chpettit19

Yeah, I wouldn't vote for Wagner. Just saying there should be a path to relievers going in. But agree the standards should be very high.

Isn't the obvious response that Rivera contributed enough from the pen to make up for it being the lesser of the pitching responsibilities? If you're categorizing both relievers and starters as "pitchers" you can't separate the different roles positions players have but have to categorize them all as "position players." 1B and C are both position players but you have to meet different standards for each role just like SP and RP are both pitchers but you have to meet different standards for each role.

I love Snell's upside, but have real fear of his downside. I'm quite intrigued to see where his contract comes in. He's very boom or bust from an innings standpoint so I'm interested to see how much a team invests in him over how many years. I think his holdup is probably in trying to get more years than teams want to pay him for. But good Snell would look great in a Twins uni! But Bellinger fits in perfectly with the current Twins needs, and is in the right age spot to tie him to Correa and Buxton as the veteran core of this team. If the Twins could get him on a 5 year deal like those 2 I'd be quite happy. Just doesn't feel like a real option, though.

Bellinger is absolutely a perfect fit for this team, but I'd be even more shocked by the news of him signing with the Twins than I was for either of the Correa deals. I'd very much like to see the Pohlads take a financial risk and invest in a winning window, but I'd put the chances of this happening at roughly .00001%.

Yes, often times they get better. But even more often they get worse. Prospects fail far more than they succeed. Even the top ones. I'm not saying never, and certainly not suggesting it's an unmitigated disaster. I have no problem with folks being excited about the youth and hoping for the best. But that's not a cold, hard, honest look at the realities of young baseball players. There is a very real chance this team takes a step back in 2024. Not predicting it. And I'm actually pretty excited to see the young guys like everyone else. But the honest reality is that there's very real concerns about how things play out in 2024. That's just the nature of the beast.

Do you think the Phillies get more or less natural viewing than the Blue Jays and Twins? Part of it is that the night games included significantly larger fan bases. Of course that plays a role. This isn't some outlandish idea I'm throwing out there. It's not 100% of fans watching all games. It's probably a pretty small percentage. But why would they actively remove the option to increase overall viewership by taking out the option for someone to watch multiple games? One of MLB's biggest problems is how regionalized it is. Your argument is that they should actively push their product to be even more regionalized. Why would they want to cannibalize their own product by forcing their games to compete with each other for eyeballs? They have enough competition for viewership in the first place. Why would they make people choose who to watch when they could provide them with the opportunity to watch them all?

That's a look at year over year wild card viewing, not a look at whether fans are trying to watch multiple playoff games instead of just their team's. Those stats have nothing to do with whether or not games should start at the same time to ignore the national fan base in favor of just regional fan bases. Some overlap is different than not starting any games early and playing the entire grouping at night. The wild card leads into the division series which is the same number of series so then you'd be putting division series games in the same spot as the wild card games were during the week. Doesn't really solve that problem.

Logan Webb was #8 in MLB's Top 10 Starters Right Now for 2024. Pablo didn't make the list. Which ranking are you referring to?

I'd be pissed if they made it so I couldn't watch all the games, or had to watch some "superfan broadcast" and try to follow multiple games at once. Do you have the actual numbers for the playoffs? Are they higher or lower than the regular season games for each of the participants? I watch every single MLB playoff game. I may be the only one. Or in the small minority. But I don't know why any national entity would actively look to make it harder to get their product to the entire country.

I think Kwan is probably a good comp for Martin's likely peak. And I'd be really happy with that result. Good speed, and likely really good to elite corner OF defense, but with limited offensive upside because of his lack of power. If he could get to 10 HRs a year he'd be a slightly better version of Kwan and that'd be really nice. I'm in no rush to get him to Minneapolis, but certainly expect it at some point in 2024. Don't want him playing a bench role to start the year so would prefer he goes to St Paul and gets everyday ABs, preferably in the outfield as often as possible since that's the most likely spot for him to find an everyday job if he proves to be worthy of that.

