Matt Braun

It's mostly personal preference but my thought process was Bieber + Clevinger > anyone else (Clevinger was better on a rate basis last year than Giolito who is the only one that comes close by fWAR). Then Lindor + a better Ramírez is equal or better than every position player except for Moncada who had a massive BABIP last season. It's not an argument I would make but a good one could be made in my opinion.

We all love new things. They’re shiny, fun, and they give life some much needed change at times. But the thing about new things is that the excitement of “newness” drowns out the old and leads us to believe that the new is better when the old is still perfectly good.Where is this analogy going? Well, the storyline for the offseason was how many upgrades the up-and-coming White Sox made, and how they now appear to be serious threats in a rather weak AL Central. The signing of Josh Donaldson knocked those narratives down a peg but I do still feel as if there’s one team that is getting overlooked in all of this. That old thing would be the Indians. They just watched as their reign in the AL Central came to a close thanks to the Twins and their efforts (or lack thereof) recently led to a number of stalwart players leaving. Gone are the days of being terrorized by Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer. Behind us are the worries of thinking about facing Andrew Miller and Cody Allen late in the game. And thank the lord that the dastardly Michael Brantley is now making a mockery of AL West pitching for a change. The Indians will still boast a number of highly talented players who could come together and threaten the Twins’ efforts to win their second division title in a row. Mike Clevinger and Shane Bieber have taken over the titles for “Cleveland pitcher who is annoyingly good” and Francisco Lindor and José Ramírez remain strong MVP candidates. One could make an argument that the Indians have the four best players in the division even when considering the recent Josh Donaldson signing. Beyond that, the Cleveland factory of pitching remained as strong as ever as two dudes named Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac put up ERAs of 2.34 and 3.81 respectively over fairly substantial sample sizes last season.Their peripherals tell a less optimistic story but a pitcher not completely falling on his metaphorical face to start his MLB career is noteworthy and they both possess the kind of stuff that can get them outs at the major league level. Throw in the strikeout machine James Karinchak, and the newly acquired Emmanuel Clase, and it looks like the Indians are in prime condition to consistently fool hitters all summer. Of course, there’s a reason why Cleveland is still mostly considered behind the Twins at this point. Their offseason major league signing has been literally just César Hernández, and their lineup depth beyond the two stars on the left side of the infield leaves much to be desired. The Twins should easily out-slug this team as they could legitimately have a 30 home run-hitter hitting ninth. While Cleveland will likely have Greg Allen, which is like comparing the original Star Wars trilogy to the prequels. Even with this lackluster offense, Cleveland has two other tricks up their sleeve that will prove to be crucial in the division race. Carlos Carrasco had a poor 2019, and it was eventually revealed that he had been diagnosed with leukemia. A full healthy season from the typically reliable starter would push the Cleveland starting rotation to a higher level. If this happens, it will also show just how far behind the Twins are when it comes to their starting rotation. The other trick is another bounce back candidate in José Ramírez who, much like Carrasco, had a worse showing in 2019 than many expected. Ramírez basically had two different seasons as his first half wRC+ of 68 would make even the lightest hitting of catchers blush. But he found his groove again in the second half as he scorched the ball to the tune of a 176 wRC+ and even came back from an injury that should have ended his season. If Ramírez is also back to being normal, then the Twins will really have some problems to deal with. Altogether, I still believe that the Twins have a better squad on paper, but there’s a reason why they play the games: anything can happen. As long as Cleveland has their high end talent and incredible pitching development, they will be an immediate threat to the Twins, and we should be prepared for that. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email — Follow Matt Braun on Twitter here Click here to view the article

As the offseason winds down, it has become clear that the Twins have their main group of players of whom they will consistently rely on in 2020. While some minor roles might be up for grabs, the main core of the team stands firm and sturdy especially with the addition of Josh Donaldson. But all good plans are doomed to have intrusions and nagging unforeseen issues, so how might the Twins react in such situations?Backups are inherently unexciting to fans like you and I for obvious reasons. Hell, even some coaches on professional sports teams have a dislike for backups. Nevertheless, “the next man up” is an important role as every year at least one starter will either go down with an injury, suffer regression, or become a monk and leave the sport as a whole which leaves an opening for someone else. I mean, just look at the Twins’ roster to start 2019 and the roster at the end (Adalberto Mejía and Blake Parker, anyone?) Beyond the handful of minor league signings such as Cody Asche and Daniel Coloumbe, the Twins are also blessed with a fruitful farm system that inludes a large number of talented prospects who could provide help if need be. Baseball America recently posted their 2020 preseason top 100 prospects list and there