Beast

I mean, look at the pitching chart above. We have 3 serviceable relievers right now. Duran, Stewart, and Jax. They’ve collectively thrown fewer pitches and have have only 1 more appearance than a guy (Moran) who physically can’t throw an effective strike over the plate (4 appearances and 38 pitches for the former three vs. 3 appearances and 48 pitches for Moran). You can’t make this up. This is off the rails, out of control, lunacy. If I’m the commissioner, I open an investigation into whether they are actively throwing games for betting purposes. They can’t possibly be this incompetent.

They keep running these bullpen guys out there off the scrap heap. They keep running useless position players out there. They DH the best centerfield on the planet while playing the worst defender in the league at 2B. And it’s a mystery to them why it doesn’t work. “We have to figure this out.” I believe Baledelli that they don’t know. They asked Chat GPT and it told them this would work. This is a Three Stooges level comedy. Unrivaled incompetence. Is there a more poorly run professional sports franchise on planet earth right now?

He didn’t have that rough of an outing. We see worse outings nearly daily out of someone in our bullpen. Gray is supposed to be the leader of our pitching staff, the anchor. He’s been one of the best pitchers in the MLB this year. He’s right to be pissed at the seemingly incompetent (lately) Rocco Baldelli, who makes the wrong move 9 times out of 10. No matter how many writers that are de facto on the Twins payroll try to spin this as the right move…. It was the wrong move. If the Twins would’ve won the game, there would be an argument there. But, the bullpen went on to give up 3 runs immediately. No matter what the spreadsheet says, it didn’t work. It’s an overarching theme. It’s not the one loss that’s the issue. That’s what the “ball guys” seem to missing. There’s a human element here, and pitchers and agents are always thinking about the next contract. Who the hell is going to want to pitch here if you’re going to get yanked after 75 pitches and 2 earned runs after 5 innings? What would it have hurt this team to give Gray a shot to work through an off day? We’re seeing it across the board right now. Pinch hitting for guys like Alex Kirilloff and Royce Lewis for some bad journeyman because they hit on the opposite side is absurd. They’ve gone too far. We’re watching the Frankenstein’s Monster of baseball analytics.

The list of moves this FO has made is incredible. You could literally take any random person off the street and they couldn’t have done worse. Acquiring Cruz and the Cruz/Ryan deal were very good ones, but I’m not sure I see another quality move they’ve made. I loved the Lopez/Arraez trade at the time it happened. I don’t think there’s a reasonable person that wouldn’t undo that if given the chance. Lopez has proved to be decent. Not great. Meanwhile, Arraez is hitting .400 and we can’t score a run. I wasn’t a huge fan of Lopez/Cano swap at the time. But, holy cow has that turned out to be a godawful move. Baltimore clearly knew something was up with Lopez (or, anyone that’s really studied his long term track record) and they absolutely fleeced Falvine. The Mahle trade is an absolute disaster. The Rogers/Paddack deal hasn’t really been anything detrimental. But, they got no value out of what was a slightly valuable asset at the time Rogers. We’ve called for them to be aggressive, and they have been. I’ll give them a sliver of credit for that. But, who the heck is the finally sign off on these player evaluations? I’ve like some of these moves on the surface, as have many of us, but we’re not being paid 6 figures to get these evaluations right. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt on the trades. But, their roster management has also been absolutely abysmal. IL management is awful. They haven’t found a way to keep guys healthy. They’ve done things like sending Ober, who has turned out to be our best pitcher, to AAA to throw games away for a guy like Maeda who clearly didn’t have it. Is there a FO doing a worse job with the resources they have in the MLB right now? We used to be able to make the excuse of payroll constraints with the Ryan regime….that’s not there anymore (to a certain extent). All that venting on the FO aside - that Detroit series was the most disappointing series I recall (other than the playoffs) in a long, long time. It’s a wonder that anybody is showing up the ballpark to watch this.

