Riverbrian

Minimum stay on the DL is indeed good news... especially with Farmer and Castro having been slow to rise to the occasion.

I love parables. Any post with a parable gets my applause. It's like a waiter or waitress that not only brings your food but does it while also telling you a parable explaining how wonderful the prime rib is.

That's possible because it's possible that preconceived notions were a reason he was included in the trade in the first place. But... based on results... Steer would be a very important part of this team and last years team.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean the way this post reads... yet still respond according to how it reads. Based on how Steer performed last year with the Reds and how the entire Twins roster performed last year... If it's possible to mold those two worlds together. Spencer Steer would have probably settled into an everyday role by June of last year and would have come into this season as a starter. If not... they would be horrible talent evaluators. Spencer played a healthy amount of 1B, 3B, OF and 2B last year. The Twins: 1B - Donovan Solano played more games at 1B than anybody with 85. 3B - Lewis didn't arrive until May 29 and he managed to lead the team with 49 games played at 3B. This position was a revolving door of Farmer, Castro, Miranda and Solano again. OF - Taylor and Kepler with 126 and 124 games played in the OF. After that it drops all the way down to Castro with 83 games in the OF and then Wallner with 66 games played. Spencer Steer had a 582 AB's for the Reds last year. Only Carlos Correa had over 500 AB's for the Twins with 514. Donovan Solano was THIRD in AB's last year with 394. Steers produced .820 OPS You would have to play worse players on purpose If Steer is deep on the depth chart. With that said... Starting pitching is expensive. Steer and CES is expensive but that is what it costs. I don't blame the front office for the trade.

It needs to said.

13 Position player spots 2 Catchers 6 platoon dudes 5 players who play most every day. Santana was never brought in to be a short side guy. He took Polanco's every day spot so they could keep Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner lefty free. How can people not see this? How can anyone not remember how many injuries occur every year? How can anyone not see what we are asking of sub-par players just to starve our young talent of growth. Polanco by himself isn't going to solve the loss of Correa and Lewis by himself but still... How can anyone in the name of the 2024 baseball season justify the trading of Polanco is something I fail to understand. But... We both saw it. Julien and Polanco on the same roster. What do we do? OMG it's a log jam!!! It'll be the same log jam talk next year. For what it's worth. Fans are auto mechanics, HR Directors and Estate Planners. The front office does this for living and it doesn't appear they could predict this totally predictable injury thing. If the front office is reading this. If you place someone on the 26 man roster... There will come a time when you will need them.

Case in Point. Game one of the double header today. Santana batting 2nd against a RH. Margot batting 4th against a RH. No Farmer but... I'm sure he will be in the lineup to face the RH scheduled in game two. This is the price.

No worries I'm sure we will have a log jam full of them next off-season. We can trade Duran to make space. 😉

Correa has made the timing perfect to repeat myself here. In order to keep the sanctity of our extreme platoon system. You must roster an equal amount of below average players who are just bad enough to fill a short side platoon role. If we are going to strictly platoon young lefties like Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner. You have to sign right handed hitters who struggle against right handers but can hit left handers. After all... if they could hit both right handers and left handers... they wouldn't be short side platoon guys. They'd be like Polanco for example... who hits both hands and plays every day so no need to short side him. You have to find these specific players to make your lineup pretty. 3 spots on your 26 man roster who can't hit right handers to support the guys who can't hit left handers. This off-season our front office faced with a budget reduction spent considerable effort to find below average players to make the jigsaw puzzle pieces of the 26 man roster fit and spent money we don't have to do it just to keep the sanctity of the extreme platoon system intact. Farmer was already here... Margot was acquired. The extreme platoon system requires that players like Farmer and Margot are necessary. Roster set: Roster all pretty. Left and Right handcuffs have uniforms... Now let's go play 162 games. It's like making your bed to military standard. That bed is looking good all tucked perfect until the season starts and soon the sheets and pillows are all over the place. Farmer: Career .658 OPS vs RH Margot: Career .662 OPS vs RH That's the price you pay to keep your young lefthanded hitters away from lefthanders. You got to roster these guys to protect them. That's a steep price. When Lewis and Correa go down... Margot and Farmer have to face those right handers because they are the extra players on your roster. So what have you accomplished with that pretty roster? You've fortified against the left handed pitcher that you face 25% of the time at the expense of compromising your abilities against right handed pitchers that you face 75%. Let's repeat those numbers: Farmer: Career .658 OPS vs RH Margot: Career .662 OPS vs RH There are people in this world who will excuse the front office because injuries derailed the club. I'm not one of those people. Injuries should be expected. They built this roster. They went out and got Margot, they kept Farmer (I like Farmer BTW... Unfortunately I have to talk about him this way to make my point) and they traded Polanco. Sub-Par players against right handers taking up roster space is the price you pay. It's a heavy price to pay just to bottle neck their development. :

