Greglw3

That is the truth * 10,000!

Nick Gordon hit .271 in the month of May and plays spectacular defense in LF. Since May 12, he is hitting .289. Using OPS+ to evaluate Gordon is meaningless because it skews pretty heavily toward power hitters. But power hitter or slugger is just one role on a team. It’s not Gordon’s role. He should maybe be compared against all leadoff hitters since that’s closest to his natural role. Gordon has so many ways to help. A stolen base. A great catch that saves runs. 1st to 3rd. Triple potential. And an ability to play probably 5 positions well. I would not even think about letting him go.

Gordon has been worth a lot for the Twins with a respectable .258 BA, very good speed and bunting ability and superb defense in LF. If he’s let go, he’ll be snapped up so fast, it’ll be alarming. I’m ready for Lewis’ return and permanently. Not as sure about Kirilloff. I think the wrist is still hurting and what happens when the cortisone shot wears off? Another one maybe? The Twins OF situation is getting to be a backlog of talent, which, I guess is good! If I’m honest, I would catch Sanchez most and not DH Jeffers but use that slot for someone like Celestino or Lewis or Kirilloff. I would consider Lewis the #1 CF on Byron Buxton off days and #1 LF on other days. Larnach can get at bats in LF and DH.

I’d bring up Lewis and hopefully for the long haul. Maybe 15 years. Your reasons are the right ones.

I would never want Martin Perez back on the Twins - very streaky and when he’s bad, he’s very bad and it can last for months.

They should do the opposite and sign Correa long term. He’s already with Sanchez and Urshela taught the Twins a ton about winning and created a winning culture They can have Lewis and Correa in the same lineup.

Two words to confirm what you’re saying about Arraez at 1B. Rod Carew. Won the MVP as a high average hitter playing 1B in 1977.

Why not sign Correa to that long term deal and have them both in the lineup? Lewis has 62 built in games in cf with Buxton limited to 100 and the rest he could strengthen the outfield by playing alongside Buxton and Kepler in lf. Too talented for lf? Two words: Rickey Henderson. Or Alex Gordon. Imagine a top 4 of : 1- Arraez 1B (Carew 1B MVP) 2-Lewis LF 3-Correa SS 4-Buxton CF I think this would be best with Urshela 3B Uncommon defensive wizard and possible GG win, Larnach DH/LF/RF/1B. Polanco 2B, C Sanchez, If Kirilloff comes back into the conversation, he can play 1B and Arraez DH (and back up other places). Then it’s a matter of finding the best place for Larnach. In my mind, he’s never going to be able to match Lewis defensively nor in SB potential as a LF.

I’m slightly worried but I don’t subscribe to the premise he needs to hit with power. Remember Moneyball was based on acquiring a team full of high OBA guys. The runs will flow. He could make an especially good leadoff hitter, getting on base at a .400 clip and setting up guys like Correa and Buxton.

That is a great article Ted! Very interesting read, stimulating and even exciting to read. I like Spencer Steer also. And Lewis has developed into a very exciting prospect with his total domination of AAA this year! Canterino I have hopes for but tempered a bit by his current brittleness and the walks. I’m a huge fan of walks for hitters but not so much for pitchers. Congrats on writing a really fine article! It brightened up my day right at the start!

Nashville Twin. Does this mean that like me, you’re a Twins fan living in Nashville?

Did you really think the Twins would pay Correa 35MM to play SS? All signs I’ve seen point to Correa planning to be here for awhile. Signs coming from him. It doesn’t have to be 10 years. But yes, Lewis up sooner rather than later. There’s plenty of room for an immense talent like Royce.

The talk about having any reliance on Jax, Cotton or Thorpe really scares me. You never know in baseball....maybe Jax can make a viable 1 inning reliever. I’m more comfortable with Duran and Winder. I think it would be like rolling snakeeyes 5 times in a row if Bundy, Ober, Ryan, Winder all were below 4.00 ERA pitchers this year. I’d love it but it would go against baseball history big time. It’s a tough problem to solve at this point. I keep visiting MLBTRs several times a day!

