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JD-TWINS

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  1. JD-TWINS
    Nobody is comparing rotations! …..you said if we are relying on “hope” with our rotation it’s bad if we’re trying to win a World Series. My point is 3 of the top 4-5 teams in the discussion for a Championship are based on hope with their staffs. How nervous are the Dodger’s fans over Walker Buehler? deGrom is nearly hurt 70% of the past 6 years - Eovaldi has had arm problems for years (healthy in ‘23) - Scherzer has a new injury every 2-3 months - that’s my point. I don’t doubt their effectiveness but I seriously doubt their availability and I guarantee their FO & fan base are “hoping” they are healthy. The Orioles (101 wins in ‘23 with more experience & Corbin Burnes) dropped because the Yankees got their act together but more significantly, 2 of their top 4 starters are hurt …….one maybe indefinitely…… they too are hoping for health! In ‘23 Maeda threw 106 innings & had a 4.2 ERA ……….. he was maybe mediocre to poor in the Playoffs…….he’s 35. I do not see why anyone would have more confidence in him than in Paddack? Both off rebuilt arms ……in small look, Paddack definitely looked better at the end of ‘23. Tigers are hoping Maeda doesn’t break down! IMO, Polanco got them Topa & the #76 prospect OF. Nobody in their right mind, after past 2 seasons, could have any reasonable amount of confidence in DeSclafani performing well or for sure.
  2. JD-TWINS
    If I was the Twin’s pitching coach or if I were their FO or if I were their owner & I read TD routinely, I’d lay into the commenters here. This isn’t fantasy baseball!! The Twins had the second best Rotation looking at certain metrics in ‘23. ……..noted in today’s article here they were #2 & predicted to be #6 this year, out of the 30 clubs. It’s been widely discussed that the Pen is expected to be #2 in baseball this year. #6 rotation on paper & #2 Pen on paper…….why are people constantly complaining about how bad things look and what a poor job the organization is doing - seriously??? There’s ten playoff teams and we have a “blended” #4/5 staff - accurate? But, “…..,We may get caught by the Tigers….,,,we can’t win a second game in the playoffs due to weak pitching…..”, blah, blah, blah - please give the organization and the players some credit!!
  3. JD-TWINS
    You don’t think the defending Champion Rangers are hoping that Eovaldi holds up…….Dunning doesn’t suck……Scherzer is not over the hill and bounces back at some point in early season……..& deGrom isn’t on the IL by September 1, after starting 6 games???? How much HOPING are the Dodgers doing with their $324M man getting rocked essentially every time he steps on the mound…….could be a long 12 years! He gave up 5 ER in 1 inning of work v. the Padres in his MLB debut….,,oh, btw, Dodger’s big acquisition from the Rays got lit up in his debut as well. The Orioles are praying daily that their two rotation guys come back sooner than later. On & on…….lots of organizations with World Series aspirations with their fingers crossed.
  4. JD-TWINS
    I’ve never heard the organization state that Margot was acquired to back up Buxton in CF. IMO, they went out and got a guy to platoon with Wallner - a guy with experience and good splits v. LH pitching. They also got a guy who “could” play CF if needed. I think Castro is the combination guy with Buxton to fill CF in ‘24. His value in the line-up is too high to not have a semi-regular position. There will not be as many opportunities in the infield this year assuming Lewis’ knees - Correa’s feet - Farmer’s cheekbone all stay intact. I think Castro starts 75-80 games in CF v. RH pitching. If he gets similar AB’s in ‘24, I’d take the 32 XBH - 33 steals - 106OPS+ every year, ongoing. Defensive flexibility and decent glove ability.
  5. JD-TWINS
    A well as results specifically from 2023!
  6. JD-TWINS
    Might win 94 just as easily! After they had played the weak Division opponents in ‘23 the Twins were 14-5 v. Texas - Houston - Philly - Arizona last year…….the last 4 teams standing. If Gray pitches up to his reputation v. Houston the season may have had a better outcome. Obviously, every team is hoping for good health and for good fortune for their player’s performances. All part of Fandom……..same thoughts/emotions with The Wild - T-Wolves - Vikings. The Twins will be fine and very competitive in the A.L. - sure hope so!