You do realize that Buxton has incurred significant IL time in his career for things that didn’t happen while playing CF, right? HBP, sliding into bases, pulling muscles running to first. He crashed into a wall a couple of times and got a concussion diving for a ball. He just sat out a couple of weeks for a HBP. He’s a pretty good hitter. He’s not an elite one. We’re not talking about Mike Trout, here. But, he might be the best defensive CF if all time. You’re comparing that to a 42 year old Nelson Cruz and Paul Molitor who would’ve been absolute butchers in the field? What makes you think this plan is working so far? Have you seen his numbers? How many games has he missed this year? How does his projected WAR type numbers compare to years when he was 5, 6, 7 WAR seasons as a CFer. Why would you assume he’s going to be there for the playoffs this year? What makes you think this team will even be in the playoffs this year? After all these years, what makes you think Favline and Baldelli’s ideas are golden and the best course? Hes far more valuable when he’s playing defense. There is no precedent set that says otherwise. None. That’s where he should be. 20 extra games per year as a DH K’ing 40% of the time and OPSing league average does not increase his value. He’s performed better offensively in the past when playing in the field as well. This experiment is what’s flippant. It’s absurd. He’s a generational defensive talent that’s being wasted because of some irrational fear (the injuries are still there). Lastly, as you said, which was spot on - it’s restricting the roster to a point where it’s damaging the team. It’s a double whammy. It’s suppressing his value and taking another potential dangerous bat out of the lineup. Bottom line. It is not making the team better. It is not getting them closer to a championship in any way. It’s making the team worse.

The reality that it’s because of the roughly $4M remaining of his $8M salary in the last year of his deal is even more ridiculous. I mean, he does bring some value defensively. So he’s not totally useless. But it’s pretty clear after the last 3 years that the guy just isn’t going to come around at the plate.

Not sure how reliable these numbers are. The eye test tells me Correa and Taylor are better than that. If they are reliable, my takeaway is to get Buxton back in CF. Seeing those numbers in left field (assuming it’s reliable) makes me realize how silly it is that we’re playing Larnach there so often at the expense of one of the best defensive outfielders in the game (Gallo). Add it to the list of head scratching moves by this club. There seems to be value in various guys that is wasted.

These things work themselves out with injuries. Especially on this club where nobody can stay healthy. But, if he gets things going, find a way to get him in the lineup. Royce isn’t playing everyday at third (they’ve been giving him days off or DH here or there). There some ABs to be had at 1B/DH. Clearly the Buxton DH experiment didn’t keep him healthy, so might at well get him out in centerfield occasionally. As said above, Buxton’s value is in CF. They need to stop screwing around with Kepler. They are obsessed with milking a penance of value out of him that they’re harming the team. Guys like Castro and Solano have had their moments. But, they’re not a long term answer. It makes no sense to cling to guys like that. We pulled them out of the bargain bin. If Miranda returns to form, he’s a better player than Solano. We have 4 of the best defensive outfielders in the league on the roster (Kepler in RF, Gallo anywhere, Buxton and Taylor in CF). We don’t need to be playing Castro in the OF. This shouldn’t be a problem. We have multiple guys that can give up ABs or just be let go. I don’t know where this narrative came from that we have this immovable logjam of talent. It’s just not there.

Correa might finally be coming around. He’s stacking up the extra base hits over the past week. The importance of that can’t be overstated. It’s almost like this team has been given a second chance at life being in such a bad division. Get Buxton healthy and back in the lineup. Get Wallner another shot and find a way to keep Julien up here. Quit giving Pagan and Lopez innings that have even a modicum of leverage. Quit screwing around, get your best players and pitchers on the field, and stop throwing games by getting cute with all this lineup and bullpen shenanigans. They need to find a way to use this run of success as a springboard to separate from the rest of the division.

Since they’ve take over about 7-8 years ago, we’re supposed to heap praise on them for making those 3 trades, but botching about a dozen? They’ve traded for more injured or useless pitchers that they’ve gotten nothing out of alone (Mahle, Paddack, Dyson, Shaun Anderson) than trades that have worked out. Escobar has been an All Star since he left here while being a primary 3B - a position of need for us since the trade. He’s also played games at 2B and SS. He’s accumulated nearly 10 oWAR over that time. He’s put up OPS+ numbers of 102, 111, 109, 107, 115, and 107 at his various stops along the way (some of those are partial years). He did have a very rough 2020 with an injury and got off to a slow start this year, otherwise has been a well above average hitter for a number of years now. Other than 2020, he consistently available and playing 140+ games (something nobody else on this roster can do). He’s a pretty darn good player. Jhoan Duran is freaking awesome, but he’s a reliever we use twice per week on a team that can’t score a run. There’s only so much value there. We can’t say the Sonny Gray trade is a success. He’s in his mid 30s. He’s been largely good here, but Chase Petty has a career 3.06 ERA with 125 Ks/37 BB in 123 innings, primarily in low/high A as a 19 year old. This year, he’s started 5 games and allowed 1 earned run with more than a K per inning and about 2 walks per 9. That could turn out to be an awful trade. He might be our top pitching prospect right now with a bullet. The Mahle and Jorge Lopez trades are unmitigated disasters. Have you seen what Steer and CES are doing right now? CES is slashing .362/.427/.735 at AAA. Spencer Steer has a 118 OPS+ in the majors. Buxton and Correa, our superstars, have a 113 and 97 OPS+. ESPN is doing front page features about Cano being the best reliever in baseball. How about Lamonte Wade Jr.? That 139 OPS+ would sure be nice in this lineup. We traded him for a middle reliever who gave up 9 runs over 8 innings before being DFA’d. There is absolutely no question these guys have done extremely poorly on the trade market. They’ve had a couple nice trades (Ryan being the best), but overall they have gotten fleeced, repeatedly. There is not even a debate that can be had there. The amount of talent they’ve given away that is thriving vastly outweighs what they’ve gotten in return. It’s not even close. It’s OK to say that. It doesn’t make you less of a fan or more of a ball guy.

