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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    I'm hoping Julien gets unleashed at the top of the order. He seems like a perfect lead-off man: gets on base a ton, is dangerous enough to punish a pitcher who tries to groove one as a "get by" pitch, and has good speed and quality base-running skills. He's been successful swiping bases in the minors and should get more of a green light this season, IMHO. If he doesn't get 10+ steals, then something is amiss. Castro will run free again, for sure. Lewis and Buxton both have the ability for it and the speed, it's just the injury concerns. I feel like neither will run much in the first couple of weeks, but if their knees are feeling good once the season has started they might get a few more opportunities. If Gordon sticks, it would be interesting to see if he can do more swiping bases with the changed rules; he hasn't been that great at it (but not bad either) and if he could do a little more while being more efficient it would certainly help his status as a role player. Martin certainly should be seen as a threat if he makes the club. It would be nice for the Twins to be a bigger threat on the bases, and this year they are better equipped for it than in the past. 2021 & 2022 teams didn't steal much, but who on those teams were you really excited to see try more? I mean, Kepler is a good baserunner, generally...but I don't exactly want to green light him.
  2. jmlease1
    What "blah attitude"? He's been perfectly fine, seems like a good due, and dealt with Farmer ragging him all season without losing it and instead just improved in the field. This reminds me of the days when people thought Torii Hunter was better than Joe Mauer because Hunter was "fiery". I say no to trading either of them; there's no roster issue that says we really need to move one of them right now. I think Polanco is going to get moved, which means there's even less of a roster issue. Julien destroys righties, gets on base a ton and this season I expect him to get unleashed more on the bases. (we'll see if he does better against lefties/gets more run against them) Lee is going to fight his way on to the team sooner rather than later, and that's also just fine. There's plenty of PT at 1B, 2B, 3B and DH for this team to fit Lewis, Julien, Lee, and Kirilloff in (along with maybe Miranda) for the next few seasons while they're all still pretty cheap. Make the decisions when their arbitration numbers start to jump and the team control is running lower. Not to say they are untouchable; if you get a deal for starting pitching for multiple years it might be worth it. But don't dangle them for anything less than star returns and certainly not for any rentals.
  3. jmlease1
    2023 Matt Wallner had an OPS+ of 139. (2021 Miranda was still in the minors, but had a massive season.) Brooks Lee coming up and dropping an OPS+ of 140 or better would be rookie of the year stuff. I think people forget just how good Wallner was at the plate in 2023.
  4. jmlease1
    I think we can pump the brakes on anyone needing to leave the infield: Royce is locked in at 3B as long as he stays healthy, same with Correa. Lee can slide in at 2B and Julien can shift to either DH or 1B, or Lee can spend his first season or so as a super-utility guy who takes all the innings we've been giving to someone like Farmer and play some SS, 3B, and 2B as well as DHing occasionally to get his bat in the game. There's not really that much of a numbers problem going forward, because there seems to be little chance Polanco will be here in 2025 (if not 2024) and a similar issue is cooking with Farmer. And once Julien, Lewis, and Lee are all in MLB it's not like we have a bunch of can't miss prospects hot on their heels (our best ones at that point are OFs like Rodriguez, Rosario, and Jenkins). But even if someone does make a big leap...that's the problem I want to have. Injuries will happen, so Brooks Lee is likely to get some time. Kinda hope everyone is playing well enough and is healthy enough that we don't need him until June/July.
  5. jmlease1
    I think the odds are good we'll see all of these guys in MLB at some point except for Rodriguez and Lewis. Injuries will happen, and even a couple of relatively minors ones at the same time can have you digging in to the minors pretty quickly. I tend to agree there's a good chance Martin will get an early chance in CF, and he's a fine choice defensively for the OF (with ability to step on the dirt in a pinch). I think his on-base skills will translate quickly even if we don't really know what kind of hitter he's going to be out the gate. but I do think the Twins might be comfortable with Castro and Gordon as options in CF behind Buxton, especially if Buxton starts the season with the team confident that he can actually play field from the jump. Rodriguez and Lewis are both very interesting prospects with very different paths, but i don't see the Twins jumping E-Rod to MLB this season unless they have a major need in the corners that they can't fill another way and he's showing better contact skills and less passivity at the plate while still hammering the ball and taking walks. Lewis is interesting, and as a college pitcher he's probably a little more mature (mentally and physically), but he's still behind Festa, Woods Richardson, and Brent Headrick as call-up options to start a game, and I think there's a real likelihood the Twins will add a starter to the MLB rotation and push Varland down as well, so the team would have to start reaching deep like the bad injury/ineffectiveness years to need Lewis in 2024. And I think we're stronger than that now.
  6. jmlease1
    bWAR also counts defense, they just seem to frame it differently.
  7. jmlease1
    double-post
  8. 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.
  9. jmlease1
    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?
  10. jmlease1
    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.
  11. jmlease1
    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.
  12. jmlease1
    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)
  13. jmlease1
    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".
  14. jmlease1
    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.
  15. jmlease1
    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.
  16. jmlease1
    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.
  17. jmlease1
    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.
  18. jmlease1
    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.
  19. jmlease1
    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.
  20. jmlease1
    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.
  21. jmlease1
    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.
  22. jmlease1
    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.
  23. jmlease1
    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.
  24. jmlease1
    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.
  25. jmlease1
    Pretty tough considering how young these guys are. But hope springs eternal when it comes to prospects
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