Why would the 2 PM playoff games disappear?

I'll also remind people that Cleveland was a "young and talented" team going into 2023. They had a number of young players, including a bunch of rookies, carry them to the division title and a wild card sweep of the Rays in 2022. They lost to the Yankees 3 games to 2 in the division series. Their 23 year old 2B played elite defense and put up a 141 OPS+ over 146 games. They're the envy of just about every team and fan base in baseball when it comes to developing pitching. They were the ones most likely to walk away with the lowly central division in 2023. Now, just 1 year later, we're talking about them as an afterthought. "Young and talented" upcoming teams are no sure thing to continue to succeed. Choosing to not invest in your team because it's "young and talented" is not a great choice.

The sky is not falling, but things aren't unquestionably ok either. I really hope the 3 rookie stars from last year can maintain their production over full seasons, but the chances of that happening are tiny. I mean those were 3 all star level batting lines they put up. The league has now figured out where the holes in their games are and they're going to attack them hard. Maintaining 135+ OPS+ numbers over a full season is a massive ask. So the expectation should be that there's a likely significant regression to their overall numbers as a group. But there's solid enough hope that Correa and Buxton are at least a little healthier in 2024 and see an increase in their overall numbers as a pair to help balance out the regression from the rookies. I think expecting Varland and Paddack to replace the performances of Gray and Maeda is a super longshot. Just pointing at win-loss records in games they started is missing the impact of their nearly 300 innings pitched. 288 innings of mostly really well pitched innings is a lot to replace. Now maybe Ryan stays healthy and throws more innings without having his typical 2nd half drop in production (he dropped in 2022 as well) and maybe Ober can add more innings without wearing down this year. That can help cover some of those 288 innings, but I don't know that there's a whole lot more improvement possible from those 2 so it's mostly just about them staying healthy and maintaining production for more of the year. I think the realistic view of the rotation as it stands today is that it's a step below last year's performance. Now that doesn't mean that bringing Sonny back would've solved that because he's not likely to reproduce that production, but it doesn't change the fact that the most likely outcome is that the current rotation options don't perform as well as the rotation did last year. I know the unknown future tends to be a hopeful one because we like to dream on the possibilities of everyone hitting their ceilings and the team taking off. I'm excited to see what Lewis does coming off a healthy offseason. I can't wait to see Walker Jenkins in his first full season. I'm intrigued to see if Lee can put it all together and take AAA by storm to start the year. Curious about what Raya looks like in a true starter's role instead of 3 inning bursts. There's some fun guys on the farm, and some fun youngsters on the big league team now. But I think we oversell our crop some. We're not a top ranked system by any ranking I've seen. We're not matching the Orioles crop of prospects and young MLB talent. I like to imagine what the future could bring as well, but the Pohlads deserve every bit of criticism that comes their way this offseason. Windows aren't guaranteed to stay open. They aren't guaranteed to open at all. Lewis, Buxton, and AK never stay healthy. Correa's ankle really is a problem. None of the starters below Lopez take the needed step. Wallner's holes in his swing are exploited. Lee never quite figures it out. Jeffers regresses back to career norms. Kepler regresses back to 2021-first half of 2023 Kepler. Polanco's legs just won't hold up (or he's traded). Stewart can't repeat his 2023, age-31 breakout. Jax is up and down again. All very possible outcomes. And now the Twins aren't just walking away with the central in 2024, and their 2025 and beyond are in doubt as well. "Hey, we were good last year so we'll be good with mostly the same team this year" goes wrong all the time. Cutting payroll isn't just about not being able to sign $30 million deals, it's about not being able to sign $10 million deals either. This wasn't a super thrilling free agent class, but there were some very useful pieces that would've helped this team. A few have been named in other comments like Lourdes and Hoskins. Stroman types aren't thrilling names, and wouldn't raise the ceiling much for this squad, but adding legit MLB talent depth is also super important. They very likely still add a piece or 2 or 5 over the next month, but they've chosen to sit out a lot of this party, and trading guys just moves depth holes from 1 place to another. I love prospects. I go to a couple dozen Saints games a year now. I follow them on milb.tv. I follow them on here and all the national publications. They're the lifeblood of every organization. But they fail more than they succeed. People are talking about Lee as if he's some sure thing piece in 2024. He's not a sure thing to be a piece ever. I like him and I think he's going to do really well. But there's a real difference in relying on a 2nd year guy as a starter and prospects as depth and relying on a proven veteran and young guys behind him. Not signing someone for 30 mil isn't the only downside to this payroll reduction. Not signing any MLB depth is a real downside, too. But they have a few more weeks until pitchers and catchers report so there's certainly time to make some moves. I just hope there's still moves to make when they're ready to make them.

