Trov

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.

I do not remember taking a survey when I signed up for it years ago, when I lived out of MN to watch Twins. My wife signs up for it to watch her home town team, but she has not done a survey, but she signs up through cable provider. In terms of the survey wonder why they asked about the team player development. I would agree it has been good overall developing players from later rounds. To me, having a high pick pan out is not about development, it is more expected to happen. I mean look at Pirates, they did nothing to develop their top pick from last year, he just was ready. But, Twins have had several picks from 4th round or later make impacts at MLB level lately. In regards to improving fan experience, I want robo umps, and have the broadcasts show the same system. I get sick of seeing close pitches, or in some cases not even close be totally wrong. I would not like to see ground rule triple, but I do think there should be a common sense on where the runners should be. I mean they do that in the overturn of calls on catches after replay or other situations. The umps get together and say these are where we think the runners would have been. Like sometimes a guy is rounding third when the ball bounces into the stands, or gets "stuck" under the fence, like the player really tried to get it out, and the runner has to return to 3rd. Everyone in that park knows the runner would have scored. Sure we will never know exactly where the runners would have made it had ball not went into stands, but some common sense could be had based on where runner was when ball went into stands. Even more annoying when the ball is stuck because half the time the player does not even try to pull it out before throwing hands up.

There is no way the Twins will go into next year expecting anything from him. I fully expect him to be non-tendered. He has been injured and most not effective most of his short career. He is not a good defender anywhere, and other than a few short spurts his offense has been not good either. I had high hopes for him and thought he would be a middle of line up bat for years, but injuries just cut that short. I would not be surprised after we non-tender him he signs with someone and if can stay healthy will be one of those darn if only he could have done that for us, but his health has been terrible. What is also annoying is he would do terrible and then we would learn he was hurt/injured for much of that time.

They would if it manages to save them millions of dollars in tax payments. If they can get below the tax line they not only save the money on the guys they cut, but also the percent on each contract for each player for being a tax payer. Not only would they save some money, knowing they will not make playoffs, but they were tax payer last year, and would again be this year. If you continue to be tax payer, the penalties grow, but if they dip 1 time it resets. If they do not dip down, they will not want to be a tax payer next year else they would have 50% bill, but if they dip this year, not only do they not have a 30% this year, but they can go out spend a bunch of money on FA next year and only have 20% bill. They will have a lot of incentive to get below the tax payer this year if they can.

They will not until the last few days of the month. The reason why is they need to have someone claim the player, to get the contract off their books. If they did it now, if a team does not claim them, then they pass through and get to be a FA and any team can sign them but Rangers are on hook for the contract, and the other team signs for min. If you wait until last few days of month, the only way the player can play on playoff roster is if they are claimed due to having to be on roster by 9/1. Waivers takes a couple of days, and just like last year teams will place players on them right at last min to allow teams to claim and have on post season roster, but not let them pass and sign to have on post season roster.

I think the question would be if we would have had someone better to fill Margot spot, not just has Margot been worth it. Clearly we did not see anyone in FA that we felt was worth the cost or could afford it at least. MAT was pretty bad for Pirates overall, much worse than what he did last year, as far as offense goes, but defense he was still good. Margot was bad all around for most part. Even worse is he has never got a pinch hit despite getting plenty chances against lefties. However, did we have anyone in the minors that would have filled in better? Martin maybe, but his defense has been not great and offense similar to Margot. Who else would we have to be right hand hitting OF? Really not too many in minors either. Was he worth it, time will tell if Miller becomes anything, but as to who else we most likely would have ran out there, MAT would have been better on defense, but offense the same. Really, it would have been a wash from what I could see.

How does a no trade clause work if the person is put on outright waivers? There is no longer trade waivers, so if Scherzer gets put on waivers, I am not sure if he can block someone taking him, because outright waivers is non revocable and is releasing the player. Texas would do this expecting teams to take the players because they could help for playoffs but they get nothing in return only the money off the books. If the player goes unclaimed, then they are a FA, making the money from Texas and can sign with whoever, but normally the team does the waivers so that it covers the time that if you pass they could not be used on post season roster. Personally, I think there are several players the Twins would be willing to take. Max is currently on 15 day IL, and has not been his HOF self, father time may have caught up to him, but he still may be worth to try to use for a playoff run one last time. Eovaldi would be upgrade too. We could use plenty of pen help. I could see several claims if all are put on waivers.

I doubt they move him off 3rd next year, unless he becomes a complete liability there. If they do I could see more of a move to 1st, to help keep him healthy than LF.

