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MackMan

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Everything posted by MackMan

  1. MackMan
    Well sadly, in today's game, contact hitters aren't as high demand. The market will dictate what is offered to him though. Especially considering his past injuries, he may not garner the amount he thinks he's worth.
  2. MackMan
    I'd down for a reunion. Maybe we give him something incentive laiden. Something of like $13million/yr with incentives to where he can earn an additional $2-$4 million for escalators or something.
  3. MackMan
    Here's the real question. Who do you bat #1 or #2? I like Keaschall as our leadoff because he has double damage and base-stealing potential. Pair that with Arraez being able to get on base by slap hitting or soft liners over the 2B or SS says runs score quite a bit. But if we also have Arraez leadoff and he gets a hit most of the time, that give Keaschall the ability to drive him in with his doubles or hard hit singles.
  4. MackMan
    You know what. I'll put a wrench into things with this comment. Let's add DeBarge to the 40-man and have be our starting 2nd baseman, move Clemens over to 1st, and run from there. Worst case scenario, we option him back to AAA if he doesn't perform and let him continue to work the kinks out. Now, of course this is all banking on us not signing a 1st baseman for the 2027 season.
  5. MackMan
    I think the MLBPA budges first and foremost. As an owner, they have been prepping for this for a while. Sadly, with the proposed Floor and Ceiling it is going to help the players that are pre-arbitration eligible, and the lower echelon of players. Yes, it might hamper the higher end earners (Ohtani, Harper, Tucker, Trout, Soto,) from earning long-term expensive deals, it is going to help the players that might be the above average players in a less-than-stellar situation earn more and stay relevant for longer. If the lockout goes as we expect, I wouldn't expect the season to start closer to July or August if at all for a 2027 season. Also on another note, a lockout might actually be a good thing for a team such as the Twins. It may create a suitor or more to escalate a sale in the team.
  6. MackMan
    Well I mean we got Correa as a 3rd consolation prize when he opted out and failed the physical with the Mets and Giants. I mean, it was an expensive contract, but it was still a fairly cheap compared to what it could have been
  7. MackMan
    I almost any deal for $50million gets it done. 3/$50million I think would get it done for a hometown discount. Otherwise if a more readily playoff team offers 3/$60million gets it done for them. Sadly, I feel as there are 2 playoff teams that are gonna be able to offer Jeffers a bigger contract: Yankees and White Sox. Those 2 teams have some holes to fill. Also, with a veteran catcher, it is definitely going to help their pitching staff, on top of having another dangerous bat in their lineup.
  8. MackMan
    I would not go after Chisholm for 2B. He made WAY to many boneheaded moves to be a reliable source of defense from that position. Maybe he has a bounceback year next year, but he has a slow first step and he gets caught watching the action going on around him instead of playing the game. There's a reason the Yankees didn't offer him a QO because he won't get that much as a FA and the Yankees didn't want to risk him accepting that and being on the hook for a player who plays subpar defense and has an average bat. I'd be willing to take a shot at Gleyber Torres though. His bat is decent and his defense is serviceable, since moving to 2nd. But that limits him completely and his probably going to demand to get paid like a SS. But he definitely ain't out hustling anyone with his slow speed. Arraez could be an interesting reunion though. Bring him back on a 2-3 yr deal where he can split between 2nd, 1st, and DH. I know his defense is less than stellar, but his bat is a lot like Keaschall's. Too good to leave out of the lineup. He gets on base via hit, doesn't strikeout a ton, but also doesn't walk a lot, doesn't hit a lot of extra base hits, doesn't play the best defense, isn't the fastest player out there, but he does get on base. He puts the pressure on the defense by forcing them to make play by putting the ball in play. On top of that as a veteran player, he might be able to teach some of these younger players a good approach to the plate. Heck, he might be a perfect person to help teach Houston, who a glove first SS, just how to hit for average and make himself more marketable.
  9. MackMan
    I think he'll be non-tendered and potentially brought back on a Minor league contract w/ a ST invite. To go with that I'm sure they're be some opt-outs to go with that contract that way he feels as if he's getting a fair shot at playing.
  10. MackMan
    I think this is a huge step forward for Clemens. This could potentially be used as a leverage in a trade situation if the team feels they can trade him for something. I mean, his average and OBP wasn't that great, but he does have some clutch factor and his versatility is a huge plus. Be able to play multiple positions, and have a decent bat in the lineup is something that the Twins have struggled to get out of players.
  11. MackMan
    Not particularly. There is a reason these players have passed (at least the younger ones) thru Rule 5 draft in the past. As for the older, more experienced players there's always a reason they haven't been picked up by another team when they get DFA'd and sent back to the AAA affiliate and choose not to elect FA at that time.
