mikelink45

I think that the commenters have really covered the issues - His track record of injuries means we will not get full value or returnWe would not be trading him at peak value so maybe if he really shines this year?Our system does not have an adequate, let alone, good, replacement in CF. Kepler is only a temporary fill in, Cave and Wade are not CFs. Celestino does not seem ready. And Lewis would be out of position.Then there is the Torii Hunter example. The Twins tried extending him, but he went off as a free agent and we got nothing.

If I said I was not excited would that be a buzz kill? Bauer, if he is last years version is the only great pitcher. Would I pay him $30 million - no. Will he repeat last year? Who knows. Pitchers are up and down in performance. They are also prone to a variety of injuries. Develop young arms. Nothing else really matters unless you want to pay a lot to be disappointed.

I am always looking for outsider opinions on the Twins since it is too easy to have hometown bias. All of us who root for the Twins follow them with much more emotion and fan hopefulness that allows them to rise higher in our opinions than an outsider might see them. So, I was interested in the Athletic’s fantasy baseball rankings. I know fantasy and reality are not the same, but it is one way of comparing players. Derek Van Riper just posted his fantasy ratings of players https://theathletic.com/2199503/2020/11/16/2021-fantasy-baseball-rankings-2/?source=dailyemail and here is where the Twins rank. Starting pitchers (160 ranked) 13 Kenta Maeda (between Kershaw and Nola) 27 Jose Berrios (Between Burnes and Paddock) 45 Michael Pineda (Between May and Corbin) 54 Rich Hill (Between McKenzie and Musgrove) 63 Jake Odorizzi (Between Ohtani and Bassett) We have a starting rotation here! Relief Pitchers (38 ranked) 11 Taylor Rogers (Between Hand and Yates) 17 Trevor May (Between Smith and Pomeranz) 37 Tyler Duffey (Between Adams and Garrett) Rogers rating surprised me - too high, Duffey too low. Catchers (29 rated) 11 Mitch Garver (Between Nola and McCann) 24 Ryan Jeffers (Between Murphy and Suzuki) 1B (44 ranked) 14 Miguel Sano (Between Smith and Vaughn) Fantasy loves bombs 2B (47 ranked) 25 Luis Arraez (Between Madrigal and Alberto) Singles don't rank as high in fantasy SS (47 ranked) 18 Jorge Polanco (Between Villar and Rosario) 3B (53 rated) 10 Josh Donaldson (Between Moncado and Chapman) 44 Marwin Gonzales (Between Frazier and Lamb) 48 Ehire Adrianza (Between Bote and Drury) OF (118 ranked) 23 Byron Buxton (Between Blackmon and Soler) 26 Eddie Rosario (Between Lewis and Pham) 38 Max Kepler (Between Hernandez and Myers) 96 Alex Kiriloff (Between Polanco and Larnach) 97 Trevor Larnach (Between Kiriloff and Oliva) Where is Cave? They like our rookies, but where is Rooker? Once again Max ranks below Eddie. DH (8 rated) 1 Nelson Cruz (ahead of J. D . Martinez) Cruz is the highest rated at his position, Donaldson is second at number 10 among 3B, but how in the world does Garver get rated #11. I know catchers are hard to find, but still! It is fun to see this ranking and I will look for other outsider views this off season. But my take away from this is that we have a good team with a lot of players ranked in the middle at their position, but other than Cruz and potential Donaldson we do not have the superstars that the great teams have. We have no one on a HOF track.

This is what Schoenfield says on ESPN - "Hunter: In a different era, a nine-time Gold Glove center fielder who hit 353 home runs and drove in nearly 1,400 runs would be a slam-dunk Hall of Famer. Not in 2020. Hunter's 50.7 career WAR will be an important factor for voters, and that figure is short for even a low-end, modern-day Hall of Famer. Hunter also had just one top-10 MVP finish, a sign that he wasn't quite viewed as a big star, despite his all-around excellence. It's also worth noting that some recent comparable center fielders haven't fared well in Hall of Fame voting: Jim Edmonds: 60.4 WAR, eight Gold Gloves, off the ballot after his first year. Kenny Lofton: 68.4 WAR, four Gold Gloves, off the ballot after his first year. Bernie Williams: 49.6 WAR, four Gold Gloves, off the ballot after his second year. Every team's best non-Hall of Famer FanGraphs' Jay Jaffe looks at the HOF cases of the best player for each team who hasn't yet gotten into Cooperstown. League: ALInsider | NLInsider The one center fielder who did stay on the ballot is Andruw Jones, who was chosen by 19.4% of the voters last year, his third time on the ballot. He won 10 Gold Gloves and is credited with 62.7 WAR. He hit more home runs than Hunter (434), but is behind him in RBIs and hits (although Jones has the better OPS). What separates Jones? He is viewed as a transcendent defensive player, right up there with Willie Mays as the best center fielder of all time. Indeed, the advanced metrics view him as far superior to Hunter, with 235 runs saved versus 33 for Hunter. In this case, I do believe the perception is correct and is reason enough to consider Jones while Hunter falls short."

The most important aspect of the HOF is the discussion it generates like this one. Hunter was a wonderful player who deserves his Twins HOF - beyond that I never thought of him in a Mays, Clemente, Aaron level of player. I am a small HOF person so it there is my bias. But at the same time McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Rose continue to get attention because they are not in. Even old Shoeless Joe gets more attention than Simmons, Speaker, Heilmann who were his contemporaries and did get in. I call it the Hall of Controversy. Keep them out and they will be talked about for decades, but them in and we move on to the next one.

