Road trip
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Everything posted by Road trip
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It's too bad. I suppose he may get a chance in another minor league system. At worst he will get a shot overseas or in the American Association. He could launch a lot of HR's for Fargo/Sioux Falls/Sioux City. That league is full of former minor leaguers who just weren't quite good enough but still want to play for a small paycheck and a chance.
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The hardest part for him may be remaining a Twin past July 31 if some contender's CF gets hurt and the Twins turn into sellers.
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I'm similar. It's a tough gig, with the payroll/revenue deck being stacked against them. They may not be quite good enough to get where we would all like to be. Development of many top prospects has stalled, which may be an injury and coaching thing more than a FO selection thing. Philosophically, the roster looks like it is a bit stuck fighting the last war (big, slow, powerful position players that would have been very desirable, circa 2018) instead of designed for the way the game has evolved. One thing I will credit them with is finding some value from the waiver wire and low draft picks. We all cringe and joke about this, but its a skill set that low payroll teams benefit from. In the past three years they have found real value in other team's castoffs: Castro, Stewart, and this year Clemens being the prime examples. You could argue that the Twins go dumpster diving too much, or sometimes give too long a leash to their selections (Bride), but I think the payroll limitations mean they have to try. They've also had some low draft picks do very well: Varland, Ober, Sands. With both of these groups there have been far more misses than hits, but that's the nature of fixing or developing players who have flaws in their profile. So, I might give the FO a grade in the B range. Problem is the Twins need an A to compete against the big spenders. Tough gig indeed.
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Cubs (Rea) vs Twins (Paddack): 7/10/25, 12:10pm
Road trip replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Archived Game Threads
How fast things change... 3 weeks ago half of Twins Daily was ready to sign Paddack to an extension, and considered him far too valuable to trade. He's probably not as bad as he's shown the last five starts, nor as good as he showed in May-early June. It's a long season, for good or ill. -
Also getting Duran for Eddie E (loved Eddie, but that one worked out well). Getting Maeda for Graterol was probably a minor win, given the Graterol hasn't quite become the stud many hoped for. Jake Odorizzi seems like ancient history now, but that was also a good get... gave up nothing of value. But yeah, overall, they are maybe hitting .500 at best on trades as we could also name several that didn't work out.
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Just to play devil's advocate... Joe Ryan looks like an ace today. He's 29. But last year at age 28 he was just "fairly good", 7-7, 3.60 ERA, 2.3 WAR. The year before he wasn't even that, 1.5 WAR. Maybe this year's production is his new normal. Maybe Ryan will be the next Santana/Verlander/Scherzer who will have many years of sustained excellence. But I kind of doubt it...we've seen flashes of greatness from many pitchers over the years, and there are mighty few pitchers who become an ace for a half decade or more. Most just have a great season that is an outlier. Right now his value is at a peak. Buy low, sell high on stocks and baseball players. There's a chance you are trading away the next Verlander for a pack of prospects. There's probably a much better chance that you are trading away something far less than that though... It does have to be a very substantial offer of multiple good players...but you have to consider it, as the 2025 Joe Ryan may just be an outlier season.
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I smiled a bit, and then suddenly I feared that Keuchel is going to throw 5 shutout innings against the Twins in August...
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While Jeffers will never win a gold glove, I think you have to call him a development success story. My recollection is that he was considered a really raw, bat-first catcher out of college. He now looks like he may be the best player taken in the 2nd round of the 2018 draft. (and we will conveniently ignore the catcher taken in round 3 by the Mariners... but everyone passed on him at least twice).
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Here's the rub: If Bader keeps up this pace he is likely going to get more than his $10 million option on the open market. There aren't many free agents this winter who can play a good CF and potentially hit well, and at age 31 this is Bader's last realistic chance to lock up a multi-year deal. What's his incentive to sign for a single year? However, if Bader's bat regresses to his 2022-2024 levels for the rest of this year (OPS+ range of 69 to 87) do you still want him back for $10 million? Back to the main topic, yeah I'd trade Stewart at the deadline for a good catching prospect as I don't expect Stewart to remain healthy long term, but I've sort of given up on making the playoffs this season.
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Pretty good summary, unfortunately. It's increasingly looking like Larnach is best suited to be a platoon DH, emergency outfielder. Back in the days of 10 man pitching staffs, you could carry a guy like that on the roster for a long time and derive some value (Randy Bush would be an example). With the advent of big bullpens and short benches it gets tough to fit Larnach in to any kind of long term plan. If/when the Twins decide to sell, Larnach could potentially be a candidate. Some contender might need a decent left handed bat. He's not without value, but if this is his ceiling he is also replaceable.
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Quite a turnaround for that franchise. They've been mediocre to outright bad the past half decade. We can only hope to see sudden improvement like that down the road.
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Indeed, Manuel Margot says "hi".
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Point one, yes, that is truly an amazing year the Cubs lineup is having. Carson Kelly's past would indicate that this half-year is an unsustainable fluke, but Kyle Tucker is gonna keep on hitting like always I suppose, and it is possible that Michael Busch might too. And I also strongly disagree on Witt. He's arguably the most exciting player in MLB, and much like Buxton is carrying the Royals offense almost by himself. Unlike Buxton, he's been blessed with great health throughout his time in MLB.
