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Woof Bronzer

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Everything posted by Woof Bronzer

  1. Woof Bronzer
    Maybe not, but that wasn't really what I was saying. It's that excellent catcher defense can elevate a pitching staff and probably has the most direct impact on run prevention of any position (other than pitcher). And to me if we are going to make a long term investment at catcher, defense should matter. More than offense if you ask me. If we're looking to put the best team on the field in 2027 to "compete" again then Jeffers is probably the best hope on the QO, but I'm more looking at it long term. How do we build a sustainable program given our constraints, and how do we end up celebrating a Series in a few years like our neighbors to the east. I think you and I just disagree on Jeffers' defensive skills, which of course is totally legal.
  2. Woof Bronzer
    Agreed. If they want to pretend to compete again, fine, sign him for 1 year, it's just money. But from 2028 on the Twins have got to start relying on their deep prospect pool. Watching Contreras in the Series was a master class on how important defense is to the catcher position. He saved so many runs with his blocking, he threw out runners, he used challenges brilliantly (was always right on calls that flipped the count in big at bats). And just the way he managed the pitchers. Calming them down, well timed mound visits. So much impact on the game and not all of it shows up in the box score. The Twins have got to get more defense out of the catcher position long-term.
  3. Woof Bronzer
    Cannot say this enough. The Twins need to do things differently.
  4. Woof Bronzer
    The old "you can't not hire me, I withdraw!" Michael Scott pulled this move in an Office episode.
  5. Woof Bronzer
    Can you provide of an example when early extending a prospect crippled the franchise? I literally can't find a single one.
  6. Woof Bronzer
    You could make all the same arguments for the players the Brewers extended early. They extended a 21 year old SS with 2 years or minor league experience, and that kid was absolutely lights out in the World Series. They are paying him like $8m/year until he's 28. Could it go wrong? Sure. Right now it looks like an absolute stroke of genius. This is the kind of thing the Twins absolutely need to be doing. Will it work out every time? No. But at some point you need to trust in your development and your organization. We need to stop being so afraid of everything. Instead of insisting on what could go wrong, why not look at what could go right. And if it goes wrong...that sucks, but so what? The Twins are literally paying Correa $10m to not play for them. They paid Vasquez $10m for 3 years to be terrible. They gave Caratini $7.5m to be pretty average. Extending Lackey is a risk, spending money on subpar catchers consigns you to being subpar at the position. I'd much rather take the risk on Lackey at like $8m/year than spend more money on catchers we know aren't very good or paying players not to be here.
  7. Woof Bronzer
    Off topic, but I have been in awe of Contreras in the Series and I'm sure you have too. His pitchers bounced so many pitches late in the game with runners on base in both Game 1 and 2 and he blocked every single one. Also threw out runners. Almost perfect on challenges. Dude is incredible.
  8. Woof Bronzer
    If this is the case then we are in agreement my friend. My understanding was based on an article from a few months ago, Totally onboard with a selective experimenting. Here are the quotes that stuck out to me: “I think what you ultimately see is you have some of your best starting pitchers sort of piggybacking each other,” said MacPhail. “So I think what it ultimately means is you have sort of more of your starter type guys pitching on top of each other more, but ultimately that's sort of one of the benefits as well, is you kind of have two guys going back and forth, giving you a lot of innings, actually more than a starter pro typically would, is the idea and some two of your best pitchers taking over that workload.” That sounds different than what you describe. Though to be honest I'm not even sure what Mr. MacPhail is describing here, it just sounds like having 2 starters do the work of like 1.25 starters, but I assume there's a little more to it than that. Who knows. I just want the Twins to develop their best pitchers to pitch as many innings as possible.
