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DJL44

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Everything posted by DJL44

  1. DJL44
    Emmanuel Rodriguez is going to play every day as long as he's healthy. He's not coming up to be a bench player. They'll keep him in AAA until one of Larnach, Buxton or Wallner gets hurt (which is inevitable). He'll take the spot of whoever was injured. I expect he'll go up and down next season like Brooks Lee did this season.
  2. DJL44
    Catcher is one position where teams have been very hesitant to grab players from Japan, mostly due to communication issues. There are a few MLB caliber catchers playing in Japan. Giving Takuya Kai or Tomoya Mori a shot at catcher would be interesting. I'm surprised the Dodgers haven't done it since they have two Japanese pitchers on the roster.
  3. DJL44
    I think Kirilloff is a better fielder at LF than he is at 1B and he touches the ball a lot less often in LF. I wouldn't play him at 1B at all.
  4. DJL44
    The money doesn't matter. It's about the roster spot and roster fit. The Twins really need a RH hitting outfielder. Even with Kepler leaving they have plenty of LH hitting outfielders (Wallner, Larnach, Keirsey, Emmanuel Rodriguez). I can't see them cutting him loose for nothing but a trade would not be surprising.
  5. DJL44
    I would like to employ the pitcher who says "I want to go into the game and get people out" and not employ the pitcher who says "I only like pitching in the seventh inning because the number 7 is a little sexier than the number 6 but less scary than the numbers 8 or 9."
  6. DJL44
    When is it not stressful to pitch to major leaguers? Why would we want any pitchers who only want to pitch when it isn't stressful? I want pitchers who want to get the best batters in the world out. It is nonsensical that we have to keep Duran as the closer (even if he's not effective) because he's "comfortable" there. When they're checking on free agent relievers are they asking them which inning they're comfortable pitching and not obtaining three sixth-inning guys and nobody for the seventh inning? What if you have five effective relievers who say "I only want to pitch if I'm closing". Do you trade four of them for less effective pitchers who only want to pitch lower stress innings in the seventh and eighth innings? Maybe the next time Duran needs to pitch in the 8th they can just change the scoreboard to make it look like it's the 9th and he'll be fine. They can even play his entrance song so he's more comfortable.
  7. DJL44
    The AFL has become extended A-ball. There are very few actual pitching prospects. It's sort of a demotion for Double-A players like Rosario.
  8. DJL44
    I don't understand the obsession with pigeonholing relief pitchers into certain innings. A relief pitcher's job is to pitch. The numbers on the scoreboard shouldn't matter. Go into the game and hit your spots with your pitches. Adding one good player doesn't keep them from adding 4-5 fringy players. Fringy players don't really cost anything if they're brought in on minor league contracts.
  9. DJL44
    Eventually he will go hipster and start following Manchester United.
  10. DJL44
    You're not thinking of Terry Mulholland, are you? They had Stewart, Hoffman and Danny Coulombe in camp and kept Stewart, Tyler Duffey, Jharel Cotton and Trevor Megill. Megill got better with the Brewers but Duffey was bad and Cotton is out of baseball. They also had Ian Hamilton who has done fairly well with the Yankees. It just goes to show how many of these "fringy" relievers without options there are. I would throw Ronny Henriquez on the list from the RH side. He was okay this season and is still young enough to add upside. For lefties you mentioned Funderburk and Headrick. I wouldn't count out a reunion with Thielbar since he should be pretty cheap to sign as a free agent. There's also Jovani Moran who was out this season due to ligament replacement surgery. None of those names are as exciting as if they move Prielipp quickly through the system to the major league bullpen.
  11. DJL44
    I think every season some "reclamation project" becomes another team's All-Star reliever.
  12. DJL44
    Everyone faces mainly RHPs.
  13. DJL44
    No, that's the exact opposite of what I stated. I'll propose a counter-narrative. The scouts watched Austin Martin on the back fields in spring training and said, "This guy's not going to help, go tell the Dodgers we'll take Manny Margot."
  14. DJL44
    The fact that Martin can't do anything better than anyone else on the roster makes him a terrible player (relatively speaking these guys are all elite athletes). Martin isn't good enough at baseball at the moment to hold a 40-man roster spot. There are too many other guys who hit as well as him and play better defense, hit better than him and play the same defense or both hit and field better than Martin. The guy was outplayed by Manny Margot and Margot will be lucky to get a major league contract this offseason.
  15. DJL44
    This team does acquire college starting pitchers in the middle rounds of the draft. That's how they acquired Jax and Sands.
  16. DJL44
    No, they exist to win baseball games. Player development is crucial because they can't afford to fill the team with free agents. If a player is "stunted" in their development because they aren't a better option than a veteran retread then they stay in AAA.
  17. DJL44
    The Twins don't have a vendetta against Austin Martin. Buxton was hurt. They thought that Martin wasn't better than Margot at playing CF and hitting LHP (they were correct, he isn't better at either of those things). The only opening then was to give Martin the job playing CF and hitting against RHP. With hindsight that job should have gone to Keirsey and Martin should have stayed in AAA (Keirsey may have also been injured at that time and unavailable, I can't remember). If Martin can't hit RHP or play CF then he probably isn't going to make it as a major league baseball player. He doesn't hit or defend well enough to be a platoon LF against LHP. Most rosters don't have enough room for that kind of player anyway. That's why Mike Restovich never did much in MLB.
  18. DJL44
    I already like him better than Paddack for the 5th spot.
  19. DJL44
    I have advocated taking another team's castoff major league starters and trying them in the bullpen. Cole Irvin isn't a bad gamble but it helps to be able to start these guys in AAA to give them time to see if adding velocity in the bullpen actually helps their stuff. They won't be immediately successful in relief.
  20. DJL44
    If players want to get big league playing time, they need to be good enough to earn it. No scholarships based on draft status. The Twins are trying to win baseball games. They don't exist solely to help develop Austin Martin to his fullest potential.
  21. DJL44
    This is true, and I'm not sure any front office is really that good at it. The best way to have a great bullpen is to develop more young pitching than you have room for in the rotation. There probably isn't anything they could do better. Relievers are volatile and tend to have short runs of effectiveness before they get injured or the league figures them out.
  22. DJL44
    There are 60 catchers on MLB rosters, not 30. The median hitting catcher would be #30, not #16. Your analysis would be like comparing starting pitchers and picking #40 as the "median" starting pitcher.
  23. DJL44
    Willi Castro is not in the lineup until one player gets hurt. Instead of Wallner + Lewis (7 WAR) you have Castro + Martin (3 WAR) instead of Lee and Martin (0 WAR). Castro gives a net +3 WAR because someone is ALWAYS hurt on an MLB roster. Plus, if one of your AAA subs is actually decent but blocked you can pull them up and move Castro to a different position. That sub would tally the 1 WAR but Castro is the player who enabled that move instead of grabbing the -1 WAR player from Double-A.
  24. DJL44
    Positional flexibility gives them more depth to pick from. If someone gets injured they can pick from 6 different position players in the minor leagues to replace that player on the bench with Castro moving to the injured player's position. I believe there was part of last season where Buxton, Keirsey and Rodriguez were all injured at the same time but the Twins didn't have to reach down to AA to call up a centerfielder because Castro is on the roster. I think it happened again later in the season when Correa and Lee were both hurt at the same time and they used Castro at SS. I will agree that Castro has the most value when he's the 10th player on your roster and is only playing every day because he is filling in for an injured/resting starter.
  25. DJL44
    Castro is a free agent after 2025. Unless the Twins give him a contract extension this offseason there is no "beyond that" to worry about.
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