bean5302

It's strange to me how much of other sports scouting profiles and assumptions have found their way into baseball. Add size or mass for power? Hank Aaron was 6'0 and 180lbs. Byron Buxton has a huge power at 6'2 and 190lbs. Jackson Merrill blasted 24HR last year playing home games at Petco at 6'3 195lbs. Bobby Witt, Jr. is 6'1 and 200lbs. Guys don't need to be 6'4 and 300lbs with bodies like offensive linemen to hit the ball hard. The heavier the player gets, the harder it is to be fast. The more weight a player adds, the more force they need to exert on their body to accelerate the bat. The more mass they add, the more pressure they put on their joints and skeletal system leading to injury and degenerative conditions. Baseball is not the NFL where mass is needed to avoid being the 8-ball shooting into the side pocket. All that aside, Gonzalez didn't truly improve as much as you'd hope over last year. I'd sure hope he's younger than the average age of his level because guys aren't even prospects anymore if they're at average age. Even at 2.2yrs younger than average, Gonzalez is no longer young for a top prospect considering age/time in pro ball. He should have been sent to the AFL to baby step him towards AA next year. AA next year is where I agree with others in the sentiment it'll be a make or break year for him. I think it's still early to have a "likely outcome" for a 20 year prospect playing in A+ ball.

wRC+ takes speed into consideration, and Castro is not universally good defender. Career (positive numbers bolded): 2B 1150 innings, DRS = -9, UZR/150 = -4.5, OAA = +4 3B 458 innings, DRS = +1, UZR/150 = +5.3, OAA = +2 SS 1187 innings, DRS = -21, UZR/150 = -6.4, OAA = -3 LF 815 innings, DRS = -2, UZR/150 = -5.0, OAA = -1 CF 593 innings, DRS = -6, UZR/150 = -12.1, OAA = -4 RF 332 innings, DRS = +2, UZR/150 = +6.6, OAA = -1 Castro is probably a plus fielder at 3B. I'd wager he's neutral at 2B, and below average to bad at all other positions. I like Castro, but his value as a player in isolation is being overinflated, IMHO. He's a serviceable fielder, he's an above average hitter overall, but he can't hit lefties very well so his switch hitting isn't all that valuable.

All joking aside, Jhoan Duran is probably a low/mid likelihood of being traded. BaseballTradeValues expects Duran to be worth about 2.1 WAR per season over the next 3 years with a salary of like $4MM +$6MM + $8.5MM (18.5MM total). Their AFV 49.6 - Salary 18.5 = $31.0MM in surplus value. Some MLB.com Catcher Prospects a22 Kyle Teel = 40.4 (3rd ranked catcher prospect, AAA, Red Sox) 123 PA in AAA - Defensive stud, long track record of performance at the plate. Not quite ready, but mid season? a19 Samuel Basallo = 63.3 (1st ranked catcher prospect, AAA, Orioles) 86 PA in AAA - Defensively not ready, showing very high potential at the plate... he was a19 in AAA where he struggled a bit at the plate in a SSS, but wRC+ 134 in 446 PA at AA. He's going to be a beast. a22 Jeferson Quero = 28.7 as of 7/25/24 (5th ranked catcher prospect, AAA, Brewers) 1 PA in AAA - Won Rawlings MiLB Gold Glove for catcher defense and held his own in AA wRC+ 107. Probably not ready yet, but could be ready mid season. The Twins might be able to get Quero for Duran? Jhoan Duran would easily be one of the most sought after relievers in baseball, and while TD thinks Griffin Jax would be more desirable, I doubt MLB franchises are unanimous in that assumption. With Duran being a major component to Twins marketing, his super elite velocity and very high value as a reliever, parting with him wouldn't be great. It also isn't going to save much money. A $4MM salary doesn't save $3.7MM because you have the pay the next roster guy backfilling at least $700k. It only saves $3MM. There probably isn't a lot of pressure for the Twins to move such an important piece for $3MM in savings.

If that's not enough, maybe we can dangle Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober as sweeteners along with Royce Lewis as a toss in?

Castro with the Twins Batting Left vs. RHP: .251/.334/.395 OPS .729 ISO .144 wRC+ 108, 8.1% BB, 23.9%K Batting Right vs. LHP: .240/.302/.356 OPS .659 ISO .116 wRC+ 87, 6.8% BB, 23.3% K vs. say Jose Miranda's career Batting Right vs. RHP: .275/.331/.418 OPS .748, ISO .143 wRC+ 113, 5.7% BB, 16.5% K Batting Right vs. LHP: .247/.277/.407 OPS .683, ISO .159 wRC+ 91, 3.9% BB, 18.3% K Miranda's better against RHP and LHP with a similar split between right and left despite being a right handed batter. Switch hitting is only worth something if the hitter is good at hitting from both sides of the plate, and Castro is not.

