Richie the Rally Goat

Because of other Labor Day shenanigans, I wasn't able to watch any of today's Twins-Tigers game, but listened to the opening innings. As if oft my wont, I had the opposition's broadcast chosen so I got to hear the Tigers' radio guys demonstrate their love for the Minnesota Twins. One of the most valuable things about listening to opposing teams' broadcasts this season is to hear the amount of respect this Twins team has around the league. But one thing struck me as perhaps going a bit too far, and that was a comment that the Twins were like the Astros in terms of being able to provide an analytical improvement to a pitcher. They were specifically talking about Jake Odorizzi and commenting on how the Twins had made him a better pitcher by having him throw his fastball more often and higher in the zone. This was compared to what the Astros have done with pitcher such as our old friend Ryan Pressly.
 
As I said, this caught my ears unawares because I often think of this as one of the Twins' areas of need, as they (and it was this front office group) who let Pressly go and have watched him thrive in Houston. But I wanted to give it a look to see if there is anything to the idea that Odorizzi has changed his approach since coming from the Rays.
 
First some basic statistic conversation about Odorizzi's value. In his 4+ years with the Rays (2013-2017 with 2013 being very limited), Odorizzi earned an ERA+ of 103, a FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) of 4.22 and earned 8.2 bWAR. In his two years thus far with the Twins, that compares to an ERA+ of 108, a FIP of 3.96 and a bWAR of 4.5. The majority of this value has come in 2019 as his ERA+ is 128. This compares to his Rays high of 117 in 2015. So 2019 has been the best year of his career, but 2018 was not: in fact, his first year with the Twins saw an ERA+ of 95. So the first thing to say is that if the Twins have done something special with him, it was not until this year.
 
Then I began to dig into pitch distribution, as the Tigers' radio team suggested. This year, according to Statcast, Odorizzi has thrown 56.4% 4-seam fastballs, 19.1% cutters, 17.1% splitters, and 7.4% curveballs. This IS the highest percentage of 4-seamers since his first two years in the league, but the trend has been consistently upward since a low of 31.1% in 2016, before he became a Twin. The splitter and curveball have not changed significantly. The big change, according to the way Statcast charts these pitches, is in this: in 2019, Odorizzi has not thrown a slider, a pitch he threw 21% of the time in 2018 which was the highest percentage of his career. He has swapped that pitch for a huge increase in his use of a cutter, at 19.1% in 2019 from a low of 2.4% in 2018 and surpassing the previous career high of 12.4% in his previous career year of 2015.
 
So, based on comparing pitch usage in 2019 to 2018 (a down year) and 2015 (his previous career year) it would seem that the consistent pattern for good Odorizzi is: throw more cutters, scrap the slider, and keep the 4-seamer going. Perhaps, given some strangeness in the data and the fungibleness of these definitions, the same pitch that used to register as a slider is now reading as a cutter. But either way, the change in that pitch seems to be the change that connects Odorizzi's quality 2019 to 2015.

“Baseball is a relative sport.”

By nature we often remember the really good or really bad things, and not the okay or decent things that someone does. I bet you can vividly remember the last time you won an award, but perhaps not the last time you went to the grocery store, or who your 10th grade history teacher was.
 
It’s a core principle to how memories are formed. Those that stand out are often fueled by the emotional context the situation derives from.
 
Say me for instance, I remember when Adrian Peterson nearly clipped the 2,100 yards or when Jason Zucker beat the Blackhawks in 2013, and conversely when Blair Walsh's epic failure from 27. These were momentous occasions to me personally, and culminated milestones of jubilee and heartbreak with lots and lots of backstory.
 
Why is that such an important thing to consider when discussing the plight to Jose Berrios? It’s these disaster moments to fans in a season, where we can get way over our heads and make truly outrageous statements, and during the offseason in retrospect be like ---”Did I actually say that?”
 
He began the season on a pristine pinnacle. Logistically, Jose was exerting his mechanical best in how he was driving through his hips along with his delivery, and keeping his hands back in sync with driving those hips, which was a bad tendency he would commit in his youth.
 
 
 
 
 



You can in the video how the different the glove placement is imperative to gaining that 2 to 3 ticks in velocity to the plate. In hardcore pitching circles they call this the kinetic chain, where the components of one’s mechanics are at an equilibrium, where the joints are in a symphonic harmony, making it all a simplistic, clean, and efficiently repeatable delivery.
 
And Berrios looked really good. He proved with the results to bear, and added a new wrinkle into that much anticipated pitch mix, the changeup. In that 2019 opening unveiling we saw the changeup being fruitfully showcased 12.5% of the time, more than his total the previous season (9.1%) and the cumulative average during his very short career (10.7%).
 
He wasn’t deliberately delaying his arm speed, and everything in that start was sublime. Pristine. You could say Berrios was perhaps an “ACE” in that start had things not turned sideways and pearshaped just a handful of months later.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------TD--------------------------------------------------------------
 
Now fast-forward to today. Fresh or perhaps rotten from that second consecutive all-star appearance, Jose Berrios is showcasing his most agonizing and problematic struggle points of his career. He’s been hittable, hit very hard with declining velocity, and to boot; seemingly single-handedly taking baseball’s 3rd best offense (in wOBA and wRC+; .348 and 115 respectively) out of critically important games.
 
What’s even more frightening? That the strength of the opposition over the past 4 games has sported a 91 wRC+, with 100 being league average. He’s struggling mightily against bad opponents, compounded with the fact that they shouldn’t be hitting him this hard, period.
 
So far, we as all seperate pitching expert entities haven’t found the culprit to what hindering subset of pitching statistics is responsible for pruning our Johan of today, devoid of the attributes that made us reminisce of Johan, the great killer of men, sheep, and those brave enough to step into the battered boxes of right and left.
 
But jokes aside, what’s really been the inhibitor to Jose’s velocity and coincidentally his release point since his dynamic beginning?
 
Let’s zoom into one of his particular starts, this one against the Indians on June 6th as the start to our inquiry.
 
In that one start, Berrios didn’t feature the curveball that we have become expected of. He would throw a whopping 25.4% changeup, nearly double his career-total and triple his season percentage to that point. But something interesting of note lied in that changeup subgrouping.
 
In that start he would throw 27 changeups of his entire 107 pitches in those 6 strong innings. Only one ball was hit harder than 85mph, and here’s a mapping of those pitch velocities with their extensions metrics.
 
 
 
 
 



Notice anything weird? For a guy throwing from an average release point of 6.5ft away from the pitching rubber, the extensions point were remarkably scattered and the changeup release points also dropped, along with the average pitch velocity.
 
Increasing extension would typically incite would velocity, (Josh Hader’s extension would come in mind) and it’s a very peculiar trend into Jose’s portfolio.
 
If we critically analyze even more into Jose’s pitching approach, we wouldn't have anything particularly striking about his movements.
 
Berrios has a unique windup, something of another other beast where he utilizes his windup as a vehicle to increase the movement and velocity of his pitches. Whereas others use their windup as a balancing point or to find their zen, Berrios uses his windup like a stress ball where he curled himself into a ball, and breaks out of the ball in smooth rhythm to swing his front side and lurch the back end, and launch the pitch.
 
Looking at the progress he’s made since his debut, where his arms and legs need a lot of refinements, he’s made noticeable and encouraging strides. When he was young he would treat his arms and legs as separate mechanism, and he now manages to keep his core in rhythm and not out of motion with his elbows, knees, and front stridding foot.
 
So nothing abundantly different with the windup, and not that much difference in the general technique with his hand placement, etc.
 
Berrios, technically speaking hasn't changed anything with the conducting of his delivery, until Glen Perkins spoke about it during Jose’s latest start. I’m paraphrasing what Roy Smalley said during the game, but here’s what he said:
 
“This is what Glen Perkins was talking about in the pregame shows, where (Jose) coils up and then has to uncoil and gets way spun around and his arm either lags or he’s gotta really rush to catch up, and that’s what happens when you spike that curveball….. And just you’ve opened up way to quickly and your arm just whips around.”
 
“They are trying to get (Jose) to alter his mechanics a little bit, but he’s very rotational and he gets really turned around and can’t get his arm back through, so when his hips come way around behind him he coils up, and his arm has to speed up to catch up. That’s why you see so many fastballs up and into lefthanders, and spiked breaking balls.”
 
 
 
 
 



You can see that his windup is almost, where he isn’t riding with the energy generated by his windup as much and through that back heel, that the great Parker Hagemen discussed during the offseason as a foundation through building and sustaining velocity. We can see the locked back leg not pulling through, anchored and dragging his weight in a counterproductive direction. It’s slinging and stopping, preventing him from riding through that back leg and pulling in his follow through. It’s a sign of stress and unease to rip through, as young pitching are taught today to rip through with elastic bands at data driven developmental programs. You can see the lazy back leg grappling with the front side and the glove holstered to his side, almost as if he’s more location conscious then ripping the back leg through for the additional ticks of velocity he needs to be at his best.
 
This looks more like a fatigue and midseason swoon related dilemma than a mechanics dead-gone disaster, but the velocity problems and mechanical technique are very much redeemable.
 
 
 
 
 
 

-----------------------------------------------------------TD--------------------------------------------------------------

Additionally I wanted to dive into more of what’s causing the lower arm slot, and perhaps an aggravator of the lower velocity readings and the dropping of the arm slots.
 
 
 
 
 



This graphic below shows the release points of all of Jose’s pitches horizontally since the beginning of the season. I postulated the changeup he’s been throwing has played role in why the release point has waned lately, so I consulted with two acute baseball minds to at least minimally come to a conclusion.
 
 
 
 
 
 


Through some research and conspiracy thinking, changeups might play a part in cannibalizing fastball velocity. Now take with a grain of salt, but changeup reduces fastball velocity for youth pitchers, and Paul Nyman theorized that an intentionally manipulated change for sink and drop would lead to fastball velocity dropping.
 
Coupled with the fact that Jose played with the changeup in the Cleveland start I spoke of, and that his deviation of his velocities are so wide, maybe the changeup is playing with his repetiore and his mehanics. It’s certainly cause for concern given that the more he’s thrown his changeup the more his velocity as dropped.
 
So I talked with Bill Hetzel, Manager of Mechanical Analysis at Driveline and Analysis, and former pitching coach and Michael O’Neal, former pro-ball pitcher and Driveline pitching trainer, and now SIUE baseball assistant coach about the changeup possibly curtailing Jose’s potential.
 
ME: Hey Guys. I was recently diving into a pitcher (Jose Berrios), and just wanted to ask that if….. say a righthander where to increasingly lower their arm slot, which just so happened to coincide with an increase in spin rate and decrease in velocity, would you say an increase to using a changeup could be a detriment of this?
 
I look at some of the side effects of short-arming a changeup (like slinging from the side) and couldn’t find anything, but I did however find that Jose’s changeup spin rate has increased. Do you think that a lowering of the arm slot on a changeup and an increase in spin could lead to decreased velocity? Or perhaps the lowering of arm slot could increase spin in general?
 
Michael (Former MLB Player); It depends on the guy, but lowering the arm slot would help to create more sidespin on a changeup, which also would increase horizontal movement on the pitch. Jose’s arm slot might also be more natural for him which could be an increase in spin rate.
 
Bill (Driveline Pitching Analysis Expert); Unfortunately you can’t (increase spin on arm slot) when it comes to increasing spin rate. Raw spin rate that is, there is not anything definitive that has been found to increase it outside of the use of foreign substance.
 
Michael (Former MLB Player); Me personally, I have the same tendency when I try to “get on top” of my fastball. I laterally trunk-tilt more causing a higher arm slot. This also negatively impacts my spin rate. When I stay taller and don’t tilt so much (unlike what Jose has been doing), my spin rate increases and also causes my arm slot/release point to be lower on the Z axis.
 
Bill (Driveline Pitching Analysis Expert); Now increasing true spin is different. Pitchers increase true spin all the time by improving spin efficiency. In terms of a change up you ideally and in most cases want to kill or decrease spin. Most changeups, whether it is a circle change or a split type change are trying to kill total spin, kill lift on the pitch to create separation from the heater and kill velocity. I would have to look at Berrios’ pitch metrics to really tell you anything in regards to arm slot changes or spin total changes. Traditionally a change up is predominantly side spin. The spin direction or spin axis for a righty usually needs to shift in the direction of 3:00. Sometimes pitchers won’t have a good feel for how to do that so they will manipulate theirs arm action or arm slot to try to get there instead of pronating the pitch more to create that side spin. In the case of Berrios and knowing how exceptionally good Wes Johnson is with utilizing Trackman data, I’m sure Wes has him trending in the correct direction at the very least.
 
