chpettit19

Me too. Get 2 well thought of arms and do your best to turn them into MLBers.

Cruz is probably a pretty good comp in terms of value. I wouldn't consider Ryan and Strotman "highly rated" starting pitchers, though. They were ranked in the 10-20 range in terms of system rankings. That's probably what the Twins, and fans, should be expecting for Jeffers. 2 guys in the 10-20 range of the Yankees system. Kyle Carr, Brock Selvidge, Cade Smith, Jace Avina, Rory Fox, Chase Hampton, Brendan Beck. These are probably the names Twins fans should start looking at in the Yankee system if they're expecting a Jeffers to Yankees deal. Ryan being about a 10th ranked system guy when that trade went down is a good reminder to people that it doesn't have to all end up doom and gloom just because they didn't get a guy on the lists we all look at.

Yes, 23 mil for a catcher is a bad 1-year deal. What's the goal with that? You wouldn't be able to trade him on that deal, and you can't improve your team when you're paying Jeffers and Caratini 30 mil combined. Spending that much on catchers would be awful resource management. There are so many better ways to spend 30 mil on any payroll the Twins could reasonably be expected to have next year. And, no, you don't have to get at least the value of the comp pick because other teams wouldn't believe you're actually going to QO a catcher for 23 million. And catchers are not guys who get 50+ mil deals so the comp pick would be an early 3rd anyways. The Twins are not getting any name anyone is going to be impressed with on the surface. He simply isn't worth that much in trade as an injured rental.

I would be absolutely floored if the Twins got a top 100 prospect back for a Jeffers rental. Especially a Jeffers coming off injury rental. Especially an injury known to destroy a player's power well past the time they return. I'd guess you're looking at more like a prospect in the 8-10 range of most systems.

The Dodgers currently have Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and some guy named Ohtani in their organization. They're running Emmet Sheehan, Eric Lauer, and Justin Wrobleski out in their rotation currently. There's never been a team in the history of organized sports that had too much talent. There is no such thing as a log jam. There's no such thing as somebody being blocked. There's no such thing as having "too many position X" players in your organization. There's never a dilemma. You can have up to 13 pitchers on your major league roster. Until somebody has the 14 best arms in baseball all on their team and all healthy at the same time, there's no dilemma. Too much talent has never been a dilemma, problem, or anything else for anybody. Ever. And the names we're throwing around aren't exactly Glasnow, Sasaki, Snell, Yamamoto, and Ohtani.

Interesting. Super small sample sizes, but not unreasonable. Although, I believe he played with Team USA in 2025, not the Cape league.

Why?

My sister lives in Milwaukee so I get to a couple of their games a year. Usually a pretty fun team. But I have too many Brewer fan friends so I have to root against them in the name of competitive friendship law.

This would be a good time for the Pohlads to be in the know with the owners so they have a feel for what is coming. Obviously, nobody knows what the future holds, but the inner circle owners have a better idea than the outer circle ones. And that lets their team make some tiny tweaks to strategy. I'm of the belief that the Twins should extend as many of the young guys they think are real players now and take service time completely off the table. And get their contracts grandfathered in if the MLBPA gets their way and team control is shortened in return for stricter cap situations and you have them all locked up on cost controlled deals that better allows you to manage the rest of the cap details. A grievance from the MLBPA is also a consideration if you keep a 23-year-old, first round pick in the minors all year despite clearly being ready and your SS being a nobody like Gray and Kreidler. How much of a consideration? I don't know. But there's a million.

I don't know that I can agree with that. It depends on the situation your team is in. Where they are on the winning/competitive cycle and where they are in the financial world. Service time considerations are absolutely things teams need to consider. The best run teams are the ones that know the CBA inside and out and can take maximum advantage of it. I do feel that the Twins are at a spot where the most important consideration with Kaelen Culpepper should be his readiness. Holding onto Gray or whichever waiver wire level player people like least shouldn't be a consideration with him. "Depth" isn't needed this year. It's a lost season (realistically was before it started). There are a million other considerations I won't go through here, but they are things that definitely should be considered at certain times depending on the state of the organization. But, right now, what I want them focusing on is what's best for having Kaelen ready to be a real contributor moving forward beyond this lost season.

I have not watched much baseball at all this year. Life has been a little crazy. So, I have no opinion on what his readiness is. I'm a big proponent of numbers in the minors not at all being the end all be all. We can probably all name 10 guys off the top of our heads immediately who put up huge minor league numbers and had no shot in the majors. This is what the coaches/FO staff are paid for. The guys with the AAA (or AA) need to be able to give the FO guys feedback on the readiness of prospects. The FO guys then need to be able to get their eyes on them and decide if they agree or not. And then decisions need to be made. I will most definitely not make an argument that the Twins have been good at this recently. But it's what teams need to be good at. And every team has AAA guys fans call for and teams don't call up. They have to be better than us at knowing who to call up and when. If there's a clear and obvious hole in his game that MLB pitchers are going to exploit and they think he can close up in AAA, let him close it there. But they need to have a line that all players can cross that say "this guy is ready for the next challenge." And being good at placing the line and knowing when guys cross it is one of the most important things any baseball organization does.