I honestly don't know what the Twins are going to do. They need to shed salary to keep Castro, but the super utility player could fill a roster hole wherever the Twins need him, though Castro can't catch, is a poor center fielder, and obviously playing him at 1B isn't a good value. The Twins have holes at CF, 2B or 3B (depending on how they treat Royce Lewis) right now from my perspective, though needs could change as the Twins reorganize the roster.

Castro is a starting caliber player who is going to be playing every day, but he can only play one position at a time. There is a "best" position for him, and everywhere the Twins place him other than the best position reduces Castro's contributions. There's a questionable narrative that Castro's positional flexibility is definitively valuable, but it's not. The value Castro adds is conditional on: A) The Twins having depth at the position Castro is vacating B) The Twins not having depth at the position Castro is moving to i.e. Willi Castro is playing (3.0 WAR 2B). Trevor Larnach (2.0 WAR LF) gets hurt, and the Twins pick Willi Castro (3.0 WAR LF) over Austin Martin (1.0 WAR LF). Brooks Lee becomes (1.0 WAR 2B). The Twins lose 1.0 WAR here vs. just leaving Castro at 2B and backfilling Larnach with Martin. Castro is a valuable 3 WAR player, depending on where you play him, but he's not going to lead the team in production or anything like that.

They save all his salary by trading him as well, plus the Twins get a return. There is no question a team would happily take the $6MM of Castro's Arb3 salary while also shipping a significant prospect (org 5ish) back to the Twins.

I consider the AFL to generally be closer to A+ than AA competition levels, but somewhere in between. Rosario has 4 XBH's in 90 plate appearances in the AFL. 0 Doubles. 1 Triple. 3 HRs. ISO = .170. A good prospect with 300 PA in AA should be cleaning house in AFL. His K rate is better than it was in AA at like 24.4%, but... meh. Austin Martin in 2022, for example. AA = .241/.367/.316 OPS .683, ISO .075, 11.6% BB, 13.3% K then AFL = .374/.454/.482 OPS .936, ISO .108, 8.2% BB, 7.2% K The feel around Twins fan sites was the Twins attempts to push Martin into a more power hitter approach caused his fall off in performance at AA, but the AFL results got most back on the Austin Martin bandwagon hard. AFL results are almost worthless when it comes to results for player already at AA or higher, and of little value for A+ level prospects. It's not a tough league, but it has a lot of value for fringe guys and getting some more practice and experience.

MLBTR estimates Jax to get $2.6MM. Spotrac estimates $2.8MM. Fangraphs' WAR based model suggests Jax should get $4.6MM. I think Jax will force arbitration if the Twins are in the traditional estimate range (2.5-3.0ish). I certainly would since he really has nothing to lose at that miniscule salary. If Jax gets closer to Fangraph's model, it has a huge impact on his potential trade value because his Arb2 and Arb3 salary projections would be dramatically higher and Jax would have a lot less surplus value. Jax's salary also has a big impact on the advantage to the Twins in trading him. At those traditional estimates, moving him makes no difference in the payroll, as the Twins stand to gain $2MM at most in capacity. So what can the Twins expect to get for a relief pitcher? Regardless of whether or not another team might be interested in re-trying Jax as a starter despite him failing to be serviceable in his first opportunity, trade partners are going to treat Jax as a reliever, which is his known value. Ryan Pressly had only 1.5yrs of team control instead of the 3.0yrs of Jax, but Jax projects to make 5x more money in arbitration and deadline deals are a trade premium. Give the edge to Jax handily by 50%-100% of value maybe? The Twins' return in the Pressly trade was Jorge Alcala (MLB org #7) and Gilberto Celestino (MLB org #23). Many folks here don't like BaseballTradeValues, but if we use their projections, Jax is worth 40.9MM in surplus based on production of 2.3 WAR per season and a salary projection of like $2.5 -> $4.0 -> $5.5 ($13MM total) which I think is probably absurdly low. The BTV model literally doubled Jax's value after August, 2024 sooooo... anyway. Personally, I think Jax would probably slot in at like $30MM surplus, and that's an org #2/3-ish, probably a fringe MLB top 50 prospect. If you're looking for a relief pitcher to bring an established, cost controlled MLB talent it will not be a mid/higher starting pitcher or a solid premium position player, at least IMO. The established MLB'er will likely cost more than Jax now or next year as well.

