Trov

Again, our difference is you are using being in the rankings is a good thing, which I agree, but my point is the rankings do not equal to what outcomes they will have, and the rankings will change as more data comes in. So to have a single snapshot of a ranking and say our future is bright, or dim is a poor way to look at the rankings. For example, in 2010 ranking a lot of the top 50 guys have had decent careers and teams would be happy with what they got. Several though did not perform all that well over their careers. One guy absent of the top 50 players, only could find top 50, is the best player in baseball since then. It was his first full minor league season and he was a late first round pick, but after the experts got more time to see him, in 2011 he was the number 1 rated prospect. If in 2010, we were offered Arron Hicks, who ranked 29 that year in top prospects, for Mike Trout, I bet many fans would have looked at the rankings and say why did we traded the 29th ranked guy or someone not even in the top 50. So what I am pointing out is that the rankings at any given time does not mean much, as we have seen Martin, who was 36th ranked last year, and in half a season drop to out of top 100. Guys will move up and down as more info comes in. The exact same farm system for Twins next midseason may get ranked in top 10 because they perform beyond what todays projections have them. Mike Trout, who turned out to be the best player in the minors in 2010 was not even top 50 ranked prospect, why? Because the experts had not seen enough of him, but when they did, he then was number 1, which changed how people saw the Angels minor league rankings. Did they change personal? No, people just learned what the Angels had. I am not saying Trout was some outlier, because he was just more unknown in 2010. Now, if a team continues to stay low in the rankings year after year, that will be an issue to worry about, but for all we know next year we have a few break out guys, or rebound guys, and then we jump back up the list, despite having mostly the same players.

The key you point out is the 75% success rate. The issue is, too many teams have done away with it, but not looked at if they can be successful it will help score more runs. Also, the sabermetics does not take each game situation into account, but takes all the history of the games and comes out with a historical percentage. That has, and always will be my issue with analytics is they do not look at each situation individually. For example, does it look at with 0 outs, and a sinker ball pitcher with a slow hitter, what are the odds of a double play, and compare those to the risk reward of a stolen base? I mean if say the hitter will hit into a double play, or a deep fly on say 75% of at bats, which will either get 2 outs or keep runner at 1st, how does that impact the chance of scoring a run versus say, a 70% chance you steal the base? My point is, there may be times that the 75% does not hold true in that particular situation, but only look at the difference in scoring a run from 2nd base versus 1st. Analytics has taken the individual game situations out of the picture in my opinion.

Well I guess where we may differ is what is a "significant impact" You find 8 years playing to 7.7 WAR or 10 years to a 6.0 WAR(Travis d'Arnaud) was 6th on your list, is a significant impact. Personally, I do not find that to be a significant impact, to be considered a top prospect. I would argue that a top prospect should be expected to be at least good for an average of a 2 WAR per season over their career. If they average 1 or less per season they are basically a replacement level player and are average. Number 1 on the 2013 list was Jurickson Profar, a career 6.6 WAR, of which 3.4 is this year, 9 seasons in MLB. Until this year, a huge outlier year, he has averaged below league average numbers. If you want to say below league average is good for best prospect in baseball, then you have a low bar in my opinion. Nothing wrong with average for a MLB player, but when you are considered a top guy, I would expect more. Also, we are talking about rankings, so when you compare, that for example number 53 in 2013 was Max Fried, who I would argue is better than most of the pitchers on the list ahead of him, save for Garrit Cole. most likely on par with Wheeler. However, Bundy was the number 2 overall prospect on that list. I bet Balitmore would have loved to have traded Bundy for Fried, or Cole, or Wheeler, or Tallion, or a few other guys that were rank below him. Yes, Bundy has contributed to MLB teams, 7.8 WAR over 8 years, and if your argument is being in the top prospects regardless of placement means it is a good list if you can play at the MLB level of replacement means the rankings are accurate, then I concede to your argument. However, my argument is that the rankings are meaningless in turns of actual output, because someone like Bundy was the number 2 ranked prospect in baseball, best pitching prospect, but there are several pitchers on the same list that have done better than him. Therefore, I am saying the ranking was wrong in hindsight, because several pitchers on the list have had better MLB careers. I will concede that most of the prospects on the list, make it to MLB and contribute, and in that the list is good, but to say one team has a better list of prospects and that means they will have more success in the future means nothing. A player or team ranked in top 10 does not mean it will equate to future success or more than a team that is ranked 15, all it means is they have players that many consider will contribute to MLB team.