  12. MackMan
    I'm not opposed to a reunion with him. I was scrounging the FA list when I saw him name pop up. I think a good salary would be a $25million 2 year deal with a base salary of $12-15 million for year 1 and a $1.5 million buyout after year 1. That way if/when he struggles we can pay him and he is no longer our problem. With high risk, high reward relievers I think this is really the only way to do these type of contracts.
  13. MackMan
    The issue that the Twins had is their 4 seam FB weren't very strong. They struggled with the tunneling factor. Or teams were able to pick up on the difference in arm slot when they threw something different. I remember growing up and our coach always told us, "Everything starts with the fastball." If you can't locate your fastball, hitters aren't gonna swing at the off-speed or breaking balls. And the Twins straight up struggled with locating a good fastball. They were throwing meatballs or non-competitive pitches and getting punished or walking the batter. That later created a sliding effect where hitters were able to lay off the fastball and punish the curve/slider/sweeper because they were able to predict trajectory and break. The only real pitcher that benefited was Bradley because he had 2 pitchers that looked the same coming out of his hand: Cutter and Slider.
  14. MackMan
    And that's a perfect model of demand and supply. This year is a weak FA market, especially given that there aren't very many catchers worth their own weight. Good catchers get snagged up pretty quick and usually locked down long-term. That is why the Twins are willing to overpay for a premium position that is usually defense first. Now the other argument can be made because he's a Boras client.. Boras himself is gonna argue that he deserves more because he's a bat first catcher that can bring your team X wins based on the current market, WAR and WPA, or whatever he'll use to best leverage his client. And some team will pay him for his services, the biggest thing is just how much is going to be shelled out for his game. And if it comes to a battle of bidding, I feel as if the Twins are gonna lose out, regardless of what team is bidding.
  15. MackMan
    Yeah sadly, the art of pitching is disappearing now. And Falvey made that very apparent. Like you said, he found an "inefficiancy" that he tried to exploit. By making every pitcher add 3-6 mph in velo he turned them all into max effort pitchers, which in turn caused them to lose command of their pitches, which caused them to be at 75-80 pitches by the 5th inning, which caused little innings eaten and injuries increased. But at the same time, every team is teaching this method. Every pitcher is pitching at 100% for every pitch for their 5 innings of work. Yeah it's cool seeing a 100mph heater blow past the hitter, but when everyone is doing it, its not as exciting. I'd rather see that slider/sweeper start at the hitters hip and dance and move so far out of the zone that he's questioning all reality. Also, I miss seeing the mind games that pitchers used to play with hitter back in the day. Johan Santana was a master at pitching. Throwing his fastball around 91-93 then dropping that changeup at a wicked 70mph was just diabolical. What other pitchers could do something like that and get away with it?
  16. MackMan
    I'm pretty sure it would be just Correa and Buxton. Maybe Donaldson would be close if we wanna go that far back. Lopez after 2027 would be about $75million. So we've handed out some deep contracts and every single one of them have had that player on the IL for an extended amount of time or we shipped them off once they became too expensive for us, while trying to maintain their level of production. Essentially their ROI wasn't turning out so good. I mean I understand that Catcher is a tough position that is primarily defense focused, and if you get a hitter out of it thats awesome. But now (or at least from some of what I've seen) pitching coaches are using the pitchcom with more analytical driven teams to help reduce the burden on the catcher.
  17. MackMan
    My thoughts exactly. I have a feeling it would be we'd have to eat the buyout and maybe $1million. So we'd be on the hook of dead-money for $4.5 million for a backup player at best. That seems like poor spending to me, not that it isn't already for the amount of success/support he provides. Which is why we should just hold onto him. Pay him is salary and let him go at the end of 2027. That gets us to our prospects and then we sign an aging veteran as a backup to help mold or train our younger player.
  18. MackMan
    And how has taking the best player at your draft slot gone for the Twins in the last 10 years? Lewis->Bust. Rooker->Was a AAAA player with us. Larnach->been in trade talks and non-tendering talks for years. Keoni Cavaco->Bust. Matt Wallner->Bust. Aaron Sabato->Career Minor Leaguer. Chase Petty->Traded almost immediately for Sonny Gray. Noah Miller->Traded. Brooks Lee-Finally showing that he is a good 3rd Basemen. Walker Jenkins->Making Debut/Too early to tell. Charlee Soto->Still going thru the lower level Minors. Kaelen Culpepper->Made debut. These are all under Falvey/Levine. You're right in that Kiriloff was under TR. So I would say that taking the best player available hasn't been a great strategy for the Twins. Now I'm not saying that TR draft picks were better, as they were significantly worse, and the fact that baseball is different than other sports when it comes to development and readiness for the next level, but the Twins haven't really had good 1st round picks since Buxton/Berrios (Can't say with Jenkins, Soto, Culpepper, Houston or Quick as its too early to tell).
