Matt Braun

I'd like Clippard as well. This wasn't meant to be a set-in-stone type of idea but rather a blueprint that can guide which other relievers the team should target.

He's a soon to be 28 year-old reliever with a career ERA and FIP over 5. I think that's motivation right there.

I'm just following the boundaries set by the movie. David Justice and Scott Hatteburg had OBPs of .333 and .332 respectively in 2001, nowhere near the number they were looking for.

The film Moneyball was recently uploaded to Netflix. Naturally, I watched it the first day it was available because of how hard it slaps (and because it documents the last time the Twins won a playoff series). In it there’s a where Brad Pitt points out that the scouts were looking at their problem all wrong when it came to free agency. They were trying to replace Jason Giambi, the exiting MVP, instead of re-creating him.Giambi was an incredible player who held an eye-popping .477 OBP in 2001. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the A’s could get a similar player at their budget so they decided to reconcile his loss with the other two position players they lost in order to recreate him. Instead of having to find a player with an OBP of .477, they just had to find three players with an OBP of .364 to even out the losses. Let’s apply this theory to the Twins and their bullpen. The team is set to lose Trevor May, Tyler Clippard, and Sergio Romo. Romo technically has a team option for 5 million but I’m assuming that the team will decline that. We’re going to use FIP as our guideline stat (read about it here if you don’t understand it). A quick rule is that you read it like how you read ERA. May had a 3.62 FIP in 2020, Romo was at 4.34, and Clippard came in at 2.65. Add those up and divide by three and you get 3.54. That’s the number that we’re looking to either hit or get close to. Here are three relievers who fit this criteria: Tommy Hunter Do you know who this is? Good. That just makes this an even better choice. Hunter is a reliever coming off three years in Philadelphia after bouncing around a number of teams. He was once on the Rays which should tell you everything you need to know. Hunter is mainly a sinker/cutter/curve guy who has been able to off-set the velocity loss that comes with old age by increasing the use of his breaking stuff. But let’s get down to the stats. Hunter had a 3.31 FIP in 2020 and a 3.63 FIP in 2018 (he missed most of 2019 so we can ignore that year). The average of those numbers comes out to 3.47 which is perfectly in the vicinity of what we’re looking for. At the age of 34 he shouldn’t be a majorly sought-after commodity but he can be a useful arm in the Twins’ bullpen. Greg Holland We all know who this guy is. As a part of the terrifying three-headed monster that was Kelvin Herrera/Wade Davis/Greg Holland, he crushed the hopes of Twins hitters with incredible ease. It’s been a bit more rough since those prime years, however. Four other teams employed Holland after he left KC to varying degrees of success before he re-joined the Royals in 2020 and found some of his old stuff. His fastball is no longer the crisp 95-96 that it once was but he sat at 93 on average in 2020 which is still respectable. Instead of the heater, Holland has leaned more on his slider recently and better results have followed. Combining his 2019 FIP of 4.76 and his 2020 FIP of 2.52 gives you 3.64. Again, that’s right in the sweet spot we’re looking for. Robert Stephenson We’re transitioning to a trade target for this one. Stephenson is a 27-year-old reliever on the Reds whose 2020 season was nothing but a disaster which is perfect for us. I actually also wrote about Stephenson when Twinsdaily profiled reliever trade targets in 2019 (man, my syntax really sucked back then.) My opinion on Stephenson hasn’t changed much since then. Stephenson is a failed ex-top prospect who now must find his footing as a two-pitch reliever. He throws his fastball at 94.8 MPH on average but mostly chooses to rely on his devastating slider (thrown at 65.9% of the time in 2020). The pitch resulted in a swinging strike 15.6% of the time in 2019. As I said before, his 2020 was a disaster (12.19 FIP over 10 innings!) but I don’t see this as a fair reflection of his ability. His 2019 FIP was 3.63 and that, once again, is exactly the kind of number we’re looking for. These three additions give us a FIP of 3.58; essentially the number we were aiming for (3.54). We’ve recreated the lost bullpen arms by finding value in veterans and potential cast-offs. Fangraphs hasn’t updated their crowd-sourced resource for predicting free agent contracts yet so I don’t have a great estimate of how much Hunter and Holland will cost. I can’t imagine it will be much, though. A 1-year deal for around 4 million for each feels about right relievers at their age. Stephenson on the other hand shouldn’t cost more than some low-level prospects. What do you know? Now the Twins have a bullpen again. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

Tampa Bay fits in well with this idea. They drafted Snell but signed Morton and identified Glasnow as a guy who needed adjustments. Pretty balanced method there.

Well, Kluber, Bauer, Clevinger, and Carrasco also came from other organizations. I think they just know how to identify and fix starters earlier than most other teams do.

