jmlease1

He might start back in AA. Coming back off an injury, with less than half a season worth of ABs in AA, it would hard be a knock if they started him off in Wichita. (plus, it should be at least a little warmer which might be better coming off the injury) I expect to see him in AAA, but while hitters tend to come back faster and easier from TJ, this was still a major surgery. So I'm pumping the brakes a little on him. Not because I don't respect the talent, but injury rehab isn't always linear.

He hasn't really stood out yet, but there are some things to like about him. He's only had one full professional season and did ok in A-ball. He's hunting up Ks, he's keeping the ball in the park, the BB/9 is reasonable...if he can clamp down on the hits he's giving up, he might have something. It'll be interesting to see if he can tick up the velocity a bit more? He would have gotten more attention 4-5 years ago, when the system was a little thinner on starting pitching prospects, I think? But the Twins propensities for drafting college pitchers seems to be giving them a lot of guys who are potentially viable as they shuffle through the funnel that is the minors. It's so hard to predict pitching development, and there are so many things that can go wrong that having a deep list of guys who are "maybes" does seem to be a smart strategy. If he's pitching in AA effectively in his 2nd full pro season at age 23, that's a fairly good sign, I think?

He's got a ton of talent. We'll see if he actually ends up throwing 6 pitches or if it's more like 4, but if he's finding things that will let him be effective against LH hitters, that's all to the good. Hopefully he can stretch out a little in AAA and start showing he can consistently go 5-6 innings every time out. He's got the stuff to get it done, I think. Right now I have him behind Festa and Matthews for sure, but he and Adams will be battling for the right to be the 8th or 9th starter for the Twins in MLB. In some ways, a guy like Morris or Adams might be more "ready" but Raya's place on the 40-man means he's likely to get that shot this season. I'm in on it. Hopefully his shoulder holds up.

Going to be interesting to se if Topa can get through Spring Training healthy. If he and Brock are both healthy and going at full speed it creates a bit of a logjam in the bullpen, which is a problem I want to have

In terms of MLB production at the same age, Mirtanda comps a lot closer to Koskie than Parmelee, though. Both had 2.3 bWAR through their age 26 seasons; Parmelee was replacement level for his career. The progression of Miranda and Koskie is pretty different, though: Koskie made it up later and stayed healthier initially with no struggles after making it in 1999. They're not great comps for each other because the development path and injury status is so different, even if their overall production through their age 26 seasons is very similar. But Miranda is far, far better than Parmelee. Miranda has struggled when he's been battling injuries. Parmelee struggled when he had to face pitchers who weren't September call-ups.

but that's not really accurate: Julien was good over the whole 2023 season. his worst month was August (.653 OPS) and he was very good in May & June. It wasn't just 2-3 good months. I think the best reason to skeptical of Julien is how much he's struggled with breaking balls overall. He's got to learn how to handle the breaking stuff better, because he's going to see a lot of it. Last season he saw a real increase in breaking pitches and he handled them worse than ever. He wasn't even punishing the hangers. So I agree the league did adjust to him and had a book on how to attack him. But Larnach went from not being able to handle anything off-speed to surviving against it (while punishing the fastballs he did get in the zone), so it's not like it's impossible for a player to improve when they start seeing a heavy diet of what they're worst at.

You're reading in a lot here, aren't you? I think it's fair to say the end of the season was pretty miserable for Royce, but was he really mad at the organization or just frustrated and upset at his slump and inability to get out of it, having encountered actual failure at the plate for the first time in his career? He agreed to the contract. If he was upset at the number, he could have gone to arbitration. If he thought that he truly was being low-balled, he almost certainly would have gone to arbitration. Players historically don't settle for a possibly lower number when they're unhappy with their situation. Hopefully having a season where he required no off-season surgery and/or rehab will make a difference for him in staying on the field. (it seems reasonable?) I expect he'll have his smile back to start the season.

