Trov

We got a great 2020 season from Maeda, a okay 2021 until injury, and now some good starts this year. All for a bull pen pitcher and a guy that bounced around through several teams before he finally had some good time, a crazy good first half, but second half he has been below average guy, he is also almost 29 and basically still a rookie this season. We did give up a pick who could be something. Personally, I would take the starter for pen guy every time and not worry about it. I would not call this trade a loss at all. At worse it is a good trade for all.

Consetti has been hitting great this year, but he is old for his league. Unless he can tear it up next year at AA and stay behind the plate, I doubt he will get much push by the team. It is nice to see catchers hitting, but there is a reason he was a 4 year college player. It could be he was just a very late bloomer as he did not have any power until his last 2 years of college, but he also failed in both summer league seasons he played.

He is not on any lists that I know of, but in part that may be because this is his second year of full season and he was a 14th round pick out of college. My guess he will climb up a little this year, but will be a bit of an unknown prospect and most likely a future pen guy if he makes majors, but could surprise some.

There is more to building roster than just that, but who did Martin, Lee, and Stevenson face in their 14 plate appearances, I am guessing it was not a future lock for hall of fame like ones at the MLB level. However, I do agree we should look for moving Gallo out and Martin in, but not based on just last night.

There is more to signing a guy at 1 year of MLB service time to long term deal than just locking up. You lock yourself into known costs. The people that think we should just wait until his arb years are done, when he is 29, you run the risk of his arb years being more than you may have planned, which means he is doing great, but still means you may have less in budget. You can also get a year or two of FA time. I would agree with looking to lock him up if you can buy out a year or two of FA, but my guess he will not be on board unless it is for some bigger bucks. I also agree, doing it now would be a larger risk to us as he has not had a full pro year his whole career. He did pretty much play full years 2018 and 2019 in minors, but outside of that he has had many injures. I do worry a little that his walk to K ratio is getting a little out of hand, but overall I love what I have seen from him.

Agreed 100%, and exactly why the players have had issues with that system. We will use the prime years of these guys, then we will either trade them a year early or let them walk after arb years.

I think the issue that is highlighted is all the what if and when healthy stuff. I agree that Buck should only play if he can play CF, unless he is just raking. However, if AK comes back and back to what he was before the shoulder issue, we will have way too many guys we want to see hitting. Lewis should just stay at 3rd rest of year with CC at short. 2nd Julien against rh, and either Polanco or Salano against lefties. Salano has been too solid to just cut in my opinion. He is the glue kind of vet that you can count on for solid at bats and will help in playoffs. First, should be AK if healthy or whoever you feel can defend it and not be an auto out(GALLO). As for OF, Walner and Kepler are too hot to sit. So that leaves just CF, if not Buck, then Taylor is natural option due to defense and despite his lack luster overall offense he still has HR pop. Martin is raking in AAA and I would love to see him get called up to try out CF and if he can defend at average level and hit anywhere close to what he is doing AAA I think he would provide a nice boost. That is a lot of ifs though. I think it is nice that we can talk about the problem of having too many players we need to find at-bats for.

I think it depends on if they plan to use him in the playoff rotation or not. Of course that will depend on other injuries. If they do not plan to use him in playoff rotation, unless they would look to use him long relief in playoffs, if they feel he is nearing end of season do to too much use, then why not skip a start or shut him down completely? I am fine with a 6 man rotation to help rest the other guys overall too. However, if you want to use Ober in post season, you should either go 6 man with him or move him to pen now, if the team thinks the drop in production is clearly due to fatigue.

I would look to bring him back on a 1 to 2 year deal. I believe we have a few young guys that could step up if needed, and overall we have had some good health this year, outside the full missed season of one planned starter, we have not had many stints on IL. However, if those pile up we need as much depth as possible.

There are still plenty games to be a rival games. Rival games get built in fights for playoff spots late in years or in the playoffs, not games played in April.

