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Trov

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  1. Trov
    The biggest issue with him is the 40 man crunch coming up. As it sits even after you remove the FA and assuming we opt out of Sano, we have 42 guys on our 40 man roster right now, plus the few guys that will need to be added to save from rule 5 draft. That will need to be a factor. He is an average player, maybe slightly above, but in a perfect line up is he in the top of it? I would say no. His defense is inflated by the eye test. He looks like he makes great plays, which at times he did, but he missed a lot of plays too that were not errors but others could have made. Not only do we have Miranda, but depending on what we decide to do with FA and SS we have possibly Lewis to slide over, Arraez, not sure Gordon has the arm to play third but sure he could fill in if needed. I am not saying dump him, but I am far from the bring him back for sure stance. It will be a hard decision. Depending on how team feels about Lee it is possible he could come up, they have been very aggressive with him so far.
  2. Trov
    Did anyone really expect he would opt in? Baring an injury that was going to carry into next year, no way was he going to opt in. The question will be, what will others offer. We were able to sign him because he was not getting offers he expected, for whatever reason. Maybe, he was getting good offers but he was seeking better. Will he continue to hold out hoping for record deal, that may not be there? My biggest concern for him long term is I do not know how well he will age. Right now, and for the next 3 to 5 seasons he will be one of the best SS, maybe not the best, but up there. However, as he ages and most likely needs to move off SS, will his bat transition to 3b, the normal transition, or will he be a below value player then? Could the Twins spend to sign him to a deal he wants, sure. However, they need to assess the risk of those end of contract years, and are you willing to risk having an overpaid player that will need to play because of his pay, but may not be helping us win. If you think you can win a ship over that time of peak years, or you think he will age well, then do it. If not, then move on to plan B.
  3. Trov
    In terms of the FO, I will agree they did not go out and try to nab a starter like Rondon, or Thor, although we do not know if they sent out feelers and were rejected, we just assume based on reports we never showed interest, but we really do not know how contract talks with those players happened. That being said, Thor was nothing amazing. Many of the other free agent staters in our expected price range did not do anything too amazing. Yes, there was better guys out there, in hindsight, than Bundy and Archer, but we do not know if they would have been as good on the Twins as the team they were on. Rondon was the biggest miss if we could have signed, assuming he would have came here. Outside of that we did not have any huge swings and misses in my opinion. Keep in mind Archer and Bundy were only meant for 1 year deals, and many others got 2 to 3 year deals. In terms of planning for pen, if you look at the top 8 signed pen guys, all but 1 of which was to multi year deals, most did on par with some of our guys. Pen pitchers are hard to predict, just like how everyone was upset with Rogers being traded, he had a terrible year. Yes, who we got was not helpful this year, but Rogers after his first month and half has just been terrible overall. Had we kept him, would you say we should have expected that? In terms of the trades we made to fix the issues, well part was we had injuries to expected guys like Acala, Colome, and Stashak who were all hoping to contribute over the year, but all missed the full year. So yea, we needed to trade away some prospects, but as the 40 man roster crunch was going to lead to some trimming of possible prosects too this is a natural way. The top guy we traded was Steer, at least as of right now, some young pitchers that may pan out down the road, but Steer was the closest to help us. He had an below average debut this year, and was like 4th on our depth chart of infield prospects behind, Lewis, Lee, Martin, and possible Julien. With Gordon emerging as another viable MLB guy, Steer was very dispensable, and would have been traded this offseason most likely anyways.
