jmlease1

I'll take this bet. I'm amazed at how down you are on a player coming off a season where they were top 10 in RoY voting and absolutely earned that status. You apparently care more about the few times he's taken a called third strike over the 64 walks and the 130 OPS+ he put up. He might have started out as a nightmare on defense (that's still a little exaggerated, mostly because he made some very glaring errors especially early) but finished the season looking solid. no, he's not as good defensively as Polanco, but his rookie season he was more productive at the plate than Polanco has ever been his entire career. (I don't say this to dis Polanco, a player I love and who has been very important to the Twins. But Julien is 5 years younger, healthier, and far more patient at the plate)

well, he probably is. But Julien was quite a bit better last year than Miranda was in his debut, and while Miranda had a lost season it's pretty obvious that was due to injury. Julien is showing no injury issues and so far is showing only one real weakness in his game: hitting lefties (which he's also been protected against). But if you've already decided to be out on Julien after he finished top 10 in RoY for...reasons, then I really don't know what to tell you. There are reasons to not love this trade based on the return and whether it improves the MLB team in the short term, but needing Polanco to play 2B isn't one of them.

I'm shocked, shocked, that after making a significant trade to acquire a player who has twice missed at least half the season due to injury, and missed 140 games over the past 2 seasons the said front office would say that they're not worried about his health. That's as credible as the Twins front office saying Buxton will have no problems playing CF this season. Maybe the twins could have done better if they had waited longer, or maybe this was the best deal they could get from Seattle. Maybe no one else was particularly interested in Polanco. We won't know that either. I still like this move for Seattle, but if Polanco only plays 100 games for them this year...then maybe not so much.

Considering where the Twins are (a playoff team trying to make a push to be a championship team, or at least that's how they should be viewing themselves), it's always going to be a little underwhelming to trade a quality MLB player, and the best player right now in exchange for multiple pieces. I don't love DeSclafani (which seems to be a consensus), but he does give us more starting pitching depth. Topa actually looks like a good fit, but middle relievers aren't usually that impactful even if they are necessary. So there's a lot riding on Gonzalez, and while he's talented...he's still an A-ball prospect, so there's a lot of risk. It's not really what I was hoping for in moving Polanco, a player that I still really like, even with Julien and others staking their claims on 2B. Does this give the Twins more pieces to move for a higher quality starter? I think it does, especially because some of the players at the top of our prospect list looks like guys the Twins aren't interested in flipping for guys that might only have 1-2 years with the Twins because of the potential for stardom in the prospects. I certainly wouldn't be interested in flipping any of our top 3 prospects for mediocre starting pitching. It's not an awful return or anything...but it doesn't fix the real need for higher end starting pitching, so the net effect is more about saving payroll, which sucks.

A prospect who plays Catcher and CF? I'm already intrigued. he definitely needs to be in Cedar Rapids this year, But this is essentially his "age 22" season, so he's not really behind the age curve much if at all. Quality hitting numbers for the FSL. he should be fun to watch; if he can hit like this and play a premium defensive position then he'll jump up the ranks quickly.

Thanks! I think one of the things we see is that only the really great relievers are able to be consistently dominant over an extended period of time. You'll see closers who are in the role for a decade or longer, but the reality is they're just pitching the last inning for a fair number of years and getting a fairly empty "save" rather than be consistently dominant. the smaller samples also have some relievers putting up big seasons scattered over 6-8 years, but rarely every season in a row. It is one of the things that makes it hard to differentiate who the truly great ones are without really digging in and looking at a lot of different metrics. the evolution of the best reliever becoming a "closer" rather than a "fireman" and only being used in the last inning save situation was an unfortunate development by managers (aided by players and their agents, when they saw how big save numbers translated to bigger paychecks). It feels like that's shifting away again?

The '87 team really is the hardest one to rank. Because they were deeply flawed and fortunate to get hot at the right time and compete in a soft division. When they faced the Cardinals, StL was missing Jack Clark and Pendleton didn't play much in the series (only 3 out of the 7 games and 7 total ABs). Clark was easily their best hitter and Pendleton was important too. It's the luckiest team in Twins history. But they won the title. And that's a massive thing. You need to get a little lucky (most of the time) to win a title. And sometimes teams make their own luck. Gagne, Gladden, Brunansky, and Gaetti carried them against Detroit while the pitching was good enough. Viola, Blyleven, and Reardon were all great in the WS and Puckett, Gladden, Lombardozzi, and Gaetti were all hitting (and thank you Don Baylor who was great in the postseason). Timing. Magic. Luck. Winning. seems like the right spot.

