70charger

The Twins are on pace to score 36 runs every game. I love math!

Woo!

Eddie is on pace for 280 walks this season.

Great play by Garcia for no outs. Here's my hot take for their season: I know the Sux are the media darlings for their prospects, but they're at least a year away, maybe two.

We're so going to the playoffs. When is that again? Tomorrow?

Whatever Donaldson. Taking more than one pitch to get a home run. Total bust.

They are on pace for literally infinity home runs. Bomba squad is back.

Let's get going!

So, let's see. The Twins didn't lose. However, the Twins didn't lose. Therefore...

That looked gone off the bat. That power'll play in the big leagues.

Looked to me like it was cut off. I wanted to see a play at the plate, but only afterward did it hit me that it's intrasquad. So...

Pretty sweet Taylor Rogers supercut. Striking out Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera is something your grandkids will show their grandkids.

It's fun to see some of these prospects.

Good rip by Blankenhorn, whose name hilariously goes from hip to hip on his jersey.

I thought he was good last year, despite being sometimes visibly nervous and maybe overthinking it. It only gets better from here, right?

I heard that MLB is going to pipe in crowd noise for every time. I just wonder where they got it.

I'm late to the party, but I'm so psyched that baseball is back! Woo!

I know I'm late to the game here, but relegation doesn't work with a draft. Full stop. You think some minor league team is gonna pony up the $10 million it takes to get the top pick? First of all, where is that money coming from if you're a minor league team? Second of all, broadcast revenues for everyone that isn't the Yankees will plummet because there's no guarantee they won't be a AA team three years from now. Third of all, how is it fair to send some draft pick or top prospect, who may be ready for the highest levels of competition right now, to some team that manages to be worse than the present-day Marlins? And what happens when you have promotion/relegation without a draft? Well, obviously the Yankees win every year. And if not them, I guess pick between the Dodgers and Red Sox. Maybe the Yankees had an off day in the playoffs, who knows? Want to know what happens with a promotion relegation system with no draft? Check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_football_champions. What's that? Barcelona won again? Weird. I can't think of how, since they've only won 10 out of the last 15. I wonder what happened. Oh, was it Madrid that won? Gosh, that's weird too. They've won the other 5. You literally have to go back most of a decade to find a team outside the top two cities that has won. Teams from Barcelona and Madrid have won 69 championships since 1929, including 43 of the last 50. Literally all the other teams combined have won 19 total over most of a century. I don't want a league like that. It legitimately shocks me that anyone in Spain gives a ****.

What, like I'm going put money into a 401k?

Seriously though, everyone who thought that Bryce Harper would be more a less a worse-slugging Max Kepler in 2019, raise your hand. (Put it down, buddy.)

You are in luck! Okay, this is the real link: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=rf&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

I'd argue the exact opposite. He was drafted in 2013 (in the ninth round, no less!), and despite being a catcher, he was in the majors by 2017. The following year he was a primary catcher. For a pretty good prospect, that's a nice pace through the minors. For a ninth rounder, that's fast. For a ninth round catcher that's breakneck. For a ninth round catcher who was the best hitting catcher in the game last year, that's ludicrous speed.

There were some surprising values in there, yeah. I'm guessing it's all "in a vacuum" kind of stuff, and a guy who's a defensive liability, hasn't been healthy or consistent, and is in the expensive part of his team control with only two years left doesn't look very good on paper. On the other hand, if you have a team making a championship push that just needs that intimidating power bat to push it over the finish line, maybe Miguel Sano starts to look a lot more compelling. There's usually a market for a standout skill.

FWIW, the trade simulator (https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/) rejects this trade as very unbalanced. Yes, including Murphy drags down the Rockies' value, but Gray is significantly more valuable than any other piece in the trade. The only appreciable value the Twins would be giving up would be Thorpe, which is kind of hard to disagree with, unless you're totally convinced that Sands is going to be something.