Trov

Nice to see some not top guys off to a hot start. Ross I am not sold on a "prospect" but if he can continue to hit he could be a utility guy for a couple of years, but he is too old to be a true prospect at this point. He is about to be 25. That does not mean he cannot help the MLB club in the near future, just means he will not be getting any deals beyond his arb years. Jones he may be one of those later round pitchers that jump up the list now that he hast time to develop. Pena still has plenty of time to develop at 20.

As long as he keeps his speed he will continue to have value in baseball with an OBP like that. There are times a single is just as valuable as a HR. There are times just putting bat to ball can be as valuable as a HR. There is still value in a guy that can get on base at high clip, put ball in play at high clip, and run bases well. Yes, there are times you will not want him up compares to Wallner or Bell, but there are times you will want him over many others. If you are getting on base you are not getting out. Which means your team is still hitting. There is true value in that. Yes, it may take 3 hits to a score a run than just 1, but you can also score it with a walk, a stolen base, advance and score on 2 sac flies. Both have 1 hit, both have 1 run. There is also great value in his ability, and willingness to walk. Similar in lack of power but on base ability, Arraez never would really work walks. He would battle and put ball in play, but Martin is willing to walk. I feel a walk for a pitch just feels worse, than a bloop soft cheap single. Both have a similar result, but walking gets in the pitchers head more I feel. Also, Martin can steal bases, he is not great at it, hopefully that improves, but just getting on base and not getting out will always be good. Give me 9 guys that reach base at over .400 percent clip, and my guess you will have a decent offense. Even if you never hit too many HR or extra base hits, you still are not getting out, and the pitchers are throwing a ton of pitches.

In no way should how Bradly does affect how the old FO did in trades last year. Falvey is gone and we should not care if he made good or bad trades at this point. We can hope that trades work out for the future but why should we care that old FO did it? That being said, I have no issue ever trading a pen for a starter. Even more so when he is younger and same years of control. If a guy is doing fine as a starter you keep him there, but if not then you can try pen. But if they are failing out of the pen you do not say well lets make them a starter. The fact that Jax is having poor start and Bradley is having great start does make it look like a great trade, however, I still feel it was a fine trade overall even if Bradley moves back to his Tampa numbers and Jax to his Twins numbers. They provide nearly equal value in my opinion as Bradley pitches more innings.

He will last as long as the FO decides they want to keep him on the roster. He is the 5th OF as pointed out, and really just to fill in for day off for Buck or defense late in game in left. If there is an injury to any of the other 4, it is likely he will still fill that roll. Until the FO feels they could make better use of that roster spot he will be here.

Generally I would say the team is taking the risk on contracts that buy out the arb years and some of a FA year. The reason for teams to want to do it is to know they have a guy locked up and cost controlled, you can plan for it. However, you cannot do it too often because it will lock you into that player, or pay them not to play for you. The player has some risk to doing the contract, but like the Griffin contract extended how can a 19 year old turn down that? Will it cost him possibly 50 mil, maybe. Maybe even more. But if he tears his knee up tomorrow and never is able to play again, he still gets 140 mil. I do not know how often teams reach out for deal like this, and how often players turn them down. The other risk teams make is doing these type of deals is if you now have a position locked down, that may affect trades, drafts, and free agent signings in future. For example, if you sign a catcher to one of these, or a SS, you may be willing to trade a guy that is behind them at those positions, only to find they were the better player. If I ran a team I would only offer deals to very few select guys. Large market teams could do this more, but it makes sense for small market teams. Like the Pirates did with Griffin. He is hyped up, and they have 6 years of control before the deal, now they have 9. You also do not need to worry about service time or anything like that. In 5 years when he is 24, still getting into his prime you do not have to worry about a long term deal. In 8 years when he is in his prime they will, but his value will most likely be at his peak too. They will be unlikely to sign him, so they trade him at peak value. Could he be a bust sure that may happen, and then it will hurt them for years. But odds are they were going to run him out there anyways, it just would have been a lot cheaper.

