chpettit19

What makes you think they'd have settled for less?

Yeah, I don't see this FO dropping Lee into the lineup midseason if the offense is "fine." They're not going to start his clock if the offense is staying afloat. Could be wrong, but I wouldn't bet on them doing that. Unless he's hitting .400 and slugging .600. And I don't see that from him. I'm excited for him, but I don't think he has Lewis' ceiling, and think fans are setting themselves up for another Sano situation where they're disappointed that an above average hitter isn't a generational hitter. Lee will be a different kind of hitter than Sano, but I don't think he's the guy some people seem to think he is. I think he's more likely to be good at everything, and not great at anything, and fans will disappointed that he's not an perennial all star. So, because of all this, I don't see him debuting midseason.

Sure, there's some other options. But if Miranda moves to first they'd go with Lewis at 3B before Lee, right? I fail to see any situation where Lee in the majors mid-season is a good thing in the overall picture of the team. They're at least 2 deep at his positions in guys they hope are part of their future, unless they're moving Lewis to the OF. I don't see them calling up Lee if everyone is "fine." But I don't really see how they could all be "fine" and they'd still need offense so I'm not really sure exactly what you mean with that. My point is simply that if Lee is up by midseason they're onto their 3rd option (at least) at some position. And that's not good for a team built with the intention of winning the division, and making some noise in the playoffs.

I didn't say anything about skipping AAA. There's a number of posts on here talking about him debuting for the Twins in June. I was responding to those. Some of them spoke to it being an injury situation if he were on the Twins in June. I agree with that. But I'll be one to suggest that he skip AAA if that's what the situation calls for. I just think it'd mean things have gone wrong in the majors if he's up by June, whether he skips AAA or not. But getting time in AAA shouldn't be a requirement for any prospect. Especially not one we hope is a star.

As far as the "Lee promotion" talk goes, I'd think him being up in June is probably a bad sign for the Twins offense. They aren't going to call him up for anything other than a fulltime starting spot. That would come at SS, 3B, or 2B. If he's starting at SS it means Correa is hurt. That's bad. There's some other players (Lewis and Farmer mostly) who could claim the spot if Correa goes down, but it could be Lee if he's tearing the cover off the ball in the minors. But, no matter what, Correa going down and opening the SS spot is bad. If he's starting at 3B it means Miranda is hurt or struggling mightily. Both bad options. Same situation with Lewis and Farmer being possibilities, but a red hot Lee maybe being the option by June. Either way, it's bad if Miranda isn't at 3B everyday in June. If he's starting at 2B it means both Polanco and Julien are hurt or not performing. Not to mention Lewis/Farmer/Gordon/Solano who could be pushed aside for Lee if he's on fire. But if both Polanco and Julien aren't available to start at 2B in June it's bad for the Twins. Overall I don't see many super great situations where Lee is called up in June. It likely means some combination of 2 of Correa, Polanco, Miranda, Julien, and Lewis are struggling or hurt. That'd be a bad situation for the Twins even if it is nice to have Lee as the backup to the backup plan. Seeing much of Lee at all this year is probably not a great sign.

Yes.

I thought these were all pretty straight forward placements. De Andrade showed he was too good for rookie ball. He may be younger than his teammates, but there's plenty of 19 year olds in A ball. Seems pretty obvious to move him from a level he mastered to a new level to start this year. There's multiple 18 year olds in that league even. I guess there could've been some thought that ERod's sample size in A was too small and to start him there for this year. But he was dominating so it seems pretty straight forward to bump him up to a league that will challenge him more. Prielipp's question has never been about talent, just health, and innings limits. You can limit his innings anywhere. Made sense to start him at A+ ball. It's awful to hear he's already meeting with Drs about that elbow, though. Really hope that kid doesn't turn into the next Canterino. Lee had a handful of ABs in AA last year. There's no real argument to be made, in my opinion, for starting him in AAA this year. What would be the point? Once you're at AA you're on the MLB doorstep, and there's no reason to not let him get his footing at AA to start the season. He got a lot of ABs in spring, but he wasn't exactly dominating. Julien didn't really have a shot to crack the opening day lineup unless Gordon also went down. They'd never start the year with a prospect sitting on the bench in the bigs instead of getting everyday ABs in the minors. That'd be terrible roster/prospect management. Julien was always going to AAA until a starting spot opened up. It did so now he's in the bigs. Once Polanco comes back he'll probably be the one heading back to AAA where he can get everyday starts. Pretty straight forward stuff. It's a good "problem" to have that you can afford to keep your top guys in the minors when they still have things to work on. It's only a real problem if they've conquered AAA and you're leaving them there to play bad big leaguers at their positions.