Julien is in an interesting position. He's definitely at a bit of a crossroads, because a repeat of last season would be a huge negative and a sign that he's not able to adjust/improve. That said, he doesn't have to flip completely back to 2023 (nice as that would be) to still have potential and value. but he's got to show that he's turning the ship. I agree that he needs to be more aggressive in attacking ball that he can drive earlier in counts. I think the biggest question is where his pitch recognition is. You could tell that when he was really struggling and taking that called 3rd strike that often he was really fooled on the pitch. Can he improve that? He was good enough for long enough in 2023 that giving up on him/deciding that he's never going to hit in MLB because of 2024 is pretty foolish and short-sighted. But while he's not a disaster in the field, he's not an impressive defender and unlikely to ever be a plus guy on that side, so he has to hit. he was really good in 2023, showing good patience, solid power, and good baserunning. If he can get back to anywhere close that he's a real asset. (and if he's getting on base, I hope the Twins unleash him a little more in the running game. He's been a quality baserunner even if he's not the fastest dude in the world and could add a little more to the twins if they open it up a little more for him)

That's a pretty ridiculous comp. Chris Parmelee was a AAAA player who fooled a bunch of us into thinking he was going to be something after he beat up a bunch of september call-ups in a short stint in 2011. He basically never hit again. (props to him for hanging around for 6 seasons, though) Miranda has been a quality hitter in multiple seasons and a substantially better player in half the number of seasons, but accumulating about the same amount of ABs. He's had some injury troubles that have dragged him down, but he's still far more accomplished than Parmelee, who simply couldn't hit very well when outside the old september call-up model and his BABIP came back to earth.

I'll be curious to see if this team does better in extra-inning game this season? they out-scored their opponents 77-74 in extras last season but went 5-9. Better performance in inter-league games would certainly make a difference, and it looks like there was some bad luck there too: 18-28 record but only got out-scored by 15 runs. Need to do better against a team like Miami, where they were even on runs in the 3 game set, but lost 2 out of 3. The pitching depth really does look good this season, and a little decent luck injury-wise will make a huge difference. there's a lot to like about this Twins team: the rotation and the bullpen both look good and deep. there's all-star talent at multiple positions. It's also a very likable bunch of players, which certainly doesn't hurt: it's very easy to root for guys like Buxton, Lewis, Jeffers, Wallner, Castro, Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Jax, etc Hope springs eternal for baseball in February. Looking forward to talking about what the Twins are doing on the field ASAP and less about the payroll and ownership.

I like the talent, and frankly the Twins have been missing a reliever who could go 2-3 innings in the bullpen for a while. I'm but sure Castellano is ready yet, but he seems like a good Rule 5 pick. I think he'd be better off if we could work out a trade with Philly so we could send him to AAA, but this might be a bit of a standoff where the twins are trying to show Philly that we're committed to him and Philly is still demanding too much believing that we won't be able to hold him on the 26-man. It's an interesting situation. If he is ready enough to do more than just be the long man in a blowout and can pitch once a week for 2-3 innings and save the bullpen after a short or shorter start...there's real value there. Can he be a guy who comes in and throws 2+ innings after Paddack or SWR or whomever has a game where they can't get out of the 5th inning but the game is still close? And will spring training tell us enough to know?

at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if Paddack or SWR is the 4th or 5th slot. Early on, I wouldn't expect anyone to get skipped, and later on it'll be more about injuries and effectiveness for who gets a turn off in the rotation. There's good arguments for both SWR and Paddack to get skipped occasionally in the rotation if there are enough days off (SWR because of how he wore down last season, Paddack because of his injury history and limited innings in recent years). I will say, I much prefer having this kind of conversation about the rotation than what we dealt with a few years ago, wondering if we'd actually have enough quality guys to fill out a rotation. Now we're actually talking about whether or not we have the best guys filling the back end...

Can Iglesias still play SS, though? (I am a little surprised that after he hit .335 and put up a 137 OPS+ that he's not signed somewhere...what is he asking for, contract-wise?) I suspect he's not a better glove than either Castro or Lee at SS any longer and last year's hitting explosion might have been a fluke year: outside of the small sample COVID season in 2020, he's never been close to that kind of hitting. A little hard to see him repeating it at age 35... I wasn't impressed with any of the backup SS options that the Twins were linked to before signing France; would much rather let guys like Lee and Castro take those innings. I really do think that if healthy, Lee will be very good defensively at 2B or 3B (with maybe more upside even). I think if he wins the starting 2B job that's the best bulwark against a bad twins defense.

