Trov

I am not opposed to trading him for the right deal, being we have guys that could fill the 5th spot down the stretch, and you do not need 5 guys in playoffs. Gray has been good overall, but at times he throws too many pitches and could have short starts in playoffs. However, I disagree that the reason should be because you expect the team to do terrible in playoffs, if we make it. Yes, our offense has been bad overall, but when you just need to win a few games it only takes a couple of hot hitters to carry an offense. Having top pitching is what teams will want in playoffs, and giving up that simply because you expect a loss pretty much means you never will expect us to win because no team is perfect.

E-Rod was coming off injury and missed time for a core muscle issue. If you look at his last 30 games he has an slash line of .245/.409/.434 That is not bad at all. Could it be better sure, but when you look at how he started. He had a great June, and slow start to July, hopefully the break is jump start him again. He also has had only 2 plate appearances against a pitcher younger than him all year.

All prospect rankings are good for is looking at how the overall scouting world thinks of the potential of your players. They still need to perform when they come up. You point out Steer, who is having a good rookie year, which may mean he continues to do well, or he slides back to where he was projected to be. Miranda was a higher ranked prospect last year than Steer, but Miranda has been terrible this year. Akil Baddoo never was a high ranked prospect, had a good rookie year and since has been terrible. Slightly better this year than last but overall not a MLB starter. My point is, players can out play their rankings, or they can under play them. Some guys that are ranked high on prospect lists never even make the majors. Guys that are low on lists shoot up after a few years, and guys that are high on lists drop off quickly. You never really know, and things change quickly.

I think hitting coaches at the MLB level should be more on just small tweaks to players, and should not look to have full change in approaches of players. I think those changes should be done in the minors, and at the majors you need to fix little things or make little adjustments when pitchers have adjusted to them. I think having a full change of hitting philosophy midseason will also be hard to do. I agree the Twins need to change what they are doing, but asking for a full 180 on what they were doing will be hard.

I thought Lewis has now played enough games to not be a "prospect" anymore. He is off the MLB lists.

I fully disagree with the article. Sure, Steer has been good for Reds, but there is no evidence to say he would do same here, maybe yes maybe no. Miranda has been terrible, and no one expected that. Lewis was doing just fine, until the new injury issue. We have others in the minors that will come up and will play similar profile to Steer. It is unlikely Steer will be better than all of them, but possible. This year, maybe you can say trading Steer is coming back to bite us, but I do not agree it was a clear mistake to include Steer in a trade.

I am glad the FO did not overthink the 5th pick. Every scouting place had 5 top guys and big drop off from there. Sure, everyone could be wrong and the best player maybe some time after 5th, but sounds like the kid should be a good overall player.

I was just using Burnes as an example, along with the others. It is possible Burnes will do better leaving Brewers because of the way the team had treated him, but at the same time, it is possible, just like many pitchers, Burnes was at his peak and now downhill. There are many pitchers that have similar career issues, but they continue to get chances. So part of my question is how long do you wait until you just decide they are not who they were but they are who they are now? We signed a guy that people say former cy young guy signed, but that was years ago and has not been very good since. We hope his time at Driveline has change him some and he regained something, but we signed him to minor league deal just to see.

Thank you for the complement. I mainly am thinking on we have prospects he let slide for years, or even get moved up despite numbers not great, but maybe they are following the process. However, we have guys that put up good numbers for years, but many say they are not MLB level. Then we have players that make the majors, have 1 or 2 good seasons and then are able to ride out that for years on the what if they can be that again, but some players have a 1 or 2 good seasons then 1 or 2 bad ones and people say they are done. It also seems pitchers will get more time to show they are still good or can be good, than position players. I think that is just from the number of pitchers needed every season.

I have never been super high on Max, nor super low. I would go against those that said he is always due for a breakout year, due to low BABIP, and this year without the shift people were saying the BABIP would go up, it did not. However, because of his defense I was willing to deal with him. I want him batting near the bottom overall, but we could do worse.

Miranda had started to heat up a little in AAA before we brought him back up. In June he had an OPS of 798. From what I have seen, and not watching him all the time, but he seems to have no plan up there at the plate. He is taking defensive 2 strike swings but with no strikes on him. I do not think he was just a flash in the pan, as he had success in minors. Personally, I think his drop in weight has affected him more than people think. When you are a certain body type for a long time, your body gets used to it. When you change that up quickly, in his case over an offseason, it will take time for the body to adjust again, and when you are talking about fractions of inches making difference in a hit or not when ball hits bat. I do not know if coaching messed with him, or he messed with himself, or some combo, but he needs to get back to having aggressive swings early in counts. I saw him the other day just flip a bat out on a 1-0 pitch rolling soft grounder to 2nd. That type of swing should only be done with 2 strikes. Lewis will be out at least a month, if he does not come back ready to go, we will need to think about an under the radar trade for third as Mirand is nearly unplayable there, and Farmer is not exactly lighting it up. At least Farmer is not sub-par on defense.

