chpettit19

Byron Buxton just makes me sad at this point. As terrible as it is to say, the Twins should probably be hoping he retires before the end of his deal (way before the end of it if his lower half is simply toast). They can't plan for him in any way, shape, or form moving forward. You can't bring in Taylor types, you have to bring in legit starting CFers. You can't block the DH spot with him either. You have to build your team as if he's the 26th man on your roster from here on out. And that's super depressing. So much talent all balled up into a body that just can't do it.

FYI, his era was 1.13. But he is also throwing 87 MPH and giving up nearly a hit per inning against AAA guys, with a 3.4 BB/9. Good for a 1.25 WHIP. He had a 2.31 ERA in 4 AAA starts last year with a 1.029 WHIP and still had a 9.20 ERA in the majors in his 14 starts. Looking at his ERA is not a great way to assess his ability to get major leaguers out.

I'll always push back on this "they think they are the smartest people in the room" narrative. Every MLB exec thinks they're the smartest person in the room. You have to to reach those levels. And they're all incredibly smart people. I'd fire them if I were in charge, but it's not because they're not smart or think they're smarter than they are. They're incredibly smart. But they have flaws I don't think they can overcome.

FYI, Gallo didn't inform the coaches that the player stepped over the bag. He was laying face down on the ground facing the other direction. Rocco credited their video replay room staffer Joey Casey with noticing that. Gallo is bringing nothing at all helpful to the team right now. I'm not really a Chris Williams believer, but he can probably provide passable defense, and not strike out 50% of the time. I don't buy the "Kirilloff is hurt so they need Gallo" argument 1 bit. If they can't find someone who can provide more than him on their AAA roster right now this system is severely overrated as being middle of the pack. Joey Gallo has an argument as the worst position player in major league baseball right now. If you can't replace that you're in a terrible spot as an organization. And I freely admit I was ok with the Gallo risk they took. But when it doesn't work out you have to be able to move on and try something else.

I've had a few other Drs tell me the same thing, but I'm not convinced that this isn't a terminal condition. At least for the FO. The fans and org may be able to recover after years of therapy, but I fear this one has too tight a grasp on the FO, and they'll never recover.

Yeah, I just didn't need "bar moving" type trades. Tommy Pham on the roster instead of Joey Gallo is a nice shakeup I would've gone for. Any of a dozen relievers would've helped. I don't need big swings, just a better fitting roster with new pieces. This team will only succeed if their core guys figure it out. But if they do they still have massive holes we've all known were there since the season started that are likely to stop them dead in their tracks in the postseason. Were they likely to win the World Series by adding Pham and a couple relievers? No. But at least the ticket to beating them wouldn't have been so obvious as "pitch any lefty you have and get to their pen before the 8th." It's not the end of the world that they didn't make moves. And I prefer this to what happened last deadline. But this team is very likely to make the playoffs. Why not at least partially fill your obvious holes to give yourself a punchers chance? Pham cost a 17 year old prospect. We could spare one of those. And really it's just another example, to me, that this front office is really, really, really bad at making in season adjustments away from their plan unless they have obvious Archer/Bundy/entire 2022 pen not named Duran sized holes that they try to fill.

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.