bean5302

Your comment is so ironic... 1) Dobnak's recent year performances are not worthy of an MLB roster spot. If he wasn't under a multi-year MLB contract, he'd absolutely be on a MiLB contract or floating around hoping to land an invite to Spring Training somewhere. He had a 7.64 ERA last year. 2) I cannot see Dobnak as a starter ever again in his career. The chances Dobnak is worth a roster spot other than a position in the bullpen in the future is limited and the chances he produces well enough to ever justify a long term or large dollar contract is slim in my opinion. This means, he's cheap to sign, if necessary. 3) Dobnak is likely to need surgery. Let's be serious about this. It's a chronic issue which has seriously impacted him for multiple years. If Dobnak undergoes surgery, his season is done. Kaput. This means he only has 3 years and $6.75MM left on the bad contract. 4) Dobnak's market this offseason, as a free agent, would be tiny. He's going to get an MiLB contract if he was a free agent. The Twins can sign him to that with just an invite to Spring Training. It's practically free. 5) Even if Dobnak regained some value out of the bullpen, which I think is highly unlikely given his recent issues and his results, he'd still need to take a short term, low AAV contract after next year. The Twins gain a roster spot, a minimum of 2 additional years of roster flexibility, drop a player who is unlikely to be of any value and a player who won't cost hardly anything to bring back if he does turn a corner. You know what's extremely short-sighted? Keeping Dobnak on the roster when he can't pitch effectively even if he could pitch at all and when for the next 2 years the Twins can potentially lose another Akil Baddoo and Tyler Wells while carrying Dobnak on the roster so they can save $2MM a year.

I'm viewing this signing as "this signing" without considering the shifting of other players because, quite frankly, I don't think the Twins were pursuing this seriously or expecting this to even be a remote possibility even a week before it happened. Correa's contract is a 70% discount off his expected market value. I mean, that's insane, and the reality Correa is almost certain to not exercise his player option means the Twins are really getting a 90% discount off his expected market value. So it's worth keeping in mind... Correa's contract is likely worth trade package gold for teams without a lot of salary room in the future. There are just so many valuable components for the Twins when it comes to this contract and so little risk. It's not fathomable to grade this worse than an A.

I'd DFA and release him. The roster spot is more valuable than the loss of MiLB or minimum MLB salary if he manages to earn his way back onto a roster in the future.

Analytics have made the game far more boring. It turns out, exciting plays are often risky plays, and risky plays don't statistically result in the best outcome according to analytics. Variety and suprise are also entertaining and analytics direct coaches and front offices to carve away the less successful ways of playing and concentrate on more successful methods. This results in a reduction in variety and surprise as a result. The rule changes put into place are designed to shake up the data and create more variety. Ultimately, a pattern will emerge and will result in analytics choosing a new most successful methodology which will eliminate variety once again. Rule changes may happen again as a result. Or, in the absolute best case, the analytics will reveal balance and multiple ways of doing things, preserving variations and thus surprise, risk and entertainment.

As a season ticket holder, I'm excited for the pitch clock. So many 7pm games going until well after 10pm makes it hard for me to stay and watch the full games when I have many friends along next to me. They have to be up for work the next morning and leaving at 10:30pm, either taking an express shuttle to a park and ride or an uber/drive back to my house gets them home and in bed close to midnight. Then there are the extra innings games... forget it. I've been to many games which don't end until after 11pm. Considering there are already rules in place governing pace of play like the pitch delivery time rules and batters constantly stepping out of the box, it's clear the players won't follow the rules unless they're enforced in a consistent and obvious manner. Just like the "sticky stuff" pitchers were warned and warned about. The extremely slow pace of play adds to the perception of baseball being boring and hurts the game's marketability as well.

This was a comment on salespeople. Salespeople can take their skills to any industry they want because the techniques apply universally.

If there are no other moves (which I'd be pretty surprised if there weren't), I'd expect the opening day position roster to look something like this. C - Sanchez 1B - Kirilloff 2B - Polanco 3B - Urshela SS - Correa LF - Rooker CF - Buxton RF - Kepler DH - Sano UI - Arraez UO - Gordon BC - Jeffers AAA - Miranda AAA - Celestino AAA - Larnach SP - Gray SP - Bundy SP - Ryan SP - Ober SP - Winder AAA - Balazovic AAA - Stotman RP - Rogers RP - Duffey RP - Alcala RP - Thielbar RP - Dobnak RP - Stashak RP - Cotton RP - Smith RP - Garza, Jr. AAA - Moran AAA - Jax

Haha, well, it's not like he forces them into it. A good salesperson (and Boras is obviously as good as they come) can convince the buyer of whatever the salesperson wants. Trust me, I've seen it time and time again. There are always merits to anything. No matter what decision a person makes, there is a sacrifice. Having pizza for dinner means you can't have ice cream for dinner. Having ice cream for dinner means you can't have pizza for dinner. Salespeople are incredibly good at highlighting the merits and discounting the drawbacks to any deal, and it just so happens what benefit's the client the most just always happens to be what benefits the agent the most. If pushed on the subject, the agent will say the agent's representation is the reason why the client was in the position to get the offer they received in the first place. I've seen financially devastating decisions made by people at the advice of an agent looking for a cash grab, and it's almost never the agent who winds up on the hook.

