bean5302

For a team with almost nothing but question marks on the mound to fill 13 positions "Mostly Set Up" seems pretty confident.

Public figures are held to different standards in our society, like it or not. Simmons decided to make his personal opinion public on the platform most associated with maelstroms of hate, outrage and personal attack regardless of the topic in the world today. High profile professional athlete's, especially in team owned sports, have contracts containing clauses about personal conduct. These clauses are quite wide in scope and while I don't believe they're intended to curtail freedom of speech, they're designed with the expecation employees are consciencious with their behavior and statements. Have you ever noticed how many pro athletes stay further away from politics than the story of Star Wars takes place from our galaxy? This article was probably ill-advised because of the likelihood it would lead to the creation of a rift in the community, yet I believe it also falls under the scope of Twins related content because the straw which broke the camels back in roster decisions have definitely been made in similar circumstances. Andrelton Simmons' statement was straight up stupid (because it took a minority position on a very hot button topic) and it does potentially impact not only his position on the Twins, but also whether or not he receives a contract offer this offseason. It all depends on how much it blows up. Right now, it's a non-issue because no national media has picked it up; they're focused on Trevor Bauer and Kirk Cousins.

Arraez is an average 2B at the MLB level despite the constant Twins fan bashing. He's just as good as Polanco because Arraez has a steady glove where Polanco is notoriously error prone despite his great range. Severino is probably about the same potential as Arraez. Below average-ish speed/range, well above average arm for 2B, but the Twins keep shifting Severino around and his error rate is very poor.

Palacios is a MiLB free agent at the end of the year and is not on the 40 man roster. He's reached base safely in 12 straight games (.304/.365/.717 OPS 1.083 9.6% BB, 13.4% K) has owned an OPS north of .800 all but 1 month (July .667) this year. He hasn't committed an error in 25 games while playing nearly exclusive shortstop. Palacios also leads all AA shortstops in home runs and is top 10 in all of the minors, has been great on the basepaths stealing 14 bases in 19 attempts and has a .265 average despite a potentially lower than expected BABIP given his speed. Palacios also has a BB rate 1/2 his K rate and over the past month, his BB and K rate are nearly identical. Yet, Simmons is still playing SS every day. May Line: .311/.398/.478 OPS .876, ISO .267, 12.6% BB, 25.2% K with 6 errors June Line: .250/.348/.490 OPS .838, ISO .240, 9.8% BB, 22.3% K with 4 errors July Line: .221/.303/.364 OPS .667, ISO .143, 10.0% BB, 22.2% K with 2 errors Aug Line: .279/.354/.628 OPS .982, ISO .349, 10.4% BB, 14.6% K with 0 errors Overall: .265/.352/.474 OPS .826, ISO .209, 10.8% BB, 22.1% K with 12 errors I can't see anything more within reason Palacios could have done this year to get called up. The Twins even have two prospects they may want to play SS at AA other than Palacios right now. Martin and Steer. With about a dozen reasons to call Palacios' number, the Twins have refused to do so. There are 4 things you could argue, in order of likelihood. The Twins have already written him off and think of Palacios as MiLB roster filler who's just getting lucky (most likely) The Twins think Palacios is a potential starting shortstop, but want to evaluate other unlikely contributors who are hanging onto a fringey 40 man roster spot so they don't want to give Palacios a spot on the 40 man yet. The Twins think Palacios is a potential starting shortstop, but they think if Palacios stays in AA, nobody else in MLB will notice him and they may be able to re-sign him to a MiLB contract without having to give him a 40 man roster spot and use him as a potential backup next year. The Twins think Palacios is a future All Star starting shortstop and are trying to manipulate his service time. Btw, this post is fun because Palacios is just playing so well by the stat lines. It's all lot more about the positivity around Palacios and how he's been consistently playing great as an underdog all year than it is about the Twins' ineptitude. Most of the other "underdogs" have some pretty concerning peripherals. High K rates, low BB rates, unusual BABIP, granite gloves, iron boots, etc. Palacios has improved his K rate all season long. His BB rate has been sustained since 3 years ago in Tampa, his ISO has always been playable, his glove has shaken off the rust and become rock solid, he's stolen 5 of his last 6 attempts. I mean, it really seems like almost every facet of his game has become more polished while sustaining a very high level of play at the plate. If the Twins think Palacios isn't going to be picked up by another team, they're dreaming. Ultimately, I still believe Palacios is far from a sure thing at the MLB level, but it's hard to ignore how well he's been playing at AA all season long. Sustained success beyond 300 plate appearances without obvious big red flags isn't usually flukey at the high minors. If we eliminate the missed season last year, Palacios would be in his age 23 season this year (he just turned 25 a few days ago).

