mikelink45

Nice article, great start. But series one, 159 games to go. I really hope these trends continue. Two weeks is what I need to feel like we can really analyze. My only quick reaction is to Buxton. Too many ks. Where is the sense of fun and relaxation that he needs. I hope it comes in the next series.

I understand that. My statement is not about his value, but the need for the team to justify his inclusion on a very short bench. We cannot just keep, pay and hide players. We are already doing that with Haley. But Santana has to either show the management is right or the TD readers are right. There is no value otherwise. I would not have kept him, but they did so they have to play him.

That is true to us, but obviously not to the team so they either need to play him and show his worth or cut him and move on. We are hiding Haley because he is Rule 5. What is the value of hiding Santana?

I understand what you are saying, but the Twins leadership does not share that opinion so they are obligated to justify their choice and play him or cut him. The bench is too short to just hide him.

If they keep players they have to use them. I would have preferred Park, but they wanted Santana and he is of no value if he never gets on the field.

I cannot judge the lineup or the roster at this point. A couple weeks have to pass to see any trends. Its fun to have real games now, but I cannot speculate. I need to see what Park does in MILB, how Buxton performs or does not, how Grossman holds up his OBP, if Mauer does anything. This year is truly a puzzle to me and has been since they finalized their 25.

TR drafted relief pitchers to turn them in to starters. Now the FO wants to take the starting pitching and turn them into relievers. Who is going to start for us in the future?

One game - we can not really over analyze it, but the fact is fans needed this as much as the Twins players did. The sense of doom can be put aside for a few days and we can celebrate the fact that in 2017 we will have been above .500 during the season!

Interesting story lines, but not sure how much of a boost this team will give the MLB club. How will they be coached and how will the opportunities be delivered to this mostly young club? We seem to have a good number of bats and no opportunity in MLB despite being a 103 loss team.

This is a puzzle that leaves me very confused. Considering the players and their abilities and injuries I expect Park to be there. I do not see April with its lighter schedule being the time to have so many pitchers, and all spring we heard about Mauer getting more rest. Now I am thinking that April 15 is when we will see the real Twins roster - not now. So it depends upon injuries, how Vargas does in AAA and if Park still is slugging in the minors. Trying to explore the injury rates in MLB April is the month of the most injuries https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21709023 so highest likelihood of call ups until roster expands in September. For a look at the costs of injuries I found this to be a very interesting report - http://www.mdedge.com/amjorthopedics/article/106556/sports-medicine/injury-trends-major-league-baseball-over-18-seasons If Mauer or Grossman or one of the outfielders gets injured Park and Vargas will be up quickly, if not I fear Vargas will linger in the minors and eventually move on.

I think his learning curve is steep and he will have a lot of struggles this year, but still hit 240 with 25 home runs and the second half will outshine the first if they are patient with him.

I am going for 300. He legs out hits, cuts down on strike outs, and pounds 20 home runs and steals 40 bases. I like him to break out big.

Without the contract how would we be looking at Hughes? I saw some expensive players jettisoned by other teams this spring, but I know the Twins cannot do that. I hope Hughes turns it around, but right now it does not feel like it.

I think he continues with the same average and production that he has had in the past. He is not going to have a big peak or a low point. If the phrase - he is what he is - applies to anyone, it is Rosario. No big peaks and valleys. If you like what he has give good, if not, he is not goint to be anything else.

I would add that when a player switches Nations, switches languages, go through a tough first year, gets run through wavers and dropped from the 40 man, and then works his tail off to correct his flaws and comes in to show the team he is ready it had to be apparent to the team, but obviously not the bosses. This is deflating and bad for morale.

