chpettit19

I've been tracking him, and he's, unfortunately, coming back to earth pretty hard in May. Most definitely still a respectable hitter this month, but nothing like his MVP worthy April. Slugging down to .410 this month, but still taking his walks and keeping his OPS up in the .750 range. I hope he's found something and becomes a nice big leaguer, though. Seems like a hard worker, and a good kid.

I don't think Balazovic is ready, but I agree with your general point. I'm not at all arguing for Pagan to be on the team. I've been wanting him cut since last year. I have no idea why they tenured him a contract to fill that role, or any role, other than they maybe thought they could work him into a high leverage role as the season progressed. And I have no idea why they seem to think that.

For sure. And sometimes Billy Hamilton comes up in game winning situations in extra innings. It doesn't mean Billy Hamilton is in some sort of high leverage role for the White Sox where he's consistently relied upon to win games with his bat. The argument against "low leverage" roles mostly just feels like saying "well technically they'll have to do it at some point." Of course every player on the roster is expected to play baseball. And they'll be put in big spots from time to time. But there's 8 guys in everyone's bullpen now. I'm just saying let's not act like you can't shield your 7th and 8th relievers from high leverage spots for much of the season pretty darn well. If you're frequently finding yourself being forced to use your worst players in the biggest spots you've got much bigger problems than the last guys in your pen, or on your bench.

Ok? If there's such thing as a "higher leverage role," then, by definition, there has to be such a thing as a "lower leverage role." I don't know if you're disagreeing with me or what. You're basically just saying what I did in the post chief quoted. You need Pagan types to fill low leverage roles throughout a 162 game season. He's been fine at that this year. But you have to move those guys out as the season progresses to get to at least 6 guys you can trust in playoff games. That's what my first post said. Chief argued there's no such thing as a low leverage role, and I provided some numbers to explain why I think he's wrong. Now I'm not sure if you're trying to disagree with me as you "liking" his comment suggests, or if you're agreeing with me as your explanation follows my stance from the comment he quoted. The Twins should be working towards having 5 aces, and 8 closers. If people think that's actually attainable, good for them. I'm a little more realistic, and would say no team has, or ever will, achieve that. If anyone believes there's teams out there without guys they don't want to use in high leverage situations in their pen I'll just agree to disagree with them. That doesn't mean I want Pagan on the team, it just means there are absolutely low leverage roles in modern day pens.

Do you feel there are a large number of teams in major league baseball that have no bullpen arms that are used almost entirely in low leverage spots? How many do you think there are? Almost every team carries 13 arms. That's 5 starters, and 8 pen arms. How many of those teams do you think have 8 guys they are happy to use in high leverage spots regularly? There's a difference between having to throw a high leverage inning here and there, and being a high leverage reliever. I'd venture to say that every single bullpen in major league baseball has at least 1 guy who they only want to throw in low leverage spots. Will the situation call for them to be used in high leverage spots here and there? For sure. Emilio Pagan has pitched in 2 truly high leverage spots this year. May 4th against Chicago when he got the win in the 11th, and last night. 2 out of 16 appearances through 44 team games being high leverage sure feels like it's a pretty low leverage role. He's on pace for a whopping 8 high leverage appearances this year. Of course they'll all be forced into a tight game here or there, and I said I don't want him on the team. But the idea that you can't hide a guy or 2 pretty darn well from high leverage spots seems like just arguing "well technically they'll all throw at least 1 high leverage inning." Yes, every team will lose a handful of games because they get into a stretch of games where their top guys are used too much and they have to lean on their mid and low leverage guys too much. But nobody is cycling through 8 high leverage arms and pretending they don't have guys they only use in low leverage spots until they're forced not to.

It'd be better for our collective heart health if they moved on from him, even if the new guys are worse.

I'm far more worried about losing Povich than Cano at this point. Povich is looking incredibly good, and he's got a chance to debut for the O's this year as a starter. That'd be a much bigger loss than Cano. The O's do seem to be putting themselves up there with the Rays, Guardians, Dodgers, and Astros in terms of pitcher development now, though. Let's not trade them anymore arms. Unless we get Adley or Matt's kid in return.

