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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    You've obviously settled on a narrative here, but I don't think you have a lot of evidence to back up the statement that the Twins only care about HRs and don't care about defense. If they didn't care about defense, why would they have brought Vazquez in as a catcher or Santana in to play 1B? I hope for his sake that Miller has figured something out at the plate, but keep in mind he hit 4 of his HRs in a 3 game stretch and hasn't hit one since. So is it that he's figured something out, or he had a good weekend? Is his improvement at the plate because of the Dodgers superior coaching and development or because he's repeating the level? The reality is that offense is more impactful in winning games, and this is one of the reasons Kiersey hasn't gotten a chance yet: there are still real questions about his hitting. He broke out in AA after repeating the level at 26. When he moved up to AAA last season he hardly lit the league on fire, and that was 100% a hitters environment. he's having a great season so far, and I'm happy to have him in the system, but it's fair to wonder if he's capable of being a league average hitter, and as a LH hitter can he fill a need to whack LHP? Because he didn't in 2023.
  2. jmlease1
    Looks like the conversion to the bullpen is working for Stankiewicz. Be nice if he could tick those Ks up a little higher, but the WHIP is impressive and he's always been good at keeping the ball in the park. Curious to see how he does in Wichita this season and what kind of future he has as a bullpen piece. Good for Sabato in having a strong start to his season at AA, but it's only 5 games. Maybe he can earn a promotion if he can keep this up into July, but there's a reason he slid through the Rule 5 draft.
  3. jmlease1
    Part of my concern was that Santana would get exposed by playing too much; considering how poorly he's still hitting against RHP, I think that's borne out at least a little. He's having an excellent May, but struggled so much early that he's still not quite a league average hitter, which is not great at 1B. I'm glad he's not washed up, but I'm not ready to definitively say I was wrong about Santana either. While Kirilloff's struggles make is reasonable to run Santana out every day, I still think he's going to get exposed if he's playing too much. Frankly, when Lewis comes back I hope that Miranda sticks and gets some time at 1B.
  4. jmlease1
    Just keep piling up those series wins, Twins. I love seeing it, especially on the road. Good job by Funderburk getting it over to Duran to finish it; getting Jax another day off seems like a good idea right now. Ober was pretty great. Toronto battled him hard, especially early in fouling off pitches and taking him deep into counts, but he didn't get rattled and didn't let them off the hook with cheap walks. Excellent performance, and love that he got into the 7th. (Toronto only had 2 hits and drew 1 walk! love it) I'm definitely worried about Kirilloff; he looks pretty bad at the plate right now. I don't know if he has options left but I'd definitely ask if he's fighting an injury right now. Because he sure does look like the "Kirilloff ain't healthy" Alex right now. Big hit by Santana, who has to be around league average now. And after such a slow start that's not bad. (Margot on the other hand, still looks bad) Good baserunning by Correa to score on Kepler's double. He ran hard the whole way and scored pretty easily, but that additional run sure helped.
  5. jmlease1
    As per usual when Noah Miller comes up, people leave off the fact that we got Rayne Doncon back in that deal, a prospect with similar value. And while Miller is hitting much better this season, the fact that the Dodgers are having him repeat the level does suggest that they might have some concerns over his bat too. Margot isn't working out very well so far; his defense has been very disappointing and if anyone here says they knew that he was going to have the worst defensive season of his career and look like he might be in severe decline as a fielder at age 29...I'm sorry, I don't think I believe you. He's been functional at the plate against LHP, which is the primary reason he was brought here...but he's unplayable right now against RHP, so that combined with poor looking defense makes him not very useful. When to cut loose a veteran player is a bit more complicated than we'd like. It's not like playing fantasy baseball, where in most leagues there's always another veteran OF that you can pick up and take a flier on. If we cut Margot now, he's gone and we're not even halfway through May. And if Kiersey and Martin don't produce, then are we in trouble? The other aspect is the Kepler/Santana aspect of this. I was getting ready to cut Kepler loose at midseason (as were a lot of people here) and that would have been a massive mistake. The snap-reactions on Santana from his early struggles would have run him out of town too...after today's performance he's back to being almost a league-average hitter (offense is down this year, an OPS around .700 is better than you think). Is Margot Gallo or Kepler? Is this who he's going to be, or can he pull himself back up like Santana? I suspect the Twins will give him more rope. I'm not opposed to it right now, but once Buxton and Lewis get back I feel like Margot had better show something or we might be able to fairly say we've seen enough. Kiersey is doing really well this season and that's great. I love having depth like him at AAA, because I remember what it was like 2 years ago when the season got ruined because we didn't have enough competent outfielders. We're 1/4 of the way through the season, and early games matter just as much as late games...but let's not pretend there's not risk is dumping veterans before summer even starts.
