Doctor Gast

When Pohlad dropped a bomb saying paraphrased "We aren't going after any $30MM/ yr. FA" & " We'll live where we're at". Many fans went berserk, I'm not taking sides if the Pohlads can afford to pay the money or not because I have no idea. But I do know we live in a much lower market than NY, LA & CHI. & can't compete with those teams in spending. But is spending big in FA the answer to being successful? NYY & NYM went big in FA last offseason, how did they do? Is FA the solution to all our problems? I think not. IMO FA is an inefficient way to take care of our needs with FA salaries skyrocketing every year. I'd like to look at 3 different teams that do not go big in FA yet are very productive. 1st is Baltimore, They won the highly competitive AL East Division & are positioned to be a powerhouse for years to come. How did they do it? Much like HOU they tanked for many years & were able to get high draft picks & started to accumulate great prospects. 2nd is Tampa Bay. It's been a while since TB has had a really bad season so how have they done it? By accumulating prospects by trading off hyped players (especially SP) getting near to FA for promising young players & prospects. Another successful team that doesn't rely on FA is Atlanta. Like TB they like to trade but they trade to fortify a need & when they get a player they like to be around for a while they extend them. Can we emulate them? With the new anti-tanking lottery this is no longer a sure bet to build a great team, plus teams like PIT & CO have tanked for years & still are floundering. Maybe build a pitching pipeline like TB & CLE, which we have tried since Favey became GM. Many of our high-ceiling prospects never panned out & Ober (started out as mid-ceiling) is the highest of any of our prospects that have risen but we haven't been able to produce a rotation full of in-house high-level SPs every year so we can trade them to fill weak spots in the team. Maybe we can be more proactive in trading to fill our needs and extend players like ATL? It should definitely help. BAL, TB & ATL are all different but there are a couple of things that they do that are the same. They are great at player & team evaluation & development which separates them from their peers and make them successful year after year. These are areas that the Twins need to improve. CO has tanked for years & they like to throw money at their players but that doesn't do any good if they don't have good player & team evaluation & development. IMO stats like WAR favor sluggers, & any high-focus analytical team tends to focus on HRs & defense & baserunning are minimized. Drafting, developing, team & player evaluations are prioritized on HRs, the rest is ignored. Analytics are very important but we can't be lost in it. We been blessed with 3 high 1st round picks that were no brainers Lewis, Lee & Jenkins. Whenever we get a low 1st round draft pick we often select a big bat cOF/1B/DH (Rooker, Sabato, Larnach, & Caveco #13 was drafted as a SS but most likely will end up at 1B). I'm frustrated with the development of Wallner who has a lot of potential but it seems that all they focus on is for him to hit HRs. I'm frustrated with the development of our catchers. This priority affects us as far as our evaluation of our team needs & players' importance to the team where we hang onto players we could let go & let go of who we should keep. Team & player evaluation & development are very important but where ATL separates itself is that they use that evaluations to find holes in their team & then they go out & make trades that fills or upgrade in that area. We have also been fortunate with trades that fell into our laps like Lopez, Ryan, & Maeda. But once we improve our team & players evaluations of not only our team but also those teams that hold our missing pieces, I'd love to see us to be more proactive in making trades. There are so many opportunities out there once our eyes are open. The opportunities that were open early this season are pretty much closed but there'll be new opportunities & we need to be ready for them. I heard someone praise our FO that if Pohlad allocates X amount of dollars they will spend X amount of dollars. I can see what they are saying but I also see it as something very wasteful because if the Twins had an extra $11MM they could take another unrealistic risk on a Gallo-type that had no real need just because they had the money. Dreaming about picking up this high price FA or that high price FA isn't very feasible even before this Balley mess. The Chinese look at crises as an opportunity, these 2 words have the same root word. We have 2 choices stay the same & fall behind or change our priorities to be more realistic & to become more like ATL & become independent from free agency, & become a better & more competitive team.

My thoughts too. 200 IP is very ambitious. But having a pitcher that's hungry to go more is good. Not wasting his bullets in AAA this year should help his #s. 165+ of even higher-quality innings is what I expect. At Ober's age I don't know how big of an extension really matters.

Sano looked good.

Farmer will platoon Julien.

