bean5302

College Football literally generates more revenue than MLB so it's going nowhere. From what I can tell, it's a recruitment tool for colleges and a way to float other athletic programs which do not generate revenue but are considered an enrichment to culture.

Bailey Ober got terrible results with his slider compared to "average" results for other pitchers using a slider. The slider and his fastball had the same xwOBA of .360 (bad). The sweeper looked much better in the xwOBA, but few pitches can function in a vacuum unless your name is Mariano Rivera. The sweeper depended on the slider for effectiveness. If Ober stops throwing the slider, the sweeper becomes much more predictable. As this article points out, Ober needs to throw harder. Whether or not he can now that he's entered into his 30s and needs to build back strength from a season long injury is another question.

Falvey's house desperately needs a coat a paint, but he's put it off for 5 years. His insurance company is threatening to cancel his policy. Luckily, he stumbled across some old paint from the 80s at a garage sale for cheap and he got right to it. Somehow he gets criticised even though he painted the house! The insurance company never should have asked him to paint, but darn it, now they.... oh, they cancel his policy just like the Pohlads should have canceled his contract.

Donaldson's contract would have been a bit of an albatross for the team, but they made out pretty well on the long side flipping Mitch Garver and Josh Donaldson into Gio Gonzalez and Gary Sanchez. Donaldson's last year with the Twins was pretty productive. Correa's first contract was great for Minnesota. It's the second round which got ugly fast. No team in baseball will develop their entire World Series caliber roster in house. Free agency is a necessary evil from a front office perspective. Burning $20MM on a handful of 0-1 WAR guys is worse than spending $20MM on a higher end, quality player who will still help the team even if they take a step back. I especially, especially believe this when it comes to starting rotation. My message to the Pohalds, pack up shop and sell to an owner fans will support if you can't be competitive.

A tool I really like is the SRS in sports reference. Average point differential and strength of schedule. It's far from perfect, but it feels like a fairly neutral way to compare teams. Any team scoring 18+ did enough to deserve a CFP nod. Under that and it gets murky. Gophers' best season was 11.73 in 2019. 6.78 Tulane 10.66 James Madison 13.75 Oklahoma 14.71 Alabama 16.20 Ole Miss 17.82 Texas A&M 18.44 Georgia 19.41 Miami 20.33 Oregon 23.00 Indiana 23.60 Texas Tech 24.05 Ohio State Notable overlooks: Notre Dame 21.79, Utah 17.88, BYU, 16.44, USC 15.99.

Not listening to me = the ask was so disproportionate they scared off other teams. This is the process by which Falvey has traditionally operated, even when it was obvious there was a need to move contracts off the books. It covers up for Falvey's incompetence by currying favor with the fanbase who always want to keep every single player which has suited up for more than 1 consecutive year with the club. Like the Twins are going for it!!! No, they're actually just squandering their assets.

Impossible to really tell what's up this coming year. AL East looks like a real juggernaut, but they'll be feeding off each other. The Royals are a wildcard in terms of what they might spend. Unlike the Pohlads, the Royals ownership was willing to expand the payroll into the top 1/2 in their window. Today that'd be $165MM-ish. The Tigers probably have the best baseline of any of the teams, IMHO. Baez's hot start evaporated when his expected metrics luck ran out and Detroit is as weak as the Twins when it comes to SS as a result, but Detroit has the most stable "base/floor" of any team in the division, I'd say. The Twins players have shown enough that each player on their own could have a monster season, but expecting a whole bunch of them to take a step forward or rebound at the same time is the part which is a 1:100 scenario. I've seen utterly nothing from this ownership shift suggesting it's not just business as usual. Big additions this year seem extremely unlikely. The team has no bullpen, and nothing but questions in the infield. The Guardians gamblers really messed that team up. They truly do have a tightwad for an owner so replacing important, cost controlled players all of the sudden is not their strength. Not sure how this team performs as well as it does. White Sox are terrible and are probably going to be terrible again, but their infield lineup is stronger than you'd think. No pitching staff, sketchy outfield.

I wasn't seeking to "prove my point" so much as explain context matters and my point was never "19 years old" to begin with. You misinterpreted something I wrote taking it more literally than it was intended.

No changes, just some steady opportunity. He was already the hitter he became with the A's. He didn't develop, just got steady opportunities. Rooker certainly demonstrated a lot more game power in his post high school years playing in college and summer league than Rosario as a high school pick playing pro ball, but it's hard to compare the two because of their paths. Very few. Organizations don't cast aside a slugger like Rooker who was dominating high minors, had much higher expected results than actual, demonstrating very good exit velocities. Speaks more about Falvey than it does likelihood a young slugger will develop. Even Rooker himself has no shot at the HoF. He's 30 with 9 career fWAR. I think he could end up with maybe 30 career WAR? Really an outstanding career overall, but only 1 in 100 players make the HoF. More like 1 in 300 these days. When I last reviewed Jenkins' performance and compared him with his peers (high 1st round picks out of high school), he fell in the middle ground. Could be elite, could be nothing at the MLB level. Feels like a Max Kepler kind of player to me, which in and of itself is pretty awesome. Just too early to really know.

