Doctor Gast

The Twins are said to be trying to transform our hitters. Maybe Cerda has benefitted from this endeavor. He has gotten my attention & best wishes to succeed.

I'm looking at Wilson Contreras (who is also a primarily hitting catcher) 3 offseasons ago & next season will be 4, who is making almost $20M/ season & he's not even catching now. If they dial Jeffers back, he'll have a good season & with inflation, IMO he'll shoot for Conteras's $. Now Contreras is a better defensive, offensive catcher, plus has more stamina than Jeffers but they'll play the stats & sell to the Twins that Jeffers is their primary catcher which the Twins are selling to the fanbase, but will settle for less under this scenario. If they keep on playing Jeffers the same as last year, then look at what you are suggesting around $10M. If anyone who has Boras as an agent is looking at maxing his return. Now you mentioned extending Vazquez, I have suggested that they could do that this year, to renegotiate his contract to be a more team-friendly contract for this & next season. IMO Vazquez would be open for that. To adjust to another team & learn another pitching staff is very distracting & unproductive, so he'd rather stay in MN for as long as he can even if it means less money. Right now Boras has all the leverage, if they extend Vazquez that gives the Twins more leverage. I'm all for extending Jeffers for $8M+ (I like Jeffers) with Vazquez in tandem & hopefully Cartaya can progress enough to be spell Jeffers in the 2nd half. I don't know if they can set the house on fire but at least they're a short-term solution for our near future dilemma.

I'm in the camp that SO do matter. When you put the ball in play, you are increasing the opportunity to get a hit & forcing the defense to make the play giving the hitter the opportunity to get on base. IMO you need to motivate base runners to steal to eliminate the force out or DP & makes the game so much more entertaining than watching a batter whiffing & sitting down. If SOs aren't important, then why has TOR had so much difficulty getting to the postseason & advancing when they do? Hitting a solo HR when the team doesn't need it in a low leverage situation & striking out when we do in a high leverage situation is very counter-productive. We have to do a better job of guarding the plate, especially with 2 outs which seems to me they are trying to do that.

Cerda, (BH) CFer looking pretty promising. We have a lot of quality MLB CF depth now. (RH) Buxton & Bader, (LH) Keirsey & now Cerda plus Emma & Jenkins not far behind. Trying to force (RH) Martin in an unnatural position at CF with very few LHPs opportunities, when we don't need, seems very redundant. IMO 2B is a position of greater need & a more natural position for Martin. I like the idea of ST game threads, sorry I missed this one. When I have time I'll try to seek it out.

It's called common sense, If you actually read my post w/o freaking out. I stated that in '24 we could use more depth but in '25 we are fine. Before you accuse me of making things up, I ask you to actually read & try to understand what I write. I've stated in this post & for years that we desperately need to acquire a promising young MLB-ready future starting catcher to groom. To avoid this predicament of having nobody to be able to be the primary catcher, so Twins have no choice but to extend Jeffers to an exorbitant extension because he's a Boras client. I'm guessing they'll probably ask for $20M but settle closer to $15M, because FO has hyped him up as a primary catcher. Many say Jeffers is inconsistent but I say he's very consistent, When he's in a supportive or weak-side tandem he's very good, look at '20 & '23 stats. When asked to split equal catching duties, he starts out very good, but as the season wanes so does he offensively & more so defensively & leaves much to be desired, look at '21 & '24 stats. When asked to do primary catching duties, he crashes, burns & lands on the IL, look at '22. I put his stats below. Once a crazy idea they get in their mind, they stick to it no matter how bad things get. So they'll stick with Jeffers. I predict that if they don't trade Vazquez this season & he'll still maintain somewhat the same results as '24. If they trade Vazquez, Jeffers will be asked to do primary catching duties & expect a worse outcome than '22 otherwise we can look forward to '26 when Vazquez leaves. They'll scramble to try to salvage a disaster but they are terrible at it. My strong opposition to this FO is a cry for hope that this core of Correa, Buxton, Lopez & Lewis & future core to be relevant. They can't do that with a poor catching corp. And a reason to follow the Twins, which I find hard to do. Season Team Level Age G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA xwOBA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR 2020 MIN MLB 23 26 62 3 5 7 0 8.1% 30.6% .164 .364 .273 .355 .436 .346 .349 122 -0.5 1.2 0.7 0.4 2021 MIN MLB 24 85 293 14 28 35 0 7.5% 36.9% .202 .269 .199 .270 .401 .289 .299 83 -1.3 -7.3 9.5 1.2 2022 MIN MLB 25 67 236 7 25 27 0 9.7% 26.3% .156 .259 .208 .285 .363 .287 .315 86 0.0 -3.6 3.5 0.8 2023 MIN MLB 26 96 335 14 46 43 3 9.9% 27.8% .213 .359 .276 .369 .490 .369 .333 137 -2.0 12.9 -1.2 2.3 2024 MIN MLB 27 122 465 21 56 64 3 6.9% 20.2% .206 .238 .226 .300 .432 .317 .304 107 -0.8 3.0 -2.5 1.7

