stringer bell

I highlighted the "they won't come to MN" section of the quote. Why would Minnesota be undesirable for a starting pitcher? I have to think that a pitcher wants a chance to thrive and a competitive salary and I think both of those things can be had from the Twins.

Every Pablo Day is a must-win day.

It would appear that there is one more position player move to be made in the last two weeks--Max Kepler could be activated as soon as tomorrow. IMHO, the two possible moves would be putting Trevor Larnach to the IL or optioning Edouard Julien to St. Paul. I'm not sure if there is a move to be made to help the bullpen. If not, the Twins are finishing their season with the likes of Scott Blewett, Mike Tonkin and Ronny Henriquez. To be honest, I don't know if there are any better options available in the Twins' system, but the BP is getting lots of innings because of the short starts from the three rookies in the rotation. Louie Varland has miserable numbers after yielding a couple of big innings recently. I don't know if he could or should be counted on to get any key outs in the remainder of the season or in post-season.

Almost every player has peaks and valleys, that is the nature of the game. When Lewis returned from his last injury and kept hitting homers, how many of us would have answered the following question in the affirmative: Is Royce Lewis one of the top 20 players in baseball with a future as a perennial All-Star, MVP candidate and possible Hall of Famer (if healthy)? On Miranda: Should José Miranda be considered a regular who starts more than 120 games a year and gets playing time at first, third and DH? On Alcalá: Can Jorge Alcalá be counted on to get important outs in the stretch drive and post-season? I think the sentiment on each of these questions has changed since mid-season.

As things stand now, the Twins would get the #3 Wildcard and play Houston on October 1. I will be making my first ever trip to the Space City on that Tuesday, so I totally approve of that matchup!!

I'll pile on here. Bobby Witt Jr. is one of the top five baseball players in MLB. He has great skill for someone so young and breathtaking tools. There have not been many like him. Lee has been thought of as a guy who will be a regular for a long time, who will get to some All-Star games and could have a long and successful career, but his tools are nowhere near what Witt Jr. has. I'd take a Roy Smalley-like career for Lee as a win. I think he ends up as a third baseman BTW.

It's hard to expect much more than.500 from the Twins the rest of the way when they are starting a rookie 60% of the time. Maybe Buxton (and hopefully Correa) can help the club offensively and defensively enough to win some games they've been coughing up lately, but IMHO they still short on pitching, leaky on defense and slump-prone on offense at exactly the worst time. To the OP, I still think the Red Sox are a threat with three home games vs. the wounded Twins coming up with a sweep winning the Rose Hose the tiebreaker. Seven wins is probably enough to get a series in Houston, six maybe and five means a longer off-season.

Half a season or even more isn't a guarantee. The Twins have several players who looked to be well on their way to establishing themselves as regulars or perhaps stars and now maybe the jury is out. Royce Lewis--Since the All-Star break, Royce has a .685 OPS. He broke a lengthy slump yesterday with two hits and two RBI. Lewis' overall numbers for the season are good, but not at a superstar level. Jose Miranda--He has a .600 OPS in the second half. The power is seemingly absent, only ten extra-base hits among his 31 hits, with no homers. He's played a satisfactory third base, but he has limitations as a defender. Brooks Lee--Lee came out of the box hot, but has looked overmatched for quite a while. Since returning from the Injured List on September 1, he's 5-32 with three extra-base hits and three RBI. Willi Castro--An All-Star at the break, Castro has slumped noticeably, particularly as a right handed hitter. He has a .605 OPS since the All-Star break. Castro has been asked to play a lot of shortstop and center field, positions where he is stretched. Jorge Alcalá--6.62 ERA since the All-Star break with an astonishing seven home runs allowed in 17.2 innings. Walks well above league average and strikeouts at league average despite what looks like great stuff. His overall numbers now look a lot like 2021. None of these guys is old--the oldest are Castro at 27 and Alcalá at 29--but their performance over the course of this season seems to beg for a longer runway to see if they can sustain high-level performance.

