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Road trip

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Everything posted by Road trip

  1. Road trip
    The likely solution for immediate help this season will continue to be DFA pickups from other teams. You hope to find another Gomez, knowing that you will have to sort through a variety of unsuccessful claims. Sometimes it works. It'll be an assortment of guys with injury histories (think Brock Stewart 2.0), control problems (Gomez 2.0), or maybe a failed starter they think they can convert. It isn't an exciting strategy... you could even call in depressing, but if they can find another Gomez that is controllable I'll call it a success.
  2. Road trip
    I kind of have similar recollections as well. Or maybe that was an excuse because he got in Gardy's doghouse somehow? Hardy wasn't fast, but in my recollection had everything else you would want at SS. Gold gloves aren't a perfect measure, but Hardy went on to win several in Baltimore almost immediately after getting traded. And I think it came on the heels of the infamous Nishioka signing. Quite an avalanche of bad decisions..
  3. Road trip
    Yes, shortstops matter. JJ Hardy. Sigh. Traded for absolutely nothing in one of Bill Smith's most inglorious trades, a year after Smith had paid a king's ransom to get him (trading a soon-to-be-a-star Carlos Gomez). Not a coincidence that the Twins totally fell apart the next year.
  4. Road trip
    Truth 6: Twins offense has been incredibly "clutch" thus far. https://www.baseball-reference.com/tools/split_stats_lg.cgi?full=1&params=bases|RISP|ML|2026|bat|AB| As much as we like to complain about players hitting with runners in scoring position, this year the Twins as a team are hitting .288 which easily leads MLB (Philly is a distant 2nd place at .266). You can look at OBP, 1st. Slugging, 2nd. BABIP, a thoroughly out of character .340! Can it continue? Possibly not, but the stats back up the performance so far. We can certainly point to the failings of individual players, and I think everyone *feels* like the Twins need to upgrade offense at several positions, but as a whole the Twins offense has performed well beyond expectations.
  5. Road trip
    I agree, he was a golden child for TD. Perhaps it was justified though... back in 2024 he was highly ranked in MLB Pipeline, ESPN, and various other prospect sites. I think hope for Brooks Lee was justified given that pedigree and his high draft slot. Most of us had never seen him play, other than a few highlight reels. I agree generally though that TD writers/readers pin some hopes on many less highly thought of prospects, often later round draft picks. Names like Balzazovic, McCusker, Helmen, and Keirsey come to mind. None of those received the national press that Brooks Lee got, and needless to say none of them worked out in their brief chances in MLB. The Twins are, by any objective measure, an unsuccessful franchise this century. Most of us were born into fandom by geography. When the present is bad, people tend to hope for the future or else dwell on the past... but Kirby and Hrbek aren't coming back.
  6. Road trip
    Gotcha... so instead of giving him some time at AAA to improve his game the Twins should just release him. 23 years old... apparently in your world if you can't perform well at 23 you never will.
  7. Road trip
    He's only 23, so there is still time for him to become the player we *thought* he was going to be last year. He had fewer than 400 PAs at AA and AAA combined. The Twins rarely rush their prospects through the minors, but I think you could argue that Luke got rushed, perhaps both offensively and defensively. If they think he just needs more work at 2b to become an asset there, send him to AAA to learn more, which might also benefit his hitting. If he needs to become an outfielder... well, there are players at AAA hitting well that are already better defensive outfielders than Luke. It seems like either way, a move to St Paul might be the best for both the player and the franchise.
  8. Road trip
    I agree, at least short term. I'll be pleasantly surprised if he doesn't get shelled in his first couple of call ups. But perhaps that is the point. Get the learning done in 2026 while he rides the shuttle back and forth from St Paul. Expect a little better in 2027, while still riding the shuttle. Perhaps a bullpen anchor by 2028? That may even be optimistic given his minor league numbers, but if his stuff is really that electric we can hope that he will develop the needed control that he doesn't currently posses.
