chpettit19

I saw him in St Paul a couple times this last weekend, and his glove work is quite good. He has the arm and glove to play SS, but his range will be the question. 3B sounds like the natural next move for him, and he should be great there. He's smooth and has really good hands. I wouldn't even think about moving him to 1B. He'll have a few hiccups, and he's not Correa, but I'd take his glove over Lewis' right now.

I'd start Solano over Gallo 10/10 times, but to each their own. If Julien has issues with something this guy throws he's not anywhere near the hitter we hope he is. And if he's ever going to figure out whatever that possible struggle is he needs to play. Not sit behind a guy striking out at historic rates. You may be able to find "several dozen" hitters in the division you'd take Gallo over, but I can't. But, again, to each their own.

I thought they were starting a lefty tomorrow and then I was going to be even more upset since he wouldn't have started then so I get the confusion on random Detroit pitchers!

FYI Faedo is a righty so the lefty stuff doesn't really come into play. I wouldn't have questioned it if it were a lefty on the mound. With that being said, I also don't care about the last 2 weeks. Actually, him struggling is all the more reason to put him in there. This is how young players develop. He's struggling and needs to adjust to get out of that struggle. Not playing him makes that much harder. And Gallo has had a much worse line than that (minus the slugging) for 3 months so the "he's struggling" argument (which I assume is their thought process as well) doesn't fly with me. Yes, Gallo is a better 1B than Solano, but he's not a good enough hitter to trump anyone who can be serviceable at 1B. I don't think Polanco would step in and be a gold glover at 1B, but if you can play SS in the majors (even if you're not great cuz you don't have the arm for it) you can play 1B. I don't think Julien can play 1B, but Polanco can.

Might as well get it started: Gallo playing and Julien not?! I am legitimately annoyed by that. Solano still feeling it enough that he can't play 1B? Polanco can't shift over to 1B? How is there no way for this team to get the worst hitter in baseball out of the lineup?

Right now it's Lopez, Gray, and Maeda as your top 3 playoff arms so I'm not sure why we'd be looking to move one of them to the pen. That can certainly change in the coming weeks, but none of those 3 guys are currently in play for pen roles. And until they have the division locked up Ryan and Ober aren't going to the pen either. 1 of them, as of now, likely gets a pen role come October, though. I'd guess Ober, but it'll likely come down to who's pitching best at the end of September. Can we stop with this Keuchel nonsense? He wasn't dominant in AAA. He was far more lucky than good in his first start. He was completely brutal in his second start. He's been brutal for the previous 2 years as well. Why would we want a guy who's WHIP in his "good" start was 2.0, and who hasn't struck out a major league hitter this year in the pen? What purpose would that serve? Keuchel is a horrid pen option. Varland I think is a likely late season, and possibly postseason, pen arm. I think they'll turn to him and see if he can hit 100+ if he's only throwing an inning at a time. Before then I'd hope he replaces Keuchel in the rotation for anymore starts needed there, but I'm not holding my breath that they actually make that move. But I'd take Varland's stuff in short stints over a number of guys in the pen right now. If Paddack returns this year it'll be out of the pen, and I actually hope that happens in September so he can start knocking the TJ rust off now. Even just a handful of innings in September would be useful as he gets into the offseason to work on getting that command back to game form. I wouldn't expect him to see any important innings, but even just a rehab assignment to get him in games this year would be useful, I think.

Yeah, I'm with @DJL44 on this one. This narrative basically assumes he's never worked at 2B and thus it's likely he'll improve now that he's doing that. He's been working at 2B for years. Hopefully during his off-seasons as well. I'm ok leaving him at 2B if that's the position he has the best chance of succeeding at, but I don't expect him to ever be an adequate fielder there. People like to point out Koskie (not saying you're doing that now, but just an example) and how well he improved after starting as a bad fielder while ignoring the significantly more players who were bad at fielding and stayed bad at fielding. When you watch his feet and hands I don't know where people see a guy likely to improve. The most likely result is that Julien stays bad defensively his whole career, but you hope he hits enough to make up for it, or you move him to DH. That doesn't mean you don't give him a chance to improve, but he's got a long, long ways to go and he's not some 21 year old who's never played the position before.

I'll be pretty surprised if they go 15 bats in September with a clearly tiring pitching staff. Especially if they're able to give themselves a big cushion early in the month. Resting some arms, and getting them lined up for the playoffs, would be a lot easier with 14 arms.

I'm not rushing to judgement. I haven't said he should be suspended or anything. I have no idea what the facts are, or how old she was/is. But he's going to get the biggest suspension in MLB history if it's found that he was sleeping with a 14 year old. The league won't care what documentation there was. The league won't care about anything. If they find out one of their players was sleeping with a 14 year old they're going to absolutely bury them. It is that simple. Now I have no idea if that is the actual fact of the situation, and I'm going to let all the info come out before I judge Wander. But if the allegations are true he's not seeing an MLB game for a very long time.

Yeah, I disagree whole heartedly. The age of 18 is absolutely the tipping point on the scale in this case. Maybe the DR justice system is different, but MLB is not going to accept "I didn't know she was 14." They don't care about blackmail schemes, whether she tried it on other players, or how old she "portrayed herself" as. The communication doesn't matter. Don't get ensnared by 14 year olds. You're a multimillionaire professional athlete with every resource possible at your disposal for finding out the age of anyone, and are warned about being a likely target of blackmail schemes. The league won't care 1 bit if he claims he didn't know. The "I didn't know" excuse is used all the time. And never works. MLB won't care. If she was 14 Franco is getting the longest suspension the league can give him. They're not taking the PR hit because he says he didn't know.

