Cris E

@Nashvilletwin I think winning gets butts in seats more than losing with style, but losing with style is better than losing ugly. Last year was ugly with a Capital Punishment U, and this is a new year with new possibilities. If we're winning then Rocco is going to do Rocco things, but if things fall apart I do believe they'll sell vets and go young. They have a lot of guys in the last year of their deal and could move many if the sun sets by July 20.

Honestly that last one looks different from the first two, with the hands so different and the left foot overloaded much more. EDIT: Maybe it was the hair that affected him early in the year. That's quite a mane in that middle pic.

Farmer has caught at the major league level, so for a day or two he can be the backup catcher. More than that and we'd want a real one so we could go back to using him as a utility guy, and at that point we'll end up with one of the geezer non-hitting vets from St Paul parked on the Twins' bench.

I'm sure it was a joint decision; the doctors from team PR took one look at the x-rays and said "Man, I have never seen anything like that before." *rimshot* Thanks a lot, I'll be here all week. Tip your wait staff.

I can't speak to your emotional attachments as they aren't supposed to bend to persuasion, but Farmer and Taylor were signed as backups. Well Farmer was placeholding the starting SS job for a few weeks, but he was never intended to hold it long. And Gallo is only here on a one year deal until we find out which of the kids can play at this level. When he was signed they only had Gordon, Buxton and Kepler with any real OF experience (excluding filler like Cave, Garlick et al) and none of them was a lock to be 500 AB of above average performance. They needed another real OF, and even after signing Gallo trading Kepler would be premised on having one of the kids emerge into a real major league starter as a rookie. That's not a given which is why they went another step down that road and picked up Taylor too. We just weren't that deep in proven fielders last November.

There was great pain in MN last season as team designers were forced to dig well through the bottom of the barrel to find enough guys to wear shirts and take paychecks while the major league ballplayers were injured. So a lot of work this winter was spent on depth, and never being caught with the likes of Cage AND Celestino AND Garlick AND Leon AND Hamilton AND Beckham on the 40 man roster together, much less on the field in the same month. Lots of contingency planning built around the guys who are not proven yet, the guys who have health issues, and who can be moved to make room for the ones a year away. No Correa and no one behind him meant they needed an adult SS like Farmer to buy time for one of the kids to grow into the role. Gallo removes the question of ever seeing that parade of crappy OF at Target Field. The fact that he's left or right handed isn't nearly as important as his defense, his health and his record of HR and BB. It's not beautiful baseball, but even in a calamitous down year his 79 OPS+ was about as good as the callow Celestino's 80 with FAR better defense. (See also Jake Cave's 84, Contreas' 24 or Billy Hamilton's -59.) And if you look at the OF names on hand when Gallo was signed, it was Buxton (half time), Kepler (full time) and then young Gordon, new Kirilloff, new Larnach, the unready Celestino, new Wallner, and the detritus: Garlick? Cage? Contreras? Billy Hamilton? Not to say bad things about darling Gordon, but when his babip fell below .300 in Sept/Oct his OPS+ dropped to 87. The FO was looking for a solid floor, so even after Gallo was in hand they went out and got Taylor to be Buxton's understudy. (BTW, I firmly believe that Taylor is only going to play CF and will only darken the grass in LF or RF when injury removes a better offensive option. The man is a fielder, not a hitter: in nine years he's maxxed out at a 104 OPS+ and then a 90 and the rest are below 80, though he is better against lefties. We can afford some poor defense in LF /RF to get a better bat than him in the lineup.) The fact that Gallo could back up 1B after seeing the health issues surrounding Arraez and Kirilloff was gravy. And later it turned out Arraez could be traded because Gallo was on hand to play first if Kirilloff faltered. Miranda was always going to third and Urshela was going to have to move out of his way. There was a herd of infielders coming, most were not staying SS and would need homes. Miranda was already on hand, costing $9m less, nearly hitting as well and improving rapidly, and if he faltered Lewis was there, and Lee was behind him, and Julien was coming and Polanco might get pushed from 2b. Like him all you want, but the corners were getting crowded and Gio was not moving from third so Gio had to go.