I do think the inaction shows that Oakland’s price is too high. I’d forget about Montas now, keep Miranda and Martin and try to trade a prospect w 6 years control for 1 of Manea and not Winder. Someone like Cole Sands for Manea. I’ve seen it happen where the 87 Twins won the World Series with basically a 3 man pitching staff in the playoffs and WS. SO one more good starter Manea or Cueto would really help and then maybe the 3rd guy would step up during the season. I’m still squeamish about starting Kepler and Sano. I honestly think 550 AB of Miranda > the risk of 550 AB w Sano. And Kepler would be my 4th OF with Larnach, Buxton and Kirilloff being the OF. So out with Kepler Sano and 2 inexperienced pitchers and in with Manea and Cueto Larnach and Kirilloff.

I'd love to get Odo back!

Basically a #1 and 4 number 5s or to be charitable to Bundy,a #1, a #4 and 3 #5s. I can’t believe they let the pitching slide this long.

The main idea was to put a good player in LF but mostly NOT rely on Kepler or Sano as starters. Their slumps can kill an offense!

I wouldn’t have done things this way. I would have tried for Canha or J.D. Davis or even Binentendi. but the FO didn’t do that. My opening day lineup breaks with the current conventional thinking but I honestly think the Twins will be better this way. That means Kepler moving to 4th OF and Sano a man without a position. Here’s how I’d start: LF Martin - I think Martin is ready and could hit .300 with a lot of doubles. 2nd would be Gordon as I think he will hit better than in 2021 and can steal bases at will, which would help the Twins have more ways to score, especially if Buxton is also stealing bases at will I think Martin could swipe a decent amount of bases as well. 3rd is Larnach and I do still think he’ll be a future star but when last we checked, he was overmatched in the majors and AAA both. CF Buxton RF Kirilloff 3B Urshela SS Correa 2B Polanco 1b Miranda C Sanchez/Jeffers DH Conforto//Beckham/Sano/Martin/Gordon I think Beckham has earned a job. The rotation would be Gray, Bundy, Ober, Ryan, Winder. Note: I’m not at all satisfied with that rotation. It’s basically one proven starter and 4 "I hope they pitch up to their ceiling but truly they are question masks" I would still try to sign for Cueto and maybe send 6 years of Sands for 1 year of Manea.

Miranda! He might be better than Sano or Kirilloff. I expect he is really gonna hit.

I remember it being an awful and depressing trade. From the Twins perspective, with what they got from the players received, they got nothing. I remember that the Twins at the time offered him $20M a year for 3 years, which was a huge salary ten, especially for the Twins but there is always a bigger market team able to give more years. I, perhaps naively, felt that Santana could have shown loyalty to the Twins for $60,000,000! I also remember the Twins offering the exact average annual salary for Hunter at 15M for 3 yrs as the Angels but the Halos went 5 years. Again, just my feeling, but I think Torii could have shown loyalty and appreciation for all they had done for him for 15M a year. It’s not unprecedented for a player to take a bit less money to play for a team and a situation he loves. I thought Santana and Hunter might have felt that way as the Twins really did a lot to make them stars including Johan’s being on the receiving end of the Twins belief in him in the rule 5 draft. In summary both were painful, almost Griffith-esque.

I’ve been playing the Twins season while trading, signing free agents and auditioning the Twins best minor leaguers. The bad news is that the Twins started 1-11. The good news is that I continued to trade, sign free agents and give almost all the top prospects an audition. You might be surprised at which prospect emerged. I’ve played all games except maybe a total of 1 when the AI took off while I napped! I also do pitch by pitch, which is pretty exciting, especially using the CF camera for pitches. The Twins are currently 11-17, so 10-6 since the awful start. Highlights are the seeming permanent emergence of Trevor Larnach, Alex Kirilloff flirting with superstardom. I’ll leave the SS surprise for the box score of game 28. Jose Miranda has held down 3rd after I traded Donaldson mostly for payroll reasons. I traded for Josh Bell, who is having a monster season. Which means Sano is gone. Study the Box Score and guess where he went! I started with no injuries checked but decided that wasn’t a fair measure of how I could cover a Buxton absence. SO I set injuries on and just 3 games later Buxton was injured with a chronic back issue for 4 weeks. Problem is that it’s been probably 5-6 weeks now and he wasn’t hitting at the start. Billy Hamilton and Gabriel Maciel have played most of the cf innings. I traded Ober along with Arraez to get Bassitt from Oakland, certainly my worst trade. Here’s the box score. If OOTP is a good predictor, there are some exciting things on the horizon for the Twins.