Michael (Former MLB Player); (It) Depends. A laggy arm could be possible, BUT better changeups have a fast arm speed. Also though, his changeup could play close to the 2 seam fastball, so hows his usage on the 2 seam changed?
 
So that was the end to this conversation and the article. I hope you enjoyed. As far as what I would expect the Twins to do, we saw earlier in the season when Michael Pineda’s velocity was hitting a rough patch so they placed on the DL. I could conceivably see Rocco buying some time by giving the duo of Lewis Thorpe and Devin Smeltzer a start against the lowly White Sox and Tiger on this coming road trip, and perhaps recharge the rotation (Gibson and Odorizzi velocity has been down lately). Wes Johnson in the splendid piece by Dan Hayes of the Athletic during a makeup interview of his sudden unavailability, said something of significance.
 
“We’re getting him back on his heel and trying to get him to rotate, get his chest velocity back up,” Johnson said. “It’s not just to get José to survive. We want more of the start against Chicago that he had when he was 94 mph and was dominant. Or even you go to the Miami start when his velocity was down a little bit. The pitch execution was through the roof for seven innings.
 
“Our focus isn’t to find a way just to get this guy through. We have to try to get him better every time he goes out.”
 
Which again corroborates with what Wes has done with biomechanics velocity induction. If you want to read more, I would encourage you to read this.
 
Please Follow me @Sabir

Biceps Tendinitis in Pitchers Q&A
Heezy1323
 
 
A request was made by a poster for me to write a blog covering biceps tendinitis. This is actually a fairly complicated topic with quite a bit of controversy, but I’ll do my best to share some basic info that hopefully TD peeps will find interesting. There are some technical parts, so apologies for that, but I do think a basic understanding of the anatomy is helpful.
 
Question 1: What is the biceps, exactly?
 
The biceps is a muscle that we are likely all familiar with, lying in the front of the upper arm and used to perform curls and similar exercises. The word ‘biceps’ has a Latin origin meaning ‘two heads’. This describes the upper (or proximal) end of the biceps where there are two tendon attachments.
 
The first is the long head of the biceps which attaches to the labrum at the top of the socket in the shoulder. It then curves over the top of the ball (humeral head) where it exits the shoulder joint and begins its course down the front of the upper arm bone (humerus). At the front of the shoulder joint, it travels through what is called the ‘bicipital groove’ which is an area of the bone of the humerus between two bumps (called tuberosities). This groove is often the site of issues in pitchers (more on this below).
 


 
The second is the short head of the biceps, which originates from a bony projection off the shoulder blade in the front of your shoulder called the coracoid. It travels straight from here to meet up with the long head of the biceps in the upper 1/3 of the arm. There, the tendons join and form the biceps muscle.
 
 
Below this (distally), the muscle turns back into a tendon just above the elbow and a single tendon then travels down to one of the bones of your forearm (called the radius) where it attaches at a bony prominence called the radial tuberosity.


 
Question 2: How is this tendon involved in throwing?
 
This is a great question, and a subject of much debate amongst experts. The short head of the biceps likely has a relatively insignificant role in throwing. The long head (which is the one that attaches inside the shoulder joint) is much more involved in the throwing motion. When throwing at MLB speeds, the shoulder rotates at 7000 degrees per second, which is the fastest known human motion. One can imagine the stress this places on the structures that surround the shoulder.
 
Without delving into the weeds too much, it seems as though the biceps has a role in position sense of the shoulder during throwing, likely a role in stability of the shoulder joint and also helps slow down the arm after ball release.
 
At the other end of the tendon (distal), the elbow changes rapidly from a bent position to a straight position as the ball is released during a throw. In order to keep the bones of the elbow from jamming into each other at a high speed, the biceps muscle fires to slow down this elbow straightening (what we call an eccentric contraction). This allows some of the force of throwing to be dissipated by the muscle (kind of like a shock absorber).
If it seems like that is a lot of jobs for a small tendon/muscle- it’s because it is…
 
Question 3: What happens when someone gets biceps tendinitis?
 
Tendinitis is a fairly broad term and can mean a number of different things depending on the context. With respect to the biceps, a thrower can develop issues at either the upper (proximal) or lower (distal) end of the biceps. The suffix -itis means inflammation, so the general thought is that there is inflammation that develops in or around the tendon.
 
The reasons ‘why’ are heavily debated, but generally there is probably some combination of overuse/fatigue and altered mechanics or muscle imbalances that contribute. It takes a tremendous amount of efficiency of motion and coordination of muscle movements to throw a baseball in excess of 90mph, and any small abnormality can easily be compounded by the sheer number of repetitions and intensity of a typical pitcher. Over time, this can add up to cause damage to the tendon and result in inflammation and pain.
 
Arthroscopic image of normal biceps tendon (left) and inflamed biceps (right)


 
Question 4: How does the player/medical staff separate this injury from other issues that can seem very similar?
 
This can be VERY difficult. Often the player will have pain at the front of the shoulder (in cases of proximal biceps tendinitis) or just above the elbow (in distal cases). A thorough history and exam is performed in order to hone in on the likely problem area.
 
An MRI is ordered in some cases. One of the challenges with this type of issue is that in many cases, an MRI of a pitcher already has some abnormalities on it which are likely adaptive and have been present for a long time (and are not the actual cause of pain). In addition, in many cases the inflammation around the bicep isn’t something that can be clearly seen on MRI. So interpreting imaging studies can be a significant challenge.
 
Usually the exam is (in my experience) the most helpful thing in recognizing biceps tendinitis when it is present. The athlete is usually tender right in the area of the tendon, which is a helpful finding.
 
Question 5: Once a pitcher is diagnosed with biceps tendinitis, how are they treated?
 
Again, there are a lot of variables here. But presuming it is significant enough to affect the performance of the pitcher, they would typically be shut down for a period of time to prevent worsening of the condition. Anti-inflammatory medication may be used. In some cases, injections of cortisone are used to try and decrease the inflammation.
 
With the recent increases in the use of technology, video may be consulted to see if there have been subtle mechanical changes which may have contributed to the issue. Muscle strength can also be tested in various areas around the shoulder to see if weakness is contributing.
 
In essentially all cases, a rehab program will begin that is likely to include strength and flexibility components. When the pain has subsided, a return to throwing program is begun and once complete, the athlete can return to play.
A group out of Mayo Clinic (led by Dr. Chris Camp) recently did a study of pro baseball players (minor and major league) and causes of injury over a several year period. Tendinitis of the proximal biceps was actually the #4 cause of injury with an average return to play time of about 22 days.
 
Question 6: Is surgery ever needed?
 
It is quite uncommon for surgery to be needed for this issue. In fact, in Dr. Camp’s study above surgery was only required in 3% of cases of proximal biceps tendinitis. So clearly most of these cases improve with non-surgical treatment. In addition, surgery for this particular issue has a fairly poor track record and is avoided if at all possible.
 
Question 7: What can be done to prevent biceps tendinitis?
 
Great question, reader. If I knew the answer, we could likely both be millionaires given how common this injury is and the dollar figures involved when a high-priced starter or reliever is on the shelf for this reason.
 
Generally, I believe monitoring the workload of pitchers through the season, doing what you can to ensure they maintain a good off-season program and having a good line of communication with the players are all important. As video analysis and other analytic measures become more popular, my hope is that they can be incorporated into injury prevention as well.
 
Thanks for humoring me on this complex topic. Please feel free to add a request for a future subject in the comments. GO TWINS!!

I attended dozens of Twins games every year in the mid-90's as a kid. I sat through lineups composed of Otis Nixon, Butch Huskey, Midre Cummings and Rich Becker. I watched rotations that featured Scott Aldred, Bob Tewksbury and Rich Robertson.
 
Then, the 2000's happened. On one hand, it was very fun to see the Twins consistently contend for the playoffs and win 85-95 games every year. But the team never went out and traded for that one missing piece that would get them over the top and make them legitimate World Series contenders.
 
In the Metrodome years, it was understandable that they would be hesitant to take on contracts like those. The revenue streams were not there to support a $125 million payroll. Fine, so be it.
 
Then Target Field opened and fans were treated to what seemed to be a magical 2010 season. They had everything but a true #1 starter. Rumors flew around at the deadline, with names like Cliff Lee being floated as possibilities for the team to acquire at the deadline. We got Matt Capps, and were promptly swept by the Yankees in the first round.
 
Then, this time as a season ticket holder, I got to watch such studs as Darin Mastroianni, Chris Parmelee and Doug Bernier at the plate, while Mike Pelfrey, Sam Deduno and Scott Diamond "pitched" during the 2011-2018 seasons.
 
Meanwhile, the Twins raked in the money with revenue from the new ballpark and a new TV contract.
 
So forgive me if my patience has worn thin, and I am not content to just "enjoy the ride." I have been a loyal, money-paying, tv-watching, jersey-wearing fan for 35 years. It's time for the ownership to reward me, and the others who have been through the same thing, by unlocking the money bin and making some serious moves to become an actual World Series contender, not just a division crown contender.
 
I think the Twins need upgrades in the rotation and the bullpen. The team has the money and the prospects to get it done, right now. I personally don't give a crap if Trevor Larnach turns out to be a 10 time all star after he is traded if he brings back a player that can help the team win right now. Think of Shields/Davis coming to the Royals for Wil Meyers. Do any Royals fans really care if Meyers becomes a Hall of Famer after they traded him? I doubt it.
 
Don't think Madison Bumgarner is an upgrade over Kyle Gibson? Great. I can respectfully disagree with your opinion. However, calling fans who would like a trade "barbarians" (as Reusse did today) or talking down to people who aren't content to stand pat and see what happens, is just so frustrating.
 
It's great if you are fine to let the Pohlads rake in the dough and try to back their way into titles, that's your prerogative. I just think the narrative of fans who would like to see moves made being idiots, or bad fans, is growing tiresome.
 
Despite what Patrick Reusse, Jim Souhan or even commenters here might say, I personally think it's okay for fans to want more. We have waited long enough, and some of us aren't content with division championships.

Edit to note: the tables are now fixed, I believe.
 
Fans, we are a demanding bunch! We want fixes now, and we want them cheap, so our favorite teams can do more fixing. I maybe spend too much time on Twins Daily, and I post a lot. That makes me wrong a lot……or maybe I’m just not all that good at this baseball thing, who knows. One of the main things being discussed right now is that the Twins should add some pitching, and I’ve been wondering just how realistic that is.
 
What does it cost to get pitching? What kind of pitchers are actually traded before the deadline? When are they traded?
 
Basically, in this series of blogs, I want to know what seems realistic in terms of trades, because I’d rather be informed when posting than not. Because baseball seems to have changed, I’ll be using data from 2013 on.
First up in the analysis? So, how soon can we realistically expect trades in MLB?
 
We’ll be looking at trades in June and July to see when players change hands, and the kinds of players that change teams. Given that the August deadline has gone away, we will be ignoring those trades, which admittedly may or may not change how one views the analysis…….
 
June 1-15
 
There isn’t much action in the first two weeks of June involving major league players.
 
[table]


Year
Number of Trades
MLB Pitchers
MLB HItters
Impact Trades


2013
2
1
1
0


2014
1
0
1
1*


2015
3
3
2
1


2016
2
0
3
1


2017
2
1
1
1


2018
1
0
1
1


2019
2
1
2
1


Total[td15][/td]

6
11
6
[/table]
 
The MLB hitter and pitcher columns show the number of major league players involved. Impact trades could be either the major league player was good the year of the deal and/or after the deal, or one or more the minor league players is/was. Good is subjective, but I’m going for more than 1 fWAR in any given year as the litmus test.
 
Not surprisingly, there just aren’t that many trades in the first half of June. Teams aren’t sure if they are in or out of the race, and those that are sure aren’t certain what they really need yet. More importantly, most articles and analyses on the internet indicate that teams wait until later to deal, in hopes of having more leverage (and getting a better deal). This aligns well with options theory, but we’ll have to do more analysis to see if waiting works or not.
 
*In 2014, Manny Pina was traded. He was not a major league player at the time, so he doesn’t appear in the table above. But, he was pretty good for Milwaukee in 2017 and 2018.
 
