AlwaysinModeration

I’m glad you aren’t running the team. I think it would be a big mistake to bring up Lewis, Kiriloff, Rooker, Gordon and Arraez now. Wasting their service time, messing with their development. What if half of their six years are spent figuring it out? I agree with you about: -Giving Kepler, Sano, Buxton and Polanco a lot of opportunity to play. -Putting Romero and Gonsalves in the rotation -Your idea of having Astudillo start all 9 positions in a game. I guess my biggest point of disagreement with you is that you think that they can’t be competitive in 2019. I think they absolutely can, and Cruz, Schoop, Cron are worthwhile investments—in part to make a run this year, and in part to give the prospects more time to develop, increasing the likelihood that they produce right when they arrive. (Oh, and in your scenario, I don’t see any playing time available for Rosario.)

He was a year ago, I believe, which is what I meant. Which, technically, was the year before last, not last year, now that we are in 2019.

*are* lucky

Twins aren’t lucky he didn’t get taken in the rule 5 last year. When he comes up, can we refer to his fastball as the Thorpedo? (Any chance he is related to Ian Thorpe?)

That contract makes my head hurt. Or maybe it was the champagne. I didn’t think there was any likelihood the Twins would sign Kikuchi. Also ok with that. Would much rather see them sign a couple of solid RPs. (Britton and Ottavino would probably be too much to hope for?)

This is an interesting discussion about how to develop both players successfully and, ultimately, a successful team. For developing players, I don’t think there is any clearcut best path. Some players probably could make it in the majors earlier. Some need more development time than they are given. There are trade-offs in both scenarios, and risk in both. If you have a precocious player that can make it to the majors by 20, and thrives, great. But then he’s a free agent at 26 and will likely play his prime years elsewhere. Or, if he struggles at 20, then you start to lose service time. If you have a player who needs to learn at each level, including majors, you are going to suffer losses as a result of that. Hicks was an extreme example of this. We may be seeing this play out with Buxton and Sano. Maybe Kepler too. What I want from a front office is an effort to put together the best possible lineup from top to bottom. For a team that won’t be chasing all of the biggest free agents, this means building as deep a farm system as possible. Prospects rise and fall with a lot of fluidity. For every handful of prospects that have potential, maybe one of them turns into something special. Even for those that are something special, it still may require signicant learning at the major league level. At CF, the path to having the best possible player at that position is giving a chance to Buxton to reach his full potential. It might happen in 2019, 2020, 2021, or never. But he still represents the best chance for the Twins at fielding a superstar level center fielder. The same exact thinking goes with Sano for third base. As for DH, Cruz represents the best possible bat they could put in that position of their lineup for 2019, and maybe even 2020 too. I’m totally onboard with that move. To me, 2018 was a “take your lumps” year for the long-term benefit of the team. It resulted in a lost season, that allowed the team to part ways with Molitor, and bring in new, young coaching staff, including Baldelli and Wes Johnson. The team won 78 games, and is going to see strides forward this year from Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Polanco, Romero, Gonsalves, and maybe Berrios again. They have added players that should improve production at three positions (DH, 2B, 1B). They have a deep system on top of that. And the offseason isn’t done, so we could see some bullpens arms added as well. I’m onboard with this front office’s approach.

Nick, I love this series and I love the discussionit has created. Thanks for putting the time and effort into it. All that said, I can’t fathom how any of Gibson, May or Garver, by any measure, can be placed ahead of Sano on this list. I don’t care if we are talking trade value, WAR, or traditional stats. Sano (and his three years of team control) is a significantly more valuable asset for the team than Gibson (one year), May (two years) or even Garver (five years).

Nats will sign him for a 1year, 8mm contract.

1. There isn’t a ton of evidence in Twins history that money saved one year gets spent in future years. 2. Rooker isn’t knocking on the door yet. Cruz as a Twin in 2019 isn’t impeding Rooker. (Austin, potentially, yes, but Austin is kind of marginal—at least not likely a centerpiece of a future Twins competitive team.) 3. Lewis and Kiriloff are, but throwing them into your point is a red herring. How exactly does signing Cruz have any impact on Lewis or Kiriloff?

I’d say more than effectively.

Don’t forget: Rosario is the back-up infielder. Austin can play in the outfield. Astudillo can do everything. We don’t know if Rocco will want a 12 or a 13-man staff.

I literally ”lol”ed at the Logan Morrison bit.

