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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    This is an interesting possibility and would be a fine way of ensuring you have sufficient insurance in the upper minors to cover a significant injury to either Jeffers or Caratini (or have basic competence ensured if there's another sell-off at the deadline). Would he actually pass through? Not sure, but the risk seems appropriate. The Twins roster still has some issues that need addressing: not happy with the backup SS options (nor the dumpster diving claims they've made), the OF doesn't make sense (I'm sorry, if Outman gets a job on scholarship I'm going to be furious), and the bullpen needs reinforcements not just internal options. But I like the bolstering of catcher, so long as it doesn't shut off improvement for every other aspect of the squad.
  2. jmlease1
    As it stands, I like adding Caratini to the squad. He can hit a bit, which is hard to find at catcher, and looks like a good partner for Jeffers to at least somewhat split the job. There's a little positional flexibility in that he can cover some 1B if needed and having that option in a pinch is nice, though I'd prefer he not really be DHing. Is it the best use of the limited resources available to the Twins due to their self-imposed budgetary limitations from the Cheap Pohlads? I dunno, but it at least seems reasonable and should raise the floor. I'm concerned that they're only going to dumpster dive for bullpen support, and while I do believe we have young pitchers that make sense to slide into the bullpen and could certainly have early success...it's asking a lot. In a vacuum, I like this signing. In the context of the roster and the payroll, I have concerns.
  3. jmlease1
    Allison is a pretty fair pick. I just love Mack and don't hold the baseball strike/lockout/work stoppage against him; felt like he had a couple more big years in him as a Twin, but can't blame him for going overseas to get paid.
  4. jmlease1
    How many Twins from the previous regime got serious consideration? The more history you pile up and the more Hall of Famers you put in from your franchise, the higher the bar is for every position and every generation after. Think about how good you actually have to be to displace Rod freakin' Carew! And we're only talking about 9 positions here, and catcher, 1B, 2B, CF, and RF are manned by hall of famers. Maybe Kaelen Culpepper displaces Roy Smalley some day. Or Walker Jenkins grabs Shane Mack's slot. But this is going to be hard for anyone new. If it was easy, we'd have a terrible history with no titles.
  5. jmlease1
    Yeah, I would take both over Morris (it was a great season, but it was one season) for sure.
  6. jmlease1
    well, if you were actually playing it as a team, Hrbek plays 1B and Harmon slides in at DH. But no real arguments here. CF is very well stocked for the Twins. If you wanted to add a bench, I'd go with Battey, Gagne, Knoblauch, and Buxton. (wouldn't mind having a LH bat on that bench, but this the team I'd want. Man, they'd crush.)
  7. jmlease1
    How were these guys mismanaged? Royce getting hurt all the time isn't anyone's fault really, and that's far and away been the biggest issue in his career. (I'm aware that he wasn't good at the plate last season and it extended back to 2024, but he was also hurt for extended periods in both effing years) What did they do wrong with Larnach? He's also been hurt a lot, and the reality is he simply hasn't hit enough to be more than ok. Having him DH more than play LF or RF is mismanagement? What are we talking about? Wallner has been good overall and the Twins have used his options to have him get a re-set from slumps before and he's responded. Last season was a down year for him (and he missed extended time with an injury), but what exactly did they do that was mismanagement? Injuries aren't anyone's "fault", as a rule. And maybe the less than ideal production is more on the players than management.
  8. jmlease1
    This is simply made up. No real evidence that Falvey consistently beats down young players or ruins relationships. The Twins operate in relationship to arbitration like the vast majority of teams in MLB and there's basically nothing in how they behave that's significantly outside the norm.
  9. jmlease1
    It seems pretty reasonable to not ask a player you're going to an arbitration hearing to schlep up for TwinsFest? He's not actually under contract, things might be a little testy, why add to it by asking him to do TwinsFest? The whole arbitration process is weird and a little stupid. It is doing what it's design to do: keep salaries down for young rising talent, while still guaranteeing systemic raises for players regardless of performance. But it doesn't make much sense from a logical standpoint when people think about an arbitration means in the regular context of the word. A little surprised the Twins couldn't meet in the middle with Ryan and avoid the hearing, but who knows what's going on behind the scenes? Maybe Twins management was stupid and is trying to keep his salary under $6M for...reasons. Maybe his agent's negotiating position has been "$6.2M is our best and final". Maybe the MLBPA wants him to be a test case this year. Maybe Ryan wants out of MN because he's deeply offended about being pulled from a start and wasn't allowed to fire the pitching staff when Rocco was fired. Maybe Joe Ryan wants out because he loved Rocco and has been reading Twins Dailey and no longer wants to be associated with Twins fandom. Who knows. The reality is, the Twins were never going to get Ryan to sign a below-market extension, and were never going to get Ryan to sign a long term deal without going to free agency. And with their current self-imposed payroll limitations they won't be competitive when he hits free agency. Sadly, this means he's probably getting dealt at the deadline this year or in the next offseason, which sucks, and makes me hate baseball just a little.
