NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin

Cleveland has completely forgotten that they need to score runs to win games. The focus and emphasis on their club is has always been the famed pitching pipeline, but the offenses of the '16/'17/'18 teams were fantastic, with Lindor/J-Ram/Brantley/Santana spearheading a patient and powerful lineup. Today, they seem to focus on these Denard Span-style slap hitters and the Naylor brothers. It's too hard to try and win 90 games 2-1, I am much more concerned with a Detroit team that can spend money and field and above-average offense.

Hard for me not to see him in a Braves uniform next year. They have pitching holes, an awful farm (can't trade for a starter), and Georgia is very close to Tennessee. Plus, Atlanta was the best regular-season team last year, so if it's about being competitive, it's hard not to choose Atlanta.

I don't think anyone was under the impression that Pagán was not going to be worth $6-9M APY. With the Twins's analytical approach and their (non-existent) history paying relievers, I am almost certain Pagán will not be back. Jiménez is overrated somewhat, so it's possible that Pagán's market is lower than $8.7M APY, but Funderburk is probably going to join the leverage corps, and it is probably wise to let him walk.

NPB pitchers are going to continue to get massive deals until they prove that they are not worth it. Darvish, Ohtani, Maeda, Kikuchi, Senga, and Fujinami are the only active former NPB pitchers, and it's hard to make a case that any one of them doesn't deserve their contract. Tanaka, Uehara, Tazawa, Iwakuma, and Matsuzaka were all great success stories- the NPB to MLB transition has been done countless times, and Yamamoto may very well be the best pure pitching prospect we've seen from Japan. Yamamoto is worth $25-$35M, easy. I don't know what year you are living in, but veteran pitchers who will give 150+ innings of ~3.50 ERA ball are easily worth +$20M APY. Hard to imagine why a (probably) two-time Cy Young winner heading into his age 31 season is not worth $25-30M. Also hard to imagine why a (probably) two-time MVP and the best player in baseball, who pitches and hits like a top-10 player, is not worth the richest contract in league history.

It's never a bad idea to pick one or two of these guys up. They don't have to make the opening day roster, and they should not preclude you from making upgrades- you can waive them later on in the offseason if you find a better option. I think Codi Heuer could be a sneaky De Leon/Stewart pickup in a guy who missed multiple years but has great stuff. On the hitting side, Seth Brown is the epitome of league average- not bad for a 4th OF, especially if the Twins move on from Kepler.

Eduardo Rodriguez at $18M/year seems like a bargain. Boston offered him a QO in '21, so the team acquiring him won't have to worry about losing a draft pick. He had that weird finger pulley injury in the middle of the year, but he still eats innings (averaged 5.87 IP per start last year, better than Sonny Gray) and does not rely on velocity- he should age better than, say, Blake Snell. $18M APY puts him around Taijuan Walker, James Taillon, Adam Wainwright, Martin Perez, Yu Darvish, Miles Mikolas, Nathan Eovaldi, and Charlie Morton in terms of deals signed last offseason. The only guy on that list who I'd rather have is Eovaldi. Even if the contract goes underwater after year 3, $18M in the 2026 market is going to be around the $14M APY mark today, which is not a lot of money for a veteran starter.

The robo-ump take is fantastic. I think the first iteration of robo-umps will be the challenge system, but I think there were about 15-25 Eddy Julien strikeouts that would have turned into walks if the umpire did not give the pitcher a free strike. Robo-umps also increase the chances of the pitcher throwing a cookie; as the zone tightens a little, there will be an increase in pitchers "just trying to throw one over," which will turn into lots of balls in the seats. As it relates to Twins pitching, I think that we are well-suited for robo-umpiring, Lopez, Ryan, and Ober all live in the strike zone and trust their elite stuff- where teams like the Astros and Brewers are going to struggle once they're forced to start throwing balls over the plate.

Eddy Julien has a K-rate of nearly 30%, and I don't see very many people who would characterize his approach as "immature" or "not MLB-level." Striking out a lot does not necessarily mean that you have a bad approach. Hitters succeed when they swing at strikes and spit on balls, which is what E-Rod has been doing. Players have lots of success when they are able to do the damage that E-Rod can do. Aaron Judge has been in the high 20s for K-rate for most of his career. JD Martinez had a 31.% K-rate this year. This postseason, Adolis Garcia had a 26.5% K-rate, and he had one of the most productive Octobers ever. There are plenty of uber-productive hitters who have high K-rates, E-Rod is not a player who you can write off because he strikes out.

