Trov

It depends on when the opt outs are and how much he has left on the deal. This past deal we all knew he was going to opt out barring injury. But there are many players recently that have opted in because chances were they would not get the same level on FA. Of course that means we are overpaying, but not that he has no value. If there are multiple opt outs at 10 years, odds are it will be after 3 or 4 and after 6 or 7, and maybe after like 9. I doubt it will be like this past deal that is after each year, no team would agree to 10 year opt out after each season.

I would like to see the data on that, not saying it is not there, but find it may not be super accurate. One thing, does that data take into account the few hits he gets because of the shift, or just the hits he maybe would not have got due to the shift? Also, is it based on assuming range led to the ground ball being stopped because of the depth of the 2nd baseman, or position of SS on right side of base? Meaning, did the 2nd baseman have to move left or right to stop the ball and only because of depth they managed to cut it off? Is this also based on if the 2nd baseman was in a standard position for RH hitter, or old traditional position for LH hitter? Even without playing deeper into the RF, many 2nd basemen would still play much closer to 1st. Again, I am not saying the data is wrong, but I would love to see it to see if it is flawed. I personally did not watch every at bat over the past year for Max or past years. However, I do not recall seeing too many balls that were smoked to a hole between 1st and 2nd where the 2nd baseman makes a great ranging play to throw out Max. I would normally see him hit many weak ground balls that would have been cut off at normal depth. I also recall seeing a few balls he hit where a SS would have normally been that he got hits on, so that should count against the count of hits lost because of shift, because he got some hits because of shift too. That being said, I am more than happy to keep Max this year as I doubt he will have much trade value, and you do not just trade a guy because he is not playing to the level you hope, because normally what you get back is not much value either.

I do not know if is plus ten because of Turner. Turner took more years at less per year than many expected. Will Correa want more overall money, or more per year? I agree 10 is most likely the number, and maybe some teams will go longer, but if it goes longer, my guess their per year number will be less. Remember Soto turned down a 14 year deal that would have set the all time overall value, but he turned it down saying his per year is not that of the other top paid guys. None of know what CC is thinking, and the next few days to weeks will be a ton of rumors and speculation.

Only way Rodon gets 6 years is if a desperate team thinks he is their savor that will carry them, or a team like Phillies who think they are just 1 pitcher away from a ship and will eat the last 3 to 4 years and have a ton of old talent in next 3 years and will deal with huge overpaid guys for many years, like Nationals dealt with to win a Ship 1 year.

Kepler has low trade value. He is a defensive minded RF who does not hit at an elite level. If a team overvalues him, and see the numbers underlying and think he has just had bad luck his whole career, and now with the no shifts he will becomes something amazing, I would trade him in a heart beat. First, as the writer points out, his batted ball numbers to output have never lined up. Every year people will write about how he will break out because of those things. However, they forget there has to be outliers to the norm, that is just a fact. Kepler is an outlier, he is not just the most unlucky hitter ever. In terms of the shift, I do not think it will make much of a difference to Kepler, at least not enough to go to a .300 hitter or anything. Sure, he will not ground out in short right, but unless that 2nd baseman had to range one way or the other, no matter how deep the player is they will stop the ground ball right at them. There is nothing preventing the 2nd basemand from playing deep in the hole, and the SS playing just one inch to the left of the base, still leaving huge holes to left side of infield, and defending the middle, having the 2nd baseman closer to first. This will leave a hole about 4 to 5 feet to right of 2nd base that he will have to place the ball. The only hits he will get without the shift are the liners or hard ground balls where the 2nd baseman had to range far from their short right position.

I agree, it is very player friendly, which is why it shows they are serious about bringing him back. If he walks away it is not because we did not offer him a player friendly deal, unless the money is low. No rumors on what the money offers have been. Borras loves to hold out and watch the market start to develop, so he can use the lack of supply to increase the bidding. Turner just took a deal, taking a top SS of the market. Sure it decreases teams bidding on Correa, but now the teams left know there is one less pivot open.

Just saw Turner signed 11 year 300 mil. Wonder how that will affect Correa. Turner took more years less per year, but Correa is considered better. No details yet on if any opt outs.

On thing to note about Kirby, is that was back when no top stars left, because the league had the wink wink we will not outbid you for your star and keep the salaries low. That is why there was the 95 strike because teams were not offering much to big name FA. Sure some would jump ship around then, Bonds, who went to his home town, or guys at ends of careers when other teams were done with them. This is a top guy in a market where guys keep moving.

