Hawkeye Bean Counter

If you are going for a high end starter with multiple years, you have to know its for Brooks Lee or Julien. Those will be the key pieces. Otherwise you are looking for a lower level starter for a year or two for Polanco, Farmer and/or lower prospect.

They state they are looking at FA and trade market. I would guess that have contingency plans were something not to work out like they expect it to. They have someone targeted, now its just a wait and see if it comes to fruition. I would assume someone with multiple years of controllability is my guess.

No offense, but for me, Martin, Kiersey and Thompson are all about the same right now. Heresy LOL. What I mean is they are all in the AAA area on the verge of moving up. I have no problem seeing who of the 3 has the hot hand to likely fill a bench spot at some point this season. If Thompson flashes enough in spring training then he may remain on the 40 man. We have ample fringe players to drop. I am not too worried about a lottery ticket, but at the same point you never know when you might find something useful.

I think he has a little more value than that. Lets be clear Castro had always been an utility infielder prior to last year, we just had much more need in the outfield. So more opportunity opens for him if a Polanco and/or Farmer are traded. We still have a glut of infielders so who knows. I honestly don't think he will do anything he has now bounced around 5 teams in less than a year. Ranger, Royals, Reds, Yankees and now Twins. whether being a AAAA type player like Cave, he most likely won't ever figure out major league pitching to be effective. The difference with Castro is he had flashed before in small sample sizes. Inevitable there will be an injury and hole to fill and we are just likely adding another player to the mix to pick from. He does however have firstly, supreme athleticism, and if he can ever increase contact on the ball and/or his OBP he can be a terror on the base paths.

Look at the article on Willie Castro last year. Pretty similar feelings, and so little notice on him it got a total of 3 responses LOL.

He has had 2 poor seasons in the MLB, Jose Miranda anyone? I wouldn't stick a fork in him yet. He had an OPS of .820 in AAA in 2022 and .733 OPS in 2023. The bat is likely light. A new environment may work, but he has to make it through the next 3 months, and I would put that at 50/50. Likely just filling a spot with a lottery ticket and hoping something clicks. He would fill a niche, a speedy RH outfielder. Similar to Castro last year. We picked him on a minor league deal. Speed kills in the current game play evidenced by Arizona. No one expected Castro to perform as well as he did. We are clearly still in the season of picking up as many of these reclamation projects as possible. Most won't work but every once in a while you find someone like Castro in these minor deals.

My breakout candidate is Noah Miller. The defense is there, the bat is slowly, slowly coming around. Here is his slash line for August and Sept. .260/.360/.430 He has been a lot like Kepler (actually worse with the bat) where he has regularly struggled for average and doing any other significant damage. He had 7 of his 9 home runs in the last 3 months and the average, obp, slugging and ops were all up significantly. I think he finally is starting to adjust to the pitching and what he needs to do to be successful. I expect him to slot into a utility role in a few years. Let the defense play up and anything he does with the bat is gravy. Like Kepler I think something clicked in the 2nd half. Other Breakout Candidates- 1. (8) Brandon Winokur - I expect the bat to continue to rake and his athleticism and defense will continue to play up. I am fully expecting him to be a top 5 prospect by the end of the year. 2. (15) Tannner Hall - an elite pitcher with low velocity but plus off speed pitches going into the Twins pitching lab adding velocity sounds like an extreme winner. I am curious if he starts in A+ ball or they put all the rookies from last year into A ball. 3. One of the other rookie pitchers. One will breakout and be an absolute stud just don't know which one. 4 and 5. Canterino and Priellip. I am expecting both to be healthy and dealing this year. I am very optimistic on the minors, there is a lot of talent coming up through the system and the 2023 draft has the potential to be a game changer.

Damn I thought he was done after last year. 5 million guaranteed up to 6 million . . . bizarre. Good for him.

I don't think you guys get it, there aren't enough bodies for all the chairs open on other teams unless going to go with absolute scrubs, 1 and possibly both of Farmer and Polanco will get traded. Don't worry about spots. We will need someone to back up Buxton and possibly a decent chunk of the load. Hicks is as good of an option for that roll as anyone. I think would rather have him than chance it on Austin Martin who is still a work in progress in the outfield. Of the remaining outfielders you have Taylor, Duvall, Hicks, Hamilton, Engel and Bradley. Or you are looking at trading from someone else's roster.

If it averages to .260 to .270 that is a very very good player. I am not expecting a .300 hitter this year, I do think something has substantially changed and am expecting a .270+ hitter batting average, with everything else remaining the same.

His first half was atrocious lets just look at the second half. 235 AB 72 H 17 doubles, 2 triples, 12 HR 36 RBI 27 BB 54 SO .306/.377/.549 slash line. He struck out 22% of the time. Homerun rate is 5% of at bats. Which was actually down from the first half. For his career he strikes out 20% of the time, and his HR rate for his career is 4% of at bats , lastly he walked 11% of the time which is right in line with his career rates of a little better than 10%. So other than a couple more homers what changed. His batting average jumped to .300 with a bunch more singles and more doubles. Not only was he make better contact but a few more hits that were eliminated in the shift started to drop and he had several other hits find holes. You would have thought with a lot better contact the homer rate would have increase substantially but ultimately thats not what occurred, It was a drast jump in singles, a good jump in doubles and adding 2 triples to the mix. When the BA jumps from .220 to .300 there is obviously something going on, and more than just luck.

To begin the season I like the idea of signing Hoskins, thinking he would be our best option. Now, personally I don't think the Twins are interested in any of the big free agents. Maybe a lower lever reliever, a #4 pitcher they think they can fix or centerfielder if they are questioning how healthy Buxton will be. Leave the money for next year when we have a better idea of what our needs will be.

