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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    Not sure how impactful this really is; St. Peter was already on the way out, and no one knows what new ownership will do if the team is sold. Falvey is now a traditional Team President, with theoretical control over the entire organization on a day to day basis (it remains "theoretical" so long as any members of the Pohlad Family are on staff, really). Maybe he'll do better in terms of arranging business opportunities and negotiating rights deals (or empowering the professional staff below him in VP roles) if he's in a position where new revenues generated can be applied to additional payroll flexibility. St. Peter is a nice guy and did a good job in navigating the franchise through the stadium development process, which was...fraught. That was a massive success: huge windfall for the Pohlads, but also gave fans a far better baseball experience and ensured that the team stayed here. But it's unclear if we did as well in terms of marketing, ticket sales, sponsorships, etc as we could have under his leadership. The TV rights were acceptable when the RSNs were raking, but the attempt to try and create their own network was bungled and collapsed and they've done a terrible job in getting to the forefront of streaming. I think overall Falvey has done a good job under the constraints that ownership has place upon him. he seems capable of handling the addition to his portfolio as someone who seems to know how to hire talented people and deploy them effectively. But I doubt it'll make all that much impact in the short-term, and a new ownership could do almost anything.
  2. jmlease1
    I think this is right. Fans experience much more carryover from the previous season than the players/teams do and remember how things ended much more than the totality of the season. 2024 was a failure for the team, because they collapsed so badly down the stretch and simply couldn't not find a way to overcome so many players all struggling at the same time. but if we had re-ordered the results and had the awful Sept occur in May and the team rounding into shape to end the season...we'd all feel a lot more positive. And knowing that ownership ain't investing this year, after not investing last year certainly turns down the optimism. I do think it's a good sign for 2025 that Lewis, Buxton, and Correa finished the season on the field and are not facing surgeries in the off-season. Correa has rehab to contend with, but he managed that well enough last year and played very well (just not enough) in 2024. The talent base is good enough to win. Some things will go better than last season, some will probably go worse. but we're relying on very few players who could or should be considered past their prime for significant contributions. the pitching staff is almost all under 30; Brock Stewart and Justin Topa are the only guys over 30 that can/should expect roles and neither are core players. the lineup is similar: Correa at 30 and Buxton at 31 are the "old" guys in the starting lineup right now and the only other guy with a job over 30 is a backup catcher (who might get traded). The real shame is that with the 2023 payroll, the 2025 Twins would easily be a contender, with the ability to add a LH RP and RH 1B with proven track records with ease.
  3. jmlease1
    i would not have ranked Schobel this high; he wouldn't crack my top 20. the AA wall hit him hard, but that's not the only issue he has: mah dude hasn't actually hit at any level as a professional outside of that 2023 stretch in high A. Not in a cup of coffee in rookie ball, not in Ft. Myers, and he's now spent more time in AA than anywhere and has not hit there either. The defense isn't good enough for him to hit this poorly. Looking at the big increase in K's this season as a bit of a warning sign that he can't handle higher level pitching. He still draws some walks, but he's getting overwhelmed by pitchers who don't have to fear him. Unless he takes a leap forward next season (which will be age 24 at AA) then he's probably done as a prospect. I'm always rooting for guys to prove me wrong, but he's not a top 30 guy, let alone top 20. Olivar, on the other hand, is intriguing. Looking forward to seeing how he does in a full stretch at AA: he's hit effectively at his other stops, and if he can stick at catcher (even if he's just a part-time catcher) that could be a big deal. Looking forward to seeing if he can hit AA pitching and keep getting reps behind the plate. De Andrade feels about right here. i was hoping to see him get some reps in the AFL to make up for the missed time this year, but he's been absent. I expect he'll start back in Cedar Rapids, but he's got the skills to move up to AA with a good start to the year.
  4. jmlease1
    Falvey essentially now in charge of the team. More power, more money, more precarious position. Of course, with a potential new ownership group coming in, his position wasn't going to be that stable anyways, so might as well grab it all. Maybe he'll do a better job raising revenues for the team so that he'll have more payroll space to work with on the baseball side?
