Greglw3

Bottom line, of the outfield of Rosario, Buxton and Kepler, Rosario has been the MVP of that group. Kepler hasn’t hit except for 2/3 of one season. Buxton is injured way too much to count on for a WS champion. Only Rosario has been steady in his HR and RBI production and has the best practical arm of all 3. I don’t trust these SABR stats, which are very new in the history of baseball going back to the 1850s. Batting average, OBP, HR and RBI were good enough for 120 years. I think the WAR statistic is dubiously formatted, for example, taking too much from Eddie for defensive reasons.

I agree 100% I don’t understand those that think such a talented and accomplished player is a non-tender candidate.

You nailed it. Eddie is the MVP of that group, Kepler the worst, IMO.

I don’t think Rosario’s defense is terrible. After the ground rule play, he caught everything hit to him or within range. We will disagree on his offense. I’m not a SABR guy. I actually look at how he impacts games and he brings a lot of positives with his HR’s, team leading RBI two years in a row (for 120+ years RBIs were very significant). Anyway, I would sign him to a 3 year deal. Put Kirriloff in RF and try to sign a better backup for Buxton that Cave or Wade who are not acceptable. Kepler would be the 4th or 5th OF and needs to prove himself again as his career batting average is not good. Thet also need backup for Sano that can step in and hit respectably. Plus backup for Donaldson, someone not on the current roster. I think Nick Gordon could be a real valuable piece for 2021 although I’m afraid I see another abbreviated season with Covid expected to be a force until 2022. Definitely re-sign Cruz.

I was going to say that aside from the lousy 2020, his 2019 was wretched as well. But something in my gut tells me you are correct about not giving up on him. Two words: Liam Hendricks

I’d give Kirilloff the RF position and use Kepler as a 4th OF. Rooker could get AB in OF and 1B, maybe a lot at 1B!

Kepler is not as good as Rosario IMO and Kirilloff could take his place. Kepler would be 4th OF.

Somehow you missed Eddie’s much better plate discipline and an OBP 59 points higher than BA. He had a decent amount of walks for a shortened season.

I would emphatically recommend keeping Rosario. He’s clocking 30+ homers a year (pro-rated as mentioned in an above post) and led the team in RBIs for each of the last two seasons. More than Nelson Cruz. Some SABR fans knock RBIs but that has been one of the most important statistics in the history of baseball in the U.S. which goes back to the New York Knickerbockers in the 1850s. The SABR statistics are only a recent phenomenon and may not last. WAR seems to be calculated multiple ways and IMO subtracts too much for defense when measurement of defense purely by a statistic is dubious. And FIP, that stat just seems to be consistently off, often by a large amount...I’d rather go with the true ERA. Anyway, after the foul ball fiasco (Justin Morneau, Dick Bremer and Eddie Rosario didn’t know that ground rule), I saw a Rosario that made all the plays he needed to make and yes, threw another man out at the plate. Counting all the runners that stay at 1st or stay at 3rd due to Rosario’s arm-how is that quantified in WAR? Plus Eddie plays with fire, wants to win and that can’t help but rub off on his teammates. What’s the stat for that? I’d say Eddie Rosario and Nelson Cruz were the two most valuable hitters on the Twins in 2020 when many stars around the league struggled, ostensibly due to shortened summer camp. My opinion is that Eddie Rosario is very talented, a better player than Kepler and arguably more valuable than Buxton due to Buxton’s large body of missed playing time. That would make him the out fielder to build around for 2021. Rosario, Buxton and Kirilloff in the outfield with Rooker playing a lot too. Plus go get a MLB ready center fielder as insurance for Buxton. If they don’t do that, it could cost many games playing a Cave type player. I sum, Eddie has had two very good seasons in a row, greatly corrected his chasing problem and may have a much higher ceiling and become a bonafide star. The Twins need to keep him for the very reasonable salary.

I liked Molly much more than Rocco. He was aggressive in replacing struggling pitchers showing burning desire to win, Rocco just sits in the dugout and lets pitchers get hammered to the point a win is more remote or impossible. He did it with Gibson and Martin Perez in 2nd half of 2019 and has done it with relievers this year 2020. Plus pulling both Berrios and Maeda after 5 was contrary to all standards of managing a game in baseball history and were the wrong call IMO. I love the Twins and have followed them for 56 years through down times and good. It’s because I care that I will call out management or the manager when they are hurting. Management should have had better backups than Cave for Buxton and Adrianza or Gonzalez for Donaldson. With a good backup 1st baseman, Sano could have spent time on the bench when he became a lost strikeout machine. Luckily we had Jeffers for Garver. I like Gordon as a possible replacement for Arraez. Who has the best skill set for the team? Kirilloff has a role. Painfully, Kepler generally has an unacceptable low batting average. The bench is far too week and the starting pitching at 4 and 5 needs better insurance. A quality backup for Buxton is necessary. I’m one of the ones that supports Rosario. I see him make almost all routine catches and he has adequate range plus a monster throwing arm, which impacts games more than the average home run, IMO. We need a closer. Romo, M Gonzalez, Adrianza should be let go. MLB ready backup for Donaldson. Dobnak and Smeltzer can’t be counted on IMO and the 2019 and 2020 numbers prove it. We probably need a new manager or one (Rocco) who is willing to correct his mistakes and grow. I like Rooker to be an important piece next year. Management needs to bring in MLB ready players to share time with or replace Donaldson, Buxton, Sano and possible Arraez (Gordon). WIN TWINS!

