chpettit19

The Brewers are not trading the #1 prospect in baseball.

If he's going to come back and OPS under .550, no, it doesn't need to be considered. He isn't a gold glover or anything. An average defender with an OPS of .550 doesn't have a career. If Royce hasn't fixed his offensive problems, nothing else matters. Royce currently has a worse OPS than any Christian Vazquez season. Royce's offense is all that matters right now.

What adjustments has he made? "the Twins needed to know that the changes were real." What changes were made and why should the Twins believe they're real? There was never any doubt Royce Lewis is too good for AAA pitching. Him destroying AAA pitching doesn't prove he's made any adjustments or changes. You don't present any information on what changes or adjustments were made or why anyone should believe they're "real." Royce's walk rate is 5.2% in AAA compared to the 10.1% he had in the majors this year. He hasn't started laying off pitches and taking good at bats. His oppo% is down to 11.9% in AAA compared to the 14.7% he had in the majors this year. He hasn't started going the other way with pitches. His swing percentage overall has gone up to 51% from the 48.6% it was in the bigs. His O-Swing% (out of zone pitches he swings at) has gone up an insignificant amount from 32.8 to 33%. Again, he hasn't stopped chasing pitches. He's simply making more, and better, contact against inferior pitching. So, I ask again, what adjustments has he made and why should the Twins think they're real? Because it's pretty easy to look at his swing decision and approach numbers and see he hasn't changed anything. He's simply destroying inferior pitching. Why should we believe he's "fixed" and he wouldn't continue to struggle with his swing at everything, pull everything approach in the majors again when he hasn't changed that approach one bit?

Fully agree with everything but the last paragraph. I don't get this notion that having a seven man bullpen is some doomsday scenario if you go with a 6 man rotation or, especially, piggyback bulk relievers. The Dodgers run a real 6 man rotation. The difference is the names in the rotation. An extra day rest should mean starters can go deeper, thus the 7 man bullpen needs to cover fewer innings. But that only works when you have a rotation with names like Snell, Glasnow, Ohtani, and Yamamoto. The Twins rotation is not at all built to go 6 deep and save the bullpen. But the piggyback argument seems to fly in the face of pretty simple math. For 1, its not a 7 man bullpen, its an 8 man bullpen. But 1 of those 8 (or 2 or 3 or all 8 if you want to get crazy) throws more than 1 inning. And if that guy throws more than 1 inning it actually means the other 7 have to cover FEWER innings, not more. 162 games of 9 innings is 1458 innings the staff needs to cover. Modern baseball is not built on starters who go 7, 8, or 9 innings regularly. For ease of numbers we'll say the average start is 6 innings. 5 guys starting 162 games means each starter gets 32.4 starts. We'll round down to 32 to make it easy. That means the average starter throws 192 innings (that is much higher than reality, but it'll serve the purpose of this exercise). That is 960 innings covered by your 5 starters. That leaves 498 to be covered by the 8 man pen. 62.25 innings each. If 1 of them is a bulk, piggyback reliever who averages 2 innings (not even the preferred 3 or 4, just 2) every 4th game, they are making 40.25 appearances. We'll even round this down to 40. So that pitcher throwing fewer games than reality says they could and fewer innings per game than reality says they could, is covering 80 innings instead of 62. That leaves 418 innings for the other 7 relievers. That's 59 innings a piece instead of 62. The real goal of the bulk reliever role is to get that guy 100 to 120+ innings (40 appearances at 3 innings a piece is 120 innings). If you get that you then leave only 378 innings for the other 7 guys. Now we're down to 54 innings for each of those spots. If you have 2 bulk spots getting 200 innings combined? 298 innings for 6 1 inning guys. 49 innings a piece. I am so very confused how people think having 1 guy throw more innings means more work for the other guys on the staff. That is a wild stance to me because it flies in the face of logic and simple math. A 6 man rotation doesn't work the same unless the extra days of rest lead to longer starts. But a bulk reliever creates LESS work for the other bullpen guys. Its really simple math.

This is the biggest challenge for front offices and, too often, owners. A hard, emotionless, realistic assessment of your roster. I don't care if the American League is "down" right now. Has the Twins outlook changed significantly from the 72-78 wins most people expected coming into the season? I'd give that a very hard "no." So, if you're still expecting a max of about 78 wins 1/3 of the way into the season, what are you waiting for? What's the best-case scenario? Half the American League can't get to 78 wins so you sneak in and get boat raced in 2 games and go home? I'm not interested in that. Pretending you're good enough when you aren't is how teams get stuck in, at best, the no-man's-land middle ground. I'm not interested in that. Because that leads to the Twins holding Jeffers and him leaving for nothing. It leads to them holding Ryan and risking a Lopez style complete loss of value. It leads to a worse future in some lost cause hope that the rest of the league sucks, too, and you can pretend you succeeded by sneaking into the playoffs with a below-.500 record. No thanks. But, I will say I don't expect the Pohlads to allow the team to do what they should and treat this as the transition year it is. I expect Tom to force the front office into some bad decisions for the future of this team.