I'm all for trading away players that we should trade. But I don't think we're quite there yet with our pitching depth to trade from. Last offseason, we were a little short on depth, which resulted in injuries to Paddack & Ryan & the rest of the rotation running out of gas, especially the rookies. This season I don't believe we have a surplus of MLB arms. We have Lopez, Ober, Ryan, SWR & Paddack plus a slew of AAA SP that can be rotated in & out to help manage the rotation. I wouldn't mind trading away the last year of Paddack if we need to meet budget. But that's it. If we focus on pitching & defense, especially up the middle, our offense is more than capable when properly managed. Last offseason the Twins wanted offensive bats MAT & Rhys Hoskins. We dodge the bullet on both because we didn't have the money to afford them. But we didn't dodge the bullet from the Dodgers by the means of Margot. IMO big bats, especially lately, are a gamble unless you have the money for Soto. I'm a big believer in our offense & they will produce if managed properly & able to keep the glue together. We might need to trade from our surplus of offense before we need to trade from our pitching. Speaking about defense up the middle. Catching has been our biggest need. They bought an expensive band-aid in Vazquez to keep us from bleeding to death, But sooner or later we'll have to rip off that bandage. We still have that gaping wound, w/o Vazquez, we have Jeffers, who can only manage a weak side tandem. Camargo & Cartaya, who haven't shown yet that they are MLB 3rd string catchers. We have 5 catchers on the 40-man but only 2 are serviceable. Jeffers's contract is about to expire, & it'll be ridiculous to sign Jeffers to an outlandish extension. We have to have a MLB 3rd catcher who can be our future catcher (Jeffers is not him) & time to groom him, a good option so we don't have to extend Jeffers. Cartaya can become a MLB catcher, but he's not now & we don't know when or how far he can advance. I would not trade pitching for offense, but I would for a promising young MLB-ready catcher, if I had to.

I get my info from NYY podcasters, explaining why all those promising bats that went sour. I never said the Twins ruined Martin's swing. Maybe set him back but not ruined.

Your goperty goop does explain anything. There are analytical teams that I'm all in favor of & there are others that go way overboard with weird analytics that have no sense, that's what I'm against. If you actually read my post you'd remember that I said that Arraez wasn't an ideal lead-off hitter because he's not fast. It doesn't pay to argue with you about Martin because you refuse to understand & I get tired of keeping explaining to you. You can keep believing that slow sluggers are better lead-off hitters & I'll keep believing that those who get on base at high clip, raise havoc on the bases & don't clog the bases are better lead-off hitters (that's what I have debated on) & leave it at that. P.S. there's a big difference between tweaking (which I'm not talking about) & tweaking the heck out of a swing like the Yanks did.

You are comparing apples to oranges, I compared apples to apples. Putting them on the same playing field. If you actually read my quote carefully, you could see that. As I've been saying, I'm not looking at the situation that both are in right now, but their potential. Because of their small sample size (hitting lead-off- Wallner (8 PAs) .00 OBP & SO 3Xs, Martin (0 PAs)) & opportunity, we need to look at their MiLB records. To reiterate, a lead-off hitter has to get on base, Wallner (OBP .379 with no interference), Martin (OBP .397 tried to manipulate his swing) & wreak havoc on the bases, Wallner with 15 SBs in 5 seasons & Martin with 76 in 4 seasons, Comparing apples to apples Martin is a much better lead-off hitter. Plus Martin's splits aren't bad. They is no doubt that (LH) Wallner has more power than (RH) Martin especially against LHP, I'm not advocating Martin over Wallner to hit clean up. To reiterate, Wallner has been groomed to be a cOFer & his style of hitting for his entire pro career, so all he needs to concentrate on is his hitting. On the other hand, Martin has been moved all around, having his swing manipulated & his rookie season he needed to learn a very difficult CF which he hasn't been groomed for on the fly. There is no comparison the conditions that both of these guys went through. IF Wallner had gone through the same things that Martin had, I guarantee that his production would be much lower. But Baldelli has no desire for a traditional lead-off hitter that's why we don't have one. If he did, Martin would have been treated differently & would be a good candidate to be groomed as one.

