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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    The chase rate is the most concerning thing with Fedko, and it's very fair to worry about how he does against breaking/offspeed stuff. MLB teams will put together a book on a player very quickly, and if he shows he can't hold off on breaking pitches out of the zone and struggles with offspeed stuff, he stop seeing much in the way of hittable fastballs. But he's done a great job this season of taking advantage of his opportunities. I don't mind a player being pull-happy if it's getting him the results he needs, and this season has been encouraging. The fact that he hasn't needed an offseason adjustment period in his promotion to AAA seems to be a good sign that he's figured some things out, even if that BABIP will bring him back down to earth eventually. He's giving himself a chance, and should get a look in spring training. Roden will have an advantage in that it looks like he can handle CF and I'm not sure Fedko can, but Fedko is making a case for himself as a hitter.
  2. jmlease1
    Good for Fedko in continuing to rake. I'd love for him to have figured something out and develop the kind of consistent swing and offense you'd hope for. We could definitely use his kind of RH thump in the OF and it's great if he can keep rolling. I'm a little curious about his RH/LH splits; he mashes LHP just fine, but the BA drops. Not sure if that's just small sample size or something about his approach? Rosario is having a nice season after that awful start. Thought he might get bumped up to AAA, but he at least seems to be setting himself up to be in Saint Paul next season. Wonder if he'll get protected? The bat is intriguing, but he's also the sort of guy you might be able to slip through in the Rule 5 because he's average at best in the OF, can't handle CF, and probably hasn't done enough at the plate to show that he's ready to contribute at the MLB level on offense. He's going to K a lot, so I'm sure some people around here would like to drop him on a raft and send him out to sea, but he absolutely annihilates LHP. Not liking what we're seeing out of Rojas so far. Feels like he's not ready for AAA and was placed there more because the trade made people mad in losing Varland and they are trying to show that "no, no, we got someone really good who is close!" and right now he ain't there. That's probably not why they did it, but perception can feed reality. With Roden looking like just another guy, Rojas is clearly the reason for the deal...and he's got a lot of work to do.
  3. jmlease1
    Slugging percentage isn't mythical. I agree that they to winning is scoring runs, but one of the best ways to do that is with extra-base hits, aka power production. It's a lot easier to score runs, and score multiple runs when you don't have to do it one base per batter. Hells bells, one of the reasons your nym-sake was so good was his ability to hit for power while avoiding outs. (and please don't start on RBIs; was Hrbek a bad hitter because he only cleared 100 RBI's once in his career? One of his best seasons as a pro ('88) was one of his worst season for RBIs. RBI's simply don't correlate.) I'm not going to pretend that Wallner is a good outfielder: he's not. He's below average because he's slow to get moving and doesn't always take the best routes to the ball. His arm makes up for it a little because he's hard to run on, but he's still below average defensively. No one has been arguing that. But the value from his bat makes it ok to run him out there in RF until we can find someone else who can hit out there and let Wallner DH more.
  4. jmlease1
    It's "biased" towards power hitters because hitting for power is one of the most effective ways to score runs. Avoiding outs and hitting for power is the most consistent way to generate offense. No one was happy with Gallo's 2023 season, especially because after a hot start he hit terribly, so it was months of poor performance. The overall production for the year was still league average, but his slump after Mar/Apr made him nearly unplayable. Which is why you don't just look at one stat. But Wallner isn't having a season like Gallo's 2023: he's substantially better and has been doing a better job at avoiding outs than Lee, which is part of where Lee has been falling down. I'm not out on Lee by any means, but he has to do more to avoid outs. He either needs to be able to get a lot more hits or a increase his walk totals, because a .288 OBP simply isn't going to get it done. He's been very inconsistent at the plate this season, with horrific slumps in May and July. Nobody wants an offense where everyone has a BA under .220, but there's room for a guy like Wallner who has massive power and is a dangerous hitter who also gets himself on base by knowing the strike zone. Right now Wallner has 35 points of OBP on Lee and that matters. The handful of extra singles Lee gets isn't enough to make up for all the extra walks Wallner gets. Wallner avoids more outs than Lee, even with a low BA. The Wallner slander must stop.