Well, Super 2 wouldn't lose a year of control, just cause him to be paid more earlier. It doesn't lose a year of control, it adds a year of arbitration. So, he'd get 4 years of arbitration instead of 3 with only 2 years at minimum instead of 3. Super 2 is only a financial concern. There's a lot of things that need to be a factor. Another one is his readiness whenever baseball resumes again after any potential lockout. I assume they play most, if not all, of 2027. Agree that the hope has to be that both sides are smart enough to not tank their viewership with lots of missed games. And their opening offers being much closer than I expected, and presented earlier than usual, gives me hope. But, the Twins should also be looking to compete as early as possible. Part of that is going to be Kaelen, and other youngsters, being able to provide real production. Getting him some run this year helps with that. How much run is needed? I don't know. But him having gone through the initial adjustment to the adjustments phase would be very good for the Twins. I'm not making a case for any specific timeline for him beyond "when he's ready." The Twins already control him through his prime. He'll be 30 when he hits free agency. Would it be nice to have him til he's 31? For sure. If you think he's going to be good and want him til he's 33, extend him now and take the whole service time consideration off the table. There are a million things that need to be considered, but I hope the #1 consideration is his readiness.

I'd guess the service time issue they're looking at now, if any, is Super 2. Waiting another 2 or 3 weeks likely gets him beyond any Super 2 window and they can save a little dough down the line. Really, their only concern should be whether or not they think he's ready for his first crack at the majors. As soon as they think he's ready, there isn't anyone blocking him. A team in the position the Twins are in should be looking to get a guy like Kaelen up to start his MLB adjustments and get him ready for future years. My concern is that Tom's "we're going to compete" declaration "forces" them to make "depth" related decisions around the 40-man in the name of not having to rely on Culpepper not struggling while they try to chase a playoff birth. The realistic view of this team is that they aren't good enough and need to start preparing for 2027 and beyond. Culpepper getting his feet wet, maybe having to go down, and getting used to making MLB adjustments is what's best for 2027 and beyond. Get him up the second you believe he's ready to start that challenge.

Who says it took Joe Mauer 3 years to be good at first? Joe Mauer was a passable 1B the second he stepped over there. Not to mention that if your best argument is naming a guy who played the 1 non-pitcher position that is essentially entirely unrelated to the other 7, that's not very impressive. You have any examples of guys who came up as SS (like the subject of this article, Royce Lewis) who were significantly worse defenders at another IF spot than they were at SS?

No worries. And A+ for grammar!

You are the 3rd person to respond with "confidence matters, too" to me on this. And I'll give you the same answer I gave the other 2...that's all the more reason to not call him up until he's made real adjustments. Major League pitchers don't care about Royce's confidence. They will continue to throw him away while he tries to yank everything and out of the zone while he continues to chase everything. And he'll fail. Again. What does that do to his confidence? I'd say it raises the chances his confidence is completely blown and then his career with the Twins is over. I am not fine with "well he hasn't adjusted at all, but he's confident so let's just put him back up there even though we know his flaws are still there and the 90% chance is that he fails again and we can then DFA him." If your intention is not to have him truly fix his flaws, then let him mash AAA for another week or 2 and trade him for whatever you can get.