Over the off-season there were some articles and post about how the Padres are a smaller market than the Twins, but spending like the big market teams. This upset many Twins fans on here saying we can spend more. The idea is the more you spend, the more you win, because you get the higher priced talent. This year, our 2 highest paid players are doing terrible, in comparison to what we want. Buxton and CC are both well below expectations. Despite not playing well, we are tied for first, mainly on our pitching keeping us in games, and despite leading our division in runs scored, our offense just looks terrible most nights, and really seems to be trending down. However, despite that, the Padres are doing even worse. Some arguments can be made to the division, but unlike years past where division plays a much larger roll, this year is first year every team plays every team and division games are cut down a bit. The Padres record is 1 win better than the Tigers. With getting no offense from catcher, they even went to our cast off Gary Sanchez, who has been by far their best offensive catcher. There offense is top heavy, which is to be expected based on their plan of spending big and bring in top end talent. There big signing this year, Bogarts is hitting league average basically. Soto, the big trade last year, and Tatis are doing what you would expect. Machado is having very much a down year, below league average. Really outside of Soto and Tatis, the rest of the team has been about average to below average to way below average. Aaron Nola, who has started 51 game at catcher is hitting worse than pitchers used to. What makes things worse for their offense is that they have no one in the wings you can call up to fill in. They are outscoring their opponents at a plus 23 clip, and scored 364 runs. Twins have outscored opponents at plus 31 and scored 353. So really our offenses are very close. Padres have 2 guys really carrying the load, we have had different guys at different stretches, but our 2 highest paid offense guys are letting us down. There highest paid guys some are letting them down, some are doing what you expect. The Padres starting pitching has been similar to Twins, some good guys with bounce back seasons of guys, but they have had some regression of Musgrove. They also have a top closer in Hader, having a bounce back season. However, it looks like their pen is really dropping the ball compared to Twins pen. Getting back to the question, should the Twins spend like the Padres. I have always said, spending to just spend is dumb, and you need to spend on the right guys. Twins have signed two huge long term contracts on hitters last 2 years. This year both have let us down. Padres have spent huge on several guys over the years, between contracts on free agents, Machado, Hosmer, Darvish, Boegarts. Hosmer was terrible and was dumped. Machado has had good years and bad years, this year a down year. Darvish ups and downs as well. Boegarts this year has been average hitter, but when you are paying what you are you want more than average generally. Tatis was traded for, a steal of giving up Shields, but other trades over the years has required the Padres give up a lot of prospects and depth to load up the current roster. Snell, Myers, who has since left, Soto, and others. They have extended some with contracts. Snell has bounced back, and Soto is doing Soto things. I would say, if we can clearly point to guys that we think will be long term value, we should spend like the Padres, but if we keep having as many swings and misses as Padres, I would not want to keep spending like them. The Padres have gone all in to win now, and they are not. They have no prospects ready to come up, because they have shipped anyone with value out. I am not a fan of trying to just build through big FA and trades. I agree you need to do them from time to time to fill that final hole or two, but Padres have almost no home grown talent, Tatis is only one that came up through system after trade for him. Austin Nola, the should be DFA catcher did come up through system as well. The one issue with so much top end talent is if they struggle at all, or you get injuries, your team generally has no one else to go with. I am a fan of a higher floor across the board, and hope for some peak seasons all at once. It is possible the Padres turn it around, but as we complain about our team doing terrible, the Padres record is worse, and Mets, who have spent more than any team last few years have been even worse. On the reverse side, the Rangers, who spent a ton the last 2 years, are in first place in their division with 50 wins. All their big signings are paying off this year, with Siemien and Seagar putting up big numbers, Seagar MVP type. Evaldi is doing amazing so far, and DeGrom, before his injury for being out the season was doing DeGrom things. However, they are also supported by career year of Travis Jankowski, by far doing better than any year he has played. Also career years from other roll players that came up through their system. The Rangers, thought they had a good core, and needed to add and they did. Padres have been trying to bring in top guys for years, and yet to see success. It is possible the career years and hot play in Texas drops off, and the poor years get turned around in Mets and Padres, just as Twins top paid guys bounce back too. I would say we do not need to spend like other teams, if we can spend smart.

