Trov

Players like Turner and Cruz are the exception to the norm that their prime is 27 to 30. Can Rooker buck the trend like them, sure, but he will need to get his chance and Twins are very deep in the areas Rooker would get time.

I have always been high on Thorpe and hope he can bounce back. I know last year was a hard year for him. It sounds like he took what was told to him to heart on how to be back in the conversation. Even if he never makes starting role lefties out of pen that can get right handers out now are always welcome. Arraez will always give you good at bats. He does not give them away and makes pitchers work. I love watching him hit. Sure he does not have the power or the speed, but he knows how to hit where they are not. When healthy I think he can compete for batting titles each year because he will hit was is given and will work the holes in the field. He does not walk a ton, but he also hardly strikes out either. I feel sorry for Rooker being stuck here. He is getting too old to be a prospect, and really has no room here. He should be DH mainly and think many teams would be happy with him there. However, unless Twins trade him or release, he is here until he is 31 I believe.

I had high hopes for Gordon when drafted. He was drafted high and scouts were expecting him to fill out and have speed similar to his brother but more power. Between injuries and long slumps he never showed big jumps, and other guys passed him by. I think he will contribute at the MLB level if not here somewhere. I doubt he will have Dozier type path, but I bet he has a few good years still. Just do not expect he will be around for a decade or more.

I hope Garver has some level of bounce back. I do not expect he will repeat 2019, not only because ball will be not as lively, but also teams showed last year they were pitching different too him. He talked about how he stays off of edge strike zone stuff and liked to attack fastballs early. Which scouting would see that too. Last year I saw a lot more off-speed early in counts and fastballs on edges late in counts. This led to him falling behind and not getting meatballs to hit. I hope the injuries he had last year did play into his lack of contact. I hope he gets value back and Twins can flip him for something. Not saying having 2 good catchers is not something to want, but they are not guys that will work as platoon and Garver will not be FA until after he is past prime. Many teams will be willing to take him on if he can hit for few years of cheap control. Jeffers is much younger and room to grow. Jeffers may lose some value when electronic zone comes into play because framing will not be a thing. However, I think part of framing is also being a good receiver for pitchers. I think the electronic zone may lead to a few more chases at times because hitters know it is all electronic and if they guess wrong they cannot hope the ump guesses wrong too. I could be wrong but I think some players will be more aggressive on the corners worrying about those that just clip the zone for a called strike.

I agree that should be an angle that gets into the games. Not sure why it has not yet. I mean they put base cams in games. It really shows how hard hitting a MLB pitch is.

People need to remember too that it is not up to Boras if and when a client signs a deal. He tries to get and it is up to his client if they will sign it. I have been stating for weeks that with the CBA coming up I expect major changes to it because over the last decade how teams are spending money has shifted a ton. The old rules of signing deals for players until they are in late 30's are no longer happening. There is advantage to players signing bigger deals earlier on. If the Twins want to piss Kirilloff, then manipulate his service time, then you will never get a good deal with him. At least I sure would never sign with a team that screwed me over to save a little bit of money, I would want to stick it to them later. Put the best team on the field, worry about 6 years from now later on. If he crushes for years and gets too expensive to resign well you get 6 good years. If he does not then who cares about 1 extra year. If Kirilloff hits well enough and healthy he should break with team. We are talking about keeping him down for a few weeks to have one more year of control over him, because we expect he will be so good that we will not be able to resign him. Bryant with Cubs was well publicized for this. There was huge talks about him not being tendered this year because he has been struggling last couple years. We have no clue how well Kirilloff will be playing in 5 or 6 years.

People hating on Max forget he is gold glove level defender in RF. Sure he may have lower offense than what people want, but do not undervalue his defense. Max has always had high hard hit rates with low BABIP, which has always been odd. I think it is because he is so pull heavy that teams can hone in to small spray area. Either way I off all the options in the division Max would be my choice still.

I think a good solution may be that all players are FA at age 27 season, if they turn 27 prior to season starting then it would be that year, kind of like how they do little league age thing. This would not matter how they were signed. Then there is no cheap 3 years thing, every year is arbitration year, but there is no requirement that money goes up. So if a player has a good year at say 23, they get a nice raise for the next season, but if they play bad then the next year it drops back down. Of course contracts can buy these years out. You could use something like WAR, not saying specifically that, but something like that to put them in pay brackets for arbitration. Then boom 27 regardless of how many years at MLB level they are FA. Part of plan would also take away option years, because there would be no need to require a guy being on MLB roster to get service time because they would be FA at 27 no matter what. This would eliminate no manipulation of service time for even keeping prices low. Only way you keep them low is if you do not play them. I know a lot of teams would not like this route because they could lose those 3 super cheap years and few cheaper years of MLB play, but with the elimination of option years there is no forcing a guy on the MLB roster if you feel he is not ready. No plan will be perfect and there will be flaws. I am sure this one does. I was mainly thinking on the fly without playing it out in my head how it can be exploited. The biggest issue I can see is college players will have much less time in organization, which may push teams to drafting them less unless they are MLB ready or nearly ready. Maybe there could be if they were college drafted you push to 28 or 29. This would lead to less guys picking college over signing as a HS drafted guy, but not worried about that in this plan.