  5. jmlease1
    No one in MLB would argue that the Twins have a hole at catcher. Jeffers was a 2.1 bWAR player and is viewed as a quality starting catcher by every team and evaluator in baseball. Vazquez is still a quality defender as a backup. We may not have certainty of quality performance at 2B and 3B, but we certainly have options with either good prospects or players who have performed at one point in Julien, Miranda, Lewis, or Lee plus Castro. Lewis and Julien were down in 2024, but were successful and important in 2023; models like FanGraphs don't write off a player completely and immediately at the first sign of failure...unlike fans. I'd agree there's a bit of a hole at 1B, because I don't think the team will plug Miranda in there...but a model like FanGraphs would, quite reasonably.
  6. jmlease1
    He's 7th on the list. Still probably better than some of the veteran retreads that we and others have tried before like Shoemaker. I'm hardly counting on him, but he has been successful before in MLB.
  7. jmlease1
    Seems reasonable for me, especially before free agency opens. You correctly note that the Twins are not losing much value in free agency. (Sorry Max Kepler fans) The top of the rotation sure looks good to me with Lopez, Ober, and Ryan and the lineup has strength in players like Correa, Buxton, Wallner, and Jeffers to go along with prospect/young players like Miranda, Lee, Julien, etc. The front office has been good about getting better depth and raising that floor by working hard to give as few ABs or IP to bad players. If we don't deal any of the big contracts, the floor should be high. It's part of why the self-imposed payroll restrictions to ensure that ownership makes an operating profit in addition to their substantial increases in franchise value are so goddamn frustrating. This team isn't far off, and if we'd had that additional $20-30M in payroll last season there's a real chance we could have prevented the collapse down the stretch (think about where we would have been with a real impact RH OF bat instead of Margot and a LH reliever!) or positioned ourselves where we could have ridden it out. I still like where this team stands. No one in our rotation is going to be even 30. We have a legion of young starters coming in behind; we've rarely had their level of quality and upside and never had their numbers. We have some strong relievers to anchor the back of the bullpen. We have a lineup that should be able to hit if it can stay even a little bit healthy, and we have some prospects rising in the minors that will be able to add, fill-in, and ultimately replace guys. The biggest drag on this team is ownership, payroll, and health.
  8. jmlease1
    I don't blame a NY columnist for suggesting the NY teams start sniffing around Carlos Correa and see if they can use their financial muscle to start treating small and mid-market teams as their farm systems again. And Correa would be a great fit for the Damn Yankees from a baseball perspective. And I agree with the commentors who have noted that the Correa signing made a lot more sense when the payroll with $150M+ then the self-imposed "right-sizing" limits the Pohlad Family have placed on the franchise now. (And you can't blame Falvey for not anticipating the ownership would suddenly cut $30M in payroll on him. Or that ownership would botch their business operations so badly that they couldn't make up the revenue...or would pocket whatever revenue savings they did find) But trading Correa (which would almost certainly be framed as a salary dump, no matter how good the prospects we get back might be) would be waving the surrender flag. It'd be a purely financial move, because no one here believes that it would free up $35M in payroll to fill different holes in the roster and retool. There's nothing that says fans should trust this ownership group not to pocket the money as they ramp up for sale, and many indicators to believe that they would do exactly that and not give two craps about what it does to the team's W-L record. I hate everything about this idea. Correa is a great player, the most complete SS I've ever seen in a Twins uniform. And I do think this team can compete next season and be a fun team that's easy to root for. And ideas like this throw that whole thing in the trash. A full Target Field is way more fun than an empty one. Trade Correa and watch attendance plummet. Yuck tuck yuck.
