Taildragger8791

You don't understand how a 22 year old more than holding his own at AA in his first season is looked upon much higher than a 25 year old finally popping up in his 3rd year at the same level (plus whatever he was doing in 2019)? Maybe he's legit figuring it out but that's pretty old for a prospect. He has more HRs than doubles which is a red flag to me that something is unsustainable. And he'll likely have to move off of SS meaning there is little margin for that bat to slip.

If we don't find 3 respectable veteran arms to fill in those question marks it'll be pure negligence by the front office. Maeda is no sure bet to rebound to even a #3 next year. Ober and the rest of the prospects could be fine or could be up and down all year working through adjustments. And most of our pitching prospects have innings limits, balky elbows, or other health risks. Any team needs to plan for 7-8 starters to get through a year, minimum. The floor can get a whole lot lower than we saw this season if we don't backstop the rotation with some real arms.

His fastball is rated 45/50, and his curve is the same. Slider is 40/40. Change-up is his highest rated pitch but I haven't heard much mention of it. Fangraphs shows everything other than his fastball gets hit really hard. Maybe these numbers will regress downward as he gets more experience but so far it doesn't look like his raw stuff is capable of beating major league hitters. Season Pitch Pitches BB% K% BB/K AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO BABIP wRC wRAA wOBA wRC+ 2021 Fourseam (FA) 465 8.4% 28.6% 0.29 .222 .286 .370 .656 .148 .292 11.6 -2.7 .286 89 2021 Slider (SL) 128 3.3% 26.7% 0.13 .241 .267 .655 .922 .414 .222 5.2 1.6 .378 152 2021 Changeup (CH) 110 6.1% 12.1% 0.50 .355 .394 .677 1.071 .323 .333 7.7 3.7 .451 199 2021 Curveball (CU) 94 6.3% 25.0% 0.25 .286 .375 .786 1.161 .500 .250 4.0 2.1 .474 215 Season Pitch Pitches LD% GB% FB% IFFB% HR/FB Strikes Balls Pitches xMov zMov Mov 2021 Fourseam (FA) 465 26.0% 31.5% 42.5% 22.6% 9.7% 304 161 465 -3.7 7.9 8.9 2021 Slider (SL) 128 22.2% 16.7% 61.1% 9.1% 27.3% 82 46 128 6.7 0.4 7.0 2021 Changeup (CH) 110 29.6% 37.0% 33.3% 22.2% 33.3% 72 38 110 -9.2 4.0 10.2 2021 Curveball (CU) 94 10.0% 50.0% 40.0% 0.0% 50.0% 73 21 94 6.2 -8.7 10.7

Color me skeptical. With more time for adjustments I worry major league hitters will figure out his sub-par stuff. The margin for success is thin on a guy who needs to be executing on all levels to get by. Lose a little command or movement or run into a team that won't chase and that guy gets crushed. Maybe that's a back-end starter for a typical Twins team but you wouldn't typically find that guy starting for a quality playoff team. Or maybe the misguided Dobnak experience is too recent in my memory.

I don't think any level of positive clubhouse impact offsets poor on-field performance/dollar from a full-time player. If a guy is on a cheap contract and playing a minor on-field role, sure. But Rosario was getting more expensive, was declining in the field, had maddening inconsistent play, and theoretically had a ready replacement in Kirilloff before everyone got hurt. Gibson had like 2 decent seasons out of 8 and was developing persistent health issues that put his future ability in question. Cruz and Berrios are huge but necessary losses. Ideally there are other guys who can step up and fill that role out of Buxton, Pineda, Arraez, Garver, Polanco, and eventually Kirilloff & Larnach. I think Donaldson brings a passion and seriousness that can help push/focus a team if harnessed properly. A targeted free agent would go a long ways but I don't think the clubhouse is devoid of high character, enthusiastic ballplayers.

Wander Javier had a nice little hot streak for a minute there, but man he still strikes out a lot and seems to be highly allergic to walks. Does he just swing at everything, or does he just have issues making contact in the zone?

That’s why I mentioned the part about the pitching staff being cobbled together year to year. It worked until it didn’t. Good pitchers were still good pitchers despite the 2019 bouncy ball. And bad pitchers are bad pitchers without it. Everyone had the same ball to contend with. The bouncy ball significantly helped certain profiles of hitters which we happened to have a number of. Those are the guys that won’t easily rebound and that’s why a handful of Twins hitters popped up and fell back to earth.

Sounds a little like a guy we just traded away...

A kid can work as hard as he wants but still may not have the 'stuff' to excel. Jax's pitch repertoire and command is nothing special. He'll need to find an extra edge that helps him stay ahead of major league hitters.

Bomba Squad window closed when they de-juiced the ball. The window was barely propped open to begin with because the pitching staff is cobbled together year-to-year outside of a few mainstays.