It's not really all that complicated: Lopez, Ober, and Ryan are locks that everyone agrees with. Paddack is going to get in there as the 4th or 5th starter, because a) he's a veteran, b) he's an asset, and c) he's getting $7.5M. (I'm not saying this is right, I'm saying this is Twins Reality) SWR should get the inside track for the last slot because he performed well last season and has been showing improvement in his approach, stuff, etc and is now the next most experienced starter on the 40-man. It's possible that if Festa or Matthews absolutely crushes it in Spring Training and SWR wobbles they could grab the spot, but it seems unlikely. but it is a possibility since SWR still has an option left. But that's the only real way someone else gets in the rotation. I strongly suspect that unless Paddack looks absolutely unplayable (velocity way way down, zero control, etc) he's in the rotation regardless of performance to start the season, even if Festa and Matthews look great. the Twins prize depth and have become increasing risk-adverse. About the only way Paddack isn't in the rotation is a) he gets hurt, or b) another starter for a contender gets hurt early in Spring Training and they make the Twins a significant offer...and at least one of Festa/Matthews or Adams/Raya are looking very good. It's not necessarily wrong to look at Paddack that way: he's performed well enough to potentially be a solid back-end starter, his value as a trade chip is probably higher if he's starting, etc. Will it get us the best pitching staff out the gate? I'd argue no, but I'm a big believer in Festa and think that SWR will out-perform Paddack. I would have much preferred the Twins make a move by trading Paddack's contract away and getting a better hitter than France, but maybe there just wasn't a reasonable deal out there. i think the Twins starting pitching is deep enough that we don't need to put resources on a Chris Paddack any longer. but until he gets dealt, I think we're stuck with him in the rotation. Hopefully he can be league average or better in the back end.

Lewis fields the position pretty well at 3B; his arm is a little scattershot, but I think he'll be ok. he handled the position just fine in 2023, and he's not in the decline phase of his career where you shouldn't expect him to do anything other than get worse. Let's not let recentcy bias infect things too much with Royce at 3B. One thing to watch with him is whether or not he lets struggles at the plate follow him on the field. He's never really had to deal with struggles at the plate until last season, so that something that you'd hope will improve as he gains experience. Brooks Lee is a fine defender at 2B & 3B and plays a solid enough SS that I'm not expecting to see Castro there much this season. I think there's an excellent chance he wins the every day 2B job, and that will help solidify the defense. I am a little worried about 1B because one of the things that Santana really helped on was the errant throws, which is a boon when Lewis is a little wild. Santana was also excellent at making the throw to 2B to get the lead runner, going home to stop a run, etc. His range at 1B was dropping; I don't think we'll see a lot of difference in going out to shallow right or long runs into foul territory. If Lee and Correa are playing up the middle consistently though it'll minimize the risk at the corners.

Bunting for a hit is great. Bunting just to move a runner over? Much, much less great. Even bunting them over from 2B to 3B with no out and no one else on in a tie game late...not all that great, but against some pitchers and in some situations, it may be useful/effective. I think it's great for hitters to know how to do it, and any hitter who has the footspeed to beat one out should definitely spend some time practicing it. But is it going to be all that impactful for someone like Matt Wallner (who takes a while to get moving) or Carlos Correa (who is just slow) to spend much time on? I'd say no. Guys like Buxton, Castro, Martin, Kiersey, Bader? Sure. they're guys that aren't just moving a runner over and giving up an out if they bunt, they'll actually pressure the defense. I'm just not in favor of just trading an out for a base.

