mikelink45

I blame the Twins for how they handled Romero. He was a starter and then he was a reliever and he never got himself grounded again. It does not always work to change a player's position - see Sano and RF.

I love Arraez, but bad knees at 2B? I hope it is minor and fixable, but I have had three knee operations and they just do not feel the same after the recovery. I hope for the best because I really enjoy seeing him at the plate.

This is a really good thought article and Boras who has never been one of my favorites is right. Manfred for the last year has been the enemy. Does he know what a fan is? Does he understand the loss in all those minor league towns that he just cut? He is ruthless (and actually that has been the history of MLB ownership) and when the Pandemic is over I wonder how many casual fans will be gone. I am not against speeding up the game - I think that is essential, but there is a total lack of dialogue with players and fans.

I am still curious to see what the team saw in Sabato. The minor league backups are really weak right now, but 1B is just too easy for position switches and in addition to Kiriloff and Rooker there is Larnach.

I believe I can sum up my feelings with YUCK - it is hard to cover all the positions in your MiLB depth and SS and 3B are two we are really weak in.

Sorry owners - I have no sympathy for you. And Manfred - I know you will get in the HOF like other pathetic leaders - think Bud Selig, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and Bowie Kuhn, but like them you are a toadie of management and not a leader of the sport or fans. You are trying to cut salaries like you did when you ruined the Federal League and immediately dropped salaries. I have no sympathy for you. I do not relate to the bloated salaries of todays players, but better them than you. Manfred is not a baseball man, he is a voice for the owners pocket books. No one made you sign the big contracts - you did that to yourself, but guess what, you could afford them. If you want to reach out to the fans don't eliminate the minor league teams, pay the minor leaguers, make minor leagues the home of hope and extend the fan base. But you have too much gluttony to do that. Actually you can pay scouts, ground keepers and others who are on the fringe of the game. Or eliminate the reserve clause entirely. Let all players be free agents no matter when their contracts expire. Owners can sell the team, teams can sell the players - ask Curt Flood about what the players can do. The players tried with the Players League in 1890 because the owners were so heavy handed. In 1910 the Western League - a minor league decided to challenge MLB. I love the idea, but the strength was with the big money in MLB. The black player was ignored until culture finally rejected the premise, then MLB raided the Negro Leagues and left them to die from talent drain. There was so much more that could have been done to actually merge. The first Players strike was in 1912 - in Detroit. Cobb and the others who led this got no hearing for their grievances. In 1946 the Mexican League absorbed players and tried to challenge the league. They were broken. Only the really great players were allowed back and others just disappeared. This is the reason that Miller made the HOF. He was the first to challenge and change MLB. Since then we have been threatened with contraction - thanks Pohlads and like all the other challenges the owners wield the check book. So be careful if you are listening to the reasons that MLB has for its stance. Be careful where your sympathy lies. Manfred is not someone I respect and the organization of billionaires - the owners of professional sports are not the ones I respect or would have sympathy with. I guess the question of our age is - why MLB? Why not NFL, NBA, NHL?

With all the shifts, how do we define the SS position now? Half the time the 3B must now be in the SS position. It would have been better without the box of slash lines (just kidding) - that was really depressing. Lewis is the only one and lets hope this was just a down year and his fall stats represent the real player. I am not excited about Javier and Cavaco - I need to see some production before they make the prospect list for me. And for some reason I think we will see Gordon on the team this year.

Could be, but I think we have to see how the Twins use him this year - a little fall league play is not enough to convince me of that. It looked more like they were preparing him for the Marwin Gonzalez role.

I think the potential superstars are the ones already tested in MLB last year and we have to hope others develop to that same level, but I agree that after Larnach, Lewis they look less like star players.

It is DH - not a position player. There are many options, including in house. Use the money for the critical positions - pitcher, pitcher, pitcher.

For the same reason I would not give Cruz two years I do not want a pitcher who is 34 and will be 35 during the season. Look at his numbers https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/darviyu01.shtml, He has one great year since 2014 and that was the shortened season we just had. Pitchers don't age that well and he has had injury/health issues frequently. Despite the fact that many do not like wins (although wins do count in the standings) he has had 6,4,1,6 and then last year a great year he won 8 in the shortened season. It is like Bauer - one great season and everyone wants to pay him millions.

No hurry - Larnach, Rooker, Kiriloff - three good bats. Maybe a step below Cruz if he is what he was in 2019, but if he is playing like his age there is no reason to throw a lot of money at him and every reason to wait.

I do not trust the Bauer surge. Great short season, but history should teach us lessons - take this quote from Wiki - "in 2006 when Aaron Harang, Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, John Smoltz, Brandon Webb, and Carlos Zambrano each won 16 games in the National League. In the American League, four pitchers shared the award in the strike-shortened 1981 season." How many of those pitchers were great? How many would you want to give a long term contract to? Of course Smoltz, but the others had a similar season. Remember Mike Hampton and the massive contract that shocked the world of baseball and then Mike returned to what he was - a mediocre pitcher with a lot of money. 2005 Dontrelle Willis looked like he could be the next Walter Johnson - then reality took over. Even our Mudcat Grant - 1965 wins 21 games and gets great press. Next year he wins 13 and then never hits double figures again. In those years wins counted. Pitchers pitched complete games and win totals reflected their importance. He could have been in line for a big long term contract. It did not come and the teams that considered it were happy it did not happen.

I don't want to criticize the Twins for making the move. I thought it was great - but I do question multi-year contracts I like the aging curves in this old fangraph blog - https://blogs.fangraphs.com/hitters-no-longer-peak-only-decline/ I think about players like Pujols that really harm their team because they are being paid for what they did before the contract and not what they are doing under the contract. Age 35 is a major declining point (Cruz is an exception to everything - so far). At the price of these players the idea of paying for two good years with pay for declining production makes absolutely no sense.