Oh, I don't think they dislike him or anything. They just don't LOVE him. They didn't create a starting spot for him this year like they did for Miranda (for example), and basically all of his opportunities have come because others were hurt. He made the most of the opportunity last year, but hasn't so far this year. He makes some terrible swing decisions and it makes it hard to maintain solid production. I was just trying to say that Gordon doesn't appear to be one of "their guys," and I don't expect them to go out of their way to keep him around like they do with thereliever who shall not be named (who's actually off to a solid start). So when it comes time to make decisions about 26- and 40-man spots if/when the whole, or close to whole, roster is healthy I think a Gordon DFA is possible if he doesn't start showing something. These are good problems to have, though. I'm much happier with them having to make tough decisions on guys like Gordon than the simple decisions on guys like Cave, Beckham, and Contreras (no offense to them).

We're all here for you! Do you have an MLB account? If you're signed in and have the Twins marked as your favorite team they'll put the most recent Twins story towards the top of the news section. Do hasn't written one yet for this game it appears.

That's the Yankees beat writer. Not surprising he'd cover things this way.

Why didn't you do that in the first place and save my fingers all that typing work?! 🤣

I don't believe the Twins have made accusations of others. The umps were the ones who had a problem with whatever was on his hands, and Rocco just didn't agree with him being allowed to continue since he hadn't complied with the demand to clean his hands from the ump. From the interviews I've seen, nobody with the Twins has accused German of anything.

Gordon is out of options and it's going to cost him his spot on the 40-man if he doesn't figure it out in the first half of the season. My guess would be Julien goes down when Polanco is back (assuming no other starter gets hurt in the mean time). They'll want Julien getting everyday ABs, not sitting on the bench in Minneapolis. And Castro will go if the team is fully healthy when Kirilloff is back. Gordon will move to a bench utility role at that point, but he's going to have to start looking even remotely decent in the box. To me it's not even his numbers (which are terrible), but watching him hit just doesn't look anything like last year, or anything like a major league hitter. He swings far too much and teams have figured that out and he simply doesn't get pitches to hit, and is surprised when he does so he misses them. This FO has never seemed to love Gordon so I don't think they'll hesitate too long to DFA him if there's a point where the entire team (including Lewis) is healthy. He'll get time to figure it out in a bench role, though, as they have enough other guys with options they'll bounce back and forth.

I don't think the youthful replacements are doing much better. Wallner hasn't been useful at all so he'll go down for Kepler tomorrow. And Gordon hasn't hit a lick so Kepler will replace him in the order to see if he comes back swinging it. Garlick is likely the one sent packing for Gallo and that's when you may have a choice between Gallo, Larnach, and Solano, but I'd guess it'd be Gallo and Solano platooning at 1B. Polanco coming back is going to be the bigger decision making point (assuming no other injuries pop in between).

Not Rocco's call. FO makes that decision based on recommendations from the training staff and Drs.

Move him to the bench. Then it's DFA time after that. He's out of options, and I'd guess he'd get claimed by some of the lesser talented teams if they DFA him to see if he can get going again with their squad. He'll be an interesting one to watch if he doesn't figure it out relatively quick.

I believe Kepler can't be activated until tomorrow. And I assume we'll see Wallner back in St Paul (well technically Indianapolis, but in a St Paul uniform) when that happens tomorrow. I'd guess Garlick gets DFA'd when Gallo comes back, but that mostly comes down to whether or not Gordon can look like he's even close to being a major league hitter in the next few days. I'd guess Julien maintains his spot as starting 2B until Polanco comes back. That could be a tough time for the Twins FO with one of those proverbial "good problems" to have if Julien keeps hitting until Polanco is back. But I don't think they'll want him sitting on the bench so I'd bet he'd go down until Buxton is back playing in the field in mid-May. I think we're all under the assumption Sands is going down. I'd guess Varland is down tomorrow, and it's between Megill and Winder coming up. I don't know where Winder is at in his rehab so hard to judge which one that will be, but I can't imagine they want to carry Varland for more than today if they have no plans to IL Maeda. Definitely nice to have some tougher decisions on who to send down/DFA. Not too often we get that around here. It's nice to have players actually have to earn their spots, and not just get to keep them because you and I are their best backup plans. Gordon better figure things out quick or he's not going to make it through the year in a Twins jersey.

The most likely regression will come in the K%. That's going to drop some. But if they can keep it in the 25% range they'll be just fine and setup for a wonderful season. And I think that's a pretty realistic mark for them this year. Fun to finally have 5 guys who you feel can give you a shot to win any given day. And to have them backed up by 3 other guys who have the chance to keep you in most games as well.

Diamond is attempting to cut their fees and pay the Twins, Guardians, and Diamondbacks what they say is a more accurate amount based on the current market value. The teams are obviously telling them to pay what they're owed.

Feels like a lot of assumptions being made off 4 games, and 14 4-seamers. Even if you add the sinker in he's thrown 33 total fastballs. Why are we worried about 33 pitches that he's given up 1 hit on? Way too early to draw any conclusions from anything. The Twins came into the season with Duran, Lopez, and Jax set to be their 3 go-to high leverage arms. Their starters are going deeper into games so they've been able to use those 3 in the vast majority of high leverage spots. Not sure how else you expected Alcala to be used. Things are looking great so far. Him being a multi-inning weapon would be a good thing so I'm confused by reading that as the Twins not trusting him.

