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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    Continual health issues? He was injured last season, but healthy enough the previous 3 to play in 94%, 92%, and 94% of the Twins games. In 7 seasons he's missed significant time twice (I'm skipping his 2 "cup of coffee" seasons, but he was plenty healthy those years in the minors). i think you've got a little recency bias going on here. I like the twins plan for the DH spot: unless you have a Nelson Cruz who is a dominant hitter and has no defensive position, there's little gain to be had in slotting someone in there every day, and better chances of maximizing your lineup and roster if you move guys through there based on matchups, injuries, and rest needs.
  2. jmlease1
    well, Polanco was injured last season. The previous 3 years he played a full season. So I wouldn't put Polanco in the "perpetually injured" group yet. Most of this seems pretty normal to me. While I would love for every player to be 100% healthy, playing in spring training games to ease the Twins fan's psyche, it rarely goes that way: guys pick up nicks and strains and bruises in camp, and guys who are coming off surgery have setbacks. So far, it doesn't look like anything major (nobody is slated for another surgery, unlike with some teams). There seems to be a perception from some fans that the Twins are hiding something by not providing detailed schedules or something for each player and daily updates on whether each player is meeting some set of benchmarks to be ready for Opening Day, but the reality is there's zero benefit for the team and players by doing that. Whatever added support they might get by giving information-hungry fans something they crave right now would be wiped out the minute one player misses something or takes a day off from swinging and the finger-pointing begins and the same cadre of fans demanding total information starts screaming at them for lying. This stuff isn't linear, and setback will happen...and some of them are also going to be nothing more than a 1-day hiccup. Just remember what Vin Scully said: "He's listed as day-to-day, but aren't we all day-to-day?" I'm not panicking. Losing Polanco for extended time would stink; when healthy he's an all-star caliber player, our 3rd best position player. but if he misses a week or so in April it won't break us. Is Kirilloff going to break camp and go north? Maybe not, might need a little more time...but he also doesn't appear to having any kind of real setbacks, which is good news coming off a significant surgery. Nick Gordon rolled an ankle and people freaked out that he was going to miss a month and here we go again, blah blah blah injurycakes. he's already back. Everybody try to breathe.
  3. jmlease1
    The Wild & Wolves are an important part of this equation; having pro baseball, basketball, and hockey all on the same network made it more attractive to cable and satellite systems and positioned it to command a better rate. if that splits off? That influences streaming as well. Much easier to sell a streaming service that bring all three sports to the table than just one.
  4. jmlease1
    My point was less about the article than the comments, both on this article and elsewhere. They should be prepared for him to miss time, but solutions based on him missing months are premature, and solutions designed around him being hurt all season or no longer being a Twin seem foolish.
  5. jmlease1
    I'm really surprised at how many people seem ready to throw Kirilloff on the trash heap. When he was right (admittedly, hasn't happened for long enough) he was lashing line drives and really punishing the ball. He's a little behind schedule coming off a fairly radical and unusual procedure. That's not a massive deal: he's been swinging the bat and hasn't been shut down in spring training. He just might not be ready by Opening Day. So the most likely outcome is Gallo plays 1B against righties, Solano plays 1B against lefties, and Nick Gordon or Trevor Larnach slides in to LF against righties (and Gallo, who has relatively neutral splits, jumps back to the OF against lefties). That should be fine for a couple of weeks. There's nothing that says Kirilloff is going to need months, literally nothing, other than Twins fans assuming the worst must be true. I'm unenthusiastic about moving Miranda over; he wasn't great at 1B and would probably be best served to just slot in at 3B every day. It's waaaaay too early to look at making a deal for 1B, especially with the options the Twins have. Ed Julien is a player I like a lot, but he's never played above AA. Let's calm down a little. (Same with the people ready to drop Brooks Lee in the lineup already, a dude who has barely played at AA)
  6. jmlease1
    I think you're cherry-picking a little here, calling out his struggles in certain months and then using his aggregate in others to downplay his successes. Correa had a slow start, but he was great in May and June. His first half of the season the OPS was .803; the second half was .866. He had essentially 2 months where he struggled at the plate a bit and 4 months where he was good to great. Those august and september games absolutely mattered: the Twins were tied for the division lead on Sept 4th (BTW, Correa had a double and HR in a win against the ChiSox that day). Not his fault the injuries got to be insurmountable and we were starting guys like Jake Cave and Mark Contreras in the OF and Sandy Leon was catching. He did his best to carry the team offensively when everyone else was dropping like flies. I think Correa is going to have a very very good year. all-star quality. I expect the defensive stats to tick back up a bit (I think he's a player with a lot of pride and we know he looks at advanced stats) but I also think he's going to be damn good at the plate. I think the numbers will be pretty similar to last season, but with a bit more power behind it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he compiles an MVP caliber season. He's talented, driven, and focused. He's a really smart player who looks for flaws in his game and figures out how to eradicate them. And I think he'll want to stick it to SF & NY a little.
