jmlease1

Worked out ok with Dozier. (who should have been a multiple all-star player, but had the misfortune to be playing in the same league as Cano and Altuve in their primes) Drafted as a SS, didn't become a primary 2B until he was in MLB. It'd be great if we could lock someone into the job for 5-7 years again a la Knoblauch/Dozier, but not easy to find those guys.

I read the first part, but it wasn't relevant to my comment which was about his offense. He wasn't a disappointment offensively in spring training, which you were using to pile on to his less than great defense. He's not a great defender. This is not news. Defense is important, but it's not more important than offense. The Twins have strong defenders up the middle at SS, C, and CF; while it would be preferable to have a strong defender at 2B as well (and I think Lee would be), I don't think this lineup can afford to have a bad hitter at 2B right now.

It's simply bad luck though that all of our injuries have hit essentially similar spots on the roster for position players, though. If Bader had the same injury that lee does, we'd just be all "Kiersey, here's your shot". And predicting that Gasper would get spiked? If you knew that was coming, Mickey would like a word with you about why you didn't warn him. Bullpen is still fine: Blewett can take the last spot in the bullpen if no one on the cut line appeals, but unless the rotation (which looks nice and healthy) implodes early the last guy in the bullpen might not have much work in April to begin with. Jax, Duran, Sands, Alcala, Coulombe, Varland, and even Topa still give plenty of innings and quality. Hopefully Lee's stint on the IL is mostly preventative and he's back in the minimum time.

Julien out-hit Castro, Lee, and Martin in spring training. The only 2B contender he didn't out-perform in spring training was Gasper. (not counting Keaschall, since he's still on the recovery train) Spring training stats aren't all that meaningful, but Julien did fine. He did look nervous and indecisive defensively, however.

Honestly, the biggest concern is Lee: is he on the IL to start the season because the twins are being extra cautious and want to make sure he's 100% before running him out there in cold weather, or is there something here that's going to linger like last season? If he's back after a week, then frankly the team is in pretty decent shape overall. I'm not worried all that much about Stewart (it's not an arm issue for once), and Tonkin is fungible. Blewett for Tonkin won't miss a beat, and I'm actually excited to see Varland get some run in the bullpen. Despite a few injuries, the bullpen looks fine so long as Duran's lower velocity doesn't tank his effectiveness. I always looked at it as if anything we got from Stewart as a bonus, not a guy we needed to be counting on to be successful. Duran, Jax, Sands, Alcala, Coulombe, Varland, Blewett, and Topa is still a good bullpen with the potential to be great. Shame about Gasper, who was having a fine spring and was looking like he might be a useful bench bat and infielder. getting spiked sucks, and hopefully his recovery will be quick. I'd probably give the last spot to Kiersey, who has had a solid spring and would free up Castro to stay in the infield, while giving the team some additional bench speed, but I'd be ok with Martin as well who has done fine in spring training as well and can handle 2B fine in a pinch. no need to panic...yet!

Because he had just enough success early on as a starter to make it possible to foresee a scenario where that worked out for him. And if he could have made it as a starter, that has more value for the team, especially when this journey started. It's a lot easier to push Varland to the 'pen when you have Festa, Matthews, Morris, Raya, and Lewis at AAA, coming off a season when SWR was effective in MLB for most of the seasons, and Paddack looks healthy. Starting pitching depth was in a different place entering 2023 or even 2024.

sure, if everyone gets hurt the season won't go well. That's almost every season. but right now, this is not a 4th place team. They should be contending for the division. It feels like the late season collapse has made a segment of people quit on this roster, these players, the manager, the front office, and frankly the whole franchise. Again, I'm as tired of this ownership as anyone...but I'm still excited to watch Twins baseball this year.

