jmlease1

Who was the 7th starter in 2024? Festa, who had 3 starts and 12 1/3 innings in AAA in 2023. Right now, the rotation is Lopez, Ober, Ryan, SWR, Paddack (unless traded) with Festa or Matthews next up. Both have passed Varland at this point. I don't think there's a real problem in having a prospect like Morris, Adams, Raya, or Lewis be 7-10 on the options list. Varland does not need to stay a starter, and the Twins don't need to sign another back end veteran waste of money starter.

Early nominee for the Preposterous Statement Award!

That's the thing though: elite relievers do repeat, and that's what makes them elite. It's when you're paying average guys big money and expecting them to be consistent year after year that your bullpen ends up being a mess. Alcala, Sands, and Varland haven't shown they can get there consistently yet but all the signs suggests that Jax and Duran are elite relievers. Jax hasn't had a poor year as a reliever and should be right in his prime. Duran hasn't even turned 27 yet and while last season wasn't up to his standards, he was still a quality reliever showing what can be reasonably looked at as his floor. The Twins need to add a LHP for the bullpen; counting on Funderburk or Moran to fill that role from the jump is asking too much and too risky, especially when veteran help can be found without breaking the bank. But they may already have their multi-inning reliever in varland, who looks to be well-suited to throwing 1-2 innings of relief to bridge those middle innings. I wouldn't count on Topa/Stewart because their health is too iffy, but the odds are decent that one of them will be able to add good innings this year. But when you have Jax & Duran for the highest leverage innings out the gate and Alcala and Sands coming in behind them, you have the basis for what can be an excellent bullpen. They were really good for most of 2024, just got ground down in the second half by not having enough consistent innings behind the top 4 guys. Sands and Alcala were both good last year. legitimately good, with the peripherals to back it up.

Do they love Rortvedt? Dude is a good defensive catcher, but he can't hit either. TB isn't interested in Vazquez because of the salary, but I doubt they're all that thrilled with a sore-kneed catcher whose slugging is lower than his on-base %.

Morris is doing very well. I really like seeing so little variance in his splits between LH and RH hitters; so many prospects struggle with one side of the plate as they get to the high minors and so far Morris seems to be able to handle it with his variety of pitches. He's been remarkably consistent so far as a pro; outside of that first stint at Cedar Rapids (where he gave up a lot of hits), his numbers at every level have looked pretty similar. If he can get his K/9 back up around 9 and bring the BB/9 back down closer to 2 than 3 while continuing to keep the ball in the park like he has, you have to like his chances. I'm impressed with how well he's done so quickly: he's gone from low A to AAA in 2 seasons and just turned 23 in September. It'll be interesting to see where he falls on the pecking order as starters are inevitably needed in MLB. He has to be behind Festa and Matthews; both have had a taste of MLB and are on the 40-man. He might be more ready than Raya, but Raya is on the 40-man already so depending on how things are going injury-wise, that could keep him down longer? I'd probably go Festa, Matthews, Morris, Lewis, Raya, Adams, Nowlin (if he stays) in terms of readiness, but Adams or Raya could jump ahead on the call to MLB in 2025 if there's a 40-man crunch. It sure does make it easier to move on from Paddack knowing that we have guys like Morris waiting in AAA.

Moran is an interesting case, but he's also got a bigger contract, correct? Maybe a team would try to grab him in the Rule 5, put him on the 16-man and then send him to the 60-day IL at the start of the year? But it still occupies a precious 26-man slot at a tight time of year with a player that isn't going to contribute. I think it will be tough for a team to take a player with a history of wildness coming off a major injury to slot into the 26-man.

I think part of what we're seeing is that it's difficult to take a position player in the Rule 5 draft with almost every team running a 13 man bench for position players in MLB. Unless your Rule 5 selection can come in and play at least some fairly early you're putting your squad in a bad position. Pitchers are much more likely to get taken if someone is in AA or AAA, might have some utility in the bullpen, and could serve as the 8th guy. Winkel could get taken by a team who doesn't like their choices for a backup catcher and has nothing in AAA, but it seems unlikely. Olivar was a guy I was worried about a bad team taking and trying to stash for a season to send him back to the minors next season, but he's probably too far away from being ready to contribute especially since his catching skills need work. I thought they might protect Rosario, but since he's never played above AA, is a poor defender, and K-prone, it would probably be tough for a team to hang on to him for the full season on the 26 man. Nowlin might get grabbed; I would definitely go there if I wasn't a contending team: he's left handed with some upside and could float in the bullpen all year for a bad team (CWS?) while the staff works on his stuff, command, etc and sends him back down next season. But he's probably behind Festa, Matthews, Lewis, Raya, Adams, and Morris in the starting pitching pecking order so it's probably not a great loss if someone takes a flier on him.