  7. JD-TWINS
    IMO, if Duran can get healthy in 6-8 weeks we’ll be fine. Thielbar has been mostly very effective since getting back into baseball. I think he’s probably done or certainly he’s backed up to a much lesser role for ‘24. Funderburk - Okert as the 2 LH pitchers in Pen seems almost a certainty at this point. Jackson - Topa - Alcala - Sands - Jax - Stewart…..this group of 8 should be fine for a month or two. Buxton is a flip of the coin……I do think Castro slots into CF as the regular v. RH pitching…………daily, if Buxton cannot play. Do not expect any help from DeSclafani. Paddack’s repaired elbow should still be fresh for ‘24. If he stays at 125 innings or less over 5.5-6 months, he should hold up. Ryan had a decent ERA and won 13 games in ‘22. He won 11 games and was cruising in ‘23 until he hurt his leg and didn’t let the Team know. Stupid maybe, but I don’t think he’s hit the peak of his promise at this point. Ober threw 167 innings last year with his starts in St. Paul added to his 144 innings on Big Club. I have confidence we should expect 160 innings out of him……..what he says about his innings goals for the season (200) are really not relevant as he has little to no say in the matter.
  8. JD-TWINS
    I think that sounds nice - they certainly have pieces to trade from ST. PAUl …….just don’t think it’s that easy to go get a pitcher at the Deadline. Don’t expect a deal to be made with the competition there will be from other clubs in the mix at that point. We just differ on this one.
  9. JD-TWINS
    Dobnack & Raya & Canterino & Ohl are ALL really long shots. Pretty sure canterino is currently hurt? The top 5 guys should be fine until June from a workload standpoint. Festa & SWR should be ready to start helping, one at a time, by June 1. Might want to give Dallas a call for continuity on an MiLB deal for $2M…….maybe some incentives if he meets some minimal criteria. I get he’s not a big “stuff guy” but he’s smart and a very different look for most opponents. He may be worth 8-10 starts mid-summer into September. Not really sure what HE thinks about how he was treated last year? Surprised I’ve heard absolutely nothing about his activities this spring.
  10. JD-TWINS
    Jax - Stewart - Jackson - Okert - Sands - Alcala - Funderburk - Topa……….,a very solid group, just missing The Hammer in the 9th……fingers crossed for Duran to come back in 6-8 weeks ready to go!! Thielbar really seems to be breaking down. So, while I think he’ll come back and pitch, even some meaningful innings in ‘24, I think he’s nearly done and could be ineffective v. high end playoff teams. Not holding my breath for him to be a key piece of the Pen this year. I think Jackson has the biggest chance to be this year’s Joe Smith. His age doesn’t bother me but I’ve seen him pitch twice and his stuff just doesn’t seem to be all that effective. He has a decent track record recently so hoping for the best.
  11. JD-TWINS
    Unless Santana gets hurt - Miranda is just refining his offense in St. Paul this season. If Wallner can’t get it together soon - Larnach may get another chance by 4/15. Balszovic has a long way to go!
  12. JD-TWINS
    Padres have gotten their roster together over the past 8 weeks, 88 win team. D-Backs should be similar to better this year, so, 90 wins. Dodgers potentially 105 wins. Giants seem to be locked into a punishing Division. I do not see their offense being good enough. Starters can put some good innings in to keep them close in games!
  13. JD-TWINS
    Pretty sure Canterino is now hurt. Varland 125 innings…….Paddack 125 innings (25 starts each) ……Ober 160 innings………Ryan 170 innings ……..Lopez 190 innings……= 770 innings SWR …….45 innings & Festa …..,,45 innings. That’s 860 starter innings…..probably would like to get to 925-950 total. That leaves 530 innings for 10-11 bullpen arms. This is based on perfect starter health for the most part. Highly unlikely. Also, there’s 60-75 innings for starters that are not attached to anyone - unaccounted for at this point. Lorenzen could be an answer. Can’t imagine doing more than 1 year for $7-$8M maximum. Anybody here about Dallas working out & looking for a job? Could be those 5-6 starts in July-August that we’ll need.
  14. JD-TWINS
    Looks like Louie is a lock! SWR/Festa in some combination ready by mid-May to come up & spot start to keep everyone fresh. Louie 120 innings spread over 5.5 months. 22 innings per month and then to the Pen September 15th. SWR throwing 2 starts back to back over 10 days………4 times through the season. 40-45 innings. Festa with a similar load totaling 40-45 innings. That’s 210 innings between these 3 guys with no heavy work load. Seems reasonable. Canterino - DeSclafani - Thielbar all questionable for ANY action in ‘24. ……Duran with a body injury - hope he’s healed in 6-8 weeks!