I did read that after I posted my question. Thank you though. I was more worried he had it torn for awhile and was just pushing through possibly causing other issues. I know when I tore mine I could not walk for a few days or my knee would just buckle and I would fall down. I had no doubt it was tore the moment I did it. My cousin on other had did not know the first time he tore his because he was walking on it not problem. He tore his a second time just throwing a ball I watched it happen and it was crazy he threw a ball and was like huh my knee hurts I can barely walk. So crazy how that little ligament can be such a pain.

Roberts could be great, but at least on offense he is going to have to show he can adjust to the league. He started off super hot last year and by end of it was not looking too good. He had a great first month plus 7 games of July, but his second month was terrible. So who is the real Roberts? Somewhere in between most likely, but teams clearly adjusted to him for the second month after video and scouting. Will he adjust to them now or will he still struggle? I think he will bounce back and be a pain in the butt for years, but for how bad of a month he had if it was full season he would have got sent down most likely. In his last 23 games of season he slashed .136/.237/.409 with tOPS+ of 18. with K rate of 39.5%. That is not someone to fear in a lineup. His fielding has him average as well. If he is the August hitter he is MVP, if he is September hitter, he is hugely overpaid and should not even be in majors. Last year is so hard to judge on, but it shows he has 2 months of MLB time and has two drastic different stat lines.

I think some of the things you bring up as possible solutions could be viable. The flat years I think teams would like, but players would not, just as you pointed out it would make all players FA at same age, unless they are college players. If you want to go flat rate you need to add a college player years, or just say all players become FA at age 'x' The younger that is the more players would be for it, and less teams would. The issue you would run into the the arbitration thing is some teams will still keep guys in minors to save money, which is not good for the game or the players. For example, a bottom feeding team will not want to bring up a player to get some MLB experience knowing that will create a year of more money. They will keep a guy down if they know they have no chance to win, because it will be one more cheap year of the player. I would be against the awards taking a year off, because it would lead to teams resting players to keep stats down too, unless you were going for the ship. I mean why would a bottom feeding team want to play a guy to get possible award that takes a year from team control. Even worse, if it is that second to last year and out of no where boom they are FA. If you wanted to compensate and use WAR or something like that, give them bonus based on WAR. No matter the rules teams will try to find ways to exploit them to their advantage, and players will try to find ways as well. I do have a feeling this will be hot topic in new CBA.

I am wondering when Lewis tore his ACL if it was found on screening from knee issues coming in. It means he tore it before and was doing things on it without getting addressed. He does not need to get it repaired and some athletes have had careers without them. Hopefully this does not take away his potential defense down the road.

I would wait to say he needs to work on plate discipline, if you are attacking strikes early in counts and putting them in play you will not walk or strike out. So I would not look at those rates. Is he chasing pitches, that is what matters. If he is taking balls and hitting strikes who cares that he is not walking. I always hated when Joe would work count 3-0 with runners in scoring position then take a strike right down middle, then walk on next pitch. Sure his stats looked better because his OBP and walks were up, but he passed up on a good chance to drive a ball. What let a good pitch pass by? Joe would do it 0-0 too he would almost never swing. That was how he was, but as Ted Williams said key to hitting is to get a good pitch to hit and not miss. Sometimes that is 0-0, sometimes it is 3-2. Do not take good pitches to hit and do not swing at pitches you cannot hit. That to me equals good plate discipline.

Wonder if Johan will talk about downward planes and when a hit is given up no matter where the pitch was the pitch was "right there" like pitch location was the only reason for the hit. Oh Bert, how the years went by I learned you were just talking non-sense over and over. The Fox track box really made him look a fool the last few years.

