chpettit19

I don't know how personalized aircraft fixing techniques are so I'm not sure how well that analogy works for hitting. I don't know that the Brewers saw some big improvement in their ABs last year when Santana got moved there. But maybe they did. Having more smart guys who can talk hitting is good. But I don't expect to see a significant shift in the style of at bats anyone on the Twins has this year. They all got to the majors doing things the way that works best for them. I hope you're right and we see an improvement in the quality of at bats, but the idea that Santana is going to have some outsized impact just doesn't track with me. It's not like he's going to be standing around the cages talking to every guy as they take BP. Professional athletes are confident people and believe in what they're doing. The Twins don't have a lot of guys expected to struggle on their team anymore so none of them are going to be looking to make any sort of dramatic changes. They're going to keep doing what got them here. And even if guys do want to try to do things more like him it doesn't mean they have the ability to. Hitting is incredibly individualized. What works for 1 guy doesn't work for another. I hope he says something that helps things click into place for a guy or 5, but it's highly unlikely. I hope they're all able to take something from each other's game/style and work to be the best they can possibly be. I just don't believe one player is showing up in a clubhouse and changing things in any significant way like that. There's a reason the average tenure for active MLB hitting coaches is 2.4 years. And those are guys that are paying individualized attention to everyone. It's just really hard to have that teamwide of an effect. But I do appreciate his approach and hope he's as helpful as you believe he will be.

Balazovic ran out of options. Jackson didn't replace Balazovic, he replaced Duarte. And Santana replaced Thompson. You didn't include Falvey's entire comment. He stated they replaced Balazovic with Weiss because Weiss has options left and it gives them more flexibility.. If they were so pissed about the broken jaw and thought so little of him then they wouldn't have waited an entire year to cut him. He would've been the first guy they waived as they started their claims, not the last (as of now). Balazovic wasn't the only member of the Twins organization that went out during spring training. A bunch of them do it during the season even (shocking, I know!). Nobody is going to change your mind on this, but you're taking 1 incident in a 7 year stretch and determining an individual's entire character around it. I sure hope people don't do that with you because I'm sure we could find 1 moment in time in the last 7 years of your (or anyone's) life that didn't show the best judgement. Kind of how humans work.

I certainly hope they're open to the idea of him, or anyone, being a help in 2024, but I certainly hope they aren't counting on it in any way. And definitely not looking for 3 or 4 lock down innings in a playoff game. And I hope they aren't building their development plan around that idea. I know I've been on these boards pushing a "win now" mentality all offseason, but building a development plan around the idea of him being a key piece in the 2024 playoffs feels incredibly shortsighted. If he's one of their 9 to 11 best pitchers come August I hope they get him on the 40-man to be an option come October, but there's a whole lot of guys he needs to jump to get to the top 9 to 11.

Luis Arraez brought a different type of at bat than other guys. Correa takes different kinds of at bats. Kepler takes different kinds of at bats. I think you're overselling the impact someone like Santana can have. Matt Wallner isn't going to suddenly K at a 20% clip because of anything Santana says or does. Julien isn't going to change his approach. Maybe Kirilloff picks up some fielding tips? That sounds reasonable. I disagree with the idea that certain things can only be explained by someone with 8k+ MLB PAs. 100% disagree with that. Charlie Manuel is the highest regarded "hitting helper" (he was a manager for a long time so don't want to just call him a hitting coach) of the last 30 years or so from what I've read and heard. He had 432 MLB PAs. Barry Bonds was a horrible hitting coach and he had over 12k. Kevin Long is widely considered among the best hitting coaches right now and he had 0 MLB PAs. Kevin Seitzer is another name that comes up in discussions of the best hitting coaches right now (I think he's the current longest tenured hitting coach, but could be wrong there) and he had 6k. I think you're drastically overselling that idea. Nick Saban is widely considered the best college football coach of all time. He played 3 seasons at Kent State. Bill Belichick is in the discussion for best NFL coach ever and he didn't play a snap in the NFL.

It's really hard to be a major league baseball player. Even for all the guys we follow through the system that look like they're going to help carry our favorite team to a title. Jordy Blaze will keep working and I hope he's able to make an MLB career work, whether it's here or elsewhere. The chances are that he won't make it happen. But the chances of any individual player ever making it happen is miniscule. TD is doing their Top 20 prospect rankings right now and the chances that any one of those individual prospects ever make it is miniscule. It's just so hard to be a major league baseball player. I hope every prospect in every organization makes it. But picking out 1 guy and expecting them to make is a losing proposition. Even "bad" major league players are really, really good at baseball. Good luck to Jordan, and all the prospects working to make their dreams come true. I hope they all succeed, but I hope the ones with the Twins succeed more.

