Doctor Gast

Very interesting article Nick. I've always looked at investing in FA as investing in the stock market, and the pitching market is very volitile. There's a lot of hype, spinning data from agents so you'd buy high with peaking pitchers. Like the stock market as a buyer you can't get fooled by the hype, you normally don't buy high (or you lose your shirt, if you're lucky break even), you do your due diligence. 1st you look at the CEO, you need more than a great product you need a great CEO to manage it. 2nd you need to look at underlying conditions that affects the data. I have 2 baseball examples 1st Ray, in '21, TOR saw something in Ray that the ARI wasn't doing that they could fix, they didn't fool around they went out and got him . 2nd Rodon, in '22 here I think that SF got lucky, they took a chance and that they only managed Rodon differently than CWS. With Rodon at first I was leary of his injuries but later I dug deeper and relealized something. At CWS LaRussa was old school, he wanted his SP to at least come close to complete their games. Rodon didn't fit his mold so even though Rodon had great #s, LaRussa let him go w/o a QO. I believe a lot of Rodon's early injury problems were due to him being over extended. I changed to be an advocate for the Twins to pick up Rodon if they managed him differently than LaRussa. Right now Rodon is blue chip, his stock is high with a lot of suitors, the Twins will have to pay a premium for him to come here. I'm not up on Eovaldi, is there something more that can be unlocked?Would he be a good fit? I don't know. Right now I'm not intrigued.

I expect with a normal spring training, Gray will be in shape & give us more quality innings than last year. Ryan, with a full year under his belt, I expect more quality innings. Mahle, since there seems to be no impingement, I assume he suffered from "dead arm" and will prosper under different management. The rest leaves a lot to be desired. Maeda, I'm sorry he's not going to be the Twins savior. '23 won't be a shorten season, although spring training is normal, which gives him a leg up from the pitchers last season. Yet my expectations are that he if resembles Archer's #s he'll be good. Because of his absense, Maeda needs to be put in long relief, eventually put in to spot start and see if he can profile into the rotation some time before the end of the season.Because of injuries Ober didn't progressed so I'd put him back as long relief/ spot starter along with Varland, Winder with SWR in the wings. Our rotation should be better and our short relief should be much better but if long relief isn't properly utilized then all that means is instead the whole pitching staff starting to crumble in early May, it'll start some time in June. Either way we can forget about post season. If we stay with Baldelli's formula of strictly relying on short relief then we need 2 more good SPs and maybe 2 high leverage short relief and keep Ober, Varland, Winder and SWR in AAA.

I imagine they'll extend him but there's no rush.

Indeed there is a very robust market for Hanniger. A few might need him more than us.

Polanco is about the sturdiest player on the Twins roster. He had ankle problems until they solved the problem by removing him from SS. He injured his back this June was placed on the IL for the 1st time ever in his MLB career, after that he was fine. July he hurt his knee sliding, that wasn't dealt with and they played him until he couldn't stand the pain. Polanco doesn't have a reoccuring back problem or have problem with normal injuries unless they aren't dealt with. Most seasons he leads the Twins with games played & I expect the same for '23 if his injuries are managed right.

With Polanco playing hurt the 2nd half, of course his denfensive #s are going to be way down, so this shouldn't be taken into consideration. I don't blame Polanco for his poor 2nd half defensive #s, I blame management for not dealing with the injury & not getting him back to 100% right away. The way things sit right now is our OF is great, our INF is average(ish), catching defensive terrible, especially throwing out runners and pitchers holding runners on. That should be a growing concern next season. We need an upgrade at catcher and pitchers need to be coached heavily to keep runners on base. Concerning the shift ban that'll be a problem. Range of the SS & 2B are very important. Farmer & Polanco are slightly above average in a normal year. But beyond them their replacements are terrible. We want Arraez bat in the line up but he absolutely shouldn't play 2B because he has no range what so ever. If he needs more ABs he should get a lot more practice grounders at 3B.