I have been calling for no manipulation all winter. Glad you got data to help back that up. I was more on the optics side of why making clear manipulation of players is bad for CBA. Already the game has shifted as this article points out to younger players and 29 plus guys not getting the long term deals they used to. This has upset the players that used to get the 7 year deals at age 29 to 31. Now they are getting 2 year deals for much less money overall. It used to be if you can be good until your FA year you could cash in, and the mega stars would sign long term deals with opt outs at age 30, expecting another mega deal. Well FO rules changed learning there was a lot of bad money in those contracts and they have basically stopped. Throw in the manipulation of a year of service time and you get really upset players because you take one year of big money from them. Work stoppage will happen, and if teams are still manipulating service time it will just make players even more upset. If Kirilloff hits well in ST he needs to break with team to have the best lineup out there all season. Lets worry about 6 years from now, 6 years from now.

I expect he will be playing CF in the future. I think Twins will not extended Buxton after arbitration years, if they do not trade him before that. Lewis will move to CF, unless someone else would take that spot then Lewis will fill in wherever the biggest hole is.

If we have healthy Buxton we could live with Rooker in short bursts, but if Rooker is our starter in LF we will be in for some adventures in OF. He is basically a statute out there and teams will drool thinking of hitting balls his way. Eloy is similar bad defender. I am looking forward to having not Gordon in LF for royals stealing doubles away every game. Personally, I do not get why they put such poor defenders in LF for offense.

Buxton has always been someone that can be overcoached. He listens to everything and keeps trying to make little changes that just messes with him. He is one of the few I would say just go back to your basics that got you here. Personally, I wish he was a better oppo hitter. One, he could get so many triples if he could because of his speed. I wish he also understood him being on base is such a big thing. Pitchers fear him, and defenses worry about his speed. He is one the HR power pushes have hurt I believe. He will never grow to what we want on offense if he never learns to adjust to how he is being pitched. He thinks every pitch is a fastball it seems and gets burned on sliders away all the time. Even more so when runners are on base. That is where taking a moment to think hey I get pitched sliders outside like 90 percent of time when runner in scoring position. Maybe just take a pitch or two. Sure they may burn a fastball out there, but it could still be a ball, and unless you are looking to drive the ball to right field, who cares you will just pop it up most likely anyways. That is the main adjustment he needs to make.

For small market teams they need to decided are they going to push all in like KC did, or are they looking to stay a winning team for years but never have one of the best teams to make push in playoffs, similar to what they did in 2000's and what Oakland has done for decades. Personally, I am a fan of the latter for baseball, because getting into playoffs with the best team on paper means nothing. Just making playoffs is important and hopefully you can get hot. So risking long term success for a little bit better chance in playoffs for a single year is not worth it to me. How did Twins in 2000's and Oakland done it? They trade players before FA years and hope their prospects pan out. They keep reloading the farm system from trades and good scouting for drafts. It is not the splashy sexy moves people want to see, but it is sustainable of being good for years, just maybe not great. If you want to push all in like KC and Houston did, but Houston is not small market they just were not a good team. You need years of bad teams like Twins had, hope your high picks pan out, then sign FA and make bold trades that need to pan out, but give up your big prospect pool. You have a few years of winning but this makes those trades even more needed mid-season to fill holes because you committed to win now. Then when they all reach FA or get old you cycle back to losing for years. Big markets can try to win via FA and a few good draft picks, small markets need to hit on all FA, draft picks, and trades for most part.

I bet we see him this year when Buxton gets hurt, or if Kirolloff struggles. I am confused on why hitting opposite field is a bad thing though? Some of the best hitters all time were opposite field hitters. If pitchers just pound him inside he will have to adjust to that, but to me being able to hit opposite field is a good thing. Being dead pull generally can be a bad thing because pitcher like to pitch away a lot more than inside due to risk of hitting batter, and pull HR tend to be easier too. If he cannot adjust to inside pitches that could be a long term issue, but short term I am not concerned.

I do not expect any of the list players to do well enough in spring to break with camp, unless there are injuries to others. For the recent pickups they need to show they can contribute enough to provide depth for when injuries happen.

Simmons should hit well enough to make him the best in the division overall. Yes, Anderson will be the best hitting SS, but his defense is very poor with a lot of errors, not just lack of range. I still feel defense is important even with shifting and hope Simmons helps produce some wins on that side of things.

Now that you mention I do recall that, but that was after having terrible first part of year and not like he tore up minor leagues either. Sure they could have brought up in September, but not like he was forcing their hand to do so.

When the electronic zone comes in, I think within next 5 years, he will lose value because framing will be a thing of the past. Then blocking pitches and throwing runners out will be more important. I still think he will have value for years to come either way.

If he can change up his speeds on the fast ball to save a little, that will go a long way. I am not a fan of 5 pitches really I like 3 with the ability to change speeds on them to keep guys off balance. Really those 4th and 5th pitches get tossed so rarely they are kind of waste to work on. I have high hopes for him though.