chpettit19

I'm going to start by saying I don't understand why people think the As would want Larnach for Ruiz. Ruiz is younger, and has more team control, than Larnach. Why would the As be interested in trading him for Larnach? Why would they want to trade him at all when they have him under control for 6 more years? I assume they plan to be good within the next 6 years. If he's so good why would they be trading him? Also going to add that Buxton has a full no trade clause. That doesn't mean he wouldn't waive it, but he fought to stay here, and I'd be awfully surprised if he waived the clause he fought to have added before he'd sign so early in the deal. The Twins aren't trading Buxton. As for the strategy at the deadline, I'm guessing it's very limited, and mostly just looking for a pen arm or 2. I think they're stuck in "we need depth!" mode right now, and it's got them afraid to move on from Kepler (especially when they also seem to think he has value). If I were them I'd start moving on from some of the veterans, and just let the kids play. But I don't expect them to move Gallo or Solano, unless Solano stops hitting, but then he'd be a DFA, not trade. I think they really want to trade Kepler so he'll be here until the deadline. Same with Pagan, unfortunately. This team doesn't really have many impressive trade chips anyways. Lee could headline a deal if you're buying, but behind him it's still hard to build a package necessary for a star. I don't think they're targeting any stars anyways, though. I love Polanco, and I want him back healthy, but his value is dropping by the IL trip. If he were valuable enough to bring back a big return we shouldn't be asking for him to be traded. The Twins are attempting to be in win now mode, and if he's healthy he's one of their top 5 players. Teams trying to win now don't trade those guys very often. Unless we're getting a player of the same talent level at a different position that trade doesn't help this team.

Rowson has moved back down the managing chain. He's one of the hitting coaches in Detroit right now. The team with, by far, the fewest runs scored in baseball.

What a fascinating take. Do you think Do-Hyoung Park is lying in this article? Or you just think his arm is going to fall off between now and September? You know Tommy John is a pretty common surgery now, right? And guys come back from it all the time. Even their second one. What is the basis of your belief that there's a limited chance he'll ever pitch again?

Not significantly. Twins remaining opponents have a .478 winning percentage. Cleveland's have a .492 winning percentage. Chicago's are a .474 winning percentage. So slight advantage to MN and Chicago as of today, but even Cleveland's remaining schedule is full of winnable games.

If I remember correctly Canterino didn't have his surgery until August last year. I'd guess the best hope is he's back on a game mound late August, or September. I know he was doing flat ground throwing in spring training, but haven't seen anything recently. I'd guess getting him some relief appearances late is probably their goal with him this year. Will be interesting to see if they make a fulltime move to the pen with him next year. He'll be 26 next year, and a long ways away from being ready to throw a starter's workload, but if his stuff comes back he's likely ready to contribute out of the pen next year.

While I don't at all disagree that the Ks are a problem, Cleveland is really not the team you should be pointing to as a shining example of an offense doing things the right way. They're 1.5 games back for the same reason the Twins are at .500, they can pitch. Twins 2nd in baseball in ERA, Cleveland 6th. Twins K way too much, but they've still outscored the Guardians by 38 runs. Cleveland is 27th in baseball in runs scored. If they were an offense to emulate they'd have run away with the division the same as the Twins would have if they were an offense to emulate. Nobody is trying to be Cleveland's offense. Not even Cleveland is. They brought in Josh Bell for a reason. And it wasn't to just put the ball in play.

FYI, Joe Musgrove signed a 5 year, $100 million extension with the Padres at the end of last year. Don't think he'll be getting traded anytime soon.

And that's why they're a crap shoot still. There's too many variables to have it be anywhere near as reliable as offensive stats. You asked for reasons why defensive stats can swing so much, and I was just giving you reasons why. I'm not defending defensive stats, just explaining why they can vary so much. WAR is attempting to show an individual player's impact on a season. Cuddyer playing shallower doesn't make him a worse fielder in terms of reads, range, etc., but it did effect the impact he had on plays. It makes sense that that's what WAR cares about. That doesn't make the defensive metric super reliable, but WAR doesn't care that Cuddyer had the same range in RF in 2010 as he did in 2011, it cares what he actually did on the field. In 2010 he played too shallow so he wasn't able to make the plays he was in 2011 when he played deeper. When judging his impact on the game it makes sense for that to be reflected in his WAR numbers.

Paddack may never pitch again? You better let him know that seeing how he's on pace to rejoin the team in 2 months, and has already been pitching off a mound for 2 weeks.

Opportunities. There's a counting component to the defensive metrics. Michael Cuddyer was involved in over 1000 defensive plays in 2010. He was involved in about 700 in 2011. And 500 in 2012. And the difference in positions played. He played 1B, RF, 3B, CF, and 2B in 2010. He played RF, 1B, 2B in 2011. And he played RF and 1B in 2012. Defensive stats are still largely a crap shoot. Based on too many things, and shouldn't be taken as gospel by any means. But the variance does make sense when you look at the differences in opportunities to make plays, and the positions at which you're making those plays.