How Kepler is playing will dictate who would fill in for an ailing Kirrilof. Miranda moves over if Gallo is needed in the outfield, but Gallo can come in to first if Max is hitting well. There's no way we need the desiccated remains of Yuli Gurriel cluttering up the 40 man when there are this many AAA guys waiting for playing time.

You can try to mess with the swing, but if it isn't working (or the guy resists) then back off and work with what he's got. And in Martin's case maybe he spends time with a baserunning guru so he can identify more leg doubles where he takes advantage of inattentive outfielders. Buxton makes defenses play hard every time he's up, and Martin should be doing the same thing. I think his role should be in the OF and an emergency infielder, replacing Nick Gordon for 2024 or even late this year. I could see Nick moving at the deadline if we need something.

1. The ball that MLB manufactures dictates the baseline numbers for the league, so hoping for individual OPS or AVG numbers is a fool's errand until we see what shape of game the league wants everyone to play. Remember, AL batting average last year was only .243. I liked the places where the prediction was based on OPS+ rather than absolute numbers. 2. It's an odd year so Gallo is going to be great, that one's in the bag. 🤣 Actually I think his fielding will be fine where ever he's allowed to play, and his season will come down to making the contact often enough to keep pitchers out of the strike zone so he can keep getting on base. 3. I'm not too concerned about the performance of most of our vets, so I measure the success for a lot of these guys in plate appearances as much as anything. If Buxton can take the field he'll be one of our top players. If Correa is out there he's going to put up decent numbers. I want Polanco to return as Polanco and play games. Kepler is the only one with questions and there's a line of replacements out the door in the event he doesn't deliver. 4. Gordon needs to show if he's the full time player who hit so well in August or the full time player who fell off so badly in Sept and Oct. And based on his past fielding work and the other options available, he's not really seen as an infielder any more so the hitting standards are raised if he's to be graded as an OF. Austin Martin is going to be auditioning for his job in AA and AA this summer, so he's got to be August Nick rather than September Nick. 4. There's a queue of youngsters that need to prove they belong. Miranda is first, but Larnach and Kirrilof are both right there in needing to show they can stay on the field and pull their weight, and local boy Matt Wallner is just across the river working on his defense and swinging hard in the event Kepler doesn't start hitting grounders through the infield.

Maeda's career numbers are low because he hasn't been allowed to start full time. In retrospect it was probably the right choice because when MN let him do it his arm fell off. He'll get another chance to start here, but honestly he's not a big strong guy, he's had arm issues, and as much as he loves starting he's got real durability issues that make it a bad fit for him. I'd pitch him in a swing role to get his strength up and let him start during the second half, but let him go next fall when he wants to make 30 starts with that body. Someone will sign him but it doesn't have to be us.

He's got a ring, so making a showing in the MVP voting would be the other way to burnish the image. But for Correa the main point is staying on the field and playing more games. He's got 888 games at SS, so he'll need a pile more. Robin Yount only reached 1400, but he put in ten more excellent years in CF. Ernie Banks only played 1100 at SS (and 1200 at 1B) but he hit a million HR so he's in a different category. Most of the rest of the SS were around 2000 games or more, so he's got to hit a ton more or play another five years at SS before he heads somewhere slower to stack up the counting stats. All he can do is do his prep, play the games, stay close with the trainers and hope for the best. He's not unique enough to pull a Mauer and be at first by age 30.

Meh. Chafin is the only one I'd look at. He's consistently produced a FIP below 4 while getting results. The others have results all over the place while the FIP stays high. Moore is exactly the wrong guy, as he's only managed to be above average once since 2015. He had a great 2022, but he threw a 67 ERA+ in 2021, essentially missed all of 19 and 20, and threw ERA+ of 72, 98, 77 and 70 in 2015-18. You already have Pagan and his magical 2019, light a candle and hope that guy comes back next year and save whatever Moore would cost. EDIT: We have a raft of kids that need innings. Get Sands or Ronnie H a bag of seeds and send them to the bullpen to learn how to watch a game from the outfield.

