jmlease1

If Stroman is available for a 2-year deal I'd grab him in a heartbeat. No, he didn't finish the season well for the Cubs last year, but that looks injury-related, so if he's healthy I suspect he'll do fine. Twins have shown success in managing pitchers whose workloads need to be monitored and he's a quality starter when healthy and would raise the ceiling on the rotation instead of just the floor. The position players are harder for me to judge, because unless and until a trade is made...not much room on this roster.

I mean, if he debuts at 20 it'll mean he's been on one hell of a heater and looking like a potential Hall of Famer...or utter disaster has struck the Twins from an injury perspective and they decided to throw him in the deep end and see if he sinks. (but the latter is pretty unlikely, because regardless of what goes on with the MLB club i think they're going to be protective of Jenkins) i think without the injury issues, Royce is an easy #1 and if Lopez were still on pre-arb contract numbers he'd be the guy (from purely an ASSET perspective) but I can see a case for any of the 3. I try not to get too crazy over teenagers just hitting A-ball, but Walker Jenkins makes it hard. Yes, it's a tiny little sample, but the FSL can sap the life out of even great bats and Jenkins didn't even blink.

He did fine against them in A ball, but struggled in AA (.649 OPS), did fine against AAA (.758) and then the dreadful .447 in MLB. Pretty small sample sizes; he hasn't gotten 400 PA against lefties in his entire professional career yet, but it's still easily his biggest area of concern, especially considering how Rocco tried to protect him against lefties last season. If he can get that OPS up around .700 against lefties, he's going to be a monster to deal with. But the changes in the rules to eliminate the LOOGY and solid balance in the Twins potential lineups will also help him from getting targeted too much. I'm hoping Julien is our leadoff guy this season from the jump. His OBP is perfect for it and he's got more speed than people realize. He's also shown real ability to swipe bags in the minors that was under-utilized last season and i hope they let him off the chain more now that's he's had 2023 under his belt. 59 for 71 as a pro is nothing to sneeze at, and with the larger bases and limited number of throws over to 1B that pitchers get now, I'd like to see Julien run more.

I assume you meant Gwynn, but regardless all of them except Arraez have been retired for over 20 years. Yes, getting on base is the name of the game, but to score you need some guys behind you to hit with some pop because it's hard to put up a crooked number with a bunch of singles hitters. Part of the concern with Arraez (beyond the knees) was whether or not he would consistently hit those doubles; when he's slugging .420-.470 he's a heck of a lot better than when he's under .400. 30 doubles, vs 15.

As the 39th or 40th man on the 40-man roster he might be worth taking a shot at, if the staff think that there's something that could be unlocked. Easy enough to waive if you need the roster spot, upside if he can figure something out. he seems too wild for me, but I don't mind the move. Wonder if he's another of the group of players whose career development got screwed up by missing a minor league season due to the pandemic? he advanced really fast and then crashed into a wall at AA.

Except they probably would: Julien got rung up on "strikes" that were out of the zone to the point that even other team's announcers were commenting. So that accounts for a few. Everyone is from time to time going to get rung up when they're looking for one pitch and the pitcher fools them with something else, which accounts for a few more. And Julien is holding off on marginal pitches at the edge of the zone that he doesn't think are goods pitches for him to hit. That a really strong approach for a rookie. He'll likely get better at spotting those marginal pitches at the edge of the zone and fouling them off as his career develops...but hopefully he also won't get rung up on a terrible call by an umpire as often as they recognize that he knows the zone as well as any hitter in the game (and there's either an electronic zone or a challenge system to correct this nonsense). I thin he's going to have an excellent year. He's not just a guy hoping to get walked, because he swings hard at pitches in the zone and goes after pitches that he can do damage on. But his discipline will really help him because the way veteran pitchers have nailed young hitters year after year is by getting them to expand the zone and swing more and more at pitches that are off the plate or aren't ones the hitter can deal with. the one thing he needs to work on is being effective against LHP. he barely faced any in MLB, but he got killed when he did. If he can get himself up to acceptable against lefties while destroying righties, he's going to be a monster.

