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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    Congrats to Ben Ross on promotion. Nice reward for his impressive start. Hope he can keep the bat going in Saint Paul, because the glove is excellent. Be interesting to see how they divide up the infield innings with him in the mix and whether someone will get moved? Very impressive start to the season for Mercedes. Might be looking at a promotion of his own soon. Like seeing Houston get the double in there; his ability to crack a few xbhs in there will be important to his progress at the plate. He's on a very nice track so far, and if he stays near this then he's in AA midseason at the latest. Amick is doing ok after that nightmare in the AFL, but he may be selling out a little too much for the homers. Like to see him making more contact, show a little more patience.
  2. jmlease1
    Twins did accept who Martin was? They tried some things with him in the minors and when it wasn't really working he went back to his old swing and approach. Seems fine? Marek Houston will be a massive success with his glove if he can put up a .360-.380 OBP in MLB. Notably, there's only 2 Twins on the 26-man right now who are doing just that, so I think we have to recognize that bar is fairly high. The kind of slash line you're setting as the goal for Houston is basically where Martin was last season, so if he does it at a premium defensive position, it'll be great. He's looking good in Cedar Rapids so far, but had a real hiccup when he was promoted last season, and it was fair to wonder what his bat would do. Part of the concern with Martin was whether that kind of profile would be sustainable when you're playing LF, where it's harder to add the same defensive value, and Martin has occasionally looked...wobbly out there. And again: if the comp is Rod freakin' Carew, can we all just remember that you're comping someone against a no-doubt, first ballot Hall of Famer? (and notably, in Rod's best seasons, he was hitting 30 doubles and 10+ triples too: it wasn't all just slapping a single through the hole) Guys that hit .280 these days aren't easy to find. It'd be awesome if Houston ends up with Martin's profile as a hitter, but Martin is a bit of a rarity these days (and for good reason: it's hard to do it)
  3. jmlease1
    Martin has done great. Would like to see him be a more impactful runner (more steals, less running into outs) but you have to love how he's just getting himself on base. I felt like he had a bit of a breakout last season and was heading in the right direction, and so far he's confirmed it. He's a very tough out right now, and I'm here for it. With Keaschall struggling so much, I have to wonder if we might see him drop in at 2B to get his bat in the lineup?
  4. jmlease1
    He has been coming in hot, maybe they've found something there. I understand why they're looking at him for a multi-inning role right now (calling the bullpen "thin" is generous, and the starting pitching depth is being tested with the loss of Abel) but I will be interested to see if they start transitioning him to more of a 1-2 inning practice and throwing more often? We need guys with more upside and velocity in there, and Morris might be suited to the gig.
  5. jmlease1
    Tait seems to be warming up. He's still so young, so it's great to see him finding some success at the plate. Salas is finally finding some success as a hitter...is he also finding a position at 1B? Not sure what is future is, but he's making me curious with this solid start. Mercedes off to a very nice start as well. It's a pretty small sample though so let's give him another 10-15 games before we get too hyped, but good to see success for him as well.
  6. jmlease1
    Bad time for Ryan to turn in a stinker. I was worried about this series; the Mets have too much talent to have been this bad, and the epic losing streak was going to come to an end soon... Twins were really good early in the season hitting with runners in scoring position. Feels like we're regressing back to the mean, And even with Keaschall moving down in the lineup...when you're struggling, things find you. Instead of getting that big hit in the first to crack the game open, it was a harmless fly ball. Hard not to be concerned about that .508 OPS Austin Martin has been a real bright spot. Dude just gets himself on base. Eventually, that's going to slide back (you simply can't expect an OBP of .515; that's crazy Barry Bonds stuff) at least some, but he's doing a great job battling at the plate, working walks, and getting hits.
