jmlease1

Here's the thing: this only applies if Correa is the 2023 version. Noah Miller would have to be Andrelton Simmons-level of defense to match Correa's 2023 production which is a giant bar to pass for a player who has never played an inning above A-ball. (and BTW, Simmons was a bad hitter, and his worst season as a hitter in the minors was better than Miller's best at this point.) If 2022 Correa is on tap, then this is money well-spent. But the other part of it is value for money is greater with star-quality players. While $ value per WAR is a useful enough thumbnail, the actual value of 1 WAR is greater from 4 to 5 than it is from 1-2, because there are a lot fewer players capable of producing 5 WAR. If you spend it on an elite starting pitcher, you're probably just moving the chairs around, unless Carlos Correa is washed up at 29. Notably, this is going to have the same risk with any FA pitcher we could spend the money on (how did Carlos Rodon work out in 2023?) too, so you're not really reducing your risk. If you spend it on 2 players, then you're having to make a bet that you are going to get it right on 2 players that are undervalued in the market. I mean, it would be great to bring in 2 versions of 2023 Sonny Gray for $15M a pop, but...that seems unrealistic. Could you get 2 pitchers around that price that are likely to bring you 2-3 bWAR? It's possible, and it might even be more likely that they'll collectively generate more bWAR than Correa, but it also doesn't raise the ceiling on your team. (I'm using WAR as a shorthand for value here, not because it's the end-all-be-all of stats, but just because it's the easiest for comps) I guess I can't get behind the idea that Correa is washed up at 29. Especially not after seeing him in the playoffs.

So, Correa is already a declining player because he had a mediocre season while dealing with a significant injury that you want to dump, but if he bounces back and plays like he's capable of we should still trade him? To make room for Brooks Lee? Correa still isn't even 30. I love Brooks Lee, but he does not have the hands of Correa and certainly not the arm. SS has been a huge pain for this franchise and we've churned through a lot of mediocre to bad players in that slot over the last 15 years and never had anyone who has Correa's combination of offense and defense; at best it's been one or the other and frequently it hasn't been enough of either. I have little interest in dealing Brooks Lee, as there will be plenty of room for him on the roster if Polanco is traded or simply finishes his contract. But I really don't understand why Twins fans seem to turn on their highest paid players at the first opportunity. Correa was great his first year with the Twins, and mediocre/poor (mediocre by twins SS standards, poor by his) in 2023 (while being everything we wanted in the playoffs). And if he's great again this season, people are still looking to dump him?

It's a reasonable fit, but much like Polanco I'd hate to see Kepler moved in a salary dump. As part of a package to improve the rotation? More interested, but a little concerned that we're actually a little thin in the corners right now and would be asking a lot out of Larnach, who hasn't shown he can perform consistently (i.e., hit a curveball) in the majors.

It's always a little different to talk about players as organizational assets rather than just based on their ability either based on the previous year's output or projections for the next season. When you're just talking about who's gonna be good in 2024, it's a much simpler equation. As an organizational asset you do have to think about trade value, contract status, age and injury history might be even more important (or less), depth at the position matters. Buxton is the hardest case of them all. If he plays 125 games next season with 100 of them in CF, he would rocket back onto this list...but as long as he can't stay on the field (and in the field) he's not one of the top 20 assets, even if he still might actually be one of their best players. (a fact that might give people a little extra hope for 2024: we won the division and a playoff series without getting much from one of our most talented players) One of the reasons I'm comfortable with Correa ranking so high is because it's been so hard to lock in SS for the Twins. Yes, there was a little stability with Polanco there, but also no because he was having issues staying healthy there and the defense was inconsistent. Otherwise we've been churning through Simmons, Escobar, Florimon, Nishioka, Dozier, Plouffe, Hardy, Cabrera, Punto, etc for 15 years. Not needing to go look for the next SS is a big deal; it's just a tough spot to fill effectively. Correa had a bad year by his standards, but compared to what we've been at? And compared to where he's likely to be again considering he should be healthy and looked great in the playoffs, it's a no-brainer, even with the big contract. I get the concerns about making too much out of Walker Jenkins before he does anything. But he sure looks like the real deal, and other teams will value him incredibly highly so from an asset perspective you have to use that lens a little as well. If there's a chance that this dude is Bryce Harper, Part II? I mean, holy cow.