Correa is the hardest to evaluate for a list like this for me. He's an incredibly important player for the Twins, because finding a shortstop who can hit and field has been a real problem over the years, and a healthy Correa does both in ways rarely seen in a Twins uniform. His playoff performance was exactly the kind of thing we hoped for, and if the plantar fasciitis is in the past then he could easily be worth his expensive contract. (according to Fangraphs methodology, Correa has been worth more than $35M 3 times already in his career; using bRef's he's done it 5 times, and that's if you value 1 WAR a) holding at $8M, and b) you take it on a linear fashion, both of which are a little questionable at this point.) So his contract is expensive but not truly problematic, but he also has enough of an injury history to be concerning. He's an incredibly important asset one way or another.

The good thing is we won't likely need Funderburk in too many high-leverage situations assuming the back of the bullpen comes into camp in good health and stays that way through spring training. I like him a lot as a second lefty and middle inning thrower as we get a little more data on him and see if he can keep the walks at a reasonable enough pace for him to be an effective reliever to throw 1-2 innings in an outing. He looks like a good option. Pagan's rubber arm and consistently good health might be missed, but I do think the twins have some guys lined up to take those middle innings with the ability to be as effective.

Pretty tough considering how young these guys are. But hope springs eternal when it comes to prospects

Provus is very skilled and should do well. I hope people will give him a little time to find his feet with doing baseball on TV and with his broadcast partners, because it will take a little time for them to get in rhythm. I think Morneau does well as the primary partner and I appreciate how much he brings in analysis beyond "when I played". (I think he does a good job of bringing in his experiences as well, it's just not the only tool in his bag, and he's also good about saying that things have changed without being judgmental about it.) I do like having a 3rd man in from time to time, and both Plouffe and Perkins have done pretty well there. I would also be interested to see how Hawkins would fit in the 3-man booth from time to time, as i do like it when they have the hitter perspective and the pitcher perspective in place. I love it when Perk is really breaking something down, talking stats and why they matter. Same with Hawk when he's really digging in on a pitcher. Both are less successful when they try to make the broadcast into a comedy act. I feel like that's the bad legacy from Bert during the losing years, making them think they need to yuk it up to keep the audience entertained. When Bert was on his game he could predict an entire sequence of pitches to a hitter and then would tell you exactly why it was a good idea or bad one. that's the legacy I want our broadcasters thinking about not rehashing the same jokes and looking for the laugh line. I liked Smalley more than I thought I would recently, and he does bring a different perspective than any of the other guys, and there's no question he knows baseball. Feels like we have a good team in place that can work together and grow even more over a sustained period of time. That's nice, and it would be good if we can keep the team together for that sustained period. Big shoes to fill from Dick Bremer, who was the consummate professional and kept working and evolving with the game. he had a great voice, did the spade-work, and loved the game and the Twins. he'll be missed, he won't be forgotten, but I also know that he'll be rooting for Provus to be great from Day One.

I think this would be true a month into the season if Paddack looks like he can compete as a starter and get through 5-6 innings effectively. Right now, he's still quite an unknown when it comes to how he'll compete as a starter after TJ #2, and there are certainly critics out there who think he has little future as anything other than a bullpen arm, and bullpen arms with little history in high leverage situations aren't as good from an asset standpoint. I think this is about right for now; his value jumps quite a bit if he's really a mid-rotation starter like the Twins seem to believe. (I'm still unsure; I think he has a strong fastball-changeup combo, but needs that 3rd pitch to show to stick in the rotation and we haven't seen that from him enough yet. Healthy with good coaching maybe he gets there, as he's shown flashes. Cautiously optimistic.) I think Martin has the talent to rank higher, but he's battled enough injuries and hasn't developed the power people hoped for that this is more than fair. But I still really like him.