  9. Road trip
    The Padres do desperately need more outfield (and DH) production, so they are a likely match, be it Larnach or one of our other outfielder/DH types. They need to make moves, their best hitter so far this year is (*gulp*) Ty France.
  10. Road trip
    Yeah, nobody here remembers Santana, Viola, Mauer, Morneau, Kirby, or Carew. Heck....just a few years ago Maeda finished 2nd in the Cy Young voting.
  11. Road trip
    At this point next year, at least three of them will be on the IL. Bank on it. That is the nature of MLB pitching in the 2020s.
  12. Road trip
    I generally agree with your list, except I can't share your optimism on Pablo. Paddack-like may actually be the likely result, or even an optimistic result, although Paddack had a different surgery. The internal brace procedure Pablo had is a little different, and relatively new. A disappointing comp result for the internal brace procedure on a 2nd UCL tear would be Zach Britton or Matt Bush (both forced to retire). Shohei Ohtani is the best possible result, but isn't really comparable as it was Ohtani's first UCL tear, and this is Pablo's second. This article, while a bit dated being from 2023, lays out the limited pool of comps, and isn't a cause for optimism: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/the-ucl-internal-brace-surgery-non-study/ I have great respect for Pablo, and he could of course be the exception... but it wouldn't stun me if by 2028 he was forced to confront his own Moonlight Graham decision.... he's getting somewhat old to start med school.
  13. Road trip
    A great athlete, but a career caught stealing percentage of 11% in the minors is not going to be good enough in MLB. Can it improve? Perhaps, but he's been even worse this year at 6%. Yes, that's not a typo. Against 69 stolen base attempts, Diaw has thrown out... 4. Year Age Tm Lg Lev Aff G GS CG Inn Ch PO A E DP Fld% RF/9 RF/G PB WP SB CS CS% 2026 22 Cedar Rapids MIDW A+ MIN C 21 21 181.1 236 225 8 3 0 .987 11.56 11.10 1 65 4 6%
  14. Road trip
    Keaschall is a tough grade. Some struggles and adjustments are normal for a rookie. Expecting him to continue to produce at the clip he showed during a brief run in 2025 probably was not realistic. I'd probably put either of the free agent signings (Caratini or Bell) as 5th most disappointing rather than Keaschall. SWR obviously went to zero value, but his value going into the season was just marginal to me. I don't understand how he was ranked so high on the preseason list. He was a potential #4 type starter, but likely a #5. I guess he was young and cheap. I'd maybe put him 3rd on the list in terms of value drop. Wallner dropped a lot, 2nd seems appropriate. Pablo, unfortunately, gets the top spot for me. He came in as a #1/#2 type of starter, and now I think it is likely that he never throws another pitch for the Twins, and obviously won't bring back anything in a potential trade. Much like SWR, his value is now unfortunately zero.
  15. Road trip
    Ridiculous... as in ridiculously optimistic? I'm starting to think so. Starting to look like a team that will win about 65 this year. Yikes and Yuck are good words for this, but I think I'd choose "Yawn". I don't see much upside for this collection of position players, and the young pitchers are now getting beat up pretty good.
  16. Road trip
    It seems the Twins FO will, on an average year, try out a dozen or two pitching castoffs from other orgs. Most will fail, but a few will succeed. If you throw enough stuff against the wall, some of it will stick I guess. Looks like Gomez is this year's lotto winner. I can't say this is a great way to build a competitive bullpen, but the bright spot in Gomez's case is if he truly is fixed he is controllable and affordable for a long time yet.
  17. Road trip
    Indeed. And if that isn't damning with faint praise, I don't know what is.
  18. Road trip
    If they believed, he'd already be with the big club. Maybe some other org believes in Fedko? Fedko could easily be packaged with an MLB trade piece (Jeffers, Ryan, whomever) to sweeten the pot to acquire whatever it is that this FO believes in. Trade from excess, and the Twins certainly have excess corner outfielder prospects/suspects.
