Trov

I am not advocating for this, but I find it interesting that so many are calling to bring up Alex, which I would support, because he is hot, but no one is calling to bring up Beckem despite being just as hot.

I will agree we would benefit at increasing the pitching, in particular the pen. However, I disagree with the sentiment that without adding to starting pitching we cannot win. Both Ryan and Gray could win games in the post season. Also, you never know what you can get from others. If you improve the pen, you will not need 7 good innings from everyone, and we are not likely to ask anyone to do that anyways. Plenty of times teams have won series, despite having the lessor pitching staff, and lessor offense. Both WS we won we were under dogs in the ALCS and WS. Our win over Oakland no one gave us a chance because our best pitcher was the 4th best starter in the series, but yet we still won the series. Then 2020 we had the 2 best starters going into the Houston series, everyone had us the favorites because we had Cy candidate Maneada versus journeyman Greinke, backed up by end or rotation Valdez, then Berrios versus rookie Urquidy. Going into the series we were considered the better offense and better pitching staff, but yet we were completely outplayed. Last year Atlanta really had 2 starters you felt super good about going into playoffs, Fried and Morten, with 2 top high leverage guys, out of the pen. Their offense was not great either. They got hot for playoffs and went onto WS. No one expected it. Of course upgrading starting pitching, pen and offense, would help us win, but to say it is needed to win, or even greater to assume we will, just goes against evidence. Yes, you can point to plenty of teams that when they had the better pitching staff they won, I am not saying it does not help, but there is never a guarantee one way or other. We could go out trade away all prospects for Montas, and Castillo, the best two starting pitchers out there up for trade, and the top 2 pen pitchers, Contrees from Cubs, and some other top bat, and we still could get swept out of the first round. Being best on paper means nothing, it just makes fans feel better going into the games. In terms of the offense, every team offense is always up and down. You point out how we did against 4 top starters, but then struggled against some lessor pitching, but then assume we will struggle against top pitching in playoffs, ignoring how they did against top pitching just recently. To win in playoffs you need a few guys to step up and get hot, it is true for all teams. We know anyone can get into a slump or a hot streak, you just need the team to not be in slump in playoffs.

Mancini is a no for me dog, but the other two I would take, for the right price, but do not feel we need either to make the playoffs. I do agree upgrading the pen will help us the most. I am not for selling off the whole farm though to upgrade just for this season.

Kepler is the perfect example of guys you need on your team to have a winning season. He has quietly had a good year. His defense is very overlooked. He is not carrying the team at any point, but he has just been solid overall also not being a black hole. You can slot him in the second half the line up most games and you never really notice how he is helping. When he was lead off we would pay much more attention to him and what he is doing, but when he regularly hitting 5 or 6 and he is doing good but not great we just kind of not pay attention. I hope he keeps it up, and maybe gets on a hot streak where he can carry the team for a few weeks. Jax has been a huge lift to the pen. He is not doing the high leverage thing, but he is getting the job done regularly and can go more than 1 inning if needed. Most people were ready to DFA in off-season. He looks like he could be a solid pen guy for next few years. I get the point of view that Correa is overlooked a little as he has just been going about his work, hitting the ball hard all the time it seems, but not having too many big moments. Buck has been hitting the big HR both in distance and at times in importance, and Correa has not had one of those type of moments with a walk off or big hit that gets the game winner, but I do not think he has been presented with that chance either. He is just doing his thing and I am surprised we are not talking more about how he is hitting over .300 now, after his low BA start, mostly due to just hitting ball hard at people.

I could not stay up for full game, but when I look at boxscore I wonder why Archer would not go out for 5th. I assume it is because they were going into 3rd time round on line up and for whatever reason he will never get a chance to go a third time round. Maybe it is the right call every time, I mean we won, and none of the pitchers used threw a ton of pitches. I am glad to see both Ryan and Gray are slotted to pitch next two games.

I have like Arraez since he came up. Many have been down on him for lack of power, which makes him not a top prospect, but he brings something very important to a lineup. His approach reminds me more of Tony Gwynn than Carew, but both of them could hit lefties much better than Arraez. Maybe it is SSS for Arraez as this year is even lower numbers than career, but his career numbers are a large split. It does warrant sitting him against lefty starters and pinch hit later in game against a righty. As for the slugging, Arraez is right up with Carew normal year of slugging. Carew career was the .429, but he was normally closer to .400 or lower, he had a few big seasons in slugging to raise the career. Where Arraez does have a bit of drawback is his lack of speed and base stealing. Either way, I enjoy watching his at bats as he almost never gives anything away, and I have a feeling if defenses start to try and rob his line drives he might just start to increase his angle and try to drive it over their heads for those extra base hits.

He is mashing in AAA, but I am sure there is some internal discussion about his wrist and has he worked on the few issues he had early this year? I think also they only want to bring him up one more time. I fully agree he could slide into DH or rotate around, but my guess is the team wants to make sure when he does come up, he will be up here for good. He is getting regular swings each day, and I think they want to make sure he will have no set backs on the wrist. Also, is he mashing fastballs only? I have not watched so if he is only mashing fastballs but still rolling over anything not fastballs, he may not be ready to come back up because he will see nothing but offspeed when he gets back up here.

