bean5302

Baseball Reference's HoF monitor is pretty good with comparisons on this stuff. 55.2 career bWAR (60 bWAR used to be an automatic yes, but it's turned into 60 bWAR merits consideration over the past decade it seems.) Mauer's career WAR is 156th in all of baseball history. There are 236 people who've been inducted as players. 39.0 7yr peak bWAR, which is a bit on the low side only when compared with other position players Compared to the only 16 HoF catchers, Mauer is better than average 55.2 vs. 53.7 bWAR career and significantly better with 39.0 vs. 34.7 peak bWAR. If he hadn't gotten the concussion, Mauer would likely be a 1st ballot HoF in my opinion. That's the trajectory he was on and voters do take that into account. Injury altered or shortened careers get weighted in the player's favor a bit. In addition, a quick peek at the BRef leaderboard is pretty eye opening. You have to scroll to get through it all. Comparing Joe Mauer directly to specific players, especially historical figures from different eras in baseball, doesn't make much sense to me. I expect Joe Mauer will get in. He was one of the biggest names in baseball and was one of the best players in baseball long enough that his reputation precedes itself.

Honestly, Luis Arraez is great for the Twins and MLB. Not just because he gets on base, but he's EXCITING. I don't want to miss his plate appearances because there's a good chance something worth watching is going to happen. A ball is going to be put into play, etc. I also like the way he looks this year, like he's trimmed down a bit. At least from my observations. All the praise aside, Arraez doesn't have a good place on the team right now. Arraez is a starting caliber 2B. He's probably not a shortstop and the Twins' need for a player at short seems to have been completely erased at this point anyway. Arraez could potentially be a 3rd baseman, but the need for a player at the hot corner isn't definite with Urshela swinging the bat better (though it'd be nice to see some power). I hate it when the Twins marginalize player value by shoehorning players into less valuable positions. Arraez's value decreases by 1.5 WAR or $12MM (by the common $8MM/year metric people seem to use) per year at 1B instead of 2B. This not only has long term impacts on Arraez's earning potential, but also has the impact of killing Arraez's trade value. I'd like the Twins to move Urshela in order to open up some of the logjam in the infield.

After your response, I spent about 15 minutes searching and eventually found the interview. https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/04/30/tim-anderson-white-sox-speaks-out Tim Anderson compared himself to Jackie Robinson because Tim Anderson is breaking the barrier of fun and I saw this comparison being made by Anderson several times since. Essentially, Tim Anderson is just like Jackie Robinson because Jackie broke the color barrier and Tim is breaking the celebratory barrier. Two takes on that. First, Tim Anderson comes across as disrespectful towards Jackie Robinson to me. Comparing what Jackie Robinson endured to the chastising for high flying bat flips seems tone deaf to me. Second, there have been a lot of baseball players who've been very expressive and broken those types of barriers before. Honestly, the Latin American players have led the way on the celebratory and emotional expression front in MLB for the past decade and have made a major impact in softening the unwritten rule blowback from emotional outbursts. I can't find anything which supports your position.

I suspect you likely never attend games in person. Commercials air during the time between inning breaks like during the 7th inning stretch, during replays etc. I've attended hundreds of MLB games and I can promise players don't magically teleport off the bases and into their fielding positions with glove in hand after the final out. A player standing on base who having to run across the field after the final out, grab their glove and exchange their helmet for a hat, then jog back to the opposite outfield takes a couple minutes. Sometimes kids run the gear part way, but not always. The amount of time players spent tossing the balls around to each other is very limited before play begins and that short toss warm up time is really the only time commercials can potentially impact. By my estimate as a regular MLB game attendee (not just Twins games) maybe 10/15 minutes a game could be saved if every last bit of short toss commercial time was cut? Of course, that cut would also negatively impact the fan experience at the games because those are typical bathroom and concession break times so cutting commercial breaks could even have a net negative impact. As a side note, MLB already moved to cut commercial breaks in 2018-2021. From 2:05 to 2:00 for local games. 2:25 to 2:00 in national games and I think from 2:55 to 2:25 in playoff games. Ever watched the Race at Target Field and notice the race distance got shorter? Runners used to have a longer distance to run. There's not much filler room in there anymore...