Yes, you read that title correctly. There are major league teams out there who are *willingly* doing work for the Twins and they don’t even know it! Can you believe this? Well, you probably don’t actually and even I, the person who did the research, am somewhat skeptical. Rest assured, there are no fibs here.I got into a Twitter argument the other day about the Twins. Typically this is far from a notable event but for the first time in the recorded history of the internet, I actually reflected on what was said in the conversation. For context, here’s what I tweeted: I really just wanted to dunk on Cleveland for the laffs because, well, it’s just so damn fun to do that. Some people however commented that the reverse could be true for both teams when it comes to pitching, thus supplying the rain for my parade. Of course, Cleveland can just magically make incredible starting pitchers appear out of thin air while people have been bitching about the Twins’ pitching development since the dawn of man. The Twins have actually had a top three starting rotation by fWAR for two straight years now. The fact that people still find some way to be grumpy about that will never make sense to me. Anyways, I pondered this for a bit and soon realized that no one is actually correct. The Twins are actively avoiding using prospects in the starting rotation and they’re getting away with it. You don’t need a bunch of stats to tell you that starting pitching is crucial in baseball. Numerous scouts and executives have dedicated their entire lives to developing starting pitching because it’s just *that* important, especially in the postseason. The issue is that young starting pitchers are notoriously volatile when it comes to both performance and injury. Some of you may have heard of the term “TINSTAAPP” which stands for “there is no such thing as a pitching prospect”. Usually this is said after a young fireballer goes down with a forearm strain and meets with Dr. Neal ElAttrache. Patience is key when it comes to these arms but competing teams don’t have the time needed to keep running these lotto tickets out on the mound. They need another option. The Twins understand this and have acted accordingly. Quick question; which two starting pitchers for the Twins in the Falvey and Levine era have both: Been solely drafted and developed by the TwinsThrown more than 60 innings in a seasonThinking hard? Alright, I’ll cut you some slack. The two pitchers over the last four years are Kyle Gibson and José Berríos. That’s it. Gibson was also already an established MLB veteran when the new guys took over. Berríos is the only homegrown starter to newly entrench himself into the Twins starting rotation. The team has decided to make a number of established veterans the meat of their starting rotation. Players like Ervin Santana, Jake Odorizzi, Lance Lynn, Michael Pineda, Kenta Maeda and so on have been the main workhorses since 2017 (to varying degrees of success). This is effective for two main reasons; the first of which is that, well, veteran talent is always going to be a safer bet than unproven arms. You can argue about the “upside” that certain young arms provide in the long run but a bona fide grizzled veteran provides the kind of 401K peace of mind that a 23-year-old can’t. The second perk is that you don’t have to shove a young arm into an uncomfortable situation unnecessarily. Some starters like Ian Anderson on the Braves have been able to flourish immediately but these are rare exceptions. Having a balanced mix of talent acquisitions in the starting rotation has been a plan that other contenders have executed to success as well. Here’s a breakdown of the last three World Series winners and how they netted their top three starters: (Starters are ranked by innings pitched that season) 2019 Nationals: Stephen Strasburg - DraftedMax Scherzer - Free AgencyPatrick Corbin - Free Agency2018 Red Sox:Rick Porcello - TradeDavid Price - Free AgencyChris Sale - Trade2017 Astros*:Mike Fiers (awkward) - TradeCharlie Morton - Free AgencyDallas Keuchel - DraftedJust two starters among these pitchers were drafted and developed solely by the respective franchise they won with. Everyone else was obtained in free agency or through a trade. This doesn’t even include the famous Justin Verlander trade the Astros made to push them over the top in 2017. Sure, maybe the Twins can’t shed the idea that they can’t develop starting pitching. But they don’t really need to. They’ve decided instead to focus on making safe bets on veteran starters and improving internally only when the situation calls for it. They have made other teams expend the energy needed to weed out successful pitchers and then they plunder who they want. It’s a proven system of success and the team has no reason to abandon this plan for the immediate future. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