  7. jmlease1
    If Max Clark is the best player available at 5...sure. That's what I want from the Twins at this pick: best player available. Yes, there's some system needs at various positions, but with a top 5 pick I want them to take the best, most talented player available regardless of position. You can try to address system shortages in later rounds, but you should never reach for a player, or talk yourself into a player because you don't have much in the pipeline at that position.
  8. jmlease1
    assuming he continues taking walks like he normally does, anyways. but I agree: they'll happily pick up that option and either plug him in for another season or deal him because that number for a player of his age coming off a season that productive is worth that kind of money (also presuming the defense stays good)
  9. jmlease1
    It's very easy to say "trade him for a durable player", and much harder to actually to do it. There's now guarantees whomever we would get back in a Buxton deal would be any healthier. but we certainly won't get back anyone as talented, and frankly it's unlikely we'd get back anyone who provides as much overall value even with Buxton's limited games. Buxton put up 4 bWAR in 92 games...and definitely had stretches where he was struggling due to the knee even when he was playing. The hits will come for the Twins offense if they have average health instead of disastrous health, but even with last year's injury problems the Twins were MLB average in runs scored last season, 11th in hits, and 10th in walks. The offense died last season after everyone got hurt, not because of Buxton's batting average. i love Nick Gordon, but on no planet was he the Twins best hitting OF last season: his OPS+ was 117, and Buxton's was 135. he was healthier, not better. (the the problem with Kepler is he puts the ball in play too often with weak contact and doesn't barrel the ball up nearly often enough to make up for all those bounce outs to 2B) Our depth was tested last season and we failed, which is why we signed Gallo & Taylor. We literally started guys like Jake Cave and Mark Contreras in the OF last Sept. (along with Celestino, Wallner, Billy Hamilton...we churned through 12 OFs last season! 12! And that's without counting Royce Lewis' unlucky start. In 2019 it was like 8.)
  10. jmlease1
    the Kepler situation is complex. He's a fine defender in the corners and probably stretched at this point in CF, but the range and arm profile very well in RF for him to add value. But goodness he had a rotten year at the plate in so many ways. 2019 is looking very much like a fluke year, so any expectation that it's going to be repeated somehow (shift or no) should really be thrown in the trash. I think the baseball Savant numbers are very instructive: the max exit velocity shows that Kepler can absolutely crush a ball, but the Avg exit velocity, Hard-hit %, and Barrel % shows that he just didn't do it often enough. His K rates and BB rates are fine, but when he does actually swing at a pitch and make contact he's been too inconsistent in really driving ball and doing damage. Now, how much did the busted toe hurt Kepler even after he came back? Maybe being fully healthy plus the shift rules will help him enough to make him viable as a hitter, but I'm still concerned about his inability to make consistent hard contact. It was easy for fans to turn on Sano when he was piling up the Ks, but Kepler has been a less productive player on offense even with 500 additional ABs and Sano's last season being an utter catastrophe (12.3 Offensive bWAR vs 11.8 offensive bWAR) and took less crap for it, even though Kepler's career OPS+ is significantly less than Sano's. It may have been less irritating for some to watch Kepler bounce out to 2B, but it wasn't effective. Kepler was absolutely overwhelmed last season by fastballs, for the first time in several years. was that injury, or was that age slowing him down? he's going to have to show he can catch up to the heat and handle sliders in the zone, because I'd bet the early book on him is going to be "no slop". If he can't get it going again, I'm sure Wallner & Larnach would love a shot. Wallner has sort of the opposite problem of Kepler: he hammers what he hits, but might not connect enough. Is he Adam Dunn or a lefty Brent Rooker? Larnach is the better bet to me to follow on. He won't cover as much ground, but he's got a great arm for the corners and will get to more balls than people think. And healthy, Larnach can hit more consistently than either Kepler or wallner, I think.