You undermine your own arguments pretty significantly when you take gratuitous shots at Rocco for a) executing a strategy that everyone in baseball is following, and b) Rocco showed quite clearly that given a starting staff capable of going deeper in games he let them go deeper in games. The "spreadsheet" attacks on the manager are tired and lame, and certainly don't sell me on offering arbitration or a raise to Michael Tonkin, who is very very average. he had a career best stretch with the Yankees...who waived him in August. Someone will give him a chance, and I'm even ok with it being the Twins, but there's a dozen guys like him every year looking for work on cut down day. So spending $1.5M on him doesn't exactly make my sock roll up and down. I mean, Happy Birthday Michael Tonkin! You seem like a marginal middle reliever with minimal upside, but seems ok if you've really figured out a way to get the occasional LH hitter out consistently.

I loved Torii Hunter. He was a delight to watch play...most of the time. And he was a really really good player, and it was pretty impressive how he continued to be a good player well into his 30's, and having one of his best seasons at 36. But he's not a Hall of Famer for me. he technically played 19 seasons, but the first 2 don't really count (1 game as a defensive replacement, and 6 games? nah, let's start in 1999). But in those seasons Torii was most often a quality starter, falling short of all-star levels. He made 5 all-star teams, but probably only deserved maybe 4 of them. He won 9 Gold Gloves, but some of them were on scholarship and reputation for sure. The peaks were never really there. he's the epitome of the Hall of Very Good. And that's fine! he was an excellent player for a long time and did a lot of wonderful things on the field. But Andruw Jones is a borderline case and he was as good offensively as Torii, better defensively, and he's still borderline. Torii was more consistent than Jones, but in every other way, Jones was the superior player. And I hated Jones and his teams, and loved Torii. but the only thing Torii has on Andruw Jones was availability.

None of the pitchers did anything to impress. Disappointed that De Andrade didn't get to play. I assume he hadn't actually recovered well enough from the injury to get on the field? Still a bummer, but hopefully he can get right over the winter and be ready to get back at it. I still like his potential at SS, he's one of the guys in the system that I think could actually stick there, but he'll need to keep developing (and hit) as he goes. Solid job by Rosario. Good to have him get some additional swings in after missing time with an injury. He'll need to the power to flow again in AA, but it was good to see him making a lot of consistent contact. And maybe the OF reps will help him be less...bad...out there. I like his RH bat, but I'd like it more if he could get closer to average in the field and the Ks will always be a concern. Ross definitely helped himself after a slow start. He really hit the AA wall hard, so maybe this helps him into next season. he has to show he can't get bullied in AA as a hitter next season in order to advance. The defense is solid enough, but not so superior that he can make it as a no-hit defensive specialist. he doesn't need to be swinging for the fences: doubles power is enough, but he needs to be able to get there consistently with a solid BA. no one feared him in AA last season and he got overwhelmed. he needs to do to AA pitching what he did to the AFL.

He's a fascinating prospect. The ceiling is very high for him, but he's also got bust potential if he can't improve his spin recognition and he's certainly got some real development work to do. I suspect the big challenges for him will be at AA and higher when he starts facing more advanced pitching, but he's off to an intriguing start and did just fine for 19 at Ft. Myers. The combination of power and speed is a lot of fun. I tend to think he's going to end up in the OF rather than stand on the dirt, but he looks like he could be a legit CF and with his length it'd be awfully fun to see him stealing homers at the wall. I like this kind of pick from time to time. While you don't want to fill your system with too many boom or bust picks, it's also good to stretch from time to time and take a risk on a high ceiling player like this. I feel like the overall draft strategy of the franchise is in a pretty good place: they're looking for inefficiencies, they're generally drafting for talent over need (but without totally ignoring need). they're not afraid to take some risks, and they don't seem to be dogmatic. (for example, while they've been drafting a lot of college pitchers, they haven't been afraid to take a high school pitcher that they like. Same with the hitters. They'll take a swing at a guy like Winokur in the 3rd round, but they're not doing it in every round.) This will be an interesting season for Winokur. He's had a full season of pro baseball. He's had some success, but also had some challenges. he's had to deal with picking up a knock or two. There's loads of talent, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he applies it. I'm guessing he starts back in Ft. Myers with a midseason promotion to Cedar Rapids, but I wouldn't be shocked if he went to A+ from the jump.

