Trov

I would agree the contract would most likely look like what the article writes, but I also would not extend him now. Pick up his option, if he maintains into next year then look to extend 2 to 3 years if he wants. Sonny Gray has struck me as a guy that is not seeking the top contract but where he plays is important. I think he brings more to the team than just a pitch though, as he has been around and seems to have helped some of the younger guys. I still would not want to dole out a rotation spot and big money for a guy that at any point could fall off the cliff. Now, I doubt he will because he has never been a high velo guy but has been a true pitcher so I expect he will age well, but you still never know.

I would challenge your last claim that NO team would trade MLB pitching that would take on Correa. If you recall a few years ago Cleveland traded away their top starting pitcher for offense. They were so deep in pitching they knew they could give up one of them at the top of their value for a win now player. I would agree it is rare and unlikely, but pretty sure Yankees could afford to give up one of their guys, you only need 4 in the playoffs and they run 5 deep right now. Not saying we should trade with them, but pointing some teams would be willing to part with MLB ready starters.

Not going through all the comments, but read he will be making over double for LSU over Twins. Read Twins asked what they could do, and matching or breaking the LSU number did not come up. My guess Wes always liked college ball, which is very different than MLB overall, and did not want to pass on the money.

I know too little about all of these guys to make an informed comment. I have read that Jace Jung is the bat first field later college bat we have been known to target some times. I am opposed to that, as we have too many in our system right now. I am always fans of college SS later in first round as they generally are good athletes and can play most positions even if they cannot stick SS long term. No matter the pick I will do what I always do, wait and see. You should always take best available and never worry about need, because other than a few select college pitchers just about no one makes debut for about 2 to 5 years depending on age at draft.

I do not have knee tendonitis, like what I understand Buxton main issue is, but I do get recurring foot tendonitis that will pop up out of no where and make walking painful, let alone running. I have little options to prevent it and only time will heal it. Some times it takes 1 to 2 days, sometimes it take longer. Sometimes I will go 1 month between issues or just a few days. I can understand what Buck is going through. From my understanding the doctors have said there is nothing more the Twins and Buck can do. I just hope he can play in the playoffs, provided we make them. He has only played in 1.5 playoff games, technically a 3rd game, but that was just as a runner. When he plays our chances of winning is so much higher, we need him as much as we can in the playoffs.

We can all speculate as to why, he may tell us, he may not. I do find the timing interesting. However, time to move on and hope next guy up will be even better than Wes.

Good article pointing out that our defense may not be as good as what some may think. In particular Urshela who has made some good looking plays, but he has had many plays that have not been made as well. Correa numbers are a little surprising. I do know some metrics do not take shifting into account, and some do. Really the only upgrade we could make overall would be at 3b. Either on defense, or on offense, but Urshella right now is replacement level in my opinion.

I respect the time and effort it takes to grade out how players are doing. However, I find how a player is doing, even more so when injuries play a roll like in Lewis, it is poor way to evaluate a draft. There are many factors that go into certain draft picks, like drafting a HS kid early because you expect he will sign under slot value, so you can use that money on an over slot value later on. Unless the guy had injury concerns in say college or during high school, it is hard to fault a draft of a player only to have an injury that no one saw coming. Also, without context of who else was available around that pick, and when is your next pick. You point out Jeffers was considered a huge reach. Okay, maybe, but we did not have a 3rd round pick. So our next pick was not until Round 4. Which was pick 124. Between those picks there was 4 catchers taken. 2 has made MLB but 1 has had very small sample size, with total of 25 games over 2 seasons, but his minor league numbers suggest the very small sample will not continue. The other has half the games as Jeffers but might have more power. I do not know the defenses to compare. There was then 3 more catchers in round four that would have been available and none have made majors. Being we have little to no catching prospects, and at the time Rortvelt was only prospect we had, a catcher was needed most likely. There is not a whole lot of MLB players that were drafted after Jeffers and before our next pick, not sure how many are still prospects, but no names clearly jumped out to me. I did not do deep dive so may have missed someone. My point is though that to say we were wrong on Jeffers or it was a poor pick may not be actually true under the context of the pick. One, he may not have been around the next pick, and there may not have been a better pick out there, at least not at the catching position. He may not be an all-star or anything, but he still may be just as good or on par with any others in that draft. I am not defending every pick by any means. I was not a fan of the Cavaio pick or Sabato pick. But to just see how your pick does does not do a true analysis without seeing how other options could have been and how they panned out. Unless you can point to someone you would have drafted, at the time not after seeing how they ended up, it is hard to say it was wrong pick, even more so when the pick makes the majors. I do not know your grading scale, but looks like a C is MLB player, which is pretty low grade when 66% of 1st round picks make majors, 49% of 2nd round make majors, and only 33% of rounds 3 thru 5 make it. I would say sometimes the 1st rounds only make it as the team invested the time and money into them. Is A+ MVP path, A all-star regular, B fringe all-star, C mlb player, D AAA regular with some MLB time, and F no MLB prospect?

