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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    It's not that he's untouchable, it's more than we don't feel like we'll get anywhere near the value in return, we'll have just as much risk (with Royce the risk is injury. if he's dealt, the risk is the prospects don't pan out, because it seems pretty unlikely that we'll get proven MLB talent in return, especially because the Pohlad self-imposed payroll limits mean that a trade of Royce has to be for prospects unless another trade is made to free up payroll). I never felt like Kirilloff was untouchable, but it was a similar situation (although Kirilloff never put up the kind of numbers that Royce has) where you had a player with a lot of talent who was struggling to stay on the field. It's hard to sell high on a guy like that, and the return when you sell low because of the injuries it often doesn't improve your position. With the makeup of this team the injury issues with the most talented players is a big challenge. Healthy, Royce, Correa, and Buxton provide excellent RH hitting ability and solid to superior defense (Royce was good at 3B in 2023, not so good in 2024; I'd average that out until we get more time in grade, but Buxton and Correa are still excellent defenders). But availability is a problem because right now these are our three most talented position players. Trading Royce is challenging because it doesn't feel like we'd get what we'd need in return, and it would almost certainly require 1-2 other trades to happen to even get close because of payroll. Add in the "selling low" aspect, and it just seems like a bad idea and highly unlikely anyone is going to blow us away with an offer.
  2. jmlease1
    Should we never take a risk on talent vs health? Our prospects who have had all these injury issues, outside of Prielipp only Lee had any injury concerns at the time they were drafted. Canterino, Kirilloff, Lewis, Buxton...none of these guys had injury issues when drafted. They took a shot on a prospect with a high ceiling and a big injury risk. But it's not like they're doing that with lots of picks in every draft. It's been pretty restrained. They've taken some risks on pitchers with injury concerns in MLB, but that's been more a function of payroll than anything else. Sometimes it's worked (Maeda mostly, Gray) and sometimes it's flopped (Mahle, Paddack mostly, Desclafani) but financial concerns were part of the package on all of these guys.
  3. jmlease1
    Span was a really good player who value declined sharply once his defense dropped off in CF. Maybe he could have stayed faster for longer, but it also just might be like a lot of players that you can't keep it going into your 30's when you get past your physical prime. Very valuable player his first 7 years, just another guy his last 4. Biggest problem was the Twins tried to sell high on him and didn't get the return they needed, taking back an oft-injured player with control issues who made it to MLB primarily on scholarship and was out of baseball before he turned 28. If you don't keep the Spans of the world, you can't trade them for an Alex Meyer.
  4. jmlease1
    Maybe he serves as an "opener" this year? I like the possibilities he could bring to the bullpen, hope to see him tested against AA hitters to start the season.
  5. jmlease1
    DeBarge is going to be an interesting one to watch. He wasn't great in his first taste of pro ball, but the FSL isn't the easiest place to get things going, either. We'll see whether his power burst in college (he showed substantial improvement as a sophomore and again as a junior) is too tied into aluminum bats or if he can get it done as a pro. I suspect the twins saw something they liked in his swing, so hopefully they can refine and improve it, and with more advanced training and coaching they can get him on track. not sure about him, but it's not a bad placement on the prospect list. Prielipp is so hard to evaluate. he's clearly got massive amounts of talent...and an elbow that scares the crap out of me. I'm not opposed to keeping him to short starts while advancing him up another level, and looking at him as a bullpen option sooner rather than later. because oh my he could be dominant. But seems hard to believe that he can hold up under a starter's workload. I know I like Rosario more than I should. He's not a good enough OF, he Ks too much, there's real concerns that he won't make enough contact...but he hammers LHP and he's still pretty young. Still a fan. Like him starting in AA, mashing the snot out of pitchers and then being in Saint Paul in July.