75%? Unless you have some inside information on this one, Winkel looks more like 0% to me. He didn't hit in the very friendly environment of Saint Paul in 2024, really only had one impressive season at the plate in the minors (2023 in AA, also in a good hitting environment) and doesn't look ready for MLB. He's the classic profile of the AAA catcher: maybe he can come up and be the backup for a few weeks if someone gets hurt, but you can't expect anything from him. While catching is thin across MLB, it's thin because there's a lot of guys like him floating around and few breakout prospects and not a lot of 2-way players. Hard to see anyone picking him to be their backup catcher for the season out of the Rule 5. You grab him if you can send him up and down from AAA and Rule 5 doesn't allow that. If he got picked, I'd bet money he'd be returned.

I hate the fact that the self-imposed payroll limitations have us in a position where we need to do a salary dump to make improvements to the roster, but we are where we are. The reality is, if we can move off Vazquez's contract, we should absolutely do it. he's a good guy who works with pitchers well and and brings positive intangibles to the team, but it's also true that he can't hit much for very long. He'll have a hot streak or three in a season, but his numbers at the end of the day will be...poor. But he's still a quality defensive catcher, and in MLB these days not very many catchers can hit their weight, so for the right team he could fill a role reasonably, and they would only be looking at a 1-year commitment, so even if Vazquez repeats 2024 it won't hurt much, and even a fairly modest bounceback would make him acceptable at a position where there aren't many solutions out there. At least vazquez has done it before on a big stage. i don't expect much if anything in return, but I'd still do it. Camargo has little left to prove in AAA and is a reasonable backup option and if he flunks out, then the team will likely have Winkel or someone like him in AAA to give a shot, and if that craps out too it's not that hard to find a no-hit solid field experienced MLB catcher interested in one last job off the waiver wire or via small time trade. $10M would go a long way to fill positions of much greater need. (I'm also baffled by the desire to run Jeffers out of town; he was a quality defensive catcher in 2024 and above league average as a hitter even in a down year. he wasn't all that far off in controlling the running game: if he'd thrown out just 3 more dudes he'd have landed at league average, and Vazquez wasn't any better)

Yeah, so it falls in on the articles assumptions, which is a fair place to work from when doing this kind of exercise. I just have trouble seeing this kind of contract, especially when they cite contracts that were...bad, as precedent. (Abreu's was awful, Encarnacion & Santana's were both below par on average). If there's any kind of market contraction this year, which seems likely...why would any team sign up for a 3 year deal at $20M per on a player who has shown signs of decline? (I'm also finding it impossible to believe that teams are going to be throwing 5 years and a $25M AAV at Pete Alonso, who is 5 years younger than Walker, but seen a similar decline in bWAR from 2022 to 2024...but MLB teams have been stupid before) I'm intrigued by a player like Walker, but not at $20M AAV for 3 years at his age, no mater how many people say he's underappreciated.

not a fan of Josh Bell as a 1B option. he hasn't been good for a couple of years and there's a reason he's been on 5 teams in 3 seasons and Cleveland at a bunch of salary to make him go away. I think the price is probably about where he might land, but I don't want him; we'd likely be better giving that same about to bring back Santana, which will be in that same range i suspect. Mayza seems like an interesting piece worth going for to give us a LH option in the bullpen, but dumping Topa for nothing feels like an overreaction to not getting an immediate result from the Polanco trade. Signing Bieber is not where I want to put what few dollars we have. Much rather put money into getting a real 1B/RH hitter instead of Josh Bell. Adding Gus Varland feels a little more like a PR move than a real attempt to upgrade the bullpen.

It's a creative and fairly bold plan. Do we really see Christian Walker getting 3/$60M? The defense is quality and he's been a consistent hitter, but he's also seen a decline in his bWAR each year for the last 3 and will turn 34 next season. If there's really a monetary crunch from the collapse of the RSNs league wide this offseason, he looks exactly like the sort of player who won't get a big deal. I guess we'll see on him? It's interesting that you have the Twins grabbing 2 players from the D-Backs. I'd be worried about the bullpen under this design, as it relies on Stewart, Topa, and Moran all being healthy and betting on more than one of them being healthy seems to be unlikely. That said, Varland and Alcala are both capable of handling higher leverage situations, so it's not like the back-end is going to be bare. But I'd have to bet that no more than 1 of the three is healthy out of spring training/makes it through april, which means dipping down into the depth early in the year. I'm not sure we can pry Rushing loose without giving up more, but we do have the prospect capital to add to this deal without needing to drop in one of our top ranked guys. he certainly would be a good fit. I think having Helman and Kiersey on the bench kind of insures the bench doesn't hit enough. If we think Helman could fill in at CF well enough I'd be more interested in having Julian on the opening day roster. I still think he can hit. Not so sure about Kiersey.