Yep. but a lot of weird things all had to happen to make that true. Want to bet on it happening that way again? It might not be inconceivable to finish that way again, but looking at their competition in the AL Central predicting them as a 4th place team is a) flying in the face of objectivity, and 2) the kind of doomcasting about the team that the people on this site are supposed to like that I'm not interested in being part of. Why give up in spring freakin' training? I'm as sick of the ownership as anyone, but I'm not going to blame the players for it. Also? players aren't really dropping like flies. There's 1 significant injury (Lewis) so far, a couple of minor ones (Topa, Tonkin) to back end of the roster players, and a "we don't actually know anything" with Brooks Lee. The rotation? healthy. The top bullpen guys? healthy. The outfield? healthy. Catchers? healthy. Infield has some injuries, but is also the deepest part of the team.

I will happily take the money of the people who think this is a 4th place team.

I hope that he does become a cult hero, because that means he'll have had at least one season where he did some awesome and memorable things. Astudillo became a cult hero not just because of the flowing hair and fun factor of his appearances, but because he knocked the snot out of the ball in his initial foray with the Twins. It turned out to be small sample size mania and once he was exposed as a guy who would swing at anything he couldn't sustain it, but what fun we all had that september. Gasper is a fascinating case of how a player's development can go sideways without the player ever really performing poorly. gasper looks like he's had some injuries along the way, and the missing COVID minor league year followed by an injury season seemed get him lost as a prospect. He hit quite well in 2022, but now he's 26 and no longer looking like a catching prospect. Yankees only gave him 20 games at AAA in 2023 before burying him back in AA for...reasons? Boston picks him up but starts him back in AA AGAIN? Gasper hit AA pitching just fine in parts of 4 different seasons, so why waste half the year with him in AA at age 28? Good luck to him hope he gets a legit chance and is able to do something with it. Wouldn't mind at all having a switch-hitting bench bat who can cover a couple of positions, DH, and be an emergency catcher. He seems to know the strike zone well and that's a good skill.

Really the only big issue is at SS, where Castro is the only other option if Correa needs a day off or gets hurt; Miranda can play 3B, Julien can play 2B, and Gasper seems to be able to handle 1B & 2B acceptably (with France at 1B) and Castro can play 3B & 2B just fine. But Castro isn't the best option at SS and we don't really have another good choice there. I'm not too worried about the depth short-term. the much bigger concern is if Lee's back becomes a chronic problem or one that leads to extended unavailability, but more because he's such a talented player that we want in the lineup. I think healthy his bat will play and he's going to be a plus defender at 2B or 3B and solid backup at SS. Hopefully this is just minor tightness that can get worked out with a little therapy and he's really just out for precautionary reasons.

One of the things that's interesting about Cleveland is how good their health was last season. they weren't running tons of guys through their lineup, their entire infield played at least 140 games, they had 7 bullpen guys appear in 50+ games, and while their rotation suffered without Bieber they still weren't spreading a gazillion starts around. Maintaining that level of health will likely be pretty key for them? As good as Gimenez was defensively, he wasn't impressive on the other side, and frankly the Cleveland lineup still looks thin. They really need Santana to not be cooked, because they simply don't have a lot of guys who can hit. They're going to need Noel to not have any kind of sophomore slump, too, or they might be looking at putting out uninspiring bats at C, 1B (if Santana falls off again), 2B, SS, CF, and RF...get past Ramirez (an absolute beast and legit MVP candidate) and Kwan (a quality player in his prime) and what's left? They're asking 2 guys to carry a lot of offense, rely on excellent defense (which to be fair, isn't subject to slumps the same way), and their pitching. They were really good in 1-run games and extra-innings last season, which can be pretty fungible. That said, having a great bullpen makes it less about luck and more about skill. Be interesting to see if they have 4-5 dominant guys rolling out 50+ games again this season. History says no, but Cleveland has patched it together before.