I think he's a great player, and would prefer that he stay with the Twins, playing multiple positions and DHing this season. He makes the lineup stronger and I love his switch-hitting. The only way he should be moved is if we get real value for him, the kind of value for a player that would have been the #1 2B option if he were a free agent and would have gotten a multi-year deal we a substantial raise over his current deal. He's no bag of balls, he's the Twins best trade asset because we have depth at his best positions, he has a good contract, and he's a proven veteran. His only real deficit is health, but he finished the season healthy and played well (and was healthy) the last 2 months of the season, so it shouldn't be the biggest issue. I'd rather keep him, he's still one of the Twins better players and a consistent producer. By all accounts he's a good dude and great teammate. But because of our self-imposed payroll reduction, he makes sense to be a trade option. If he's given away in a salary dump, I'm going to be furious. As part of a package that lands us the starter we need, I can live with dealing Polanco, but I'll be bummed to see him go.

Oh, I don't disagree. I just thought it was interesting that Martin wasn't someone who got tossed from games by the umpire at a particularly high rate. I find Martin to be a fascinating character in baseball history: the ultimate turnaround artist, a shockingly self-destructive persona, a brilliant baseball mind, and a real SOB.

The 1970 squad was very good, but just not deep enough to overcome a few key injuries/under-performance. (Plus running into the Balto juggernaut; unbelievable that they only used 4 pitchers in taking out the Twins in the ALCS) The drop-off from Rod Carew to Danny Thompson was pretty massive at the plate and they just didn't have enough hitters. Pitching staff was pretty great, though. (another "wow, the game has changed!" moment: 1970 Twins only used 13 pitchers the whole season. Now, they start the season with 13 pitchers!) Would Billy Martin have made a difference? Or had he already worn out his welcome even without the fistfight with one of his own players? (amusingly: Martin was only actually tossed 48 times in 16 season; Rigney was thrown 64 times in 19, despite Martin having the reputation as the biggest hothead this side of Durocher) Martin was a lunatic who destroyed himself by his inability to control his demons, but Rigney was just another guy as a manager, really. Martin finished first or second in 8 out of his 10 full-seasons with a team (i'm counting the '81 season as full, since he was the manager for every game there was). Not sure anyone would have beaten those damn O's teams, though.

I think this is the biggest issue with Solano: expecting him to actually be any better in '24 is a little unlikely. For a guy nicknamed "Donnie Barrels", he doesn't actually hit the ball all that hard, so seeing increased production from him is going to be a little hard to find. The other issue is the roster spot: unless there's a move with Polanco/Farmer, I don't have a roster spot for him, so any decision to bring him on board would have to wait until that's resolved. I don't think price is actually going to be the issue; he's going to be in that $2-3M range and even with our self-imposed payroll limitations, that shouldn't be the barrier. It's the roster spot. Have to remember that Royce Lewis and Ed Julien have roster spots from Day One this year when figuring out who is on this squad. If Polanco/Farmer get moved, then it's a question of whether you like Miranda's upside better than Solano's floor. Not an easy decision because we don't know how Miranda is going to respond to his surgery and if he can get that shoulder healthy. I'd probably go for Miranda and bet on upside, but it's not unreasonable to go the other way.

So because you didn't mention stress to the knee in your post, I can't talk about it in my response? Who knows and who cares which is more painful, the issue was that asking someone to do more of an activity that is causing pain, stress, swelling, etc isn't going to be better than having them do less of it. If Buxton had tried to play in the field, he would have been doing more running, jogging, standing, etc and putting more strain on a knee that was never fully healthy, than just DH-ing. The plan didn't really work out because Buxton's knee never responded. It looks like they might have gotten the diagnosis wrong, but people that know a lot more about medicine sure seem to be saying "yeah, this totally could have happened". I suppose if your preference was to get Buxton on the IL faster, he should have just gone out there until he couldn't walk or something, but the team (not unreasonably) thought he could contribute at the plate as a DH. It's important to remember that Buxton had an OPS of .881 through April; the first 20% of the season the plan looked like it was working out ok, because while we missed Buxton in the field, he was producing well at the plate. It wasn't until May that things started going downhill.