What is funny is what this article is based off of they make it very clear currently they don't plan to trade Kepler. They more feel they have a glut of infielders and Polanco and Farmer are the primary trade pieces. Neither one of those will get a ton unless paired with a prospect from our end. Lewis and Lee are by far our biggest trade chips. I would rather not trade them but if someone wants to massively overpay I am willing to listen.

To me there were about 3 tweaks that occurred and 1 other point that made his season better. 1. Started swinging at balls earlier in counts, Often found better pitches and was able to make better contact. 2. He is letting the ball get a little further in the zone, which is spraying the ball a lot more. (also with good contact) 3. As stated above in your post, Kepler seems more willing to just hit the ball hard every swing now rather than take defensive swings that often produce week contact and are easy outs. 4. He was fighting through injuries early in the season. I hope something similar happens for Correa and Buxton this year :). The only caveat is he faced much weaker pitching in the 2nd half. I still expect a very strong season and something more similar to the 2nd half of the season than the 1st half. Even still an OPS+ of 149 in the second half leaves credence that Kepler may have figured something out.

Bally's really can't force the hand of the Twins for more than 1 year as worst case they go with MLB. They also don't have the other teams past 2024. So the real question, does Amazon and Bally's together have more cache and earnings potential, than what MLB can do on its own and with local media rights? Its a fair question and ultimately I think better than what we had before. Any new deal will have no blackouts - that is non negotiable, so right there is a major improvement. For a bunch of mediocre teams Amazon was willing to pay 20 mil per a year for the streaming rights. That means the Twins are worth at least that much in a new negotiation. So then what are the Television rights, 20 Mil, 30 mil, 35 mil? Ultimately the issue has always come down to money. Once the dust settles, it doesn't appear to be a major monetary change. so we have a potential new option with Amazon for a year. The question is, is Bally's who has said they are done after 2023 now the viable solution moving forward. If not them, then who? We still have some moving parts, but I feel a lot better about 2024, and think 2025 and moving forward will turn out pretty good as well.

Even still, this shows you the streaming rights are worth at least $20 million for the Twins, and then you have the broadcast fees on top. I think you get awfully close to that $50 million area. I don't think the reduction is going to be as much as people feared.

Is this article extremely lazy or am I missing something. It says Amazon with Bally's would have the right to stream the Twins broadcast for this year, and would be part of the $100 million. The Twins deal expired. Did something else occur that I am not aware of? Looking further think it should be Brewers not the Twins. Not sure how you could mess up an article that bad.

The other thing is go look at Mauers stats. They are similar OPS+ and both play defensive positions. Correa is just a tad behind Mauer. Correa was well on track for the hall of fame and still is. He is 29. 29-34 should be the prime of a players career. Hopefully we get an elite year from him and people can calm down LOL. The counting stats should still come especially if he is in the middle of the order for the next 6-7 years.

Sorry after reading a few of these, I think I should post something like. . . Are Twins fans underrating Tony O's Cubanos. It seems we are undervaluing everything LOL. Although you know me, lets throw Kepler in the mix LOL.

Seems a tad silly. The average HOF WAR is between 50 and 70, Correa is sitting at 40. If you expect him to put up 1 WAR or less in the next few years then yes. However, his steamer is a 3.4 WAR for 2024. I honestly wouldn't be surprised at a 4-5 WAR. Any down year he has immediately bounce back. I think the plantar fasciitis, and a bit of free swinging hurt him last year. I think the bats will be much better this year. The one concern I do have is that I don't think Correa does well in the cold weather, so is prone to slow starts. So wait and see, but Buxton is more of a ? to me than the performance of Correa. All he needs is 2 really good years, 4-5 War, 2 good years, 2-3 War, and 4 years of 1 WAR. That is 19 more WAR and puts him firmly in the HOF discussion. Now if he can lead the Twins deep into the playoffs and a possibly WS like Puckett, with his other WS in Houston I think he would be a lock. Yes those are lofty goals, but I think that is what the Twins envisioned when they signed him. The pitching is really starting to round into shape and I think the hitters will do very well this year, with more quality players on the farm. I think in a year or Two we will see 2023 was just a blip for Correa.

What I was suggesting is before we got the number for De Los Santos, it seemed they had put in a lot of their budge on top two players. Beltre signed for $1.5. However De Los Santos signed for $1.9 quite a bit less than I expected. Even still, you have 50% of your budget in 2 players. What is curious is whether a team is trying to get the elite players in the top 10, or going for several in the 50-100 range. I was expecting something similar to last year where they had 88% in 3 players. I still think its top heavy with 2 high level signings, but a bit more spread out than last year.

If we spent 1.5 million on Beltre how much did we spend on De Los Santos of $6.52 million budget?

So we went for quality over quantity this time. These kids are the essence of lottery picks. You hit on them though and doing very well. Braves have effectively built their team from the international side of things.

I do want to mention, just because a team is willing to trade a player doesn't necessarily mean they don't value the player like Arraez from last year. It means they think they can more easily replicate their value through another player.

Marlins already willing to move on from Arraez. 1 they think they can get something for him, 2) they gave up a lot to get him, for him to have a career year and then just willing to trade him back out. I know the regimes changed and he is effectively one of their best trade chips, but I have said before and will continue to say we really got the better end of the deal on that one. I would take Arraez back for 2 years though 😁. Curious what the cost would be. I would do a Polanco and ERod (26.5) for Arraez (30.2) straight up. Arraez can play 2nd, 1st and DH. Same with Julien.