  11. jmlease1
    I wouldn't think the ChiSox fanbase is feeling all that great about their offseason (other than dumping LaRussa). Clevinger is still under investigation, wasn't good last year, and has been healthy basically once in his career. Abreu was easily their 2nd best hitter last season and Benetendi seems unlikely to come anywhere near replacing that for a team that was below average on offense to begin with. Better health might make a difference with Jimenez, Robert, and Anderson but I wouldn't expect Grandal to play a lot more games at 34. But as much as their 2022 season was hurt by their injuries on offense, their pitching staff was pretty healthy overall. But already Hendriks is going to miss time (good luck to him on his fight), Clevinger might miss time (and based on his track record will miss time even if he's not suspended), Lynn is old enough that you always have to wonder and last season pitched fewer innings in any non-COVID year since he was a rookie. the depth looks thin, the system hasn't been super productive, and they're spending a lot of money on the bullpen when they need some help on offense. They were definitely a bit lucky last season (27-16 in 1 run games is part having a guy like Hendriks slamming the door, but it's also a little luck. They were outscored last season but finished .500 that also some luck) ZiPS and other projection systems are seeing this too.
  12. jmlease1
    Very interesting point, and I will admit, I completely missed this fact. For some reason Gallo has always seemed older to me in my head, maybe because Kepler signed with the twins so very very young.
  13. jmlease1
    Really good compilation of the rotations over the last 25 years. I might quibble a little with the rankings, but I'm not sure it makes that much difference if one is rated 11 or 13 and so forth. I would probably downgrade the 2020 group just because it requires an awful lot of projection to comp against the others, and injuries have wiped out so many other promising rotations before. The 2006 group feels like the greatest missed opportunity: Liriano was so electric before his elbow unraveled, Johan was dominant, and it felt like something special might be happening. (the team also had Joe Nathan at the peak of his powers with some good bullpen depth, Mauer & Morneau were rolling...Terry Ryan kinda failed this group, though as his veteran dumpster diving completely crapped out: batista, white, nevin, sierra...none of them worked.) oof, the 2012-2013 seasons were rough. what a terrible rotation! I like to think now we would have given Liam Hendriks a shot in the bullpen before giving up on him. but just a rotation bereft of talent. veteran retreads, no young guys stepping up...just a miserable experience. I'm amazed Glen Perkins had 36 games he could save! It'll be interesting to see where this year's crew ranks. they're very deep, which is not something you can really associate with many of these rotations over the last 25 years. There were definitely groups with higher top-end (Johan Santana at the peak of his powers was the best pitcher in baseball) but even with 2004 Lohse wasn't all that good as the 4th guy. (kind of amazing how healthy that rotation was, though! 4 guys started 135 games between them! they only used 8 guys total, only 6 of them threw more than 2 starts! Too bad that team couldn't hit; Mauer was hurt, Morneau wasn't ready, Gardy refused to platoon Jacque Jones, Kubel's knee exploded...)
  14. jmlease1
    While I'm fine with banning the shift (it's a little silly IMHO, but if it increases offense while reducing the whining then whatever) but I don't care for the "infielders must have their feet on the dirt" bit. Trading bloop hits to the OF for slow rollers in the infield seems like a wash to me. Let guys stand where they want if they're on the correct side of the base. It's really nice to not have to worry about SS in the near term. We've churned so many guys through at the spot in the last 20 years that it's great to have Correa locked in as the guy for a while. I expect the Twins will continue to draft "shortstops" every year and keep the flow of middle infielders flowing in the system. Hopefully one or more of them will be legit options defensively if and when Correa needs to slide down the defensive spectrum (with his arm, he'll be a fine 3B if it becomes necessary). I'm interested to see if Noah Miller will hit enough to make it, because so far he seems to be a legit defender there.
