Trov

If it takes cured meats being tossed around to get them to score some runs down the stretch do it. Sometimes it is something like that that pushes the team into a different space. The Angels in their last WS win had the rally monkey. Other teams come up with stuff. If we can rally behind it and go deep into playoffs it will become stuff of legends.

I have no clue how much pain Buck is or will be in. The question is will him playing through pain be better than his replacement? Buck getting hurt running bases is not new either, which is why when there was push to give him days off as DH to help him stay healthy I pushed back saying he gets hurt hitting and running bases more than fielding. Hopefully he can play well enough to help push us past the finish line.

"We should start our own channel and bring everyone with us like the yes network for the Yankees." This was attempted many years ago. It flopped because they did not have the clout to force cable and satellite providers to be in basic packages. At the time, Fox who owned the regional broadcasting area of FSN, forced the local cable to only allow Victory to be on a higher pay, or not carried at all, because they would have pull fox broadcasting not just FSN. They tried to get gophers on board, but now they have big 10 network. They did not get Wolves or Wild on board because no one could see Victory. So it all failed. Trying to start one up again at this point would be terrible situation. It costs a lot of money to start this up, and broadcasting is in a strange era. Most people are tying to cut cords, so cable is not willing to pay big for regional sports channels because not a ton of demand for it, as people are finding ways around it. The team would be not likely to get Wolves or Wild to join in right now because their media rights would be too much for a small start up broadcasting channel to afford, unless they partnered with them, but right now Wolves do not even know who will be owning them soon. Point is, starting up a channel is not so easy and it was tried year ago and flopped terribly.

Part of the issue is the hitters also stand right over the plate with all their pads on to protect from being hit. Look at all the pads he was wearing. Huge elbow pad, huge hand/wrist pad. I watched the pitch, it was clearly very wild and was not his intention to throw up there. I agree, the pitchers care more about velo and spin than location right now, product of the game, but hitters crowd the plate with all their pads, so they are not worried about being hit, and then get mad when they do get hit. I have seen some hitters be hit by pitches that barely miss the plate. I do think you could move toward some rule where if a pitcher hits x amount of batters they are ejected, and if x amount in a season leads to suspension or something. This particular pitcher has hit a total of 11 hitters in his professional career over 300 innings. It does not appear his is some head hunter out there, but sometimes a pitch gets away, and that one sure did. Remember in all star game when Johnson let one over head of Kruk? No way was Johnson trying to do anything there, it was all star game. I think Merrifield just was upset it hit him in head on a crazy wild pitch, but the kid pitching is not plunking guys left and right or anything.

The franchise is such a mess. It was only a few years ago people were talking about them being the up and coming team in the division. Now they are the laughing stock of the league. It all started with hiring an old manager that had the game pass them by. Since then it has all been downhill.

Overall I like the idea. The only thing I would add is do not be rigid with the 1 time through for the rookies. If they are doing well let them go some extra hitters. I hate the, well they normally will fail so despite dominating right now we need to change it up.

I think part of the issue has been the overall struggle with driving runs in at all. That may be playing into the decision to take greater risks on the bases hoping that the throws are off a little, or a lot, to score the run. I mean, if you do not send the runner and they do not score because of strike out or failed at-bats after, we would most likely be saying, maybe they should have been sent there. I think overall this is just a run of sends that did not work out. If you go back you may see plenty of sends that worked out in other games. I think with these few there was times that runner clearly should not have been sent and they were just in a short period of time.

He very well may be running on fumes, but we would not be in the race without him. Hopefully he can build off this year and be someone we can count on for year to come. Also, hopefully we can get by like Rangers did. Only way we do is if our offense picks it up, but that has been an issue too. It just seems like the whole team is breaking down at the end of the season, not what you want to see, you want to see them going on strong.

You want to sign Verlander to a 3 year deal at 12 a year? He is 41 now, will be 42 all of next season. Meaning he will be 44 when the contract is up. His FIP this year is nearly 5. I would be all for a 1 year deal, but he is making 43 mil this year. I doubt he takes a big cut to come to us. I think he would take a cut to stay in Houston, but not come here. So either a larger pay for one year, or most likely paying dead money for at least 1 year if not 2 when we will need to increase pay to guys like Ryan or Ober in rotation in arb years. Not to mention all the position players that will be in arb years coming up. At least the writer understands that money free one year does not mean you can simply sign a guy for a single season. However, Verlander would be the type that might only get a 1 year deal maybe a 1 year with vesting option kind of thing, but it will be at more money per year most likely. I personally think he is only good for more of back end of rotation now, just because he is getting old and his numbers are reflecting that.