Mark Trumbo was part of a deal in 2015. He put up decent numbers after the trade, then a good season in the next year. Now? Not so much. But, he put up half a fWAR after the deal, and 2.2 in 2016. The other side of that deal? Welington Castillo went to Arizona. He was good that year, and in 2016 and 2017. Luckily for Twins fans, he’s not been as good in Chicago! Dominic Leone also went to AZ. He had one good year, but it wasn’t for them…..
 
Chris Coghlan was traded in 2016, back to the Cubs. He put up .9 fWAR after the deal, but was hitless in 9 post season at bats. He fell off a cliff after that year. The player traded for him played parts of two seasons, and has bounced around the minors.
 
2017 saw a name that might be in trade talks again in 2019 move in early June….Sam Dyson. He and cash were dealt for a player that is currently 26 and in AAA. Dyson has been good, but not great, though this year he has put up .5 fWAR in half a season. His traditional numbers are more impressive, probably, than his WAR would show…..Why was he so cheap? He was awful in Texas. Did his current team fix something, or is it the park/league?
 
Last year? One reason C. J. Cron was available this off season is that Tampa traded for Ji-Man Choi in early June of 2018. They got him for cash and Brad Miller. I bet Milwaukee would like to have that trade back…….
 
Edwin Encarcion was recently traded for a minor leaguer, but mostly because the Yankees absorbed a good chunk of EE’s salary. The Mariners are all in on the all-important financial flexibility thing right now….
 
I’m actually surprised that six years in a row there were some impactful major league players traded. Now, not one of those had been consistently good, but it does show that some good players move in early June. Not many of those were pitchers, btw.
 
 
June 16-30
 
[table]


Year
Number of Trades
MLB Pitchers
MLB HItters
Impact Trades


2013
5
0
5
3


2014
2
2
1
1


2015
3
1*
2
0


2016
3
1
2
1


2017
3
0
4
0


2018
2
0
2
1


2019
0
0
0
0


Total
18
[4
16
6
[/table]
 
In 2013, Colin McHugh was traded (not to the Astros) and he became quite good with the Astros. But, it was not an impactful deal for either team involved in the deal. He is an impactful player in the deal, so it counts. Eric Thames was also dealt that year, and put up a couple decent years after that. No one else in those five deals has done much, though Colin Cowgil managed to barely clear the 1 fWAR line in 2014…..so three impactful players were dealt that year!
 
2014 saw a rare pitcher for pitcher trade. One of them just cleared 1 fWAR the following year, but neither did anything much. Neither did the hitter traded that year. Really, calling 1 year of fWAR impactful seems like maybe too low a bar…….I’d call it almost useful for 1 year, but barely.
 
In 2015 AZ sent the injured *Bronson Arroyo and Touki Toussaint to Atlanta for a guy. Touki could be a real piece for Atlanta. This was clearly a salary dump situation, where Atlanta basically bought Toussaint for Arroyo’s contract. So far, though, he’s not produced even one half WAR, so maybe not.
 
Chris Paddack and Fernando Rodney were traded for each other (so maybe pitcher for pitcher trades aren't rare?) in 2016. This looks like a great trade for the Padres for sure. Rodney, of course, has been ok to effective after that but was terrible in Miami. I’m still trying to figure out what Miami was doing…..No other trade that year mattered, unless you still pine for Oswaldo Arcia….
 
There were no interesting trades in 2017 in the second half of June.
 
Steve Pearce was quite good last year for Boston. He was traded for an ok AA player. The other trade last year was not all that interesting.
 
This year? Well….there were zero trades in the second half of June.
 
So, the second half of June saw one really good player change hands, plus Steve Pearce who was quite good last year for Boston. Other than that, not many players/trades mattered all that much. It’s an odd coincidence that there were six trades that cleared the approximately 1 fWAR barrier in both parts of June, but it’s just a coincidence.
 
What did we learn?
 
That depends on what you already knew, I guess……But here’s a summary of what I learned!
 
Some good players have been traded in June. Most of those involved salary dumps, or odd decisions by poorly run teams (Miami, for example). There just are not many trades in June at all, and most of them amount to nothing much. It’s hard to criticize any team for not making deals before July, given this data. The best players were either picked up in salary dumps, or were near MLB ready minor league players (admittedly, those in the lower minors have not had a chance to do much yet. That said, in a quick glance, none look like big time prospects either).
 
In other words, I'm not surprised nothing has happened much this year, given what has happened in recent history.
 
In the next post, we’ll look at the first three weeks of July…..

Over the past decade, pitch framing has become a hot topic, not only in how we've begun to identify its value, but also in finding methods to quantify it, and coming to grips with its influence on the game. However, I contend that our focus has been far too narrow, and we must look beyond the catcher- in fact, past the backstop, into the stands, up to the media boxes, and directly at the role of play-by-play broadcaster. How the game's on-camera talent describe the action shapes our measurement of every pitch, even when most telecasts have live strike zone graphics present.
In this post, we'll be looking at the tendencies of long time Twins play-by-play broadcaster Dick Bremer, who has a very specific methodology: Since it sounds more impressive when a pitcher hits the corner of the strike zone, any and all parts of the strike zone and its immediate surroundings qualify as "The Corner", and will be described as such when the opportunity arises.
 
Our analysis will include video breakdowns of the 11 instances of the word 'corner' being used by Bremer during the Twins' April 17th game versus the Toronto Blue Jays. To quantify each pitch, we will use an Actual Corner Value (how close a pitch actually comes to a corner of the strike zone) as well as a Broadcaster Corner Value (how close the pitch comes to the corner, as perceived and presented by Dick Bremer).
 
Pitch #1: Bottom 2nd, 2 outs, 1-2
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118572113256833025
Pitcher: Aaron Sanchez
Throw: 96 mph fastball
Result: Strike 3
 
Dick's call: "On the outside corner, didn't waste it at all. Buried it on the outside corner."
 
Analysis: On a 1-2 pitch, Toronto pitcher Aaron Sanchez throws a 96 mph fastball at the outside edge of the plate, though it lands in the center third of the height of the zone with room to spare. Already, at this first sighting, we understand the challenge presented to Dick due to working on a television broadcast rather than radio, where pitch framing is sometimes less of an art and more the act of a used car salesman, free to invent whatever fiction will sell their desired narrative. Here, on TV, viewers can plainly see that this pitch is not on a corner. Dick, however, is unfazed, and reaches into his bag of tricks, declaring it on the corner not once, but TWICE - and not only stating its location, but insisting that it was BURIED there. This is the act of a seasoned professional, understanding that repetition and commitment are key to manipulating our perception, if not our very understanding of reality.
 
Actual Corner Value (ACV): 4/10
Broadcaster Corner Value (BCV): 10/10
Adjusted score: +6
 
Pitch #2: Bottom 3rd, 2 outs, 0-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118754724696641536
Pitcher: Aaron Sanchez
Throw: 96 mph fastball
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "Strike on the outside corner."
 
Analysis: Someday, electronic strike zones will lord over our game as unfeeling adjudicators, but until that day, they serve merely as proxy armchair quarterbacks - a tool we rely on as viewers to feel validated in our desire to maim and/or injure the home plate umpire for their imperfections. On this pitch, Fox Trax smugly refuses to fill in the outline of the ball's arrival point, declaring that this pitch was a ball and all those who disagree are filthy heretics.
 
How comforting it is, then, for Dick to step in and remind all of us that in the end, the strike zone is defined solely by what the umpire says it is, no matter how many cameras and scanners say otherwise. This pitch is not outside. It is on the corner. The umpire's corner.
 
ACV: 7/10
BCV: 8/10
Adjusted score: +1
 
Pitch #3: Top 4th, 1 out, 1-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118755023842729984
Pitcher: Kyle Gibson
Throw: 94 mph fastball
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "And now an outside corner fastball to even the count."
 
Analysis: Kyle Gibson started the 2017 season as someone fans understood to be roster filler, but ended it on an underappreciated upward trend. In 2018, he broke out with his best season to date and cemented his position at the front of the Twins rotation. Now, in 2019, he has started off somewhat shaky, with a suspect ERA and the need to make it deeper into ball games.
 
On this pitch, Dick has his pitcher's back, finding the corner where one does not exist. Catcher Mitch Garver positioned his glove exactly on the corner, and while Kyle missed his target high, he still found the edge and a called strike. For Dick, this is enough. He has earned approbation in the eyes of the telecast.
 
ACV: 5/10
BCV: 8/10
Adjusted score: +3
 
Pitch #4: Top 6th, 0 outs, 0-1
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118755338788851712
Pitcher: Kyle Gibson
Throw: 93 mph fastball
Result: Strike 2
 
Dick's Call: "On the outside corner with a fastball."
 
Analysis: Freddy Galvis must be listening to Dick through AirPods under that helmet, because his face says what we all know in our hearts: That was a meatball of a pitch, and Dick Bremer is a hero for carrying on the cause, however lost it may be.
 
ACV: 2/10
BCV: 7/10
Adjusted score: +5
 
Pitch #5: Top 6th, 2 outs, 0-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118755513288626176
Pitcher: Ryne Harper
Throw: 74 mph breaking ball
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "Breaking ball on the outside corner, strike one."
 
Analysis: Is this pitch actually in the corner of the strike zone? Yes! The arc of the baseball tucks itself into the furthest nook available to it. In times like these, where no deception is necessary, you might expect that Dick Bremer would bluster and harangue us with unfettered righteousness, knowing that there can be no doubt as to where the ball landed. However, Dick finds a gentle touch in his commentary, content to let the pitch speak for itself, a simple declaration of its corner-ness being satisfactory. It needs no help, and will be allowed to lift its own weight.
 
ACV: 9/10
BCV: 9/10
Adjusted score: 0
 
Pitch #6: Bottom 6th, 0 outs, 0-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118755746894639104
Pitcher: Aaron Sanchez
Throw: 94 mph fastball
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "Strike on the outside corner."
 
Analysis: A location extremely similar to pitch #2, though now delivered with an additional hint of defeat, as it arrives against the hot bat of Jorge Polanco. Immediately after listing his current bona fides, Polanco falls victim to the quantum state of the umpire's zone. While he was fooled, Dick was not, and he wearily sheds the burden he has carried throughout this pitch, allowing us all to taste from the tree of knowledge.
 
ACV: 9/10
BCV: 9/10
Adjusted score: 0
 
Pitch #7: Bottom 7th, 2 outs, 0-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118756058548170752
Pitcher: Thomas Pannone
Throw: 74 mph breaking ball
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "Breaking ball over the inside corner."
 
Analysis: The work of a true master is present here, and we must parse the commentary carefully. The Twins are behind, but the tying run is at the plate. Now is the time for hope, and Kepler has watched a first pitch strike sail past him. Does the pitch find the corner? By exact definition, no. However, it is an excellent pitch - if one ignores that catcher Danny Jansen is set up on the exact opposite spot of the strike zone. Dick refuses to give Pannone the total satisfaction of finding the corner - stating that it is simply OVER the corner - while still testifying that it is a fine pitch. By Dick's standards, this is a backhanded compliment.
 
ACV: 8/10
BCV: 9/10
Adjusted score: +1
 
Pitch #8: Top 8th, 0 outs, 2-2
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1118756254917120000
Pitcher: Tyler Duffey
Throw: 95 mph fastball
Result: Strike 3
 
Dick's Call: "On the outside corner. 95 on the outside edge or thereabouts, one away."
 
Analysis: NO! This is Duffey's first game back in the majors this season, and wanting to bolster his confidence, our protagonist has overextended himself, daring to go where others fear to tread, well outside the zone and at the exact vertical center. Corners have not existed in these parts since the days of Marty Foster's gift-wrapped delivery of Joe Nathan's 300th save. And yet, with zero hesitation, Dick plants his flag - immediately realizing that he has made a grave error. It will not be enough to double down on his argument, as was the case on Pitch #1. He knows when he has been beaten, and he retreats at the first opportunity.
 
It must also be noted that at the end of the clip, one can hear a chuckle from today's analyst, Jack "Back in My Day" Morris. This will be one of the few times during today's broadcast that I agree with him.
 
ACV: 1/10
BCV: 0/10
Adjusted score: -1
 
Pitch #9: Bottom 8th, 0 outs, 3-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1119309223332986880
Pitcher: Joe Biagini
Throw: 94 mph fastball
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "On the outside corner."
 
Analysis: Matter of fact. All business. The pitch arrived enough within the margin of error that Bremer presents his truth with the cadence of a trusted newsman.
 
ACV: 7/10
BCV: 8/10
Adjusted Score: +1
 
Pitch #10: Bottom 9th, 0 outs, 0-0
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1119309442338541568
Pitcher: Ken Giles
Throw: 87 mph "fastball"
Result: Strike 1
 
Dick's Call: "On the outside corner, strike 1."
 