Well, you had to stretch across a lot of years to come up with 17 names, so maybe it is a little more rare? Let's look at these guys in comparison to Nathan. Franco: pitched forever, but never as dominant as Nathan. Despite Franco throwing for 5 more season, he comes up short in WAR and WPA. 50 additional saves in 5 more seasons doesn't impress. Gordon: An average starter who had several good years in the bullpen, but was inconsistent there. Gordon's best season as a closer/reliever he dropped an ERA+ of 204; Nathan averaged that in 9 seasons with MN and Texas. Hernandez: Not sure why he's even on the list? He's nowhere near Nathan on WAR, WPA, ERA+, or WHIP. Only 2 all-star appearances. Henke: ok, now we're getting interesting. Pretty dominant, great WHIP, ERA+, but only 2 all-star appearances, and the WPA doesn't measure up. He's below Nathan, but is interesting. Hiller: interesting pitcher, but a different role. Threw a lot more innings, but falls down on the dominance scale. And while saves are flawed stat, but it does say some things about who was pitching in close & late situations. The WPA isn't there either. Tekulve: more similar to Hiller than to Nathan. Well below on metrics like ERA+, WHIP, WPA, and saves. The comparable WAR comes from all the extra innings, but when that's the only equal metric? Only 1 all-star? Relievers got picked for the all-star game in that era. Sorry, not impressed. Kinder: hard to comp pitchers from this era to modern baseball, but Kinder only spent 6 seasons as a reliever, so we're basically comparing apples to a bushel of wheat or something. Wetteland: I'd argue he's proof of how hard it is to have sustained excellence. He was dominant in a 9th inning role, but only did it effectively for 8 years (his last season wasn't really that great) and then was done at 33. Nathan tops him in saves, bWAR, WPA, all-star appearances, longevity... Lyle: effective pitcher for quite a long time, but Nathan was certainly more dominant and the ERA+ and WHIP show it. Had a nice advantage in that he got moved into the 'pen early, but still fall short on the WPA metric too. Nathan had more big seasons. Quisenberry: a fascinating case that deserves more consideration. truly dominant for about 8 years, his peak value is awesome. but the last 3 seasons weren't so great (and the first was just ok). Nathan's got him on WPA and longevity...again showing how hard it is to do this at the top levels for 10 years or longer; Quiz got his shot in the 'pen sooner than Nathan and still couldn't hold it as long, and that was without the big injury. F.Rodriguez: worthy of consideration. A lot of comps to Nathan and a worthy candidate. He was truly one of the best closers in the last 30 years. Orosco: pitched forever, but only a handful of dominant seasons, and falls down on ERA+, WPA (massively), saves, and even with a lot more seasons still falls short on bWAR. Only 2 all-star nods...why is he on this list? Papelbon: An interesting candidate as well; truly dominant in his early years with Boston even if his later seasons slid fairly quickly. I'd have him a bit behind Nathan, but they're not that far off. Percival: very very good closer for nearly a decade, but is hurt by being in such a limited role. Only topped 60 innings as a reliever 3 times. He's well behind Nathan on a number of metrics, including WPA which he would really need to show he's in the same league as closer. He's certainly behind Quiz and Papelbon and F-Rod Marshall: interesting pitcher, but had a pretty short peak (5 seasons or so) even if he pitched a lot of years. Not enough dominance in those peak years to carry him, falls way short on almost every metric even with the Cy. Face: a nice pitcher, but not sure why he's on this list. Maybe it's just an era thing, but he's well short on bWAR, WPA, ERA+, WHIP, and certainly on saves. Reardon: a quality closer for a decade, but never as dominant as Nathan. Comes up well short on ERA+, saves, bWAR, WPA. He's not just below Nathan, but well below guys like Quiz, Papelbon, and F-Rod. So out of the 17 candidates you're suggesting need to go in if Nathan gets the nod, it sure looks like most of them aren't really that comparable. And if 3 more relievers (plus Nathan) over 60-70 years of baseball history get tapped for the Hall we're hardly throwing the gates wide.