He should be a fun one to watch. He struggled at Cedar Rapids for sure, but it's a fairly small sample and making the jump up to High A in your first professional season is impressive regardless of what happens in that final stop. I think it's a good sign that he didn't just have a power explosion in his final year of college; he hit exactly the same his last two seasons at K-State, so that suggests it wasn't a mirage. And the Big 12 has quality competition. There's a lot to like here about his ability as a hitter, and if he can elevate his swing a little more while maintain strong contact skills he should be a dangerous hitter. Cedar Rapids is a good place for him to start the season. Twins haven't been afraid to promote guys aggressively, so if he come out the gate firing and hits like he's capable of he could be in Wichita later in the year. I hope the Twins don't walk away from his speed and just bulk him up and ignore his potential as a runner. I'm not expecting him to steal 40+, but they should be working on having players like him with good speed and the ability to swipe bags continue to refine it. there's good value-added in that and playing station to station baseball should be the default.

Adams is the toughest call, I think. (Raya is a no-brainer, and I think you have to protect Olivar and Rosario or lose them) Of the rest the only one that you'd lose is Adams. He's close enough to MLB that you could pretty easily stash him as a long reliever in MLB for most teams, and a bad one that's short on talent would definitely grab him IMHO. So what do the Twins really think of his potential to pitch effectively in MLB for them? He's pretty far down the pecking order for starting pitching prospects, but it's unclear if he could switch to the 'pen and be impactful or not. I think that's the tough selection. Maybe you could sneak Olivar through this year; it's tough to keep position players on a roster for a full season who aren't realistically in a position to play and Olivar isn't. (there are questions about him at catcher, and while he profiles well as a hitter, he ain't ready to go to MLB) But losing him would be a huge loss. I'm risk adverse; we'll see if the Twins are on this.

He hadn't shown himself to be good anywhere in the field. Below average or worse everywhere they tried him. Just not a very good fielder, so he needs to hit to make it. The raw numbers in 2024 looked ok, but in the context of the high offense environment in Saint Paul...not so great. I had hopes of him as a 1B option for the Twins, but they clearly didn't think he could make a difference. With his high K numbers, lack of a defensive position, and relative struggles in AAA...not sure they were wrong here. A team without a 40-man crunch should take a flier on him, but I can understand why the Twins cut him off the 40-man, and why he wanted to move on.

I want nothing to do with trading Ober, who i think is excellent, but you have to trade value to get anything and he's got a ton of it. but where the twins are right now because of the Pohlad self-imposed payroll limitations, it's very hard to put together an Ober package that makes a lot of sense, unless you're tearing this down for 2025...at which point dealing other players like Lopez, Buxton, Correa (if he's amenable) plus Jax & Duran probably make even more sense. Dealing Ober to improve the MLB squad would require taking back a lot more in salary, so seems really unlikely. And i definitely don't want to move him for a bunch of prospects, no matter how highly rated they might be, because it seems impossible that anyone acquiring him would have a superior pitching prospect in AA or higher waiting if they have such a need for Ober. he's worth a ton, and for good reason. Seems like a bad idea to move him, though, unless we've already created payroll flexibility.

There's a lot to like about Lewis: he handled A-ball with ease and while he was a little more up and down and less dominant in AA, by the end of the season he was starting to look like 2023 Lewis again. He looks like someone who knows how to pitch, and if he can keep the fastball around 91-93 mph then I think he's got a future. I'm not going to put too much weight on 1 start in AAA; let's see how he does in a dozen before we decide what he is. He's behind guys like Festa and Matthews right now, but not that far behind, and I think he spends most of his time in AAA waiting for his chance. I'm a little worried about his durability: he's thrown over 100 innings exactly once in his entire career and missed real time in 2024. But he gets outs and doesn't give up piles of runs. besides, dude a has a knuckleball. Can't wait to see it in MLB.