"This might actually form an ideal scenario where he's able to limit his innings early on and keep him fresh later into the season (and playoffs?) in light of his minimal workload baseline." Totally agree with you Nick. But not only for Maeda but for all our SPs. But especially for Maeda because of his surgery & his idleness. I absolutely quinged when I hear talk of Maeda come right back into the rotation & fulfill the positive hype of fan's expectations. Those expectations are unrealistic & dangerous. Someone quoted to me in BTV that 20% of the pitchers of TJ surgery don't make it back. I believe that Maeda will come back, but it'll take time. Maeda has never been a strong pitcher, so a slow acclimation period in the BP is beneficial to Maeda. Letting him build success each step and hopefully at the season's end he'll have something he can take with him going into FA. If we throw him into the rotation, with the par of pitching at least 5 innings to be acceptable. That kind of action will produce ineffeciency & maybe injury, nobody wants that.

Great job, total agreement.

I believe Farmer is a SS which LAD wanted to convert to a catcher because of his arm, Not a catcher who others are trying convert to a SS, there is a difference. He is quite versatile, which could be very helpful. He provides much needed depth especially when facing LHPs, IDT that he be a our sole starting SS. He's not an investment that'll make you rich but he's a safety net investment that'll keep you from crash & burning, That's all. If he's our sole legit SS when the season starts then we are really in trouble. I don't think they are that stupid, I hope.

There's a lot of extention talks going around but Sonny Grey is the only one I can see right now. If he's OK with 3/ $40 MM sign him up right now

After letting Palacios go we had exactly 0 legit SS. Now we have one and a floor to build on, plus a LHP killer that they want to focus on. Although he's not my 1st choice, he is a good choice. My 1st choice is Luis Guillorme, like Farmer & Hoerner he's been a frustrated SS that has been all over the INF not having much of an opportunity to play his position because Lindor is playing there. If given an opportunity to play SS on more of a regular basis he could also shine plus he bats LH.

Twins E Rod is a valuable future asset that we must hang unto at all costs. Looking forward to what he can do as he develops. Great tools hopes he's able to stick at CF.

I hope you & Nick are right about his new pitch. But I disagree with you about stubborness as being an admirable trait. Baseball is all about adapting, the quicker you make adjustments the quicker you succeed. Stubbornness is keep doing something you refuse to believe you could be wrong and keep on doing it even when you should see that you're obviuosly wrong, a trait that should be avoided. Intestinal fortitude "guts" is something completely different & has nothing to do with stubbornness.

'21 Colume was terrible at closing until they moved him to low leverage, Duffy & Pagan were downward trending yet they thrust them in closing situations & kept doubling down on them (like they did with Colume) losing many valuable games. Until they released Duffy & put Pagan in low leverage situations which cured our problem. Of course Pagan isn't the sole reason why we tanked, even those Duffy/ Pagan situations, the management needs to take part of the blame. Their tendancy of keep doubling down many time when at 1st it's obvious that it's not working, is killing us. Pagan is occuping a valuable 40 man spot for a low leverage RP. Pagan is walking a very fine line until he can prove to be the pitcher that they say he is.

Twins farm isn't so bad as some may think, pretty impressive. LAD never tanked yet they alway develop very good propects being ranked #1.

Thanks Dex for this info, I'm glad that they do compensates for this disparity although IMO CF should be compensated more than 2B. But I still think that HRs are still are over compesated in offensive WAR. A player A that hits HRs with some frequency (not necessarily in needed times), SO a lot, slow & poor glove could gain equal or greater WAR than player B who doesn't hit many HRs but walks a lot, beats out infield singles, takes an extra base, steals bases, scores from 3B on a shallow fly, gets that needed single and plays terrific defense. IMO player B is much more impactful than player A & should have much more WAR because that's all many people look at.

