Trov

He did get a lot of out of zone called strike three, and a lot right on the edge. He did not swing at pitches out of the zone, mainly because he did not swing at any pitch right on the edge, for the most part. However, that does lead to more called strike three. You cannot applaud him for him not chasing, but get upset when he takes called third strikes that are close. You have to live with both. If you want him to be more aggressive on 2 strikes he will have to chase more at times. Really, where he can develop on 2 strikes is to learn to foul off the close pitches, or he can hopefully put more pitches in play early in counts. My fear for him is that teams will start to try to get ahead expecting him to take early in counts, but I do not recall that being the case, if it was a meatball strike. He was not Joe Mauer taking strike one down the pipe every time.

International signings are such a crap shoot. You are signing age 16 and 17 year old kids hoping they develop into something. Most do not, even the high priced guys and top kids do not turn into stars. Some turn into future HOF. I remember Sano was the top guy in his class, Polanco and Kepler were not nearly as hyped and they are still here, Sano is not even in MLB organization last year.

I read an article on trade rumors about Sean Manaea and it got me wondering if they should look for a 1 year 11 to 12 mil contract? I know he would not be a clear replacement for Gray, but I think he would be worth a talk to. First, he is a lefty starter, something we do not have. He has generally been healthy over his career and dependable to start every 5th day. His numbers are not that of a top end starter, more of a end of rotation guy. However, reports are he learned the new sweeper, something the Twins have been loving with their new pitchers. Manaea pitched mostly out of pen last year, after a poor start, but he got back into rotation last September and pitched pretty well. Really after May he pitched well, but most was out of pen until September. Really, if you take away his first 2 months his last 4 were pretty good. I think they should talk to him, see what he is asking for, and if we can bring him as depth piece we should do that for the right price. I know they are looking to trade for a controlled guy but Manaea may not be a bad backup option.

Depending on what we do with Polanco will affect this move. Also, if we make any trades using the depth we have. I think the health of Buck will play a roll too. If Buck is expected to be "healthy" then that means Martin will be more of 2nd base back up, than CF option. Martin brings more on the bases. Miranda is the big question mark. If he is healthy and does anything close to what he did as a rookie, after his second call up, then he would be upgrade over Salano at plate. If health to Miranda and Buck are still an issue, I could see them wanting to bring Salano in for spring training, but assuring full roster spot at this point is not likely. Salano will not be in high demand, but there will be teams willing to give him a shot of making a squad.

I for sure believe Kepler will regress. He will not hit a full season like he did second half, he never has. Maybe he will have another career year, just not likely. Jeffers if he becomes every day catcher he will regress too, but if he can split like he did I would not expect a ton of regression, he has shown when healthy he can hit. Stewart for sure it will be expected. What he did last year just never had track record, and pen guys are super volatile. Castro I believe can be near what he was last year. One, it will be his age 27 season, the general peak years of most guys. Two, in 2020 he put up even better numbers in SSS of 36 games, but he has shown an ability to put up okay numbers. Three, it is not like he set world on fire last year. He mainly just got on base at a higher rate. In 2023, he only had 17 more plate appearances than in 2022, and only had 4 more hits, all extra base hits 3 triples and a HR, the doubles were the same and so where singles. The big difference was in 2023 he walked 19 more times. So really the difference between his 2022 season and 2023 season was 4 hits, all extra base hits, and 19 walks. The walks are something people can improve on over time, and he can replicate that. In 2021 he had 31 more plate appearances than in 2023, had 1 less hit, same amount of HR and 1 more triple with 3 less doubles. Again, the main difference was the walks, having less in 2021. So really, if he can maintain a similar eye at the plate as he showed last year, I think his production can be very similar. Really, even if his offense takes a little dip, he is there for his defense first. He actually hit lefties worse last year than his career average, but he hit righties better. Over his career he was pretty even splits, but last year was much better hitting left handed than right. So if he can bring his numbers hitting right handed back to career average, and can maintain his numbers hitting left handed like last year, he could even have a better year, or he if gets back to even splits and does not regress too much hitting left handed he will still be on par with last year.

