Cris E

This is not a good post. Wait until one guy gets off to a hot start and then quick slap something up before he gets hurt! Arraez is glass, and while he always took the field in 2022, by late summer he was a shell of the first half player. He had a .715 OPS in the second half while gimping around on bad legs and filling the tattered lineup card. This was a trade of starters in their prime and shouldn't be evaluated for a looong time.

Either Buxton will have some surgery and return to CF or we'll piece it together with Taylor and his ilk for a few years until we bring up a talented kid. Clark could be it or we could trade for someone. Lewis will probably not return to CF as a primary position because he gets hurt there and he can play 3b until Correa stops being a good SS. If Miranda can drive him away from that position then he'll be sent to 2B and Julien (and other folks like Martin) will have to be better at 2B or yield their innings. The fact is he's not an excellent CF and I think they enjoy having a glove-first player at that position.

20-20 hindsight isn't useful. McCutchen is certainly playing better this year than he has in quite some time, but how much of that is due to returning home? How much is due to playing off the excellent year the rest of the Pirates are having? Would it look the same if he just another geezer mercenary bat wedged between Kepler's .209 and Buxton's .210? He sounds like a perfect delight to have around, but I think the homecoming is a part of the story here. Return to this story in September and see how things play out. Meanwhile use your magical talents to manipulate the stock market and make us all rich.

In 2022 we only ended up with Gordon and Celestino as regulars because of injuries. In April no one expected either to be a regular anywhere on the field, and that list of 2023 regulars has some of the same smell right now. In October I expect at least two more of the 2023 spots to be the pre-season favorites (Kirriloff, Gallo) and I'd be shocked if Lewis doesn't replace Miranda as the new face that seizes a spot. But Buxton and Polanco are bumming me out, because I was hoping they'd be well this year. Ah well, it's an article about defense and we didn't get worse so I should be pleased that we didn't go total slow-pitch softball out there.

I think Rocco is already addressing this when he started talking last week about how valuable Willi is as a late inning pinch runner. Stick him in to run in the 8th and there's little chance he actually comes to bat, plus he can take the field in place of almost anyone else who isn't as good a fielder (Julien, Larnach, Solano, etc.)

Rocco lets starters go when they are rolling, and he pulls guys that are struggling or hurt. Sonny was rolling in April and got all the inning he wanted but he was poor last night and got the 2022 hook. No issues except from the guy with a competitive streak deep enough to make it to the majors, Shocker.

He's a far better hitter than Gordon. The question is if he can gather the pieces together and get to the majors before even more youngsters start coming up to crowd him out entirely (eg Emmanuel Rodriguez.)

They need a reliable lefty in the pen until Thielbar returns for good. That's about it for Needs. As far as Wants are concerned they should consider a couple things to shake up the clubhouse.Counselor Correa is a great influence for growth and all, but I don't get the feeling there's a red-ass in there to chase around the complacent players. Maybe sending out a couple of the underperforming vets to make room for kids will break things loose. Like everyone else I offer Pagan and Kepler with little expectation they get much in return. There are teams like the Yankees that should be interested in Kepler. He's an established professional that can do a lot of things for them as they navigate their outfield injuries. Pagan can go to any team with a ton of bullpen injuries that needs arms and innings. He's been healthy and willing, and someone like the White Sox or Rockies could use a guy to take the ball and not completely suck. Say what you will, but Emilio does have long stretches where he's quite good (before he lobs a ruler-straight FB right down the middle...) So in conclusion I'd start putting Buxton back in CF once a week, go find home for those two, pick up someone to back up Moran and start auditioning youngsters at 2B. Oh, I should have mentioned that: I love Polanco but he's looking pretty washed up. His defense is worse than ever, he's not hitting, he's on the DL again and we have a lot of youngsters piling up behind him. Find a partner for the 29 year old because I think he's got good potential and deserves a chance to play. However we have too many perpetually injured guys that will be great the day they are healthy again. That day rarely comes for some players and we need to identify them and send them on. As an aside, a weakness of this front office is to continually be dumpster-diving like Calvin Griffith still runs the team. We can enjoy a roll of the dice or two every year, but an important trait for top players is taking the field on a regular basis. Too many of our core players are Great Values because of the injury risks. We got Buxton and Correa on cheap deals to cover the potential missed time, but lesser talents like Donaldson, Garver, Sano, Polanco, Maeda, Alcala and so on are worth more as teases to other teams than as actual baseball players in MN. Keep trading them until we have a more reliable mix on the roster.

