chpettit19

He's their blind spot, and I think this last month will be more than enough "proof" in their minds that he's the answer out there no matter how his season ends. They love them some Max Kepler.

Yeah, their management of a number of guys confuses me sometimes. I generally trust minor league staffs to know what they're doing, but I don't get why they let journeymen minor leaguers block guys like Lee when he's clearly in need of the next challenge. I'm certainly not concerned about a mass loss. I don't really worry about losing guys in the Rule 5 in general. There's just some decisions that don't make sense to me so I try to come up with ideas on what they may be thinking. I'll be absolutely floored if they drop all those young arms this offseason. I don't see any chance of them dropping SWR (if they kept Balazovich they're keeping the much younger SWR). Headrick and Winder feel like long shots to go. Henriquez, Moran, and Alcala (depending on his health) would be surprising, but not shocking. Would also be incredibly surprised if they drop Castro. Still arb eligible for 2 more years, and has an option left. No reason to move on from him that I see. I'd bet they try to bring Taylor back, too, but wouldn't be overly surprised if they don't. Lot of that depends on what they plan to do with Lewis, and Buxton's health. I think they really like Taylor. I would bet a lot of money that Kepler is penciled in as their everyday RFer for 2024 right now, and it'll probably take a lot for that to change between now and opening day next year. He's by far their biggest blind spot. Only way they don't bring him back is if they trade him. They're picking up that option unless he completely falls off a cliff the rest of the year. If Polanco can stay healthy the rest of this year (big if) I'd think the only way he isn't back is if they trade him.

Yeah, I'm not generally someone who worries about losing guys in the Rule 5. There's always articles about needing to protect 6, 7, 8+ guys or they're all going to get picked and I don't buy it at all. Severino is one that I'd say is likely to be on radars. I'd move him up to get myself comfortable with what he can do against better pitching before I need to make a decision on him. Power is always going to draw attention. We're working our way away from the walks and bombs profile being so in style, but the Oakland and KCs of the world, I'd guess, are more likely to take a shot at a guy who knows the zone and hits the ball hard than most other bat profiles when it comes to the Rule 5.

I've actually been wondering if they're keeping players down because they think they can "trick" other teams into not taking guys in the Rule 5. I really hope that isn't the idea, but I'm confused as to why they're not moving some guys up. But I'm often confused by their roster decisions these days so that's not really all that noteworthy.

I 100% believe they have Kepler penned into RF in 2024 right now. Hopefully Wallner remains in the lineup the rest of the year and they at least have an idea of what he'll be able to provide. There are definitely some glimmers of hope amongst the young guys, but the foundation of this team is built on some incredibly shaky pieces (Correa, Buxton, Polanco, Kirilloff, and Lewis all have very real questions about their abilities to stay healthy at this point). It's hard to see an encouraging path forward under this FO. Which is a bummer since I've been on their side more often than not for most of the past few years.