  6. jmlease1
    what counts as a "frontline starter"? If it's "someone you'd trust to start a playoff game" then we have several guys who have that potential. If it's "#1/ace" then maybe not...though the jury is still out on someone like Soto who has immense upside, but is 18. If the issue is that all of their pitching prospects have questions they need to answer...get used to it, because it's perishingly rare to have a pitching prospect with no questions. Raya has had some injury issues in the past and the Twins are clearly being cautious in his development, and they've been pretty clear about it. I don't think they're really hiding anything. YMMV on whether they're doing the right thing by keeping pitch counts down and not letting Raya throw more (I've been skeptical) but there are a lot of pitching injuries these days, so maybe they're right.
  7. jmlease1
    He's off to an outstanding start. I'm impressed with how he's added velocity while still maintaining that great control. I'm glad to see him in AA; as a college pitcher who is a little older, how he does against more advanced hitters will count a lot more for his prospect standing than beating up on A-ball kids. It'll be interesting to see if he ends up paring back his pitch mix as he continues this season or if he can maintain the full slate. But even if he drops 1-2 of these to focus on his strongest offerings it's a heck of a base to work from. He's definitely trending up. He'll never make the national prospect lists; he's turning 24 this month and that will DQ him from a lot of lists simply based on age. (there are prospect evaluators who will always prefer the 19 year-old kid in A-ball with measurables over the 24 year-old in AA with results) But from a Twins perspective, who cares about rankings? He's developing into a potential rotation guy and on a path to debut in 2025. Reminds me a little of Joe Ryan in that respect.
  8. jmlease1
    Very nice start by Festa. I still have concerns about his control and the free passes, but the stuff is real and this was the kind of start that has people excited about him. Not the first excellent outing from him this season, and he's on a good path. I still think Varland is the next man up if/when we need another starter, if possible, but Festa is doing what he needs to do. I like seeing him go 6, so it looks like they're letting him go a little deeper as the season rolls on. Be great for him to be pushing for a chance in June. Keaschall is playing like a guy who wants a mid-season promotion. Worth keeping an eye on his power production to see if he can tick that slugging up a bit more, but he's doing very well and looks to have a solid professional approach.
  9. jmlease1
    Tough loss. Toronto had not been hitting well, so to let them up off the mat isn't great. But it's not like there isn't talent there. Shame that SWR struggled so much against his former organization. How he learns to finish off MLB hitters is going to define his success and he didn't get it done here. Bullpen really got torched, but it's sort of funny to see the overreactions here; a week ago people were clamoring for Cole Sands to be the set-up man, now you have declarations that he's nothing more than a mop-up guy. Jackson's the guy to be the most concerned about: he seems to have dropped a little velocity and he's not been particularly effective, and at his age that's worrisome. Okert has had 2 poor outings in a row, but overall he's been good enough that throwing him on the fire at this point makes little sense. But with Thielbar & Okert in the 'pen we probably don't need Funderburk to be a mop-up lefty. Not having Stewart or Topa is stretching the bullpen...but as noted by Gleeman & the Geek: this is what happens when you're in a lot of close games and winning. The Alcala situation is interesting. He'd been successful as a 1 inning guy, very good against RH and someone that looked like he could be trusted in the 7th inning. But he's been used to go 2 innings this year and the second inning hasn't gone well, so is it that he's not great or being used wrong? There was also a note from Hayes that Alcala is in the Twins doghouse for a bunch of reasons and it sounded like it was about both in-game actions (failing to cover home, etc) and outside the game (unknow?). Who knows. Get 'em on sunday and win the series. Any series win is a good one, especially on the road. No panic.
  10. jmlease1
    some of it is probably cyclical and will bounce back next season (or maybe even this one), but teams are also incentivized to not stash their best prospects in AAA in order to gain an extra year of team control the way they used to, so that might have some impact as well. Kala'i Rosario is having a solid season so far in AA. He's not destroying everything in his path like Emma, but he's not doing badly at all for his age-21 season in AA. He's a guy I keep watching.
