chpettit19

One of those guys is Luke Keaschall and the other is some fella named Brooks that a few people around here (myself included) are pretty excited about. Hint: The second one is Lee. Keaschall's name is starting to pop up on top 100 lists, and he's certainly getting some love by the Twins faithful, but are we excited enough about him? The praise for Lee had a lot to do with his draft position, but Luke has bested him in wRC+ at every level (Lee skipped A ball) at a younger age. Keaschall looks like he has every opportunity to make it to AAA in his first full season just like Brooks Lee did. He's now playing a lot of CF which opens up more paths to the majors. Luke jumped up to #9 on the most recent Twins Daily prospect ranking, but is that high enough? I'd argue no. I know some people will find this crazy, but I'd actually put Luke ahead of Emma. Brooks is still a prospect, and is showing he can hold his own in the majors to some extent right now so he'd be my #2 with Jenkins still at #1. But I think Luke Keaschall is the #3 prospect in the Twins organization, and am excited to see what he can do in AAA at the end of the year (or maybe sooner?).

I'm surprised to see the "net positive" option getting the most votes. Interesting. I voted 0 wins. I've been on the record here for years that I don't think managers make much of a difference. Most of them are doing things the same way now, and most of those decisions are based heavily on strategies put in place with/by the baseball ops department. Talent wins. I hate the pinch hitting before the 7th, but part of that is because the FO brings in guys for those roles who have no business facing righties later in the game. So is it on Rocco that he does that? For sure. But it's also very clearly part of their overall strategy, and it wouldn't get so many complaints from me if the righty coming in in the 5th had an OPS over .700 against righties instead of .459 (Margot's current number). I dislike the shorter starts from starters, but that's MLB as a whole. It makes sense that guys who aren't very good don't get to see the lineup a third time while your better starters get extra rope. Pitch counts keep getting lower and lower, but the Twins rotation has been unbelievably healthy the last 2 years (I knocked on wood, don't worry) which could be a result of the more limited workloads (I don't know, but it seems like a logical possibility). But, generally speaking, many of the overall complaints about Rocco are just complaints about MLB strategy in this day and age. And I agree with those who say the game is less entertaining with the change in strategies, but I want my favorite team to win so I'd rather them follow the less entertaining strategies that have proven to be the better way to win games despite what "old school" fans on the internet say.

I think that first sentence is the key to this discussion. Most teams have the prospects tiered. There's some organizing within those tiers, but the first step is to tier guys. If a team at the top of the draft has 4 guys all in the same tier and 1 of them is going to cost 2 mil less than the other 3 choosing that cheaper player to save money is very different than having 4 guys in tier 1 and picking somebody from tier 2 or 3 instead in order to save money. Last year was universally viewed as a draft with 5 elite guys and then a drop off. There were numerous rumors that Crews wanted significantly more than Skenes at pick 1-1. I have no idea if that actually played into the Pirates' decision, and Skenes did sign for 200k more, but it's a pretty logical decision to take Skenes in that situation if Crews was telling them he'd require full slot compared to the 500k less Skenes took. But if the Pirates had drafted Jacob Wilson (went 6th) in order to save money that would be a highly questionable strategy. We tend to get rankings in terms of lists when really they should be tiers. There aren't as hard and fast lines between each guy as people tend to act like there are when it's a listed ranking.

I agree there's room for Julien on the infield because the Twins rotate guys a ton to start with, and injuries are always going to happen. Lewis shouldn't be a reason to trade anyone. His talent should be, but he's played less than 100 games in what should be his 4th season. But if they could spin Julien into one of the young Marlin arms I'd be into that. They have their own concerns that have lowered their value in the same way Julien has. Julien enough to start a conversation with Miami about Meyer or Luzardo? I think the "there's no room" or "we have a log jam" ideas are crazy. Kyle Farmer is still on this team. There's no such thing as too much talent. But if they could get a Miami arm for a package based around Julien I'd be all for it.