  15. jmlease1
    They don't. Gaetti's Gold Gloves don't exactly line up with his best seasons defensively but the stats show that he was excellent defensively in MN. It's a shame about Martin's injury: he's a talented guy and looked like he was figuring out his approach at the plate again, and had gotten himself healthy after a wrist injury and COVID. His AFL performance was overshadowed by Julien a bit, but he played very well and looked to be using that to launch into his season. It's a shame to have that interrupted again. Someone suggested if he has surgery that we leave him exposed to the Rule 5: that's a pretty bad idea, and I doubt it will happen. Another team, especially one that's rebuilding would snap him up in a heartbeat. They'd be able to stash him on the injured list for a chunk of the season, but even if they had to activate him he could be useful on a major league roster even if it was too early for him to be ready with his defense in the OF and flexibility to roam around. There's pretty much no chance the Twins will risk it.
  16. jmlease1
    I don't think there's much question that Lopez didn't have his head right during his time with the Twins last season, and that almost certainly impacted him. I don't expect him to be 1st half Balto dude, but if he's the average of the two halves he'll be a quality guy for the back end and I think that's very achievable. The Twin did buy high on him, but there also a real possibility that he can get back to a high level again. Making moves like that in the midseason are going to cost. I liked the aggression at the time and I'm not going to second-guess now because the season unraveled. It's also important to remember that it doesn't take much to balloon a reliever's stat line, especially in a sample as small as 23 games. As bad as the Cleveland game in Sept looks, he didn't blow the game: we were already down 3, and I like he bounced back after a garbage outing to have 5 straight good ones.
  17. jmlease1
    Yeah, Koskie (much like Plouffe) had some adventures early on at 3B. At least a few times where I joked to a friend, "Is he using a glove or a frying pan out there?" But Koskie really worked at it and could have won a Gold Glove if not for Eric Chavez. I think Miranda has the drive to be great that will improve his defense.
  18. jmlease1
    I think the biggest factor that brought down Park as a major league player was age. he was 29 when he first came to MLB, not 24. he'd been a star in his home country, but the pitching in the Korean league isn't up to MLB standard and he struggled with the sharper and faster breaking stuff. I think it's a lot harder to adjust when you're older, and when you're also trying to adjust to a foreign country in a place where there's not a huge Korean immigrant population, it's probably even harder. It's also important to remember that Park struck out a lot in Korea as well, it's not just that his K rate in MLB was was high: he rang up a lot of them in Korea against worse pitching. Throw in some injuries and just ok performance in AAA and he didn't make it back. i thought it was a good move at the time and I was excited to see the Twins taking some risks in the international market, but it didn't work out. I'm guessing the Twins have a lot better feel for evaluating Korean baseball now?
  19. jmlease1
    i think this is right. If you get a rash of OF injuries all at once and you need someone to fill in as a emergency, having a guy who is still right in his prime and has spent some time in the majors already sitting in AAA on a minor-league deal isn't a bad thing at all. he's not going to slot in ahead of Larnach or Wallner but gives you another option to keep the floor a little higher if disaster strikes. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Cave didn't show up until we got to disaster levels last season and while he didn't do great, he was professional and not horrible, so having a player for that type of role stashed in AAA seems good. Cave didn't take ABs away from Nick Gordon or Trevor Larnach last season like some people (including me) feared: he was the break glass in case of emergency OF...and we had to break the glass. Stevenson feels like a similar version.