This is very true, and there are many others like them. They are AAAA players. You see the minor league numbers and hope, but it never translates at the MLB level. That is one reason to never trust minor league numbers, but trust the organization to see what is really there. We see poor numbers and feel the player is a bust, and see great numbers and think they are on their way to stardom. However, there are reasons they get ranked where they are, and why they get moved up or not. Personally, I would not be surprised if Wallner gets dealt in a deadline deal. He is very redundant in our system. Left handed hitting bat first defense last corner outfielder. He does not have poor splits as many expect from lefty hitters, However, I think that is pretty common for good hitters in the minors and the splits really do not rise up until MLB level when they are facing the best of the best.

Base stealing has a lot of components to it. Runner, pitcher, catcher, hitter. Buck has been dealing with knee issue all year, so he has been not even attempting steals, but my guess he might in big situations if needed. However, I would much rather keep him at 1st and not risk further injury for 90 feet. The rest of the team no one is even been known as a great base stealer. Maybe because we do not do it, or maybe because they are just no good at it.

I fully agree he is good at what he does, as it pertains to framing. However, I think that skill will become obsolete sooner than later, and I think it should be obsolete. If we stick with human umps then keep on building the skill to trick umps into thinking a pitch is a strike, but when we go to robo umps, all that training and practice will go out the window as no one will care, because the computer will decide if the ball crossed in the right area.

If you want to compete this year you could trade any of the top 3 mentioned and still compete, however, depending on the return, I think you make the team worse. First, with Lewis out, we would have either Arraez, Miranda, Gordon, or call up Steer to play 3rd. Gordon offers less on offense, and most likely about same on defense. Arraez and Miranda are most likely upgrade on offense but both worse on defense. Steer is a wildcard as we only have minor numbers to go off of. Kepler is great on defense, and good enough on offense that putting Larnach or Alex into that stop would need big enough consistent steps forward at the plate to know what you got. It could work out, but not sure what Kepler nets in trade. Sano will net nothing in return as no rebuilding team will take him for a rental, and no competing teams will want to slot him in as everyday guy at this point. Maybe, a mid-rebuilding team may take a flyer on Sano for the rest of the year to see if they want to pick up option, but best we get is rental of pen arm, and we most likely will need to either eat the money Sano is owed, or give up a prospect to. No way does trading Correa this year help us this year. No competing team will give up enough MLB talent to help us this year. Outside of Yankees, I do not see anyone competing that needs a SS right now and has MLB talent ready to give up. Houston maybe, because their starting SS is injured, but doubt they would give up much. Toronto may be willing, but again, what do they send us that helps us this year? Then who plays SS? It would be huge downgrade there and really closes this year as a window to compete.

I am not going to think Bundy has turned anything around because of who he faced. That being said, great to see him save the pen a game and go deep into a game with still low amount of pitches overall. I did go to bed after we were up 9-0 so did not get to see much of the performance and he did get lucky with a few atom balls that a foot one way or another no hits. On the other hand Twins got a few hits on weak contact that found a hole, not all was weak but Arraez got one to squeeze through that a foot 1 way or another may have ended the big inning before it started.