What a very silly take. Of course there's more stress on the knee by taking the field and jogging out to the position every inning and chasing after fly balls and line drives in ADDITION to running the bases. You're acting like doing one skips the other. And clearly the feeling and medical opinion was that putting Buxton out in the OF was going to cause enough problems and swelling in the knee that he would have to miss games immediately after playing in the OF (making him unable to even DH). You're also acting like this injury was something Buxton could have just overcome if he's wanted it a little more or the FO had just taken the wraps off, which is proof you don't know anything about Byron Buxton, a player who could have a sword stuck in his gut and would say he's good to go. We'll see what Buxton looks like in spring training. If this cleanup to remove the plica (something most of us had never heard of before now) fixes the swelling and irritation in the knee and allows him to play comfortably...he's likely to be pretty good at the plate. He's still going to be streaky, but there are very few players in MLB that hit well when they have a bum knee, so if he's healthy he'll be better. Can't bet on him staying healthy all season, because he hasn't done it. But past injury history isn't always predictive of future injuries and years of health doesn't guarantee continued health. We'll see, but sometimes all you need is to figure out the real problem to make it happen. Hopefully this cleanup procedure was that.

52 is far too young. RIP, sir.

I don't know if Kepler would be more than an average to below average CF defensively at this point, which is less than good. I think Castro is probably better there at this point (better speed with growing experience) and I'm unclear if he's better than Gordon (Kepler's got the better arm, but I think Gordon has better range), so I just don't know how much of an advantage it is. But the biggest issue is really the fact that the Twins don't have a replacement for Kepler in one of the corner slots ready to go. Sure, Wallner slides into RF easily, but then we're looking at Gordon or Larnach as the internal candidates for LF (with a little Castro/Farmer to support, I guess). Gordon was awful last season before getting hurt, and Larnach has never been able to do it consistently...and they don't compliment each other particularly well either. I'm excited about some of the corner OF coming up in the system: Rodriguez, Rosario, and the Mighty Walker Jenkins, but asking any of them to step in on Day One is a massive risk that's highly unlikely to go well. This is a much easier concept a year from now after (hopefully) E-Rod and Ka'lai have destroyed AA and spent some time mashing in Saint Paul as well, with Walker getting a cup of coffee in AA as well. I think adding a FA 4th OF who can comfortably play in CF still makes the most sense, but rolling with internal options probably makes more sense to me than trying to shift Kepler. Castro, Gordon, and Martin with Kiersey as the "break glass in case of emergency" isn't unreasonable. Castro did well last year, Gordon has had some success at the plate, and I still believe in Martin's talent (he'll get on base if nothing else, and can swipe some bases to boot). Kiersey can certainly handle the position well defensively even if he might not hit his weight. I'm unconcerned with Kepler's beliefs one way or the other, because without an upgrade behind him in the corners, shifting him does nothing for me. (And I'll believe he gets dealt one day after it actually happens, regardless of the rumor mills)

I dunno what a successful career is for Jenkins, but he's off to a great start and clearly doesn't look like a lemon. But it's so hard to predict where he'll land and there are so many potential pitfalls. But he's doing everything right so far and I can't wait to see what his first full year as a pro looks like.

