Trov

I was going to post about the difference the dWAR according to baseball reference. I do not know the exact metric on how they go about it, but the have that big of a difference over a career, and Smith was never negative. I get the authors point that not many can stick to a position like CF for full career, and compared CB in football. However, the same can be said for SS, as very few stay at it, or are considered good on defense at it late in career. One of the next closest is Omar Vizquel who had a career 29.5 dWAR. I think the point that not many can do it, should show that the few that do it, are HOF compared to others. Baseball HOF has always compared across eras, but even compared to his counter parts, Hunter was never considered HOF bound. He put up some great defense, and I have not done the research on all CF, but Andruw Jones has dWAR of 24.4. Mike Cameron had career dWAR of 10.3, also played to age 38. Maybe Hunter was not as great of a defender as we thought. He made amazing catches, which always look great, but compared to 2 CF of his era he overall defense was not as good as either.

With limiting the risk really to 6 years, this is a good deal in my opinion. He has been playing with this issue for years, and still putting up the numbers he has. If he has big regression down the road you are only on the hook for a couple of years. This was the exact kind of deal I wanted them to try to get without all the stuff going on. It protects them later into the deal if he has regressed, for any reason health or just production, but will also keep him locked in if he is still producing at a high enough level.

Once the contract is officially signed, reports are we are much closer physical wise than other teams were, there will be domino of trades I am thinking. We will clear up our OF, someone will get dealt I think, and someone on right side of IF will get moved I think as well.

Report I read, Mets offer was to cut their 12 year in half to 6, but the value in half as well, to 157. Then vesting options for the remaining 6 years and value. So in the end, assuming we do not balk too, we offered the most money to CC, and less than what our original offer was. I am will still believe it when pen is to paper, but rumors are the Twins have already looked at the medicals that have been holding up the other deals. Also, taking risk on 6 years is much better than 12 or 13 years. Now I bet we wee a bunch of other moves, possibly prospects getting moved, because SS or 3B, will be locked for 6 years min. That means Lewis, Lee, and Martin will have to fill other spots.

I think it really comes down to are you a big hall or small hall person. Baseball has wanted to be a small hall all along, with having years of no one getting in. I fully agree he could be warranted just based on his defense alone, but I think where he falls for me, is he never was the guy that pushed us over the top. He always put up good numbers, but not great, and was never a guy people were like, we are scared to face him. He did make web gems a thing and was always making great catches, in the dome which is even crazier. He also played during time of Andruw Jones and Jones was considered better during that time overall, but Jones did fall off after age 30, Hunter managed to play at a higher level late into 30's, which to me should be considered. I feel if you are one of the best of your era at a position, you should be considered, but the baseball hall has always wanted to compare across eras and offense counting numbers was always important, unless you are Ozzie Smith as point out.

You point out a few moves that did not work out great, but not any of the moves that did work out, when you say the FO has not had a good knack for evaluating talent. First, please point to a single FO that never misses on trades or signings, my guess you will not find one. Second, the FO has made many trades or signings of players that they were not "burned" on. Yeah, they missed on some, every FO does. Yes, the Dyson trade ended up being terrible, but is that on the FO, as Dyson was pitching up to the trade with no stints on IL to suggest his arm was about to blow, but what did we give up? So far the only player they traded away that has made MLB is Davis, who has played small parts of 4 seasons, is 28 and played less than 40 games. The pitchers still have a shot as they are young, but neither are top prospect guys. The deal with SD last year was not as bad as you always like to make it seem. Rogers did what he always does, has a good stretch, but then did nothing and was below replacement at end of season. Sure, Pagan was just as bad, and Paddock will most likely only give us 1 year of pitching, but not like Rogers would have carried us to the playoffs or anything.

You need to remember that injuries will happen, and not everyone at the MLB level will live up to expectations. For 2b, why is it blocked by Lewis? It is blocked by Polanco, and Arraez right now. Of course Arraez can move to 1b or 3b, but Lewis would be much better defender at 3b than any other current option we have, if he is not SS, but lets not assume CC gets signed at this point. As 3b for Lewis, Miranda is not some mega star there that he could not be pushed off by Lewis. If Julien can put up the offense he has shown in minors, he can force is way into line up over what we have out there. Lee is similar, he would need to either get in for injury or force his way, but if his bat is MLB ready, they will find a spot if needed. Martin, similar is based on injury or regression of other guys in OF. I am pretty sure the article is pointing out when they would likely come up in a normal situation. If there is regression, or others are forcing playing time of course some will not make debuts.

