Trov

E-Rod was put on last year, and so was Servirino. 2020 does not need to be protected yet because they have 5 years. However, picking a 16 year old and projecting them to being MLB player is even more of crap shoot than drafting someone. Most of the top international FA end up being busts and the guys well down the ranking become the best. Take Soto for example. He was the 25th rank international prospect when he signed. Tatis Jr. Signed same year, was 30th ranked. Vlad Jr. was 7th ranked and whole bunch of non-mlb guys were ahead of them too. The fact that Twins had 3 in one year that all had lengthy MLB careers, although non where super stars, is really a crazy situation.

Just because they were DFA does not mean they are out of the organization. Some will be claimed I am sure and who knows they may be back as teams DFA them as well. Relief guys get DFA all the time and bounce around. Servirino has way to high a K rate, with too low of output. His numbers regressed in a full year at AAA which does not help him.

I do not hate the idea, except for from what I read on Rushing is that he needs work at catcher still a bit and not going to be a great defender there. The move to OF may not just be because they are stacked at catcher but because he may need to move off catcher to be legit MLB guy. His bat clearly seems to be there, but Twins want reliable defenders at catcher generally.

I expect they will tender Stewart and Topa. I am not high on Stewart as most are on here. Mainly because in his whole career he has had only 1 good stretch of games. It was a great stretch but very short overall. It was 27 great innings. Josh Staumont had a good, not great 20 innings last year and no one is saying lets bring him back. Also, Stewart has never been healthy long enough to know what he can do long term. Every time he seems to struggle it is always health. Never pitched more than 34 innings in a season. Topa had 1 good season at age 32 and missed all of last year with a knee issue. I still think he gets a shot to come back on cheap. Tonkin has bounced around too much to offer arb too.

You need to balance defense and offense. Very few guys are elite at both. Buck at times had been, but now his defense has dropped and his offense has as well. CC has shown in the past both, but injuries and age like Buck has dragged that down. Last year we accepted less defense for guys like Julien, and Lewis because their offense was so elite. This year, they were not elite on offense, Julien was well below average. You can go out and get elite defenders, but if they cannot hit at all, then what is the point? You can get the 8 best defenders in the league, but if they all hit well below average it will not work out well. If you have amazing hitters that are around average or just below average you will normally take that. Problem is, our offense did not make up for the poor defense last year.

If you are point to his career as a whole at first then yeah he appears to fall into average, however, if you look at last year, which is what the article is about, he was clearly above average by every measure you put on your graph. His UZR/150 was over 2, league average was like 1. His DRS 8, league average just above 6. His OAA was around 13, league was just above 4. Now that last one is an odd stat by name when the name is Outs Above Average, but either way he was well above the league average. So by all accounts, last year he was well above average defender. Historically, no he has graded out as pretty average, however, this was about just last year.

These are some fun and interesting stats. Also, some very sad stats. The Lee sprint speed may have been affected by his injury he had, but not sure on that. Wallner is basically Joey Gallo, for better or worse. Duran is still good, but needs better defense, way too often did he give up weak contact in infield that ended up being a hit. Julien needs to be more aggressive and adjust to pitchers taking advantage of his "eye". He was taking too many strikes and swinging at too many balls. The man looked about as lost as a hitter could be.

He will 100% be tendered. Even if you do not want to pay him because you are worried about his numbers dropping he will have value in trade. You do not just let a talent like him walk to sign wherever in first year of arb.

I love how when we signed Donaldson people were happy we went out and signed a top FA. He was coming of a very good year, and many expected he would help the team. Then it turned out his legs were pretty much shot and his attitude was poor. So we talk about how bad the signing was and we attack the FO for dumping him to NY and give up a utility guy and a backup catcher. We then pivot and sign CC who people loved, except now he has been having injury issues and people are attacking that signing. The FO can do no right. They do a big signing, something fans wanted for years, and it failed, as most do, and we attack them for that. We attack them for pivoting. I do not know how much fans pay attention to other teams FO and how often they do bad signings, bad trades, bad letting guys go. Every FO swings and misses on drafts, signings, and trades. However, there are many hits by this FO. They get attacked if they swing and miss or if they do not swing at all. They never get any praise for a successful move though.

I am not that big on Rosario, mainly because his K rate is just too high. Yeah, he can hit the ball far when he makes contact but a 31% K rate across all his minor league and AZ fall league time from last year is very high. Most guys do not tend to improve that as they move up but it generally gets worse. He may become a fringe MLB guy but there are just too many OF guys that I think will pass him by and more come each year. He does seem to have a knack for hitting lefties so there may be a platoon path in his future if his defense is at least average.

Jenkins had 6 games at AA. Yes, he did not crush in those 6 games, but talk about SSS size. To just look at his numbers in those 6 games 28 plate appearances is nothing to draw any conclusion from. On the bright side on those limited at bats, he walked 3 times, about an 11% rate and only struck out 4 times, about a 15% rate.