I agree that it is a bit of a question if he will get what he is looking for when he opts out. I highly expect he will opt out, I could be wrong, but that was his plan the whole time. Now, based on the rest of the crop teams will have to decide who is getting paid. Of course TEX is out, DET is out, Mets out, and SD are out of bidding. However, Dodgers, Angels, Braves, Seattle, Red Sox, maybe Cubs maybe Yankees depending on their plans with their prospects, Point is there is 4 SS, just like this year, all looking for deals and more teams than players looking to sign them.

In terms of the stolen base, they do matter, and I doubt the Twins would tell you they do not. If a team just does not do it or does not stop stealing then it is an issue, and the Twins have addressed it some though out the year, but they are not the best at stopping the run game for sure. They also are not good at stealing themselves, in part Buck is hurt and rest of the team is ehhh at stealing. Maybe because they do not practice it much because the risk reward factor is not there most of the time. Maybe the team just does not want to do it, but as the minor league numbers point out, they are doing it down there, so might be in part our team lacks the ability right now.

I get what you are saying, and it makes sense, but the problem is there is data to back up that framing a pitch a certain way does get more strikes called by the ump. They track every pitch called, where it is called over thousands a season. They can see how some catcher routinely, no matter the pitcher, gets more percent of close calls in their favor. The stats bear it out that somewhere in the back of the umps brain it is affecting their decision. It may be as nuanced of it hit the catchers glove and he did not have to move, or he reached into the zone to catch it, versus he had to reach across the plate to catch it. I fully agree it should not matter, and we should have an electronic strike zone, but facts are facts and it is backed up by data that some catchers get a higher percentage of close calls or even pitches out of the zone called strikes versus others. You cannot refute that it happens. Even your time as an ump you may think it has no influence but it may have some very small influence that you do not even know it does.

This is just my point, that he was rated very high, and was expected to be a huge contributor at the MLB level, but for various reasons, injuries, weight, lack of adjusting, so on, he did not. So despite being high on prospect lists, he never panned out. I am not saying the list was wrong for projecting him to be good, what I am saying is ultimately he did not pan out the way people thought.

The list is not built on what a player is doing at any given level. It is built on what "experts" think the player will be down the road. You are talking about Isola, who has only played 18 games at catcher this year. My guess is he is not expected to be much of a defensive catcher in the future or even staying there. He is 24, so already older for any prospects list, not too old but he was a 29th round pick for a reason, he was never projected to be much. May he surprise us all, sure, but it is unlikely he will, that is why he is not on the list, because the experts think he will not pan out as much at the MLB level as others on the list.

I do agree that the projections are made by people with a whole lot more knowledge than me. I also agree that many front offices will rely on them, to some point, they also do their own scouting. Many things go into them, position played, age, body type, ect. I agree that we are lower in part from the guys that we traded or have graduated from the list. We still have plenty of young talent under team control, barring injuries that should help for the next few years. Also you need to always keep in mind that the rankings are based off of their peers, and they are being compared to each other. Sometimes you may be the 150th ranked prospect by these people, but you are still expected to be very good, just others are projected to be better, or on other hand you are very high on list because others are not good, and the list shifts greatly after one year. Personally, when you get outside the top few players, it is hard to really say anyone is greatly expected to do much. Take Palacios, he is 18th on the list for the Twins. Years ago he was higher, then he was off of it, until this year. He may or may not ever have much of MLB career. I will agree most at the top of the lists normally contribute to the MLB teams, but that does not mean high levels of success. My main point is that rankings in list does not mean succuss at the MLB level. It just gives some level of idea of how others view the players in the organization at any point in time. I bet 3 years ago people were not too big on Miranda, but where on Wander Javier. Miranda was 14th on our list, Javier was 4th. Arraez was 17th. We had several ahead of them that are now below or not even on top 30 lists. I would not say they are "outliers" when they show up all the time. You can go through lists each year and find guys high up that fall down the list and ones down the list that fly up it. The lists are based on what we know at the time. Yes, if teams are not high on prospects it makes it harder to make trades, which is in part why you trade for controlled players. So I am not worried because the ranking does not mean anything as to where the team will be next year, or in five years.