There are a lot of problems with MLB taking back the games and selling an online package to replace the revenue. 1. There are a bunch of folks who like baseball on TV and don't want to have to go to the computer to see a game. You want some TV outlet for this large community to spend their money on. In the past there were way more TV people than computer people so the online was the add-on, and I expect that's going to continue to be the case for a while. Plus bar owners are going to need a way to put this on the TVs reliably and cable works. 2. Local revenue is large. Even in small markets like MN it's $40-60m per season and it runs into nine digits in the big city. If you could get 1m subs at $50 apiece you could replace the Twins' RSN money one for one, but that's hardly a given. The US Census says there are 2.2m households in all of MN, so you'd need a lot of bar owners and out of state viewers to offset the vast number of people who won't spend money to see baseball. I'd bet they'd place that single-team monthly charge much closer to $12-20 than $5, but that's high enough to drive away the casual buyers and low enough to wreck the MLB TV money that runs $20 per month. A tough nut to crack unless you can tie the RSN to a cable TV package where a large number of users end up buying it even though they don't want it. 3. Revenue sharing would have to continue being a thing as long as the contracts are sold locally. If you centralize the money you'd have to find a way to preserve the income disparity that's currently baked into the revenue models. The big money owners are not going to yield to the little guys on this. The Yankees are not going to let anyone just give out the money in 30 equal chunks like the NFL does because in baseball the Brewers don't bring in anything like the money the Packers do. They owners will try to preserve the local sales model of the RSNs if for no other reason than to avoid this fight and preserve the status quo.

Minor mistake: Rochester --> St Paul You've been doing this a long time Seth, so it's understandable. At least you didn't say Salt Lake or Toledo.

If you want to look at his minor league work check out the fancy 3.99 ERA in 390 IP (less than 5.0 IP per start, and there were only two relief appearances in there to dilute the numbers.) He's only made 5 appearances in AAA and pitched to a crisp 5.06 ERA in 16 innings, all in 2021. His best season as a starter was his second pass through high A when he put together a 3.23 ERA in 15 GS and 78 IP, but the team as a whole had a 3.12 ERA that year so it's not like he was anything special. The fact is he got special when he cut loose and stopped pacing himself. There's no way that he'd be the same guy trying to get through five times as many batters. And the league would have a better book on him if he was trying to throw that much more as well. I'm not certain the book matters when he can rear back and hit 102, but if he can't then the game changes a lot.

No to just about any rookie with fewer than 500 AB in the minors. The jump to the majors is harder than most people imagine and it's a lot of pressure on a 20 year old to have Buxton and Correa waiting for you to set the table. Also no to anyone who has never put together a .350 OBP season. Mr Taylor looks like a fine fielder, a good man in the clubhouse and a conscientious son, but he's a career .296 OBP and belongs in the 9 hole. I like just giving Buxton and Polanco the extra ABs even if they aren't typical leadoff guys. Also, Odd Year Gallo might be a guy you want in the 4 or 5 hole. You kind of have to wait and see who everyone is in spring training, after the carnage of 2022. Lots of new faces and guys that have to get the rust off. Looking forward to seeing how things come out.

Dylan Bundy, for good or ill, is a Proven Veteran with 160 starts, almost 1000 innings in eight big league seasons. He's a known and proven quantity. It's not great quality, but in a season where the Twins were going to be counting on a lot of Smeltzers it was good to have one guy in the #4 hole that they could count on and who might rally and move up to #3. Devin Smelter had 7 starts and 70 career innings and managed to deliver 70 more with a 5.23 FIP which was a run and a half worse than his ERA, indicating that it was likely unsustainable. If you want to be stomping around flipping off management about unfair treatment in a situation like that I'll just say that I'm glad you don't work for me. In his shoes it should always be a "Thanks for the opportunities, see you 'round" in case he washes out in Miami and needs a home in six months.

Bally The RSNs bought the ad revenue when they bought the rights, so if MLB takes them back they can recoup that revenue as well. But honestly the cost to sell car and mattress ads in 25 markets for 80 dates isn't going to result in billions of dollars of profit. The national ads are easy but the locals are cheap and numerous. I read somewhere else that this doesn't need to replace all the broadcast revenue, just the 50% the teams keep plus whatever their share of the national revenue sharing was. But it's still a huge amount when you consider how many cable subscribers today are paying for sports against their will and will be free to not buy an MLB product at any cost.