Farmer is & he's a better 2Bman

A 1st Correa-type contract. A bunch of opt-outs. I see him opt out his 1st year & do it differently

Great job, Cody. In the past, the Twins were very defense-orientated. But under this FO, the defense hasn't been taken as seriously. But I give them credit that post-Cave at CF, post-Polanco at SS & lately addition of Vazquez has tremendously improved our position at the most premium positions. Without an FA off-season, now being in better shape, working on his hitting, being familiar with the team & pitchers. Vazquez should be much better offensively with his valuable defense, he should be still our primary catcher but I doubt that will happen. I'm excited about what Martin can add to the team by being in the OF. 1B isn't a premium position.

I think 30 SBs for Buck is optimistic. I think they'll try to keep him on a leash & I think Buck should be clean up. But with Castro & Martin tearing up the base paths, it'll be hard to hold him down.

They at least partially brought back the winning tradition pinstripes with partial success. Why not bring back the pinstripe fully & experience full success? We haven´t experienced any real success w/o them. We had them thru the 60s & early 70s with a World Series appearance & brought them back in late ´80s & won 2 World series & beat the Wonder As in early 2000´s.

We can pick up another DeSclavani for Kiriloff. Is that what we want? I sure don't! IMO he will get beyond his injuries this year, he'll have the season we expect from him, he just needs that opportunity. Correa/ Lewis/ Lee will be our INF that's easy to see, but unless the sky falls there's no need to rush Lee up in an easy Central Division. Let him sit in AAA for a while. Just let's wait & see what shakes out.

I know what you mean Seth. I'm ready for some progress reports from some of our players. But thinking about our #4 catcher wouldn't make me happy, thinking about what'd happen if Vazquez got hurt is bad enough.

Thanks, IMO under these circumstances, I'd prefer to have 1st catchers, then SS & CFers have a great bulk of the defensive WAR & other positions have a lesser % depending on importance. & inferior defenders receive less defensive WAR. But better yet, Offense WAR & Defensive WAR should be equal & Pitching should have a separate stat to measure their proficiency. This way the better defenders especially premium positions will be better represented. Because Defensive WAR is being diluted by sharing with Pitching WAR. The player with higher Offensive WAR has an advantage over a defensive player in Total WAR.

I think that Martin is more than a Buxton sub. His RH bat can be used as a platoon at either cOF. And as his tool sets really take effect, they'll try to get him in the game any way they can.

Thank you, Ritchie. This site was very useful & I believe Fangraph could be more accurate than the others. They gave a good explanation. IMO offensive WAR is more straightforward to calculate than defense (especially catching many intangibles) so defense isn't given enough credit (ex, DP is credited as 1 out). And baserunning, is a player that steals 2B & 3B given the same credit as a hitter that hits a triple? When considering trading a player or trading for a player, do we look only at the WAR from those players from the year before? W/o looking at any underlying conditions (either favorable or unfavorable) that no longer exist? WAR is a valuable tool but we shouldn't blindly ignore the underlying conditions that existed.

#1) Thanks for responding DJL44. I have no idea how WAR is calculated. Are you saying each (1) win (of the winning team) is distributed to each person who contributed according to the value that the person who came up with WAR? #2) When looking at total WAR, I do think that not enough WAR is distributed to defense compared to offense which a slugging catcher is given too much value over a defensive catcher at a defensive premium position. CCOF5yrstoolate mentioned that Fangraph is more favorable to defense but at catching, there are too many intangibles. A good catcher adds a lot to the success of a pitcher should he share in that WAR? And how do you determine that & how do you calculate that? It gets very complicated. I like to dabble at Baseball Trading Values. They calculate a player's trading value by subtracting his salary from his ATV coming up with a surplus value. This is a tool to help you come up with a reasonable trade offer and we can evaluate actual trades. When making an offer you try to balance the total surplus value of one team to be equal to the other. Should FO use this tool to determine whether to accept or reject a trade? Absolute not, Even if a trade offer is fair according to BTV or even an overpay, I reject 10 offers for every one I accept because the offer doesn't meet my needs or I don't agree with the value they give. My point is that BTV is a tool but it's not absolute. So also total WAR can be an useful tool (I look at WAR) but it's not absolute & should not be used entirely to affect how we make our decisions.

Since they got their SS, I expect they have settled in & will keep all their SPs for now.

What I least expect from Correa is to play good enough ball to get us to the "party". Then turn it on at the "party".

