Cris E

If either of those guys had ever walked...

The injuries are the whole thing. They are why he hasn't moved up, hasn't been allowed to prove if he can hit those fastballs, or adjust his approach in ways that Julien could not. Law flat out said the injuries were why he wasn't ranked higher. Everyone loves him in concept, but he's been on the verge of MLB for so long they are believing the outages more than the game play. I expect Emma would have been called up by now if healthy, and Fedko is probably only going to stay until he's ready and they have to start choosing between the not quite young, not quite excellent corners like Martin, Larnach, Fedko, Wallner, etc. With any luck at all that'll give Fedko a couple weeks, and then ERod a couple and then it's mid-July and they can start shifting the 40 man around for real.

His defense is not great but it's also not his primary problem, his hitting has been the issue, and last winter he was not blocking anyone at 1B or 3B so a position change was not called for. But when they gave up on Lee at SS last month he did need to move, and his bat was so bad that AAA was the place to handle two changes at once. He tuned up at 1B and 2B and here we are. If you want to question something then ask why Lee was moved off SS before a replacement was ready. He wasn't so bad that a parade of below-average gloves who can't hit was demanded. Similarly the defense at 3B was just poor, not "Bobby Bonilla is a menace to the fans behind first base" bad. It could have waited until Culpepper was ready. I don't see what the benefit was of this interlude of full-time utility guys; they hit and field like the worst parts of the guys they were intended to replace. ???

I agree, and that 's what I meant. We already have too many IF right now so we don't need a second utility guy to cover Keaschall's spot while both of those guys are looking for work..

To that I would reply that Clemens or Lewis are already here looking for roles and they can take over at 2B. I totally agree with keeping Kreidler though.

I love this. The MLB roster is there to play and the manager is going to use the guys at hand to try to win. If you have people around who shouldn't be there then he's going to have trouble. When Buxton was missing half each season then the CF caddy needed to be good enough to play three days a week. But he's been healthier of late and so the quality of his backups has dropped. To put it another way, when Earl Weaver was asked where his backup SS was and he'd say "Rochester" which was his AAA team at the time. Over the past two years Outman and Margot should have been left in St Paul. And now that Shelton has been handed a handful of scarecrows instead of a full infield it's clear that the team is missing some important parts.

I don't care which side these guys hit from, none are good enough hitters to do more than bat ninth. Do you want your utility guy to get a regular role because of his platoon advantage? No, he's a defensive fill-in first, then maybe a pinch hitter or runner, and finally maybe a longer-term injury option. The notion that he's got to pull his weight in the batting order is not right; if he could hit he'd be your starting SS or 2B or whatever. Willie Castro and Kyle Farmer were special utility guys because they were average hitters who could handle the middle infield. In the past the Twins have had a series of good ones, Castro, Ehire Adrianza, Marwin Gonzalez, and even Luis Arreaz for a couple seasons, but across baseball most are not that good. These guys need to flash leather, run, bunt, maybe pinch hit a little. I would try to option Grey and bring up Kulpepper, then maybe try to trade Arcia to some team with a tire fire in their infield. Lots of 2b/3b injuries this year where a cheap, expendable hand like him could be useful. You don't need to get much, but gaining roster space and a low A lottery ticket is better than just cutting him loose.

I wonder if the Balls in Play metric is affected by the defense getting sleepy watching batters not swing. Does BABIP track with that sort of thing? Because in real life I used to not be sharp during long innings when my pitcher was not sharp.

I'd say the same about Kenley Jansen. Didn't he pitch with the 1997 Braves?

He did tear up St Paul, but there were some underlying hints that he might have been dominating the dojo more than folks may want to admit. Prospect Savant has a page for his 2026 AAA stats and it shows both the awesome success and maybe some lessons not learned. Red is great and Royce has lots. Golly look at those Exit Velocities. But then go down a bit and you start seeing some cold, hard blue. Fine, no walks, but who would when you're hitting like this. But then the Chase, the swinging strikes, the contact in the strike zone all below average among prospects. I guess I was hoping he'd focus on those things rather than whacking mistakes and feeling better about himself. If you think the latter was the goal of his hiatus well then maybe it helped. But I think he had some real work to do on pitch selection and getting his base settled and this maybe doesn't indicate that all happened. We'll see. I hope he's better (and not just better than AAA.) https://prospectsavant.com/player/668904

OK two things: 1. You're a bad person for doing that. And you skipped over them picking up Yoendrys Gómez; it's not all bad, it's somehow worse when there's a 1% chance of being Brock Stewart. 2. You seem to be confusing different metaphors that come on rolls. You typed Lottery Ticket but may have meant TP.

Was this supposed to be the other half of the "Send Down Luke" article? Why are they split up?

Agree. Also, since when is sending down a second year player hitting poorly some sort of desperate scheme just crazy enough to work? It happens all the time, more often than not to be honest. Most guys don't show up in the majors and start hitting and then retire at 37 without some setbacks and resets. This is perfectly normal, or was before the internet allowed us to get too comfortable with our roster moves and career shapes and depth charts. He's not playing well, they have a young SS to evaluate, Lewis is ready to step in and try some 2B, maybe Luke can be the next Martin and head out to left field.

This 200Ab stretch is the first time in his career he's been above average. He's been on a heater for the last week, but seven days ago his OPS was 65 points lower. Lets pump the brakes on 78th percentile hitter.

I liked your comment because I agree with it, but to answer your initial question you trade him if someone offers you something stupid and far more valuable than Yoendrys Gómez. Chances are good that won't happen, but never say never.