i think we'll learn a lot about Morris this season in AAA. While the jump between AAA and MLB is huge and the hardest level to navigate, AA still has a lot more advanced hitters and saint Paul was a hitter's environment last year as well. If he's able to navigate it successfully and show improvement on his K rate, miss some more bats, induce more hitters to chase, etc then he's going to be a guy who has a chance. he's a very interesting prospect, and moving up 3 levels in a season isn't easy, and he didn't it successfully. I think it's notable that one thing that stayed consistent across each level was he kept the ball in the park and didn't give up tons of hits. It was also encouraging that he was able to make 24 starts and throw 133 innings when he'd never topped 100 before. It'll be interesting to see how the sinker workers for him and whether he starts to reduce his pitch mix at all as he refines his strongest offerings. It is possible that having so many pitches collectively raises the level on all of them if hitters never know what he's going to throw? But I suspect he'll see one or two of them drop off (or some of them blend together). It's a great position for the Twins to have Morris in AAA, but not on the 40-man yet. Absent a substantial string of injuries/ineffectiveness early, he shouldn't need to be called on until midseason, which gives him time to work on the refinements and consistency he'll need for long-term success, and it'll be easy for the Twins MLB staff to monitor him closely from across the river. (dang that 2022 draft might end up being a great one! Lee, Prielipp (if he can stay healthy), Morris, Jones, Lewis, Matthews, AND CJ Culpepper? Even if Schobel and/or Ross may have already hit their ceilings, this could turn out to be an epic draft with that pitching plus Brooks Lee!)

I don't think it's the analytics that are the problem. It's the preference for poorly performing veterans in hopes of a return to form vs younger players/prospects that has a lot of us having tsuris. I kind of doubt the Twins have some proprietary analytical formula that was telling them that Gallo was going to suddenly figure it out again or Margot was just terribly unlucky. they just seem more interested in giving vets a much longer rope. And I understand it to a point: when you cut the vet, they're almost always gone from the organization. When you send the prospect down to the minors you can call them back up later. but the risk analysis in letting the vet go seems to be skewed, at least to many of us. yes, losing control of an asset for nothing isn't great, but the asset has to be worth holding on to for it to matter. It really feels like the Twins are still so scarred from 2022 (when they were leading for most of the season, and still had a chance in September to take the division) when they simply ran out of functional players and it killed off the season that they've become very risk adverse to reducing their depth...even when it means keeping underperforming players. But that's playing not to lose, not playing to win. And the Twins have better depth in the farm system now than they did in 2022, IMHO, even with player graduating from prospect status. I'd rather they take the risk with guys like Miranda and Julien and Martin than keep throwing ABs at someone like France if they're not performing. I don't want Bader taking too many ABs away from Larnach or Miranda or Wallner, even if he is still a fine defender (and Bader will be taking ABs from Miranda if France get handed 1B and Larnach gets pushed to DH by Bader on the regular). Play to win.

Well, Rooker got more PA's than Garlick did with the Twins, even if Garlick got more games. but that was because Garlick was there for a limited role: smash LHP, which he did rather effectively the first 2 seasons he was here, when healthy. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay healthy and now his career is probably up unless he wants to keep chasing it in AAA for a while. Rooker was bad when he was with the Twins; except for his initial cup of coffee he hit poorly, was rotten defensively, and was out of options. Yes, Twins missed on him, but so did most of baseball: he flunked out for SD & KC (who desperately needed a RH slugger) too and was available for nothing (Oakland took him on waivers). but I hope everyone who is mad about Rooker is backing Eddie Julien to get plenty of playing time this season to figure things out the same way we would have had to with Rooker. Julien's younger, had far more success than Rooker in MLB at the time we moved on from him, and even in his down season of 2024 he added more value (marginally, but it was there). Because you can't complain about the Twins not being more patient with Rooker and also be telling everyone to quit on Julien at the same time.

I guess the thing that makes me nervous is Rocco talking a lot this spring about how these recent veteran signings are going to "play a lot". I'd rather they play if they deserve it? Bader getting more PT in LF rather than just being a backup CF is fine, especially if he's getting starts against LHP over Larnach. But if he's getting a bunch of starts in LF against RHP over Larnach, he'd better be hitting the @&$*! out of the ball, and I'm afraid we'll get a bunch of Bee Ess about how much more valuable his defense is out there than it actually is. Last season Larnach had a higher OPS+ than Bader has ever had in his entire career (admittedly, only by a pt). Bader's OPS+ last season was lower than anything Larnach has ever had in any of his seasons in MLB (again, only by 2 pts, but that was also Larnach's rookie season). Bader will produce better defense, but Larnach will produce better offense. If Bader is getting more PT than Larnach, it had better be because of an injury, or the Twins will not be putting out their best lineups. I have no patience for the team burying hitting talent behind these veterans this season. None. And frankly, this will be how Baldelli loses the locker room: sitting someone like Larnach if he's hitting like last season for Bader (if he's also hitting like last season) too often is going to cost the team runs and wins and will cause unrest and deserved dissatisfaction. For now, things are probably fine. But there's real danger here.