were six players on it representing the Twins (Royce Lewis, Alex Kirilloff, Brusdar Graterol, Trevor Larnach, Jordan Balazovic, and Jhoan Duran). None of these names should be especially surprising as we’ve been hearing about a number of these players and their potential for awhile at this point. But one of the most important things that all these players have in common is that they all finished the season at AA or above which means that they all stand a chance to play on the major league squad sometime this year. Prospect development is much more complicated than that but with the recent somewhat aggressive approach the Twins have taken to some of their prospects, it still stands to reason that they could continue to push some of these players and have them ready for the majors sooner rather than later. It seems like they’re already doing this with Brusdar Graterol as Wes Johnson made comments the other day regarding the plan for Graterol in 2020. Nick Nelson already wrote a great article that touched on basically everything surrounding the move but more than anything the move showed that the Twins are potentially looking more towards the immediate impact of a player rather than planning for something greater in scope. What does this mean for the Twins in 2020? Potentially if, say, Max Kepler goes down with an injury that takes a month for him to get back, the Twins might look towards replacing him with Alex Kirilloff over Jake Cave or (insert 28-year-old AAAA player here). Or if Homer Bailey slips on a banana peel and is out for a few weeks with a sore rear end, Jhoan Duran might be getting the call up to replace him instead of Blaine Hardy. If they opt to not use top prospects to replace players, the current Twins bench presents some great options already. Ehire Adrianza could fill in well at any infield spot thanks to his generally solid defense at every infield spot and above average bat (102 wRC+ in 2019). The previously mentioned Cave provides solid offensive upside if they need to call on an outfielder (career 111 wRC+) and will at least look athletic when running in the outfield. Finally, Marwin González could step in at most every position and at least be passable with both the glove and bat. Although, giving him an everyday role strips him of a lot of his value so it would be best to avoid this option. The third option is somewhere in the middle; a prospect who, while not of a high caliber, has proven that they should at least get a shot in the majors. This route graced the team last year with Randy Dobnak, Devin Smeltzer, and Luis Arráez who all now look like regular contributors in the future and this could lead to someone like Zander Wiel showing off what he has to offer. No matter which direction they go, the team should have good options for replacing players and they might even find a future piece in the process. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email — Follow Matt Braun on Twitter here Click here to view the article

Their "great advantage" is that they have a great farm system and can afford to take a hit to it if they so choose, it ain't that deep.

Fresh off the Josh Donaldson news, it is becoming harder to criticize the Twins front office as they pushed their chips in and took a free agent risk that the franchise has never seen before. For that, they should absolutely be commended. However, there does remain one area where they have been stingy but should look to change their ways.People say that there are many ways to build a baseball team but personally I think the only way to do so is with MLB players. Terrible dad jokes aside, the roster configuration of the Twins is now a nice mix of homegrown players (some of whom are now locked up long-term) and free agent signings who supplemented the talent that is lacking in some places. The final major avenue remaining for the Twins is to acquire players by trading away prospects for major league talent. Currently, 10 players on the Twins’ 40 man roster were acquired via trade: Jorge Alcala, Dakota Chalmers, Trevor May, Jhoan Duran, Zack Littell, Devin Smeltzer, Jake Odorizzi, Jake Cave, Gilberto Celestino and Luke Raley. Of those players, Jake Odorizzi is the only player who had any major league playing time at the time of the deal. Compare that to, let’s say, the Yankees who have seven players who had major league experience when they were acquired along with a number of players who they re-signed after trading for them and, well, the Twins number sure seems awfully low. Of course, it’s somewhat unfair to compare the Twins to the Yankees because the Yankees can more afford to take a hit if they lose a high level prospect or two. Yet at the same time, the Twins’ system of development is good enough right now that they could tap into their factory of player development and replace their lost prospect(s) with other homegrown ones that have already been acquired through drafting (not to self advertise but this was something Tom, Cooper, and I talked about on a podcast that can be found here). Farm systems can be used for more than just replenishing the major league team, and trading away prospects can be a necessity at times in order to avoid losing them to the Rule 5 draft. Specifically for the Twins, look at their current major league outfield along with the outfielders they have in the system and the math just doesn’t work out. There aren’t enough spots to go around. It’s awesome to have a plethora of prospects like Alex Kirilloff, Trevor Larnach, Luke Raley, Brent Rooker, Akil Baddoo, Gilberto Celestino, and Gabriel Maciel among others, but all of them simply can’t be a part of the future of the Twins and getting something for them would be much better than losing them for nothing. This is another area where the Twins can look toward the Yankees as Brian Cashman is notorious for trading away prospects