Trov

What Lewis brings that numbers will not show is his desire to win, and his understanding of the situation. He has worked through many injuries, and hopefully no more really pop up. However, what really impressed me last year, not just the grand slams, but when he would come up late in games in big at bats he knew that a single may get it done so he wanted to make sure he got the ball in play. He got some hits that were not pretty, but he knew putting the ball in play is better than swinging for fence and missing when a single will get it done. He is willing to adjust to the situation, that is something superstars can do.

I find some of the things in the article misleading. First, the writer uses the term luxury tax payroll to determine spending. The writer does address the actual payroll for this year is nearly 138 million, but the article does not show Twins actual payroll. According to Spotrac Twins actual payroll is still higher than KC. This is because Witt's contract is very backloaded, but the luxury tax number is the overall annual value. So that right there is misleading in my opinion. KC is not outspending the Twins this year of actual money being spent. Second, the writer uses the TV market as a basis for why the Twins should be spending more, but then points out that KC is earning more from TV contract than Twins are, so that is a poor argument that the TV market is reflection on how much money a team is earning. It is true the attendance is up for Twins, but that by itself does not tell a story, because we do not know what the actual difference in paid attendance and how much of actual money coming in is. We also do not know a difference in concession sales as well. I am not saying KC is earning more than Twins, most likely not, but first to say the KC is spending more is just false, they are not spending more actual money in this years payroll. The contract that pushed KC past Twins in luxury number is backloaded so that down the line KC can cut costs elsewhere. Specifically, Witt earns 2 mil this year, 7 mil next year, 13 mil in 2026, 19 in 2027, and it is not until 2028 that he earns 30 mil. Then 2029 to 2034 he earns 35 mil, and two of those years he can start opting out. The contract was set up this way mainly so they can pay other players more now and keep payroll down, and down the road they will deal with the large payday, but they have a few years, when no other long term deals are on their books. Specifically Perez contract after 2025. Do you think they will sign a new guy for 22 mil in 2026 when Witt is getting paid 19 mil, doubtful.

I am wondering who said no first, or how the talks went. My guess Seattle said how much for both, we said one of their top young pitchers, either Gilbert or Kirby, and Seattle said no, so we said lets talk about just one of them then, and more willing to part with Polanco at this point. Had there been an offer that included either of the SP I think Twins should have listened more, but my guess Seattle said either were off the table from the jump.

The TV deal is expected to be at this point a single season, so really nothing for long term cash influx. No point in thinking of multi-year contracts if you are counting TV money in budget. Yes, the deal may add little to this years budget but any long term signings will not be affected because next offseason Twins will be in same boat. Report also talks about taking less than last year. My guess there will be a deal done, but will not have a ton of affect on signings unless for 1 year prove it deals, not sure if anyone out there for that.

It is hard to even put yourself in the shoes of someone who has to make that call. I think most people that are on the outside looking in would say take the for sure money. I mean 26 mil should be enough to live off of the rest of his life and if invested can be built on for his family down the road too. We hear players turning down insane amounts of money, like reports Soto turned down reported $440 mil, for something of more value. He is still doing just fine, set to hit FA if no extension with Yankees. He will earn at much if not more. But at that point is not so much about the money, but as Kirk said, what the money represents. I mean if Soto earns $440 mil or $500 mil is there much of a difference to how his life will be affected? No, most likely not. But if he is the highest paid player that means something to the player. As Fast Eddie said, "The 'best' is the guy with the most. It's the whole show. The best is the guy with the most in all walks of life." In this case, the guy with the most pay, is the best, that is why you turn down a smaller contract, to show you are worth more.

The assumption by the writer is that Polanco will be better than anyone who may replace him. I would disagree. As much as I have liked Polanco over the years, he is aging and getting hurt each of the last few years. Julien filled in last year just fine, and improved on his defense. Yes, he was unplayable against lefties. However, we have options. Farmer can play against lefties or Castro. If Polanco is in line up he is either playing 2nd moving Julien to first or one of them is DH. AK has been been consistent, but again we had options at first, possibly Miranda, if he can bounce back from injury plagued season. Lee could always get called up. I agree, outside the pen arm, we did not upgrade much for this season, but to just assume Polanco will be better than any replacements I have to disagree with that premise. The fact that Polanco has missed so much time lately with injuries, which tend to get worse as you get older, and he is going to be in age 30 season, I expect his production to go down.

I find it unlikely this FO to do a pre-MLB debut deal with anyone. They are becoming more common but still very rare.