Having leadership is obviously important, but do you think Jackson and Santana were needed for leadership so much that their talent shouldn't be the first consideration? I'm not saying the Twins don't think both will be very good, or that fans shouldn't think that (I do question their talent), but are Jax, Lopez, Paddack, Staumont, Stewart, DeSclafani, and Thielbar not enough leadership for the pitching staff? That's a lot of MLB experience right there. Did they really need Jackson to hold the young guy's hands? Are Vazquez, Correa, Farmer, Kepler, and Buxton not enough to lead the hitters room? That's a whole lot of MLB experience there. Did they really need Santana to help mold guys? There's definitely a bunch of young talent on this team, but there's also a whole lot of veterans, too. Santana leading while OPSing under .700 doesn't feel like a better fit than someone like Soler who has 10 years of MLB experience himself, but also carries a much bigger stick. Jeffers, Kirilloff, Larnach, Gordon, Castro, Lewis, and Miranda all have multiple MLB seasons under their belts (not always full years, but they've been around). Definitely still some youth in there, but it's not like they're getting their first taste of the big leagues. Ober, Winder, Topa, Ryan, Alcala, and Duran have multiple years in MLB. Still some youth there, but they're not rookies by any means. This team feels like it already had a whole bunch of veteran leadership on hand. I assume the Twins think Jackson and Santana are going to be good at baseball this year, but I hope they didn't give them an extra boost for leadership when they already have so many vets on the squad. Vazquez, Correa, Buxton, Farmer, and Lopez should be able to lead the clubhouse pretty well on their own I'd think.

I'd think if they want him to have a shot at the MLB rotation in the next couple years they need to start extending him more in starts this year. 90+ innings? 100+ innings? I don't know what their limit will be with him, but I'd think eventually you have to test him at AA with trying to get into a lineup a third time. His numbers have been tremendous so I'm excited to see what he can do in extended innings in the upper minors.

I was watching the Top 100 Right Now show on MLB Network last night (they did numbers 80 to 61). They had a segment of the show where they brought in Dan O'Dowd and Steve Phillips to talk about how teams rank players/make decisions on players (they're both former GMs if you don't know who they are). O'Dowd started it off by talking about looking at production/performance/etc. projection and deciding who's going to be the best player moving forward then talked about the intangibles and how they'd take those into account. Phillips came next and started off by basically saying "intangibles are nice, but give me the performance all day." They went back and forth basically agreeing that performance/talent is the first, second, and third thing in the pecking order, and then you go to the intangibles after that as the separator. Intangibles are nice. They're important, and shouldn't be ignored. But talent is what wins baseball games. I'm glad the Twins are taking it all into consideration, but if they chose Santana over Soler (not saying they did, just an example) because they think Santana has better intangibles despite Soler being the much better hitter I'd be pretty annoyed. Intangibles need to be secondary to actual baseball talent.

I think this is a pretty decent projection for the central. I think the Twins are in the same win total area as last year and one of Cleveland or Detroit will "surprise" by being above .500 as well and give the Twins a run for their money. The other will be around .500 and be a pain for most of the season. KC will get to 70+ wins and will play a big role in the division based on how competitive they are with each contender. And Chicago will continue to be a dumpster fire despite carrying maybe the best player in the division. A lot of young talent in this division. Will be fun to see who's steps up and can take charge of the division the next few years.

Waiving Jordy Blaze is a good reminder of why contending teams don't like to clear spots for even top prospects on opening day rosters. It's the hope and excitement time of year where all the prospect rankings are coming out and we all picture our perfect future where they all hit their ceilings. Reality is that most won't, and that's why teams tend to build MLB depth with veterans and let the prospects take jobs as injury replacements instead of being plan A. Jordy was ranked higher than anyone currently in the system so let's hope the guys coming up now can find that key to give themselves the extra push over the top to successful major league careers.

I think it's an attempt to get as many as they can. Just keep claiming and waiving, signing and waiving, waiving guys you already have and see how many you can get through. They're all roughly the same guy so just see if you can't collect a few more to stash in AAA. They don't really care if they lose 9 out of 10 of the waived guys because they've replaced them with a guy with a similar chance to be successful, but each time they get one through they've increased their odds. I don't think it's so much grading player vs player, but instead a general pool of players that they're trying to collect as many of as they can.