Short answer: No. Longer answer: No, because the odds of him having sustained success as a starter aren't all that great, and he has found far more success as a reliever, in ways that look repeatable and sustainable that are most likely not true as a starter. the issue of max effort has come up by many here already, but it's a real issue as an actual starter. you have to pace yourself through the game at least somewhat. Do teams have starters worrying less about that now as they pull guys before they go through the order a 3rd time? Sure, but it's unquestionably harder to maintain velocity deeper into games especially through the grind of a full season. It's one thing to gut through it in april/may and another to be able to summon that velocity in late august. Jax has improved his stuff, which is a point in his favor, but how does that changeup look when guys have already seen it? His sweeper is faster and sharper...can he sustain that velocity and spin on it through 5-7 innings? Can he throw it enough as a starter? that fastball got a lot better when it went from 92-93 to 96-98 mph too. he's a real weapon in the bullpen. He struggled mightily as a starter. Yes, he's almost certainly a better pitcher now than he was then, but part of that is because he's throwing so much harder. It would be a huge gamble to see if he can maintain velocity deep in games and be effective as a starter, because you're really not going to know until you've given him 5-6 starts in MLB. Because he's not going to be throwing that deep in spring training even if they have him prepare to start. So you're either taking a the risk and hoping or taking the word of the player (and players are notorious unreliable in their ability to assess whether they can do something or not) that it'll work. We need him in the bullpen. he's been great in the bullpen. We probably don't need him as a starter. He was bad as a starter. keep him in the bullpen. I mean, go ahead and have the conversation with him. But I would explain it to him exactly like that: we need you in the bullpen, where you're great. the team needs you there. I think he'll get it.

Just fine. we desperately needed starting pitching and Maeda got it done for us in 2020 (Cy Young runner-up) and was also still solid for us in 2023. Sure, he got hurt and it wrecked 2021 & 2022, but needs must. Graterol has had 1 great season in 5 with the Dodgers and has been injured or just pretty good (or both) in the other 4. Both teams got exactly what they needed in 1 season, mixed results and injuries in the others. Twins hardly got fleeced, especially since we also got back Carmago in the deal, who looks ready to be the backup catcher. (yes, we gave up Raley, but the Dodgers gave up on him and dealt him for nothing) Is Graterol better than Duran or Jax? or is he more like Sands or Alcala? Or is he really more like Brock Stewart: good when healthy, but not very healthy? (Note: Graterol only pitched in one series in the postseason this year, which might tell you where he is in the Dodger bullpen rankings, and nearly blew Game 5 for them with 3 BBs) I'd prefer to hang on the Duran as well, but the Twins didn't get fleeced by dealing Brusdar Graterol.

Sands basically never made the rotation; I'm not sure how much earlier they reasonably could have converted him. he still profiled out as a potential starter in 2021 when he was in AA; I'm not sure why anyone would have sent him to AAA and made him relieve yet. yes, he had some injury issues, but nothing major like Canterino or Prielipp. he got called up in 2022, didn't look great as a starter, got some relief tries, and then got sent back down. He made the transition to the bullpen full-time in 2023 and did ok for the twins but walked too many guys, and took a step forward in 2024. Jax it's a little of the same thing: should the Twin not have tried him in MLB as a starter? Because he only started for us for one season. Sure, maybe he makes it to MLB faster as a reliever, but keep in mind that when jax was coming up we were desperate for starting pitching because the cupboard had been pretty bare. We've got a ton of depth in the high minors right now for starters, but in 2021 we were still so thin that we were banking on JA Happ and Michael Pineda. the value is so much higher if a guy can start that it's hard to give up on him (especially when performing in the minors) and convert to relief before you know if they can't hack it in MLB.

I don't think we should trade Duran, and I don't think we will trade Duran...but he's also one of the most tradable. He's a proven closer, a late-inning monster who can shorten the game for a team. He's got a 3-pitch mix that's terrifying, and for a normal team his cost for this year and next is more than reasonable. My question would be whether trading a reliever is better in-season or before the season? Trading him now would net the other team more time with him, but waiting until midseason might get you an overpay from a contender desperate to fix their bullpen after ineffectiveness or a major injury strikes. I actually think Duran is going to have a monster season this year, and I want him on the team. But he has a lot of value in MLB right now and while this would weaken the Twins bullpen, we do have other guys there. If healthy (a BIG if) Brock Stewart could certainly step in, Varland has the gas to be an effective back-end guy, Sands improved a lot, and if we moved Duran we'd likely be keeping Jax, who was great. It thins out the depth, but doesn't necessarily sink the bullpen. I'd hate to lose him, but you have to trade value to get value. Duran is the one I would float if I was looking to make a significant move...especially if we got out from under Vazquez or Paddack's contract to allow us to take on salary.