I wonder who is on a plane from MSP to DTW this morning. Or is it someone flying in from ICT? Helman? What's the 40 man move to make that happen. His numbers are not great but he can play anywhere defensively. Emmanuel Rodriquez? Making the jump from AA. He's killing it right now and already on the 40. Awfully young but we don't have an obvious choice to fill an open 26 man spot. Severino? He hasn't gotten off the best start... Actually... it could be defined as a really really bad start with the Saints. Lee? Hurt Larnach? Hurt Who else?

Every year we forget that this happens every year.

Yeah... I'm in a I told ya so mood this morning. Every off-season we forget about injuries while we talk about the serious log jam problem and who must go to clear it. This morning... I'd like to remind everyone so we have less of this log jam talk next off-season, less of the we got to trade Royce Lewis to make room talk next off-season.

Just stopping by the water to check on that log jam. Memories are short. Next off-season just like every off season... we will speak of those mythical log jams once again. I've still never seen one. I'll keep checking.

Relax everyone... the song is fine. The graphic video played simultaneously on the big screen might have been a bit much though.

That 6% swing on either side of the 25% across the league is probably explained by bullpen usage to attack the left handed heavy Cleveland compared to the Right handed heavy to right handed. The bulk innings by starters is probably closer to static. That's 6% is typically deployed one inning at a time.

Vazquez will play 50% of the time. Catchers are pricey. Correa on the other hand. He absolutely needs to live up to at least a significant portion of his salary.

Possible... If they can find enough. If they can find enough lefties to 40% us as you suggest... What kind of quality are we talking to reach past the 25% currently on rosters. Always remember... no matter what the collective numbers say... it's still case by case individual against individual. In other words... If a team is that committed to attacking via the split that they are willing to throw sub-par lefties. Bring it on. If I was left handed... I'd choose to face Smeltzer over Joe Ryan.

While on paper better against right handed pitching that will throw at you 3 times more. With that proportion. Loading up on lefties has to be a bigger statistical advantage than the disadvantage of left on left 25% of the time.

All teams slump throughout the season and they do so at different times that are hard to predict. As a team your back is squarely against the wall for the entirety of the season when you use up your allotted amount of slump before April has concluded. If you slump in August... Sorry... you can't... your allotment was used up in April.

Exactly. Having a dog is great but you can't teach a dog to use the toilet and flush... dogs still need to relieve themselves and there isn't much that can be done. It's a disadvantage of dog ownership that you have to absorb in order to have a dog. What you can do is teach the dog to least go outside in the yard instead of on the living room carpet. The left vs left split disadvantage is real. We can't change it... but we can accept it and maybe soften it. Getting Julien to a 108 wRC+ is the equivalent of getting him to stop peeing at the plate. Those left handed dogs are necessary because 75% of the cats are right handed.