Buxton still has elite speed, and a cannon arm. It's worth noting how defensive metrics are not reliable in a single season, let alone partial seasons when forming an opinion like moving a guy off a position. Last year the component which held him back in terms of defensive value was reaction time which isn't terribly surprising after barely playing in the outfield for a year and a half prior. Buxton will rebound in defensive value, and so long as his speed remains 28.5 ft/sec plus, he's going to be the primary CF. Walker Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriguez are next in line for potential CF's, but neither one of them have plus speed, and I don't think analysts were bullish on either sticking in CF to the best of my knowledge. They're fringy, maybe they can handle CF guys. They're not going to be plus CF's. DaShawn Keirsey has his advocates, but stats don't paint a bullish picture to me atm, though what I have to work with is very limited. Keirsey could be a once in a blue moon late career surprise. It sure would be great if I were dead wrong about him, haha. Buxton did try to increase his walk rate in 2022 and 2023 with some mixed results. There's so much noise in Buxton's ever changing approach at the plate that it's difficult to figure out which way he'll go the next year. Also, Buxton can hardly be described as an aggressive swinger at the plate. His career O-Swing rate is 30.9%, but between 2021-2023, it was only 28.1%, which would be better than average last year among hitters with 300+ PA, but his 2024 results were decidedly a bit wild at 33.1% (bottom 24% or so). He's a totally different hitter than Hunter, who played in a different era. I think Buxton's ceiling has already come and gone. He's a streaky hitter, and he's unlike Hunter in that Buxton has clear strengths and weaknesses against certain pitch types while Hunter was pretty steady across the board. Hunter also played in a different era of baseball where average FB velo was shifting dramatically. As fastballs sped up and Hunter got older and slower, he changed his approach because he had to. I don't think Buxton is there yet.

None of these guys has any place on the opening day roster. Not even close. With questions around each of them, the Twins should be committed to giving these prospects a better chance to prove they're ready. 200 PA or 10 starts is where I'd put the floor on when you might have a real feel for a player's with any question marks' readiness. Brooks Lee had question marks after his struggles in AAA in 2023, yet the Twins made the call for him after 136 plate appearances this year, and Lee was absolutely not ready. Rodriguez is certainly the leader in likelihood of getting the call to help the Twins first. He had 30 PA in AAA where his K rate was 40%. It's a SSSS, but his K rate has always been a major cause for concern on his ceiling. He needs some time to prove he can keep the K rate down at AAA, though Spring Training will likely give the Twins a nice sneak peek. Last year, Emma K'd in 54% of Spring Training plate appearances while people were calling for Matt Wallner's head as he K'd in 38%. While the Twins are likely to call for Rodriguez first, if he's hitting well, I hope they exercise some patience and let him get some playing time. Luke Keaschall missed everything after July of last year with Tommy John on his throwing arm, and he hasn't had a single plate appearance above AA, where hints of his ceiling were possibly starting to show. The expectation is Keaschall will be ready for a normal MiLB (mid-March) Spring Training timeline. People should keep in mind, a top 50 prospect would be considered a huge success if they turned into a 2 WAR player. I think the Twins will have Keaschall in AAA to start the year, but again, I wouldn't want to see him with the Twins until he's gotten at least 200 PA there. Raya has half a season of pitching more than 3.0 inning / 50 pitch starts in the last few years. He needs to prove he can handle an 80+ pitch workload for 5 or 10 starts. That's if he can get the performance, too. Prielipp is the site writer dark horse favorite to save the universe this year, it seems. The Twins shouldn't call him up until September next year, if at all. He's either a starter or he's not, and using him out of the bullpen pushes back the potential he could start for the Twins by a full year. Considering starters are 3-4x more valuable than relief pitchers, calling for Prielipp is settling way too early.

Span was underappreciated for years and years. He was a 3-4 WAR (borderline All Star) player through his career prime, and he accumulated a very respectable 27 / 28 WAR during his career. A career which would have been increased and expanded (see what I did there?) had he focused on keeping his speed up. Span's career WAR is right in line with some names people would definitely recognize like Josh Hamilton, Terry Steinbach, J.J. Hardy, and Justin Morneau. A very good player who was largely overlooked, though he did receive RoY-6 and an MVP vote in 2014 when he led the league in hits, and the Twins sure could use some prime Span on their roster defensively as Span often flirted with DRS +20, recorded a perfect 1.000 fielding pct season along with leading all of baseball with in RF/G and the league in putouts as a center fielder.

I think there's some serious potential on the 40 right now, but the front office hasn't been praiseworthy for what they've developed so far in my opinion. I love Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner, but at the end of the day, it's put up or shut up. So far, there just hasn't been much for the Falvey front office to hang their hat on from an MLB production standpoint.