It is now the first day of the Championship Series and Fall has officially nestled itself deep into our bloodstreams. Maybe it’s the quaintness of the familiar cool breeze running through the hairs on our skin once again or maybe it’s the warm fortress that our homes have now morphed into, but something has created a sentimental mood that can’t be shaken.The 2020 Twins were set to be unique in the lineage of other Twins teams. Josh Donaldson was the biggest free agent the team had ever acquired, Kenta Maeda was one of the first truly great starting pitchers the team had traded for, and the offense was coming off a season in which they bashed 307 homeruns. For the first time in an era, it felt as if we had a team that could shake off the mistakes of teams past and absolve the sins of many failed postseason runs. Instead, a new reality imposed itself on us. While we were all punching our tickets to spring training in Fort Myers-the warm oasis that promises endless opportunities-an unfortunate truth became evident. This was not to be a typical season. All of baseball, the rest of the sports universe, and the world at large hit the pause button. Events were canceled or postponed and our homes became the bunkers from which we were forced to live in for an uncertain amount of time. Time had now stood still. The next few months proved to be an uncontained mess of anxiety. At times it seemed like a baseball season wouldn’t happen and at others it felt as if the entire idea of playing baseball was futile. It would have been a fun distraction from the misery and anguish happening everywhere in the world, but would that really be a good thing? Is ignoring our problems the way to handle them? Nevertheless, a season came to fruition. It was to be 60 games long with only regional opponents in the schedule and 16 teams would get to reach the playoffs if they performed well enough. This was about the worst thing that could have happened for the Twins. 60 games ensured that random, weird occurrences would clog the road in front of them. That’s the beauty of 162 games. There’s no hiding behind a few good players who could carry a team in the short term and beating up on bad teams would only open you to being exposed against better competition. In 60 games, though? Who knows. Even the Marlins made the playoffs. The Marlins for crying out loud. The 162 game season also provides ample time for player evaluation. Bad players have great streaks just as great players have bad streaks. 162 games allows for the equilibrium to be found and for the truth to be wrangled from the mess. There’s no such legitimacy in 60 games. An otherwise great player like Christian Yelich struggled relatively while random players like Dominic Smith flourished. Such occurrences speak more to the random nature of the game than the true talents of each player. And randomness is a team's worst nightmare. Especially for a team looking to add talent at the trade deadline. Luck is a mirage. It loves to promise one thing only for a different reality to become apparent afterwards. Yet, this is all a team can utilize when assessing players in 2020. The end result was a pretty quiet trade deadline. The Padres were the only franchise to carry the load as they acquired players like Mike Clevinger and Austin Nola to aid in their conquest of the NL West. The Twins, though? Like other competing franchises, they did nothing. They sat idly by and put their faith in the players they already had. It’s hard to blame them for this move. No self-respecting franchise makes impact decisions based on a 30 game sample size. Not in this era. All the team could reasonably do was sit and watch as an ultimately pointless trade deadline reached its conclusion and hope that they had the right players for a playoff run. It didn’t have to be like that. A normal season with normal games, normal rules, and normal, well, normality would have changed all of that. The team had already shown that they were fully in a win-now mode with the acquisitions of Kenta Maeda and Josh Donaldson. What would the next step have looked like? Another true ace? An Andrew Miller-type reliever who could have helped dominate in the playoffs? Just one more big bat in the lineup who could have come up clutch in a do-or-die playoff scenario? All we can do is speculate. We know how this played out in real life. Donaldson didn’t play in the playoffs due to a re-aggravated injury and a clearly hurt Byron Buxton was forced to start just one game (a full season would have allowed more time for these injuries to heal, by the way). The bats stayed cold, the team got swept, and the playoff ineptitude reached historic levels. Perhaps it's the blinding homerism that’s rooted deep into my blood but I haven’t been able to shake the sense that things would have been dramatically different in another present. A present that mimicked a season we’ve seen play out numerous times in the past. There is no Wild Card series in a separate timeline and perhaps the new opponents would have dropped a game or three against the Twins. Maybe they avoid an Astros team that is now clearly more of a contender than they received credit for. Maybe, maybe, maybe. For now all we can do is live vicariously through similar franchises like the Rays and re-watch old memories of the 1991 World Series victory and dream on what could have been. What could have been. And what actually happened. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