I think all trades should be based on the chance to improve their odds of postseason success. I think they definitely need a shutdown lefty in the pen as I don't trust anyone currently in the org to be a postseason lefty arm, but do they need a lefty starter? I don't see that as that important. Teams with at least 50 wins right now wRC+ vs Lefties - vs Righties: Philly: 117 - 109 Cleveland: 117 - 104 Baltimore: 123 - 116 Yanks: 103 - 119 Dodgers: 128 - 116 Brewers: 103 - 112 Braves: 111 - 94 Red Sox: 98 - 105 Royals: 97 - 95 Mariners: 94 - 94 Twins: 126 - 111 7 of 11 teams (including the Twins) have better numbers against lefties than righties. 1 is the same. And 3 are better against righties. I don't see the need to get a lefty starter. Get a lefty out of the pen better than Thielbar, Funderburk, and Okert, but if you're bringing in a starter just make sure they're a legit playoff starter.

If only this situation was predictable...

It absolutely would help to make a deep playoff run, but, according to Gleeman, the Twins attendance is down about 1200 per game so far this season. I can't imagine the business people were projecting 54000 fewer fans to this point in the season when calculating their budget before the season so they're likely already starting from a hole and probably aren't willing to bet on a deep playoff run when it comes to investing significantly more money into the payroll. But, generally speaking, a deep run would most certainly make it far more palatable to add to the payroll at the deadline.

Going to start this by saying I'm in no way suggesting we should all believe the recent Vazquez is the "real" Vazquez and what we should expect moving forward, but here's an article from Dan Hayes yesterday about changes to his swing he's made this season. If you don't have a subscription this link isn't very useful for you, sorry. But he has made some changes. Him and Derek Shomon (assistant hitting coach) have been working together and even took a trip to Driveline when the team was in Arizona to get a better idea on tweaks to make.

I'd also expect the pen to be the place they're most looking at upgrading. And likely a lefty arm. My point was simply that the other poster suggesting their real payroll number is 150 was ignoring what the top 3 people in the organization said all offseason. If 150 was the real number they definitely should not have saved 20 mil for the deadline. I wouldn't be surprised to see them add a little salary, but the other poster's suggestion that there's no reason to believe they wouldn't add another 13 mil seems to be ignoring what the organization spent all offseason telling us. I don't see the Twins trading a top 100 guy this deadline. I think the payroll decrease is a more permanent thing (not that they won't add at all, but they won't be jumping back to 150 next year) and they are going to need their young guys to take a lot of spots now as Pablo gets more expensive and arb salaries start kicking in. I'd absolutely love to see the Pohlads sign off on a really aggressive move to try to make a big time run at things this year, but I don't think they ran the world's worst PR campaign all winter only to make a big splash at the deadline.

I always like to just point to the Rockies as proof that the guys running teams aren't automatically right. I'd bet money that a group of TD members could run a team every bit as well as they do out in Colorado. But, to be fair, that's likely mostly an ownership problem so I shouldn't be too harsh on the FO folk.

I think this is the more likely route they go with, if they make any significant trades. I'd bet they don't do anything of significance, but I'd bet the pen, especially a lefty, is probably their focus. The challenge is that relievers still cost a lot in prospects, and that's why I wouldn't expect them to go too big there. The Lopez trade from a couple years ago is probably still in the back of their mind, too.

And then I added even more context from the literal owner of the team. But you go ahead and keep believing they're going to add 10% to their payroll at the deadline after the owner of the team and the president of the team and the president of baseball operations all told their fans they're cutting payroll. I'm sure they were just lying to us all and 150 was really the number they were willing to go to. Falvey in November openly stated they were cutting payroll. Dave St Peter in February openly states they aren't adding to payroll. About a week later Joe Pohlad openly states they aren't adding to payroll. But you think they'll add 10% to it without thinking twice. Bold prediction.

The tangible reason is he's left handed. The Twins openly talk about this. It's not Wallner specific, it's all lefties. There were multiple interviews early in the year with Rocco talking about how Julien kept begging to hit against lefties and Rocco kept saying it just isn't what the Twins do, but he'll get some chances here and there. The Twins had their reasons not to let him, but he had a better OPS against lefties than righties in his time in the majors this year. The Twins aren't shy about this. They believe in platooning all lefties if they can. It's their base strategy. Some of us disagree with that. It's not Wallner specific why he doesn't hit against lefties. It's a core strategy of the FO and Rocco.