Oh, all sorts of unknowns still for sure. My thing with the "moral deviance" thing is that it comes down to the same thing as a criminal investigation. Either she was 18 or she wasn't. I think MLB would have a very hard time getting a suspension through if she was 18 and he didn't do anything illegal. I don't think there's any precedence for that. The ones where there's no criminal charges, but the guy is still suspended, are over violence and the league basically says that their required level of evidence is different than a court's. That's a lot harder explanation to give when it comes to someone's age. That isn't he said/she said. That's simply a fact. Her age is her age so I don't see how they would get away with suspending him if she was/is 18.

Thanks! That certainly does make things a little different I'd think. But then immigration things could be at play, but I'm no immigration specialist. Certainly complicates things I'd think.

I guess my stance on it is that I'd hope it's an all or nothing situation, and that comes down to a criminal investigation. Either she was/is 18 or she wasn't/isn't. If she was/is 18 MLB likely has nothing to suspend him for and he'll be back after this road trip. Or she wasn't/isn't 18, and then he's committed a crime and should be in prison. I don't see a violation of their domestic violence, child abuse, etc. agreement if he was sleeping with an 18 year old. So, based on my understanding of everything (which is admittedly very little on this specific case as, like you said, it just came out yesterday) this is either a crime or he'll be back when it's determined he didn't commit a crime. Although, I guess I don't know the details and whether or not these things allegedly happened in America. That could certainly change a criminal investigation while not effecting the MLB investigation. Although that should effect his immigration status (I believe he's still a Dominican citizen, and not US, but could be wrong) so then we'd be back to the original all or nothing answer.

Has the legal system gotten involved yet? I'd think that's the only way we've seen the end of him in MLB.

Righty platoon bat since no lefties can be trusted to hit against a lefty.

That's an awfully bold take, but to each their own.

Why do you think he can judge a pop fly? Not everybody can. The Twins have tried him at other spots. I know it's popular to just assume they're completely incompetent so they're making a clearly wrong decision, but multiple coaches have seen him play these other spots. I don't like him at 2B either, but he's the 1 guy they aren't playing all over after having tried it. Isn't it at least plausible that the reason they aren't doing with him what they did with Arraez is because they've seen him at these other spots and it's even worse than him at 2B?

And LFers also field grounders. But those certainly aren't the skills you're looking to develop at those positions. If a 2B is fielding a fly ball there's a very good chance that at least 1 of 5 other players on the field (P, 1B, SS, CF, RF) can also get to that ball. And the balls in the air a 2B is fielding are very different than what a LF is fielding. I have no idea what you're trying to suggest here.

I'd have left Gray in for 1 more. I do think it makes sense to get the rotation a little extra rest here and there for the stretch run, but they also need to get the pen some rest. Jax and Duran have been awfully wobbly lately. I know they have a number of off days coming up, but those 2 look to be in need of a reset of some sort. Come playoff time they're going to need them available to throw in basically every close game so they need them well rested then, but they also need to get them used to throwing up to 3 days in a row. It's a balancing act as it's also going to be vital to have the starters with as strong of arms as possible to get 6 or 7 innings out of them in every start. Will be interesting to see how they manage the pitching staff from here on out. I'm not going to freak out over 1 start where I'd have left Gray in an extra inning than they did as I can see a number of legitimate reasons to have done so.

I think the only hope for playoff success is starters getting through 6 and Thielbar, Jax, and Duran are on top of their game. I don't see another reliever I'd use in a postseason game right now. As of now Pagan is likely 4th in line, yes. But the question was simply Jax vs Pagan. And I'd still go Jax.

I think the spirit of this list is high minors/current Twins roster type guys. The immediate future over just a prospect ranking type situation.

I think I've been pretty clear that I disliked the Keuchel experiment from the jump, but I won't be convinced it's done until he's officially off the roster. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find out that Ober has a very similar groin issue to Ryan that he didn't tell the team about that happened just before he started to struggle. And with the off days they have coming up it's pretty easy to shift Keuchel to Ober's rotation spot when Ryan comes off the IL (hopefully this week). This FO loves it's washed up vets, so I'll believe Keuchel is done when they actually cut him.

Jax, but it's a closer call than I'd like. Jax and Duran are both uncomfortable to watch right now, but Jax has given up at least 1 run in an inning 3 times since May, and doesn't give up HRs. He's certainly shaky right now, but it's not like he's giving up runs left and right. I give Pagan props for making it through this year as a very serviceable middle reliever, but I still wouldn't put him anywhere near the situation as described above. I fully expect Jax to get himself straightened out before the postseason. He's done it before and he'll do it again. He's allowing too many runners for sure, but he's still getting through innings with the lead intact. I'll take my chances with him over Pagan in a high leverage spot.

I'm not blind. Does Rocco discuss players with the FO? Of course he does. But the FO doesn't need Rocco to tell them who's available and who's not. He absolutely is not telling them who to call up and send down and IL. That is factually incorrect on how things work. I promise you. The medical people tell them all who's available, who's not, and how long the injuries are likely to be a problem. FYI, Solano just hit so I'm pretty sure they're not short 2 guys.

I think he's better than a 98 OPS+ hitter so I wouldn't view it as "dumping" him on another team. But if you think he maxes out as Delmon Young then I understand that stance.