It will be interesting to see what kind of contract he gets. He may go low years high value to show he can pitch again after a second TJ, or he may take big longer contract. I would look at a contract that pays him as a top DH, but with big incentives for innings pitched built in. Meaning if he can come back to pitch like he has, then he will get paid for that as well, but if he does not, then he will only be the DH he is. The only issue is that if a team is not willing to let him pitch again for some reason, then there may need to be an opt out. Personally, I would only go after him if you think he will pitch again, because right now we have a 15 mil a year DH in Buxton, so will he just ride the pine if we sign a 60 mil a year DH?

This will be interesting to see how it affects his FA situation. He still will be able to hit, but will he get the mega deal we expected, or will it be shorter term deal, or maybe one with incentives based on innings pitched each season.

I was going to comment similar. Over the last month he is slashing .375/.474/.656 with OPS of 1.131 those are crazy numbers. He has walked 12 times struck out 10 over that time, hit 5 HR, power has been his big nock, stole 7 bases caught 2 times. Those are numbers over last 28 days. I saw a couple of the HR and they were no doubters not wall scrapers too. Not sure if it is just SSS or something has clicked, but if he can do anything close to what he is doing right now at AAA he should get called up for stretch run and possibly help us in playoffs. Sometimes need to ride hot bats and even if that all this is, why not see what he could do up here.

I read an interesting ESPN article about the Angels and the last 20 years, most last 10, of failing as a team. They highlighted big name free agent signings that failed, failed drafts, even worse over last decade. It got me thinking about the Padres of recent years too and how both teams have tried to build through big trades, and big signings that have not paid off yet, and how some fans have begged for us to be like them. The Angels have spent the last decade trying to build around Trout(played his first full season 2012 at age 20, getting second in MVP and 8.7bwar) and recently Otani have been touted as best players of generations and possibly ever. However, the Angels have failed to build around them. Trout has been injured much of recent years, noting he is now on the bottom half of his prime, but when healthy still puts up great numbers. However, the team would go out and sign big name after big name in hopes of winning it all. Pitching was always their main downfall. They were never afraid of signing big money deals, but for whatever reason they never were able to get over the hump. They also were never willing to go full all in rebuild like Houston did. Looking at Padres, they were a bottom payroll team and losing team for several years. Going back to 2014 they were a team in a pitchers park with no real direction of a team. A mix of vets and young guys with some decent pitching but little offense. In 2015 they decided to jumpstart their team with some trades of big game James Sheilds, the upton brothers and signing Matt Kemp. The Upton brothers and Kemp did fine, but pitching failed them. More moves come, trades and signings but more losses mount. Two years of more loses and then out of no where Padres spend huge on Hosmer. Many questioned the deal at the time, and it never paid off, but showed things to come. Many trades were being made as well. 2019 Manny Machado signs a huge deal, but pitching is still lacking. Tatis Junior is all the talk of the team 20 year old that put up bwar of 4.6 as a rookie. They got him for James Shields from White Sox, always love throwing that in when talking about trading top prospects for aging pitchers. 2020 comes they make moves for Mike Clevenger, and finally things look up for team in the short 2020 season. 2021 they bring in new pitching, Snell, Musgrove, and Darvish, but overall the team fails. 2022 their pitching comes around and they make trade for Soto, but fall in playoffs, but things look up they were built to win now. Coming into 2023 they are getting Tatis back, all the pitching is returning, they sign Bogaerts to huge deal, they sign Wacha who had great start to season. However, they are 6 games below .500 and no real chance of making playoffs. They have huge money invested for years, and does not appear to be much farm system to speak of. Padres may bounce back next year as health to pitching may help, but with not much farm system they are been grabbing at scraps. They sold everything to win now, and risked it all on every one having career years. Their bullpen is overall bad, outside of free agent to be Hader. They can go out and sign more guys, but trades will be hard to do now. Both teams have tried to win with making trades and free agent signings only to have little results with at best 1 good year. It is a way to build a team, but neither team, the Angels even more so, have shown much direction. The Padres in last 3 years have said we are all in and we do not care, but as each year passes they farm system is depleted, and their contracts will start to look worse and worse. It is a caution that spending big money and making big trades will not always equal success. Even brining in young stars that are best in the world does not mean you will win long term. Building a team, in my opinion requires depth at the farm system, something the Twins have shown this year. As injuries set in this year, or poor play of some others, we had guys to turn to, and now we are facing too many guys that deserve at bats, which is a good thing. Any fans that want the Twins to trade off all top prospects and buy all top free agents should look at these teams of what could go wrong. There are other teams that have made big signing that go no where too, but these teams have had interesting attempts over last 10 years.