This type of thinking started with NYY, the "all or nothing" hitting approach. Tweak the heck out of every hitter, draft slow sluggers, to heck with defense, SOs, fundamentals & every sound baseball principle. Baseball is discovering that this philosophy doesn't work. Twins have woken up to transition away from this "all or nothing" approach. It has taken a long time, maybe another poor season they'll wake up & see that it's all a bunch of bunk. It's easy to brand someone as a bad hitter just because they aren't the type of sluggers that you like & totally ignore logical reasoning that you can't refute by continuing to repeat the same philosophy. & again I repeat I never said that Martin & Keirsey are the top hitters on the MLB club the way things sit right now, they aren't given the chance. You can deny it but it's the truth.

I think at this point, you are asking the wrong question. The questions should be, can he adapt to the league adapting to him? & if he can, can hit with enough power to profile at his position at 1B? Those questions need to be resolved at AAA. When he answer those questions then he needs to show that if he can hit LHPs, so to not be platooned.

The problem with Julien isn't that he did anything different, it's the league that has the book out on him & everyone like him. He has shown some signs of adapting, but he's a liability at 2B & until he can start hitting with power again he doesn't profile at 1B, where he belongs. Lee has a solid glove but has shown that he can't hit at the MLB level. Hopefully Lee's problem is mechanical & not physical. He & Julien need to be sent down to AAA, to learn how to hit & for Julien to learn how to play 1B there, not taking away precious time away from Miranda in ST, who should be given primary 1B duties. Miranda is a great hitter when healthy. His lack of production is due to being injured. This isn't his problem, management needs to keep him healthy by keeping him on 1B & off 3B. 3B is definitely much harder on his shoulder than 1B/ DH. If they do this, Miranda will have a very good season. If you practically take him away from 1B/ DH & he starts hit like he normally does, to keep his bat in the lineup they'll stick him at 3B again. I don't want to take that chance again & see him get hurt. Then everybody claims that he can't hit just because he's hurt. So our 7, 8, 9 problem can easily be remedied by management, but will they?

I agree. Canterino has the stuff to be a top-end SP. But the problem is with his arm. Limit his innings, IMO he should be fine. IMO he should make an impact this season. Canterino has options, I like to keep arms in the BP that have options that can rotate in & out of AAA to help support Baldelli's 1 inning philosophy. Otherwise they get burnt out. Our BP has a lot of potential & IMO Canterino & Prielipp can be a part of that. They have the potential to become high-leverage RPs, hope they can realize that.

Only the weird analytical teams have adapted this ideology, that have hurt them, but some are waking up. Betts & Ohtani are traditional lead-off hitters, they are fast & get on base. If they can slug that's fine, but that can't be the criterion. Wallner isn't a threat on the bases & he strikes out too much. Wallner has been groomed & settled to play OF all his professional career right? Why didn't they put Wallner in CF? Playing CF can't be that hard, right? because you expect Martin, who has been moved all around, never been groomed to play the OF, as a rookie to step in on the MLB level, to be better than many veteran CFers? The fact is, it's very difficult to play CF, especially under the circumstances that Martin had to deal with. To focus on all the adjustments he had to do, had to take away his focus on hitting. If Martin was allowed to play 2B all his pro career, where he could settle there. He'd be our best 2Bman, one of our best hitters & a great lead-off hitter. On the other hand, if Wallner, who was better groomed to play the OF, was moved to CF on the fly, I'd guarantee he'd be a much worse CFer than Martin & his hitting would take a huge plunge. The very few chances that Keirsey has been given, he is just starting to show what he can do, but they'll never allow him to excel. I never said that they are our best hitters, the way things stand now. I said they are good candidates to be our best lead-off hitters if the Twins would put them in a position to be so. Quit taking what I say out of context. A lead-off hitter needs to be a table setter, someone who gets on base, can steal a base, shake up pitchers so they can make mistakes for the following hitters. Wallner can occasionally hit a HR. that's only 1 run leading off, if he does walk he plugs the basepaths & he strikes out too often. Last season Wallner never got on base hitting lead-off & SO 3X. I like Wallner but he's no lead-off hitter. If we want to compete we need to find one.