Analysis: The drama is beginning to rise, as the Twins are down to their final 3 outs, behind by a single run, and sending Nelson Cruz to the plate as a pinch hitter. Once again, the ball is only in the corner's general aura, but Dick knows we are too excited to notice, and continues past it without pause.
 
ACV: 6/10
BCV: 8/10
Adjusted score: +2
 
Pitch 11: Bot 9th, 1 out, 3-1
https://twitter.com/GoTwinkiesGo/status/1119309817019944960
Pitcher: Ken Giles
Throw: 97 mph fastball
Result: Strike 2
 
Dick's Call: "Strike two on the outside corner... 97 in a REAL GOOD SPOT."
 
Analysis: Perfection. Mastery. Finally, near the climax of this game, we find what has eluded us: A true corner, spotted in the wild for all of us to enjoy, and Dick refuses to let it go to waste. His initial hushed tones give way to wonder and amazement, before his final accentuation that not only hammers home the exact precision of this corner, but makes us feel that we too knew it all along, even if we didn't happen to be looking at the TV at the time. Even if we didn't know what a strike zone was. All of us, collectively, knew what we had seen. We are enlightened and made whole. We are one with baseball, and one with each other.
 
ACV: 10/10
BCV: 12/10
Adjusted score: +2
Final Score: +20 Adjusted Corner Value
 
This concludes part one of this series. Stay tuned for part two, when we extend our gaze to the rest of the strike zone, and learn about the subtext necessary when one is not allowed to call a professional baseball player a 'belly itcher' and get away with it for long. In the meantime, for my research purposes, please share any high-BCV highlights for your team of choice in the comments.

I have always been upset that even when we have a good team nobody else in the country ever gives us props...maybe that's changing.... from mlb.com..3. Twins (8-6)
 
You can look at the Twins a certain way and make an easy case that they’re now the AL Central favorite. And it’s not just because the Indians appear to be more vulnerable than they’ve been at any time in this string of three straight division titles.
 
The Twins are off to a good start despite an offense that is in the bottom half in almost every category except one: OPS. Minnesota is ninth with an .814 OPS, which could be an indication that there’s more there after adding Nelson Cruz, Marwin Gonzalez, Jonathan Schoop and Willians Astudillo to an everyday lineup that already had Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler.
 
Jose Berrios and Michael Pineda have been excellent at the front of the rotation, and once Jake Odorizzi gets on track, he will add quality depth. Addison Reed ’s return from the injured list should make the bullpen as good as any in the division.
 
Also interesting is how the AL Central will play out. The Tigers and White Sox could both get better as their youngsters settle in, and the Tribe will start to get its core guys back at some point.
 
But if Twins center fielder Byron Buxton -- who has an .868 OPS with three steals and seven doubles -- finally is the player he has been long projected to be, Minnesota will be in excellent shape.
I have been saying we SHOULD be taken seriously for awhile now. What do You think?

The Twins have played 3% of the scripted schedule, and are on pace to eclipse 130 wins, and a meager 32 losses. Not to mention the Twins are well on their way to capture the division title, but would only be slated to the second seed in the conference seeding chart, playing the mediocre, (but good?) Seattle Mariners in the divisional round.


HOLD YOUR HORSES, PEOPLE
 
Consider this. If the entire season was tabulated in the form of a baseball game, meaning that each of the 54 outs recorded in a game would be translated to represent each of the 162 scheduled games, the Twins haven’t even recorded the second out of that very game. That’s a super complicated way of synthesizing that the season is grueling monster, and that 4 games can't really convey any semblance of what the Twins midseason form might be, much less their state come season’s end. Sample size is a word occasionally tossed around as a gauge to what’s legit or not, and no matter how much of a buzzkill word sample size is, it's a small sample size. You can’t go wrong with 4-1, but playing a awfully decimated Indians club and the tantalizingly pesky and obnoxious, but inferior Royals rosters does nothing in solidifying or cementing our far-fetched hopes to a stellar season.
 
So people don't get all worked up or hyped that Byron Buxton’s hitting .500, or that Marwin Gonzalez cannot hold the trigger on a curveball for his life, or that Willians Astudillo is current sizing up as the best hitter in the history of baseball, because the reality of it is that these players either scorching hot or ice cold will eventually fall in line with their typical production outputs, UNLESS there's some superior extraneous force that might mitigate someone’s (wink*wink*Logan Morrison wink*wink*) career slashline. Typically in baseball you don’t see dramatic changes in someone’s batting line for example, and prospect development is a great indicator of this, unless there’s a change in scenery, or shift in a regime (managerial usually). Here is one physical scenario.
 
I wanted to chose someone someone semi-millennial, preferably still active to debate this debate or myth of the hot-hand effect.
 
*(Statistics calibrated in the American League)
 
During the 2013 season, Jose Altuve didn’t have a firm-grip in the major leagues. On a rather atrocious Astros club that had stunk for a long time, spanning back to the Carlos Beltran days, they were scuffling and being spanked in the shadows of their unforsaken superstar. Under manager Bo Porter, unbeknownst to the Astros that they would have 2 MVP candidates and Hank Aaron best hitter awards, under their 2013 disposal (JD Martinez and Jose Altuve), they wound up a travesty rather than a juggernaut, drowning under 4 consecutive seasons of sub-60 win play. After Martinez was run outta town, Jose Altuve barely scraped by as a undrafted free agent and frankly played above expectation with all-star accolade to this credit. Nonetheless he hit .276 during the beginning month of April in 2014, pretty accurate representation of his career to that point. From that point on, Altuve wound up hitting a whopping .357, and vaulting his name into the MVP conversation, and having the best batting average, most hits, and 10th best OPS in the AL for what it's worth. A bargain in my boat, for a player that hadn’t exceeded an average above .290 and amassed a 6.1 WAR after a 2013 WAR of just 1.0!
 
That’s one way you could express how little the first handful of games has on the rest of the season. The Twins postseason road down look as bleak as it did a few years back, however there’s little doubt that the behind the Yanks or Sox, their is a tier of about 3-5 clubs that could contest for the final spot and courtesy to play the latter of the loaded brethren in the AL East. The Rays and Athletics are also both, ballclubs that could collectively catch fire at any point if all things go right respectively, and the Angels aren’t a snooze themselves with perennial sluggers who could easily foil the Twins plan. The final spot should be hotly contested and the Twins need to orchestrate a bunch of runs, and configure somewhat of a capable staff, that has room for improvement. So, if your left partly conforming, or a down the middle perception on this club, that’s okay. I reckon that is the first team in years, that in every department of the roster I could point to that position group carrying the load. The offense is as dynamic and stacked in this century as it ever will be, the starting pitching staff possesses some electric and bat-missing stuff, and the bullpen has the makings of a shutdown backend if things goes according to plan. Not enough yet to be playoff or bust, but something around the ballpark would be fair.
 
So I caution those jumping on the bandwagon and already scoreboard watching, to take the opening week of games with a grain of salt. So those needless stats of the 1 HR, and the insane 0-fer that Eddie Rosario snapped don’t really have tangible effect through the course of a season. Jose Berrios’s 10k, 7⅔ outing was impressive and all that, but really does it do a testament on Jose’s stuff or really just crucifies how mishmashy the Cleveland lineup is in its patchwork. How many times have we heard that the road to the Twins postseason runs will go as far as Buxton and Sano goes? Well the reality check is, Buxton is showing signs of improvement and candidly is playing as purposefully as I've ever seen and Sano isn’t on the roster. More or less, to the antithesis of Sano’s and Buxton’s liability to this team, is how important the newcomers need to perform to keep this team from falling off a cliff. Is it to early to say, that I sense collapse over the horizon?
 
Regardless of how explicitly I may tread to heed caution, I can’t even refrain from excitement, myself. What’s for certain though? That this season will go haywire, for good or bad, and whatever of which will only the heighten the scope of interest on this club.
 
So, (Don’t Jinx it, Don’t Jinx it, DON’T JINX IT) this season gonna be crazy good. The Phillies will provide a great litmus test of superior competition nearing the weeks end, and let’s just hope we give it to them good, and scurry to the Bronx with something more than a .500 record.
 
 
 
From the Outer Galaxy of Fantasy,
 
Sabir Aden

Three years ago I visited spring training for the first time and was lucky enough to make it back this past week as I was in the area for some family celebration. I only made it out to the complex a couple of times for a few hours each time but it was a great time (plus I had escaped the winters/flooding of Nebraska and had some great beach time). As a result I thought I would share a couple of quick thoughts for those of you who haven't been there and just add to what others have posted in the past about visiting there.
 
The first day I visited the Twins were playing a game and I arrived a few hours before the game and was able to watch some batting practice which is right outside stadium. You are in such close proximity to the players and it is really interesting to watch how they go through their routines, as well as the interactions with those around them. The second group we watched that day included Nelson Cruz who is not only a pretty impressive looking guy but also was entertaining. My favorite part of that batting practice was that Tony Oliva and Rod Carew were behind the guys batting and they were interacting with them as well. I just wish I spoke better Spanish because they were all having a good time.
 
When you do visit spring training, you never know who you will see. Seeing Oliva and Carew were the highlights for me just as I was able to watch Tom Kelly run an infield practice on the Tom Kelly field three years ago.
 
I also enjoy watching the minor league players and was able to do that on both Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, it wasn't a game day and I went over in the afternoon and parked for free and just walked right up to the two minor league fields where there were two games going on between the Red Sox and the Twins. There was a lot of activity going on and many family members supporting the players. You can get right next to the dugout and hear the interaction in there as well as the action on the field.
 
I wasn't able to watch as much as I wanted but do want to make a trip down again where I can spend a lot more time watching a game or two and watching a lot more of the practices. If you haven't made it down there I would strongly recommend it. The TWINSDAILY guys do a great job of covering it and we are lucky to have them there - I even thought I had a Seth sighting.
 
I also posted a few pictures of Cruz, Oliva, Carew and some sites around the baseball area.

I sit here on the Wednesday of February the 13th, the same day that pitchers and catchers have reported for the Twins, pretty much stuck in my dorm as the classes on my campus were canceled for the 3rd straight day due to snow. At this point, I actually want to go to class because there is something inside me that craves work of some sort and the amount of MLB The Show and Grand Theft Auto that I have played over the last few days would make any sane human nauseous. The solution, of course, is to humbly offer another article to the Twins Daily powers that be in the hope that they approve of my sacrifice and allow me to post another day.
 
It was brought to my attention the other day that, by xwOBA, the unluckiest hitter in all of MLB in 2018 was Logan Morrison. Let me back that up a little because I’m sure my dad just had an aneurysm trying to read “xwOBA”. Let’s start with the wOBA part before x gives it to ya. wOBA stands for weighted on-base average and it does what slugging and OPS try to do, it calculates the value of a hitter with the understanding, as the opposite of what Thomas Jefferson once proclaimed, that not all hits are created equal. Slugging and OPS attempt this also, but both stats assume that the value of hits is linear, which is to say that OPS believes a homer is exactly twice as valuable as a double or a triple is exactly three times as a good as a single.
 
While OPS thinks this, wOBA understands that this is simply not true and instead calculates the importance of these outcomes with their correct value. If you want to read a piece that goes into more detail about wOBA and how it is calculated, Fangraphs has a great article about it that can be found here and I would highly suggest reading it before moving on in my article. As a quick rule of thumb, an average wOBA is about .320 while an above average wOBA is about .340 and a below average wOBA is .310.
 
But we aren’t just talking about wOBA here, we’re talking about xwOBA! What the hell is that x doing there and what does it signify? Thanks to Statcast data, we can calculate more precisely how much luck is involved in the game. xwOBA only cares about the quality of the contact being made and couldn’t give a rats ass about the actual outcomes of the hits. So a screaming line drive that finds the right fielder's glove may not count for anything during the game, but xwOBA thinks that the guy who hit the ball got unlucky and probably will not continue being unlucky going forward if they are capable of hitting the ball like they currently are. xwOBA specifically uses the term “quality of contact” which encompasses exit velocity along with launch angle to determine how lucky or unlucky a certain hitter was. If you want to read more about it, I have another article for your curious mind that will extend the length of time you spend on my article.
 
Now that all of that is out the way, let’s take a look at what xwOBA says about some choice Twins and their 2018 seasons. I’ll be looking at a handful of the most successful Twins players along with who I have deemed their “brother” or someone who had the same or a very similar 2018 xwOBA as them. Numbers are pulled from Baseball Savant here.
 
