chpettit19

Cuz we've seen him do it. Pretty simple answer. Go watch his AFL games, and even just watch the play he got hurt on. We've seen with our eyes what Royce can do in CF.

A 10 day IL stint basically ends his regular season. I don't know much about the recovery from his foot pain, but is it likely that he'd see such a significant improvement that it'd make up for him sitting out the rest of the season and going into the playoffs with just a couple games played in Colorado to get his timing back? Feels like a bold gamble to take.

Rosario being the best on the market or not wasn't the problem, it was his cost. He wasn't worth his predicted 9ish mil salary. As shown by him not getting that on the market. Being the best on the market doesn't suddenly make him worth 9 mil. Gio Urshela was coming off a 144 games played, 119 OPS+ season and was worth his roughly 8.5 mil final arb year salary. Kyle Farmer has never had even a 100 OPS+ season and won't be worth his 8.5ish mil salary for next year. If you wouldn't pay him 8.5 why would you not only pay him 8.5 but also give up any sort of prospect capital to get him? Now it only takes 1 team, and I'd hope the Twins are talking to teams before they non-tender him, but being best on the market doesn't automatically equal being worth his arb 3 salary and a prospect.

Not quite that simple. How much he makes changes how valuable he is. His arb 3 tender is likely higher than he could get on the open market. Much like the Eddie Rosario situation a couple years ago.

Getting your rotation lined up for October 3, 4, 5 is far more important than trying to chase down 3 other teams to get that 2 seed. Get your guys 2 more starts, but do it in a way that lines up Lopez, Gray, and Ryan (or Gray, Lopez, Ryan) for October 3, 4, 5.

Yeah, the FA SS class this year is a significant downgrade from the last couple. I'm sure he'd appreciate the chance to pick his next team, and go somewhere that has a starting spot for him. Or pick his best chance to chase a ring. Whatever he prefers. I don't think he'll be worth whatever he'd get in his 3rd arb year, though, so I'd rather spend that money elsewhere.

How much rest is needed between now and October 3rd to have his feet be feeling significantly better? Is it actually realistic that his feet are going to be feeling truly better by then? I'd think not, but I'm not a Dr. If not then he can have 9/20, 9/26, and 9/30 off. DH 3 other games, including game 162 on 10/1, and play SS the other 6 games. I wouldn't give him anymore than 3 actual days off the rest of the year, though. His timing at the plate is far more important than any rest days, assuming it's not realistic to get his feet back and truly feeling good before the postseason starts.

It'll be quite interesting to see how they manage the 40-man this offseason in regards to floor vs ceiling. It's going to start getting crowded with younger players and I'm fascinated to see how they handle things, and if they limit the number of 1 year vets they bring in as they start filling spots on the roster. Kyle Farmer is one I'll be watching. I'd non-tender him, but am interested to see what they do. 1 year vets will mean they don't trust the floor from the young guys, and that'll be frustrating.

Yeah, Lee is not swift of foot at all. Can certainly understand the desire to have minor leaguers learn a new spot over a major leaguer, but Lewis has already played out there (looked great in the AFL), and I'd think he can learn it in an offseason quite well. I'm hoping to never see Celestino in a Twins jersey again. I think they need to be shooting for much higher ceilings than him. I'm expecting he isn't even on the 40-man come 2024.

My Plan A would be Lewis to CF. IFers worthy of innings next year: Correa Julien Polanco Kirilloff Lee Miranda (yes, really, I think his shoulder was a real issue, and you have to see if he really is the 2022 version of hitter) Severino OFers worthy of innings next year: Kepler (if he's still on the team, and this isn't the offseason the trade rumors actually turn out to be true) Larnach (have to find out if he's a AAAA player once and for all) Wallner (can he maintain solid performance with his K%?) Utility players worthy of innings next year: Gordon (I'm not a believer, but you have to see if he's 2022 version or 2023 version) Castro Martin Byron Buxton type players worthy of innings next year: Buxton (you can't bank on him for playing time anywhere at anytime over the life of his contract) That IF list looks like the best, by far, to me. Lewis in CF would be a really nice boost to the OF list. I think ERod and Jenkins are corner guys in the bigs, and hope they're flanking Lewis by some point in 2025. I'd be happy to bring MAT back as the 4th OFer. Stevenson can spend the year in AAA on a minor league deal again if he wants. All 3 of the utility guys can play some in CF, but I'm not going into the season with them as my only CF options, even if I do like Martin as a player overall. I'm not paying Bellinger a ton, and there's no other FAs I'd even really consider. Maybe a trade is a possibility, but I think this team is still at a "talent acquisition" point, and not a "talent rearranging" point. I think Lewis in CF is the most natural move to make to rebalance this roster a bit, and that'd be my move.