  15. JD-TWINS
    ……..or, better yet, let Lee play 3B. Probably our best infielder. Move LEWIS to 1B & Kirilloff to LF OR move Lewis to LF & back-up at 3B. No trades, wait til Lee is ready in a few months. All good.
  16. JD-TWINS
    Ober or Ryan as “the #2” …….who cares? They pitch every 5th game and need to be competitive, that’s it……..they face who they face. So much wondering and angst over a pretty trivial thing that nobody will discuss by June, IMO. Ryan & Ober both rely on command v. velocity. I like they are both working on a “better” pitch. If they command the fastball and Ober has developed a cutter to go along with his change-up he’ll be very good. Ryan has supposedly developed a sinker to go with his sweeper……if he throws high fastball strikes the other two pitches will play. Lamenting the “production” of Sonny Gray being gone is really old, IMO. Last time from me, TEAM was 14-18 in his starts. There is no advancing deeper into the playoffs due to a low ERA during the season. He was fortunate to pick a guy off in the Toronto playoff game to escape a jam - good baseball play (kudos) - not much to do with ERA. He did not pitch well at all v. Astros in playoffs! I don’t dislike Gray & he will be missed from a competitive spirit standpoint and occasionally when a starter is getting hammered. The TEAM results are what need to be replicated or bettered. IMO Varland/Festa/SWR (assuming worst case & we never see DeScla) can pitch the TEAM to a .500 record, even if their combined ERA is 4.15 v. Gray’s 2.79. Better offense is anticipated (even a bit better) and the Pen is 10-11 guys deep…….this uptick in TEAM performance should net the Twins a few more wins than ‘23, even without Sonny.
  17. JD-TWINS
    Wallner - Larnach - Kirilloff - Martin should be the bridge to more upcoming youth. Adam Duvall signed for $3M (a Braves discount from Duvall for potential Series upside) & Taylor just signed for $4M. Grichuk signed for single digits in millions, so if they want a veteran someone will be available……,,,,if he hits a bunch this year he goes free agency for his own sake. If he’s 95% of last year’s totals they may make him an offer but not at QO level. If he’s mediocre, they shake hands and wish him well. He needs to find something soon to ignite him for this year! I saw him look at 3 straight fastballs for strikes on Saturday…….brutal AB.
  18. JD-TWINS
    I live in Cincinnati and watched them 4-5 times this week. Watched yesterday & today for sure. Today sure sounded like the Minnesota crew as the comments seemed skewed to a much better knowledge of Twin’s players. Does your subscription have all the games around MLB? Any others work OK? Seems you have a problem with the subscription being up to date. Good luck!
  19. JD-TWINS
    Good news is Vazquez looks good at the plate and behind the plate this Spring. He’s got a few strikeouts but his average (in a small set of 25 AB’s) is .280. His DRIVELINE experience seems to have sharpened him up physically & mentally. Got in better shape so he’s personally motivated as well!
  20. JD-TWINS
    He needs better command - his stuff is fine. 31 outings for the Reds in ‘23 with a 3.69 ERA. That’s reality. He only strikes out 6.5 guys per 9 innings. He walked 20 guys in 31 2/3 so he worked out of some jams for sure to have an ERA that reasonable. With better command his walks get closer to acceptable level……..nothing more frustrating than having a reliever come into a game and walk guys. See Jovani Moran. So he’s got that to work on in St. Paul - maybe see him up in July if he’s been more consistent?
  21. JD-TWINS
    I watched - his fastball looked OK. Hardly threw a sweeper the entire outing. It appeared he hung a couple change-ups and they got hammered. ………I didn’t see Arozarena’s first HR but his second was a first pitch fastball about 10” off the ground - he hammered it to straight away CF. Not a bad pitch but he seemed to be looking for a fastball down. He was starting hitters with a vertical break curve ball - looked like he was just trying things & not super focused on getting outs. Fingers crossed on March 28.