  19. MackMan
    Unlikely we get the trade partner to eat the whole contract. That's the issue. In order to move Caratini, we'd had to eat the majority of his contract just for him to play on another team (Similar situation with Correa). At that point, hold onto Caratini and have Jackson as our #3 catcher. Right now we're just trying to bridge until our prospects like Lackey, Tait, and Tinney are ready for the big leagues. This is the result of Falvey drafting the best hitter available regardless of position. He never drafted looking to the future of the organization. That is why we were stuck with all these LHH corner outfielders for years on end (Kiriloff, Larnach, Wallner, Emma, Rosario) and had 0 pitchers.
  20. MackMan
    I think Gray would be open to a reunion now the Rocco is out of the picture. He was not a fan of Rocco and Maki. You could see it in the interactions that were had on the mound when either of them would come out to pull him in the 5th inning when he was at 70ish pitches. The thing is, we are in no position to get him because we are in no position to play in or make a deep run into the playoffs. Sadly, we're more than 2 holes in the roster from making a playoff push, and a SP of Gray's caliber is only part of the equation. If we were to sign him, it'd almost have to be a front end loaded deal of around $30-35 million with a player option for the year 2, which include certain milestones that need to be met.
  21. MackMan
    I actually don't mind any of these moves outside of giving Bauers that long of a deal. I think the Cubs might be willing to make that trade, BUT we might have to sweeten the deal the just a bit due to Ramirez having a lot of team control left. I wouldn't say give them something huge in return, but maybe a flyer on a lower level prospect who has an okay ceiling and a middling floor. Basically just a solid rotational future player. Essentially that Joe Ryan trade solves 3 problems (temporarily). Allows Clemens to move to 1st base (if we don't sign Bauers), allows Ramirez to play 2nd full time (until Houston gets called up and Culpepper shifts over), and allows our backlog of MLB ready starters to start to take over. Now non-tendering Ober is the right move here. He hasn't really shown us anything over the last 1-1 1/2 seasons that tells me he is starter material. He would be a good spot starter/opener for teams in a rebuild while they allow their prospects to get to the Majors. Non-tendering Lewis almost has to happen at this point in time. He does a lot of stuff "okay" but nothing good (except for maybe his attire or smile). He definitely hasn't lived up to his potential with being taken 1st overall. Add him to the pile of 1st round draft picks that just didn't pan out in the Twins organization. It's almost as if we have a problem with developing quality hitters and pitchers at this point.
  22. MackMan
    This is spot. We need to look at the fact that if we can spend the money now, it'll actually save us in the future (younger, cheaper, and more controllable players await our future). The FO and fans need to look at Jeffers as a bridge to the next player. We know he isn't going to be our catcher of the future. He is no Molina behind the plate. He is no Contreras behind the plate. He is definitely a hitter, that can call a game behind the plate, and that is useful. Whereas Caratini was a liability anywhere we put him last year. He HAS to be our backup. He cannot be our starter going into next season. If we cannot sign Jeffers, I'd be okay with throwing Jackson (if he still is on the team) as our starter and Caratini as our veteran backup.
  23. MackMan
    But now is gonna come the arguments that the Rays and Brewers made it to and won the World Series with less than that and right around that figure. (I know a lot of other things went into those teams being set up for success). But agree. We haven't developed our players properly, which is going to force us to spend money of free agents or retaining talent to compete.
  24. MackMan
    Here is a look at our catcher thru their age 29 season. As is evident, Jeffers is the far superior offensive force. Yes, Caratini may have been slightly better behind the plate, but Jeffers is serviceable. Honestly, I'd be okay with a 1-3 more years of what Jeffers can bring us, as long as his bat doesn't start to regress. By that point he'll have been pushed out from behind the plate by younger, more talented players, but if he can keep his bat, he'll have a spot on the team. You don't get catchers that have a decent offensive profile in the game. They're definitely a defense first position. I mean according to Baseball Reference, Jeffers has performed at an All-Star level for these past 6 seasons, whereas Caratini was a liability for his team.
  25. MackMan
    I mean I called it with Griffen Jax a few years right after he was transitioned to the BP. I said that he is going to be our next Trevor May. He seemed like he was the next one. Then I also said the same thing about Varland. I saw that his stuff played better in a limited capacity. And it did. I get the exact same vibes off Zebby. I personally feel as if we move Zebby to the BP and remove/reduce usage on a pitch or 2, up some velo with some movement, he has a chance to be our next closer or 8th inning guy. With the log jam we've got at the SP role, we are going to have to make some changes where at least 1 SP gets converted. A large majority of RP/CP start as SP and end having to get converted because they just don't have the make-up for a SP role. AND that is fine. You don't draft someone or sign someone from the international pool saying "I think this is guy gonna make a great closer." You draft/sign hoping they pan out as a SP and if they don't, you attempt to convert them and make the best of it.
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