ThejacKmp

No they signed him for his entire body of work. Morrison is trending in the right direction and has a career OPS+ of 108. He isn't striking out more often than he has in the past and his line drive rate is similar to his career rate. His BABIP is .224 and while some will blame the shift, he saw the shift a lot last year and still had a career year. He'll get a bit more lucky and the hits will fall. He may not be last year's Logan Morrison but should settle in to be an above average hitter. At some point he will carry the team for a week and that will be fun. When Sano comes back, he should be DHing against lefties less, which would be nice.

Not sure what there is to agree with. Lefties hit righties better and righties hit lefties better. You're putting your team in a better spot if you have a backup OF who hits from the opposite side as the guy he spells. Twins 4th OF is likely to play when there is a LH starting pitcher on the mound. Lamonte Wade has a .667 OPS vs. LH so far this season (admittedly small SS) and would not be put in a position to succeed. Robbie Grossman's career MLB OPS vs LHP is .753 (and even as he has slumped this year it is still .733). If Lamonte Wade was a can't miss prospect, sure he'd be up. But he seems like more of a 4th OF unless he starts hitting with power (another reason he should be playing every day in the minors). His defense would be better than Grossman but a defensive OF is less useful for the Twins than a guy who hits righty. Especially with Sano out and our right handed options severely limited. As for the deadline, not necessarily. Trade deadline is the final date but trades can and do happen before then. The Giants, for instance, are 21-21 with top two pitchers out for at least another month. They may be ready to sell by late June, especially a guy like McCutchen who would get them close to being under the luxury tax (important if they see themselves as a Harper/Machado target this offseason). For now Grossman is fine (there aren't internal options and the available external options are not better than Grossman now) but hopefully by the All-Star Break, the twins can make an upgrade. With the pen and the rotation looking good and Polanco back around the break, it might be their biggest need.

Wade (and Granite) hit lefty. The Twins have little need for a LH hitting OF unless Rosario or Kepler goes down. Wade wouldn't play over either of those. If he was right-handed, Grossman might not be on the team but he isn't. Robbie Grossman had a tough first two weeks but he's put up an .868 OPS over his last 16 games. Driving the ball, getting on base, not as awful in the field. I'd prefer the Twins go find a new fourth OF (Wade/Granite bat from the wrong side; I'd like to see McCutchen if he's available) but Grossman is an acceptable 5th OF/bench bat. He almost always takes a good approach and there's value to that.

With Chief on this one. He looked pretty good last night. Made several nice scoops, had nice range on ground balls. That throw was terrible though but Ozzie Smith made errors too. I like to think Mauer wouldn't have done the same but who knows. I want Mauer to be effective in August and September and getting him some days off makes sense. I've noticed the Twins flipping Morrison and Mauer on days after Joe makes a lot of diving plays. I wonder if they're trying to manage his soreness.

I do think you saw the Wilson effect this week when Adrianza got sent in the 9th. 3rd base coach knew that Mauer would get walked and Wilson would be up with bases juiced and one out. I think that played a role in preferring a close play at the plate.

Realmuto has a career OPS of .758 compared to Garver .736 OPS so far this year. Realmuto is definitely better but I'm not sure how much better. He's going to cost a lot because he's under team control through 2021. He's also going to be available at the deadline so the Marlins will have the incentive to wait and see if a contender has a full-season catching injury With Castro and Garver, I think the Twins are okay for this year and next.* I'd be more interested in them finding a LH hitting backup catcher from somewhere to make it 6 weeks. No idea if that's doable. * This injury might turn out to be beneficial if Garver takes off and pushes the catching duties into more of a 50-50 thing than the 70-30 it had been.

Willians Astudillo

That said, it's always possible that Wilson gets hot for 2-3 weeks and makes this palatable.

Might not be the worst idea to see what the Cubs want for Gimenez. Great clubhouse guy, knows the pitchers, not great with the bat but better than Wilson. I can't think the Cubs would stand in his way of getting some more MLB playing time, you could get him for a song.

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Mauer's OBP is .413. He's doing okay.

How so? You indicated that Mason was an example of front offices holding onto minor league relief prospects too long and that they should trade them once they had value and not keep them on the 40 man where they just take up space. I countered with (1) relievers are not unique in not working out so that's an erroneous point (2) there were no negative effects of holding onto Mason and I can point to times patience has paid off (3) Minor League relievers like Mason have little trade value so trying to trade them is another erroneous idea (4) relievers are often the most useful and used members of the non-25-man-roster 40 man and (5) they also provide flexibility when injuries pop up. What part of that was me proving your point? I don't know what it is about this season but it feels like the boards are rife with people ripping into the FO for the most minor of offenses. Maybe the honeymoon is over for Flavine and part of being a modern fan is complaining about how you'd do things better than the professionals? Maybe we had Great Expectations for the first time so people get ornery when we aren't the best team? It's made the boards less fun, every loss feels like an excuse for people to pile on with insane complaining that has little place in reality.

