Cody Pirkl

Clippard will probably function as a lefty in the bullpen and I doubt another lefty is a big goal for the front office. Wisler is already a flawed project pitcher and while he's not a lefty, I can't imagine them taking on another similar project unless it's at his expense. I also don't often compare 40 man's between teams because its apples and oranges, but if he Detroit didn't have space, I can't imagine the Twins being able to trim a guy off to fit him in.

I agree, the organization shouldn't be blamed every time a player doesn't pan out. It happens all the time. Teams spend tons of time developing players but they're human beings, there's no process that you can put in place to make them successful 100% of the time. Arcia played for 4 teams in 2016 and flared out with every single one. Occam's Razor for me is that it's an issue with the player be that mental or physical rather than the organization. Some guys have all the physical tools and end up in baseball oblivion.

Fernando Romero seems like a guy who just throws instead of pitches. It's not often that you see a young promising guy's walk rate increase like his has as he developed. I also don't really understand why they've got him throwing a sinker that he can't control. I remember watching him pitch this year and he was throwing 96 with life but it was in the bottom of the zone where guys were just dropping the barrel and hitting lazers.

That's why he had a positive defensive runs saved this year for the first time since his debut, the shift. That's the metric that's likely effected by it. Shifting doesn't appear to help OAA and it definitely doesn't help range which you see in his terrible UZR. They can hide him to an extent, but he's still going to make his fair share of mistakes.

They may move him to another position eventually but we have literally nobody else to play SS right now unless Adrianza becomes a full timer.

I don't want a team to trade for him at all, actually. I moreso just pointed out his defense because if a team like say the Red Sox traded for Polanco, they'd be able to look at his metrics and know that they don't need to move Xander Boegarts off SS for him. If Polanco was a second baseman, he'd likely have more defensive value and would still be a premier player at his position. There probably aren't a ton of teams that would value him as a shortstop longterm.

There's no situational context for these stats but it's "outs above average". That doesn't mean that Sano is responsible for 5 outs not being converted, it means it's 5 less than the average 3B. The significance of that -5 is much more than just the 5 outs it displays.

I mean within reason. Polanco was the worst infielder in baseball by Statcast numbers and it's backed up by his second most errors in baseball. It can't be understated just how much of a butcher he was in the field last season, but that shows how valuable the rest of his game is.

He's a 26 year old all star shortstop who put up 4 wins and played 153 games last season. On top of that, he's being paid less than $10m/ year on average for the next 5 years. His defense sucks, but if we were to trade him right now to a team that could afford to move him to 2B, we'd be able to get a ridiculous haul.

I don't know that Todd Frazier is the upgrade I'd want to move Sano off 3B for. He had 1 DRS at 3B, and paired with his declining offense which is already a nonfactor against right handed pitching, I don't see him being a noteworthy difference. It seems like if we want to make an all encompassing upgrade it's Donaldson or bust.

I definitely agree that Marwin could be a great 3B defensively. My issue with handing him the keys full time is his offense. He was a below average offensive player last year, and has been just barely above average in his career. The bar to clear for league average at corner infield is even higher. I think you would lose a significant amount of his value by making him an everyday player at one position as well. I know it's assumed that we can make some sacrifices on offense, but how much do we want to do that? Can we just assume that Sano is going to take to 1B right away and that the defensive improvement will offset the value lost by downgrading the offense and losing Marwin's versatility? I know that Marwin would be a solid defender at 3B, but I'd argue that coming into the offseason off 101 wins with a head full of steam and settling for moving our utility player to a full time role, paired with the other positions we've had to settle on, would be disappointing.

I happened to write an evaluation on why I believe Polanco could be a bit better in 2020 last night before all of the Statcast data hit. Most of it is focused on his health and I certainly recognize that even if he improves he'll still be well below average. I like Arraez to 3B, he showed well in 2019 there in limited fashion. It's too bad Jose Iglesias signed already. Maybe Yolmer Sanchez is an option, although I don't think he grades well at SS.

Larnach has less than 200 innings at AA and has 0 innings played at 1B in his professional career. Kirilloff missed a good amount of time last year and had a down year due to wrist issues, it was also his first season playing just part time at 1B, Raley only played 44 games last season and probably needs to start the year at AAA. Rooker looks MLB ready as a hitter but he's no longer a first baseman. Rolling into the season trusting a premium position to any of them would be rolling the dice bigtime.