What is the most important hitting stat? It’s ok, this is just between you and me. There are no wrong answers here (besides RBI). Batting average? Homers? Maybe some wRC+ if you’re feeling spicy? Well, as someone who studied in The Church of Moneyball, I’m going to have to choose OBP. Today we’ll talk about a player who excels in this stat.You know LaMonte Wade Jr., right? The guy who knows the Rochester to Minneapolis flight like how I know flannels? You’d be excused if you forgot about Wade Jr. in the context of the Twins. He really has never been considered an elite prospect in the Twins' system. MLB.com’s prospect list doesn’t list him as a top 30 prospect for the team this year and the same is true for 2019’s list. FanGraphs was a bit more generous as he came in at 27 on their writeup for the Twins’ system in 2019. Here’s what they had to say about Wade: “Wade intrigues as the larger half of a corner outfield platoon. He’s not exactly tooled up, but he walks a lot — more than he strikes out against right-handed pitchers, in fact — and he’ll make up for some of what he lacks in power with rangy, corner outfield defense. It’s not spectacular, but there’s a clear role here.” That doesn’t exactly strike amazement into my heart, but they did say that there’s a clear role in his future which isn’t something that can be said about every other 27th ranked prospect. Also, Cody Stashak came in at 28 in their rankings and he’s had a solid career so far so these rankings aren’t fully foretold prophecies. Let’s dive into those on base abilities for a moment. Wade Jr. has walked at a 14.6% clip over his entire minor league career (480 games) while only striking out 13.5% of the time. His minor league OBP overall sits at .389. That walk rate would have made Wade Jr. the 10th best walker in MLB in 2019 (right behind Josh Donaldson!) and that OBP would have tied him with Freddie Freeman and Ketel Marte for 11th in MLB. That seems good! But using minor league stats in comparison with major league players is unfair. So what about Wade Jr.’s numbers over his short MLB career so far? His 13.3% MLB walk rate would still have him coming in at 16 in all of MLB in 2019, right behind Brandon Belt. Still pretty good! His MLB OBP of .336 isn’t too flattering but it’s over just 113 plate appearances. I have a good feeling that some more playing time would bump that number up even higher. So what’s the catch? Why hasn’t this on-base machine received a significant amount of playing time? Wade Jr. simply hasn’t been the power threat that a corner outfielder is typically expected to be. His minor league slugging percent of .407 would have him tied with José Iglesias for the 14th lowest rate among all qualified batters in 2019. Is ISO any better? Not really. His minor league ISO of .131 would have made him the 16th worst qualified hitter by that stat in 2019. Keep in mind that these are his minor league numbers, not his major league powers numbers which are much worse (granted in a smaller sample). A corner outfielder who doesn’t hit for power is a rare occurrence in MLB. Sorting all qualified outfielders over the last three years and ranking them by lowest slugging percent gives up a lot of names and most of them are not particularly flattering. Wade Jr.’s best MLB comps are guys like Adam Frazier, Nick Markakis, Dexter Fowler, Ben Zobrist, and Robbie Grossman (hey, I remember that guy!). None of those players are exciting names but they all have (or had) important roles on the teams they played on. For Wade. Jr, it’s going to be an uphill battle. He’ll be 27 when the 2021 season starts, he’s probably about the sixth or seventh choice in the Twins outfield, and his power numbers scream “middle infielder” instead of “corner outfield”. Short of having .030 points of slugging percentage magically appear, Wade Jr. will likely be an outsider on the Twins’ roster. That’s a real shame. Wade Jr. takes what we like to call “professional at-bats” and has an otherworldly sense of the strike zone. He’ll likely have to continue to claw his way into playing time if he wants to stick around in the future but don't let that distract you from the fact that he is a very interesting player. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

This is something that I’ve wanted to talk about for awhile. In fact, I was so inspired to write this that I completely ignored the article I was halfway through finishing. Whoops. Anyways, I wanted to talk about why I love watching José Berríos pitch.First and foremost, he’s nasty. I know this is baseball in 2020 so everyone is nasty, but just check out some of these pitches: Now that’s a curveball with demonic intent. Pretty sure that this pitch was made illegal by the Geneva Convention. It’s a shame none of you can see my face while typing because I am grinning like an idiot watching these pitches. Yet, there’s more to it than him just being plain nasty. A large part of my appreciation for Berríos is the fact that he was drafted and developed entirely by the Twins. That makes his experience unique. No other starter currently in the Twins’ rotation was drafted by them. Yeah, it’s been fun watching Kenta Maeda shove every few days. Ok, it’s been really fun to do that. But Maeda spent the majority of his time developing either in Japan or with the Dodgers. This Twins Maeda was already an established player. It’s like buying a guitar that’s been modified to look old and worn instead of beating up your own guitar over years. It’s just not the same. We’ve been keeping tabs on Berríos ever since he was drafted by the Twins in 2012. We’ve seen him rise to the top of prospect lists for longer than any of us have even likely thought about Maeda. That creates a connection. Then we of course watched Berríos get destroyed in his first MLB starts in 2016 before coming back in 2017 to find his groove. That creates a connection. I actually specifically remember his May 18th start against Colorado in 2017. He went 7 shutout innings while striking out 11 batters and it was the first time we saw the true overpowering ability he possessed. It was time to get excited. The final reason why I love watching Berríos so much is that he’s not perfect! It’s odd, why would I prefer to watch a player who wasn’t the very best in his field? When Jacob deGrom goes out and punches out 14 with mind-bending stuff, I’m obviously impressed, but ultimately unaffected. When Berríos goes out and occasionally gets kicked for 6 runs over 3 ⅔ innings, well, I can relate to that! Lord knows that I’m far from perfect at my own craft every single time I try. There’s a certain humanity to it-a vulnerability that attaches me to a player like Berríos. I want to root for him because I see a lot of me in him (to an extent, he still can throw about 50 MPH faster than me). Even his mechanics aren’t perfect. He’s all spinny and comes from kind of an awkward slingshot across-his-body angle. Yeah, get a load of Justin Verlander who was cyber-genetically molded to be ideal in every single way, big deal. Give me Berríos every single day of the week. I mean it. Sports are supposed to be an escape for most. We watch these games because none of us can hit like Nelson Cruz or run like Byron Buxton but, well, it’s fun to see people who can do these things! For me, there’s a lot of relatability in my favorite athletes and a lot of relatability in baseball as a whole. The entire game is centered around the premise that literally anything can happen on a given day. Gerrit Cole could get shelled today or Philip Humber could throw a perfect game. We don’t know! That’s part of the fun. But the sport offers everyone a chance to go to bed, wake up the next day, and try all over again. And the same is true for life. Even when we mess up we know that the sun will rise again tomorrow. Yes, Berríos is not a perfect pitcher. It would be better for the Twins franchise if he was but I personally don’t mind. Once you step back and realize that the games themselves are ultimately pretty meaningless, you gain a sense of attachment to the players personally. These people have families, dreams, aspirations, failures, and struggles just like all of us. They just happen to be incredible athletes. And once you learn to appreciate that, you begin to appreciate each player not as a player, but as a human. Click here to view the article

