chpettit19

I don't think the recent surge in expanding pitching staffs has anything to do with injuries. Or at least very little. The goal is to increase percentage of peak performance. Same with off days for position players (or rest days in the NBA). It has very little to do with injuries (in most cases) and far more to do with maximizing percentage of peak performance. I'd like to see a change in rules to bring back longer starts because I think it's more entertaining. Although I don't like the idea of adding even more hitters to the rosters and seeing even more platooning and pinch hitting. But I'd take that over the ever shortening starts followed by a train of relievers.

I think it's a far more complicated subject than can be reasonably discussed on internet forums because there's way too many nuances and factors that go into it all. It is an interesting topic with lots of interesting questions, though.

That is certainly true. But would it make a meaningful difference in his results? How many 2 strike "foul off" attempts turn into double plays? How many come in a full count that turns ball 4 into an out? I have no idea, but I think people overestimate what effect these 2 strike approaches they preach actually have.

I see a lot of people suggesting "just fouling off close pitches." How easy do people think it is to "just foul off" a major league pitch? Do people have examples of people who do it regularly that they can point to as an example of it being a true skill and strategy?

Julien's problem isn't his swing decisions on the edges of the zone no matter how many strikes there are, it's all about his results in the zone. He swung at 61.3% of pitches in the zone last year. League average was 67%. He made contact on 77.6% of those swings. League average is 82%. His whiff% was 29.1% while league average was 24.8%. His meatball swing% was 74.5% compared to a league average of 76.1%. If he swings and connects on more pitches in the zone he'll be just fine no matter how many pitches he gets on the edges or how many 3rd strikes he watches on the edge. Julien knows what pitches he can handle and which he can't. Swinging at the ones you can handle and not swinging at the ones you can't is what all hitters should do. His growth will come from being able to handle more pitches, not changing what pitches he swings at. Being more successful with his swings is the fix, not swinging more with 2 strikes.

I think the Twins infrastructure and coaching are better equipped to help with guys with "stuff" concerns over guys with control concerns. It's been their MO so far to chase guys with good control (in the draft and trades) and tweak their stuff (and pitch mix) to get more out of them. It's what Cleveland does, too. Hoping to get his stuff more under control would absolutely have to be the plan if they traded for Cabrera, but I don't see him as a likely target of theirs as he really doesn't fit their mold.

Yeah, certainly not disagreeing that doing a better job is needed, but I'm just curious how much we can really expect and what we should expect them to be doing in terms of using their resources in that market. Is it purely a numbers game because you're dealing with even younger kids than the HS kids we see in the draft and know have the lowest success rate in the draft? Is Houston actually good at their scouting or did they just happen to get lucky with Javier and Valdez at the same time? What's the best use of their IFA signing pool dollars? To chase as many bats as possible because more of them hit or have a balanced approach or chase more arms? I don't know the answer to that at all. So I'm just curious what the ratios are between success rates, and how many arms come out of this compared to bats. I want more success in the IFA pitching results, but what sort of resources should we expect them to be putting into that vs bats, and what should we actually be expecting in terms of success?

And had an ERA of 4.24. High Ks and high walks make your profile closer to being a reliever than getting a top-100 prospect in return in trade. Guys without options who can't throw strikes but strike people out because their stuff is good but they can't control it almost always end up as relievers. Could be a very good one, but he's much closer to becoming a reliever than some front of the rotation starter. I don't think the Twins should add prospects to Polanco to get a reliever.

I agree they don't seem to do much at all on pitching through the international market, but I wonder what percentage of big time international signings are pitchers vs position players. What's the ratio of MLB pitchers vs MLB hitters that come out of Latin America in these signings? I have no idea, but I'd say it feels like it leans heavily towards position players. Would be interesting if somebody has some numbers on this so we can see what the expectations should be.

Alvarez was originally signed by the Dodgers before being traded to the Astros for Josh Fields. A wonderful trade to remember when we get upset about the Twins trading guys like Steer and CES for Mahle.

I don't think Joey is going to be walking through the doors of the home clubhouse at Target Field in 2024.

He walked 66 people in those 99.2 innings. That's 6 walks per 9 innings. He walked 15.2% of the batters he faced last year. Both second to last in MLB for pitchers who threw at least 90 innings. He threw pitches in the strike zone 41.5% of the time last year. 6th worst in baseball. He is really bad at throwing strikes.

Who's starting in the other corner if Wallner and Kepler are redundant?