Even without the legal stuff, I still would not want Bauer to come to Twins. He is not good enough to deal with the headaches he gives. He was constantly commenting on political and social issues, and being know as a bad club house guy, by doing things like throw the ball into centerfield stands when he gets pulled from game.

I speculated that with the teams of the Giants and Mets, is it may be their insurance company balking at the deal based on the physical. It is possible, after the medicals came back, they insurance company would not sign off on the deal, basically saying if he gets injured that ends career, team still on the hook. Contracts like these always have insurance purchased by the team. However, if the insurance will not sign off, then team would be on hook. That could be the issue with the Mets. If a team is willing to take that risk, then so be it. Rumors I was reading was Mets wanted an opt out if the leg leads to career affecting injury.

If he really is seeking the most money in his pocket, then going to Mets over Twins is wrong call. Yes, the total in the contract was 30 mil more, but over 2 additional years, and with the taxes and cost of living, he would actually have more money in his pocket with the Twins. Most players do not look at those things though.

One of my main comments it he claim the Twins did not fork over enough money for Correa, well so far no one has. He accepted one deal, only to have the team back out. Then he quickly agree to a significantly less offer for Mets. Those who are saying we were not close at 10 years 285, I would say is not far off the 12 years 315, that is maybe on the table for the Mets. When you look at things like taxes and cost of living, he actually is giving up a ton of money by choosing Mets offer over Twins. If it was just about overall money in his pocket, he chose wrong, so that is not the only thing making his decision. That deal has been on the table now for weeks and yet to be signed. Will the Twins swoop in and go with original off and will CC take it, maybe. I am also getting sick of the articles, we have not signed guys to mega deals, but then at same time attack FO for signing players to long term deals that have not worked either, like Donaldson. I would agree continuing doing 1 year deals to fill team is not best way to go, but you also need to have flexibility of some guys on shorter term controls or for cheaper. If you just sign every guy for multi years and they are not working out, you are locked into a bad team, with having to play bad players, or paying guys for not playing. The Angels have been doing that for years, signing guys to bad deals and being a bad team because they are locked in on old guys not playing well, and not building a farm system that develops. How many big long term deals have they signed in past 15 years? How many playoffs have they made?

I am wondering at this point should we even want to sign him to the 10 year deal offered? Two mega spending teams had basic terms and balked after seeing his physical. The reports I have read are Mets want and injury opt out if his leg does act up down the road. That is one of the main things being discussed. I am also wondering if the insurance companies will not cover the contract if that is the injury that happens. Contracts like these have insurance for the team generally, meaning if the player gets a career ending injury or several seasons, insurance will pay the contract and not the team. However, the physical may raise enough of a red flag for insurance to say we will not take on the risk, and that is why teams are balking, because if the injury does act up, they are fully on the hook for a guy that is not playing.

I do not believe anything Boras has to say. He floats out things all the time over and over. J.D. Martinez contract with Boston years ago he kept saying other teams had interest, in hopes of getting better offer. All media was saying no team has any interest close to what Boston was offering. Yes, teams will have interest in CC, it may be the Twins, but unlike the Mets swooping in against the Giants, no one is blowing CC away with an offer to change up.

I was thinking about how that question may change depending on perspective. First, I am not addressing next year specifically, but just generally. There are 30 team in MLB. Only one wins the World Series. Two teams win their respective league. Six teams win their divisions. 12 teams make the playoffs. Most fans look at anything less than a World Series win as success. However, I remember after the second half of the 90's being terrible team each year, when we finally won the division we thought that was success. Then, after having many years of winning division, but not winning a series, and now on a run of now winning a playoff game, we felt like our season was a failure. Then we had our run of 100 loss seasons, only to again make the playoffs and people were happy again, despite not winning a playoff game. So is it a matter of meeting or exceeding expectations that makes success? It seems to me, if a team is considered rebuilding, if they compete for a playoff spot, like Baltimore last year, they were expected to be terrible, but competed for a playoff off spot late in the year. Was that success? They failed to make the playoffs, but did better than many expected. If they repeat the same this season, will people feel the same, or will they say it was a failure? Clearly if there is regression that is a failure, similar to Detroit did last year. What if a team wins more games than the year prior, but their competition did even better and team misses the playoffs? Did they fail? That is less likely to happen these days, with all the wild card teams, but it could. For teams like the Dodgers, and Yankees, who are expected to make playoffs each year, is it WS or bust? What about teams that do not make the playoffs most years, should they also see only a WS as a successful season? The next time the Twins make the playoffs, should we be happy with just winning a game, as it has been forever since that happened? Some teams have never won a WS in their whole history. Have they ever had a successful season? Personally, I think it is a matter of perspective. If you are meeting and exceeding expectations, then you are being relatively successful. If you are not expected to make playoffs, which is much easier to do now, it was more of a feat a few years ago, then you had a good season. Even the better team loses a series all the time in baseball. However, if you are expected to make playoffs each year, then you need to advance and at some point win it all. I also think it should be over a span of years you look at. If you win only 1 WS over a few years after having multi times being in playoffs, that should still be successful, but looking back at Twins in the 2000s, that was not successful, even as it may have started out that way, but we never built on that and never even advanced to WS.