Don't disagree at all. The pen overall needs a lot of improvement. But if we're just looking at Pagan we have to acknowledge that he's filled his role well this year. It's not his fault (or Rocco's for that matter) that the FO have also planted numerous other guys in the pen that shouldn't be asked to do more than the role he's in. The pen is bad. They went in with 4 guys they "trusted" for high leverage work, and are hoping those 4 stay effective and healthy while they find 2 to 4 other guys who can be "trusted." So far 1 of their 4 is hurt, and another is having a weird season (Jax) where he hasn't pitched terribly, but also hasn't been effective, and they haven't found anyone else to step into a high leverage role. It's bad bullpen planning, even with the acknowledgement that relievers are fickle beings who are very hard to predict. I'm not suggesting they wait til the deadline to address Pagan, or the pen in general. But they're limited at this point of the season outside of cycling through AAA guys, which they're already doing. They can call the Royals about Chapman, but there aren't a lot of teams willing to make trades in May when it's really hard to build up a bidding war. At this point their main option is to keep throwing Stewart, etc. out there and see if any of them grab a job. I don't have super high hopes, but this is the bed they made. There was a reason almost all of us were confused by their stance all offseason of not needing to upgrade the pen.

Nobody has ever said you should never, ever use small ball tactics. Don't claim selective reading on my part when you're putting words in my mouth. Fast guys should steal! Actually, anyone who can do it at better than an 80% success rate should. You should surprise someone with a bunt every now and then, as long as your guy can bunt, and your base runners are heads up. But you shouldn't build a team around that, or use them frequently. Because if you're not meeting a certain threshold of success you're hurting yourself and costing your team runs in the name of "action." Playing to let guys go sit on base and wait for someone to homer inning after inning is terribly boring baseball. I get that you were told growing up that "small ball" and "manufacturing runs" was the "right way" to play the game. But it's not the smart way if it's a bigger part of your strategy than hitting for power. Hit and runs are not easy to find stats on so they're not included here. But I combined SB, sac bunts, and sac flies together to create your desired small ball totals. Here's the top 10 scoring teams and where they rank in HRs hit vs small ball totals: Rays- HRs- 1st, Small Ball- 4th Rangers- 8th, 7th Red Sox- 10th, 19th Dodgers- 3rd, 15th Braves- 2nd, 23rd DBacks- 16th, 6th Angels- 9th, 24th Orioles- 13th, 2nd Cards- 7th, 18th Twins- 6th, 30th Of top 10 run scoring teams the average rank for HRs is 7.5, and only 2 aren't in the top 10. For small ball moves the average rank is 14.8, and only 4 are in the top 10. The top 10 slugging teams rank 1, 5, 3, 4, 2, 6, 9, 11, 8, and 23rd in runs scored. Average rank of 7.2, 8 in top 10. The top 10 stolen base teams rank 21, 1, 29, 25, 8, 11, 12, 28, and 6th in runs scored. Average rank of 14.1, 3 in top 10. The top 10 teams in sac bunts, steals, and sac flies combined rank 21, 8, 29, 1, 25, 6, 2, 11, 19, and 12th in runs scored. Average rank of 13.4, 4 in the top 10. This isn't hard. Nobody is saying to completely take tools out of your tool box. But some tools are better than others. And it's not close. Power is by far the best tool for an offense when it comes to scoring runs. Extra movement on the base paths may make you feel like they're doing things, and improving their run scoring, but it isn't. Small ball is significantly less effective at scoring runs no matter how you feel about it. It's not an opinion, it's a provable fact.

Playing catch/long-toss, but not on a mound yet last I saw. If I remember correctly he's planning to get on a mound this weekend.

Pagan has only given up an earned run in 4 of 16 appearances this year. That's not bad. We have to separate last year from this year a little bit. He hasn't been blowing lead after lead this year. He's only blown 1. But that's because he hasn't been given leads to hold. This is not a "save Pagan!" post, but I want to be realistic about who he's been this year, and who he's most likely to be moving forward. Pagan is perfectly fine as a low-leverage, only used when trailing, or crushing, in games reliever (and you need those guys for a 162 game season). He's absolutely not someone the team should ever trust in a high-leverage situation, and should only be used there in emergencies. I can understand why they went with him only needing to get 1 out last night, and not wanting to use Lopez or Duran for 1 out, then a down and up for a second inning after they'd both thrown rather significant amounts recently. Yesterday was a perfect storm of an overused pen mixed with the offense going completely dead with the bases loaded again mixed with Sonny being incredibly wild and inefficient. That lead to them needing to use DeLeon (who I thought actually looked nasty and he may be an interesting guy to give a shot to as a lightning in a bottle reliever for 2023) more than they'd like to have, and Pagan at all. All this being said, Pagan absolutely can't be on a playoff roster. There's some blowouts in the playoffs, and you really don't want to use your studs in those games, but you can't waste a roster spot on a guy you'd absolutely never want to put into a close playoff game. I'm not going to freak out if they don't DFA Pagan today (and I've been calling for them to DFA him since last season), but as they approach the ASB, and trade deadline, they absolutely need to fill his spot with someone better. I'm ok with Pagan holding down his multi-inning, mop up role for another month or 2 as long as he continues to be successful in those situations. They need to be using that time to find 6-8 other guys they'd trust in a playoff game, though. They need to be working to improve upon him, and be looking for his replacement. The 2nd half of the season needs to be played without Pagan, or anyone, on the roster (outside of injury needs) that they wouldn't play in a 1 run playoff game. The next 2 months is all about finding your best 26 guys, maintaining reasonable depth behind them, and making sure those 26 guys are playoff worthy. Pagan doesn't have to go today, but he has to go before August.