You'd move Lee to CF over Lewis? Lee is a far better IF defender, and significantly slower than Lewis. That'd be a heck of a bold move.

What's the score? Not just "down a run," but is it 12-13 or 0-1? Who's left in their pen? Can the lefty be pulled for a righty, or does he have to face Solano? Who's left on the Twins bench? How many outs? Who's up next? How good is the lefty, and what are his splits like? Have other guys already been subbed in? Sure, there are times that it makes sense. Shouldn't have spoken in such concrete terms in that sentence. But if it's just an "auto-pinch hit" like Rocco seems to do sometimes and it actually leads to a better pitcher facing Solano cold off the bench I'll be upset. This is a good example of why relying on platoon split advantages is far less ideal than just having really good hitters. You have to try to score when the opportunity presents itself, but the ultimate goal is scoring more in the game as a whole. Relying on platoon advantages, and making lots of substitutions, makes it harder to maximize all of your opportunities in a singular game as a whole. It's advantageous over the course of 162 games, but not necessarily in an individual game.

Last year's wild card round included a 15 inning game, and still had no team use 11 pitchers. Both of the teams in that series (Cleveland and Tampa) only used 9 pitchers each. 2 teams used 10 pitchers (Padres and Mets) because they both had things go very poorly with a couple of their pitchers so none of the 3 games were close. Toronto and Seattle both only used 9 pitchers even though they both had multiple guys do really poorly (Ray only made it 3 innings in his start). Phillies used 6 arms, and Cards used 7. If you're using your 11th or 12th arm you're in a terrible spot. If you're using more than 7 arms something likely went pretty poorly for one of your starters, or you're using an opposite handed reliever to end an inning before turning it over to your back end stoppers. There should be absolutely no need to carry a 12th pitcher for the wildcard round.

Agreed on the early game moves. Emptying your bench by the 6th isn't anything I'm likely to ever be in support of. A lot of that comes down to knowing who's available in the other pen, but taking away any possible future moves by the 6th when you know the entire lineup gets another AB doesn't make much sense to me. A singular 2 out pinch hit move with runners in scoring position in the 5th or 6th? I can buy that. But blowing up your bench by then doesn't seem like the right move to me. I'm quite interested to see how the Twins use their bench in the playoffs (I don't like to say "Rocco's strategy," because I don't think it's just his, it's the orgs). The extremes with which they pinch hit in the regular season makes sense because of the length of the regular season. Fans tend to judge each move on a more individual basis, but the strategy is a "for the long haul" kind of strategy. They don't expect to win each situation, but they expect to win more situations over 162 games than they would without pinch hitting. But a 3, 5, or 7 game series isn't a long haul, it's a sprint. Pinch hitting for Julien in the 6th, or sooner, when you know that spot is coming up again later in the game would/will frustrate me greatly. They're going to carry 15 position players, though, I'd guess. So I'm not going to be surprised at all to see early pinch hitting moves with a plan to replace the righty with a different lefty later in the game if called for. But I'm not going to like it. I don't want Stevenson up with the tying run at 2nd in the 9th. The playoffs are a time to shrink your bench and pen, and just let your best guys see if they're better than the other team's best guys.

Yeah, I didn't say he did well. Just said it's hard to succeed in the situation he was put. I didn't make the "this guy faced some adversity and failed; therefore, the failure was caused by the adversity" argument. I just said it's hard to succeed in the situation he was put. Your thread asks "what the Twins can learn from (his) Red Sox tenure," and I answered that they can learn it's really hard to succeed after Dombrowski does his "trade everyone on the farm for a run at a championship" thing, your boss tells you you have to cut payroll, and, because of that, trade a top 5 player in baseball, and your fan base won't accept anything less than a legit championship chance. It's hard to succeed in that spot. It's hard to succeed in any top exec role in a major sports league. There's only 30 top spots in MLB. It's hard to succeed. There's not some big lesson to be learned by Chaim's tenure in Boston. Needing your pitchers to pitch well, your hitters to hit well, and your trades to bring back good players aren't lessons learned from this. They're just the basics of running an MLB organization. The Red Sox won 92 games 2 years ago and now he's been fired. Running an MLB organization is hard. That's not saying none of them should ever be fired, it's just stating that it's hard, and there's not some grand lesson to be learned here beyond Chaim Bloom having not met the criteria to continue running the Boston Red Sox front office.