For years RBI was look at as an important stat, but then there was strong push back on the stat because it was called an opportunity stat, and was not fair to judge players based on thing out of their control, like hitting with runners on. However, I still think we should take some value from the stat. Some people say "clutch" is not a thing you can measure, but I disagree. I feel the best hitters at minimum will hit the same no matter the amount of guys on base, and some may even do better. I think they are a small amount, and they should be considered clutch, and their RBI's should mean something. I am going to compare 2 HOF players, both played for Twins and have very similar batting numbers overall. Player A stats in RBI situations percent of RBI per PA. RISP= .359 runner on 3rd less than 2 outs = .657 Runner on 3rd 2 outs = .414 bases loaded = .932 Runners 2nd and 3rd .651 Player B stats in RBI situations percent of RBI per PA RISP=.392 runner on 3rd less than 2 outs = .722 Runner on 3rd 2 outs = .473 bases loaded = .874 Runners 2nd and 3rd .584 Player B over his career only hit a small amount of HR per PA more. Both also hit 3rd the majority of their career. To me there is a clear difference. Player B was the more clutch player as in the overall RISP and runner on third situations player be came up with more RBI per PA in those chances. The difference is more than the few HR that came up in those situations. Both did great overall, and player A even did better overall in bases loaded and the difference in bases loaded is Player A hit more doubles and took more walks. The biggest advantage for player A was the 2nd and 3rd, where they hit more HR in that situation. If you had to choose player A or player B to come up with a runner on 3rd and needing 1 run, who would you take? Player B clearly has the advantage. That is over a full career of chances for both players. I am sure you can guess who is player A and player B but I just wanted to do full numbers compared by percentage. Being the HR numbers are so similar career wise this negated the extra RBI a HR gives for knocking yourself in. I had started to compare a different non-Twins HOF player that hit too many HR compared to Player or B and that accounted for too much of the difference it would seem. HR and RBI have a direct connection of course, so comparing a guy that hit a ton more HR over career is got a good way to compare if one was more "clutch"

I will be honest, I have not done the research or anything, but I think for hitting prospects, the biggest area I look at is their K rate, and K to BB ratio to help determine their ability to hit at higher levels. Yes, there are other areas, but without watching, if you want to just get a good overview I feel that is a big area to look at. Why is that? Specifically, it helps show at the lower level if they are chasing pitches, and if they are able to find good pitches to hit. For example, if you have a low K rate, then you at minimum are making contact. This does not mean it is always good contact, but no much swing and miss in at bats. Maybe they attack pitchers early though. If the K to BB ratio is good, then that generally means they do not chase much, and can stay off pitches they do not like. If both are combined that can be a good combo. Of course like any stat they need to be taken in combo with others, but I feel it tells more of a story than just something like HR. Is there an area you think tells a better story at first glance? I would never judge a guy just on one stat, but some I feel tell more about them than others.

SSS hot start, good for him, hope he keeps it up. I was one that was saying DFA/non-tender all off-season. Maybe he can carve out the platoon hitter role here and build up some trade value. He is too redundant in our line up to want to stick long term with, and being he will be 30 next year we can expect future drop off, not that it was great before.

I think sending him down to AAA for Culpepper soon and give him the chance to make the adjustments down there. It is hard to make adjustments like they want at the MLB level when you are facing the best breaking balls in the game. You need to work up to it. So send him down, tell him our plan is to work on staying away from pitches out of the zone and punishing the breaking balls in the zone as best we can. His defense is not good enough to also carry a bad bat too.

Do you not want your best hitters to be hitting with guys on base? So if you put your best hitter number 1, does that increase or decrease someone will be on base and in scoring position for them, as opposed to batting 3rd or 4th? I get if your best hitter hits lead off, he will get more at bats than anyone else. However, if those at bats are in less impactful situations, bases empty, versus people on base, does it help the team win? You have the 8 and 9 guys hitting down there because they are your worst hitters, which means your best hitter will have less at bats with runners on base for him. This seems counter to what you want. So you say well they will more likely get that at bat in the 9th inning. So we plan a line up for the expectation that once in awhile we will have a 1 run game in the 9th to have my best hitter come up. But if my best hitter was maybe hitting 3rd, with 2 good on base guys in front of him, the hit he got early in the game may have created more runs, not requiring him to come up down a run in the 9th, but actually with a lead. I guess I am more old school that I like having runners on base for my big bats and not just hope to get a solo HR to start an inning, or a walk and let the guys behind hopefully drive them in.

I never understood the signing either. You add in Bell as a 1st base, you have plenty of options at DH, so you spend big on a catcher/1st base guy that is not an above average hitter. He actually is career below average hitter, close to average. You had a backup catcher already and had options at first. The signing made no sense.