It was so very close at the plate. I don't think Jeffers could have played it better. Polanco's throw was weak and one hopped/rolled to home from short right field to the 1st base side, pulling Jeffers away from the optimal tagging position on teh 3rd base side. If Jeffers blocks the plate, that's an automatic safe. Jeffers left foot was basically touching home, he was positioned perfectly in front of the plate and when the ball reached his glove, I'd say Kiermaier was about 6 feet from touching and already beginning his drop to slide. That's about 24 ft/sec at the end, 6 feet equals a 1/4 of a second for Jeffers to spin, pick up Kiermier, and apply the tag. Kiermaier kept his body behind home and touched with his hand which was already past Jeffers at the spin, giving Jeffers no good target for the tag.

If the Twins keep Polanco, Arraez and Donaldson should be traded because their talent is worth more to the Twins in prospect/player capital than their abilities are worth on the field. The Twins have decided Gordon and Palacios are not MLB shortstops which leaves the Twins with nothing they can rely upon at the position in the minors for a couple years. Unfortunately, one of the best targets for shortstops, Brandon Crawford, was just re-signed by the Giants leaving the options for a short term quality SS in free agency down a major option. The Twins are going to need to figure out a way to get a good player for 2-4 years at the position. Considering Simmons has remained on the roster this long, I have a very bad feeling they're going to bring him back.

Yeah, the video is available over at MLB.com. Unless Larnach has a 6 foot vertical, he wasn't catching that ball which literally bounced off the right field wall about 12 feet off the ground. By the time Larnach got to the warning track, it should have been obvious it wasn't a ball he was going to catch, but I don't think Larnach has hardly any time in RF. Polanco should have been charged with an error on that play. On a single to RF with runners at 1st and 2nd, Larnach hit Sano as a cutoff to home... and Sano promptly threw to 3rd when there was a runner who was standing half way between 3rd and the plate allowing another run to score. It was guaranteed to be at least 1 out if Sano throws home there. Honestly, tough to blame Gant for really any of the scoring, lol.

Thought I caught a Lewis Thorpe fastball reading of 88mph for a split second on that Twitter link? I hope that's not the case. The biggest concern on Thorpe is the velocity. At 88mph, he doesn't have the stuff to play at MLB. He needs to be up in the 90-92mph range or he's not worth looking at because he'd just be throwing batting practice. Palacios with 2 hits and 2 stolen bases, but not enough for the Wind Surge. It's becoming comical at this point.

Jorge Polanco is indeed a gold glove shortstop in the making until you look at his stats. Polanco has the worst UZR/150 of any qualified 2B at -11.2, largely driven by having the highest number of fielding errors of any qualified 2B and the 2nd worst error rate overall. UZR ignores plays where the shift is on and likely impacted the play, but that's subject to a human scorer's opinion. Range Factor has Polanco much better off because of extremely high rate of assists in the field. I suspect his range factor benefits from the enormous amount of shifts the Twins run. RF doesn't care if there is a shift or not. In short... until Polanco drops the error rate which has absolutely plagued him throughout most of his career, he's not going to be a great defender anywhere in the infield.

If Birdsell was ranked about 85th in the country before the season was having a great season before the shoulder issue. If he is able to return and pitch the same as he did to start this season, he's likely going to raise his draft stock into the top 2 rounds. Even if the Twins were willing to shell out $150k or something (slot for round 10), it's selling hugely low for Birdsell. The only way it's worth it for him to do that is if his shoulder is a permanent issue, which will take 2-3 years to really find out. In the meantime, he graduates college and gets a 3 year head start on his career. Not a lot of true personal risk to a sophomore college player until you get into that $250k+ range, I'd say.

Nobody, including the Twins front office, views Cave as a legitimate starting center fielder. Name the young 4th outfielders who can play center field we have on the roster. Celestino, who looked awful and overmatched in his time in the big show so far. Tada! All done.

Yeah, I think the argument that a cheap free agent comes with no risk is taking a very narrow viewpoint on the situation. Assigning anybody a 26 man roster spot without options or team control already comes with a substantial risk. In order to make the playoffs, a team needs each player on the 26 man roster to put up about 1.75 WAR on average. Considering teams often carry 8 man bullpens who definitely won't average more than 1 WAR per reliever, that means teams need to get 2.25 wins from their starters and position players on average. Giving a spot on the 26 man roster to a starting pitcher who isn't expected to produce at least 2.25 WAR means you're counting on the rest of your rotation and position players to make up for it. Essentially, signing a cheap rotation pitcher means you need to pay for the salary AND doubly-so if the pitcher can't produce at least 2.25 WAR.

