Trov

Success with RISP versus bases empty is not random by any stretch. Maybe that is not what the author meant, but that is how I read it. Why is it not random, because how he gets pitched is not random. If he has runners on base, the pitcher will make more of an effort to not give him meat to crush. When you are up or down a ton, keep in mind at least 1 if not more of his HR came off position players, you face worse pitchers that may not be as good, or just want to throw strikes. If he is in a big spot, a lefty will come in to face him, or the pitcher will try harder to hit the corners, or make sure they throw to his holes in his swing, mainly fastballs above his swing. Unless bases are loaded the pitcher may be more willing to have him work a walk and face someone behind him, in hopes he chases pitches he cannot handle. Trevor Plouffe did this years ago when he had his one big HR season, for him, not big overall. Fans got all excited like maybe he could repeat it, only to learn that he was just crushing BP fastballs when up or down a lot, but when guys were on and pitchers actually tried hard to get him out, he would get out.

Being there is no clear 1st baseman on the roster, just a bunch of we could put them there, I would not oppose the signing. However, the big question is for how much. I agree he should not command too much as his numbers have been average, he is on wrong side of 30 and the team that signed him left him off playoff roster despite being "healthy" again. The big issue is that his defense is not good, and if he is only going to be about average hitter, does he give you that much value over the other guys we could throw there? If you think he will bounce back to be well above average hitter then it would be worth bringing him in, but being average hitter with below average glove, that is not helpful.

Hopefully with a new voice in his head about hitting may give him a little approach at the plate. He does not need to be patient, he needs to have a better plan at the plate. Can he do it, yes. Look at Buxton, he is one that some pitchers could just throw 3 sliders off the plate and he would swing at each one not even close to the pitch. He still will chase that pitch from time to time, but he will not do it as often. If Lee can do more thinking how the pitcher is trying to work him and have an idea when there are pitcher pitches coming or waste pitches and stay off them. I personally hate when guys go into seasons saying I want to take more walks or be more patient. All that can mean is you will take more pitches, that could be good pitches to hit. I point to Jacque Jones years ago. He was lead off guy and loved to attack first pitch fastballs. He was great when putting the first pitch in play. But he was not great when he worked counts. He took more walks but his numbers were worse overall. It is not about being patient, it is about reducing chase and recognizing pitcher pitches. I know some call it patient, but I read that and think taking pitches, just to do it. Sometimes the first pitch is the best you will get. If you are not good at recognizing pitcher pitches, then you need to have more of a plan at the plate, and not just "see ball hit ball", but how does this guy work people, and how will he pitch to me. Guys that chance a ton normally have not plan, they play the see ball hit ball plan. They generally say this might be the fastball every time. They do not sit on pitches or locations.

He falls in the an elite in one tool, defense, but a question in the other tools specifically offense. The elite defense will give him a shot at being a MLB player, but his bat may be the limiting factor. If his defense fades he will have some major issues. If his bat increases to even league average and he plays top notch defense then he will be great.

I think the question is was his season something to expect going forward, or is it just a part of an average over his career? What I mean is players have up and down years, and some seasons look worse overall but does not mean it will be their trend. If this is not his trend and just had some rough spots, then you roll with him, but if you think he will be Joey Gallo you see if you can get anything for him going forward.

I would disagree with that managers get too much credit or blame. There is a reason some managers have success for years across several teams. Yes, having good players will be a huge thing, and no matter how good the manager is they will not win with bad players. However, at the same time they can maximize or minimize the talent they have. There is also the manager that manages the 162 game season well but not single games well, and other vise versa. Some can do both. Personally, I found Gardy was good at the 162, but terrible in the short series or single game decisions. Rocco seemed to be more geared for the single game or short series plan but was not as good at the 162. Yes, the players will always be the ones that have to make the plays, but one thing that in the Bomba Squad year that I remember was talk about the team attacking fastballs on first pitches, something was not common for the Twins, it was that change in mind set that helped them that year. Of course teams adjust to that and started throwing less first pitch fastballs to them.

I do not disagree with what you are saying, but my point was about Twins went away from the "Twins Way", in part it was good, but they went way the other way to the full nothing but power hitters, who cares about strike outs we want extra base hits. Brewers had a great offense this year, that did not do that, they were take walks, do not strike out, put ball in play, make other team make a play, and if you need to steal bases, take extra bases on hits and string a few singles together that will work too. I was not comparing the players and their development, I was comparing philosophy of offense the two have, and how the 2000 Twins had a similar plan to the Brewers this year.