Giving young guys shots. My dream scenario was to see if a package built around Wallner and Polanco would entice Seattle into parting with one of their young arms. No idea what would have to be added to that, or what their view of Wallner is. But they need a young OF bat, and a 2B while they have extra arms and are trying to win now. If that deal gets done then trading Maeda or Gray isn't "selling" because you created a surplus of 2023 arms in the Seattle trade. Or just any of their lefty OF bats for a righty OF bat. Kepler for Bader intrigue the Yankees at all? Gallo for anything at all? Bell has a .233/.318/.383/.701 batting line this year and got a 2021 1st round pick in return. That kid isn't blowing away the minors, but they got a return that is far from nothing for him. Gallo couldn't have gotten some random rookie ball or low A flier in return? I'd dump Gallo today and give Williams a shot at 1B until Kirilloff is back. And I'm not even a Williams believer. But playing Gallo isn't helpful for the now or for the future. This team has holes everywhere. I know we all want Larnach to be good, but, to me, he's not somebody you can't trade to better shape your organization. Gallo, Kepler, Wallner, Larnach was too many lefties to start the year, but made some sense with Kirilloff's wrist questions so I didn't mind the Gallo flier. It didn't work out. At this point you're simply holding onto him because you paid him and hoped he'd be good. If there's nobody in AAA that can play passable defense at 1B, and not strike out 50% of the time this organization is doomed anyways. I don't care what Kirilloff's situation is, Gallo isn't the answer if you're trying to actually win this division. There were absolutely ways to move pieces around to have a better fitting top of your organization if you valued your guys correctly. Are they going to move Lewis, Julien, or Kirilloff to the OF? If not you're looking at a logjam in the IF anyways if you were right on Lee, and are going to promote him as he deserves. He should be in AAA now, and if succeeds there the rest of the year have a legit shot at the opening day roster next year (thanks to the new pick compensation rules). I love those 5 IF guys, but if they're all as good as we hope/expect they should all play 160 games a year (I know this regime would never do that) and you don't keep one of them in AAA, or on the bench, for depth. Trade 1 for an equally talented OFer or arm with equal control. Doing nothing didn't help this team for 2023 (they're not good enough even though the FO thought they'd be) or 2024 when we still won't know about Larnach, and I'd actually bet today that that leads to Kepler being back while we continue to do this "mediocre veterans we hope will suddenly be really good" dance they've been doing for years. This org needs a shakeup and it could've/should've started over the last couple weeks.

The FO should've done what Cleveland did...sell without really selling. Cleveland moved Bell, an underperforming "big" FA addition for a flier on an athletic recent 1st rounder. They moved their expiring contract SS for an expiring contract arm so they could then move their more valuable, but not great, arm for a AAA top 100 prospect. They have young guys ready to step in at SS and Naylor available to take all their 1B reps while also replacing Bell with that top 100 prospect (he's hurt so probably won't be a factor until next year). They didn't blow things up, or do any drastic selling. They moved pieces around so their organization fits together better. The point being that there's a middle ground. Yes, last deadline turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. But you don't have to swing 3 or 4 prospects for multi-year controllable big leaguer deals to make deals. You can make more minor deals that reshape your roster, and organization, without being drastic about things. I didn't expect, or want, big trades (unless it was for 1 of the young Seattle arms), but doing absolutely nothing outside of a "meh" Floro deal is unacceptable to me. This team is flawed. The idea that "getting our injured guys back is going to be as good or better than any trade" is nonsense. This team needs reshaping. If I thought this FO was going to be replaced at the end of the year I'd be more OK with them not doing the reshaping and leaving it up to the next regime, but I don't think that's the case, so I think they really missed the mark by again refusing to accept that their predictions for the current team were wrong, and the players aren't performing how they expected.

Fascinating to see people ignore his last 2 seasons of major league pitching for 6 AAA starts that he didn't exactly dominate. I want nothing to do with Dallas Keuchel in a Twins uniform. As emergency depth in AAA for a month? Cool. But actively going out of your way to find a place for him on the active roster? No way. His ERA was pretty, but he gave up as many hits as strikeouts, and had a 1.25 WHIP which was higher than most of his MLB WHIPs when he was a useful pitcher. His ERA last year in the bigs was 9.20. That's not a typo. 9.20 ERA. It was 5.28 in 2021. I know we've been starved for pitching since Santana left, but this is basically begging the Twins to add Joey Gallo to the team because he blasted 9 HRs in a month in AAA while striking out 45% of the time. Dallas Keuchel is an addition you make if you sold your real major league pitchers at the deadline, not a move you make if you're attempting to actually win this division.

I think the weight we put on "random variation" is different. I'd guess I think there's more change in how they're throwing the ball year to year than you would. And that's totally fine. But that doesn't change that there is some pretty sizeable variation in their outcomes. And that's what a FO is trying to predict when bringing in any certain player. What will their future outcomes be? Predicting the future outcomes of relievers is significantly harder than any other position.