I am very glad that I won't have to witness Gladden's midseason tirade against the phrase "sinking line drive" ever again. My girlfriend and I would always say, "Just wait until he learns that there's a pitch called a sinker."

You may have missed the part where I identified myself as a member of the third group, which led to the worst outcome. I also used the language "our overreactions" in the last paragraph, placing myself within the group of people who overreact to front-office decisions. I understand that you may feel a little attacked, but being able to laugh at yourself and not take yourself too seriously is important. It seems pointless to critique me for poking fun at normal human reactions/sentiments, which I myself have. I already did the introspection- it's how I wrote half of the post.

Most discussions around the front office this season looked something like this: Person one: "DFA Gallo, Kepler, Vazquez, Pagan, Winder, and MAT. Trade Gray, Maeda, and Castro for a bunch of 50-grade prospects. Then, call up a bunch of 20-year-olds from AA who are definitely ready for the MLB level. If the FO does not do this, they should be fired immediately." Person two: "The Twins' FO is terrible. The Berrios and Pressly trades were awful, and we saw both of them in the playoffs. Yennier Cano is the best reliever in baseball, and the FO should have known that he was magically going to become a control artist. Imagine how good the Twins' lineup would look with Steer/Arraez." Person three: "Trade for Bellinger, Scherzer, Hader, Soto, and Goldschmidt. Wallner, Julien, Lee, Kirilloff, Lewis, E-Rod, and Jenkins are all expendable commodities." I'll admit that these are (slightly) overexaggerated but not too far off from the actual sentiments of site members. I myself probably fall within the third camp; I'm generally not as gung-ho on prospects, and I like risky trades. Let's examine what each (highly flawed) FO philosophy yields. The AAA Championship Winner Why have a competent major leaguer when you can have an 18-year-old in high-A with a marginally higher ceiling? Unless you have a .600 winning percentage at the deadline, you should have a total fire sale because your team obviously is not going to win in the playoffs: Rotation: P Lopez, J Ryan, B Ober, L Varland, S Woods Richardson Bullpen: J Duran, G Jax, B Stewart, B Headrick, C Sands, J Moran, J Balazovic, C Funderburk INF/C: R Jeffers, C Williams, A Kirilloff, E Julien, C Correa, R Lewis, B Lee, J Camargo OF/DH: M Wallner, T Larnach, A Martin, D Kiersey, B Buxton Farm Ranking: 3rd How it ends up for the Twins: After trading/DFAing every single player with less than a year left of control (and Thielbar/Farmer), the Twins won 64 games in 2023. The Twins ruin the development of several high-end prospects by being too aggressive with them. For the rest of the decade, the Twins are stuck in 70-80 win purgatory as they continually trade away their top performers. The "We Should Have Kept This Guy" Whiner Making trades is bad because sometimes trades go badly. Minnesota sports is plagued by poor trades, so why would we ever make a trade again? Why love your team when you can love every player who is no longer on it? Rotation: J Berrios, K Gibson, R Hill, L Lynn, L Gil Bullpen: R Pressly, B Graterol, Y Cano, T Rogers, A Vazquez, T May, Z Littell, C Petty INF/C: M Garver, G Sanchez, M Sano, L Arraez, C Encarnacion-Strand, S Steer, L Wade, E Escobar OF/DH: E Rosario, A Hicks, B Rooker, L Raley, N Cruz Farm Ranking: 15th How it ends up for the Twins: The 2023 Twins ride an aging roster to a first-round playoff exit. Meanwhile, the FO's refusal to part ways with any players means that 40-year-old Miguel Sano makes the 2034 opening day roster because "If we waive him, he'll be the next David Ortiz." The refusal to make trades results in the Twins' pitching returning to early 2010s form. The All-In Hopeless Optimist Did you see that amazing 6-4 win on Friday against a tough team? Yeah, it doesn't matter that we lost the series, that win has inspired me to mortgage the entire future for a shot at a World Series this year because incremental progress is overrated. After all, going all-in on a mediocre roster worked so well for the Padres and Mets. Rotation: P Lopez, J Verlander, S Gray, B Snell, J Ryan Bullpen: J Duran, J Hader, G Jax, B Stewart, A Chapman, C Thielbar, B Ober, K Maeda INF/C: R Jeffers, C Vazquez, P Goldschmidt, J Candelario, C Correa, J Polanco, K Farmer, D Solano OF/DH: M Kepler, C Bellinger, W Castro, M Taylor, B Buxton Farm Ranking: 30th How it ends up for the Twins: After winning 99 games, the 2023 Twins make it to the World Series and play a game seven against Atlanta. While leading 27-20 in the bottom of the 8th, injury call-up Bary Granderson strikes out with three men on, despite batting 1.000 prior to this AB. The Braves score seven runs off of known choker Aroldis Chapman, and the Twins go on to lose 30-27 in extras. The Pohlads file for bankruptcy after the Twins have to pay the luxury tax and the team is sold to a "legitimate businessman" who moves the team to Mexico City. Lewis, Lee, Jenkins, Kirilloff, Julien, and Wallner all end up as Hall of Famers on their new teams. I really respect the discourse we have on this site, I just wanted to have a little bit of fun imagining where the Twins would be if they were run by our overreactions. If you want to poke fun at any other kind of overreaction, those will be greatly appreciated.

