Major League Ready

Could end up being one heck of a trade for a rental. It sure would be great if he dominates and we see him here at or before the deadline.

I agree they probably won't produce 3 WAR. The difference in our positions is that I don't see that extra 1 or 2 WAR being at all significant in terms of the likelihood of the 2022 team contending. This team just does not have the talent to be a serious contender. I don't see them competing until some of the pitching prospects step up. I agree with you that's not going to happen overnight. The old regime was never willing to face reality like Chicago did when they traded Sale and Eaton. The offer has to be good but let's be realistic in that Berrios is not an ace. We also don't have to trade 7 or 8 players. However, we should take what we can get for the rentals and use the roster spot to audition prospects. Pineda could bring back a decent piece. Robles has been looking like he could really get it together between now and the deadline. If so, he could bring back a nice player too. Then, there is Rogers who could also be a great trade asset if he gets consistent. I guess we have quite a few guys that fit that description.

That's what people said about Tampa trading Snell and they also lost Morton to free agency. The key IMO is establishing a couple prospects this year. Dobnak could be one of them but I am thinking more of Duran / Balazovic / Canterino / Winder / Sands and Ober. I would dump Albers right now and move Winder to AAA with Canterino filing his spot a AA and Valimont filing Canterino's spot a A+. If we establish two prearb players, we can then use the funds saved by the departure of Berrios / Pineda and Haap to sign a front of the rotation FA. It would be really great if Gordon's performance continues. That would allow us to replace Simmons and add another $10M available for free agents. Gordon's sample size is small but wow would that be a bonus if he lived up to something close to expectations given his draft position.

This was the theme for several years prior to 2019 and we just never had the depth of talent necessary to seriously content. Then, it it finally looked like all of those young players were going to be the great players we hoped they would be. Unfortunately, 2019 looks like the outlier at this point. It's time to accept this like Chicago did when they traded Sale and Eaton. Unless they go on a major winning streak right now, the remainder of this year will provide two opportunities. Trading of short-term assets and auditioning a myriad of prospects, especially pitchers. Gordon is earning a short right now too. (Robles / Happ / Pineda are obvious and could bring decent returns, especially Pineda and Robles. If Buxton continues to play at relatively the same level he could bring the type of haul that would significantly impact the future. I guess the same is true of Berrios if he gets more consistent between now and the deadline. In 2022, I would rather watch Balazovic / Duran / Canterino / Winder / Kirilloff / Larnach / Gordon and at some point Lewis than watch a 500 or even a 87 win team with little chance of going anywhere in the playoffs. Add a good haul from moving a number for players this year over the course of 2022-24 and we could finally have a legit contender. This team is not it. I would add that 2022 could look pretty good if we establish two starters this year. MOving the other payroll would afford the opportunity to add a good FA starting pitcher to the mix. Maeda / Free Agent / Duran / Balazovic and one of Winder / Ober / Sands could be a pretty darn good rotation. Add Kirilloff, Larnach, and perhaps Gordon. We would just need to resolve center field. Maybe that's where Lewis ends up.

I am not so sure we have a right to an opinion here. The players should have the right to determine if it's necessary to show respect for each other. In the history of the game, no other player has ever swung at a 3-0 pitch when up by 10 or more runs. Heard this on MLB radio. So, it seems quite clear players feel this is disrespectful and piling on. They should have the right in my opinion to expect a certain amount of respect for other players / teams and the game. This was a rookie who decided he was above this expectation and even above following his managers instructions. The Twins should not have put someone on the mound that could not perform in a reasonable manner but Mercedes should have followed his manager's direction. He should have also respected the cultural norms players have adopted. Every society, group, etc has unwritten rules that promote civility in some form. It's hardly a bad thing. Of course, there are always those who don't feel the need to follow rules. What I find really sad is that respect for the game and each other is considered old school and out of date thinking.

Have you paid any to the percentage of "high profile" free agent RPs that have been somewhere between very mediocre and absolutely terrible? If only they had kept Clippard and Romo like so many here suggested or signed Rosenthal and/or Yates. Even Hendricks has a WAR of zero right now. So, let's not pretend anyone FO is going to have consistent success with BPs. It's bitching for the sake of bitching.

