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Road trip

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Everything posted by Road trip

  1. Road trip
    If I'm feeling super, super, super generous I could theorize that they want to maximize his playing time the next three weeks and will call him up on Sept 22 to play a few MLB games after the Saint's season has ended. But I'm tired of lying to myself... Zoll is what we feared he is.
  2. Road trip
    I think the Twins have forgotten him, at least for this year. Calling up Gonzalez instead of Wallner kind of confirms that. Having said that, many on here are saying "$20 million is too much for Jeffers" while others are calling for spending $10 million on Bell. There is no obvious external or internal candidate to replace Jeffers. Spend the money on Jeffers you were going to give to Bell, who can be replaced at DH by absolutely anyone, be it Wallner, Keaschall, Buxton, Sabato, or a cheap free agent pickup. Yes, there will very possibly be a drop off in production compared to Bell, but the drop off is minimal compared to a chasm-sized drop off if Jeffers isn't the catcher. I'd vastly prefer Jeffers + random DH in 2027 compared to Bell + random catcher.
  3. Road trip
    I don't think there is a chance in '27. His long term home might be in the outfield, not behind the plate. His caught stealing percentages (less than 10%) would make him unplayable as a catcher in today's game. He might improve, but it won't be overnight.
  4. Road trip
    Solid "no" on spending on a DH, unless it means spending on Jeffers to come back to do a Catcher/DH 50-50 split. There are only a half dozen difference makers at most in the league who are primarily DH's, and we aren't going to get Schwarber, Alvarez, or Ohtani.
  5. Road trip
    My expectations were 85-90 losses, so they've overachieved that...maybe. They could certainly lose more than 85 yet. I didn't expect them to "contend" for a playoff spot, but who could have imagined that the American League would be historically awful? Meaningful games in August have been a plus. But I also expected or hoped we would have a younger squad by now. So many young players got hurt. This is an old roster. It's hard to project substantial improvement next year, and that is depressing. This group certainly is not the 1986 Twins or even the 2000 Twins. Both of those squads lost games but both were young and on the rise.. I'd rather be there than where the franchise is today.
  6. Road trip
    You are both kinda correct, depending on what part of the season you are looking at. Their pitching staff started the year relatively young, but injuries and trades led to adding Kremer (30), Nance (35), Minter (32), and Hoffman (33). With pitching staffs "healthy" is a more important qualifier that "age" anyway, and health has been an issue amongst both young and old pitchers this year. Now the position players... unforgivably old for a small spending franchise. The Twins rank 10th in age of position players (see https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2026-misc.shtml), but the 9 teams above them and the 3 teams below them are big spenders, almost all of them with double to triple the Twins payroll. The Tigers, Guardians, and White Sox have much younger squads, which doesn't bode well for future AL Central races.
  7. Road trip
    Jenkins and EmRod are the semi-obvious candidates, plus there will be another pitcher added Sept 1... might be Raya. Wallner immediately IF Bell would get hurt. Otherwise I don't think he has a route to playing time. He started hitting in AAA two months ago and didn't get called back so I don't think he will now either. Look for him next year in KC/Cincy/Colorado/etc. Or a 1% chance of somehow hitting 30 bombs for the Yankees...because that's how we roll. Instead, of course, it'll be Gray...
  8. Road trip
    That is a bit of a sobering list. Some names I expected, but some were surprises. I have generally thought that given his speed, Keaschall would inevitably be able to convert to a decent outfielder with more reps. Range shouldn't be a problem and yet, there is a list of pretty fast guys (Griffey, Garr, Landreaux, Brock, Cedeno, etc) who apparently were much worse fielders than I had remembered.
  9. Road trip
    Being a high draft pick and the relative of two MLB players apparently gets you a boost in the ratings. He is young, but leads (trails?) all of minor league baseball with a 44.7% strikeout rate. My guess is that the Twins will keep hoping and working on him until he is in his early 20's, but I can't see him being promoted up the ladder anytime soon.
  10. Road trip
    I sometimes wonder if the Twins broke Wallner this spring by having him face so many lefties in April, while Larnach was protected. Neither player has historically had much success against them. It's hard to believe, but Larnach has only 1 more PA this year against lefties than Wallner does, and Wallner hasn't been seen since mid-May! When the post-mortem is done after the season, corner outfield production is going to be flagged as a big weakness in 2026. Fielding, hitting, base-running... it is all subpar for the position, although at least Keaschall shows promise if he can figure out defense in a corner. I hope whomever is occupying those spots puts in some good games to finish out the year, but at this point it is just a faint hope.
  11. Road trip
    Roden was either way too deep or got a pretty bad jump on that...
  12. Road trip
    I'm stunned he didn't even really make an attempt. He's really not right physically. Automatic double with normal Buxton.
  13. Road trip
    The numbers seem a bit low, and might be for every team. 7.1 WAR for the Twins? A healthy Lopez is worth 3 or more all by himself. Add in significant missed time from Buxton, Jeffers, Ryan, Abel, Festa, Banda, Sands, etc... I don't know, it seems like more than 7.1 I do agree though, relative to some other teams the Twins have been lucky. Compared to 20 years ago the injury lists have become very long for every franchise.