This has been the least excited I have been for a Twins season in a long time. The roster construction is not good, and Shelton does not strike confidence, as he has failed with a bad roster in Pittsburg, and now we have a similar poor roster. When you go around the diamond we have below average players all over, but they have been considered our best. I would agree I would like to see Martin on a more regular roll, not just against lefties, as early on he has been the only bright spot hitting. I know it is SSS and a couple of hot games will flip things. Bell has been okay as well. I hope that they can start to look like a reasonable team but I feel like this is going to be a fight for the bottom and trading Jeffers and Ryan at the deadline with a call up of the top prospects later in the year to give something to watch.

I want to ask why does Caratini and Clemons just deserve to be put into line up? I ask because it seems like they will get as many at bats as can be had. Caratini is a career OPS+ of 90. Clemons is Career OPS+ of 80. Even in his "breakout" year where Twins finally gave the guy a shot, as the broadcast loves to talk about, it was OPS+ 91. How can below league average hitters just be given all the at-bats we can give them? I mean if that is the plan this year I feel like I should stop watching now. I was upset that both Clemons and Larnach were on the team, as I feel both are easy replaced with guys that have higher upside. At least with Larnach his bat has been league average over his career, but if that is worth putting league average in field but below average defender we have to be able to find better in our dozen out field guys we got. Caratini may be okay on offense, but really he needs to get a DH every time he is not catching? I sure hope we see some shake up in roster in the coming weeks as the minor league guys show something. When you need to make room for two career below average hitters, with hardly having double digit HR power over their careers you are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It is nice to see a few possible starters at AAA that could help when injuries hit. We have 4 possible outfielders and 1 infielder I am excited to see. The rest is typical AAA filler of vets or old minor leaguers that are not really prospects. The real question is can Jenkins and E-Rod stay in the lineup to push themselves into the lineup. I wonder how much run Larnach, Outman, Wallner, Martin, and Clemons(since he played OF yesterday) will be given before calling anyone up. Assuming one of the 4 outfielders in AAA are doing well, I hope Larnach and Outman do not get a ton of run as the guys in AAA are mostly redundant left handed hitting OF. Only Jenkins is a true CF in the group in AAA. Gonzalez does provide a right hand bat possibly. I would hope if Culpepper is doing well he gets a call sooner than later for Clemons and let Lee move into the Clemons roll. Of course there will be injuries that will shake things out as well.

I would agree the roster building at the deadline, and in the off-season created a huge log jam in the OF. We do not know if Falvey had a different plan that never happened due to his leaving. I said all along Larnach should have been DFA as we had too many guys that could replace him for cheaper. For some reason he was not. Now he is getting paid and that added to the log jam. Outman was going to get a shot over Roden due to this. The problem for all three is that extra OF guys are easy to find in the open market. My guess is if Outman struggles to play well in first few weeks will be on a short rope because he will be easier to sneak through waivers if they want.

I remember when Hunter was roaming CF in the early 2000's and Web Gems was on the nightly baseball tonight. I loved watching his highlight catches, along with other players making highlights. It is entertaining. However, when players are looking lost in the OF letting balls drop, making terrible throws all over the field it is boring to watch. I do not have much faith in this defense as it stands.

I agree, it is possible to have a non-base stealer in your lead off, and still steal bases generally on the team. However, what my point is that if you are putting a "slugger" that will hit HR or walk as your main leadoff guy, then it will tell more about the team philosophy as a whole. There are times, you will not be seeking a to have the lead off guy steal, due to having them not on the bases for your middle of line up. However, if they are slow plodding guys that will not even do first to third, they will clog the bases as well for the 2 hitter and 3 hitter. It would make sense that Carrol would steal more as the 3 hitter than the lead off, because if he reaches with 2 outs you want him to steal second to increase the chance he scores in first inning. However, he still is a guy that can steal, will go extra bases. I am not saying the lead off guy has to be a guy that will steal a ton of bases, but if you put just an on-base guy that will not take extra bases generally, then your team is most likely a team that will look to hit HR for scores over finding other ways to score. Is it 100% that way, no just as in anything there will be outliers, but I believe we will be able to glean a bit from who Shelton puts in the lead off spot on how he will generally manage. Will this be day 1, of course not we will need to see a couple of weeks of games to see the trends.

