bean5302

Considering Brooks Lee has a weak arm and is among the slowest runners in all of MLB, there are going to be serious limits as to where he can play. Any OF position is a no go as Lee doesn't have the speed. 3B/SS isn't ideal because he doesn't have the arm. Lee profiles best as a utility infielder (if he can find a way to get his bat out of the depths) or at 2B.

In actuality, Carlos Correa is not the only good shortstop in MLB, but I do believe he is the most expensive at $37MM next year. If the Twins keep payroll close to where they currently are, that's an enormous amount of capital to reinvest into the team. Also, I disagree Correa is injury prone, and the fact these NY fans/writers want Correa so badly only serves to make that argument less credible. Would Correa waive his NTC to go to the Mets? I don't get the impression he's a huge fan of how the Giants and Mets conducted themselves. Honestly, I still think the Nationals are probably the only real game in town.

Of course the sale process will evaluate how to maximize value. None of that will have anything to do with roster construction.

Prospective owners will probably put the most value on flexibility and growth potential, but it's not like the Pohlad's can cater to a specific potential future owner since the future owners will all have different preferences. Kinda like fixing up a car you're selling. Are you adding a trailer hitch to the SUV? Some people might consider it a real plus while others wouldn't care, and some people might even view it as a negative. Steady is probably the name of the game, but if the Twins are actually going to sell, there's going to be a serious buyer identified before the offseason is over. The Twins are almost certainly going to be a business as usual operation rather than guessing at desires from a potential owner who has yet to be identified.

Agreed. Pablo is not getting dealt for "prospects" unless they're super elite and MLB ready. There also has to be an SP1 caliber pitcher coming back. I've been doing my offseason plan for funsies and it's so hard to find a team who might be able to make that happen where the Twins and their trade partner benefit. Lopez is a lot of salary, but not impossibly high. His trade value from BaseballTradeValues and analysts at various sites suggest Lopez's trade value is substantial (+37.4) at $22MM. I think Pablo Lopez to the Diamondbacks for Zac Gallen (+19.5) at $14MM and Gabriel Moreno (+16.6) at pre-arb. Arizona gets what a lot of folks in the industry view as an ace pitcher at a far below market rate for 3 years. It's no secret AZ is interested in team controlled pitchers, especially an ace. They'd absolutely love to keep Gallen, but I don't think the Diamondbacks have the budget to sign Gallen at 7/$200MM or something like that. Lopez checks the boxes for them. Gallen is a significantly better pitcher than Lopez, and he's cheaper next year, but the Twins will only have 1 year of control. The Twins also get a franchise catcher. Moreno is pre-arb, under team control until 2029, is a25 next year. Moreno is not only an above average hitter, but he's a solid defender behind the plate. He's expendable for the Diamondbacks because of Adrian Del Castillo. The Twins free up $7MM to use elsewhere to sign a DH like J.D. Martinez. Both teams win, both teams keep their window open, and both teams stay in budget.

So you're saying it's click-bait and you're saying click-bait grants credibility? I was a caretaker until some stuff went down. Welcome to my ignore list.

If there's a splash, I think it's almost certainly trading Pablo Lopez. He's the only way the Twins are going to free up cash to address other needs like CF, DH, 2B, C, SP1.

First, he's not going to be $5-6MM. It's going to be a bit more than that. Second, he's coming off his best year in 5 years both offensively and defensively (best of his career) going into his age 39 season. The only year in the past 5 Santana was worth a full time roster spot, btw. No.

Paddack has substantial negative trade value. Maybe if the Twins "included" a mid level prospect, a team would take Paddack giving us back a PTBNL.

This nonsense is getting old about some sort of choice between Vazquez and Jeffers. Writers are just wasting people's time and their own credibility.

That's my fault, I've seen Hoffman pop up in discussions out of the blue lately, and incorrectly remembered you being tied to it. I've corrected my post and found the TRUE perpetrator of this heinous act! haha

Obviously you are pretty sore about it since you've mentioned it several times. It has nothing to do with quality bullpen arms in free agency. ( @Blyleven2011 has been falsely implicated by me. He is not the person I was thinking about so I shouldn't have accused you of this... @DocBauer is the culprit!!!! LOL) Jeff Hoffman was passed over by all 30 teams in baseball, and he had to settle on a MiLB contract in 2023 with the Twins after being largely bad to terrible for his 134 appearances during his 7 year career. Hoffman had an opt out if he didn't make the opening day roster, and told the Twins he was going to exercise it so the Twins released him a couple days early. Hoffman went on to sign what? Another MiLB deal with the Phillies with two opt outs. Hoffman was assigned to AAA and pitched there for the first month (unimpressively, I might add). Hoffman again exercised his opt out giving the Phillies a 48hr window to decide, and the Phillies decided to take a chance on him and his newly rebounded velocity as Philadelphia had tons of pitching injuries so why not? Hoffman was viewed as MiLB roster filler with a ceiling of middle reliever. He opted to leave the Twins, and he accepted a similar deal elsewhere where he didn't get a shot at the MLB roster until making 9 unimpressive appearances in AAA and opting out there as well. Nobody, including the Phillies, had any idea he'd be so dominant.

