NYCTK

Absolutely. It's the #1 topic relating to the team at this moment. And if you're not interested it's very easy to just not click on it.

This is just what happens when you have a multi author blog about one niche topic. You're going to get repeat articles about the same thing. No use complaining about it.

With DaShawn Keirsey demoted, a post mortem on the guys career because I really don't see how he ever makes it back to the show: Keirsey was able to accumulate 80 PAs in his time on the Twins. Over the last calendar year there are 491 hitters with at least 80 PAs. He ranks 490th in wOBA, carried by his league worst OBP. He wasn't on the team because of his bat obviously. But he also didn't add any value as a baserunner. Despite being 88th percentile in sprint speed he was caught on the bases enough to cancel out his advances, squaring away at 0 runs added. As for defense the primary reason for his presence on the team, he played the OF in just over 200 innings, again pretty small, and added a total of...0 Defensive Runs Saved, or 1 Out Above Average. One metric that either I don't understand properly or has to be a fluke due to SSS, he curiously ranked 146th out of 147 tracked OF in starcast Outfield Jump ranked by feet covered. I don't believe that's fair, but really quite the stat.

Wouldn't want Royce to feel uncomfortable out there. He might play poorly...

It doesn't help him that his usual partner is the charisma vacuum Morneau. But not even the exceptional commentator Plouffe can really elevate the play by play.

Hmm. Probably unpopular opinion. But I still don't think I like Cory very much. There's a difference between being excited and just yelling. It seems put on at points. Excited at the game tying single, incredible, love to hear it. Getting that animated on a single adding a 6th run in the inning, really diminishes his reaction to truly big moments.

Nah. That was dumb but at least had a story. This is just some dumb helmet someone bought off Amazon cause they thought it looked cool.

All this off the best reliever of the first third of the season. Really well done by the Twins.

Good baseball!

I really hate that stupid helmet.

Hearing proper commentary makes you realize how bad Morneau is.

Mets hiring away Hefner was a big get for them. Coaching is often overrated, but he's worth his weight in gold.

For starters, take a look at what the Nationals received for Juan Soto (and Josh Bell, but...come on): CJ Abrams #1 organization prospect according to MLB (#9 overall) Robert Hassell III #2 (#37 overall) MacKenzie Gore #4 (#86 overall) James Wood #5 Jarlin Susana #19 (#8 in fangraphs midseason) And then remember that was for two years of somewhat expensive control. And then remember Skenes is still not even in arbitration. So double it. So we can start with: Walker Jenkins Emmanuel Rodridguez Luke Keaschell Kaelen Culpepper Connor Prielipp Kyle DeBarge Billy Amick and then let's say David Festa

This is a fascinating time to be looking at his career because we are about at the point where he's had exactly half of his career as a great hitter and an equally long span where he's been a replacement level player. And it is poetic that this inflection happened around the time of his infamous "slumps" comment. Before: .319 / .377 / .606 After: .190 / .252 / .330 So, he went from a hitter comparable to Yordan Alvarez, to someone that looks like Christian Vazquez in the batters box. Same player, two careers. A flip of the switch.

It was fewer than 400 Plate Appearances including his playoffs. It just seems like a long stretch because he wasn't ever healthy and it was stretched over 3 years. That is fewer than Julien had in 2023 alone. There's as much reason to believe Julien will bounce back as there is with Royce.

Often referred to as being a "team player". Following two teams, I can readily compare them and see stark differences. Fun little tidbit, Royce was ranked 62nd in the 2022 Fangraphs Prospect rankings, right ahead of the Mets 3B prospects Brett Baty and Mark Vientos. Those two players have also come across some difficult times. And Brett Baty, a half year his junior, was ALSO asked to move over to 2B occasionally. And Baty did so without complaining to the media. He's not used a lot there, but funny enough does when the Mets primary 2B, veteran and former batting champion Jeff McNeil, is asked to play LF or even CF, again having never complained to the much more tenacious NYC media. Are Brett Baty and Jeff McNeil "utility" players? I guess you can make that argument. But they're also both helping their team more than Royce is. And no one thinks lesser of them because they happen to play out of position a day or two each week. Actually, McNeil was always thought of as a bit of a clubhouse cancer but his willingness to play out of position has won him a lot of good will. If you're not one of the 3 best players on your team, you should always happily play another position. And Rafael Devers found out that even team stars should be willing to put themselves into positions of discomfort for the betterment of the team, from time to time. If Royce doesn't want to be a "utility" player, maybe he'd be better off retiring and starting a small business or something. Something without utility is useless after all.

No.

(just to be clear, this was tongue-in-cheek)

Yet again, I'm put in a weird position of defending the Twins organization against completely unfair attacks. What do you even mean by this? Are you under the impression he had multiple season ending injuries because he's like Tinkerbell and the Twins organization just didn't believe hard enough? He was in the major leagues, seemingly for good, at the age of 22. I don't know what more faith the Twins can show than that. As for his ability to play SS, he can barely play a competent 3B so why are we lamenting the fact that he's no longer at SS? Should the Twins have traded away Carlos Correa in 2022 because a prospect was called up (and immediately injured)?

Yeah, the Twins shouldn't be overly concerned about stealing playing time from the other 2023 Seattle Mariner 1B or Armando Alvarez.

I blame Rocco for this attitude.

This is where statcast expected stats comes in handy. He IS hitting the ball better than his results. But his xwOBA is still only 0.303 and his xBA is 0.231. It's not like Juan Soto who is slumping hard but still has a xwOBA of 0.420.

No it didn't. They won 2 of 3 from the Red Sox before he got activated from rehab. And had gone 5-1 in their home stand before that road trip. Which coincides more so with the activation of Brock Stewart. Or Kody Clemens. Maybe Brock or Kody is this mystical, irreplaceable clubhouse buoy that you're trying to make Royce out to be. And even if your timeline were accurate, we can just as easily theorize it's Willi Castro who was activated the same day, or maybe the departure of Julien. He's .211 / .275 / .397 the last calendar year. He's expended all his good will and this idea that he'll eventually figure it out cannot be backed up by anything other than hope. IF he's going to figure it out, he stands a much better chance of doing so back in AAA.

It'd have to be Walker Jenkins and Pablo Lopez to start the conversation.

The tale of Jarren Duran reminds me that these are kids, and we have to be respectful of them even when they're playing like complete dogshit and driving us up a wall. But, yeah, he's not special. He WAS a first round draft pick, and he DID have some early success, but right now he has not earned a place on a major league roster. He has earned himself a trip back to AAA and the failure of the Twins to send him down is just hurting him at this point. He shouldn't have been called back up to the majors in the first place. He clearly wasn't right when he was playing in AAA on rehab. He's not yet 26, and there's this plenty of time for him to right his ship. But he is not a major league caliber player right now, much less a starter.