I know some fans feel the pitching development has failed to produce a clear "ace" but they do not grow on trees. Sure, if we had won draft lottery last year we could have had Skenes, but the fact that the team has produced several middle of rotation if not solid number 2 guys from late round picks. The "pipeline" is about having guys every year that could come in, or in some years multiple guys to fill in after injuries or loss of FA, and/or trades. Now that there appears to be a sustained pipeline, there will be times we trade guys away to reload as well when we have the depth. Next we need to develop more pen guys that we can rely on heavy.

Not sure which pitching prospects you are referring to that were traded away. I am guessing Cade Povich and Chase Petty are maybe 2 of them. We have traded several others or lost in rule 5 draft. Povich is a top prospect still, but in 8 starts this year was not good, and much worse than much of what we have put out there. Povich AAA has been decent, but so far has failed at majors. Petty has hit a wall in AA so far for Reds. He has dropped down their prospect list, and if he put up similar numbers with us would be like our 5th ranked pitching prospect at this point I would guess. Maybe higher just because of his draft status.

If they think he is the best of what we could send out there sure, but I think leaning on the kids would be better move.

I would push back against highest payroll correlates to best players. Generally, the better the player the more they get paid, after they reach arb years or FA, however, many vets sign long term deals that equal very overpaid player. For teams that are not big market teams they cannot have too many of them on their team. I could go on many examples of players that are on contracts but no where near earning their money. Heck, on Twins CC could be argued to be one of them. Last year the top 3 paid teams failed to make the playoffs.

Yes, I said up until recently, was had 8 team playoffs, 3 division winners and the wild card team per league. Then we added a second wild card team in 1 game playoff which started in 2012, which expanded to 10, but only a single game for 2 teams and not a series. Then in 2022 it was expanded to the current format of 3 wild card teams and 3 division winners per league for a total of 12 teams. That is what I was referring to that we recently had 8 team playoffs.

Comparing Matthews to Berrios on path to MLB is a little flawed. First two different FO and systems. Beyond that, Berrios was a high school pick and had several years in organization and was a supplemental first round pick. Matthews was an 8th round college pitcher that is in his second full season in organization. Berrios also had pitched 17 games in AAA the year he was called up and did well. Matthews has moved up 3 levels this year and has yet to settle into AAA. Additionally, Berrios came up to a last place team and pitched terrible at MLB level, 14 games and FIP of 6.20, clearly he was not ready. Matthews will be coming into a team fighting for first place. I am not saying Matthews will not come in and do just fine, he may very well and I hope he does, but to compare him to Berrios and say Matthews is ready because he did better overall than Berrios means we should not be worried is flawed because Berrios was not ready either and had much more time in AAA and AA for that matter. Matthews was not a highly touted prospect with high draft capitol. He is a guy that has improved greatly this year, last hear his stats were ehh where the majority of his starts were at High A and he only had 8 K's per 9 and an ERA of 4.59. This year his K's are up, walks are down, not that they were high last year, but rarely does a guy make the jumps he is doing in terms of levels. I think fans are right to be concerned that he gets blown up at this level. I personally have never seen him pitch but with the low walk numbers suggests to me he stays in zone and has been over powering guys, or his stuff is very deceptive and gets a ton of chase. I do not believe AA has the robo umps now, and only AAA so he has only pitched with that for 4 games. I do agree AAA is a hitter league the Saints are in.

Since 1995, the wild card era, 5 times has the top payroll team, entering the season won the world series, 4 of those times were the Yankees, 96, 99, 00, 09. The other was the Red Sox, 18. 3 times the 2nd highest payroll was the winner, Yankees 98, Red Sox 04 and 07. The 3rd highest has never done it. The 4th 3 times Braves 95, Red Sox 14, Nats 19. 5th did it 1 time Marlins 97. 6th did it 2 times Giants 12 and Cubs 16. Overall, a team does have a at least a top half payroll, but that is not surprising. It is not always because of signing big time FA, but rarely does an all rookie or guys within first few years make playoffs. So if they have value when they hit arb years they will start making good money. Throw in a few resigning your own players or a supplemental FA and your payroll will rise. There are few times the highest paid player ends up taking a team to the WS, but having more high floor guys, or taking on a guy in a trade that is making bigger money normally helps too.

Up until recently only 8 teams made the playoffs, so to be in top 4 or 5 means the top half or more than top half the teams. That is a pretty big ratio.