I know you using Holliday because of recent season he had, but they really not similar type players. Holliday is not a power hitter, may get some power as he ages, but right now his numbers were very much built off his walks and general batting average. I am not saying he will be either of these guys, but looking at path of Mike Trout and Juan Soto might be more interesting. both of them were called up year 19 seasons after crushing the minor leagues. Trout did not do great in his 40 games at MLB level at age 19, but starting age 20 he became best player of all time, possibly. Soto actually took off on his age 19 season when he was called up. Both where supported by great eyes at the plate and good power. Both were outfielders by trade. Neither were super hyped guys at time of entering minors. Trout drafted 25th and Soto signed as like outside top 20 players in his international signing. The Harper comp is interesting because Harper was tagged the next big thing, and has been good to great, but only 1 year younger than Trout has 40 less bWAR for career. In part, Harper plays corner OF and has had up and down years. Really, if Jenkens can be close to any of them we will take it. I do not expect the Twins to be as aggressive as those three, all getting called up at 19, but if Jenkins comes out gate hitting like he finished the season, we could see a later season call up if injuries arise. However, a call up in 2025 is more likely if he crushes this year.

I am sure he will play out there. He will play like 30 games out there before he is moved to DH only or back on IL for rest of season. The man cannot play a full season, no matter what position he plays. It sucks because he has the talent to be great, but not the body to stay healthy. He has had about every injury a man could have over his career it would seem too.

I was impressed with Terry Ryan as both a person, and GM early in his time with Twins. I do feel as he got older the game passed him by a little bit. I do wish he would have never passed the job over to Bill Smith, and by time he returned either Bill put us into too deep a hole, or the game had made too many changes from what he was used too. He at times was too loyal to players that had a good season with us, but he made good savvy moves early in his career. He wanted to put us on a path to be good long term, not an all in splash and hope type season or two. He made many mistakes, like letting Ortiz go for LeCroy, but he also made many good moves too. He took Johan Santana in rule 5 draft, but even better was he actually traded for him in a pre arranged trade where they got him and cash. The mid-season trade for Shannon Stewert was huge. He also traded for Nick Punto. He had some hit and misses in the draft, but overall led the team to be a division champ several seasons. One note to writer, the Aguilera trade for Loshe was to the Cubs and Red Sox, the Aguilera trade to Red Sox was in 1995 for Frank Rodriguez, we then resigned Aguilera as FA that season and traded him in in 1999 to Cubs.

From what I have read up on him is if he can make contact he can be decent, but strikes out way too much for a guy who has almost no power as well. Sounds a bit like Billy Hamilton.

Boras has always played the game of give me an offer first, or we will hold out for the offer we want. They have been willing to go into spring training at times too. Sometimes he gets his clients good deals, but sometimes it seems to hurt their performance when they do sign.

You never know how they will do this year. Although they had some young guys have good stretches, you never know if they will regress or build on it. I do think they will be biggest competitor to Twins.

I think there are more players that could have done both if teams were willing to do it. Mad Bum is a recent one that was a good hitter, and if given chance could have put up decent numbers as a hitter. Mike Hampton was another guy that hit over .300 as a pitcher. Micha Owings, but he was not a great pitcher and should have been more of a hitter. Rick Ankiel went from pitcher to hitter, after he could not find strike zone. I personally think more teams will start to give guys the shot to do both. Now that we have seen it can be done, why not give more guys the shot? The thought was if you did not spend full time on one thing you would not be great at either. There will not be a ton, but there will be more I believe, and having DH in both leagues will help that. There will have to be teams that will give the player a true shot at it though.

I remember Tom Kelly saying during Joe's first spring training that if he was not playing catcher he would be a major league guy already. He said he most likely could have hit at MLB level right out of high school, but he was not ready to catch at MLB level yet. I think players and teams choose to take guys off of catcher for two reasons, one if they are a top offensive guy they want to make sure their bat is in lineup each day, and do not want to be worn down from catching. Two, they cannot defend it at a good enough level. One main reason catchers are not common in hall is they generally do not put up the offense required, and unlike CF or SS, their defense is not on major display with flashy plays. A good defensive catcher generally is not talked about a ton, because teams hardly try to steal on them, and they do not give up passed balls. Where guys like Ozzie Smith, who were terrible offensive guy, but was one of, if not, the best defensive SS of all time and would make you go wow with many of his plays. If you could not see his amazing plays, and he was sitting behind the plate being top defensive catcher of all time, he may not make HOF. Good for Joe, he deserved to be in HOF, and I was worried he was not going to get in, at least not right away, because he got moved off catcher and his overall counting numbers did not warrant HOF if not by a catcher. The fact in his prime at catcher he was one top hitting catchers ever is what got him in. It is possible if he did not play catcher but a different position he could have put up even better numbers over his career. It is possible he could still be playing even.