So we had the second best bullpen in AL, behind a historically great bullpen, but we still need to talk about how terrible our bullpen was? The bad pen performances is not limited to just the Twins clearly. Every team has issues with having great pens, and really just have a few they can count on, and the rest they just hope do not implode too bad. The article also highlights, but does not really address, how volatile pen guys are. Some of our guys that did terrible had great runs, and then terrible runs. Addison Reed was one of best pen guys in the game at time we signed him, then he was terrible and out of baseball. The writer also addressed prior success stories, but did not talk about Thielbar who was out of baseball had not pitched in majors for 5 years when they brought him in 2020, at age 33 and had 3 great years, 1 good year, and then this terrible year. Lets talk about Cleveland pen real quick. Their closer was crazy good this year. Last year, he cost them 10 blown saves. The year before he was amazing. Even the best in the game you cannot count on to be amazing each year. What sucked about this year was all the guys seemed to implode all at the end of the year in big ways that resulted in big losses. However, still having the second best pen in the AL is nothing to be upset at, it was our terrible offense at the end of the year that really cost us, because the pitchers could never have an off night. You cannot expect every pitcher to be on and pitch well every day.

Should they trade him, only if the right deal comes along. He is someone that could be sold high on, but how high is that? He is basically a DH or 1B. He has shown an ability to hit for periods of time, but he has also shown he will slump for months. I doubt many teams are super high on him but his years of control has value. I would not for sure look to get even an MLB ready talent but some prospects would be fine if you like the prospects. We have plenty in the wings to take over for Miranda if needed.

He will not be non-tendered. They will either keep him or trade him, but he not be just let go.

First, the Twins have been near the MLB average in payroll for awhile, so to say the team never pushed into top half is just not accurate. Second, parity is a problem as a whole. Yes, you get teams that pop up for a year to two because all their players start to peak or have career years all at once, then the team will go out and fill in holes in FA or trades as you indicated. But then after that quick peak they dump off players to get back to their lower salary. They generally then are bad for years waiting for that next window. The big spenders LA and NY generally will be competitive every year, because even when they are paying bad players they can go out and bring in players either via FA or trade and signs for top guys that other teams cannot afford. If they deal with injuries, they can go out and keep making trades. The CBA has been trying to address some of these things over the years, but with money from TV dropping the smaller and mid-market teams will be even more strapped for cash. The bigger markets will continue to be able to take the top talent. Does it mean they will keep winning WS, no because playoffs in baseball are generally a crap shoot and the "best" team hardly wins it all, it is the hottest teams. However, they will continue to make playoffs year after year, where the smaller teams have to rotate who has the window.

One thing the payroll numbers do not think about is teams with young guys, generally do not win, and they have low payrolls because pre-arb years generally. However, as guys get to arb years, if they are MVP level guys you have to pay more for them. Rarely will a team dump those guys because they do not want to pay for them. Sometimes, the Rays will trade them for prospects. I will still maintain trying to build a team on all FA will never work. Having 1 here or there, can work. But trades and bring from your own system is generally the best way. Now, that being said Dodgers and Yankess made trades for guys because they had the payroll ability. Also, each signed some big name FA as well. Yankees, built their team, mostly from their own talent, a couple of trades and a couple of big time pitching signings. Their starting line up, Stanton and Soto are two high paid guys they traded for. Soto high paid because arb says he worth it, not because he was signed to big deal. Both teams that traded them away could not afford what they needed to pay them, but Yankees could. The rest of the starting line up, other than Rizzo and Verdugo who were not good for them and did little to help them win, were drafted or signed by Yankees as international guys, or traded for while in minors. Their rotation had 2 big time signings Cole and Rondon(who was average at best) Stroman was a middle of rotation type signing that most clubs could have done, but would be a big chunk of budget. Their ability to pay more clearly allowed them to take on Stanton and Soto, resign Judge to his huge deal, bring in Cole, Rondon, and Stroman. However, that is only a few of their players. They still needed to get some from their homegrown guys. Dodgers, were very similar with trading for Betts, signing Freeman, Otahni, and signing Yamamoto and Glasnow. However, similar they had plenty of home grown guys as well. The big time clubs can take on a ton of payroll and miss on some guys. The smaller clubs can never miss on a vet signing or they pay for it for years. Payroll is not 100% success, but it can make up for a lot of bad mistakes. Either way you need to build from the farm system no matter what.

The point was they expected CC to hold down SS for years to come, and did not trust Lewis would cut it there. They had no real other plan at SS either. They knew they had to pay for him. They then hoped the young guys would step, which is needed for most teams that are not the super spending teams. Then they still need guys you are not expecting to step up to do it. Last year, they did. This year all the young guys fell pretty flat, along with the old guys by end of the season.