For convenience and to build the fan base - St Paul, Duluth, Rochester - all MN make sense to me.

I believe that Connie would want to sell all the players - why win when you can make a profit - and then hire Gardy to handle another rebuilding 100 loss team. Baseball just continues to inspire.

The second trade is the only one I am interested in and if Milwaukee does it they really need a sports psychologist to make a visit.

I recommend this article from the Athletic today - https://theathletic.com/2195101/2020/11/13/op-ed-will-savage-former-minor-leaguer-on-what-mlb-will-lose-by-shedding-minor-league-teams/?source=dailyemail It is true Independent ball clubs have difficulties, but right now I do not trust Manfred and MLB owners to do the right thing with MiLB. But I am fine if the Saints want to go that way, I remember when we had the Millers and Saints and that was fun.

I wonder what they use to judge players ability to age. I no of no metrics that are trustworthy on that judgment. Eddie is the one who plays, his health seems like less concern than Max, Byron and Miguel.

If he is non-tendered I would find the FO at fault for not getting some value from him.

And what happens when the Twins stink and so does their minor league? It will happen. This kind of investment needs to look long term, not just at the current situation.

The Saints already fill the stadium, what are the new revenues? How do they pay for the $20 M? What happens when the Twins stink and their minor league is in the toilet? Will people go just because it is a Twin affilitiate?

I read your report and it makes sense, but it makes me sad

Sounds good, but you have to ask the family if that is the result.

Curt Flood would shudder - his question would be - how many of those players were okay with being traded? Like AceWrigley wrote - "It still kind of freaks me out that you can trade people." But since you can, this was a fascinating tree.

You are right - this is not something I find any comfort in. Pass - please pass

I was surprised too

I had so much to say that I created a blog out of my response - https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/13740-eddie-or-miguel-or-byron-or-max-you-choose/ Not sure if this is allowed, but I hope you will check out my comparison of the four six year players who rose to the majors together.

$20 Million is too steep of a price. I would worry about MLBs next step to take over the minors, control their revenues and limit their opportunities.

Since the main TD articles keep talking about Eddie Rosario being traded, cut, cursed or whatever you want to call it I thought it might be instructive to do a comparison of all the six year players on the roster. In a move that we all thought would make the future of the Twins we had Eddie, Byron, Miguel, and Max arrive the same year and it did not take long before they were part of a home run hitting behemoth and twice got to the playoffs where they, like their predecessors failed. (I chose not to include pitchers since there is no way to have equivalent values between pitchers and position players.) Now all the discussions are about Eddie being too expensive and not needed. Why? Over the same six years here is there worth in Baseball Reference WAR - Max Kepler 12..3 Byron Buxton 11.7 Eddie Rosario 11.6 Miguel Sano 7.6 That makes the case for Eddie a little stronger as his WAR is not far off the top two and Miguel is the bottom (he was -0.2 this year). How about OBP? Sano 332 Kepler 319 Eddie 310 Buxton 289 OBP seems to consistently be the knock on Eddie, but in comparison he is not looking as bad as all the articles seem to hint. Okay let's try OPS and spruce up the data: Sano 829 Eddie 788 Kepler 763 Buxton 719 Sano blows them all away, but look who is second! Home Runs? Sano 131 Eddie 119 Max 101 Byron 51 Eddie looks pretty good here too. So being a traditionalist - what about RBIs? I know some of you do not believe in them, but what do you do when no one brings in the baserunners? I know - lose the playoffs. Eddie 388 Miguel 344 Max 303 Buxton 172 Like I have commented elsewhere, Eddie has a knack for bringing in runners and in this lineup, who doesn't have an opportunity? Another old tradition is BA - so let's check it out. Rosario 277 Sano 241 Buxton 238 Kepler 237 What about scoring runs? Yes runs win games. Rosario 400 Max 324 Sano 317 Buxton 204 So who stays on the field? Games played Rosario 697 Max 601 Miguel 539 Buxton 432 I know - you can say just think of the stats that the others would have if they played the same number of games - the trouble is they didn't. Max missed more than the number of games in last years short season - actually he missed the equivalent of 1 1/2 of last years games. Miquel is 158 games short - close to a full season and Buxton is 265 games shore - one full season plus 100 more! Can we say that Eddie is dependable? Someone will say, ya, but he can't field. I do not like a lot of fielding metrics but for the sake of this essay here is 2020 Fangraphs fielding for the four players Buxton 2.5 Rosario 1.2 Kepler -0.7 Sano -2.2 Everyone told me that Kepler was such a valuable fielder and Rosario was terrible. So baserunning - yep Rosario is a loose cannon here - I cannot justify his 2020 ranking Kepler 2.3 Sano 2.3 Buxton 0.4 Eddie -2 So there are all the various listings that seem to be part of the discussions. That is 10 statistical comparisons - if I treat them all as equal - I leave it to you to argue - then the one with the least points (if someone finished 1st in all they would have 10 points) should rate highest. Here are the point totals Rosario 20 Sano 23 Kepler 24 Buxton 29 At this point in their careers I would say Rosario was the most valuable of the four, but beyond statistics that is also my bias. Prove me wrong or agree with me, but don't just say I think!