bean5302

Because... Falvey? It's too early to be making big roster moves for him. Spring Training hasn't officially reached the half way point where Falvey realizes he has 30+ 26 man roster guys.

Bader has never been replacement level in his career. He's never produced a season below 1.0 fWAR (save for his 92 PA rookie season). Bader ranked 15th of 27 MLB players with 300+ PA in CF last year, and he's still producing very good defensive numbers, unlike what happened with Margot. There are no promises Bader won't decline further. If he loses another step, it's likely he'd be of middling value (like Margot was), but Bader hasn't shown obvious signs of being inept like Margot did prior to Falvey selecting him. I'm not a huge fan of Bader. I'd haved liked it if Falvey spent money on legitimate plus value players instead of hording guys who are getting paid $5MM per year and hoping he gets a Carlos Santana career year rebound, but that's how Falvey works. Depth over quality. In that category of players, Bader is a better bet than most others.

The value of data/facts depends on how applicable the data set is to the conclusion. GIGO (garbage in-garbage out) is a real thing. Not saying @ashbury 's conclusion is incorrect, but as he noted, it's tough to pinpoint how perfect the data was when applying it to the Twins in specific scenarios.

AAA Level - ISO, wRC+ 2023 Aug - .265, wRC+ 88 Sep - .292, wRC+ 112 --------------------------- Overall - .278, wRC+ 100 ---------------------------- 2024 Apr - .146, wRC+ 51 (Includes March) May - .211, wRC+ 81 Jun - .263, wRC+ 219 Jul - .219, wRC+ 123 Aug - .094, wRC+ 68 Sep - .149, wRC+ 56 --------------------------- Overall - .180, wRC+ 101 Severino was hot 1 month, acceptable 2 months, and unplayable to poor (for 1B/DH AAA) 5 months. Overall, sure, he's got some pop if he's willing to be aggressive against MiLB pitchers, but he's been a streaky average overall for a AAA player at the plate.

You and I couldn't be on more opposite sides on Severino haha.

SSS analysis on Bader's splits. Bader was much better at the plate vs. LHP last year than RHP, the luck just wasn't with him. Career: vs. LHP .249/.314/.461 OPS .775 wRC+ 109 vs. RHP .239/.303/.367 OPS .670 wRC+ 84 2024 vs. LHP 6.5% BB, 18.3% K, .146 ISO (.213 BABIP) vs. RHP 3.9% BB, 23.6% K, .132 ISO (.311 BABIP) Seeing the pages and pages and pages of comments on Bader is just ridiculous. The Twins must have a starting caliber center fielder on the roster to back up Buxton. It is a MUST. A MUST. Bader fills that need at the bare minimum level. It's not because Buxton might get hurt and be out for a month, but because Buxton will miss no less than two months of time due to multiple injuries next year. In fact, Buxton typically misses at least three months per year due to various injuries. Austin Hays a29, sprint 27.1 ft/sec was abysmal in the corners last year and hasn't played more than a couple games in CF in years. Laureano a30, sprint 27.8 ft/sec was bad in the corners last year, and terrible in CF recent years. Grichuk a33, sprint 27.5 ft/sec was bad in the corners last year and had mixed metrics in CF years ago when he played it a little. None of those guys is a legitimate center fielder. Not even part-time. They're Manny Margot all over again. That's why those guys signed for cheap.

Just giving an off the cuff example representing Rocco's philosophy and how it has seemingly hurt the team over and over again throughout the year in various situations. I've done actual data analysis before, but I didn't feel like going into it. Comments have been made about how Baldelli allowed Kepler to bat against lefties, but Keplers PA/G vs. lefties has been steadily dropping for years as Baldelli platooned him more and more. It's the situational thing.

Three problems. 1) Keirsey is 99.99% not going to be "great" and I'd say there's an 80% chance he's not even serviceable. Martin projects as a better hitter and Martin's fielding in the minors was arguably better, and that's rough.. 2) Nobody even knows who Keirsey is away from this forum. He was #27 in the org back in 2019, and hasn't otherwise been on an MLB top 30 prospects list for the Twins. Most people are going to assume he's just some random journeyman cast off or exclaim "who's that guy? Twins bottom of the barrel feeding once again! cheap Pohlads!" when they see him on the scoreboard. 3) Selling 1 ticket (Keirsey) vs 0 tickets (Bader) doesn't make an impact worth noting.

Not at all. I was refuting the argument which was: Utility Player = Backup. Position Player = Starter. My feel on Castro is he's clearly been deployed as a starter (as he's earned through performance), but in a utility player role. I also think Baldelli should have picked a position for Castro because he'd have provided more value with a fixed position. Probably could have clarified my position a little more.