I wouldn't think they have a very solid plan at all at this point. Buxton's future in CF, Polanco's future with the team, who of the young guys perform, and how long Correa can stick at SS all play differing roles in what 3B ends of looking like. Could go a lot of different ways. Just nice to finally have a few decent options on how to mix and match if multiple of the kids work out.

4/24-4/30- 7 games vs NYY and KC - 43 total runs scored - 13 HRs, 3 SBs 5/2-5/7- 6 games against CHW and CLE - 18 total runs scored - 7 HRs, 5 SBs 5/9-5/16- 8 games against SD, CHC, and LAD- 52 total runs scored - 13 HRs, 6 SBs See any pattern in there between when they were averaging 3 runs a game vs when they were averaging 6+? I don't disagree that base hits, steals, etc. is more exciting. I've never said anything different. In fact I just made a post yesterday in a thread about batting average as a stat that guys who get hits are more entertaining, but power scores more runs. I prefer the Twins score, and, most importantly, win games over having more movement on the field. Power scores. It sucks it's not as entertaining since there's less frequent action. But hitting HRs remains the way this team is breaking out of funks. And, as for the "we're not fast enough/don't have that kind of personnel" stuff goes I'd suggest you take a look at who's stealing bases for the Twins. MAT (6), Buxton (4), Castro (4), and Polanco (1). It's almost like it's our fast guys stealing bases like many of us have said was the only way to do it. They're not just blindly stealing everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying the games lately. I'm sure you enjoyed those Chicago and Cleveland games the most since that's when they were stealing the most bases per game.

In what inning? What's the game situation? Are you down by 2 in the bottom of the 9th? Who's the hitter on deck? There's way too much context in a baseball game for that to mean anything. Tie game, bottom 9? Absolutely. Down 4 in the 6th? I'm not sure playing for 1 run is the way to go. Way too much context missing.

The problem for baseball is that the high average guys are more entertaining, but they don't score as many runs. Power is the best way to score, and win games. There are 9 teams with 200+ runs scored so far this season. Including the top 8 teams in slugging. "Only" 6 of them are in the top 10 in BA. 80% vs 60% is rather significant. The Dodgers are 25th in BA, 2nd in HR, 3rd in slug, and 3rd in runs. The Twins are 26th in BA, 6th in HR, 15th in slug, and 10th in runs. The Nationals are 9th in BA, 29th in HR, 28th in slug, and 25th in runs. Philly is 8th in BA, 20th in HR, 11th in slug, 20th in runs. Hitting homeruns and slugging make up for a significant amount of batting average when it comes to scoring runs, because it's really hard to string multiple singles together to score chunks of runs. Last year there were 14 teams to score 700+ runs. 7 of them were in the top 10 in BA. 9 in the top 10 of HR. 10 in the top 10 in slug. The title is a little aggressive calling BA the worst offensive stat, but it's correct in that BA is a severely lacking stat, and power is how teams win. Luis Arraez is far more entertaining to watch than a low BA power bat, but his lack of power makes him need to be all-time great to be an impact back. He's got 101 more points of BA than Taylor Walls, but his being 112 points worse in slugging means he's 15 points of wRC+ worse. He's a 15% worse hitter despite being 100 points better with BA because singles simply aren't as valuable as extra base hits.

Looks like he's DH'd in 5 of 27 games according to baseball reference.

I'd cut him today. 0-3 in his first game?! Maybe he should just retire. All sarcasm aside, he definitely looked rusty at the plate in the couple ABs I watched last night. Didn't seem to have his toe tap like he had last year so he may just be working through a new timing mechanism. He's got 19 more days on his rehab assignment. I'd bet on him finding his rhythm in there and looking like last year before his IL stint is over.

