bean5302

I find his line last year in low-A unimpressive for a 2nd round all bat college hitter, he's still in the low minors, his BABIP is .500 and his ISO is a very poor .105.

Matthews was sitting at 97-99 through ST and into the start of the AAA season. He was at 95-96 on Sunday. Could just be a sensor, but given the walks and hits, it's eye opening.

This is what I see. Not sure if that's what you see, but the formatting should be fixed.

No he hasn't. Lewis had a severe quad strain last year out of the gate. It wasn't hamstring related. 2021 - Torn ACL 2022 - Torn ACL 2023 - Oblique Strain 2023 - Hamstring Strain 2023 - Quad Strain 2024 - Quad Strain 2024 - Hip adductor Strain 2025 - Hamstring Strain The dual ACL reconstructions resulted in a weakening of all the muscles, tendons and ligaments in Lewis' leg. Doctors told him he'd be especially susceptible to additional strains in his leg, and that subsequent strains before he fully recovers would continue to slow the process of fully healing and strengthening his leg. The hip and quad strains are much more severe than the hamstring issue, but I do feel like the trainers have some issues at this point. Like... it's a bit much at this point. The constant aggravation to his soft leg tissue robbed him of a ton of his athleticism last year. I don't know as I believe Lewis could ever be healthy at this point, but if he can make it a few months without another lower body injury, maybe the cycle could be broken?

The biggest news in the MiLB system to me is Zebby Matthews is giving up a lot of hits and walks with a drop off in his velocity. Matthews has never walked guys like he's been doing lately.

Mark, Mike, Marvin... something like that.

I don't think his swing is the problem. I think the problem is he doesn't use it.

There are no real former bomba squad members on the team anymore. It was 6 years ago with the help of a juiced baseball. You might say "Buxton!" but he only hit 10HR that year. Nelson Cruz (41) - Retired Max Kepler (36) - Philadelphia Phillies Miguel Sano (34) - Unsigned Eddie Rosario (32) - Atlanta Braves Mitch Garver (31) - Seattle Mariners C.J. Cron (25) - Unsigned Jonathan Schoop (23) - Unsigned Jorge Polanco (22) - Seattle Mariners @Matthew Trueblood your chart graphics seem broken to me? I see teams listed multiple times, and artifacts mixed through them? In any case, yeah, it's the Eddie Julien syndrome for the Twins. Shoulder = shelf for bat. Can't waste strikes looking for mistake pitches because it doesn't work at the MLB level... or even the high minors. Ask Aaron Sabato.

LOL, NO. It's good for 300 level seats only. So $23 for 2 is a good deal ($37-39 for 2 with online fees reg, $30-32 from the box office), but it's the same as I could find on reseller sites, and I could find lower level seats for $36 with fees. If the Twins offered a 23% discount on all seats? Maybe. That way people might actually spend on lower levels. Falvey doesn't seem to understand ticket sales or draft/development.

While Ryan is pitching very well this year, he always has a good first half. He also always gets injured, misses a bunch of time and has a terrible second half. His xFIP is at 3.42, which is borderline ace territory at the moment though I expect that'll decline greatly as the season goes on. That said, I think Ryan's accomplishments are truly noteworthy. Expected to maybe stick as a back end #5 type guy, he's really taken his game to a new level. Traditionally, Ryan's biggest problem is his refusal to walk guys, instead challenging them as he gets behind only to watch balls go into the seats. Ryan will need to do this all year, and be even better than he has been so far to earn a bonefide "ace" title.

It was certainly a conservative off season, but a typical one for Falvey who always seems to wait too long and overplay his hand until he finds himself short on suitors over the offseason. The Twins' likely plan: C - Jeffers 1B - France 2B - Castro (IL) SS - Correa (struggling) 3B - Lewis (IL) LF - Bader CF - Buxton RF - Wallner (IL) DH - Larnach (struggling) Util - Lee (IL) Util - Miranda (struggling, IL) Util - Keirsey BC - Vazquez (struggling) Losing 5 of your position players to the IL, and having guys like Holland and Martin on the IL in AAA has certainly been a major hit to the Twins. Even worse, the guys who were expected to be big contributors have flopped for a large portion of the season with the pressure on. While Jeffers and Buxton look great right now, they were both ice cold for the first couple weeks. The Twins find themselves in a division where the Tigers look better than expected, and they were already probably picked to be better than Minnesota to start with. The Twins are 7 games back from the division lead and 5 games out of the Wildcard if the season ended today, needing to pass 5 teams above them to make the WC3 spot.