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Simeon Woods Richardson Has A New Pitch
Road trip replied to Cody Pirkl's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Still only 24. He will get stronger. He will get smarter with experience. He's just a #4 or #5 level starter at this point, but with a little luck and a lot of effort developing that splitter perhaps he can slot in as a #3 in a year or two? Gotta hope so... Good story! -
Recency bias is a terribly strong thing. Wallner has had a long string of poor games, no doubt. His career as a whole thus far has been quite good, as Nick correctly noted. For those complaining about lack of RBI's, consider the following stats for his career: RISP - BA .264, OBP .382, SLG .536 - That's exceptional in this era. ANY runners on base - BA .271, OBP .375, SLG .527 - also exceptional. Wallner doesn't lack RBIs because he "only hits empty solo home runs". He doesn't rack up RBIs because the Twins have a lousy team OBP. In his entire career, he only has 304 plate appearances with runners on base. He knocked in 80 in those 304 PAs. Not too bad... I don't know where Wallner will go from here, but to give up on him because of a bad three week stretch seems foolish. However I am quite confident that recency bias will rear its head again, and by August we will be complaining about some other player who has hit a rough patch.
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For kicks, I actually looked this up. His OPS+ this year is 39. Jim Kaat, a pretty good hitting pitcher, had a career OPS+ of 37 😐 It takes some really elite defense to make up for a bat that bad. As for the article, I guess I'm open to trading Jeffers for the right return. Jeffers is good, but not great, and soon to be expensive (Boras). The real problem as noted by many is that there is no obvious replacement for next year, which would necessitate some serious off-season shopping. This season I have largely given up on...
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Yup, Mauer and Perkins both went through this. They were consistent punching bags for many fans. Heck, many were ready to give up on Louie Varland last year, and this year he is one of the most reliable arms on the team. We are the opposite of Yankee fans, who sometimes seem to think every player in the starting lineup is HOF-worthy..
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Well, they say you can never have too much pitching... and Bride had a better ERA in his time with the Twins than Joey Wentz. 😁
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Maybe next year for Cardenas, hopefully an injury doesn't force the issue... And this is not an endorsement of Vazquez's "offensive" numbers. While the bar is low for catchers, he really isn't even meeting the minimum standards for a catcher anymore. He might be untradeable at this point with his contract.
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This, plus the defense. The sunk cost fallacy is powerful. The Twins invested a lot in Lee when they drafted him 8th overall, and they are going to give him every chance to stick. They are doing the same with Lewis. Back in the day they did it with Buxton (remember, he really struggled at the plate his first few years). Remember Kohl Stewart? Nothing in his minor league performance indicated he would be successful in the majors, but the Twins kept advancing him and gave him multiple opportunities anyway, largely because he was a high 1st rounder. Someday if necessary they will do it with Jenkins, regardless of how he initially performs at the MLB level. The comps from the article (Julien, Miranda) weren't first round picks, and other guys like Bride and Gaspar were picked up off of waivers. Those types of players have to perform immediately or they go back to AAA. Sometimes they do well out of the gate (Dozier, Koskie), and everyone is happy when a lottery ticket turns out to be a good player.
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So the brain trust decided the shell of Michael Tonkin was more worthy of a 40 man spot this winter than Ronny Henriquez... 😬 I know we are always gonna have some guys who go on to do well elsewhere, but that one now looks hard to defend.
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Is Byron Buxton Running Earlier in Counts?
Road trip replied to Matthew Trueblood's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Given his success rate, Buxton should run early and often. Larnach has pretty much settled in to the #2 hole in the lineup, at least against rhp. I'm ok with Larnach in this spot, but he has a weakness: 2024: 12 GIDP (2nd on the team). 2025: 8 GIDP and counting.... Frankly, with Larnach hitting 2nd and Buxton standing on 1b I cringe with every swing where Buxton isn't running... -
How about Austin Martin instead? Scorching hot, defensively versatile (if mediocre), and would bring some needed speed. Bring him up till the all star break, and then sort out who should be sent down in about two weeks when Lewis is hopefully fully healthy. Heck, Martin should probably be replacing Keirsey anyway.
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That is a fair critique. No, I don't believe Wallner will enter the Twins inner circle, and stated I expect his career OPS to drop. Forced to guess, I'd say a career OPS+ around 110 or 115. Valuable, but not elite. I have no meaningful memory of Alyea, but I do expect Wallner to have a better career than some other young outfielders we had hope for like Cordova, D Young, Kielty, etc. Hey, maybe I'm totally wrong and Wallner's just a modern day version of Randy Bush (limited defensively, only a platoon bat). But Bush never had a start like this, or really any year like Wallner's 2024...and yet he still put in a dozen pretty useful years with the Twins.
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To add some context, your all time Twins career OPS+ numbers: Killer - OPS+ 143 Tony O - OPS+ 131 Sir Rodney - OPS+ 131 Wallner - OPS+ 131 Herbie - OPS+ 128 Kirby - OPS+ 124 (this one was interesting and surprising to me, as Kirby's forced early retirement kept him from hurting his career numbers by going through a decline phase - I thought it would have been higher) Mauer - OPS+124 Morneau - OPS+120 Sure...Wallner likely won't maintain his career numbers, but he doesn't have to. If you can't be excited about the totality of what he has done thus far you aren't looking at the company he is keeping. So yeah, don't trade him for anything other than an offer you can't refuse.
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