bean5302

Ramirez is interesting. Despite having plus speed at one point, he's been pretty poor in the outfield in part due to his limited arm. Also, as his frame has expanded (5'11" and 232lbs listed now), his once elite sprint speed has waned. The Nationals deployed him exclusively as a DH when they got him. Not sure what happened to his swing last year, but he transformed into a ground ball machine, and I'm sure the sudden decline of Tim Anderson spooked plenty of teams holding on to similar players. I wouldn't bank on Ramirez rebounding, but he's worth a MiLB signing. If I were the Twins, I'd deploy him to the OF to see if he can handle it.

I think the Twins can just roll with Jeffers as-is, but it'd maybe be fine to buy out a year or two of free agency on the cheap given the Twins utter lack of depth. He's under team control for 2 years a28-a29, and 2.0 WAR catchers haven't exactly made out like bandits. 2023 was an illusion powered by a .359 BABIP, and I can't see it happening again, but Jeffers is still a solid catcher IMHO. An average, 2 WAR kinda guy in 120 games or something. I think 4 years and $30MM would lock Jeffers up. 2025 - $6MM 2026 - $8MM 2027 - Free agent contract = 2yrs at $8-12MM/yr. Total 4yrs $30-38MM If we look at a similar catcher Danny Jensen just got 1yr $8.5MM coming off a down year. James McCann got 4yrs at $10MM at age 30 in free agency coming off two very good seasons. Maybe Jeffers would be more aggressive at betting on himself, but there's a lot to gamble there that he beats $30MM over the next 4 years. I don't want to lock him up beyond that. Catchers don't typically age well, and Jeffers can't afford to take much of a step back and still justify a long term contract.

I agree with you on SWR. Lots of red flags on him. The breakdown from BTV is: 36.3 AFV (about 4 WAR over the next 6 years) 17.1 MM Expected Salary FGDC/Steamer expect a 4.66 ERA next year.

Was just trying to find a way to give your position a little credibility. The Twins can acquire another team's controlled pre-arb/arb players any time they want regardless of whether or not the player likes it or utterly despises the Twins. The Twins' projections, player values, etc all depend on other teams and players. You cannot even get the starting value to measure anything in the Twins' organization without considering market value to other organizations, period. Calling a multi-million dollar organization with a long standing high quality track record of accuracy cited by the largest sources of MLB publishing in the biz a fun little tool is ridiculous.

Yep. Exactly this.

I think your argument would be more clear with an analogy. Like The Twins are not going to trade their 5 starters for 5 left fielders of equal value since the Twins don't need 5 left fielders. I still don't agree because assets can always be acquired or distributed as the Twins could turn around and trade their acquired 5 left fielders for 5 now missing rotation arms.

It's like saying a pineapple isn't a single fruit, it's a cluster of berries (it is, technically, but it's not used that way). The article does not clearly state it's not about trade values. It opines that it's not exclusively about league-wide trade values, but then describes exactly what trade value is based on a league-wide methodology like relief pitchers being in abundance. If this was specifically a Twins-centric evaluation, Julien would be top 10 because he could find himself in 1 of the 2 most deficient positions on the club last year in 2B or DH. Baseballtradevalues accounts for projected production, controllability, upside, contract, and availability. There is no way to separate the Twins from the league in this regard because if the Twins need something, they can just acquire it either locally or from another organization. i.e. if there were 50 free agent 2B on the market, the Twins couldn't care less how good their 2B prospects are as they're easy to replace.