Eddie Rosario is a different player in 2020. A quick glance at his Fangraphs page might result in concluding that everything is normal, but do not be fooled. Rosario has embraced a slightly different style in 2020. Yes, unlike your ex who lies when they say they’ve changed, Rosario actually has.First and foremost, this is not “beat up on Eddie Rosario week” at Twinsdaily. Nick Nelson wrote his article about phasing out Eddie Rosario without realizing that I was planning on writing this one. Stuff happens. But I don’t care about drawing any grand conclusions about the future of a player. Rather, I want to explain the position they find themselves in after adjusting their playstyle. It’s been no secret that the Twins have been trying to edit Rosario’s approach at the plate basically ever since he reached the majors in 2015. His “swing at everything but also somehow hit everything” mentality has served him decently well. The team evidently believes that this same approach might be holding him back from taking another step forward. This step has yet to be taken. Believe it or not, Rosario in 2020 has actually begun to show some signs of change. His typically abysmal walk rate is now almost at the league average (8.1%) and his strikeout rate has continued to drop for the fourth straight season (12.8%). Rosario has also hit more balls in the air than he ever has in his MLB career (48.1%). Yet, his wRC+ on the year is just 101. What’s the issue? Well, while walking more, striking out less, and hitting more balls in the air is a great foundation for a breakout, there is still the small issue of what those batted balls are actually doing. Let’s go back for a quick second and check out Rosario’s plate discipline numbers first. His overall swing % is down to 53.2% (career 57.2%), which is probably good. But, his out-of-zone swing rate of 43.9% is actually up a tick from his career rate (42.9%). The issue is that he’s actually swinging less at pitches inside of the strikezone than ever before. Rosario is offering at just 70.9% of pitches inside of the zone, a drop-off from his career rate of 77.3%. Interesting. Now we can go to his batted ball profile. Rosario has never been a Statcast monster over the course of his career so far. He typically has instead worked with an “all-fields” approach that gives him more leeway when it comes to the quality of his contact. That being said, 2020 has been especially brutal for him. His xwOBACON (xwOBA on contact) is a paltry .333. That sits at almost .040 points below his average while being .045 points below the league average. If you’re still giggling at the acronym “xwOBACON”, just understand that Rosario is not hitting the ball in ideal ways to get hits. My best guess is that Rosario is watching more strikes go by which is putting him at a disadvantage in the count. Now, Rosario can counter this with his excellent contact ability, but the contact he is making in these counts is poor. He’ll run into an extra walk or two naturally but without the strike zone confidence of a Juan Soto-like player, he’ll get nervous when the count isn’t in his favor and prioritize any contact over good contact. Jack Morris might be a fan of this, but the numbers aren't. And who would you rather listen to? The Twins may actually want to urge him to strike out more. It seems counter-intuitive but his current batted-ball profile isn’t ideal. Of course, I’m just some guy on the internet so maybe the Twins shouldn’t listen to me. All I know is that Rosario has changed his approach with results aiming slightly to the negative. Maybe this is just a mini slump or maybe this is one of the adjustments that ballplayers so often make. This current path looks like it still needs a tweak or two however before Rosario can get back to form. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

One of my Twitter followers suggested that I added links to explanations of the advanced stats I used so here they are: FIP: https://library.fangraphs.com/pitching/fip/ xwOBA: http://m.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/expected-woba xERA: http://redscontentplus.com/2020/03/xera-fixing-era-kinda-sorta/