There's a lot of good in the Twins bullpen. I am concerned about Duran's loss of velocity, but it may well be that he's able to manage it just fine without needing to hit 102-104 consistently on the gun with the fastball. Especially since he has the excellent curve and "splinker" to rely on. (the curve has been his best pitch for the past 2 years anyways) but it's fair to be worried. Him being the primary 9th inning guy may actually help the Twins in this regard, putting him in some easier situations at times. Jax is a monster. Sands did very well last season; it will be interesting to see whether he drops back and becomes one of those fungible relievers when you don't really know when his next good season will be, but even an average one makes him a fair option in the 6th-7th inning. Stewart's health is a huge issue, but his arm seems healthy and his stuff is filthy. That gives you 4 guys who at least from the start of the season you should feel confident in for the last couple of innings. That's a really good base. Coulombe is another guy whose health needs to be monitored, but he's been very effective the past 3 seasons and gives you a LHP who can shut down LH hitters without giving it all back to the RH pinch hitter. He's got flexibility of use. Alcala is a guy I like more than most it seems; he's not consistent enough to be a real weapon, but he's also not filler. Right now he's maybe 6th in the pecking order, which is pretty great, IMHO. I feel pretty good having a guy like him being up in the 6th-7th innings, and his stock could rise again if he finds consistency again. he had a couple of bad blowups late, but he was really good last season outside of the August Implosion. I'm excited to have Varland transition to the bullpen full time. I think he can be really good there, and has the stuff to be a back-end guy, not a middle relief/long man. If he's able to stay refined with his fastball/cutter combo at max effort, he'll be a weapon...and he's going to start the season as likely the 7th man. I'm fine with them giving the last slot to Castellano; he's got the stuff to hang and the last man in the bullpen isn't going to pitch very much anyways. I'd prefer the Twins make a deal on him so they can send him down as needed, but especially while we're waiting for Topa/Tonkin to get healthy. I assumed going in to the season that the Twins would have 1-3 injuries i the bullpen either coming out of spring training or very early in the year, and that's tracking. The good thing is, none of them look too serious, and none of them are impacting our top relievers. Right now, our depth looks capable of managing through this. things do start getting a little thinner if we have to go much beyond this; Blewett is Just Another Guy, Ynoa is still coming back from a major injury really, etc. Prielipp is an exciting arm, but hasn't thrown an inning above A-ball yet and only 30 innings as a pro. That said...he seems to be healthy, finally and the stuff is incredible. Hopefully he's starting at AA; more A-ball seems like a waste. It's a good bullpen with the ability to be great. Considering how deep the rotation is, this could be one of the better twins pitching staffs in a long time. here's hoping they get decent health.

One of the things to remember is the last guy in the bullpen can often go quite a while without actually pitching. With 8 guys in the bullpen, frankly there will be stretches where guys aren't getting consistent work. One of the reasons they shuttle guys down after one of those mop-up starts isn't because of real need but more about ensuring they have additional depth; it's not like the new guy comes up and pitches that same day. It's just risk-aversion, but the actual jeopardy is closer to the need for a 3rd catcher on the roster than a true danger. They just sell it better than Gardy used to about his 3rd catcher security blanket. I'd still prefer to make a trade for Castellano to maintain flexibility and not risk getting squeezed, but we can ride with him as last man in the bullpen if Philly wants to keep playing chicken or make outrageous trade demands.

I'd prefer that the Twins make a deal to keep Castellano and give themselves the flexibility to send him down to the minors. But right now with a couple of injuries to guys that I saw as being back end of the bullpen guys, there is a roster spot available, so if Philly thinks they can win the game of chicken before cut down day, I'm pretty confident they're going to lose that staring contest. There other thing the Twins have going for them on this one is there are a couple of off-days built into the schedule early on to help handle a short start, and frankly the way the Twins rotation is shaping up and 8 guys in the bullpen, they can handle 1 low-leverage guy hanging in there, at least early on. Varland looks like he's going to grab a bullpen spot from the jump, and he's also someone more than capable of throwing 2 innings without needing 2-3 days off. Castellano has shown he has the stuff worthy of protecting if you can manage it. Hope the Twins are able to thread the needle to keep him.

Sigh. It's a shame that a player with some much skill, so much talent is always struggling to show it on the field because of injuries. Moderate is better than severe, but it's still significant. Here's hoping he's back by May; we should be thinking weeks rather than months right now. An opportunity has been created for Brooks Lee, Jose Miranda, and Ed Julien (heck, even Mickey Gasper is likely to get a shot while Royce is on the shelf). Who will be the guy to seize it? Hope one of them makes it easy to go slow on Royce's return.