  9. jmlease1
    I could see a team dealing for Paddack; at that salary, he makes sense as a 5th starter who you could maybe skip on occasion to try and keep him healthy, and he's also shown that he can be impactful in the bullpen, so he'd still have value in the postseason for a contender. There's some risk because of his arm injuries, but at the same time it's a 1-year deal and the money ain't exactly high. I wouldn't want him in a rotation with a lot of question marks, because he's not someone you can really count on. He's a question mark of his own. But there's still talent there, and there's also a more than reasonable option to slide him to the bullpen if it's not working as a starter or someone else emerges as a better option. No team is going to look at him as a top 3 in their rotation, but as a 5th starter? We've seen a lot worse pitchers get more money to be the 5th guy. Is he going to bring a significant return? Probably not a big one, but doesn't mean the Twins shouldn't be shopping him. If they can use him to get the veteran RH bat they need and match salaries? That would be a help. Sadly, the self-imposed payroll limits are so measly that even a straight salary dump for a C-prospect isn't the worst idea if it means they can add a Carlos Santana type that their ownership wouldn't otherwise allow. Moving Paddack makes a lot of sense, really. I'm comfortable with Festa starting the season as the #5, and even with that move we still have prospect depth in AA/AAA that are ready to step up in Matthews, Lewis, Raya, Adams, Nowlin, and Morris...even Randy Dobnak is lurking around for one more shot if needed. It doesn't blow a hole in the team and could allow them to fill one.
  10. jmlease1
    Says something about the pitching in the AFL if this is an all-star? Good luck to him but...not expecting him to suddenly transform into a viable MLB relief option.
  11. jmlease1
    I have a suspicion that the free agent market will be down for all except the best of the best; the Twins are not the only team that will be adjusting their payrolls due to the collapse of the RSN market. And relievers will bear a lot of the brunt of this; the easiest spot to cut is to pass on the $5-8M middle reliever and try and fill internally with someone in your system. I'd bet that a bunch of these projected 2 year deals never come to fruition, more like 1 year deals at lower money. Player's union is going to have to wrestle with their middle class getting squeezed again, but that's another issue. If the twins can create some money to play with, they should be able to sign the kind of LHP they need o add to the bullpen. there should be some options. Will they pick the right one? I dunno, but I hope it's not a reclamation project coming off a significant arm injury. Just kind of done with that risk, especially with how many players we already have with injury histories.
  12. jmlease1
    It's interesting evaluating OF with excellent arms defensively. Because teams stop challenging them (mostly) fairly quickly once it's obvious that a guy has a superior arm and so they stop getting those nifty outfield assists. How exactly do they evaluate the number of bases reduced/runs not scored because guys didn't tried to score on a fly ball to right or stretch a single into a double because they knew Wallner or someone like him has a cannon? Personally, I would like to see Royce slide to 2B where we don't have to worry about his scattershot arm as much and his quality range would play fine, but if he's not on board with it it'll be a mess. but the time to pull the switch is in the offseason so he can do a little winter work on it and come into spring training mentally and physically ready. That would open up 3B for Brooks Lee, who I think will hit better next season, and will be an excellent 3B defensively. I feel like Miranda can definitely improve at 1B and will hit enough there if healthy. Again, the time to work on that move is in the offseason. Let him be a primary 1B who will slide over to 3B if needed (but with Lee, Castro, and Lewis ahead of him on the depth chart) but to land there and really be present at one position. he won't be Carlos Santana, but he will hit more. Health is going to be huge here. Guys who are nicked up, guys who battling through an injury get worse in the field in a hurry.
  13. jmlease1
    It's definitely one of the things that sucks about youth sports now, where kids are pressured into picking one sport earlier and earlier and the training and competition goes year-round. Don't play this other sport, you have to go to performance camp. skip that other sport, we're running "dome ball" this winter. kids who want to play multiple sports get buried by the coaches of both for "not being dedicated enough" and have to pick one just to be able to play unless they're just so superior an athlete it doesn't matter. athletic cross-training by playing multiple sports is probably really good for the kids, but the coaches will probably never believe it. Maybe the next frontier for gaining a competitive advantage really is in health. Finding out how many swings a hitter should really be taking to stay sharp, improve, etc and still stay healthy rather than just "more". Maybe a greater focus on core strength and flexibility will matter? Healthier teams win more.
