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HeresWaldo

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  1.    Hunter4848 reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  2.    Hunter4848 reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  3.    USAFChief reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  4.    HeresWaldo reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  5. HeresWaldo
    100%, but on some level isn't that the same thing? Half the cheap "rebuilding" teams in baseball aren't going anywhere and with some truth serum would admit they know it. Sucks that we're one of them, but the rebuilding syntax isn't new. Sorry if this comes across as overly negative. Again, I liked your piece and I love this team and want to see it win. I'm just past the point of believing in any part of this org not named Byron Buxton. Im open to liking more players and believing in the front office that assembles the group, but this FO isn't doing it.
  6.    Vanimal46 reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  7.    Nick Nelson reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  8.    Cris E reacted to a post in a topic: The Most Encouraging Early-Season Stories for the Twins Have, Sadly, Faded Fast
  9. HeresWaldo
    They traded away the largest contract in team history.
  10. HeresWaldo
    Two things on this: 1) This is a well written piece, but I feel like the headline says it all. These were just stories. A bunch of these guys might end up having decent years but the Twins fielded zero breakout candidates on their ML roster, and outside of Minnesota none of this regression is a surprise. So yeah, it sucks, but also it's not unexpected. 2) The lack of more convincing positives to focus on seems to be a conscious choice made by this front office. Fair to say a majority of blame rests on cheap ownership, but this front office has seemingly gone out of its way to limit this team's upside. There were players they could financially afford on the trade market and they didn't trade for them. Fine, they like their prospects and they didn't want to give them up. But then they didn't call up the prospects, and that's entirely on them. Even as I type this we're watching crap shortstop play while a prospect just sits around waiting for a shot. To me this dates back to at least the 2024 trade deadline when they didn't acquire pitching because Luke Keashall *had* to be treated as off-limits. And I like Keashall fine, but if you refuse to ever push your chips in what's the point? It really feels like what's left of this front office ran out of bold ideas 3 years ago and is just waiting to be fired.
  11.    Sam Caulder reacted to a post in a topic: It's Time to Start Worrying About Dasan Hill
  12. HeresWaldo
    I have a hard time worrying about a guy this young with this much stuff, especially since we know he was pitching through a minor finger injury. This is a good piece, not trying to denigrate it, but let's see what the next 50-100 innings (and for that matter his first 50 IP next year after he's had an off-season to work on stuff) look like before we panic. The way I look at it is this: would I be happy if he was a prospect in another system and the Twins traded something meaningful to get him in return? For me the answer is still an easy yes, at least for now.
  13.    Cris E reacted to a post in a topic: Taj Bradley's Numbers Are Rapidly Declining, and There's One Key Reason Why
  14. HeresWaldo
    Not disagreeing that he might be able to find a way to do it, but for the record his command numbers since coming off the IL are almost identical to his command numbers during his hot start. The big difference is early in the season batters were chasing cutters in the dirt and taking middle/middle fastballs for called strikes instead of knocking them into the seats. His stuff and command numbers overall this year are almost identical to his career numbers.
  15.    rdehring reacted to a post in a topic: Taj Bradley's Numbers Are Rapidly Declining, and There's One Key Reason Why
  16. HeresWaldo
    Even with the Rays giving him a single target to aim for he couldn't consistently hit the zone in Tampa Bay, not surprising he's still missing here in MN. His Stuff and Command numbers via the Stuff+, Command+ and Pitching+ models are almost identical to what they've been his entire career, with the biggest difference being the league making slight stuff improvements around him. The idea that having him read scouting reports would be the reason he broke out was always a bit silly. His main problem wasn't sequencing he could adjust with more information, it was command and it always has been. The good news is the stuff plays, so either he can continue to be a streaky starter who will eventually get onto another hot streak, or if the Twins ever get their rotation figured out he could probably be a great reliever.
  17. HeresWaldo
    It's a super interesting idea. My main concern with it is that from an implementation standpoint, for it to work I'm pretty sure the only non-Swarzaks you can afford to carry are one inning power arms acting as late inning specialists. That means 9-10 guys in this role, a couple of late inning specialists, and at most one true starter going every 5th day, so you'd be converting Joe Ryan/Pablo Lopez type starters too, not just the scrap heap guys. That doesn't make it a bad idea necessarily but I have a hard time seeing any team buying into the idea that their innings leader for the year is some playoff caliber starter they limited to 130 innings over 40-45 appearances.
  18. HeresWaldo
    Well personally I'm skeptical that's actually going to happen. But assuming a cap/floor system survives negotiations four things are worth keeping in mind. First, I think we're getting hung up on the "highest paid catcher" aspect here. It's technically true, but a QO isn't even a top 30 contract in the league by AAV, so it shouldn't cripple a team's ability to spend. Second, with a cap system in place it will actually be advantageous to front load some mid tier contracts because too much long-term dead money on the books later could hurt more than big up-front dollars. You can't do this with every contract of course, but it's not inherently bad to do once or twice. Third, on the point of "building a team around him" I get what you're saying but I don't think that's the goal. I view him as a high end regular borderline All Star type of player. Roughly 20 million for one year of a guy like that is about the normal price. Fourth, I know this is going to sound laughable given who owns our team, but they don't *have* to stop spending when they hit the floor, and there's absolutely no way they hit the cap before the end of the 2027 when he'd be a free agent again anyway. To me the question is where do we find a catcher better than Ryan Jeffers for the 2027 season? I don't see one anywhere so I'd happily overpay him while avoiding any long-term commitment.