  11. jmlease1
    There almost needs to be a new category for players like SWR (and Varland, or Martin, or Wallner) where they're not really prospects any longer but haven't established themselves as MLB players quite yet. They're the unfinished products who have the talent to play in MLB but might not have the finishing touches to put themselves in MLB for good. Because at a certain point it really doesn't make any sense to compare SWR to someone like Soto, when they're so far removed from each other in level. I've always been a fan of SWR, and he was the poster child for how to get your developmental cycle completely screwed up, so seeing him having success is exciting. Three organizations before he turned 21, missing an entire (and critical) season because of the pandemic, getting an early promotion to AA that he almost certainly wasn't ready for, having a season interrupted by the national team where he didn't even get to pitch...by the time he got to MN I'd argue he was working on talent and guts alone. Great work by him and the staff to get him to a place where he can be a professional pitcher. Where he can be consistent enough to make a mechanical change and stick with it. I think he's still going to have a bump or two along the way, but I would not be shocked at all for him to be a rotation mainstay for 2025.
  12. jmlease1
    Excellent game from Ryan, marred only by the IKF homer. But Ryan was really good and the Jays certainly have talent in that lineup, even if several of them have been struggling so far this season. The HR was frustrating because it's IKF, but overall Ryan has been doing a good job limiting HRs this season and I'm really impressed with how he's shrunk the free passes so far this season. He looks like he has more confidence in his off-speed pitches this year (I like that splitter a lot, and it's been very effective for him) and he's doing a good job mixing his pitches, which should let his fastball play up a bit. Still need a little more from the RH hitters when we face a tough lefty like Kikuchi (who has been a monster this season) but we scraped through it. Jax has wobbled a bit lately, but I think he'll be fine. Hopefully we can find some room to give him an extra night off here and there. Time for some other guys to step up. I loved seeing Duran come in for the 8th: he's an absolutely dominant reliever, and I hate it when those guys get turned into "9th inning guys". I'd much rather have Duran be the fireman and shut down the opposition's best hitters in the late innings than come in with a 3-run lead in the 9th to face 6-7-8. Good start to the series. Keep it rolling, Twins!
  13. jmlease1
    There was always plenty of hitting talent on this roster. early on, everyone was going bad at the same time, it seemed, which is always an anomaly. I'm particularly impressed with Max Kepler and Ryan Jeffers. Kepler was great in the second half last season, but when he struggled early you had to wonder if the old bad habits were back. but he really turned it around since coming back from the bruised knee and he's absolutely crushing the ball. Jeffers has been fantastic all season and he's a monster threat at all times now. It's hard to keep him out of the lineup. There are some guys that are probably playing over their heads a bit...but there are also a few that are underperforming too, so it evens out. No complaints about it continuing! be nice to take a little pressure off the pitching staff consistently.
  14. jmlease1
    The best part of this list of pitchers is how many are on the list. because sadly, injuries and ineffectiveness are going to cut it down as they move up levels. Pitching development really is a numbers game. But it's hard not to like what's going on with Matthews, and it will be very encouragoing if Raya & Festa start handling heavier loads.
  15. jmlease1
    There are still going to be pitchers who will try him in AA. It's hardly going to hurt him to spend another month there: he's literally got 23 games in AA at age 21. he's still on a fast track if he moves up at midseason.
  16. jmlease1
    Great to see Matthews have an excellent first start in AA. Looking forward to seeing how he does against that level of competition and pitching in a hitter's environment in the Texas League. Pleased to see Balazovic have a good outing. He's been good the last several times out after a rocky start, so maybe he's starting to settle in to the season and is getting his legs under him as a reliever. He's got talent and those Ks are shiny; he just can't get himself in trouble with the walks. He could still be a bullpen option, and I'm glad he made it through waivers.
  17. jmlease1
    almost an ideal win: no need to pull anyone in from the back of the bullpen, plenty of runway for Funderburk and Staumont to get some time in and a load of runs. Kepler & Miranda have been great, and Jeffers is having a heck of a year. Let's go to Boston and win that series too!