I agree that counting stats like posts have no place in modern, analytical blogging. However, xMMP is faulty because it fails to account for the differences in blogger's free time. That's why I like to use xwMMP-FT+, which weights the different kinds of free time (bored on a Saturday, hanging out with friends, on the toilet, etc) based on how many posts a contributor should make in that type of free time. I can confirm that this year's recipients of the MMP award had very high xwMMP-FT+, which makes them unlikely regression candidates.

I feel very, very confident in saying that Chase Petty will never be as good as Sonny Gray. I think a lot of fans have this idealized image of Petty where he's this flame-throwing starter in the mold of Jacob DeGrom, where he routinely hits 100mph and has a wipeout slider. In reality, he sits around 95mph with a decent slider and change. I don't see any places putting him in the top-100 global prospects, and he's probably the 3rd best pitching prospect in the Reds' system. He may very well be a productive big leaguer, but I will take a top-2 Cy Young season and another great year for six years of a #3 starter, which is probably Petty's ceiling.

I just don't see the upside with SWR. He doesn't throw hard or have good movement on any of his pitches (except maybe his slider), and he struggles with command. It's very hard for me to be optimistic about a guy who can't command sub-par offerings. I hope he can turn into the pitcher we thought we were getting, but I would not count on it.

SWR's fastball is pretty awful. Maybe he needs to adjust the grip or something, but it has no rise or arm-side run; it is a very hittable 90mph pitch. His changeup does not drop either- he was scouted as a guy with a true four-pitch mix, but his top two pitches are not at an MLB level.

As far as HR's - the Phillys hit 47, but none in the last two games and are out! This is so funny to me. "HRs are not the way to in the playoffs because the Phillies hit (1) HR in their last two games and lost them both." Also super funny to me that all of the small ball/station-to-station enthusiasts from 1932 just completely ignore the Rangers. If Bruce Bochy, one of the oldest and most respected managers in the game, has his team swinging for moonshots in the playoffs, it's because HRs work. I will take advice on strategy from an elite manager rather than a guy who does not know the handedness of a top-10 player in baseball. Joe Mauers ground ball singles up the middle with two strikes look awfully good right now. How many playoff wins does Mauer have? Just asking for a friend. Those ground balls up the middle must have made a huge impact on the playoff games he was a part of.

There is no one strategy that helps you win in the postseason. Adolis Garcia has a career 29.1% K rate, and he did horrible, awful things to Houston in the ALCS. Ketel Marte has a career 15.1% K rate, and he did horrible, awful things to Philadelphia. Texas' bullpen is pretty terrible, while Arizona was able to ride the back end of their bullpen to the WS. Arizona won game seven behind the arm of Brandon Pfaadt, and Texas had playoff ace Jordan Montgomery piggyback off of future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer. Texas hit a bunch of homers, while Arizona played small ball and good defense to win. The secret sauce is just to let your players play the way they are good at. If Bruce Bochy had told Garcia to shorten up and put the ball in play, the Astros would still be alive. If Terry Lovullo had told Ketel Marte to swing for the fences, the Phillies would have won their second consecutive pennant. Put your players in positions to succeed, if you've made it to the postseason, you have enough talent to prevail.