  7. jmlease1
    Rotten news about Ellwanger. He'd had a really nice start to his pro career and you could see why they drafted him. Hope it's actually just a sprain, but hard not to fear it's much worse and that he'll be looking at surgery. Twins just don't seem to have a lot of good injury luck with prospects. I know it's tempting to push Quick up, but I think it makes more sense to start stretching him out in Ft. Myers rather than do it in Cedar Rapids. He's looking dominant, but he's also still only throw 8 innings over 3 starts. Considering he only threw 87 total college innings (over 3 seasons), we have to be a little cautious here. But he's got the frame and talent to be terrific. Build him up, maybe promote him at midseason, but I think next season might be the one where he rises super fast and jumps multiple levels in a year. Like what we're seeing from some of the Wichita bats. Not really sure what the Twins think of Rosario, but he's come out of his cold start faster than last season and looks pretty locked in. Getting Mendez a good amount of time at 1B makes sense, but there is a weird little logjam there. As long as he's in the lineup I'm happy. Houston is having the kind of season I was hoping he'd have but wasn't sure he would. (so far) It's a long season to go, but he's making good contact, taking some walks, and occasionally punishing a ball. I don't think he needs to become a 20 homer guy, just keep ripping the occasional double or dinger here and there so pitchers can't get away with lobbing one in when behind in the count. Hope he keeps this up!
  8. jmlease1
    Solid enough start for Prielipp, which is nice to see. Tough to not be able to get through 5, though. Can't blame Twins management for pulling him; MLB debut probably isn't the right time to have someone throw 100 pitches for the first time in their pro career? Finishing off MLB hitters is harder than the minors by a lot and it's something Prielipp needs to work on. Too many 8 pitch AB's. But he's got the stuff to get there, and Twins should feel ok about him filling in for Abel. I liked seeing him finish 13-17 on first pitch strikes. Offense needs to do better; not enough baserunners last night, and not enough hitting when we had runners on. Keaschall is definitely scrabbling. Buxton, Martin, and Bell (maybe Larnach; he's been great but hasn't gotten to play a lot) are the only guys you can really count on right now and that's not enough.
  9. jmlease1
    Well, Kepler was also bad at hitting LHP in 2020 & 2021, and only ok (by the standards of a lefty, really) in 2022 or 2025. He was good against LHP in 2018, 2019, 2023, and 2024...but was also still facing relatively small numbers.
  10. jmlease1
    I didn't think he looked too bad against the Mets last night; the homer was unfortunate and the worst pitch he threw. But it did look like he was struggling to find the splitter, and was spiking it enough that it was easy to lay off. He's been disappointing so far, but he's also earned more rope.
  11. jmlease1
    Well, teams like the '91 Twins didn't have a lot of LH bats and if you think the Twins back then didn't platoon guys then I suggest you examine Mike Pagliarulo's splits from that season. Hrbek was the only LH bat to start basically every day, and he hit LHP pretty well over his career. late 2000's Twins had a lot more LH bats, but guys like Mauer & Morneau, while significantly worse against LHP could still handle it, and even someone like Span wasn't getting torched like our LH bats are right now. '87 Twins didn't have many LH bats, much like '91. It's a lot easier to just write in the same names every day when you're starting off with a bunch of righties. Bomba Squad? Well, that's the season Rosario was actually good against LH pitchers and so was Kepler. Outliers the both of them. How well did it work the rest of the time running Kepler out against LHP (hint: not so good). I think the issue is less about increased playing time for Austin Martin and more about having more and better RH bats on the roster period. It's about having more good hitters on the roster, and fewer guys with serious limitations. Caratini has pretty neutral splits, but he's only a "good for a catcher" hitter. Bell has fairly neutral splits and rightly should play every day...but is a poor defender at 1B. Clemens, Larnach, and Wallner all really struggle against LHP and it's not likely to change. If you want to give more ABs to Martin over Wallner, who is definitely struggling at the plate period, you certainly can, I guess?
  12. jmlease1
    The talent has never been in question, only the health. He seems to be staying healthy and feeling good and now is showing he can string together starter's innings. If he flunks out as a starter there's still plenty of time to shift him into the bullpen, but if he translates to MLB like we hope...it'll be a big bonus to the rotation. We've missed not having a LHP in the rotation recently, and it would be great to have one that's a power arm. Should be fun to see him make his first MLB start. Good luck to him.