Pretty concerned with Zebby Matthews at this point. Game Log 1-3 = 1.80 ERA, 1.26 FIP, 12.00 K/9 (36.4%), 1.20 BB/9 (3.6%), 0.73 WHIP 4-6 = 2.92 ERA, 4.01 FIP, 10.22 K/9 (23.3%), 5.11 BB/9 (11.7%), 1.86 WHIP Skyrocketed BB rates, way more hits allowed. Matthews topped out at 97.1mph vs. 99.5mph on 4/15. Matthews max velos: 4/1 = NA 4/8 = 98.8 4/15 = 99.5 4/22 = 97.4 4/27 = 97.5 5/4 = 97.1 Zebby Matthews game on 5/4 he sat in the 95-96mph range, where he had been sitting in the 97-98mph range through Spring Training and his first 3 regular season games. For a guy who does not issue free passes, the walk rate has become pretty bad and his velo is down a couple mph.

Rice University pitchers are not outliers. While Rice University might be above average, I didn't see anything suggesting this legendary arm breaker myth going around TD. Canterino was like #65 in innings pitched for NCAA baseball the year he was drafted. His pitch counts were exceeded by many other players as well. In example, the Angels' Reid Detmers had higher pitch counts and more innings than Canterino despite being younger.

A star as in, he produced more value in a season than any other position player in a Twins uniform having been drafted/developed under Falvey's regime. Julien led all Falvey drafted players in fWAR in 2023 at 2.8. It's more of an indictment on Falvey than star power for Julien, but in a full season at that pace, Julien would have been at the edge of All Star production.

One of the weakest arms in baseball by the throwing speeds, actually.

I'd take Clemens over Bride at DH/1B, but Bride has better utility, not that any team should be having both of them on the 26 man. There's at least some underlying value in Clemens' bat. With Bride, any production looks like its been all fluff. Last year, Bride had really great production in a fairly large sample size, but it was all smoke and mirrors. .276/.357/.461 OPS .818. 11% BB, 20% K. It all looks pretty good. Sample size? 272 PA. Small-ish, but starting to approach what should be a pretty steady number. BABIP even looks reasonable at .306. Until you see the wOBA .351 vs xwOBA .297 because of his poor line drive rate, sky high ground ball rate and also sky high pop up rate. Mean and max exit velocities were below average as well so there's a fairly low ceiling on Bride's bat. I think Bride is kind of interchangeable with Mickey Gasper.

What is this sorcery????? Is it a conspiracy or is it Royce Lewis playing 2B mid-year? Baseball Reference must have made this data up because here it says he played 2B. What do you make of it? Here's a link where you can voice your outrage at the folks at Sports Reference for making this data up. We both know Royce Lewis refused to play 2B last year. But clearly, Baseball Reference has engaged in a conspiracy to cover that up and make Royce look better. https://www.sports-reference.com/feedback/

Lewis is not opposed to playing 2B. He wasn't comfortable swapping out of the blue, and on a Rocco whim, to a premium defensive position he'd never played in his life during the end of a playoff race. A defensive position which requires more range than 3B while he was battling lower body injuries during the middle of his first major slump at the plate. The reasoning? Maybe Lewis would be better there? Why not just see what happens? It was absolutely asinine of Rocco to ask Lewis to make the change and reflects poorly on Baldelli's knowledge of his players and the game of baseball in general. Royce Lewis on aversion to 2B Last year - This Lewis won't play 2B is similar to the made up stuff about Kepler refusing to play CF. Kepler preferred not playing CF because he felt he wore down which became legend around here that where Kepler refused to play the position. There are tons and tons of examples across baseball of guys being pushed off their positions or being asked to play different positions where the players pushed back for various reasons. Few of the "pushbacks" had the kind of credibility in reasoning Lewis had last year. Mookie Betts is making $365MM guaranteed, was drafted as a 2B and played 2B, SS, CF and RF in the minors. Betts generally swapped positions during the offseason when there was time to get him practice in Spring Training, though he did suddenly make a 7 game shift to 2B (a position he'd played 100s of games) in 2021 for the Dodgers during an emergency, not because the manager thought it might make him better or just on some manager's whim. It's totally apples-oranges.

