Trov

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.

The constant platooning of guys is one thing I am greatly against. I am for it in certain guys and situations, but I hate when you have a kid you want to be a star, and expect will be one, and you never give them a chance to be one. If you look at AK's career splits at MLB level, could not find minor levels, but he is not terrible, this year has not been great, but how can you expect him to be better if you never let him do it? He seems like the type that should be able to hold his own against same side pitchers because he is willing to hit other way, so the breaking pitches away from him will not be something he will roll over or swing through much. You cannot know who your stars will be if you never give them a chance.

Sadly he will not likely get regular at-bats with us at MLB level. Buck is taking up DH with what appears to be no plans ever to return him to OF. AK is at 1B, but could move to OF. So possible to move AK to OF get get Williams a chance at MLB level sometime.

I hate when people evaluate trades based just on the players involved. I say this because roster building is just not that simple. If we did not make the trade for Lopez, we would be having SWR, Winder, Sanchez, or some combo of guys doing pen games for our 5th starter right now. Lopez just had a great start, in a Twins loss, but not his fault. But really without Lopez in our rotation right now we would be pretty bad off and everyone would be begging for a trade for a starter. Assuming Arraez would have put up same numbers with Twins this year, not sure if he would, but he still would be doing well, he would have maybe helped us a few games. Would he be playing 2nd or 1st mainly for us? I do not know, but if he is in the line up, someone else is out, which right now would have been a good thing. However, we have much more depth in our system of MLB ready or hopefully in near future, that can play 1st and 2nd, more than we have MLB ready starting pitching. I love Arraez and he is fun to watch. He does not fit the current Twins offense approach, not saying that our current approach is good, but our hope is that in next year or two we will hopefully have someone close to or better hitting at 2nd and 1st base. Sure, they will not have the same average, but their OPS will be similar or better, is the hope. Time will tell. It is too early to judge the trade, and if you look at just players involved, you are short changing the fact the organization hopes Lee and AK will be taking the positions Arraez would most likely be playing for them, and the hope both will be overall better on both sides of the ball. Arraez is still a super talent, do not get me wrong, but we dealt from a position of depth, to a team with depth. We both had needs and it fit perfect. I do not agree you cannot look at the extension as part of the value assessment either because we could not have signed Lopez to an extension without the trade for him, at best we would have had to sign him in FA, which may not have happened.

At this point he has almost no value to Twins, and will have no trade value for anyone, unless they feel they can fix his issues. He still has value on defense, but his offense is a negative and hurting the team. We have too many poor hitting players in our line up right now, we need some offense. We cannot continue to give him at-bats. Since his last stint on IL he has 3 singles in 28 at bats, no walks, and 8 strike outs. I still like his defense but he is an auto out right now and when we have too many guys that get out with no power our offense will struggle even more. We have a guy that may not be great on defense, but his lighting up at the plate in AAA and was his last couple of games at MLB, why not bring him in now?

Yes, Cano is putting up insane numbers in Baltimore, and maybe he will sustain that, but who saw it coming? I mean he always had stuff, but he could not find the strike zone consistently. Now, he is not walking anyone. Until this year, he walked about as many as he struck out. This year he is not walking anyone. I am not saying he will revert back, he may not, but who would have expected him from going career average of like 8 walks per 9 to 0.6. Clearly Baltimore found something, just as they did when they moved Lopez into the pen, but will it be for a career or will league adjust?

I was wondering the same thing about him and CF. I know his arm is not the strongest, which could be an issue in CF, but if he can get on base at high clip and cover enough ground he may be the CF in the near future. Not saying this year, unless he is lighting it up later, but looking into next year CF is a big question with the looks that Buck is never getting back out there.

That is what I was getting at. It could be our age of players that are struggling, but the whole league seems to be down a bit. Maybe weather, or maybe just on a cycle of young hitters and older pitchers. It could be many teams progressed up the hitters faster than the pitchers so they are now facing more experienced pitcher than they did last year. I am not worried about our prospects bottoming out but it was something that kind of struck me that everyone seems to be down compared to last year.