Overall I agree that situational hitting is lacking. However, that is in part based on how players have developed over the years. Most MLB players have always been 1 thru 4 type hitters on their teams growing up, because they are most likely the best on the team. They were never asked to really advance runners. I have long talked about players lack of practicing such situations is the biggest issue. Like guys never bunting, but then asking them to do it out of no where is a problem, they normally fail at it. Over the past decade the game went away from situational hitting, but went to try to hit extra base hits, which requires hitting the ball hard. With the dead ball that has played out this year, doing the little things may be much more of a thing to work on. However, just because a guy wants to do something, does not mean they will, as the pitcher is not going to just let them do it. Also, if the hitters gets a pitch to hit hard, why take it because it does not give you the planned result of just advancing a runner? The Sanchez situation talked about, he did hit the ball the right direction, but just not in the right angle. Guys cannot always hit the ball the way they want to. Now, I will agree we should work more on those situations and get back to maximizing situations. I do feel overall the team is doing much better having better at-bats overall. You will always find bad at-bats to point out in any game. They just get highlighted when you lose by a run or two.

He has managed to take the ball each time, sure for only about 4 or 5 innings, but he has not been terrible. If we were to start playoffs tomorrow, he would not be my number one choice that is for sure, but he has added more value than some other guys.

First, I think the cost of getting Mantas will be pretty high. He is not a HOF bound guy, but he is best out there and as we get closer to deadline there will be a team thinking he will make the difference of getting into playoffs. My assessment is two fold for the NEED for upgrade at upgrading pitching. First, are they needed to get us to the playoffs? Then what kind of a difference will they make? I do not think we need to upgrade to make the playoffs, provided our top end guys come back from injury soon. Our pen will get us into the playoffs as well I believe. Now when we make it, will they be that big of a difference maker? Some top guys can be, the most recent deadline trade I can think of that helped push a team to the ship was Houston 2017, who it looks like gave up basically at best bench players for him. Great deal for Houston. Johnny Cueto was traded to KC in 2015 and he helped in playoffs having 2 good games 1 okay game and 1 bad game. Of note, during the regular season he had a stretch of 5 terrible games, but had about 5 great games too, However, beyond that I cannot find too many deadline deals that led to WS wins, and if you give up your full farm system you better end up with a ship, else it was a failure. If the Twins feel Montas will be a big addition to next years rotation, which I do not feel he will be needed, then I would be okay with a deal, but if he is not needed to fill out the rotation I do not feel he is that much better than what we would march out there, and you never know what the playoffs will bring. He could pitch 1 great game but never get another game, or he pitches several duds, or he could go on a mad bum like run and carry us to the ship. You never know.

I think the FO was less worried bout his ability to throw out runners, because for years teams just would not run. However, as MLB is looking to bring stealing back into the game, with different rule changes, changing size of base, and appearing to decrease the power of the ball, that liability is starting to show it may be a huge issue. I am no catching expert, and it may be just his arm is not as strong, or his set up to frame pitches cost him some time, or could be our pitchers do poor job too. However, watching some teams starting to run all over on him may lead to need to change. Since he is not providing any offense, really anyone can fill in for him if they can throw guys out. I would point out that very few catchers are good on both sides, but right now Jeffers is not doing great on either, and as MLB eventually gets the robo ump the pitch framing will be pointless, and throwing runners out will be a bigger issue. Maybe he will change things up when that happens to help with the runner situation, but right now, I would agree he is not an asset behind the plate overall.

On name in the internal options not mentioned is Spencer Steer. He has played some over there, and assuming he is not the best defensive option, but has a lot of offense upside, if he can balance enough he could be a bridge until Lewis is ready next year. I highly doubt we land a top FA SS. Correa was an odd situation where for some reason no one was willing to give his asking price. Now it is possible that teams will shy away from some of those deals as the big SS signings so far have not done great. Seager and Seimien with Tex have OPS around .700. Baez he is fielding fine, but he is hitting terrible for making 20 mil. Story had a hot stretch for like 2 weeks in May, outside of that he has been below replacement player earning 20 mil. Correa has been by far best of them all, and will most likely command the 300 mil he is looking for. I doubt we pay it. Could we hope one of the other 3 top guys agree to something closer to what we want to pay, maybe, but only if last years crop scare off a few teams, which for the LA's and East Coast teams I doubt it will.

Yes we can beat the yankees, the problem is we do not play like we can. Of course they are talented team, we are not only team that has lost to them. However, we seem to always make huge bone head mistakes, like no one trying to catch a pop up in the infield. These get compounded and more mistakes get made. We just play differently against them. I mean over the time Gleeman posted, we had some good teams, division winning teams and like 90 win teams. We had some bad teams too, but it is not like the Yankees were always the best team in league. There just happens to be something against them. No matter the lead it is not safe. We always find ways to blow it. Now, I will say I am happy with how we hit their starters and over last 4 games we have faced 4 pretty good pitchers this year and done well against them. Now we just need our staff to get right.