Well they did give us a fun conversation list and it is still two days until April 1!!! Danny Santana and Molitor obviously have a good relationship and it clouds the overall decisions. I really thought Park had earned his place. If we are waiting for something I do not know what it is. He is not a young player and this should be his peak age. I would have preferred to keep him and then if he fails send him out, but we invested, believed and waited. We should give him his trial in the spring MLB. All we stood to lose was Santana. The question I have with Grossman is whether last year was a career year or has he really turned the corner? His .280 batting average was far over his career figures and continued exposure could have him reverting to norm. We really have a 12 pitcher staff if I am reading this right. It appears that we are burying Haley and will let him pitch some non-stress innings so we can keep him. Not sure why. When I look at the MiLB rosters we have plenty of pitchers with the same or better potential. I guess I am going to assume that we will play Mauer for a week or two and then call up someone who is more agile at first than Robbie Grossman. I do fear that Hughes is going to be a big let down and maybe we will have Duffey moving into that rotation spot as we find various injuries to justify setting the vet.

I would say his consistency from beginning to MLB is amazing so why stray from what he has been doing. I say that he hits the same as last year, but with more at bats he gets a few more home runs. Hopefully the one thing that changes is his fielding and I think it will improve but remain below replacement.

Nothing this spring gives the FO a worst grade than the bullpen. Haley, Belisle, Breslow! Is this analytics? As Haley and Beslow struggled it was still apparent they would stay which is similar to the old TR regime. If we sign them they stay on the roster because otherwise we would not look good. Tell me that we have not spent the last three years talking about all the relievers in the system to just be at this place in roster construction. I understand that good teams roll with vets, we are not a good team and the vets are not good vets. If we put our bullpen up for auction amongst the rest of mlb would we get back the value of their low contracts? I am trying to figure out the music that will accompany them when they stroll to the mound. I think the Beatles "Help!" might be needed or the Isley Brothers - "Here we go again", or Kris Kristofersons' "Why me Lord?"

I love his potential, I hate his K rate. At his current rate we can say that he gives up a high percentage of his at bats. Does this really increase his home runs or does it just reduce batting average and create more pressure for the other batters because they have to play with less outs for moving batters, sacrifice flies and other options. When I look at Cabrera and Ortiz I see K rates half of Sano. Someone has to reach him. The habit of striking out is hard to break as he goes along, but the potential he has to make things happen when he either makes contact or walk is significant. I am hoping ST is just empty stats, but I am concerned. So I give him a 240 BA, 30 HRs when he should have 40. I hope to be proven wrong, but Sano will decide. As for defense, I have nothing to judge it by. He has been here two years and we did not see enough at 3B to know.

This bullpen gives me no confidence. I like Taylor Rogers, young, good stuff, potential. I do not like Breslow, old, experienced, changing his arm angle, but that is not enough. Pressly has the stuff, but can he be consistent? Not what I want in the back of the rotation yet. Hopefully Kintzler is not a one year - career year - bust - fingers crossed. Do we have a top 100 relief pitcher? I have seen the top 30 rankings and I know we are not there. In this fantasy rating we are not in the top 40 http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/february-rankings-relievers/#more-93771 I know fantasy rankings are never the go to for stats, but I am looking for lists and in this one Kintzler is 37 and no one else makes the top 117 (except ex-Twin Liam Hendricks). https://www.fantasypros.com/mlb/rankings/rp.php I do not know anything about Roster Resource, but I know we are not in their top 50 http://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-relief-pitcher-rankings/ I know that we talk about trades from the Twins Roster, but who would want to trade for what we have? Who really looks good to someone outside of Minnesota?

When you do not change the roster significantly it will be the coaching and player maturity that will be the difference. The analytics will be how Molitor and his coaches change their use of their players. Grossman can only be DH and PH if we value defense at all.

Those are some really depressing numbers for defense. I can see Buxton pulling them up, hopefully Castro, but we have a long way to go here.

Brian Dozier is at about peak age for ball players. This year and the next are when I expect the most so unlike most I am not predicting regression. I think 42 is a lot of HRs so I will back up to 35, but I think he gets on more with a 280 average and 35 doubles. His RBIs depend on where he is in the lineup, but I think the lineup is getting stronger from top to bottom except Catcher so I see him holding his RBIs in the 100 range.

