bean5302

Career for Castro 2B - UZR/150 = -4.5, OAA +4, 3B - UZR/150 = +5.3, OAA +2 SS - UZR/150 = -6.5, OAA -3 CF - UZR/150 = -12.1, OAA -4 2024 for Castro 2B - UZR/150 =-0.8, OAA = 0 3B - UZR/150 = +5.2, OAA +1 SS - UZR/150 = -9.5, OAA +3 CF - UZR/150 = -5.9, OAA -3 Castro's only position where I'd consider him a plus at all is 3B. He's probably average at 2B and a big liability at SS/CF. He certainly failed the eye test at SS and CF for me this past year as well.

Some recent (post end of season) trade proposal valuations for Twins players hitting arbitration or under contract. Baseballtradevalues helps to remove personal biases regarding players and how valuable the rest of the league may or may not see them. Some trades wind up being pretty lopsided by their website, though, so it's hardly perfect. Griffin Jax +40.9 Pablo Lopez +37.4 Jhoan Duran +31.0 Royce Lewis +26.3 Bailey Ober +22.9 Carlos Correa +22.8 Ryan Jeffers +13.1 Byron Buxton +0.4 Manny Margot -0.4 Christian Vazquez -7.8 Joe Ryan? Chris Paddack? Jorge Alcala? Brock Stewart? Michael Tonkin? Justin Topa? Randy Dobnak? Willi Castro? Trevor Larnach? Alex Kirilloff? Kyle Farmer?

The Pohlad Family may or may not find a buyer for the Twins. Completely blowing the product up in the hopes that's what a new owner might want is seemingly a lot of risk for an ownership group known far and wide as risk averse. Keeping things relatively status quo is nice and conservative given the lack of identity or obvious direction for the club's roster. According to some sort of inside source, Dan Hayes reported the Twins' front office doesn't expect any reduction in payroll. Any money saved by trading a player or players would result in an expected reinvestment into the roster. Barring a new leak suggesting the opposite, the conspiracy theory stuff doesn't interest me much.

The Tigers were awful for 10 years. I don't think that's a good blueprint for anybody.

Willi Castro has been brutal in CF throughout his entire career, but average-ish at 2B, grading out quite well at 3B. Martin was certainly awful in CF last year, though he was one of the best 2B in the International league in 2023. Martin's arm probably prevents him from being a good option at 3B. Honestly, I don't expect much difference between the two defensively. Castro's bat is good enough to be a starter, though. Martin's is not.

Polanco is bad defensively, he had an awful year at the plate, and he's constantly hurt. His K rate has skyrocketed over the past few years as his contact and barrel rates have cratered, and he's now in his 30s. I'd give him a MiLB contract with an invite, sure, but anything beyond that just seems foolish. Inviting the Tim Anderson scenario.

I cannot possibly fathom why Castro would take that deal. The Twins might be able to lock him up at $5MM next year, and $12MM for the two years after that... maybe. He's projected to make $6.2MM in arbitration this year and he becomes a free agent in 2026 at age 29. Spotrac has his Market Value at 3yrs / $30MM. No way you can buy out a year or two of a29, a30 free agency for less than his current arbitration value. The Twins will likely have to clear salary (Lopez or Ober or Ryan) in order to retain Castro. I do think they'll probably sign/trade Castro, but I thought they'd sign/trade Farmer last year. Teams across MLB will know Falvey will almost have to trade Castro because of payroll concerns, and they'll use that leverage. Falvey doesn't seem capable of applying reasonable value to his players in the trade market, and it's a definite concern of mine. If he overplays Castro the way I suspect he's overplayed guys like Kepler and Polanco in the past, the return might be pretty light as the 2025 season approaches and the payroll gets desperate.

I think the Tigers and Royals will likely finish 1-2 in the AL Central next year barring some dramatic roster decisions by the Twins. Both Detroit and Kansas City have elite arms at the front of their rotation, not just a #2/3 starter masquerading as elite with a random advanced metric or two backing them up. C - Jake Rogers 1B - Spencer Torkelson 2B - Colt Keith 3B - Matt Vierling SS - ? LF - Riley Greene CF - Parker Meadows RF - Kerry Carpenter DH - ? BC - Dillon Dingler UI - Jace Jung UI - Javier Baez UO - Wenceel Perez SP1 - Tarik Skubal SP2 - Brant Hurter SP3 - Reese Olson SP4 - ? SP5 - Casey Mize The Tigers' bullpen is too much of a mess to break out. I'd suspect Detroit will be in the running for a a couple good RP's this offseason to lead the bullpen since they have plenty of solid depth.