Part of me wishes this team were in a better division so there wasn’t an out for those running this thing. They’re terrible, but they’ll still probably win the division. All the “ball guys” will heap praise on the FO for “winning.” This thing needs a bottom-out and good house cleaning. It’s a dead end road that’s we’re on. I’m done with it. Same thing every year.

A good reason why it’s good to go after free agents, even when the team may not have high aspirations. You can continue to add to your prospect pool instead of just sitting in stasis waiting to catch lightning in a bottle on a current prospect.

This team is a joke. And people still simp for Falvine like they’re beyond reproach. I’m not seeing any signs that they know how to compile a serviceable roster. It’s the same thing every year now. A constant quest to beat the system and find “value” in these obscure analytics darlings that can’t actually play baseball. Then, it falls apart after about a month of decent ball, and everyone is shocked. Can you imagine the reaction in a real baseball market if they ran a guy like Max Kepler out there after hitting .150 with no power for what’s now about a full season. And he stunk for 2 years before that? Not only that, but sending down a top prospect down who’s in the middle of a 1.500 OPS fire storm to make room for him? Or, taking one of the best defensive center fielders in the history of the game and making him a DH to try and milk 50 extra hobbled ABs out of him? Or, burning Bailey Ober’s innings in AAA for the zombie corpse of Kenta Maeda? All while watching guys like Spencer Steer, Luis Arraez, Tyler Wells, Yanier Cano, and a number of others absolutely flourish. It’s a parody of how a baseball team should be run at this point. Every decision they make is the wrong one. They are bad at this.

The team is full of guys who hit home runs? We have nobody in the top 25 in the MLB in home runs. We have 3 in the top 100, and one is Michael Taylor. Carlos Correa and Max Kepler sit squarely tied with Robbie Grossman and CJ Cron at 115th (along with about 40 other guys). We are 7th overall in the MLB in home runs right now, but I feel like that’s temporary.

We don’t have depth. At the very least, the depth is grossly overstated. Many of the Saints best pitchers are guys that wouldn’t be here regardless (Murphy, Sanchez, Schulfer, Lawyerson, Sadzeck De Leon have the best ERAs with over 20 IP). Guys like Headrick, Winder, Balazovic, Dobnak, SWR, Henriquez have been bad. Offesnively, I’m not sure Julien is ready to be here regardless of our “depth.” I wouldn’t say it’s “depth” blocking Wallner, it poor roster management. The rest of the guys producing with significant ABs are Contreras, Stevenson, Perez, Bechtold, Williams. None of those guys would or should be here. They’re largely being carried by guys who aren’t impacted by our “depth.” The one exception may be Wallner. In my book, depth means there’s too many high quality players for the number spots (or something along those lines). We have 5 guys that have played more than 30 games with an OPS above league average (Buxton, Gallo, Jeffers, Castro, Solano). One of those is over .800 (Jeffers). One of those is below .750 largely as a first baseman (Solano). League average AL OPS right now is around .720. That’s flat out awful. That’s the opposite of depth.

Between Lewis, Miranda, and Lee, I would say there’s a decent chance one of them pans out and fills that hole. But, I need to remind myself that this is the Twins. We’ve been waiting on the next great prospect since Puckett. The number of career derailing injuries is nuts (Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Liriano, Buxton, Lewis, Kirilloff, could maybe add Sano to the list with the rod and Gordon with the illnesses, off the top of the head). I’m having a flashback to that incredible logjam in the OF we had a couple years ago (maybe even months ago)? Now we’re seeing starting lineups with Garlick, Taylor, and Castro. Things change quickly.

Lewis is incredible. He just exudes leadership and success. You hear the Jeter comparison all the time, and I never saw until this last week. I agree with everyone saying Wallner needs to be up here. Absolutely gross roster mismanagement there. I don’t want to hear the excuses. Play your damn best players. He’s the hottest hitter in the organization right now and has the kind of power that can carry a team….as we’re playing our division rival. It’s moves like this that make me want this FO gone. Same thing with Ober earlier in the year. They need to learn when to cut the rope on dead weight. We got fleeced on Lopez. I was huge fan of the trade and still am of the attempt. But it’s looking bad at the moment. Lastly, the ads on this site make it borderline unusable on mobile.