He'd be a pretty significant outlier if he became anything real at this point. But I'd rather see him or any other random AAA guy than Outman. And I'd rather they actually do some real testing of players in years where they aren't good enough to contend, even if those player's likely best-case scenario is a depth piece who never even reaches arbitration because they aren't worth more than the minimum. If you can find an actual 4th OFer or 5th OFer/1B who bounces back and forth between the bigs and AAA based on injuries for the minimum, that isn't a bad thing. If you can quit filling those roles with guys who cost more than the minimum, that's a good thing. Can Fedko be that? Don't know. Wouldn't bet on it, but why not at least see. The team is going nowhere this year. Outman's career is over. Make a kid's dream come true and see if there's something there.

If the new CBA forces the Twins to spend they should absolutely not pay Buxton more than he makes them and they should absolutely not pay Jeffers $23 million. This is their chance to actually go get some players and compete. Spending more on guys than they're worth just to get cap compliant would be an awful result. If Buxton forces their hand, fine. But don't pay him just because. And based on his stance so far, I'd bet he'd be ok taking his 15 mil and being surrounded by better players. Wasting cap money would be a terrible way to start the new era of more competitive opportunity.

That doesn't mean teams will just ignore what he's worth. There are always guys on the block that every single contending team can fit into their roster that don't get traded at the deadline. I have no doubt the Twins could trade Jeffers at the deadline. My doubt is that they get anything crazy back. They have no leverage now that he's hurt, with an injury that is known to hurt offensive numbers (especially power) even after it's healed, and he's a rental player. Will somebody want him? Absolutely. But at a certain cost.

I'm not assuming there'll be a cap system in place, I'm saying it's maybe the only way the Twins significantly up payroll next year. "Highest paid catcher" matters because the QO being so much higher than any other catcher tells you it simply isn't smart (or at least no team has ever felt it was smart) to pay a catcher that much. Paying guys more than they are worth is not good resource management. Especially if you're a team with a limited budget. Catchers simply aren't worth that much. Not even peak JT Realmuto who was significantly better than Jeffers. We don't know what is or isn't advantageous for contracts in a hypothetical baseball cap/floor system until we know the rules that surround that system. No, the normal price for a "high end regular borderline All Star type of" catcher is not 20 million. That matters. The cost for an All Star SS or CF is different than the cost of an All Star 1B or 3B which is different than the cost for an All Star C. His position matters. I don't follow the logic of "building a team around him" not being your goal and caring about finding a better catcher than Jeffers. If the team as a whole isn't the goal then why care about having a better catcher than Jeffers? If you aren't trying to build a winner, thus caring about the team around Jeffers, why care about overpaying for Jeffers just so you have the best catcher available to you?

That's fair. I think there's an incredibly small chance he gets those deals. If he's given the QO, I don't think there's much of a chance he doesn't sign it. The CBA could change all of this. The MLBPA wants the QO to go away. Floor, cap, team control length, all kinds of things could change and none of this will matter anymore. But, based on what we have in place right now, if Jeffers is offered 23 mil for 1 year, I can't imagine he doesn't jump on it.

Jeffers would sign it in a heartbeat. I only said 75% to be semi-reasonable. But the real likelihood is probably more like 99.9%. He's likely looking at something similar to Vazquez's deal. 3 years and somewhere between 25 and 35 mil. If you can get 23 for 1 and still turn around and get that 3 year deal the next year, why would you turn that down?

It, unfortunately, also sets the bar for trade negotiations. I think trading him is the right thing to do, but I expect people will be upset with the return. When teams throw out offers the Twins can't say they need more than a late 1st round pick in value because the other teams know they aren't getting that. So the bar is set at an early third round pick type value. Why they should've traded him in the offseason.

Are we sure it'd likely be in the low 30s? How many catchers have ever signed deals over 50 mil? I'd guess it's more likely the pick is after the 2nd round. Weigh that however you want, but there are not a lot of catchers out there signing deals big enough to get the Twins a comp a pick. Going into his age 30 season coming off an injury that will likely depress his numbers in the 2nd half, I'd say it's unlikely, but not impossible, that Jeffers gets 50 mil. I'd put the likelihood Jeffers accepts the QO at over 75%. Assuming financials are important to him.

