bean5302

Also, this article reads a lot like the Dobnak fan (or was it 2) who were running around the forums taunting everybody after Dobnak made a couple nice emergency long relief appearances for the Twins.

Bostock is a tragic tale for sure, but he only really had one Twins HoF / Baseball HoF worthy season aided by the highest BABIP and by far the highest ISO of his career.

Seems like league median is a .425 SLG against 4 seamers. A hitter with a .544 SLG against fastballs would rank about 85% percentile. One of the issues with grading a pitch on its own is whether or not the pitch helps a different offering. That's why Stuff+ compares pitches with each other to determine how pitches can feed off one another. If the fastball and a changeup break different directions and have a big difference in velocity, but look the same coming out of the hand, it can elevate both pitches beyond what they are on their own.

I think Boras is probably as powerful or even more powerful than ever since he's undoubtedly seen as a stabilizing force for players. There have been good/bad/failed agencies over the years, but Boras' agency isn't going to to a bad job. Apart from a couple messy outcomes recently, Boras' clients seem to be pretty happy. I think Boras has also adapted with the times.

Rooker produced more seasonal WAR in 2024 than any player on the Twins who has ever played under Falvey. Oh, I take that back. Sonny Gray's 2023 was a little higher value so we cast him off, too. Even Rooker's 2023 was better than almost any season of any Falvey drafted/developed player. Though Rooker would have made a lousy Twins player since he's not hurt enough.

Nobody was angry with the Twins pursuing a pitcher of Mahle's caliber, though I certainly wish they had aimed higher. Most of the fanbase was angry Falvey made the move immediately after Mahle came off the IL for shoulder fatigue and the Twins didn't do any due diligence on the arm, and it just so happened to turn out the arm was a mess. Like what feels like far too many of Falvey's moves to accumulate every injured or injury prone player in baseball.

Stuff+ has Festa's fastball as 100 (50 grade) last year and 104 (still 50 grade) this year. Given the sample size for Festa, it's tough to pull much more from the data. All it takes is a couple poorly placed pitches and the number of runs allowed can really move around.

Another 48 pitch start for Prielipp, and this time he got through 3 innings. It's nice that he's not walking almost anybody. Hopefully, he stays healthy, bumps that efficiency up just a little and he's able to keep moving forward. I don't get the kid gloves on Raya again this year. He hasn't exactly been efficient, putting too many runners on base, but the whole 50 pitch max stuff makes no sense. Again, is he a reliever or a starter?

Not really. Prime Maeda, Berrios, Pineda, Hill, pre-finger Dobnak. Org Top 10 SP prospects. Jordan Balazovic (#85 overall), Jhoan Duran, Blayne Enlow, Lewis Thorpe

My own research and comparisons between the various stuff+ grades pitches got me to break it out as a 10pt for 5pt on a scouting scale. I was further validated by the very image you reposted by Thomas Nestico image you posted. In the fine print in the image: Now, you could argue 50 grade should be 95-104 instead of 100-109, but it's splitting hairs really. It actually makes Zebby's progress look worse: Old: Fastball (50), Curve (55), Cutter (45), Changeup (45), Slider (55) New: Fastball (55), Curve (55), Cutter (50), Changeup (50), Slider (55)

I didn't miss the point. I did my best to give your position even a shred of undeserved credibility. Rocco IS a big part of the problem.

Well, we have multiple problems so there's no point fixing any of them because fixing just one item probably might not maybe solve all our issues. Everything is fine.

This is about how I have Stuff+ 35 = 70-79 40 = 80-89 = (Cutter 89, Changeup 89) 45 = 90-99 = (Fastball 97), Cutter 97 (40 -> 45) 50 = 100-109 = (Slider 105, Curve 105), Changeup 105 (40 -> 50), Curve 105 (stayed 50) 55 = 110-119 = Fastball 111 (45 -> 55), Slider 113 (50 -> 55) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plus pitches 60 = 120-129 = 65 = 130-139 = 70 = 140-149 = 75 = 150-159 = 80 = 160+ So Zebby's stuff plus has gone up, but he still doesn't have a single "plus" pitch. IMHO, going from a borderline 45 grade pitch to a 50 grade pitch or a borderline 50 grade pitch to a 55 grade isn't some huge leap. He's better, and that's great, but he hasn't improved like Jax did from the rotation to the 'pen or something.