You're right in that there are 1.0 WAR players available every season on the waiver wire or cheaply through free agency, but figuring out who those players are vs the ones who can't get to that level at all isn't easy, because there are a lot of them around too. But in terms of player valuation you shouldn't just take the "1 WAR equals $8M" or whatever it is now and multiply it out to rate value, because scarcity shows that a 4 WAR player is worth more than two 2.0 WAR players. I don't mind the Twins bringing in low-wattage bats every season to supplement the roster; if done correctly they can raise the floor for the team. And simply not giving ABs & innings to bad players is a good and relatively cheap way to raise the floor and win more games. And with the way baseball playoffs go, all you need is a chip a chair and chance to make a run. Where I get nervous is when they ride those veteran bats even when they're not playing well and can't bring themselves to move on and/or give a young player enough of an opportunity to prove themselves. Twins (like most teams, frankly) struggle with the sunk cost fallacy, and after being burned so badly a few seasons ago value depth maybe a little too much now (I would argue there was a bit of overcorrection there). If Ty France cracks the ball hard this year, they'll be proven right on this one. If he goes into a 2 month long slump and they keep running him out every day while letting Miranda/Julien et al sit...then we have a problem.

Larnach isn't bad in LF when he's healthy; last season he was not healthy. He was quite good in limited time in 2022, so he might be able to get back to that if his legs are good. Margot was shockingly bad last season, so there's definitely some addition by subtraction, and for all that Kepler has historically been excellent in RF, that really hasn't been true for the last 2 seasons. So less of a loss there. Bader is certainly a plus, and if the Twins are able to deploy him the way they had hoped to use Michael A. Taylor a couple of years ago, that could really ramp things up: giving Buxton a break, defensive replacement in one of the corners when it's close & late, spelling Larnach/Wallner against LHP...that really could improve the D in the OF quite a bit. It certainly should be an improvement over last season, but a lot depends on health.

It's very easy to ignore Ty France's hot start (small sample, hitting against minor leaguers, hitters are supposed to be ahead of pitchers, etc), but it doesn't mean that he hasn't found his swing again. I wasn't a fan of the signing, and I especially didn't like how he seemed to have been handed the starting job before spring training even started. But fair play to him, he's gone out and done what he needs to do to show the possibility of a rebounding Ty France. I have concerns about his defense; he's never shown a lot there, although he seems to be pretty good at digging out throws in the dirt, which would be a benefit for this team. And maybe his range improves with a fully healed heel. But anyone who thinks he's going to be a plus defender will be disappointed. I'm hoping for average, and won't be surprised if he's well below that. What gives me the most skepticism about his hot start and prospects with this team is his 2023 season. He really fell off from his earlier success in that season, with a bad drop-off in power. If he hadn't crowded the plate effectively (league high 34 HBP) it would have been a pretty poor offensive performance...and would have looked a lot like 2024. Last season he had a real injury that he battled through. What happened in 2023? I hope everything I feared about France when he signed is wrong. The good spring training is a fine start, but there are still plenty of questions to be answered if he wants to show he's earned the job and not been handed it on scholarship due to "veteran" status.

I feel pretty good with Wallner as the starter. The power is incredible, and he makes enough contact for it to pay out. While it would be great if he could get better jumps on the ball in RF, he's good enough out there and the arm is definitely a weapon. He's not going to get as much credit for it, because there's not really a stat for bases stopped because the runner was smart enough not to test Wallner's arm and didn't go for the leg double or first to third on a single or something. Runners seem to already know he's got a cannon out there, so if he's fielding the ball cleanly they're not going to run the risk. The K's aren't fun, but the light tower power makes it worth it. He's been a good RF. He's going to have a stretch or two that will be ugly, but he's also shown that he doesn't expand the zone too much even when he's struggling, which is the sign of a disciplined hitter. The depth right now isn't great? Larnach can certainly play there (I would assume that they would slide him over rather than waste Bader in RF), but there's not a lot of natural RF guys in the wings if Wallner goes down. Fortunately, he appears to be made out of oak? Wallner has been very productive. Hopefully we can get a full season of that.