who are soon to be Rule 5 eligible but who are also blocked by current major league players (this was part of how the Twins received Zack Littell and Dietrich Enns). Dealing away players in this fashion can solve a potential 40-man dilemma and get the team a major league quality player. The other downside to holding onto prospects is that they’ll occasionally bust and leave you with nothing. Just recently the Twins have seen Kohl Stewart and Stephen Gonsalves go down this path, with Fernando Romero seemingly right behind them. Imagine a world where the Twins capitalized on their potential and dealt them for legitimate major league talent instead of watching them walk away for nothing? The Rays just did this when they dealt Matt Liberatore for José Martínez and others. Sure, Liberatore is a fantastic prospect, but he is far from the sure thing that Martínez is. The Rays know that they’re in a win-now mode so they took the risk and cashed in their chips accordingly. So, with a high quality major league team that still has room for improvement and a stacked farm system, the Twins should look to continue their risk-taking ways and improve for the now instead of the potential future. A quality farm system is nice and all but so is a good No. 2 or 3 starting pitcher who can help the team win as early as March. Let’s tap into the farm system and who knows? Maybe something good will happen. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email — Follow Matt Braun on Twitter here Click here to view the article

I was awakened from my sleep on New Year’s Eve by a text from other Twins Daily poster and the second funniest guy on the Leading Off Podcast, Cooper Carlson. He had informed me that the Twins had signed Rich Hill and Homer Bailey and he also gave me his thoughts on the topic (which I’m sure Twins Daily would prefer for me not to repeat).Homer Bailey is what he is, but Rich Hill is the pitcher here who interests me the most. My personal wish all offseason has been for the Twins to acquire a starting pitcher who is better than Jake Odorizzi and they did so here in the most frustrating way possible because the monkey’s paw takes no prisoners after all. Hill is a phenomenal pitcher when healthy but it’s that stipulation that has held him back for a few years now and this year he won’t be ready until at least June as he recovers from elbow surgery. This would be less of a problem if the Twins didn’t already have a starting pitcher named Michael Pineda who will also have a delayed start to his season as he must serve time thanks to his suspension from last season. This means that two of the following pitchers; Devin Smeltzer, Randy Dobnak, or Lewis Thorpe will likely have to fill in for a solid chunk of the season until the reinforcements arrive. Or at least, that’s how it currently stands. Maybe it’s the optimism that remains deep down inside of me that hasn’t quite been killed by the nihilism and sadness that comes with Minnesota sports, but I still believe that the Twins will trade for a starting pitcher before the offseason is over. Assuming this happens, the Twins now have six veteran starters to fill out five rotation spots. I have been told that it isn’t wise to make assumptions but I have been told a lot of things in my life which I’ve ignored so this won’t be the first suggestion to be thrown away by me. Assuming a starter is acquired, a June rotation may look like Berríos-Odorizzi-Traded for starter-Pineda-Bailey-Hill, which as I mentioned before, is one too many. I think it’s fair to assume that Pineda will come back with no issues but to assume that Hill will do so as a 40-year-old who already has had health issues, well that may not be wise. So what the Twins could do instead is limit his use to be more of a garnish on the plate of the starting rotation. How so? If you recall how the Red Sox used Nathan Eovaldi in the 2018 postseason, they were able to make up for the lack of their bullpen depth by using Eovaldi as a “rover” type of pitcher who had no defined role besides “we need outs and fast”. So, if say Jake Odorizzi has a blister problem like he did last year, the Twins could throw Hill in to start and make it easier on their bullpen as they wait for Odorizzi to return. Or say that the bullpen is already gassed from the day before and the starter only went five innings, Hill could then come in and bridge the gap to Taylor Rogers or Sergio Romo by eating up two or three innings in relief. Also, even though he only started two games, Eovaldi was able to pitch 22 1/3 innings over six games that postseason, so the Twins could still end up with a healthy innings total from Hill if they decide to use him like this. It’s difficult to do this over an extended period of time and the Red Sox got away with it because the postseason is much shorter than the full season, but Hill won’t be playing for the entire season so they might be able to succeed over the shorter period of time. By doing this, the Twins could limit the innings on Hill (who may I mention again, is a 40-year-old with health problems) while still finding ways to get him valuable innings that otherwise might have been used for option-fodder pitchers like Devin Smeltzer. Don’t forget that this year rosters expand to 26 men so the Twins could carve out this role for Hill while still remaining at full strength everywhere else on their roster. What do you think? What is the best way the Twins could use Rich Hill? Leave a comment and join the discussion. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email — Follow Matt Braun on Twitter here Click here to view the article

