chpettit19

It's not demonstrably wrong. Them being better hitters made it so they didn't K as much. They were open an honest back then about their approach being to ambush mistakes and look to do as much damage as they could. They've been open and honest this year about their approach being to ambush mistakes and look to do as much damage as they can. The approach is the same. The results are different. The results being different doesn't mean the approach is different. These guys simply aren't as good at actually ambushing the mistakes.

I think there's more info we need when it comes to talking about Rocco, and the coaches, not knowing what to do. The implication you seem to be making is that there is an answer, but the staff just isn't "smart enough" (or however you want to word that) to know what the answer is. But it's also possible that they've tried just about everything, and Rocco is just at the point where he's saying more of a "there's nothing left to do." That would be a situation where there just isn't enough talent. And that's my stance. There simply isn't enough talent. I'm good with a change. And I don't expect anyone on these boards to be able to tell us what should be done, but what should be done to make Gallo better? Or Kepler? Or Buxton? Or Castro? Or Vazquez? The list goes on and on. I won't fight the idea that Correa, Buxton, Miranda, and Vazquez are performing significantly below expectations. But Kepler isn't. Gallo isn't. Castro isn't. Jeffers is above expectations. Lewis was at expectations. I think Kirilloff is performing to a reasonable expectation given his wrist concerns. Julien is doing all we could've hoped for. Miranda is way below our hoped for performance, but one could argue he's not outside the performance range of a sophomore hitter who had these exact struggles for most of his career. MAT is at expectations. Solano and Farmer both pretty close to expectations, outside of Farmer not destroying lefties. But, outside of your 2 superstar veterans (I find it hard to blame a hitting coach for guys with this much experience tanking), and a catcher (not exactly a core offensive threat), these guys are doing what they do. Every coach they've ever had has been at a loss. Because this is who these guys are. This offense simply isn't talented enough. That being said, I'm still fine with firing everyone because I think they need an organizational overhaul. If the new FO wants to bring Popkins back, cool, but I want them to clean house and start over.

The point isn't that that team didn't perform better, it's how much credit you give to Rowson for that. The approach was actually the same. Ambush mistakes and look to do as much damage as possible when doing it. There's plenty of quotes all over this site, and many others, from many members of the Twins organization that their approach this year is to ambush mistakes and look to do as much damage as possible when doing it. This team just isn't as talented so they're failing at it. You didn't show all the stats for Rowson lead teams after he left MN. That's the point those posters are making. It wasn't Rowson, it was the players. The Marlins and Tigers weren't successful under Rowson. Did he forget how to coach hitting after 2019 or is it about player talent and Rowson wasn't some magic hitting genie in 2019?

I'm going to start by saying I'm good with firing Popkins so people don't yell at me. Because I'm good with firing everyone at this point. But I don't know what we think it will change by just firing Popkins. Popkins was brought in because the FO has a certain idea about what makes a good hitting coach, and what a good offensive approach is. If they don't change those ideas (and I have no reason to think they have, or will) whoever they bring in wouldn't fix the problems. And, as others have mentioned, there's not a lot of world class MLB hitting coaches sitting on their couches in July looking for a job. If this FO fires Popkins they wouldn't suddenly bring in a hitting coach that specializes in slapping the ball around and never striking out. I know I'm a broken record around here, but coaches simply don't have magic potions that suddenly turn bad hitters into good ones. I'm fine firing Popkins, but I don't know what people think that's going to fix. Gallo isn't suddenly going to be a contact hitter. Kepler isn't going to suddenly loosen up his swing so it isn't so grooved and rigged. Miranda won't suddenly stop swinging at everything. Castro isn't going to magically be an .800 OPS bat. This lineup is flawed. Severely flawed. Firing a hitting coach isn't going to undo those flaws. This lineup simply isn't good enough. So I'm good with them firing whoever. But if it doesn't include Falvey and Levine it isn't going to matter anyways. Not for this year, or any others.

I think there was a 0% chance the Marlins were trading the reigning Cy Young winner. And I'm not even sure what they would've done with another starter. They already had to start Ober in AAA this year. You may have been someone who didn't trust Mahle or Maeda, but they weren't going to take away their rotation spots before the year even started whether fans wanted it or not. Completely agree that Arraez alone would not have saved this offense. If Correa was hitting to career norms, and Buxton could play CF (opening the DH spot), and Polanco were healthy and his usual self offensively this offense would look way better, even without Arraez. Arraez would be a nice addition to that trio, but just having that trio doing what they're capable of would have people bemoaning Arraez far less. I'm also not sure how they fix this in the near term. I do know that running the same 13 position players out there isn't the answer, though.