The big question for me on the rotation is Phil Hughes. After his last performance I would say that he is showing no progress. I know spring training is for working on things, but in his case he should be working on being a high rotation starter again and what I am seeing is the HR ball and no put away. Somehow I envision he and Tonkins teaming up on his starts and setting a new record for HRs by the opposition. Since I cannot see the games and rely on TD and other sources plus the box scores I have to dig to understand. Here is an interesting set of comparisons: Year W L ERA G GS SV IP SO WHIP 2017 Spring Training Stats 1 2 6.55 6 6 0 22.0 12 1.59 Spring Training Career Stats* 9 9 4.47 52 40 1 179.1 126 1.36 2016 Stats 1 7 5.95 12 11 0 59.0 34 1.51 MLB Career Stats 84 76 4.41 253 200 3 1204.2 970 1.29 These are from http://m.mlb.com/player/461833/phil-hughes What I find interesting is the comparison between spring 2017 and his long record of ST experiences. An era that is 2 above his average is startling. A whip that is .20 above average for a control pitcher is unnerving. He is a ten year MLB vet. After a very bad injury plagued year this is far from a good sign for the team when he is expected to be one of the top three in the rotation.

I am not able to project Mauer's hitting for 2017. I do not think he will improve except as Molitor removes him from games where he is destined to fail. So I went crazy trying to see how players decline and learned a lot. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/hitters-no-longer-peak-only-decline/ has a key statement - In the past few seasons, hitters no longer improve once they arrive in the majors. Instead, their performance is constant until they begin to decline, which, on average, is at 26 years old. (This is an reminder of why players like Vargas need to play now if we want to maximize their potential.) Since Mauer strained his body by being a catcher I looked at the aging curve for catchers - http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/catcher-aging-is-a-curve-not-a-cliff/ which has an interesting insight - As we can see, peak offensive levels are from 25 to 28, as is pretty commonly accepted, and then there’s a gradual decline as a player gets beyond those years. But notice the trend of the blue line (catchers) compared to all position players (the red line); they move basically in lock-step from 27 to 32, after which point catchers actually age better than the norms for non-catchers. And - Good 34 year olds don’t regularly become bad 35 year olds. In general, you should expect players to decline at something like +0.5 per season. If they’re especially injury prone and their bodies are breaking down, limiting future playing time, maybe you knock off +0.75 WAR per season. The next site I looked at said - hough he's not part of the study, it's worth pointing out that the decline outlined in the above graphs applies to Pujols. His 9.4 WAR in his age-29 season in 2009 was the highest of his career, but since then, his WAR totals have been trending in the wrong direction. He had a 7.3 WAR at age 30, a 5.1 WAR at age 31 and a 4.6 WAR this past season at age 32. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1539301-putting-mlb-aging-theories-to-the-test-on-star-players This next piece seems to indicate that players decline, but flatten for a period in the thirties http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/catcher-aging-curves-in-the-mainstream/ the relative production from 32-35 is pretty stable, and as others have shown, framing skills seem mostly immune to aging. So, while the downturn in aging curves might be bad news for a 32 year old catcher. Of course Mauer is not a catcher so his pitch framing and other catching skills cannot overcome his physical decline (but give hope for Castro). But Mauer also had a concussion - "Recent work, however, has called into question the assertion that full recovery after sport concussion without persistent adverse effects is the norm." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3685434/ And lastly another site may apply to Joe - ""Although players who sustain a concussion may be symptom-free and cleared by MLB [Major League Baseball] protocol to return to play, the residual effects of concussion on the complex motor skills required for batting may still be a problem," said principal investigator Dr. Jeffrey Bazarian, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester in New York." http://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20141126/harm-from-baseball-concussions-may-linger-study-finds With that in mind I think we cannot expect upswings from Joe at this stage, but we should understand that this great players has many factors leading to his current production.