Trov

I would not throw Varland into the highest leverage roll when he has never been in it, unless you have little choice. Yes, in his very SSS of relief pitching he has done well, outside his one appearance against Mets with 2 solo shots. That really is his issue is his HR he gives up. It is possible, without looking deeper into his HR issue, giving up 1 HR ever 4 innings, he could be more effective as a relief guy. Some guys when they reduce the pitch mix and increase effort for the 1 or 2 innings being asked they do better there, if the third or forth pitch is what they give up the HR on. Duran may be not as lights out as we want of late, but he still is the best option we have overall, and has the mentality to do the job. Varland strikes out less, walks a few less, but ratio is about the same, but Varland gives up HR at a much higher rate. Do not be fooled by 4 good relief outings. I still like Varland, but would not want to hand him the ball in a 1 run game in playoffs in 9th compared to Duran.

I personally do not think much of the Blue Jays. I do not think their pitching is that great. Gausman is clearly good, but Berrios is very up and down, as we know. When he is on he can be one of best, but he also can give up a lot of runs quickly. They do have a strong overall offense. To me it does not matter which team we play, each team we are facing will be a tough team overall.

It is early to dub him the next Kirby, but he clearly has a similar personality to go with great skill. If Lewis can grow over same time as Puckett did, we are in for some great things. They are no where the same type of player/hitter, but I get the post is more about the leader. Lewis clearly wants to play every day no matter how he feels. He wants to help the team win, and loves to come up with big hits. All similar to Puckett.

Greene was a potential 2 way player as well coming out. Some talked about giving him that chance, but Reds never did. I am good with Lewis over everyone so far. Greene has the velo, but walks way too many be a top pitcher in the league. He averages 5 innings a start, because he throws a lot of pitches. If he ever learns to pitch he could be great, but he is league average pitcher right now. Yeah, he got a ton of strike outs against a team that strikes out a ton. He averages about 12 per nine. but he also walks 4 per 9.

The reaction I saw of Lewis was not that of a significant injury, but someone who was upset they were taking him out for an injury. When he had the core issue, he clearly knew he was hurt for a period of time, but with this when Tingler was coming out of dugout, Lewis clearly was telling him he was fine to stay in, and Tingler told him no. If Lewis knew he had a significant injury he would not have argued with the manager and trainer to stay in. That is how I saw the interaction.

It is not the clock at this point, it would require someone to go on 60 day, and ask the league for a waiver to use him in the playoffs at this point. My guess the league would not give waiver, unless it was either Lewis or CC that went on the 60 day IL, instead someone else. I could be wrong, but my guess that is consideration as well.

I hope Stewert can get enough rehab to play in playoffs. I am a little worried because he has never had the track record he did early in year that he can be depended on, but who knows.

The way Lewis reacted after the swing I am hopeful it is minor. He was clearly trying to argue to stay in an play, and was told hell no. When he hurt his core, he got upset right away, this time he seemed upset he was coming out more so. I could be wrong, but the fact he appeared to be fighting to stay in gives me some hope.

I am not convinced Texas makes the playoffs. If they do, they could be tough matchup by throwing all those lefties at us. However, they have been streaky this year. Also, their offense is top heavy now, with the rest of the line up really holding them back at the bottom now. If they get on a hot streak again, they will be a tough out no matter who faces them though. They did have one of the top teams for first half so they will not be an easy out, but we did have some good comebacks against their pen this year.

You bring up the question, do you look at overall numbers for the year, or what numbers they put up during the time they did play and look to extrapolate out? I think the voters generally look at overall year numbers. Take De La Cruz from Reds for example. he lit the baseball world on fire when he first came up in June, and still did okay in July, for about 50 games. However last 40 plus games he has been terrible overall. Had he got injured after June or early July missing the rest of the season, do you reward what he did in the 30 to 40 games where he looked like MVP? Yes, Lewis has played more, he will play just over 1/3 of the season. Gunner Henderson will play nearly 4/5 of the season. Lewis is on pace should he have played the full year, to have like a 7 or 8 WAR, well beyond Henderson, but fact is Henderson WAR is around a 6 and Lewis is not likely to pass 3. When playing Lewis is looking to be the better overall player and contribute more than Henderson, but in this year, Henderson has given more to his team, because he has played. Personally, I think Lewis should finish second behind Henderson.

