Greglw3

I like quite a few of our minor leaguers even guys like Mark Contreras and Jimmy Kerrigan, Jermaine Palacios, Trey Cabbage, Moran, of course Miranda, Joe Ryan and more. Honestly, as far as people I’m sure can help the Twins in the future, only Alex Kirilloff is definitely worth keeping.

miracles: It's definitely an arguable point but I don’t see Nick Gordon as light hitting with these stats for 2021 as a rookie with less than a full MLB chance. The .802 OPS at St. Paul and the .455 slugging percentage there may indicate that with a longer chance in MLB and regular playing time, he would be OK. I’d rather see him play SS every day for the rest of the year and release Simmons. And 12/15 in SB which could help establish a bit more balance to the Twins offense. ar Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS 2021 25 MIN-min AAA 17 72 66 11 19 0 1 3 9 7 2 6 11 .288 .347 .455 .802 2021 25 MIN AL 37 103 96 9 24 3 1 1 5 5 1 6 26 .250 .301 .333 .634

Hey Brock, Thanks for the Bob Allison all rookie team card!!! I had done a study of RBIs per 162 games for the full careers of Rosario and Cave since Cave started the season as his replacement. Eddie has averaged 92 RBI per 162 games for his entire career, rookie season until now. This would seem high for a player with a slash line of .275/.308/.470. Even this season with Cleveland, he has a projected RBI total of 88 (arbitrary 550 AB) with a .254/.296/.389 slash line. I take that to mean that he is driving in runs this year well above expectation if not factoring in some clutch hitting ability. The same would apply for the 92 RBI avg per 162 vs his career slash line. As a point of reference, Jake Cave for his career per 162 has averaged 56 RBIs. Another point is why did the Atlanta Braves want to ride for him as a contending team for the playoffs. I know I will never convince anyone who thinks Eddie wasn’t a good to very good player but we have to agree to disagree. I just think he is and has been over his career such a vastly superior to Jake Cave that when they released Rosario and started the season with Cave as the everyday LF, I felt very disillusioned. In fact Eddie just blew Cave off the map on virtually all of the per 162 game stats with the possible exception of OPS, where Eddie was ahead. I think part of the problem is that I draw a lot of my conclusions using the eye test and traditional statistics. Something magical happens when you watch a player virtually every day for a 162 game season. I think you get a pretty complete picture. Another part of the problem is that I look at the stats that myself and all the other Twins fans since the 60s looked at for close to 6 decades and baseball fans in general had looked at for probably over 100 years until Bill James started doing his work. It seems the Rosario detractors tend to not regard RBIs highly, some are a no, even on batting average (Luis Arraez, Rod Carew .388). I looked at a 2019 WAR calc for Eddie Rosario and he was worth 3.2 WAR except it was changed to 0.9 due to defense. That seems ridiculous to me especially since he demonstrably won x games with his throwing arm. If Delmon Young had been changed from 3.2 to 0.9 solely due to defense, I might believe it.

I agree 1000%. Molitor was a very good manager. Much better than Baldelli. He was aggressive with the bullpen and showed a burning passion to win. Molitir is an all time baseball treasure with tremendous knowledge of how to win baseball games and how to succeed. While he’s in the Hall of Fame, he’s not just a Hall of Famers but he’s an ELITE Hall of Famers. I thought firing him was a huge mistake and still do.

We have to agree to disagree on Rosario. The FO then dismantled that 100 win team to what we have now. All I want is for the Twins to get back to that open window whether it’s Falvine and Rocco or someone else. I think Jim Pohlad will give them a pass for this year so I look to this intriguing batch of prospects and hopefully a really solid pitching acquisition through FA. I’ve always stuck with the Twins through every up and down for decades now. They’ve been the joy of my life even if a lot of hard times! The two WS teams were fun. There’s been enough success along the way to balance out the heartbreaks.