The team did well so you won't give him credit. The team did poorly so you will give him blame. The team did well in a poor division so you won't give him credit. Hard to argue with that!

I was going by the positions their teams currently let them play, so outfield wasn't an option. Julien doesn't beat Ozuna in his ability to start everyday at this point of his career because he can't hit lefties. I hope he gets a chance to improve that ability by getting real chances to hit against them, but at this point Ozuna is the better DH. Lewis you could make an argument for over Ozuna, sure. But that's still just 3 guys, and Kepler is only in there because of a 2 month hot streak, and just as easily as one could argue for Lewis over Ozuna they could argue for Rosario over Kepler. So 2 or 3 Twins would make the Braves lineup, and that 6th or 7th guy you're suggesting they could drop for a Twin has 34 HRs this year. Point of the post, though, was simply that comparing the Braves to the Twins right now isn't useful. I don't like some of the lineup decisions, or extreme platoon decisions, but saying the Twins should just run out the same 9 guys almost everyday like the Braves do is ignoring the vast difference in the talent in each of those lineups. There's no current Twin that would hit in the top 5 of the Braves lineup. Maybe not even the top 7. They're very different lineups that should be managed differently. I hope we can get to the point where they should do things like the Braves, but we're nowhere near that point right now.

No, I don't expect Ober to even start in the playoffs. But using him as an example is useless because he's never even touched this amount of innings in a season in his life. The discussion was about the narrative that Rocco has a quick hook. Bringing up Ober in a conversation about Rocco's quick hook naturally implies that you're blaming Rocco's quick hook. Last year's wild card round starts: Wheeler: 6.1 innings Quintana: 5.1 innings Nola: 6.2 innings Mikolas: 4.1 innings Darvish: 7 innings Scherzer: 4.2 innings (gave up 7 runs, and I don't think he's someone you want to use as an example of being "pulled even quicker" in playoff games) Snell: 3.1 innings (90 pitches, yikes) deGrom: 6 innings McClanahan: 7 innings Bieber: 7.2 innings Glasnow: 5 innings (made 2 regular season starts for a grand total of 6.2 innings on the season and still went 5) McKenzie: 6 innings Castillo: 7.1 innings Manoah: 5.2 innings Ray: 3 innings (gave up 4 earned) Gausman: 5.2 innings (gave up 4 earned) Average innings per start in WC round last year: 5.7 innings. Yes, I watch playoff baseball. And the teams were doing everything they could to get at least 6 innings out of their starters in the wild card round. Their expectations are that they "deal" in the wild card round. Absolutely. 100%. That is their expectation. Gray has been going 6 innings a start for over 2 months now. They've built their team around the idea that their rotation will carry them. I'm not suggesting anything crazy. I didn't say they're expecting complete games. They're expecting exactly what they've been asking of them since July while they were fighting for the division. Your suggestion is that suddenly they're going to stop asking Gray and Lopez to go 6+ when they actually get to the playoffs. That's a far wilder suggestion for the wild card series. The Twins are expecting 6 innings out of Gray and Lopez, and probably hoping for it out of Ryan. Suggesting this is a "wild stretch" doesn't follow the logic of what's actually been happening. They may not get the 6 innings, but that is the expectation. And it's not hard to see. "Hey, we need you to get 6 innings a start during the stretch run battle where every game matters so we can win the division, but once we actually reach the playoffs we're going to decide that isn't the best strategy to win must-win games" is the far wilder argument to make here.

As @Rod Carews Birthday pointed out, that's not at all a good argument for how averages work. A few more blow up starts doesn't suddenly drop them to the middle of the pack, much less the bottom. They could drop 19 innings and still be one of 6 teams at 800 starter innings this year. They are 39 innings ahead of the 13th ranked Arizona starting staff. How many blowup, 3 inning or less, starts do you think teams have per year? You don't get to be tied for the lead league in innings per start if you're not actually letting your pitchers go deep into games. Ober has doubled his innings from last year, but you want to argue he's getting pulled early? Not the best argument to make. Yeah, I'm hoping they meant it when they said they needed to make adjustments with their postseason strategies after 2020. Ah, yes, the old "Rocco is obviously going to treat game 1 or 2 of the wild card series the exact same way as he treated a mid-June game where his pitcher was needing 20 pitches an inning to struggle through 4 innings against a bad team" argument. Classic. Sonny Gray is currently 10th in the AL, and 20th in baseball, in innings pitched this year (averaging 5.76 innings per start). Pablo Lopez is currently 5th in the AL, and 10th in baseball, in innings pitched this year (averaging 6.16 innings per start). Arguing that it's "a wild stretch" to suggest they're expecting 6 innings from either of those guys is simply refusing to give up a narrative. Since the start of July Sonny Gray has gone fewer than 6 innings 2 times in 13 starts, and one of those was 5.2 innings. The other was his last start where he needed 89 pitches to get through 4 innings. They are expecting Sonny Gray to get through 6 innings in his wild card start. There's nothing "wild" about that suggestion.

