bean5302

Coulombe throwing 90 does probably cause a minor wrinkle on swing timing. Not sure if it's more than offset by the decision time a batter has. When pitchers were consistently throwing 90mph fastballs, hitters had time to choose to try and pull or slap a ball oppo. His movement is the big problem. The curve and splitter move the same way, they're both breaking pitches, but the separation is 8mph and 30" of break... It's nasty.

McCusker was league average last year. He was basically Yunior Severino, but I don't recall you chomping at the bit to get Severino up on the roster in previous seasons during his hot streaks? Not saying McCusker won't rake right out of the gate, but I am saying it's worth it to give him a chance to get some still small, but at least respectable sample sizes before projecting him as a force in the lineup.

He was, but the Twins shut down his rehab because of biceps tendinitis just a few days ago. He got an injection and apparently, he must be doing a lot better. I think the expectation is he was going to have to go back on the IL, but the Twins need help resting the bullpen.

Unusual to the see the bats carrying the team this season, but here we are! 10 in a row is great for the team morale, and the bullpen was critical in a double header today with 2 bad starts from the rotation. Clemens is really making the most of his opportunity. I've seen all I need to see of DaShawn Keirsey, Jr. He's just like he looked at the plate last year, clearly outmatched by MLB caliber pitchers. .086/.086/.086 OPS .174 wRC+ -63 with a 34% K rate in 35 PA after today. SSSS, but even his xwOBA is a miserable .174 between his heaping helping of rollover grounders and pop ups. It's abundantly clear he's not an MLB player. Speaking of guys who don't need to be getting regular playing time, Simeon Woods-Richardson should be replaced in the rotation now. He still doesn't have a single quality start this year in 7 tries, only 3 times making it through inning 5 and in only 2 of those starts did he manage an ERA under 6.35. With poor/short starts from both Ober and SWR, the bullpen used all 9 bullpen arms in Alcala, Sands, Funderburk, Topa, Varland, Coulombe, Jax, Duran, and Stewart. We really need a long start from Paddack tomorrow at noon in Baltimore. Tonkin is back rehabbing, but he won't be ready. I wonder if the Twins would call up Marco Raya to pitch out of the 'pen? If they were in Minnesota, it wouldn't surprise me a bit.

The Braves might be a fit. They've got nothing at SS ready and they can clear $10MM in contracts to make room for Correa with an $8MM club option on Fletcher (career over), and $2MM on Orlando Arcia for next year and beyond. So Atlanta might do the deal right now, not just at the deadline, but I think they'd prefer staying under the luxury tax by like $3-4MM in anticipation of deadline moves so say the Braves can eat about $15MM in additional payroll this year. Correa's making $37MM x .75 = roughly $28MM left this year. Proposal Carlos Correa + Cash for Orlando Arcia 2025 = Twins eat $13MM, Atlanta pays $15MM 2026 = Twins eat $15MM, Atlanta pays $16.8MM 2027 = Twins eat $15MM, Atlanta pays $15.8MM 2028 = Twins eat $15MM, Atlanta pays $15.3MM The starting shortstop for the Twins is now Orlando Arcia. If this doesn't signal the Twins are packing it in for the year, I can't imagine what would. If the Twins wait until the deadline, Correa's value might jump, but the Twins might be in the playoff hunt or Atlanta might already have solved their issue. It's a lot of the "if" game. Just have to see, but I don't see how trading Correa doesn't signal rebuild.