Totally agree that they have some guys in the minors who can steal some bags. And those guys are stealing bags. But their MLB guys do not have the speed to steal a bunch of bags. It'd be an awful strategy to try. So complaining about the current MLB team not stealing bases doesn't make sense to me in the least. Current sprint speed percentiles for the guys you listed: Kepler: Would be about 70th if he were playing, but doesn't have enough to qualify Buxton: 99th (unfortunately he's just not going to run much anymore as part of their strategy to keep him healthy) Gordon: 75th (but he can't get on base, he's stolen bases in the past so not sure why we'd think he wouldn't try this year) Polanco: 0 (he's not even playing, but will be in the 70-75th range and may try to steal) Correa: 37th Gallo: 29th Farmer: 19th Larnach: 43rd This current team doesn't have the guys to steal. Correa, Gallo, Farmer, and Larnach do not have "speed enough to steal." They're flat out slow. The team had Molitor in spring training working on base running and stealing. They did base running drills everyday. The fast guys in the majors and minors steal bases. Why do you think they won't steal bases when the guys they have throughout the org have literally been stealing bases for years? I don't understand the complaint. Their fast guys are either Buxton, or can't get on base right now so they aren't even able to steal bases. The guys they have coming up are stealing bases, and have been stealing bases but people seem to be getting in pre-complaints that they won't steal bases when they get here for some reason I don't understand. It looks an awful lot like the "quick hook" narrative where people are just throwing a blanket statement out as a team philosophy instead of looking at the actual situation. Gray, Ryan, and Paddack were going 6 and 7 innings to start the year last year. Paddack blew out his elbow, Gray kept getting hurt, and Ryan got covid that wiped him out for quite a while. The rest of the guys they were starting were bad pitchers who didn't deserve to go deep, or Ober who can't stay healthy and needs limits. But people ignored that and just said the team won't let guys go 3 times through the order which was false then and is showing to be really false now. So people have moved on to steals. The Twins have had a super slow team for years so haven't stolen many bases and now people are claiming it's some sort of org philosophy despite there being guys stealing bases all over the org. Trying to steal with guys who can't steal just to say you tried to steal is a terrible strategy. 19th percentile sprint speed Kyle Farmer should not be stealing bases, sorry. Correa has seen his sprint speed steadily decline through the years and hasn't stolen more than 3 bases since his 2nd season. He stole 6 combined in his last 5 seasons in Houston. Why weren't the Astros stealing him if it were such a great idea? Carlos Correa shouldn't be stealing bases. The Twins simply don't have the guys to steal bases right now. It'll start changing as Julien gets more time, Lewis comes back, Polanco comes back, Gordon stops being really bad, Martin gets called up, etc. It's not an overarching philosophy it's a lack of players capable of doing it.

Then what was "Ultimately this is on Buxton, and let’s hope he comes to camp next season committed to playing 150 games like other star players do" implying?

Well he's not worse than the other two, so there's that! Him staying probably depends on the role available. They won't want Wallner and Julien sitting on the bench while they wouldn't care about it with Garlick. Julien and Wallner will be sent back to AAA to play everyday so they can be better than me in the field.

What info are they withholding? Byron Buxton won't play CF until mid-May. If you're waiting to hear if he's in the field or not before now and then they've already told you he won't be. Carlos Correa has back spasms and can't, or won't, be playing through them today. They hope he'll be back tomorrow, but can't promise it. Same situation with Gallo and his side. Kepler won't be playing at all as he's on the IL with a knee issue. Any other info you feel they're withholding and not being transparent about? Or would you like them to predict the future and tell you exactly when Correa's back will be better and Gallo's side will be better? I don't even care about privacy rules. What information are the Twins withholding that other teams are giving out? In any major sport. The Twins tell us what the injury is, what their hoped for time table is, and give updates on those things daily (unless it's a long-term thing they just address here and there). They've given us a rough timeline for Polanco as he works back. There's articles out nearly weekly about Lewis and his progress. What more do fans want? What more do they see other teams giving? There's a difference between not being honest and transparent, and not having all the answers.

I mean you're actively ignoring the Twins players that would've hit 150 or more "except for IL time." Interesting that you use that caveat for other teams, but not the Twins. Correa played 136 games, but missed time in the beginning and end of May with an injury. Otherwise would've hit your magical 150 mark. Arraez played 144, but missed the same chunk of early May as Correa or he would've hit your magical 150 mark. Miranda played 106 of 113 games after being recalled. Polanco had played 153, 55 (out of 60), and 152 the last 3 years before getting hurt last year. And even last year he'd played 104 of 125 while battling injuries for months and missing 2 weeks at the end of June. And Urshela missed a half dozen games in July with an injury or he would've gotten there, too. That's their 5 best players not named Buxton. All of which would've played more than 150 games if not for injuries (or being a rookie in Miranda's case). But tell me again how they're resting their best players more than other teams. Byron Buxton is the only one they do dramatic things with. There were 54 guys who played 150+ games last year. Less than 2 a team. The Twins would've had 4 if not for injuries. You, sir, are the one who is flat out wrong. Provably wrong, in fact.