  9. Woof Bronzer
    Man, teams try different stuff all the time! The opener. Long relievers. Closers. Firemen. LOOGYs. 6 man rotations. Teams have been trying stuff since the day baseball was invented. I'm almost certain somebody somewhere tried the "let's have everyone pitch 3 innings before" but we don't hear about it because it didn't work. Trying to solve the problem of bad starters by devaluing all your good ones is just craziness! Using your math you are sacrificing the 60% good starts to avoid the 40% bad ones. That doesn't really math to me. Experiment with something on those 40%. I can see doing a piggyback thing with your 6,7,8 starters. Great, try it out. But why would you want or need to do that with a guy who has ace potential?
  10. Woof Bronzer
    As I understand it the Twins are training every pitcher to go 3-4 innings. In this strategy pitchers like Miz won't come through our system. There will be no more aces, just a group of interchangeable, replaceable pitchers who all do the same thing.
  11. Woof Bronzer
    Your solution to the problem of Dylan Bundys is to take innings away from the Mizerowskis, and eliminate the things that allow Duran to be successful (max velo in short stints). Basically, you are playing the best pitcher in baseball less, and you are turning Duran into a different, likely worse, pitcher. If you want to address the problem of bad #6,7,8 starters by having THOSE guys throw fewer innings, great. Addressing the problem of bad #6,7,8 starters by deleting the position of starting pitcher from your entire system is nuts to me. You are a sharp fellow who knows ball, I'm just surprised at the take on this. But, as always, what do I know? I'd address the problem of Dylan Bundys by training starters NOT to exert max velo with every throw, but to take a few ticks off and emphasize location and duration. Max effort leads to max injuries; if you can minimize injuries to starters #1-5 the impacts of starters #6-8 is minimized.
  12. Woof Bronzer
    Many teams do openers. Many teams use relievers more than 1 inning. It's not black and white at all? What benefit is there to train pitchers to go 3-4 innings? Starters should be your best pitchers, you should want them to go longer. Relievers often become relievers because they don't have enough variety in their pitches to be a starter, so they can be more effective in short outings. Baseball has been around for 150 years. Over than century and a half every single possible idea to "crack" the code of baseball has been considered and tried, probably multiple times. The reason that over those 150 years a 3-4 inning pitching role hasn't emerged is probably because it's a bad idea. Why would any team would want to limit the innings of their best pitchers, while giving longer outings to relievers who are relievers specifically because they can't do longer outings?
  13. Woof Bronzer
    Lol, you think Derek Falvey willingly gave up one of the most exclusive jobs on the planet 2 weeks before the season with likely millions of dollars on his contract knowing he'd probably never get that job again? So what? Tommy could hire a dozen scouts today. He could have hired scouts every single day since he took over as CEO. But he hasn't, in fact, all he's done is fire more scouts.
  14. Woof Bronzer
    And/or to pay back the "minority partner" loans sooner to clear the debt from the books for a sale. Regardless everything they've done since Tommy was officially announced points to cost cutting as their top priority.
  15. Woof Bronzer
    I'll believe Tommy Pohlad is actually committed to investing in this team and sustainable winning when he actually starts investing in the front office, scouting staff, and other off the field areas. During his tenure the only "investment" Tommy has made is 1) firing the POBO, and replacing him with no one 2) firing several scouts, and replacing them with no one.
  16. Woof Bronzer
    I like the double whammy of sadness in the headline: let's sign a washed 40 year old [sad trombone]....who can only play part time [sadder trombone]
  17. Woof Bronzer
    If the choice is between this and settling for below average, yes, absolutely. Why would you want to set a ceiling of below average if you could maybe, just maybe do better?
  18. Woof Bronzer
    Fair, but it's not all on Lackey. Catcher is one of, if not the, deepest position we have in the minors. At some point you have to trust in your development. (If you can't, then it's time to rehaul your entire development program.) And it's ok for a young player to struggle. Yes, there will be a short term sacrifice, but there aren't many quick fixes for their roster issues, and the team needs to make decisions with a view beyond 2027. The Twins' operating philosophy has long seemed to be, trust aging vets on short deals vs trust younger players who might not be 100% polished. I don't think it has worked out very well. In fact it hasn't worked out very well at the catcher position! The Twins spent $45m Vasquez and Caratini alone. If we want different results we have to start doing things differently, in my opinion.