The team with the best record in baseball, may or may not win it all down 0-2 in NLDS, was the Brewers. If you look at their team nothing on offense suggests they should have had the best record, except for they had an above average across the board. No one hit over 30 HR, Yelish had 29, Chorino had 21, no one else had 20. They were one of the worst HR hitting teams. They hit 166, 22 below league average, and 25 below the Twins. They were 3rd in runs per game however. They did it through getting a ton of hits, and walks with a very lost strike our rate. What does that sound like? It sounds like the Twins of the 2000's. They were second in stolen bases, but lead in caught stealing. Overall they did not steal at a good rate, and analytics would say they should have stopped trying. They were just above league average in doubles, just 7 more, and below in triples, only 2 below. So below league average by plenty in extra base hits, but had nearly 100 more than average hits total. Third in the league. They were 4th in walks taken about 50 above league average. However, they took the 5th least strike outs. What did all the mean, they were a good offense without being a huge power hitting team, why? Because they got singles, took walks, put the ball in play, ran the bases well. All things that were preached for years in the Twins organization. Then analytics took over, I am not anti analytics it has its place, but Twins started going for the 3 true outcome guys hit HR or extra base hits because that is best way to max runs per innings. However, if you have tough at bats up and down line ups and you can get the minimum amount of runs more often, that being getting a runner in from 3rd with less than 2 outs or getting that 2 out single with runner on 2nd to score a run, can lead to higher scoring games across the board. Of course having guys that can hit HR is important, and the Brewers had several double digit HR guys, and a couple of guys with 9 HR. They tried the more balanced, put ball in play, do not just swing for fences but get on base and move guys around. Personally, I like that style. Twins though have gone the all or nothing plan for most guys, even trying to change guys who were good at getting hits overall to try to increase power some but increase k-rates. Trading away guys that put ball in play at high rates because of lack of power. I am not saying it was wrong to do so, I personally think you need a balance, which is what baseball had for years. However, under new thoughts HR guys took over for top to bottom and away from speed, walks, singles, bunts, stealing bases, hit and runs all that stuff.

He will 100% be tendered. If he has another year like last 2 this coming year then yeah he may not be then, but this past year I think he came back way too early from his hamstring injury. Which even if you take out his May numbers, if that was the fact, his numbers are still not amazing, but not as terrible. Also, as noted we have nothing else behind him right now outside our current starting SS.

The video highlights the things teams need to think about when they make trades. So many fans get upset when you trade away certain players or trade for guys not close to helping the team, but you do that at times because of the 40 man roster decisions you need to make. I think there are plenty of OF guys they could non-tender or DFA beyond who was mentioned. If they are high on Fedko you need to protect him though as he would be one a team would take in rule 5 most likely because of his age they not be taking for a draft and stash like Badoo was years ago but he would be taken for actually looking to help, and if he fails they would be fine sending down to see if Twins want back or not. He also was in AAA, so not like it would be a huge jump. Personally, I am not sold on him as a guy that gets too high on our OF list mainly because he just had a crazy good breakout year late in his career and never was considered a top guy.

I used to not be a fan of the hiring retired players straight to manager at big leagues, without some coaching or minor league time, but there has been some decent success lately. I think Torrii could be an interesting choice. He was a guy that learned as he got older. He started his career as a top notch athlete with no fear and could man CF with the best of them. As he aged though he learned to have more value with the bat. I think he could be that good hybrid between full analytics, like Rocco seemed to be, and no analytics like Gardy was. I would not hate the hire if he really wanted the job.

I read two of the people the FO intends to interview are former coaches under Rocco. James Rowson and Derek Shelton. This is kind of interesting as you would normally change up managers to change up directions. Shelton did not do well with Pirates, but not sure anyone could have done well with them over that time. Rowson has bounced to several teams like most hitting coaches do. Would either be an upgrade over Rocco, not sure. I just thought it was interesting 2 of the 3 stated interviews coached under Rocco.

When I read a guy "oozes upside" but will be 21 at time of draft, I question how much upside he really will have. I want my college bats near complete if I am drafting them 1st overall. If they cannot be expected to nearly break the next season, at most 2 seasons, I am not drafting them 1st hitter overall. Of course, he may show that when he starts hitting next year before the draft, but if I am taking a guy that is 21 1st overall he better be nearly complete as a hitter and not need 3 or more years in minors to help. I get some do, but they rarely are 1st overall picks, and the ones that are get considered busts.