2019 team is a really interesting squad. yes, the superball helped them out, but it helped everyone out; it's not like they used one ball at Target Field and another one elsewhere. The depth in the lineup was pretty spectacular; this was a team that really wore pitchers out because there was nowhere you could get a break. (a season like this also really shows the advantage of OPS+ and ERA+ as stats, putting things in the context of the league that season) They just didn't have the starting pitching; Berrios was a playoff quality starter, and while Odorizzi looked the part that season as well, without Pineda they didn't have a 3rd guy, and Odo was pretty much a "5 and fly" guy. They did a good job shuffling together a quality bullpen, but this team showed how hard it was to slug your way to a title. Losing Buxton certainly didn't help. This was also the "don't hit it to the left side" team: Polanco, Sano, and Rosario were all more about the bat. Still a pretty great team; it's really hard to win a 100 games, even in an era where you had teams tanking, and the Bomba Squad was awfully fun to watch. 5 players with 30+ HRs, 8 with 20+ HRs, and 11 with 10+ HRs. Heck they hit over 300 doubles as a team as well! Of the 15 guys who played at least 50 games and had over 200 PAs, 13 had an OPS+ over 100. (the two that didn't were Marwin Gonzalez at 94, not bad for a utility guy, and Astudillo at 79)

Well, I'd say it's a lot easier for Arraez to take Carew's advice because there's a lot more similarity in how they approached hitting from the jump. Sano was a power hitter, Carew never was. (even if you throw in Sano's disastrous final season, he still averaged 20 HRs a season; Carew never HIT 20 HRs in a season. Carew was a far better player, and did it for much much longer, but Sano still out homered him 162-92 in 11 fewer seasons) Sano's decline had more to do with injuries than anything else; we did see Sano make adjustments in his career (for example attacking pitches earlier in the count rather than trying to work pitchers deeper and getting too many 2-strike counts), but it didn't matter as much once he couldn't stay on the field and couldn't catch up to fastballs like he used to. I'd say that had a lot more to do with "bad knee" than "didn't listen".

I think the Cavaco pick is the most disappointing one; it really sets you back when you blow a top 10 pick and Cavaco was pretty high risk and has basically shown nothing his whole professional career. He's 22 and never played a game above A ball, and hasn't developed into a player that has any kind of future. Without the top 10 pick mantle, I'm not sure he'd still be with the organization. Sabato looks like a bust, but I have a little mercy for the messed up draft year of 2020, and he's a late round pick which has a lot more variance. Sabato has also at least shown the occasional flash of the kind of hitting ability and power potential the Twins drafted him for, even if it seems unlikely he'll put it together. The Tyler Jay pick...that was the kind of pick that showed it was time for a real front office overhaul, because the idea of taking a college reliever with a top 10 pick with the idea of making him a starter was a little whackadoodle from the jump and there were certainly plenty of other options with that pick. With that craziness in the mix, it's harder to call Jay as disappointing as Cavaco, because what the heck were we supposed to expect when the front office swerves so hard with the development of the player? Gordon hasn't developed the way you'd hop at that top 10 pick would go, but he has gotten to MLB and put up a decent season. His development got seriously messed up by injuries/medical issues that took a long time to iron out. I have a lot more sympathy for that, because it's certainly not like Gordon wanted to have medical problems that made it problematic for him to keep weight on.

If he's relieving, he can probably drop that 4-seam % down to 2%, if not 0%. The slider is good enough to compete, but too many players can handle his fastball and he needs to have something else cooking to get anyone to chase the slider. The 4-seamer pretty much needs to go away; we've got 2 years of MLB data on it and it's it's not just hittable, it's the pitch to crush. Even the velocity isn't that good; he's only 60% percentile and he throws the sinker about as hard as the 4-seam. I think he'll get a chance at a middle relief role and if the sinker does work for him he could be a great option as a 1-2 inning middle reliever. But he's got to find a fastball that doesn't get crushed, because the 4-seamer is trash, even at 95mph. Sinker-slider, with the changeup to keep lefties honest and confuse the occasional righty sounds like a much better mix than what he'd been working with.