Don't see Canterino on St. Paul or Wichita. What's the story with him?

I was critical of Sano when it was unpopular to criticize him. Having said this, Sano’s career wRC+ is above average for 1B even though that position has the highest wRC+ in the league. Also, he was hurt in 2019 and only played 105 games so his season was great and portraying as a hot streak is unfair. He had a down year last season but there were a lot of guys that played far below their normal levels last year. He still had a wRC+ of 99 in a down year and his wRC+ in the past two seasons combined is 121. I would have zero problem with trading Sano. As a matter of fact, I think that might be an ideal scenario. I just don’t agree with flushing him because he has struggled so far this season. That's poor asset management. He has the ability to be a beast or bring a good return if he rebounds. Let’s just wait it out a little.

Why would they have to get rid of somebody? Sano is not a free agent in 2024 and Polanco 2025. The Twins can sit on them until the off-season and hope their value rebounds. If its time for Kirilloff, that's no problem he is going to be in LF. If you want to keep Garlick around, trade Cave.

No doubt there are a lot of 1st round guys that are mediocre or don't even make the show (Mark Appel). However, some of these picks like Gordon and Jay were head scratchers. Cavaco seemed optimistic as well. I hope he finds the things they projected but he seemed like a prayer. Most teams wiff a lot. Pittsburgh has had lots of high draft picks although there problem might be development. KC sucked for years and did not really amass that many really good first rounders. There biggest contribution to their WS team was trading away Greinke for Cane and Escobar and singing Perez in the International draft. Houston's drafts were fantastic for a few years and the result is history. It's a little early to judge Detroit's last few years but their picks look quite good at the moment. I guess what I am saying it's damn hard but it sure would be nice to string together some great picks.

Odd most years but this is a very weird year. Their approach suggests they wanted depth and that makes sense any year and especially this year, right? Happ / Shoemaker & Dobnak provide quality depth. Thorpe may or may not be a bonus. I will be rooting for him tomorrow. That would be great if he could contribute.

or throw the slider in the zone, preferably the corners.

The story is about the probability of Astudillo staying. I believe the likelihood of him staying would be increased if he were in significantly better physical condition. Do you disagree that an athlete in great even good physical condition will outperform the same athlete in Astudillo's physicial condition? How is this not germane to the article?

What's your point? Are you saying physical conditioning is not advantageous to professional athletes?

I have wondered this about him since he showed up on the scene. No doubt his body type presents a challenge to get in shape and stay that way. Having acknowledging the challenge, he is a professional athlete for god sake. It just amazes me when baseball players don't make an concerted effort when there are millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. How do you not get the dietary help and maintain a training program? You would have to believe his defense would be improved by physical conditioning. That could be the difference between him remaining on a major league roster or being a AAAA player. I was really hoping this would be the year we saw the version of Astudillo you described. Physical conditioning and even a modest degree of plate discipline and he would be a very good utility man.

The games they lost were a product of mistakes high school players should not make. * Colume throwing to 2nd. * Simmons (gold glove SS) dropping a ball thrown square to his mid section. * Rogers fumbling a bunt. OK that was a fairly tough play. The good news is these mistakes are not likely to plaque the team. These guys are not likely to continue to botch routine plays. I am also not on board with blaming the off-season BP moves. Wisler has given up 10 runs in 1 2/3 innings and 3 out of 4 appearances. Romo has pitched in 4 games and given up runs in 3 or the 4 appearances. Clippard is out for six weeks. Obviously, the SSS applies to these guys as well but so far Colume looks like a good swap for Romo and Robles looks like a good swap for Clippard. Letting Wisler go looks like the best move of all. Personally, I would wait another month before I even start to assess what was a good / bad move.

He actually has been at the MLB level for 6 years. I am not a real big Sano fan but I don't think you are being fair. He was very good 3 of those 6 years with a wRC+ of 125 / 137 / 149. To put this in perspective, Rosarios best year was a wRC+ of 118. Sano is definitely not consistent but he has the ability to be a real force. I would love to see him put it together in the next month. Garver looks much more like 2019 Garver and Buxton looks like an absolute BEAST!