Overall I agree with this statement, but one thing to consider is Seattle may not have signed him as a FA had they not already had him. Yes, he was bad last year, and resigned for cheaper, but possible if he did not spend time with them last year they would have passed on him knowing nothing about him, but that he was on a downswing. Reports were, just as normal for last few years for him, was he was injured much of last year, but healthy this year. Seattle may have known more about what he was going through and hoped he was healthy this year, but if he was just a regular FA they pass on him, or because they would have went with a different 2nd baseman last year then they not have room for him this year.

Part the issue though this time around, unlike when they flipped Polanco, they do not have clear prospects ready to jump in and fill the rolls he vacated. Going back to end of 2023 what did we have, well we had Lewis ready to take over the face of the team as Mr. Grand Slam himself ready to be third base for several years. CC was there long term. Polanco was not going to move to 1st. So that left second base, but who was expect to take off an run with that? Julien was fresh off his rookie year where the oppo taco king was ready to be the 2nd baseman for years, if he was not going to move to 1st. But we had in the wings top prospect Lee, Martin still showed some promise. Point was, he was not going to leave some huge void if he was traded. He cost was too high for his output he was doing as well. So the trade made a ton of sense. However, if we sell Jeffers without any plan at catcher or Lopez and or Ryan without a clear top of rotation guy(s) ready to go we will run into huge holes. I am not saying FO will not be forced to make moves and get creative and hope that some young unproven guy can take the lead and at least be replacement level, but who would be catcher right now, no one, we would need to make follow up trades, or signing FA catcher. The FA right now are J.T. Realmuto, he will make too much money for us to seek most likely signing a 2 to 3 year deal somewhere. Everyone else is average catcher. Not that Jeffers has been super. In terms of trading your top pitchers, you can, and sometimes should, if you feel you have sufficient replacements and can reload your system with a move. It paid off plenty over the years with Cleveland trading away guys at or near prime for prospects. Most of the time the guy did not pitch anywhere near what they did with Cleveland. I do not feel we have the depth in starting pitching to replace either, if you are trying to compete, let alone both.

There is nothing wrong with having Wallner get a 1B glove and give it a shot, but I would not plan to have him out there and slot him in. As Money Ball loves to point out, playing first base is not as easy as one would think. The thought is that you just need to catch the ball is false, if you want to help the team win at least. Yes, there is long history of bad defending 1B that mash and so you keep them out there because their bat needs to be in the line up, and I will not discount that. However, unless they are super elite hitter and cannot play another position at all, you need to think does having a terrible defending 1B worth it? I am not saying he will be terrible, but playing OF his whole career suggests he most likely has hardly if ever played 1B. Will he hopefully catch all the balls within a decent target sure, but will he scoop bad throws? Doubtful. Will he have good footwork, doubtful early in doing it. Will he know how to do a good flip to pitcher, make good cuts, make a good throw from 1st to 2nd, field a good bunt? All unlikely to start. Throw in fact we are not 100% set in OF. I get he is not a good defender overall there, but his arm does play in RF well. He can gun people down at high rates, or at least hold them from taking extra bases sometimes. Now, I do think Jenkins and E-Rod both should get chances early on next year, if Buck is still with team that will be better OF defense and would make Wallner DH or 1b would be a good try.

I personally am not a fan of college bats as top picks. I like college arms or high school bats. I am not saying there are plenty of college bats that get drafted high and do just fine, but I tend to find more college bats at top of draft seem to be busts by percentage. I could be wrong, never done the full research, but just seems to be how it happens in my mind. That being said, Cholowsky sounds like the best hitter in the group, and if he can defend SS, all the bonus. Sure, there will be the, and yet again another SS eye roll by fans that do not understand SS are drafted at a higher rate because they are athletes and can move down the defense rungs, but no one will be drafted as a 1st baseman and move to a more defense minded position, or 2nd base and move over to SS. There are very few times a 3rd baseman can swing to SS only because they played with a better defender at SS, but that is rare.

I would agree that trading Lopez would trigger a clear full sell off reload/rebuild approach. Trading Ryan less so if you keep Lopez. The main issue is that Lopez is the leader of the staff, and even with the young guys he is the type that would lead them. Now, depending on return it does not mean we cannot compete, but it really would be the young upstarts no one expected to compete type thing. Similar to Baltimore and KC a few years ago.