But small sample size is their job. If you can't succeed in small sample sizes you're not a good reliever. The top end of innings pitched by relievers is about 70 innings. Your job is to throw up 0s in as many of those as possible, and definitely to stay away from crooked numbers. Giving up runs in more games, or having more crooked numbers against you, year to year isn't shocking, but it's the difference between being a good reliever and a bad reliever year to year. Yes, their sample size is absolutely what causes their stats to be volatile, but that's the job. Your bad performances often times turn wins into losses. It's a lot of pressure, and nobody is going to have an ERA of 0. But that's why it's the hardest prediction to make as a front office. Finding the guy who is on the good side of that very thin line this year vs the guy on the bad side is incredibly difficult. You can define a reliever as "good" by their expected numbers, but that doesn't make their performance good when it comes to actually winning games. Don't care if it's BABIP luck that kills you, or HR/FB rates. When you're pitching so few innings you have to be "good" almost every time. Sometimes its just not your year, and sometimes it is. When it comes to major league baseball player predictions from year to year bullpen arms are absolutely the most volatile and fickle. And it's absolutely because of the sample size. But 5 extra "bad luck" losses this year than last year is still 5 more losses. Expected stats can give you the best educated guess you can make, but it's still a far less educated guess than any other position in baseball.

I don't think Cleveland is "selling." I think they're doing what they almost always do, buying and selling. They sold a piece. They're not blowing things up. Would we be shocked if they bring in an OF bat? If they were truly just "selling" and not still trying to win this year they would've gotten any prospect possible for Rosario instead of Thor. They're still trying to win this year. They're not blowing anything up by any means.

Kepler for Bader would be interesting to me.

I'd do a bit of both. I think making the playoffs, and breaking "the streak," has value to this franchise. I think getting that monkey off the organization's back would have value even if they don't go super deep. So I think improving on the margins (Finnegan to replace whoever you view as the bottom arm in the pen, or Pham over Gallo) has some value, and makes sense. If I can't replace a couple dime a dozen 45 FV prospects to bring them in I don't deserve to be running a major league team anyways. But I'd also turn to some of the younger in-house options and see if they can provide a second half spark. I'd buy and sell. My big splash would be trying to turn Wallner and Polanco into one of the young Seattle arms. That'd allow me to trade Gray or Maeda to back fill the prospect depth I traded for Finnegan and Pham. That'd be my "improve on the margins to win a playoff game in 2023 while also looking to the future and setting myself up nicely there" plan. It doesn't have to be buy or sell. It can be buy and sell.

Cano? If you're going to point to a 29 year old reliever with massive walk problems who figured it out for half a year as a point of concern you're arguing to never make trades. Go look at the "success" the "KC bullpen arm throwing 100" had the last 2 years. He's not exactly Rivera out there. Sure, it'll take more than SGL type to get him, but I'd certainly hope they learned their lesson to not give out Lopez type packages to half season reliever success stories after those pitchers were incredibly bad the rest of their major league career. If Pham or Duvall are costing much more than an SGL type return the Twins should be selling any and everyone of their expiring contracts cuz apparently they're all worth significant returns in this sellers market. Tommy Pham is having the 2nd best year of his career at the age of 35. You don't get big returns for that guy, especially when he's a rental. Adam Duvall is having the best year of his career at age 34, in 45 games. Again, you don't get big returns for that guy, especially when he's a rental. Yes, I do. Rental 34 and 35 year olds with outlier spike seasons don't get huge returns. The Royals can ask for a big return for Hernandez's 4 months of good pitching when he had 2 plus seasons of DFA worthy pitching before that, but the Twins shouldn't pay it, and Finnegan is a 31 year old decent reliever so they shouldn't pay much for him either. Suter is basically a left handed Fulmer. Raley is 1 step up because of his extra year, but he's nowhere near a Mahle or Lopez so he'd get a slightly better prospect than SGL. Nobody on this list would demand a top 15 prospect outside of Hernandez, but they shouldn't go after him anyways since he's basically Lopez 2.0 and they should've learned their lesson there, and maybe Raley.

Finnegan is 31, and nowhere near elite. If they're trying to give up closer to a Mahle package than Fulmer package for him the Pohlads better fire them today before they make that deal. Hernandez is still young so maybe we're witnessing him "figure it out," but he's been awful the 2 previous seasons (51 total innings which is more than his current 46 this year) so I'd hope they learned a little something from the Lopez deal here. He cut his WHIP in half from last year. If they're trying to ship out another 4 player package for a half season success story again the Pohlads better fire them today before they make that deal.