Comparing Wallner to Restovich is pretty unfair to Wallner, who already has more ABs in MLB in a half-season this year with the Twins plus a very short stint (barely over a cup of coffee) last year than Restovich had in his entire professional career. And Restovich never showed Wallner's kind of power, unless you really hang your hat on 8 games in his late-season cup of coffee, back when teams loaded up their rosters in Sept and you had a lot of MLB games that were closer to AAA. Same with any comp to McCarty, who hung around in MLB for a pretty long time but never had a season as good as Wallner's was in 2023. He also never showed anywhere near Wallner's power at the plate, except in very limited stints. McCarty was pretty much a bust for the Twins, and Wallner has already been a successful draft pick. The best argument for Wallner not being the bad version of Gallo/Sano (which is really what we're talking about here; when both were going well they were good players) is that he's been healthy, which was the real downfall of Sano, and showed an ability to adjust to what pitchers were doing to him to a) never completely fall off the cliff by missing everything, and b) finish strong, and make enough contact which Gallo seemingly couldn't do any longer. Sano had 3 good seasons for the Twins and would have ended up with a better reputation if he'd strung them all in a row, instead of going every other, and Gallo had a 5-season run where he was a quality player before it all went to crap because he simply couldn't make enough contact. Wallner has shown that he won't get bullied by opposing pitchers already, and if he can keep that up he should get enough pitches that he can punish and get on base enough to to continue to be a quality player. If that's the kind of career Wallner has (3-5 seasons where he's an above-average starter and borderline all-star) he'll add a lot for the Twins. Certainly far more than guys like Restovich and McCarty did, who may have had high expectations but never performed like Wallner. It may not always be pretty, and there will be stretches where he puts up a lot of Ks without the hits, but Wallner played less than half a season in 2023 and was pretty dang great. He's got room to regress a little without being anywhere near the Bad Version Sano/Gallo.

If Stroman is available for a 2-year deal I'd grab him in a heartbeat. No, he didn't finish the season well for the Cubs last year, but that looks injury-related, so if he's healthy I suspect he'll do fine. Twins have shown success in managing pitchers whose workloads need to be monitored and he's a quality starter when healthy and would raise the ceiling on the rotation instead of just the floor. The position players are harder for me to judge, because unless and until a trade is made...not much room on this roster.

I mean, if he debuts at 20 it'll mean he's been on one hell of a heater and looking like a potential Hall of Famer...or utter disaster has struck the Twins from an injury perspective and they decided to throw him in the deep end and see if he sinks. (but the latter is pretty unlikely, because regardless of what goes on with the MLB club i think they're going to be protective of Jenkins) i think without the injury issues, Royce is an easy #1 and if Lopez were still on pre-arb contract numbers he'd be the guy (from purely an ASSET perspective) but I can see a case for any of the 3. I try not to get too crazy over teenagers just hitting A-ball, but Walker Jenkins makes it hard. Yes, it's a tiny little sample, but the FSL can sap the life out of even great bats and Jenkins didn't even blink.

He did fine against them in A ball, but struggled in AA (.649 OPS), did fine against AAA (.758) and then the dreadful .447 in MLB. Pretty small sample sizes; he hasn't gotten 400 PA against lefties in his entire professional career yet, but it's still easily his biggest area of concern, especially considering how Rocco tried to protect him against lefties last season. If he can get that OPS up around .700 against lefties, he's going to be a monster to deal with. But the changes in the rules to eliminate the LOOGY and solid balance in the Twins potential lineups will also help him from getting targeted too much. I'm hoping Julien is our leadoff guy this season from the jump. His OBP is perfect for it and he's got more speed than people realize. He's also shown real ability to swipe bags in the minors that was under-utilized last season and i hope they let him off the chain more now that's he's had 2023 under his belt. 59 for 71 as a pro is nothing to sneeze at, and with the larger bases and limited number of throws over to 1B that pitchers get now, I'd like to see Julien run more.

I assume you meant Gwynn, but regardless all of them except Arraez have been retired for over 20 years. Yes, getting on base is the name of the game, but to score you need some guys behind you to hit with some pop because it's hard to put up a crooked number with a bunch of singles hitters. Part of the concern with Arraez (beyond the knees) was whether or not he would consistently hit those doubles; when he's slugging .420-.470 he's a heck of a lot better than when he's under .400. 30 doubles, vs 15.

As the 39th or 40th man on the 40-man roster he might be worth taking a shot at, if the staff think that there's something that could be unlocked. Easy enough to waive if you need the roster spot, upside if he can figure something out. he seems too wild for me, but I don't mind the move. Wonder if he's another of the group of players whose career development got screwed up by missing a minor league season due to the pandemic? he advanced really fast and then crashed into a wall at AA.