The problem with these kinds of articles is how fickle the emotions of the fan base are. Here's about how things stand since well after the season ended over at BTV. I think I saw proposals for all these guy except Emmanuel Rodriguez who it seems no fanbase either wants to acquire or wants to trade away. Personally, I disagree with some of these, but that's why a site like BTV exists. To help correct fan bias. Jenkins +58.4 Ober +54.1 Ryan +53.5 Lopez +47.8 Lewis +47.3 Rodriguez +45? Nobody is asking for him on BTV Wallner +38.1 Lee +37.0 Jax +28.8 Correa +25.8 Duran +24.7 Keaschall +23.3 Larnach +22.6 Festa +19.5 SWR +19.1 Julien +16.5 Jeffers +16.2 Miranda +16.1 Matthews +12.9 Buxton +10.4

Gonzalez is packing on pounds and eating his way out of a potential CF position quickly. Unfortunately, despite the weight gain, he's lost the mediocre power he was showing in previous years, and if he's going to eat his way out of defensive premium positions, he's going to need that power. It's not like he's a non-prospect, but just holding his own at A+ in his 3rd professional season wasn't the big year a lot of people hoped he'd have. Mercedes hasn't had much of an opportunity to show what he's got at a level which is projectable so it's hard to say much about him. Being good in a second go 'round of rookie ball is the bare minimum level of performance to be considered a legitimate prospect. At the same time, it's tough to hold a 47 PA sample size against him with a .227 BABIP.

Bleacher Report has the Twins as the 22nd ranked farm system. Conveniently ignored in this article is the fact Festa, Lee and Matthews all graduated from rookie status. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10136313-final-mlb-farm-system-rankings-of-the-2024-season So yeah, if you're banking on the rank as of July or August, the Twins had a top farm system. If you're talking about BoY 2024 to EoY 2024, it took a step back.

You are making a dishonest, strawman argument. Nobody is arguing analytics shouldn't play a role in team management.

At the moment, assuming a AAA replacement team would win 45 games in a season, FGDC shows Twins +45.0 WAR (90 wins) Royals +40.9 WAR (86 wins) Tigers +40.0 WAR (85 wins) Guardians +38.1 WAR (83 wins) White Sox +22.0 WAR (67 wins) I expect the Twins to lose some WAR and the Royals and Tigers to pick some up. The Tigers, in particular, have been connected to many big names this offseason like Flaherty, Bregman, Santander, Ha-seong Kim, Fedde, etc. The Royals haven't been mentioned much, but India and Massey are both candidates to significantly outperform the FGDC expectations. The Royals have been on record regarding the pursuit of a big bat for the middle of the order. On the rotation side, they're moving Bubic back into the rotation. If he's able to perform similar to last year in the rotation instead of the 'pen, there's major upside there, too. The biggest difference in the Royals and Tigers vs. the Twins is the expectation both Kansas City and Detroit could easily add $40MM to their payroll right now. The Twins are expected to cut $10MM.

Does anybody believe Rocco doesn't make decisions almost exclusively based on analytics and pre-determined strategy? Baldelli does not employ analytics the same way other teams do; Baldelli appears to employ analytics (spreadsheets/databases) to the extreme end of MLB organizations blurring the line between Baldelli being a data analyst and an MLB manager. Implying Baldelli's decision making process is robotic, and that it lacks a feel for the game feels pretty fair to me, and it has nothing to do with the "the way modern baseball is played" it has to do with the way Baldelli's Twins teams have played baseball. Baldelli's record in 2019-2024 isn't great. The 2020 season is kind of a lame duck, and Baldelli's teams have truly earned a division title only once in 5 full season years, in 2019 when the team won 101 games. They've never won more than 87 games in a full season otherwise (under Falvey/Molitor, either), and no team other than the Twins, in the pitiful AL Central, has won a division title with fewer than 88 wins during Baldelli's (or Falvey's) tenure. In 6 seasons, Baldelli's teams have won 3 playoff games and been swept out in their 2 playoff appearances. Baldelli's teams have missed the playoffs for 3 of the past 4 years where only 3 of 5 teams were competitive. Since Falvey's start in 2017, the division win in 2023 represents the only time a division has been won with fewer than 88 wins in a full season. In fact, there's less than a 1 in 10 shot a division winner has less than 90 wins (7.7%) and less than 90 wins hasn't even been a 50/50 shot at the Wildcard. If you want to excuse Baldelli for missing the playoffs 3 of 4 seasons, armed with a huge payroll advantage, in a division where 3 of 5 teams were undergoing full rebuilds, where the only other competitive team ran a payroll 50% lower than Baldelli's teams, where his team won fewer games than any other division winner in a full season in modern history, and the results included 2 late season collapses in 3 years, feel free. Set that bar right on the ground. Make all the excuses you like. Just know for every argument you make, I (and many others) see much stronger counterarguments as to why Baldelli isn't a good manager.