I think the Twins like his profile as a hitter and see him as someone whose bat skills can get him up to MLB at some position. Organizationally I don't think they worry too much about how many guys they have at a position, assuming there's enough levels in the minors and that talent will sort itself out. And for all that 2B is an easier position to fill...there's still always going to be a need for guys who can both hit and field the position. There were 10 teams in MLB last season that had real issues at 2B last season, either from not being able to find a guy good enough or healthy enough to man the spot all year, or had disappointing seasons from the guy they tapped for it. Having consistent depth coming up through the system at 2B ain't bad. Keaschall had a great start for the Twins and showed he could move up to better competition quickly and have success. He's young for a college player, which is certainly interesting. He'll almost certainly start the year in Cedar Rapids, but he'll get the opportunity to move up if he keeps crushing it. I think the key for him this season will be how well he holds up over the grind of a full season. (it was encouraging to see him do so well in the minors when it was easily the most games he'd ever played in a calendar year, but a full pro season is another 30 games more) It'll also be interesting to see how many positions he plays: he's gotten time at 2B, 3B, and CF so far and if he can be effective at multiples it'll be a great sign.

Nathan has a great case for the Hall, and it's a shame that the very crowded ballot and limited number of votes each writer got caused him to get eliminated so quickly, before his case could really be evaluated and discussed. I tend to value peak performance over longevity, but some voters I'm sure want to see more length from Nathan; he had a 10 year run where he was a great reliever from 2003-2013 with really only one blip (wasn't quite recovered from surgery/injury in 2011); every other year he was one of the 3 best relievers in baseball, and there just aren't very many guys who are that consistently good let alone great. Nathan really only has 2 deficits: playoffs (which is such a small sample size that it's hard to know if it really was an issue, but also how about blaming Gardy for asking Nathan to throw a 3rd freakin' inning against the Yankees? After getting the save the night before?) and the fact that some voters really aren't interested in voting for relievers. Some folks don't seem to look at it as much of a position, so unless you're holding down a record it makes it harder to get in. I suspect his career would be held in higher esteem if he didn't overlap his entire career as a dominant reliever with Mariano Rivera, who was literally the best of all time. Rivera's consistency, longevity, and dominance meant that Nathan was never the best reliever in baseball, but being #2 behind a sure-fire hall of famer should be looked at a little closer. It's a bit like Tim Raines, who was one of the great leadoff hitters of all time, but people missed just how great he was for a long time because he overlapped with Rickey Henderson, who was the best leadoff man of all time. Raines got the ballot time to have a better look at his career outside of Rickey; would have been nice for Nathan to get the same look away from Rivera.

He's had some tough breaks so far, but he's still very young and simply hasn't had a chance to show what he can do with his talent. Maybe he can meet with Royce Lewis in FL this year during spring training and get some tips and encouragement. He does seem to have the kind of attitude you need to bounce back from this kind of start. Good luck, hope he stays healthy and gets to really show what he can be as a player!

I'm not exactly going to go out on a limb for Nick Gordon, but Gordon has at least shown success in MLB. Last season was a disaster, but it was a small sample with a major (and fluky) injury. Thompson hasn't had a lot of opportunity in MLB but he also hasn't done anything with his chances (yet). Gordon certainly ranks over Thompson right now for me.

As a back-end of the 40-man...this is fine, I guess? But he definitely feels like an easy cut during spring training when you either want to add a player during the cut-down flurry and hope he slides through waivers. I don't see a problem in bringing in a guy who has an elite tool (speed) and seeing whether you can iron out something else to make him useful. Maybe he and Kiersey can start a sprint league or something, with Buxton standing by telling everyone he's still faster than both of them but the team would get mad if he ran for fun. Marginal but somewhat intriguing, with little downside to bringing him in.

Seems unlikely. AJ was available because Mauer flew up the minor league ranks and showed he was ready early (much like we're dreaming about with Walker Jenkins). So Mauer is also at least partially responsible for one the great trades in Twins history. I did enjoy seeing the nasty comments from Barreiro that he put into his column the day after the draft trashing Twins management for selecting Mauer again. Those have aged well, lol.