The day was Nov. 30, 2016 and it was the day that everything changed. By “everything” I of course mean the Twins’ catching situation which, naturally, is the only thing that matters. On that day, Jason Castro was inked to a three-year deal worth $24 million and it remains the biggest free agent contract handed out to a position player by the Twins in their history.Castro’s deal reached its end after this past season and with the signing of Alex Avila along with Mitch Garver becoming literally Mike Piazza, the odds of him returning are about the same as me dating Scarlett Johansson, so allow me to look back on Castro’s deal and see how both parties did. Castro presented an interesting example of the shift in thinking in the Twins as this was the first “major” deal handed out by the front office now headed by Derek Falvey and Thad Levine and it appeared that they were starting to apply their ideas to the current roster. This included signing a player who is easily overlooked by traditional stats but brings value through more advanced ways of looking at players. Some may have seen his career .232 batting average and scoffed at why the Twins would even bother while others would look at his OPS+ of 93 (above average for catchers) and excellent advanced defensive stats and see a great player hidden underneath the tyranny of RBIs. “Value” is tough to exactly define in baseball but $/WAR gives us a good general starting point to tackle the issue. 1 WAR comes out to about $8-9 million dollars on the free agent market but this relationship isn’t linear as teams rarely pay $8 million a year for a player worth 1 WAR and players worth 3 WAR don’t typically make $24 million a year on the market. Castro’s deal does however give us a good base as his contract of $24 million would mean that he needs to put up just ~3 WAR over the course of his contract for his performance to equal what the Twins paid for. Luckily for both Castro and the Twins, he was more or less worth exactly that. Baseball-reference’s version of WAR (rWAR) has him at 3.1 in his time with the Twins while Fangraphs (fWAR) has him at 3.7 and Baseball Prospectus (WARP) has him at 4.0. His bat was more or less what it was with the Astros as his OPS+ with the Twins was 91 compared to 93 with the Astros. The public defensive numbers we have available are also quite kind to Castro as Fangraphs as he has been the 14th best pitch framer in baseball since he signed with the Twins (min 1500 innings). This doesn’t sound too impressive but many of the names ahead of him are purely defensive specialists like Jeff Mathis who also couldn’t hit their way out of a cardboard box (Mathis has a career wRC+ of 46), so Castro was one of the few catchers who could hit at an average level and defend well. Beyond that, it seemed like Castro brought more to the table than just his ability on the field. Unfortunately, I am not in the clubhouse so I don’t know exactly how everything shook out in there but it seemed like many pitchers were outspoken in how he worked with the pitching staff in both calling games and pre-game preparation. The catcher position more than any other is one that demands more than just on-field performance and it appeared that Castro was useful there as well. Castro was never an eye-popping player but he was a solid role-player who brought good value to a team that needed a strong defensive catcher and he was worth almost exactly what his contract paid him. The Twins also made the playoffs in both of the seasons he was healthy, coincidence? Most definitely, but still something fun to think about when considering a player’s value. UPDATE: Jeff Passan of ESPN reports Castro is joining the Angels. 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 has been one absolutely crazy offseason so far. Teams that don’t usually shell out money have done exactly that and some of the strangest trades have occurred (Corey Kluber to the Rangers, though?). But in all of this change there is something that has anchored us back in the reality of the offseason; the Twins continue to come up short when it comes to acquiring impact talentThe winter meetings came and went and all that came out of the Twins’ camp were rumors and speculation regarding potential targets and offers made to free agents who signed elsewhere. This is, of course, a part of the monotonous cycle of free agency as not every day or week or month can be exciting regarding the moves being made. A few moves have been made but most of them have been foundational in nature and not transactions that catapult the team into the upper echelon of baseball. Before I go further, I want to make something quite clear; I have mostly been a fan of what the front office headed by Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have done since taking over after the worst season in Twins’ history. They have worked wonders in upgrading the minor league system so that players have more personally-tailored coaching and are better suited for major league play when they get the call. They have also been incredibly pragmatic in making moves with the future in mind while avoiding some of the pitfalls that come with being overzealous in the free agent market as a team looking to right the ship. I feel like I have to get this out of the way because sometimes criticism is mistaken for an outright dislike of someone/something as a whole when that isn’t the case. So, with all of this being said, I have one major point of anxiety that worries me regarding how the rest of the offseason will go. Almost a year ago was when Thad Levine dropped his somewhat infamous quotes regarding when a team should make big moves in which he used analogies that included both open windows and neck stomping. The comments didn’t go over particularly well with Twins fans who looked at the remaining free agents who could have impacted the team while also eyeballing the payroll drop from 2018 into 2019 and couldn’t quite understand the hesitation. This type of risk-averse thinking regarding transactions is nothing new in this landscape of baseball but luckily for Levine, the 