He will not be flipped for Burns. If the Brewers trade him they will be saying we need a rebuild, of some kind, and they are not pushing to win this year, unless they also get MLB ready pitching to replace him with as part of a trade. So unless we include someone like Ober a trade surrounding Burns will not have Polanco as the only MLB ready piece to return. I could see Blue Jays or Seattle as good fits to match with. Both have pitching depth to deal from, and both have a need for an infielder. Miami could as well, but it will be more than Polanco for a pitcher most likely.

First, a successful career for him will be making MLB as a regular and earning a contract beyond arb years is really a general bench mark of a successful career for most players. Really, for most I would say just having a full season should be considered successful for any player as very few percentage of players even get that. Of course, our hopes are much higher than that based on the hype on him. Many have said he could have been number 1 in many other drafts, which is nice for a team that took him 5th. Would his hype had been higher if he was number 1 overall? What my hopes for the kid is he makes MLB in 2026, he is a regular in the OF, makes all-star games and hits in middle of order around Lewis for several years and helps leads us to plenty of post season appearances. Of course his early results in minors are giving us huge expectations for him. They are very SSS but he did not disappoint in his few games so far.

Anytime I see a pitcher had thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, I just assume their career is over. Yes, a few guys have been able to have some success after this, but most are never come close to what they were before, and this guys was nothing super special before either.

Sounds like they are hoping they can get him to find strike zone better and be a break out pen guy like Brock Stewart was last year. If he does not find the zone in St. Paul they can let him go for little risk.

I mean if he is on waivers would I be willing to put a claim in as a flier or trade away someone not even on prospect list sure, but the guy is 32 most of next season, his first full season of MLB ball was last year and he was 0.5 bWAR with OPS .722 and OPS+ of 99. He was negative defender. I really do not see much upside with him. He did hit lefties slightly better but not a masher against them. Maybe there is something there and he could have a career flash year at age 32 but most guys at that age are on the downtrend.

Personally a little surprised at where Joe is, but as some said the later votes tend to have less names on them. I cannot believe Beltre is not unanimous. It had to be someone that said well unless you are one of the very few top players ever, you should not get unanimous, but who cares. There is not like a different wing for guys that got in with 75% and guys that got in with 90% or higher or something, or even 100%. I do agree Joe should get in, but I am not expecting first year, but if voters look at his time as catcher and give him a break for the concussions costing him staying back there, then he may get in first year.

This is not a rare occurrence historically. Those voters are the "small" hall type guys, or they think it is their roll to make votes not first ballots, or unanimous votes. I do not understand their thoughts, because the HOF does not say what percentage, or what year they were on ballot, or if they were in through committee or original votes. I do not agree they should lose their right to vote taken away, I think the guys that give a vote to players like Jacque Jones should have vote take away. Yes, Jacque Jones got 1 vote his year. There are others like him too, but I just remembered that happened.

I agree to try and give him another chance at starting. However, the uptick in velo is most likely connected to his expected roll out of the pen. I would give him a chance at starting, but one if we have others that can be as competent at starting, I would not hesitate to move him into pen if we need it. Really, unless he becomes a number 3 or higher starter the amount of money between an end of rotation starter and a top relief guy, if he could become that, is becoming much less of a difference.

No way do we look to bring him back. He never took playing baseball seriously. He never was willing to put in the work that was needed to be an everyday player and stay in the lineup. I would not expect that he does that at his age now.

I expect Wallner to have the biggest regression. In terms of Julien, although he may regress against righties, we can hope he grows against lefties, which was just terrible, and that will balance the overall regression. Lewis I do not expect a ton of regression. Yes, he is not likely to hit grand slams with just about every chance he has, but as long as he can have people around him in the line up and does not press too much he should be fine.

There are too many outfielders and middle infield FA left to sign before we know what teams will be looking for either from us. Until that starts to shake out we will not know the true market. The Twins could look to make a trade early, but that could result in a smaller return. The Twins have normally tried to wait out the market and not overpay for either FA or get poor returns on deals. I have no issue waiting, there is still months until spring training.

There are too many top FA left to sign to shake out the lower level deals. With Bellenger still out there, no team will trade for Kepler, should that be our rout until he is off board. There is still a lot of FA to shake out before teams really see what they need going forward. Being we are unlikely to go out and sign a top FA, the expected biggest moves will be via trade. Really, you could make this comment about most teams, being most are just talking to players. Yes, some teams made some moves so far, but there are much more pending FA and trades to come than have been done.