  5. jmlease1
    I agree. If he can continue to improve and put up that kind of line, he'll be more than capable of holding down SS until Culpepper is ready...and more importantly could make him earn the job rather than get it handed to him. Lee has a ways to go, and has got to sharpen up his approach at the plate to control the strike zone rather than let it control him, but he's starting to show he can punish a pitcher who hangs one, which is a good sign. But let's talk again when he gets that OBP above .300 and the SLG closer to .400...
  6. jmlease1
    There's something interesting there, at least. Might not turn into anything consistent enough to be counted on for more than just middle/long relief, but he did well in his outings against Detroit (who is a good team) and twice in relative proximity at that. The Yankee outing was dreadful (7 walks? yuck) but if he can push 2 out of 3 to 3 out of 4... I don't mind taking a long look at him to see if something can be put together in the bullpen. If he could give you 2 solid innings every 3-4 days... He's a lottery ticket. Now's the time to try and cash some of those in and see what you get on the scratcher.
  7. jmlease1
    Hilarious. Wallner has an OPS+ of 116 in a down season for him (His career OPS+ is 131). Brooks Lee has an OPS+ of 82. Wallner is nowhere near Miranda as a black hole, but they're also completely different hitters. Miranda had lost all inklings of power last time he was up so his plate coverage generated nothing but weak contact. It's why this article is appropriate, because right now Lee has been generating too much weak contact especially when he chases. For Lee to be a successful hitter he needs to find a renewed plate discipline and stop swinging at everything. An OBP under .300 will simply not do. Lee has been very very streaky this season. Started the year looking good, then had a dreadful May. Bounced back for a very nice June...and followed that up with a horrific July. August hasn't exactly been good, but he's shown some signs of life in the past 2 weeks. In the minors Lee showed very good contact skills, decent pop, and acceptable patience. In MLB, the contact skills haven't been producing hits, because he's chasing pitches he can't do much with. His patience has been reduced and the pop has been very inconsistent
  8. jmlease1
    You're tired of a player with a career OPS+ of 131? You're acting like Wallner is some scrub just because you don't like strikeouts. Would he actually be a better player if he hit a bunch more lazy flies and easy grounders instead of striking out? (the answer is: not particularly) Also, Fedko is almost certainly going to strike out a lot if/when he makes it to MLB. Sure, it probably will be less than Wallner, but Fedko's also never had Wallner's power production.
  9. jmlease1
    Very impressed with Fedko this season. Right now it's looks like he's broken his development pattern where he's struggled in his first taste of a new level, and that's good to see. Saint Paul may be a hitter's environment, but the fact remains that he's actually doing better than he was at AA. Still a fairly small sample, but very encouraging. He's making a real case for himself to get added to the 40-man in the offseason. Walker Jenkins is back. Just happy it wasn't something more serious. He's having a fine season.
  10. jmlease1
    Because they cut payroll and have an ownership that can't be trusted to spend at a league-average level. You've been suggesting it's because they have a stupid front office and a crappy manager. If they keep Lopez & Ryan (which sadly I fear they will not) and get $40M in payroll authorization to spend, I'm quite certain they won't have any trouble spending it, and not just overpaying a bunch of fringe guys like Ty France. The fish rots from the head.