I somewhat agree with your point that standing pat is defensible sometimes, but 2022 Baltimore is a poor comparison to 2022 Minnesota. No one expected BAL to be anywhere near first place and they had no depth to advance in the playoffs, but MIN had a core of quality vets on hand that the kids were supporting well. There was no certainty that all the injured guys would be gone through the end of the year, or that Grey, Ryan, Ober and a healthy Mahle that pitched to his road record wouldn't have been enough to get into the playoffs. As mentioned above, there's a lot of guesswork in these projections and trades, particularly when injuries are involved. (You need to live with some acceptance of injury risk with all pitchers. Example: Sonny Grey has a very long injury history yet he's been pretty good here when kept on a short innings leash.) Anyway, over-simplifying cases does no one any favors. The future is hard, so embrace the ambiguity, question anyone who is too certain, forgive mis-reads, enjoy the game.

Correa will go on the IL to make room for him. Longer term it'll depend on which order the injured guys return, but unless Julien starts hitting the cover off the ball he'll be the one on the train back to St Paul. He's youngest, he needs to keep playing somewhere every day, and he's not forcing them to keep him right now.

You don't get to just rewrite Maeda's contract though. He has to want to relieve, and he didn't when he was with LA and they put that contract together. Part of the reason LA was willing to trade him was that they didn't want him to start but we were willing to give him the chance. And when he pitched well it proved the Twins right, and when he broke down it proved the Dodgers right. I haven't heard from him lately, but I assume he still thinks he can be that guy from 2020 so he's probably not ready to go to the pen, meaning you'd have to give him some more incentive to change that contract which means you're extending a 35 year old coming off a serious injury before he proves his health? Color me skeptical. Pitch him as a starter until he thrives (yea!) or loses the job, then let him live with that contract in another role knowing he had a chance to earn the incentives and failed, and then take up any extension talks after you know how this year went.

Grey went on the DL in April (hamstring) and June (pectoral strain) and then a season-ender in September. Each time he was brought back on a short leash to let him build some stamina and avoid further hurt: after the May injury his first two starts back were 4.0 and 4.1 innings, in June were 5.0 and 4.0 innings, and he never returned after September. He also had some short starts in July, but that's mostly because he wasn't pitching well: 5.0 IP and 3ER, 4.2 IP and 5 ER, 3.2 IP and 6 ER. But after about July 24 he was both effective and on a short leash. He made ten starts (plus the one bad injury game in Sept) and threw 90+ pitches 4 times and only one game with fewer than 20 batters faced but only two games with more than 22 batters faced. So I can see where the formula was both frustrating and effective: he couldn't stay on the field more than a month at a time before the all-star break, but he took the ball every time afterwards. But here's what you need to know about Sonny: in his huge 2019 season he made it to 25 BF eight times in 31 starts, and last year he made it 4 times in 23. He had games of 24, 26 and then 20 BF in May and then he went on the DL. When he went to 25 in July his next game 5ER in 4.2IP and 0 K. He had back-to-back 25 BF games in Sept and the next start he was lost for the year. Even when he was healthy in 2019 only threw 5.6 IP/GS and that wasn't on Rocco, that's managers watching him throw a lot of pitches per inning and often get hurt. But here's the difference between Joe Ryan and Sonny Grey: Ryan only had 6 starts where he threw fewer than 80 pitches: three where he gave up only 1 run, two where he gave up 3 or more, and opening day where he gave up 2 runs. Joe threw a lot of pitches, often inefficiently, and wasn't really handled with kid gloves. And he only went on the DL once, and it was for Covid. The other starters were on short leashes because they were either raw rookies or fragile Bundy/Archer reclamation pieces and Rocco was just trying to not push them too hard. If Sonny want to complain about pitcher usage in this context he can talk to Joe Ryan about those 90-100 pitches in five innings outings and then take a hard look in the mirror about how well he can handle more than two dozen batters.