If the Twins could get 2 years of Dylan Cease for Kepler and Varland they should do that immediately.

Confused on who the 13th guy is on the position player roster if it's not Miranda, Gordon, or Larnach. We have the 8 assumed starters, Santana, and 3 of 4 bench spots as the situation presented in the article. Who's the 4th bench spot going to if it isn't one of these 3 guys? Don't think they're carrying 3 catchers so Camargo is out. Are they going to cut Gordon to get Martin, Severino, or Rodriguez on their opening day bench? I don't think the Santana signing effects Gordon in any way. I think Gordon remains the 13th position player on the team at this point. Another signing would push him off the roster, but this one doesn't.

The Royals are in some RSN limbo themselves. Bally owns their rights as well. They spent much of the offseason planning for this to be their last year on Bally as Diamond was going to close up shop after 2024 before Amazon jumped in. Their current deal is less than the Twins previous deal. They have an uncertain future in their RSN lives, too. Diamond also owns the Royals digital (streaming) rights so they don't even have hope for a boost there because they've already signed over both their cable and streaming rights to Bally in a deal that was less than the Twins previous deal. A team investing because they want public money to pay for a new stadium shouldn't make fans feel any better, in my opinion. Comparing the Twins to Cleveland doesn't make me feel any better either. Just because there's worse teams doesn't mean we should be happy with what we have. It is what it is, but the talks are the Twins are going to get roughly 44 mil from their 2024 deal with Bally. KC gets right around 50 mil from what I've seen. I think the RSN situation is overblown. The Twins were always going to get paid to have their games broadcast.

Yeah, the challenge of the situation really is just how wide the spectrum of outcomes for him is. 2023 Manoah is worth nothing. Nobody would trade for him. 2022 Manoah is worth an absolute haul. Toronto can't trade him for scraps, but other teams can't give up big time pieces for him. Very unlikely any deal gets done because he's just too big of a question mark for everyone involved. But 2022 Manoah sure would look nice in the Twins rotation.

Which is certainly unfortunate, but I think some of us are frustrated that they're going to now self-inflict more bad attendance. There's nothing they could've done about 2020 and 2021. But they have some control over 2024 and beyond. Instead of choosing to take advantage of their first playoff win, and series win, in 2 decades they're choosing to actively hurt their relationship with at least part of the fan base by openly admitting they're going to slash payroll at the very beginning of the offseason. That's on them. That's not just "aw, shucks, bad luck for us" that's them actively telling their fans they're not investing in the team right after the team finally excited the fanbase and before they ask the fans to invest in the team themselves. Professional sports is a weird business. They have built in business no matter how terrible their product is. They get paid directly by their competitors even if they're actively not trying to produce a quality product (see Athletics, Oakland). The sport itself draws fans even to teams that are actively not trying to produce a quality product. It rings hallow to me when they provide 2 decades of playoff misery, and a bunch of regular season embarrassments, while racking in profits and then complain that there's just no way they can invest in a quality product because of their profits. I don't buy it. It's not all in their control, but it's not all out of their control. Should they blindly throw around money? No, of course not. But could they survive a season of purposeful profit losses to build their future revenue? I'd sure like to think they have some control over the amount of revenue they produce. To me, it feels like they're saying "we'll invest when you do" to their fans. Which is possible because their business is profitable no matter how hard they try. But Dave St Peter publicly questioning fans because they don't show up after 2021 and 2022 disasters is a bad look. Build a product fans find worthy of investing in and the Twin Cities will invest. We've shown it before. 2 decades with no playoff wins leads to fans being a little slow to react. Feels pretty reasonable to me that fans are asking them to "prove it." The Twins response is "no, just show up." I'm not impressed with that. The Royals seem to have realized they need to invest to get the fans to. I hope the Twins figure that out, too.

Ah. so the opposite miss on evaluation as the other guys. I got ya.

They were coming out of a pandemic in 2021 and businesses all over were struggling to get people to return. Not to mention the social situation in Minneapolis at that time and the concern a large number of people had for their safety when going to downtown Minneapolis at that time. I don't think 2021 is a great example of "winning doesn't really help." Way more factors that went into that time period in Minneapolis.

Hey now, why is Matt Wisler catching strays here? He was lights out in his 25 innings in MN!