"Young for his level" as a generic statement used to pretend an experienced, multi-year professional still has potential because they're barely younger than the average minor league baseball roster filler guy is one thing. A 19 year old excelling at AA has multiple aspects to it. First, they're many years younger than their competition, not a year or two, second, they have little professional baseball experience. A 19 year old having an above average performance first full MiLB season in AA would be exceptional, especially finishing the way Rosario did. Context matters.

Without a doubt my biggest pet peeve in all of analysis for the farm is "young for his level" garbage. If a player is not "young for his level" he's not a prospect at all. Every single legitimate prospect in baseball is "young for their level" by the end of their first full MiLB season. Borderline prospects are at least a year younger. Legitimate prospects are at least 2 years younger than their competition. Top prospects are at least 3-4 years younger than their competition. Avg age FCL (rookie ball) a20 A ball (a21) A+ (a22) AA (a24) AAA (a26) Gonzalez is pretty capped out frame-wise. Solid 110mph max EV in AAA, but nothing plus in the raw power area and his .ISO/history suggests he's maybe a 15 HR full season guy at the MLB level. At age 21 and on the 40 man, I think he's the most likely to see significant action this year and to be able to adapt to produce some power. Fedko is probably a AAAA player. He's got a couple hiccup seasons as he moved up the levels and that's not normal for a player who is going to be able to adapt to MLB caliber pitching. The 87.6mph EV at AAA at age 25 doesn't project well. He's a non-prospect, but solid MiLB depth guy with an outside shot at getting some emergency injury replacement time in the big show. Rosario is a non-prospect in my book atm. While he finished the year on a super hot streak, he was only passable from April through July putting up numbers which only would have been impressive at age 19. Only when the calendar transitioned into August did he make any waves on his 2nd major go 'round through AA at age 22. Maybe he can pull a Matt Wallner and turn himself into a legit late blooming threat as he matures, but not a likely outcome. The Twins have log-jamed about 436 corner OF's at AAA like Falvey love, love, loves to do. Leaving him off the 40 and exposing him (while all teams passed over him) shows Rosario isn't viewed as a legit prospect by the Twins so he's unlikely to force anybody out of St. Paul to get playing time. Olivar hasn't shown plus power. He had an ISO of .148 last year in AA with 13 HR in 407 PA. At age 23 last season, he's only a prospect because he's a catcher. Basically none of these listed guys are a real power threat at the MLB level next year. If there was a player who I think could add some pop from the right side with an epic start, it's Kaelyn Culpepper.

I think the state of the Twins for opening day will say a lot about Tom Pohlad's trustworthyness. This team, as it's currently constructed, looks very much like a team built on half measures. Exactly what Tom said he wouldn't do.

No he doesn't. IKF can't cover SS and they hit the same. Put IKF at SS and you'll see 0 WAR. Put Lee at SS and you'll see... 0 WAR.

The Twins' weakest position is probably shortstop and they've seemingly addressed it by pretending Brooks Lee might be able to cover the position.

Isiah Kiner-Falfa. Why does his name even come up let alone at the ridiciulous rate I see? He's not a legitimate starting baseball player. He can't hit. Like at all. The defensive metrics are all over the place amplified by SSS multiplication which are just floating fake value. He's fine as an insurance policy utility infielder, but that's not a need for the club.

Indiana making the CFP while the Gophers remain mired in mediocrity hurts my eyeballs.

I think Ervin Santana was hugely overlooked here. Definitely deserves a nod on the 1-10 list somewhere. He helped the Twins make the playoffs for the first time in 7 years, made the All Star team in 2017 even receiving a Cy Young vote. It was a great return on investment at a time the Twins were just dipping their feet back into the waters of spending. Santana put up 10.5 bWAR before injuries derailed his last season. Can't say I agree with including extension data in these summaries (like Phil Hughes) as we'd have to include extensions for guys like Max Kepler etc to be fair. What happens after team control ends doesn't belong in the analysis because it's too murky.

Oh yeah, I was dead set against the Santana signing; absolutely hated it. Bader was fine, and I looked back to when he was signed for my comments on the matter. I never expected Bader to be as good (or healthy) as he was. Anything can happen, and you're not going to get me to actively root against players being successful, but dumpster diving looking for value isn't going to be successful often enough to justify it. That's my point.