A strong wave of talent has come up, eh? Top Falvey front office developed players (starting below AA in the org) by year. Postion Player, Pitcher 2024 - Matt Wallner 2.1, Bailey Ober 2.9 2023 - Eddie Julien 2.8, Bailey Ober 2.4 2022 - Ryan Jeffers 0.8, Jhoan Duran 1.5 2021 - Ryan Jeffers 1.2, Bailey Ober 0.9 2020 - Ryan Jeffers 0.4, Randy Dobnak 2019 - N/A, Randy Dobnak 0.8 2018 - N/A 2017 - N/A The 2.0+ WAR season guy behind the leaders is Lewis, oh, and Brent Rooker, just not with the Twins... No player developed in Falvey's 8 year history has ever produced a 3.0+ WAR season other than Brent Rooker, again, not with the Twins. Compared with his immediate predecessors in their 8 years prior. 2009-2016. 2016 - Brian Dozier 6.6, Kyle Gibson 1.3/Tyler Duffey 1.3 2015 - Brian Dozier 3.1, Kyle Gibson 2.8 2014 - Brian Dozier 4.5, Kyle Gibson 2.7 2013 - Brian Dozier 2.9, Andrew Albers 0.9 2012 - Ben Revere 2.1, Liam Hendricks -0.1 2011 - Ben Revere 1.5, Liam Hendricks 0.2 2010 - N/A 2009 - N/A You don't see guys with 2.0+ WAR seasons behind Dozier like Kepler, Sano, Hicks, and Rosario. Or future guys like Garver, Polanco, Arraez, Buxton, Rogers, Berrios, and Jax. In short, Falvey's front office, and everybody working under him hasn't been worthy of much praise.

...and yet the interested parties have yet to be identified at all. Glen Taylor is the only party I've seen as a likely potential buyer, and it sounds like the Timberwolves case arbitrators are hoping to get their wheels greased by unnecessarily dragging out the decision process or something. No ruling is expected now for a few months. Then again, the Twins operate like an intelligence agency for a reason I can't fathom so cloak and dagger is par for the course, even if there were interested parties already.

Not happening. I wouldn't even begin to dream of how this might work out.

Assuming the Twins package a prospect to unload Paddack's $7.5MM, they can roll with the grid above keeping Castro. I'd estimate the Twins at 87 wins provided whatever injuries happen aren't unexpected for the best players. Finishing 2nd or 3rd in the division. Maybe a 50% shot at the playoffs slotting in at 5th or 6th seed?

Not really. I expected Buxton to play 80 games for 3 WAR for example. I'm not forecasting based on full seasons because it's simply not going to happen under Baldelli. For Buxton at 4 WAR, I'm assuming 100 games.

I can understand why people don't want to trade Lopez, but I just did a middle of the road projection of the Twins standing pat in the winning foundation topic. 85 wins if the Twins stand pat with their current payroll cap $130MM and returning as many guys as they can (linked below). That was actually super close to where Fangraph's team model landed (.520% or like 84 wins). The roster I assembled above I'd project at 94 wins for the same price. The Twins have serious payroll restrictions, and the money to improve the roster has to come from someplace if the team has a serious expectation of making the playoffs. The Tigers (projected 81-81) have at least $50MM in payroll capacity to improve their roster. The Royals (projected at 83-79) have at least $20MM to spend. Both of those teams project to be better than the Twins by the end of FA without Minnesota making moves to improve. The other way to improve is to trade elite prospects like Walker Jenkins or Emmanuel Rodriguez, but the right trade scenario can be very difficult to find when you're talking about dumping that much prospect capital, and I don't think the Twins will make those moves. In regard to the message eating salary sends, it's one of probably 3 things. 1) Maybe the Twins want a better return for their player so they're willing to eat some contract. 2) The trade partner they're trading to doesn't have payroll capacity to add or 3) The Twins missed the mark on evaluating the talent a player had when they put the contracts on the books. Tons of teams are using the RSN collapse as an explanation to drop salary so finding willing trade partners willing to take on significant costs is going to be more difficult this season.