When the anti-shift rule was announced everyone started talking about how it will help guys like Kepler, Gallo, and other guys that get shifted a ton taking away singles from pull hitters, both right and left handed. I have debated that I do not think the rule as stated will make a huge difference in that aspect. Mainly, it only takes away the middle infield guy from playing the few feet on the other side of second base, but they can play just behind the base, still playing way over from past traditional spots. It does prevent the 2nd baseman from playing in short right against lefties taking away a few line drives or hard hit ground balls for hits. However, one shift people seem to not be talking about, that we did not see a ton, but did increase the past year or two. The full 4 man outfield. We saw teams play it that way against Polanco, and we even employed it a couple of times ourselves I believe. We would see heavy fly ball gap to gap type hitters face a 4 man outfield. To me, this is a much bigger shift being taken away. Despite it not happening often, although was increasing last year, and we all know would have started to grow more, as data showed it worked. How did it work? It was not just getting outs maybe a normal 3 man would not have, it really would help reduce extra base hits, which as many know is the key to scoring runs, getting extra base hits. Sure, you would leave huge holes for ground balls, but the 4 man was used against guys that hit very few ground balls compared to line drives and fly balls. You trade making sure no extra base hits for the extra shot at a single. Even if the outs were not increased, the extra base hits would be decreased. Our now Gallo saw this defense a bit last year, and so did Polanco. In my opinion, this shift going away, will have much more of a long term impact, than the infield shift. I feel many did not talk about it, because it really just started to happen more last year. But just like the infield shift started with a few teams against a few guys, we started to see it happening over and over again for all teams. As we talk about the anti shift helping guys like Gallo, people forget he faced the 4 man outfield more than just about any other. He was having doubles turned into singles, and having guys that would normally score from first on that double get stopped at 2nd base. As we talk about how Gallo should have some bounce back in offense, it is less from the 2nd baseman being in short left, but actually facing a 4 man outfield.

I have always liked Polanco. When healthy he has shown he is a great hitter. He is starting to get out of his prime, and injuries have been hitting him over his past few seasons. Even when he plays sometimes we learn he is on weak ankles, affecting his offense. If he can stay healthy, and with the anti shift rules hopefully he can have a good bounce back year and either be trade option, or we will feel better about trading another middle infielder for something. People forget that teams played the 4 OF shift on him this past year. Without being able to do that should help him bounce back on offense too.

As a replacement for Garlick I am fine with it. He is a vet and known to be a good team guy. As pointed out, he does not make the difference, but I would take him as a Garlick replacement, if he is fine being a platoon pinch hitting type guy.

I will not deny we could use an upgrade at pitching overall, the numbers show that. However, you say they need a better philosophy as well. I would disagree with that. You point to total number of innings pitched, but if you look at innings per start, outside of Archer, most put up around 5 innings per start. Ryan was about 5.5 innings per start. The Rays, who had a winning team in a tough division, averaged around the same innings per start, just around 5, for their starters. I am not saying I agree with the 5 and fly when a guy still has stuff, but it is not like it cannot work if done right. The issue was also the fact that the pen was not deep enough to sustain so many innings every day. So improve the staff, but you can make the shorter starts work.

He has missed long stints for various issues. He has been injured playing defense, hitting, running bases. He has had hand injury from sliding, and getting hit by pitch. He injured toe from foul ball. He has twice injured hip just from running the bases. He injured his knee sliding. Yes, they are all from playing the game 100%, but to me that proves the point, that he will continue to find ways to get hurt, because he goes all out all the time. He will continue to find a new way to get hurt. Oh I think he also missed time due to migraines as well, lucky that never popped up again.