They do not need to play great to make the playoffs, but if the pen does not get better we will be a quick 2 games and done. Unless Lopez can dominate game one and Ober and get really deep game 2 it will be hard to lean on Jax and Duran for too many innings both games. We will need Acala, Sands, and someone else to pitch an inning or two as well.

However, if you invest 10 plus million a year on a relief arm, over multiple years, if they are terrible you still need to keep using them because of how much you have paid them. If you pay them much less it is easier to move on from them. There is 2 reasons for that, one if they are doing terrible no one will pick them up off waivers or trade for them at what they are getting paid, and if you cut them you pay them anyways and other teams will just pick up for cheap while Twins pay the bill. Two, if you do keep them on the roster you need to use them no matter how bad they do. Right now, Emilio Pagan is getting paid 8 mil after his not good seasons for the Twins. He is not being used in high leverage situations and basically a 6th to 7th inning guy or big leads one way or other inning eater. The reason I bring this up, is going out and getting vets, even guys like Pagan who has had a couple of good years but mostly not good years and injury issues to fill lower leverage spots will cost several million. They really are not that much better than going out and grabbing guys like Brock Stewart and hoping you can make them into something good for at least 1 year. Investing big into pen arms can pay off, if they all are good, but you can look year after year of big name guys that just fell apart for a year or more. Some bounce back some do not. Right now the Mets are paying a ton of money for Edwin Diaz, a guy that was top pen arm in 2023 FA year. He was coming off of 5 out of 7 good years, and his contract year was just amazing. He was the best pen FA out there, and Mets paid him like it. 102 over 5 years. Since, he lost a year because of his celebration at WBC, and this year has negative WPA blowing 6 of 21 saves and a FIP of about 4 with walks up and strikeouts down. He has done this before and may bounce back, but paying 21 mil for a guy that you cannot count on, but have to keep running out there is a lot. He is not the only example I could give but is a very extreme one. Point is, you can invest big in pen arms and may not be in any better space then going for cheaper options. Yes, this year after the break things have gone terrible, which includes Duran who was one of best relievers in all of baseball last 2 years.

No way will they pay 12 mil for him for next year. Also, he has a negative WPA this year.

Part of the point of the article is that there is no such thing as a "proven track record" for pens that you can count on. The last significant investment we made for a pen guy was Addison Reed. At least FA wise, and he had a proven track record. He pitched 6 seasons prior to signing with us and was pretty darn good setup guy. We signed him to a 2 year deal and was terrible we cut him and no one picked him up since. He was only 29. Several other examples of "proven track record" pen guys that just fall apart one year. Sometimes they bounce back, but you never know when. Take Taylor Rogers, he had 4 great years for us, then 2020 he was not good at all, and 2021 he bounced back did okay, not great. Then we traded him 2022, where his first month he was amazing, and then fell apart leading to a playoff contending team to trade him away, where he did even worse. He still got a good deal from his prior success and had some okay time in SF, but they are willing to cut him loose to whoever will take his 12 mil a year, because his WPA is negative this year. Point is you cannot ever count on a pen guy to be great. Only very few were ever almost always great and they are in HOF now. Even the saves leader last year and this year for AL, Clase has been the best he ever has this year, but last year he led in saves but had a negative WPA because he blew a ton of saves. Josh Hader was lights out for years, then in 2022 had terrible year. He is back on track doing amazing again. However, you never know when a pen guy will just be terrible or great. It is a huge gamble. You can try to pay big for a "proven track record" but normally that will just be a crap shoot. Sometimes it blows up in a year where they did well most of the year then fell apart.

They cannot rescind the waiver, but they can choose to keep him yes. He was not released and passing waivers. It is not a loophole as unlike before where a team could work out a trade now they just risk losing the player for nothing, generally in hopes of saving money on their books. You do put a guy on waivers unless you are hoping someone takes him now. Before every player would be put on waivers. So I was wrong about them paying him to not pitch next year, I misread the waivers he was on, but they are still hoping someone claims him and his 12 mil next year. I would not say a relief pitcher that has a negative WPA is doing well. His surface numbers are not bad, but he clearly has cost his team more than he has helped them according to that stat.