I think I'd probably prefer to keep Kepler over getting Kikuchi for him. I think the rotation is in better shape than the OF situation as far as adding someone of that expected production goes. I think Kepler carries value for this team in RF than Kikuchi would as the 5th starter.

Maybe Amazon wants a broadcast partner who knows the industry already, has contracts with 3 sports leagues, and needs a streaming partner? Does Amazon have some new broadcast division I'm not aware of that is working on a deal with DirecTV, etc. on showing season 2 of The Rings of Power? Or are they just a streaming service? Diamond doesn't have the ability to stream all the games for all the teams. Amazon does have that technology. That would be a reason for a partnership instead of just letting Diamond die and then having to negotiate with a different company to come to the same point of owning streaming rights while that other company does broadcast rights for 3 separate leagues. There is no "agreement" yet. There's a proposed business plan. And not the first one they've presented. They don't have the power to just overtake the negotiations that have already taken place between the NHL, MLB, NBA and Diamond and just void them. As shown by the fact that this isn't the first proposal they've presented because MLB shot down the first one. And evidenced by the MLB lawyer ending the hearing by saying “You know, I was happy to hear all of the thank you’s, I suspect that’s something that might be better served at a confirmation hearing rather than at a status conference. So we will refrain from adding congratulations until such time as something has actually been delivered.”

Feels like a mountain of speculation without any real info. Which was kind of my point. Awful big leap from "Amazon may buy into Diamond Sports" to "Amazon has held entire professional sports league hostage to get the rights to a team that broadcasts it's own games on it's own network."

There's talks of much bigger things than just those 5 teams. NBA and NHL contracts involved in all of this, too. Don't think we really know enough to say either way on how this will effect any team in any of these 3 leagues that deal with Diamond.

Did medical people tell them his injury problems were from overuse? Why did he struggle as a starter in the high minors? Do they believe his problems that caused him to struggle in the high minors have been fixed? If the answers to questions 1 and 3 are "no" and "yes" then I'd give him a chance to stretch out and see what he can do in the rotation. If either of those answers were different I'd leave him where he is. I don't know enough about why he struggled in the upper minors as a starter to really have a strong opinion here. Can he not maintain velo and control multiple times through a lineup? Was it his control? Does his pitch mix just not work well enough multiple times through a lineup? If his success as a starter is reliant on him adding another pitch or 2 as the article suggests I'd be much more hesitant to put him in a starter's role.