Martin's setback has been from trying to make him into something that he isn't, a power-hitting SS. His turnaround came from allowing him to find himself which is extremely valuable. People put a lot of importance on HRs & don't care about anything else. But a lot should be said about being an OB machine that takes that single or BB or HBP & makes it into a double or triple by taking that extra base or stolen base isn't that better than striking out so often? Martin is athletic and can play 2B or OF but the importance right now is OF so let's focus on that. Why I'm so high on Martin is that he's a winner. He knows how to win in big spots like the '19 College World Series. He has a fire in his belly & he has confidence in himself. So just like I predicted Lewis & Julien would have a big impact on the '23 Twins, I predict that Martin will make a big impact on the '24 Twins when given the opportunity. Just by being himself. It'll be exciting to see Martin, Buxton & Castro tearing up the base path this season.

Thanks Aram, I enjoy your work, keep up the good work!

I have a good expectation about Paddack's return. His 140+ innings goal is very ambitious. I don't expect much over what Maeda pitched. If we gauge things up early, IMO we'll run into problems with Paddack & be left with fewer total innings from him. I don't expect much from DeSclavani so we'll need a lot of long relief to make up those innings.

The biggest problem is teams like LAD can come in & swoop up these FAs on the cheap. Creating more disparity.

Sanchez was never intended to become the primary catcher, he became one by default in Jeffers absence.

Thank you, I heard wrong.

WAR, what is it? I know it's wins above replacement but what does that mean? How do they come up with that? And what formula do they use? WAR is a stat that drives Fantasy Baseball & analytical baseball; helps us evaluate individuals, teams & even determine HOF inductees. I've heard that most HOF voters often use total WAR to determine who to vote for unless they have some bias. But is WAR really the end-all means to evaluate a player's worth? Let's look at catching. Catchers often sacrifice themselves to benefit the team, put a lot of time into evaluating hitters, and getting to know their pitchers, there's a lot of intangibles in being a catcher that are not calculated into WAR. IMO catching is the most important defensive position in baseball. They're in every play, stabilize the rotation & command the defense. But they haven't been fairly represented in the HOF lately. Why is that? It's because WAR is the standard & what affects WAR is HRs, defense is minimized & the intangibles are not considered. Let me use a case in point, Yadier Molina. Yadi, you probably heard is a very good catcher but until you watch him play you can't really appreciate how elite he really is. Yet there are many that question his credentials of becoming a HOFer, because his WAR isn't high enough (his slugging % is not high enough although his BA is above average, especially for a catcher). Molina put in 19 yrs, all in STL catching every year. The lowest place they finished was once in 4th place yet they had a 89-79 record, during most of those years, STL made it to the postseason, won the NLC 4Xs going to the World Series 4Xs & winning the World Series 2Xs. Most of those years they were mainly considered a pitching/ defense type team. He won 9 GGs, 4 platnium gloves & 10 AS selections. Some headlines of the Cards downfall last season blamed "the breakdown of the rotation" others "lack of leadership" yet more " poor defense" & "catching". I think they could all be summed up with "no Molina". Molina stabilized the rotation, he was a leader, he commanded the defense & had great defensive stats of CS% & picking off runners that digressed after he left. Willson Contreras was a top 10 catcher, the most consistant hitting catcher in MLB. But STL pitchers refused to pitch to him in the beginning, Not because he was a terrible pitch caller (he was probably average) or was terrible in handling the pitchers it was because he wasn't Yadi. Molina had an incredible feel for the game, he knew what was going on all time. He knew when to change up the pich calling, pick off runners, when a pitcher should come out etc. Joe Mauer deservingly was inducted into the HOF because he was the GOAT MLB hitting catcher, yet all MVP Mauer's years in MN, despite MN's greatest postseason SPs duo of Santana & Liriano, MVP Morneau, (CF)Hunter, Cuddyer plus others never had post season success. If I wasn't such a great fan of our honorable hometown hero Mauer & if I had choice between 15 years of Mauer (55.2 WAR) or 19 years of Molina (44.1 WAR), I'd pick Molina. Now I'm not here to start a Molina for HOF campaign. & most certainly not start an anti-Mauer platform (I strongly denounce that) this has nothing to do about either. I'm here to show how unfair WAR is to exclusively evalute a player. Where hitting HRs raises WAR means everything & SOs & defense means very little.

Thanks Jamie, with the tiny automatic strike zone in AAA, Lee should instinctively know that it's beneficial to be more patient but isn't. E Rod takes advantage of the small automatic strike zone, maybe he's too patient. So chasing is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed & for him to find that balance, before coming up to MLB. Although Lee has a home at 2B there's no hurry to bring Lee up, I'd like for him to be confident that he can hit MLB 1st.