  4. Trov
    I will agree with the Miranda take, he showed he could be a bat, but still has much room to grow. If you take out his first few weeks it looks even better, but he is not a superstar yet. In terms of the Gray take, I would say he can be a 1 or 2 on a winning team, but it requires a good pen as well, something we were not great with this year. Gordon I have to fully disagree with the requirement of your number 5 picks having to be stars. First, just looking at his draft, the number 1 and number 2 drafted guys never even made the majors, and the number 6 has done basically nothing. The number 1 pick was by Houston who had back to back number 1 picks that did nothing for them and they still doing just fine. I will agree it does not help when your high first round picks are not all-stars, but they are not required to be for team success. In terms of Gordon himself, he finally was given a real shot at this level, and he produced above replacement level. He really only was given a full chance later in the year. He has only played 70 full games out of the 130 he has played. He started about 100. So he was still not given a full run all season, but still put up a 1.6 WAR, if he was given a full season of playing full games, provided he had similar numbers, he would be around a 3 WAR I would guess, that is not too bad, is it elite no, but it is better than many. Sure, he may not do that over a full year and maybe he did well based on his use, but I expect if he is given a real shot over the next 4 to 5 years he will be good to great. Will he carry the team, doubtful, but I would be more than willing to see him hitting in the bottom half the lineup regularly. Ryan, I think it will come down to how much more he develops at the MLB level. I am hopeful a full spring training where he can work with coaches to really develop a second pitch should help him. If he can develop a second pitch he will be just fine. I agree with Wallner, lets wait and see on him. Sure he has done fine in minors and had a nice little story so far, but I am not counting on him to help much next year, as he will strike out a ton, and once more tape is on him, he will need to adjust quickly.
  5. Trov
    I agree with the assertion that the core is what led to the downfall. Buck going down as usual, Polonco going down was big, but it did let Gordon show his stuff on everyday basis. Arraez has been ehh, but I wonder if that is more so based on just wearing down, he has played career high in games this year and wonder if his body is just not used to it. Kepler is who he is. His season numbers are on par with his career numbers, except for a little less power, which may be of concern. That being said, I am not ready to move on from Arraez at all. Polonco if we can find a taker I would be willing to move on from him, as we have plenty of possible fill ins. Kepler, I would not dump him but similar I would be willing to move on from him, and if we do not, drop him to bottom third of line up.
  6. Trov
    One thing people need to remember, is he was a high prospect for a reason. That does not mean he will have success, but many gave up on Nick Gordon in the organization. Many fans wanted him cut or traded coming into the year. They were calling him a bust. He is now 26 and his numbers are very similar a Jose Miranda, who people are all over saying he is amazing, he is 24. Aside from a few more HR for Miranda the numbers are nearly the same. That being said, Martin had a down year, Gordon would have several down years. We talked for years Gordon needed to add to power, and kept repeating levels. Now, Gordon had reasons he never built up the muscle to add to the power, until now, but point is, still a little early for some to give up on Martin. Will he be a superstar, maybe maybe not, but he is 24, and next season will be a big season for him to see where he falls in the pecking order, but since he came back from his wrist injury he is back to what he was doing last year. Hopefully he can an minimum develop some power, but look at Arraez, he was an OBP guy, with little power, but he develop some this year as well. Hopefully AFL, and normal spring training will help Martin develop and can push his way into the lineup. He will have his work cut out, being Lewis should be back, Gordon has shown value, Miranda has shown value, and Lee may have leapfrogged him. However, if he can play CF on defense and can get on base at high clip he will have value when Buck gets hurt next year.
  7. Trov
    The question is how do you determine MVP. Most will look to say, if we took player x off the team where would they be. The Angels would be terrible either way, as they were terrible this year after their hot start. Yankees most likely would have still competed for title even without Judge. Personally, I would take Ohtani on the team over Judge, but Judge will win the MVP based on what he has done and where his team is. Also, in the second half, if Judge was not playing the Yankees may have played themselves out of the playoffs, despite having a huge lead at one point. In the second half Judge was the only hitter doing much for Yankees on regular basis. Ohtani is crazy good, and his next contract will be crazy to value. I mean he can be a top of rotation arm, which is worth nearly 30 mil a year generally, but then you add in fact he will also hit at near elite level. If he was just the DH he would still look to pull in close to 20 mil a year I bet. His bat would earn him more if he played defense, which I bet he could but team keeps him at DH to protect arm and less possible injuries. Does that mean he will earn close to 50 mil a year? It will be fun to hear the numbers for him. I sure wish the Twins could be in on that, but no way they will.