Best argument would be for Lewis at SS over Correa, or maybe DH over Ozuna. But they're not better than Riley or Albies at this points in their careers. That Atlanta lineup is crazy good.

I didn't say it was a lock, but it is absolutely the expectation. But even if Gray and Ryan only go 5 you still only need 7 arms to get through a 3 game series unless something goes wrong. You carry the extra few arms in case they're needed, but the comment I responded to was questioning only carrying 11 arms. The point is they shouldn't need anywhere near 11 arms to get through a 3 game, must win series. And adding "Rocco combined with" to your argument doesn't help your argument. The Twins are in the top 3 in baseball in innings per start. The narrative that he's constantly pulling good starters early has never been right, and easily proven to be wrong.

Yeah, I don't care if they fire Rocco, and the last 2 seasons were very disappointing, but last season's record on September first was 67-62 before circumstances outside of Rocco's control (injuries) tanked that season. Cutting out a season where everything seemed to go right for most of the year while including a season where everything came crashing down at the end of the year skews the results. I'm not a believer in managers making a huge difference. I don't think Tito would have the Twins sitting at 90 wins right now. I have a very strong dislike for the pinch hitting before the 7th inning when you know that spot is coming up in the lineup again. Especially when he empties his bench early. But I also think MLB managers are a lot like NFL QBs in that they get more credit and more blame than they deserve for team performance. It was pretty well accepted by almost everyone that this team was good enough to win the central, which we thought would be bad, and get about 81 to 85 wins. This team is going to win the central, which is bad, and get about 81 to 85 wins. If Tito was the manager would we be looking at 84-88 wins instead? Maybe, but I don't think Rocco is costing this team a dozen plus wins like some people make it seem, or downright claim. I think talent wins. Talent won in 2019. Lack of talent lost in 2021. OK talent stayed afloat for most of 2022 before an extreme lack of talent lost extremely at the end of 2022. This thread started because Rocco pinch hit a really bad righty on righty batter for a really bad lefty on lefty hitter in the 9th the other day. Not the move I would've preferred, but people act like he took Barry Bonds out for Nick Punto. I can understand the strategy of looking for every little advantage when your roster is so closely clustered in talent, and that talent isn't exactly elite. I'd prefer the team just be more talented, but teams expected to be around .500 based on their talent are probably best off looking for advantages on the margins over the course of a very long season. I won't be sad if they fire Rocco, but I don't think he's nearly as bad as people suggest. The Twins just deploy a less than fan friendly strategy which leads to a lot of understandable frustration.

The lesson to be learned is that it's really hard to follow a Dave Dombrowski tenure when the team owners also tell you to cut payroll and you're in a market that expects championships every year.

If you need even 11 pitchers in a 3 game series you're going to lose that series. Duran is throwing in every game that's close. Have to expect at least 6 innings out of your starters. That leaves 2 innings a game that needs to be covered, and you shouldn't be using anyone but you top 2 non-Duran guys for those innings. Luplow doesn't have much value to a playoff roster, but I don't know what pitcher would have any value as the 12th guy in a 3 game set. Shouldn't need more than 6 or 7 arms in the WC round, but carry a few extra in case someone goes down or a game gets out of control and you need/want to save your top arms.

I'd love to see your ranking of the Twins and Braves hitters combined. I like @FlyingFinn's idea of just naming Twins batters who are true everyday guys, but I'd like to take it 1 step further and list the Twins batters that would make the Atlanta starting lineup. Position by position if I got to choose between these 2 teams my lineup would be: C: Sean Murphy 1B: Matt Olson 2B: Ozzie Albies 3B: Austin Riley SS: Carlos Correa LF: Ronald Acuna Jr CF: Michael Harris II RF: Max Kepler DH: Marcell Ozuna The only 2 Twins that'd even make their lineup are there for their defense (Correa) or beating out Eddie Rosario with a large part of that being because of defense (Kepler). I can't imagine why the Twins are doing things differently than a Braves team threatening the single season HR record without a juiced ball.