Except they probably would: Julien got rung up on "strikes" that were out of the zone to the point that even other team's announcers were commenting. So that accounts for a few. Everyone is from time to time going to get rung up when they're looking for one pitch and the pitcher fools them with something else, which accounts for a few more. And Julien is holding off on marginal pitches at the edge of the zone that he doesn't think are goods pitches for him to hit. That a really strong approach for a rookie. He'll likely get better at spotting those marginal pitches at the edge of the zone and fouling them off as his career develops...but hopefully he also won't get rung up on a terrible call by an umpire as often as they recognize that he knows the zone as well as any hitter in the game (and there's either an electronic zone or a challenge system to correct this nonsense). I thin he's going to have an excellent year. He's not just a guy hoping to get walked, because he swings hard at pitches in the zone and goes after pitches that he can do damage on. But his discipline will really help him because the way veteran pitchers have nailed young hitters year after year is by getting them to expand the zone and swing more and more at pitches that are off the plate or aren't ones the hitter can deal with. the one thing he needs to work on is being effective against LHP. he barely faced any in MLB, but he got killed when he did. If he can get himself up to acceptable against lefties while destroying righties, he's going to be a monster.

Correa is the hardest to evaluate for a list like this for me. He's an incredibly important player for the Twins, because finding a shortstop who can hit and field has been a real problem over the years, and a healthy Correa does both in ways rarely seen in a Twins uniform. His playoff performance was exactly the kind of thing we hoped for, and if the plantar fasciitis is in the past then he could easily be worth his expensive contract. (according to Fangraphs methodology, Correa has been worth more than $35M 3 times already in his career; using bRef's he's done it 5 times, and that's if you value 1 WAR a) holding at $8M, and b) you take it on a linear fashion, both of which are a little questionable at this point.) So his contract is expensive but not truly problematic, but he also has enough of an injury history to be concerning. He's an incredibly important asset one way or another.

The good thing is we won't likely need Funderburk in too many high-leverage situations assuming the back of the bullpen comes into camp in good health and stays that way through spring training. I like him a lot as a second lefty and middle inning thrower as we get a little more data on him and see if he can keep the walks at a reasonable enough pace for him to be an effective reliever to throw 1-2 innings in an outing. He looks like a good option. Pagan's rubber arm and consistently good health might be missed, but I do think the twins have some guys lined up to take those middle innings with the ability to be as effective.

Pretty tough considering how young these guys are. But hope springs eternal when it comes to prospects

Provus is very skilled and should do well. I hope people will give him a little time to find his feet with doing baseball on TV and with his broadcast partners, because it will take a little time for them to get in rhythm. I think Morneau does well as the primary partner and I appreciate how much he brings in analysis beyond "when I played". (I think he does a good job of bringing in his experiences as well, it's just not the only tool in his bag, and he's also good about saying that things have changed without being judgmental about it.) I do like having a 3rd man in from time to time, and both Plouffe and Perkins have done pretty well there. I would also be interested to see how Hawkins would fit in the 3-man booth from time to time, as i do like it when they have the hitter perspective and the pitcher perspective in place. I love it when Perk is really breaking something down, talking stats and why they matter. Same with Hawk when he's really digging in on a pitcher. Both are less successful when they try to make the broadcast into a comedy act. I feel like that's the bad legacy from Bert during the losing years, making them think they need to yuk it up to keep the audience entertained. When Bert was on his game he could predict an entire sequence of pitches to a hitter and then would tell you exactly why it was a good idea or bad one. that's the legacy I want our broadcasters thinking about not rehashing the same jokes and looking for the laugh line. I liked Smalley more than I thought I would recently, and he does bring a different perspective than any of the other guys, and there's no question he knows baseball. Feels like we have a good team in place that can work together and grow even more over a sustained period of time. That's nice, and it would be good if we can keep the team together for that sustained period. Big shoes to fill from Dick Bremer, who was the consummate professional and kept working and evolving with the game. he had a great voice, did the spade-work, and loved the game and the Twins. he'll be missed, he won't be forgotten, but I also know that he'll be rooting for Provus to be great from Day One.

I think this would be true a month into the season if Paddack looks like he can compete as a starter and get through 5-6 innings effectively. Right now, he's still quite an unknown when it comes to how he'll compete as a starter after TJ #2, and there are certainly critics out there who think he has little future as anything other than a bullpen arm, and bullpen arms with little history in high leverage situations aren't as good from an asset standpoint. I think this is about right for now; his value jumps quite a bit if he's really a mid-rotation starter like the Twins seem to believe. (I'm still unsure; I think he has a strong fastball-changeup combo, but needs that 3rd pitch to show to stick in the rotation and we haven't seen that from him enough yet. Healthy with good coaching maybe he gets there, as he's shown flashes. Cautiously optimistic.) I think Martin has the talent to rank higher, but he's battled enough injuries and hasn't developed the power people hoped for that this is more than fair. But I still really like him.