The first 2 trades would be a big risk. Giving up your young controllable talent for 1 pitcher is always a risk. Even more so because we gave up a lot of our depth the last few years for pitching. We were fine giving up Arraez last year knowing we had Julien and Lee in the wings to fill in sooner or later. We were fine dealing away Steer and CES for similar reason. However, now if we dealt either Lee or Julien our depth really thins out and if either get injured, or just not continue to develop as we hope we have no real back up plan. E-Rod or Wallner are not as much of issue to replace, but we had a ton of depth of 2nd/3rd base guys over last couple years, now we have much less depth. However, he is a good pitcher, but we never know if it is time for an injury for him.

The players have agreed to this system. The system has gone through changes over the years, but the players agreed. The big issue with the players in recent years was that teams learned you can win with young cheaper guys more than you generally can with vets making much more. The system shifted and so the players wanted something for the young controlled guys. However, the vets want theirs, just as the vets before them. I am sure if the players wanted to work out a system based on actual output they would, but then many of the high priced vets would lose money.

I believe Buchanan has the St. Paul Saints record for RBI's in a game. At least he did at one point. I was at that game. It was after the Padres released him of course.

Brian Buchanan was traded to Padres for Jason Bartlett. Who was included in the trade as mentioned.

Every season you are rolling the dice with pen guys. Even if you go out and sign a top one, they are so risky. Mainly because their margin for error is so small. If a starter goes out and gives up 3 runs in 6 innings we say that is quality, to have a 4.50 ERA. However, if a relief guy has that much of an ERA we say at best they are a back of pen guy. We expect them to go out and never give up runs. When they do, we hope it is when we can afford to give up 1 or 2. If a pen guy gives up 1 run in a 1 run game we are upset that they blew the lead. However, if they give up 1 run in a 3 run ball game get through their inning we are fine, we say good job you did not blow the lead. The performance may have been the same, or in example 2 maybe even worse than in example 1, but we praise the success based on the situation. We all know when you do not have a good pen how rough it can be. Even worse when the pen guys blow leads in close games over and over. We always want them to be perfect in close games and have their bad games in blow outs either way. That just cannot always be the situation. Take a look at Clase for Cleveland last year. He most likely cost his team a chance at playoffs because he blew 12 saves. He converted 44 saves, but blew 12. He converted about 79%, but 12 times he failed his job. Duran for us, converted 27 saves and blew 5. he converted about 85%. If he blew 1 more he would have been at 81%, 2 more 79%. So not far from Clase, but Clase was asked to be better in more chances. Clase pitched 10 more inning but 16 more games. Coming into the season Clase was considered a top closer, and just about any team would have wanted him, but he did not have a good season. The point is, there is almost no one that is a for sure pen guy and you are always rolling the dice.

I would point out that Terry Ryan was not the GM when most of the trades on the Twins side of Young and follow up were made. It was Bill Smith. Then Ryan came back. So I do not blame Ryan for the Young trade but Bill Smith. What is interesting is the Young trade traces back to the Chuck Knoblauch trade tree as well, as Bartlett was obtained as part of that tree. I was most upset by the inclusion of Bartlett in the deal. The Garza for Young, at the time seemed like a decent thought. Young was considered a top hitter up and coming, and Garza, although a good pitcher, was not a fan of the Twins coaching him and we have no clue if he would have been nearly as good with us. Also, no way would we have been as good of trading him and got back as good of a deal like the Rays did.

Why would we trade SWR for Grisham? I would not want to do that trade straight up. What about Grisham says he should play every day in a line up? Grisham has been below league average hitter last 2 years. He is not considered a top defender. I see no upside for him. We can find him or someone like him on waivers, heck we put people like him on waivers and they pass through normally.

Kepler is not untouchable, and most likely at peak value right now. If a team is willing to part with the right package I see no reason to keep him for one more year. That being said, I doubt the return for him will be that big and I would agree not to just dump him to save money. I do not expect he will repeat what he did second half of last year again,