I like the informative analysis of the Twins assets. I’m wondering why Miranda is so low? We’ll see how those Twin .345 batting averages and 30 homers translate to MLB. My OOTP baseball experiment saw him hit ~ .285 with 14 HR and 82 RBIs. I’m actually optimistic that he can be a big boost for the Twins in 2022. The jury is out!

Yes, I’m going to try to play some of the games with myself managing the Twins and then maybe a combo of simulation and me managing the Twins for the rest. The cool thing is the minor league games always get simulated so you can know which player is ready to help the major league team. When I got the game, it was set up to play the 2021 season, so I made some of the trades and simulated 2021 based on real life 2021 stats. What was cool was that the offense was really strong. Miranda hit around .285 with 14 HR and 82 RBIs, not bad for a rookie! Iglesias hit ~.303 with 11 HR, a pleasant surprise. The Twins finished 85-77 and then I made the Bryant, Rodon, Cueto acquisitions after. Now I’m set up to play the opener of the 2022 season with the roster I was able to put together.

Frustrated by Falvey and Levine’s approach the last two offseason and with the lockout in effect, I bought OOTP baseball for $4.99 in order to build the Twins my way using trades, free agent signings and keeping the up and coming pitching. I set the trade slider a little more to the hard side the the easy side. It seemed to carry over to free agent negotiations but I’m not sure. Prime example: I offered Byron Buxton basically the same deal the Twins signed him for and he came back and said, "I’m only entertaining serious offers"! It seemed he ignored the $8M per year for an MVP award and AB bonuses. He was so tough that to get him signed, I had to average over 20M yr. plus he wanted a 9 year deal. I got away with 8 but I had to have him. When trying for free agents or making trades, I eschewed any player that I knew had been signed in real life or traded to a new team. I got messages along the way from Jim Pohlad and at one point, he said that I was having such a good offseason that he was raising my allowance from $203M budget (all expenses, not just payroll). At a budget of $203, the player payroll was $160M but he raised the budget to $210M and a player payroll of $170M. He must have seen quickly that I was going to be very aggressive striving to build a 2022 contender. Some of the trades and signings saw me moving Max Kepler for Taijuan Walker. Signing Jose Iglesias, attempting to sign Michael Pineda and Danny Duffy over extended negotiations (especially with Pineda) only to be spurned by both. Trading Bailey Ober and Luis Arraez for Chris Bassit. Releasing Dylan Bundy. Signing Billy Hamilton to a very reasonable deal to be insurance for Byron Buxton. Signing Carlos Rodon, which went surprisingly smoothly. Yes, I did offer him a fair contract. Signing Ken Giles was exciting, knowing how it would solidify the bullpen. The toughest one was attempting to sign Kris Bryant. I think he had me up to $173M and strung me along, then said the Cubs had a better offer. I ended up cutting it off but after a decent period of time passed, he came back and I was able to sign him at a bargain $15M yr for 5 yrs. After spring training had ended, Johnny Cueto, having cut off negotiations, came back to me on the eve of the season opener and said he’d like to try again. I offered him more than he asked for 1 yr plus an option year and he signed in time for the season opener. After all the moves, I decided to promote Cole Sands to work out of the bullpen, a job he earned in OOTP baseball’s spring training. Here are some graphics on your new, shiny, division contending 2022 Minnesota Twins!

It's actually kind of exciting. I learned something new when Buxton was hitting about .160 a few years back but in my mind he was a big net plus because of his off the charts defense!