JW24

I agree completely with this entire take, especially the bold portion. Another thing to consider is which player is most likely to outperform the contract they sign, and there is not a scenario I see where Berrios at $20M+ per year ever looks like a massive bargain to the Twins. That being said, the Twins have the money to sign both, and I hope they do it. Jose on the bump and Byron in center is always a fun game to watch.

I appreciate the point you are making, but I don't agree with the premise of throwing without sticky stuff being either negligent or riskier. Sticky stuff does not contribute to commanding a pitch as much as it does to making each pitch play up with increased spin. If sticky stuff resulted in better command, the HBP numbers would be declining, and as previous posters in this thread have shown, that just is not really the case. One impact I see to outlawing the sticky substances is that the late breaking, super sharp sliders and curveballs likely flatten out a little bit without the extra grip, which theoretically would allow hitters to distinguish between pitches sooner and might allow them to better protect themselves. I would not be surprised to see banning everything except rosin actually reducing HBPs as the ball will act less like a blitzball and more like a baseball again.

Nice summary! There is an awful lot to like about both guys. If you made me pick a guy who I think will be better in the long haul, I would say Larnach, but all I want is for the two of them to hit 3rd and 4th (or 5th) in the lineup for the next decade. I chose Larnach due to his approach at the plate, which I think is phenomenal, as well as Kirilloff's injury history. I would like to reserve the right to flip-flop on this a million times over the years.

Pitchers don't use sticky stuff for the purpose of not hitting batters; they do it to make their stuff as nasty as possible so they can get to and remain in the big leagues. The excuse they use, to not hit batters, is eyewash for MLB to continue to look the other way on this issue. Intent behind a HBP is pretty obvious. There are not a whole of instances where someone gets thrown at and you have to scratch your head as to if it was on purpose or not. HBP is a part of the game. Not every negative action/result needs to come with punishment. It is awful Buxton is out again, but he was not hit purposefully.

HBP is part of baseball, except when done intentionally. There should be 0 tolerance for intentional HBPs. If you want to up the ante for what happens when a batter is hit, which I don't think is necessary, how about having a HBP worth 2 bases? Significantly reduces the ability for a double play from the next hitter which theoretically makes the pitcher now have to work much harder. Flip side to this is umpires need to have some discretion for when a hitter is trying to get hit and act accordingly.

I agree completely that if he can learn to play 3rd he becomes an asset to the Twins. The Twins outfield is full at this point, and after accounting for Nick Gordon, there are 5 guys I would rather see out there ahead of Luis. Polanco is above average at second and below average at short, so I don't want to move him off second. Luis can't play SS or 1B, so that says to me he needs to do what he can to be competent at 3rd. Positional flexibility/versatility is all well and good until you have a bunch of guys who don't excel anywhere. Arraez should fit in around where others excel in order to put the best team on the field.

Me: Writes the Twins off before Memorial Day Also Me: Tell me more about this, Nick I can live with whatever the Twins do the rest of this season record-wise as long as their lineup looks like what it did this weekend in Texas. Larnach and Kirilloff are tremendous, I like having Buxton in the 2-hole so Arraez can hit 9th, Polanco and Jeffers are mashing. It is too late in the season to expect a playoff push, but it would be really nice to have some quality baseball to watch through September.

The number should not change based on the Twins W-L record the rest of the season, unless the unthinkable happens and the Twins make the playoffs. If the percentage of people in favor of firing Falvey and Levine grow, it should be because they failed to improve the 2022 outlook before the trade deadline.

The 2019 season might be the worst thing to happen to this front office; they opened the window of serious contention a year or two earlier than they anticipated, and now that the team they have created hasn't performed people are calling for them to be fired. That is insane to me. This is the most competent front office the Twins have ever had. Firing them would be a massive mistake. It isn't like Theo Epstein or Andrew Friedman are going to come knocking if the Twins job opens up. If you are arguing to fire one or both, I would like to hear who you think will replace Falvey and Levine, why they would be an improvement, and why they would consider taking the Twins job. As abysmal as this season is, compounding it by making rash decisions like firing the front office sets the team back further than one season.

