jmlease1

I love this deal for Twins fans. Byron Buxton will be in MN and not kicking butt for the Dodgers or the Mets or god only knows whom. If Buxton is happy with it, then that's great for him. It gives him life-changing, generational wealth, which is terrific. I don't care about whether it costs ownership; the Pohlads are doing fine and will always do fine. From a franchise perspective and being a team with more limits on payroll than some other teams, this is great too. Huge bonuses for MVP? Sure. If Byron Buxton wins an MVP, he'll deserve every penny of those multi-million bonuses and the club should be happy to pay it. I had assumed that the sticking point was escalators, not bonuses; if they were getting jammed up on stuff like this earlier in the summer then someone needs to give some wakeup calls to the FO, because good lord this is pretty ideal for the team. Sure, you don't have the same cost certainty when there could be a multi-million dollar bonus hanging out there, but a) if he wins it the revenues will probably be pretty strong, and b) you could simply escrow a year's potential bonus and wait on it if you're that concerned about payroll certainty. The PA bonuses are also ones that the team should be thrilled to pay, because if Buxton is on the field that much, then the potential $2.5M increase is worth it. Byron Buxton could be the best player in all of baseball and the most we'll have to pay him will be like $25M. And with the way it's structured, this is a deal that's going to age really well. But mostly, I'm just super happy that the most singularly exciting player in my Twins lifetime (and I'm not young) is staying with the team. Losing Byron Buxton because we wouldn't pay him a good, but under market contract would have been soul-crushing. He's one of our guys. We've seen him from the start, and there's something wonderfully joyous about having a player who combines such great skill with excitement and happiness be on your team for 10+ years of their career all the way from the start, and uniquely painful if they leave during their prime. Today is a great day for Twins fans.

Nathan has a good case, but it's tough on relievers, and Nathan has the extra whammy of overlapping with Rivera. I think Jaffe is doing a good job finding some good metrics to help evaluate relievers to separate the wheat from the chaff, though and it may help him out a little. I hope he gets enough to stick on the ballot and give people time to consider his case. I don't think he makes it any time soon.

pitching is also more likely to get snatched up in the Rule 5, though. Unless you play SS, CF, or C any team selecting a position player in the Rule 5 has to be pretty damn sure they will hit immediately, and those guys tend to get added (see Miranda, Jose) once they break out. Pitchers are easier to hide. You can take a starter who is still working on that 3rd pitch they need to make it in MLB and stash them in the bullpen.

Yep. Still small samples on all the pitchers, but all of them were sent down to the AFL with a "show us something" mandate, and Laweryson was the only one who really stepped up. The rest still have some work to do. I'm still nervous about Wallner's K rate because if he's racking up this many against lower competition then I'm nervous about his ability to eventually translate that power to MLB. (see also, Rooker, Brent) But he did a nice job in the AFL and deserves his top 20 prospect status. Looking forward to seeing how he does in AA

I think this is right: Enlow would have gotten grabbed up in the Rule 5 by a team who would have stashed him on the 60-day IL and paid him to rehab. It's a worthy flyer to take on someone with so much upside and an even easier pitching stash than most Rule 5 picks, because they wouldn't have needed to even use a slot on the 26-man because of his injury. They made the right call in protecting him, I think. He's going to hold a slot on the 40-man until the season gets going and we can shift him to the IL, but the talent is there and I'm not ready to give up on Enlow.

I just don't see it as a good fit any longer. I love Nellie Cruz and he was great while he was here, but they need to invest money in SS and starting pitching (and hopefully a new contract for Buxton), and they have hitters who could use time at DH (Donaldson, Arraez, Sano, Garver especially but even Rooker, Larnach, and Kirilloff could see time there). We're better off doing DH by committee at this point and putting the money elsewhere. $12M gets you another guy for the rotation. Or two experienced relievers. More importantly, another $12M allows you go go big on a guy like Marcus Stroman after he turns down the initial offer...