  19. Woof Bronzer
    Counterpoint; lighten up, Francis.
  20. Woof Bronzer
    So,..it's not actually about getting better players, but rather keeping the same players and maintaining the status quo because we can't possibly do better than the 15th best catcher by OPS over the past 5 years? I am confused. We can't count on Lackey, but we can count on Jeffers continuing to put up a .750 OPS in his age 30-33 seasons? If Jeffers moves to 1B or DH, his awe inspiring OPS would put him around the 30-40th best in the league. Comparable to Josh Bell. I assume you are spending $20m/year on Josh Bell too?
  21. Woof Bronzer
    But resigning Jeffers doesn't accomplish this. He has averaged 1.8 WAR/yr in his 6 "full" years with the Twins. Resigning him doesn't improve the catcher position, and doesn't add top to the top of the roster. And it would almost certainly makes us worse for every other year it would take to sign him. Unless you believe a catcher on the wrong side of 30 is going to start trending upward... Lackey's ceiling is going to be higher than a 2 WAR player. I think he's the "better player" you are looking for.
  22. Woof Bronzer
    It's a large distinction???? Sure, whatever you say. This is a fan blog, you are arguing your opinion. I understand perfectly. I'm perfectly comfortable with the way I'm quoting your own words back to you. (I don't blame you for continuing to qualify what you said though.) SWR was 2-7, you can't even get your own facts straight. Here's 20 off the top of my head, in no order: 1. Pohlad family still owns the team 2. $100m payroll 3. Incompetent GM 4. Poor use of limited offseason resources without solving position problems 5. Embarrassingly bad bullpen to start the year 6. Matt Wallner falling off the face of the earth 7. Buxton injured 2nd half 8. Lopez injured all year 9. Joe "Ace" Ryan completely melts down in 2nd half again 10. Tom Pohlad insisting on making the playoffs 11. Trotting out a terrible collection of SS for months 12. Melting down in August (again) 13. Waiting too long to bring up Culpepper 14. Waiting too long to bring up Jenkins 15. Royce Lewis, #1 overall draft pick turned bust 16. Caratini, who made 10x what SWR did 17. Not doing enough at the deadline 18. Poor roster construction with 10 outfielders on 40 man 19. Wasting a roster spot for months on a player you refuse to play and 20, the biggest one of all: the roster simply did not have enough talent. I could go on...
  23. Woof Bronzer
    Yes, we agree that you have said he is the biggest reason they missed the playoffs. SWR won 5 games in 2024 in 133 innings, and he won 7 games in 2025 in 111 innings. So for 2026 - 2 wins in 66 innings - he was pretty close to his 2024 pace, which was his best season. In his 2 decent seasons his ERA+ was a tick over 100, with his FIP actually a shade over his ERA. I am not sure what you expected from him. He was bad, but he participated in 10 of 162 games (and won 2 of them) and threw 4.6% of the team's innings. He's not in the top 20 reasons why the team missed the playoffs by 7 games. The Twins were in playoff position on August 1, 2 full months after SWR had been let go. If they had simply gone .500 the rest of the way they likely would have made the playoffs. It's funny that no one seems to want to criticize Joe Ryan, but his absolutely terrible 2nd half had MUCH more impact on the team's fate than a random #6 starter's 10 spring starts. 2 or 3 more wins from our "ace" in August/Sept and the story could have been much, much different. All that said, the real biggest reason they missed the playoffs is they just weren't good enough.
  24. Woof Bronzer
    We can agree on that! All in good fun my friend. Go Twins.
  25. Woof Bronzer
    You've said this many times and I just gotta know. How did a #5/6 starter who made 10 starts in April and May and put up -1.2 WAR cause the Twins to miss the playoffs by 7 games?
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