When Buck is hitting like MVP he can DH, but when he is not, he needs to play in field. There was many debates about DH for ex amount of games or CF for 81 games, making assumptions that he would stay healthy as a DH. I argued that most of his injuries in his history has not been from playing the OF, but from running bases and hitting. Yes, he has had some injuries from playing OF, but as shown again this year, he will get injured just hitting, so taking away what he does best in trying to get him to be just a hitter really is not best for club. Hopefully he can play CF, but unless he can hit at MVP level, he should not be taking DH at bats from guys that are hitting better than he is. Just because he is getting paid like he is, we should not just send him out there to fail for us. I hope he can play CF even as a part time situation. Give him a few games out there to see if he can do it playoff time, because him manning CF at his normal level, and hitting even average will be best for us.

I remember early in 2019 it was pointed out the aggressive swinging of the team early in counts. Kepler has been doing that. I have always said if you go up looking for a particular pitch swing no matter the count. What I have liked about Kepler right now is he is willing to drive outside pitches to LC gap, where he used take those pitches more often looking for the inside pitch.

Outside of Otani there is nothing too great in FA wise to fit the timeline of payroll. Yes, we have some cheaper guys next couple of years, but the better they do, the more they will cost us even in the 3 years of arb years. There are a couple of middle of road pitchers that will be looking for 4 to 6 year deals is my guess. Aaron Nola, Blake Snell, Julio Urías, Eduardo Rodriguez are the top starters that would be looking to get new big deals. Kershaw would be a type to try to sign to a 1 or 2 year big money deal, but he is never likely to leave Dodgers. For the right price I would be willing to sign any of those guys, but most will be looking for longer term deals that could be an issue at end of the deal when we will need to start to pay guys like Lewis. There are no Verlander/Scherzer type starters that are older and will take bigger 1 to 2 year deals, or guys that need to do prove it type deals outside of Severino from Yankees, he has been terrible this year after looking like a top arm for years. Do we want to gamble on that? In terms of pen arms, Josh Hader, Aroldis Chapman, Craig Kimbrel, David Robertson, are all some end of pen options that could be had on 1 to 2 year deals, but they are all aging and have had struggles at times in past, bouncing back this year, but any one of them could fall off the cliff too. I would be fine with going after 1 or 2 of them on 1 to 2 year deals. Hader I would be willing to look at 3 year deal but I never want to give a relief guy more than that. In terms of trades too early to speculate on that. The issue with trades of a top starting pitcher will be hard to do because it will require giving up some of young top talent, that allows us to have a low payroll. Someone wrote about going all in for Otani, on a crazy high per year short term deal, would he go for it? If so, I would be all in on that idea, but my guess he will take the longer term super high value deal than short term high annual value.

Keep in mind 3 of the guys drafted ahead of Jenkins are college guys, of which they all will likely lose their prospect status before Jenkins even makes Majors, unless Jenkins just goes ham next year. Skene was mentioned if needed could have just went right to majors, only reason he will be held back is that Pirates may want to control him longer. That is the thing with rankings too is as guys fall off others move up, and sometimes the top whatever are a lot weaker top whatever because the top say 5 to 10 all moved off the list, so a guy that was say top 20 now may be a top 10 but did nothing to move up other than no get worse.