"But I can’t point to a specific change in strategy. I think it’s more likely than not that the reality is that any impact from our TV deal, relative to our short-term player investments, is going to probably be limited. But that’ll ultimately be up to the market, and up to opportunities that Derek feels are good for the Twins." -Dave St Peter I'd say that's at least a little bit of a reason not to believe that ownership will be willing to open their pockets. Adding another 10% to the payroll by taking on another 13 million sounds like a very unlikely thing to happen. Same with 10 mil. Maybe they do 3-5 million? When the owner says they're "right-sizing" their business it's probably safe to bet that they aren't hitting the same numbers they had in the previous seasons. 150 million wasn't the "right size" for their payroll so expecting them to go back to that number would be believing that Joe Pohlad was lying and pissing off his fan base for no reason. I think the safer bet is that they don't have a lot of wiggle room to add significant costs in the next 3 weeks.

Steele is a fascinating option. He's under control for 3 more years, but is in arbitration and will get relatively expensive pretty quick if he keeps performing. Was a Super 2 so has 4 years of arbitration and signed for 4 mil this year in year 1. Depending on what their projections for his arb salaries is, he'd be a really nice pickup at the deadline. I doubt the Cubs are looking to move him, though. I think they're trying to win in the next 3 years and trading him would hurt those chances.

A week or 2 is of no use when you need the starter in 5 days. Sure, Festa could make the start, but beyond that it gets ugly quick. And I'd argue Varland and Festa is already ugly. It wouldn't be crazy to put him in the pen now, but there's also a logical reason not to. I'd expect Festa is their #6 next year with Varland in the pen and Zebby or one of the other AA arms currently being the Festa next year. I don't think Varland in the pen now vs September makes much of a difference.

I think Varland gets moved to the pen in September. I think that makes sense. Despite him not being someone I want starting games, they need to keep him stretched out in case of injury. It's been truly amazing the health they've had in their rotation the last 2 years. But I think they leave Varland in the AAA rotation until September and then his career as a starter is probably over and he'll be a fulltime pen guy moving forward.

The problem is the assumption that you'd "go into 25% of the situations with no chance at the plate." The Twins have a total of 84 PAs of lefties facing lefties this year. 84. That's less than 1 a game. Manuel Margot has 106 PAs against righties. The Twins lefties facing lefty pitchers have a .625 OPS. Margot facing righties has a .472 OPS. Margot is the one with "no chance at the plate," but he's getting more PAs against righties than every lefty hitter the Twins have combined have gotten against lefties despite them doing better. 13 of the 23 MLB lefties with at least 100 PAs against lefties have a wRC+ over 100 this year. And Jackson Merrill seems to have figured them out recently as well so he's on his way up. Devers and Arraez are at 97 and 95 as well. That's 16 of 23 players with at least 100 PAs (again, more than the entire Twins lefty lineup has) that most certainly have a chance at the plate against lefties. The Twins have decided they aren't even going to find out if their guys can do it. They'd rather pinch hit Margot in the 5th or 6th for a lefty knowing he's almost guaranteed to face a righty later in the game than see if their lefties can hit lefties. If Gunnar Henderson were on the Twins do you think he'd have 127 PAs against lefties this year? His wRC+ against them is 152. He's got an .881 OPS against lefties. The only Twin with 100 PAs and a better wRC+ overall than Gunnar has against lefties is Jose Miranda (155). Gunnar Henderson is better lefty on lefty than every Twins hitter is overall outside Jose Miranda. The Twins wouldn't even give Gunnar a chance. That's our problem with their strategy. They've decided it's impossible for their lefties to hit lefties so they don't even try.

Are we sure Matt Wallner is subpar v LH pitching? He wasn't in the minors last year (.848 OPS vs Lefties). Or in 2022 (.911 OPS vs Lefties). He's only been given 65 PAs in the majors against lefties. He hasn't been good against them, but 65 PAs is not exactly a lot of PAs. There's a chance the difference between Wallner and Margot against lefties isn't all that significant. We won't likely find out anytime soon, though.