2019 team did pretty well so his comments can be somewhat forgiven. The thing is, we so far have yet to see this promise to eventually make big moves actually pan out. The Twins had their first shot at proving themselves last season at the trade deadline and acquired two relievers (albeit good ones, at least at the time) when it was painfully apparent that they needed one more starting pitcher as well. We all know how that ended so I don’t think that I need to dwell on this specific instance too much but this decision gave me reasons to pause. Levine specifically stated that they prefer to make big moves when their team is in the driver’s seat, so what gives? Was the position they were in at the deadline not good enough? Many people will point to the Pohlads and their notorious cheapness but I don’t believe that to be the case in these situations. They offered 100 million dollars to Zack Wheeler and Darren Wolfson reported that ownership had no limits regarding their chase for Madison Bumgarner (personally, I think holding back on going five years was smart but that’s a different topic). Both misses hurt but both players also seemed pretty dead-set on joining the locations of each team respectively, so some slack can be cut there. But when will the reasons for a player not joining the team finally end and the script gets flipped? It almost feels like never at this point. This inability to walk the walk is where I have a great level of anxiety regarding the rest of the offseason. They balked once when it came to making a big splash and I tend to believe that executives are consistent in how they make moves. Being gun-shy once would lead me to believe that they will be hesitant once more in actually fulfilling their promises and in a division where the second-place team is literally begging to be buried, this would be a major mistake. The mindset of a lot of front offices is almost always focused on the downside of a move. They look at a player like Hyun-Jin Ryu and think “well, what happens if his injury-prone past continues and he declines rapidly” instead of thinking “what if he’s over these issues and we can snag a pitcher who finished second in Cy Young voting”? We can debate the possibilities of both outcomes and weigh them to reach the optimal outcome, but is that really the way to go about it? Didn’t we just see two teams in the World Series who both took tremendous risks to get there? The exercise in self-discipline in the Twins front office so far regarding these types of moves has been overbearing. Most of us don’t live our lives as purely utilitarian beings with no need to give in to the enjoyments that life has to offer. We like to live a little and do something that might be bad for us because it just feels so damn good to do it in the moment- that’s one of the major characteristics of being a human. With the way the Twins are set up, they can afford to take on a little risk and act in a way that a fan would. They already have Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler locked up long term and most every other major core player is either pre-arb or in early stages of arbitration so they will never be cheaper than they are currently. There will never be an absolutely perfect opportunity to make these kinds of moves so to wait for such a fairy-tale opening would be foolish. The payroll is low, the minor league talent is deep, and the major league team is the best it has been in a long time. Now is absolutely the time to step on the gas and it is completely up to you guys in the front office to do it. The offseason isn’t over yet but the chances to make the impact moves they promised seemingly diminish with each passing day. So, impress me, do something out of your comfort level and change the future of the Twins forever. What do you think? Do the Twins need to own up to what they've been promising? Leave a comment and join the discussion. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email — Follow Matt Braun on Twitter here Click here to view the article

There’s a certain phrase in the Braun family household that gets tossed around often. We (somewhat) affectionately like to call each other a “fun sucker” if someone does something in the realm of sucking fun. It’s hard to specifically identify what would constitute a reason for such a phrase to be uttered, but when it’s time, we all know. So, allow me to be a fun sucker for a few minutes here.It seems like we all have an affinity for baseball players who are more rotund than the trim beefcakes we come to expect from the sport. There’s certainly something to be said about an athlete who looks like someone you would see at a Golden Corral who also somehow is playing a sport at the highest level possible. Knowing this, when Willians Astudillo made his major league debut in 2018 and made waves by actually hitting well, never striking out or walking, and , it seemed like we would be telling stories about his greatness for a while. This past season was a much different story for Astudillo. The health of Jason Castro and break out of Mitch Garver ensured that any playing time was going to be scarce for Astudillo and he would have to take on a somewhat super utility role in order to claw his way into the starting lineup. But even when he was able to find playing time at the major league level, he was not cutting it at the plate. A player like Astudillo exemplifies the fact that there is a difference between “hitting the ball” and “being a good hitter”. Dads across the world will argue this fact but we know through analytics that getting on base and slugging are even more important measures of a hitters ability than batting average or “putting the ball in play”. Miguel Sanó struck out over 36% of the time last season and nearly doubled Astudillo’s wRC+ because he also walked a ton and slugged the ball to the