A lot has been made of Jorge Polanco's rough defense this season, and rightfully so. His fielding percentage was the worst of his career aside from 2018, where he only played about half of the innings. His 22 errors were second worst among shortstops only to Tim Anderson. I think 2020 holds an opportunity for improvement however, as Polanco recovers from injury and continues to develop defensively. In some ways, Jorge Polanco's defense has already progressed. Defensive metrics are far from a perfectly understood science, but Polanco graded out positively in defensive runs saved for the first time since his debut season which only included 12 innings played at the shortstop position. I believe this may be a result of simple defensive positioning as we see shifts become more prevalent in baseball. The data becoming available also allows the Twins to line Polanco up efficiently to complement Sano's range inefficiencies at 3B. While I believe these statistics could continue to evolve and allow for even more improvement to Polanco's defense in 2020, I'm confident that there's more to his possible improvement up the middle. You may have forgotten, but Polanco's status coming into 2019 was in question. So much so in fact, that The Twins flew Ronald Torreyes to the Twin Cities for opening day in case Polanco wasn't ready to play. He came out of spring training with what was described as "shoulder fatigue". The reason I looked back on this was because Polanco's defensive struggles had a lot to do with his arm in 2019. Of Polanco's 22 errors, 13 of them were misfires on throws. Despite his career long struggles at shortstop, this was the first time throwing errors have made up such a significant percentage of Polanco's mistakes. As we know, Polanco was ready to play on opening day and went on to grind out 142 games at shortstop. While Polanco was on the field more consistently than most of our lineup, there's no way that he didn't struggle through an undisclosed injury or two throughout the year. I'd guess he played through the remnants of his shoulder fatigue to start the year, and it's certainly possible that he had it pop up again later on. This could have easily accounted for some of the many throws in the dirt we saw in 2019. Perhaps a spring without shoulder troubles is results in less throwing errors in 2020. Polanco's ankle surgery at the end of 2020 also shouldn't be swept under the rug. An ankle impingement for a shortstop could be debilitating when pivoting and shifting directions. We don't really know how long this ankle had hampered Polanco's play. Several defensive metrics were the worst Polanco has had in recent years when you would think that a 26 year old would still be athletic and improving at his position. Ultimate zone rating (UZR) is a Fangraphs metric that essentially cuts the playing field into "zones" and assigns that zone to a corresponding position player to cover. Polanco saw his UZR drop to -9.1, suggesting Polanco was atrocious at covering the the full range of an average shortstop. While still below average, his -3.9 in 2018 and -4.7 in 2017 (his last full season at shortstop) were much better than this season when I would have expected him to have improved. He improved this metric each year from 2016-2018. Could a bum ankle have quietly effected Polanco's range in 2019? Baseball is an unpredictable game. Defensive metrics are far from perfect and can commonly vary from year to year. Injuries can appear seemingly out of nowhere and can linger until properly addressed. Polanco appears to be on track for spring training in 2020 and will hopefully open the year healthy as opposed to 2019. With his physical issues addressed and the stats department ever improving, might we see a surprisingly strong showing from our shortstop in 2020?

I would be 100% on board with 4/$55m. I think he's worth that now even if he doesn't take another step forward, and it wouldn't handcuff the payroll in the future either. I know there have been extenuating circumstances with free agency this winter, but with all the whiffs we've had and where the payroll sits, it would be nice to at least see an extension like this to see some kind of progress made toward the future.

Kirilloff also played 1B less than half of the time in his injury shortened 2019 though, which was the first time in professional career at the position. I believe in Kirilloff's talent as a hitter, but between what you said about keeping him down a bit longer and the question mark with his ability to effectively play there, I just don't think that's the best outcome given all the possibilities they've passed up.

Marwin is a solid 3B on defense but I do agree, I wouldn't expect Sano to move to 1B and be even league average right away. I think he can be down the line but doing so now just to slide Marwin into a full time 3B role would be pretty weak. We'd be left with a likely below average first baseman on defense, a below average 3B on offense, and would sacrifice Marwin's versatility that allows us to give guys off days and cover up injuries. And for what? A few million dollars?

There are plenty of internal moves that we can make. My issue is that we're failing to make moves over and over again and settling for what's left at just about every position we have to fill other than the Romo and Avila signings. At some point this "creativity" is going to catch up to us despite how well it worked last season.

He definitely had a slow start last year, but even when he heats up, he doesn't have the offensive firepower to be an everyday first baseman.

Donaldson is a great player offensively and defensively right now. He has been described as having a great hitting mind similar to Nelson Cruz and keeps himself in tremendous shape. If his defense falls off or injuries become an issue, the DH spot will be open soon. The issue is the context of signing Donaldson at this point. Other corner infield options at the top of the performance chart have gotten signed while we've waited on a decision. The front office has really backed themselves into a corner at this point with their statements of making impact signings and then missing on just about everyone. Opening the season with an internal option at corner infield or with a Todd Frazier or Mitch Moreland type would be a failure and puts us at further risk for another team to catch us in the Central. I don't know that any of this justifies the money, but if they don't make this signing, they're going to have to get real creative to get anyone excited.