Well here's some sprint speed doesn't equal in field range data...sprint speed 41st percentile, range 84th percentile. That's one Correa, Carlos. And the point about the arm strength is that you don't have any data either. 9 throws is not even remotely close to enough data to even start talking about how strong his arm is. I mean Baseball Savant itself is telling you neither of those players have enough throws to make a statement on as they don't even rank them. Lewis didn't have enough throws in 2022 either. When your source isn't willing to make a statement on their arms it probably means something.

Lee has 9 throws. Do you have minor league data on his arm? That'd be interesting. 9 MLB throws to reach a conclusion that his max throw is 81.7 is an awfully limited data set.

What will they do when Martin comes back? Lewis is obviously not going to AAA, but should Martin have to? Or should Martin be the one who comes back after the ASB and sends Farmer to the DFA line? The FO is going to have to make a decision sooner or later. There's no way that Farmer can be part of their playoff plans at this point. And if that's true, the "2nd half," and August especially, need to be when they start making decisions based on October and not the 162 game marathon. Decision day is coming. And August 1 should be the latest they set the date for it. Either Farmer turns on the flame thrower the rest of July or August 1 needs to be when he says goodbye. They seem to have the same general idea about things as they tend to give vets through July to figure it out and then start shaping their bullpen and lineup around who's earned it. Will be interesting to see if they're willing to cut bait with a "good clubhouse leader" or if we start seeing the IL be used more for what some would say are minor "injuries."

If Correa, or any player, needs more than 5 days of a break for whatever they're dealing with physically, like let's say 10 days maybe, they should go on the IL. If not, they should play 6 games in the next 7 days and enjoy their 5 day break to recover. The Twins have Thursday off. Then next Monday through Friday off. Then the following Thursday off. And the Thursday after that. They're still 6 back in the division. And they don't want to end up in a wild card series against the 2nd place team in the east whether it be New York or Baltimore. Winning the division and hosting the last wild card team (or getting a bye?) is a far better situation and they shouldn't be taking their foot off the gas at any point.

These are trades where the Twins were the "buyers." The Cruz/Ryan deal was the Twins being "sellers."

Depending on which WAR you like, Steer was a 1.9-3.5 WAR player last year. So anywhere from 7th best to absolute best position player on the Twins roster last year. I just don't buy that the Twins are so good that they don't have room for a 2-3 WAR player. But my overall point is that there are chances for every decent to good to great prospect on every team, it's just a matter of that team giving the guy a chance. There's no such thing as a prospect that is redundant. Larnach, Wallner, and Kirilloff have been redundant for years (especially when you add in Kepler), yet none of them have been able to claim a starting job for more than a few months. Julien is part of the argument for not needing Steer, yet he's back in AAA continuing to struggle. Lewis has been an argument for not needing a lot of guys yet he still hasn't played 100 games in the majors after having been part of the plan for the 2021 team. Manuel Margot's specialty is hitting lefties, but his career line against lefties is barely better than Steer's against righties. None of this means the Twins shouldn't have traded Steer, et al for Mahle. But you listed Polanco, Arraez, AK, Miranda, Larnach, Wallner, Gordon, Julien, Lee, and Martin as the reasons he was expendable. 3 of them are no longer with the Twins. 2.5 of them (Wallner and Julien with AK being the .5 because he was/is going to be demoted) are in AAA. 1 of them missed basically all of last year (Miranda). 1 is maybe saving his future with the Twins by finally maintaining some semblance of production (Larnach). 1 just debuted (Lee). And one has tumbled down the "prospect list" and has been up and down (Martin). Who would you take over Steer right now from the guys left with this team? Lee and Miranda? Anyone else? Log jams of talent don't exist. There isn't any prospect that we don't need. It's a numbers game. Steer was expendable because of these other guys? Sure doesn't look like it right now. I thought it was a good trade at the time because I didn't think Steer would be this good. But the idea that a prospect isn't needed because we have other guys who rank higher should never be the logic for a trade. Because guessing which of those guys actually turns out is a fool's errand. Prospects miss all the time. At this point Lee and Miranda look like the only 2 guys on the list of youngsters from 2022 (and Lee was just drafted at that point so shouldn't have been a reason to trade anyone since he'd literally never played a professional game of baseball when Steer was traded) who were better bets than Steer. Trades happen, and prospects will always be the capital used in them, but there's no such thing as a redundant prospect. It's a numbers game. You need them all because most are going to miss.