Kepler, Polanco, Thielbar, and Farmer all become FA at the end of next year (In theory, we could move on from all four this year). I think the FO intentionally structured the Correa/Lopez/Paddack contracts with elevated salaries in '25 because the two long-term contracts they had on the books before they inked those deals expired before that year. The only bad news is that Lewis, Ryan, Jax, Stewart, Duran, and Ober will all be hitting their first arbitration years in that season, and while they will still be cheap and controllable, a $2M-$5M pay raise for six guys will take up a relatively large portion of the budget.

Given that Varland has an option left and he wants to remain a starter, The Twins should plan around him starting the year at AAA. If everyone is healthy late in the year (unlikely), he can go to the bullpen and contribute down the stretch. If someone goes down early, we have a cheap, solid #5.

Their loss. The Twins, as an organization, are doing much better than the Red Sox. In fact, the Red Sox are far and away the worst-run organization in that division. They can hire another lackey to build a roster of average joes with no real stars, while failing to develop a top-10 farm despite sucking for a couple of years.

After all jacks are in their boxes and the clowns have all gone to bed, you can discuss performance. Players who underperform are usually very polarizing. On TD, we have a lot of spirited debate over Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Pablo Lopez (pre All-Star break). Even overperforming players like Emilio Pagan can sometimes be subject to much scrutiny, especially in the heat of the season, when fans and media overreact to one or two bad performances. Now that the media clowns have gone to bed, and (hopefully) we can approach these discussions with a level head. In 2023, Joe Ryan was expected to emerge as a frontline starter, after a fantastic rookie season. For the first 2.5 months, this expectation was exceeded, he was one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball, by upping his K%, lowering his BB%, and maintaining his stellar statcast stats (xBA, xwOBA, etc). In his first 15 starts, he went 8-4 with 93.2 IP, 2.98 ERA, 100 K, which, if he stayed at that level, would have looked like this in 33 starts: 18-9 record with 206 IP, 2.98 ERA, 220 K; which would probably be good enough for 2nd in AL-Cy Young. Unfortunately, a groin injury sustained after this stellar start made his final line look like a much less impressive 11-10 record with 161.2 IP, 4.51 ERA, 197 K in 29 starts. He had major issues throwing pitches over the heart of the plate; his meatball % on the year was 8.5, well over the MLB average of 7.3%, and hitters swung at his meatballs 4.1% more often than they did for other pitchers. His lack of fine control hurt him down the stretch, and he had a whopping 3.18 HR/9 after the groin injury after posting a stellar 0.77 HR/9. His ERA subsequently ballooned to 6.62 post-injury, and I feel comfortable in saying that the Joe Ryan we saw in the second half was not indicative of the caliber of pitcher he is. Now if 4.51 turned out to be 3.53, I don't mind, I don't mind. Even with his horrid second half, Joe Ryan was still phenomenal at striking batters out without walking them. His 5.8% BB rate is in the 92nd percentile, and his 29.3% K rate was higher than Max Scherzer's this year. Even with his awful stats post-injury, Ryan posted an xERA was 3.53 and xFIP was 3.76 for the year. These expected stats can be misleading sometimes- Shintaro Fujinami had an ERA of 7.80 with an xERA of 4.80, but he was awful at limiting damage with RISP, as his -19.89 RE24 was one of the worst in baseball. xERA and xFIP do not account for pitchers who give up lots of damage in short bunches, so it is hard to say that Fujinami got unlucky with poorly struck balls dropping. However, Joe Ryan's RE24 was positive at 1.30, which is not great but is above average. This suggests that he was the victim of some bad luck, and his ERA probably should have been in the mid to high 3.00s if he had had neutral luck. Fastball sweet fastball, I wish I could throw less. A lot of the narrative around Ryan revolves around his less-than-elite secondary stuff and how it holds him back. While I agree that he has a tendency to lean almost exclusively on his four-seamer in tough spots, he has completely remade his arsenal, and his splitter/sweeper have the makings of excellent strikeout pitches. When Ryan first entered the organization, his arsenal consisted of a fastball, slider, changeup, and slow curve. Now, he uses a splitter, sweeper, and slider as his three secondary offerings, with the splitter and slider being introduced this year. This is the first year he's used this arsenal, and it will likely improve with more experience. His splitter moves 0.6" more than the average splitter at his arm slot, and hitters have not been able to do much with it (sub-.300 xwOBA against). It had a negative run value in '23, mostly because he was not getting many chases on it and was not tunneling it off his four-seamer, which was used primarily at the top of the zone. If he can start to work more East/West with his fastball, he can set up his splitter, which has been doing a great job of keeping at the bottom edge of the zone. His sweeper offers a lot of drop, which makes it a great compliment to his fastball, as they have nearly opposite breaks. He collected a 36.5% whiff rate and only a 32.4% hard-hit rate against. In the small sample of batted ball events, the batting average, OPS, etc against significantly outpaced the expected stats; in a larger sample size, it should have better numbers. If he continues to work on his sweeper, it could be an excellent offering. You'd better stick your dagger in someone else. Gauging fan sentiment from a few stray posts is unadvisable, but I have seen way, way too many posts describing Ryan as a "backend" starter or a "#4 or #5". Maybe I just happened to look at posts from the seven to thirteen people who look only at box scores, but to me, this is like calling Carlos Correa a bottom-of-the-order hitter, Byron Buxton a 4th outfielder, or Griffin Jax a middle reliever based on down '23 seasons. Joe Ryan is not an ace, and the Twins should definitely seek a Sonny Gray replacement, but a strikeout pitcher who eats innings and doesn't walk people is a certified #2 starter. He is better than anything the Red Sox, Nationals, Tigers, Royals, White Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Angels, Athletics, and Rockies currently have on their roster (or will once free agency starts): a guy who would be the opening-day starter for a third of the league is an asset that should be highly appreciated, not insulted. There are many questions about whether Thielbar, Stewart, and Paddack will be able to pitch at a high level for a full season. First base is a huge question mark, given the injuries to Miranda and Kirilloff. A number of hitters are regression candidates. Joe Ryan is the kind of guy who can be penned into the #2 or #3 spot of the rotation without much thought- I hope he can enter the season without a cloud of doubt and disrespect looming over his head because he does not deserve that based on his performance. No reason to get excited The 2023 season was great, the Twins won three playoff games and the division, we had an incredible rookie class, and tons of exciting plays. 2023 is a great building block for this team to firmly cement itself amongst the elite American League teams for the foreseeable future. The Twins have high expectations and aspirations for 2024, and Joe Ryan is a big reason why. To summarize: He was a top-5 pitcher in baseball before his injury. According to several expected stats, he was the victim of very poor luck. He introduced two brand new pitches this year that figure to get better with time. He has the talent to be a star pitcher. Some of you have selective or short memories and will choose to glom onto his HR-prone second half or the fact that Rocco only trusted him to pitch two innings in an elimination game. I look forward to seeing Joe Ryan prove his doubters wrong and fulfill his potential as a co-ace on this magnificent Twins pitching staff.

