AlwaysinModeration

Just scraped in over the line with 76.1%, four votes to spare. Congrats Joe!

200 votes cast, announcement tomorrow. Beltre, 198 votes, 99.0% Mauer, 167 votes, 83.5% Helton, 164 votes, 82.0% Wagner, 156 votes, 78% Sheffield, 150 votes, 75% What started out as a real long shot is getting close to a reality—Joe Mauer will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He had many things going for him that people underestimated: played for only one club, played for his hometown, pristine character, unique achievements (3 batting titles as a catcher), plus he was on a ballot that wasn’t too crowded and didn’t have a lot of big-name newcomers—Ichiro helped him out by playing the opening series in Japan of the next year after Mauer retired, thus pushing his eligibility back a year. Even his flaws have “aged” better; his post-concussion drop-off is probably more accepted today than in years past, and his lack of power is accepted more in the post-steroid era.

Poor Alex Wimmers. I hope he is able to at least crash on Dave St. Peter’s new couch.

175 votes tallied: Beltre 173, 98.9% Mauer 146, 83.4% Helton 145, 82.9% Wagner 140, 80% ______________ Sheffield, 129, 73.7% Andruw Jones 126, 72.0%

He has 8 votes so far, and has gained one vote from last year’s voters and one vote from new voters. He needs 11-12 more votes to stay on the ballot; my guess is he gets there.

Compare to Duran’s 2017-2021 years: 62 starts in 63 appearances, 294IP, 4.04ERA, 1.28WHIP, 0.64HR/9, 8.1H/9, 9.9K/9, 3.4BB/9. And post-COVID, Duran had the same jump in K rate, jumping up to 12K/9 (as a starter) and then maintaining 11+K/9 after moving to relief.

Love the premise of this piece, but I think the answer is no. I think Duran is in the bullpen to stay. However, I could see them trying Jax in the rotation. From 2017 to 2021 he made 50 appearances, with 49 of those as a starter. He had solid numbers as a starter: 286IP, 3.23 ERA, 1.17WHIP, 0.44HR/9, 8.5H/9, 6.8K/9, 2.0BB/9. His K/9 numbers jumped up over 9K/9 after moving to the pen, which is what you expect for a starter moving to the pen. But I think he had already taken a leap forward during the missed COVID season of 2020, because he was striking out 8K/9 in 2021, still as a starter. Right now Varland is penciled in to the rotation as the #5 guy, but why not give Jax a shot?

On the BA signing page, while it doesn’t have signing amounts easily accessible, it looks like four teams have signed exactly one of the profiles players (Atlanta, Houston, Angels, and Dodgers). Twenty teams have signed exactly 2 profiled players. Five teams (AZ, Balt, Mil, NYY, Tampa) signed 3 profiled players, and one team (Toronto) signed four.

Actually, quite the opposite. Here is the Baseball America page of signings: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2024-mlb-international-signings-tracker/ Twins have signed 9 players, including two that were profiled by BA before signing day. Detroit, the Royals, and the White Sox have signed 8. No other team has signed fewer than 10. And teams that have signed 20+ players include: Arizona (23), Boston (23), Cleveland (26), Miami (21), the Mets (21), San Francisco (21), Tampa (24) and Washington (21). And the Brewers have signed 35. So I don’t know if the Twins got quality, but they haven’t gone for quantity.

Twin sign MLB.com #8 ranked player in the international signing class, SS Daiber De Los Santos from the Dominican Republic. https://www.mlb.com/video/top-int-l-prospects-de-los-santos-ss?t=mlb-pipeline They also signed #39 Eduardo Beltre, also from the DR. https://www.mlb.com/video/top-int-l-prospects-beltre-of?t=mlb-pipeline Here are the other four they signed today: Victor Leal, C, Venezuela Alver Medina, SS, Dominican Republic Davirick Fuenmayor, OF, Venezuela Yoel Roque, RHP, Dominican Republic There are so many weird aspects of the international signing process. There is basically no fanfare, especially compared to the draft. All of the players have been recruited for years and have already committed to teams well before the official signing period. And yet, there are tons of these players signing today who will make a bigger impact than any of the drafted players from the same class.