Our best traditional lead-off hitter in recent past was Arraez because of his OBP but because he wasn't a threat on the base paths, he was far from ideal. The Twins' lead-off hitter now is whoever is spit out the computer based on their crazy ideology, Wallner seems to be the one now. We have 2 very good lead-off hitter candidates that had good OBP & stole a lot bases in the MiLB (Martin & Keirsey) but the Twins have no interest in such types. So we have to suffer through their ideas.

Well said! Many look at MLB as they do Fantasy Baseball. MLB is real people, full of intangibles & underlying conditions that stats can't simulate. To people who only look at stats, "Get real"

Things like character, heart or spunk are intangibles. Some fans reject anything that they can't fit into a formula by stats or age. They try to put intangibles into some formula, is ridiculous. Martin has the character, heart & spunk that these players possess. Don't let these guys get you down, keep up the good work.

What should be done & what will happen are 2 different things pertaining to the Twins. 1st Lee is a solid glove but should be sent down to work on his hitting (but should be the 1st INF injury call up). Julien is a liability at 2B & should be sent down to AAA to work out his hitting & finally his position at 1B. Castro's greatest value is that he's established as a super utility player. He was an all-star the 1st half, but by far surpassed his previous top PAs from 450 in '21 to 635 in '24 that's over almost 200 PAs & 226 PA more than last year & he had to play far too often at demanding CF & SS. People who look only at stats miss the boat because Castro was clearly overextended, that affected all his stats OFF & DEF. With the addition of Bader & Keirsey on the 40-man that will greatly ease up the pressure on Willi to play CF & OF in general. Hopefully Correa & Lee's health will vastly improve, where he's less needed there. With less time at CF & SS, that'd greatly improve his stats as a super utility. With the total failure of CF Margot last season, Martin was our best CF sub via necessity, Martin has never been settled or groomed at CF. To repeat with (RH) Buxton & Bader in CF & (LH) Keirsey available to sub Buxton against LHPs with Emma, Keschal & Jenkins at the door. To now, start to groom Martin at CF IMO is very redundant & setting up Martin to fail. Because if he gets on the active roster he'll never play. To repeat again MLB CF is a super difficult position for anybody, much less a rookie that has not been groomed, is asking way too much. Being the best in what we had on hand at CF, that was enough to keep us afloat for most of the season. The Twins need to reward Martin for his courageous efforts last season by settling him at 2B & give him a chance to be productive. Twins need desperately his potential as a lead-off hitter, he more than merits this opportunity. Like I said earlier, what should be done & what will happen are two different things. But this should have been done in the beginning of spring training, which tells me this won't happen. to the Twins loss. The Twins will give Julien every opportunity to fail at 2B but fail to give Martin one opportunity to thrive there. I know I'll get a lot of thumbs down from Martin haters because of everything he went through last season his OPS wasn't to their liking. But I'll still defend Martin, not because I think he'll become a super star but because he can be an asset to the Twins & deserves the chance.

I hope Canterino lands in AAA, he should. With so many quality BP arms, it be ideal to have them options to be used rotating in & out arms from AAA. Tonkin has worth & many teams have BP needs so why not trade him.

It tells me that loves to hit which is a great trait. But as far as development, I usually think of defense. I didn't hear anything about that aspect.

Miranda didn't have any health problems until they said 3B is yours in '23. Miranda has an average arm IMO to get his arm up to MLB level, he overdid it. Coming to spring training with a wrecked shoulder. '24 he was doing great while at 1B/ DH. Even though healthy Santana was horrible at the plate, Baldelli declared him as a full-time 1Bman. Larnach hurt his toe, so to keep Miranda's bat in the lineup they moved Miranda to 3B. Not long afterward Miranda hurt his back (the back is part of the throwing process). His production took a dive. So when healthy Miranda is great, so the secret here is to keep him healthy by keeping him at 1B/ DH. Not play him at 3B like they did with DET. France has had many years at 1B & he's still terrible. So common sense should tell us that we need to invest in the long-term Miranda to develop his potential & not in short-term undevelopable glove of France at 1B. I'm all for France to have a good season at DH & help out at 1B but not as the primary 1B.