I don't know. Kyle Hart doesn't strike me as a guy I'd be too confident in. Hart seems to be more a guy who just went to the equivalent of AA and was better. His K rate jumped, his BB rate dropped and he gave up far fewer hits. Hart's last go 'round state side was in AAA at age 30 where he put together 88 innings of 4.58 ERA pitching with 8.7 K/9, 3.6 BB/9 while allowing an astronomical 9.9 hits per 9. Eric Fedde had a substantial MLB track record and he underwent some major changes from his shoulder injury recovery, mechanics and pitch offerings. With all the changes, he was absolutely dominant in the KBO. Fedde was pitching at the MLB level at age 24. Fedde vs. Hart in the KBO, then Fedde in MLB 2023 Fedde - 180.1 IP, 2.00 ERA, 2.38 FIP, 2.29 xFIP, 29.5% K, 4.9% BB, 0.95 WHIP 2024 Hart - 157.0 IP, 2.69 ERA, 3.28 FIP, 3.53 xFIP, 28.8% K, 6.0% BB, 1.03 WHIP 2024 Fedde - 177.1 IP, 3.30 ERA, 3.86 FIP, 4.12 xFIP, 21.2% K, 7.2% BB, 1.16 WHIP Merrill Kelly was good in AAA at ages 24 and 25, unlike Kyle Hart, who has never enjoyed success in the high minors. Kelly's AAA line in 2014 was 114 IP, 2.76 ERA, 1.26 WHIP. He was serviceable in MLB after coming back, but it took years before Kelly became "good." It'll be interesting to see what happens with Hart. If the same regression which happened for Fedde happens with Hart, you'd be looking at: 2025 Hart - 155 IP, 4.44 ERA, 5.32 FIP, 7.40 xFIP, 20.7% K, 8.8% BB, 1.26 WHIP

If he's taking a long term view of things... I don't know if the people talking to me today will be in the organization at the end of the year. I don't know if the philosophies being advocated today will still be aligned with the organization at the end of the year. I don't know if the team will be sold at all. I don't know if the new owners will be good owners, provided the team is sold. I don't know if this team will actually make the playoffs in the near future or if it will be burned down and rebuilt. Poor attendance, lack of recent performance, team up for sale, questionably competitive now. I'd be surprised if the Twins even get the opportunity to talk to Sasaki.

Chris Williams (assuming the guy being talked about) is not under contract with the Twins. The Twins non-tendered him, he elected MiLB free agency and signed with the Mets.

It's obviously "Been" but yeah, didn't know if it was some trendy new word for a second... Martin has little valuable upside left from what I've seen. I'd have liked to see him play 2B more last year to see if he could handle the position at the MLB level because that seems his most likely path to playing time. Martin's lack of ability to square up balls results in poor exit velocities and minimal power projection, but he's serviceable at the plate due to his disicipline. Unfortunately, his defensive instincts leave quite a bit to be desired. I think Martin's likely ceiling is a 1 WAR utility guy.

Baldelli runs his team based on analytics, and I'm not sure why you're so obstinate about trying to fight that concept or is it just that "spreadsheet" is offensive now? If spreadsheet is now an offensive term, I can always add a trigger warning to my posts or perhaps I can use a less offensive term like "grid" or "table" "array" or "matrix" if you like? By the way, when is late season criticism of collapses allowed? Does Baldelli have to oversee 20 or 30 years of late season collapses until there are enough collapses which mirror each other before criticism can be levied?