3 times more value than 6 years of control of a kid who just put of 2.6 bWAR in 109 games while OPSing .839? Yeah, I think your valuations are way off. I am one who has suggested that your proposed trade would set the Twins back. What OF depth? If you trade your starting RFer and your top 100 prospect who's already on your 40-man roster who is playing RF and where is the depth behind them? Add to that trading your current starting DH/2B and the guy who's providing the depth behind him and who's starting at DH/2B and where is the depth behind them? Trading 2 starters and the guys providing depth behind them sets you back. https://theathletic.com/5141385/2023/12/15/royals-free-agency-rosenthal/ I don't know if you have an Athletic subscription so I'll include this paragraph: "Once the Royals knew they could sign free-agent outfielder Hunter Renfroe, who on Friday agreed to a two-year, $13 million deal, they were faced with a difficult choice in their pursuit of another starting pitcher. They could trade first baseman/DH Vinnie Pasquantino to the Marlins for left-hander Jesús Luzardo, a deal sources said was discussed at the winter meetings. Or they could sign right-hander Michael Wacha, a second-tier free agent who was in some demand...The front office consulted Sherman. The owner chose to keep pushing forward. And on Friday, the Royals reached agreement with Wacha on a two-year, $32 million contract." The Royals, by all reports, could've had Luzardo for Pasquantino. Is Pasquantino that much better than Julien? Julien is controlled for an extra year. Is Pasquantino equal in trade value to Polanco, Kepler, Lee, and Rodriguez? I don't think so. I think you've overestimated the cost of Luzardo. Being left handed does not add any extra value to his trade cost. Is he going to get paid more because he's left handed? It doesn't add anything at all to his value. You don't have to pay more for a left hander than a right hander of the same talent level. It's not meaningful in terms of trade acquisition cost. And I don't think it's meaningful in terms of your rotation talent either. Why does it matter which hand they throw with if they can get outs?

1. It's Walker, not Walter. 2. Nobody in baseball is trading a top 100 prospect for Cabrera. He's out of options and can't throw strikes. He had the 2nd worst walk rate amongst pitchers who threw at least 90 innings last year. He's closer to being moved to the pen than the Marlins getting a top 100 prospect for him.

I'm not sure why we should care all that much about him being left-handed or being friends with Lopez. I'm not giving up extra resources for either of those things. Only things that matter are being a top of the rotation starter with 3 years of control left. Did you see the reports about the possible Marlins-Royals trade? There were some pretty in depth ones that made it sound like it was basically Pasquantino for Luzardo and the Royals owner shot it down and paid for Wacha instead. I'd think a more comparable trade involving the Twins based on that rumor would be Julien for Luzardo. Would you trade Polanco, Kepler, and 2 top 100 prospects for Julien?

I think that's WAY too much for the Twins to give up, and I think it's more than it'd actually cost to get Luzardo. If Polanco and Kepler are worth so little that you have to attach 2 global top-100 prospects to them to get Luzardo the Twins should just keep them because they're worth far more to the Twins than that. This trade makes both the 2024 Twins and future Twins teams worse.

Castro will be really interesting to follow this year. As @Trov explains, it was his BB% that really took off last year. He hit the ball slightly harder, but still well below average. What he did was jump his BB% up to league average and that's what helped drive an increase in his overall numbers. BB% can definitely be a sustainable change for him, and I think he's still a great option for being the super-utility man to start the year. I am not a fan of him getting an everyday starting spot in CF as some have suggested, but I think he's still the ideal super-sub going into the 2024 season. Kepler got back to just trying to hit the ball hard and not trying to get too cute with things. I don't expect him to maintain his 2nd half performance over a full season, but I don't expect a huge regression from his overall numbers as I think he'll probably just be more steadily between his 1st half and 2nd half selves. Stewart is a complete wild card, like most relievers. Worthy of a shot to start the year as they do their usual rotating of guys until they find the right combo for the 2nd half of the season. Jeffers is a tough one to figure out. His expected numbers would suggest a bit of a regression is coming, but he was also a bat first guy and has shown glimpses of this before. I don't expect a huge fall off, but I also don't expect him to OPS .859 again. I don't buy the "if he plays more he's obviously going to regress from wear and tear" argument at all as the Twins don't play any catcher nearly enough for that to be a real concern. He's likely getting anywhere from 55-60% of starts next year so it's not like he's going to be playing a crazy amount. I don't know if Cody wasn't considering less than full season players, but I think Wallner is the likeliest candidate for regression. I think he's a super talented dude, and has already shown some ability to make adjustments, but I just don't trust him to close the hole on the inner 3rd of the plate that he has. Teams know about it now and are going to do everything they can to exploit it. He'll continue to pound mistakes where pitchers miss over the middle, and wear pitches when they miss too far inside, but MLB pitchers are really good and his hole is pretty massive. Certainly not writing him off as he's showing some really good ability, and he appears to work really hard at making adjustments. But it's going to be hard for him to maintain his production over a full season now that teams know how to attack him.

Why wouldn't it make a difference? You said "players can develop significantly at the age of 17 or 18." Wouldn't it stand to reason that they'd develop even more with professional coaching instead of high school coaching? Professional trainers? More resources for nutritional advice? Better fields and equipment? More access to time on the field? I listed off 4 guys from the last 2 drafts who'd likely already have debuted in major league baseball had they been drafted in the offseason instead of the middle of the regular season. I added Walker Jenkins as another option for someone who would stand to debut a year earlier. Bryce Harper would've debuted earlier. Yes, I do believe players would debut earlier if they were given better coaching sooner. High school kids leave school in January of their senior year to attend college for both academic and athletic reasons all the time. There are a whole bunch of high school kids who just graduated and will be attending major universities starting in a couple weeks so they can practice with their college football team to give them a chance to play earlier in college. This stuff is already happening. I don't have a son, but if I did and he wanted to graduate early to pursue his dream, and give himself a leg up in that pursuit, I'd absolutely be open to it if he was mature enough to handle it. You can also keep the signing deadline as early August and then that kid can choose to play his senior year as normal before signing and head straight to his team's training facilities after he graduates.

