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Major League Ready

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Everything posted by Major League Ready

  1. Major League Ready
    How could we possibly debate a good scouting department is essential to success in MLB. This would be true regardless of specific strategy as it influences every potential strategy for building a team? However, the debate tends to be we don't have Tampa's scouting / development so we should follow different practices. Unfortunately, the net of that logic is that we follow strategies that simply don't or at least have not produced great results for mid or small market teams. In other words, pursing inferior strategies is a really flawed. The answer is not to pursue strategies likely to fail even with good execution. The answer is to get better at executing the most viable strategies. This premise is at the heart of the question posed here about 2023 and more importantly sustaining success beyond 2023. In that regard 2023 does have or make or break component in that so many future pieces will be tested. Will Kirilloff and Lewis come back healthy. Will Larnach / Wallner / Celestino adapt and thrive at the MLB level. Is Martin "breaking out" and will he be a factor fairly soon. What do they do with the available budget? Will it be used in a long-term or short-term manner. Will they reshape the infield by moving one of Urshela / Polanco or Arraez. Will they gibe Duran a shot at starting? That's a lot of questions which supports the long-term importance of what happens in 2023. On the pitching side, Ober looked quite different when he came back. He just might have more ceiling than most believed. Then, we have Varland and SWR looking like they are ready so 2023 will tell us a lot about their future. So, he this context 2023 is going to be a huge test of their plan and execution across the entire organization. I guess that could be considered make or break in 2023.
  2. Major League Ready
    I heard on one of the MLB radio shows that Kirk Gibson had the same surgery early in his career. He did OK!
  3. Major League Ready
    Every year seems to get labeled as make or break. We should pay more attention to how winning teams are built in other small/mid-markets. How many high dollar free agents does Cleveland have on their roster? How many trades has Cleveland made for big name free agents. How many highly productive players were obtained by trading away well-established veterans? They had 7 position players with an fWar above 1.5. Four of them were acquired by trading away established players, 2 were international (not high dollar) and 1 was drafted. Clause and Quantrill were also acquired by trading away Kluber. Their other two top SPs (Bieber / McKenzie) were drafted. This obsession with big name free agents and trading for big names absolutely ignores how good teams are built in modest revenue markets with modest revenue. The Twins have slightly more revenue and therefore can augment a roster but good teams simply are not built in similar markets in the manner so many here insist they must be built. Disagree, great show examples of teams sustaining success in similar markets though trading for long-term assets and signing $200M free agents.
  4. Major League Ready
    The grade on that trade has been trending upward over the last month. Man, it sure would be nice to see him repeat what Lewis did last year. By this I mean in the AFL and then the major league level minus the getting injured part.
  5. Major League Ready
    Yep. This was also my takeaway from the last couple weeks. That's pretty significant. The other thing that caught my attention was that Ober's new slider looks like it could really elevate his upside. He can put batters away now. Ober looked considerably better than Winder at the end of the year IMO. I would also add that the last weeks gave me some hope they will come up with a long relief guy or two. Sands / Henriquez / Dobnak and Paddack could fill the multi-inning RP role. I really did not think Sands or Henriguez were Major League pitchers but they just might have a role.
  6. Major League Ready
    An extension makes little sense. Miranda is already the better overall player with a good chance of getting better. The money would be much better spent on 1B if Kirilloff does not return to health. That position is easier to fill through free agency or trade. If Kirilloff is healthy, by mid 23 you have Kirilloff / Polanco / Arraez / Miranda / Gordon / Lewis and Urshela for 3 positions and by 24 you probably add Martin and Lee.
  7. Major League Ready
    I was a big supporter of the trade for Urshela and loved having him on the team. However, this discussion sounds a lot like last year when the majority thought we should keep Donaldson. Some absolutely insisted the FO must be incompetent because we had obviously gotten worse at 3B and catcher. The trade worked out great for 22 and it's likely Donaldson will continue to decline making it an even better trade going forward. Going forward Urshela's relative importance to 2023 depends on Kirilloff's health. If Kirilloff is healthy we have Urshela / Arraez / Miranda, Polanco and Kirilloff for 3 positions with Gordon also able to play 2B. He is not part of the solution beyond 2023 so I would not be too disappointed if they could get something back and invest the $10M saved elsewhere. The team is at least at good with Miranda at 3B and they could go get a RH DH/1B with that 10M to complement Arraez and that player would be around longer than 1 year.
  8. Major League Ready
    It’s interesting to contrast this with the other teams in the division. Chicago put together a great team. Is it the fault of the FO that they performed so poorly? Cleveland signed nobody even though they were at $70M in salary and they did nothing at the deadline. How did Cleveland build their roster? How were the players acquired that produced significant WAR for them. Their approach is basically the opposite of what many here expect from the Twins. Their team was built by trading away established players for prospects and extending a player they drafted (Ramirez) I would NOT say the pitching pipeline has not arrived but it has not been as impactful as we would have hoped. How many pitchers should we expect? They have added Ober / Ryan / Winder / Jax and Duran. It looks like Varland is close and SWR is not far off either. There are a few others like Moran / Megill / Sands / Sisk that need a little refinement as well and a couple others like Canterino that need to get healthy.
  9. Major League Ready
    Great list. I might replace Lewis getting injured but that's just because I was so excited to see Lewis elevate his game in AAA and then play great when he got here when we really didn't know what to expect from him. At least I didn't know what to expect from him.