  10. jmlease1
    Willi Castro is a great dude, and I wish him all the luck in the world. But he makes little sense for the Twins, and if he hadn't played for us previously, no one would be talking about him as an option. Yes, he had a career renaissance after joining the Twins, but it's notable that he's been on a real decline since his all-star appearance in 2024. he defensive utility has dropped significantly, he's not impacting games with his legs like he used to, there's less pop in his bat, even as a switch-hitter, he doesn't hit LHP consistently or all that well. Even as a buy low candidate, he's not a great fit, especially since there's zero indication he can play SS at this point. Sorry, Willi. You're a good dude. Hope you get a bag...somewhere else.
  11. jmlease1
    And by having Pablo back in the rotation (and generally having a strong a deep rotation). A full season of Keaschall. Bounce back efforts from Wallner & Lewis. A presumption that there will be some reinforcements for the bullpen. Improvement/contributions from young hitters. It's not that difficult to forecast a team that's significantly better than the disasterville we saw in the second half, particularly after the trade deadline. It's not crazy to think that while the Twins lost like crazy in the second half, they weren't actually the worst team in the baseball from an overall talent perspective. But it's betting on internal improvement, which has not be a team specialty lately.
  12. jmlease1
    Sosa & McGuire? Sosa without the 'roid boost doesn't get any real consideration. He was a good player, not a great one, until he started using. McGuire? Always been a bit overrated and more Cecil Fielder/Ryan Howard than a clear hall of famer. Cut the steroid years back down to size and he'd definitely on the outside looking in. Hells bells, you drop the pure storybook action of 1998 out of his tale and even his stats with all the 'roiding sits borderline. Lot of crap came out of the steroid era. It was not baseball nirvana for sure.
  13. jmlease1
    Not good for Max's future career. When the declining player in their 30's coming off a career worst season gets popped for PEDs it can mean the end.
  14. jmlease1
    or the PA pushed for him to be an arbitration test case this year. Or his agent told him, "we can win this, it's no big deal". It's all speculation. And if either side goes too far or lets this impact the future relationship, then they're both foolish. But people get messed up because of pride.
  15. jmlease1
    It basically never goes down. The MLB arbitration system essentially guarantees raises, regardless of health or performance.
  16. jmlease1
    seems about right for a floor? I think much like Kepler he will be able to play CF early in his career; what will push him to a corner is Buxton is still much better there defensively and reportedly Rodriguez is also a better fielder. How much CF Jenkins gets will depend on who else is on the Twins roster, but if things got shuffled around and Jenkins won a job in spring training I could totally see him starting in RF but being the primary backup to Buxton in CF. I'm frankly hoping that the Twins are able to deal Larnach and there's an open competition between Rodriguez, Jenkins, and Gonzalez (and maybe even Fedko) for a starting spot with Outman moved on from and Roden given a chance to be the 4th OF. Larnach raises the floor a bit, but Jenkins or Rodriguez can raise the ceiling and allowing Wallner to spend more time at DH helps the defense too.
  17. jmlease1
    It's challenging to balance proven MLB players with prospects on a list like this, I think? I'm definitely a fan of GG, but to be fair, last season was a breakout year for him coming off an injury-filled fairly disappointing one. And while he's showing serious skills as a hitter, he's not a player that's adding much defensively or on the bases.
  18. jmlease1
    neither WAR metric is perfect, that's for sure. And SWR definitely may have been "lucky"...but at the end of the day, what happened, happened? But it's why a lot of times for pitchers I look at bWAR when I'm trying to describe what happened in a season for a player, and fWAR when I'm trying to project what they might be in the future? There's always a few guys that consistently overperform their xFIP, etc too. I wonder if SWR could end up being one of those guys? (That's a risky thing to bet on, of course) I do think it's interesting that while SWR has overperformed against his xFIP, he's under performed his xERA according to FanGraphs. Their projection systems have him being above the same or slightly better than last season, which again...seems to be a very solid 4th or 5th starter?