I was hoping those back to back home run games for Rodriguez would be the start of a hot run at the plate, but it seems probably not. Emma still struggling, even with the 2 good games recently, he's not getting hits. Last 10 games .192/.400/.423 OPS .823, wRC+ 129, 25.7% BB, 37.1% K. The 25% walk rate will not hold in MLB, it'll drop to 15% and his K rate will jump to 50%. Having a walk rate that high just says pitchers expect Rodriguez will either chase and whiff on junk or stare at balls with the lumber sitting on his shoulder looking for mistakes like Julien. Neither methodology will work at MLB, and honestly, neither is even working in AAA. He needs to show results sooner than later to remain a top prospect. I like what MiLB rule 5 acquisition Trent Baker is doing in Wichita this year. The 26 year old should be in AAA already now that he's got his walks under control. Probably a bullpen piece with a violent delivery and 3 pitches fastball/change/slider, the latter of which was apparently pretty weak back when he was drafted in 2021. If the Twins can get something out of him, it'd be good to see. Jay Thomason's been mentioned in comments in previous days/weeks as well. He continues to rake in Ft. Myers and it doesn't seem like there's much more reason for him to be there. He's old for the level, he's taking walks and hitting for power. The K rate is too high, but he needs to face better competition to see whether or not it's just a SSS issue. That said, Cedar Rapids is full of guys hitting well this year blocking Thomason from moving up, and in AA, there's not a ton of room, either. I think it's time to part ways with a couple of the aging lower performers in St. Paul to allow for guys who need to move up to get some playing time at a higher level. We can't continue to log jam guys in the minors until they're entering their late 20s.

I'd still like to see closer to 200 PA this year. Same guy, age 26 in AAA last year in a similar sample size to what he's got right now went .286/.337/.484 wRC+ 107. McCusker's career AAA BABIP is sitting at about .425 right now. That's not going to happen at MLB with the top 10% of qualified hitters at about .340 BABIP and the leader was .370 last year. Love what he's doing, especially with the K rate continuing to drop, but I'd like him to have the adjustments made and be ready for MLB before calling him up. It's tempting to just promote the guy making the highlight reel seemingly every day, but patience will pay dividends.

It's a frequent proposal that a poorly performing and expensive player should just be traded. The problem is nobody probably wants a poorly performing, expensive player on a long term contract. So Minnesota would need to eat a LOT of cash, oh, and get Correa to sign away his full no trade clause. His value was -59.2 as of May 2nd. That means, in order to trade Correa, for nothing in return, Baseballtradevalues predicts Minnesota would have to eat about$60MM. Trade Deadline 2025 2025 - $12MM remaining, Minnesota eats $10MM, new team $2MM 2026 - $33MM, Minnesota eats $17MM, new team $16MM 2027 - $32MM, Minnesota eats $16MM , new team $16MM 2028 - $32MM, Minnesota eats $16MM, new team $16MM Now that this nearly impossible scenario is approved, does that help the Twins? We have literally zero MLB caliber shortstops in our entire organization other than Correa right now. So we'll have to put a poor fielder at SS, and that doesn't help the Twins win games. The $16MM in savings is substantial, but it doesn't make a huge impact, either. Finally, who is this mystical trade partner who #1 needs a shortstop, #2 is a playoff caliber team, #3 has the payroll capacity long term?

The key to Ober staying successful is definitely leveraging everything he can from the mental side of things adding to his precise control. Control has always been a weapon in pitching because throwing strikes hitters can't punish can go a long way towards getting outs, and virtually every hitter in MLB has weak points in the zone. Ober's pitching more like a later career Zack Greinke out there, but how far can the velo drop before hitters simply get too decision time? That's the question. Greinke hit that wall as his velo dropped under 90mph. Ober's now at 90.8mph. Hopefully, Ober can weave his way through Baltimore's potentially dangerous lineup in Maryland. A lineup where 4 guys have an expected OBA over 40 pts higher than they've put up so far. That lineup is due for some serious regression upwards.

I don't think counting on below average veteran hitters to lead the club based on SSSS trends is a good strategy. 2,644 PA .244/.309/.395 OPS .704 wRC+ 93 (career xwOBA .293 vs. this year .315) 1,259 PA .237/.323/.402 OPS .725 wRC+ 105 (career xwOBA .326 vs. this year .331) Bader's xwOBA has been 10pts higher than his actual throughout his career, with Larnach trailing his by about 15pts. That puts Bader in line for an actual production of about wOBA .305 (about wRC+ 95) and Larnach at about .315 (about wRC+ 100). Not that there's any reason you can't count on players without the track record. Everybody gets to have their favorites or play the hot hand for a series or two. Honestly, the Twins are nearly full strength already. Wallner is probably end of May at the earliest and Keaschall will be after the All Star break, if he's back on the club. By the way, one is Keaschall, the other is Lee in their first 26 PA 26 PA .458/.462/.625, OPS 1.087, 3.8% BB, 7.7% K, wRC+ 207 26 PA .368/.538/.526, OPS 1.065, 19.2% BB, 7.7% K, wRC+ 213 Here's Lee's line for the rest of his rookie season .182/.233/.270 OPS .503 wRC+ 38 Keaschall may turn into a real stud, but I'd be surprised to see him better than league average at the plate this year if he sticks in MLB. More long term, the production is going to have to come from guys who are expected to be good hitters, and Correa really needs to be producing .