Am I the only one you follow around and harass like an angry Karen around here? I will never take you back. You and I are through. Get it through your head. Whatever obsession you have with me... it's time to let it go. (I'm assuming you're a crazy ex at this point so I'm just guessing)

How often do guys get hurt playing in the infield? Rarely. How often does moving a guy off a position to DH make them healthier? Pretty much never, except for catchers. How often do fans speculate such a change will make a guy healthier? Always. There is no significant increase in injury rate for infielders when it comes to leg issues like Royce has suffered from. If he's getting sore, sure, put him at DH in the short term if he needs to build up (but he really should be in AAA for that). That said, a full-time 3B gets about 3 chances a game to make a play so taking a setup position every time a pitcher throws a pitch is the extent of the load. Royce Lewis should either be playing in the field or traded to a different team. There is literally a 20 run difference in value between DH and 3B, positionally, over the course of a year. It's night and day.

Kody Clemens is the kind of journeyman cast off not expected to do much or provide anything more than cheap, temporary utility to a team like the Twins. As a 3rd round pick way back in 2018, Clemens' potential faded quickly once he reached the high minors, and that's reflected in Detroit holding off on calling his number until Clemens hit age 26 in 2022 where the response from Clemens was a poor 14% line drive rate, and 6% BB vs 26% K rate coinciding, naturally, with a pretty miserable .252 xwOBA. The Tigers case Clemens off in a fairly minimal value swap involving a bunch of guys looking for a change of scenery. Clemens hasn't walked much and he's been easy to strikeout throughout his high minors/MLB career. It's a bad combo unless you have elite power or line drive rates, neither of which Clemens can claim. That's not to say Clemens has no pop as his max exit velocities probably put him into a 55 grade raw power. He's been prone to ground ball-itis, and no matter how hard you hit those balls, lots of grounders generally equal low AVG and low SLG (Correa). When it comes to defense, Clemens also has about a 55 grade run tool with his sprint speeds typically in the mid/upper 27 ft/sec range which is a bit above MLB average, but his arm is 40 grade, at best as he struggles to get throws above 80mph. Clemens has also seen 415 PA in his MLB career so it's not like he's been given no chances at all. Still a small sample size considering this is his 4th season seeing action in MLB. There should be no expectations for Clemens, but there are at least some things about him which are fun to think about. First, his exit velocities are very good, his barrel rates and hard hit rates are also decent suggesting there's enough raw tools to provide some value. Clemens' plate discipline has improved a bit as well as his O-contact rates have increased a bit. In addition, there aren't any pitches which stand out as obvious weaknesses for Clemens. It's not like there's a pitch where he's a guaranteed out. (i.e. slider down and away = strike 3 for Miguel Sano). Unfortunately, Clemens still refuses to take walks, and despite historically being pretty aggressive, he's caught looking far too frequently. Clemens hasn't covered the strike zone particularly well, either, struggling with balls in the upper portion of the zone where a guy who hits a lot of ground balls should be able to do better damage. I don't think there's any reason to suspect Clemens will be serviceable as a significant player at the MLB level without a swing change, but there's at least enough of something there to suggest an adjustment could provide some value as a cheap utility guy. He's kind of the opposite of Mickey Gasper in a lot of ways while getting to the same value spot?

I know you're secretly losing sleep at night, looking up at your Jose Miranda poster on the ceiling and silently crying soooo... Hand strains generally take a long time. I'd guess no rehab assignment until at least a couple weeks, but it could be longer.

When it comes to Julien, he's got to produce, and he needs to understand that production can't come from standing at the plate like a statue watching strikes fly by. Even if Julien winds up working a walk doesn't make up for staring down a meatball he should have put in the seats. If it's stress/mental, he needs to suck it up and do his job. As harsh as that is, nobody is going to wait for him. It's sink or swim when your production is out in the open for everybody to see.

Royce Lewis is hitting .174/.167/.217 in AAA in 24 PA while sitting in the hotel watching every game get rained out. Not sure how that benefits his conditioning or shows he's ready.