I'd argue Kepler's decision should've been made at the end of last season, but Pagan's should've been made in the middle of last season. I'd love to know what the internal conversations are like on those 2.

2 things come to mind here: 1- The Twins do not have a very impressive list of "All Time Great Outfielders." Which really shouldn't be that surprising. 2- Longevity mixed with unrealistic expectations really defines Max's career here. He's been around a long time, playing really good defense, so he's amassed some WAR. The Twins kept hitting him in the top 5 of the lineup despite him not being a very good hitter, so fans got upset that he wasn't better offensively like you'd want out of a top 5 hitter. Max has been a solid major league baseball player for a while. He doesn't belong on a list of greats for a competitive team, but he was good enough for many years to have been a 7-9 hole hitter on a really good team. Unfortunately, he didn't play on really good teams so he was miscast as a top of the order hitter. Interesting article, though.

I just want some real sample size before I start making major moves. And the expectation is that you come into the season with very few holes to start with. That's a different problem that can't be fixed now. They shouldn't have come into the season with Pagan and Kepler sized holes in the roster to start with, which makes it even more frustrating that they're still sitting here in the middle of June with the same holes in the roster. If the Twins come into the year with those holes already filled the situation is far less dire than it is right now, and the 2nd 3rd of the season is spent fixing smaller holes on the margins, instead of major ones. Teams like the Rays, Braves, Dodgers, Astros, etc. aren't working on plugging as many holes as the Twins. It all ties together. If you build your team better to start with the 3rds plan works much better. The Rockies, As, and Royals should be following a much different plan right now. The problem with the Twins is they set themselves up with holes that should've been very obvious, and thus filled, in the offseason. Now they've put a lot more pressure on themselves to fix it midseason.

If they refuse to cut the dead weight? No. If they start doing their jobs and making some moves? Sure, this division is trash, and it won't take much to win it. But I wasn't speaking in specifics about the playoffs for this team this year. Just speaking in a general team management sense. I go by the idea that you break the season into 3rds. 1st 3rd you find out what you have. 2nd 3rd you work to fill your needs, and improve your team. 3rd 3rd you play your best players, and do everything you can to win your division/make the playoffs. My concern with this front office has always been that they're slow to react. We're past the 1/3rd mark of the season. They know who these players are (they knew who Pagan and Kepler were before the year). They need to stop sitting around and hoping Pagan will suddenly be a high leverage arm, or Kepler will hit (I "joked" with my friends the other day that that HR bought Kepler 3 more months with this FO). In speaking about the late season/playoffs I was simply saying you need to get rid of the Pagan's of the world, because you can't hide low leverage arms in August, September, and October. Since that's all he is you need to spend the middle 3rd of the season finding his replacement. That starts by cutting him. Today. You need to find 26 playoff worthy players, and that work starts now, not at the deadline.

Julien looks like he can be a really nice hitter in the bigs, but he's a shining example of why defense matters. So many plays that he just can't make, and when you can't make the plays it makes your pitcher throw more, and leads to the BP having to come in earlier than it should. Correa still should've made the throw on the double play, but if Julien can field it and get it to him smoother, and quicker, Correa has time to set himself a little as he throws. The play up the middle on Vlad with Bichette at first where Julien tried to back hand it wasn't the easiest play in the world, but when you're shifted up the middle, and the ball is 10 feet to your right, and not particularly well hit, you need to turn that into an out. Lewis' throw on Vlads grounder to 3rd needs to be an out (lots of free trips to 1B for Vlad today). Defense matters, and today was a great example of it. And Pagan still needs to go. 3 high leverage appearances in 66 games isn't a lot, but he's blown all 3, and as the season gets deeper, and you get into the postseason, you can't keep playing with a short pen every night because you have a guy who can only pitch low leverage spots. They need to upgrade the pen. And DFA Kepler. There's no reason those 2 are on the team anymore. Time for the FO to step up and do their jobs.

If the money is right (meaning low) it's worth talking to him about, but I wouldn't count on him at all for next year so we're looking at 2025 as the year he'd be back in the rotation. Ryan, Lopez, Ober, Varland, and Paddack are all still under contract then. I'm not writing them in stone as our 2025 rotation, but if they can't produce any more pitching by then there's a massive problem. I just don't see the need. If I'm the owner I'm telling the FO they can sign Mahle for peanuts, otherwise it's time for them to produce their own pitching because that's what I pay them for. It's pipeline time. They need to be able to back up those 5 starters the next 2 years with internal development. There should be no more trades, or signings, needed. They have 5, and it's time to turn SWR, Festa, Enlow, etc. into the next wave to provide the depth for the 5 big leaguers they have.