  22. JD-TWINS
    Can’t be real worried about the Team’s record as there is little cohesive effort with line-ups & pitchers to try and win games. Everyone just getting work in prior to going north. The combined batting average of our corner outfielders is .333. That’s Wallner - Margot - Kepler all 3 added together. Not great. I’ve said a handful of times and still believe that Wallner is the starter in LF. That said, 2 hits in Spring Training and an average of .077 isn’t very encouraging. If he doesn’t show a flash of something in his next 10 AB’s he may very well get a confidence boost assignment to St. Paul. He’s struck out 13 times!! Larnach is hitting at a reasonable level - maybe Wallner needs a walk-up call? Larnach hitting well - Castro hitting well - Buxton hitting well………..that’s it for the potential outfielders. Buxton hit a line drive off the top of the left field fence this afternoon and mad a diving catch in CF to rob a single. Gosh, I hope he can hold up because he looks good. Lewis - Kirilloff - Julien - Jeffers - Vazquez - Correa are all hitting just fine…………Kepler is an enigma……today he looked at 3 straight fastballs and was sitting down after 3 pitches. Hard to explain the ZERO swings. He’s going to play, regardless but Wallner & Margot need to get it together quickly! Varland is the # 5 starter & Funderburk has a spot since Thielbar isn’t in games yet. Lopez - 5 hits v. Rays today in 5 innings - 4 solo HR’s given up…….he’ll be OK. I think it’s pretty tough to have competitive focus when you know when you leave the game 6 guys you never met are playing defense and getting initial Spring Training AB’s for your team.
  23. JD-TWINS
    Looking forward to a potentially even more effective Jax!! He’s already pretty good over past 2 seasons. Okert - Staumont, even Jensen & undoubtedly, Funderburk can help Team get to Jax & Stewart with a tightened up approach…….should be fun to watch.
  24. JD-TWINS
    I don’t have any data on the decline of the Sport’s Popularity……don’t know if that’s real or presumed? I hear talks of expansion into new cities. Seems to me lots of people still going to ballparks all over the country, particularly if there is a winning product on the field. ………an opinion and not necessarily fact, is that TV revenues are down due to inability to harness how the Product is viewed. Therefore ad $$ don’t make as much sense to spend on network televised games. Just a thought. I sure hope the Team doesn’t go to the extremes that the Rays & Baltimore have gone. If they do we’ll need a Program with player’s names to watch the team from year to year due to almost no continuity nor polished veterans. Twins should draw 2 million this year with reasonable success. That, along with some 50% split of their TV $$$, big revenue share $$$ from MLB and revenues seem fairly strong, at least to me. Platoons make perfect sense offensively and flexible defensive guys are valuable as well. Inexpensive bullpen pieces are a great way to be effective and keep costs down……the organization should be applauded. Guys like Ober - Festa - Julien are well scouted and developed lower draft picks…….again, well done by organization! My recollection is we pulled off a “Ray’s trade” with the Rays when sending Cruz & acquiring Ryan. Not sure that the Ray’s are so much ahead of everyone with their approach - they have shrewd guys running things and I honestly believe the Twins F.O. - despite some mistakes/misfortune - are doing a really solid job with F.A. within budget constraints and with the youth coming through the system. The recent Polanco trade may not work out but on paper …..Topa with the Top 76 prospect OF is a good move for a declining 2B making $10.5M. DeSclafani and other prospect were throw-ins. If the organization can stay between #15-#19 in spending, per recent years, they should remain competitive, ongoing.
  25. JD-TWINS
    Not really sure why many discuss Kepler playing other OF positions? This article makes it pretty clear…….Kepler is #2 among all RF in the game over the past 5 seasons for FanGraphs defensive value!! Zero valid reason from moving him away from that kind of success! Last June I was screaming at the TV occasionally when watching Kepler at the plate. DFA was seriously a reasonable move many days. The guy turned it around more in the last 3 months than any player I’ve ever seen. …….he, Corey Seager, and 3 others in the game hit .300 plus and had 30 XBH in the 2nd half last year. Lofty company! If he can just stay within 40-50 points of his 2nd half average of .305 he’ll be very productive once again. If he hits .250 plus he’ll run into 20 doubles & 20 HR. Could be on his way to another 2.5-3.0 WAR season. That coupled with upside of Correa/Buxton/youth, the offense looks solid. It would be nice to see his output be a bit more consistent in ‘24. Let’s hope. I agree that Wallner is the answer in RF going forward both from a talent standpoint and a budgetary standpoint as well. Don’t see how Kepler gets us any compensation as he becomes an FA unless he’s offered $21M and he turns it down……..neither of those things will happen.
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