  19.    Patzky reacted to a post in a topic: Should the Twins make Ryan Jeffers the Qualifying Offer?
  20. HeresWaldo
    Not only should the Twins make Jeffers the QO, I'd argue it's the only offer they should make him. Love that dude but he's already not a great defender and he's playing a position that ages terribly. Overpaying him for one likely productive year is fine, and I wouldn't want to give any non-superstar catcher a multi-year deal. Worse case scenario is he accepts it, plays poorly, and it's still just a one year deal adding coverage to a position where we've got no better options.
  21. HeresWaldo
    Austin Martin was and remains a perfectly useful major leaguer. It's on us as fans if we thought he was going to sustain his hot start. The great eye is probably real but he has no power so his walk rate is probably never going to be elite because pitchers dont fear him. When he was on a hot streak in April he had a BABIP of .373, which obviously wasn't sustainable. In May his BABIP was .269, which is closer to the real him but somewhat unlucky. He's also been extremely unlucky to start this month. Put it all together and he's got a BABIP of .301 for the season and a corresponding WRC+ around league average, which seems about right for a guy with good contact skills, a good eye, and zero power. I do expect his WRC+ to fall a bit more just because his high early walk rate likely wasn't sustainable and hasn't fully normalized yet, but as long as he keeps it north of 90 he can be a good defensive useful player. His overall results are probably about right for the real him, it's just all been hot and cold streaks instead of evenly distributed production. The good news is an average-ish bat with a decent glove can hold down the spot for a while, and somewhere down the line he can be a great platoon/bench player.
  22. HeresWaldo
    I liked the idea in the minors because it can let you keep more starter candidates a bit stretched out, but I have been thoroughly unimpressed by it in the majors. Most of the guys they've put in this role and left there are hurt - and to be clear I'm not blaming the role for that, pitchers get hurt and I get that, but it does make it hard to evaluate - and I dont love that guys are less stretched out as starters while still not going max effort as relievers. It's a kind of cool idea I guess, and I like it in the lower minors to manage workload while stretching more guys out at level where you don't know what their future role should be, but I'm not going to believe in it at the MLB level until someone manages to throw 85+ healthy innings with decent results. Maybe I'm old school but to me the long man should either be a Rule 5 guy you want but don't trust yet or one of many mop up men the roster churns through, and I don't love having real prospects both not be starters and not be late inning relievers.
  23. HeresWaldo
    Defensive metrics are tricky to evaluate. Even setting aside questions about how they're calculated, teams value defense so highly these days that the sport doesn't really have bad defenders anymore so "average" keeps getting better. The bar for what plays are supposed to be routine keeps going up. I'm glad Lee's days as a shortstop are coming to an end but I do wonder what the metrics will say about him at 3rd. He strikes me as the kind of player who will look really good there but stats won't like because he isn't fast and everyone not playing 1st or DH is fast now.
  24. HeresWaldo
    The Bradley trade is definitely looking like the best of the bunch at this early date, but even that one I'm not sure we can safely call a win yet. Bradley looked absolutely spectacular to start the year and Jax was horrendous in late innings for the Rays in April. However, the Rays are now stretching Jax out as a starter and he's looking pretty dang good and Bradley is hurt. Additionally, while it's possible Jax regresses as a starter, I think we need to acknowledge that pitching models see an element of smoke and mirrors to Bradley's dominance. Pitching+ rates Bradley as essentially an average starting pitcher (99 rating so 1% below league average but well within the margin of error to just say he's average). I'm not saying this is a bad trade by any means. If they both turn out to be mid rotation starters the Twins won in terms of age and team control. If Bradley somehow beats the models and sustains his strong start the Twins win by default regardless of what Jax does. But there's still a real path here where Jax turns out to be a pretty good starter and Bradley either has nagging health injuries all season or just regresses in the ways models expect, so it feels too soon to say the Twins definitely won this one.
  25. HeresWaldo
    I'm happy for Martin and have enjoyed watching him succeed, and I agree it's been a great story, but I'd caution against anyone seeing this as a breakthrough. He's got a .405 BABIP, low barrel rate, low bat speed, and low average exit velocity. Maybe he's the next Luis Arraez, but it's much more likely big regression is coming. He can still be a likeable and useful platoon bat/pinch runner even if he regresses, but he's probably not a key offensive piece in the long run.
  26. HeresWaldo
    I'm a Raya believer but they've got to stop messing around with this multi-inning nonsense. They're using guys like this in the majors and minors, and I'm all for trying stuff but it pretty clearly isn't working. Ramp him down and go max effort. Same with Sands and Morris in the majors. It's fine to piggyback prospects just to make minor league innings fit together, but once it's time to join the MLB bullpen they really need to put a focus on max effort innings because those are the ones that actually matter.
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