We're already looking at a traffic jam of good bat, weak glove infielders that could learn 1B with three weeks of practice and are almost certainly more likely to produce an OPS+ over 100 than Mr White. Have a great year, take a lot of pictures, enjoy St Paul, but please don't block the exits when my prospects need to head over to Mpls.

Lewis is the only one who has enough experience to come up and sit on the bench at all. He'll arrive as soon as he's ready and fill a utility role, playing where ever he can get an AB. The rest are young and need to play every day, so they are only coming up for a long term injury or trade situation. And Raya is waaay too young to even be discussing AAA.

The Twins didn't pick these guys out of the phone book, they were chosen because of their years of remaining control. Expect one or two to get deals (Mahle and/or Lopez depending on health and performance) and then an appraisal of how the younger kids are coming along will dictate how hard they go after Grey and Meada. Sonny has been very effective for a long time and there's no guarantee that our youth will end up any better or healthier than he is. After after 2022 Maeda would have to come pretty cheap to justify creating another Bunde/Archer shaped spot in the rotation. But I don't think he's going to be durable or efficient enough to be a regular six inning guy so I expect us to have better options when it comes time to review his deal.

I thought the New Look was replacing half our roster with Cincinnati Reds and buying up all the remaindered Miami Marlins "M" gear.

"Home runs and walks are not taking what the game is giving. You need to see the new opportunities and hit through the infield, steal a base, score on a weak fly ball to right. Play smart, not analytical." - Rocco, maybe.

I'm a reader, not a watcher. If the info is important put it in the description of the vid, but sound is not compatible with work.

The Twins prefer hitters. They mostly figure they'll figure out the defense later, but if a guy can't hit he can't play. Also, if a bat-first guy like Jeter can win a shoebox full of rings as a SS then they can find a way to make their best prospects fit into a defense built around Correa and Buxton.

Larnach is more than just a fringe guy. He was a top 100 prospect for a couple years after being chosen #20 overall in the 2018 draft. His numbers might be fringe now but he's a young guy who lost a key year of development to covid and then had the last two torn up by injury. We can still expect him to develop more given his shortened seasons since 2019. Last spring he was hitting .299/.375/.515 at the end of May when he got hurt, which is a sign that he's probably going to hit better than a utility infielder.

Polanco has real MLB home run power, and precious few of the kids are expected to bring that any time soon. I expect him to be starting at 2b the rest of this season and next year when camp opens too. They can try to seize the job then, but this lineup isn't the 2019 squad and you do want a couple guys that can jog the bases 20-25 times a year. Right now Buxton will hit when he plays, Correa and Miranda are both in that 20 HR area, and then it gets dicey. Polanco has a huge role in this offense and won't be traded away lightly.

Belt and suspenders. This move means little in and of itself, just that the front office doesn't want its underwear hanging out in public like past year. When you have a bunch of AA guys that need to prove themselves you don't just hand them jobs. You block them with orange cones and make them take the jobs, and if they can't beat out Donovan Solano or Kyle Farmer then they belong in AA or AAA.

This team is all about health. Last season showed what the worst case scenario would look like, so in response they got a new trainer, shored up the depth, traded a hot piece of Batting Champ for a big improvement in the rotation, and let the bullpen ride. Odds are we can't have lightening strike that often in the same locker room two years in a row, so we should get some regression to norms for some of these guys. But I've read the Book of Job, so I'm only hoping for a division crown, nothing more.

The Twins knew exactly what they were getting from San Diego in early 2022. At that time the Padres 2021 Manager Jayce Tingler was Rocco's new bench coach and he was part of the whole transaction.

Has he always pulled this much, or was some of this related to his injuries, an attempt to drive the ball more and not have to run as much with the bum leg?