Big Picture: The Twins are not going to be big players in the free agent market. I know many don't like that and many will argue that the Twins are cheap and that they should open up the checkbook. However... those who have been paying attention over the years surely have come to the conclusion that the Twins are not going to be big players in the free agent market. Carlos Correa was a shock... are we really expecting another Carlos Correa type signing on the horizon? I'm not expecting that. Even if the Twins were to sign another player with a big price tag to join the club... in order to afford that big price tag... they will need a lot of young players making the minimum to afford it. If the Twins are not going to sign the top end free agents and they are not going to. Sustained success for the Twins is going to depend upon development of the young players. If you consider the left handed disadvantage against southpaws. How will they deploy Walter Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriquez when they reach the 26 man roster? We can say Walter is special... will he be treated special with an organization this committed to the lefty/lefty thing. Can we have a functional roster with Julien, Kirilloff, Wallner, Jenkins and Rodriquez on the same roster. Those 6 on the same roster at young player prices could give the organization some financial wiggle room to afford a top line player with a price tag. 6 Million for Farmer and 4 million for Margot does not give the organization financial wiggle room to think bigger... you have to always think smaller to roster a short side guy. On the subject of development on the right side of the plate. In order to provide a handcuff for the young left handed hitter... you need the right handed handcuff. Is that what we want to turn Martin or Miranda into? Now you are compromising the development of a young right handed hitter so you can compromise the development of a young left handed hitter. Short term gain... long term loss. Compromising development across the board is not survivable. We will be plugging holes with Margot, Garlick types forever more.

No question... the platoon split shows a left handed hitter disadvantage. How many lefties they have faced over the years is an acceptable theory on why left against left is the widest swing of the 4 batter vs pitcher matchups possible. However... Let's bring Max Kepler into the discussion. Max has thus far produced a career .787 OPS against Right Handers and .645 against left handers. Those numbers support what you are saying and they support my recognition of the obvious left hander disadvantage. Yet Kepler isn't platooned at least not typically... he may get the occasional off day against a left hander but Kepler will be starting in RF against Framber Valdez in the playoffs. Why does Kepler get the opportunity? Defense I'm sure is a factor but perhaps the biggest point is this. Someone has to. We have 4 natural left handed hitters on the roster and the roster only has room for 3 platoons. There is nowhere to run... nowhere to hide. If Tony Oliva's .690 is the best that can be done. Well help your young hitter get to .690 then. It's better than .550 So unless you are going to stack your lineup with right handed hitters and absorb that lesser right on right disadvantage 75% of the time. Lefties will be called upon to step into that box against the southpaw. Nowhere to run... Nowhere to hide.

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this. There are other splits, other data points for match up consideration. How batters do against fastballs, breaking pitches, change ups for example. There has to be a lot of data produced with all of the analysts being employed and with all that data... lineup construction seemingly hasn't advanced past the right hander/left hander thing. Like they are only data points that matter.

For example... the bases are loaded in the 5th inning. Manager brings in a left handed pitcher to face Kirilloff. Bringing in Margot (So he can bunt?) makes some sense. Swapping a .292 OBP for a .342 OBP makes some sense. Swapping a .637 OPS for a .766 makes some sense. However, please consider that there is still game to go. More innings where runs can be produced are still scheduled for competition. Margot with his .662 OPS against right handers will be facing right handers the rest of the way as the innings of opportunity become less and less ending potentially with the right handed closer in the 9th when there are no innings left. The problem is though while I can understand the pinch hit in a key situation. Rocco doesn't do that. He pushes the button with 4 run leads, 4 run deficits, he pulls our young lefties with two outs and nobody on. He yanked Julien before he got a chance to bat last year. It's auto pilot... Southpaw into the game... Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner out. We are making it much harder for Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner to sign that big free agent contract in the future so Margot can be the hero. We are minimizing the trade value of Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner so Margot can be the hero. We are paying millions (that we don't have) to Margot to make it harder for Julien, Kirilloff and Wallner to become more valuable. But,... for that one AB. We went from a 29% chance of reaching base to a 34% chance. Add 5 green balls to the 100 ball raffle drum.

Ten Years After But I don't know what to do.