Jenkins may be the most hyped prospect for Twins since Buck was drafted. Lewis had some hype but not to Jenkins or Buck level. If Jenkins can hit ground running I could see him move up to AA by season end. Jenkins ended in low A and did better there than Rookie league. His eye at plate early on was good. I know it is SSS, but when people saying he would have been number 1 pick in many other recent drafts that helps the hype train. Lee has the looking of being a solid player but his ceiling is much lower, not saying he could not break out beyond what is expected, but he is thought of being just solid all around good hitter, but not great.

The Chapman signing by Pirates is savvy move. The Twins in the late 90's early 2000's did signings like that. They would sign a vet, knowing they planned to trade by seasons end and they hoped the player would show value to increase trade returns. Left handed pen guys will always be in demand and guys that have shown success in high leverage in past as well.

You know another player that hardly chased, had low hard hit rate, but sure produced on offense? Luis Arraez. His knock was always his lack of power. His contact rate is higher, but his walk rate is much lower too. They are not the same player by any stretch, but the point is you can get offense from more than just power. The fact Martin can run and steal bases will make him even more valuable. I still have some hopes for Martin.

The Twins were actually one of the more watched teams via TV in recent years. That is one of the reasons Bally agreed to pay to keep them the rest of the season, because it was one of the few deals that were making them money. TV deals are not piling up because it is not that simple. Right now with the change in how people are viewing it is affecting the TV market. The Twins contract has been up since end of season and yet no new broadcaster has come along willing to pay what Bally did last year, as least as far as we know. The Twins payroll has been near the league average for years, but fans that think team is cheap continue to act like their payroll is near what Ray or Oakland put out. There were 4 teams that payroll was nearly half ours, but fans act like we have the lowest payroll in the league. Outside of Padres, who are cutting a ton of payroll and reports they had to take out a loan to pay bills, every team ahead of us in payroll are much larger markets. Twin cities is about 16h largest metro area in country, every other team is in larger market. If the team was a cheap as some fans like to think, they would not be near league average in payroll they would be near bottom. They would not have went out and signed top free agents in last few years. They would have traded buck away in his free agent year, they would not have signed CC, or Lopez to contracts. Just because they are not spending like the top spenders does not mean they are being cheap. League average spending is not cheap.

The fact all three have Boras is one of the main reasons. First, he is known to hold out on signings, but he also looks to work on one client at a time, unless deals blow them away. He tries to sets markets for all his players.

This is not some new trend. Many guys have made the switch back and forth in history. The fact that there are many in one off-season may be a little bit odd, but nothing new.

I give little hype to any international signing. They are too young to really project for much. That is why the high priced guys flop just about as much as the low priced guys make big waves. In 2015 Juan Soto was ranked 22nd, and signed for 1.5 mil. In that same class, Gilberto Celestino was ranked 7, signed for 2.5, we signed Wander Javier for 4 mil. Fernando Tatis Jr. was 27th and signed for 700k. There are a few other names on the list, like Vlad Jr. was 4th signed for 3.9, but point is ranking 16 and 17 year old kids is very hard to do. Soto looks like sure fire HOF, barring injuries. Tatis Jr. put up crazy numbers early on, but has had off field issues a bit hurting him. Vlad Jr. is on a good path, but just about every other one are not in MLB or not looking like they will do much at MLB level. We never know how the kids will develop.

I say this past year is most likely an outlier year due to his planter fasciitis. When your feet are in pain, it will affect every part of your game, hitting more than defense. I am hopeful that will get cleared up over the offseason and he will get his offense back to above average for SS and his defense improves slightly too.

I find the knock on E-Rod is he may be too patient. First, a high K-rate will happen with a high walk rate too, it means he goes deep into counts. I never think a young guy taking walks is a bad thing. The hope is he will have more of a plan when pitchers get better. Right now he is most likely not chasing much. If he starts taking fastballs down the pipe early in counts that is one thing, but it shows at least for now he is not chasing a ton. Yes, he may not have great contact skills, but at same time if his contact skills are bad, will that improve by attacking pitches early in counts that are borderline strikes simply to be more aggressive? I do not know how much scouting Gleeman has done of E-Rod, I have done none, but to draw a conclusion based on stats is a poor way to evaluate a player. Maybe he is taking good strikes to be patient, but maybe he is taking close pitches for both balls and strikes and not swinging at pitchers pitches. Without watching him I would not know. I sure assume the team knows though.

If we could get him on the cheap I would be for it, but I find that very unlikely. He would be fun to have returned to DH or play 1B, but as much as I like him, I think we can build a stronger team without him. His knees are causing him to have almost 0 speed, and will age very quickly. The fact that he has very little power too means he will become a poor defending singles hitter. He is reaching his prime, but he does not profile well as a guy in his 30's. Although he would be FA before then. That is why for next couple years I am fine with him if we do not have to give up much to take him back.