There exists a problem in baseball. A problem that has perplexed front office executives and decisions makers for years. A problem that has caused an incalculable number of clashes between people. A problem that will exist until we are eventually replaced by cyborgs. The problem? Our eyes lie to us.It’s not our fault necessarily, we have no control over what we see. We are helpless to the fact that we can only observe what occurs on the field and make judgements from that information. Algorithms do not conveniently exist inside our head. We also always adhere to the fact that we have been indoctrinated to the things that matter the most in baseball-runs. And when these runs occur (or do not occur), then we have no choice but to react accordingly by using RBIs and ERA. Unfortunately, our eyes lie. The faultiness of our eyes is the same reason why Billy Beane famously clashed with his scouts and ran an entire draft class based on stats alone. Beane was tired of scouts presenting bias with information that had to be entirely free of the human emotion. The only solution? Numbers. They don’t lie. Numbers don’t have eyes and are not subjected to the same limits of our human emotions. So Beane did what he had to do and built an entire system of baseball on numbers. Numbers that were actually crucial to winning baseball games. Where am I going with this? I want you to answer this simple question; who is having a better season? Taylor Rogers or Tyler Duffey? Go on, I can wait. The vast majority of you likely chose Duffey and you probably did so without thinking too hard about it. It is a solid choice after all. Duffey has just a 1.88 ERA as of the 1st of September and has looked dominant since re-joining the team last season (playoffs not included). The streak of greatness is believable as well as Duffey has shed any semblance of his previous self and has embraced change to become the pitcher, destroyer of hitters. Rogers, on the other hand, has been quite mortal this year. He has an ERA of 4.38 on the year as he has not quite looked to be his old self. Matthew Trueblood just wrote an article the other day on this topic. Go read it. However, this is a murkier question than you may think. Let’s go to a future where the tyranny of ERA is no more. What do other important stats say? Here’s a comparison of “Player A” and “Player B”: Player A: .282 xwOBA, 2.01 FIP, 3.08 xERA Player B: .288 xwOBA, 3.64 FIP, 3.22 xERA Think about it for a few seconds. Now who do you want? Is it a tough decision? I’ll spare you the suffering. Player A is Taylor Rogers and Player B is Tyler Duffey. Surprised? The advanced stats actually favor Rogers so far. Granted, it isn't by much, but the fact that they’re even this close might come as a shock to many. Duffey has just seemed so dominant to begin the season. Narratives are powerful things. What’s happening is Rogers is getting bit by the bad luck bug. His BABIP is .436 (career .309) and his LOB% is 51.1% (career 77.6%). Glancing at his Fangraphs page and ignoring ERA would lead to you to believe that Rogers is having a perfectly normal season by his standards. This doesn’t mean that everything is all sunshine and roses for Rogers. Trueblood noted that Rogers has real mechanical differences this year that have led to his struggles. He has some small changes to make. But these struggles may still be overblown. Some of his important numbers are stable and, well, it has just been one single month. Knowing all of this, it’s important to realize that your eyes can lie to you. What you see is not necessarily what is really occurring. Baseball is an especially tricky sport that likes to tell small fibs in the form of previously agreed upon stats. Stats that before made up the foundation of how we understood the game. But we have new stats now. And these stats can prove that when you’re watching the game, you’re not actually looking. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