I think the word "improving" is pretty key here. Changing the lineup is really straightforward. The only straightforward option for trying to improve it is to lean on the young guys and hope they're better. I'm not sold that they are, but hoping that the current guys magically become better is a really straightforward way to not improve. I don't agree with the idea that the young guys can't be worse that gets mentioned here pretty often. They absolutely could be. But they could also be better. I think it's time to find out, but a large chunk of that is my fear that they go into next year with the same questions on the younger guys. If I'm being totally honest with myself, I'm not sold on any of these young bats being real answers. I don't think Wallner hits enough to make up for his bad defense (Gallo with negative defensive value is his most likely outcome to me). I don't think Larnach is significantly better than Kepler with the bat (he simply can't hit off speed stuff), and he's not as good defensively. Celestino is no offensive answer. Martin just started playing again. Basically all the big bats in St Paul strike out a ton there, and I don't know why we'd think they'd be better at that in the bigs. I just don't see a real straightforward answer in the minors. I'd still make moves and give them chances, though. I would've done it a month ago, actually, because it'd have answered the question of which spots really need outside help. But instead we're where the OP describes and have no idea if the young guys are actually answers, and bringing in outside options just means we won't know for next year either.

Love it. Let's see if he can stick in CF.

Totally fair. I think 19 is too high to rank him, but I'd guess all 5 of these guys are higher than him after the draft if MLB cares about their FV rankings, or the fact that their draft/prospect specialists have both stated that all 5 would've been in the running for the top pick last year. I don't think Lee has done anything this year to show his draft spot was too low, and he was really a 1-1 guy. MLB has them all with FV grades of 60, or 65, while Lee is a 55. But there's more that goes into rankings so it's possible they'd put the kids lower. I'd still like to see them take the 60 FV guy, and I'd rank them (in my obviously super expert opinion 😄) all ahead of Lee.

My exact thoughts. Take a swing at the highest likelihood of an absolute star instead of your best chance at getting another average major leaguer. We know what a team full of average players can do. Struggle to stay at .500 and get swept out of the playoffs. Try to find a star!

I think there's some debate on the 2 high school kids being above Lee. In fact, I'd argue the opposite and say there's not much debate that they'd clearly be above Lee. If they would be likely #1 picks in most of the recent drafts, and Lee went 8th, wouldn't that mean they'd likely have gone before him last year, and thus be ranked higher than him? I think any of the top 5 would immediately be the Twins top prospect in most public rankings, and the real debate is where the guys in the next tier would rank compared to Lee. And since I don't see Lee as a future star, I really hope they take someone who jumps him in the rankings immediately.

Welcome to Twins Daily! Great first post. I'm with you. If they go with Gonzalez I'm going to lose my mind. The baseball gods gifted them the #5 pick in a draft with a clear top 5. Take one of the top 5.

He definitely has the possibility to dip. And they both had team control left so it's not all about just this year when it comes to the trade. Pretty crazy, to me, to judge a trade less than 100 games in. As for pitchers vs hitters games, yes, the hitter appears in more, but Arraez gets 3-5 PAs a game he plays in while Lopez faces 20+ hitters in the games he plays in. Where the separator comes in is a hitter also fielding. They get more opportunities to impact a season overall if they get enough balls hit at them, but then you have to factor in their defense, and can't just point to their hitting line and say it's all that matters. Marcus Semien lead baseball with 724 PAs last year. 5 guys had at least 700. Sandy Alcantara lead baseball with 886 batters faced last year. 7 guys had at least 800, and 38 had at least 700. So just looking at games played vs games started doesn't tell the whole story on impact. If you're just comparing hitting to pitching, a starter actually wins. The defense is the difference maker.

Well there's a little more to it than that. The Rangers, for example, have a total bonus pool of $9,925,300 this year. If Skenes is demanding 9 mil (not saying he is, just an example) that'd leave them with less than 1 mil to sign the rest of their first 10 rounds of picks. It'd be one heck of a bold move for their FO to give 1 guy 9 out of 10 mil available to them. Unless they're planning to go over their bonus pool and incur the penalties associated with that.

*Qualified NL players.

Losing Arraez (Tony Gwynn 2.0 as I like to call him) will always, and forever, make me sad. Lopez wasn't the guy I wanted back in the trade either. But I'm willing to bet any amount of money you want that Arraez doesn't hit .400 this year, or any other year, and Lopez looks much better than I thought he'd be. Luis topped out at .355 on July 9th last year and went downhill from there. He's started to dip a little in Miami this year. Will be fun to see where he ends up at the end of the year. I'd bet he ends up higher than .316, but I'm quite certain it's going to be below .400. This trade has the chance to be both incredibly depressing incredibly joyful. Will be fun to track the remainder of these guys' careers. Right now it's looking pretty even to me, because I don't think Luis Arraez is actually going to hit .400.