 

Nelson Cruz and Aaron Judge


 
Isn’t that a tasty comparison? The defier of father time put up a ridiculous .392 xwOBA in 2018, a number just a hair north of noted destroyer of baseballs, Aaron Judge. Despite putting up a wRC+ that was his lowest since 2014, there should be nothing to worry about for Cruz as he continued to annihilate balls at a ridiculous rate and he should provide some serious production in the middle of a Twins lineup that has more power in 3 spots than any of the mid 2000’s team had in the entire lineup. They might have to start handing out helmets in the left field bleachers for safety reasons.
 
 

Joe Mauer and J.T. Realmuto


 
 
While it is great to see Mauer’s name here, it came with some decent scrolling down the list. Cruz was ranked 7th in MLB by xwOBA, but the next Twin comes in at 56th place and he doesn’t even play for the Twins anymore. Wow, that got really sad, let’s spin this in a more positive light. Mauer’s xwOBA says that the dude got robbed hardcore last year as he only put up a .319 wOBA compared to an xwOBA of .350. An unusual feat mainly because hitters like Mauer are prime candidates to be enemies of xwOBA due to their ability to hit the ball to the opposite field. These more “well-rounded” hitters tend to have lower xwOBA numbers because xwOBA does not account for defensive positioning and at the game level, well-hit balls that xwOBA would like are generally pulled and can be gobbled up consistently by the shift. Although, Mauer was such an extreme opposite field guy that the consistency of his hits actually ended up biting him. Oh yeah, and he was as good as J.T. Realmuto in this category, so go trade for that, Philly.
 

C.J. Cron and Giancarlo Stanton


 
You hear that, Yankees fans? Cron is as good as Stanton, open and shut case. Even though probably just about everyone and their mother forgot that Cron was traded from the Angels to the Rays before the 2018 season, he saw a good amount of success with his new team as he translated his “looks like a guy who can whack the crap out of the ball” skills into “actually is a guy that can whack the crap out of the ball” skills. The Rays DFA’d Cron after the season in an effort to recreate the Corey Dickerson fiasco the year before, which led to Derek Falvey waking up from his slumber immediately and punching the “Get Old Rays 1st Baseman Button” he keeps near his bed. Cron put up a respectable .345 xwOBA in 2018 and looks to continue his success with the Twins into the future.
 

Logan Morrison and Daniel Murphy


 
So far, we have two guys that are no longer on the Twins and two guys who just got here, I don’t know what to make of that. As mentioned before, xwOBA feels pretty bad about Morrison’s 2018 and wants to cheer him up with some Jameson, a high-quality steak, a movie on Netflix, and some decent exit velocity numbers. His xwOBA of .340 is a good .057 higher than what his wOBA actually was. As mentioned before with Mauer, Morrison is a prime case of why these numbers aren’t exactly perfect. We all saw him last year refuse to hit the ball the other way and instead groundout to the 2nd baseman directly into the shift over and over. And while the quality of the contact might have been good, the assumption that his luck would change was false. He probably deserved a little better, but I am really glad that he is off the team now.
 

Jake Cave and Whit Merrifield


 
We have quite an interesting pairing here, like when a high school jock starts dating a band girl. Jake Cave was acquired in an incredibly low profile trade before the season but then forced his way onto the major league team and is now probably in the future plans for the Twins due to his ability to hit the snot out of the ball. Despite a hilariously lopsided 33.0% K percent and a BABIP that would make Christian Yelich blush, Cave’s ability to hit the ball a country mile could hold up and allow for him to grow into a more well-rounded batter. With Whit Merrifield as his xwOBA sidekick, Jake Cave will continue to swing hard and hit hard or not at all.
 

Eddie Rosario and ...Ian Kinsler?


 
For a stat that is called “expected wOBA”, this pairing sure is unexpected. Rosario was easily the most productive Twins hitter in 2018 as he continued to put up solid wRC+ numbers while Kinsler was… not productive at all. Kinsler’s hitting went even farther into the toilet following an already disappointing 2017 year as he put up a wRC+ of 93 in 2017 and followed that up with an 87 wRC+ in 2018. Despite this pretty serious disparity, xwOBA has both guys pegged at a .299 clip that would be consistent for Kinsler but incredibly concerning for Rosario. Also, despite similar numbers in 2017 and 2018 for Rosario, xwOBA was much more of a fan of him in 2017 when they had him pegged at a .334 clip that was more in line with how he actually performed that year.
 
The good news is that there aren’t that many Twins players that look due for regression in 2019 based off their 2018 numbers, but the bad news is that the reason for that is because their xwOBA numbers were poor across the board. Even though some players like Cruz and Kepler should see bumps in their production, using past performance to predicate future success is an inconsistent measurement and let’s be honest, using the eye test is just much easier to do instead. And my eyes are telling me that the Twins offense in 2019 should be pretty tasty.

Picture this, I’m sitting in my 1:00 Anthropology class again absolutely bored out of my mind as my professor drones on about, well actually I don’t remember, but I hope it wasn’t important. Anyways, an interesting thought came to me; how did Derek Falvey build the Indians starting pitching staff? This thought came the day after looking at the Fangraphs projections for both Minnesota and Cleveland and realizing that dear God, Cleveland’s starting staff projections are hilariously better than Minnesota’s, even David doesn’t want to take on that Goliath. We can finagle about how much attention the Twins should have given the starting rotation this offseason, but short of signing Dallas Keuchel, trading for Zack Greinke, and then telling Jake Odorizzi to take a hike, the Twins starting staff was always going to be vastly inferior to the Indians. So how did Falvey do it? The man was boasted as the brains behind arguably the strongest rotation in baseball, so let’s dig into how he built it.
 
 
Falvey first joined the Indians as an intern in 2007 and then transitioned to Assistant Director of Baseball Operations in 2009. Falvey was then promoted to co-director of Baseball Operations in 2011 where he stayed until becoming the assistant GM in 2016, the same year he joined the Twins as executive vice president and chief baseball officer. Admittedly, Falvey’s role in the Indians front office early on was a bit less important than the one he has now with the Twins, so assigning the reason for these moves directly on him is a bit of a stretch. But at the same time, I think it’s fair to assume that Falvey played a decent role in all of these moves. I also have to appreciate the absurdness of some of the job titles they hand out in teams front offices, I could have made up those positions and you would not have been any wiser.
 
 

Corey Kluber


 
 
Corey Kluber, Cy Young winner, perfect robot, and the destroyer of Twins hitters hopes and dreams himself. This inhuman wrecking machine was obtained in a 3 team trade in 2010 between the Padres, Indians, and Cardinals. The Indians received Kluber, the Cardinals received Nick Greenwood, and the Padres obtained Ryan Ludwick. Nick Greenwood was worth -0.2 rWAR in the 36 innings he threw for the Cardinals while Ryan Ludwick put up a .659 OPS over 2 years with the Padres before being dropped on the Pirates. Oh yeah, and that Corey Kluber guy has done OK for the Indians so far.
 
For the life of me, I cannot figure out how Kluber became what he is now. At the time of the trade, he was just a body in the Padres system and wasn’t even ranked in their top 30 prospect list. He had a career minor league record of 18-24 when traded and was somehow even worse in his first stint with Cleveland’s AAA team. Apparently, he learned how to throw a sinker in 2011 and then won a Cy Young just 3 years later. So take that as a lesson, kids at home, just add one of the best sinkers in MLB and you too can win a Cy Young.
 
It’s a bit of a disappointing conclusion to draw from Kluber, but basically, we can just say that sometimes it’s the guys who aren’t major prospects who can turn into stars. If I had to assign a player for the Twins that would be their “Kluber”, it would Kohl Stewart. Stewart was initially a better prospect than Kluber but fell so far recently that the Twins were perfectly OK with any team taking him for their own during the rule 5 draft. Since then, he worked his way up through the system until he made his MLB debut in 2018 and became a personal favorite Twin of mine. He even features a similar sinker/cutter combo that has made Kluber an unstoppable pitching machine but lacks the true dominating breaking ball that makes Kluber so ridiculous.
 
 

Trevor Bauer


 
 
The most scientific man in baseball was a solid innings eater early in his career until he broke out in 2018 and changed to really, we have to worry about another one of these bastards now? And now we don’t even have Oswaldo Arcia to stop him, such a shame. Bauer was originally the 3rd overall pick in the 2011 draft out of UCLA. But he was actually taken by the D-Backs, in case you forgot. He was acquired by the Indians in yet another 3 team trade, this time in 2012. Bauer went to the Indians along with Matt Albers, Bryan Shaw, and Drew Stubbs, while Didi Gregorius, Tony Sipp, and Lars Anderson went to the D-Backs, and the Reds received Shin Soo-Choo and Jason Donald. Now, that is way more players than I feel like analyzing, but Cleveland made out pretty well here if I do say so myself.
 
Bauer’s path to the majors is a bit more straightforward, he was a top pick from college and moved as quickly as you would expect a top college arm could move. His status as a prospect was always top and while he was just a good pitcher for a while instead of a great one, he became the true thinking man’s pitcher in 2018 thanks in part to a new slider he developed himself.
 
 
Seems simple enough for the Twins to follow here right? Just use an incredibly high pick on an elite starter that sees the game like few pitchers do and is as dedicated to his craft like I am dedicated to the bagel shop on my campus. The closest comparison I can think of is Jose Berrios, Berrios was also a first round pick who is ridiculously dedicated to improving and has more work ethic in his left pinky than I have in my entire body. While Bauer is the better hurler of a round object at high speeds, Berrios has the kind of talent that even Phil Cuzzi could see and could become even better if Wes Johnson and the boys crack his secret code.
 
 

Mike Clevinger


 
 
The man from Florida who looks like a man from California, Mike was originally taken by the Angels in 2011 before they traded him to Cleveland in 2014 for the guy who sounds more like an extra in “Goodfellas” than a baseball pitcher, Vinnie Pestano. Clevinger actually pitched for the Cedar Rapids Kernels who are now the affiliate for the Twins. I have nothing else to add to that, I just thought it was neat. This was just about the definition of a throwaway trade at the time it occurred, but oh man should we really hate the Angels for this one. Clevinger went from an ERA over 5 in class A to you have got to be joking me, they have another really good starter now?
 
Clevinger was kind of on people’s radars as he was ranked the 17th best prospect in the Angels organization at the start of 2014, but his numbers up to that point were incredibly whelming. Much like Kluber, he was a guy that the Indians saw and thought that maybe with a tweak here and there, he could become something in the future. And credit to Clevinger, he was apparently all ears about doing whatever he had to do to succeed.
 
This is another kind of tough one to draw a conclusion from because “just find a guy who is a few changes that no one else can see away from being elite” isn’t really a good blueprint for success or at least not a consistent one. Considering that I have already forced myself to find comparisons for each guy, I will go with Jhoan Duran as the Twins’ “Clevinger”. Duran is a much better prospect than what Clevinger was but also switched teams in a trade during the season. So far in his short time in Cedar Rapids (hint hint), Duran has dominated hitters and looks to move up to high A Fort Myers soon. I hope he doesn't mind that I now have him pegged as the next Clevinger, no pressure there kid.
 
 

Carlos Carrasco


 
 
The cookie monster was originally taken by the Phillies in 2003 out of Venezuela. In his first spring training, he ate Domino’s pizza every day for 90 straight days because he didn’t know what else to order in English. I don’t know how he did that considering that Domino’s pizza tastes like the cardboard box it comes in, but to each his own I guess. Carrasco was also acquired in 2009 in a trade (I’m noticing a pattern) along with some other forgettable dudes for Ben Francisco and Cliff Lee. Carrasco was the top prospect for the Phillies and was ranked as the 41st best prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America that year.
 
Carrasco’s journey to be who he is now took a while as he struggled with injuries and not being effective early on in his MLB career. Despite starting his MLB career in 2009, it took Carrasco until 2015 to pitch more than 150 innings in a season. The Indians took a very conservative approach by using him out of the bullpen often in 2013 and 2014 after he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2012. After working his arm back up, they unleashed him as a starter and he’s been a pain in the Twins’ ass ever since.
 
Let’s see here, a top prospect, underwent Tommy John surgery, used out of the bullpen at first… Folks, we already have the next Carrasco here in Fernando Romero. Romero arguably has the nastiest stuff in the Twins system but still needs to learn how to refine his game and be the nightmare pitcher we all know he can be. While it seems that Romero is all but destined for the bullpen in 2019, it could be that the Twins still plan on using him as a starter long term and will be in the rotation in 2020 when more spots become available.
 