Strongly disagree with everything you said here. 1.) Way more than 90% of all minor league players won't turn into decent major league players, there's no reason to pick on relievers. They're not unique. If anything, they're more likely to make the majors because they don't need to have a full arsenal like a starter and they can get by being a situational lefty or an innings eating middle reliever. 2.) There's no reason to berate the front office for holding onto him too long. You let guys have time to develop because sometimes they turn it around. I don't recall Mason ever blocking anyone more deserving. He just didn't pan out. The Twins held onto Taylor Rogers for years and years when it was clear he was an iffy reliever and low-end starter. That ended up working out. You rarely regret the guy you hold onto a bit too long, you will regret if you let go too early. 3.) There is no reason to think that Mason ever had huge trade value. Minor league relievers are almost never headliners of major trades. If you traded Mason, you'd likely be trading him for some other developmental prospect or he'd be the third piece of a larger trade of an actual bona fide prospect. 4.) To be honest, if you don't have starting pitcher or position player prospects who demand a 40-man spot, a relief pitcher is likely the best possible guy to have on the 40 man. It allows you to shuffle guys to and from the majors when you have a couple of extra-inning games in a row (e.g. if the Twins went 12 again yesterday, you'd likely see someone move to the minors so a fresh arm could come up for Seattle today). Position players and starters are only there for DL stints and doubleheaders, which are significantly more rare than an overtaxed bullpen. 5.) When you need to make a 40 man move, it's often a lot easier to slip a low-end reliever through the waiver wire than a backup catcher/utility infielder/starting pitcher.

Also, let's stop making JT Chargois out to be some indictment of the front office. He had a nice first week of the season and a narrative set in that is not based on fact. 1.) His ERA is up to 4.40, his FIP is 4.61 so he's not getting unlucky, and his WHUP is 1.535. He's striking out a lot of guys but walking a lot of guys too. 2.) He's not some elite late-inning guy. The only two times he's pitched in the 8th since April 23rd were in away games the Dodgers were losing - in essence he's a guy trusted not to get things blown wide-open but not a top bullpen arm. He's a middle reliever akin to Taylor Rogers or Hildenberger. I'd take either one of those guys over him. The more evidence we get, the less likely it is that we should consider Chargois some great loss. With the lack of options, he's certainly less valuable than guys like May, Buesnitz, Curtiss etc. who the Twins have in the minors. This seems like much ado about nothing.

Agree to disagree? Your theory that the front office is giving up on good pitchers because they don't like TR guys is pretty farfetched. I think you should just cede the point. To be honest, I assumed your first post was a joke but evidently it wasn't? It's not like these guys have sworn personal allegiance to Terry Ryan and are seeking to avenge his ouster. They're not the French Resistance that needs to be rooted out. They probably met TR a handful of times and are happy with anyone who helps them develop. Seth showed pretty conclusively that many good TR pitchers have been kept. You're arguing causation when you don't even have correlation???

It's basically the equivalent of college football's overtime vs. pro football's overtime. College is way better in that case but I'm not sure it applies to baseball. I think you can say that the essence of football is an offense trying to punch it in on a short field and a defense trying desperately to hold them to a field goal. Not sure that the essence of baseball is getting a guy in from second base with no outs.

I think we can all fill in the inappropriate joke that should follow this statement.

Agreed. People look for pattern but there isn't one.

You're being seduced by the name. It would take a very minor prospect - if you read above i suggested that the twins recent 5th round pick might be too much. Not even a top 20 prospect. He still hits lefties like crazy. Which is exactly what the twins need.

Yeah, even the best teams lose a lot in baseball. Last night wasn't some inexcusable loss.

If they want to go after Harper/Machado, they will want to get under the luxury cap this year to avoid being a three-time repeater. The only way to do that without selling the very pieces that would attract Harper would involve moving McCutchen or Pence. Pence is unmovable so McCutchen it is.

I doubt that McCutchen in the offseason would have been willing to be a platoon/4th OF this year. He's heading into free agency and sees himself as a starting outfielder. Would you want a malcontented McCutchen on the roster or cut Rosario/Kepler playing time? McCutchen made no sense in the offseason. That changes during the season as guys think about winning and the "reserve OF for a playoff team" overrides the need to play for the next contract thing. The Giants have a marginally better record but are already 5.5 games behind the D-Backs and Rockies vs 1.5 behind just Cleveland for the Twins. And that's not including a Dodgers team that should play better. They also have their top two starters hurt for at least the month of May and likely most of June. They also have three good teams in their division, not one. The Giants have lost 4 straight. The Giants could very well end up sellers. If they go 10-20 over the next month without Baum and Cueto, they'll be sellers for sure. They're not going to liquidate their team but they may make some minor moves to get under the tax and set themselves up to make a run at Harper/Machado etc. Harder to spend so much on Harper if you're a three time tax repeater. Easy if you reset it like the Yankees did.

Two years ago people were complaining about Dozier playing too often and being worn down and not finishing seasons. Like incessantly. They pointed to his 1st half and 2nd half splits and raw numbers: 2014: .777 vs .739, 18HR vs 5 HR 2015: .841 vs. .639, 19 HR vs 9 HR They criticized management and Dozier. They said "If he's this bad in May and he can't finish, how bad is this year going to be. The Twins should move him." They said the Twins should bench him down the stretch if he struggled. It was inane. Two years later, people complain that Dozier doesn't start well and only ends well. My point is that we like to find something to complain about. Brian Dozier will be fine. He's in a slump now and those happen. He'll bounce back.

Let's chill on racking Buxton for now. He's played all of 11 games before last night. For context, before last night Brian Dozier was sporting a .418 OPS in his past 16 games. Guys get hot and get cold, let's not jump to conclusions just yet.

Wow, this is reactionary fandom at its finest! In the past 16 games Dozier had a .418 OPS and had driven in all of two runs. Not even a run a week. During that same time, Mauer had a .715 OPS and also drove in two runs. Mauer regularly takes great at-bats and is never an easy out. It's a long season folks. Guys are gonna get hot. Guys are gonna get cold. Same thing with teams. Time to relax.

Can we include the affiliates record in this somewhere? I like to know how the teams are doing but am too lazy to go look it up myself. Which is perhaps an argument against enabling me. Your call.