If Lewis had a full year he would be looking at the front runner. Jung was running away with it, until he got hurt. Then Henderson took a huge lead, helping lead a team most thought had no chance of making playoffs, to possibly 2nd best record in baseball at end of season. Lewis has been setting records and hopefully will be the better player, but for this season it should go to Henderson. He is also playing good defense at SS. Just think that Baltimore also has the top prospect and possible ROY next year too.

International pitching prospects are very rare generally. They sometimes develop, but if you look at the top international guys, very few are signed as pitchers. Trying to project a 16 or 17 year old pitcher is never going to be easy. Even highly talked about HS pitchers still are a high miss rate. In terms of the position players, E-Rod is a top guy. The rest of the international guys are really too young to tell what we got from them. Most are signed at 16 or 17 so takes at least a couple of years to even make full season ball normally.

I would not bet even money, but for right odds. My main point is that they are in an interesting situation, that they could push themselves into the picture because of who they play and who else plays each other. Unlike Cleveland who does not play us, they cannot control most of their own fate. However, Yankees do have a chance to control most of their own fate. It will take an insane run, but they can force the issue. I think it unlikely, but if Cleveland still had 6 games against us we would be talking about that situation more.

Defensive metrics grade Bellinger out as average CF right now, with having him negative runs saved. He used to be very good out there I would agree, but clearly over the last three years he has regressed in that area. Could he regain it, maybe, but just because he was very good in his early 20's does not mean he still is now. The numbers reflect major regression over last few years. If we could sign him I would not say do not play him out there, but you are mainly going to be signing for his offense not his defense at this point. I am also worried he may go back to what he did 2 years prior over what he did this year with Cubs. If he would not have been down right terrible his age 25 and 26 seasons he would up for one of biggest contracts in game. He is going to ask for that, pointing to past MVP and what he did this year, but 2 years of terrible play will hurt his offers. I am sure some team will give him a like a 7 or 8 year deal with opt out after 3 to see if he plays well enough to try and cash in again at age 31 free agent.

It is not too early to talk on here, but too early for FO to worry right now. I would not go Bellinger, he will be costly and is really not a CF, he is below average defense there. I would not look to move Lewis there, not because he got injured, but because he has hardly played there, he is doing just fine at 3rd, and he made a statement that suggests he will not be a good defender there in future. He made statement that the injury was not worth the effort on the play. Which in hindsight that is true, but if he is out there thinking should I try to catch this ball, will I get hurt, that will make him hesitate and that will not be good for him or the team. I would bring in someone like Taylor, if not bring him back on a 1 year cheap deal, then see if Buck can do it, if not we see if Martin can build on what he did this year in AAA and similar to what we did with rookies this year, transition him in as year goes on. You can always make trades from out infield depth too.

In terms of drafting it is still a crap shoot. Many teams miss, and sometimes number 1 picks get missed. When you are drafting high school kids you have no clue how will they develop into adulthood. With college kids you do not know if they will adjust to wood bats, and to facing top pitching day in and day out. You can get an idea but there has and will always be flops in drafts, and hidden gems that rise to the top. Sometimes it is injuries that hurt guys at the top, and sometimes the gems are found because they did not come from big areas that got much exposure. Sometimes you draft a guy because he has the basics but you want to hope he improves in other areas, and they just never do.

If the Yankees get on a hot run, they actually have a good chance of making the playoffs as the last wild card. They have 6 games against the Blue Jays, and the Rangers and Mariners play each other 7 times. If the Yankees win 5 or 6 against the Blue Jays, they will be in the thick of it. They only need to catch the Blue Jays, and either of the Rangers or Mariners, so being they play each other one has to lose. It is not likely, but they are hot right now and nothing would shock me less than the Yankees going on a hot streak to end the season, face us in the first round and sweep us. Of course if the Yankees lose even 2 against the Blue Jays that will make it very difficult to catch them, and even if they do win all 6 they still will need wins against Diamondbacks and Royals.