Overall I would agree with this. The Odo trade they were dealing from depth and need to cut money. I would disagree with the Ryan for Cruz trade. If Rays did have him slotted as a pen arm, that is on them for not seeing what he could be. Sure he may not stay at level he has been, but I have not seen any signs of regression overall. They may have needed a bat, but they could have found one somewhere for much less than what they gave up. It shows at worst that they just were wrong on Ryan, which it happens because they stole Anderson from us for nothing, but maybe that will not turn out as he really only had 1 decent year, and been injured all last year and this year. The Garza deal we got fleeced, but that is more on us. Pretty sure Garza did not like it here and we decided to try and get a bat for him. We were thinking on old ways of baseball at that time, not thinking bat first corner OF guys are easy to find. We were hoping Young would be more than he was, which was not terrible but pitching is king and bat first corner OF guys, unless they are HOF bound, are easy to find.

Please site your source for his lack of speed to cover CF? His throwing has been in question, but I have not read anything to suggests he lacks speed to cover CF. He clearly has speed with 21 stolen bases this year already, and baseball reference has his range factor, which is outs plus assists/ 9 innings at a high level. Maybe it is just good positioning, but Buxton is current active leader, and 16th on all time list, at 2.714. Martin in minors so far is 2.34 in CF. This on par with Kevin Pillar, who is 6th on current active list. This year in very small sample size he is 3.49, but in only 6 games so would regress most likely. For comparison Gilberto Celestino has a career minor league mark at 2.20 in CF. The point is, his early numbers show he may not be elite at defending CF, but could most likely could hold it down. It is possible his numbers are just small sample size compared to guys who spent every game in CF or mostly, but please provide your source for fact Martin lacks the speed to play CF.

I quit watching once the infield just let a pop up drop without a single player trying to catch it. I knew how it was going to go from that point.

I would not say he is the best trade chip, as you noted his prospect ranking is dropping, hard to say he is a top trade chip if his value is dropping. Now, if the question was is he most likely to be traded if one is made, I would agree with that. I do like him overall, and the throwing errors would hopefully be something he can work on. He has great range and speed but with Lewis looking like he will hopefully hold down SS, or at least better than Martin would, and Buck locked up long term in CF, Martin is not knocking on the door and we could send him off and not be hurting because of it. Based on his dropping value not sure he nets what people would be hoping though. Our best trade chips would be Buck, Correa, Lewis, or Ryan in my opinion, but you do not trade any of them if you are trying to win this year or anytime soon.

Mad Bum numbers on their face look fine, but a deeper look suggests he may be set for a poor run. His first 6 starts were great, but since he has been okay. I would not give up Kiriloff for him. I would be willing to take a flier on him over Bundy right now, but not Kiriloff. Mad Bum is giving up hard hit rate of 46%, and a K-rate of 16% with a walk rate of 8%. with a FIP of 5.01. All of Bundy's numbers in those categories are better. I would just be worried with Mad Bum too, he may be getting by with a lot of luck and will get blown up soon.

I do not know about Gray or Winder, not much updates, but Ryan is supposed to get a rehab start soon coming of the COVID list.

Sad to hear E-Rod needed help off field. Lets hope it is not a major injury but only miss a few weeks at most. He was set to get moved up to High A I bet soon.

Overall I liked the hitting approach by the team against Cortes. They fell behind in the counts early, but still made him work, and was willing to just put the ball in play getting some weak contact hits. Archer was okay and the overall results were good, but he was walking tight rope all night falling behind and walking guys. The GIDP helped him get out of a lot of possible messes. Miranda really needs to work on defending first, he looked liked a mess out there last night.

They for sure made the best pick in Buxton. Gausman would have been the only one you could say looking back may have been the better pick, but even moving forward Buck still has the biggest impact when he his on the field. Had we known he would have so many injury issues, maybe we go a different way, but not upset at all with what Buck has done. We could have drafted the bust Appel.

I do not think the article is saying Urshela is our worst option, but it is pointing out that sometimes the eye plays tricks with big plays, when routine ones are not being made. Not saying Urshela is the worst option, but maybe not as good as old Dick likes to say.

In a 162 game season you do need to worry about the following games. If this was a best of 3, 5, or 7 series, yeah you do not worry about the next game if you can win the one you are in. You worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. However, in a 162 game season, you know we will play tomorrow. As pointed out you cannot ride the same 3 guys every game and need innings out of others. Even if that results in a loss sometimes. Yes, you can complain, but where will we be later in the year if all our end of pen guys are burnt out with arm injuries because we used them over and over in every close game early in season?

This is going to be an ugly series. Our bottom 3 current starters versus their top 3 current starters. I still cannot believe that "foul" call in Kepler at bat. I mean if they want to say he swung okay, but to say that was foul, I mean it shows how bad some calls can be. I felt the called balls and strikes were not bad last night, but that was terrible call. I do not feel it made the difference in a game at least though.