You definitely didn't read my post.

LOL! The Twins are not giving any free agent relief pitcher a $6-7MM AAV contract. MLBTR is in outer space on this one.

The 150 game hard break is responsible for a lot of it. Several catchers in the 140+ game area, many guys at like 148 games. SS is your super premium player group. The Witt, Jr's of the baseball world where they're often the best player on the team so they're in the lineup every day. Lindor, De La Cruz, Henderson, etc. Of the 13 players with 150+ games, only 3 produced less than 3 WAR. Median was 3.7 fWAR, far above any Twins player in 2024.

The cost to replace 1 WAR of production in free agency has been about $8MM AAV. Last I checked, it declined slightly in 2022-2023 down to about $7.8MM, but maybe it's back to $8MM. Teams seem to pay about $6MM per expected WAR, but free agents often don't live up to the hype so with actual production drops, it winds up close to $8MM. The average cost for 1 WAR of production overall is like $2.5MM including arb/pre-arb guys.

Keirsey can't hit and I don't think he's going to be anything more than serviceable in CF.

Baseballtradevalues has Brendan Donovan at +25MM surplus. Probably in the ballpark of Brooks Lee, a little above a guy like Luke Keaschall. I don't like trading premium prospects for $2MM in savings.

Some overlap as Fangraphs quantifies "primary position" oddly. Assmuming you mean games and not "innings" so a quick search says 150+ games C - 3 1B - 11 2B - 9 3B - 9 SS - 13 LF - 11 CF - 9 RF - 7

A six man rotation makes no sense to me. As almost everybody has agreed, trading Pablo Lopez or Joe Ryan starts in favor of Randy Dobnak starts is a bad idea if you want to win games. Not to mention a couple of rotation arms will go down throughout the year. If you have a six man rotation, that means you need at least 9+ MLB caliber starters. The Twins have 7 guys on the roster I'd be comfortable with in even a spot start capacity. After that, totally unproven minor league depth. The only team who intentionally employed a six man rotation was the Angels when they had Shohei Ohtani. That's after years and years of speculation and pushing by people who just want to be "right" on the internet, but without any concrete or even real suggestive evidence a 6 man rotation carries any benefit for injury prevention or durability. The drawbacks for a 6 man rotation have far outweighed any potential gain for MLB teams so far, and I agree with them.

Yes, if you include the positions where he doesn't field well to hurt his defensive contributions, and look at him from the absolute worst possible projection possible, you can get him alllllllll the way down to 2 WAR.

The Rule 5 draft gives players under 19 an extra year before their eligible. Being on the 40 man doesn't mean debuting. Polanco was signed in 2009. He technically debuted in 2014 with a whopping 8 plate appearances mid-season, 5 years after signing. Polanco didn't spend any significant time on the roster until 2016, 7 years after his signing.

Buxton is a 3 WAR player. He'll play in about 80 games. He'll cover CF in 60 to 70 games. A "healthy offseason" doesn't exist for a guy with chronic migraine, knee, hip, and back issues. He's also had a few hamstring and wrist issues over the years. The chronic health issues aren't going away, they're "chronic" through no fault of his own. Some people get the short end of the stick. Buxton is a pretty freak athlete, IMHO. With that extreme physical capability, not all parts of his anatomy can keep up to his muscle strength.

With a healthy quad, Lewis "should be" quite a bit faster than Castro, but it's tough to know if Lewis will ever get back close to what he was before all the leg injuries. It's tough to gauge arm strength between the two with all the "positional flexibility" preventing them from playing a static position long enough to get throwing speeds listed at the same position on Statcast, but the two are pretty similar if you look at their infield throwing speed. Can't look at overall "arm" because it includes a lot of high velo outfield throws for Castro. Lewis probably has a 60 grade arm. Castro's throws from SS last year would put him in the 70 grade arm category, but there's no history of that. Kinda odd. I'm not sure what Lewis is thinking about 2B long term. I know he didn't like being suddenly and forcibly moved off 3B to a position he'd never played or practiced on a side of the infield he'd never played while he was fighting a slump in the middle of a playoff push in favor of a rookie who wasn't performing. I'm not sure why Baldelli just didn't put Jhoan Duran at 3B. Strong arm, that one.

Castro's pretty good, man. He's not the 6 WAR guy some TD folks were projecting after a month or two of lucky SSSS this year, but he is a solid wRC+ 110 type of hitter with plus defense at 2B. Easily a projectable 3 WAR guy. It's a money issue, and long term issue. Lee is probably around for 5 more years, Lewis around for 4 more. Castro costs 4-6x as much, and "he gone!" after this coming season.