ashbury

Yeah, a high-school draftee usually needs a lot of patience. Under other circumstances the freshman coach might be offering him guidance on off-campus housing for the coming year. I notice Miller involved in the discussion of system depth when the talk is about whether to trade Correa, Lewis, etc, and we are perhaps the better part of half a decade away from truly factoring him into that kind of planning, if all goes well with him.

Oh, the corrupting influence of money! I bet they gave away free beer at that first mid-summer classic in 1933, but then Scott Boras's grandad got involved and they started grubbing for the dough.

And Byron took second because he figured he wouldn't draw a throw, lest Max score? Sometimes the official scorer doesn't give the batter a double in a situation like that, but again with Byron's speed I guess you have to err on the side of giving him credit for what he ended up getting.

Marquez and Hendricks have expensive contracts for next year, so that means the prospect capital to obtain either will be minimal. But it also means they are expensive for what they produce, if they don't bounce back. It's not like taking a flyer on some bounceback candidate on a make-good contract in the spring. Trying Rogers would amount to gambling that Miami's coaching staff is dumber than ours, and has failed to unlock something that we will. Maybe? I don't mind investing someone like Miranda in trade, but you don't want to guess wrong on the pitcher that comes back to us.

Could someone explain the top of the second inning yesterday? I didn't watch the game, just saw it unfold via Gameday feed, but Kepler was on first with two out and wound up only on third when Buxton hit a double. Byron's faster than Max, but Max should be off with contact and I have no idea why the coach wouldn't send him even if Luplow (with an average arm) was poised to make a throw. Out at home, I can accept, but standing on third?

He'll make the team if he keeps this up. Assuming the voters don't recognize him, Crusty Dusty the all-star manager will.

Somewhat, but I'm not sure it's as clearcut as you want. The plan depends on using two more 1-inning arms than you otherwise might, to secure the win, and assuming Archer has a good game and puts you in position to win, now you are counting on neither of the two extra pitchers have a bad hair day.

It's my fault. I finally caved into peer pressure the other day and forecast something around 85 wins.

Buxton now has as many homers as he did last season, in fewer PA. But last year he was hitting a ton of doubles too. This year it's much more Three No-Defense Outcomes - SO, BB, HR (12 of them solo).

BTW, you any relation to Jason?

I might have sold him a little short on his defense. Still, players' positions evolve as they go through their career, so I wouldn't go by innings counts that go very far back, either. I don't follow them closely (don't tell my inlaws!) but I looked and the Cubs seem to have had a revolving door in CF this season, with rookie Morel getting the call in mid-May and seeming to be entrenched now. But even during the first several weeks Happ was used in center only for 12 innings in total. If a team on the skids isn't using him in center, I doubt a team like the Rays who are accustomed to the defensive stylings of Kevin Kiermaier would look favorably on that idea. I think I'll amend my capsule scouting report on Happ as "good-glove corner bat." Which, IMO, doesn't net a team a serious starting pitcher. And neither does a bat-first catcher, so together they don't get you two. As always, I Could Be Wrong, and GMs will do what GMs do.

Another fun scenario. I do think the Twins would have a hard time saying no, to converting a suddenly suspect arm into two, at the cost of two potent bats. But I have a hard time seeing Tampa parting with two young and legit arms for a catcher and a corner bat, no matter how compelling those bats are. Have you submitted either of these trade proposals at the BTV.com site where you developed them, to see what kind of reaction you get? Maybe I'm all wet. I like BTV.com, but I almost feel like you have to separate "pitcher trade value" and "batter trade value" as two very alien things that are hard to mix in the present environment, except as sweeteners, or else at a 1.5-to-1 ratio favoring pitcher points.

We're having trouble finding a spot on the roster for Kirilloff. I'm genuinely curious how to fit Mancini in.

Bookies will take propositions on any sport, even roulette, I suppose.

It says something about Correa that you look at a guy batting .300+ with an .829 OPS, and say he could go on a tear soon. Like you, I've been slow to accept this as a playoff contending squad, but I am pretty much there now. Top half of the league, woo hoo! Last one on the bandwagon still gets to ride, right? I see the Twins either winning the division or not being invited to the post-season at all, so I don't foresee them facing the dreaded Yankees right away, as I think the pinstripers will be playing one of the wild card teams.

I'd be surprised if there weren't surprises.

I'll add, in reply to Doctor Gast's response, that I too would like front line starting pitching. I just don't believe Kepler moves the needle in any conceivable trade for one. Pitching requires pitching in return, great gobs of pitching when high-end established talent is at stake. I would love to be proved wrong with an actual upgrade to our rotation of course.