I would add Enlow (I think a bad/rebuilding team will take him, then stash him on the IL for a while and rehab him in the bullpen at the MLB level), and then the real questions are Vallimont (who has the stuff to compete in a bullpen role right now and the control to show new levels of hilarity in strange pitching lines) and Palacios (who plays a premier defensive position, might be able to survive as a utility guy on a bad team right now, and still has intriguing tools). I like Severino a lot, but I think Seth is right that he's not someone who could stick on an MLB roster right now, even a bad one. Hamilton is interesting...I could definitely see another team grabbing him; the real question is whether the twins think he's ready to step back into a bullpen role right now. If they're ready to commit to him, then you protect him. Otherwise, he's probably gone because a team will pay the $200K on him in the Rule V and if he flames out in the bullpen you can offer him back and it's fine either way: either you get 1/2 your money back on a guy who busted for you, or you can send him back to the minors to try and get right.

You make the calls, you get the credit when it works and the heat when it fails. The Berrios deal is making them look poor; I can understand the principle of not wanting to go 7 years on arms, but you can't apply blanket rules to anything in baseball. There are always exceptions to everything and the deal Berrios appears to have signed is one the Twins should have been willing to do. they got a good return on him in trade, but if Martin & Woods-Richardson don't pan out, then it's meaningless. The Buxton one is making them look even worse, because it sounds like they really are trying to low ball him and find an excuse to deal him, and that's not going to sit well with the fanbase, nor should it. If feeling some heat on this causes them to get a deal done...good.

I'm much more interested in dealing a couple of A-ball lottery tickets than I am someone like Larnach, since this is for a player with only 1 year left under contract, no matter how good the rate. Larnach may have had a difficult first season, but he's still very talented with many more years of control, and I don't think I have much interest in trading a near-MLB ready corner OF for 1 year of a starter who has been quite good recently but didn't become a regular starter in the majors until he was 30. He's a quality pitcher and if Oakland would take Strotman and a couple of lottery ticket A-ball guys, I'd be interested. Sign Stroman, trade for Bassitt, re-sign Pineda and the rotation looks pretty good all of a sudden, and so does the team if they can fill in SS. But I still like Larnach a lot, and I'm unenthusiastic about giving him up for what might be a 1-year rental.

I would be happy if we got Stroman at around this number. He'd be a very good fit at the top of the rotation, and while he may not be the flamethrower some people want, it's not like he doesn't get Ks. His FIP is consistently good and if we put a solid D behind him he's going to do very well. When stroman keeps the ball in the park (which he generally does) and doesn't issue too many free passes, he's terrific and I want him.

Wallner is doing exactly what is expected of him, which is good. He still needs to find a way to keep his K's manageable as he advances in the system, but he's showing he can definitely do damage when he makes contact and has a good eye at the plate. I expect a prospect of his age and ability to rake a bit in the AFL, but it's still good to see it. The pitchers are all a little hard to evaluate because it's such small sample sizes with them. One bad inning can blow up a lot of their numbers and it take more innings than they're going to get to bring things back down. Laweryson still seems like he might be a guy and the AFL all-star nod helps his case. Sisk seems to be finding his command and has been much improved, and Funderburk is definitely improved as well. Featherstone...maybe he can play wide receiver. Disappointed in the position guys outside of Wallner; none of them are hitting enough to impress, and it feels like their relative lack of playing time shows a little what people think of them as well.

You've gone from saying "his defense needs lots of work" and he should be traded for it to it's "sub-par". sub-par in Jeffers' case means he's a bit below average (by some metrics). He's far from the Butcher of Cairo back there and has a bright future as a catcher in MLB. You want to trade him because the value we could extract for him is worth moving him now rather than later...fine. But he's not a bad defender back there. It's really hard to find catchers that offer both offensive and defensive value. Jeffers has shown the skills to be one of those guys.

His defense is solid. Both Fangraphs & Baseball Reference like him and he passes the eye test. He's not Yadier Molina, but he improved his throwing and was nearly league average in catching stealers. There's room for improvement, but he's not bad.