Looking at PA/G vs. RHP and LHP illustrates Baldelli's approach. We've all seen how quickly Baldelli pulls pitchers and batters for platoon matchups. It's not about how the game starts in a lot of cases. It has seemingly put the Twins at a significant disadvantage later in games. i.e. Wallner starts the game against a RHP. In inning 6, the opposing team goes to a LHP out of the bullpen. Baldelli pulls Wallner in favor of Margot. Wallner gets 2 plate appearances, Margot gets 3 plate appearances (1 against a LHP, 2 against RHP)

You clearly did not read the discourse because you just agreed with me.

Well, to be fair, Joe Pohlad is not an owner of the Twins. The ownership group is Jim, Bill, and Bob. Joe Pohlad is the spokesperson/facilitator for ownership. Saying Joe is an owner is like saying the press secretary is the president.

Here is a list of the player who had the most plate appearances at every given position: C - 339, Jeffers 1B - 577, Santana 2B - 279, Julien 3B - 292, Miranda SS - 361, Correa LF - 184, Larnach CF - 366, Buxton RF - 129, Wallner DH - 118, Lewis* *Larnach also led the team in PA at DH, Lewis was #2 at DH at 119 PA. Do you see Castro on that list? No because he wasn't the starter at any position on the team.

I will continue to advocate the position somebody's positional flexibility can be summed up based on how much performance loss the team sees when switching from the starter to Castro vs. the normal backup. If Castro were a full season player (assuming he could handle the position health-wise), here's what I'd expect he'd produce. Defensive Rating-ish DRS/UZR/OAA C* - 1.0 WAR, Has not played, project Awful/Awful/Awful 1B - 1.5 WAR, Has not played, project Neutral/Neutral/Neutral 2B - 2.5 WAR, Awful/Poor/Neutral 3B - 3.0 WAR, Neutral/Plus/Plus SS - 3.0 WAR, Poor/Poor/Neutral LF - 2.5 WAR, Awful/Poor/Neutral CF - 2.0 WAR, Awful/Awful/Awful RF - 3.0 WAR, Excellent/Plus/Neutral DH - 1.0 WAR, N/A *Castro would be the most offensively valuable catcher on the team, hands down. He's got a strong enough arm, and umpires have gotten pretty good with the strike zone. Castro would have like... a lot of passed balls. Maybe -20 runs as a catcher defensively? He'd still be better than Christian Vazquez, but Castro would break down almost immediately because of the extreme load on the legs so it's a moot point. Castro is not a typical utility player. His talent is being wasted by the Twins. Instead of giving Castro every day time at a position when he has the tools to become good or better defensively at every position on the field, Baldelli deploys him as a utility player. As to how much utility he really adds, compare value to the backup.

What's fun about these types of excuses for player performance is we can test it a bit by using Statcast Metrics in Fangraphs and BaseballSavant. Mountcastle hit 13 HR last year playing 1/2 his games in Oriole Park. If he played all his games at Target Field, he'd literally have hit 15 HR. As far as changing his approach to use more of the field, I don't see compelling evidence of that. Since the Orioles are rolling back changes to their left field which should help Mountcastle a bit, but unless Mountcastle fixes his swing to reduce the grounders, I don't think he's due for a big positive swing up. He's a wRC+ 110 kind of hitter, heavily limited by his inability to take walks. He's honestly very similar to Jose Miranda IMHO. Now, in regard to what it would cost to get a guy who isn't likely to outhit Jose Miranda, BTV says +9.2 MM in value so a relatively low value package should get the job done. Jose Miranda is +16ish in value for reference.

Pretty common for guys to lose 1mph on average EV from AAA to MLB. Max for Eeles was 107.0mph. You're right that very few MLB hitters do well at 85-86mph EVs range, but there are a couple. Arraez, Kwan, Altuve. Eeles' batted ball data shows 50% GB rate and a 17% pop up rate on fly balls. Both would traditionally be very poor indicators. Given his age, fringy batted ball data, and the scouting reports, I think Eeles would sneak into my top 20, but he'll need to do more to rise above that. Of course, if Eeles does a lot more, he'll probably get called up and fall off the prospects list either through losing rookie status or flopping.

Correct. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/incentive-clause

High draft pick pedigree status. Teams always seem willing to grant additional opportunity and more resources to high rounders. Probably a function of trying to reclaim sunk costs.

Detroit would have been over the moon if Baez would have been available at league minimum on a one year contract.