moon. Speaking of wRC+, Astudillo’s last year was a paltry 76. Keep in mind that wRC+ points are equal to percentage points with 100 being average, so Astudillo was 24% worse than the average hitter in 2019. Set the minimum to 200 plate appearances and you’ll find that Astudillo was the 305th best hitter in baseball last year around names like Elvis Andrus, Dee Gordon, and Cheslor Cuthbert. While this is literally quite the collection of names, they aren’t ones that you want to be associated with as far as your ability to hit go. What crushed Astudillo was that he started to increase his rate of softly hit balls which is not really something you want to do as a hitter. His soft hit rate jumped from 14.3% in 2018 to 22.6% in 2019 which is the 24th worst among all hitters with at least 200 PA. His hard hit rate stayed relatively the same but the increase in softly hit balls was a major reason for his regression. The thing about swinging at everything is that teams will eventually realize that you will literally swing at everything. Really, this entire article could be just that sentence but I digress. Teams adjusted to this play style and Astudillo saw way fewer first pitch strikes in 2019 while staying about as aggressive as he has always been. Until that changes, he is going to struggle in the majors. Astudillo will likely not be a major factor in the catcher rotation with Mitch Garver becoming Mike Piazza and Alex Avila taking over as the veteran with excellent defense. He will be aided by the roster expanding to 26 men but I would be hesitant to write his name down in permanent ink as he will spend more time in Rochester if the bat stays the same as it did in 2019. Personally, I do like Astudillo as an interesting counter off the bench late in the game against great stuff relievers as he will be unfazed as whatever kitchen sink they throw at him. But such a role is too niche for a roster with limited spots and a pragmatic front office. I do apologize again for being a fun sucker, but as a non-prospect 28-year-old with an exploitable gimmick, Astudillo is closer to being DFA’d than being an everyday player on the Twins going forward. 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

There are probably only a handful of things in sports more terrifying than being a pitcher. I mean, just think about it for a second: Someone else just 60 feet and 6 inches away is trying their hardest to hit the ball you’re throwing as hard as they possibly can in order to ruin your day. As an ex-soccer goalkeeper who put his face on the line for years, I have to respect the level of confidence that pitchers must have.Pitching ain’t easy. You know this, I know this, and the pitchers themselves know this. Pitchers every year are sent up and down between AAA and the majors because no team ever has enough pitching to make it through a full season. Guys will go down with injury or wake up one day to find out what worked for them before suddenly doesn’t and just like that, they go from closer to DFA’d. Knowing all of this, it’s quite notable when rookie pitchers come up and perform at a level that is actually passable. It’s even more notable when an entire group of rookie pitchers get called up and hold their own at the major league level. You may not have noticed, but this was the reality for the Twins in 2019. The Twins in 2019 had seven rookie pitchers throw at least 25 innings at the major league level which is what I’m arbitrarily defining as a “significant amount”. In total, 13 rookies threw at least one pitch at the major league level and this group of individuals put together the second best rookie pitching staff by fWAR in 2019, with the Padres being the only team ahead of the Twins (3.9 to 4.5). Although, Twins rookies only threw 271 innings compared to the Padres’ 558, so the Twins have them in efficiency. Also consider that the average player is worth about 2 WAR and with my estimation that the average starter throws about 150 innings, the Twins rookies as a whole pitched at a slightly better than average rate in 2019. What made this rookie group so good? The big number that stands out is that they walked just 6.2% of batters which was the lowest of any group of rookies on a single team in 2019 (José Berríos walked 6.1% of batters in 2019 for reference). This incredibly low walk rate is also reflected in the fact that their total percent of pitches in the strike zone in 2019 was 45.8%-the best among every team's rookies. I wrote about Cody Stashak and his phenomenal command before, but it appears that this trait wasn’t just unique to him last year. To have an entire group of rookie pitchers throw strikes at the best rate in baseball would seem to imply that the Twins minor league coaches are doing a great job of preparing their pitchers for the jump to the majors. Finding the strike zone is half of the battle, so having pitchers start with this foundation under them is a good way to allow them to grow as they then learn how to pitch to major league hitters and be effective while doing it. The downside is that their overall K% was just 19th among team rookies in 2019 as they had a tough time then actually finishing off batters. Although, their total swinging strike rate was 10th highest among team rookies so maybe it isn’t actually a problem. This is a somewhat small sample size after all. Overall, the numbers are inspiring as getting pitchers to make the jump to the majors will be crucial to the Twins going forward if they intend to compete for a while (especially if they don’t shell out money for starters, but that’s a different story). This change is a far cry compared to years before where it felt like rookie pitchers were in over their heads and incredibly ineffective. In fact, last year's rookie group of pitchers had the highest fWAR of any Twins rookie collection since the opening of Target Field. If this keeps up, the Twins will certainly be in a great spot going forward and could potentially become a pitching factory for the first time in what feels like forever. 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