Too early. Correa 100% opts out if he's playing well and is reasonably healthy. He hasn't been healthy and he hasn't been playing well. If Correa turns it around (which he likely will) and stays healthy while playing well, the Twins will shop him... guaranteed. Opposing teams will view Correa as a likely rental so he won't bring a huge haul and that will factor into the Twins' decision. If the Twins flop and are chasing a playoff spot, Correa gets traded in this scenario. If the Twins are in the thick of it or leading the division handily, a much lower likelihood.

So Josh Donaldson just randomly knew about a 2019 interview Tim Anderson gave where Tim Anderson compared himself to the next Jackie Robinson (one of the greatest baseball players of ALL TIME)? Come on. This absolute obsession with making everything racist is gross. That said, I will stand 100% corrected if such interview comment did not occur.

I think "electric stuff" is a pretty well understood layman's term for pitches which are dominant in terms of movement and/or velocity. Some pitchers succeed through precision. Placing balls in perfect locations. Those types of pitchers can have some success for a period, but often get hammered if a pitch isn't working well that day or they don't have precise control one day. I've seen this to be reflected in consistency. A true quality start, imho, is a start giving 6+ innings and less than a 4.00 ERA. Aces typically have 4-5+ of those starts in a row. It's a typical start for them. Many good pitchers manage 2 or 3 of those starts in a row, but a hiccup in between. There is a confidence or expectation of winning when an ace is on the mound.

I see Celestino as potentially a late 20s Denard Span (a little less speed and a little more power than young Span). Even if Celestino's metrics backed his current AVG up, it's still way too small of a sample size to expect it to continue. Celestino has never been an elite prospect, but there's legitimate potential there because of his scouted plus speed. Right now, the chief competition for Celestino is probably Nick Gordon. Not a super high bar to eclipse. .270/.330/.390 with Celestino's fringe CF caliber speed is good enough to be a starter in CF for some teams and the Twins need an inexpensive guy who can start 80 games a year in center. Gordon's bat needs to grow to be that player. Celestino's bat may be good enough. Celestino has been lucky this year based on the metrics and unlucky last year. It happens a lot with small sample sizes. It's clear Celestino grew as a hitter in AAA last year. He needs playing time to figure out whether or not his skills will translate to the big show.

Time between pitches has increased. That data has been tracked. There are about 300 pitches per game. Every 1 second pitches are made slower = 5 minutes of game time. The pitch clock at 18 seconds cutting game time by 24 minutes means the average pitch time was 23 seconds or so which falls right in line with expectations. Speaking as somebody who has a season ticket package and likes to share one of my seats with a friend, I and my friends like to get home before midnight. I was at the extra inning game against the Guardians last week. It was already too long of a game before the extra innings. 10 inning game and the final timer? 3 hours and 31 minutes. Final score? 3-2. That's absurd. Thankfully, the 7:10pm start time games are few and far between these days and the 14ths game started at 6:10pm I believe. Being at the park until 11pm or later gets real old. Side note, I don't think the TV time outs are an issue. The players don't spend a lot of time tossing balls in the outfield by the time they get into their positions so shrinking down the break is pretty limited. I also don't care what the players like in regard to the pitch clock. 18 seconds is generous. I would like to feel the pace at the game when the change is implemented. Going to 15 seconds should be easy... but I don't want the game to feel rushed, either.

There are 150 position players who've played more than 90% of the games so far this year. Like 100 who've missed 2 games or fewer. Across the league it's uncommon to just sit guys who are healthy. Injuries happen and the Twins have had some very injury prone guys the last few years.

Love EE. Still only 33. His stats at the plate aren't outstanding so far this year, but man... only seeing a 36% strike rate and EE is taking walks almost 13% of the time. Pitchers are avoiding throwing anything to him at all like he's Barry Bonds or something haha.