I do think Jeffers has suffered a little from the mush ball. I think he has had several balls that were caught on warning track, if the ball was 2019 ball they are most likely HR and we have a very different story to tell. Now, can Jeffers start getting the ball to fall, who knows. The biggest issue I have is that he is not a top defender or a top hitter, which means we can upgrade. I know he is great at framing, which I expect in next 2 to 3 years will be pointless as there will be an electronic zone. Then he will not be able to "steal" strikes and unless he starts throwing out runners or hitting he will not bring much. I would expect after the change in electronic zone he may change his stance to get better at throwing out runners, as right now the team has worried much more about the framing. However, base stealing, at least by my eye test, seems to be up, and his lack of throwing guys out will hurt him in future when framing does not save him.

Although I agree we can get a much better bullpen, I find FIP, by itself, to be a terrible metric to measure a bullpen. Wins probability added is a much better metric if you are looking at a single stat. If you look even further, baseball reference has a "clutch" pitching stat, which takes the context of the leverage situation and how often they have done well in those situations. Which as a team we rank 4th at 1.9. I could not see how to break that down by just bullpen, but I would assume most of the "clutch" pitching comes from the pen. What that looks at is how do you when the game is close. Personally, if we are up or down large amounts and gives up a solo shot, that hurts a FIP a ton, but had no impact really on the game. However, when Smith comes in and get a 1 pitch inning ending double play with bases loaded in 1 run or tied game, we get no FIP change, but had a great outcome on the game. FIP can be an important stat in context with other stats, but with pen guys it tells very little story. I mean if you pitch the 9th inning of a 3 run game, you get 2 outs on balls in play, then give up a solo HR, and get the third with ball in play, the FIP goes off the chart, but you get the win and had no impact on the game. The revers is true as well. You come into a game down 5 strike out the side your FIP looks much better, but then in a different game you come in up 1 give up hard hit back to back doubles and then a single, giving up the lead, your FIP is the same. FIP needs context of when you are getting the strike outs, giving up walks, or HR. Without having the context if you use that one number to judge anyone you are missing a huge picture.

They seem to have issues getting hits with RISP. Last night they got unlucky for 1 run when Arraez hit the ground rule double, had it stayed in the park that is a run. It is a combination of stringing hits together, and in what order you get these hits, and with how many outs. Sometimes a runner does not score from 2nd on a double when there is less than 2 outs because they go back to tag on what might be a catch, then it just hits off the wall and runner gets to third, but the hitter gets to second. With 2 outs you do not worry about that. Same thing with like line drives, with 2 outs off at the crack, but with 0 or 1 out you need to make sure going to land. I could also be wrong but feel like we hit into a ton of double plays, which really hurts this as like last night we had bases loaded, then hit into inning ending DP. I am not too concerned about us scoring runs, but I do agree it could be better.

Yes the fans are the voter, and in theory it makes sense as the thought is the more votes for particular players will lead to more people wanting to watch the game to see the players they voted in. However, we all remember a few years ago when there was a huge push to vote in all KC players, some would deserve it, but many did not. Personally I never watch it anymore. I do not watch any all-star type game for any league though. Most pitchers opt out so they can be ready, the fact that each team needs 1 player is dumb too. Which generally ends up being the best pitcher on terrible teams, and half the time they do not even pitch. If you enjoy the game, good for you, I am not trying to convince anyone not to watch, for me it is not worth the 3 to 4 hours of time invested. Back when you would get to see superstars from the other league you never got to in regular season then it had some value to me.

Way too much season left to say losing or winning 6 of 8 now will make the difference. If we lose 6 of 8, even if the rest of the games over that time are the same, hopefully we win more than they do, then we would only be 2 games back, with about half a season to play. Much will happen over that time.

Cleveland had a stretch of easier games, but now other than playing us, they have Dodgers, Red Sox, and Yankees until July 4th. Where we will be playing below .500 teams, outside of them until July 12th when we face Brewers, who are not playing well, but that is a long way away. Just as it normally is, the head to head games will be huge over next stretch to see where we shake out. Hopefully we win at least 5 of the 8 to expand lead and we win if not sweep some of the other series while Cleveland starts losing now that they facing better teams. I believe Cleveland is 6-12 against teams currently above .500, and if you include Angels, who were at the time above .500 when Cleveland played them, but went on crazy long losing streak, they are 6-16. This next stretch will determine if Cleveland is actually a good team, or just better than the bad teams. We are 11-13 against teams currently above .500. Still not great, but much better than 6-12. I am not saying we are that much better than Cleveland, but we do need to pay attention to who they have been playing, and who they will be.