Well, believe it or not, we're almost halfway through this strange season. The Twins have performed at about the same level as most people expected but how about the rest of the AL Central? It's very difficult to keep track of a number of teams at once, so allow me to walk you through what else is going on in the AL CentralShane Bieber is Now a Certified Problem The young right-hander has made his way to the very top of the pitching mountain despite being merely a prospect just two short years ago. His 2019 campaign was solid but his 2020 season so far has been nothing short of eye-popping dominance. How terrifying. Bieber has been off and running to begin the season as he has punched out 42.9% of hitters he has faced so far. That is insane. Throw in the fact that his walk rate hasn’t budged away from his career average and his FIP is a hilarious 2.11 to begin the season. You know how many qualified starters had a lower FIP in 2019? None, not a soul. Not even the best efforts of guys like Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, or Gerrit Cole could reach such a level. His improvements are tangible as well. His fastball velocity is up a tick from 93.1 to 94.1. He’s added a new cutter to go along with his slider and curve and hitters just can't figure him out (19.8% swinging strike rate!!). It’s safe to wonder if he can continue to be this dominant but it certainly seems like he has taken another step forward. Oh, and he’s only a free agent after 2025. Strap in, Twins fans. The Royals Bullpen is… Good? Look, I’m just as surprised as you are on this one. The Royals were shaping up to be anything but the word “good” in 2020 but have gotten an unexpected boost from their relievers early in the season. The Royals had two interesting names last year in Scott Barlow and Ian Kennedy who had FIPs of 3.41 and 2.99 respectively in 2019. A house built with two bricks is hardly a foundation, however. Just two guys can’t carry a bullpen no matter how hard they try. Now they have Josh Staumont, a reliever throwing 98 and striking out 44.2% of hitters. Also in the fold is the ghost of Greg Holland past and a revamped Trevor Rosenthal. An odd, yet effective mixture of Guys to Remember. So far, the Royals have rode these Guys to the 10th best bullpen ERA in baseball. The Twins will only have to deal with the squad for one more weekend but will likely have to at least endure the tyranny of Barlow and Staumont for years to come. If the Royals can also prove that these advancements are a result of a revamped development system then the Twins will have to worry about another team in their division potentially taking the next step forward. But that’s a future problem to worry about. We hope. These Tigers Can Hit, Apparently This one can also be filed under “stuff that makes no sense” or most likely just “small sample shenanigans” (we have a lot of filing cabinets). Anyways, the Tigers offense is off to a great start according to a number of Statcast measures. For hard hit%, the Tigers are 1st in all of baseball at 44.1%. For average exit velocity, they are 7th at 89.2%. For Barrels per batted ball event, they are 11th at 8.0%. All of these metrics are better than the Twins, for the record. It’s fair to lean towards being suspicious of these numbers because, well, name a Tigers hitter not named Miguel Cabrera or Jonathan Schoop, but this entire season is going to be weird anyways. A great Tigers offense would show the difference between a team performing well and a team actually being good. But maybe they can get away with it for the rest of the season. There’s only about a month's worth of regular season games left anyways and much stranger stuff has happened before. Those White Sox Are Up To Something The White Sox were pegged as “the breakout team” in 2020 by just about every single writer to exist. It was hard to fully disagree with that prediction. They just backed up the dump truck of money for guys like Dallas Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal and had a number of big prospects like Luis Robert who were on the verge of making the majors. So far, the results have been solid. The White Sox find themselves at 15-11 and in a great position to take advantage of the expanded postseason. As a team, they’re hitting to the tune of a 110 wRC+ (7th best in baseball) and they’re pitching to the tune of a 4.16 ERA (13th best in baseball). It seems logical that such rankings combine for a record above .500. What’s the secret? The aforementioned Keuchel along with Lucas Giolito have been a dynamically effective 1-2 punch and the übermensch uber-prospect, Luis Robert, has been as good as advertised. The White Sox will likely be able to make the playoffs and I personally look forward to hating on them for the immediate future. Click here to view the article

In just a little over two weeks, the annual ritual of player movement will occur in the form of the trade deadline. You already know what goes on here. Good teams add, bad teams subtract, and fans on both sides complain about who they got and what they gave up. It’s a fun time had by all. This trade deadline will be starkly unique and in many ways, a complete and utter mess.The first issue is that teams mostly will not know just how good they are. Surely, the Yankees and the Dodgers know that they’ll be menaces, but what about teams like the Rangers and Angels? The fringey teams that most need the 100 some odd games of observation and analysis will have to compact their decision making process into a relatively minuscule sample. Keep in mind that these are teams headed by executives who sometimes plan moves years in advance. Weird stuff is going to occur when the safety net of long-term evaluation is removed. Another one of the problems that occurs when barely any games have been played is that teams just don’t know how good some of their players actually are. The Twins need to know where some of their riskier players are at so they can decide whether to add or be satisfied. For example, a guy like Tyler Clippard might lose it halfway through September. In a normal season, the Twins would use this information to go get a replacement because the breakdown would have normally happened sometime in May. Now, all they can do is swear under their breath and mutter while kicking dust. Yet, there remains more that screws up this trade deadline! MLB announced on their opening day that playoffs would be expanding to include eight teams from each league. This decision can be its own discussion, but the important end result is that the market will now be entirely skewed to favor sellers. I’m also not actually sure if there will be any true sellers in MLB. Consider this; the typical trade deadline consists of teams who can clearly identify where they are at in comparison with every other team. This is the point of every single game played before July 31. But with a shortened season and an expanded postseason, just about every team in baseball could conceivably make the playoffs. If the Tigers are sitting in second place on August 31, why in the world would they drop guys like Matt Boyd and Jonathan Schoop? They’ll take their shot at the playoffs because they know that anything can happen. The playoff picture will obviously become much clearer in the coming weeks. Or, at least it hopefully will, because the Pittsburgh Pirates are currently the only team that is essentially already out of the race (can’t wait to eat these words in a few weeks when they suddenly become the ‘27 Yankees). Anyways, that means that either ten teams are going to fight for Joe Musgrove and marginally improve their rotation or they’ll take their chances with what they have. The point is that cutting out the middle teams altogether from being sellers almost completely saps the market of worthwhile players. Bad teams generally don’t have good players, that’s why they’re bad after all (I do actually get paid for this kind of analysis, by the way). The few good players they do have will have such an astronomical price attached to them that the naturally conservative front offices members of other teams won’t meet that price. A few might out of desperation, but desperate front office members are few and far between. Of course, fringe teams who can make the playoffs might still sell. It would be one hell of a thing to say “we’re giving up this chance to make the playoffs so that we have a chance to make the playoffs in the future”, but MLB teams have hid behind “the future” for years now anyways. Ultimately, I don’t see that happening and instead we will have the slowest trade deadline to ever exist. I hope I’m wrong! I really do. This just happens to be the most apparent end game of everything that has made this season so strange. At least in regards to the trade deadline. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article