I love this one, but I agree that I don't think the financial work. I'd jump on Story in a heart beat at this price, but until the SS market starts to move there are people projecting Story to get offers closer to $30M AAV than $20M, and I think Stroman is going to go higher too. AZ would have to rate Canterino higher than others. I'm a fan of Canterino, but trying to figure how high he's going to fly is a real question. That said, I like the ambition of targeting a guy like Gallen.

It's an interesting concept, and one that can probably work over the course of a season...but where it might get dicey is in the playoffs, where the vagaries of a short series might make this less viable? That's where you see the highest level talent and elite level starters really show out the extra value. (One of the limitations of WAR has a metric is it encourages linear progression thinking about players; you can't really replace elite value in the aggregate.) But there's also a case that you can make a better and stronger overall pitching staff by being willing to let relievers pitch more than 1 inning consistently to support the 5 & fly guys in your rotation. That might produce more sustainable effectiveness in a short series?

I'd drop Thorpe, Cave, Garlick, Astudillo, Barnes and probably Smeltzer. Would rather open up a spot or two for another prospect than carry these guys who aren't really more than replacement level or AAAA players. Time to roll on. Dobnak I think is probably worth keeping still?

Pudge Rodriguez got close to that threshold, but Piazza made it in with under 60 bWAR. Part of where it's going to get interesting is the difference between fWAR and bWAR when it comes to assessing defensive value. You've got huge differences between those two when looking at guys like Russell Martin and Brian McCann (as noted above); fWAR is very kind to catchers who stay back there their whole careers. I'm just not sure voters are going to look at Martin & McCann and see then in the same class as Mauer & Posey. Molina is an equally interesting case: he'll have a passionate fan base behind him, but so much of his value is tied to his defense, and fWAR would tell you that in many years McCann & Martin were just as good behind the dish. (It should be funny to hear outrage from Cards fans when someone says Martin was as good as Molina...) If there's a loud group that starts in with "these guys were all the same value" then it's going to get really interesting. Will the voters be willing to recognize 4-5 catchers whose careers overlapped to some extent? History says no, but catching is also recognized as being underrepresented in the Hall by many.

Gray is an interesting pitcher. I think he's a very reasonable target for the Twins, and I think there will be a lot of teams interested but those teams will also have questions as to where the upside is. I looked at his home-away splits to see if I could see a "mile-high" effect baked in there, and it's a little hard to find on the stats, because he was pretty even. Could there be that opportunity to tune him up a bit more by using the curve? It would be interesting to know if he threw it less overall because it wasn't as effective a pitch at altitude for him and he really couldn't adjust to only throwing it on the road. (I could see it working that way because if he didn't throw the curve much at home he might have trouble getting a good feel for it to throw it on the road too?) It's an interesting question. I'd say the floor is pretty solid for Gray: he's going to be a solid starter for you who probably won't go real deep into games, but should be effective the first two times through the lineup. The question is whether a new environment and maybe a few tweaks to pitch mix or delivery can unlock something additional for him. He definitely looks more like Jake Odorizzi than Zack Wheeler to me, but that's not necessarily bad: if you get a guy who is serviceable in a down year and borderline all-star in a good year...that's pretty good? And that's kind of who Jon Gray has been/could be.

Ok. Molina was the best defensive catcher of the three, but outside of his 3 season peak from 2011-2013, he never came anywhere close to Mauer's ability as a hitter. Molina only had 6 seasons where he was even a league-average hitter; Mauer only had one where he WASN'T. The last three seasons Molina has been basically as useful at the plate as 2021 Ryan Jeffers; even with a good rebound defensively, Molina had zero business being named to the all-star team this year and he's gotten way too much representation there based on reputation rather than performance. Whatever extra credit you might want to give Molina for continuing to catch at age 38 should be discounted by the fact that he's been below average as a starter for the past 5 years. Posey's resume looks fairly similar to Mauer and wins the comp to Molina as well. Excluding Posey's cup of coffee at age 22, much like Mauer he's been league average or better at the plater (by OPS+) every season he played but one. Molina's defense is great, but Posey & Mauer are so much better on offense that it's not really a hard call.