Great pitching vs. great results. Right now, the Twins starters are absolutely getting great results, but there is a substantial luck factor in play. Twins starting pitchers over the past 2 weeks? ERA = 2.34 = #1 in MLB xFIP = 3.89 = #12 in MLB It's critical to win games when the starting pitchers are getting results like this because regression says there's a 2 week stint in the future where the same quality 3.89 xFIP sees an ERA of 5.44. That aside... I don't see any similarities in roster construction between the Guardians and the Twins. The Guardians are younger and way cheaper. Their entire roster is built on the back of pre-arb guys they developed, and were even taught baseballs are for catching and throwing to other players, not kicking around the field like soccer or throwing past people like water polo. The Guardians' bigger contracts are way smaller than the Twins. The Guardians don't hoard their arb-eligible talent because they're too scared to let their young guys play. The Guardians play sound defense because it's easy to incorporate fundamentals and principles. It might not be as valuable as a good bat, but again, it's low-hanging fruit. The Guardians build their rotation on young guys because they can tolerate one struggling starter getting experience as Cleveland knows they can trade those players while they're still young and maximize value. The Guardians don't wait until their prospects burn their options in the minors as "depth" behind low-ceiling pickups before getting them experience to find out how good they are, and there's no room for Pablo Lopez's contract in Cleveland. The Guardians' only significant veteran contract in the rotation is for their 26 year old ace they developed in house from the 2021 draft and pitched near 2 full seasons with ERA's of 2.98 and 3.47 (back to back, both better than any Twins SP has produced in a TC cap). Cleveland locked Bibee up almost immediately when he was still pre-arb. How are those 2021 Twins draft picks doing? Well, the first 5 picks are no longer in our organization as we ditched all of them and got one useful player back in all the trades, but Christian MacLeod is looking fairly decent in AA... Speaking of developing pitching. Since Falvey's start with the Twins, the Guardians have drafted 15 pitchers in the top 3 rounds including 6 - 1st rounders. Falvey? 7 pitchers in the top 3 rounds, and only 2 - 1st rounders. That's because Falvey is smarter than everybody else in baseball and he knows all you have to do is grab an 11th rounder, teach him to throw 8mph faster and they'll become studs for sure! Teams like the Rays and Guardians understand young, team controlled, high quality starters are the most valuable pieces in baseball so the Rays and Guardians load up early in the draft, knowing they can acquire what they need or rebuild from the surplus value leftover after trading their young pitching talent (before they hit age 30, unlike Falvey's Twins). The Guardians and Rays are willing to accept a terrible season or two if it means they get to the World Series every decade. The Guardians also don't trade away their comp picks to shuttle off a couple million for a veteran starter who can't get it done anymore like Falvey did with Phil Hughes because draft picks are the life-blood of small/medium sized organizations. Of course, it's worth noting the Guardian aces who've won Cy Youngs and that kinda stuff can't compete against a generational talent like Bailey Ober if I am to believe some posters around here. C - a25 (p-arb) vs. a28 (arb1/$5MM) 1B - a39 (1y/$12MM) vs. a30 (1y/$1MM) 2B - a25 (p-arb) vs. a28 (arb3/$6MM) SS - a24 (p-arb) vs. a30 (6-10y/$200-285MM) 3B - a32 (7y/$141MM) vs. a26 (arb1/$2MM) LF - a27 (arb1/$4MM) vs. a31 (1y/$6MM) CF - a23 (p-arb) vs. a31 (7y/$105MM) RF - a23 (p-arb) vs. a27 (p-arb) DH - a24 (p-arb) vs. a28 (arb1/$2MM) SP1 - a26 (5y/$48MM) vs. a29 (4yr/$73.5MM) SP2 - a33 (arb1/$2MM) vs. a29 (arb1/$3MM) SP3 - a25 (p-arb) vs. a29 (arb1/$4MM) SP4 - a26 (p-arb) vs. a29 (3y/$13MM) SP5 - a26 (p-arb) vs. a24 (p-arb) RP1 - a27 (arb2/$4MM) vs. a27 (arb1/$4MM) RP2 - a26 (p-arb) vs. a30 (arb1/$2MM) RP3 - a32 (1y/$4.5MM) vs. a35 (1y/$3MM) The Guardians went to the World Series the year Falvey was hired and have followed it up with 5 more playoff appearances and 9 playoff wins while advancing 2x. Maybe they win playoff games because they're a good team who makes the playoffs, not a mediocre team playing in the worst division baseball has ever seen like how the Twins make it? After all, the Guardians have won 90 games FIVE TIMES since Falvey joined the Twins and the Twins have accomplished that just ONCE, in 2019 when almost the entire roster was composed of players from the previous regime. These types of articles do a disservice to the quality systems in place in successful organizations like Cleveland. If it's not clear to people the Twins front office, coaching staff and management does not have the solution for bringing a World Series competitive team to Minnesota yet, it never will be.