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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    It's an interesting group. I'm interested in knowing more about why the wide range between where FanGraphs is ranking Strotman vs MLB/Twins Daily; is it based on the assessment of talent in the system or on Strotman himself? I think Strotman is a really interesting prospect, but he probably has the widest range of outcomes of anyone on this list, Celestino got called up way too early, but I still like his potential. Hopefully he finishes strong in AAA (which is where he should have been all along) and gets his confidence back up as a hitter. He's a solid defender and should be a factor soon. (Really interesting that he bats right and throws left?) Winder is a guy I just want healthy and pitching. I know they're being cautious with him, and they should since he didn't pitch last year, but everything looks to be heading in the right direction if he stays healthy. He needs innings. But the results look great, and if he's the 11th prospect on your list...that's a pretty exciting top 10.
  2. jmlease1
    I would have thought Moran would get the call up from Saint Paul, not some 35 year-old retread? I wonder, after getting his brains beat in by MLB pitching when he was called up before being ready due to way too many injuries, Celestino went down to Saint Paul and thought, "this is easy!". (Rortvedt may have had similar feelings...)
  3. jmlease1
    Jax pitched quite well tonight, but you kinda saw the extremes with him and just how fine and on it he needs to be to have success at this level. When he's hitting his spots, moving the ball around well, mixing his pitches effectively, not giving up cheap walks, and finishing off batters...he's very effective. When he slips a little, a mistake can/will get crushed. He's giving up way too many dingers for my liking right now (2.4/9 is not a very good number) but if he can get that under control, he's a contender for the 5th spot next year. I'm happier if he's thought of as more the 7th-8th starter going into next season (knowing we'll need to go at least that far in even if we're relatively healthy), but he's doing well with his opportunity and should keep starting the rest of the year to see how deep he can go into games and if MLB hitter figure him out, or if he's able to make adjustments to be more effective. It was a solid start last night and it looked like he was working well with garver (Smalley commented on it several times)
  4. jmlease1
    i think that's probably right on Rooker. I would not have ranked him this high; while his power is spectacular, his inability to make consistent contact (and he's not some young kid any longer) severely limits his ceiling. He looks like a worse version of Miguel Sano at the plate with less defensive utility. that's...not great. Maybe he'll prove me wrong. (I love being wrong like that) Sands is really interesting; the numbers look good but I'd be happier if he were handling a bigger workload. It doesn't matter much how great your stuff is if you can't stay on the field, but he's developing well and hopefully finishes the year strong. Urbina is tough to rank. The performance isn't there, but he's super young and it's his first year in professional ball in the US. The tools are good...will it translate? Talented but too early to tell.
  5. jmlease1
    I think I'd have Nick Gordon lower, if I had him on the list at all; while he may technically qualify as a prospect, I don't think I really see him that way any longer. He's a utility guy who we're figuring out if he'll hit enough in MLB and defend at enough positions to stick on a roster now. Vallimont is placed about right. Totally agree with the variance on him. Until he learns to command his pitches, he's going to be enormously frustrating. (we should try to remember that as much as his performances might cause us to tear our our hair...imagine being him? Going from mowing guys down to walking the side? Oof.) The stuff is amazing though and you can't cut bait on him. Varland is a heck of a story and the performance is there. Looking forward to seeing how he does as he advances in level; that's going to be the key on him. Some guys dominate in A-ball through stuff, some through an advanced approach and it doesn't always hold up against more developed hitters. The jump to AA can be perilous, but I'm rooting for him. Sabato deserved to get pushed down, way down. Great, he can draw walks in A-ball, but he was a college hitter with a good eye so he damn well better be able to draw walks on some of the wildness you typically see down there. He's swinging through too many pitches and not doing near enough damage when he connects. He's a staggering disappointment. Maybe he'll bounce back next year and we'll see this as a recovery year for him to redevelop his skills, but he's on the fast track for Bust Town right now.
