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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm generally opposed to letting players go this early because the samples are so small. If we always cut players who looked bad through this point in the season we would've cut Carlos Santana from the 2024 team, and it's always important to remember the value of patience. That said, I think Outman might be different. He didn't make sense as an acquisition in the first place, looked absolutely terrible in a meaningful role last year, and doesn't really fit the current roster. Austin Martin probably isn't a good center fielder but he's at least Willi Castro level out there, so he can be the occasional backup which is Outman's only real role. If Buxton got hurt you wouldn't want Martin out there every day, but they'd also be able to call up someone from the Saints and both Rodriguez and Jenkins can supposedly play center, so it still wouldn't be Outman's job. Outman doesn't hit, runs fine but not well enough to be a pure pinch runner, and can play center but not well enough to make up for the bat. He's probably not the worst outfielder in baseball and maybe someone would pick him up off waivers, but he just doesn't fit this roster and probably shouldn't have made the team on opening day.

Definitely fair to say some aspects of Savant require larger samples, but there are useful small sample things on there. For example bat speed requires a single digit number of swings to become useful, and we also have enough on him to know a decent amount about his sprint speed - although sprint speed is not as consistent year to year across the sport. His bat speed is pretty bad. His sprint speed is above average but well short of elite. Unless he made these a priority this off-season (which is possible, we'll see in spring training) it's fair to extrapolate this season's likely trends from last year even with small samples. Barrel rate is another story, and if he can get to enough barrels maybe he can overcome the low bat speed, but the lack of home run power and mediocre raw sprint speed are both probably real.

His Savant page is absolutely terrifying. Time will tell, but for what it's worth ZIPs projects him to be basically identical to Trevor Larnach. Roden: .260/.342/.379, 100 OPS+ Larnach: .249/.325/.404, 100 OPS+ Projection systems vary, but none of them see him as a likely breakout candidate or more than an okay platoon bat. If he can actually play center that would make a big difference, but I'm somewhat skeptical about that. He's fast relative to guys like Larnach and Wallner but he's much slower than guys like Austin Martin and James Outman. If he was right handed he could be a great 4th outfielder, but as another lefty he mostly seems like depth.

Brooks Lee is not a shortstop, Culpepper is probably not a shortstop, and the thing I think is overlooked in this piece is that Marek Houston is probably not a major league shortstop any time soon. Houston could become a quality major leaguer given time, but right now he just doesn't have a major league bat, even by the standards of glove-first guys. Last year (admittedly tiny sample at both levels) he hit .370/.424/.444 at the A level, which sounds awesome except he did it with a .488 BABIP and a .074 ISO which says he got unbelievably lucky while hitting for no power. When they sent him to A+ he hit .152/.220/.239 while still displaying zero power. Right now the question for him isn't if he could clear the Mendoza Line in the majors, it's if he can clear that mark at AA before the end of the year. To be clear, this doesn't mean we should give up on him, but he needs a lot more time to develop if he's going to be a replacement level or better player in the majors. Fangraphs puts his ETA in 2028 which seems about right. Internal help is not coming, the cavalry is not on the way, and if this team is even remotely serious about competing in '26 or '27 they are going to need to make a meaningful trade (the kind that costs a heck of a lot more than Trevor Larnach) to fill this hole.

For what it's worth I agree with this assessment of the pitching plan because the Twins absolutely love SP depth, so no shade intended regarding this article. But if they field this projected bullpen with Mick Abel, Zebby Matthews, and Connor Prielipp all in the minors and the then this bullpen performs poorly, that should be treated as a fireable offense. If they are at all serious about competing this year they can't field a low stuff bullpen with three of their most interesting arms just sitting at AAA waiting for an opportunity. I get that teams need SP depth and there's no such thing as too much SP depth, but if they field this projected bullpen it's not going to matter how deep the rotation is because the bullpen will knock them out of the race before June. The worse a defense is, the more important it is for the pitching staff to generate whiffs and minimize the number of balls in play. If you're going to field an infield defense of Jeffers, Bell, Keashall, Lee, Lewis you can't leave all your good high stuff arms in the minors.

They just lost 92 games and are worse than they were at the start of last season. Regression might save them from a second consecutive 90 loss season, but they're currently not good, and it's crazy that ownership would claim otherwise. And if they trade away what's left of their good talent at the deadline again they might very well lose 90+ again.

The Peralta deal felt more or less fair: good prospects in exchange for one year of a good pitcher, and a Qualifying Offer pick on the back end for the Mets to recoup some prospect value. The Brewers traded from a position of strength and got more than the QO value in return, and the Mets made a win now move because they have enough money that they don't need their prospects to power their team. Ryan and Lopez have multiple years of team control though so they're more like Gore, and unless Washington knows something about the guys they got back that no one else does (which is certainly possible) that was a terrible trade. They traded away a very good player with multiple years of team control for a large collection of significantly less good players. My concern with trading Ryan or Lopez is I could 100% see Falvey making this same mistake and trading 1 Ace for 5 Trevor Larnach/Austin Martin/middle reliever types because gaining roster flexibility and team control while saving money technically has measurable secondary value. The problem with these model-driven trades is that Aces are harder to find than large collections of mediocre major leaguers.

It's an interesting idea. I suspect the Mets would want something significantly more painful in return than Ober or SWR. He'd fix a lot of lineup problems though.