  11. jmlease1
    If Paddack is bitching about facilities, that's on ownership, not the manager. And I think we all know this ownership isn't making significant investments in facilities right now. But that all impacts more against recruitment and retention of free agents, rather than the "clubhouse culture", which was supposedly what we were talking about here. Was Paddack taking a shot at the Twins? Maybe, or maybe he was trying to get in good with his new organization so they'll consider keeping him on the playoff roster. But it's taken some work to find people who were looking to get out, huh? Doubt we'll hear anything running down the Twins and how they wanted to leave from Castro, Stewart, Bader, Duran (we've seen his quotes already), Varland, France, Correa (if he really wanted out he would have considered more than just Houston in waiving the no-trade) or Dobnak. We're seeing a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy going on right now. The people who hate the manager and the front office and want them all gone are reading in whatever they want to keep making their point. There's no real evidence that the Twins have done a poor job in how they treat their players and make them want to leave...outside of not winning enough. They've kept the knucklehead count in the clubhouse down (seemingly close to or at zero most of the time). That's why the comments from Pablo are a little surprising, and to me read more like "we ain't winning enough and something needs to be done".
  12. jmlease1
    It's Keaschall for now, but he'll be off the list in short order, so what's the point of dropping him in? I think I would argue for Culpepper. He's showing that he can stick at SS, the hitting has improved already, and he's getting fast-tracked for promotion. E-Rod has all the talent as a hitter to be the #2 prospect, but his health is a huge barrier. If you strip out his rehab assignments, he hasn't played 50 games in a season since 2023 (maybe he'll still there this season, but that's still not good) Tait is definitely rising.
  13. jmlease1
    the NFLPA would have had to have been powerful for it to get neutered.
  14. jmlease1
    Really? Lots of people wanting Rocco strung up by his ankles around here, but that was mostly for not bunting enough/treating starters like it was 1972/platooning too much. Plenty of second-guessing every pitching switch, lineup choices (lot of complaining about not having a "set lineup"), etc. Very little on clubhouse culture, unless it was demanding that the Twins run and bunt more. I still believe that people overrate a manager's impact on winning: player performance and good health are much much more important. But my point on managers isn't to say that anyone can do it, but that there's much less of a difference between managers when you talk about the guys in the middle of the pro pack. There's fewer than ever total incompetents, but also fewer truly elite/impactful guys. Most are in that middle who look very smart when their players play well and stay healthy, and very dumb when they don't.
  15. jmlease1
    How do you know Correa was checked out? You're reading a lot into the guy with Plantar Fasciitis not running max effort on every grounder. Fans get way too obsessed with the peformative stuff (like how dirty a player's jersey is after a game, etc) in deciding whether a player works hard or not. This is the sort of thing people bend in shape to rip a guy they had already decided they didn't want/thought was overpaid. Got a quote from an actual Twins player or coach on Correa's work habits or other evidence that Correa has "checked out"? I mean, FFS someone on this board declared that Buxton had checked out on the season (apparently because they didn't like the box score or something) and the next day Buck rapped out 3 hits. There's no real evidence that I've seen to this point that suggests that Correa ever checked out or dogged it. Multiple players did talk about how they learned things from Correa, both in terms of things they did on the field and how to prepare as well.
  16. jmlease1
    I dislike this kind of gatekeeping that suggests that certain kinds of Twins fans are better than others. Making judgments about the people who go to games and there reasons isn't a good look and only serves to shrink the fanbase. If some fans are going to the game with a primary reason of partying...why is that bad? Those can also be the fans that 10 years later keep coming to games in part because they caught the baseball bug after having so many great days at the game. There's no one right way to be a fan, IMHO. I agree with Matthew's premise here: go to the game if you want, and don't let billionaire idiot owners deprive you if you can still get enjoyment out of it. If they've wrecked it for you, it's perfectly fine if you want to take a break as well. The Pohlads don't care about you, so you need to make sure you do.