Regardless of what the Twins have said they were interested in doing, Lewis has played shortstop in 22 of his 24 games in St. Paul. The only other position was DH. I expect Lewis will continue to play SS almost exclusively. Polanco - Starting 2B, can we all agree the Twins aren't going to cut/trade him to play Lewis? Correa - Anybody okay with giving Lewis the starting SS job? The Twins "could" DFA Correa and I DO expect a team may well claim that contract on waivers because of its potential upside, but there's a risk the Twins eat $100MM on this... Not happening. Furthermore, trusting Lewis is as good as perennial MVP candidate Correa today or this year is... well... pretty aggressive. Arraez - Utility infielder. He has 2 options remaining, but let's get real. Arraez has proven himself to be a better than average MLB starter over the course of 275 MLB games. He's not getting demoted so Lewis can play. Even if Arraez was traded, the Twins have been primarily using him as a DH because there's already a shortage of space for infielders. Urshela - Arb 2 ($6.6MM). He has no options remaining so he cannot be demoted, but he has limited to no value right now. If the Twins were to DFA him, he'd probably pass through waivers, decline his assignment and become a free agent and the Twins would be on the hook for his contract. I don't know as this would be a terrible move, but certainly uncharacteristic of the front office to cut bait and eat that contract so early in the season. This would push Lewis to 3B Gordon - He's technically played SS a little this year, but he's not the starter and won't be. He's a utility fielder who often comes in as an injury or defensive replacement and doesn't see every day playing time. He has no options and would refuse an assignment so he'd be gone and Lewis replacing him means occasional play rather than every day opportunity. Miranda - Demoting him really doesn't open up any positions for Lewis, TBH. I guess Urshela could be moved to 1B and Lewis to 3B, keeping Arraez at DH but I'm sure the Twins badly want to get a look at Miranda after his performance explosion last year at AAA. Kirilloff being ready to be recalled would put the Twins right back into the same spot. Lewis can't be the reason Kirilloff stays in the minors, either. Honestly, Lewis playing every day shortstop at AAA makes the most sense while the Twins sort out the roster picture on a larger scale. Minnesota has created some nasty log jam situations, but nobody expected Lewis to perform like this. Absolutely nobody. If somebody in Spring Training had come out and said Lewis would be OPS'ing .800 at AA so far this year, 95% of fans would have been ecstatic. Saying he was going to be OPS'ing 1.000 at AAA and continuing to rake at MLB would have been met with questions regarding sanity.

They are 100% going to move somewhere. There's no question about that, but it does look like the Howard Terminal project faces a huge vote on June 2nd after the Seaport Planning Advisory Committee recommended against the repurposing of the port.

The Wolves are popular with different demographics, play in a stadium 1/2 the seating capacity and = for 1/2 the games so it's hard to make a good comparison. Attendance was flat despite it the second time in 17 years they made the playoffs and it was down 6% from 2018, the last time they made the playoffs. It's just hard to say. Anecdotal evidence can be inaccurate, but I know how I personally feel, how my friends feel and how my service industry friends feel and what they've seen and heard from customers.

Ab-so-lute-ly. They weren't ready, but why shouldn't they have been ready? It's not like they couldn't have done some testing, even during the lockout as the front office and limited service staff weren't locked out. That's my feeling, and I'd wager a lot of other peoples' feelings. Anyway, it led to countless embarrassing situations where Twins Pay didn't work and people didn't have their purse/clutch etc with them when it came to pay time because they were just planning to use their phone. Establishments like Town Ball were the hardest hit because of the logistics of the scanners. Lots of beers were comped at Town Ball as a result, but a free beer doesn't do much when people are horribly embarrassed by not being able to pay and that goes a long way towards never seeing those customers again. I just skipped Twins Pay for the first few games knowing it was such a disaster so my experience is fine now.