Royce Lewis has been a professional baseball player since he was 18 years old. He's now 27. If he hasn't picked up where the 1B goes for backing up fielders or cuts or anything like that by now, he's never going to figure it out. He's been on a professional baseball field thousands of times. If he doesn't pay enough attention, especially as a SS, to know where everybody goes on the field, that's on him and is a major flaw in a wanna be leader. You don't think Correa can tell you where every player on the field is supposed to be on every play? He's never played 1B, but I'll bet my life's savings he knows exactly where the 1B should be on every play. Every team moves guys around every year and they don't all suck at defense. The Twins suck at defense because they have a bunch of guys who don't have the skills to play MLB level defense. Tatis Jr moved from SS to CF/RF as a 22-year-old with no minor league experience and won the gold glove in his next season. Jackson Merrill had never played a game of CF before he showed up in spring training as a 20-year-old and debuted at that position on opening day. And played it well. Luis Gonzalez never played an inning of baseball in the grass until he was a rookie in the majors and they moved him to LF from 1B/3B. Mookie Betts moved to the OF when he was about to debut because the Red Sox had an MVP at 2B. Xander Bogaerts had never played an inning of professional baseball at 2B until he got to San Diego as a 31-year-old and they moved him there. Marcus Semien has 2 gold gloves despite playing 2B, SS, 3B, and LF in the minors. Paul Molitor played SS, 2B, 3B, CF, RF, LF, and 1B in the majors. Wait, that's every non-catching or pitching position there is, right? And he turned out alright. Manny Machado won a gold glove his first full season. At 3B. A position he played 18 innings of in the minors before he debuted in the majors at it. The joke is pretending that asking professional baseball players to play other positions has a significant impact on anything. Ozzie Smith could've slid to 2B or 3B and still been a wizard with the glove. Julien's inability to field 2B is because he lacks the feet and hands to field that, or any, position. Not because it wasn't the only position he played in the minors. Bryce Harper grew up a catcher, switched to RF in the pros, and then to 1B after an injury. He's been a solid fielder in both right and first. Bo Bichette is bad at SS, 3B, and 2B. Because he's a bad fielder, not because they moved him from SS to another position. ARod was a good fielder at both SS and 3B. He didn't fall apart because he didn't know the intricacies of 3B when he went to the Yankees. Jorge Polanco has played all over and that wasn't why he wasn't/isn't a great fielder. It's because he doesn't have all the skills needed to be a great fielder.

Why do you assume he's getting middle in pitches? He can have a different approach even at AAA. He's still chasing over 30% of the pitches he sees out of the zone. He's still swinging at just below 70% of the pitches he sees in the zone. Still swinging about 50% of the time at all pitches. The difference? He's making contact FAR more often. Because the pitches aren't as good. But if he's still being fooled and chasing pitches at the same rate despite the pitches not being as good, how does that help him when he gets back to facing the better pitches? He's seeing 3% more pitches in the zone than he was in the majors. So, 3 more out of every 100 pitches he sees is in the zone in the minors. But he's still chasing the same amount. He's still having 15% of the pitches he sees be called strikes. He just isn't swinging and missing as much and is making better contact against insufficient pitches. His challenge, to save his career, is to stop chasing the numbers on the back of his AAA baseball card and start chasing the adjustments that need to be made to improve the numbers on the back of his MLB baseball card. He can lay off pitches out of the zone. The idea that he is just getting middle in pitches and the pitchers aren't fooling him or he's not having full at bats where he has to lay off pitches ever is not reality. He's not having good at bats. The pitches not being as effective at AAA should make it easier for him to lay off pitches out of the zone. But he isn't doing it. He hasn't changed his approach at all. And he can do that against AAA pitching. He's either choosing not to or isn't capable of it. Either way, he hasn't fixed the problems that stop him from hitting MLB pitching.

Confidence definitely matters. But, to me, that's another reason to not call him up until he's actually made some adjustments. If he hasn't made adjustments, I don't care how confident he is, MLB pitchers will continue to expose him and that may destroy his confidence forever.

All good. I probably didn't read your previous statement as clearly as I could have either. Fully agree that having people throw multiple innings in a fluid way is a very useful tool.

The weaknesses Royce needs to work on are absolutely things that can be worked on in AAA. Going the other way and laying off pitches out of the zone are things he can work on against AAA pitching. That's an approach and mentality thing. It's actually what the minors are best built for. It's arguably the most important part of minor league coaching staff's jobs. "This is working here, but it won't work when you get to the next level or 2" is the story coaches have to sell to just about every prospect who walks in their clubhouse. It's why Kyler Fedko isn't in the majors. It's why McCrusher was never used even when he was called up. It's why Sabato is never really going to get a shot. It's why guy after guy is kept in the minors. This is what the minors are for and what the front office and coaches get paid for. They absolutely will never get it completely correct, but they need to be pretty good at knowing what works in the majors and whether or not a guy is truly doing that in the minors. Royce can adjust his approach against AAA pitching. He just doesn't look like he has any intention of doing that. And, yes, that's a very real problem.