I answered it essentially with "I do not care. Nobody cares where dynasties come from." In general, fans of sports hate dynasties (when their team isn't part of it). Salary caps won't change the fact there are dynasties. The Yankees have made 1 World Series (and lost) in the past 15 years and you're talking about the Yankees? They've only won their division 3x in the past 13 years. Literally, I just showed with examples MLB is just as (or more) competitive as the other sports with salary caps, floors, max contracts, etc. Salary caps do not prevent dynasties. Salary caps will not suddenly make the Twins a preferred destination. Just look at how the Wolves have done recruiting top players, even when willing to shell out huge money. Players don't even want to get traded to them. Not to mention salary caps would require a total overhaul of the entire revenue system for MLB requiring absolute no-go concessions from both MLB ownership and the MLBPA. Guaranteed contracts? Largely gone. Salary floor? Required. Full revenue sharing? Required. Multiple strategies to field a championship team? Eliminated. I gave literal, real-life examples here.

Yep. Another Falvey-esque move on display. Does not understand value. does not understand "budget." We can only hope against hope that Bell turns into Bader/Santana instead of Margot/Gallo

It's not a big if. It's a collection of "ifs" which is the problem, and for somebody like me, it's if I even feel like following the team watching "go big or go home Tom Pohlad" send the status quo team out there again this year.

Joe Ryan is Arb 2 this year. An extension would probably add another 3 years to his contract at $30MM per year, plus buying out his existing arbitration eligibility. So guessing about 5yrs $108MM-ish? right now ($8MM, $15MM, $25MM, $30MM, $30MM), all of which will be for a non-durable post-prime age 30+ pitcher. At the end of the deal, Ryan will have pitched through his age 34 season making $30MM. Ryan has a career ERA/FIP of 3.80, but if you limited it to his last two seasons, you could make the case he's a 3.50-3.60 ERA/FIP, solid #2 pitcher. If the Twins already had a cost controlled ace and a proven core with a $160MM payroll max, this would make sense. The Twins don't have either item.

Who cares where dynasties come from? I guess I don't. Maybe you do and you'd rather see the Brewers vs. the Royals for 10 straight World Series' vs. a mix of different teams. I'd rather have some variety and a reason to watch the season.

Lewis - Hasn't produced a single full season yet. Last year was the closest, and he was barely worth starting (he's my favorite player... but objectively true) Jeffers - Was specifically mentioned. Buxton - Terry Ryan's draft, was already in MLB before Falvey came to the Twins. Ober - Was mentioned, but not by name. Arraez - Terry Ryan drafted. Kepler - Bill Smith signed, was in MLB before Falvey came to the Twins. Jax - Jax did provide solid value as a setup guy once he flamed out as a starter. Varland - Similar to Jax, but with a lot less track record. Polanco - Bill Smith signed, was in MLB before Falvey came to the Twins. Trade value for Ryan - You're 100% right, Joe Ryan was a huge steal, and a big feather in Falvey's cap. Trade value for Duran - It did take 5 years for the Twins to turn Escobar's trade into a closer, but they were successful. It was an okay return. Trade value for Lopez - I mean, this signifies my problem with Falvey's failure to draft/develop players as much as anything else. He traded an All Star drafted/signed by his predecessor and Falvey used that inherited asset to compensate for inability to draft/develop. Falvey has run out of previous GM talent pool and Falvey's teams have been terrible the last couple years as a result. No more coat tails to ride on. Twins changed their draft strategies. While I can laud the change in directions after the admission he was bad at drafting, the fact Falvey was bad at drafting isn't a good thing. But... did they change much? Lewis was hit tool and athleticism. Cavaco was athleticism. Miller was hit tool and athleticism. Brooks Lee was hit tool. Jenkins was hit tool and athleticism... While there are less of the slugging outfielder profile, Larnach and Rooker (away from Minnesota) have been two of the most successful draft picks in Falvey's history. Btw, Keaschall wasn't a 1st round pick, let alone a high first round pick which is apparently critical to finding talent. We already know he can't be good because only high 1st round picks are expected to be successful based on your metrics? If you're reading my comment correctly, you're seeing you are arguing both sides as you run down your list in an attempt to justify your defense of Falvey's failures.

Where's the Vikings Superbowl? How about the Wild's Stanley Cup or the Timberwolves NBA Final Championship? In the last 10years, 8 teams have made the Superbowl. In the AFC, KC and NE have 8 of 10 Superbowl appearances. 11 teams have made the Stanley Cup Finals. The last 2 have been idential. Panthers vs Oilers, and the Panthers have made 3 straight. 12 teams have made the NBA Finals. Both the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers made it for 4+ consecutive seasons. Salary caps do not work. 12 teams have made the World Series and only 2 teams have gone back to back in the past 10 years.