Sure. Lee and Keaschall will never have a season where they produce more than 0.0 WAR. Ever. In fact, they'll both be out of MLB baseball forever next year as neither Brooks Lee nor Luke Keaschall gets on base a single time for the rest of the entire careers. They'll post a .000/.000/.000 with 0 walks and 100% strikeout rate forever. Even after they retreat into shame in beer league softball. Neither will ever hit another baseball, ever. Even playing whiffle ball with their kids, Lee and Keachsall will be unable to ever make contact with a ball of any sort using any kind of bat ever again for the rest of their lives. There, I've just debated you. While Zebby Matthews will undoubtedly put up 10 WAR per season and win every single Cy Young for the next 30 years accumulating 300 career WAR as he plays until age 55 in your mind, other people might disagree. Fangraphs has Jeffers at 2.3 in 2023 and I gave credit to Falvey for every single 0.1 WAR produced by his drafted players. Even Randy Dobnak as Falvey signed Dobber. Did you see where almost everybody on that list I posted pretty much had more single season WAR than Lewis or Larnach's entire career? 2.0 WAR per season is the bare minimum for a regular position player, and 2.5 WAR is the baseline for actually holding your own on a playoff team; less than that and somebody else on the roster has to make up for you in order to make the playoffs. Lewis (my favorite player) has never put together a single good season for a starter. Larnach is a AAAA guy historically. Sub 1.0 WAR seasons are not exciting accomplishments as you can go out and grab those guys for league minimum every year. I listed ALL STARS, dude. ALL STARS. You're listing mediocre season players as if they're bonafide stars. I love Royce Lewis, but he hasn't done anything.

I'd like to be more optimistic, but the reports were clear that Buxton will have chronic inflammation in that knee because of all the scar tissue and surgical intervention. Buxton's also dealt with frequent hip, back, wrist, and migraine issues. The hip issues have been potentially linked to the knee problems if Buxton was stressing the hip while overcompensating for the sore knee so perhaps he can avoid that one, but the back spasms and wrist issues become more and more likely the more games Buxton plays. Buxton's outstanding speed and leg strenth has come with a couple hammy injuries over the years as well. It's all speculative, but Buxton is into his 30s at this point. It seems very unlikely he's going to be healthier now than when he was 25, but I think it'd be truly awesome if he were. Both for the Twins and honestly, for Buxton himself. I can't imagine how amazing it'd be for him to qualify this year and be able to reflect on that accomplishment with his family and friends. That said... it's May and there's 75% of the season left to go.

Not for this debate, that's a strawman.

How am I supposed to take you seriously? Guys who reached MLB by Falvey's first year, and their best season. All but Aaron Hicks had their best season for the Twins. Player, Max Season WAR Brian Dozier, All Star, 5.8 bWAR Kyle Gibson, All Star, 3.5 bWAR Taylor Rogers, All Star, 2.6 bWAR Byron Buxton, All Star, 5.0 bWAR Miguel Sano, All Star, 2.7 bWAR Jose Berrios, All Star, 3.5 bWAR Jorge Polanco, All Star, 5.0 bWAR Other 10+ WAR career notable players Aaron Hicks, 4.3 bWAR (best season was with NYY) Max Kepler, 3.5 bWAR Falvey... Ummm... Brent Rooker, All Star, 5.6 bWAR. Whoopsie! Now, I'd be surprised if Falvey's pipeline didn't produce an All Star or two just by the fact the Twins have to send a guy to the game. Falvey hasn't had a single, not one All Star for the Twins out of his 8 drafts. Best pitcher? Ober 3.1 bWAR. Best position player? Julien 2.8 bWAR. Better turn that strawman argument machine to 11 and start spinnin'

Scoreboard...