Dougie from KSTP and Dougie with the Scoop, said on news last night, that rumors are Twins plan to meet with Correa and have been willing to offer 10 year deal, full no trade, multiple opt outs. No rumor as to money, and if they are offering most overall, but it sure shows how much they are willing to offer. If we do not sign him, if the rumor is true, they sure tried. View full rumor

I fully agree. Everyone was all upset about Baddoo because he went off right away. Then he hit huge slump, to bounce back a bit. Then last year he was terrible, and was unplayable for a team that was basically out of the race in April. People forget to protect players from the rule 5 draft you need to release other players off the 40 man roster. Very few people could say who they would have cut to protect Baddoo, they just were mad. I do not wish him any bad outcomes, but he was ranked where he was on prospect list for a reason.

I would like to point out that the June starts were after a stint with COVID, so one should expect some issues being he was getting back into game shape. Also, he had good starts against Boston his first start against them, Texas, Giants, and Brewers, who all scored more runs on the season that Padres. It is not like he only shut down poor scoring line ups. A lot of pitchers had bad starts against some of those teams. All pitchers have bad starts. To cherry pick his blow up starts against some of the best teams in baseball, but to not point out that he still had good starts against other teams that had scored more runs than some, but say it was just shutting down bad offenses is not telling a true story.

Trade him or not, either is a risk. He still has possible upside, but his downside is just as strong. If as a team you feel more value from the trade, do it, but if offers are not there, why just give him away now, you can do that anytime.

Based on his FB someone will take him most likely if they can stash him in pen for year. Will they regret it, maybe, but for next year I doubt it. He has heat, but is not dominate so far. Heat at MLB will not get you far if you do not have location or movement, you will just get hit hard.

First, this is why I say corner OF guys have little value in trade or FA markets, unless they are super elite hitters. People talk about trading Kepler, but her offers little value, because many teams can fill the same position easy. Second, I disagree that Larnach defense is more limited, in the past that was true, but last year, when healthy he was actually a good defender overall. Three, I was not surprised with Gordon, he always has performed well after being at a league for a year. I think as always, performance and injuries will fix the conundrum through the season.

The Twins are not alone in trying to get top end pitching talent. Many teams have tried time and again. Some go the route the Twins do and get lottery ticket guys that pay off for the year, others go big on FA and hit, but that is rare as well. I am not excusing the Twins of lack of pitching talent, but it is not like every team is marching out great talents every year. Honestly, the way the team manages the starters, I do not know what they would do if they had a real shut down ace anyways. Hopefully, one day we can find out though. However, I do wish people would stop acting like every pitcher out there we do not sign or trade for is so amazing. Remember all year people called for us trading for Montes. How did that work out for Yankees? He put up some of the worst numbers of his career. People were upset we traded away Berrios and not signed him to long term deal. How did that end up for Toronto? A negative WAR and one of worst seasons of his career. Maybe he bounces back but he would have been one of worst in our rotation. Many other FA did not live up to expectations over the years too. My point is, a lot of things need to work together to have a top pitcher, and they do not come around all the time.

I am more concerned about the complete lack of controlling the running game. Maybe that is more on the pitchers, but fact is teams were running like crazy on him all year when he was catching. Unless he can hit a ton, never throwing a runner out will pile up after awhile.

I believe the best chance for ROY is Lewis. He is the only one that if healthy has a clear spot to him, either SS or 3B. If SS is filled, then he will slid in 3b for the defense. He has the potential bat and defense to get ROY. Wallner will still be far down the list of OF. Same with the starters. Julien is too far down the list too. At this point Lewis is only one that I can see a clear path of playing without trades or injuries. His ACL surgery was early enough in year he should be ready to go by camp, unless he has a set back.

I do not know the specifics of the contracts offered, but reports are they have extended various offers ranging 8 to 10 years. Boras does not have his clients sign quickly too often and will wait to talk to all teams around the winter meetings is my guess. Even if CC would be willing to accept any of the offers made already, Boras will tell him to hold off and try to get more by using other teams to try and increase. He tries to do this all time. Even when there is only 1 team really willing to pay, like with JD Martinez years ago. Boston made offer, and no other team really was willing to be close, but Boras kept saying other teams had interest, to try and get Boston to bid against themselfs.

For runners on 2nd overall, Joe has the edge, in similar PA, difference of 6, Joe had 170 RBI, to Puckett 143. If you look at just runner on first, Joe was way behind, in part Puckett had many more HR. Puckett had about 50 more RBI, with 22 more HR, which being you get 2 per those types of HR, that almost makes the difference. If you look at 2 outs and runner on 2nd, Joe has edge even more over Puckett. Overall as I said, they had very similar chances to drive in runs, and Puckett had the edge, in part because he took less walks in those cases. I would have to do much more of a deep dive as to how that may have affected the inning. My main point I was making is some guys will more reliable overall to drive in runs over a career and not just up to opportunities.

I am not against the move, but he will not be a high target for teams. He is coming off very bad season, where even against the righties he would be asked to hit mostly against, he hit .205/.280/.314. Not exactly a slash line you want as a platoon. That is only a little better than Jeffers career splits against RHP. I would think the Twins will look for other options for platoon first before settling.