  19. Road trip
    Yup, keep cycling through them. Give Martin some run till July or so to see if he can rebound. Find out if he's a starter or a backup. It's a 85+ loss team regardless. And old friend Royce is absolutely on fire with the Saints, so I expect him to get another shot in a couple of weeks. There are no shortage of placeholders who can be removed from the current roster, be it Outman, Arcia, Bell, or someone else.
  20. Road trip
    That contract worked out well... but even if you are only talking free agency signings, the value the Twins got from signing Jim Thome absolutely blows away the Bader contract. For a mere $1.5 million, supposedly "over the hill" Jim Thome slashed .283/.412/.627 - an OPS+ of 182 on a Twins team that won the AL Central. After Morneau got hurt Thome was easily their best hitter that year.
  21. Road trip
    Good grief. Seriously? Only 6? I did not know that. Trying to be innovative is important for a small-ish market franchise, I get it. But only 6 guys threw over 100 innings? So Paredes was actually a work horse by Twins minor league standards? Every good MLB starting pitcher threw more innings than that in the minors and/or college. I'm not just talking about the Johan Santanas and Brad Radkes from years ago. Pablo Lopez had years well over 100 innings in the minors. Same with Joe Ryan. It really seems like the Twins are now risking entire development cycles on this theory that pitchers shouldn't throw too many innings or they will get hurt. I guess we can look forward to a whole lot of guys who are only able to throw 65 pitches per game, or who have to be shut down for the year in August. I don't like being "grumpy old guy", but I'm kinda feeling that right now.
  22. Road trip
    I'm mildly hopeful. I remain unimpressed with developing pitchers under "the Travis Adams plan". Paredes hasn't been built up to provide much length as a starter, and while a 3-inning reliever sounds appealing in theory, opportunities for such a beast are few, and usually occur in blowouts. With a low-90s fastball he probably won't become a 1-inning bullpen guy. So.... I hope he can develop a meaningful role, but I can barely speculate what it will be. A guy accustomed to throwing 65 pitches has really limited usefulness in MLB.
  23. Road trip
    Well, I appreciate the optimism, but the bolded word choice below made me laugh out loud. "Tristan Gray, Orlando Arcia and Ryan Kreidler form an underwhelming but extremely intriguing collection of role players on the infield." I'm neither entertained nor intrigued by that collective, even if I'll root for them. On the other hand, wouldn't it be peak irony if the "pitching pipeline" finally arrived after Falvey left? Other than SWR's implosion, the performance of several young starting pitchers plus Morris in the pen is a cause for real hope. Bonus points as well for Ober's performance.
  24. Road trip
    I saw that too. Olivar absolutely hit the snot out of the ball this year at AA (.978 OPS). Everything I read on here is that he is "barely" a catcher... but maybe if Brian Harper could learn well enough to be passable, so can Olivar.
  25. Road trip
    There have been some rough games for the offense, and with Jeffers hurt it will likely get worse. The eye test says the Twins offense is bad. And yet... still 3rd in the AL in runs scored, and a mere run behind 2nd place Tampa. AL teams are all struggling to score runs. We've had some good pitching performances to be sure, as JD-Twins noted above. But there have also been some horrible clunkers. SWR a real disappointment. Essentially the entire bullpen is very bad. Overall, the Twins rank a very distant 12th in the AL in allowing runs. Every team in the AL Central is better, even the recently horrible White Sox. Despite some good individual performances Twins pitching (and defense) is NOT a strength relative to the rest of the league. I don't know that our eyes are deceiving us, but perhaps our perspective is. A few years ago the Bomba Squad scored runs with ease, but that era of baseball is long gone. Pitching rules the game currently, and pretty much every team can throw good starters out there, and most of them have vastly superior relievers than the Twins.
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