To be fair, the players discussed in this piece would be nowhere near as expensive in prospects as the deals made last year. These are far more like the Fulmer deal. Guessing most people don't even remember who we gave up for Fulmer (Sawyer Gipson-Long is the answer). These types of trades don't "gut the system."

I agree. It's why in my first post I mentioned the Robertson types as what should be the Twins sweet spot. Good, not great, relievers with the highest chance of being competent year to year. Snag a couple of those guys (I'd argue that's what they thought they had in Jax, Thielbar, Alcala, and Pagan for this year) to pair with your elite guys (I'd argue that's what they thought Duran and Lopez were this year) and go from there. My problem with them is their evals of relievers. Pagan being the most obvious one. But letting Coulombe go in favor of Moran who had options left is another one. Where they take "risks" confuses me. They won't drop Gallo cuz Wallner and Larnach have options so they'd rather keep their depth, but they drop Coulombe for Moran instead of keeping both for added options. I think they thought they were coming into this year with 6 good to elite relievers, plus Moran as the 2nd lefty, and 1 long man. I think the vast majority of us saw far fewer than 6 good relievers, though.

Agree to disagree. Unless by "good" you mean "elite." But even the "elite" guys are time bombs waiting to happen. Look at the 6 guys named in this article as offseason possible adds. Edwin Diaz is the highest paid reliever in baseball, but was absolutely brutal in his first year in NY, and just OK in his 2nd. Kenley Jansen lost his closer role in LA numerous times, and hasn't exactly been lights out this year. Craig Kimbrel was absolutely atrocious his first 2 years in Chicago, and was "eh" last year. Adam Ottavino had 1.58 and 1.45 WHIPs and 5.89 and 4.21 ERAs in his last year in NY and his year in Boston before bouncing back to a .98 WHIP and 2.06 ERA. Will Smith had a 1.4 WHIP and 3.97 ERA last year, but has a .84 WHIP and 2.84 ERA this year. David Robertson has been a model of consistency as a good, not great, reliever. So 1 out of 6. Banking on year to year performance from almost any reliever is a bigger bet than any other position. They're in the pen for a reason. Very few of them are just completely consistent, and those ones still tend to fall off a cliff at some point, and struggle to get back. Aroldis Chapman was the best reliever in baseball for a decade, and then he suddenly was extremely beatable for 2 years before bouncing back to some success this year. It's incredibly hard to predict year to year success for relievers. Especially as they age. And by the time they're eligible for free agency most of them are on that brink of losing a tick on the fastball, or a couple inches on the breaker, and falling apart. The elite guys get paid a ton for a reason. Trying to predict the years Ottavino types will have a 1.0 WHIP vs a 1.5 WHIP is the riskiest bet GMs make. There's a reason he only got 4 mil coming out of his NYY and BOS stints.

Bullpen arms are notoriously fickle things. I get the idea that the FO wants to let the season play out as they test out a few arms and see who's actually good that year, and fill in around that as the season moves on, but they do it to the extreme/poorly, in my opinion. They're way too slow to move on from vets that they expect to be good, but aren't performing, or who they think will magically jump another level to be a high leverage arm because their Stuff+ ratings say they will. They play the St Paul to Minneapolis option game way too frequently with young guys (while also sitting them in the pen for weeks without using them). They overemphasize years of control on the trade market leading them to give up "real" prospects for controllable assets, instead of the much easier Fulmer style trades that don't cost you anyone anywhere near the top of your system. I don't need them shelling out a huge contract to the Kimbrels of the world, but the Robertsons of the world should be their sweet spot. So I get the idea, and don't even disagree with not going bonkers investing in pen arms for high costs, but if it leads to a bunch of blown leads before the deadline every year, and you making what turns out to be a horrible trade for Lopez types, you need to change your strategy. Or at least get better at executing it. Their pen is almost always better in August and September under this regime, but they waste 4 months giving the Tyler Duffeys of the world every last chance while trying to get to those August and September pens. I know their whole thing is to not be hasty, but in-season adjustments need to happen before the trade deadline.