I find it highly unlikely he opts in. He will try to cash in again this offseason on a more normal offseason. Dodgers and Red Sox and possibly Yankees will be looking to spend on a SS. Nationals may as well, they have been known to throw money out there. It may be a little risk of him, but I would assume his plan all along was to opt out barring injury.

My biggest complaint is that the team is 100% flipped to analytics. I hated when prior FO and managers were so anti analytics, but now they are 100% all in on analytics. That being they do not work on situational hitting as much. We do not do the little things that help score runs, but care more about getting the extra base hits. The problem is when the extra base hits are not coming, for whatever reason, we are not getting runs across the plate in situations. This is not just a this year problem, and hope we really address it in the future. I am a fan of using analytics, but the problem with always doing analytic thinking is that the numbers from analytics are derived over a lifetime of situations of past results. For example, the lifetime of runners on 2 with 0 out you will score more than 1 run 30% of the time, but with runner on third and 1 out you score more than 1 run less than 20%. The difference in scoring just 1 run increases about 12% when runner gets moved over to 3rd with 1 out, however, the chance of scoring 0 runs remains about the same. So the argument is, especially early in game, is to not move the runner over because your chance of scoring 0 runs is about the same, your chance of scoring more than 1 run is decreased. The counter is that your chance of scoring 1 run is increased. However, many analytic thinkers say just scoring 1 run does not move the win probability that much, even more so early in games, so teams will not play for that 1 run early in games. That is why teams stopped bunting runners over, but even worse, is teams stopped working on hitting behind runners in hopes of moving over at minimum but getting hits still. LH hitters will do it naturally with a pull on the ground, but RH almost never do anymore. Because they never practice it. In addition, when a runner is on 3rd we hardly work on just making sure we put ball in play, but still looking to get the extra base hit. Now, I know it is easier to say than do, but I do not even see anyone try anymore, and that is most likely based on team concepts. The thought is to sacrifice single run innings to have multi run innings, because we do not expect to have as many run scoring chances. I am not saying we should always play for single run innings, but advancing guys to third, then looking to get extra base hit, but at least getting ball in play will help us win many more games than trying to always drive the run in from second.

I am not expect anyone to come up and make a difference, maybe Larnach if he can hit like he did prior to injuries, but he has been up and down his whole short career. We really need the current players to hit like they have in the past. Getting 1 hit with RISP but having a ton of chances will not get it done. We are not hitting HR right now either so runs have been hard to come by. You cannot expect your staff to get shutouts every game.

I am never concerned about rankings for prospects because for most part all they are is projections and they mean nothing. Many do not end up panning out. Some come out of no where, but many never do what projected. Cleveland is known to producing pitching, but their position players have struggled to make impact at MLB level. All having top farm system in projection means is people think they have good players coming, but many factors impact how they transition. Remember when Sano was a top ranked guy? How did that work out for him?

Berrios has average 5.375 innings per start. I would argue he does not give his team 7 good innings for the most part, being he does not average even 6. He also has a negative WAR this year, meaning in general any replacement level guy would have been better. You use Ryan as a comparison, who also average 5.35 innings, so nearly the same average, just had 4 less games in part due to COVID. He has been good for a 1 WAR so far this year. So he may only give the team 5 to 6 innings even when he is going good, not his call to come out of games, but his innings overall have been of better quality. Berrios when good has given 7 plus innings 6 times, or 25% of his starts. He has pitched 6 or 6 and partial in 6 more games. So half his games he pitches 6 or more innings. Of which all were quality starts. However, when he has not given a quality start, in half his outings, the other half has been pretty bad. He had a couple of near quality starts that the team won, but for most part half his games the teams has had to score a ton of runs because he has given up more than a run per inning pitched. I would say that is a far cry from 7 good innings for most part. Ryan has 7 out of his 20 starts meet the quality start term, but he has many that he pitched into 6th and was pulled, and only 1 of Ryan's starts this year did he allow more than 1 run per inning, a huge clunker of 10 runs in 4.2 innings. He has had a few not good giving up 1 run per inning or close to it, but for most part he has kept games close giving 5 to 6 innings. If Rocco let him go he maybe could have got a few more innings, but he is always quick to pull guys. Maybe if Rocco does not Ryan get blown up and looks more like a Berrios line has, or maybe not. Many of Berrios blow ups have been in just a couple of innings as well.

