bean5302

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.

Tender/tight upper back. Sounds minor.

Yep. Can't be reaching for that hammy like that. He's not ready, and everybody knows Royce will push through pain. Should be optioned back to AAA and give him at least a week off or suffer another 2 month loss after yet another major lower body injury causing more cascading issues. I can't think of a player handled more poorly by an organization.

With a .500 BABIP and a .105 ISO in Cedar Rapids, I left the 22 year old college slugger Amick off my top 20.

I'd still like to see 200 PA for McCusker before calling him up. He was not great last year in AAA, and getting a good sample size is important. McCusker is still making adjustments and progressing in St. Paul right now. I'd like him to be as good as he reasonably can be before the Twins call him up. The plate production for the Twins has been pretty miserable this year so I get the desire to see a huge bat in the lineup, but McCusker is going to be .150/.200/.350 with a 5% BB and 50% K rate at MLB if he's not ready.

Part 1: [Gleeman] Rocco Baldelli was talking about the importance of giving players days off to avoid wearing down. Then he turned to Justin Morneau in the back of the room and asked: "You ever play all 162?" "I played 163." Amazing flex. (Morneau played 163 in 2008 and was runner-up for MVP.) Part 2: There was basically no news on Miranda until he showed up in the Saints lineup on 5/9. He's 0-6 with a BB and 2 Ks right now.

.245/.321/.395 OPS .716 wRC+ 105 is really good for a guy with no defensive or base running value? He's sitting at 0.1 WAR, on pace for 0.3 WAR in a full season as a starter. Larnach's xwOBA is a little higher than his actual, but that's been the case every single year of his career so his productivity as a league average bat is right on point. Last year was the only year he's earned a starting roster spot. There isn't a ton different in his plate discipline, but a couple things are really sticking out. First, Larnach is struggling against fastballs which is shocking to see. Second, Larnach is hitting changeups, which is equally shocking. It's a 180* flip from his traditional results. He's also been trading fly balls for grounders. I'm not sure if this is a new approach, but it won't work if the tradeoff is hitting grounders off changeups than fly balls off fastballs.

The Orioles are at $165MM of payroll, up from $109MM last year, and up from $69MM the year before. They offered Burnes more money than Arizona, but Burnes wanted to play close to his home in Scottsdale. They tried to replace Corbin Burnes with Morton and Sugano. Sorry your guys are hurt. If the Twins lost Lopez to another team last year and watched Ryan and Ober go down with injuries, I'm pretty sure they'd be struggling this year.

I don't think it's fair to look only at drafting/int'l signings and development. I seem to recall 50% of a team's WAR should come from drafted/developed players under team control for sustainability. Of course, that means a guy like Buxton doesn't count even though he was home grown since he long passed the initial team control period. That said, trades and free agent signings are usually a big portion of mid-market team successes and the Twins have landed some significant contracts in that realm under Falvey. I do think it's fair to look at Falvey's front office and evaluate them based on facts and actual production rather than hopes and dreams. In this case, I'm just touching on the draft/development (probably most important IMHO) piece of a front office's job. Hopes and dreams and projections don't count. Royce Lewis absolutely has the talent to win an MVP and put up an 8 WAR season at shortstop; however, his unending injury history along with poor coaching and management have certainly damaged his production. Ceilings don't matter to me because, in professional sports you either win or lose.

Endless excuses and no data. Sounds about right. Resources? Try the very highest payroll in the AL Central over Falvey's time here.

Draft and development. No mulligans, no buts. Every team has their version of Joe Ryan they've watched grow. Either at the plate or on the mound. Cleveland 2024 Pos SP RP Draft Tot Percent 8.2 4.7 2.9 15.8 35.5 45% The Tampa Bay Rays are a truly... "unique" franchise. Virtually nobody on their roster was drafted/developed by them. There were only 2 bit players on their roster they drafted and developed themselves last year. Taylor Walls (SS) -0.2 WAR, drafted 2017, and Mason Montgomery (RP) 0.3 WAR, drafted 2021. The strategy used by Tampa is to draft tons of pitchers, develop them, get them to the big show and trade them for tons of prospects. Then fill out the roster holes with cheap, short term veterans. From a market efficiency standpoint, it's worked pretty well for the team; however, this model sucks as it's not expandable to other teams due to there being a finite supply of each component used to build the Rays' roster. I absolutely give credit to Falvey for implementing new technology and a greatly expanded analytics system. The actual results from his efforts, though are not as good as Bill Smith or Terry Ryan (development wise).

Matthews max velocity back up to 97.8mph yesterday. I'm glad to see it. I don't think it's any coincidence the velo returned, and so did a performance we've come to expect for Matthews. Makes me think this new found velocity might mean his stamina will need close monitoring as the season progresses. Nice to see Emma delivering with some power. It's a good sign. I dropped him all the way down to #8 on my prospects list a couple weeks ago as he hadn't hit a single homer in his first 100 PA in AAA. If Rodriguez can deliver as a power threat, it'll offset the likelihood he struggles as much as Julien. I think maybe 1 more status quo start, and it'll be time to replace Raya with one of our AA starters. Anybody else concerned about Jarret Worff's usage? He's already got 19.2 innings this year as a reliever, on pace for well over 80 innings this year. Lots of 2-3 inning relief appearances followed by 3-4 days rest. Glad to see his doing so well, but it seems like an abnormal usage.