John Bonnes

Aaron and John talk about potential Byron Buxton and Jose Berrios contract extensions, Jake Odorizzi signing with the Astros, Trevor Larnach as an underrated prospect, Andrelton Simmons reporting to camp, and the Twins' late-inning bullpen plan. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. Play Gleeman and the Geek Now Click here to view the article

FORT MYERS - Today, Byron Buxton revealed his agent discussed a contract extension with the Twins earlier this week. What would a deal with Buxton look like and can it make sense for both sides? Click here to view the article

FORT MYERS - There are some positive signs for Mitch Garver this spring. Click here to view the article

FORT MYERS - Jorge Polanco knows something you don’t know.Every thrust is countered by a parry. For every style change, there is an answer. The Man in Black is winning this duel, and so there is no point in not admitting it. “You are better than I am,” concedes Inigo Montoya. “Then why are you smiling,” asks the Man in Black, quizzically. “Because I know something you don’t know,” replies Montoya, slyly. “I am not left-handed.” You knew something was wrong with Jorge Polanco. Why was he swinging with only his arms? Why was he trying to slap the ball the other way? Where was the guy who hit 22 home runs the year before? Now he’s Ben Revere – with less power? Something was, indeed, wrong. The right ankle on which he had surgery following the 2019 season hadn’t healed, or at least the surgery had not taken care of the problem that slowed him over the latter half of the season. “After the first surgery, I did my rehab stuff and we got into the season and I felt, right away, during the season, that I wasn't feeling good on my ankle in games,” Polanco revealed last week. “I knew it, and when I went to see the doctor again a couple of months before the season was over, he said they'd require a second surgery." A couple months before the season was over? Uh, the 2020 season was only two months long. Meaning Polanco knew for most of the season that he would require surgery. Until then, he would have to deal with it impacting one very specific aspect of his game. “It didn't feel good, hitting left-handed”, Polanco says. “I think that was one of my problems last year - that I couldn't get good at-bats hitting left-handed. But this year, it's feeling pretty good." Polanco is a switch-hitter, but like Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, he has a dominant side at the plate. Unlike Inigo Montoya, it’s his left side: Download attachment: Polanco's Splits.PNG It’s not been close. From 2017-2019, Polanco’s OPS averaged 150 points higher on the left than the right. Better batting average, better patience, and a boatload more power. But last year, while you focused on overall numbers that scared you into thinking his early performance in 2019 was a fluke, there was a positive trend. Polanco actually hit better right-handed then he did the year before. In fact, you see a pretty clear trend in Polanco’s OPS over his career on both sides of the plate: it keeps going up. except for the injury-marred at-bats from the left side last year. That overall trend makes further sense because Polanco enters the season as a 27-year-old. He’s on the right side of the aging curve. You might think it’s always a convenient narrative to blame an unproductive year on an injury. You’re right, but his manager has also noticed a difference. “His right-handed swing felt fine. His left-handed swing did not”, says Twins manager Rocco Baldelli about Polanco last year. And Baldelli also notices a difference in camp this year, too. “Right now we don't have to worry about any of that.” But let’s step out of the fairy tale for a moment. Polanco’s first half of 2019 was certainly a bit surprising, and some regression could be expected. However, the data supports a compelling narrative: that Polanco is a player trending upwards who was anklecapped (Is that a word? We’re going with it.) by an injury that affected 75% of his at-bats in a shortened season. Of course, there could be another surprise still to come. You’ll recall that the Man in Black revealed a little later that he was also not left-handed, defeated Montoya, and continued his quest to save Princess Buttercup from the inconceivably ruthless Vizinni. Still, the underestimated Montoya, after preparing for 20 years, ultimately had his day. Polanco may not get his revenge against the six-fingered man, but maybe he’ll rebound from a injured 2020 to once again be a productive major leaguer, as you dare to hope. Or maybe he’ll be much more than that - as you wish. Don’t rule out him living happily ever after. Click here to view the article