Buxton is not in the same league as Mickey Mantle or Alex Rodriguez. He never will be. It's so utterly disrespectful and trashy to make those kinds of comparisons. Grosses me out. Both Mantle and A-Rod had 10+ WAR seasons on their way to 110+ bWAR careers. Buxton might end up with one 5 WAR season and 35 career bWAR. Buxton is a very good player when he's on the field, and if he were to play 150 G, which he never will, he'll put up 5-6 WAR. Right now, a quarter of the way through the season, Buxton is on pace for 150 G, 6.0 bWAR or 6.4 fWAR. Right on target. He's going to get hurt, but at least Baldelli has maybe, finally, learned to stop randomly sitting guys to recharge their health gauge. We should get the maximum possible value from Buxton this year using Rocco's revelation on not sitting guys 3x a week, which I expect will be 80-120 games, depending on what injuries come up. Buxton's pretty much always been a streaky, lower walk, free swinging, high strikeout guy. He's bounced around a bit trying to limit strikeouts and increase walks in 2022-2023, but trying to be less aggressive stole away home runs. There's some small sample size factor involved in the data and the "despite a horrendous start" which is is just a normal process for a streaky hitter. Cold streak, hot streak, cold streak, hot streak. When guys don't/can't take walks, they have to rely on batted ball luck. Add in tons of strikeouts and there the batted ball luck swings even harder. Thus, streaky. Perhaps Buxton's microwave burned the popcorn one time and he had to deal with the cloud figuratively/literally hanging over him he had to push through? The more excuses for Buxton not being MVP caliber the better around here, after all. It seems like Buxton's been more aggressive at swinging at pitches high and inside this year, and he's whiffed at down and away a bit more, but he's actually had better discipline holding off down and away. I appreciate the details, but I don't think we have enough data to draw a conclusion from it. I think it is possible to look at how pitchers are approaching him though. Down and away is the recipe. 26% of all the pitches Buxton sees are down and away or 250% the rate of any other zone. Pitchers go after Buxton the same way they attack Judge, but Judge has much better discipline laying off low and away.

Whomever drafted them/signed them gets the credit. Falvey didn't exactly fare well when it came to developing the previous regime's prospects.

Coulombe is getting it done. It's nice to see him doing so well out of the gate this year.

It's hard to quantify how good players will be in the future. What we do have is 8 years of what has actually happened. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to try and predict the future at this point. If people are supporting Falvey, it really should be about installing the system and analytics. He also had a couple great trades that landed us Joe Ryan and Jake Odorizzi or getting out from under the Josh Donaldson deal while getting Urshela and Sanchez in return. Lets take a look at Bill Smith and Terry Ryan 8 years after their first season as GM (and first season back for T.R.). Bill Smith 2008-2011 drafts/signings Pos SP RP Draft Value Total Percent 2015 6.7 2.8 0 9.5 28.1 34% Crippled with just 4 drafts, Smith is responsible for a huge part of the core of the team into the 2020s. Brian Dozier, Eddie Rosario, Miguel Sano, Aaron Hicks, Kyle Gibson contributed here with negative 2.5 WAR in contributions by Max Kepler, Oswaldo Arcia, Kennys Vargas, Danny Santana with Jorge Polanco being neutral. Terry Ryan 2012-2016 drafts/signings Pos SP RP Draft Value Total Percent 2021 8.6 2.3 3.2 14.1 28.8 49% Like Bill Smith, Terry Ryan gets a bit hamstrung by the fact he only had 5 years of drafting/signing to get his results. I used 2021 because the SSSS of 2020 is totally unfair to project to a full season. Terry Ryan's guys were Byron Buxton, Mitch Garver, Luis Arraez, Ben Rortvedt, Nick Gordon, Alex Kirilloff, Jose Berrios, Taylor Rogers, Caleb Thielbar, Tyler Duffey, and Cody Stashak. Only Travis Blankenhorn created a tiny drag on results with -0.1 WAR. Should have been 2019 for Ryan? Whatever. I worked enough on this, LOL.

Where's the WAR listed here? I see "WINS" which is the team's record. The TaP = Traded for player before the player made it to MLB? 2019 shows 0.0% for the Twins on TaP, but what about Trevor May? I'm just looking things over to better understand the data set.