Me going higher on the starter innings is even MORE reason to use bulk guys, not less. The exact numbers weren't the point, the idea that having an 8 man pen full of all 1 inning guys is not better for covering mass innings than a bullpen that includes multi-inning relievers. The Twins have not used the piggyback that way recently. They use bulk relievers every 4 days. They aren't tied to any starter, they're just on a rotation. And they pitch as many innings as they can on that 4th day. Maybe it's 1 because Ryan went 7 and they wanted to use the closer. Maybe it's 5 because SWR was awful that day. And, yes, injuries will 100% happen. But, no, you don't need another bulk reliever. There's nothing that says you can't replace a bulk guy with a 1 inning guy if that's your best option. Then your bulk guy would've covered more innings than a 1 inning guy would have and the rest of the pen is more rested to then cover for having to go back to an 8 man, one inning each pen. Using a bulk reliever doesn't tie the managers hands unless the front office forces it to. There is no rule that says you can't have Ryan go 8 or 9 or 10 or 15 innings on the day the bulk reliever was scheduled. You can even completely skip that bulk reliever that day and give him an extra day rest if Ryan or Lopez or Ober or Taj or Abel or anyone goes 7, 8, or 9 and it makes more sense to use 1 inning guys. The idea that there's no role between 5+ inning starter and 1 inning reliever doesn't make any sense. Louie Varland is the guy I really started touting this approach for. He could cruise through a lineup 1 time but was trash after that. He never seems to wear down. He could've been a 3 innings every 4 days guy. Some of those outings would've been 1. Some could've been 4 or 5. But he didn't need to be used for just 1 inning. He could be effective for 3. And he was one of their 10 best pitchers. Griffin Jax is now starting for Tampa. He could clearly be effective for more than 1 inning. He was one of their 10 best pitchers. But instead of using those guys for multiple innings, they used them for 1 inning at a time and limited them to 70ish innings a year which lead to their 13th through 20th best arms getting more innings than they had to pitch. If you had each of those guys getting 100 to 120ish innings you're covering 60 to 100 more innings with your best arms and limiting your 13th to 20th best arms to fewer innings. This article is based off a false premise of this team using a 6-man rotation. They weren't. What they have been doing is using bulk/piggyback relievers. They've been giving guys like Rojas who was one of their 10 best arms more than 1 inning even though he wasn't in the 5 man rotation. If your 9 best arms are all starter types, why would you send 4 of them to the minors or limit them to 1 inning each when they have the ability to do more? The reason this article mistakenly called this a 6-man rotation is because starters got pushed back a day. That happens with every team throughout the season. A guy gets an extra day here and there. You can do it with the bulk guys to. There's nothing that says you have to be as rigid as you're making it out. Figure out how good your guys are and how long they can go in a major league game. Maybe that's based on times through the order. Maybe it's based on health concerns (Duran and Miller being 1 inning guys, for example). Maybe it's pitch count. Maybe it's innings. Who knows. Each guy needs to be judged on his own. But once you know a guy can go through the order 3 plus times (Ryan or Lopez types) then that's what you should be letting them do. Varland types who can do it once? Why limit them to less than that? Let Varland go 3 innings. And as they're dominating at whatever role they have, you can test the boundary (assuming it isn't a health thing like Duran). Varland or Jax crush the 3 inning role for 2 months? Give them a time and a half through the order. Doesn't work? Back to once through. Still crushing it? Now let's try twice through. Get your best arms as many innings as they can effectively handle instead of forcing yourself into using your 13th through 20th best arms for a bunch of important innings. The reason you don't think this works beyond paper is because you have it on the paper wrong.

David Ortiz went to the opposite field 24.1% of the time for his career. Royce's highest season ever going oppo in the majors was 2023 when it was 24.7%. He was 17% in his 3 other seasons before this year when it's 14.7%. Ortiz dropped below 20% 1 time, and that was his last year in baseball. Royce's, by far, best season in the majors? 2023. When he was using the opposite field just 25% of the time. He needs to get up to 20% at least. He's at 11% in the minors. His approach is broken. There is nothing in his approach that shows he's changed anything. The fact that he does seem to rely so much on his confidence being high is all the more reason to keep him down until he truly fixes things. What happens if you call him up on Monday when he hasn't changed the approach we know doesn't work in the majors and he falls flat on his face again? What's that do to his confidence? You quite possibly lose him forever if that's how things go. He needs to make real changes. He hasn't. His approach doesn't work in the majors because the pitchers are better. He needs to change his approach. If the Twins coaches can't convince him to then it's time to do everybody a favor and move him to give him a chance to succeed elsewhere and free the Twins from the situation.

Perfect.

Being deep in SS prospects is all the more reason to not trade him. They have other guys they can offer. Jett Williams is probably the best you could talk them into. I don't think they'd listen at all on Made or Pena. The Brewers build through prospects. They aren't trading top 25 type prospects for a rental catcher and Ryan. They have William Contreras. A hamate break recovering Jeffers carries very little weight for them. And they aren't trading a top 25 prospect, let alone the #1 prospect, for Ryan. Jett Williams and Lara is a far more realistic starting point for a deal with the Brewers for Ryan. And even that may not be likely because the Brewers wouldn't be huge fans of going into 2027 with Ryan as an expiring deal. He's the kind of guy they trade away more than they trade for.