Oh, for sure. At the end of the day it's all a crap shoot. And we're all going off what we read, since, as far as I know, there's not many actual MLB scouts roaming these threads daily. My concern with the Twins is that they seem to be very much model driven. As in data over human scouts. And their model seems to heavily favor college bats (they've as much as admitted this). I was also in a Q&A with Levine a couple years ago where he talked about their belief that finding impact bats was harder later on so they go that way early in the draft. This combination leads to less athletic guys with big college exit velo numbers (Wallner, Rooker, Sabato, Larnach types) that have a naturally lower ceiling as an overall player. Jenkins isn't as fast as the other 3 top bats, but he's still getting mostly 55 grade evaluations on his future speed from what I've seen. If the Twins model is spitting out Jacob Gonzalez (as some rumors have suggested) as the likely BPA at #5 it seems to me like the model should be thrown out. I'd definitely prefer Crews or Langford, followed by Clark, but I'll take Jenkins (or at least the profiles I keep reading on him) over anyone outside the top 5. Him being ranked well doesn't guarantee him anything, but when basically every source you can find says there's a top 5 followed by a drop off, and you're picking #5, I just don't want them "getting cute," as has become the phrase used around here. Take a big swing. I have no problem with a team taking a big swing on a consensus top pick, and that pick not working out. I have a huge problem with a team passing on a consensus top 5 talent for a lower talent, and then that guy not working out. Even if they saved money for a better pick at 34 or 49. I want stars. This team needs stars. Not DH, or no defense corner bat, stars. True stars. The top 4 bats all get pretty much universal "star upside" grades. Take the star upside guy. Teel sounds like his ceiling is "really nice player." I don't want that with pick 5. I want "perennial all star." Go big or go home. To me, this is the baseball gods testing the FO. "We blessed you with a massive jump in the inaugural draft lottery. We gave you 5 guys with pick 1-1 upside, and put you in the 5th spot. Don't slap us in the face by taking Jacob Gonzalez."

Dang, that's intriguing. 1.5 years of Goldy for Julien would be something I'd be awfully tempted by. And I don't believe he's ever been given a QO so it's possible if he maintains his production they could have him for another year, or get a pick back for him. I don't think Julien will ever field well so he's a bat only player for me. And I'm pretty open to trading some of those guys. It'd depend on what their internal thoughts are on Polanco ever being healthy again, Lewis' future position, and how close they think Lee is. Really intriguing trade.

Jenkins is also 5th on my list of top 5 guys, and I'd prefer Clark because of his ability to stay in CF. I'm not sure if Jenkins will be able to or not, but I'm quite positive Clark will. Crews is my preference over Langford because I also don't think Langford is a CFer in the pros (he's fast, but does not read balls well). But I take Jenkins if he's there. Along the lines of what @Beast said, I don't care even a tiny bit about organizational "need." The organization needs talent. It's that simple to me. If these 5 guys are truly the 5 most talented, and would all come in as the likely #1 prospect in the system from day 1, you have to take one of them. I don't care if the Twins have 75 lefty hitting corner outfielders in the organization if none of them are as good as Jenkins. Accumulate the most talent you can and go from there. It'd definitely be more desirable for Jenkins to be a sure fire CFer, but if he's Juan Soto, or Barry Bonds, or Christian Yelich (the MVP years), or Larry Walker, or "pick your favorite lefty cOF" why do we care? If he's the highest ceiling player left at 5 take him. I don't care about bonus pool manipulation, "organizational need," what hand he hits with, or anything else. Take the highest ceiling player available at #5. If that's Jenkins I'll be happy and start watching our new #1 prospect on MiLB.tv as soon as they get him signed and in uniform.

I agree that the Twins would very likely have offered that 4 year deal, but if I were Berrios at the time I'd have said "no thanks, trade me" as well. Good for him for getting paid. It's looking like Toronto may be paying more for his MN performance than his Toronto performance, but nobody expected him to struggle like he did last year. I'd guess most trades are pretty "meh" kinds of things in terms of win/lose. Which is the goal for both teams. They're both looking to pay equal value just in different currency. People suggested trading Ober? That's a bold move. I have real questions about his ability to hold up as a starter, and am fascinated to see how they handle his innings the 2nd half, but he's a legit arm with team control through his prime. Would be really weird to trade that. Even if he breaks down this year you still have him as a pen weapon into his 30s. He's there best development story as a FO. Hard to believe they'd trade the 1 guy they can point to as having developed start to finish into a legit MLB starter.

