chpettit19

Yeah, between Gray spending some time on the IL every year, Ober having some inning total concerns, Maeda having health/stamina concerns, and Varland being his first big league season it feels like a short stint of a 6 man rotation going into the break could be helpful all around. If they start losing starters, or seeing serious decline from them, this team is really going nowhere. Only thing I can see Varland having to work on in AAA as far as the HR ball is concerned is if the problem is something mechanical that they think he could work out over 2 or 3 weeks and get back. Will be interesting to see how they work the rotation the rest of the year. Headrick staying stretched out as their depth in AAA is going to be pretty important, too. He's the only guy looking like he's worthy of spot starts at this point.

I'm pretty good at seeing the angle the Twins may be taking on certain things, and the logic behind it. I annoy plenty of people around here by defending some of their logic. But I literally can't see, or understand, any logic behind Kepler still being on this team. Not just being on the team, but starting basically automatically against any righty, and not just starting, but hitting 5th(!) in the lineup. Or pinch hitting late in the game in clutch situations. The logic can't be because he's good, because he clearly isn't. The logic can't be for depth reasons since he's starting, and he's playing worse than a replacement level player anyways, so you're actively starting a bad player in the name of not having to start a bad player. The logic can't be his defense since he plays an "offense first" position. My "fire or not fire" decision making point on the FO this year was their ability to adapt off "the plan" quickly if needed. They've failed. You wanted Kepler to be good. He isn't. You wanted him to build up some trade value since you apparently turned down offers in the offseason you didn't think were good enough. He hasn't, and can't at this point. He's actively hurting your team. Do your f'ing job and cut him loose. I don't know what the conversations in the FO are like these days, but there's no way they can be looking at this team and think that standing pat until the deadline is smart. They simply can't be thinking that. I don't know what the conversations in the manager's office are like these days, but there's no way they can be looking at Byron Buxton and thinking he should be hitting in the top 4 in any lineup right now. They simply can't be thinking that. But they do it. I don't see any of the logic in what the team is doing anymore. Pinch hitting for your 3 hole hitter? If he needs to be pinch hit for he shouldn't be hitting 3rd. And you shouldn't be pinch hitting for your supposed star in the making when you have at least 7 dudes in the lineup everyday who shouldn't be in any lineup. There's talent on this team. There's talent in the system. But "the plan" clearly isn't working. It's too late in the season to still be analyzing things. Time to start making actual decisions. And I really hope the Pohlads don't let these guys make "job saving" decisions, and do severe damage to the future of this organization.

The media has been asking, and Rocco has been talking about them. There have been at least half a dozen articles written about them the last couple weeks on The Athletic, MLB.com, all over. He's asked all the time. Rocco says they're a problem, says they're working on it. Now whether or not we believe they can be fixed is one thing, but the media is asking the questions, and Rocco is answering the questions. Even Popkins went on the record, and was available to the media recently to talk about the Ks. Admitted they may be overwhelming players with too much info. They clearly haven't found the answer, though.

A 6 man rotation between now and the All Star break would be an interesting move. I wonder if Louie is tiring just a bit. Not simply from inning totals, but the natural uptick in effort at the ML level over the minors. Maybe the arm isn't feeling quite as good as he'd like. A little extra rest for him, and the rest of the rotation as we get into July may be good. Allow everyone to get recharged coming out of the break and hit the ground running for the second half. The starters need to be really, really good for this team to have a chance so I could see a 6 man rotation for a couple weeks being a decent option to have everybody in as good a shape as possible for the 2nd half of the year.

Nobody is claiming this offense is good. Or that hitting .220 with 15-20 HRs is good. It's not. Things don't "have to be" any certain way. But we've advanced. We've gained more knowledge. You're not wiser by refusing to accept new information and knowledge. Nobody has lowered standards, they've changed to a more encompassing set of standards that takes in more important information than your basic hits vs outs equation. You don't have to like it, but it's not impressive, or some badge of honor, to refuse to accept new, and better, information.

Rooker could use all the protection he can get right now. His .216/.306/.374 slash line since April ended has him looking like Max Kepler out there.

Who needs CES when you have Chris Williams?! (mostly sarcasm as I know this is a very small sample, but just wanted to have a little fun while we face CES)

Short starts are absolutely killer. Especially when it's supposed to be one of your top starters, and he just simply doesn't have it that day, and never finds it over 4 innings.

You're going to make me blush!

Using Winder Tuesday comes back to bite them. I don't remember the circumstances Tuesday and if it was "necessary," but the challenge of having a true long man is that if your rotation is good, and mostly healthy, there's very few chances to use him, and you always run the risk of picking the wrong time to "just get him work," and you end up with no long man when he's needed. This is assuming Winder is supposed to be the long man.