I was looking through our top prospect lists, now that we are 2 months into season. I was noticing that all our top prospects in Cedar Rapids are not doing well at the plate. I am wondering is that just a natural progression that the comp they are facing there are more advanced right now, or should the organization have concern about the coaching there? Maybe it is just the league is getting tougher league. It used to be FCL was known to be a pitchers league, but maybe it is just high A is more a pitchers league. When I compare the FCL with the International league, the one CR are in, the offense is better in FCL overall, not a huge jump, but better. Fort Myers leads the FCL in OPS, but CR is mid league in OPS, and about 80 points less. Yes, there are different hitters, but guys that dominated last year, or even earlier this year, in Fort Myers are not doing it nearly as well this year, or since their call ups. E-Rod was not going to do what he did last year all year prior to his injury. His k-rate is about the same as other years, but his power is much lower, it could be his core injury he had, which will sap power, or maybe something else. He is not alone. Outside of Rosario, who is having a huge breakout year so far, just about everyone is hitting below their expectations. Is it just how things are lining up for players? Is it the players themselves, some combo of bad adjustments, injuries, or bad luck? Is it the coaching? Is it a combo? I get the lower level of minors is not about the numbers, but the development, but when you see such poor numbers for who are supposed to be top guys, you being to wonder.

I think what we have seen from the Twins is nothing is settled, but Lewis should be there for hopefully many years to come. Even if Miranda gets back to hitting like he has shown, his defense is terrible compared to Lewis. If Lewis in CC and play the level of defense they have shown, we may need to start looking for ground ball pitchers.

It is unlikely he stays at 2nd base if he sticks with the team. I expect Lewis, Lee, and Correa to make up some combo of 3rd ss and 2nd primary positions for hopefully years to come. Unless one of them get moved to OF. If not, they should hopefully get the majority of the time in those spots. This is also why you cannot always count on guys coming up and being MLB level guys.

You can never look at each trade in a vacuum of these guys for that guy(s), and who won trade. You have to pay attention to other moves made or not made, who else was in system and so on. Looking at Steer, he has shown good offense, something we knew he had, but also shown poor defense. bWAR has him negative at defense playing 3rd, 1st, and DH this year. He maybe would have played some 2nd if we kept him. Would his offensive numbers slotting in at 2nd for who we have put out may have been nice, but who knows what defense he would have brought. Right now, he would not be in our starting lineup though, because Buck has DH locked up, AK or Gallo have 1b locked up, Steer could get games against lefties some times, and Lewis will have 3rd mostly locked down. So where does Steer play for us, or who would you want to get moved out for Steer? CES may very well mash, but again, he plays basically no defense. He is playing mostly 1b for Reds AAA team, and that is not great. He is all offense, and his k-rate is a little scary. He may turn out to be one of those AAAA players that when facing MLB level pitching his K-rate becomes a big concern, we will see. Either way, unless he is a superstar hitter, he would again most likely slot behind guys we have already. Keeping in mind for both Steer and CES, Lee is in the wings too. Will the trade haunt? No, it will not in my opinion. The only thing you can really be upset about is that we did not get much in return, and maybe could have flipped them for something during off-season. However, I am not seeing either being that much better than who we have that I would be like darn what could have been. Maybe CES becomes a hitting superstar, but I just have a feeling he will struggle at MLB level, not many guys that strike out at a rate of about 33% at minor league level improve at MLB level. If he cannot keep up his very high BABIP at MLB level when he gets called up, he will struggle badly and since he offers no defense he will have less value.

Great game for Lewis. I did not see his first at-bat, but his HR was a great 2 strike approach. He hit a nice liner to right that carried just far enough. His last at-bat was also great approach. He said he was looking for the slider and hit it right back up the middle. I know he has very small amount of time in majors and even high minors constantly coming off injuries, but every thing I have see at the plate with him I like. He is not just trying to hit HR or pull the ball but has an actual plan up there and adjusts to the count. I know he will rarely play back to back games for awhile but will look forward to every game he plays. The ump yesterday had a terrible zone. Not sure what his score card was, but he had a few very bad calls, and some in big situations.

Wallner will get his chance next year most likely. He will keep getting chances as guys get hurt and what not, but his lack of defense will be something that holds him back. The fact Buck is now a DH and appears will never play OF again, I am hoping I am wrong, this takes away the DH from Wallner. He will either need to improve greatly, or be such an extremely good hitter we will deal with the bad defense.