When I was writing a comment on another post I was thinking about how constructing your line up tells a lot about what you think about base running as a whole. In particular base stealing. In the old days the lead off guy was generally one of your fastest guys that could steal a ton of bases. You did not care how he got on, because odds were he was going to be at second quickly in the next at bat. Maybe it did not always work out that way that was the plan. Now, the new thought is was want our best on base guy, regardless of speed, and if possible a big bat leading us off to get that quick HR or at least on base for the guys down the line up. Kyle Schwarber is one of the most famous new style lead off guys. He has 516 games at lead off in his career, with only 16 stolen bases. He has hit 46 HR to start a game in his career, with 17 doubles and 1 triple. He does get on base at about a .350 clip to start games. (this is not his career states in the 1 whole just in first at bats of games) He has struck out at about a 30% clip as well. I do not know what kind of base runner he is in terms of a 1st to third type, but when you have a guy like that leading off, you are saying we are looking to get guys on and hope for the big blast to bring him in, if he did not do it himself. There is no plans to steal, advance a guy and get a run in by getting ball in play. To me, if you are setting your line up like that, you are not looking to take the extra bases, stealing, or trying to do the little things to help you win. I am all for having power guys, but when your whole plan is to always hit HR to score, you are leaving a lot of chances on the table. That was one thing I never liked about Rocco was he was the big HR is the best way to win. Sure, when it works, but when you are hitting the long balls you need to find other ways to win. Having a mix of guys, some that can steal bases, get the first to third, advance on balls in dirt that were not very wild, or just be aggressive to draw throws can help the team a ton. When you plan to play 90 feet at a time, it makes it hard for offenses to win unless you get the big extra base hits. Back in the day, there were guys that were not big extra base hit guys, but they still did not need to string 4 hits together to score, they took their extra bases other ways. Extra bases are the keys to winning, because getting 4 singles/walks, to score 1 run is not viable offense, but there more other ways to get the extra bases that are not just on hits. Stealing bases, hitting the ball to RF with runner on first to get 1st to 3rd. Getting a guy over to 3rd with less than 2 outs and getting them in by making contact. Do you want all 9 guys to be that way, most likely not? But having 9 3 true outcome guys is just as bad in my opinion.

I am not predicting who, as I have not watched any spring games this year, but it will be telling on what kind of manager Shelton is depending on who he picks. If we see Wallner or Jeffers we know he is very heavy analytics and we can expect basically Rocco type moves most of the time. Maybe not always, but we will see a lot of that. If it is more Lee or Keashall or Martin then we can see more old school type manager. I am not saying either is better, personally I like a hybrid, a mix of both old school feel, and new data driven. It might also be a reflection on how important base stealing will be to Shelton. If you got Jeffers against lefties leading off, like Rocco did, you are saying stolen bases mean nothing, I want the guy that can get on base hoping Buck will hit a bomb later that inning.

I never take any stalk in spring numbers when it comes to vets, even more so vet pitchers. They normally spend the spring working on new pitch or just getting back into season mode. They are never going to look to bear down to get a strike out or something like that.

Jenkins has now a hamstring strain, grade 1, so the least serious, but still will be shut down for a period of time, and these can linger. This is now three years in a row that the kid has been injured in spring. I am wondering what is he doing in the off season that he is getting injured in spring with soft tissue issues. In 2024 he had quad strain, last year ankle, and this year hamstring. Ankle is not soft tissue, but it kept him out a long time too. I am not concerned he is not developing as much as I am concerned he will be another top guy that just cannot stay on the field. Just like Buck and Lewis have. The hype is there, but if he cannot stay on the filed it will not matter.

I believe Santana will get in on the vets committee one year. He should have been voted in. The reason he did not was because he did not have the three cy youngs as noted, and did not have a wins used to be required. I have long compared him to Koufax as their numbers are nearly identical over their careers. Santana actually had higher WAR according to baseball reference. Santana threw 300 innings less so over a season worth, even based on the era of Koufax, who only topped 300 1 time. They each pitch in part of 12 seasons. They each had 4 dominate seasons There are 3 big differences to point out. Koufax ended is career on a high note, and it ended due to injury. Santana tried to come back from injury and his last few seasons he was a shell of his top self. Koufax started off his career bad, like really bad, but when he hit is prime he crushed. Two, Koufax won WS, Santana could not get his team passed the first round. Three Koufax pitched in LA, and Santana's prime was in Minnesota. I fully believe when the vet committee votes for Santana's era, they will get him in where he deserves to be.