  14. jmlease1
    Year-round baseball training leading to more of these kinds of injuries? It's got to be a concern. Hopefully they can find a plan that can keep these guys healthy because they are very talented players and could make a big difference for the Twins next season if healthy. Maybe it's time to send everyone to yoga? (not entirely kidding here)
  15. jmlease1
    Agreed. Donovan is a useful player, but I don't see him as being a particularly good fit for the Twins. He put up fine defensive stats in his rookie season as a utility guy, but wasn't impressive as a 2B/LF. He's a good hitter, but while he might be aesthetically more pleasing than Wallner, he seems unlikely to be better at the plate in terms of production. (Wallner and Donovan have had nearly identical bWAR over the past 2 seasons combined...but that's a counting stat and Donovan has gotten a lot more opportunity) If he were a RH hitter, this might be interesting but as is we'd essentially be swapping in a less flexible super-utility guy who is a more consistent hitter. It doesn't make them younger, it doesn't solve the need for improved RH thump, and it might not really improve them defensively...it just might make them a little cheaper if they deal Castro well? Considering what they might need to give up, I'm unenthusiastic. Based on last season does Donovan look like a significant upgrade on Larnach in LF? because that's what we might be landing on here, and even while dealing with a turf toe issue Larnach was decent. Pass.
  16. jmlease1
    I'm really bummed about Kirilloff. Just one of the sweetest swings we've seen, and every time he'd get on a roll he'd get bit with another injury. And every time an injury cropped up on him his production went into the tank. It's not a surprise that his production went down, considering the injuries he was dealing with: wrist problems are a huge issue for hitter, and so are back problems. Kirilloff was at his best when he was making good, hard, consistent contact, ripping line drives around the stadium. And he just couldn't do it when hampered by injuries. It sucks. Hopefully he can get his back rehabbed effectively and live a pain-free life again. I expect he'll be done with baseball as a player, but maybe there will still be something for him in the game as a coach or something. he always seemed very smart about his swing so it'd be nice if he could find a path as a hitting instructor. I really was hoping that after 2023 he could have built on that solid effort. Even after we signed Santana, I thought he would make a good platoon partner and could improve defensively with a veteran like that tutoring him. His body betrayed him, and it sucks. Wish him a lot of luck. Seemed like a good dude. I'll definitely remember him for that 2018 season when he obliterated the minors and showed what a healthy AK could do.
  17. jmlease1
    I'm baffled by the idea that the Twins have somehow disrespected Randy Dobnak. he wasn't healthy for multiple seasons, and the last 2 when he has been healthy, he hasn't been impressive in AAA and given anyone much of a reason to promote him. seems like a good dude, but the injuries really derailed his career. He was wise to sign the long-term contract he was offered, and hopefully he's made good investment and savings choices.
  18. jmlease1
    He was on a similar track to sands, who people were also excited about. Winder struggled to stay healthy and never really developed. Sands got healthy and showed he could handle the role as a reliever. That's kind of the way it goes: some that look good flame out, never stay healthy, never find success in a role. Sands has worked out, Winder didn't. Someone might give Winder a chance to make it as a reliever somewhere else, but I doubt anyone will be breaking down the door to give him a MLB contract. He could slide through waivers and give it one more shot in saint Paul. Not all that surprised he got dropped: he's 28, he's frequently injured, he's frequently very hittable, and has never been able to turn it up. I'm a little surprised at Severino, but he was just ok in Saint Paul at the plate and doesn't add much defensively. his ability to switch hit is intriguing, but he would need to really hit to have value since he adds little defensively and is really a 1B/DH at this point. Looks like the Twins think of him as a fringe player. All seems fine to me.