Tigers lost to Colorado, Red Sox lost in extras to the Yankees, Guardians lost to Tampa. Mariners down early as well.

Keirsey Jr. could be used as a pinch runner and defensive replacement. I doubt that he would be called on to try to steal a base in a game situation. Keirsey Jr. is fast, but I don’t think he has game-changing speed. Buxton as DH? I thought we learned that lesson last year. My first reaction to activating him without rehab is that it is a panic move. I hope I’m proven wrong.

I don't think any of us know enough about the condition of Buxton's hip to say that he should be playing. IMHO, a "clean MRI" doesn't mean he's not injured. I'm sure that BB doesn't want to go down the path of last year, when he was trying to play at considerably less than 100%. He didn't help the team as a DH and still wasn't able to finish the season. There is no doubt that Buxton hasn't put up numbers, based on both his so-so career numbers and his limited playing time due to injury. His injury history can be debated--unlucky, made of glass, something else--but he's undeniably missed huge amounts of time and this projects beyond this season. He's really valuable when he plays and the team is better when he's on the field and he was going through one of his better heaters when he went down. Twins fans can hope he can find it when he returns.

Reminds me of the end of ‘22. The best players are beat up and they’ve got a bunch of non-roster players getting playing time. Waiting for Buxton and Correa seems futile. A lot of guys are struggling after having success earlier and three rookies are in the starting rotation.

Who's he supposed to start? Helman, Lee, Keirsey Jr., Jeffers and Castro is the bench. None of those guys, especially with Castro's struggles against lefties, scream "play me".

Miranda tries hard but he's not a good fielder at third base. Royce doesn't have to be great to be a better fielder at third.

I fear for Zebby in the coming inning. He might get pulled.

Too many middle-middle 94 mph fastballs.

There's the difference between the Twins and the Guardians and Royals. Team speed. Farner didn't get a double because of a fast center fielder and couldn't score on a double the checked up close to the deep left field line. Both teams had good relays from the corner. If I'm Watkins, I'm sending Farmer, but he was a dead duck.

Dick Mountain didn't have much of a runway--3.2 innings. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/09/red-sox-designate-rich-hill-for-assignment.html My enduring memory of Blankenhorn was the error he made at second base in perhaps the worst loss the Twins have experienced in this century. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/09/nationals-claim-michael-rucker-waivers-phillies-dfa-travis-blankenhorn.html

Usual suspects not in the lineup--Lee and Castro--as well as Margot's presumed replacement (Helman). I am wondering about injury issues with Lee, just off the IL and he was on the bench on Thursday and perhaps for Castro who corralled a sinking liner by blocking it with his uhh midsection the other day. Besides that, Willi has really struggled as a right handed hitter. Rocco would rather have Wallner and Larnach in the lineup than Helman versus a lefty?

I was thinking about the Polanco experiment at third base while reading this thread. He was brutal at the hot corner, but he was one of the Twins' best hitters. I agree with Brian that Lewis can be okay at third or second, like Devers is okay at third for the Red Sox. I think Lewis' throwing mechanics need work and his spring trainings and off seasons so far have been occupied by being injured or recovering from being injured. It's also clear that Lewis is a far bigger man than he was seven years ago when he was drafted and even two and a half years ago when he filled in for a Correa injury. Players do change positions all the time. Harmon Killebrew, Jim Thome and Miguel Cabrera were all regular third basemen who moved. Pete Rose went from second to outfield to third to first. Even Carlos Santana was briefly a third baseman.

One play is just too little to make judgments about someone's defensive capabilities. FWIW, BBRef is showing Keirsey Jr. as being one run below average after one inning.