After a close loss on Friday, the Twins will be looking to rebound against Kansas City and get back on track before a real losing streak gets established. Fortunately, they’ll be getting a shot in the arm in the form of a 2019 All-Star making his 2020 debut.Last Night's Game Recap KCR 3, MIN 2: No Cruz, No Donaldson, No Arráez, No Offense Today: Minnesota @ Kansas City, 6:05 P.M. CT Twins Starter: Jake Odorizzi The big Twins news for Saturday is that Jake Odorizzi is scheduled to return to the mound and make his 2020 debut. The Big Stink was set to be a strong number two in the rotation for the Twins but was forced to miss the start of the season due to back problems. He threw a few bullpen sessions over the last week or so and the team now is evidently satisfied enough with his health to give him the green light. Odorizzi made his first All-Star game in 2019 on the back of arguably his best season to date. An underwhelming 2018 led Odorizzi to seek pitching guidance from an expert in Florida named Randy Sullivan (the details can be found in this blog post). The lasting effect was a renewed career for Odorizzi. He posted the highest K% of his career (27.1%), the lowest FIP of his career (3.36), and the highest fWAR (4.3) of his career as well. This allowed for Odorizzi to accept the QO from the Twins over the off-season and set himself up for a great 2020. His first start in 2020 will come against his old team, Kansas City. You may soon forget that Odorizzi was a Royal for a short time in 2012 as he only threw 7 ⅓ innings for them. He was swiftly dealt to the Rays along with Wil Myers in return for Wade Davis and James Shields, which is a fine group of Guys To Remember right there (I know Davis’ career isn’t over yet, but yikes). Given that this will be Odorizzi's first start of the season, he will have a limited pitch count. He threw 50 pitches the last time he faced hitters and is shooting for 70-75 pitches in today's game. Royals Starter: Danny Duffy The Royals will start one of their longest tenured players in Danny Duffy. The 31-year-old lefty has been with the team since 2011 and has accrued 14.4 career fWAR over 1,070 ⅓ career innings pitched in the majors. Duffy has seen his velocity dip over the years as he no longer is the type of guy to comfortably sit in the 93 MPH range. Still, he has been able to manipulate his pitch usage in order to stay an effective starting pitcher in the major leagues. “Effective” might actually be the perfect word to describe Duffy. You don’t pitch over 1000 major league innings without some ability after all and Duffy has thrown at least 130 innings in six straight seasons. Duffy put up an above average ERA in 2019 (4.34) and could likely be considered the Royals’ ace of the staff. Despite crushing lefties last season to the tune of a 126 wRC+ in 2019, the Twins have struggled with just a 72 wRC+ against them in 2020. That’s a drop from the 2nd best in baseball to the 5th worst. Duffy will be far from a pushover and should give the Twins a challenge. Lineups: Other Notes: Mike Trout hit a home run. Normally this is anything but news, but this one happened to fall on his 29th birthday; giving him his 5th career birthday home run. Josh Donaldson was placed on the 10 day IL retroactive to 8/4. Donaldson has been dealing with a right calf strain. Logan Morrison hit his first home run of the season. I really have no good reason to post this but enjoy it anyways. Around the AL Central DET 17, PIT 13 CHW 2, CLE 0 1. MIN 10-4 (+28 run differential) 2. CHW 8-6 (+4) 3. DET 6-5 (-7) 4. CLE 8-7 (+15) 5. KCR 5-10 (-10) Tomorrow's Game: Minnesota @ Kansas City, 1:05 PM CT TBA vs Brady Singer See Also Josh Donaldson's Cursed (and Blessed) Calves What’s Happening at the Alternate Site? Does Lewis Thorpe Have a Velocity Problem? Trade Retrospective: How Did the Twins Do in the Ryan Pressly Trade? Click here to view the article