  6. jmlease1
    Miranda isn't a SS except in an emergency, I think. It'll be interesting to see where Martin lands, but I don't think there should be anything that blocks Palacios from a promotion to AAA. Considering where this season is at, I think you can either bench or cut Riddle and give Palacios a chance in AAA to see if he's a 40-man guy for next year. But as he is right now, you have to keep him on the 40-man or lose him in the Rule 5. there will be a team that isn't competing next season that will be willing to take a flyer on a young guy who might be able to stick at SS coming off a good season at AA. C, SS, CF are where the risks are for position players in the Rule 5, along with pitchers that you could stash in the bullpen.
  7. jmlease1
    Glad to see Canterino on the mound again. I just want the pitchers on the prospect list to be pitching at this point. Hoping for health! Sands had a nice start. He's an interesting prospect and I'm hoping he finishes strong. Austin Martin is a terrific hitter and an absolute on-base machine. I think he'll add back in the power (it's not like he didn't show it in college; you don't get a slugging % north of .600 by accident, even with aluminum bats) as he gets more comfortable in professional baseball and gets healthy. But I do love having a guy in the system who controls the strike zone this well already; it will serve him well as he progresses.
  8. jmlease1
    Moran is exciting. It's really fun to watch a pitcher with a great change up. His ranking is limited by his status as a reliever, but he's the guy I'm most interested in with this pod of prospects. I don't think he'll stay on the list long: I expect to see him in MLB this year and to be a relief option from the jump next year.
  9. jmlease1
    Thank god none of the people here ready to give up on Trevor Larnach work in our front office. He's hit at every level until now, and was rushed up sooner than planned. Giving up on Larnach already is one of the worst takes I've seen on this site all season.
  10. jmlease1
    Not that simple. Palacios was awful at AA in the Rays system, so it's not like he had nothing to prove. He's been playing very well and may have rehabbed his status as an actual prospect and not a bust, but he's not ruining baseballs the way Jose Miranda was. Nick Gordon is back at AAA because he wasn't great in MLB, and the Twins got an actual CF healthy. Gordon isn't really blocking anyone at SS in AAA; if anyone is doing that it's JT Riddle, who has no future with the team. For all that Andrelton Simmons is awful at the plate, he's still a superior defensive player and there's something to be said for having some basic competence in the field at the MLB level, especially when you're testing young pitchers.
  11. jmlease1
    Austin Martin is off to an excellent start at Wichita. only a handful of games, but he hasn't missed a beat since being traded and looks terrific at the plate so far. Let's hope he can keep slashing doubles and constantly getting on base and finish the year strong. Trey Cabbage has done very well since his promotion: always good to see a player keep the same level of production when they bounce up to better competition. But his K rate worries me a bit? It's much more sustainable if he's slugging .500+ than down around .400, though.
  12. jmlease1
    seriously. that's easily the worst part of the development process this year: how many top pitchers are injured/not pitching. Makes it harder to feel any confidence in immediate help coming through from some of these guys for the MLB squad if they're not pitching after a 2020 where they didn't pitch in competitive games (and in some cases didn't pitch at all). They're not wrong when they say the best ability is availability.
  13. jmlease1
    I love seeing the Astros lose. Bunch of cheatin' bastards.
  14. jmlease1
    I'm for dealing some of these guys if it nets us Trevor Story, whom we sign to a nice extension. But I still have hope that we come to an agreement on Buxton. Dealing Donaldson is mostly about opening up 3B for Miranda while shedding his contract for me. Kepler, ah Max Kepler. I like him a lot. But 2019 is looking like a Brady Anderson anomaly year to me, and I do think Larnach & Kirilloff are going to be able to provide the lefty pop in the corners, so if Buxton doesn't go I think you can explore moving Kepler. But I'm not sure how interested the twins are in that one and might like him as the 4th OF?