The fact that SF is willing to pay Rogers 12 million next year to not pitch for them tells you much about what they think of him. He may be doing okay this year, but he actually has negative WPA, which is not good. No way will our FO commit to 12 mil next year for him. If it was just the rest of this year I bet they might.

One of the best base stealers, success rate wise, was not a speedster. Paul Molitor stole at a 79.3 success rate. He stole 504 caught 131. He even Stole 38 baes his time with Twins, his age 39 through 41 seasons. He was caught 12 time, for a success rate of 76%. Pretty good for a guy his age. Rickey Henderson, the total stolen base record holder, had a 80.7 success rate over his career. Henderson had a success rate age 40 and beyond of 71.7. Henderson stole nearly 3 times as many bases as Molitor and clearly was better at it overall, being he had higher success rate, and a lot more overall, but Molitor was 39th over his career in total stolen bases. Molitor was never going to be accused of being a speedster by any means, but he knew when and how to steal. He used his brain and picked the right spots. I have to imagine he would have been even better with a pitch clock. Too often slower guys do get forgotten by pitchers and some guys never jump on it.

A counter to Houston resting, is right now they are the 3rd division leader, 2 games behind us, and 4 games behind Cleveland. If they are within striking distance of getting bye to second round, where they can then rest pitchers as well, they should look to try to beat Cleveland. Where if Baltimore cannot catch Yankees, they would want to set up staff for wild card round, assuming they have wild card locked. What could be more interesting is that if we are number 2 wild card, and Baltimore is number 1 wild card, we would finish out season against Baltimore home, then go there for the wild card match up, if flipped they would just stay in MN. However, it would lead to some interesting decisions during that series to maybe not use top pen arms or top starters to not get recent looks at them for the coming series. I agree the KC Cleveland matchup, could push one out of the race. Our matchup against Boston could be huge too, if we push them out of the race. Then it would just come down to who plays who and where.

I was wondering how often are the top pitchers top picks in drafts. So I decided to look back to 2000 and the top 3 Cy Young votes for each year, and when were the pitchers taken in the draft. Some were not drafted and international signings, of those international guys some were signed young and some signed after several years in Japan or Korea. What I found was what I was kind of expecting, but doing the research was very interesting as well. First, there was a lot of first round picks, but only a few of the first pitchers taken were on the list, many times there were many taken before the best pitchers in the draft. Additionally, some drafts had several good choices in the first round, one example was 2006 draft Kershaw was 6th pitcher taken, 7th overall and it was Kershaw, Lincecum, and Scherzer the 6th, 7th and 8th pitchers taken all near each other. All pitchers taken before were not good MLB pitchers overall. However, there are a few times the first pitcher taken did work out very well. Second, in the early 2000's a lot of 2nd round picks in their drafts were some of the best in baseball. Randy Johnson, Greg Maddox, Tom Glavin, David Wells, and Kurt Schilling. However, after that only 1 2nd round pick, Jon Lester is on the list. There are several 4th and 8th round picks on the list, and a huge spread in double digit round picks as well. Third, there were a lot more drafted pitchers on the list than international signed ones, and recently only a few where signed from central America, but more from Asia. There were a lot more international signed pitchers from 2000's and 2010's, but overall drafted were more present. What I would conclude is that you can get great pitchers in any round of the draft, and many times may be the best, but you are more likely to get a good pitcher in 1st round, however, that does not mean success being 1st round. Also, many times the best pitcher in the first round is not the first pitcher taken and the first pitcher or first several taken were flops. Also, looking at the 1st round pitchers taken many times only 1 or 2 actually pan out and many never even make majors or just a small run. I would note that sometimes guys that would fall in draft were due to "signability" issues before the slot values where in place. I could not determine how many guys fell because of that. For example, Rodger Clemons draft he was 11th pitcher taken, 1 did not sign Twins number 1 overall Tim Belcher, but Clemons signed the largest signing bonus of any pitcher. and 4 highest overall despite being drafted 19th. It is very possible that some of the later picks and 2nd round guys fell into those hard to sign, or tried to dictate where to sign. However, it was also very interesting to see how many 4th round, 8th round or much later guys became some good pitchers and clearly had many more pitchers that failed drafted ahead of them.