They inherited an utterly depleted farm system, especially from a pitching perspective, and while the guys they have drafted in recent years haven't made an impact at the MLB level yet, it certainly seems like there are a number of high-caliber arms coming soon. I voted for a re-tooling for 2022. With less than $50M committed to the payroll for next season (which doesn't include deals for Buxton and Berrios if they are not traded), the FO has positioned themselves to have some flexibility once again. No one is more aware than they are that every move they made this past off-season was abysmal.

The price is not egregious, no. The biggest issue I have with the price is that it is not a replacement to the streaming package with which I previously could watch BSN (Youtube TV, then Hulu, then TVision, finally back to Youtube TV), but it is now in addition to that price. Hulu and YouTube TV eliminated BSN from their packages in lieu of passing that cost on to their consumers. I don't know what the carrier fee was previously, but $23 per month clearly is a significant increase or they wouldn't have dropped them. If ESPN or Fox Sports had a stand-alone service to compare price points, I might be more excited about Bally's price. If I could choose to drop about 40 channels from Youtube TV to cover the cost of BSN, I would certainly be more excited. I was expecting this option to be available around the price of HBO Max or similar add-on channels; 50% higher gives me a little pause.

Donaldson would probably love it too! Can't imagine he is interested at all in being part of a rebuild, or whatever the Twins are doing.

I like the topic of this article. I would be interested in reading a follow-up about the injuries the Twins have had in recent years in their farm system; that to me is far more concerning than what has happened at the MLB level this season. Specifically, what impact has the MLB level seen as a result of injuries in recent years throughout the farm system? The recent injuries to Enlow and Cantarino are just the latest in a long string of injuries that have hindered the development of major prospects coming up through the pipeline. Royce Lewis is out for the year, Kirilloff missed a year, Colina is hurt, Nick Gordon had injuries that slowed him up. Baseball is a far more physically demanding game than what is recognized by the average person and injuries will happen. Additional emphasis on player health in the minors so as not to delay player development would pay dividends in a season like this. Matt Shoemaker and, to a lesser degree, J. A. Happ, have no business being on an MLB roster, but with no one ready to replace them as a result of development time missed due to injury, that is what we are stuck with.

That might be the worst play I have ever seen by an MLB team, there isn't another I can think of at the moment. What hurts even more is the Pirates took 2 out of 3 against the Twins this year, and held the Twins to 6 total runs in that series.

I've spent a little time looking at this, here is what I see: Saturday, April 10 is the start of the Twins 6 week skid. From that date, they went 10-26 through Thursday, May 20. During that time they scored 10+ runs 3 times (went 2-1). They scored 3 or fewer runs 21 times (went 1-20). 19 times they held their opponent to 5 runs or fewer (went 10-9). 60% of their games in, what I hope is, their worst stretch of the season, the offense could do no better than 3 runs. The bullpen losing games late is extremely frustrating, but when every single pitch is high-leverage and there is no margin for error, well... I agree the offense has been the biggest issue this season, though I would go a step further and say it is an even bigger issue than the bullpen simply due to expectations coming into this season relative to performance. Good news is the bats are heating up and now the arms need to do their job when they get more runs.