Planning for a pitcher and how they will approach you is key. Batting is such a chess match between pitcher and hitter. If you look back at the game against Guasman, they clearly had a plan that if they fell behind, any pitch starting near knees they would take, expecting the change up. It takes a strong hitter to take expecting it to drop and not get buzzed at the knees on a FB. Buck is famous for chasing sliders low and away, fearing it will be a FB and he strikes out looking, despite it being a slider 9 out of 10 times. Twins kept making Guasman pitch it in the zone. Now, when the pitcher changes it up and starts throwing FB when you expecting change ups, you may look foolish.

I think people undervalue Max's defense and only look at offense. I am not a fan of trading established MLB guys when you are competing for struggling guys or prospects. I am not saying I hate the trade idea, I am not sold on it either. If Padres think Campusano can stick behind the plate, I doubt they give him up for a RF, even by us taking on Snell's contract. Offensive catchers are hard to find. If we are taking building for future the deal could help us, but if we talking for this year, I do not think it helps us.

I doubt he nets either Montas or Castillo, without a couple more guys, but I would be more than willing to part with him. He looks like he can hit okay, but his defense is terrible so far.

I think the shutouts need to be taken in context. Who were they facing, who was in line up, what was the overall score, how many chances did they have to score, what kind of defense plays were made in those chances, ect. Leading in being shut out but still having winning record with positive run difference does not worry me at all. The first 3 shutout were early in season when other than Buxton, no one was hitting and he did not play in 2 of the 3. Either way the first couple weeks we looked a mess. The next game was against Verlander who was dealing, and we did not put out an A lineup for sure. The 5th game was against Houston as well, similar we had not a strong line up, left a lot on base with 9 going 0-7, it was poor game, but a couple of clutch hits would have turned it around. The 6th game was very disappointing against Detroit who's starter had huge ERA going into game, but after he was out of game in 4 innings the Tigers pen is very good. 7th was again against Tigers and Skubal was dealing, their best starter not many chances and again not our A lineup. 8th game was recently against Rays, We had a better lineup, but Rays marched out a series of pretty good pitchers all 2.15 ERA or below except 1. We had some chances leaving 8 on base. Finally game 9 was against Seattle and their best starter. We had a few chances with 5 left on base and 0-5 with RISP. To me a loss is a loss no matter 1-0 or 10-9. Both losses would be by 1 run and both something was not going right. One it was the offense, the other the pitching. If they lost a game 10-1 would it be any better than 10-0 because they were not shut out? The fact that many of the shutouts were either early when no one was hitting well for us, or with not our top line up, I think that makes things better because in must win games Buck, Correa, Polonco, Kepler, Arraez, and others will not be getting "rest" days. Sometimes you will just run into a guy who is dealing or your team is just not hitting holes.

So in 2020 when we were favored with better pitching staff than Houston, and better offense than Houston, why did we not win? How did Atlanta win last year? I was talking being hot for all of the playoffs, my comment about ALCS was back before 1996 there was no wild card round only ALCS and WS, so commented back those WS years of 87 and 91 we were not favored. I am not saying we would be expected to win if we stand pat, and agree upgrading team will improve chances, but it would not mean we will win, just as not doing something will not mean we will lose in playoffs. So often so much of playoff baseball is who is hot going into it. We could go out and get the 4 best starting pitchers and 8 best bull pen arms, and 9 top hitters, and we still may not win a playoff game. Sure, we should, but nothing is for sure. That is my point. I am no way saying the team would be, or should be, favored to win in the playoffs as they sit now. But any team can win in playoffs when they get their. Yes, we have not done it for long time, going 0-18 in last 18 games, and not winning a series in 20 years, but each team is different and each game is a new one.

If he can come back healthy and is effective, I would be willing to have him on postseason roster. However, I would not be expecting anything amazing, but recent guys have been coming back from TJ surgery much faster than before. I would not count on him but he could be a surprise.