He has shown there is a good chance he will end up on 40 man during this year, depending on other injuries. He will get up to AAA and will be knocking on door of spot start or pen roll at MLB level. Good for him, people were always big on him and sometimes it takes time.

That is really what I was getting at, is when we throw out names people react to the name, but may not always look at the whole player. We can disagree about a player going forward, and as I said, I would take him for the right price, just like any player, but as Riverbrian said, it is going to cost much more than I would want to give up, hoping he returns to his one very good season. My issue with this player is that he really had 1.5 to 2 good seasons, depending on how you count 2020. Up to 2020 he was ehh, and last year he was just okay down the stretch, not someone I want to give up top prospects for. Sometimes that may be fatigue, or injury, but when he comes out the gate this year just as average, has a bWAR of 0.1 so far. Pitchers always scare me because they will fall off cliffs very quickly, and some learn how to change up their style, but that takes time most of the time, and some just fall apart never to be anywhere close to what they were. When a guy like this has only 1.5 amazing season out of his 6 seasons played I am not sold on them as they are the top end normally. One pitcher I point to a lot is Tim Lincecum, who from age 24 thru 27 seasons he was one of best in baseball, winning 2 cy youngs at 24 and 25. Looking like a future HOF, then age 28 season he lost it, and was never anywhere close to what he was prior to that. No saying player x above will be that, and I have not looked at all the underlying numbers, do not scout like that, but there is fear he may never regain what he did a couple of years ago.

I wanted to ask what would people be willing to trade for a player x. I feel sometimes we look at names and not look at actual output, even more so recent output when we value certain guys. So if a team came offering the following pitcher, how much do feel they would be worth. Career numbers: He is in his 6th season, 1 more year of team control after this one. 39 and 23 record. 3.29 ERA 572 innings pitched, FIP 3.04 11.3 k/9 with 4.48 k to bb ratio. Last season numbers: 12 and 8 record, 2.94 ERA 202 innings pitched FIP 3.14, 10.8 k/9 with 4.76 k to bb ratio. One note, from August on, he was 4-4 record, 77 innings, with about a 4.00 ERA about 9.7 k/9 and similar walk ratio This year, 4-4 record 3.97 ERA, 57 innings pitched, FIP 4.81 8.1 k/9 and 2.43 k to bb ratio. I am sure some may figure who I am talking about without looking, but the main question is first do you look at career numbers and hope he will get back to career numbers, so willing to give up more? They are good career numbers. Do look at the last 2 months of last year and what he has done this year and think that is the real guy going forward and offer much less? Do you think he falls somewhere in middle? If you did obtain him, where do you think he should slot in rotation? I personally, think the pitcher is trending in the wrong direction and do not have faith him returning to his peak, but I could be way off and he could bounce back to peak. What would you be willing to risk?

If it takes any of our top 10 prospects I am a no on Burns. He is not worth a top prospect hoping he can duplicate his outlier season. Joe Ryan has pitched better last season in half. Baily Ober has pitched better. Lopez has pitched better. Gray has pitched better. Varland is only one that has pitched worse, and it is not by much. We should not give up a top prospect for a guy that may not even slot as a guy to get a playoff start at this point. If he was on our roster, only reason he gets a start in playoffs is hope he has one of his good starts, which happens like 1 out of 4. In 10 starts this year he has 1 great, 2 good, 4 ehh, and 3 terrible.

I am a no on Burns, unless you give up little to get him. I know some on here think he is an ace, but he is not trending as an ace, but a guy that is living off his crazy good 2021 season, and pretty good 2020 season. 2022 start out similar to 2021, but trended downward. I am not saying he is a bust, he still has some very good starts, but I do not see him repeating 2021 ever again, and he is more likely what he has shown the last year of games. A guy that is more like a middle of road starter, not a top ace. His numbers so far this year, pretty much line up with his numbers the second half last year. Second half last year, he had 3.94 ERA, k/9 down, HR per at bat up, it got even worse in August and beyond. So far first 2 months this year, his k/9 down even more, and walks up. HR rate is up too. In 2021 he gave up a total of 7 HR the whole season, last year he gave up 23, this year so far 9. Can people stop acting like the 2021 season is his norm, and not the outlier? Yes, he will give you a good start here or there, but over last year and half, we have a few pitchers that have been better. Again, if we can get him for a middle of road prospect, sure, but no top guys for him.