) are hard to find and Berrios or Buxton were already going to command an elite prospect by themselves. I don't see a team morgaging their entire future on a 1.5 years of Berrios and Buxton or giving up an extra elite prospect for throwing in Rogers.

Because they owe him, at a bare minimum, $12MM next year. ($9.25MM guaranteed + $2.75MM buyout for 2023's team option). I'm sure the hope is Sano gets on one of his patented hot streaks through the end of the year and the Twins can use that to trade him or justify keeping him on the roster next year.

If the Twins feel Contreras is somebody they want to play over cave Cave, they'll release or trade Cave instead of screwing him over and earning the angst of the rest of the clubhouse and veterans across the league. Contreras' metrics across his limited MiLB experience at CF are similar to Cave's, but Contreras hasn't played CF as a primary position and hasn't played center at all this year. I'd say Contreras' bat profiles as maybe league average ceiling right now. It's worth noting Cave has been significantly superior at the plate over the past couple years in his time at AAA (OPS .984, .972) to Contreras (.891). Cave has a higher batting average, double the walk rate and a much lower strikeout rate. Cave's had a rough couple seasons comprising a grand total of about 200 plate appearances where before that Cave showed roughly league average play in center field with a slightly above average bat.

Gotta be fun for Contreras to get a big feature article like this. I also appreciate these writeups, though I'm pretty skeptical of Contreras getting called up. He's not currently on the 40 man so that'll make things more difficult and there are some big red flags in the batting profile, but if he's able to put a couple things together, who knows?

Meh, I'm fine with that's happening. The Twins aren't good this year, but the free agency class for 2022 is amazing. I continue to be irrationally optimistic the Twins will become a different team and use all the extra money to make a couple big signings instead of making 15 medicore to bad signings and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks while log jamming the talented guys in the minors.

Click on the article link first, then the podcast at the bottom of the article. The link is definitely to a podcast from like 2018 when Joe Mauer and Escobar were on the team haha.

Plus the $2.75MM for the Twins buying out his option.

Buxton is not a free agent and will not be a free agent at the end of this year. I think the speculation, even though it's fun, about what Buxton might command in the free agent market right now is interesting, but moot. In regard to that, if Buxton was a free agent this offseason, I can't imagine any team in baseball offering him more than 1-2 years. The only way Buxton gets that big AAV along with several years is to play a full season and produce more value in that season than he's ever done in his career. Buxton's situation makes it really hard for the Twins to extend an offer which would likely keep him. Since Buxton is virtually guaranteed of $25-30MM over the next two years between his 2022 salary and the QO he's going to receive, it makes a big impact on how low of an AAV he'll accept on an extension. Even if Buxton remains very good, but injury prone while playing 1/2 seasons from here on out, he'll still make $70MM over the next 7 years. However, Buxton putting together 2 full seasons in 2022-2023 would put him into a position to cash in hugely. I'd think he could pull in $170MM over the next 7 years on a 5 / $150MM year deal. A mid way point where I think Buxton would sign is 7 years $125MM, but if he remains injury prone or slows down, it's an albatross contract for the Twins similar to Jason Heyward's contract with the Cubs. Thus, the Twins cannot reasonably offer Buxton significantly more than the low end of Buxton's value over the next several years and Buxton can't accept what the Twins can reasonably offer.

It's tough to speculate what the Padres would offer for Berrios. They may well be more interested in Maeda because of cost. I'd see the Padres being intrigued by Kepler and Rogers, too. I just have zero faith in the front office to recognize the position the team is in right now. I get the feeling the front office thinks we can compete largely as-is, like back in 2011. The White Sox are likely monsters and Detroit is ready to build. The Indians are better than us this year, too. The Twins are not going to be playing in the weakest division in baseball like they were in 2017-2020. The same talent level will not get the job done in 2022 like it did in 2019 when career years showed up out of the woodwork like the 87 and 91 WS teams. Side note, Darvish is not on the IL, and he dominated in the two starts immediately after the sticky stuff change. He then came down with forearm tightness and spent some time on the 10 day IL before coming back and pitching 5.2 innings of 2 run ball on the 20th.

I think everything depends on whether the Twins get a good offer and whether or not they reasonably feel they can extend him. If they're competent, they're in hard talks with both Buxton and Berrios right now.

Or traded to somebody else. There's no guarantee the Twins keep those pitchers. I'd non-tender Thorpe and Smeltzer. If they stay available, maybe sign them to MiLB contracts as AAA roster filler with an chance to see MLB action due to injuries. The Twins can also non-tender Coulombe, Astudillo, Cave and Garlick to bring them back in MiLB contracts if desired. That's 6 spots easy. Add in guys like Colome, Law, Happ, Minaya, Simmons and Robles who are either free agents or not really worth paying in arbitration and you start finding a lot of spots opening up.