I have a season ticket package and I've been disappointed with attendance as well. Attendance across MLB has been pretty poor this year, and I'm sure that has been fueled by season ticket holders letting their tickets go. The Twins actually have an automatic renewal system for season tickets now. The weather in April really was horrible. I mean that. Horrible. It was one of the coldest and windiest Aprils in Minnesota history. That's a fact. What's also true is it was universally terrible. Almost every single day in April was cold and windy and that is really unusual. Normally, "coldest April in <insert span of time>" has to do with 2 weeks of brutal cold and snow followed by two weeks of normal to above. That wasn't the case this year. It's been just a nasty experience. That said, my seasons have seen multiple days where the weather was good and attendance has been universally awful regardless of whether or not it was nice out or even a weekend. MLB attendance looks to be down about 10-20% from 2019 so far. Concessions... I don't think this is really a big issue. A (big) burger and fries basket from Hennepin Grill is $15. $13.50 with the season ticket holder discount. Not sure if anybody has been to a restaurant lately, but that's not terrible. A burger and fries at Five Guys is more. Is Five Guys better? Sure, but the Hennepin Grill burger is solid. For real. I've had a lot of other food items as well. It's just not that much more than other places. Big Dog with chips? $7.50 ($6.75 for season ticket holders). A craft draft beer like Bent Paddle's Cold Press Black Ale is $13 ($11.80 for season ticket holders). In a pub, near Target Field, expect it to set you back $9-10+. Concessions have always been more at games than in breweries. I think prices for concessions this year are closer to other establishments than they have been. Side note, Twins Pay was a colossal failure out of the gate. The menu system and scanners were largely non-functional, though things have gotten much better. That said, lots of people were severely PO'ed. There are special discounts like the family 4 pack as well. Transportation/Parking... I think it's actually cheaper than it used to be? $12 for the ABC ramps. Unfortunately, there are fewer good mass transit options than there used to be. Some of that has to do with the delayed/questionable season start and honestly, a lot of people don't want to wear masks, etc so no metro transit for them for the first 3 weeks of the season. There is NO Northstar this year. There is NO MTC Twins Express Bus this year. I remember taking packed Twins express busses in years past and I think the Northstar was pretty packed as well for Twins games? Ticket prices. I didn't look around at prices too much because I knew what seats I wanted. Ticket prices are up about 20% since 2012 or so (2.2% annually). I think it would have been smart for MLB clubs (like the Twins) to make tickets cheaper in general considering the fanbase's cold feelings at the moment, but I've noticed a lot of spam regarding steeply discounted tickets for games in my email. Honestly, I don't think ticket prices themselves are exclusionary to attendance this year... but I expect the fees on top of fees on top of fees from service partners like Ticketmaster and Stubhub might be pushing people away. The fees are the biggest reason which pushed me into seasons for sure. After all, even if my tickets were like 20% under face, I'd pay more after checkout anyway. I see above 4 "Lower Level" seats cost $300. Single game tickets in lower level seats can be picked up below $40, even for premium games. Next game vs. Detroit? $19/ea+ fees for lower level seats in the Left Field Bleachers through Ticketmaster, $13/ea+ fees (row 2). Location. Yes. I do think this matters. People don't want to get shot. Minneapolis' reputation is utter and complete TRASH. People are scared of Minneapolis, and for good reason. I've been friends with people who've been event and service industry workers for many years and even they don't want to be in Minneapolis for work, including close to Target Field. They've been harassed, their co-workers held up at gunpoint, they've watched police presence vanish, it's much worse than it used to be. I have not personally witnessed anything untoward at Target Field or the immediate area, but the reputation and fallout from the last couple years is real. Apathy. I believe this is real. I think the season ticket holders and long time fans are the ones who are truly apathetic at this point. I think the lockout, the initial announcement of lost games, etc, had a powerful impact on the core fanbase. Maybe stronger than I thought it would. Furthermore, young adults DGAF about baseball and while MLB markets heavily, oh so heavily at children trying to grow the fanbase from a young age, children do not pay the bills. MLB has failed to turn those 5 year old fans getting a ball tossed to them or running the bases into a 15 or 25 year old fan willing to pay for a game. I see Cowboy Jack's rooftop spilling over before,, during, and after every single game and yet at least 1/2 the stadium remains totally empty... even on nice days... even on the weekends. I must admit... even I haven't been "following" the Twins or MLB as closely this year even though I'm a season ticket holder. There isn't a lot of excitement with my friends. There isn't any buzz around the sport. Somehow, that ramp up of Spring Training, etc, was probably far more important than I figured it would be. it all adds up to empty seats and a real issue for MLB. Saw somebody comment on "why does it matter?" No fans in the seats = dead sport at or away from the stadium with no team salary budget leading to uncompetitive or even no play. There were a group of Astros fans behind me at one of the Astros series games. I was a little embarrassed at how poor attendance was despite it being a beautiful night. The game day experience is impacted greatly based on attendance. For the opening few weeks, at least 1/2 of the vendors were closed. There are still quite a few stalls with metal doors down. It looks bad and feels gloomy which contributes to people being less enthusiastic to come back. A big crowd provides a lot of energy to the event and excites itself. My friend shared a photo of the Coliseum during the 7th inning out in Oakland the other night. It was seriously deflating. You could literally count the fans. If you want the best seat for the plays, watch it on TV. If you want the best seat for the game along with a memorable experience and excitement, you need to go to the stadium.

In regard to this front office, previous front offices are obviously having an impact still, though it's waning quickly as we've now entered year 6 of the Falvey regime. We're starting to enter into the phase where previous regime draft picks have either made it to the big show or won't ever make it and contracts signed under previous regimes have long played out.