  8. Trov
    Lee, Martin, Julien, and Lewis will all be fighting for at-bats at MLB level in next year or two. Similar to when we thought we had a vast amount of corner OF, DH, 1b guys a couple years ago. One reason we were able to trade Steer, who would have been right in that same mix with the 4 mentioned above. Similar to our glut of corner OF guys it will shake out, but hopefully not because of injuries. You can throw Gordon into the mix too after this season he had. I have high hopes for Lee and Lewis as stars, with Martin as a good on-base guy that can steal. Julien may be able to hit, but his limited defense may be his shortfall if he does not overhit.
  9. Trov
    Kepler will never go down as a great player, but he will be a good player. He gave us several okay years. His defense gets overlooked because his offense has never come around to what we hoped he would. I expect he will be around next year, unless a team really blows us away with a trade. We have a lot of comp at corner OF, but his defense has high value. Some think the new anti shift rule will help him, it will not in my opinion, but maybe.
  10. Trov
    The Twins will go as far as Buxton can carry them, which is not a good thing. I like Buck, but to bet your team success on a guy that has never NEVER played a full season. The closest was way back in 2017 he did 140, you could argue that was full season only missing 22 games. Outside of that season he has yet to play more than 92 games, and even in the 60 game 2020 season he played 39. He averages half the season sitting on the IL, or in this case rest instead of IL until he hit the IL. He is great when he can play, and the contract is based on this issue, but we need to have a backup plan for when he gets hurt. When he is out it hurts our defense and our lineup as we do not have a clear backup. Hopefully we can figure that out this offseason.
  11. Trov
    I remember when he came up he would be on top of the plate and pitcher just assumed he wanted pitches outside, but he really wanted them in and he would paint the 3rd base line over and over. Eventually he got figured out and he never adjusted. All the power to the man for still playing. He is treating independent ball like it is town ball.
  12. Trov
    Has the pipeline created a dominate starting rotation and bullpen to be one of best in league, no it has not, and if that is what you want as success, then we did fail. We were middle of the road overall staff, and the hope and plan was most likely to get guys in the minors to step up by mid season and push out the Bundy's and Archers. However, so many long injuries tested our depth, and failing of a few. Personally, I think we showed we do have some type of pipeline. No they are not top starting pitchers as of yet, but they have depth of guys that should be able to be competitive in starts, and hopefully have depth when injuries do hit. Will we hit on every pitcher no, no team does. But finding guys like Varland late in drafts and developing is something to be praised.
  13. Trov
    The biggest frustration for me is the lack of situational hitting. I believe this is very much based on the coaching. I am overall someone that embraces the use of analytics, but I do feel you can go overboard and forget that those numbers included players doing situational hitting. Meaning, when a runner is on 3rd and less than 2 outs you score as often as you do because you put the ball in play, or when a runner is on 2nd with no outs you score as often as you do because you can advance the runner. Yes, the other team is trying to prevent this, and I am not advocating for always bunting guys over, but way too often we would fail to get runners to 3rd and fail to get runners home when we could manufacture a run, always playing for the multi-run inning. When you never play to try and just get 1 run in, when you need to get just 1 run in you will not normally do it.
  14. Trov
    Without all three we would be fighting for near last place and not even had been talking about trying to win division. Ryan has been good, but not great, but hopefully he can build off of this season improve and be a solid starter for next few years. Duran looks like he should be a beast for years to come. Miranda leading our team in RBI at 64 is just terrible. I know RBI is not a big stat anymore, but you still need to drive runs in and when our leader is at 64 when I am pretty sure Jose Ramirez had 64 by early July. I believe Miranda will hit at this level and hopefully for years to come with Twins. I am not sold on him being a superstar though but a solid hitter for us.
  15. Trov
    I never have felt in baseball that a lottery would fix tanking. However, since it is in affect hopefully we can jump up. The fact is many times the number 1 pick is not better than the number 5 pick, but normally the top 1 to 5 are generally better than those after, but not always.