I'd rather have Castro than Kepler. Castro is, to me, the ideal bench player. Switch hitter who can play anywhere but catcher, and steal a base. He doesn't need to be an everyday player, but he's exactly what I want out of my 26th guy. Castro is hitting better than Kepler this year. Provides better base running, and more flexibility. If they're making moves for Wallner, Miranda, Larnach, whoever they need to start with Kepler. Castro isn't the problem on this team. He fits the role he should have. And it's a valuable role.

Those guys deal with teammates getting DFAed dozens of times a year. They're not heartbroken over it. They might miss their friends, but this isn't some new thing for them. Guys who stop performing get cut. They understand this is a business. Sympathetic? Sure. But I'm sympathetic to people getting fired. They understand that their teammates play is also tied to their own ability to get enormous amounts of money. Whether it's Larnach, Wallner, Miranda, or any other player doesn't really matter to me. Max Kepler, Emilio Pagan, Kyle Garlick, etc. may be veterans, but that doesn't earn them a lifetime deal. Kepler isn't currently earning his spot. He's not a "proven veteran" anymore. He's a subpar hitter on a team that needs offense. There were other very reasonable options to make beyond sending Larnach down. I'm not heartbroken for Larnach going down. But acting like Kepler is a league average player anymore is ignoring a whole lot. He doesn't deserve to be on a team attempting to contend.

Guys may miss him in the clubhouse or something, but they all understand they're in a performance based business. I could just as easily argue that there's probably some players on the team that aren't happy he's still on the team. If you're not performing, and you're holding the team back from succeeding, there are plenty of players that will be upset with you getting chance after chance, and letting the team down. Not just the guys who's places you're taking, either. The players know who's good and who's not. If the players think Larnach, or Wallner, give them a better chance to win, there's going to be some that are upset the Twins refuse to move on and bring up the better players.

I think there's way too many variables to make a solid prediction 1 way or the other. Did 1 of the catchers get hurt for the year? He'd go on the 60-day, and they'd probably select Camargo if they feel he's the better player since that 40-man spot will be used all season. Once they get to the offseason they have plenty of guys coming off the 40-man, and Camargo needs to be protected anyways. If they aren't worried about protecting him I don't think DFAing him would be that big of a concern of theirs anyways. Even if it's just a 10-day stint they can 60-day Alcala, and use Camargo depending on what they feel about the rest of the roster, and who'd they'd be willing to DFA when. Pagan, Garlick, and Kepler are easy DFA candidates (well to everyone outside of 1 Twins Way at least...). I don't think the 40-man concerns are all that great. Plenty of ways to get Camargo on it depending on the overall situation.

Lineup position isn't what creates the consistency people are looking for. Being in the lineup or not can, though. MLB players have gameday routines they do no matter what. They don't do anything different to prepare for hitting 1st, 5th, or 9th. And they don't change their general approaches to their ABs either. Joey Gallo hitting leadoff doesn't suddenly think "dang, I need to cut down my swing and slap it the other way like Arraez since I'm hitting leadoff." He still goes up there looking to launch balls into the seats. Pitchers don't throw Buxton fastballs instead of sliders simply because he's in the leadoff spot, or if he were hitting in front of peak Bonds. Hitters approach ABs the same, and pitchers attack each hitter the same no matter where they are in the lineup. Lineup construction is about the manager putting the right type of hitters in the right order. How well Rocco does that, and how different the hitters really are, is up for debate. If you have a lineup full of the same type of hitter, the order doesn't matter beyond who's hot, and who's not. Luis Arraez has hit in the 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9 holes this year. Primarily 1st or 3rd, though. But he has an OPS of .916 in the 1 hole. His OPS in the 3 hole? The drastically different .918. His OBP in the 1 hole is .442 vs .440 in the 3 hole. Slugging is .474 as leadoff, and .478 in the 3 hole. Guys don't change who they are depending on where they are in the lineup. It's just fans attempting to explain away struggling bats.

Totally fair. I think that's just saying fans need to chill on manager decisions, though. We have a tendency to just assume that if they'd made the opposite decision the results would have been opposite. Who's to say Snell wouldn't have gotten lit up if he'd stayed in? Or that Familia wouldn't have gotten lit up if he went in? Mo lost a game 7 for the Yankees. Joe Nathan gave up the big ARod bomb. Mo also blew game 4 against the Sox. The best laid plans go wrong all the time. And having them go wrong doesn't mean a different decision would've gone right. But humans have this weird need to blame people when things don't go the way they like. Which allows us all to form wonderful communities like TD, so I guess it's not all bad ☺️

So? The numbers matter after the 7th, but not before? You want to be in the scout side of the scout vs analyst debate, why does the inning matter? They went with the scout side and ignored the numbers side and they got bit.