  10. Major League Ready
    I could say the same thing about spending for every person on this site. How would you react if I suggested your unwillingness to spend more than you make each year was just you being cheap? Baseball fans want to believe these teams are a hobby and profit does not matter. We want to think they should not care which is exceptionally naive. They are less profit focused than corporations but their valuation is highly correlated to profitability. They care!
  11. Major League Ready
    If they drew another 5,000 fans for every single game and those fans spent $50 each that would be $20M which would allow for less than an additional $18M spent after payroll taxes and benefits. There are teams that literally double the Twin's revenue and quite a few with $100-$200M revenue advantage. If spending X would produce X plus something, they would spend more. This has got to be the most misguided argument on this site and it keeps coming up year after year.
  12. Major League Ready
    They generate less than league average revenue. What do you expect them to spend? It just astounds me that so many people can't figure out the amount that can be spent is a product of the amount coming in.
  13. Major League Ready
    That has little to do with the length of their starts and more to do with the number of starts. In other words, it has nothing to do with length of starts and much more about durability in this particular season.
  14. Major League Ready
    TK said it so it must be true. Apparently, not a single one of those big companies spending millions on data analytics and the systems / infrastructure that drive them don't have a single person that understands this premise. All of those guys with ivy league MBAs and the analytics experts that work for them understand that data is useless for predicting outcomes or developing strategies. How the rest of the world operates can be telling.
  15. Major League Ready
    My bad. I misread your post which was a response to Mark G complaining. Sorry.
  16. Major League Ready
    They lost Maeda / Ober / Paddack / Winder and now Mahle. That's an entire rotation. So complaining is to say let's just ignore 5 starting pitchers going down and suggest it's poor management. Do you have a better solution at this point or are you suggesting they should have another 5 experienced (quality) veterans to make up for all the injuries. I am thinking this is somewhat inevitable when you have this many injuries. You might even go so far as to say we are fortunate to have a quality rookie like Varland to take on this challenge.
  17. Major League Ready
    Or Joe Ryan or Bailey Ober or Josh Winder or Griffin Jax or Jhoan Duran. I guess it just depends on if you only want to focus on the failures. There will always be failure at the MLB level so we can certainly find them quite easily if that's what we want to focus on. Instead, I am going to wish the local young man well and hope he becomes a fixture in the rotation.
  18. Major League Ready
    Fair enough. My point was not that they were equivalent. The point was they were not as far apart as the post I initially quote suggested. Miranda was horrible in his initial stint (66ABs). Since the 2nd call-up, Miranda has an OPS of 909. Hrbeks 82 season was 848. So, I don't buy that they were vastly different outside of Miranda being really / really bad for those first 66 ABs.
  19. Major League Ready
    Great to see Walner coming back strong and Palacios since his brief call-up is batting 294 with an 858 OPS. He should be getting a little more love around here than he has been.
  20. Major League Ready
    The difference between Hrbek and miranda is that Hrbek got his feet wet the year before and he was mediocre in that initial stint with the Twins. he came out of the gate in 82 really hot and had an OPS of 986 for the first two months. The next two months Hrbek's OPS was was 809. Miranda started slow and the next two months his OPS was 843. So, if we are fair and consider Hrbek got his first look the year before the start of the two careers look quite similar.
  21. Major League Ready
    I think the answer is we don't know. The league has adapted, and we are entering the phase where we find out if he can adjust. I do think he is being judged rather harshly defensively. His future defensive position is at 3B and after trading Steer and CES we need him to be a 3B. They said about a week ago on the TV broadcast he has only made 1 error at 3B and he has looked better at 3B than 1B to me. His limited experience at 1B shows in the decisions he makes although I suspect that will come along fairly quickly as he learns from those mistakes. I would be very happy to have an 850 OPS 3B that is average defensively. Plus, I will take the extra $20M and invest that money in pitching.
  22. Major League Ready
    The league definitely made some adjustments after two very productive months in June and July. The past 2-3 weeks he has not gotten much to hit and he had been chasing or swinging at very tough pitches on the first pitch and getting behind. Now we will see if he can adjust. I thought his approach was better last night. It may have been that he just got too amped and two anxious after killing it for a couple months. He will be a beast if he makes them pitch to him. The future was looking very bright the couple of weeks we had Miranda / Lewis and Kirilloff in the INF. Sure hope that comes together next year.
  23. Major League Ready
    Bundy is a good #5 but we have enough depth. Gray / Mahle / Ryan / Winder / Ober / Maeda and maybe Dobnak with Varland getting close plus Smeltzer in reserve and Paddack a couple month into next season. Past years were different. They had very little depth of reasonable quality. If they add someone it needs to be a front of the rotation arm or why bother. It also would not be a big surprise to see Duran get a shot in the rotation because he has the most potential of anyone on the roster to be a dominant #1.
  24. Major League Ready
    The biggest determinant will probably be if Miranda adjusts to how the league is pitching him. He had a stretch of a couple hundred ABs where he hit 330 and had an OPS over 900. Now he is getting pitched tough and his plate discipline has not been as good. They would have more confidence letting Urshela go if Miranda makes the necessary adjustments.
  25. Major League Ready
    I would think a big part of the decision will be if they believe Kirilloff will be healthy. If so, he is going to get that shot. Miranda has only made 1 error and looked decent not great at 3B but he is going to be very valuable if he can play an average 3B. Arraez is back-up 1B and emergency 3B. Gordon is super utility and has also been one of our best offensive players the last couple months. I just don't see room or enough value in keeping Urshela. Spend the $8.5M on a RP or use it toward a top of the rotation SP. It would even make more sense to try to sign Josh Bell and Kirilloff can play OF / 1B / DH.
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