  14. Road trip
    Nice analysis of his slump, but sorry, but this line got me: "And while he had largely been a glorified strong-sided platoon bat for much of his career, he has taken his performance to another level in 2026" IMO, Larnach is absolutely still a strong-side platoon bat. He can't hit lefties at all, and hasn't this year either in limited opportunities. Larnach had a nice first half, but I don't think it was career altering. He's had a recent slump and I hope he breaks out of it. He has some value, but expecting him to be anything more than an average-hitting platoon corner outfielder/DH is likely wishful thinking at this point in his career. He will likely end up a 1-ish WAR player again this year, which is kind of where he usually ends up due to poor defense.
  15. Road trip
    1. Starter. Need 10 because 5 will be hurt at any given time. 2. yes, but "long-term" for Lewis likely may mean "until he becomes a free agent in '29". 3. I sure hope Keaschall's glove improves somewhere.
  16. Road trip
    To be fair to Dougie, he had put up 4.3 WAR in 2003, the year before he was traded. That's nearly the WAR that Larnach has put up in his entire career thus far. There is very little chance that Larnach will match Dougie's career WAR. Obviously WAR wasn't considered in 2004, but Dougie had been a very productive hitter and fielder the previous year at .300/.393/.450 . It was however his last really good offensive season. He was 30 and his best years were behind him. The Twins correctly saw a need to make a change.
  17. Road trip
    I agree it is quite rare that teams change course on vets in a pennant race, but the Twins did it when they replaced Mientkiewicz with Morneau. It was controversial, but trading Mientkeiwicz at the end of July was absolutely the right move and worked out splendidly for the Twins both short term and long term.
  18. Road trip
    Young is striking out at what has to be an unprecedented rate. 176 K's in 351 at bats. I can't fathom how he could stay in the Top 20 prospect list much longer.
  19. Road trip
    Seems a bit of an odd comp. Mendez strikes out around 20% in the pitching-poor AAA. Arraez for his career strikes out at just under 6% in a dominant pitching era MLB. There just aren't many real comps in today's game for what Arraez does. Mendez is gonna have to hit for more power than Arraez because he will almost certainly strike out far more. For Mendez I think you hope for a better version of Larnach, and I'm skeptical that he will get there. He certainly won't be there this year.
  20. Road trip
    Sabato to KBO makes a lot of sense, although it is possible some other MLB org will give him a shot. I'm skeptical he will get a chance with the Twins. Wallner probably will be getting his release this offseason. He's torn up AAA again, but it seems pretty obvious the Twins org won't be giving him another chance based on Roden and Jackson being on the roster all summer. Likely they will want the 40-man spot for someone else. I do expect to see him in the majors somewhere else though next year. If a different coaching staff can fix the hole in his swing perhaps he could return to 2023-24 production which would make a valuable DH.
  21. Road trip
    You can never have too much starting pitching depth. If a reasonable salary agreement can be achieved I suspect Ober may be back next year. I trust nobody on this staff to remain healthy in 2027. Larnach or Bell, choose one for next year's DH. Or arguably less than one if financial resources need to go elsewhere. DH is the easiest spot to fill on the roster, and Larnach is a liability in the outfield who will only get slower as time passes.
  22. Road trip
    There has been nothing remotely encouraging about recent Twins play.... ..except that we are only a half game out from the last playoff spot. What a weird year.
  23. Road trip
    My takeaway a decade or more ago was essentially that "3 true outcomes" hitters are a good thing. Outs were all equal, be they strikeouts or other outs. In fact, because a small percentage of groundouts became double-plays, you actually wanted guys that lifted the ball, worked deep counts, hopefully hit a lot of HR's and drew walks, and were willing to pay the cost of also striking out a lot and tolerating relatively low batting averages so long as OBP/OPS was solid. It was a core Billy Beane/Moneyball ethos. Power and walks were desired, so strikeouts were tolerated so long as the power was there. The league has moved away from this mindset, and the board with it to a large degree. It was a philosophy I embraced as well at one time, but the game has evolved as it always does. Miguel Sano's skill set was highly desired a decade ago despite clear holes in his game. Today...guys who hit for power but strike out a lot and can't field aren't desired (see: Wallner), unless they are Kyle Schwarber-level performers.
  24. Road trip
    I don't really disagree with anything you wrote, but I'm amused that over the past decade the board has gone from "strikeouts don't matter", to a significant percentage of people looking at strikeout rates first to judge players. It isn't wrong, just noting the change in public perception. And btw, for the strikeout haters, do NOT look at Quentin Young's strikeout rates. Your eyes will bleed.
  25. Road trip
    I think 0% next year chance on Tait, who isn't hitting all that well at A ball this year and remains unrefined on defense. Lackey is a year older and his development is ahead of Tait in terms of defensive skills and possibly will be on offense as well, although adjusting to a wood bat is tough for some. I expect to see Lackey pass Tait up on the organizational ladder in the next year or two.
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