Depends how much "better scouted" it is. If simply having the most time possible to scout players is the most vital part why not force every kid to play 4 years of college baseball? My argument is that it wouldn't be that much better scouted. As I said, they're already signing kids younger than high school juniors and seniors in other parts of the world. They're trying to do an international draft as well. This would allow you to do a whole world draft if you wanted to. Ethan Holliday (Jackson's little brother) is only 16 years old and already has multiple articles written about him, and all the major scouting outlets have said he's already more advanced than Jackson was at that age. They're already scouting these guys. I don't know that there's that much of a difference in terms of scouting. Doing the draft earlier also gives them a chance to get those guys in their systems to start giving them better coaching and training earlier. If Jackson Holliday had been drafted in the offseason instead of the middle of the year there's a chance he's already debuted. If Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes, and Wyatt Langford were drafted in the offseason instead of the middle of the year there's a chance they're all already major leaguers. Walker Jenkins could be starting 2024 in AA depending on how well he did in 2023 if he'd been drafted in the offseason. There's positives to moving it up as well.

Have you looked at what Ty France has done the last few years? I don't think these comparisons to Polanco and Kepler are that far off. Unless you think Max is suddenly going to be his 2nd half self for an entire season Ty has been a better hitter since 2021 than Max has been. And he's pretty close to Polanco. He doesn't have quite the power of the other 2, but he's a really good hitter. Others may be undervaluing Polanco and Kepler, but you may be overvaluing them, too. Or undervaluing France. He's every bit the player those other 2 are, just in some different ways. The only reason I wouldn't trade Kepler for France is because I think the Twins have a bigger need in the cOF than at 1B. But if you're just going on pure talent it's a pretty darn even trade. Since 2021: Since 2020:

I don't totally disagree, but how much would it really change? Teams sign 16 year olds out of Latin America every year to multi-million dollar deals so it's not like they have no knowledge of how to scout young players. It would've likely cost Jackson Holliday money as he wouldn't have been the #1 pick, but it'd also save teams from drafting guys like Cavaco in the first. Yes, a college guy missing the previous season would be a problem. But guys getting hurt during their last season is just as much of a problem, isn't it? It's not like guys only get hurt during their sophomore year or anything. It's never going to happen, and I don't think it's that big of a deal. But I don't think it'd have that much of an effect (the top 5 still would've been the top 5 this year). And I think the league would adjust.

FYI, a higher batting average in late and close games does give you the highest correlation to winning% in 1 run games. But it wasn't that strong of a correlation. Both it and slugging have r values that come in at the very low end of moderate correlations (BA had an r value of .42 and SLG had a .41 in 2023). K% had almost no correlation at all (-.07), though. HR rate had a .22 r value so wasn't much there either. OBP was at .19, and OPS was .35. So you definitely want a better batting average and slugging, but striking out in late and close games has almost no correlation at all to winning 1 run games. All these numbers based on winning% in 1 run games last year, and team stats in late and close games as pulled from b-ref. For anyone reading who isn't versed in r value, it's basically a quick look at a correlation between data sets. 1 shows a positive correlation, -1 shows a negative correlation, and 0 shows no correlation. So the closer to +/- 1 you get the stronger the correlation.

I think the high school kids would be the problem moving it forward. But the college kids are already super well scouted so I don't think that'd be as much of a concern. I mean sites are already releasing their initial "2024 Draft Board" articles and rankings. The high school kids tend to be the ones who move up and down the board more drastically. It'd be a bit of a "culture shock" early on, but the league would adjust. It wasn't that long ago that they were doing the draft before the college season ended so it's not too crazy of a leap there.

Yeah, I don't see any of this happening, but your statement of "it's not like they have anything better to show this time of year" is really a problem for me. It's so slow they stop many of their main programs because there's just nothing to talk about. I tuned in a couple times last week and they had baseball card shows running most days. They're showing world series re-runs now. I'd think some talk about free agency leading up to the open signing period would drive more viewership than an hour long show about baseball cards, but I could be wrong. I don't know why the MLBPA would be super against it. Does letting the process play out over months really add dollars to the contracts? I'd think the same process would play out just over a shorter period of time. But I could be wrong on that. That's a really interesting idea on the draft. I wonder how that'd change draft decisions. Would it make the picks at the top of the draft more likely to be hits? You'd think it'd certainly have stopped the Twins from taking Cavaco at a minimum since I'd guess he'd get shredded in a league like that. But I'd certainly tune in to watch. It could include building an academy in the US like they have in the DR and those places where after the college and high school seasons the players get to go there and work with league trainers and coaches. Could be a way to bring the international players into the draft as well. Bring the top kids from all over here and teams get to send their scouts in and see the kids against each other. Very interesting.