FORT MYERS - There aren’t a lot of meaningful spring training battle in Twins' camp on the field, but there may be one in the lineup.The pivot point in the Twins' lineup comes early, very early. It’s the leadoff hitter. Go one direction, and the lineup looks one way. Go the other, and it looks very different. For the last two years, that leadoff hitter has mostly been Max Kepler, but coming into the season, there were two significant challenges to that status quo: Luis Arraez Is Healthy Arraez is expected to get a lot of at-bats as a multi-positional player. Arraez isn’t exactly a prototypical leadoff hitter because he doesn’t walk a ton, and doesn’t bring a lot of speed to the bases. But he battles and he gets on base: at a .390 clip in his 487 career plate appearances. Arraez is fearless, and an asset almost anywhere except the heart of the lineup. “He's an on-base machine, a line-drive machine," gushed Twins manager Rocco Baldelli this week. “He's a throwback. You don't see a lot of guys with the skills he does with the bat in his hands.” An on-base machine would be a logical fit for the top spot in the lineup. Especially when the left-handed hitting 23-year-old would likely bat right in front of right-handed hitting Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz. Eddie Rosario Is Gone The Twins have a hole to fill in the middle of their lineup with the departure of left-handed hitting Eddie Rosario. Rosario batted fourth for the vast majority of his plate appearances the last two years. He’ll likely be replaced in the outfield with left-handed hitting Alex Kirilloff, but odds are the Twins would thrust cleanup on a rookie making his (regular season) debut this year. With Rosario gone, the best left-handed hitting Twins' batter is Kepler. (He probably was before Rosario left, too.) So he makes a lot of sense to bat cleanup, but – follow me here – he’s not allowed to do that if he’s batting leadoff. I know, it’s a silly rule. In the Twins first four spring training games, Kepler has lead off twice and Arraez has lead off twice. Baldelli is notorious for not tipping his hand when it comes to lineups, and this year is no different. But it’s clear he recognizes the luxury having both affords him. “Two different hitters, but two guys that can certainly be productive at the top of the order, Baldelli said, talking about Arraez and Kepler. “One thing they both do well is they both see the ball well. They are hitters that see the ball and then react. They're not in swing-first mode like a lot of guys can get into that mode.” There is not bad answer. Some might wonder since Arraez is slated for a utility role, whether the decision takes care of itself? But Kepler has played in 89% of all the Twins games since 2017, and Baldelli is vowing to make sure that Arraez will get as much run as any other regular. So odds are there is going to be significant overlap in the playing time of the two. It should also be mentioned that theoretically, Kepler and Arraez are not the only options. Mitch Garver and Jorge Polanco have both been in the leadoff spot over the last two years, and it’s possible that would be the case against some pitchers. Byron Buxton, if he ever raises his ability to get on base, would certainly be electric out of that spot. But Kepler and Arraez seem to be the top options, and they’re the only two we’ve seen lead off so far in spring training. So if you’re looking to track a spring training battle from afar this spring, here’s your chance. Arraez and Kepler haven’t been in the same lineup yet, but one would think that would certainly give a clue to what Baldelli is thinking. Until then, build your lineup, maybe starting in the comments below, and see if you can settle this leading question. Click here to view the article

FORT MYERS - You had questions. We had answers. Seth, Nick, Ted, David, Matt and the Twins Daily community peppered John with questions on Tuesday night about every Twins spring training topic under the sun. Now you can watch it all.Watch the show here: Click here to view the article

PORT CHARLOTTE - The Twins defeated the Rays 6-5 in a road game that featured a number of Twins’ players’ 2021 debuts. We saw Lewis Thorpe (and maybe as importantly, Lewis Thorpe’s velocity), Luis Arraez and Brent Rooker for the first time this spring. The results were encouraging.Lewis Thorpe Thorpe didn’t have the cleanest first inning – he walked his first batter and hit another in the head - but the pitches that we’ve heard about this spring were all on display. Most noticeably, the velocity that had deserted him last year has returned, as he was consistently throwing his fastball at least 90 mph, reaching 93 mph on occasion. Asked about the variation, he explained “Sometimes I just try to groove [the slower version] in there and if I really want to let one rip, the 93 is in the back of the tank somewhere.” His offspeed stuff was similarly impressive. He relied several times on a mid-70s curveball that he threw as a first-pitch-looking strikes to batters. His slider was a little less reliable, but good enough to strikeout the last batter he faced in an efficient second inning. He finished with two strikeouts and no runs over two innings. Tuesday the Twins will be playing the Braves on the road, and if you would like to follow along, follow @TwinsDaily on Twitter. Click here to view the article