Clippards pitching now, I would have liked very much to have re-signed Escobar. You said Rosario had a decent bat but I think that .270+ with 61 XBH and 32 home runs while leading the greatest HR hitting team in baseball history with 109 RBIs is an excellent hitter. I’m from the old school. I started following the Twins in 1964 and still Believe RBIs are very important. Maybe Justin Morneau took that myth on in a broadcast when he said, "then who’s going to drive the runners in?" Some players have a knack for clutch hitting and Eddie is one of them. I also think he was a competent LF who made an occasional gaffe which was made up for with some spectacular throws and nice plays. Did you really want Jake Cave to replace Rosario because that’s exactly how it came down. That’s .185 hitting Jake Cave. Not much better in 2020. I don’t think picking apart the individual players is productive but I disagree with you about Schoop. The Twins would have been better the last two years with Schoop at 2nd and Polanco at SS. How much 2B has Arraez played even this year? Cron would have been a better asset at 1B for most of the year while Sano was hurting the team. Gibson, I’ll give you but he would have been better than Happ and Shoemaker, no? I stand by my assertion that the FO has taken a 101 win team to one of the worst in baseball by allowing way too much attrition, bad trades, releases and failing miserable on the free agent market. And it’s not just one bad year because the wheels of decline had been set in motion starting at the end of the 2019 season Did you mention Pressley? Why did they trade him? He’s a winning piece. I just hope they clear out the Caves and Astudillos. Kepler is a question mark. One thing they’ve done a seemingly decent to good job at is stocking good minor league players. I’d like to see Ryan, maybe Sands, Miranda, Strotman, Moran, Martin, maybe Balazovic and Woods Richardson (long shot this year) up soon. Look, I love the Twins. I’m a 57 year fan!! But I hate seeing the team I love decimated. If Falvine and Rocco come back, I hope they can start to turn it around. Frankly, the young players are what energize me at this point. They have work to do in free agency though. Still a lot of everyday player question marks. If they turn it around, I’ll be the first to praise them. It’s just with the facts at hand, I have no choice but to say they’ve done a poor job. People that do poor jobs usually don’t keep them but maybe years 6, 7, 8 for Falvine and Baldelli will see another window open up..

One thing I’m sure of is that the White Sox FO has totally, thoroughly and completely drubbed the Twins FO over the last 2-3 years. It’s stunning, really!

Not a fan of calling someone a rube if they have the very reasonable opinion that those that have failed spectacularly in the last two years should be replaced. I honestly think that coaxing Jim Leyland out of retirement would have resulted in much better in-game decisions than Rocco has made this year (and for 3 years frankly). Then there’s the part about the players he had. In my other post I named all the players the FO let go in the last two years that have directly led from 101 wins to one of the worst teams in baseball. Another thing the FO has done that I think was a big mistake was firing Molitor and hiring Baldelli. IMO, Molitor was a very good strategic and tactical manager who was aggressive with his bullpen and displayed a burning fire to win. Now if you want to compare me to Rube Walker or Rube Marquardt, I might think it reasonable.

"This FO inherited a promising young team on the cusp of greatness. And with zero playoff wins to show for it, they have now turned it into a bottom-5 MLB team with the worst pitching staff in baseball." This speaks volumes!

I agree with you Brock. I think they’ve had enough time and it’s not just one bad year. The bad decisions started after the 2019 season. Would the Twins have been better with Schoop and Cron this year? Yes. It’s all the unnecessary attrition which reminds me of the attrition the year JJ Hardy, Orlando Hudson, Matt Guerrier, Jon Rauch and a 5th player were let go and the subsequent attrition-driven drop. So we’ve forfeited Schoop, Cron, Wade, Badoo, Rosario (I’m a fan, others aren’t), Odorrizi (still better this year than Happ or Shoemaker), Zack Littell, Romo, Kyle Gibson, Trevor May, Matt Wisler, Ryne Harper (ouch!), Rich Hill, Pressley, Eduardo Escobar, Tyler Clippard in two short years. Is the above acceptable for a list of players willingly let go by Falvey in 2 years? Further, with a glaring problem of Byron Buxton’s chronic missed time, they failed to obtain a proper backup for cf. The continued acquisition of bargain basement gambles seems a way to being the worst team in baseball rather than the best. That Burrows start was a real head scratcher. My opinion is that Baldelli is in over his head as a manager. I will give him credit for some recent improvement in coming out to get pitchers in a more timely fashion to still give the Twins a chance. Then there’s sending Burrows out for a 2nd inning. How many games has he kicked away by letting starters get the Twins so far behind that they have no chance? I would cite a late 2019 game where he left Martin Perez in for 8 runs in the first two innings. Game, set, match. Then Shoemaker for 9 runs in 1 inning. Credit? The Berrios deal is worthy of optimism at this point. Ascension of Arraez is great, not sure who gets credit for that. Kirilloff and Larnach being given a chance. I have high hopes for Miranda. All in all, management put the Twins in a deep hole with a series of bad trades and releases, etc.