Some people don't seem to understand that drafting and development is pretty important. Cleveland's draft/development pipeline produced 7.6 WAR last year. The Twins? 3.5 WAR despite Minnesota typically hanging on tooth and nail to their guys until they hit free agency.

I'm honestly not concerned about Amick. To me, there's no reason to get bent out of shape with prospects who are well down the list or really far away. More concerning to me is what's going on with our upper level prospects. If players are performing well, they'll generally push into our top 10 list, and those are usually the guys I expect to potentially be big contributors.

Name a better free agent on the market on March 21st. Canning and Holmes were signed in December, and as you point out, Holmes was a reliever, not a starter. Canning has a career 4.60 ERA and 5.2 fWAR with a season best 1.8 fWAR. Last year he pitched to a 5.19 ERA in 171.2 innings producing a miserable 0.2 fWAR. Gibson has a career 4.57 ERA and 21.4 fWAR with a season best 3.1 fWAR and was elected to an All Star game. Last year, Gibson pitched to a 4.24 ERA in 169.2 innings where he generated 8x the value of Canning. Gibson has qualified for championship trophies for the last 5 seasons in a row. That's besides the point, which is Gibson wasn't signed to replace Burnes. Again, Morton and Sugano were brought in to replace Burnes. Not Gibson. There are plenty of reasons you could rag on Orioles ownership. Payroll and Kyle Gibson signed as a solid back end rotation member in an emergency when Grayson Rodriguez was going to be unable to start the season in the rotation are not two of them.

That's a false representation of outcomes. Gallo was not unlucky and Arraez was not lucky. Both Gallo and Arraez typically produced similarly to their expected metrics. There are relatively unique players who deviate from expected results, but they're pretty few and far between. It would be better if people would stop trying to confidently explain things they don't understand.

This $8MM = 1.0 WAR thinking is far to narrow minded because it does not reflect the market. First, teams do not try to buy 1.0 WAR at $8MM, but with injuries and poor performance, that's where big free agency contracts wind up. Second, teams do not spend linear money for WAR. The more WAR a player produces, the bigger premium a team will pay. Example, Nicky Lopez got MLB minimum despite being a consistent 1.0 WAR player. Third, the average cost of 1 WAR in MLB is about $2.5MM, not $8.0MM because most players are pre-arb, arb and they do not make top free agent money. It's easy to find a 0.5 or 1.0 WAR player in the minors. Fourth, WAR is not a counting stat. It can and does often go backwards. For starting position players, you need 2.5+ WAR to be truly earning your spot, over that, and you're helping a team to the playoffs. Anything north of 2.0 WAR is good enough. Anything under that, and you're dragging on the team. For a relief pitcher, anything over 0.5 WAR is gravy. Now, onto how these players are producing. Bader = $6.25MM + $1.5MM buyout. Bader is looking like an absolute steal, especially with his hot streak lately. He was literally elite on 5/7. Exactly elite. His wRC+ was 1337 that day. That said, his xwOBA is dramatically lower at .315 (league average), and Bader's career xwOBA and wOBA line up pretty well. In the bigger picture, was he worth it so far? Yes. The Twins need, need, need a CF to back up Buxton and Bader was cheap and he can play defense. He's been healthy so far, but the real question is whether or not he'll be healthy when Buxton inevitably goes to the IL? That's really why Bader is here. France = $1.0MM. France has produced 0.1 WAR. It's not like $1.0MM is breaking the bank so it's fine, but in terms of does he help the team win ball games, the answer is no, not really. That said, France's xwOBA is All Star caliber at .370 thanks to a lot of barrels where the baseball hasn't been wearing glasses so it lands directly into gloves. The nitty gritty is Miranda defecated in the bed this year and the Twins don't have a lot in the way of 1B depth so France just holding his own at the plate has been helpful. Worth it. Coulombe is stranding 100% of his base runners and he hasn't allowed a home run... yet. SSSS at 16.0 innings, but it's gotten him 0.8 WAR so far. Certainly looks like a great signing, but a single game could reverse him to negative WAR. With Kody Funderburk the only lefty remaining in the depth charts, yeah. We needed Coulombe bad.