 

Shane Bieber


 
 
The Biebs was taken in the 2016 draft which was the very last one Derek Falvey participated in for Cleveland before leaving for the Twin Cities. He was taken in the 4th round out of college and moved pretty quickly due to being a college starter and having some ridiculous minor league numbers (.6 BB/9, 2.24 ERA).
 
The Biebs is a much more simple guy to track here, he was taken by Cleveland and moved up their ranks quickly as he continued to perform well at every level. He rose up prospect lists last year thanks to his incredible command and was a top 100 prospect by most publications by the time he made his debut for the Indians.
 
Who’s the Shane Bieber for the Twins? That’s an interesting one to think of because the front office under Falvey and Levine really haven’t taken many college arms with top picks. This is a bit of a reach, but I’ll pick Blayne Enlow as the Twins’ “Shane Bieber”. Enlow was taken out of high school but was a 3rd round pick partly because the Twins saved enough signing bonus money in the Royce Lewis pick to pay over the slot for Enlow and coax him out of going to the collegiate ranks. While Enlow is still just 19, his projections have received much praise from scouts and being able to handle low A ball as a 19-year-old is pretty impressive. While it will still be a few more years before Enlow probably makes the majors, he could be an important piece in a future Twins rotation.
 
There it is, the 5 pitchers that make up the current Indians’ starting staff and how they got there along with their Twins counterparts. 4 out of the 5 guys were not originally taken by the Indians and 2 out of the 5 guys were never really big prospects at all while the other 3 were. Probably the most interesting thing to note is that none of these guys were big free agent signings or acquired via trade as veterans and only Bauer had any experience pitching at the MLB level for another team. Is it any coincidence that Falvey has been a stickler for adding long term solutions to the starting rotation so far in his tenure? Pineda, Odorizzi, and Perez were all obtained with 2 years of team control, but the plan so far has been to shy away from major rotation upgrades in the long term.
 
Looking into 2020, the current rotation is Jose Berrios and possibly Martin Perez if they pick up his option. Odorizzi, Gibson, and Pineda are all set to be gone, leaving up to 4 holes to be filled. Looking ahead also, the starting pitchers available in free agency after the 2019 season are very tasty, to say the least. Go take a quick look, you won’t be disappointed. But now that we know what Falvey did to build his most impressive rotation, will the Twins even bother with free agency then? The Cubs built a successful rotation through free agency in their World Series winning team, but I don’t believe the Twins will follow that same route. Instead, they will run with Jose Berrios, Kohl Stewart, Fernando Romero, Jhoan Duran, and Blayne Enlow, to take them to the World Series and you can bet on that.

Today Ken Rosenthal reported that the Minnesota Twins are signing left-handed pitcher Martin Perez to a one-year deal with a second year option. The former Texas Rangers starter now rounds out Rocco Baldelli's starting rotation. What he doesn't do is address the bullpen needs, or calm any concerns about resources being properly allocated.
 
Prior to this signing Minnesota was at a payroll of roughly $96.3 million. That number is $30 million below where they checked in to start 2018, and represents the ability to still add a significant amount of talent. With arms like Dallas Keuchel or Gio Gonzalez still on the open market, it's Perez who will take a roster spot on the 40 man.
 
A former top-100 prospect, Perez debuted with the Rangers back in 2012 and has been with the organization for the entirety of his career. Unfortunately through seven big league seasons he's been neither durable or very good. Having pitched 180 innings just twice, he has't posted a sub-4.00 ERA since 2013. With a career 5.5 K/9, Perez is a hurler that relies on ok control and the idea that batters will get themselves out.
 
Looking at how the Twins have executed this offseason, namely with their pitching, this comes across as another head scratcher. Likely taking the spot of Adalberto Mejia in the rotation, Perez doesn't push the needle. Instead of a Keuchel or Gonzalez addition that pushes everyone from the top down, the former Rangers starter simply fills in the last spot and adds to the overall depth.
 
If there's a positive in this move, it's that the acquisition makes the reality of Fernando Romero starting in the bullpen even more likely. There's no denying that 180 innings from the Twins fireballer would be great, but utilizing him in relief for 2019 could be of the most benefit. The bullpen needs help and Romero's bullets may go a lot further in that role.
 
You can bet Baldelli will utilize the opener strategy quite often in 2019, and Perez could be subject to that treatment. This front office has prided itself on the ability to both pinpoint and develop pitching. It's not that they don't know more on Perez than this lowly blogger. The problem is that there's both reason and circumstance to push the envelope and at every possible opportunity they've chosen to do less with more.
 
At some point it would be great to see the Twins make a commitment to their players by acquiring talent with expectations as opposed to being surprised by what comes of a decision. Martin Perez could certainly have a career year in Minnesota, and that'd be a great revelation, but banking on that is a process with many more flaws than we should be seeing right now.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

We, as fans, have an interesting relationship between the franchises we support and ourselves. The bottom line of why we support these teams is usually because we enjoy doing so (although it seems like some Twins “fans” on Twitter don’t enjoy anything that has to do with them, but that’s another story). And this vested interest in the team leads us to want our franchise to acquire the best talent available in order to possibly win the championship at the end of the season. But, there are parameters set up by the team that we also must accept in the form of payroll. We understand the limitations which are laid out to us and then theorize events that can occur within them because our teams have shown us what the limits are. In MLB, not all franchise is created equal as there are consistent patterns of spending among the teams which split them up into either “big markets” who can land the big free agents and “small markets” who have to settle for less.
 
Now, let me get one thing clear, I am not whining about if this system is unfair as I personally believe it really is not much of a problem. Nor am I damning the teams such as the Twins who operate under stricter rules than others because I also understand that payroll is correlated to profit and this is a business after all. Teams who spend more generally have a better chance of making the playoffs but there is little to no correlation between spending and actually winning the championship. To put it simply, it’s pretty much just dumb blind luck whether or not a team wins the World Series once they make the playoffs. No, instead I want to comment on the fascinating position fans find themselves in when it comes to theorizing roster moves and creating scenarios in their mind with a certain limit that they must consider.
 
It’s easy for us to disconnect ourselves from the money that the players we root for are making, we don’t see the total in terms of “how much is that player making” as much as we see it in “how will how much that player is making affect the teams ability to make moves”. We squabble over how many millions can we reasonably offer to a free agent along with coming to terms with the fact that teams will keep MLB ready prospects down in the minors in order to keep them around for cheaper for longer. Hell, we just saw this happen with Byron Buxton when the Twins didn’t call him up when rosters expanded party because it would give the Twins an extra year of team control. Of course, the decision required more nuance than that, but the end result was that Buxton will now be stifled in the amount of money he will be making in the future because of the limits set up the team. In a perfect world, he would have been called up in September because it would not matter that the Twins would be forced to pay him more money sooner because it would not be an issue to do so, they could offer him whatever 6 year contract he pleased and both sides would go frolic in a garden somewhere, but that isn’t the baseball world we live in.
 
I rationalized this decision, like most others did, with the reasoning I laid out before, but in doing so I sided with the team and owner who is worth billions of dollars instead of the player worth a fraction of a fraction of that. And now, that doesn’t sit right with me. Along with this, I think of the numerous players who were non-tendered because their arbitration totals were probably going to be higher than how much their teams thought they were worth and those players were cut to save a few bucks. This would be fine if the teams spent more on free agents in return but this hasn’t been the case for a lot of teams as it seems some franchises aren’t aware that they are allowed to sign players right now. There’s also that statement that follows every question about whether a team should sign a player: “sure, as long as he’s cheap”.
 
The easy response is that these players, while worth way less than their owners, will still end up making far more money than any of us will and it becomes hard to feel bad for a player who ends up making only 3 million dollars instead of 4 million dollars because the difference is negligible for us. But again, we’re looking at their salary from the point of view of someone who has a vested interest in them making as little money as possible in order for our favorite team to have more flexibility for future acquisitions.
 
At the end of the day, should teams really be this concerned with cutting miniscule costs in the name of efficiency? Should how much money C.J. Cron is making affect whether or not the Rays DFA him? And should we be infuriated when Andrew McCutchen signs for 5 million dollars more than we think he’s worth? I don’t believe so, but hey, it isn’t my money.

By Friday the Minnesota Twins will need to decide if they are going to tender contracts to all their arbitration eligible players. The names include guys like Kyle Gibson, Eddie Rosario, and Miguel Sano. Among the ten possibilities, nine of them are near-certainties. If there’s a guy with an uncertain future however, it’s none other than Robbie Grossman.
 
Grossman came to the Twins in 2016, under the Terry Ryan regime, after opting out of a minor league deal with the Cleveland Indians. His career had sputtered with the Houston Astros and never really got off the ground. That 2016 Twins team was a bad one (103 losses), and Grossman was brought in for depth purposes. The day after his acquisition, Eddie Rosario was demoted to Triple-A and Grossman made his Minnesota debut on May 20.
 
Robbie’s first season with the Twins was a coming out party. Despite being on a team playing terrible baseball his offensive production was a bright spot. At 26 years-old he’d eclipsed prospect status, but posting an .828 OPS doesn’t get glanced over, and he was every bit the on-base machine expected of him. Now looking back on his production, the narrative hasn’t changed much. In 347 games with the Twins Grossman owns a .711 OPS buoyed by a .371 OBP. Offensively, he’s a guy that has a little pop, takes strong at bats, and gives opportunity to the hitters surrounding him in the lineup.
 
Unfortunately, the offensive prowess is where things end for Grossman. As good as he was in 2016 at the plate, the defensive output was enough to make either Delmon Young or Josh Willingham blush. Being worth -21 DRS with a -13.8 UZR in just 637 innings is nothing short of an abomination. Spending his time patrolling left field for Paul Molitor’s club, there’s no arguing that his abilities in the outfield aided heavily into such a terrible year.
Being used more sparingly in 2017, and then making improvements in 2018, Grossman does deserve somewhat of a pass on such an outlier of a year during his debut in Twins Territory. The reality however is that Robbie isn’t someone this Twins squad wants in the outfield, and it’s arguable as to whether any big-league club would see that as an ideal fit. Without a real defensive position, that’s where things get a bit dicey.
 
MLB Trade Rumors projects Grossman’s arbitration value at $4MM. That number isn’t a significant amount in the landscape of salaries today, but it’s also one that makes him more than expendable. Serving primarily as a designated hitter or bench bat, there’s likely better out there equal to or lower than that valuation. The Tampa Bay Rays just DFA’d C.J. Cron coming off a 30 HR season and an .816 OPS. Both players made similar figures in 2018, and Cron is a capable defender.
 
Knowing that the Twins are looking to upgrade their corner infield spots, have depth in the outfield (and recently acquired another OBP guy in Michael Reed), and have some desire to bring in thump to the designated hitter role, there’s plenty of factors working against Grossman. If this is the end, and it’s trending that way, it’s hard to look back at the tenure and not be happy for both sides. Grossman jumpstarted a career that failed to launch, while the Twins got a bat for the lineup that proved more serviceable than anyone could’ve imagine. At some point we all become expendable as the scales tip in favor of opportunity cost. Grossman will find work and the Twins will fill his role. Going forward, there’s just not the same ideal fit.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

This is an excerpt of an article that appears at Zone Coverage, click here to read it in full!
 
By the looks of it, it was going to be a battle reminiscent of David and Goliath. Well, that is, the way Vegas might have seen that battle before it happened.
 
In one corner was the team everyone expected to be there. The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the year with a payroll of a touch over $187 million, and that was on the heels of spending $200-plus million in each of the previous five seasons.
 
In the other corner was a team that hadn't spent that much in the previous two years combined. According to Cot's Contracts, the Milwaukee Brewers ended the 2016 and '17 seasons 30th in MLB in payroll, and opened this season with a total of just under $91 million on the books.
 
Over the past two years, the Brewers had Opening Day payrolls of just a touch under $164 million -- combined.
 
And the Brewers didn't just roll over, but push the NL's answer to the New York Yankees to the brink of elimination -- a decisive Game 7 at their own home park.
Even if you didn't read the title to this piece, it isn't hard to see where we're going here.
 
By comparison, the Minnesota Twins opened the season with a payroll of $128 million and change. They haven't had a payroll finish a season in the top half of MLB since 2012, and only once since the turn of the decade have they been among the game's top-10 spenders.
 