He looks like a slow climber in the system, but does seem to be growing as seasons go on. Last year he was pretty even across the season, outside a hot May. They still moved him up to high A. This year he started off a little hot, then leveled off a bit, with similar numbers to last year. Second of this year though he has hit for more power and getting on base at higher clip. He is known to be a solid defender overall, and will need to improve his bat to be a MLB player. My guess he is still at least 3 to 4 years from majors, barring huge jumps next year or year after. He is still in year 20 season so even if it took 4 years he could still put up reasonable career.

This was clearly a win win for both sides who dealt from positions of depth. Miami has had some injuries and regression of other starters but they still have a lot of depth there. We clearly have depth at infield and going into next season we will need to figure out what to do with some more that we have. This is not a one team one a trade or lost it, and really that is what teams want.

Severino will be 24 next season, he is nearly 24 now. Severino is not someone we should be banking on, Yes, the power numbers are good, but his K-rate is very high for a minor league guy. Those numbers normally go up at MLB level, not lower. This year the K-rate for Severino is 32%, up from his career of about 25%. To compare, Sano K rate in minors was about 23 to 25%, which went up to 65% at Majors over career. Joey Gallo, had a 35% K rate in minors, and up to 38% at majors, so about the same there. I have compared him a bit to CES minor league K rate was 25%, only 22% at AAA this year, with 28% at MLB so far this year. As much as it would be nice to see those HR convert to MLB level, I am very worried he will be a huge strike out rate that is near Gallo or Sano levels at MLB.

I am aware of the list, but my question who on it would you have went after? Can you point to some old post during offseason where you say, I hope they sign x player and you were right in that signing that they would have been better? It is easy to say we should have upgraded, but harder to point to who was the upgrade at the time? I remember in 2018, people were big on the Addison Reed signing, because he was coming off a few good seasons with Mets, still only 29 at the time. He turned out to be a terrible signing for us, and despite he had a 2 year deal we dropped him and he never pitched in majors again. Pen guys are volatile and hard to predict, even when you think have good ones they turn very quickly, and sometimes turn back very quickly. Mainly because they get very few chances to show being good.

Kepler has a career split of pretty even both sides. He generally has better batting average against lefties, but less power, not a ton though. If you go back to say David Ortiz, his first full year with Twins, he had reverse split, then more even the next year, followed by a full platoon in his last year with Twins. That generally carried through most of the rest of his career, but he still had 817 OPS against lefties. It is odd his crushed lefties his first full year, then regressed. There has been some lefties that do very well against lefties, and Julien generally seems like one that should fit that trend, because he is willing to work counts, go other way, but this year has not been good. When looking at some historical Twins every day lefties over the years, most have platoon splits, but some still could hold their own, the more so greats. The guys that were every day players that were never all-stars or the like really struggled. Really that is the difference between an every day stick it out hitter, versus the full platoon guy. The team needs to decide who they are at some point, and decide when to make moves. Personally, if the hitter will have at least 1 more at bat, and the other team is out of lefties, I would leave them in, depending on the situation overall. I do not agree that a single at bat will make any difference, as clearly full adjustments need to be made, and you will not learn much from one at bat but a full effort to make changes in the off-season now will need to be done.

The issue will be if the team writes him off as a platoon player or not. I feel like some teams just write off lefties as not being able to hit them, and so they never give them a chance. I get late in games using the platoon stuff, but there was games where the other team used the opener and brought in a lefty in 2nd inning causing the pinch hit move before a single at bat, then there is the righty that comes in later to face the new hitter. Can Julien fix his issue, maybe, but unless he is given a chance we will never know.

Personally, I think it took SWR a bit to adjust to the robo ump. He also may have been dealing with a little injury because he did miss some time, then came back doing pretty well overall.

The main reason for this is generally if they are good enough they will be up at the big league club before they can set the records. Normally, if they are young enough they lack the power, and by the time they are old enough to hit that many HR they will get up to MLB club. Severino though is in an interesting boat because he was at one point a top guy, but fell off a ton, but now coming into power. However, his K rate is a little too high to suggest he will be anything that Joey Gallo at MLB level if he ever gets there.