I think he's a great player, and would prefer that he stay with the Twins, playing multiple positions and DHing this season. He makes the lineup stronger and I love his switch-hitting. The only way he should be moved is if we get real value for him, the kind of value for a player that would have been the #1 2B option if he were a free agent and would have gotten a multi-year deal we a substantial raise over his current deal. He's no bag of balls, he's the Twins best trade asset because we have depth at his best positions, he has a good contract, and he's a proven veteran. His only real deficit is health, but he finished the season healthy and played well (and was healthy) the last 2 months of the season, so it shouldn't be the biggest issue. I'd rather keep him, he's still one of the Twins better players and a consistent producer. By all accounts he's a good dude and great teammate. But because of our self-imposed payroll reduction, he makes sense to be a trade option. If he's given away in a salary dump, I'm going to be furious. As part of a package that lands us the starter we need, I can live with dealing Polanco, but I'll be bummed to see him go.

Oh, I don't disagree. I just thought it was interesting that Martin wasn't someone who got tossed from games by the umpire at a particularly high rate. I find Martin to be a fascinating character in baseball history: the ultimate turnaround artist, a shockingly self-destructive persona, a brilliant baseball mind, and a real SOB.

The 1970 squad was very good, but just not deep enough to overcome a few key injuries/under-performance. (Plus running into the Balto juggernaut; unbelievable that they only used 4 pitchers in taking out the Twins in the ALCS) The drop-off from Rod Carew to Danny Thompson was pretty massive at the plate and they just didn't have enough hitters. Pitching staff was pretty great, though. (another "wow, the game has changed!" moment: 1970 Twins only used 13 pitchers the whole season. Now, they start the season with 13 pitchers!) Would Billy Martin have made a difference? Or had he already worn out his welcome even without the fistfight with one of his own players? (amusingly: Martin was only actually tossed 48 times in 16 season; Rigney was thrown 64 times in 19, despite Martin having the reputation as the biggest hothead this side of Durocher) Martin was a lunatic who destroyed himself by his inability to control his demons, but Rigney was just another guy as a manager, really. Martin finished first or second in 8 out of his 10 full-seasons with a team (i'm counting the '81 season as full, since he was the manager for every game there was). Not sure anyone would have beaten those damn O's teams, though.

I think this is the biggest issue with Solano: expecting him to actually be any better in '24 is a little unlikely. For a guy nicknamed "Donnie Barrels", he doesn't actually hit the ball all that hard, so seeing increased production from him is going to be a little hard to find. The other issue is the roster spot: unless there's a move with Polanco/Farmer, I don't have a roster spot for him, so any decision to bring him on board would have to wait until that's resolved. I don't think price is actually going to be the issue; he's going to be in that $2-3M range and even with our self-imposed payroll limitations, that shouldn't be the barrier. It's the roster spot. Have to remember that Royce Lewis and Ed Julien have roster spots from Day One this year when figuring out who is on this squad. If Polanco/Farmer get moved, then it's a question of whether you like Miranda's upside better than Solano's floor. Not an easy decision because we don't know how Miranda is going to respond to his surgery and if he can get that shoulder healthy. I'd probably go for Miranda and bet on upside, but it's not unreasonable to go the other way.

So because you didn't mention stress to the knee in your post, I can't talk about it in my response? Who knows and who cares which is more painful, the issue was that asking someone to do more of an activity that is causing pain, stress, swelling, etc isn't going to be better than having them do less of it. If Buxton had tried to play in the field, he would have been doing more running, jogging, standing, etc and putting more strain on a knee that was never fully healthy, than just DH-ing. The plan didn't really work out because Buxton's knee never responded. It looks like they might have gotten the diagnosis wrong, but people that know a lot more about medicine sure seem to be saying "yeah, this totally could have happened". I suppose if your preference was to get Buxton on the IL faster, he should have just gone out there until he couldn't walk or something, but the team (not unreasonably) thought he could contribute at the plate as a DH. It's important to remember that Buxton had an OPS of .881 through April; the first 20% of the season the plan looked like it was working out ok, because while we missed Buxton in the field, he was producing well at the plate. It wasn't until May that things started going downhill.