  15. jmlease1
    Good to see celestino & rortvedt having success at the plate in AAA. we knew both of them probably weren't ready and only came up because of the plethora of injuries, so it's good to see them playing well at the level they really should have been at most of the year. Hopefully it continues and they can settle in with a good approach at the plate that will be productive in their next stint in MLB. Both have enough defensive upside that they'll be good assets if they can hit even a little, Miranda's amazing. His breakout might be the best argument for eating some of Josh Donaldson's salary in a deal in the off-season. Good 2 hit night for Martin, who I like a lot. Looking forward to watching him settle in at AA and get on base basically all day. I suspect they'll do any tinkering with his swing in the off-season (make sure he gets healthy from the hand injury), but I'm not opposed to seeing him control the zone and hit a bajillion singles in his first season in professional baseball at AA. I think rankings that are dropping him fast because they haven't seen power production in half a season of pro baseball are making a mistake and I'm happy to have the Twins reap the benefits.
  16. jmlease1
    Barnes started out well and it fell off quickly. Once he started missing his spots and needed to locate in the heart of the zone to get a strike...he was in trouble. But might as well keep running him out there so we can see if he's a AAAA player or a back-end option. He's left-handed, he throws a change-up, he's got a pulse...careers have been made on less.
  17. jmlease1
    Look, if Toronto is able to extend Berrios in the offseason at market rate (or less), then we'll know that either the FO botched this or was never serious about keeping Berrios. But I suspect that Toronto will be no more likely to extend Berrios than the Twins, absent a substantial overpay. Now...what constitutes an "overpay" for Berrios? YMMV. I think the market rate on him as a free agent is AAV of $25-28M with a term length of at least 5 years. (Wheeler is the floor; while Wheeler had been better than Berrios at the time of his FA, Berrios is younger and healthier, and the best ability is availability. but he's not going to get Cole money unless he wins the Cy next year) How many people want to give Jose Berrios 5 years and $150M? That might have gotten it done, but tell me it doesn't make your palms sweat.
  18. jmlease1
    They're buying low if you agree with FanGraphs downgrade on Martin, I guess? the Twins FO doesn't seem too concerned about his power production this year (he may have adjusted his swing to compensate for a hand injury) and they're right that it's a lot easier to add power to a guy with high bat skills and great control of the strike zone than it is to add average and contact to a player with big power. Small tweaks in elevating his swing, pulling the ball more, using his legs better, adding muscle, etc are all thing that could add additional pop to his bat. I heard on Gleeman & the Geek the comp of "Shannon Stewart with more walks" right now. That would be a pretty nice player, as Shannon Stewart was a borderline all-star a couple of times and a quality starter for the better part of a decade. add in more walks and you have a player who is a multiple all-star and a building block for your team. I really didn't expect the twins to get a player of this quality and a high-upside pitcher for Berrios, which was part of my resistance to trading him (the other part is I would have preferred to sign him long-term...but I'm increasingly of the belief that absent a substantial overpay the Twins had no shot of extending him. I think the same is true for Toronto: I believe Berrios is serious about wanting to be a free agent and see what happens.) Martin is really good as a player. They'll find a position for him defensively; this isn't a case of needing to stash him somewhere where he won't do any damage.
  19. jmlease1
    Lot of unknowns here, and I wouldn't expect much information from the twins staff on this issue (there's really no winning for them: if they say "look we didn't tell him to throw meatballs down the heart of the plate and that's what killed him" then they're going to get whacked for bashing a player, and if they say "we wanted to tweak his slider and have him throw it a bit more and he didn't change how he threw it all" then it's a he said/he said where they're talking past each other, etc). Like most, I'd say it looks like there's some shared blame. I'd weight it slightly more on Shoemaker: a) he's a veteran, b) if he didn't like the sequencing/selection it's not like he couldn't shake it off, and c) the heat maps show the anecdotal impression of him grooving a sinker in the heart of the plate sure is born out on the stats. I also discount the AAA performance to some degree: if a veteran MLB starter can't dominate AAA hitters, then he's either injured or cooked...