He has a few things working against him. One, he hits left handed just like many other OF we have in our system that are considered better than him. He has held his own this year against lefties in AAA but the assumption is still that he will fail against lefties at MLB level. Take Julien he held his own against lefties in AAA over last 2 years, but is unplayable at MLB level, same with Wallner. Being Kepler will be gone next year, that may open a spot for Keirsey but at the same time we have other possible prospects to fill that hole in near future, specifically E-Rod next year could earn some time. The second is his age working against him. He will be 28 next year. He is not a prospect anymore. Could he get a call and help the team as a 4th OF next year, possible, but is he that big of a loss if he goes somewhere else? Most likely not. Unless his defense is very good to great at CF, which I am guessing it is not, there will be plenty of options out there. You need to remember the league St. Paul is in is considered an offense league. He is not lighting it up overall, just doing above average, and we have seen how much drop off some guys have even when they do light up AAA. He could add some value to the team, but my guess he passes through rule 5 again and may elect FA and some team will sign him to minor league deal but no major league deal.

Which one would you DFA? I would assume Margot, but if Keirsey is not good, now we are out Margot and stuck with only Martin. I get it, but because Kiersey is not on 40 man someone needs to get DFA first. Maybe it could be a pitcher we are not using, and you call up Kiersey and option Martin.

A couple of good plate appearances up here does not mean he is fully back. Hopefully he is, but he will need to keep adjusting. Before those last few games he was still watching way too many good pitches. He was looking scared to hit at times just hoping for walks.

I do not see him top prospect unless many guys ahead of him graduate from the prospect list all at same time. He has too many questions to be answered. When healthy he has put up strong numbers, but he has not been healthy much lately. I worry his K rate will rise up as he moves up leagues. I get his has a huge walk rate, but as the writer suggest that could be because he takes too many pitches. Now, I have not seen any of his at-bats and possible he is just looking for particular pitches and is willing to take, but if he has the Joe Mauer take a fastball down the pipe simply to work count, he will need to be better at making contact or he will have way too many strike outs as MLB level.

Unlikely at this point. Mainly it is a 40 man roster issue, they already will have some decisions to make, putting him on the 40 will make things even more complicated. If they do, that would be a crazy rise for him too. I really like the kid and surprised on updated prospect lists, in MLB page he is not even in top 30. I get he does not have the draft status and he is short, so scouts have no thoughts he will ever do anything, but his numbers do not lie. Other than 9 games at North Woods League in 2021 he has hit over .300, OBP over .400 and slugging over .400 in college and each minor league stop. His OPS is generally near .900. Yes, he does not have a ton of power, but he can hit it out and is not just a singles hitter.

Your two questions contradict themselves. You ask why Twins would leave unprotected, but at same time you wonder why someone would take him. Your second question answers the first, because the Twins did not expect anyone to take him that year in rule 5, that is why you leave unprotected and protect others. Turns out to have worked just fine for Twins.

It will be difficult to draft a rule to satisfy the players and the teams. I get they want to stop starters pitching well through 4 or 5 innings, but being at 70 pitches and facing order for a 3rd time and get the hook. Not sure if there is data to suggest that is what fans want to see is starters going deeper. I personally do not care how deep a starter goes as long as Twins win. However, the players will push back because of health issues. Some where along the line 100 pitches became the number, but as has been pointed out sometimes it is the number in an inning is an issue. Also, what was the leverage of the pitches were they bearing down to get tough outs, or just throwing up there getting early quick outs. So would there be after 100 you can pull regardless of runs allowed, or inning? What if guy is coming off injury can you tell teams before hand he is on pitch count we do not want to go over 70 pitches or 4 innings, do you get a waiver that game? Would you need to up it the next game? Would there be exception in case of guy at 98 or 99 pitches and 5 innings, or would they go out for 1 pitch and then can be pulled? MLBPA is already saying the pitch clock is causing more injuries, despite not enough data to back it up, and ignoring all the injuries that happened before the clock was in place. I was for the pitch clock and was against the anti-shift rules. I do not understand putting in rules to stop teams that found good ways to win games based on the rules. I good with speeding up games or getting calls right, but saying that a team was too smart and learned how to win better so we need to change rules to outlaw it is dumb to me. I get the rule may speed up a game a little bit, but it is more to stop openers, bullpen games, or starters going 2 times through and getting pulled. Those things may frustrate some fans, but teams did it because it gave them best chance to win.