That was in 2011 -- the year they lost 99 games. The 2012 team wasn't much better.
 
People will label you a "Pohlad Pocket Protector" if you say it publicly, but ultimately it comes down to how a team spends rather than what it spends.
 
Last season's AL Wild Card qualifier finished the year 21st in payroll. The team the year before that lost 103 games? They finished 20th.
 
Money really won't be an issue this offseason no matter how someone slices it. The team only has about $30ish million hard committed for next year -- guaranteed money to Addison Reed, Jason Castro and Michael Pineda as well as dead money to Phil Hughes and buyouts of Ervin Santana and Logan Morrison's deals -- and the payroll estimator over on Cot's projects the Opening Day payroll at just a touch under $69 million as things currently stand.
 
That includes the following arbitration figures, in case you want to do some back-of-the-napkin math about who you might non-tender if you were magically granted a seat at the table with Derek Falvey and Thad Levine.
 
For comparison's sake, we'll put the estimates from MLB Trade Rumors in parentheses:

Jake Odorizzi - $7.75 million ($9.4 million)
Kyle Gibson - $6.75 million ($7.9 million)
Robbie Grossman - $3.25 million ($4 million)
Eddie Rosario - $3.25 million ($5 million)
Miguel Sano - $2.75 million ($3.1 million)
Max Kepler - $2.5 million ($3.2 million)
Byron Buxton - $2.25 million ($1.2 million)
Ehire Adrianza - $1.5 million ($1.8 million)
Taylor Rogers - $1.5 million ($1.6 million)
Trevor May - $1.25 million ($1.1 million)

Add and subtract as you see fit -- for instance, Grossman could be a fairly easy non-tender with Johnny Field, Zack Granite and Jake Cave in the mix -- but this still doesn't put the Twins in any sort of payroll trouble.
 
If the Pohlad family green-lighted an identical payroll from 2018 to 2019, the team has as much as $60 million to spend this offseason in a market that has depth and quality at a wide variety of positions.
 
After a virtually identical team went from in the playoffs to stumbling for 95 percent of the season, how can the team get back on the path to frigid October baseball at Target Field?
 
How about taking a page out of the Brewers' book? It's not exactly a copycat league and each team has different strengths and weaknesses, but here are a handful of ideas the Twins can embrace to push them in the right direction.
 
1. Don't be afraid to aggressively target improvements -- even in places of strength
 
The Twins obviously like where their future lies in the outfield with Rosario-Buxton-Kepler, and Cave's emergence last season gave them a nice contingency plan as well.
 
The same was true for the Brewers a year ago, when they gave the most playing time in their outfield to Ryan Braun in left, Keon Broxton in center and Domingo Santana in right. Brett Phillips made a cameo and acquitted himself fairly well. Lewis Brinson struggled but was one of the top prospects in the game.
 
Like the Twins, the Brewers were flush with talent and youth in their outfield. So what did they do?
 
They went out and signed Lorenzo Cain and traded for Christian Yelich. They locked down Cain -- once traded with Odorizzi, by the way -- for five years and still have the rights to the likely NL MVP through the 2021 season.
If the Brewers exercise Yelich's 2022 option -- which right now seems likely based on the year he had and that he'll be finishing just his age-30 season -- they'll have five years of him for a tidy sum of $58.25 million.
 
That won't even buy you two seasons of Bryce Harper.
 
That's not to say that identifying the next Cain in free agency will be easy, or that his deal is guaranteed to pay dividends over the next four years. He's signed through his age-36 season, so while the early returns are good, it isn't without risk.
 
But who might be a player like this in free agency? Michael Brantley (32) comes to mind, though perhaps the best fit would be A.J. Pollock. He's heading into his age-31 season, and his price tag will be kept down -- at least a little -- by the fact that he's played more than 130 games just twice in his seven-year MLB career. He's a terrific player and a great defender in center, and a nice fall-back plan to Byron Buxton's development -- and beyond that, would theoretically be an incredible corner outfielder defensively.
 
Andrew McCutchen (32) could be a good fit in that respect as well. The days of him being a superstar may be gone, but even the last two years he's been a really nice player while finally seeing his way out of Pittsburgh.
 
This dynamic isn't strictly limited to outfielders, either.
 
Between Jason Castro, Mitch Garver and Willians Astudillo, the Twins have a combination that would amount to one heck of a catching clone. But each has question marks.
 
Castro's coming off meniscus surgery, and it isn't the first time he's dealt with the issue. He's a great defender but the bat leaves a bit to be desired. Garver dealt with a concussion down the stretch, and has been more of an offense-first guy -- though that's not to say he hasn't worked hard at improving his defense.
 
And Astudillo is a total wild card in more ways than one.
 
Despite his second iffy October in a row, expect Yasmani Grandal to be a hotly contested commodity this offseason. He's a career .240/.341/.441 hitter, bats from both sides and the defensive metrics love him for his career.
 
He also won't be 30 for a couple more weeks, either.
 
Don't be surprised if he commands a four or five-year deal in the neighborhood of $18-20 million per season, but that's a small price to pay for a transformational catcher behind the plate and at it. The Twins should absolutely be in the discussion as a spot for him to land this offseason.
 
2. Understand that prospects are nice, but parades are even nicer
 
To get Yelich, the Brewers had to go to a well-stocked cupboard and part with some nice pieces.
Brinson was a consensus top-30 prospect prior to last season, and while his early-career MLB numbers are eerily reminiscent to Buxton's, it's way too early to give up on him. He won't turn 25 until a month into next year.
 
Isan Diaz is a middle-infield prospect who has appeared in top-100 lists each of the last two seasons, and at 22 got a look at Triple-A last season -- albeit a bit of an ugly one (.639 OPS). Still, he was four-plus years younger than the average PCL player, so that's not too shabby.
 
Monte Harrison was a top-75 prospect across all platforms and in his age-22 season took a bit of a step back this year in Double-A, hitting .240/.316/.399. Most concerning is that he fanned 215 times in 136 games (583 PA), but he was still nearly a 20-20 guy (19 homers, 28 steals) along the way. The physical tools are tremendous.
 
The final piece was starter Jordan Yamamoto, a 22-year-old righty who doesn't project as a top-of-the-rotation guy despite eye-popping numbers in the minors this season. Across three levels, Yamamoto posted a 1.83 ERA, 11.1 K/9, a 0.83 WHIP and just 1.8 BB/9. He'll be 23 in May and could be pitching in the big leagues by then.
 
None of this is to say the Twins should make Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff available or that another Yelich will be on the market this winter -- though Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto will almost certainly be dealt with two years of control left at reasonable rates -- but the overarching theme here is that creativity will rule the day.

Today the Minnesota Twins announced that Paul Molitor will not be brought back as Manager in 2019. With two years remaining on his freshly signed three year deal, it may come as a surprise to some, but it really shouldn't. While it hasn't been a certainty that the Twins front office would make a change, the signs have been there for some time. Now with the opportunity to hire their guy, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine prepare for a pivotal offseason.
 
Molitor was offered a three-year extension following the 2017 season. Despite looking like he would be let go last season, Molitor's Twins got into the playoffs and he earned a Manager of the Year award because of it. With the Manager of the Year award being loosely tied to surprise performances, it's not a huge shock he was the one voters selected. Had he missed the postseason however, the award likely lands elsewhere, and the three-year deal never gets done.
 
Being brought back this season, it appeared that Minnesota's front office thought long and hard about the decision. He was not immediately re-upped last winter, and there was never any glowing indications of support from the top during the 2018 slate. While he was offered a three-year contract, a two-year deal after such a close decision for change likely would've looked like little more than a placeholder.
 
Certainly there will be some Twins fans that can't wrap their head around guys like Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar being gone in the same season. Adding St. Paul native Paul Molitor to that list isn't going to do management any favors with that crowd. However, give the front office credit for not concerning themselves with those opinions. Making baseball decisions based on feelings or how an individual relates to an organization is a good way to quickly venture down a wrong road. At the end of the day, fans clamor for winning more than anything else, and being solely focused on that purpose is of the utmost importance.
 
Embarking upon one of the most important offseasons in recent memory, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine will now begin with a managerial search. They are able to bring in someone of their choosing, and internal candidates such as Derek Shelton and Jeff Pickler could be waiting in the wings. The ties to Texas and Cleveland still reside in both, so Sandy Alomar or Jeff Bannister may be of some intrigue as well. I'm not sure where they turn, but I'm of the opinion that it will be a good source regardless.
 
While there's been some in-season roster decisions I've found myself in disagreement with the front office, the vast majority of trades, acquisitions, and moves have been well executed. Although it's easy to mock a process that seems new or uncertain, it's also hard to really dig in and not see positive ripples reflecting throughout the system.
 
Managers don't make an incredible impact during a Major League Baseball season, but Paul Molitor generally did less with more during games. He left opportunity on the table, and neither Byron Buxton or Miguel Sano truly developed under his tutelage. The organization wanting to get someone on staff that can take the big league club to new heights is a worthy ask. Now that Molitor is out, Falvine is in and it's on them to find who's next in charge.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

With this week signifying the last of the 2018 Major League Baseball regular season, we very well could be watching the final games of Joe Mauer's career. Yet to indicate or announce his intentions for 2019, the Minnesota Twins longtime star has compiled quite a resume. Over the course of this season, he's surpassed plenty of the legends and greats before him throughout Twins history. Trying to narrate that tale is one I'd fall short of, but the numbers do some significant justice.
 
Although the meat and potatoes of Joe's career is how he's been a lunch pail type player, that's come to work every day, and simply got the job done. He put together a 7-10 year stretch in which he was on par with Johnny Bench for the title of greatest catcher the game has ever seen. He reinvented himself and became a defensive wizard at first base. He's had ups, and he's had downs. Wherever along the journey you'd like to examine though, the final tallies are nothing short of impressive.
 
Joe is who he has always been, and the living legend isn't ever going to acknowledge his rightful place in Twins Territory. We can do that for him though, simply by using his merits.
.306 career average- 3rd all time for the Twins. Behind Carew and Puckett
1011 runs- 3rd all time for the Twins. Behind Killebrew and Puckett
.388 on-base percentage- 3rd all time for the Twins. Behind Carew and Knoblauch
2,114 hits- 2nd all time for the Twins. Behind only Puckett
599 extra-base hits- 4th all time for the Twins. Behind Killebrew, Puckett, and Hrbek
1,852 games- 2nd all time for the Twins. Behind only Killebrew
3,073 times on base- 1st all time for the Twins.
2009 American League Most Valuable Player
3-time (2008-10) American League Gold Glove Winner- Catcher
5-time (2006, 2008-10, 2013) American League Silver Slugger Winner- Catcher
3-time American League Batting Champion- Only AL C to ever do so. Only C to ever do it 3 times.
6-time (2006, 2008-10, 2012-13) All Star- American League Starting Catcher
2009 Sports Illustrated MLB All-Decade Team
Baseball America Major League Player of the Year (2009)
Career 49.1 fWAR
Career valuation of $306.9MM compared to $218.025MM career earnings
Career .995 Fielding % as a C ranks 8th all time
Career .996 Fielding % as 1B ranks 5th all time
2006-2013 hit .327/.410/.473 with a 139 OPS+
Would be third 1st Overall pick to make Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, joining Ken Griffey Jr. and Chipper Jones.

Selfishly, I hope this isn't the end. I want to see Joe back in 2019 for what should be a competitive season in Twins Territory. Regardless what happens, the list above is otherworldly, and it's been a joy to watch it unfold.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

on Eduardo Escobar, the best and most important Twin in the last several years. As a latin player he can probably be effective to his late 30 s , His dugout presence is worth a majority of the money, I heard a player say, that when he was traded from the White Sox, it was the first time he had seen MLB players cry. Thats how I felt too...but on the flip side, if you can get 3 respectable prospects AND resign him, what a coup that would be huh?
 
Anyway Falvine, overspend on him bring him home and let his career end in the Cities, Agree?

The full story can be read by clicking through here.
 
It’s no secret this year hasn’t gone as planned for the Minnesota Twins.
 
It’s also no secret that the Twins — who look drastically different than they did even a week ago — will see significant turnover this offseason on the roster.
 
Not only were traded players Eduardo Escobar, Brian Dozier, Lance Lynn and Zach Duke slated to become free agents in the offseason, but so too are Joe Mauer and possibly also Ervin Santana. The upshot here is that the Twins, who had a franchise-high $128.7 million payroll to start the season according to Cot’s Contracts, have just $31.7 million hard committed to next year’s team.
 