  16. Trov
    The first was a 1-2 pitch he was just trying to make sure he put ball in play, because that is only way to get a hit is to put in play. It was a weak hit but not pure luck or anything. The next 2 hits were not "highlights" but were solid line drives. The point of hitting is to put ball in play and get a hit right? The point is he can put ball in play with solid line drives. He is not going to hit 40 plus HR or anything but he is expected to hit and will have some power. Add in fact he switch hits, that is a huge plus too.
  17. Trov
    Depending on how spring training shakes out, other signings/trades, we could see Lee break with the Twins, who knows. Unless they feel he needs to work more on defense, it sure seems like they feel his bat will play at any level right now. A lot will depend on if Correa stays, or we bring in a different SS, and how Lewis is. Since Lee will not need a 40 man spot until he is ready I would not expect him to break with Twins, but they have shown they are not afraid to bring in the best player no matter the service time, with this FO. Under Terry Ryan, I would say Lee is like 3 years from making the majors because that is when he needs to be added to 40 man roster and getting service time. Then he would get called up like in June.
  18. Trov
    I would not say our lineup is set at all, either pitching or hitting. They will have money to spend on short term contracts if they want to. The Twins will not look for long term deals, most likely nothing longer than 4 years for anyone in FA. If someone like Contreres, or one of many 1B corner OF or SS will sign a larger per year 3 to 4 year deal, than a longer deal I think they may make a surprising splash. We will have depth, and can trade from that if needed when signing some players but I would love to see a large short term deal. Do not tie yourself to aging FA down the road when other players will need to be paid. I think it may be time to move on from both Polonco and Kepler, DFA or trade for a pen arm if possible, but we have plenty of younger guys that can fill those rolls, if we cannot go out and sign a corner OF guy to replace Kepler, we still should have plenty of depth.
  19. Trov
    They need to win 3 of 5 to stay in it. That will not put them in control but at least make the remaining 2 weeks important. If we win 4 of 5 we will be right back into the mix, and if some how we sweep everyone will be talking about who we will be playing in postseason, despite still being up only 1 on Cleveland and who knows with Chicago. Either way if we lose the series no matter by how much we need to just concede I would say.
  20. Trov
    That is correct, after the 2 disengagements with a runner on, the 3rd must result in a runner being out else, it is a balk. I have not read much on the impact in the minors, but they have been dealing with the rule for a couple years now, so not new. I could see some strategy being used with the pitch clock and the throw overs. Wait until the last second and throw over hoping to get a guy leaning, or after 2 throws over, doing more pitch outs expecting runner to take off on first movement, assuming it will not be a throw over.
  21. Trov
    I hope Jordan Balazovic can build off this late season surge for next year and he has a fully healthy offseason. I still have hopes for him and he has done well the last few games, although limited innings and still high walk rate, but it is a good step. I am not counting on him going forward but hope he can be a nice surprise.
  22. Trov
    The pitch clock is for the fans in my opinion. Speed up the game and have more action will be entertaining. Years ago they tried to punish hitter for stepping out of box, that last for like 1 week. Now if the hitter steps out, and does not get back in quickly enough he gets a strike. The rule actually ended game in the minors once. I know many players will moan about it but will adjust. The base sizes has had minimal impact on stolen bases, but I doubt it will make huge difference. In terms of the shift I was against the rule, but they did not make it to extreme as infielders will still have plenty of chances to move about the infield. You will still see the SS behind the mound right next to 2nd base against most lefties, and the 3rd baseman will be shifted much more up the middle. You just will not see the 2nd baseman sitting in short right. In regards to the robo umps commentors brough up. I am 100 percent for it. It will happen once the league feels they have a good enough tech. They have been testing it, and there have been a few pitches people were freaking out about because it did not look close to a strike because of how crossed zone, but was called strike. This again, the more it is used in minors, like the pitch clock, will make it easier for players to accept. I am not for "human error" being part of the game. If we were fine with human error why even grade ups on calls then or have replay, just get rid of all of it and let the human error make the calls, and when you have an ump call a ball that is 3 feet fair foul, or a guy that is out by a foot be called safe then people should not complain and chalk it up to human error.