Speaking of OPS .822.... Palacios has now reached base via hit or walk 11 games in a row and owns an OPS of 1.068 over that span with a 10% BB rate and 12% K rate despite a BABIP of .212. He also has a season line of .261/.350/.472 OPS .822 wRC+119 while playing error free infield for 24 straight games, with 20 of those at shortstop. I mean... what do you need to do to replace a negative fWAR shortstop?

Not uncommon for a guy with 2 years of college eligibility drafted in the 11th round to bet on a comeback and a much higher draft position later. MLB doesn't even list a slot value for 11th rounders which I could find. With Birdsell having been shut down due to a rotator cuff injury, I'm sure the Twins weren't going to offer a ton of money.

I'm not sure I care if the Twins develop an ace. I mean, great if they do, but it's hardly necessary. The Twins front office just needs to make a sales pitch to the Pohlads and be willing to sign a top rotation arm. It's not like the Twins don't frequently have $20-40MM on the roster in 2-4 rotation arms they signed every year. Just make it 1-2 rotation arms for the same cost.

All this is probably Joe Mauer's fault anyway.

Honestly, not much I disagree with here, either. I think Miranda should be closer to #3 at this point because I do weight on field performance a little heavier than some. I'm definitely wanting the Twins to give starts to Miranda at 3B and it looks strongly to me like they're playing the service time game right now. I can see the bullish take on Cavaco as he did have a couple months where the bat started to click a bit and he's had so little playing time.

Hopefully Landon Leach doesn't have another injury showing up. He doesn't really have any time left to waste. Same boat as Royce Lewis, but Leach hasn't had any success above Rk level where Lewis did well at A+ already.

Not sure about that. I looked back at the old articles in the dead zone of the season when Baddoo was picked and there were a couple people not excited about him being exposed. The overall concensus wasn't one of concern though. That said... it's not the fans who need to make the right calls on who to protect. It's certainly expected MLB franchises and the Twins front office would have a better idea of talent under their control.

Dobnak didn't have the level of success or the strikeout stuff Ober had in the minors. I think Ober has much better stuff and, as a result, a much better chance of sustained success provided he stays healthy.

I think Ober has a real shot at sticking in the rotation. I saw a comment above about long term #4-5 starters, but those guys are almost non-existent in MLB. By definition, those back end rotation starters only need to take 1 step back and they're out of the rotation or baseball entirely. All it usually takes is one full year of scouting reports to expose a fringe pitcher's stuff to make it look like batting practice and there are always a bunch of fringe arms ready at AAA to step in for league minimum. Until the scouting reports catch up, even a fringey AAAA pitcher can eat enough innings and keep the game close enough. Some home town examples like Slowey and Blackburn come to mind.

I think Cave's beard is a major misstep professionally. It makes him look like he's in his 40s and there's no way painting yourself as a decade and a half older than you are when you're a fringe MLB player is a good idea in my opinion. Unlike a lot of Twins fans, I had no issues with the Twins keeping Cave, and I don't think keeping Cave had much to do with Wade being traded. Cave's performance at the plate across 2018-2019 was just as good as Buxton's 2019-2020, but Cave definitely performed awful last year in a small sample size so it was reasonable to expect a rebound. That said, the Twins aren't using him anymore, and I don't think it's likely he's on the roster next year so I don't understand why he's on the roster right now. He has 29 plate appearances in the past 2-1/2 weeks since his rehab assignment ended and he was recalled.

I think it's perfectly fine to have Noah Miller at 15. He's projected as a shortstop and given high grades for his smoothness at the position. I honestly don't think there's a lot of difference between 15-30 in the Twins system. There's a lot of medium quality depth and it's hard to judge a lot of these players as significantly better or more likely to contribute than another.

Wallner's 23 years old with a BB rate of only 7.3% K rate at A+ of 35%. Wallner shouldn't be in the top 30. Compared to Daniel Palka, same age, same level. D. Palka: .280/.352/.532 wRC+ 135 9.7% BB, 28.5% K Wallner: .277/.338/.555 wRC+ 137 7.3% BB, 34.4% K I wouldn't say Wallner is absolutely a bust at this point, but he needs to make an enormous change in his plate approach.

Kepler's fine. He's clearly pushing at the plate, and I do believe some of his critics have a point with the "sell out for the home run" going on, but Kepler is not the problem. He's a 2.0 WAR player if you have him in RF. That's fine, especially given the fact he's only making $6.5MM per year. Kepler's contract raised a lot of eyebrows, but not because Kepler wasn't worth it. It raised a lot of eyebrows because of the potenital Kepler's contract could turn into another Yelich contract where the player was vastly underpaid because teams in MLB have such ironclad player control, paying extremely productive players peanuts through their prime. Kepler didn't turn into Yelich. It's good for baseball, but bad for the Twins that he didn't. Fans are acting ridiculously when they're upset Kepler isn't an All Star making $6MM a year.