Except Farmer wasn't viewed as a backup utility infielder. He was viewed as a starting platoon strategy utility infielder. Farmer played in more games than Byron Buxton or Max Kepler last year, and nearly as many as Jose Miranda, Ryan Jeffers or Trevor Larnach. Helman might get his chance as an age 29 MiLB roster filler. As a guy the Twins have left off the 40 man for the last 3 years who was ignored by the rest of the league during the Rule 5, Helman is probably only going to get one shot if he does get it.

LOL, no. I wanted Duran this past offseason, and I would have been willing to part with a couple pieces to get him because the Twins desperately need an inexpensive, potential every day CFer under control for at least 2-3 years, especially this past offseason. Jarren Duran put together an MVP worthy campaign last year. He's played at a level equal to Royce Lewis' likely ceiling. MLBTR projects Duran at $4.9MM is kinda... well, stupid. MLBTR projects nearly the same for Bailey Ober? Duran put up as much WAR last year as pretty much Ober's entire career. I don't understand MLBTR's projection models in a couple instances (Jarren Duran, Griffin Jax) In any case, Boston is not going to part with Mookie Betts #2 for a #3/4 starter in arbitration like Bailey Ober unless you're talking like a package like Brooks Lee + Royce Lewis + Bailey Ober. That's literally what Duran would cost right now. BaseballTradeValues Ober +22 Lewis +26 Lee +33 Duran +71

Duran is not bringing in a haul. He'll bring in a #5ish org prospect, maybe, but more likely a combo of like #8 and a #10 or something like that as teams are loathe to part with their best prospects for anything other than a truly elite reliever during a playoff push. His salary this year is going to jump to around $4MM this year which starts to eat a lot into his surplus value. If this was 2 years ago, Duran would bring a haul because there was still some ceiling built into him, plus he had a couple years of league minimum salary ahead. Duran is maybe a 1.2-1.3 WAR type of pitcher. Definitely valuable in the 'pen, but a far cry from a guy like Mason Miller. Considering the Twins' total lack of quality depth in the bullpen, it seems like that's a poor choice to trade away.

The Royals have the hard to find rotation pieces at the top with Ragans and Lugo on the books for next year. Singer was solid enough as a #3, and Alec Marsh was good enough to hold down a back end rotation spot. Noah Cameron is probably an opening day starter for 2025 rounding out the rotation. They'll still need to add an emergency arm or two for depth. Easy to come by. Bobby Witt, Jr. is a legitimate MVP candidate, and Salvador Perez had a great resurgence filling the #1 catcher position with solid backup Fermin. Perez split time at 1B. There's some young talent on the team, but most of their recent players to exhaust rookie status had major problems at the plate. The good news is the Royals have a ton of free money to throw around (after Wacha opts out and the Royals decline Frazier) and Sherman is 100% going to do just that as he pursues a new stadium. I think the Royals are obvious potential landing spots for what will be a very cheap Michael A. Taylor trying for a rebound and soon to be former Twins player, Max Kepler. Joc Pederson makes a lot of sense for his ability to technically cover an OF position or 1B or DH. There are some other holes on the Royals' roster, and I think they'll add at least 2 more quality bullpen arms, maybe another position player, too. I'm not sure I see a big long term deal C - Perez 1B - Pasquantino 2B - Massey 3B - ? SS - Witt, Jr. LF - Renfroe CF - Michael A. Taylor? RF - Max Kepler? DH - Joc Pederson? BC - Freddy Fermin UI - Garcia UI - ? UO - ? SP1 - Ragans SP2 - Lugo SP3 - Singer SP4 - Cameron SP5 - Marsh BP1 - Erceg BP2 - Bubic BP3 - Scheriber BP4 - Stratton BP5 - ? BP6 - ? BP7 - ? BP8 - ?

Joe Ryan or Bailey Ober... not both. None of those 3 are worth as much as Ober or Ryan (because of team control and low costs for Ryan and Ober)

I think this article is just a camouflaged hit job on J.D. Drew that somebody has always wanted to write. Premise: the Twins needed an energy guy to inspire the lineup or something. All Twins fans realize Royce Lewis is the personification of "energy guy," but he doesn't count because he wasn't playing well. Buxton isn't an "energy guy" because he gets hurt. Matt Wallner isn't an "energy guy" because he tinkers with his swing.

No doubt the front office is going to aggressively shop Paddack and his 4.82 ERA over the past 3 injury riddled seasons with the Twins. The question is whether or not they can find any partner willing to eat a significant portion of Paddack's salary despite his poor results, pedestrian K rates despite not being a ground ball pitcher, and his complete lack of historical reliability when there are guys available on MiLB contracts or close to league minimum reclamation projects available for far less.