right, but that's because it's very difficult to move someone to catcher, and historically not that difficult to move someone to 1B. I mean, Kal'ai Rosario isn't much of a fielder in the OF, but he's not a disaster out there...are we better off moving him to 1B now while he's still a functional OF? How about Carson McCusker? Both are bat-first players...but also might not hit enough or have enough flaws in them that they might not make it anyways. Heck, we've got people campaigning every day here to just move Royce Lewis over to 1B.

What's the context on this, though? How many teams are running deep prospect lists at 1B? And is it "being forced into the role" or "played themselves off other more demanding defensive positions"? I suspect a lot of outrage will be found on this board if the Twins start drafting guys who are already locked in at 1B...

I'm a big fan of keaschall, but he's never had an AB above AA and is coming back from a significant injury. Not really expecting him to be a significant contributor until 2026 (and that's ok). I like Lewis & Morris quite a bit, but they're down a ways on the pitching rotation, and if we see them then it probably means there's been 2-4 significant injuries in the rotation, because they're going to be behind Festa, Matthews, Adams, and Raya right now to get a shot in the rotation just because of the 40-man status. Not seeing a Willi Castro in here right now.

It's as if the Twins see and magnify the flaws in their own prospects/players the longer they have them sometimes. Miranda is almost certainly going to be a better hitter than France assuming equal levels of health between them. (and as a younger player, you would think he'd have an advantage on actually staying healthy, but you never know with those things) He's been about as good a 1B defensively, despite playing the position substantially less. Neither France nor Miranda are perfect players, but it feels like management is minimizing the flaws in France and getting lost in Miranda6's. I really don't understand why the team would show any level of commitment to France going into spring training. I hope desperately that this is just meaningless public-speak where Rocco is trying to pump up a new player to the club...but it sure seems like they're picking Ty effing France to be the every day 1B already, which feels borderline insane. I hope I'm wrong. I hope France needs to prove it in spring training and they're not exiling Miranda to DH or the bench. But this feels very off. I've generally been ok with the front office and Rocco's management. But if they're picking Ty France over Miranda from the jump, and end up sticking with him even if he doesn't have the big bounce back they're projecting, then it's a huge system failure, and the sort of thing that should be pointed to with a new ownership to potentially escort them out the door. I believe in raising the floor as a way to stay competitive, but giving too many ABs to washed up veterans simply because they're veterans and or getting stuck in the sunk cost fallacy lowers that floor right back, because you're giving too many ABs to bad players. I hope I'm wrong. But I'm afraid I'm not.

It is a big part of the problem in this kind of a conversation, because the definition of "ace" varies wildly. Some people define it as a potential Cy Young candidate. Some people even define it as a potential hall of fame pitcher. Others are more like "best pitcher on a playoff caliber team" or something similar. If you asked people on this board how many "aces" are in MLB right now, you'd get a pretty big spread of numbers, ranging as low as single digits to 20 or more. I'm a big fan of Ryan, and I think he has the tools and talent to be the best pitcher on this team. We'll see whether he gets there and can stay healthy enough to maximize his talent, but i think he can do it. I look at his peripherals last season and there's so much to like: the WHIP of 0.985 is dominant. The K/BB ratio is excellent. He's keeping the ball in the park effectively, he can handle LH and RH hitters. Ryan put up a Game Score over 60 in 11 out of his 23 starts last season and only had 2 under 40. (I like Game Score as a way to quickly categorize the quality of starts; Ryan had a lot of very good to great ones and very few stinkers) I think if Ryan is healthy all season, he's going to be one of the better pitchers in the AL. Whether you call that an ace or not doesn't matter much to me.