  20. jmlease1
    I think there's a mischaracterization of why we gave Urshela 131 starts at 3B over locking Miranda in there. I'd say it's not because they didn't like Miranda at 3B, it's more because they didn't like Urshela anywhere but 3B. And they needed him in the lineup as one of the only healthy & consistent guys last year. but his lack of positional flexibility in the the Twins eyes (at least that's how it looks from my chair) is a big reason why they moved on from him and got Farmer, who can play a lot of different places. I was pro keeping Urshela, but I can understand how if he's shifting to a bench role and can only play 3B (or maybe 1B?) that he's much less attractive as a bench player. For all the preemptive moaning about how "bad" Miranda's defense is...it actually was pretty solid in his limited time at 3B last season. He struggled at 1B, a position he'd basically never played before and clearly was uncertain of his play out there, which definitely led to some poor play. But I think he's showed enough that he can be right around average at 3B, and playing there consistently (especially next to someone like Correa, who will help him on positioning) will likely help him out. The depth looks pretty good as well: Farmer or Solano shouldn't have any trouble backing up Miranda, though there would definitely be a drop-off offensively. Lee looks like the best fit to move in there from the system, so you hope there won't be a lengthy injury since Martin is out for a while (and his arm might not be the best fit there), Royce won't be back until midseason at least, and Julien has been pretty bad there when he's tried it and didn't play there at all last season. but there are a lot of options going forward for 3B. I think Miranda holds down 3B this year. It'll be fun watching Brooks Lee try to push him off it.
  21. jmlease1
    Good scouting can find players at D-II that can become quality prospects and team assets. Louie Varland seems to have worked out pretty well coming from D-II. They spotted a player they saw real upside in that they could sign below slot, freeing up money to sign another player above slot that might have stayed in school. Sounds like good business to me. Should be fun to see what kind of pro Ben Ross is going to be, and it'll be a nice feather for the scouting department if he grows into a serious prospect. A good athlete who has shown promise of a quality hit tool might be a guy you can turn into something. decent enough power numbers for the FSL in his first taste, so I'm interested in seeing what kind of player he is. wonder if he'll stick at SS?
  22. jmlease1
    Disagree, Nick: I don't think the 2B situation is very comparable to 1B. We have so many guys who can play 2B now and prospects who are close/ pushing as well that there's a reason we have people already getting ahead of our skis and talking about trading Polanco. (I do not favor dealing Polanco this season unless things completely implode by the trade deadline AND at least one of our prospects is begging for time) 1B we're sliding in guys because we think they can hit enough. 2B has real depth and strength. Polanco is the best 2B on our roster right now, but Farmer, Solano, Miranda, Gordon, Julien, Martin, Lewis, and Lee can all play there (admittedly, Martin & Lewis are not likely to be available any time soon). The MLB depth is strong, the system depth is strong and clear, and even if the Twins decide to move on from Polanco they're going to be in good shape at 2B. Jorge Polanco is still one of the best players on the Twins, so losing him for an extended period of time would hurt a lot. But that's what happens any time you lose one of your best players even when you have good depth. but this isn't a position where we'd be stretching someone to play there, quickly reaching down to AA to find a body, or asking someone to really learn the position on the fly. Hopefully the knee will not be a problem this season, but the Twins have a lot of strength at 2B built up and organizationally it's a strength.
  23. jmlease1
    It's not just the walks, though. His H/9 is a little too high for someone with that level of K ability as well. he doesn't need to get his BB/9 down to the 1-1.5 per 9 range, but he also can't be giving up 8+ hits per 9 either. The K/9 numbers are impressive, but he's got to get the other tools together. (WHIP does a lot of work to show a level of dominance from a pitcher, IMHO)
  24. jmlease1
    The K rate is really impressive, and if his velocity is really regularly sitting at mid-90's on the fastball, that's pretty nice for a lefty. The BB/9 is a bit concerning and he's going to need to bring that down to more like 2-3 and I'd like to see him be a little less hittable. He did a solid job of keeping the ball in the park and that's good, but I do like to look at the WHIP at this point to see where a pitcher is at, and even though he hunts up Ks brilliantly...a WHIP around 1.3-1.4 is not good enough. (for comparison, Joe Ryan never had a WHIP over 1.1 in the minors and had multiple seasons under 1.0) Talented guy, and he'll be interesting to follow this season, but he's got some work to do.
  25. jmlease1
    I'm guessing they see defensive value in Wallner's arm in the OF and are hoping that work on his fielding in the OF now will make him a more effective defender out there.
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