Hope the weather is great for your trip. I’ll be there a few weeks earlier when my 12-year old’s team goes for a tournament. They have big tournaments every week in Cooperstown all summer.

150 votes are in: Beltre 148, 98.7% Mauer 126, 84% Helton 125, 83.3% Wagner 120, 80% Sheffield 113, 75.7% —————————— Andruw Jones 106, 70.7% Beltran 102, 68%

Well, that, or if he pulls a Pete Rose.

All of the HOF voters who have not voted yet will be able to do so when the 2025 ballots are mailed out at the end of the year. Joe Mauer may or may not be on that ballot.

According to your ratings, and giving 3 for first, 2 for second and 1 for third, you have Mauer at 13, and Posey and Molina tied at 12. So the answer to your question is evidently “yes.” I would have liked to see Mauer play 50 postseason games. Or 104.

7! Does this mean you are going to Cooperstown?

Back to the vote watch, Mauer has gone 11 for the last 11, up to 113 out of 136 votes for 83%. He’s now two votes up on Helton, with 35% of the precincts reporting. The longer he stays north of 80%, the better his chances get of induction later this year.

I don’t know, Denny—you had 2500 big league plate appearances, hit 25 dingers, and cleared $5mm in career earnings, I’d say you did alright!!

Thanks Nick, for the great series and overview recap. I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you did this 12 months ago and concluded Buxton was the most valuable team asset, and now he isn’t even among the top 20. That just doesn’t make sense to me, any way you slice it. Using FanGraphs, in terms of career value, Buxton has produced the second most WAR (19) on the team, behind only Correa (32.4). So in terms of what he is capable of producing, based on what he has done already, he’s second on the team. In terms of projected production moving forward, he is expected to produce somewhere in the 6-8 WAR over the next five years he is under contract. That’s much less than Lewis, Correa and Lopez are projected for, and basically in line with Ryan, Julien, and Duran’s projections. And prospects Jenkins and Lee have higher upside than 6-8 WAR, but are uncertain to reach their potential. But for everyone else on the team, Buxton is expected to produce more value for the team; more than Kepler, Polanco, Jeffers, Varland, Ober, Martin, Festa, etc. He’s under team control for the next five years, which is more than a bunch of guys on this list like Kepler (1), Paddack and Polanco (2), and Lopez and Jeffers (3), plus a bunch of guys who have four years of team control remaining. Now, it is true that he is owed $75mm over the next five years, and he didn’t earn his $15mm salary last year. I get why you have soured on his value as a team asset. But he’s produced over $150mm in value for the team in his career to date, and is projected to be one of the team’s top producers going forward, even factoring in his poor year last year. I don’t think he’s their top asset, but I think it’s wrong to conclude he isn’t in their top 20. He could easily post a 4 WAR season this year, like he has two of the last three years. I think I’d put him in the 6-10 range. I just don’t see his bad year dropping him from 1 to outside the top 20.

If this is your cover letter of your application to work for the Twins FO I’m not sure it’s getting picked up off of the pile.

Dane Brugler’s most recent mock draft has Jayden Daniels going 7, McCarthy going 22, and doesn’t have Penix in the first round.

You can say that again!

Vikings finish behind the Jets due to SOS, so even though the Raiders won, they finish with the 11th pick. Wonder if the Bears had beaten the Pack if they would have moved past the Jets and finished with the 9th pick.

As long as they were alive for a playoff spot, I wanted them to win. But now that they lost… Jets win, moving the Vikings up to the 11th pick. Raiders and/or Bears’ wins could move them into the top 10 or top 9 pick. Penix seems like a realistic draft pick in that range.

I think I have a different definition of “back breaking”