  19. jmlease1
    SWR has been a 2+ bWAR pitcher in MLB for 2 consecutive seasons. If you don't think that's a quality backend starter, then I really don't know what to tell you. You can talk about his velocity, conditioning, and xFIP all you want, but at the end of the day teams that finished ahead of us in the standings would have been thrilled to have him take the ball every 5th day because starting pitching is in short supply and a guy that can give you 20+ starts at a league average or better ERA+ is more than most of them get in the 5th slot of the rotation. But please, keep telling me how it's all in my head.
  20. jmlease1
    Lot of speculation here. Thank you. Twins were pulling SWR after short starts to intentionally keep him from facing a lineup the 3rd time through, weren't they? That's not necessarily anything to do with conditioning. And last season he was coming back from a parasitic infection that caused him to drop a bunch of weight; that's not a conditioning issue, that's after-effects of an injury. Would like to see some real evidence that he's not coachable, or that he was on his last chance in 2024. He was a prized prospect who was always super young for his level and promoted aggressively. He struggled in 2023 in his first extended time at AAA (not that unusual) at 22. The Twins have been adjusting his pitches and pitch mix for multiple seasons...that's uncoachable? He's been doing what he was asked. If you want to argue SWR isn't a frontline, playoff caliber starter...I think you've got some evidence. If you want to argue he's not a 4th or 5th starter on a playoff team, then I think you need to look more closely at the performance of 4th and 5th starters of playoff teams last season. And he just barely turned 25.
  21. jmlease1
    I don't think people are necessarily saying that Royce is the most likely to succeed, but that he could make the most impact because the ceiling is still quite high and he hit so poorly last year. A breakout season for Brooks Lee could still have him as a league average hitter. A return to form for Royce could be a 140 OPS+. Royce probably has the highest variance, the most boom or bust potential. He's also literally never had a healthy MLB season. He's never been close. Who knows what he looks like if he does?
  22. jmlease1
    Can you cite something on SWR having conditioning issues or being hard to coach? Because I don't recall that. And if SWR is "barely adequate" as a #5 after his actual performance the last 2 seasons, I would like to know what your standard is for a #5? Cle & Det would have killed to have SWR as their #5 last season.
  23. jmlease1
    I've been a big fan of SWR, who keeps getting the job done even when other shiny new objects don't. Yes, they've protected him to some extent, and he hasn't shown the highest end upside...but dude keeps working, keeps battling, and keeps performing. To me, he's earned the 4th spot in the rotation as things stand, and it's part of why the Twins rotation depth really does look so good. Bradley is a guy I don't know how to rate. He can look so good, and then look so bad. The consistency isn't there and if he finds it, he's a weapon. If he doesn't, he's heading to the bullpen. How long is the rope, especially with him out of options? Rodriguez needs to play. While I generally approve of raising the floor on the MLB club (you really can add quite a few wins by giving more ABs and innings to average/ok players rather than flat-out bad ones), it also closes off opportunities for unproven guys, and with all of the young players with higher upside in the OF, I'd like for there to be a real opportunity for one or more of them to actually play, and Emma should be one of them.
  24. jmlease1
    Disagree on Lee; while him performing better at the plate would be excellent for the Twins in many ways, Keaschall's performance will be more critical. If he's able to play close to where he was in 2025, then he's a really impactful bat in the lineup that's short of them. Lee hitting better raises the floor (unless he has an out of nowhere explosion) not the ceiling, and Keaschall maintaining where he was is more impactful.
  25. jmlease1
    I love seeing projections from things like STEAMER and ZIPS, just because it makes some people so incredibly angry. There's usually some good entertainment there as people rail against...math. It'll be interesting to see where Keaschall lands. I think there's some regression in his hitting that we should expect, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the batting average at least lands quite a bit higher than the projection here. I'm not surprised to see them seeing positives in his defense; with a good offseason and consistent reps throughout spring training, he really does have the tools to hold down 2B quite nicely. The clangs off the glove and some of the missed plays are likely to improve with reps, and we've never heard any issues with Keaschall's work ethic. The real question will be his arm, but with more time removed from the surgery and busted arm...well, we'll see? he doesn't need a great arm, just a consistent one, and the accuracy should improve (like everything else) with reps. Dude just hasn't played a ton in the field as a pro.
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