But he threw well over 100 pitches in that near no-no. He should have been able to go 7 then maybe May and Rogers or Odorizzi. I’ve long thought I true that the more relievers you bring into a game, the greater the odds that one of them will not bring their good stuff to the mound.

For example, a solid case could be made to use Odorizzi in the 9th rather than the recently ineffective Sergio Romo.

Sadly, I’ve felt that many times over the last two years. A miracle that he’s won as much as he has while booting away several games with his consistently questionable in-game management.

Question is: Will the starting OF vs Righties be: 1) Rosario, Cave and Kepler 2) Rosario, Kepler, Kirilloff If Kirilloff pulls a Rooker and comes out swinging, #2 might be a better option

Hey Nick, When you mentioned Cruz and Sano’s recent struggles, it made me think of how they are both engaging in egregious out of the zone chasing. Then I thought of my man Eddie who has been so much improved and just isn’t chasing like those two. I’m just disappointed in Sano and Cruz chasing so much and can’t figure out why, at crunch time, they’ve been doing that. Especially when they’ve both shown how devastating they can be when disciplined. Anyway, with the dearth of offense, I compiled a list of several Twins players. Who would fans most think should go, if anyone. I’m removing the names to try to remove any evaluation bias although probably most Twins fans can figure out who is who. OBP SLG OPS OPS+ .287 .512 .799 115 .312 .424 .736 101 .283 .323 .606 068 .313 .363 .675 087 .336 .337 .673 088 .243 .197 .440 024 .316 .471 .787 114

No, Dobnak was really bad for 3 of his last 5 starts. I would feel very uncomfortable wit that in a very important game to repeat as AL Central Champs.

My two biggest worries are Dobnak and Rocco leaving pitchers in too long. Last night he did better. I’m still not really sold on Dobnak being a long term rotation pitcher. I’d plug in Odorizzi and move Dobnak to Bullpen for now.

Did you realize the compared to the league average as of 9/10/2020 that Eddie has a batting average 3 points above league average and an OPS 26 points above league average - .764 - .738 and he can improve on that.

Sounds like fWAR is a dubious statistic. Keplers batting ave was lower and he only had 4 more homers and Eddie doesn’t run into outs consistently. First of all, all major leaguers do it from time to time and maybe Eddie is in the 60th percentile but consistently. No. Take all his times on base and do the math. It’s probably less than 5% of plays when he’s on base.

Maybe it's just me. But let's take a look: the Twins are 5-1 over the past 6 games. During those games, Eddie's batted .285 with 2 HR and 7 RBI. He's struck out once. And now we're calling for his head?!?! Based on the above three sentences, the argument could be made that Eddie Rosario just saved the season. They were down and out in a 6 game losing funk and Eddie rose to the occasion. Without that, the Twins may be sunk now. Keep in mind the league average is about. 245 and his .285 in a desperately critical period is 40 points higher. Who else performed to that level offensively when the Twins were on the mat and the referee was counting....

At his age and the way he has fit in with the Twins plus the fact, I think, that he loves playing for the Twins, the Twins should be able to match any one year deal.

Yeah that would probably make the Eddie detractors happy. Put a .198 hitter in there and watch the winning stop and pine for the days of the 2019 and 2020 team RBI leader and the winning.

Nick, while I respect you a lot, I disagree on Rosario. This year, the team offense is average & Rosario is 5th in A.L. in RBIs. That's a special talent he possesses & creates runs otherwise nonexistent. He comes thru in the clutch. Consistently. Please try to see his good points. His throwing arm is special and impacts wins and losses also. There are lies, damned lies and statistics. You can focus on things like low OBP or some sabrmetric stats that degrade him but I think he’s the heart and soul of this team. How do you explain leading the team in RBIs over Nelson Cruz in 2019 and now while Cruz has much gaudier statistics than Eddie, Eddie uses his ability to come through in the clutch and have more RBIs than Cruz?? If players don’t drive in the runs then they’ll never score and Twins will lose more. His throwing arm is really special. Who else can throw strikes from the warning track to 2nd for outs or to home for outs. To be honest, his value this year is more than any other outfielder the Twins possess . I would not be looking to phase him out or let him go via free agency.

I agree. With a brittle Buxton we never should have gone in with Cave or Wade as backups. An all LH outfield with 3 of the 4 not hitting including Kepler who has been very disappointing.

Remember Tom Johnson, too? He was another find like Corbett who I think they got after he was with the Reds. His best two years were ’76 with 3-1, 2.61 and then in ’77 with the juggernaut offense, he went 16-7 with a 3.13 ERA and 146.2 IP all as a reliever!!! Bill Campbell was the real deal and I would rank him very high, maybe #2. He was 17-5 in relief in 1976 with 167.2 IP, 20 saves and a 3.01 ERA. One could make a case for that being the best relief season in the history of the Twins. It broke my heart when Calvin just let him walk in the dawn of free agency but then Bostock and Hisle, Ford, Carew were all purged because of salary! Poor Gene Mauch. That ’77 team could have been WS champs with a little pitching.