  6. jmlease1
    yes, our prospects never make any impact. We probably shouldn't even bother having the minor league clubs. except SWR saved the rotation in 2024 with 28 league average starts that we desperately needed. Julien, Wallner, and Lewis were instrumental in the Twins winning the division and their first playoff wins in forever in 2023. Duran emerged in 2022 as a dominant force in the bullpen. It's pretty normal for a prospect to come in and make an impact on a team. Maybe it won't be one of these 4, but it absolutely could be. Most years a prospect will join the team and make an impact, sometimes more than one. I wouldn't say we had one in 2021, but 2020 is when Jeffers arrived as a badly needed partner for the now injured Garver. 2019 gave us the Luis Arraez Experience. 5 of the last 6 years had a prospect come up and make a real impact on the Twins. Even if it's not one of these four, I'd bet it's going to be someone.
  7. jmlease1
    I think it's instructive that one of the trades mentioned was Jazz Chisholm for Zac Gallen. Chisholm had a solid first full season in 2021 (I think it's fair to set aside the 21 games in the pandemic year) as a solid but unspectacular hitter and good fielding SS. he was having a breakout season in 2022, playing at an all-star level before getting hurt and missing the entire second half. Miami moved him to CF for...reasons? in 2023 where he was ok (but almost certainly should have stayed on the dirt) but missed a big chunk of the middle of the season. Then got sent out to NY before he could get expensive for some minor leaguers. I'd say Miami fouled this one up pretty badly. Gallen has added much more value to AZ than Chisholm did in Miami, who seem to have mismanaged Chishom in moving him to mostly the OF and sold low on him to NY when he wasn't hitting well. Let's not repeat that mistake with Royce. Moving Royce Lewis (which is exceptionally unlikely to happen) seems like a disaster waiting to happen. He's shown flashes of elite talent, but after his collapse in sept we'd be selling low. We're not getting MLB-ready players for him and it's doubtful that we're getting prospects with all-star ceilings, unless they're A-ball guys because of Royce's health history and bad slump down the stretch. Selling low on a 25 year-old with huge upside usually ends badly. The only reason to sell on him right now is if a) you're convinced that his knees are never going to let him fulfill his potential, and b) someone else is so convinced that his knees are fine that they're willing to give you back a Zac Gallen.
  8. jmlease1
    Glad to see Ben Ross hitting. He's a bit like Schobel in that he smacked into the AA wall and hard, and need to show he can survive as a hitter. His defense seems solid enough that he could make it as a utility guy, but not if he can't hit his weight. He started slowly in the AFL, but has turned it on lately. If he can carry that into next season he might get himself back on track. We'll see what he can do. Rosario is a player I'm probably overly excited about. Not great defensively, Ks a lot...but I'm still intrigued by his RH power bat. I expect he'll start the season back in AA, but if he's able to make enough contact and drive the ball to start the season in Wichita, he could get a quick promotion to AAA. He's doing fine in the AFL and needed to get some swings in after the injury.
  9. jmlease1
    I just don't believe the rumors that he's interested in going to a smaller market team. Seems like utter BS. Maybe he doesn't end up with the Dodgers, but I'll be he stays West Coast, with Seattle, SD, and SF all very reasonable destinations. (Angels seem too terminally inept) Sure, Twins should take a flyer and make their best pitch (little to lose by trying I would think?) but this would be the ultimate longshot. We don't exactly have a great track record of bringing in players from Asia and helping them find success, and while you can assign blame to the players (probably correctly) as not being good enough for MLB having some track record of success always helps. We got nothing.
  10. jmlease1
    Because Baldelli is responsible for players getting hurt? Not sure I get this take.
  11. jmlease1
    Here's the thing though: you're literally only drawing on starting pitching for a prospect list. Any pitcher who has transitioned to relief before getting to MLB isn't going to make a prospect list. So you're going to have more to draw from on the position side for a "prospect" list. Beyond that, the Twins have been pretty good at getting guys to jump on to the prospect list even when they are nowhere to be found after their draft year (where did you have Festa and Nowlin in 2021?) Throw in how hard it is to evaluate A-ball pitchers, and it doesn't seem too bad. After graduating Festa and Matthews (who might not be officially allowed on prospect lists but are still mostly rookies anyways) the pitching list still seems ok.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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?
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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)
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