Sure. He shouldn’t cost too much, I wouldn’t think. He gave up 41 homers last year, sports a career 4.63 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and gives up nearly a hit per inning. He does have three years of team control, though, and was a highly touted prospect, drafted fourth overall and debuting in the big leagues as a 19-year old, before TJ surgery derailed things. Would Tyler Austin and Lewis Thorpe for Bundy be enough?

Here: The Twins are going to win 100 games. Cruz, Sano, Cron and Schoop all hit 30+ home runs, Buxton hits 10 triples and Kepler hits 40 doubles. (Oh, and Berrios, Gibson and Pineda all get Cy Young votes.) You heard it here first!

Ervin got $13.5mm per year, Nolasco 12mm, so this is in fact the most the Twins have paid a free agent on an annual basis.

Is this the highest AAV free agent contract the Twins have ever handed out?

Reading that piece, I can’t help but immediately think of the positives effect he is going to have on Sano and Buxton. Just off the top of my head, he’s Dominican, has an incredible work ethic, positive attitude, a very impressive career, a conscientious eating regimen, and tee / hitting drills that specifically work on hitting sliders and power to all fields.

Boomstick.

Where does Nelson Cruz fit on this list? ;-)

One thing to note about Cruz’ down year last year: his batting average on balls in play was .264, which is 40 points below his career average on balls in play of .305. Correspondingly, his average (.256) was the lowest he hit in a decade. The three prior years he hit at least .287 each year. Even still, he OPSed .850. It’s possible he’s starting to decline...or it’s possible his numbers bounce back up a bit. I still don’t see any guaranteed contracts for 2020.

*cannot tell if joking or not*

Well, you can. It involves a 12-man pitching staff and a four-man bench (C, IF, OF, 1B). The problem is you then have three righties for 1B/DH. Of course, if Austin can play some OF, he could certainly get starts against lefties in place of Kepler or Rosario.

And a one-year deal to boot! Nice. I hope they find a way to keep Austin and Cron, in that order.

I hope the Twins sign him to a minor league contract. It seems like it could make sense to give him a shot to try to get healthy back with the Twins organization. He’s only 29.

So I would like to start a discussion on Pineda for 2019. I have combed through his numbers, and see his stellar early career numbers with Seattle, and his struggles with the Yankees. I noted his great K/BB and his inflated BABIP and HR/rates in New York. I see some real upside for Pineda for 2019, and think it warrants some discussion. Then I went in search of previous Pineda threads, and I found the original signing topic and it’s nine pages of comments. I will save folks the trouble of rereading that whole thread (which included, in addition to opinions on the move, some new proposed statistics, brushing teeth and drinking orange juice, and Wham!) by summarizing: Many thought the move was not good at the time, or at least meh. Some loved it, or wished the contract came with an option. (And also, at the time, many thought Trevor May would be a starter in 2018...that ship has sailed, right?) And here are two top comments I thought worth reposting: Tom Froemming wrote: “Passing along some stuff I already shared on Twitter ... “Michael Pineda last three seasons: 9.46 K/9, 1.98 BB/9. That 4.79 K:BB ratio ranked seventh among the 78 pitchers to log 400 IP in that time frame, trailing only Kershaw, Sale, Scherzer, Kluber, Bumgarner and Carrasco. “His overall numbers were far less impressive because he had the worst BABIP (.328) of that sample and the second-worst HR/FB rate (17.4%). He's given up a lot of home runs, but over his career he has a 1.6 HR/9 rate at Yankee Stadium and a 0.9 HR/9 rate everywhere else.” amgt wrote: “I'm a little surprised by the negative opinions on this signing. “Worse case scenario: we lit $10M on fire. MLB teams do that all the time. “Median scenario: he comes back in Aug and pitches from the bullpen the rest of the year. 2019 he pitches like a good #4 starter, which, at $8M, is an underpay. He becomes a free agent and we thank him for his time here. “Really Good Scenario: Same as above but he pitches like a 2/3, which $8M is a severe underpay, we extend him a QO and are happy if we get him for 1/18, or he declines and we get the 35th pick in the 2020 draft for the trouble.” I was glad to find Tom’s stats so I didn’t need to repost. I will also note that Pineda’s H/9 and WHIP career numbers are good. And I think amgt’s “really good scenario” is definitely within the realm of possibilities. It obviously depends on his recovery from TJ, but if he comes back as his normal self, I am very bullish on Pineda for this coming season. What do others think?