I have been on a number of different roller coasters in my life. In fact, there’s a wonderful picture of my family and I riding Space Mountain from when I was 10 or so and that picture has been sitting proudly in the living room for nearly a decade now. I’m also a fan of the Bleachers song “Rollercoaster” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers track “Love Rollercoaster”. But, despite all this experience with roller coasters, I have never seen one quite like Miguel Sanó’s career.Sanó was tabbed as an uber prospect for years with power that actually went above the light tower that other prospects can hit. He proved his ability during his first taste of the majors in 2015 but then suffered injury setbacks in 2016 due in part to the inexplicable decision to have him play right field. 2017 was a step back toward the right direction as he was named to the All-Star game and set a new career high in fWAR. But then, 2018 happened. We have all had days where absolutely nothing went right but rarely do you see someone have an entire year full of bad luck. I don’t have the time to go into detail with everything that happened, but saying “getting demoted to A+ wasn’t even a top 3 bad thing to happen that year” summarizes it well. Naturally, the questions began to pile up regarding the future of Sanó with the Twins. Many questioned his work ethic, criticized his weight, and pointed toward his strikeouts as reasons why he will not succeed in the future. Some of these criticisms were fair, some weren’t in my eyes, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that Sanó would need to prove himself in 2019 if he wanted to have a future with the Twins. And did he ever prove himself. Sanó got off to a bit of a rough start in 2019 as he suffered a foot injury in the Dominican Republic after dedicating the entire offseason to getting into shape. The injury took away about the first month of the season for him but that hardly mattered in the end. Sanó ended 2019 with a 137 wRC+ and a new career high in fWAR with 2.7. That wRC+ total was good for fourth among third baseman with at least 400 plate appearances and is the highest number he has put up since his rookie year. Believe it or not, Sanó was also actually a hair better in high leverage situations as he put up a 141 wRC+ in situations dubbed by Fangraphs to be “high leverage”. That number is better than players such as Austin Meadows, D.J. Lemahieu, and Ronald Acuña Jr. Although, if you remember the numerous clutch homers he hit in 2019, that number may not actually surprise you. The one major drawback for Sanó is that his defense at third base remained quite poor, so poor that the eventual move to first base seems to be inevitable either this coming year or next. His value will be somewhat capped as first baseman are a dime a dozen, but his 137 wRC+ would still have him fourth among first baseman with at least 400 plate appearances in 2019. Either way, Sanó proved himself in 2019 and showed that he still has the ability to be the player we were all promised years ago. Sometimes we have to remember that player development is not linear and this is a very difficult sport where even just being slightly off in a small facet of your game can be the difference between being a star and being AAA fodder. For Sanó, he demonstrated that he is one of the better hitters (if not the best) on the team and he certainly proved that he is better than Chris Carter. Click here to view the article

Jim Pohlad sure has an interesting burner account

Countless different pitchers throughout the years have proven that there are many ways to get a hitter out. Not everyone can be Gerrit Cole in the way that he just obliterates batters with a bazooka fastball. For Trevor Hildenberger, it seemed that he found a shtick that could work in the majors until suddenly, its effectiveness ended.Now, this is where I must admit that I am heavily biased towards pitchers that throw sidearm/submarine. I love the somewhat goofy dichotomy between the ultra serious hitter and the dude on the mound scraping his knuckles on the ground in order to be as effective as possible. Plus, it seems like they all have cool names (Darren O’ Day, Chad Bradford, Dan Quisenberry, you get the idea). So in 2017 when this fresh faced reliever named “Trevor Hildenberger: gets called up and does this to his very first batter: You can bet that I am now fully invested in his future at the big league level. Hildenberger was astounding in 2017, rarely do you ever see a reliever with an elite groundball rate (58.8%) and great peripherals also (2.92 xFIP). Hildenberger was in the top 15 for relievers with at least 40 innings pitched in 2017 for both of those stats respectively and it seemed like the Twins had a future elite reliever. 