  17. jmlease1
    I'm not sure where to take those comments from Pablo. Maybe he didn't feel like he had much of an opportunity to lead outside of the pitching staff while Correa was here? At the end of the day, a lot of the culture comments are a way to avoid criticism for lack of on-field production to me. Losing games and too many guys under-performing? Blame clubhouse culture, especially on a team where there's no identifiable/known knucklehead and no individual is going to be held responsible. I also tend to agree with Nick: culture is the sort of thing that people talk about when they're losing. Don't want to publicly criticize one of your teammates for being under the Mendoza Line or giving up too many dingers? Talk about a need for a culture reset. All of that said, it's the first real indicator of some dissatisfaction from the players towards the manager to me. A lot of what modern managers do is behind the scenes and out of the public eye these days, which makes it harder to evaluate how they do their jobs. When a manager starts to lose the team, it's usually time to try a new manager, because the most likely scenario is the team is losing and players are starting to grumble. While I don't share the utter contempt that so many around here hold Rocco Baldelli...it's probably time to move on. We're not getting a new owner, and I suspect we're not getting a new front office (I wouldn't mind going in that direction either, but I don't exactly have faith in Joe Effing Pohlad to pick the next GM, so the devil we know might be better than the devil we don't) so this might be one of the only ways we get a more significant shakeup.
  18. jmlease1
    Gallagher is going to be an interesting one to watch; a lot of people were disappointed in what we got in return from Castro, but so far Gallagher has done enough to be interesting. I don't think I would have him that high in the prospect rankings yet; he's been effective but hittable, and the K-rate could use some improvement. AA looks like the right spot for him as he refines his pitches. Smith is a guy I don't know much about, but he's certainly done well in his debut. The FCL has a history of depressing power numbers, so seeing guys with a SLG over .500 is notable, even if it's a relatively small sample. His summer league exploits are the kind of thing that make you wonder how he would transition to pro from college, but so far he's doing fine, and he hasn't turned 21 yet, so the age thing isn't too concerning. It'll be interesting to see if he gets bumped up to Cedar Rapids this season; I would expect him to get bumped up for next season for sure unless he really falls apart. While I tend to agree that you shouldn't be looking to draft guys that are already at 1B for their defensive position, once you've hit the 17th round it's not a bad time to take a flyer on a bat like this. Abel is doing well. With the rotation so short right now, I'd look hard at bumping him up to Target Field. SWR is going to need time to rebuild strength, Pablo hasn't gone on a rehab yet, so i think there's room for him even if Festa gets back. Would rather see what Abel can do than any more bullpen games.
  19. jmlease1
    It's interesting to see the updates on how guys are doing since the trades, but not necessarily all that meaningful because of the small sample sizes. Where everyone sits at the end of the season will be worth taking a look at to do a little more intermediate evaluation of the trades. Some of them are still going to be hard to evaluate accurately this soon, but others (especially where we flipped a rental) will probably be easier. I think the Varland deal is going to stay hard to swallow for most fans, and it puts a lot of pressure on Rojas to make it to MLB as a starter. The Stewart one was looking pretty upsetting, but the reminder that it's very hard to count on Brock Stewart to stay healthy might start mitigating it, even if few seem sold on Outman (I'm one of those for sure). I'll miss Duran, but the return for him does look pretty respectable. People were very down on the Castro trade, but I do think people were overrating just how good Willi actually was. I loved watching him play, and he's been a good dude too...but he really shouldn't play SS any longer and he's such a streaky hitter that can fall off very quickly. I think his value was down quite a bit around the league, similar to how by the time Polanco was dealt.
  20. jmlease1
    Interesting that you see a spot for Eeles, who has an OPS of .762 in Saint Paul and not for Sabato at .768. Eeles may have more positional flexibility, but Sabato fills a role the Twins could use (RH slugging 1B). I'd argue that they both have a lot to do to show that they could be capable MLB players. Eeles has looked a lot better at the plate lately, but suffered through a long stretch where his power production utterly vanished. Sabato has started heating up again, but went through a dreadful July where he wasn't making contact, wasn't taking walks and just looked awful after a nice start. Eeles is only about 6 months younger than Sabato too. Both are nice stories who have taken very different paths to AAA, but I dunno about either of them. I suspect Sabato will not get added to the 40-man again, and I think it'll be fine. Really hoping this recent outpouring from DeBarge is a sign he's out of the doldrums and will finish the season strong.