I don't think you understand the phrase you're using... "Let him eat" comes from the same line as "Let him feed" or "Feed him" which means to give him something to eat on or an opportunity to excel. Like "feed him the ball" in football would mean give him the ball because he's going to excel with it. Throwing pitches isn't feeding Duran... Perhaps if you re-phrased your statement as "give him space to throw the baseball and let it eat!" the subject and verb would properly align with your apparent usage of the phrase. The reality is the all bold furious response means I was probably all too close to the truth to begin with.

This is their year!!!!

Baseball fans are entertained by watching the game of baseball and sometimes the theory behind baseball. If the players can't handle the stress of being heckled by their team mates or opponents or fans, they can do the themselves and the entire sport a favor and find a new profession because it is going to happen. The sum is rarely, if ever, substantially greater than the parts because there are a lot of parts and the job of mystically effective player A can be performed by one of the other 25 players on the roster or mystically effective player B, who is effective not only in the dugout, but on the field.

No, it's an arrogant statement about how Duran is going to chew up MLB caliber hitters after being unable to get AAA hitters out last year.

Rooker's exit velocity, hard hit, barrel rate were better than average last year and xwOBA were far higher than his actual results. Not to mention Rooker runs faster than the MLB average player. If he's on the team, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was traded, I expect Rooker will probably be a starting corner outfielder. Sano going to be on the team. He makes a better DH than he does a 1B. Sanchez is going to be the starting catcher. Not sure why he's in the discussion as a likely common DH. He might have a handful of games at DH, but unless he's hitting far better than he has recently, I don't expect him to come out from behind the plate much.

The very same stuff people said about Fernando Romero. Accolades rained down from the skies. Duran had a 7.3 BB/9 in AAA and gave up 9.0 H/9. Basically, he got hit fairly hard and was totally unable to throw strikes. His strikeout rate of 12.4 K/9 is very good, but hardly elite in the minors. Then there is the fact he did the "rest and rehab" approach to his elbow strain. Considering Duran has pitched 16 innings in the past 2 years, I'd be surprised to see him at the MLB level, but if he does make it, a relief role feels far more likely than a starting rotation job.

I would say it's actually fairly likely the Twins won't start Miranda on the 26 man. After all, keeping him off the roster for a couple weeks is still going to be the tried and true way of manipulating service time. The only way it comes back to bite the Twins is if Miranda has a great season, and if he has a great season, they get an extra year of All Star performance instead of a low percentage draft pick.

IMHO, it absolutely came out of the blue. Correa didn't signal his willingness to sign a short term deal until just a couple days ago. This was a desperation signing by Correa. He needed to get into camp and have a full Spring Training.

I have a lot of experience with agents who make sales in the tens and hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars. If you think, even for a second, their primary interest isn't maximizing their own income, you're naive. It just so happens maximizing their income coincides, mostly, with maximizing player compensation as well. If it came down to advising their client on a deal which was fairly close to the same for the player, but provided significantly more compensation to Boras, Boras would 100% advise his client to take the deal which paid Boras more. Period. Aside from agent greed, Boras runs an entire company. Keeping everything operating and his staff paid is not cheap, I'll guarantee you that. No for profit company is going to ignore potential revenue and not worry about keeping the business running. That's just plain irresponsible.

Correa is highly likely to opt out if he's healthy this year. He'll still be going in to his age 28 season after this year. I think the Twins expect that to happen as well, but they got their bridge to Lewis, provided the Twins don't deal Lewis.

I don't think Urshela is a given as the starter over Miranda at 3B. He's probably better as a fielder than Miranda and would probably make the better of the two when it comes to utility. Urshela had a pretty awful year at the plate (by his standards) in his age 29 season last year. I also don't think the Twins are done. With Polanco, Miranda, Urshela, Arraez and Gordon, there's too much redundancy. If the Twins are looking to move Gordon to full time utility outfielder, it still leaves at least one too many valuable every day worthy guys at 4-5-6.