No idea with this one. How is Mike Ford better than Yunior Severino? I just don't understand the appeal of this one at all, even on a MiLB contract. After Ford was cut by the Reds in May of last year he had to settle for a contract with the Yokohama Bay Stars, and he couldn't even stay on their top level club. First, Ford spent most of his season in the Eastern League (which is basically MiLB for Japan). In Japanese MiLB play, Ford started off at the top level Bay Stars in the Central League where he put together a short and dreadful .200/.273/.350 OPS .623 performance. After that, he was demoted to the Eastern League where he was still very weak (ranked 9th on the team for players with 100+ PA) with a .211/.281/.429 OPS .709 output. Why was this signing made? Even as MiLB depth, there have to be better options out there.

I can't say if Baldelli is a lame duck manager. If a new owner buys the team, probably. If the Pohlads don't complete a sale, Baldelli is probably back.

This reads like hubris for a team which missed the playoffs by a few games. If Baldelli's often perplexing decisions couldn't have possibly cost the Twins the playoffs, then the Twins should trade him to another team who wants him for cost savings because he adds zero value. In fact, why even employ a traditional baseball manager? Just have an entry level data analyst at $50k a year making calls based on a printed spreadsheet. I don't see the advantage in late season collapses to teach players something when they happen every other year so somebody needs to clue me in on that. The Twins were in 1st place on Sept 4th in 2022 only to fail to make the playoffs. The Twins were in WC#2 with a 95% chance of making the playoffs on Sept 4th in 2024 only to fail again. If it was so valuable to have a last minute collapse to the season, wouldn't 2022 have taught the Twins something?

Sure, it's as easy as the Twins pushing to a $150MM payroll. I wouldn't mind seeing the Twins do that, but I just don't see it happening. Falvey still hasn't moved ill-advised expenditure pieces like Paddack or Vazquez. That's low hanging fruit in terms of adding a bat which could help the team, but given Falvey's failures the past few years at moving assets he was expected to part with, this isn't surprising.

I'm not surprised. I was responding to the comment by @JD-TWINS who was expecting positive regression due to Castro's drop off from 2.7 WAR in 2023 to 1.6 WAR he was apparently attributing to an OPS change.

It's a 1 year MLB deal, but I haven't seen the reports on the details yet. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/cubs-sign-caleb-thielbar.html

There might be something to the skill or the metric in general. Catcher physical dimensions matter a lot. Taller catchers generally find it easier to get high strikes called and shorter catchers generally find it easier to get low strikes called when I was evaluating trends in the metric. Even if it's just body type resulting in more or less favorable strike calls, it's still valuable, but then there is the pitcher staff and umpire biases towards pitcher reputation. Great pitchers get better calls. Just like great hitters often get better calls. The biggest problem I have with catcher framing is it is not stable at all, and the values assigned have enormous impact. Most catchers bounce around in terms of value. J.T. Realmuto is an example: -11, +3, +5, +7, +3, +4, 0, -13, -3. So he started off horrible, then became one of the best, then became horrible, then became below average. Christian Vazquez has a similar pattern: +4, +3, +3, +12, +3, +0, +2, +3, +6. Where did that +12 come from? That's +1.2 WAR. Vazquez's +6 from last year was out of whack, too, considering his playing time. Brian McCann's career is all over the place as well. It's common to see framing value make wild changes when a catcher changes teams. Like Kurt Suzuki. He apparently forgot everything he knew about framing the moment he left Minnesota. It makes me suspect the pitchers have a much more substantial impact than the catcher. Jason Castro. Similar story. Terrible, then great when Houston decided he should be good at it, then he tanked back down with Minnesota... Look at Buster Posey. Fangraphs' WAR = 57.6. Posey enjoyed a +31 Statcast framing runs in 2016 (first year); that's 3.1 WAR just in framing. Looking at the other framing runs source, Posey enjoyed +13 WAR in framing over his career. That's why Posey is 45 bWAR and 58 fWAR. So framing isn't stable and it has an enormous impact on perceived value, but I don't believe the catcher's skill usually has much to do with it.