With all the talk about FA and DFAs I got thinking about who the prospects behind each position are – not the top prospects in the system – but the ones that are there for each position on the club. Call it the next line of defense: C – Jeffers is obvious, but he might be the starting C so who is next – Ben Rortvedt would be the next in line. He is age 23 which surprised me, because it seems like we have been looking at him for the last decade (I exaggerate). He has four minor league seasons and a line of 240/315/347 which is not very exciting, but he is a catcher. 1B – Of course Sano is still young and Rooker is too, but who next? Aaron Sabato is 1B – he can’t go anywhere else. His two year college line is .332/..459/.698. I think Larnach, and Rooker have this covered. Or Matt Wallner with one impressive Minor league year. 2B – Arraez is young, but his injury record got really cloudy this year. Sure Polanco can slide in here, and Lewis can be a 2B but Nick Gordon who is quickly becoming a trivia answer is listed as a 2B option (I think Utility is better, but for this exercise he is at 2B. Six years in the minors, still 25. His line is .276/.329/.385 which is not very exciting. Maybe Blankenhorn will fill in, but in reality this is a failed draft pick. SS – Polanco is young, he has been an all-star, but he is still an erratic fielder and people have been dreaming of Royce Lewis for years. Always in the top ten prospects Lewis had not exactly been the highest performing prospect. Still just 21, he also seems like someone who has been in the system forever, but he hasn’t and his line is .266/.331/.409 which does not jump off the page for me, but the projections say he is more than the next in line, he is a star in the making. 3B – Donaldson came in with the press clippings and a bad leg. He got a lot of money and four years and already 1/4th of the years has been a bust. So who can jump in now that Ehire and Marwin do not seem to be in line? Travis Blankenhorn is the only 3B prospect. 24 years old, his minor league line after five years and one game in MLB in 2020 is .257/.325/.431 which makes him another meh replacement. For Marwin I am fine, but long term 3B needs help. LF – Well at this point Eddie is gone and not coming back and I am going to assume Kiriloff is next in line and I really hope they do not play the game of holding him back for more control. If he is as good as we all hope he will be extended before his arbitration years are over anyway. So who is next – Larnach is the logical and he looks almost as ready as Kiriloff, but it might be Rooker first since he is older and team control is less of an issue. Larnach in two years in the minors has a line of .307/.385/.468. Rooker in three years in the minors is .267 /.357/.505. Larnach is 23 and Rooker is 26. CF – Buxton for a whole year we all hope. If not who? I know we can shuffle other players into CF, but it is a shuffle not a true CF replacement. Who is in the wings? We know now that it will not be Baddoo. It is hard to find a CF in the prospects so I will go with Maciel, 21, with four years as a true Centerfielder .288/.357/.361 or Celestino. At age 21 he has three years in the minors .274/.346/.400. These young players are the way to go if Buxton has another injury/accident. RF – Kepler is already extended. Analytics like him more than I do, but that does not matter here – he is the RF starter and will continue to be. His replacement? Probably Larnach who I put as a LF above. DH – I look at the 1B options and Rooker is first in line for DH for me. Sabato down the road. SP – Berrios, Maeda, Pineda, ??? with Dobnak fifth. Berrios and Dobnak are relatively young, but they are pitchers and pitchers breakdown. Who is next? Most Twins fans know Balazovic and Duran, by name anyway. Balazovic in four years in the minors is 18 - 12 3.32 1.15 Whip and 252K – 68BB. Duran in five years in the minors is 23 – 26 3.94, 1.28 Whip, 366 – 131 K/BB. Both are 22. The third would be Dakota Chalmers, 24 years old, and with five years in the minors – 9 – 8 with a Whip of 1.42 and 185/114 K/BB. Chalmers seemed like he had a lot of support last year. His stats do not get me excited, but I think he is in line. Searching for starters 4/5 in this minor league only replacement scenario Blaine Enlow, 21, with three years in the minors would be next with a 14 – 12 3.36, 1.26 Whip, 185K/77BB. Matt Caterino played only one year, not enough to look at his stats so I will just go with his position on the prospect list. He is 22 and a second-round draft choice in 2019. Relief pitching is already filled with prospects – Alcala, Stashak and last year for one regrettable inning, Edwar Colina, 23, who has pitched for six teams in 4 minor league years. 19-15 2.96 1.22WHIP, 316K/140BB. He is probably ready right now. If I just look at the rest of the pitchers on the prospect list I can fill the BP that way, but realize that one of the SP I have for the future rotation can end of being BP and one of these RP could be a rotation guy. Hopefully, someone like the next pitcher on the list – Cole Sands, or Bailey Ober or Chris Vallimont or Josh Winder. That is a seven-man BP. Then there is Lewis Thorpe and Devin Smeltzer still listed as a prospects age age 24. Let’s put them in to give us nine. Griffen Jax makes the ten-man BP on this list – just barely. Luis Rijo will pass some of these and he will join Charlie Barnes to make the future 12-man BP. The question is – are we prepared. And actually, it looks like a good minor league backup plan. Not all of these players will fill the roles, but we have something to start with

Am I the only Twins Fan who looks at Bauer and thinks his asking price is ridiculous and that he is over rated? Great partial year in 2020, but 2 - 5 and an era of 6.39 in 2019 with the Reds. 75 64 3.90 for nine years! This is not a HOF pitcher and chasing him leaves a big financial headache.

I like this rule and wish there was more ways to let minor leaguers go to organizations where they might prosper. I always hate to see prospects held back when they are ready to play or because their position is clogged.