1. Cutting payroll immediately after the playoffs. I tacked on 2024 to my season tickets during the Blue Jays playoffs, the Pohlads took every bit of fan momentum they had and absolutely trashed it. Selling my club level tickets as low as $18 a seat last year burned. 2. TV debacle. Whatever potential their was to bring fans back into the fold was destroyed when the Twins awarded Dave St. Peter with another year of running the show and the subsequent re-upping with Diamond Sports despite the obvious issues. Speaking as somebody who dumped a ton of money into the Twins last year, I was pretty infuriated because it hurt the value of my purchase. 3. Correa jersey day. I had a friend fly in from out of town. We arrived before the gates opened. Season ticket holder line ran out of jerseys before the main line. Are you serious? The team doesn't care about its season ticket holder base (a few other things I was disappointed with as a season ticket holder in previous years as well). I was down right po'ed. I was pretty much done at this point. 4. No move at the deadline. Really? After all they screwed up, they weren't even willing to make it up to the fans by doing right by us. After all the bungling, at least making a trade deadline move as a good will gesture was the least they could do. 5. We're selling! But not really. Way to telegraph the ownership was done with owning the team and didn't believe in the fan base. Then, set a sky high price to pay off their other business debt, botch negotiations, and throw a few bucks into the payroll to pretend to make it all up? The Pohalds have made quite a few moves over the past few years which have hurt the fan base. The playoff win in 2023 made up for a lot of it, but they immediately set to work on destroying any good will the fans had one the Astros series was over.

I think this article is correct about this being who the Twins are. That said, it's not who the Twins should be. It's been reported the Twins' locker room had some issues, certainly not unexpected based on what happened to end the season, and the decisions made by the front office this past offseason and spring. One thing feels pretty clear. Baldelli has lost this team.

The same reason the writer blamed the umps. Frustration. When nothing is going your way, even little things can set you off. Unlike us fans, Provus and Morneau are personal friends with some of those guys on the field so it's natural to take it personally.

This is the part I'm arguing with. Julien's got a BABIP of .133 over the past 5 games. The 86.4mph exit velocity with a 33.3% hard hit rate isn't great, but it's hardly terrible enough to warrant a .133 BABIP. The guy's been hitting the ball pretty good this year.

Man, once the writers of this site start a narrative, it's just gospel. The guys worse at the plate this year than Eddie Julien. Brooks Lee Carlos Correa Trevor Larnach Mickey Gasper Jose Miranda Christian Vazquez DaShawn Keirsey Over his last 10 games, Julien is .270/.317/.432 OPS .749 wRC+ 115

From what I've seen, Ryan had been a little high strung and pretty quick to pout. That said, I think he's grown up a lot over the past couple of seasons. There's plenty of frustration across the players, I'm sure, and it makes it easy to override the professional conduct. It's easy to forget that Joe Ryan is only 28 years old (speaking from a more experienced age). He might not be a young prospect from the baseball profession perspective, but as a human, most of these guys are in their 20s. The Braves have genuine superstars on their roster. Chris Sale is dealing, but making a few mistakes with a BABIP over .400, his results are going to come. Spencer Strider is back, Acuna looks like he'll be back next month, and the Braves won the World Series just a couple years ago. They're legit, and they know how to handle themselves. The only person I think can save the Twins' season is Royce Lewis. He's the only guy with the potential star power and attitude who can change the direction of the team, but it's clear the last few years have really hammered him down. The odds he can not only stay healthy, but also regain his form, and turn the tide are pretty long.

It's possible the Twins are foolishly limiting pitch count. It's my very strong opinion that routine prevents injury and Baldelli, in particular, seems to randomly decide to pull a guy after 70 pitches or let them go to 100 pitches on the next start. I don't know what the overall front office perspective is, but guys in the minors who you expect to be in MLB during the season shouldn't be seeing a workload spike of 40-50% when they get to the big show IMHO. Baldelli has a long history of wearing a bullpen out to the point of near exhaustion by August only to watch everything collapse. I don't like the look.

The Twins' hitters are absolutely floundering out there. For every hitter who looks like they're coming out of a slump, there are 3-4 starting one or going back into one.

Definitely all the umps' fault Ryan gave up 8 hits. If Ryan would have only gotten that strikeout with 3 fewer pitches that inning, it would have been a shutout for sure.

The Blue Jays just made their very own Chris Davis contract. I expect this contract to age like Ryan Howard, Chris Davis and Prince Fielder.

Happy vs. acceptable. Miranda did everything he could to blow his chances, and I'm not happy about that.

Hope that's not the case, but I fear you're right. If he's wearing out at 70 pitches now, he'll be a totally dead arm by August.