Aaron and John talk about Royce Lewis' knee injury, the Twins' first spring training game and the presence of fans at the ballpark, Alex Kirilloff's chances of being on the Opening Day roster, Lewis Thorpe's improved outlook, and why Jake Odorizzi is still unsigned. You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link. Listen Here Now Click here to view the article

The stakes for spring training games have never been this high.The game itself was even less meaningful than most spring training games, if that’s even possible. But the event, with an estimated 2154 fans attending a live baseball game while a nation limps towards a COVID finish line has repercussions throughout the baseball world. It also likely gives a glimpse as to what we might expect at Target Field this year. It starts hours before fans enter the stadium. Lot of disinfectant is brandished on handrails. For what it’s worth, the restrictions don’t seems to be keeping people away from the ballpark. There were tickets made available to the general public on Thursday. They sold out within a matter of a couple of hours, even though the games are only seven innings long. What’s more, we’ve been warned to expect some other quirkiness, such as we saw yesterday when the Twins batted in the bottom of the seventh – with the lead. Whatever. The crowd just wanted baseball. And baseball wanted the crowd. It was noticed by the players, particularly Twins starting pitcher Devin Smeltzer. “I get out early as you guys know,” Smeltzer admitted. “I heard some fans, and some normalcy out there. It was pretty emotional. I got choked up a little bit.” He wasn’t the only emotional one in Hammond today, but most of the emotions I witnessed were some mixture of joy and relief and maybe a little wonderment at how good meaningless baseball can feel. Or maybe it wasn’t so meaningless. Certainly the efforts to bring it back were not. It required some reasonable attempts to solve a difficult problem, while keeping an eye on some widespread repercussions. As my hot dog vendor said “If we screw this up, it could mean no fans for all of baseball.” Overall, it didn’t look like they’re overtly screwing it up, and it gave me a lot of hope that we’ll have some similar experiences in Minnesota this summer. Click here to view the article

Last year’s Twins’ bullpen spread around the most critical innings, and the relievers’ Leverage Index (LI) shows that.Perhaps it was matchups. Perhaps it was the depth of the bullpen. Or perhaps it was just coincidence. But last year’s Twins’ bullpen spread around the pressure inherent to holding close leads like almost no other Major League team, steering away from the closer-dominated hierarchy we talked about in Part 1. And you can see it using the sabrmetric stat Leverage Index (LI) that we detailed in Part 2. Here are the Twins’ qualified relievers, the average Leverage Index they faced when entering a game, and where they ranked in LI in MLB overall. Name gmLI MLB Rank Taylor Rogers 1.69 19 Sergio Romo 1.62 24 Tyler Duffey 1.61 25 Trevor May 1.36 53 Tyler Clippard 1.24 73 Caleb Thielbar 1.04 100 Jorge Alcala 0.65 146 What are you looking at? As we saw yesterday, any LI over one indicates a more-dangerous-than-average situation. Six of the Twins qualified relievers had an LI greater than one. No other team in MLB had that many. In fact, the Twins actually had eight relievers. Matt Wisler (1.11) and Cody Stashak (1.05) both also had LI over one, but just missed the “qualified” designation by a couple of innings. Baldelli shared his high leverage situations throughout the bullpen, not relying on a couple of guys to carry the load, like other teams. Alternately, you can see that the Twins look like they mostly protected rookie Jorge Alcala from those situations. Now look at how bunched together those top three relievers are, and how high up they rank compared to all MLB qualified relievers. There are 30 teams, but the Twins had three relievers in the top 25 in average LI? Yep. Toronto is the only other team that had three relievers in the top 35. Toronto is also the only other team that had four pitchers in the top 55, like the Twins did. They’re also the only team to have five pitchers in the top 75, like the Twins did. The bunching of the Twins becomes more obvious when you look at the average LI each of the Twins top relievers faced, compared to the average LI the same pitcher faced on other teams. Name gmLI Ave MLB gmLI Taylor Rogers 1.69 1.70 Sergio Romo 1.62 1.37 Tyler Duffey 1.61 1.22 Trevor May 1.36 1.03 Tyler Clippard 1.24 0.86 Caleb Thielbar 1.04 0.77 Jorge Alcala 0.65 0.69 Rogers faced about average situations for the #1 ranked person in the bullpen compared to other teams. And Alcala faced about the same as the sixth ranked guy in the bullpen. But Romo, Duffey, May, Clippard and even Thielbar all were brought into games at significantly more crucial moments than their peers on other teams. In short, Baldelli spread the wealth among the relievers in his bullpen. He is finding spots to use even the fourth and fifth best relievers that impact a game, and likely help them grow, and you can see that using LI. You can also see that using LI if you take a look at individual pitchers’ game logs. So we’ll do that next. Next: Using LI to see how Baldelli is trusting individual pitchers. Click here to view the article