I personally feel their biggest issue with runners on base is lack of a plan at the plate for most of them. Buxton is one of the worst on our team with runners in scoring position. Despite pitchers having a different approach to him when runners on, he does not change his approach. His OPS with RISP is .625 with a OPS+ of 68. His overall is OPS i .830 with OPS+ of 130. He is hitting a lot of HR, but just not when runners are on. He has 11 HR with runners on, meaning he has 17 solo shots. He is just not driving in runs when he has the chance. I do not know if it is how pitchers pitch him when runners on, or he trying to do too much, but he is supposed to be the leader of the offense, but he is the biggest issue of driving in runs when RISP. Of the 11 with runners on, only 3 was with RISP. I agree someone needs to step up on offense and help carry the team. I know fans do not like the RBI stat anymore, but the fact is our leader has only 55. The only way you win is by driving in runs, so there still should be some value. If Buxton hit like he did with RISP all the time, we would be calling for him to be benched, or at least not DH every game he is not in CF. However, if he hit with RISP like he did without, he would be right up with Judge for MVP talks, driving in a ton of runs, and scoring even more.

I think it is a little early to call Lee a for sure steal, I mean it was not like he fell to end of first, like Trout did, and it is still very SSS. Also, there is only 1 player taken ahead of him in similar situation, that being a college SS/3B. At pick 6 was Jacob Berry, the rest of the players were pitchers or high school, so will be a long time to know if we got the better of the players. Berry is not off to good start like Lee, but again time will tell. That being said, I am happy with what I am seeing of Lee, and I expect his bat to move him quickly through system

Of course he can be better. I also think he will be better. I always like Berrios, but he never got over that hump and he was the default ace for us despite being an ace. He was always good, and in some games great. However, he has had poor starts, or in many cases just one poor inning that blows up quickly. Many times too quick to get a pitcher ready to come in and it gets out of hand quickly. This was not just for the Twins but has been even worse for the Jays this year. I want to be clear I am not Jose bashing, because he was very good for us, and above average pitcher. He just never became that dominate ace type that we knew every time out was a good chance to win. He normally was either great for the game or terrible, rarely in between, and as stated sometimes would turn very quickly. Only time will tell if SWR will be better than Berrios, and I guess more of the question is are you asking during the length of Berrios contract with Jays, or overall career? If we are talking over length of time of contract, so far SWR will not even need to pitch to have a higher WAR. If we are talking over full career he will only need a couple of great seasons to top the 10 WAR that Berrios is near. I feel fans thought more of Berrios than what he truly was.

Teams move up and down the list as players get called up or drafted. The biggest concerns come when you want to make trades that players are not highly thought of. I mean look at last year we traded for Martin and SWR. Some said we got great deal, but now, we are talking about how Martin is possibly a bust. Heading into 2020 Miranda was not on anyone's radar as a top prospect, but then he clicked in 2021 after minors got back and now talking about possible rookie of year. Prospects will rise and fall, but until they prove it in MLB all prospect ranks are good for is what other teams may think of certain players. It is possible every one of the guys we traded away in the last year do not pan out for the teams we went them to. The biggest concern is if year in year out you are in lower range but to drop after making a ton of trades is not surprising.