Molitor by far was not known for his fielding. He spent the first half his career at 2b and 3b but was average defender at best. He then moved to 1B and DH the second half his career. What he could really help guys with would be base running. Despite not being a speed guy he was one of the best base stealers of his time. He was 79% success rate, with over 600 attempts. Ricky Henderson, the all time leader was 81% success rate, at like 3 times as many attempts. Lou Brock number 2 all time was only 75%. Overall Molitor was great at base running for not being a speed guy. He could really pass that along to this team, that speed is not the only thing you need to steal bases, but picking the right spots and getting the right jumps.

This is not about the Twins in specific, but all middle of the road payroll teams, and the half in half out plans many seam to run with. The recent letting go of Falvey got me thinking about it though. First, with baseball being uncapped and no floor each team can pay whatever they feel comfortable with. Before the 1995 strike most teams resigned their free agents if they were star players, and really it was the mid level guys or vets that still wanted to play a couple more years that did much movement. Rarely did you see a star leave the team that drafted them for a big contract. That is in part because owners had an unwritten rule they would not try to sign them like that. Then the strike happened, and the gloves came off. Then big time free agents started getting record deals over and over. The Yankees had many of them, but many teams stepped up. The Rangers, Red Sox, Seattle, and many others would make splashes. Gone were the draft, international signings, and trades to build your teams, the superstar free agents were the wave. You can debate if that worked out well or not, I normally argue it has not. However, it lead to the "rebuilding" for small and mid-market teams overall. The big market teams would keep throwing money at their roster holes each year, but the small and mid-market teams started to do the "playoff window" rebuild routes. You would see teams lose for several years, some even on purpose (Houston) to build up draft classes and international signing pools to then say "all-in" when the time was right. KC did to success, Houston did it too(despite not being a small or mid-market team). Oakland would pop up from time to time, Tampa was floating on finding the diamonds in the rough and fleecing bad GM's in trades, Bill Smith of Twins being one of them. The Twins had an approach that they wanted to be relevant year after year and not go the "rebuild" to "all-in" approach as some smaller to mid-market teams doing. This led to playoff loss after playoff loss and never having a team people thought would win it all. Then Falvey came in and it was more of the same, one foot in and one foot out. He would try to sign some bigger names, that never worked out all that well in the long run, he made some big trades and would trade the vet for prospects and then prospects for vets shifting pieces all around. He never did a full all in, or full rebuild. I think that was the plan keep them relevant but do not over risk. So that brings me to the question on the title, can a mid-payroll team win it all? Can a team not committed to going all in or full rebuild really make a run? We saw in years past the Marlins do the all in, spend huge for one year be a big splash and then sell off guys to try and do it again the future. We saw KC win it all after doing a long rebuild then went all in to try and get one more title, only to lead to another long rebuild. I would say if you can make the playoffs anything can happen, even more so in baseball, but constantly not drafting top talents leads to blah teams. I do not think the half in measures will ever lead to big success in seasons, and I personally prefer the ups and downs of rebuilding waves. Sure you have a couple of bad years, but it can lead to excitement when all the young kids come up through the system together and win at the same time. Then frustration when it gets tore down to the studs again. Is that better than seeing late season collapses? I guess it is up to your preference. Either way, I do not think a team can have long term success sitting in the middle. Either spend on the FA to stay relevant, or go full youth movement with low payroll for awhile.

The timing of this move suggests the new owners, and new leader from the Pohlad family gave a mandate to Falvey to do something, most likely continue the fire sale that started last year, and he pushed back on it. I think it is the new owners that did most of the pushing. If Pohlad family planned on doing this you do at end of season, not have him hire the new manager, go through winter meetings, arb process, and most of the off-season, spring training is coming up in a couple of weeks. Say what you will about Falvey and his moves, he always appeared to try to keep the team relevant even when trading established players away he would trade prospects to bring in established players. It was a lot of shuffling with no all in or full rebuild. Not sure if that was how Twins wanted it or he did. I think it is how he wanted it, because it is how Cleveland, where he came from, has done it, and Tampa Bay as well to some extent. I think he knew that he was near the end, and did not want to make any major moves based on mandates of owners that could affect his future with other teams.