  23. Trov
    So who on our team were you expecting to contribute? You say most of the injuries are to people we were not expecting much from. Well, Buck has been basically injured all year, playing on a bad knee limiting him to 57 games in CF, yes an additional 34 at DH, but he is, when healthy best defender in CF. Pretty sure we had high hopes for him contributing. How about Polonco? He was our MVP last year, and he has been hurt on the IL a couple of times playing about 100 games, but clearly some of them he was hurt, not sure why we would not be counting him. Oh how about Royce Lewis, many expected he would do something this year at some point. How about Sano, he missed the full year. I am pretty sure we were expecting high offense from either Larnach or AK, both missing most of the year, and AK was hurt even in the games he mainly did play. Jeffers was expected to be starter, yes his offense was down even before hurt, but he was heating up. So two of our starting OF missed large amounts of games, and a backup. Our expected starting 1b missed full year basically, and his back up. Our 2nd baseman has missed games as well. I guess you were just expecting CC to carry us all year and no of the other starters were expected to much. Pitching, we did have large amounts of health there, but did lose two of our starters miss most of the season in Paddock and Ober. Also, Winder after doing well then missed large amounts. I will agree they were not expected to be much, and the pen did blow many games, but had our offense that was carried by a rookie and a guy that was our super utility guy that many wanted to cut coming into the year and a light hitting bat master. But the main guys that would be expected to hit in the middle of line up all missed plenty of games.
  24. Trov
    I get no hitters go into record books and sounds all cool, despite many of the no hitters are by pitchers people have barely heard of outside their own organization and really mean nothing long term for a pitcher. He was over 100 pitches, which is not something he does a ton of. Based on the rate of pitches per inning if he was going to complete the game he would have had to throw 136 to 140, my guess he has not done that his whole life. Also, because he is trying to chase history he most likely would have put more into those pitches, making bases empty situation higher stress pitches. Maybe he is fine after it, but history has shown that guys who have done exactly that, have had long term issues. I point to Johan Santana specifically. He threw 134 pitches, and he was one that would regularly throw over 100, but not long after that start he was injured, and career was basically over. Was it just that game that did it, maybe not, but the timing sure does not look good. Joe Ryan hopefully has several years in a Twins uniform to pitch for us, why risk having any kind of injury for a no-hitter? It is a single game in his life, that he would remember forever, but he could remember it forever for the wrong reason if he would have stayed in there and blew out his arm. The point is to win games, and keep guys healthy, not have no-hitters.
  25. Trov
    I find the expectations of some fans a little crazy. Coming into the season Twins were expected to be around .500, just over, and to have a chance to compete with the Sox, but many expected Twins to finish 2nd. We are .500 today, and have a chance to finish above .500. Our chances of making playoffs took a huge hit this past week, but not 0 yet. I am not saying we will make it. For the people that think a full new FO and coaching staff will get anything more next year, you must not follow baseball too much. I mean look at SF this year, they were one of the best teams last year, and this year they are below .500. Their roster is almost the same, pitching may have even been upgraded talent wise, but their offense was much worse. The big years from some guys did not happen again. Is that FO, or managers, or just players not performing the same? Should the FO saw it coming? Did the coaching staff ask them to make changes they did not need to do, or fail to get the players to make changes they should? We had a full MLB roster on IL for much of the year, we are not alone in injuries, but the team has been carried the last month or so with rookies, or backups. Some have stepped up or we would not even be .500. Just think if Miranda had not bounced back but hit like he did his first several games? Should Rocco and coaches get any credit for his improvement after he first struggled? What about Gordon and his offense? Do they get no credit for that? You may not like how he manages pitchers and the staff, and maybe some old school guy would have won a few more games, but maybe they would have lost several more too.
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