I think the market has a lot of potential candidates for a co-ace. Multi-year Deals: Marcus Stroman, Eduardo Rodriguez, Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Blake Snell, and Jordan Montgomery Short-term Deals: Clayton Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Charlie Morton, Martin Perez, Kyle Hendricks, Lucas Giolito, Frankie Montas, Luis Severino, Jack Flaherty, Trevor Bauer, and Kenta Maeda I think E-Rod could fly under the radar a bit, he'll only be 31 next season, but top-2 Cy Young finishes for Gray/Snell, along with playoff dominance by Montgomery/Nola may mean that big spenders will overlook the former Red Sox lefty.

There is probably a close to zero percent chance that Duran signs this. Ten years ago, Craig Kimbrel signed a 5yr/$54M heading into his first arbitration season. Kimbrel was younger (and probably better), but the top end of the market in 2013/14 was ~$25M APY, whereas today it is ~$40M APY. Duran just saw Edwin Diaz get 5yr/$100M, and Josh Hader will get something similar- I doubt he will sign a contract that increases the time before he gets a free-agent deal.

I think the Braves are a team that sneakily may be the favorite to land Gray. They have two or three holes in the rotation and they don't have prospects to make a trade for a frontline starter. I think they'll pursue arms heavily in free agency, and I would not be surprised if they make a run at an expensive veteran like Gray.

Given that man-bear-pig is half man, half bear, and half pig, I feel he was robbed of this honor. Much like Jeter's gold gloves, I feel this honor will be looked upon in a different light when man-bear-pig ends the world as Al Gore predicted.