  21. jmlease1
    A very nice win. Twins played very well, which surprised me considering that it was supposed to be a bullpen game and we don't currently have one. But Hatch did good. Not sold on him yet, but he did good. Maybe Detroit thought the Twins were quitting and they didn't need to try today, but regardless they got mowed down pretty well. Paddack was the bad Paddack today. Interesting that Hinch took the attitude of "you made this mess, you get out of it" rather than yank him. Wonder if anyone will accuse Buxton of just going through the motions again?
  22. jmlease1
    How is Hendry Mendez's defense looking? He's listed as playing all three OF spots, but hasn't logged an inning in CF this season, so I assume he's just a corner OF guy at this point. The bat's been showing nice improvement this season and he's done quite well since joining Wichita. Be great if he's also a quality defender in LF? Very nice outing by Abel. Wouldn't mind seeing him at Target Field, and would vastly prefer seeing him vs these bullpen games. 11 K's in 6 is nothing to sneeze at. Abel has made 6 starts back in AAA after getting demoted and has a Game Score over 70 in 4 of them (the other 2 were 35 and 52 respectively). That's pretty darn good. But it is clear that limiting walks is the most important things for him, so if he can keep doing that he can be in a rotation.. He's fairly efficient too, which is nice to see in a less experienced player.
  23. jmlease1
    Pablo isn't a #1 pitcher? Please explain. ERA+ of 151, career best WHIP of 1.071...sure looks like a top of rotation starter to me, even if Ryan has actually been better (and healthier) this season. The pitching pipeline was actually doing pretty well until they sold off the entire bullpen. It's hitting where this front office has fallen down in terms of development and it's showed out this season in particular. Selling off Bader & Castro and not getting anyone of MLB quality back in has made a bad offense worse. Beyond that, I'm confused as to how it's Falvey's fault that young pitchers with no real injury history got hurt...(neither SWR, Festa, or Matthews have any significant injury history) I'm ready to move on from this crew of decision-makers, but let's apply logic, accuracy, and reality to them. When you don't you undercut any arguments you have about what we actually need going forward.
  24. jmlease1
    I didn't like this trade because Stewart was at least someone who could throw in the closer's role and be credible and after the deals we simply don't have anyone like that. Getting back Outman seems to do nothing for the team in the short or long term, so why make the deal? Admittedly, you simply can't count on Stewart to be a core part of your bullpen with his injury history (I think you have to look at him as a player where if you get things out of him it's additive, not something to be relied on) but very hard to be enthusiastic about Outman. He's got some talent, and he clearly can play all three OF spots and run the bases effectively, but he's really flopped as a hitter the last season and a half. Is he better than Kiersey? Probably, and if he can stop chasing everything that any pitcher throws his way, maybe he can be an acceptable 4th OF. But the floor is low and the ceiling ain't high. I'm fine with flinging him out there for the rest of august and september and see what we've got, I guess? But if Rodriguez were healthy I'd much rather have the Twins take a look at him, since he offers everything Outman can bring to the table except baserunning with a much higher ceiling at the plate. Maybe that's why this deal happened: they simply don't believe Rodriguez can stay healthy for a anywhere near a full season any longer?
  25. jmlease1
    Gasper's the backup catcher right now with Vazquez on the IL. Do you really want us rolling with one catcher? Pretty sure it doesn't matter when your pitchers give up 12 hits and issue 9 effing walks. Zebby has to do better; he wasn't terrible, but 90+ pitches in only 4 innings isn't the kind of length we need from a starter. The K's show he can be effective, but he's got to start having efficient innings and give the team at least 5. Ugh, this bullpen is awful. Just don't know about Adams: he's had some moments, but also get knocked around like he's tossing batting practice. Offense took a while to get going, but put up enough runs to be competitive. Too bad Buxton had a bad day, might have added another one or two in there if he'd been in form, but that's going to happen. Pitching just wasn't good enough, and that was with them getting very lucky with runners in scoring position.
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