I always knew it was going to be close if he made it on the first shot; there are still a cadre of voters who think that your career needs something "extra" for them to vote you in on the first ballot, and plenty who still weight longevity over peak performance. (I think the first is silly, the latter more defensible; personally I prefer those who try to balance peak value against longevity a little but I do tend to favor the comets over the grinders just a bit) But it's awesome that he made it in. Morneau seemed genuinely thrilled for his old teammate, which was fun to see. And I do think nationally Joe was always highly respected, even when there was a cadre of fans here that seem to revel in bashing him (no one goes after the highest paid players like a MN sports fan, it seems) and certain media members who always denigrated him. (Dan Barreiro was the worst, constantly complaining about Joe, probably because Joe had zero interest in coming on his (or anyone's) radio show). Happy for Sano to get another shot. If his knee is healthy he might be able to help a team; probably won't know until you can see how he does against MLB fastballs again. If he can catch up to a 98 mph heater in the zone, he'll be a useful bat, even if he still chases the slider low and away. Pretty low-risk move anyways.

Mauer was truly great. It is hard not to what if it a little, just because we saw what the healthy player was for a remarkable run, and the only thing that ever held Mauer back were injuries. It wasn't desire or off-field issues, or conflicts with management or anything...he just got hurt a few times, including the concussions that changed the last 3rd of his career. He's such a decent guy that you wanted him to not have those concussions chasing him. (and boy, the general public has learned a lot more about concussions in the last decade than we knew back then!) But it doesn't change the fact that we got to see Joe Mauer play baseball for 15 seasons here in MN, and that was a treat. He was so good out there, with as sweet a swing as you could ask for. I can recall dozens of gorgeous, smart, athletic plays he made out in the field...but i can't recall a single doofy one that made me think "what the hell was he thinking out there?" Special player. Thrilled he's in the Hall.

awesome day for Joe Mauer, and very well deserved. what a great player. That MVP season was something else. Mauer was just great to watch out there. Shame that concussions cost him, but even then he was still great. So glad we got to see his whole career here in MN.

I don't think Raya is all that underrated, he's just been managed very carefully. Walker Jenkins win a different category: most tools. Because dude seems to have them all so far. I'm a little confused that in a discussion about tools they're not talking about categories like power, contact skills, throwing arm in the field, speed...these are things I think of as specific tools. The others are more about overall prospect profile to me.

I this the "stocking up on closers" issue is complicated. The position of "closer" has been a bit overrated, a fancy word for what became "ninth inning save guy". Saves aren't the greatest stat to evaluate how good a reliever is. A lot of relievers are pretty fungible: good one year, just another guy the next. There are a lot of MLB relievers who vacillate between middle relief to set-up man to closer during their career, and it's not predictably linear. The elite guys matter. Hader has certainly been one of those, and if you can stack 2-3 of those in the back of your bullpen you can definitely shorten the game for your team, especially in the playoffs. It's a pretty big investment, but if your starters are relatively affordable and the 3rd guy in that group is still pre-arb then it can balance out. I think where it goes poorly more often is dropping $7-$10M for 2-3 set-up guys and spending $15-$20M on your closer. You're better off scratching two of those set up guys for an elite reliever at $15-M20M and finding your way with failed starters and so forth, because having 2 or 3 Pagans in your bullpen doesn't really get you the result you need. Most teams are still going to be better off trying to develop their relief corps internally. Houston has some money invested in their rotation with Javier, McCullers, and Verlander (but they're only spending about $40M between Verlander and Javier, because the Mets are picking up $25M of Verlander's deal this season) but they have a payroll up over $200M. They have the room to spend on the elite guys. Really the only thing they have to worry about is whether or not they can keep their rotation healthy enough to get to the playoffs and make sure their best two relievers don't get into a pissing match over who gets the save opportunities.

I mean, I assume the Twins would be willing to trade Polanco or Kepler or Farmer for prospects, but only if they already had a deal lined up to trade prospects for the MLB pitching they need. Three team deals are hard, though.

I'm sure he wants multiple years, but if that's not on the table for him coming off an injury, he might be interested in a pillow contract, bet on himself having a quality year and go back on the free agent market at 31. He's an interesting player, and while he destroys LHP, it's not like he gets beat up by righties over his career. He can play pretty much full-time. I wish he was better defensively; at best he's just another guy at 1B, which may be another reason why the 3-4 year deal he's likely hoping for isn't to be found. (but it also might be because several teams are like the Twins and have a lot of uncertainty/losses in revenues because of the fall of the RSNs, constricting the market) This is the sort of signing the Twins seem inclined to try to do at the end of the offseason when someone is playing musical chairs and worried about getting caught without a seat. I'm not opposed, but the roster is a little jammed right now, so unless someone like Polanco or Farmer gets dealt, we'd be pushing Gordon (presumably) off the team, which leaves things very thin in the OF.