The trouble with buying out Sinclair for pennies on the dollar is selling the games for enough money to replace the promised revenue to the teams. We're talking the Braves, Angels, Rangers, Padres and a bunch of others, so you'd need to make enough on, say, the Angels games to cover the $131m that was coming in before. There are only weeks until Opening Day to get this fixed. Otherwise if you think that fixing the blackout problem would be enough to increase MLB.TV sales by billions of dollars I'm just going to flat out disagree with you. This is a mess.

I think Lee will be ready for MLB well before Correa is ready to move off SS so he may end up manning 3B for a couple years. And honestly I expect him to slide in nicely there, so over the next 3-4 years I expect an infield of Lee, Correa, Polanco/Lewis/Julien and Miranda/Kirriloff. They should be good, and when the time comes to move Correa the parts may move in ways we wouldn't expect today. There may be another younger, better SS ready to go, someone like Salas, and then who knows what happens next. Don't get too far ahead, just let it unfold and enjoy the ride.

As much fun as a list like this is, a decent amount of the value some of them is going to provide will only come in the form of a trade. Don't fall in love, because we don't have room for all these guys to play here. With that in mind, I'm all in on @tarheeltwinsfan plan of going and getting Vazquez' heir via trade. AZ and TOR swapped stud young players a few weeks ago to fill organizational needs and we should consider it as well. Some things are very hard to do, so not everyone does everything equally well. We are cranking out the middle infield prospects these days and so we are trading from that wealth to buy things we haven't been creating in-house, mostly pitching. But it's also been a long time since we drafted and developed a non-Mauer catcher that anyone else thought highly of. I just checked: it was a 32 year gap between Jeffers leading the team in games caught in 2020 and Tim Laudner in 1988 with only Mauer in between. There is no indication that we're even trying to figure this out, so we may as well get shopping. BTW, out of nine positions last year, the Twins featured starters Polanco, Miranda, Gordon, Kepler, Arraez and Celestino coming up with the Twins and only Correa, Sanchez and Urshela debuting elsewhere. It was the same number in 2021 too, which is pretty darn good development and one more cool thing buried within https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/pos.shtml

The thing about using local cable to wring the money out is that Charter or Cox (or whoever) can stuff FSN (or whatever) channel into the basic package and millions of people will pay for it that wouldn't ordinarily watch a minute of sports. When MLB is a separate package folks are free to not sign up for it, and most do not. The amount of money on the table gets much, much smaller if you take local cable out of the picture, so it's going to take some fancy stepping to not gut the lucrative basic cable positioning. It's not like MLB hasn't noticed that blackouts suck, but no one has wanted to screw with the golden goose.

The local TV contract revenues are both huge and poorly hedged against anything happening to subscriptions. It not like these regional companies that signed billion dollar contracts have alternative income sources that'll begin to cover them if subs begin to fall off. But the scary thing is that everyone could see this trend emerging for years, even before covid came along. And Sinclair spent like a drunken sailor in spite of the risks and is now waking up in the brig, hung over and trying to add up the costs. If the major sports leagues all pitch in and buy the RSNs it should be at a huge discount. But maybe they should just buy the contracts back and let the RSNs go broke and then re-sell the games to the teams. It could flatten the local money to the point where it breaks the league, so I don't expect too much along these lines, but as a small/medium market fan that wouldn't bother me too much.

The major surgeries are up, probably partly because they're getting better and more reliable and maybe because there are more injuries because larger guys are closer to the extremes of what the body can do. Some we will never know for sure. But there is injury data to be had that's pretty cool. I included the link below on a different thread around here a week or two ago and you should go out and look through it.

Oh I don't think that's completely true, things change all the time. Hitters are usually working on things, either to maintain consistency or in response to something that happened like an injury or the league figuring out how to pitch them. If you have trouble hitting one pitch then you work on it by seeing a million of them and making small changes to better handle them. You may open or close your stance a little, add or remove some of the emphasis on your trigger, watch film together to try spotting what changed from when you felt good to not feeling great this week, but none of it can happen until the player asks for help.