  20. jmlease1
    I looked at the recap of the Saints game and there was no Jose miranda 2+ hits reported and I was so confused surprised...and then saw he got the day off. lol. He's delightfully increased the expectations rather significantly. Vallimont is clearly struggling with his control, and this is the big concern with him. Hopefully they can find a way to get him going, whether it's a mental or physical change that needs to happen. the talent and stuff are there, but until the control comes along, he's going to hang in the minors.
  21. jmlease1
    I'm happy for Drew Maggi that he's having a hot month and a good year overall for the Saints...but I have trouble naming a 32 year old career minor leaguer Hitter of the Month. I know it's not a prospect ranking or anything, but still.
  22. jmlease1
    The stuff is clearly there with him; now it's all about refinement and command. The move to put him in AA after a year where he didn't get to pitch was an aggressive one by Toronto and I'm sure it's a big part of why his numbers have suffered. Looking at his game logs is interesting; he started a game on June 15th, struck out the side and left the game. I would presume he tweaked something? He didn't miss a start, but he's definitely struggled after that short game with some real stinkers in there. Makes you wonder if he hasn't been able to get comfortable out there and should have gotten shut down for a couple of starts? All speculative, but he was very effective until then and the BB/9 was pretty manageable. Prior to these rough 4 starts, he was keeping the ball in the park quite well too. Not a finished product, but the way he hunts Ks is impressive and he looks like he has the kind of pitch mix and stuff to be a top of the rotation starter if he can command his pitches effectively and consistently. Ton of potential at age 20. Hope he has a good time at the Olympics with Joe Ryan and they both come back ready to roll!
  23. jmlease1
    We'll see where Strotman ends up at the close of the year. They've got some work to do with him, but Ryan was the better piece in that trade to my mind. Looking forward to him joining after the Olympics. Palacios is a great story. He's getting a bit old for AA but has done a nice job in rebuilding his confidence at the plate after 2 very rough years in the TB system. Is he really a prospect or organizational depth? Probably still a little unclear, but he should contend for a spot on the 40 man and might be a nice INF option to have in AAA next year. Would love to know more about his defense?
  24. jmlease1
    I think the Twins did pretty well at the deadline. They did well in their trades of Berrios & Cruz, getting real value and quality players that are already playing and showing success at higher levels of the minors. They got rid of Happ, who had declined from being a solid pitcher in the first month or so of the season to a trash fire. The demerits are not moving Donaldson, Pineda, and Rogers (arguably Simmons too) but there are reasons for all of them, I think. We just don't know if there were good options for Donaldson that didn't require them eating far too much of the contract. He's still an excellent player when healthy and he's been pretty healthy this year so if they had to eat the rest of this year's salary (ok) and a big chunk of 2022 & 2023...then maybe not ok. Pineda is a guy they might be looking to keep to help anchor the rotation. Rogers was hurt and it probably tanked his value. Simmons is still a fine defender, but it didn't look like SS defense was an area of significant interest among contenders. I'd say they were slight winners by getting excellent value in the trades they made. It gets pulled back a little by not being able to make additional moves that seemed to make sense, but the net is still a positive for the Twins at the deadline. ESPN pegged them as losers...but most of that grade is influenced by the rotten season as a whole. That's fair, but looking at just the deadline moves, I'd say they "won" as much as you can when you're selling.
  25. jmlease1
    As noted by KLaw, the power drop this season can likely be attributed to a change in swing approach sparked by a hand injury. I'll worry about that if he keeps inside-outing his swing after getting fully healthy. (I've bashed FanGraphs a bit lately for downgrading Martin right now, but I think it's justified because they seem to be ignoring the injury to downgrade the player. In their write-up on Martin as part of the trade they again ignored the issue which I find baffling.) He's a really good player. Fits in a lot of different positions. Would love to see how he plays a short, since Lewis won't be ready in 2022 and Simmons might/won't be back and Polanco should stick at 2B rather that float him back to SS as anything other than an occasional fill-in. If Buxton gets dealt in the off-season (please no?) then CF sure seems like an option too. I'm enthusiastic about this guy and don't think he's far off at all.
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