It is not about rather playing bad veterans over take a chance on young players, but roster moves have a ripple affect. Lets say early in year we cut Gallo, Farmer, Polanco, a number of pen pitchers that are vets. If the young guys produce great, if they do not, who do we have to turn to? Even worse, what happens when they get hurt, as many players need even 10 days on IL from time to time. If we cut all our vets, understanding we cannot send them to minors, then we are forced to bring up even younger guys, most likely not ready to play. You have to sometimes think more than one move ahead, and have backup plans. Everyone wondered why we brought in MAT in off season, and assumed he would be 4th outfielder. However, FO knew Buck was less likely to play CF. If Buck could great, but we needed a backup plan because they did not believe Celistino was the option. The fact that we have so many guys pushing the MLB roster is a good thing, and a sign of depth we have. We did send Julien and Wallner down initially, but now they have forced they way back into lineup. However, where would we be if we would have sent vets packing and either get hurt?

To compare Neto to Lee situation is not a fare way to compare. This FO is more than willing to bring up guys under 24, if the player shows they can be better than what we got, or injuries force the hand. AK started a playoff game at age 22, then started regular season age 23. Royce Lewis called up at 23, and if he did not miss the full season prior, most likely would have been called up at age 22. Jose Miranda called up at 23, turned 24 later that season. Gilberto Celestino, due to need, was called up at 22. Simeon Wood Richardson got his first start last September at age 21, and many thought he would contribute this year, then regressed and one terrible start this year at MLB level and bad start to season in AAA. He is doing better now, but to say the FO never calls up guys until 24 or older just is not supported by data. Outside of Neto and Lee, everyone else from last year draft are below AAA. Neto is not lighting world on fire in Majors, but he is best LA has at SS right now. He is playing well for a 22 year old, just a few days older than Lee, but Angels really have no other choices, but the Twins have other choices to play infield above Lee. We have CC, Lewis, Julien, Polanco all as guys that can play. I would bet if Lee showed he was by far the best player to play out of them, they would give him a chance. Each team has their own situation, and sometimes a player gets pushed faster because the team has no other options. Sometimes injuries force hands one way or another.

They have a ton of kids at that level they give time to play, so a lot of days off from games, but they are still working in the complex daily. Really, I think most in organizations feel the work off the field will tell them more than the time on the field most of the time. Some guys on defense will not get a ball hit to them all game, teaches you little about how they play on defense. Hitting, they may nothing but fastballs by a pitcher early in counts and swing at them, teaches you nothing about how they handle breaking pitches. Just because they are not in games does not mean they are taking the day off at the complex. Once they get to higher levels things get different.

I doubt Lee will get a call, unless he is just lighting up the next couple of weeks. The reason, is he still has 2 more years before he NEEDS to be added to 40 man. Meaning unless he is going to make team out of spring next year, and he very well may, they can wait to add him to 40 man and save spots for guys that could be rule 5 eligible. Martin and Severino will both have to be added next year I believe, so less of issue adding them now. Chris Williams also would need to be added, but I am not sure team is sold on him as a future guy, I could be wrong. Stevenson I see no point on bringing him up. Kirsey would need to be added to 40 man or risk losing in rule 5, but I doubt they are too worried about losing a 26 year old guy that has not made MLB debut yet. Could he help sure, but he still ranks below many others on roster. I do agree adding a guy for playoff run can be helpful even if just to steal some bases, that is why I would push for Martin when looking at everything else.

No, we do not need to send him out there. His bat has been good to great, but that in part could be because he is getting rest. When you march him out to play every game at either catcher or first, this could have bad affect down the road. We have others that can fill the roll until AK returns.

Peoples over reaction to SSS is crazy. Yes, losing to Detroit is not great, but we have beat teams with better records as well. Any team can beat any team, even in a long series. That is why the WS is not always the better the team.

Happy to see Martin staying hot. Over his last 28 days, he is hitting at elite level, with an OPS 994 with walking about as much as striking out. He may not have the power the Twins seek normally, but I could see him playing CF next year leading off, getting on base and stealing bases. I do not know how he ranks in CF, but if Buck cannot do it, I would rather see Martin hitting over either Taylor or Celistino, unless Martin is just terrible out there. I know his arm is not super strong but if he can make the catches that will be more important.