The key for Paddack is going to be whether or not he finds consistency with a 3rd pitch, whether it's the curve or the slider. the fastball should be fine now that he's had the surgery, should be pain-free, and ticks the velocity back up a touch. The change-up is a very effective pitch for him as well. But he's never really had sustained success with a 3rd pitch. the curve looked good in 2023, but he only threw 12 of them in MLB, so who knows. It'll be interesting to see how the twins manage his innings, but he should be able to be a good 5th starter for them with upside for more. Canterino has all the stuff in the world, but his health just hasn't been there. Sure feels like the staff at Rice did him dirty and should have done more to protect and develop his arm health. It's hard to expect much out of him since he's been injured so much, but he's been incredibly hard to hit when he has been able to throw in pro ball. I think I would look at him being a 2-3 inning kind of pitcher this year (whether it's opening a game or relieving) as he builds up stamina and adjusts to pitching again. I suspect he'll spend a little extra time to start the season in FL so that they can work with him where they have expanded facilities and the weather's warmer. but I could see him bouncing up to Saint Paul quickly, in part to see how he does against more advanced hitters but also so the MLB staff can keep an eye on his arm. Paddack will likely be fine, it's just a question of what his ceiling is. Some prognosticators think he's a bullpen guy who will never have the additional pitch to be an effective starter, others have higher expectations. He showed he was healthy again at the end of 2023 and look good enough to inspire some positivity. Canterino has had so much missed time that it's harder to project him for anything. We don't really know how well he's responded to the TJ until he actually gets back on the mound again, but his stuff has always been impressive. I'd like for him to go to the bullpen to try and get him through a full season healthy...and then try and Johan him back into the rotation in 2025, but I'll take any path that keeps him pitching.

interesting pitcher. I just hope that things aren't so tight on the payroll scale that if he's not able to get it done the $1M salary won't deter the Twins from moving on. Considering how fungible so many middle relievers are, I'm ok with trying to find one this way.

I'm fine with a move like this. It costs very little, and if you do unlock him maybe you find your next Brock Stewart. The trick is to not do it too many times all at once, or pin too many hopes on someone emerging. You should take a flyer on a guy this that has real talent and might just be good health or a mechanical (or even personal) adjustment away from realizing their ability every year. You just shouldn't be doing it with 4 guys at once and banking on at least one of them being able to step in immediately, because then your opportunity costs get too high with the value of the roster spot. This is a minor league deal with no guarantees and no spot on the 40-man. It's worth trying.

Well, I think Alcala is going to get a shot this year if he's healthy: the team likes his stuff and he's shown flashes of real ability in the bullpen before his injury, and one of Balazovic, Winder, or Sands is likely to make the roster as well. Which means there's really only room for Varland in the bullpen if they don't sign anyone, and in the rotation if they're unable to sign/trade for anyone. I strongly suspect they will acquire a starter with some kind of pedigree before the season starts, most likely via trade. (I also expect a great deal of disagreement over how good that starter actually is, with people staking out positions that range between quality #2 and "that bum shouldn't even be on a playoff team!" almost regardless of who it is....) I think there's a real possibility that Varland may land in the bullpen eventually, but I tend to believe that the franchise would be better off, both this season and for the future, in giving him another opportunity to stick as a starter. If he can add that 3rd pitch and keep the ball in the park, then he's a great add to the rotation for 2025...and likely will end up starting 10-20 games this season anyways, with room for him to go to the bullpen for the playoff run this year anyways. And if he can get either the slider or the changeup working consistently...he'll be even more dangerous in any role. But he won't really get enough reps to know with any real confidence in the pitch if he's not throwing it a lot more. Do we really need Varland in the bullpen right now, when the biggest need there is not a high leverage late-inning guy, but someone to throw 1-2 innings in the 5th-7th on a semi-regular basis?

I think this sums it up very well. The cutter does look better and it's a legit second pitch for Varland. for him to stick in the rotation, he'll need a 3rd pitch and I think it's an interesting question which it will be: slider or change? I have to wonder if focusing on developing one of them in the offseason will be the key, or can he work on both of them and see which one emerges once he starts facing live hitters in spring training? The Twins will need more than just 5 starters in 2024, and having someone like Varland to pick up 20-25 starts as a relatively young player who is still refining his repertoire is a big asset. Teams end up using 10+ starters during a season (for more than just spot starts, which I consider 5 or more) when they don't have a guy as that 6th starter who can come in and handle the business when someone misses 2-3 weeks with a groin pull. We used essentially 8 starters in 2023: Lopez, Gray, Ryan, Ober, Maeda, Varland, Kuechel, and Mahle. That doesn't happen if we don't have real options as the 6th and 7th guys in Ober and Varland.