How good a team is currently has nothing to do with why someone would want to a buy a team. How good the players in the farm systems has nothing to do with why a person would want to buy a team. So, the first two reasons are just pointless for someone wanting to buy a team. You do not look to buy a team for a quick winning team. You buy it for long term growth of value and making money. The difference in stadium will have impact for sure though. Target Field is the better place to go watch a game. What really makes Twins more attractive is that they are the only baseball team in town and can draw from parts of the Dakotas generally for fans too. Where White Sox have long been the number 2 team in Chicago. Their recent terrible run has soured some of their fans as well. Unlike the Cubs who still draw fans when they are not winning, White Sox were nearly empty by second half. However, we have also seen when Twins are losing attendance will drop too. Not sure which area could have more real estate around their stadiums for sale to buy up, because that is where owners really rake in the cash, is owning all the buildings that the bars and restaurants around the stadiums. I would imagine owning land in Chicago will be harder to come by then MPLS. One area the Sox will have on the Twins is they have limited players on long term contracts. They only have 2 guys on contracts beyond this year, Roberts and Benintendi. Moncada has 25 mil, but could be bought out for 5 mil next year, but then he is done after that. We have some big money tied up for a few more years in Buck, CC and Lopez. We also have several guys, looking to get raises in arb years coming up. Lewis, Ober, Ryan and so forth. Most owners will not want to come in having to pay large contracts if they are not breaking even because they need the cash to operate. That means, assuming they pay the 1.5 bil asking price, they need to first come up with that, then need the millions of cash on had to pay the day to day bills. When you think about the fact that if you buy during offseason, how much money is actually coming in? You still need to pay your yearly people, the cost of having offices running, the cost of getting ready for spring, and the facilities that are going on in offseason down there too. Bills will keep piling up before any game day cash comes in. My bet it will cost several millions of cash on had to cover those cost.

Having a guy with speed can be helpful, but over a full 162 game season their impact will be minimal if they cannot hit. In a short series having guys that can steal bases and score from first on doubles is a huge thing. You can pinch run them late in games for slower guys. However, in a 162 game season they will need to get some at-bats. Iglesias had a career year for Mets as a part timer. The other 2 cannot hit and I doubt Iglesias will hit over 100 OPS over his career next year. I would not go out just to find guys that an run fast, if that is what you want, go pick up a track star.

I have little faith in Stewart being both healthy and effective for an extended period of time. He has never pitched more than 34 innings in a season. Outside of his great 28 innings in 2023 he has never been good, outside of a few innings. Why are we putting any faith in Stewart? I keep seeing people write about how he will help next year, what evidence do we have that he will throw more than 30 innings? None, because outside of 1 year where he did 34 innings he has never topped 28 even. He should be thought of as a bonus guy. If he can be healthy and pitch like 2023 then great, but to expect he will pitch like 2023 and pitch a full year is just wishes.

Errors is one of the worst way to quantify defense. For many reasons, but one is the "official" scorer makes that decision. Others are fact that if a player has terrible range and cannot get to a ball, or in outfield specifically, makes a terrible read or route to a ball that does not show up as an error. Heck, if a guy runs in on a ball then stops and runs back, or vice versa and the ball drops in because of that, it does not show up as an error. Some errors come from infield throws that they make a crazy good stop, then try to make the out, and a good throw gets them, but a bad throw led to extra base for runner, then there is an error, but a bad defender may not even get to the ball to try and make the throw. Sometimes a guy with a lot of errors actually are a good defender because they have crazy range that gets to balls most would not so they increase number of chances. Please, never use just errors for a reason of ranking defense. I mean if there is a pop up in the infield and all 4 just look at the ball and it falls, it is called a hit, because the fielder did not have an error in physical play, only in mental. If you "cannot" make the play you cannot have an error, even if you not making the play is because you are that bad of a defender.

It is not a bad idea, and the team may do it if they have little other choice. That is how a lot of guys end up at 1st is they are becoming more limited at every other position.

I would point out the Twins are not alone in this issue. There are very few big bopping first base hitters anymore. Yes, there are a few, Freeman, Vlad Jr., Harper. There are few middle of the road guys, Matt Olson, Josh Naylor, Pete Alonso. There just is not that many MVP type first basemen out there anymore. I think it mostly is a shift in how teams look to draft. If a guy is a 1st base only guy unless they are insane hitter, they normally will drop a ton in the draft, or if not they have not come up and crushed. Many actually started at a different position then shifted to 1st because their defense was too weak anywhere else, but they could hit. Harper was a catcher when drafted, moved to OF, played there until shifting to 1st. Vlad was up as 3rd his rookie year. We have tried to draft a bat first guy, Sabato and he failed. Very few teams could point to having MVP type hitter at first, the Twins are not alone.

Every player should be explored for the right deal. I mean if a team is willing to toss a ton of good prospects for him sure it would be worth trading him. However, there is little need to do it right now he is still under control for a couple seasons. He is on a bit of a down year, and hopefully he bounces back next year. You can never have too much good pitching. I also would never count Brock Stewert in as a reliable guy. He had a good short stretch with us, but between injuries he has not bee good at times too. He does not have some long term history of being good either. Too often people see a hot stretch of a pen arm as something to count on for years.

I agree you do not non-tender him, but there is value in looking for trade for him. There will be plenty of teams that would want him just because of his versatility. That is also why the Twins would want to keep him. When our lineup is healthy, he can play every position, and although not elite anywhere he is decent enough. You can pinch hit just about anyone because Castro can move to fill whatever hole on defense there is.