I'd prefer Soler, but I can understand why people want a righty OF bat in general. I just don't think it's that important. I'd focus far more on making sure my "vs righties" lineup was as good as I could make it, and would be trying to find the best bat I could to fill the 9th spot in my "vs righties lineup (not the 9 hole, just the 9th starter since I think they already have 8). None of these options are all that enticing to me outside of Soler. But to tie this back to Martin before we get too far off the trail here, I just don't think he needs to be forced onto the opening day roster. I like him even though I see him as pretty much the righty version of Gordon despite getting to their OPS in different ways. I'm not sacrificing depth to force that guy on my roster when he has options and has never seen an MLB pitch. I hope he found himself at the end of the year and is making us all salivate by May this year, but I want my best combination of depth and talent to start the year. And I just think that means Gordon in Minneapolis and Martin in St Paul to start the year (with the current makeup of the team).

Yeah, I'm not sacrificing offense at 1B for a better glove, but to each their own. I'm not putting sub-.730 OPS at 1B for their glove. Just not how I'd do things. Santana is a short side of a platoon bat to me. And I'm definitely not forcing Miranda onto the opening day roster to take ABs against righties at the cost of cutting Gordon. It's not ideal, but options matter, and I'm not willing to force a guy with options onto the roster at the cost of cutting a legit major leaguer (different equation if you don't think Gordon is a legit major leaguer). I do agree with your vs lefties lineup, minus Miranda. They're going to have to let a young lefty hit against lefties. I'd be good with either Kirilloff or Julien getting those ABs. I don't think Miranda is healthy right now, and on a team I'm expecting to do well that has some depth I'm just not willing to force guys with options onto the opening day roster when it means cutting a guy I think can still play. I'm not saying your force Gordon on the roster all year. If he starts off like he did last year and the team stays healthy for a month while Miranda or Martin or Lee or whoever is tearing St Paul apart I make the move then. I just don't think it makes sense, or is necessary, before opening day. Agree on Bellinger. Would love him on a 3 year deal. But definitely not happening.

I don't know that it really is a higher priority. They're not spending any extra money on it. They had Hoffman and Coulombe in camp last year as the random Jackson, Staumont, Duarte, etc. guys. This is pretty much what they do every year. Claim a bunch of guys, sign some minor league deals, or end of the 40-man deals, and see what shakes out in spring, try to get some through waivers at the end, and send whoever they can to St Paul as added depth to start the year. Then they weed through them the first half of the year until they settle on their mix for August/September. I think they just have found a few guys we like more than usual the last couple years and it's slowly built up depth so that we're more confident in it. I mean Stewart was a random guy they picked up last year, but now we're banking on him being the #2 or 3 guy in the pen.

Because both Julien and Kirilloff are already playing the field. The position doesn't matter, just the numbers. Who are your 9 starters against righties? I'd say Catcher of the day, Kirilloff, Julien, Correa, Lewis, Wallner, Buxton, and Kepler are locked into lineup spots against righties. That's 8 spots. Then it's Castro, Farmer, Santana, other catcher, and, in this discussion, Martin or Gordon. If Gordon is 2022 Gordon he's the 9th guy in the order, if I'm making the lineup card. I agree it's a numbers game, and I think the numbers game says Gordon makes a lot of sense on the opening day roster if they believe he can be 2022 Gordon.

Also resting Buxton and getting some DH PAs against righties. If they think Gordon is 2022 Gordon he'll DH over Santana against righties. The question is who Gordon really is. I think it's worth a month of the season to find out. Won't kill the team.

I'd say significantly better. Injuries are going to happen. I have concerns that they hold onto some vets too long, but I don't trust Martin as much as you and others appear to. He hasn't been great at AAA so I'm really not trying to clear an MLB spot for him on a team that should be trying to fight for a playoff run. 21 guys got PAs for the Twins last year. 17 guys got more than 150 PAs. That's nearly 2 entire lineups worth of guys. They had 14 guys get 250+ PAs (basically what Martin got at AAA last year), and a 15th at 239. 16 guys over 200 PAs. I just don't believe in clearing opening day roster spots for guys who've never seen an MLB pitch because I think it hurts your chances to maximize success over 162+. I don't see the need to open up a spot for him on the opening day roster. He'll get his chance. I'd rather have a slightly worse Gordon (if he's actually worse at all) on opening day than have to rely on a significantly worse player later on because I wanted to force Martin on the opening day roster.