FWIW, there's definitely a growing sense among the beat writers here that the Twins might play this straight up so Kirilloff has a real chance to be on the Opening Day roster. I have trouble believing that. But we'll see.

FORT MYERS - Your blood pressure is the key to the Twins' bullpen. Kinda.Wednesday we talked about the movement away from the closer dominant hierarchy that has ruled MLB bullpens since the 80s. The Twins are leading that movement, and were surprised to find reliever Tyler Duffey casually drop the sabrmetric stat Leverage Index (LI) in an interview. It’s useful for understanding the changes the Twins bullpen is making, so let’s learn a little bit about it. If you were hooked up to a blood pressure monitor while watching a baseball game, the readings would look a lot like Leverage Index. Things get tense, and Leverage Index goes up. Things relax, it goes down. In fact, Leverage Index is easier than blood pressure – it’s not two numbers over each other. It’s a single number that you compare to 1, which is an average MLB at-bat. Lower than one, your blood pressure is probably OK. If it’s over one, you’re sitting forward in your seat. If it’s over two … maybe just keep the defib handy. That’s because Leverage Index estimates how important an at-bat is in a game – before the actual at-bat happens – and does so objectively. For instance, you and your potential myocardial infarction know that an at-bat when your team is up by four with one out in the bottom of the fifth inning and the bases empty (LI=0.2) is less important than a one-run lead in the top of the ninth with one out and runners on the corners (LI=5.7). You don’t need LI to tell you that. But how about this? On August 22nd last year, the Twins were facing the Tigers. Leading 2-1, Trevor May walked Niko Goodrum in the sixth inning to load the bases with two outs, and was replaced by Tyler Duffey. Later, when the game went to extra innings, Taylor Rogers started the top of the 10th, which meant he started it with a runner already on second. So which reliever was brought into the game at a more critical time? According to Leverage Index, Duffey was. It was his highest leverage appearance of the season. It had an LI of 4.51, which means it was 4.51 times more important of an at-bat than an average at-bat. Rogers’ was important, too, but it was just 2.5 times more important than an average at-bat. (By the way, neither reliever got very lucky in that game. Duffey had the tying run score on an error and Rogers watched a ground ball squirt between short and third to lose the lead. But the Twins won the game on a walkoff hit by Max Kepler in the bottom of the tenth.) The bad news is that it takes a lot of computational power to devise LI values. But the good news is that someone else already did that for you. So if you’re really interested in how LI is devised, dive into this next italics area. Otherwise we’ll meet again at the bottom. How To Compute Leverage Index Chart several decades of play-by-play for MLB games and determine the probability a team has for winning a game in all specific situations. For instance, if you found that road teams that were down by one with runners on the corners and one out in the seventh won 48 out of 100 games, then their chance of winning would be 48%. Do this for all run differentials, innings, outs and men on base situations.Now for all those, figure out what could happen next. In the example above, they could hit a single, scoring the runner from third, moving the other runner over, and likely increasing their chance to win. Or he can hit into a double play, ending the inning, scoring nobody, and decreasing their chance to win. Both are pretty big outcomes. So is striking out, or hitting a home run, or all the other things that can happen. Now establish odds of all those scenarios happening, and multiply them by the absolute value of the differences from Step 2.Do the same computation for all the at-bats in a game. Use that to determine what the average difference is over a whole game.For each scenario, divide #3 by #4. If it’s over 1, it’s higher (and more tense) than average. If it’s lower, it’s lower than average.Fortunately, somebody already did all this computation for you and now it’s just sitting in a table for you to access. His moniker is Tom Tango, and he invented LI, and a big table of the LI for every situation is available here. If you want to dive further into LI, you can also find a primer (that is far more detailed than I provided) here on Fan Graphs. While you’re there, you can find average LIs for various pitchers on their player pages. For instance, the Twins relievers, sorted by the average LI they faced when they entered a game last year is here. That seems like a good place to start tomorrow, as we take another look at whether Baldelli is truly treating his bullpen differently than most other managers, by looking at LI. Next: Using a Bullpen With Leverage Click here to view the article