  18. jmlease1
    I think Sands is showing something, and maybe we see how Staumont starts to look. Historically Thielbar has been much more than a lefty specialist and it's too soon to write him off; and Stewart isn't going to be out for the year. There isn't going to be a set-up man on the level of Jax available at this point; even if a team has already given up on the year there's really only 3 that are in that boat: White Sox, Marlins, and Rockies. ChiSox aren't trading Leasure for anything less than a King's ransom, Rockies don't have anyone that I'd be excited about, and I'm not seeing much of a fit from Miami even they are starting a fire sale. (Burch smith and his 1.5 WHIP? Pass) And frankly, the back of the bullpen is always going to get stretched if you play 3 close ones in a row, especially if the starters are struggling to get through 6.
  19. jmlease1
    funny game, baseball.
  20. jmlease1
    Seriously? The bullpen has been excellent this season and is the deepest it's been in a really long time. And no one is giving away bullpen pieces right now except for stupid level overpays. Let not get too jumpy because the bullpen had a couple of poor games: no bullpen in the world shuts down teams every single night.
  21. jmlease1
    having a pipeline doesn't necessarily mean that all your starters are homegrown and that you're pumping out a new star pitcher every year. What it does mean is that you're consistently creating options for your team and having organizational depth available to you that can be reasonably expected to perform when called on, and we're seeing more of that now. It's hardly a completed project (it's never "complete", right?) but I'm feeling better about our prospect levels and pitching development than I did previously. I look back to where we were on the rotation 5-6 years ago and we were not only hoping for career years out of guys, but were filling in slots out of the bargain bin or throwing everyone into the fire to hope that we could cobble together enough innings. The prospects weren't that highly rated and were falling off the radar by the time they hit AAA and we were all talking ourselves into these guys being good enough (Gonsalves, Stewart, fernando Romero, Mejia, etc). we had 16 guys get starts in 2018. In 2021 we were still hoping JA Happ or Matt Shoemaker had something in the tank and again had 16 guys make starts. I'm a lot happier with a rotation where no one is over 30, we have a guy like SWR ready to go if a Varland falters, with someone like Festa available if Varland falters again in his next opportunity. We have guys like Raya, Matthews, and Ohl in AA right now...and it's not a total disaster that Lewis hasn't pitched yet this season.
  22. jmlease1
    The people that are bringing up soccer as doing things differently are, frankly, wrong. If a player on the opposite team goes down with an injury, the other team has no responsibility to stop their attack. Where you see them kick it out of play to stop the game is when nothing is on and the official hasn't stopped play for it being a head injury. Then the other team yields possession back on the ensuing restart to resume conditions as before. But if someone is on a breakout and a player from the other team goes down behind the play, the team with the ball still gets to try and score. And the referees only stop the game if the player who goes down is in the middle of the action and at risk of further injury or they see it's a head injury (or they're able to ascertain it's potentially a serious injury). They don't just whistle a stop, and they specifically try not to disrupt an attack. None of our sports stop the game immediately for injury unless it's something catastrophic or there's a specific rule for it (like premier league refs stopping the game for head injuries), and an ankle injury (or a knee or hamstring, etc) isn't that. Kepler is supposed to score there. He's a professional, and that's his job. You should feel sympathy for the injured guy, but things happen.
  23. jmlease1
    Kind of a strange game from Paddack, who racked up the Ks and wriggled out of trouble, but also gave up a lot of hits. He certainly showed he could get outs, and if he'd been able to keep the pitch count down and finish off some hitters faster, I think he would have been able to get through 6. nice to see the bats get some big knocks; Correa and Larnach going back to back was a fine way to start things out. A good win. Be great to take the series!
  24. jmlease1
    too soon to tell; Miller is currently hitting better than he ever has in his professional career, and I'm sure he's still playing excellent defense. Doncon is hitting a bit more (and better than he ever has since his very first pro year at 17 in the Dominican Summer League), but is a lesser defender (though hardly a butcher), and seems destined for 3B. We'll see how they land at the end of the season. Miller's numbers are a bit skewed from some out-sized success from the right side of the plate this season that seems unsustainable (his numbers from the left side track more like his career: low contact, decent patience, no pop). Doncon has shown much better power this season, so we'll see if that's sustainable for him; he is repeating a level but is still only 20, so it's hardly out of line for A-ball.
  25. jmlease1
    You also don't know if pride would get in the way there, which we've seen in pro sports more than a few times. Players have taken less to go to a new team rather than take a pay cut from their current one. And that's just pride effing with you, but it happens. Still a lot of ego in pro sports.
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