I agree with number 1, however, I disgree with saying over and over it was a fluke or weird slide. Reports were he was dealing with knee issue even in spring, it just showed up in regular season right away. He also had a hip injury that ultimately put him on the shelf I do believe. I could be wrong there, but I recall the full IL stint to end the season was not the knee.

Kepler has the least amount of teams looking to deal for him. No rebuilding team would give up much for him, as he would not fit their timeline. That leaves playoff level teams, but they are less likely to deal from their MLB roster, outside of bullpen, or back of rotation guys. Maybe, if they near MLB ready guy at a position of depth. So if you are looking for someone to help out this year for Kepler, you will be limited to mid pen guys or back end rotation guys most likely. For the other 4, all could be traded to either rebuild teams, or competing teams. If they are for rebuild teams you could get someone ready to help now, but still not likely for ready to help now guys from teams looking to compete. I get we have a ton of depth, and not enough playing time. Kepler is most likely out the door, but do not expect much for him in my opinion.

Every year we get the, if only Buxton can stay on the field we can see some great numbers. Then he misses half the year and we point out to the few months he was healthy and get back into what if mode. At this point, you just need to slot him for 60 to 90 games, of which maybe 30 of them he will be hurting and not at max. He will carry us for a month or 2, then will struggle with staying on field. I will believe he can play a full season, and be what he does over 30 to 60 days, when he actually does it.

This is true that most do not, but some do, after they learn how to pitch without the velo they had. They learn a new pitch, or new way to pitch. They are never aces, so not saying Wacha will come out as an ace, but many can have a good season later in career. It is not the norm, but Carl Pavano had a few decent seasons later in his career after a bad run. CHarlie Morton is a more recent guy that not until age 33 when he pitched in Houston that he really started to be a top of rotation guy, normally just a end of rotation, but at age 33 he learned to pitch and lowered his FIP and ERA to career bests, and has been on playoff rotations. Rich Hill is another guy that not until his mid-thirties that as a starter pitched well over full seasons. I think he was part of health. Some guys get by early on with velo, then as they age they actually learn how location, movement, and change in velo can be better than just velo itself. That all being said, I am not suggesting Wacha will be that, but for depth in the rotation I am all for it.

First, I think people have a crazy expectation of what a pipeline looks like. It is not going to be an endless run of cy young guys. What it hopefully will be is having guys, ready to step in when injuries set in, or guys get traded because near the end of their control years. As Major League Ready point out in his comment, Cleveland would continue to trade their pitchers, during season or in offseason, even when competing to reload the pipeline. Many Twins fans got upset when we traded our top pitcher in a similar type deal. What makes Cleveland, and Rays a team that continues to turn out talent, is they will continue to trade established MLB guys, at peak or near peak value, to reload. They are good at identifying who to target and developing them. They are also good at knowing when their guys are about to regress. How many of the top Cleveland guys did better after they were sent away? Only Bauer with Reds. Rays have had a few guys do better after left, but they were never going to sign them either. There are a few ways to build your team. No team hits on every way, so they need to try many different ways to do well. Then some teams will be like Rays and Cleveland who will continue to trade away top guys to refill with prospects, some guys hit some miss. The Royals, took different path on their WS runs. They built a winning team, and had many guys set for FA all at the same time. There was talk about should they trade some or all away to reload, or hang on for one more run. They hung on for one more run, and did not win. They got almost nothing in return for losing their top guys, and believe they even made some trades, could be wrong, to help build a contender again. The Royals won a WS and could have traded their top guys away to reload. They were hoping to get a second WS, but never got that close again. Now have been rebuilding. I hate to say it, but if you want to continue to compete, unless you are paying above tax, you normally need to avoid long term deals to aging players, locking you in on diminished output years, and be willing to trade popular top players at peak of value. I am of the opinion, raise the floor of your overall team, and not have just super high ceilings for a couple of guys. For pitching, a starter only pitches, even the best, about 1/7th to 1/8th of the innings. That is if they get 200 plus innings. Relief guys get even less. Hitters get up only 1 out of every 9 times, and the best only get on base like 4 out 10 times, or less. If you are loading up only on top talent, but have crap for the other 3 or 4 starts, a rotation, or 6 or 7 hitters, you will not be good. Look at Angels for perfect example.

He needs to stay healthy, and make adjustments when pitcher adjust to him. He has shown in stints could be a top hitter, but then regresses quickly. This past year we can assume it was mostly injury. If you have a core muscle issue, you have no power. So as long he can stay on the field it looked like he could be decent.