Here’s the breakdown of those commitments:

$8.375 million to Addison Reed
$8 million to Michael Pineda and Jason Castro
$1.25 million in possible buyouts to Fernando Rodney and Logan Morrison
$5.95 million in dead money owed to Phil Hughes

 
Now that number will obviously jump with guys like Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Ehire Adrianza, Robbie Grossman and Trevor May eligible for arbitration again as well as first-timers Eddie Rosario, Miguel Sano, Max Kepler and Byron Buxton, and there’ll be guys making the MLB minimum that’ll factor in as well, but the overarching theme is that the Twins are going to have some money to work with.
 
It’s also coming at a truly great time; this is going to be one of the best free-agent markets in recent memory. Superstars available include Manny Machado and Bryce Harper but there are also players across a number of other spectrums that will improve whichever team they sign with.
 
Clayton Kershaw and David Price can opt out of their deals — though both have had their issues in recent years — and Josh Donaldson also still carries some name value. All three could be big targets for most of the league if they hit the open market. Charlie Morton, Nelson Cruz and Jed Lowrie are having great seasons in their mid-30s, and could make for good bridge guys for teams waiting on prospects.
 
Marwin Gonzalez is a Swiss Army Knife who can hit a bit, Elvis Andrus can opt out of his deal and there are lots of players who’ll be looking for short deals to bounce back, like Andrew McCutchen, A.J. Pollock, Daniel Murphy, Jonathan Lucroy, Neil Walker and even Lynn, Morrison and Dozier as well.
 
Nobody would argue that it would be terrific to see the Twins land Harper or Machado. But at the cost of $30 million plus per year on what’ll likely be a deal with an opt-out in a few years — extremely player friendly, a la Jason Heyward — the odds just aren’t in favor of this happening.
 
That’s before considering if that player would come to Minnesota — even if the Twins were the highest bidder.
It’s also worth noting that both players would chew up a large part of the financial flexibility the team would likely wish to have as some of its youngsters move into their more expensive seasons. Not only that, but it’s not like the Twins really have an outfield spot or a lack of depth at shortstop in the years to come.
 
Don’t mistake that for someone saying “CAN’T SIGN MACHADO BECAUSE ROYCE LEWIS IS A-COMIN’” or anything to that effect, but it certainly is a consideration.
 
But that’s why I’m coming out and endorsing the following like a politician endorsing a colleague:
 
The Minnesota Twins should make Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal their No. 1 free agency target — with a bullet — this offseason.

What exactly is this and what does it mean? Well This is an over simplistic formula I use when looking at a power hitters performance. You are basically looking to see if the total number of extra base hits = a .100 batting average. You don’t even have to do the full math just know if it’s going to be more or less or on par, making it real easy to calculate. And its more fun right now then examining the Twins season this year!
I realize there are better stats like slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+ but if I want to take a quick look without doing a lot of analyzing I can always do a quick glance at how many extra base hits does the power hitter have vs every 10 At Bats on the season. I noticed that an average power hitter will typically have 1 extra base hit for every 10 At Bats on the season meaning if the player has 300 At Bats this season they have 30 extra base hits they are an average power hitter. If a power hitter has fewer than 1 per 10 AB then the power is slumping so to speak, regardless of whether or not the player is hitting for average. The more extra base hits per 10 AB over 1 the better the power is showing this year.
Let’s look at a few examples for fun:
This year on our Twins team we have Escobar who has 49 extra base hits in 303 At Bats which is a crazy high ratio that’s 1 for every 6 At Bats or 50% more than an average power hitter or 2010 Justin Morneau before concussion territory see example further down this article.
Rosario has 43 XBH in 328 AB for about 1 per 7.6 AB still 31% better than average ratio which is great.
Kepler seems to be slumping in average, but he has 28 XBH in 283 At Bats which is average and why we are still holding out hope that he can get his average up and be a solid not great hitter.
Dozier has 30 XBH in 322 AB. So, he is only slumping a little from average power production especially after losing that home run yesterday, but a lot from last year when he went 68 in 617 At Bats or the year before when he had 82 in 615 AB. Dozier is still flashing some power so if he goes on a nice little extra base binge of say 7 or 8 extra base hits in his next 45-50 AB he would be back to normal and probably looking like a little better trade chip.
Morrison is at 21 XBH in 243 AB. This is why his production has been frustrating, because the power is below average as well as his average. If he had say 30 XBH and a .200 average, you would feel better about his production and feel like it’s a matter of time till his average come up some. But he is also slumping in the power department as well.
This season Grossman is at 15 XBH in 212 AB which is way below acceptable for someone not hitting for average and getting on base at a high rate. 2 years ago he hit 31 XBH in 332 AB which is average power hitter with a high on base average and a big part of why he was kept around. Last year he went down a little 32 XBH in 382 AB and with a .360 on base average this is good production out of a back up player. But this season he is slumping in both on base and power and will not likely be back after this season.
If you want to rehash bad memories you can go back and see that David Ortiz hit 53 XBH in 412 AB the season before we released him and he went to the Redsox….
We can also look at a few careers: Torii Hunter had 890 XBH in 8857 career AB. That is a career average power hitter.
Justin Morneau had 619 XBH in 5699 AB or if you want to look at before his concussion in 2010. He was at 410 XBH in 3485 AB and had 44 XBH in 296 AB in his 2010 season which is around 1.5 XBH per 10 AB or 50% more than an average slugging season.
Kirby Puckett had 678 XBH in 7244 AB but he was catching up career wise from such an awful start in his career when he had 17 XBH in 557 AB his first season and his second season wasn’t that much better either. Also you will be able to notice that his average is a bigger reason he was considered over 20% better than average hitter on OPS over his career than his power numbers. (other stats point that out as well, just saying this does too).
Anyway I thought this is something that I have observed throughout the years and thought I would share my little system for quick glancing power numbers. Have fun with this and share thoughts and stuff below.

I am curious about the vast difference in infield fly ball percentage in Nick Gordon and Lamonte Wade and wonder how much it matters projecting their bats as major league hitters. I was able to find a few articles on IFFB% but those authors leave wondering also.
 
One claim is that players with a lower IFFB rate tend to post higher BABIPs.
 
Another claim is that minor league IFFB rates are greater than major league rates. A wonder is whether this is selection bias and those with greater IFFB rates don’t tend to make it in the majors.
 
Here is what I noticed...
 
Nick Gordon had a 2.3% IFFB rate this year in AA and AAA. He consistently is among the lowest in his league.
 
Lamonte Wade has posted among the greater rates of 34.6% in AA and 28.6% in AAA.
 
For context, Todd Frazier had the greatest IFFB% in 2017 at 18.9% and Freddie Freeman was 0%. Joey Votto is always low and last year he was at 0.5%.
 
And I wonder...
 
What does this mean projecting forward?
 
I don’t have answers but it is something I want to study and blog further. I would appreciate any thoughts.

I know it is popular to say Molitor is a poor manager. Today there is even a comparison with Lovullo. But maybe the problem rises to higher levels. Yes Lovullo lost his Ace and still succeeds. The Twins pitching lost its Ace and continued too. I here that the Twins are not running the bases like others. The problem is, you have to get on base. We have a collective 234 batting average and a 307 OBP. The old cliche is - you can't steal first. This team is not built for much of anything.
 
So what has the Front Office done for Molitor - they brought in LaMarre, Cave, Morrison, and Motter. We lost our catcher and they brought in Bobby Wilson. Tell me how Mauer compares to Goldschmidt? Who are the leaders for the team.
 
On the pitching side the analytical geniuses bring in Lynn and Odorizzi - its been a roller coaster, but I am not upset by those moves. On the other hand our aging bullpen additions do nothing for me. We have a 41 year old Rodney and 38 year old Belisle. Then we tell Molitor not to over use the one or two arms that are actually delivering. Reed and Duke - two more old vets are okay, but Reed failed as the eighth inning arm.
 
The FO brought in more coaches, consultants, good old twins guys than I can count or remember, but we watched our two premier players for the future - Sano and Buxton fail and flounder. How many consultants can we assign to them. Fernando Romero looks like the real thing, but as he reached that point where some adjustments are needed we send him down - sorry calling all our consultants.
 
We have had Adrianza and Petit at SS when we have Gordon in the minors. Gordon might be needing some more development, but can't he match these two or perhaps spell a struggling Dozier.
 
Of course Molitor does not want a 224 lead-off hitter like Grossman, but we started with Dozier who is batting 218 and Mauer who is batting 254 and looks lost since his occurrence of concussion symptoms. So who else can bat first? We need the two Eddies to be in the top of the lineup, but do you move them to one and two and put powerless Mauer at number 3 with 191 batting Morrison and 218 batting Dozier in position to drive them in?
 
Who does Molitor bring in from the pen - Hildenberger is doing great, Magill does not seem to have anyones confidence, Reed lost his position, Duke scares us, Rogers and Pressly have eras over 4 - terrible for a reliever. So FO guys, where is the help? How do you give your manager a roster he can actually work with?

I was just thinking today, Im gonna free up a lot of my time and let the Twins be....sick of watching them...
 
but THEN..they call up Astudio? gulp..im back in!

A week ago Ervin Santana made is 2018 debut with the double-A Chattanooga Lookouts and threw 2 innings (45 pitches) giving up 4 hits, 0 walks, 2 earned runs, while striking out 1. He was pulled early as there was a concern about his velocity, which topped out at 90 mph while he usually sits around 94. Because of this concern he will move down and pitch today for single-A Fort Meyers Miracle, according to Brandon Warne. With this development it is fair to think that we won’t see Ervin on the Twins roster until the end of June at the earliest. Whenever he is ready to make his season debut for the Twins there will be a tough decision for Paul Molitor to make on what to do with his rotation, and that’s what I want to address in this piece assuming the current starting 5 stays healthy.
 
Option #1: Demote Fernando Romero
As much as Molitor and Twins fans would not like to see this, I think it is a very likely scenario. Because of options (or the lack thereof) and performance, Romero is the only realistic candidate from the starting rotation. I couldn’t find data on minor league options (does anyone have a resource for this?), but I would guess that Odorizzi, Lynn, and Gibson are out of minor league options while Berrios has been the Twins best pitcher. That leaves Romero as the odd man out. In this case, he would be the first pitcher called upon after an injury or for double headers.
 
Option #2: DFA Grossman and move a starter to bullpen
This would be another tough decision for Molitor. Mauer is set to return very soon and I would think that will result in the demotion of Gregorio Petit, which then leaves the Twins with Adrianza, LaMarre, Grossman, and Wilson as their 4 bench players. If Molitor decides to go this route, then we would probably see LaMarre or Grossman as the player to be demoted which would leave a thin bench but a stacked bullpen. Personally, I think Grossman has earned the demotion but I thought that out of spring training too.
 
It’s not uncommon for a starting pitcher to get some time in the bullpen early in their career and with how electric Romero has been this year I think this would be a great option. With the way successful teams have been built the last few years it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Twins to stack their bullpen with another dominant pitcher. Only downside of this is that he most likely wouldn’t be available to start again this year as his arm wouldn’t be ready to throw that much.
 
Option #3: DFA Grossman and utilize 6-man rotation
See above on why Grossman is the position player getting demoted. To be honest, I think this option is highly unlikely but it is something to consider. Pitchers (and baseball players in general) are creatures of habit and by nature are not fans of a 6-man rotation. This option allow him to continue to face major league hitting and it allows the Twins some flexibility if they do have injuries. Again, I don’t see this happening but also wouldn’t mind if it did.
 
Personally, I would like to see Romero stay in the majors with whatever roster moves it takes. Realistically, I think option 1 is what is going to happen.
 
Which option do you think is the best? Is there another option I didn’t consider? Lets discuss!

The Minnesota Twins abruptly canceled the remainder of the 2018 season today after losing their opening game to the Baltimore Orioles, 3 to 2.
 
"Crushing defeat," said Derek Falvey, who took the rap like a man. "I apologize to the Pohlad family for putting a losing squad on the field. I hereby submit my resignation."
 
Falvey was quickly joined by the rest of the Front Office, plus all the Twins coaches and Paul Molitor, the team's Hall of Fame manager.
 
Various players either simply left town or announced their retirement. Joe Mauer plans to start a trout fishing club, possibly hiring Kent Hrbek as coach and manager. "Fishing and golf are all baseball players know," said Mauer. "I'm too old to become a pro golfer, but I think I can still catch a fish."
 
Fans concerned about refunds for season tickets are out of luck. The Pohlads are keeping the money.