I didn't say that he didn't play CF, I distinctly said he played all over which includes stints at CF, as I stated before as the team needs. But that doesn't qualify him as a CF prospect. A CF prospect is someone they fix at CF & they groom them for that position. that is not Martin. Again I'll remind you that CF is a very difficult position & he hasn't been prepared to play there. & let me remind you that this started from defending myself from your claim that I had vitriol for Julien which I assured you I didn't.

I totally agree with you Jeff that Julien & Lee should be sent down & that it would benefit Castro have some stability. But where I disagree is that Twins would benefit more by his flexibility than him settled at 2B. Castro is an established super utility player which is very valuable. That said IMO he'd benefit from less time at CF & SS. Who could benefit the most from stability is Martin, he could thrive there.

Many athletic guys are moved around depending on the need of the team they don't care about the player. Many times to the detriment to the players. My main point is that he's been moved around, which you agreed on, & not able to settle in any position. I mentioned in that post that Martin played mainly 2B just before he came up from AAA (that you left off your quote) so I credit them to be able see that Martin should be at 2B. But what good is it playing Martin at 2B in MiLB but rarely at the MLB level. Though rarely played there, there is where he scored the highest. I'll repeat again CF is a very difficult position. You have to quarterback the OF, you don't have a Buxton out there covering for you, you are on your own. Kepler didn't want the extra distraction of playing there. Our top CF prospect, Celestino, whom many hoped to amount to something, couldn't handle it. How can you expect a non-CF rookie to perform as a competent CF veteran (there are many that aren't)? That is my point. & to give everyone context, my post was defending myself of vitriol against Julien which I assure you I don't have.

I'll be as brief as I can. I've been accused of hating Cave, Polanco, Gallo, Jeffers, Julien & others but I don't. I'm a fan of Julien, I like him to succeed & was quick to support him in the MiLB. But I'm against how management assesses their players in where they play them, who they elevate & who they put down, their weird analytic philosophy, their universal hitting philosophy they adopted from the Yanks. IMO, this hitting philosophy that has hurt & set back a lot of players like Sano. I'm glad that they have, after fully embracing & propagated to the public this hitting philosophy, they saw the fruit of their folly early & quickly changed philosophy & have implemented this change in spring training. Julien has embraced this philosophy, which paid dividends because the pitchers didn't know him, but now he is a victim of that philosophy. Martin has also been a victim of this philosophy, but he has quickly seen that it was hindering him. Both Martin & Julien have been victims of management's forcing them in positions that were above them & try to prop them up. Julien at 2B & Martin at SS & then CF. I don't only look at stats; I look at the underlying conditions. Julien has played primarily 2B professionally under the shift. So his adaptation to the bigs was easier playing an easier position that he played his entire career & he was platooned a lot against LHPs, where as Martin has played all over the field because he's a better defender, not getting settled in any of them. He played the majority of his last season before he was called up at 2B. If Martin was placed at 2B & was platooned like Julien, IMO his stats would have been much better but he was forced into a very difficult position of CF at the MLB level to learn on the fly. So I give him a break. I can see a path for Martin, he's a much better defender than Julien. He has great potential to be a traditional lead-off hitter, which the Twins desperately need. Julien is a liability at 2B. He will have to reinvent himself to stay at the MLB level & if he can do that, will he be able to hit with enough power to profile at 1B where he belongs? He needs to go to AAA to figure all these things out. Is Martin a sure thing? No,? he isn't, the way that they are using him, he probably won't. He's not even needed at CF, why play him there? Keirsey is needed there to sub against the majority of RHPs. Why play Julien at 2B where he doesn't belong? give them to Martin. Why give so much time at 1B to France, Gasper & Ford? Give them to Miranda who needs them. We need to keep Miranda healthy. Why are they so determined to jeopardize that when they have Lewis, Lee, Castro & others to play at 3B? I can see why you think that I'm vitriolic against a certain player but I'm not. I'm passionate to see the Twins become better & have a chance to go the World Series. I cheer against no Twin player. I'm a realist & I don't buy all this positive & negative hype that's put out in social media.