Why do the Twins only need 3 starters for the playoffs? And what if 1 of those starters gets hurt between now and October? I'm not suggesting they go all in for this season or anything, and I've seen a few people suggest only needing 3 starters, but, unless you're running a bullpen day in any 4+ game series you need at least 4 starters for the playoffs. And the idea that the Guardians traded Civale so we can trade 40% of our rotation, plus (maybe) Polanco (I'm down with trading Kep), and still maintain our massive 1 game lead seems like a huge ask. I don't think Cleveland is a seller. I think they'll do like they always do and both buy and sell. They're absolutely not "conceding" the division to a 1 game over .500 Twins team. The Twins have real work to do to make the playoffs this year. Not suggesting they mortgage the future, but nobody suggested in this article is going to have a huge cost attached to them.

Yeah, I have no idea how teams view Wallner. But I think he's the best mix of a team maybe seeing him as a ready made MLB slugger they value, while also being a bit expendable by the Twins. If it were multiple big league pieces who've been around all year I'd be more worried. Julien and Lewis have passed Polanco while he's been hurt (or at least they have for me, and I love Polo) with Lee having really found his footing in AA. If a team like Seattle views him as a piece that can help in their "win now" window of the next few years I'd be willing to move him with a Wallner type (would prefer to move Larnach, but don't think he's worth much anymore) if it gets me one of those arms. Rodriguez is a tough call for me because his upside is out of this world, but I'm not sure he'll ever make enough contact to reach it. I'm an "upside" guy because I believe you need stars to win, so if my player dev guys are telling me Rodriguez can be a star if he can be slightly more aggressive early in counts (just a possible answer to his K problem) I'm not trading him. If it's a bigger fix that needs to happen, but another team views him as an elite prospect then I'd be willing to move him. Twins have painted themselves into a less than ideal corner. Will be interesting to see how the next 26ish hours goes. Edited to add: I was just on The Athletic and saw Jim Bowden suggesting a Jonathan India for Bryce Miller straight up trade. Wallner is younger than India, with more control left, but clearly less track record. But if that deal is realistic (Bowden is a former GM, but has some pretty out there trade ideas sometimes), and the Mariners view Wallner as being able to maintain anything near his AAA numbers I'd think Wallner and Polanco together would get them pretty close to being able to pick which of their young arms they want.

I'd start with Wallner and Polanco and see what else they'd want me to add. Getting one of their young arms would be huge for this year, and moving forward. If you have 4 rotation spots locked up for the next half decade basically makes it a whole lot easier to focus on the rest of your club. I'd guess the Twins don't have the fire power to pull this off, but I'd start with Wallner and Polanco and see if there's something there.

I don't expect this to happen, but this is the strategy that makes the most sense to me. I actually see the bulk of Lewis' career being in the OF. I'd bet they don't put him out there this year, though. Even if I would.

I haven't seen anything on him lately, but we're coming up on a year since his surgery so I'd hope they're planning to get him some innings. An AFL stint would make sense to me to get him a few innings to knock the rust off a little and get the feeling of being on a mound back before spring training next year.

I honestly don't know what MN's view of Wallner is. It's entirely possible they don't think he's that good, and that's why they haven't cleared a spot for him more aggressively, but they're also really, really slow to make in season adjustments/dump vets so I don't know if this is just a situation where they refused to move on from Gallo/Kepler and give him a spot even if they believe he can somewhat maintain his AAA numbers in the bigs. He's had 2 pretty elite years in the high minors back to back now so it's entirely possible other teams see a plug and play masher. I don't think they'd do a Wallner and Polo for Kirby, Miller, or Gilbert, straight up deal, but is it close enough to start a real convo? Polo is a massive upgrade over, and younger than, Kolton Wong, and has 2 more years of control left. I'd think if you called them and told them you'd start with those 2 they'd at least talk with you. I absolutely don't think the Twins get any of their pitchers, but I think it's worth a call to see if Seattle says "add Brooks Lee" or "add Noah Miller."