2018 started in a similar way for Hildenberger as he held a 2.06 ERA in late June and had only allowed more than one run in a single outing just once. That is, until the game from hell on June 30th. Recall, if you will, the series against the Cubs in 2018 where Willians Astudillo made his major league debut, every game ended up in a shootout, and players dropped so much due to the heat that the ending outfield was Logan Morrison-Willians Astudillo-Robbie Grossman. Beyond that butcher of a defense was a nightmare outing for Hildenberger in which he walked four batters, gave up four hits, allowed five earned runs, and only got one out. His ERA on the season shot up from that 2.06 mark to 3.18 and he hasn’t been the same pitcher since. It would be dramatic for me to imply that a single outing was the turning point in a career but perhaps the outing was more of a symbolic pivot in which the Cubs became the first team to make it apparent that Hildenberger was beatable. The numbers are incredibly eye-opening as in 81 ⅓ major league innings before the outing his ERA/FIP/xFIP slashline was 2.66/3.44/3.26 and his groundball rate was 54.5%. Starting with that outing through his most recent appearance on September 21st in 2019 his slashline becomes 9.72/5.12/4.41 with a groundball rate of just 40.9% over 50 innings. I think I speak for most Twins fans when I ask; “what the hell happened”? The first thing to look at is his pitch mix which is a fairly standard sinker, slider, and changeup combo with the occasional over-the-top four-seam fastball to keep hitters on their toes. His slider has never been that good by pVAL (pitch value) but his sinker/changeup combo was what allowed him to be dominant to start his career which leads me to believe that somehow that combo has gotten worse. His changeup pVAL was still elite in 2018 but his fastball quality went into the toilet despite gaining a small tick of velocity. Why could this be? Well, let’s take a gander at some heatmaps and oh: There’s a significant shift more towards the outside of the plate vs righties and inside vs lefties. The general stereotype is that lefties love it down and in and perhaps throwing more outside to righties allows them to get extended and hit the ball harder than when he was going in earlier in his career. Granted, this may not be “the” thing but it certainly is “a” thing, pitching is more complicated than just a single pitch losing its location. No matter what, Hildenberger does not have much room for error if he wants to continue his major league career. He’ll likely start the year at AAA and be one of the first arms called upon when the inevitable bullpen shuffle occurs but any success is far from guaranteed and all anyone can hope for is that the Trevor Hildenberger of old is still somewhere in there. Click here to view the article

Devin Smeltzer’s fastball averaged 89.1 mph at the major league level in 2019. It isn’t much these days, and likely one of the reasons why he has been overlooked so far in his professional career. Fortunately for Smeltzer, he also has great command and stones big enough to be on Easter Island.Smeltzer was able to cruise through the minor league system in 2019 and eventually make his MLB debut thanks in part to the two characteristics mentioned in the previous paragraph. The majors proved to be another challenge in itself for Smeltzer but he was able to pitch to the tune of a 3.86 ERA and 4.58 FIP over his first 49 innings. Unfortunately for Smeltzer, however, is the fact that this upcoming offseason will likely push him out of the major leagues. The starting rotation is as barren as a bar at noon but the Twins have talked up their plans to step on the gas and acquire impact arms. Whether that happens or not will be seen in time but each starter gained will be another obstacle in the way of Smeltzer in 2020. If the Twins decided to stay in-house for a rotation spot or two then Smeltzer finds himself in trouble yet again as his 2019 performance was behind Randy Dobnak and he doesn’t have the prospect status or strikeout potential of Lewis Thorpe. Throw on top the likely inevitable move back to a starting spot for Brusdar Graterol and well, you see the obstacles in Smeltzer’s way. Where Smeltzer may find a niche is in the bullpen in a relief role. Now, I have always been a fan of teams getting creative with how they use relievers and I believe that Smeltzer has a unique opportunity to become a multi-inning threat out of the bullpen. What draws me to this is his splits when going through a lineup for the first time. As a starter, he had a 20.4 K-BB% when going through the lineup for the first time and as a reliever, he had a 17.1 K-BB% when going through the lineup for the first time. For context, a 20.4 K-BB% would put him above names like Robbie Ray and Patrick Corbin and a 17.1 K-BB% was exactly the same number José Berríos had on the year. Granted, the starters I’m comparing him to did this over all situations, but doesn’t it sound nice to say that Smeltzer was as effective as Patrick Corbin*? *Actual statisticians can still be damned He’s great when going through the lineup for the first time, which is nice, are there any downsides? Yes there are, voice in my head, thank you. Smeltzer was one of those weird pitchers who actually had reverse splits at the major league level. Lefties slashed .316/.395/.474 against him with a wOBA of .373, that isn’t good. I know just about nothing as far as pitching goes but if I had to guess what the issue was, I would narrow it down to two things: 1. His sequencing to lefties needs to be adjusted 2. He possibly needs to better develop his slider which he only threw 5.6% of the time at the major league level Either way, his ability to mow down hitters when facing them for the first time makes me believe that Smeltzer can be a powerful weapon out of the bullpen in a multi-inning “Andrew Miller” role. Rosters will expand to 26 players next season and the added man may prove to be helpful for a pitcher on the cusp like Smeltzer. If he is to be a big part of the 2020 Twins, it would not surprise me if it is in a creative role out of the bullpen. No matter what, expect some silky smooth changeups and Jack Morris to say that Smeltzer is “pitching, not throwing” ... whatever that means. Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Not registered? Click here to create an account. To stay up to date, follow Twins Daily on Twitter and Facebook. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — 3 Creative Ways for Twins to Leverage Their Spending Flexibility — Mitch Garver, Nelson Cruz Win 2019 Silver Slugger Award — 2020 Offseason Handbook Now Available for Download Click here to view the article