The White Sox traded Chris Sale as I recall. It all depends on the situation.

Santana is an average fielder. He's lazy and hurts our other infielders because he won't move off the bag to catch a ball. Instead of a rightfully scored infield hit, it always winds up as a throwing error and half the time the runner advances. UZR had him at +2.3 last year, he's varied from -2.0 to +2.1 for the prior 5 years. The metric is stable. For fans of OAA he's been at +1 to +3 defensively for 5 previous years. He's +14 this year. The metric is broken. For fans of DRS, he's also varied from -1 to +11 defensively over the last 5 years. It's a terribly unstable metric. He's +8 this year.

Every single time a trade conversation surrounding a popular Twins player is broached, there are people who make the argument somehow it would make fans revolt and not show up. I've never seen any proof of that. Year after Puckett, attendance increased. The year after Mauer left, attendance increased. Fans don't care. They just don't. I'd actually be somewhat surprised if the Twins didn't trade one of Lopez, Ryan or Ober, and it's probably Lopez. I'd also be surprised if one of Ober or Ryan wasn't traded after this season. That's how the Rays work. If the Pohlad family (who is currently directing the franchise) wants to emulate the Rays, casting off Lopez is a real quick way to start. In regard to trade value, both Ryan and Ober are more valuable than Lopez right now, IMHO. If the Twins ship Ober or Ryan (and another piece) and come back with a legit cost controlled front end starter, it'd be a huge win for the team. Not sure who that cost controlled upper rotation guy would be, but it's just an example. Given the depth the Twins have at starter in MiLB, and the ability to pick up a cheap reclamation project arm, along with the holes they have elsewhere, just sound strategy to me.

Lopez is a low end #2, upper end #3 caliber pitcher on the books for $22MM per year. He's making about the kind of AAV he'd make in free agency right now, just doesn't have the length. I don't know how the Twins plan to construct their roster for next year, but Lopez is low hanging fruit in terms of payroll capacity.

I expect Kirilloff will be non-tendered. I saw a comment about how he only saves $1MM over a league minimum guy, and that's probably true, but it saves $1.7MM off a AAA 40 man roster spot guy (which is what Kirilloff is). When the Twins are already in a serious payroll crunch, $1.5MM+ is nothing to sneeze at. Kirilloff isn't good enough or healthy enough to warrant an MLB contract. He'll be signing somewhere on a MiLB deal... probably without an opt out. It would not surprise me to see the Twins avoid arbitration to pick up Tonkin on a 1 year contract. While Tonkin got DFA'd several times last year, there was no hesitation for teams to pick him back up and he pitched nearly 80 innings last year with very respectable numbers 3.63 ERA, 3.44 FIP on the back of a 9.64 K/9 (25%) and 3.40 BB/9 (8.2%).

You're about to take a 1,000 mile road trip, your car is missing all its wheels, and you have no expendable savings. Your point appears to be you're in good shape because wheels are easy to find? I still think it's a problem...

I'm not as much of a fan of the missing the playoffs direction. Zebby Matthews was arguably the best pitcher in all of MiLB last year, soared into basically the top 50 MLB prospect range and then was destroyed at the MLB level. Winning World Series' > Winning prospect rankings.

Canterino is at the razors edge of career over right now. Highly likely to be DFA'd off the 40 man, and now entering his age 27 season, the chances he makes a top 100 list is zero. If Canterino manages to make it off the injured list (big if), he'll undoubtedly be a bullpen arm for the Twins as he only has a single option left. Prielipp is a little questionable at this point as he'll be taking the ball as a 24 year old prospect in 2025. Still, Prielipp won't be eligible for Rule 5 until next December so he still has some legit prospect status. I'd expect him to start the year off in AA, and if he absolutely dominates, he could find himself on a mid year top 100 list.

The Twins would probably be using Yunior Severino as their DH as it currently stands. Maybe you're comfortable with that, but I find that to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, outright hole in the roster at the moment. Absolutely no way Goldschmidt would become our DH based on the other issues, though. That was just a note of what a terrible situation the Twins are in regarding the spot.

I'd be utterly stunned if the White Sox' payroll wasn't under $80MM next year. They've only got $32MM on the books at the moment after declining options for Stassi and Moncada. Then another $9MM in arbitration after they non-tender Sheets and Vaughn. If the White Sox go full dive, that's about $55MM total. It wouldn't surprise me for the White Sox to snap up a few of the short term veteran or upside contracts to try and fill the team out a little bit just to try and get some trade bait at the deadline. Considering how poor Luis Robert, Jr. played last year, I think the White Sox are going to hang on to him and hope they can flip him at the deadline if he rebounds (and is actually not injured).