Agree.

That’s a really good point!

When as a Twins fan, I was following the Toledo Mud Hens, when Kirby Puckett was called up he was hitting around .240 as I recall.

I think he’s just struggling to adjust to a very quick adjustment pitchers have made to him in throwing a high percentage of sliders and breaking balls. I think he’ll fight through it eventually and be a star. At least I hope so.

I would not want to trade Rooker - 23 home runs on the season, strong walk rate and super impressively hit titanic 3rd deck home runs in back to back games this week. I’d play him regularly the rest of the season and then re-evaluate.

I’ve been thinking Gary Gaetti as a comp for Miranda. I remember Gaetti in AA and how he projected. Miranda has been unwaveringly making me feel that’s a comp. We’ll see, I hope so.

Twins have had a spending problem ever since free agency started about 1975. Calvin Griffith was totally overmatched and Carl Pohlad, while a little better than Griffith, was still not willing to spend to be a serious power, My impression is that Jim Pohlad is the least penurious of all 1975 forward Twins owners but I could be wrong. One example of a team that truly did buy WS title was the Florida Marlins in their 5th year. An Amazon link shows a book about that team. They sold off most of their winning assets after winning the WS.

I agree 100%. To be perfectly blunt, I don’t think the Twins have a single every day player worthy of even being discussed for a gold glove. That would be different if Buxton was healthy but he’s likely missed too much time. No one else comes close IMO.

While not a fan of the new wave of SABR statistics, especially WAR and FIP, I do think most of those SDIs ring true. They peg a defensive slide to Donaldson, which I think is correct. Were I think the reality of one of the Twins' actual contribution and the SDI depart and the SDI is very misleading is in the case of Simmons. I think he has been a huge disappointment both offensively and defensively. He’s made atrociously weak throws to 1st base at times on routine plays. Dropped a noticeable amount of balls and generally not made very many spectacular plays at all like the great Ozzie Smith did or even our own Greg Gagne did. On the spectacular play that stands out most on a double play, it was actually Polanco who made the stunningly spectacular diving stop. Simmons made a good relay but Polanco was the one doing something special. I do think the shifts are making it a lot harder for a SS to stand out like Smith, Gagne or Vizquel. It just may be that because of the shift, the range of a SS is not as important as in the past. I know some people prefer these new defensive statistics over the eye test but I’d prefer to have an evaluation of a veteran baseball observer who has seen hundreds of SSs play. I think that has always been why scouting is so important. Just my opinion but I think Simmons has turn out to be a poor acquisition and would trade him or release him. Then I would put Polanco back at SS (where he was when the Twins won 101 games) and use Arraez and/or Gordon at 2B.

With Miranda, I just keep thinking Gary Gaetti as I was already a long time fan by the time Gaetti was in AA. I think Miranda’s gonna be a cornerstone!

You've got first dibs!

I would agree with you and I think both Winder and Moran could pitch in the big leagues this season,

I'm all for it. We’re going nowhere with Happ and possibly Pineda. I think you’re right in that we can’t know who the pitching equivalents of Larnach and Kirilloff are unless we give them a chance. Some really intriguing relievers too!

Here’s what I posted on Twitter yesterday and it’s relevant to the FO decision making.

While researching this, I was flabbergasted to see Winder’s ERA all the way up to 3.5 with apparently only 2 IP. After some digging-- mostly in very recent articles on TD and a post on Twitter, I was mostly reassured that he escaped largely unscathed!