I think they're both worthy. Weirdly, Posey retiring now actually helps Mauer's case a little bit because they're pretty close comps for each other and there's definitely a lot of loud support for Posey already. If Posey had caught another two season and been decent, you would have more people using the excuse of "didn't play long enough at catcher" to exclude Mauer. Ten years ago, Mauer probably gets dinged for the concussion changing the trajectory of his career. With the voters being better educated on the meaning on that kind of injury, he's less likely to be "blamed" for it. Now, he's going to be seen as one of the great hitting catchers of all-time and an elite player. Plus, the national audience never had the same problem some locals did over him not piling up big RBI numbers (this is known as the "No one cares what Dan Barreiro thinks about baseball" rule). Posey has a great resume too. Tremendous bat skills (a little more power, a little worse of an eye at the plate, but otehrwise very similar to Mauer in many ways) and excellent defensively. Much like Mauer had one big season that was better than anything else and deservedly won the MVP. Similar challenges in missing significant time for injury, but always bounced back with another good season. The knock against Posey is going to be in the counting stats, where he doesn't have any significant ones to hang his hat on, but voters are less obsessed with guys with compilers now. For basically his whole career Posey was considered one of the top two catchers in the NL (and generally all of baseball), and most of that time he was the best catcher in his league (Molina might have edged him in 2013, but otherwise Posey was simply better than Molina no matter how many all-stars Molina grabbed). The 3 world series titles will help him get over the top, even if he wasn't particularly good in the postseason. Both great great player. Both easy hall picks for me.

sort of. Twins missed out on an opportunity to trade for him and apparently couldn't work out a deal for someone they were going to waive. But the Cubs were 1 ahead of the Twins on the waiver claim line. I don't blame the Twins for not giving up an asset for a $10M pitcher they had decent odds of getting for free. Literally one more team passes and they could have had him. Cotton is interesting; I assume the Twins see him as being a bullpen piece at this point? He's got some solid peripherals and might be someone who could make an impact. His results ended up being decent enough for Texas after barely pitching the last 4 years, so if he's sound I have no problem with him competing for a RH spot in the bullpen.

Twins missed him on the waiver claim by one place. I bet they would have grabbed him.

Ron Davis! Make peace with your dear and fluffy lord. Oh, the humanity!

I can see why Cobb might be interesting, but I'd feel a lot better about someone who had a better track record of health. he's only thrown 175 innings in his career once, and he's missed a lot of time due to injury. I don't see him as being a primary target for the Twins, more like a secondary one. I wouldn't be opposed to having Cobb on the roster, but I'd feel a lot better if he was the second starting pitcher they signed right than being the top guy. I'm worried about his health, I'm worried that his uptick in Ks is fluky (it's been 7 years since his k/9 was near this, a full K better per 9 than his career best, and THREE better than anything he's put up since 2014) and as a result I fear he won't be replacing Jose Berrios' effectiveness but will instead be more of a guy with an ERA+ in the 95-100 range that we're paying a lot of money for. I'd rather bring back Pineda (who was roughly as effective last season, about as a healthy, and would be significantly cheaper).

I'd say 2012 did better than that: Duffey & Rogers have been good contributors, and in 2013 Mitch Garver certainly proved himself. 2013-2015 drafts have not yielded much from the top end, which has definitely hurt the franchise...but 2016 is looking like another 2012: Kirilloff is ready for a starting job, Miranda had a breakout year and looks ready to contribute, and Balazovic is developing nicely. Only 20% of the first round picks from 2016 have "proven" themselves (1.0 bWAR or better) so it's really too soon to make any judgments on that class. but one of the reasons we have a different front office is because we had so many busts at the top end for too many years. The current regime has been in charge of drafting and development essentially from 2017 on and so far their track record looks ok, and there's plenty of players that were drafted in-house to get excited about.