The main thing to push back on is that Cardenas was a college kid and in his first full year of pro ball this year. The catcher we got from Dodgers was international kid that have been in pro ball for many years and actually is rule 5 available. Cardenas did put similar numbers at 19 at UCLA. Also, the catcher you point to in AA, which is more of hitter league than low A, had OBP of .306, Cardenas had OBP of .421. Yes, Camargo, had a bit higher slugging overall, but that is a huge difference in OBP. Sure Camargo may have a little more power, but he is either HR or out, and he struck out 33% about with K to walk ration of 66 to 13, if you go by full minor league season it is 107 to 20. Cardenas walked 73 times only struck out 70. I will take the guy that walks more than strikes out, because the guy that strikes out 5 to 1, and 33% in minors most likely will be much worse at majors.

I want to take a moment to talk about the RBI stat. Many all in analytic people point to it and say it is dumb stat as does not reflect real value. In a short stint I would say okay. You know the whole drove in x runs in x games is not a huge deal, the player got hot when runners were on. However, over the length of a career it does tell a story. That story is they know how to drive in runs. The only way you win a baseball game is scoring runs. People forget hitters get pitched different in different situations. When we look at a full season, or career of stats, we can compare strike outs, walks, HR, slugging, OPS. and all the stats people love to point to for "real" value, and leave out how often they had chances to drive in a run. Some guys hit about the same with RISP, or runners on base, where others do worse. I feel very few do better. I want to compare two all time greats, completely different style hitters for the Twins. Mauer and Puckett. Both played similar amount of games, similar bWAR of 55. for Mauer, and bWar of 51 for Puckett. Over their careers Mauer had 2107 PA with RISP. Puckett had 2146 PA with RISP, so pretty similar amount of PA over the years. If you want to break down to runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, Mauer had 479 and Puckett had 530, a little bit more for Puckett in his career but not crazy amount. In the runner on 3rd less than 2 outs, Joe had 311 RBI, Puckett had 383, which is to be expected a little bit with the extra 51 PA, but still extra 72 RBI. They hit very similar slashes. When you look at 3rd and 2 outs though, Mauer had 370 PA and Puckett had 343, but Mauer had 153 RBI and Puckett had 162, which means Puckett more often drove in the run percentage wise with 2 outs than Joe did. It does not break down how often runners were on other bases in those situations so that could affect it. Puckett did hit 5 more HR, but the big difference is Puckett took much less walks, trying to drive in the run, where Joe, would take over twice as many walks. Again, they are 2 different types of hitters, and Puckett would expand zone all the time, and Joe would take a fastball down the pipe half the time. Both had amazing careers, and with the small difference in power, Puckett hitting 64 more HR over career, than Mauer that could account for the near 150 more RBI over career, but when you look at run scoring situations, Puckett was trying to drive in the run more often with approach, where Joe was just not wanting to get out. Not saying either was better way to play, but point is, the difference in RBI when you look at full career was not just chances. They had similar amount of similar chances, Joe even more with 2 outs, but Puckett produced a higher number of RBI in those situations. In conclusion, RBI does not tell a full story, but when you look deeper, it can show if a guy is more prone to drive in runs in similar situations compared to others. So when people dismiss RBI as a meaningless stat, maybe look deeper.

I fully agree with the article, and have long talked about this. Every year I see fans call for spending big on guys like Ray, or others. There are very few pitchers into their 30's that live up to their long term deals. Many fall off after the first or second year, for various reasons. Some barely even make first year. There are a few guys that pitch at high level into late 30's, and they are all HOF bound. The majority not only fall off production, but fall off the cliff. There are a few that manage to come back and learn how to pitch differently, Bartolo Colon, is one of recent that comes to mind. He was never, amazing, but was up there. He fell off in his 30's only to come back in late 30's early 40's to have 4 good seasons. Nothing amazing, but compared to what he had been doing they were very good. I have faith the FO will not get into a bad contract on a starter. They may be in on Rodon, but it may be for a 3 to 4 year deal at higher per year, where other teams will be more willing to give the 5 to 7 with opt out after like 2 to 3 years. I doubt Twins agree to anything beyond 4, they have yet to be willing to do that. I doubt they get to point where they just throw money out there to make it look like they are making moves. If you are going to go big, you do it for CC, not Rodon, I have always said, I am all for spending big on a starter over 3 years, but not willing to go 5 plus because of how quickly you get negative returns, but you keep throwing them out there to pitch because they earn too much to cut or move to pen, even if numbers show they should be.

This is a make or break year for Alex I think. I wish they would have done the wrist surgery they did this last year, the year prior. I mean the bone did not grow in that year, I am assuming, so if you knew it could be an issue why not fix it all in one? I guess I am no doctor but unless he can have a healthy strong wrist, he will never be what we want.