FORT MYERS - We thought we knew what was going on in left field. We do not. Which is just SO left field.The English language is full of idioms that have a relationship to baseball. “Out of left field” is one of them. It essentially means “crazy” or at least “unexpected” but its origin is debated. Some point to an early New York ballpark that had a sanitarium beyond the left field wall. Others think it labeled the kids or fans that purchased a (cheaper) ticket to watch Babe Ruth in left field at Yankee Stadium. Except that Ruth played in right field. While they were out in left field. [sad trombone sound] Today, its usage transcends the sport, so much that almost nobody recognizes it as being attached to baseball. Honestly, before this minute, have you ever even tied it to baseball? Or wondered where it came from? I hope not, because I’m about to use it both figuratively and literally…. We got some news out of left field today. Due to the financial and team-control benefits of limiting a player’s service time, most of us expected #1 Twins prospect Alex Kirilloff to start the season in AAA-St. Paul, and get promoted to the Twins sometime in late April. By doing so, the team would be able to push off his free agency for a year so they would have control over him through 2027 instead of 2026. Which naturally raised the question: who would be playing there in April? Presumably, left-handed batting Jake Cave and right-handed batting Brent Rooker would make a capable platoon. But when Luis Arraez reported to camp and talked about becoming accustomed to left field, Twins fans were reminded that he started in that spot eighteen times his rookie year , which was more than he played any other position other than second base. Given that he’s so valuable in the lineup, perhaps he would get most of the April at-bats? If that’s the plan, there’s some news out of left field. It doesn’t sound like the Twins are planning on investing a lot of spring training time in teaching Arraez that position. Manager Rocco Baldelli talked about seeing a lot of his players, particularly Arraez, play in different positions. But he also indicated he would be almost exclusively in the infield. “He's going to play mostly in the infield,” stated Baldelli. “He's probably going to split between second and third while in the infield. There's a chance he could get a few innings at short or even at first base, but that's not a priority.” This isn’t because the Twins don’t want to find a spot for Arraez in the lineup. That much Baldelli made abundantly clear. “Louie’s going to get a ton of at-bats this year and do a great job,” Baldelli emphasized. “He’s certainly a guy we want in the lineup.” Ok. But where? Is he regularly displacing Jorge Polanco at second? Josh Donaldson at third? Nelson Cruz at designated hitter? It sounds like the plan is to have him move around, and maybe move some other pieces around? “With our roster looking the way it does, we may ask a few guys to do some different things,” Baldelli explained, and then started listing some examples. “Miguel [sano} is going to get some work at third base, in addition to first base. [Polanco] is going to get some work at shortstop, in addition to second base. Kirilloff is going to play first base and corner outfield.” Hold it. Who? Yep, Kirilloff was casually mentioned with several starting lineup players. Does he actually have a non-zero chance to make this roster, regardless of the future financial implications? For what it’s worth, during a discussion about the evils of manipulating player service time yesterday, Donaldson was asked about Kirilloff’s situation. He walked a tightrope. “I think Thad, and the relationship I have with Thad and Derek, is that they want to have the best team out there. That’s going to be for them to answer,” he replied. But it’s clear what Donaldson, a team leader and veteran, thinks should happen. “I’ve seen Alex for a short time as far as being at the alternate site. I think the kid is really good. I think he has a bright future ahead of him. What they do is what they do. I don't know who everybody is gonna be on our roster at this moment. But I would assure Twins fans that everything I’ve seen, Derek and Thad want to put the best team out there.” We hope so. Donaldson (and I imagine, a large chunk of the MLB Players’ Union) are watching. So are we. And wondering. From left field. Click here to view the article