We agree DJL, I was contemplating why did they actually protected Legumina? In the back of my mind I thought maybe another team was interested in him in a trade (I know it's strange). After FO traded Urshela, they said we were deep in the INF. Yes we have an organization jam packed at 1B and we have a shaky Miranda to fill in at 3B and a passable Arraez if worked with, a solid Polanco at 2B, everyone else sub par. But SS we have exactly 0 who comes close to be par. Farmer provides depth there, a floor to build from and quality utility player that adds depth all over. I applaud the FO to get this done early instead of waiting around & scrape the bottom of the barrel at the end.

My feeling was that they weren't going to tender Urshela, at least we got something for him. I'm interested how Miranda will look like after being mentored by Correa this off season (we all know how Pena turned out). There's no doubt in my mind they'll spend the money saved by not tendering Urshela. Whatever happened to Pagan?

If we don't land Correa, I'm not in favor of any FA SS, And the others of the top 4 are not looking to come to MN, they'll go somewhere else before considering MN.

MN was a great place for Cruz to practice his routine of rest & training, and Cruz rewarded us with great production. I doubt he got the same treatment with the Nats. I believe most people by now, know that I go beyond stats, I look at the under lying conditions. IMO if Cruz returns to his old routine in MN his #s would resemble the old Cruz. I'm not a fan of Buxton at DH, either play him at CF or if he's hurt, deal with it with treatment & rest or IL. Cruz is getting older so he'd need more rest so Arreaz will get his time at DH. We need his leadership & production. He should come cheap, Cruz knows his own body & when he needs to quit & when he does hopefully he'll become a Twins coach. To me a reunion makes perfect sense.

There's a reason why they are let go, teams don't think they're worth the $ and figure their $ is better spent elsewhere. There's no doubt in my mind that we can better spend our $ on somethingelse.

Thanks again Nick for another no nonsence article. #8 Arraez, 7 Alcala & 6 Theilbar are homegrown and have proven themselves are slam dunks #5 Lopez, 4 Mahle, 3 Pagan, 2 Paddack come from bad trades and were disappointments, the main reason of hesitation to non tender is to save face. There's hope that Lopez & Mahle will come back, but in my mind there's large doubt of Paddack will ever contribute anything for the Twins, Pagan is a lost cause he's occuping a valuable roster spot. Paddack should be traded if we can find a taker and Pagan should be non tendered. #1 Urshela is different because he contributed to the club but this coming season Miranda will be the focus at 3B. My expectation is that after Correa has mentored Miranda this off season, he'll be a transformed 3B, Urshela thus will be expendable. BTV doesn't have him much for trade value but there's not much out there for 3B, where we could get something for him in trade. But if not, I can see him being non tendered

Love Correa in what he brings to the table. If we don't land him, I wouldn't want any of the others FAs. Even with being creative it seems too rich for our blood. I'd like to see a toned down version of this contract with Correa having an opt out after his 1st two years.

I like your blueprint Nash but I'd to comment on a couple. Woodruff is a great idea, I think your Woodruff is a slight over pay on MN part and MIL wants to compete this season so they are looking for MLB ready players. Catching and replacement pitching are their needs, maybe they'd consider a Jeffers/ Ober/ Moran offering. I'm not crazy about Jeffers, I wanted to trade Jeffers last year. His trade worth will continue to drop until he's almost worthless as with his usefullness to the Twins. I'd then pursue Jansen (TOR). Really like Narvaez as back up 100%. If we are keeping Arraez, we need to have a place for him to play, 1B is his best position on the field. Our organization is jam packed with 1B/DH types, we don't need more. I don't see a change in FO philosophy of heavy reliance on short relief so FA Kenley Jansen is a must. So is signing Correa, let's see what happens

To answer my own self imposed question. I'd waiver Garlick & Contreras and release Pagan for sure and maybe Urshela. 1st I'd pick up IKF. Adams & Toussaint, We can make these small trades anytime.