I'm super concerned at how these signings are going to take playing time away from Anthony Prato. I mean, he's earned playing time considering his 2023 was clearly proof he figured everything out and he was just a late bloomer. I'm sure the .387 BABIP for Prato was going to hold consistent, just like that .370 BABIP for Keirsey is a sign of stable production.

Eeles definitely needs some time to prove out his game in AAA, but the 260 PA sample is encouraging. I suspect he's going to be deployed as a utility infield guy rather than at a static position. 2B-SS-3B. How much SS time probably depends on what veteran the Twins acquire for depth and how they feel about giving Holland a full time SS position to start the season. He's ranked a little too low on 2024 prospect lists AFAIC, hopping in at like #30 EoY for MLB and NR for Fangraphs, but he might move around a little for 2025 lists. As was mentioned previously, his batted ball data I saw at a glance was similar to Brooks Lee, but a bit weaker than Lee. Batted ball data from MiLB isn't nearly as reliable.

Paddack had a disappointing season in 2020 Paddack had a disappointing season in 2021 Paddack had a disappointing season in 2022 Paddack had a disappointing season in 2023 Paddack had a disappointing season in 2024 Fixed that :) On another note, the Marlins are probably in some serious hot water regarding payroll, and I don't think they're likely to be able to fix it. Nobody wants to play for them. Probably even worse than the Athletics' reputation at this point.

Joe Pohlad's marketing prowess on full display... the Minnesota Mariners!!!! errr. Twins!!

Nobody is blocking Emmanuel Rodriguez. If Rodriguez continues to rake at AAA, the Twins will put him into the lineup. Larnach or Wallner can easily be moved to DH, which is a position the Twins don't honestly have anybody to play right now. Martin can easily be optioned. That all assumes Larnach or Castro is even on the roster to open the season.

Brooks Lee doesn't have the tools to be effective as a shortstop, and he didn't hit well enough to play the position as a starter even if he did have the tools. How much of Lee's struggles were related to the back and arm issues... at age 23 is pretty unknown. What is known at this point is the Twins don't think he's a SS at the MLB level. Willi Castro has been a very poor shortstop with mixed fielding metrics last year. He has the tools necessary to play the position, but I don't know as he'll be on the opening day roster. The Twins' plan just seems so unpredictable. It feels as if Falvey thinks they have a 36-man active roster every offseason only to be reminded it's a 26-man roster before the start of the season. Royce Lewis is the only player on the Twins with multiple years of team control who isn't a burden on the payroll with the physical tools to play SS at the MLB level. The Twins coaches have been unable to help him address his throwing accuracy problems. Lewis was viewed as the 2023 primary SS by the organization after Correa opted out, but before Correa was brought back. Seems the Twins have written him off as a potential SS. The Twins tried hard to make Austin Martin into a shortstop, but his arm and fielding errors made him into a defensive liability. Martin did make a major leap forward at 2B in 2023 grading out very well compared to his peers in the International League so the Twins, not wanting to promote quality defense, promptly moved him to a utility outfield position. Martin has the physical tools to succeed at 2B, but his instincts really seem poor. He's not a viable SS. Jose Miranda and Edouard Julien are non-starters in the SS discussion. Payton Eeles will be 25, and had an amazing storybook year, but like DaShawn Keirsey, Jr., there are reasons to doubt the sustainability of Eeles' plate production. While Eeles acquitted himself well during limited playing time at SS in St. Paul, scouting reports do not like his arm strength for the position. Then again, scouts didn't like anything in his game and he's proven to be better than the vast majority of prospects. Will Holland is a slick fielding shortstop and utility player who looked good last year, but he broke his leg in late June. The Twins wound up transferring him to the 60 day IL after a month when it became apparent the injury wouldn't see Holland return quickly. It wound up ending his season. He was drafted in the 5th round as an older Junior (a21 season) out of Auburn in 2019, and the bat hasn't historically been there with very high K rates through AA, and he's now entering his age 27 season. His K rate dropped two consecutive years even with promotions, and it was fair at 21.4% in AAA, but it could just be a function of experience and polish. The power showed up last year in a SSS out of nowhere. He's probably viewed as the replacement for Michael Helman this year. Untrusted emergency depth, but with a hint of potential. The top SS's in St. Paul (nothing worth noting in Wichita) last year were Rylan Bannon 274 innings (MiLB free agent) Michael Helman 264 innings (traded to Cardinals for cash) Diego #2 Castillo 188.1 innings (MiLB free agent) Payton Eeles 184.1 innings Will Holland 170.0 innings The Twins adding a veteran guy like a Diego Castillo or Luis Urias is possibly just a move for some high floor AAA depth IMHO. I can't see them signing a definite MLB caliber player unless they move Castro.