I ask the question because I think sometimes we get sold too quickly, good and bad, on short sample sizes. I also think, when a player has a good stretch, we too often will say but what if that is the norm for the player, and will given more chances for longer periods. I think with all the data now, we can break down hot streaks and slumps more than ever before, to really drive down to who the real player is. Sometimes there are outliers that "luck" really is not playing a factor but the player is the outlier. One player that Twins fans on here really wanted us to sell some or many of prospects for was Corbin Burnes. They would point out his basically 2 year peak run as why he was an ace and why we needed him, and he would put us over the top. Names like Lewis, Lee, E-Rod, and other top names were floated. His 2020 to mid 2022 run was nothing short of amazing. HOF stretch of run for basically 2 full seasons worth of games, as the 2020 season was 60 games, and the second half of 2022 was not good, and he was blamed for the fall of the Brewers in 2022. He was 25 thru 27 seasons. He time prior to 2020 and since second half of 2022 have been basically an average pitcher, with some very good games, very bad games but most just end of rotation starter numbers, far from the super ace numbers he had for about a 50 game stretch. He has played 152 games, started 91 games in his career, not starting really until 2020 season. So is Burns his 50 game super ace, or his 102, 41 game middle of road starter, or somewhere in between? Will he get closer to his peak? He is not alone in these questions. Matt Harvey exploded on the scene in 2012, with 10 starts and carried that into 2013, missing 2014 due to injury, but then 2015 doing what he did in 2013. Every thought he would be HOF bound just dominating. Then he fell off a cliff and for 6 years getting chances to pitch over and over, in hopes he could be even close to his 2015 and prior self. There are many more we can point to. Hitters get less of a leash it would seem, but we still give them time to bounce back after peak years. I think we will quickly cast off prospects if they do not explode on the scene, unless they were highly touted prior to promotions. Take Luis Arraez. He was never a highly touted player, poor defense, no power, and lack of speed. Basically, he was just a bat that could hit singles around the field. Many fans here, were always waiting for the lack of power and "unsustainable" BABIP, to bring him back to earth. He has always been an outlier. His BABIP is well above league average, and his hard hit rate well below league average, this year much lower than his average with Twins. When will he just be accepted as an outlier? Brent Rooker started this year off to super hot start, but has since cooled off. Many on here were writing if we screwed up on passing on him, but now looks like April was just a SSS. Since April he has been unplayable basically, but some are hoping he could be what he was for 1 month in his career, or stints in AAA. A couple of people were mad we let Akil Baddoo go, because he had some hot stretches in his first season with Detroit, but since he has been basically what we already have in many OF. Is Baddoo the rookie numbers he put up in stretches, or is he what he has been since? Sadly, sometimes rookie numbers are the best you get from a player at MLB level. Really, my question is, how long do we need to see who a player is before we believe them? Yes, it is generally based on looking at history, of other players, or that player themselves. Generally, if a player has a high prospect rank we give them more time to prove it, but if it is a low prospect rank we require a longer stretch. Sometimes a vet after years of poor play do have a bounce back year or two and it gives hope for others that maybe they will play above what they did for stretches. I think many times for pitchers it is a new pitch is learned, and for hitters a new approach or swing is developed, but many times when a vet tries to come back under those situations it is SSS again. We are seeing some HOF pitchers maybe reaching end of their run. Mainly Verlander, who is having worst year since 2017, but we saw a run from 2014 to 2017 where they thought he was done or trending toward end of his career, only to still win Cy Young at age 39. Is he done, or just having a rough run? Really it is GM's that get paid to figure that stuff out, but it is an interesting question for many players.

Personally, I pay no attention to the game for about 20 years now. Even when it meant something, I still did not care. The players for the most part do not care, unless they get a bonus for it. Most pitchers opt out to be ready for the second half, or they just pitched on Sunday anyways. The star hitters do not finish the game. The fact that 1 player from each team needs to go, this will lead to so many more snubs.

I thought I was the only one not seeing it.

I fully agree with the Kepler out move, and agree Popkins can go too, but I rarely blame a hitting coach for vetrans struggling. Vets have been doing it for years, a young coach should not be the cause of their issues, but it is also the young coach is not able to help them fix the issues. Either because he is younger than some of them, or because he just is not able to identify the issue.

I need to push back on Cossetti a bit. He had great time in low A for just over a month, where he was 2 years older than average player. Moved up and hitting decent, but still a year older than average player. You have him on there, but Lee does not make the list at all, which is fine as he has been okay as well, heating up lately, but Lee is at AA 2.5 years younger than average player. Cossetti is a year older than Lee and yet to sniff AA. Not discounting what he did for a month in low A, but if you really look at age and level, Cossetti, in my mind, is having not that great of a year. I am not saying Lee for sure is better, just used him as example. E-Rod is having a better time at high A and is 3 years younger than Cossetti. Sometimes I think if guys do better than expected, we say they are doing well, where if a guy is doing about the same, but lower than expected we say they are struggling, which may be true.