Terrible free agent signings? Smith did a good job with a limited budget. A budget he elevated through the retention of key players who didn't make it to free agency like Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer and Nathan. Smith brought in Orlando Hudson, Joe Crede, Jim Thome and Carl Pavano and all wound up being good free agent signings. The waterfall of trades wound up being pretty poor as Smith continued to lose ground with each step. It's not like all his trades were bad, though, or super impactful. Smith brought in Orlando Cabrera in 2009 which was a good move. Gomez for Hardy was a good trade. It was the Hardy for Hoey trade which was terrible, but as I recall, Gardy was a driving force on getting rid of Hardy. Capps for Ramos got the most vitriol, but Ramos never really amounted to anything due to injuries and Capps was very good down the stretch for the Twins in 2010 who were relying on the very shaky Jon Rauch to close games at the time. Honestly, the Capps for Ramos trade and the singular bad season in 2011 seemed to cement Twins fans' opinions on Smith who became the scapegoat for poor decisions by Ryan in 2012 and later.

27 plate appearances this season at MLB. Only 35 plate appearances at AAA and 258 plate appearances in his entire MLB career. I don't see Kirilloff as any more of a question mark now than he was at the beginning of last year. It is pretty clear he's struggling (pressing?). I feel like it would be worthwhile for him to spend a couple months in AAA to get things ironed out and build some confidence and the Twins certainly have the depth to move him there.

I think it's unfair to make the assessment based on the "80+" grade power and annual 40-50 HR expectations baseball fans had of Sano in 2015. It's obvious he's a huge bust from that standpoint. Sano made it to MLB and posted a little positive value as an every day starter and even made an All Star Game in 2017. I certainly won't call that a bust. Apart from his rookie breakout in 2015, he's never posted better than scrub level WPA's though. I'd stand by Sano being an easy out when a team needs to get that out and I wouldn't consider Sano to be a boom, either. He's just a fringey MLB caliber guy.

Celestino reminds me a bit of the veteran version of Denard Span after he lost a step. Quite frankly, I believe Celestino will be good enough to start every day and he may be able to cover center field more adequately than Kepler at this point. All that said, sample sizes this year are way too small to draw conclusions on whether or not Celestino and Larnach have adapted.

Ryan wasn't hitting his spots and the Astros were patient enough at the plate. It was obvious to me (in attendance) the Astros had Ryan's number well enough. Verlander just seemed to know what the batter would struggle against all night. In the end, the Twins lost by 5 runs and didn't put a single hit on the board until the 8th inning. A handful of ball/strikes calls had little or nothing to do with the Twins losing.

Gordon has 51 plate appearances this year and he's slumped a bit in the last few. His batted ball data shows his average exit velocity is solid and he's been very unlucky overall. Honestly, he just needs a much bigger sample size to judge. Gordon's ceiling at this point is probably MLB average hitter with a more likely expectation of well below average, but he provides the aforementioned defensive versatility. He's the prototypical utility player. A guy you can play every day for a couple weeks if you need to while another player is on the 10 day IL, but not somebody you'd want as a starter. There's a lot of value in those kinds of players because they're inexpensive, but don't come with the risk of an untested AAA replacement player. With Lewis off to such an inspiring start and the addition of Correa and Urshela this offseason, it's awfully crowded, but Gordon is a better fit in the traditional utility role than pretty much anybody else because of what he does (and doesn't) bring to the table.

I'd have to think Cavaco will be released by mid year at this point.

Winder has been everything I'd hoped he might be flashing the potential to be a top of the rotation arm, though he's been surprisingly more like a better version of Kyle Gibson than I expected, generating a lot of weak contact and tons of ground balls. Ryan and Ober (aside from the groin) have also had nice starts to the season. Ryan's results are fueled by luck so far with that .212 BABIP, 6.1% HR/FB rate and ridiculous 91% strand rate, but the xFIP still looks really nice at 3.70. Here's hoping no cracks in the armor will be exposed as the scouting reports grow. Ryan may well be better than I thought he could be. The biggest surprise for me, without a doubt though, is Jhoan Duran. After struggling greatly with granting the free pass in 3 of his past 4 stops in the minors and being hit hard in AAA last year, his results have been very stingy on walks so far. I honestly expected he'd be mashed like Thanksgiving taters. The underlying strike percent and first pitch strike rate suggest there's going to be some correction, but still a huge step forward imho. Glad to see the other prospects getting healthy and getting innings in.