We should be impressed that they’ve gotten elite starting pitching from multiple guys and still can’t find a way to separate themselves from the worst division in baseball? We’re talking about the likes of Sonny Gray, here. Good pitcher, but that guy isn’t going to throw up a 1.50 ERA indefinitely going forward. He’s going to come back to earth. So is Joe Ryan (as we saw last night). I’m not impressed at all that they’ve found a way to squander the best run of starting pitching I’ve seen here in my lifetime. I’m more worried about what it looks like when that normalizes and regression catches up to those starters. Things could get very ugly. We’re sure as heck not going to be carried by this offense or bullpen. We’re starting to see it catch up with them now, losing 4 series in a row and a likely 5th in Houston.

Lewis just seems to have a certain mental/internal fortitude that has largely been lacking from this roster. I’m surprised they called him up right away. I thought they would let him wallow down in St. Paul until their hand were absolutely forced. Good decision and good performance by Royce. What a stud.

This club is a joke. Get Baldelli out of here. The league needs to fix this crap (if it isn’t intentional). A team walks that many guys through the game (aka. done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt) and you call a ball a foot off the plate a strike with bases juiced for a strikeout? Absolutely disgraceful. Winning and losing is such a fine line in this league that you just can’t be successful if you’re getting those called as often as the Twins are.

I don’t care whether they admit it. I’m more concerned as to why they’re repeatedly wrong, specifically on these relievers (and numerous times on starters), and why they seemingly can’t learn from it. There’s clearly a flaw in the way they interpret data. Throw all the fancy numbers out on Pagan you want. The fact is, he’s one of the worst relievers in major league history in terms of results. Get off my lawn with this “pitching + is in the top half of the league” stuff. What a waste of time and energy. Im tired of the excuses made for the FO. Sure, finding relievers is hard. It’s unpredictable. But, their job is to get it right. That’s their only job - and there’s two of them doing it. Similar to Pagan, I don’t care about the underlying trash-in trash-out computer program that contorts data to paint whatever picture you want. My great grandmother could throw a bullpen and have AI find a way to make her look like Mariano Rivera. I care about real things. Real things like them trading “the best reliever in game right now,” according to ESPN’s front page, for Jorge Lopez. The historically inept Orioles are now fleecing us and turning our castoffs into stars. We saw it with Liam Hendricks, Nick Anderson, etc. They consistently make the wrong choice when it comes to the bullpen. At some point, you have to stop pointing at luck and randomness.

Hader is a realistic target, IMO, who would have a huge impact. Our bullpen stinks. I don’t know why anybody still thinks Jorge Lopez is good. Is it the same formula that’s telling people Pagan is good? He’s had one good half of baseball in his entire career. The results since he’s gotten here haven’t been good, and the metrics don’t support anything (ERA and FIP are both in the neighborhood if 4.00+). I don’t care about his spin rate, etc. He can’t get hitters out. People are constantly ripping on the offense, but they haven’t been as bad as people think. This big issue right now is the ineptitude in holding a tight lead late in the game.

Pretty simple: Lower than ideal baseball IQ and mental fortitude. That’s been the problem with this team for multiple seasons now. My observation from recent situations: They seem to look hesitant to swing at strikes early in the count. They get behind, then wildly flail at sliders down and away or fastballs up and out of the zone. Once they get behind in the count, it’s over. There is no battle in any of these guys. You never see them go from a 1-2 count to a 3-2. They’re incapable of prolonging the AB by fouling off pitches or spitting on sliders in the dirt or fastballs at their shoulders. I’m not sure this is a small sample size. Has this not been going on for multiple years now? I could be wrong there. Haven’t looked at the numbers. Certainly doesn’t help when every borderline ball/strike call goes against them in those situations. There was an awful strike call on Jeffers again yesterday to put him down 0-1 (I believe). But, at some point, you have to swing the bat and get the ball in play somewhere. Nobody in this team can do that.

It’s not just Pagan, although the should’ve been gone long ago. The entire pen stinks. Duran is all we have. Even Lopez, who had been good, can’t be trusted. I’d bet anything he unravels at some point this year, like he did last year. The FO needs to figure out how to get a serviceable bullpen cobbled together. None of the good things with the lineup and rotation matter if our pen gives up 3+ runs every night.

I’ve had it with this FO and the bullpen. Just awful.