I think it's pretty fair to say both Kepler and the Twins expected more than a league average hitter. I think it's pretty fair to say they expected him to have an OPS+ over 100 more than twice in 8+ seasons. Especially when 1 of those seasons had a funny ball, and the other was only 60 games long. You'll never convince me that the Twins or Kepler would honestly say they'd be happy with slightly below average offense out of him in the vast majority of his years. I don't for 1 second think it's only fans expectations that have been missed. You don't hit a guy in the top 5 of your lineup for half a decade and expect them to spit out below average numbers. He's come up short on all expectations. But, yes, he's a legit major leaguer that would find a spot on many teams. The problem is the team kept pretending he was suddenly going to be a top 5 hitter. And those circumstances have lead to him not meeting expectations. If he were the 4th OFer his performance would be meeting that role's expectations, but even then he'd have come up short on expectations, because all involved expected him to be more than a 4th OFer.

I don't know that I'd be excited about the deal, but I wouldn't be crazy upset about it. 15, 17, 18, 18 before his opt out isn't bad at all for a mid-rotation guy. But if he doesn't improve I assume he'll opt in, and then I'd be pretty cranky with 24, 24 in his age 33 and 34 seasons. I think the trade made sense, I think the extension made sense, and I think right now neither side is pointing at this trade as a masterclass in winning trades. Berrios and Ober would be my guess, but that's only because I don't think Ryan's ERA is down at 2.7 after that Atlanta performance.

That's fair on the OPS. I don't know that we can blame the batting spot on injuries. They've always hit him in the top 5 or 6 his whole career. And he's had to hit their because their offense has never been good enough not to need him there. That's not his fault, but when you're taking up a lineup spot that teams typically look to for offense, and you're a league average hitter in the top 5 or 6 in a lineup, it's pretty easy for people to point at you and say you're not doing enough. Lewis and Polanco are the only 2 guys I see injured who'd jump in front of him, but 1 of them would be replacing Julien so it's not like there's a whole lot of injured guys ahead of him. I'm not sold on Wallner. He's doing better in AAA than I expected, and there's a possibility he's a better hitter than Kepler. There's no real possibility he's a better defender, but this team needs offense, and, in my opinion, should be willing to sacrifice cOF defense for a shot at more offense. The pitching staff leads the league in K rate so they can get away with a little less defense. Kepler wasn't even that good out there before his new found energy burst the last couple weeks. I've often defended Kepler (including coming into this year) as the victim of circumstance meeting too high expectations. He never reached his expectations, and was on teams where he had to be an impact bat which he simply couldn't do. But we know who he is, and we know what this team needs, and it's the same thing next year's team is most likely to need. Offense. It's easier to replace a corner bat than an up the middle bat when looking for offense. That makes Kepler (and Gallo) the easy choices for first places to look. I don't know if the Twins have the answers on hand in the system, but I know Kepler isn't the answer. I like him, and think he's a decent enough player (I'm fine keeping him as the 4th OFer). He just isn't what the Twins need, unless he's magically unlocked a new level in his age 30 season after incredibly consistent performances for 7 of 8 previous seasons. I find that hard to believe.

Noble at 5? No, thanks. Noble at 34? Yes, please. I want nothing to do with high school arms at the top of the draft. Yes, it's possible you hit on a true ace, but it's far more likely you hit on a kid who maxes out as a AA pitcher at the age of 27. I don't expect the Twins to be able to pull any magic to get Noble to 34, unless they're going under slot at 5, and way under slot at 49 probably. If under slot at 5 is Clark, and you can snag Noble at 34 I absolutely am willing to go senior sign at 49, but I'm not risking my guys dropping to 34 and/or 49 to take a high school arm at 5. Get the highest ceiling position player at 5, and don't get cute.

Why would you expect Kepler to hit .244, or have a .344 OBP? 2019 and 2017 are the only seasons he hit .244 (.243 in 2017 technically), and he's never topped .319 in OBP in any season outside of 2019 when he was at .336. He's shown the ability to be better than a .390 slugger (which he currently is), but he's literally never shown the ability to be a .244 BA, or .344 OBP, player for a full season. Why would you expect that? And why are you calling him their 7th best hitter? He hits in the top 5 more often than not. Is he good enough to be a top 5 hitter? And if you're going to use Wallner's MLB K rate in 18 games in 2022, why not use his MLB K rate in 11 games in 2023? It's 16% this year. I certainly don't expect that to be who he is as a hitter, and I don't think he's a star, but give both sides of that data. Wallner may not be a league average hitter, or he may be better than one. We know Kepler isn't better than that. And he plays an offense first position that needs to be better than your 7th best hitter. And I value defense more than almost anyone around here. But not from a RF only, league average (at best) bat.

Spotrac and fangraphs have him at 2 more years after this one. And I'm not saying I'd go out of my way to keep him, and what the return would be is always the key decider. I just think he's a perfect fit for the 26th man role. But maybe things play out that Martin is the better option there next year? I'd actually like both of them (assuming Martin comes back closer to his AFL self than most of last year self) as bench players in 2024 to add a little athleticism to this squad. I just think Castro is a great fit, and he even has an option left if he struggles at some point and you need to send him down.