At the time he went on the IL, Jake Cave had the 5th (or so) most plate appearances on the team. Arraez was off to a hot start at the plate in his utility role, and has been bad for about 4 weeks since. Both guys were supposed to be major factors in the Twins offense this year. Thankfully the big time prospects were ready when called on -- they have been great. But that does not change the fact the Twins created a roster with the intent of having depth that could play like the regulars and that hasn't fizzled out, it has crashed and burned.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with this Twins team is that all the depth they thought they had in their lineup, rotation and bullpen has been bad. 2019 was a year where everything went right. 8 guys with 20+ homers, 11 with double-digits. 9 guys with a qualified OPS+ over 100 (better than league average). The pitching staff by measure of ERA+ got great performance from all 5 starters (Perez was at 88, not bad for a 5th starter) and from the bullpen. Injuries happen and scheduled rest days are becoming more common. To make it through the 162 game slog, the depth has to be effective, and this year, it isn't. Cave, Jeffers, Arraez, and Rooker were all guys coming into the season the FO thought were going to be major pieces to the offense and they have all been bad. The pitching staff has underwhelmed, starting with Maeda and Berrios. Only Rogers and Robles have above-league-average ERA+ out of the pen. This is not a Rocco issue. This is not a front office issue. This is not a players issue. It is a collective issue. Finally, the Twins need to figure something out throughout all levels of their organization regarding player health. Coming out of spring training and playing in the cold for the month of April might be part of the issue, but the Twins have seen key contributors spending so much time on the IL the past couple years, and have seen injuries throughout the MiLB system they manage hindering player development for years at a time. They need to look long and hard at their efforts to keep their players on the field because that is where they are failing spectacularly, in my opinion.

I think the question more pertinent to whether the Twins are buyers or sellers is how many games back of a playoff spot are they? Do they have a chance at the deadline to make the playoffs, and how slim is it? I would rather see the Twins be buyers at the deadline to make a push for a play-in game than see them as sellers. If they are within 5 games for the division, maybe 7 for a playoff spot, I would hope they would look to add.

The Royals going to back-to-back World Series in 2014 and 2015 on the ability to shorten a game to 6 innings was certainly a sign of the times changing in how pitching staffs are created. It seems to me that the best pitching staffs are created one of two ways at this point: many elite arms in the pen throwing an inning or two at a time (Tampa Bay Rays model) or starting pitchers able to work deep into games consistently to reduce the need for bullpen arms (Indians and Dodgers have done this well in my opinion). The Twins this season are neither. This last point is going to go a bit off-topic. In the off-season, I was hoping for a Trevor Bauer signing due to his ability to work deep into games. The Twins were looking to replace Odorizzi & May (among others) and Bauer could have essentially eaten up both guys' innings. In a new age of "moneyball" it does feel like starting pitching that can be counted on to get 21 outs regularly is a market inefficiency.

Berrios has never made the jump from good to great. If you can trade him this season and get a sizable return, absolutely do it 100%. There is no guarantee he will remain durable throughout his career. Extending him at a premium for the pitcher the Twins hope he becomes but may never turn into would be a financial mistake they do not have the luxury of making.

The Twins will have the money to extend Buxton, and I think they should make every effort to do so. With how they manipulated his service time a handful of years ago, I think if he earns a massive extension with his play this year and next, the Twins should pay him. But, to answer the question of what I would need now for Buxton if we were to trade him, I think Jasson Dominguez, Luis Gil, and Anthony Volpe would be what I would ask for. Baseball Trade Values has this as an overpay by the Yankees, mostly due to the massive hype behind Dominguez, but if I am the Twins, that is the package I start with and no chance I accept anything that does not include Dominguez.

With no one to trust due to failure after failure in high leverage spots, why not bring Alcala in and see how he does? His stuff can result in strikeouts, which would help significantly with the runner-on-second rule. I would rather see what Alcala is made of and lose than see Waddell ever take the mound for the Twins again.

Yep. Kepler's glove will be huge to get back. Based on what his replacements have done in his absence, anything he contributes with the bat will be an improvement as well!

The Twins have played 4 games against the Central Division so far this year. It is fortunate they are playing their worst ball now. Lots of games within the division to climb out of the hole they are in. As completely awful as it is being a fan right now, I believe it will get better. The bad stretches always feel endless, and the good stretches never last long enough (seemingly). Close the gap in the division to a couple games by the All-Star Break and things look a whole lot better.

So we discount the larger sample size we have to evaluate Rocco's management by, and grossly inflate a week long slump at the start of April? Ok.