Larnach should 100% be non-tendered. He is average all around, does nothing elite, and we know who he is. Sure, has he had some stretch of above average offense, yes, but every guy can get on a hot streak from time to time. We have too many prospects that should be able to replace him for much cheaper. Even if they cannot, you can find average corner OF all the time.

Baseball is a business, and the fact that fans expect owners to be willing to lose money on it to me is crazy. The writer also talks about trading Glasnow and Meadows in same as Cole, but they were not similar type trades. Cole was traded because it was clear he would not resign and they wanted to get something in return outside a single draft pick. Glasnow and Meadows were traded in an effort to help win then as it win now move, that failed terrible. The pirates have been a terrible run organization for years, not just because the owner is trying to max out profits, but because they never seem to have a clear direction. They trade prospects for vets, but then trade vets for prospects. They have also failed at developing hitters for several years too.

No way will Twins sign either Bichette or Story. Bichette has mostly been All-star level SS and will demand some big bucks in FA. We will not fork that over when we have hopeful short stops in the wings. Story could be had for a shorter contract for less annual, but he still will be costly. My guess he will be looking for another 3 to 5 year deal, and at his age his defense could fall off the cliff at SS, as it already has dropped. He also has many history of injuries causing us to go for backups anyways.

Not that I have any say in manager, but I personally think someone that can adapt is important. Not someone that is all analytics or all anti analytics. I felt Rocco, and it may have been driven more by the FO, was almost all analytics in his decisions and made the game a math problem. If you are playing a purely probability driven game, it makes sense to always go with odds, but analytics in baseball are based on history, not predictive. The fact that there are other influences on outcomes always going by the odds based on history may not be the best decision in the moment. For example, the 3rd time through the line up stat. Yes, many pitchers do worse the 3rd time through, but there are times a guy is just dealing that day and appears to be unhittable. The hitters and missing, not hitting anything hard. Then we get to the 3rd time through and Rocco would pull the guy despite low pitch count nothing hit hard no walks because he was expecting everything to change. Maybe it would have, but sometimes you need to give the pitcher a shot if they are doing well.

If we cannot find an upgrade from Clemons on this roster, I am very worried for next year. Outside of a few very hot stretches he was terrible. Even with those hot stretches he was below average hitter. He will be 30 next year, there is no reason to expect he will be able to repeat even what he did overall, let alone his hot stretches. The FO better not say well we have him for 1st base so we are set there. To me, you non-tender him, sign him to minor league deal with spring invite, or he can walk. Nothing about him says he must get a roster spot next year.

One comment on the payroll stat, is that is a little loaded stat. The lowest 5 payrolls normally are low because the team has decided to do a full tear down rebuild and going with youth, who will always have a low payroll. The bottom 15, which the bottom 5 are in, so lets got with 6 through 15 has 4 in the playoffs, for 40% of that 10. They are in the come up type group or the hanging around group, or mid-markets that are at top of allowed payroll by owners, and they are competing, and a few games here or there made the difference. The top payrolls are expected to be competing, but it still takes more than their high payroll guys too. How often in history have you seen a single big name signing make all the difference for a team? Almost never. Do they have a big impact sometimes, but they still need a team around them. I am not saying going out and having top paid guys will not help a ton, but the state Gleeman shows is a bit loaded, because high paying teams will not spend on trash, and rebuilding teams will have a natural low payroll. Things shift very quickly for some.

In both Detroit in 2024 and Cleveland this year, it took collapses of the leading team for them to come back. Additionally, it was hot pitching for the most part. For the Cleveland this year, outside of 2 players their offense is average. Only Ramerize and Kwan had higher than a 2 bWAR. They had 1 good starting pitcher overall, Gavin Williams, but their pen was above average, and they won a lot of low scoring close games. The Twins starting pitching started to erode away, with having injuries, eventual ineffective starters and pens. Our offense was boom or bust normally and could not find way to get runs in when needed. Cleveland did better hitting in high leverage situations, than the Twins who were about the same. Twins offense was slightly better than Cleveland overall. If the Twins did not sell could they have made a push, maybe. Would the players that came in to replace those traded done better or worse, who knows, different situations. There is not much to clean from hot runs and huge collapses other than there is a reason they play 162.