What about the Mets not following the numbers and taking Matt Harvey out in game 5? That didn't work out so well, did it?

How many more fastballs do leadoff hitters see? How many more strikes do 9 hole hitters see? How about guys hitting in front of the team's best hitters? Do teams really attack a hitter differently if he's in the leadoff spot as opposed to the 3 hole? If I know you can't hit a slider (MLB teams know that kind of stuff) I'm not going to say "oh dang, he's hitting leadoff today, better throw him the fastball he mashes instead of the slider." I don't know the stats to the first 3 questions I asked, but I'd guess they're all way more dependent on the hitter than the lineup spot. And, the "lineup protection" myth has been debunked for a long time. Pitchers actually work harder to get the guy out in front of a star. Throwing them fastballs just to avoid walking them isn't what happens.

Oh, I don't think his .738 OPS against righties is indicative of who he is as a hitter, I just think the proximity of his OPS against lefties shows that there's not this big discrepancy in his ability against lefties and righties. He was hurt while facing both handedness pitchers, and performed so closely against both that I don't get why the Twins feel they need to platoon him at all (outside of a little extra rest for his wrist). I just don't put any weight at all on his 16 PAs against lefties this year. I'll take the lack of platoon splits over the much larger sample size over a sample size that can have his BA swing 200 points with just 3 hits. I'd guess the Twins argument for platooning the young guys is to put them in the most advantageous positions as possible early to get them comfortable, and their confidence high. But I'd rather them get ABs and work to fix holes in their games that become present by seeing how pitchers attack them. I don't expect to see them change soon, either, though. There's literally no non-injury excuse I'd accept for pinch hitting Kepler for Lewis. I'd let some TD posters hit over Kepler at this point!

I'm a fan of platooning certain players, but not the guys you expect/hope to be your stars. If Kirilloff, or Julien, can't hit lefties, they aren't stars. 16 PAs are completely useless as a sample size. 1 extra hit in there jumps his BA from .154 to .230. 2 extra hits puts him at .308. 16 PAs show literally nothing about his ability to hit lefties. For his MLB career he has 117 PAs against lefties. He has a .707 OPS against them. Definitely nothing to write home about, but when compared to his career .738 OPS against righties it sure doesn't look like he is "a much better hitter against right-handed pitchers." If you have to pinch hit for someone in the top 4 of your lineup, they shouldn't be in the top 4 of your lineup. I'd actually prefer a top 5 that is "platoon proof," but let's just get to 4 guys and go from there. Stop pinch hitting for your hoped for stars.

Who can hit better?

FYI, there were 79 qualified hitters in all of baseball in 2022 that hit .250 or better. It's time to start changing your perception on hitting. You've been left behind.

I don't disagree here at all, but you'd definitely be depleting the wave of position players during a time when the position players are the weakness on your team. Right now, if you believe in Varland, and think Paddack can be solid when he comes back, you've got a full rotation, and you have to be able to provide the depth behind it with your minor leaguers. But, right now, you have a lineup that is struggling to score runs consistently, and trading a healthy Polanco, plus Miranda, would put them in an even tougher spot with the offense. I like both Burnes, and Woodruff, but Burnes' numbers have been declining for a couple years so I'm not sure I'd want to go too crazy in going after him when the weakness on the team is offense, not pitching. But I definitely agree that the return you get in a trade effects whether or not you deplete you overall talent level. I'd just prefer to hold onto the prospects, and not deplete the young, inexpensive talent anymore since that's the key to this organization being able to be sustainably good. You trade too many young guys, for too many veterans, and your ability to fill holes declines exponentially. Whether the veterans turn out to be useful or not. There's only so much money the Pohlads are going to be willing to spend. If you trade too many prospects from 1 wave you leave yourself with a top heavy team, and the Jake Caves, and Kyle Garlicks, of the world needing to fill vital spots. I don't want that.

I don't see them trading Miranda this year. It'd be an awfully quick turn to go from clearing out an opening day spot for him to shipping him out. There's a lot of moving pieces in this puzzle. Buxton (DH vs CF), Julien (2B vs 1B vs DH vs cOF maybe?), Lewis (how long is he locked at 3B vs moving to 2B vs OF), Lee (how long til he's ready, and where does he play in the majors), Kirilloff (do they want to lock him in at 1B), Larnach (is he going to claim a cOF spot or leave it open for a Kirilloff move), Wallner (same as Larnach), Kepler (will they ever move on), Polanco (can he stay healthy and will they trade him). A lot of factors here. The "next wave" of prospects is arriving now. They've already moved Steer and CES. Are they really going to move Miranda, too? You can only move so many members of a wave before you deplete your wave so much that it can't provide you sustainable winning. I think they let things settle a bit, and see who really claims a big league role, and then they see how those pieces fit.