I'm very interested to watch Javier this year because he either produces or he's likely out of the picture. I'd be fine with Kirilloff having a chance to take over eventually, but they've got work to do before then. Rolling into the season just playing fill in at a premier position and hoping a AA hitter plays his way into that role isn't the way to operate.

Tonight we received the news that Eric Thames had signed with the Washington Nationals for the VERY reasonable price of $4m. Thames put together a slash line of .247/346/.505 last season, as well as 1.9 fWAR. He was likely a secondary option for the Minnesota Twins this offseason, who in my opinion very much still in need of a corner infielder after seeing C.J. Cron sign with the Tigers for $6.1m. First base was always a position the Twins were likely to wait on filling, as there were plenty of options on the market. Thames could have admirably platooned with his .877 OPS against righties. As somebody who had already moved on from Donaldson, I wondered why the Twins would allow Thames to go for such a cheap price. Shortly thereafter, I got my answer. According to Darren Wolfson, the Twins do not appear to be engaged in the corner infield market. In my opinion, there are two reasons this may be the case. The first is the most likely in my opinion. Josh Donaldson remains on the free agent market. It may be fair to say that the Washington Nationals are out of the bidding war after signing Starlin Castro, Asdrubal Cabrera, and finally Eric Thames. The bigger issue however is the Atlanta Braves involvement. Donaldson has grown up in the area and has been up front about his desire to return in 2020. The last update on the situation had all teams offering 4 years for undisclosed amounts to lock Donaldson up. As we've seen this offseason however, the price may become a moot point to some extent. In fact, it has now been reported that Donaldson may not have any interest in signing with the Twins at all. As I had worried throughout this entire saga, Donaldson may have just been using the Twins to bulk his offer up from the Braves. This report also explains that the Twins are exploring other options, which is perplexing given the above report from Wolfson. It appears the Twins aren't willing to let go of hope of signing Donaldson after making no progress on the "impact" talent acquisition mentioned at the start of the offseason. The second scenario for the Twins passing over the corner infield free agent market is a more troubling one for me. There have been rumblings of the Twins using Marwin Gonzalez as a full time first baseman this winter, and they could be content with their internal options rather than spending in free agency. I had actually just written a blog on Marwin Gonzalez having a better year offensively in 2020 citing a full spring training and hopefully less injuries. I was not advocating however that he be given a full time role as a corner infielder. With league average wRC+ coming in at 100, Marwin was 7% worse in 2019 with 93. The bar to clear for "league average" on offense is higher for corner infield as a position that typically houses premier hitters. Even if Marwin rebounds to a bit above league average on offense in 2020, they will still likely have an offensively below average first baseman. On top of that, he would no longer be utilized so widely on the field, which has been his main source of value in his career. They will essentially be taking value away from the roster to fill a spot that they could have easily done more effectively in free agency. Regardless of reason, the thoughts above remain true. If the Twins don't sign another corner infielder and get stuck with internal options for a premier position like 1B, this will be yet another failure this offseason. Unlike with Bumgarner and Wheeler, this will have been an avoidable one. The offense will no doubt regress to some extent. The rotation is already an injury away from being a mess again. Every roster spot that we put a bandaid on instead of seriously addressing is another opportunity for the teams in the AL Central. If the Donaldson decision is holding up other deals, it's time to come to a conclusion one way or another. If the Twins front office believes they have their man already for corner infield, I seriously doubt it, but we'll have to wait and see. One thing is for certain though. Sitting here in January coming off 101 wins with over $10m less in payroll and this roster is not what I had pictured in October.