Honestly, this was an enormous discount for the Twins. Correa was projected at 10 years and $345MM so to see him sign at $103.5MM is a no brainer. It's actually quite shocking, but it may be a sign for the future in general. The owners shifted a lot of money to the younger players and that will have an impact on the veteran long term, top free agents. Had Correa been willing to accept this deal last fall, he wouldn't have been on the market for a single day and there are a lot of front office's in baseball who are stunned by this move. The Twins have tended to be relatively competitive in average annual dollars for free agents before, but they've always been short on years. I would have never expected Correa to sign a contract this short at under $40MM per year. A lot of comments about how the Twins are big spenders now... but just about any team in baseball will take a player at 1/3 of their contract value.

I believe it was just recently Lewis reportedly ran another timed sub 4.0sec to first base. That's faster than Buxton. Baseball America reports Lewis can flash 80-grade speed. You're selling him dramatically low

Story is definitely not coming to the Twins. Once the Red Sox were officially linked, 0% chance. Dead last in a weak division. Cheap ownership which does not commit to winning, salary dumps in the current year. None of that says "sign with Minnesota" but if the Twins were the only game in town, Story would have agreed to come here. The Red Sox see Story as the replacement for Bogaerts, and although the Red Sox will allow Bogaerts to play SS this year because they know it increases his value (a concept the Twins cannot comprehend), they also know Bogaerts defense has been average throughout his 20s and now at age 29, it's certainly not going to get better. The Red Sox are not only perennial playoff threats and World Series threats, unlike the Twins who haven't won a playoff game in 17 years, but the Red Sox operate a high payroll and come with enormous prestige in one of the most beloved and historic cities in the United States. 30% The Giants would love to get Story and move the aging, but still good, Brandon Crawford off SS and over to 2B where he'd replace Tommy La Stella. It's a huge upgrade for the Giants. Playing in a division he knows well, on the west coast in one of the most recognizable and loved cities in the entire world, let alone the United States. A team which was recently a World Series dynasty, has deep pockets and beautiful weather. 50%. The Astros make a lot of sense as the third team. Nasty reputation for cheating, but they win. Every year they win. Story would step into last year's World Series representative for the AL, in a division without a clear competitor. Story would play shortstop here, as well, but the hold up would probably be the Astros' interest in Correa. I think they're a 10%-er. The Twins? They've never signed a $100MM+ free agent. They're generally very averse to long term contracts. They've perennially been linked to big free agent names, but they've almost never actually ponied up the dollars, making offers well below expected value just hoping for a steal and when they signed a big contract, they quickly moved to ditch it. They play in a city with what has been a terrible reputation recently, in what is perceived as a flyover state. The Twins haven't won a playoff game in 17 years and have made the playoffs only during times when most of the division was rebuilding for the past decade... after a long period of being arguably the worst team in MLB. The Twins are a 0%-er for this signing.

Royce Lewis has 70+ speed from the reported home to first times and many scouting sources. Baseball America, Prospects Live, Roto Wire all have him at 70+

Speed isn't what's most important for shortstop. It's quickness, accleration and reaction time. Speed is definitely valuable and helps with range, but it's rare you'd see a shortstop reach top speed playing a ball. A strong arm is more important at the position, and more than just a strong arm, high velocity with a quick release and short windup. Pitchers can throw very fast, but they have a huge windup with it. The biggest criticism I've seen with Royce Lewis' arm is his throwing technique having a long windup and slow release to generate the high velocity. The Twins supposedly had Lewis working on that hard in 2020. Aside from that... there's focus and and fielding technique. A good shortstop needs to be a reliable fielder. Air mailing balls or rock hands leads to high error rates and unplayable defense. This appears to be Nick Gordon's achilles heel, but we'll never know since the Twins won't play him at SS.

The issue isn't losing Rortvedt. The issue is Rortvedt may be a starting caliber MLB catcher and the Twins may or may not have one of those in the system anymore so from a positional need perspective, Rortvedt was important. Rortvedt may turn into Drew Butera, but there is a substantial likelihood Rortvedt will be as defensively strong as Butera, but hit far better. Rortvedt hitting .230/.300/.385 over 140 games is worth 2.5+ fWAR. Can he hit that? Maybe. His projections are all pretty close to that. Steamer is at .226/.288/.382. Jeffers had a lot of plate appearances last year for his numbers to be a fluke. 293 of them, and in his second year of MLB experience. .199/.270/.401 with average defense isn't playable as a starter. Sanchez is probably a bit borderline when it comes to starting caliber and he's a free agent next year. The Twins just don't likely have a starting catcher on the roster for 2023+ and they may not have a catcher who will be worth starting this year. Godoy is an emergency depth kind of guy.