That would be a great problem to have. They will make roster adjustments If Garlick is that good,. It just won't happen overnight. I would like to see Sano get going and eventually be traded at some point. I think a combination of Kirilloff / Larnach / Garlick or Rooker could be used to cover LF / 1B and DH at some point. Extend Byron and Celestino is your back-up for all OF positions and late inning replacement. I would not even be shocked if Kepler is dealt. Let's hope Kirilloff and Larnach are good enough to force the team to consider trading Kepler.

Yep, I think it's this simple. They did believe anyone would take a guy that's never played above A ball and keep him on the roster. I am not sure I agree that it's not debatable. We have a very small sample size and it might take quite a while to determine if it's a mistake. However, if I could make the decision knowing what we know at the moment, I would have cut Smeltzer. He has very limited upside and we have several guys who project as back of the rotation SPs. We have far less CF prospects. Wade Jr would also have been preferable. Baddoo has much more upside. We have all kinds of OF depth so I would have preferred Baddoo in the system as opposed to Wade Jr. I am sure there are other as well that would come to mind if we look ever the 40 man at the time. I sure hope Celestino breaks out this year or even better we extend Buxton. Either one of these events or both would help us forget about losing Baddoo.

You are right about one thing, I have not accessed medical journals in arriving at an opinion. I would add that I don’t have access to the medical professionals who advise the Twins. I would also add that I have not been in the numerous meeting the Twins have had on this topic. I also have not been in the meetings or consultations with medical experts specific to the course of action they recommend given the short season last year. You are actually understating how little I know or how little all of us know relative to the people making the decisions. The difference in our positions is I know what I don’t know. Not only do you not have all the information but your logic of he did a couple years ago does not consider the highly unusual circumstances of last year. How many pitches did he throw in that game you used as your justification for him going on? Did he throw 125-130 pitches which is the pace he was on to pitch 9 innings? Even if he did there is just no way any competent FO / manager and/or pitching coach would let him go 125+ pitches on opening night after last year so I don't see your point unless they let him throw 140+ pitches in the start you reference. He was not finishing that game unless he had three (5-7) pitch innings in a row so why are we debating this decision.

This was adeptly worded. Let's just assume the practices every team in the league is adapting is based on assumptions and conjecture. Let's ignore the multitude of medical experts that have been consulting in adapting these practices. Let's assume the teams have not put substantial investment in time and money consulting specialists / medical doctors and are just making up stuff. That's not a foolish assumption at all. I mean ... they did it in the past. They could not have possibly learned anything that would justify changing their practices now.

Ober has not been talked about much lately. However, I wonder if he is one of the guys that gets a shot at the ML level this year? Great command plays at every level. I keep hoping the coaching staff finds a way to add a couple ticks to his velocity. You would think a guy that big could add a couple MPH through great physical conditioning if nothing else. I am hoping for Chris Young with a couple extra MPH and even better control. Young was quite good early in his career. Sure be nice to get the equivalent or a little better out of Ober.

You can stop ranting now because removing Berrios had nothing to do with Analytics, at least not in the same sense as Snell being removed. The science which prompted this move is medical science. In other words, he was removed because of risk of injury. It would have been a different story had they been even a month into the season and he had a handful of 100 pitch starts.

You have a habit of implying management is stupid based on an assumption for which you offer no validated as in this case. I can think of two very specific instances. Your constant harping on the subject made wonder if your position had any merit so I researched it myself. The first one was you insisted the team should sign a high-end FA starter even if it was rather clear the team was not ready to compete until at least the following year. Turns out that those starters have a horrible track record after the first year of the contract. The second one was basically that our organization was too cheap the sign the very top International Free Agents. As it turns out, the 3-4M at very best are no better than the $1M-1.5M draftees. The sample size is modest but the 1-1.5M draftees have actually turned out better in the years I researched. Therefore, the most productive strategy is probably to spread out the international allowance instead of blowing it all on one 16 year old kid. You have a tendency to derive conclusions based on assumption. Then, assume the people (front office) who have far more and far better information than you don’t know what they are doing. If you are going to critique the front office based on poorly formulated assumptions, don’t be offended when called on it.

The only other weak link is Sano. 7 of 9 is pretty darn good. Ignoring Arraez will play there part-time while also ignoring they brought in Donaldson last year and Simmons this year might be a little pessimistic, especially given they already have great defense in CF and RF.