I think the TV deals have probably played a role in how slow this offseason has been, but I don't think this is too far outside the norm. MLB has been having pretty slow offseasons for a while now. And guys are still getting paid. Sure, the Dodgers are the ones paying most the guys, but they had to pay them as much as they did because other teams were willing to pay, too. Nola got 172 mil from Philly, Gray got 75 from St Louis, Rodriguez 80 from Arizona, Yankees and Cubs have brought in FA starters, Boston paid Giolito nearly 40 despite him being terrible half the year, the Giants gave Lee 113 mil which I don't think is a "low-cost measure," the Mariners brought in Garver, Baltimore paid Kimbrel 13 mil. It's been a pretty slow offseason, but it's also a pretty disappointing FA class compared to what we've had the last couple years with all the superstar SSs and Judge, etc. being available. Outside Ohtani and Yamamoto there wasn't nearly the star power we've had recently. I mean even Bellinger (arguably the 3rd biggest name on the market) is coming off 1 good bounce back year after having had to sign a pillow deal because he was terrible for multiple years. Snell wants the moon, but he's been hurt and not great most of his career, and Montgomery isn't a flashy stat guy that typically drives big money and notoriety during the offseason. I think the names available on the market are every bit as big a reason for the slow offseason as the TV deals. The stars got paid. There's just fewer stars this year.

Really complicated situation it looks like. NBA and NHL had already agreed to a plan that would've ended all Diamond Sports contracts after this season and MLB was working on a similar deal but now Amazon has swooped in and maybe changed the plans for all 3 leagues and would keep in place all existing contracts until they were scheduled to end. Whole lot of moving parts there. Hope they get it finalized soon so fans know where they can watch the Twins this year. We'll see what comes out after the hearing today.

To be fair, this MLB list isn't created by people sitting in a room it's created by a computer program that compiles 3 years worth of data and spits out predicted performance for the next year to create a list of the top 10 for the upcoming season. They call it "The Shredder" if that adds any excitement to things for you. I think Jeffers actually made one of the 5 individual lists created by the folks on the show if I'm remembering correctly.

I think this very much depends on what one believes Kepler's bat will be like in 2024. If he's back to a mid-90s OPS+ he's much more easily replaced (Castro could possibly be a 1 to 1 replacement if one believes in his bat maintaining last year's production). If he's a 120+ OPS+ bat again then he's far harder to replace. This is the conundrum of Max Kepler.

Miami's new brain trust may be into a guy who's a year away. Or maybe Seattle thinks he's ready now. I don't think having a top 100 global prospect be a possible trade chip is ever moot. Maybe Seattle wants Kepler and Rodriguez so they can use Kepler in 2024 and hand the job over to Rodriguez in 2025. Lots of possible trades you can cook up with him. Doesn't have to be a 1 for 1 deal so the options are wide open.

Not sure why Rosario would beat Rodriguez to MLB when Rodriguez is the one on the 40-man and they're at the same level at the same age. Yoyner Fajardo is interesting, but has a lot to do to jump the already on the 40-man Rodriguez, too. I agree value is relative and that's why I'm pushing back on such strong stances of "you just can't trade him!" when there's a very real possibility his value goes down moving forward. My point is that for every "Arraez vs Julien" example you can throw out I can throw 3 "Arraez vs Miranda" examples. Prospects go the other way far more than they go up in value. It's an impossible task, but the task of the FO is to maximize all their assets as well as possible. Sometimes that's trading a prospect who's value is going to go down. Sometimes it's keeping them. "He's got MVP upside so you can't trade him!" is an insanely aggressive stance that many on this thread are taking. It's an unrealistic take, in my opinion. Taking a super strong stance in either direction here is too much for me. The answer, in my opinion, is simply that they can't give him away for nothing, but if he can help bring back proven MLB talent he certainly should be available. The previous regime hoarded prospects the way many on this board are suggesting the Twins have to. It didn't work out well at all. Sometimes trading well thought of prospects is the right move and is how you maximize that asset. The key is being really good at self-evaluating. Have to be realistic about what your guy's chances of truly being impact big leaguers is. Fans don't tend to be super realistic about these things.

FYI he turns 21 on Feb 28, so he'll be heading to AA at 21. And an interesting little thing for the Twins system is that Kala'i Rosario is the 20 year old that actually won the midwest league MVP last year. Although he's 6 months older than Emmanuel so he's already 21. Will be interesting to watch his progression the next couple of years as well.