From my count Falvine have made 70 trades since they took over. The vast majority are nothing trades of minor leaguers for cash or PTBNL that we never even really notice. I grade a trade as a 1 (clear win), .5 (got a little more than they gave up), 0 (all those nothing trades, or trades that were even), -.5 (got a little less than they gave up), or -1 (clear loss). The average grade I came up with was just over .04. I had 7 trades with negative grades and 11 with positive grades. I don't think they're anything to write home about, but I don't think they've been terrible either.

The package the Reds got for Castillo was significantly higher than what they got for Mahle. Like Lewis and Lee plus 2 pitchers. On mlb.com Marte is currently ranked 24th overall, Lee is 26th. Arroyo is 36th and Lewis is 37th. CES, Steer, Hajjar, and Enlow was nowhere near Marte and Arroyo in terms of value. Those packages aren't even close to the same.

I don't boo players for on field play, but I don't really cheer for them vocally either. I have no problem with fans booing home team players, though. If they can be cheered, they can be booed. It's also something they're well aware of when they sign their million dollar deals that are partly paid for by "average people" spending way too much to go watch these guys play a game. As some have mentioned, fans can "boo" louder with their money by not showing up, but a fan paying to attend a game comes with some "perks," and one of those "perks" is to be able to vocalize their feelings about both teams. Now there are definitely lines that should never be crossed, but I don't think booing is one of those lines. I don't recall any Twins players really asking for cheers or anything, but I know the Twolves have "called out" their fans before, and said they need to be louder. There's an expectation that fans are loud, and help provide the atmosphere that drives peak performance. Well if you want them to cheer, you better be willing to accept some boos. It's not fun, and I'm sure it's not easy. The vast majority of players work incredibly hard at their craft. But this is what they signed up for. They chose the entertainment industry. It comes with both good (millions of dollars, and playing a game for a living), and bad (boos).

Arbitration eligible.

If he had 6 homeruns robbed it'd be pretty exciting.

I think Rowson is an awesome example of how coaches don't really matter that much. They matter, but not nearly as much as people suggest. The idea being that Rowson was the key to the Twins hitting success in the late 20teens. He then went to Miami, and they were the worst offense in baseball before they let him go this offseason. Now he's with Detroit, who's scored the 3rd fewest runs in baseball. Right above the Marlins. MLB coaches are mostly just scapegoats for MLB front offices, but the truth is the talent of the players is all that really matters. If you build a terrible lineup like Miami had while Rowson was there they won't score. If you build a really good lineup like the Twins had while he was here they're going to score.

It's a little tough to judge true timelines. Like Maeda was technically well over 12 months, but that's because the Twins were out of it at his 12 month mark, and then he had all offseason tacked on. They're expecting Paddack to be physically ready in August or September this year after his 2nd one which is supposed to be significantly longer. I don't expect him to be effective immediately, but he's going to have to pitch, and he's not going to do it in the minors. But, to me, that's more reason to question an extension with him. You have to give him starts next year to work through things so that he's worked off the rust before 2025, but this team better be expecting to compete in 2024. I don't want Mahle getting starts if they have 6 or 7 other guys worthy who aren't working off TJ rust when they're trying to win a division. Plus, everyone I already named is under contract through at least 2025. So where's his spot in 2025? I wouldn't close the door on an extension by any means, but if you're going into 2024 with, hopefully, 5 to 7 of Lopez, Ryan, Paddack, Ober, Varland, Headrick, SWR, Balazovic, Enlow, Festa, "random prospect who it clicks for this year" in line for starts you'd expect to have all of them still available in 2025, plus whatever guys (Raya, Prielipp?) start establishing themselves in 2024 you have even less space for Mahle. But all of that is based on there being 5 to 7 guys looking ready for next season's rotation. That's why I don't close the door. Maybe SWR, Balazovic, Enlow, Festa, Varland, and Ober all fail in some capacity this year. Mahle would be a really nice fallback option there. But I'll give these young guys until August to see if they're claiming their spots before I look to extend Mahle.

I mean you'd expect him back pitching well before the all-star break next year. He's not a guy you'd send to AAA until there's an opening in the rotation, once he's ready he'll expect to be back on a big league mound. Early July would be the latest I'd expect him back. If there's no open rotation spot, and they're 7 deep to start the year there's nowhere to put Mahle. This is still plenty early in the season that he'll expect to be in a big league rotation for at least half of next season.