That's what I consider to be their ceiling if everything goes their way. It's unrealistic to expect more than a few guys to hit it, and more unrealistic to expect luck to just happen for only the best players. That's why I included a medium (expected) and low end. This is what we have right now. Are their substantially better options under the team control I can put there? I made an offseason plan which actually meddles with the roster the way I'd try to do things if you want to check it out:

While I think Gallen is the better of the two pitchers in any given year based on steady results, from an league perspective, I don't think the two pitchers are viewed substantially different. Over the past two years, Gallen's at 8.0 fWAR while Lopez is at 7.8 fWAR. In addition, Lopez owns superior velocity, K rates, and walk rates with some blame for the higher ERA owned by Lopez going to poor defense from the Twins. I do think Lopez's ceiling is probably viewed as higher, though again, expectations of middle of the road giving Gallen the edge. The premise behind the Gallen for Lopez trade on AZ's behalf is they stay the same while absorbing a relatively low amount of payroll and for that, they get to massively extend their window. The Twins use the payroll to improve their 2025 team at the risk of their window closing sooner. When it comes to Montgomery, I think their GM would do a happy dance. It wasn't just the results which dropped for Monty, he also lost velocity which impacted the quality of his stuff. Montgomery was also no longer locating his pitches as well, and hitters didn't chase as much. I would expect a location bounce-back, but the stuff, probably not as much. Projections expect Montgomery to be a 2 WAR full season pitcher while Lopez is projected at 4 WAR. Losing 2 WAR from a single rotation spot is a big impact, and the swing from absorbing $10MM of additional salary would mean cutting bait on Castro and Martinez in my model above. Overall, probably a loss of 6 wins in 2025. At that point, the Twins would be better off rebuilding entirely, IMO.

Even if Zoll was the lead negotiator, the issue was Falvey waiting too long to start pushing the trade. Sonny Gray's (+Francis Peguero) trade was Chase Petty. You're thinking of the Tyler Mahle acquisition, I suspect. Mahle cost Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnation-Strand and Steve Hajjar. There is no way Falvey (or Levine) didn't give Zoll guidelines and ranges of values and approve the final deals. Counting on any player to put in 150 games under Rocco "Platoonasaurus" Baldelli is stretching it.

The Twins don't negotiate with beer distributors. The Twins would negotiate with stadium concessions management companies like Delaware North, Aramark and Levy. Delaware North signed a long-term contract with the Twins back in 2017. Not sure what "long-term" means, though. It'd be pretty shocking if anything got shaken up in general operations, though. It's a lot less stressful to run things "business as usual" than to try and reinvent or grow the brand. Stamp "Approved" on the form.

Evaluating the Twins' current roster, excluding Castro who the Twins cannot afford without other moves looks about like this to me. Med WAR is if people just perform to expectations with expected playing time, etc. The danger is with top players missing time or performing poorly because they have a bigger impact on "expected" results. Position First Last Min WAR Med WAR Max WAR C Ryan Jeffers 1.5 2.0 3.0 1B Jose Miranda 1.5 2.0 2.5 2B Brooks Lee 0.0 1.0 2.0 3B Royce Lewis 1.0 3.0 6.0 SS Carlos Correa 2.0 4.0 5.0 LF Trevor Larnach 1.0 1.5 2.5 CF Byron Buxton 2.0 3.0 4.0 RF Matt Wallner 2.5 4.0 5.0 DH Edouard Julien 0.0 1.0 2.0 BC Christian Vazquez 0.0 0.5 1.0 Util Austin Martin 0.0 1.0 1.5 Util Micheal Helman 0.0 0.0 1.0 Util DaShawn Keirsey 0.0 0.5 1.0 Position Players 11.5 23.5 36.5 Position First Last Min WAR Med WAR Max WAR SP1 Pablo Lopez 2.0 3.0 4.0 SP2 Joe Ryan 1.0 2.0 3.0 SP3 Bailey Ober 1.0 2.0 3.0 SP4 Chris Paddack 0.0 0.5 1.0 SP5 Simeon WR 1.0 1.5 2.5 SP6 David Festa 1.0 1.5 3.0 SP7 Zebby Matthews 0.0 1.0 1.5 Rotation 6.0 11.5 18.0 Position First Last Min WAR Med WAR Max WAR RP1 Jhoan Duran 1.0 1.5 2.5 RP2 Griffin Jax 1.0 1.5 2.5 RP3 Brock Stewart 0.0 0.5 1.5 RP4 Cole Sands 0.5 1.0 1.5 RP5 Jorge Alcala 0.0 0.5 1.5 RP6 Kody Funderburk -0.5 0.5 1.0 RP7 Louie Varland -0.5 0.1 0.5 RP8 Michael Tonkin 0.0 0.2 0.5 RP9 Ronny Henriquez -1.0 -0.5 0.0 RP10 Matt Canterino 0.0 0.0 1.0 Bullpen 0.5 5.3 12.5 Total WAR 18.0 40.3 67.0 Replacement Team Wins at MLB 45.0 45.0 45.0 Total Team Wins Proj 63.0 85.3 112.0