  13. jmlease1
    Like seeing some homers from the boys in Saint Paul. Definitely hoping that Walker Jenkins is heating up. I'm not really worried about him, but it would be great to see the result match the peripherals. Maybe a couple of hits gets DeBarge going. He's been scrabbling lately with not much contact. Same for Quentin Young, who hasn't been hitting much to start his pro career.
  14. jmlease1
    McLean was really destroying the Twins early. Nice to see them claw out of it and give themselves a chance. It was looking pretty bad when he rolled over the first time through the lineup with 7 K's. A good job clawing their way back in it. Would have liked a couple more insurance runs in the 9th; wasn't great to see Lewis, Lee, and Buck all K after chasing their closer...by chasing pitches out of the zone, when the rally was built by being patient. But contact was hard to come by for the Twins last night. Good to see the bullpen effective after struggling against the Reds. Weather looked uncomfortable out there.
  15. jmlease1
    I know the phrase "pitching pipeline" is much mocked around here, but literally no one who was serious about the concept ever suggested it only involved the draft and developing the players you selected in the draft. Rojas is as much of the "pitching pipeline" for the Twins as anyone. It was always about filling up the organization with as much pitching talent as possible at every level, including AA and AAA. Who cares that we grabbed him (essentially from AA) from Toronto and put him into our development program? Twins rotation is, quite frankly, showing out this design quite clearly: Pablo was acquired as a major leaguer, Ryan from AAA, Ober was drafted and development by the Twins, SWR was acquired while at AA, Bradley was bouncing from AAA to MLB and hadn't established himself, Abel had just barely debuted in MLB, Matthews was drafted by the Twins, Festa was drafted by the Twins, Prielipp was drafted by the Twins, Morris was drafted by the Twins. It was never supposed to be just draft & develop. And until a pitcher has established themselves in MLB, they're still a prospect. Especially since making the leap from AAA (or anywhere) to MLB is absolutely the hardest developmental step to make.
  16. jmlease1
    +1000 for the excellent Dire Straits reference.
  17. jmlease1
    well, people do like finding as many reasons as possible to crap on the former Twins President...
  18. jmlease1
    Sure, but Gagne also had a career OPS in the minors of .738 in an era when shortstops were expected to hit their weight, and the only season he had an OPS+ of under 73 in MLB was his rookie year. A few more walks per season and Gagne could have ended up a lot closer to league average (those seasons where he had an OBP of around .280 really hurt). Houston is off to a solid enough start in Cedar Rapids, and I'm happy to see he's not getting overwhelmed like he looks in a brief stint last season. But the bat will define whether he's an occasional backup or something more. Keep in mind, Ryan Kreidler has a career minor league OPS of .744, can really defend at a bunch of different MLB positions, and has never charted more than 35 games in MLB in a season so far. I'm rooting for Houston, but it's really hard to make it in MLB if you're all-glove no-hit. I'd like to see more as a hitter from Houston before I start making noises about him being a top 100 prospect.
  19. jmlease1
    Happy to see the prospect bats in Saint Paul generally all have good days. Hopefully they really get rolling and force the MLB club to make some hard choices. Kala'i Rosario seems to have gotten himself together after an icy start; first 7 games: 2-27 with no xbhs and only 2 BBs. next 7 games: 8-24 with 3 xbh (all homers) and 5 BBs. Hopefully the cold start is over and he's settled in. I still don't know if he has enough to make it, but I still find him intriguing, especially now that's he's consistently swiping bases and trying to add things to his game. I mean, we need more RH bats and all and his power is real. He's correctly dropped out of the top 20 prospect lists, but I'm still keeping an eye on him.
  20. jmlease1
    I mean, I'm not aware of any elbow problem with Abel so this is just more horrible luck. This just sucks. Was really exciting to see Abel starting to figure it out and look like a guy that could be a real piece to the puzzle. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll calm down after a few days and he start feeling better, and MRIs will show there's no structural damage...but Twins have not exactly had that kind of luck with anything injury-related for, I dunno...20 years? Guess we know exactly why both Rojas AND Prielipp are going to NY...