2019 was a fun year for so many reasons. Our Minnesota Twins fielded a historically great offense, bashing teams into submission for the entirety of the regular season. We watched huge homeruns soar out of Target Field, we watched clutch performances from our workhorses like Jose Berrios, as well as game ending dominant performances from Taylor Rogers. 2019 will be a year of fantastic Twins memories for me. Looking back on it however, no memory is quite as vivid to me as Devin Smeltzer's debut for some reason. Smeltzer was acquired at the trade deadline in 2018 along with Luke Raley for Brian Dozier. Twins fans were sad, Dodgers fans were happy, just another year for Minnesota sports fans. As 2019 rolled on however, we started to see that we hadn't just given Dozier away for peanuts. Smeltzer rifled through AA after 30 innings. Apparently a .60 ERA was enough to get a promotion. In AAA, Smeltzer fared well, pitching to a 3.63 ERA and respectable 23.2 K%. When the Twins were in need of a spot start on May 28th, Smeltzer got the call. Smeltzer was tasked with facing a vaunted Brewers lineup. The big storyline as you have all likely heard by now was that Devin Smeltzer, a childhood cancer survivor, had fought his way into the major leagues. It was about as fantastic of a storyline you'll find in the MLB, and that paired with my excitement to see the individual behind the gaudy numbers he had put up in the minors, I was glued to that couch cushion for this one. He went on to allow 3 hits over 6 innings, striking out 7 Brewers that night. Smeltzer would finish the year cycling in and out of the rotation, as Pineda's suspension and Kyle Gibson's illness left plenty of innings to fill. He would finish the season with a 3.86 ERA and 4.58 FIP. He had a tougher time striking out hitters at the major league level, sending only 18.8% of the batters he faced down on strikes. This along with his difficulty with the longball (1.47/9) were the reason for the discrepancy in his ERA and FIP. Smeltzer was used in a few roles as the season went on. He accumulated 30.2 innings pitched as a starter, finishing with a 4.11 ERA and holding opposing hitters to a .239/.294.410 slash line. As a reliever in 18.1 innings, Smeltzer had a seemingly better 3.44 ERA, although this appeared to be questionable given his triple slash allowed of .306/.342/.556. Let's also not forget the 3.1 innings of 2 hits 4 Ks, and no runs against the Yankees out of the bullpen in the playoffs. Looking ahead to 2020, Devin Smeltzer's role is up in the air. He comes off a relatively strong rookie season. While some peripherals say he overperformed, he also has some favorable Statcast number with his fastball spin rate falling into the 87th percentile, as well as a curveball in the 81st percentile. Would these measurements be best maximized in the traditional starter role we saw Smeltzer debut in? As it stands, there are two rotation spots open for the combination of Dobnak, Thorpe, and Smeltzer until Rich Hill returns from injury and Michael Pineda comes off his suspension. Even if Smeltzer gets the short end of the stick for a rotation spot, he can begin the season in AAA to stay stretched out until we need him (A strong possibility after what we've seen in 2019). Would Smeltzer's skill set play up in a bullpen role? The Twins still lack a lefty other than Taylor Rogers in the bullpen. Where would you like to see Devin Smeltzer in 2020 for our Minnesota Twins? I would also like to take this opportunity to share the link to Devin Smeltzer's ongoing fundraising for pediatric cancer. As a childhood cancer survivor himself, Devin has set up a page of awesome merchandise where the proceeds go to Katie's Krusaders, a foundation that funds expenses for pediatric cancer patients. This program made headlines a few months ago, but I wanted to make sure people are aware of the great work Devin does off the field, which can be lost in the shuffle when you're tuning into what he does on the field. https://www.500level.com/collections/devin-smeltzer-catch-cancer-looking

Players debut young all the time, but they're often for teams that aren't going to put them into roles where it will significantly hurt them if they don't flourish. We're coming off 101 wins and the teams around us like the White Sox have gotten aggressive in trying to challenge us. Our front office doesn't want to risk running rookies out there and costing us the division because of it, they would get spitroasted by the fans and baseball officials because it's a gamble you quite simply don't have to make. There's also something to be said about the difference between guys being ready and just rushing them through the system. Maybe guys like Kirilloff could hit at the major league level because of his skillset. Lewis for example doesn't look even close to the majors though. He had a pretty bad year and some believe his entire swing will need to be retooled to hit in the majors. Trusting him at a premier position and seeing him fail would be a huge mistake. I'm also not really sure where the idea of trading Marwin got started. He's the opposite of a problem for this team and his numbers don't match up to the value he provides by being able to move around. Trading away a swiss army knife position player and throwing caution to the wind in favor of a minor leaguer would be a huge mistake. Of the group of Larnach, Kirilloff, Rooker and Lewis, if 3 of them become at least league average that would be an enormous win. That's the nature of prospects, you can't rely on them until they actually do it.

There were good moves made this offseason but the bottom line is that even the front office has admitted to wishing they could walk back their promises. Regardless of circumstances, when statements are made about stiking when the window opens fans are going to be disappointed in an offseason like this. Fans got the idea that we had become a team that would get that big free agent and take that big leap. This offseason, despite the wide range of opportunities, showed that isn't the case. It's a solid team, yes. We should contend again and I feel confident that we win the central again, but I'm still sitting in in the C-/D+ range. Especially if we open with Marwin pivoting from our ever valuable utilityman to a below average 1B, I could see that grade falling for me. We can keep developing guys but even the Astros had to acquire big guns from outside the organization to win big despite their unbelievable core. We still have time to do this on the trade market, but I wonder if the front office will just clutch their pearls in the minors. If we're done making moves and the White Sox can somehow take the division, I say good for them. At least they're taking risks.