I see the ranking on SWR but he concerns me with his control issues. He averages over 18 pitches per inning and is walking over 5 guys per 9. Granted, 3 terrible games make up the bulk of the walks but he still throws a lot of pitches to get through 5 innings at AA. Control is one of the hardest things to fix it seems like, so hopefully there's a good solution in mind.

$15 million / year is not going to happen. He wants $20+ which means you're banking on him taking another step. Otherwise he'll be an overpaid #3. Also, a staff of Berrios, Josh Winder, Jordan Balazovic, Griffin Jax, and Bailey Ober sounds very high risk to not pan out well. Pitching prospects are so volatile. The absolute ceiling for Jax and Ober is a 4th/5th starter, but they have a ways to go to get there. Winder and Balazovic could be solid mid-rotation guys or could bust completely out. Overpaying Berrios because you're penciling in prospects to fill out a rotation in 2 years is a monster gamble.

Looking at Santana's stats, a crazy thing stood out to me where his 2004 season had such a rough start that he missed the all star game, but his second half was so dominant he won the Cy Young and finished 6th in MVP voting. Wow. Final 22 games that year: 1.36 ERA, 0.69 WHIP (nice), 11.5 K/9, and over half the runs he gave up were solo and 2-run home runs. Crazy.

WTF Sano. This guy has no value if he isn’t hitting 60 homeruns because he’s a total clown show on the base paths. Jesus.

His numbers look similar to Brent Rooker with a little less power; who himself looks like yet another AAAA power-only hitter so far. Tough to see it translating to MLB without a significant improvement in strikeout/walk rate. But good on him for making the jump. Maybe he can become a quality backup with some more improvement.

For a guy who just started AA this year and is blocked at the MLB level, I'm cool with him continuing to learn at the AAA level until September. There isn't really much playing time for him unless they want to bounce him all over the field. Rooker/Astudillo/Sano/Donaldson have 3B/1B/DH covered. Gordon/Polanco/Simmons have the middle infield. Arraez could come back. Let's not yank him around during a crucial breakout period. Also don't want to burn an option year unnecessarily just to get a peek at a guy.

Has there been any update on Buxton's wrist recovery? Last I saw, a month ago, they were evaluating whether or not he'd need surgery. Has a determination been made or is it still wait and see?

Assuming compensatory picks are still relevant/valuable after the next CBA.

He’s gone less than 6 innings in over 1/3 of his starts (7 out of 19). He’s gone 6.0 or 6.1 in another 7 starts. So saying he mostly goes 5-6 innings was a fair assessment. That leaves 5 starts where he actually made it through the seventh. Looking back, 2020 was much worse. 2019 a bit better. 2018 was similar. Over his career so far he’s a very solid 6.0 inning guy. so he’s an innings eater insomuch as he’s always healthy and taking the ball and usually gets to that 6.0 inning mark. That is very valuable. But he’s not giving the bullpen a break. You need 3 relievers more often than not. That was my only point. I’m much more interested in keeping him unless he’s dead set on free agency. All indications are that he is so from that standpoint he’s as good as gone anyways. This team can’t compete next year without 9 new pitchers and 3 hitters, and the CBA negotiations could derail everything. So where’s the upside to keeping him?

"Pitching into the 7th" isn't much of a credit when he got no outs and had a total meltdown of his control (again) that led to 3 runs. We all know he can occasionally go 7 or 8 but he has more games than you'd like where he barely gets to 5 or 6 innings. A solid mid-rotation pitcher with his talent should be able to reliably eat innings and take pressure off the bullpen and remaining starters.

If he'd take Zach Wheeler money I'd give that to him today and put this today bed. I bet the Twins would too. I think he feels he can do better than that if he can put together one good year before free agency though. He's going to take that bet because Zach Wheeler money is basically the floor if he makes it to FA without an implosion or injury.

I don't know that the Twins want him for 'pennies on the dollar', they just won't want to spend top 20 money to a guy who is more like top 40-50. Looking at the top contenders right now, going into the playoffs Berrios would slot in as a #4 or top bullpen arm on their staff. But if he thinks he'll command top dollar from even one team out there (and I don't blame him at all for thinking that) then the Twins will have to match that or let him go find out for himself. Like Yu Darvis had to find out the hard way a few years ago that he's not viewed as an elite ace. Even if he only ends up with offers similar to (or less than) what the Twins proposed, they will probably lose him to a more competitive/intriguing team.

It's good for the regular season where things average out over time against a broad range of pitching quality. They still score over half their runs off the long ball though. And Cruz is going to leave a monster hole to fill. Donaldson may be another hole soon. That's a lot of quality, high impact plate appearances to replace. I have concerns.

I’d add on that we’ve been shown the offensive approach employed since 2019 is not resilient or consistent enough to succeed reliably. It’s really hard to just hit home runs against top pitchers in October.

Yes and no. Every hitter had a career year at the same time. It was a charmed season that won’t repeat. The pitching has turned over almost completely since then. The veteran hitters are either aging or busting and will need to be replaced soon anyways.