Whether it turns out that the Twins and Padres get serious at the deadline, I really enjoyed this deep dive. Kepler makes sense in trade to a select few teams, and you identified the reasons the Padres should have their feet held to the fire. I am not as high on Snell as you are, anymore - he feels to me like a second coming of Archer with short starts that have to be artfully managed - but all that matters is whether the Twins talent evaluators feel they could bring more out of him than he has shown in 2021-2. For the purpose of discussion I'll go along with your assessment that the Twins would want him. I agree that if this is the basis for the trade, then the Twins need more than this 1-1 swap. And that's where I come back to holding the Padres' feet to the fire. They need a RF upgrade. And I'm not that enamored of catcher Campusano (hitting numbers in the California League and at El Paso are always suspect to me). So yes, let's go ahead and talk about Abrams or Hassell. What if we include Austin Martin, everyone's favorite trade chip at the moment? Prospect lists have him either as first or second on the Twins, but I doubt that a revised ranking would have him so high. Would the Padres go along with downgrading from Abrams to Martin in middle infield, in return for the sizable upgrade in RF from Kepler plus the salary relief on Snell? Or would they downgrade from Hassell to Martin in the outfield (if that's the latter's eventual destination anyway), and "throw in" power hitting 1Bman James Wood? (I know, both are high ranked, but Kepler is really, really valuable.) Maybe we have to add a lottery-ticket arm from the low minors, say (picking from a hat) 2021 draftee Pierson Ohl, or they give us one if they won't include Wood with Hassell, to even things out. I'm not wedded to any particular deal or structure. The Trade Simulator site seems to like either of these added arrangements enough to make it at least the start for a conversation, but I don't get too hung up on exact values (they value Hassell less than Abrams) because it depends on how the two teams specifically evaluate each chip in the trade. I like to aim high, and if we have leverage over the other team via Kepler it's a chance to snag a difference maker.

Helman's a textbook example of my frustration with how prospects get promoted. Many organizations in all walks of life have a policy of "Up or Out" for their young employees - if they aren't good enough to promote, then they are shown the door, gently or abruptly as the situation demands I know Covid played havoc, after he had a sub-par 2019, but still... a college draftee who is at high-A at age 25 accomplishes essentially nothing. "Wellll, he's pretty good, but we don't know how he'll do against tougher competition." The timing of his development (poor first-half in 2021 then he came on) worked against him. So now at age 26 he has split time at AA and AAA, and we still have to wonder, "wellll, his AAA stats look good but they're small sample size - maybe he'll regress." Everything has finally worked out the way they hoped, and now it's decision time, and he isn't a good trade chip and he isn't a guy they'll add. Wasted development time, quite possibly - they've still got a few months to prove that view wrong.

Modern analytics aside, baseball has always been the most statistical of the major sports. So I have never understood why simple average is commonly used (runs per game, in this case), but the additional step of considering standard deviation is not. This Twins offense would seem to lead the league in the latter, and seeing a simple tabular league ranking would help make more understandable the sense that this is a feast-or-famine offense. I would be very interested to see how high-deviation offenses fare historically in the post-season; I have this feeling that those are the teams who suffer surprising quick exits. But I'm too lazy to do the work of programming and populating a spreadsheet ...

The guy who leads them now is Joe Ryan. More than half the season to go, but if allowed to bet on one guy, he'd be it for me. And he's already at the halfway mark to that magical 10-win season!

Won't dispute the defense, but on the batting side, yeah, I guess I'm gonna be That Guy. Over the course of the season so far, Gio has been one of the culprits in the Twins not driving runners in. With the bases empty, his BA (not yet including today's game) has been .283, and most of his limited power has come in those situations too. Whereas, with bases occupied, his BA is .239 and when you further narrow it to runners in scoring position, it's .212. His Win Probability Added (a stat to give weight to situational hitting) is not good either. The timely hits have been relatively infrequent.

Lee MacPhail?

I probably undersold Ezra by saying his career wasn't very remarkable. Anybody who gets paid to do something for almost 20 years, even in the early years of a "business", must be pretty good at it. Depending on what you mean by "legitimate" and "candidate", I'd tap the brakes on his HoF credentials, though. There are a number of nineteenth century players already in the Hall, and there is a SABR committee that studies that century pretty exhaustively. In fact, and you might already know this, that committee conducts an Overlooked Legends vote each year, to highlight a player they think should be given consideration by Cooperstown. A couple of years ago they voted for Bud Fowler, giving impetus to Fowler being inducted this year, so I think this SABR initiative is taken fairly seriously. I don't recall Sutton being touted for this - I refreshed my memory and he wasn't included in the preliminary round of voting this year, at least. I guess I could ask around, if it really matters, and see whether anyone there has pushed his case. If Sutton belongs in the Hall of Very Good, as people sometimes say of players, probably it improves the comparison I was making to Arraez. So, thank you for that clarification.

As do most hitters since even a .300 BA carries some failure with it. This season, he's come up with the bases loaded 3 times and delivered 2 doubles. I'm not worried about his clutch abilities.