You refuse to understand that Eddie Rosario has not been good since leaving MN. He's been paid $28M for -1.1 bWAR. That's AWFUL. I don't care how much heart you think he has, he wasn't even a quality starter his last 2 seasons in MN because while he still hit well enough (107 and 116 OPS+ his last 2 seasons in MN) his defense was bad. Poor thrower (missing cutoff men, throwing to the wrong base, etc) who no longer got to balls because he lost steps in the OF. Who cares if he was available when he sucked? (BTW, he also started missing time after leaving MN) Twins got better production for a lot less money over the last 4 years from the motley crew of Larnach (who is pretty good), Gallo, Margot (who was awful, yet still more productive than Rosario's heart), and Gordon. Happy for Eddie who got paid and won a ring, but equally happy to not have him on the roster and sucking. LF should be fine this season with Larnach as the primary, Bader & Castro backing him up, and Rodriguez & Keaschall pushing for an opportunity.

So you admit that we've been better since he left and the only reason to keep him is an intangible that can't be measured? How much did you like Eddie's "heart" when he swung at a pitch that wasn't near the plate, overthrew the cutoff man by 19 feet, etc? Look, I liked Eddie as a player and he was pretty good for us for a few years (really really good for one season, solid enough for several others, at least as a hitter) but his best ability was availability. He had a great NLCS, but otherwise wasn't actually very good in the playoffs for Atl in their title run. The problem with recent Twins teams hasn't been a lack of heart, it's been a lack of health. I'm not wrong about this. And frankly, accusing the current players of not having enough heart is pretty insulting to them. Please feel free to tell Ryan Jeffers, Royce Lewis, Carlos Correa, Pablo Lopez, Bailey Ober, Griffin Jax, etc that they have no heart. I'd love to see that. I think LF is going to be ok this season as long as Bader doesn't play too much against RHP. But I'm looking forward to seeing Emma seize the job and hit line drives all over the place.

Considering Eddie Rosario has produced a net fWAR of -0.4 over those 4 years, I'd say the Twins did the right thing in declining arbitration with him. He hasn't been a starting quality player in years, and looks completely cooked. We may not have adequately replaced Eddie, but it wouldn't have been any better with him. Larnach has been better, if inconsistent and not healthy enough. As awful as the Margot Experience was last season, Rosario was worse. I think we have LF patched together well enough for this year with Larnach, Bader, and Castro getting most of the time there, but I worry about Bader getting too much time over Larnach for defense, while flailing at the plate. Bader should not be starting against RHP unless Larnach is injured. But this is definitely a position where the team is waiting on a prospect. Fortunately, we have multiple options in Rodriguez and Keaschall that are getting closer every day.

I would love to be proven wrong about Ty France. It would be awesome if he's found his bat again and his crappy defensive stats last year were entirely due to injury and he's actually learned the position well. But I'm not going to take spring training stats all that seriously. That said, I'd rather have him starting out well than flailing. Paddack is going to be very interesting. can he maintain velocity from start to start? If the changeup back and a weapon? does he have enough on his fastball to not get beat up on it? Has he got the slider down or will he need to go back to the curve? Great to see Keaschall hitting comfortably. I still think he's going to need some time in the minors and probably won't be ready for a spot at least until he's able to throw effectively, but he's got the talent and the drive and I love seeing players like him try to force a decision by just playing really damn well.

just a shame about Canterino. Poor guy got his arm wrecked in college I think and has never been healthy enough to show his quality at the pro level for very long. I don't think anyone was counting on him to contribute, but he's always had the talent, so it stinks that he's not going to get a chance. He's certainly put in the effort to try and get healthy. You just feel for the guy. Glad Matthews isn't seriously injured. He's important depth for the starting pitching and if he were set back too far it might make the team have second thoughts about shifting Varland to the 'pen. (Especially if Raya's injury lingered too). I always assumed at least one of Topa/Stewart wouldn't make it to Opening Day, and I feel like the Twins did too. Certainly looks like Castellano will have a chance to stick as the last man in the bullpen, and I'm enthusiastic about having Varland throwing gas for us from the jump. Hopefully Rodriguez's ankle responds quickly, but it's very good news that the thumb surgery seems to have worked for him.