If you want to use even HOF player Pujols, how long do you want to extend Miranda? He is 24 now, we have him until he is 30 without buying FA years. So we offer say 100 over 10, which if he is betting on himself he would turn down in a heart beat because that would keep him until 34 and would never get a major contract after that. The fact he is 24 now makes it hard to project what he would be willing to take and what his arb years would be. I am guessing he will not want to buy out too much FA years without a big overpay on his early years. The reason I say this is Albert after age 30 started to drop in production. He was still hitting HR at a reasonable rate, but his defense fell, and his OPS dropped at 31, then more 32, then more 33, where it stayed stable around .780 for a few years, then low .700 or below where he was getting way overpaid. Now, if you think he will have the production of his age 25 to 35, and you think he would accept 10 year 100 mil, you would take that in a heartbeat. However, it is big gamble for both, because if he does put up Albert numbers, then he would be very underpaid, but if he falls flat then we are paying a lot for a poor player. I doubt either side reaches that many years of FA. I think only reason either side does deal is to know cost control, but I still feel we are ahead of us on a rookie that was never considered a top prospect until his breakout last year.

I am not a fan of signing guys that are rookies to long term deals. Maybe after year 2 I would be open to it. Not saying I expect a huge drop off, but this has burned some teams, and many times rookies have big seasons then league adjusts, or player tries to adjust and regresses. Not saying they are same player, but one example is Badoo for Detroit. Many fans here hated he was left in rule 5 to go to Tigers, and he had up and down rookie year, but many thought he would be even better this year, but he has been not even playable at MLB level. Now, Miranda has not regressed after his initial terrible start and short demotion. Something clicked and he has been good for months, without much regression. So hopefully he continues it for years, but I am not ready to just say he is a superstar for years to invest large amounts of money.

Just think he is still not in his prime. What is amazing for me is how quickly he adjusts to how teams have adjusted to him. He will go on a short skid and then boom I will start hitting the ball somewhere else. He will foul pitches off until he gets his he wants. This is not something most can do. He is a joy to watch.

I am pretty sure you can say this about just about every team. Not sure where Twins rank in innings per start, but league wide teams are asking less of their starters. I do feel Twins are on the little more extreme, but even our top starters average only 5 innings per start, not just Archer and Bundy. I also believe most teams will give their vets longer leashes based on prior track record. If you cut a guy after one or two bad games, you will never have people to put out there. I feel your article is a little off when it comes to Pagan, as he has not been in high leverage situation since the trade deadline, except for extra inning game where all the other guys where used already. They are not throwing Pagan out there in late innings but using him in lower leverage early outings, like yesterday when we needed more innings from pen. I just want to point out Rogers who, had amazing first 20 games, but since has been not very good, following your argument he should be cut and a FA now, and no team should look to use him, but he will continue to get chances because he has shown success in past, even early in this season. As it pertains to signing pen guys, they are more of a crap shoot than any other position. As pointed out Rogers was amazing over 20 games, and if he was a FA signing people would have said amazing signing, but now he is doing poorly, so he would be a bad signing. Look at Thielbar, early in year he had 2 terrible outings, and had about 2 or 3 bad outings since, but overall he has been pretty good. I am just pointing out that it is hard to judge how a pen is doing unless you look across the whole body of work, and they can have good and bad runs, so hard to judge them at any given time.

The issue I see is that even if Bundy or Archer is doing fine, Rocco pulls them after 4 or 5 innings based on how many times through order, or what the game score is. He pulls them for our better pen pitchers in fear they will blow the lead quickly. This is not just for them though. Bundy is around 5 innings per start, Archer around 4. But Ryan and Gray are both averaging basically 5 as well. Yes, Rocco will let them go 6 sometimes, but really, everyone has a "short" leash in Rocco world.

Judge may leave the Yankees. It may depend on how willing Yankees are to be over the tax. He turned down a big deal already. I have not looked into the payroll of Yankees for next few years, but they do have some big contracts already in Stanton, Cole, Donaldson. They still need to fill their rotation out with trading Montgomery, and Tallion being FA, Servino on IL. There may be a club willing to pay Judge more than what Yankees are willing to just because of tax level and other areas to fill in next year or two.

SWR since coming back from IL has been like he was at start of year. He started off 4 great games, to then have some ehhh games, then on IL, only to come back with 4 good games again. Not great, but he is showing maybe the bad games were in part injury related. Brooks Lee early numbers sure look like he will hit. He should break camp at AA next year and from there if he hits and there is a need he could be someone to force his way into lineup. I am not expecting he debuts next year, but if injuries arise and he shows his bat is MLB ready why not.