  21. jmlease1
    I hope you're very very wrong. He's a talented kid and the speed should help him steal an extra hit or 3 while he's figuring it out at least. And he's not doing a terrible job at taking walks when they come to him at least? But he's definitely in a significant slump and had some rough ABs in that last series.
  22. jmlease1
    Rojas isn't really an option to start right now anyways, since he's still ramping up after an injury. Having him in the 'pen with Funderburk on paternity leave isn't going to torpedo anything and giving him and Prielipp a taste of an MLB road trip in May is fine. Rojas will be back in Saint Paul ramping up as a starter in a week and Prielipp will as well. In case you missed it, the rotation has been fine (with the exception of SWR) and they're not going to be looking to make a change there in April, especially with everyone healthy so far. With Ober finding ways to be effective at lower velocity and SWR deserving more rope to find himself the rotation depth isn't going to be tested yet. The bigger issue is we simply don't have enough HP in the bullpen. Need to find some additional help there so we don't throw away more winnable games, like the miserable Reds series.
  23. jmlease1
    The starting pitching is still holding up its end of the bargain (SWR is the only one who hasn't put it together yet) but the offense is starting to wobble and the bullpen is coughing it up. (the defense is poor, but it was also expected to be poor, so...situation normal?) Hopefully the reinforcements make a difference, because the Twins need some higher octane arms in the bullpen. Frustrating to see good starting pitching jobs not get backed up by enough offense or decent bullpen performances. Coughing up a lead 2 games in a row is disheartening and not getting any offense for Ryan was very disappointing. Nice to see homers coming from a wide variety of the lineup, but Kaschall and Wallner need to get on track. Not sure what's going on with keaschall, but he's really struggled. 4-21 with no walks and 1 xbh over the past 5 games isn't going to cut it, especially since he's still not up to par on D. Hopefully the day off and maybe a run of not seeing 824 LHPs will make a difference for Wallner, but he's shown that expecting him to endure the LHP parade isn't helping anyone. Maybe spread the pain around a little.
  24. jmlease1
    Good for Ben Ross! I'd say the only reason he's not getting an early call up to Saint Paul is they don't have anywhere for him to play right now; you don't want to take playing time away from Culpepper, and it's reasonable to want to hang on to Arcia for a while longer if there's a need for another infielder in MLB right now. But he's making a damn good argument for promotion and you love to see it. Of course, he's never hit like this before, so it's also fair to see how much he can keep it up. Houston seems to be settling in pretty well at Cedar Rapids. I'm happy to see him hitting. (He's oddly been terrible against LHP this season, but I'm guessing it's just small sample size noise) Hope it's nothing serious with Roden. I'd like to see him get another opportunity in MLB; he seems to have little left to prove in AAA. Cory Lewis can't catch a break it seems. He was a fun story a couple of years ago and had shoved his way into the team's plans as a starter, and it's all fallen apart for him. Rotten year last year and struggling to get healthy. Dang. Hope he can get healthy, get back on the mound and find himself again.
  25. jmlease1
    I mean, this best argument for this is it would mean the Twins are no longer tethered to Outman and might add some roster flexibility in that last slot to respond to team needs. Kreidler probably still can't hit, but since neither can Outman, at least Kreidler is right handed and might run into one. But the Twins might also be more willing to punt Kreidler back off the 26-man if he has a month where he can't land a hit, even in a limited role and give someone else a chance. You have to assume the Twins aren't going to keep facing LH starters 50% of the time the rest of the season, but swapping a terrible LH bat that you never want to start for a poor RH bat that can play more positions is probably the right move. It's a marginal move, but when you're not a great team every positive you can get out of a marginal move adds up to elevate the floor. I have little expectations of Kreidler (the homers might be the high point for him already) but there's no sign that Outman has any idea what to do at the plate nor that the Twins trust him to figure it out with more playing time, so what's he doing here? If they're not going to call up Roden, Fedko, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, or Jenkins yet (and to be fair, only Roden & Rodriguez have shown they deserve a shot to date) probably because it is such a limited role...why not Kreidler?
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