Well that's what I get for going from memory. Thanks for the correction.

Depth is the name of the game this year, and the Twins aren't going to put Maeda in the pen until they've given him every last dying breath of a chance to start. They've already said they're working him back up as a starter. May be good for fans to start preparing themselves for the very strong chance we see Maeda start more games for the Twins. I understand there's space for Moran because of Thielbar's injury, but I was questioning why you were suggesting there wasn't space for him without Thielbar's injury. He's been really good for a while now. Not sure why you were suggesting sending him down just to test out Balazovic, who's not significantly younger, when Moran is pitching well. I'd like Balazovic to have more sustained success with a WHIP lower than 1.4, and fewer than 4.5 walks per 9 before I get too excited about calling him up. He's striking guys out, and not giving up HRs, which is very nice, but he's not laying waste to AAA hitters by any means. He's been decent, but a 4.26 ERA with nearly a hit per inning, and walk every 2 innings, isn't screaming "call me up!" This isn't a Wallner for Kepler obvious situation to me. I have no idea who will be the best 8 by the end of June. Jax has shown how quickly you can get good relievers back on track, while Lopez has shown how quickly they can come off them. I'm not sold on Maeda automatically being a weapon out of the pen if he can't start. It's certainly an option they should explore, but I'm not at all willing to put him in the top 8 at any point right now. The bullpen doesn't worry me that much right now. I think they're solid enough that they aren't going to tank the season. When you score 3 runs or fewer every night there's no room for error in the pen. That's not a realistic expectation for any pen. They're going to blow some leads when they have literally no margin for error. None of them are going to have 0 ERAs. If this team can start scoring 5 runs a game more regularly I believe this pitching staff can win the vast majority of those games without rushing Balazovic when he's not really dominating AAA. I have no need to "see what they have" in any pitchers right now. Hitters on the other hand...

Weird place for sure. I don't know how to salvage this season outside of the players simply figuring it out and playing better. I mean you start with getting the young guys up, and the Keplers of the world out of here. But there's only so many moves they can make from within the org itself. If they're in sell mode in July it's because the FO screwed up so they shouldn't be allowed to be the sellers, but if you're bad enough to be in sell mode in July you need to sell. I don't see any way the Pohlads fire people midseason. Just not their style. But I also don't feel like they're going to fire them after the season either (that's mostly based on today's Gleeman and the Geek). This is all becoming very depressing.

We may have to take away your posting privileges for not making the required "were they facing the Twins lineup?" joke here. We have standards!

I like this part of the Falvine team building strategy. They like good command, college pitchers in the draft who they believe they can add a little oomph to. It's the same strategy Cleveland uses. I think it's easier to teach a mechanical tweak that gets you a couple extra ticks on your FB, or a little extra spin on your breaking stuff, than it is to teach someone to truly have a feel for commanding their pitches.

Colome blew a save on May 2nd, and took an L on May 4th against the offensive juggernaut known as the MN Twins! He then pitched an inning each on May 6th and 7th against the Reds before being demoted back to the minors for the White Sox.

Why are we sending Moran down? He has allowed 2 earned runs in 13.1 innings with 14 Ks to 5 BBs since the start of May. You're expecting Balazovic to be better than that? Basically a WHIP of 1 with a K per inning, and an ERA of 1.35 for a month plus is awfully solid. And Kenta is going to use the entirety of his rehab assignment to see what he's got left in the tank. He won't be here next week.

@Blyleven2011 Is correct, Kyle Farmer is the emergency catcher. And he's an awfully good option considering he was drafted as a catcher, and came up through the Dodgers system as a catcher. He has only caught 19 games in the majors, but I'd guess that's about 19 more than anybody else's emergency catcher. He has 363 professional games behind the plate.

I wouldn't ask Kepler about CF at all. I don't think he brings any value there either. He's a worse fielder, and no better hitter, than Taylor. I think they should DFA Kepler no matter what. The mindless platooning drives me nuts. It's to the point where I seriously think other managers/FOs sit in pre-series meetings and actively laugh at how easy it's going to be to manipulate the Twins lineup however they want. I can't imagine there's ever been a team in MLB history that pinch hits for the top 4 players in their lineup as frequently as the Twins. Makes me want to cry. As for Jeffers, I just think he's turned an actual corner, and he's a solid hitter. He was drafted for his bat, and made some legit changes to his swing, and approach, this offseason. His OPS vs lefties this year is .690 (35 PAs) while his OPS vs righties is .917 (72 PAs). I don't think he'll maintain a .917 OPS against righties, but I think he's significantly better in the box than Vazquez.