Personally, I feel the approach of the team is not the best, or most fun to watch, but they are in the middle of league in runs scored, 18th, but only 10 runs separate 18 and 14. We lead our division in runs scored, but the team gets attacked when other teams strike out less and gets runs across without the HR. The point of the game is to score runs, and they are not the best in the league, but they are the best in the division. Is it sustainable? Maybe not. I sure wish they would change things up a bit, if nothing else for entertainment. The scarier thing is it seems they are missing pitches in the zone at a huge clip is means they are even missing the mistake pitches middle middle too much as well.

My main point was, his offense is basically the same as it always has. I agree with the shift comment, I never expected he would have some huge boost, I made many comments about that. I have long been someone to point out that Max is basically the exception to the rule when it comes to hard contact and the like. He is basically hitting as he always has, with a lower BABIP than he normally does, and that is sad because his BABIP is always below what should be expected. I do not think his offense has got any worse, it was always this way is my point.

He is putting up the numbers he did last year before his knee injury now. Remember he not only had the knee injury last year, but was on shelf part of this year I believe with a core muscle issue. I am not surprised he started off slow, as someone who has had an ACL repair much of when you are coming back is mental, but then you throw in core muscle injury that will really affect your swing. I am hoping he has figured it back out and gets moved up to AA some time second half.

I know there is a ton of Kepler bashing posts lately, this is not intended to be that, just a look at his numbers compared to other years. First, most Kepler supporters thought he would have a bump in his numbers this year because the terrible shift was going away and he was going to start getting hits it stole from him. So far that has not been proven true. For years, people talked about how Kepler's numbers did not reflect what he "should" have hit based on is hard hit rate and things like that. Without looking at his slash line, his average exit veloicty is above his career average at 91. His babip is at career low, and strike outs at career high rate. His hard hit rate is career high, outside 2019 which I stop citing for offense reasons because the teams where hitting a super ball, but even if you count that year, he is close to that. His line drive rate is career average, slightly below it, ground ball rate is below career averag and fly ball rate at career high. His spray chart is near career norms, with oppo near career high. Outside the strike outs being up and walks being down, the main difference is the babip, which many thought would go up with the no shifting, but is well below career average. Is he struggling/slumping, is he getting unlucky right now, or is he just being Max Kepler? He actually has matched his HR numbers from last year and over 162 games, which of course he will not play, is on pace for over 30 HR. He very well may pass 20 near 30 HR if he keeps playing. He has only hit 20 or more 2 times, 2018 and 2019, which again I hate counting. We look at his numbers and say he is not the same, but really he has always been this guy, and if his babip returns to career norm he will finish the year just like he always does. He will never be the guy we were hoping, but he is a league average guy for the most part, that plays good defense. Can we do better, most likely, but we could do worse as well. This is not a defense of him, because I would be more than happy to try someone else.

I agree they all had better hitting stretches than Kepler, and I am not a big Kepler fan, but if you look just a slightly better bats over Kepler, you ignore the other half the game, that of defense. Kepler is a very good defender, and ones you listed are all worse than Kepler and some by far much worse on defense. I know many like to look at the offense, because you can quantify it easy, compared to defense, but defense should not be overlooked.

Happy to see E-Rod starting to heat up too. I was not too worried about him, being he was coming off knee injury then had core issue early on. He seems to be heading back in the right direction as well. I would not ask if he was SSS heating up because he has shown the ability in the past.

Is Sabato just on a SSS hot streak, or has he figured something out? I know he has fallen off all prospect lists, but over last 11 games he is on a very hot streak. He has not played much this year, only 21 games, and only 6 before June. However, since June 6th, he has a .500 OBP, walking more than striking out, only 2 HR, but 7 doubles in 54 plate appearances, but only 38 at bats due to all the walks. I hope it is something just started clicking for him and he can be something down the road, but need to see this carry for longer than a couple of weeks. To me the more walks than K's is the important part though. If you include all of June he still has more walks than K's. His slugging on the year is not what you want from him, but clearly he was injured and maybe will start showing some growth.

Remember his contract is only 100 mil if he plays limited time, but has bonuses built in if he plays more. He can earh 2.5 mil more each year he gets enough plate appearances, no matter it CF or DH. He gets bonuses for where he ranks in MVP voting, less likely to get much of that if he is just DH. If he can hit like he has shown in past for stretches, he still has value as DH, but if he continues to struggle he will be a very overpaid DH.