  19. jmlease1
    I do think Miranda can improve at 1B defensively; he basically never played it before MLB and was asked to fill in at the same time that he was really learning 3B still. (he played 2B more than anything in the minors) If there's a full healthy spring training to work on 1B? My struggle with Miranda is that his splits aren't better against LHP. Especially if he time-shares with Julien. He's been better against RHP and LHP. But the numbers are still relatively small, so hopefully that will improve? But I do still have a lot of hope for Miranda as a hitter and player
  20. jmlease1
    I was one of the skeptics. I thought they would overuse him and that he wouldn't hit enough to make him effective enough at 1B. They probably did expose him too much against RHP, but the defense made it worth doing, especially in the absence of a better option. He was more than worth the $5M and did a very nice job once he got out of that awful start. The defense really was excellent. A lot of times it can be hard to see how superior defense impacts at 1B, but you could really see it with Santana. I'd be interested in bringing him back again...but the exposure issue might be a bigger concern since Time is Undefeated, and the self-imposed payroll limits make even $5M tight. But he had a great season defensively, and it was a pleasure to watch. He was so consistent that you were shocked if he didn't make a tough play. Definitely earned that GG. Congrats Carlos!
  21. jmlease1
    Pretty hard to list 2 guys in the top 5 Twins trade assets when they both have no-trade clauses. Pablo is the most viable, but dealing him would be waving the white flag of surrender. Since the Pohlads are selling, they won't care about that, but it sure would be gross. You'd think that it would also hurt the interest in buying because dumping Lopez would definitely tank ticket sales. Lewis had such a rough end to his season that it feels like you'd be selling low on him. It's not like he had a healthy season in 2023. Twins have a complicated path if they want to move a significant piece and shake up the core, because they appear to have no flexibility on payroll. You have a lot more options if you can take on payroll as part of a deal, especially when it includes younger, cheaper players going out. The self-imposed payroll limits take that off the table...or force a more complex scenario, involving moving players like Vazquez etc.
  22. jmlease1
    I think you're a lot further down on Lee than the rest of the league.
  23. jmlease1
    It's hard to see any of these as real trade candidates; the most likely are Jax & Duran, because a) relievers are the most fungible, and b) they're getting more expensive. But dealing either of them right now would almost look like surrender, because it would weaken the bullpen so severely it would be hard to look at it as a positive or having the capacity to be a weapon in the playoffs. Lee has significant upside still, is young and cheap, but after an injury and unimpressive debut, it's not exactly selling high. Wallner would be selling high, but would leave the team really needing Rodriguez to be ready immediately or the offense would be missing a critical element. Ober is a rotation stalwart; you'd have to be very convinced that Festa, Matthews, Lewis, etc are ready to perform at his level right soon or again...surrender. I'm sure some people want to deal Wallner because they can't stand his Ks and would rather dump him, but he's been incredibly productive and I want his LH thump in the lineup.
  24. jmlease1
    because he's turning 35 this month and has never really had a particularly standout season his whole career? He was pretty good this year, He was decent in 2015 in limited innings. But his career ERA+ is 101, his career FIP is 4.24. he gets Ks, but also gives up hits & walks: his WHIP this year of 1.261 is right in line with his career WHIP of 1.296. he's just not all that dominant and hasn't shown a high ceiling. he's been fine? But not really much better than say, Staumont, who no one will really miss. he's not bad or anything, just hard to see him as being worth tendering. I'd rather see Varland in that spot.
  25. jmlease1
    Max Kepler absolutely owning Bauer in 2019 is a truly delightful Twins memory. Always liked Kepler. His entire second half in 2023 could merit a place on this list, as he was great down the stretch and carried the team in August. It's too bad he wasn't able to find a way to consistently hit for power; his 2019 and 2023 seasons stick out pretty clearly as the years where he was able to mash. The rest of the time he was vaguely disappointing on offense while usually providing quality to excellent defense. The Cuddyer comp isn't that far off; Max was a much better defender (Max had much better range, Cuddy had a better arm, but not by a ton), but Cuddy was a more consistent offensive player. I think a lot of us thought we could expect Cuddyer's power production out of Kepler, especially after he had the big year in 2019, but he couldn't do it. Injuries in the past few seasons certainly played a part. A good but not great player, but you need guys like Kepler on your roster to support your stars, and if a couple of them have peak years at the same time maybe you can win a title. Someone will offer Kepler a contract, but I'm betting it's a 1-2 year deal to platoon in the corners, maybe DH a little against RHP.
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