I just don't think Hicks can hold up in CF if we needed him there; defensively he's just not particularly good any longer, and while he might still cover more ground than Matt Wallner in the corners, he doesn't have Wallner's arm. So he doesn't really provide the kind of Buxton insurance I would want in signing an OF. the ability to punish lefties is nice, but last year's work was only 74 PAs and he doesn't exactly have a consistent track record of mashing lefties. And he certainly doesn't start over Wallner or Kepler. If Kepler gets moved as part of a deal for pitching, I might be interested in him for depth, but I think I'd rather roll with Castro and Gordon as the OF depth with Martin in the wings than throw millions at Hicks (who you have to think is going to get $5M or more, even if he's not going to get $10M). Bit risky to hope that an aging OF with a real injury history and 5 seasons of struggles has been fixed just by getting out of NY, based on a decent half-season in Balto.

A pretty fantastic team. Interesting that Carew only swiped 19 bags total under Martin, considering that from '73-''77 he averaged 40 SBs, but it was still a huge jump as he'd only taken 17 in total for his career before the '69 season. The Rich Reese season is a heck of an outlier, and maybe screwed the team up for the future: If he doesn't pop like that maybe Harmon stays at 1B (where he belonged) and Nettles gets logged in at 3B and we don't send him packing for a Tiant rental. (I'd completely forgotten Nettles was on this team; imagine if he'd stayed and played 3B for the 70's! Billy was unsustainable as manager (he was so self-destructive he was unsustainable anywhere) but as a turnaround artist he was as good as anyone has ever been in MLB. He's one of the most fascinating characters in MLB, a maddening lunatic, a brilliant manager, a self-destructive alcoholic, a master motivator, a nasty SOB, a loyal friend, and a talented baseball mind. He was all of it and more. I doubt there will ever be anyone else like him. (if for no other reason than he either would have gotten help and the care he needed or been run out of the game) Tough beat for this era of the Twins: those Baltimore teams were really damn good.

Stick with your first instinct. :P Seriously though: comp Torii against guys like Jim Edmonds and Kenny Lofton, who spent significant time in their careers playing against Torii and can fairly be said to have played in the same era. All three played CF for a long time (though Torii shifted to RF for the last several years) and all had careers in MLB that were 15+ seasons where they were real players for their teams (Torii's first 2 seasons were cups of coffee that shouldn't really count against him, same with Lofton & Edmonds first seasons). Was Torii better than either of them? I'd have to say no, even though I love Torii. Edmonds was substantially better on offense and while he was overrated on defense...so was Torii when it came to the Gold Gloves. Lofton was more fairly evaluated on his defense (he might not have won the Gold Glove in his best defensive seasons, but he was worthy of 4 of them to be sure) but was also better overall on offense than Torii: those 600 steals make a pretty big difference; Lofton stole more than 400 bases than Torii, but was only caught 61 more times. Hunter had more power, Lofton got on base more. I think Lofton's candidacy was hurt by bouncing around a lot after leaving Cleveland, but I'm not really sure why Edmonds got so little love. Both had the peak years that Torii was missing, and while we remember Torii as being still really good from age 35 on,..Lofton was actually about as good. (both were better than Edmonds at the end, but Edmonds peak was awfully long) Unfortunately, Torii is a fairly distant 3rd to both of those guys.

Hunter was very good, and was consistently good for a long time. But I think his lack of elite seasons hurts him. Some of his awards were...questionable, and may have had more to do with him being popular and visible rather than him being the best. Out of his 9 GG's, he probably should have landed more around 4-5. All-stars? More like 3 rather than 5. Lots of highlight reel catches and he had some memorable moments, but never had any truly big seasons. One top 10 MVP vote, and that really wasn't deserved. He was really healthy over his career, and that definitely helped his teams: you could almost always count on him as a quality starter for almost every season in his career. But "Better than Baines" is a bad argument for the Hall, and I think Torii's lack of big seasons will keep him (rightly) out of the Hall. And Torii isn't going to have a bunch of ex-teammates and/or managers on the Veteran's Committee shoving him in.