Big picture—I am trying to be impartial about Keirsey Jr. I hope he is a late bloomer who can be a big contributor for the next few seasons, but my skeptical side sees another Andrew Stevenson—speedy, decent glove, but not a big league hitter despite gaudy AAA numbers. The play in question looked like a tough one—he wasn’t going to be charged with an error if he got leather on the ball—but I don’t know if he got a great jump and I don’t know if he showed elite sprint speed. He made a better play for the ball than Siri did on Jeffers double in the ninth, that’s for sure. Further, making one good/great catch doesn’t make him a defensive wizard and not making the catch doesn’t preclude him from playing center field. Perhaps the best catch all year by a Twin was Austin Martin robbing a homer and so far he’s shown to be overmatched as a center fielder.

Buxton has had hip and knee injuries for years. It’s pretty apparent that he’s tried to play through the lingering effects of these injuries—he missed about three weeks with the knee injury and has now missed almost a month with the hip. We’ve seen him try to power through at less than 100% and it didn’t go well. Each recurrence provides more proof that he can’t get through a season. The 90 games he’s played may be all he’s capable of. The Twins have tried frequent rest days, using him exclusively as a DH and shutting him down to settle down the chronic problems. So far, they can’t get him to post 100 games. They need an outfielder to man a corner who can move into center when the inevitable injury occurs. MAT worked for ‘23, perhaps someone in the system can fill that role in ‘25. Kepler hasn’t looked good for most of the season after a hot return from the IL this April. It seems he can’t perform at a high level with nagging injuries.

I do think not counting Correa's earlier IL stint matters greatly in comparing his usage to Witt Jr. and Judge. Nobody will play all 162 for Baldelli IMHO, but if Correa and Lewis were healthy and showing no symptoms of fatigue, they would play in over 90% of the games. Correa was in the top of the order most of the time and when Lewis was hitting like a superstar, he was too. At times, Miranda and Wallner have looked like they should be permanent middle of the order bats, but so far they haven't demonstrated the consistency to write their names in ink in the lineup every day and maybe in a specific place in the order. It seems to me that Rocco really shields his younger left handed batters from left handed pitchers. The four at the beginning of the season were Wallner, Kirilloff, Julien and Larnach. None have performed well against lefties, but is it because they haven't seen enough of them or because they aren't that good? By mid-season, Julien and Wallner had been demoted (then returned) and Kirilloff slumped miserably against all pitching. So maybe they just aren't good enough hitters to play every day. It's a chicken and egg thing IYAM. Baldelli seems much more willing for the Martins and Margots of the world to face right handed pitching. My biggest gripe against the Twins' manager is the quick hook for lefty swingers in games. I've heard the stats over and over, but having a Margot or Martin face a right handed pitcher (instead of say Wallner or Larnach) in the seventh and ninth innings seems like a horrible miscalculation. It's very apparent that Baldelli isn't going to trust rookie starters to face a lineup for the third time unless they are absolutely rolling. August/September Pablo has his trust and Ober and Ryan (prior to injury) were on their way. He won't overuse his bullpen guys in the first half of the season. This late in the year, he's leaning heavier on his few reliable bullpen arms. So far Jax, Durán and Sands are holding up, but Alcala is questionable. If Rocco doesn't overuse his key guys, others are going to have to pitch in high leverage and no one else has stepped forward. All I've ever heard about the club outside the lines is that Rocco is well respected and that the players get along well. I think discipline is handled privately. Baldelli isn't one to publicly berate his players. Does this supposed "loose ship" make for poor fundamentals? I don't know. Maybe there shouldn't be three converted infielders in the outfield. Sometimes you play with the cards you're dealt. On balance, I don't think Baldelli is the problem. I think he can do a better job, but the same is true with about 29 other major league managers. It's mostly the players that win games.

Yes and no. I would expect that they'll wait another day to see if Kepler will be able to go and then probably put him on the IL. They can backdate three days IIRC. That would mean that they would play with a 27-man roster on Thursday if Kepler were placed on the IL and they actually would be playing short the next two days (as they have on Monday and Tuesday).