How do you plan to build the team around him? If the CBA forces the Twins to up their payroll by 50-75 mil in 2027 (very real possibility that a floor of some sort is implemented, but very well may not go into effect until 2028 or 2029 to give teams a chance to adjust), an argument could be made for having 50+ million tied up in Correa, Buxton, and the catching tandem. If not, there is no way paying Ryan Jeffers the highest catcher salary in baseball is good for the Twins 2027 team. Having 30 mil wrapped up in the catcher position for a team with a 100 mil payroll, 10 of which goes to a guy not even on the team, is not a good use of resources. At all.

There are certainly Boras clients that sign extensions before they hit free agency, but they are relatively rare. The players get a say in whether or not they're extended. The Twins can overpay guys to convince them to stay, but that is not a good team building strategy. If the player wants to hit free agency, or doesn't want to stay here, or doesn't want to give up their chance to pick where they play, the Twins can't just force them to sign. It's not just automatically a failure of the front office when they don't extend guys. Some guys (Buxton, Polanco, Kepler, etc.) are willing to take extensions and not hit free agency. Others aren't. We'll never know what conversations were had behind the scenes about an extension.

$30 million on the catching position for a team with a total payroll that I'll believe jumps significantly above 100 million when I see it? That's a tough spot to be in. Especially when you consider the Correa payment to Houston. The Twins would be paying Buxton, Correa/Houston, and the catchers about half their payroll unless the Pohlads are forced to spend (new CBA) or suddenly drastically change direction in payroll. All these prospects better be REALLY good if you're trying to win that way.

Caminiti and Hartman from Atlanta is my #1 hope right now.

I'm happy to be proven wrong if you can show me some examples of significantly larger returns for guys traded with 2.5 years of control compared to similar guys traded with 1.5 years of control. Who's "they?" I'm certainly not talking about it being built around a single top 100 prospect. The value should absolutely still be 2 big time prospects.

As it turns out, Joe Ryan has a say in whether or not the Twins extend him. And if you listened to his public comments after the trade deadline, you may not be inclined to believe he'd sign an extension here. They could overpay him to get him to sign, but that would then have the opposite effect on his trade value. And I'd say they can get pretty much the same now as the could've last year. We're not talking an extra top 100 prospect or anything. It'd be a slight improvement on the 3rd or 4th prospect in the deal. There isn't some massive swing in value going from 2.5 to 1.5 in controlled years.

Oh, I struggle, too. And I'm certainly not here to suggest anyone should not question Zoll and his ability to do the job he's now in. But I'd point out we don't know what the other offers were for anyone. Roden wasn't the key part of the Varland deal, Rojas was. If Rojas was the best prospect they were offered and the Jays were offering either Roden or some nobody in rookie ball, I'd say Roden makes sense. If they were offering Rojas and a SS at the same level as Roden, then I'd say Roden doesn't make sense. If they brought back the best talent possible in their trades, I have no complaints. There's no way for me to ever know that. But I don't get hung up on the positions of anyone. Especially in a year like last year. To this point, I'd say it's hard to judge the deadline as anything but a success for the long-term. That may change. Maybe it changes by the end of the season if guys all just fall apart. But the early returns are quite promising pretty much across the board. I'll always prefer athletic, up the middle types, but if you're not getting offered any of them then it's hard to blame them for taking other positions. Just accumulate talent and figure it out from there. I didn't mind the Caratini signing. Would've preferred a 1-year deal, but he'd been good the last couple years and they need(ed) a catcher. Bell made less sense to me because you don't ever want him in the field and he's not a great bat. Overall, I agree that I don't always see their plan or agree with what they do. But it's hard for me to be mad at the deals they made anymore. They're mostly looking pretty darn solid.

If he can get himself straightened out, it wouldn't be shocking to see him at 1B. Will be interesting to see where he plays in AAA for the next month.

To what end? Impact how? I'm not going to go through the whole list, but suggesting Emma is likely to play a meaningful role on a competitive Twins team this year feels awfully optimistic considering he won't be back until August and will then have missed 3 months of games. How competitive are you thinking? Playoff run built on a core of 5+ rookies? Do you have an example of a team that has done that in the past? 2 examples? How many teams can you say made real playoff noise because of 5+ rookies, many of whom didn't debut until after the All Star game? The Twins thought they were going to roll because they had 3 rookie stars in 2023 that helped carry them to the playoffs, and some wins there. None of those 3 guys are on the Twins 26-man roster today. It shouldn't be long before Julien is in AAA and then none of the 3 will even be in the majors anymore. If your goal is to watch a more athletic team of guys who may be able to help have a true playoff threat in 2028, I agree, a combination of those guys would help that. But you'll either be paying Joe Ryan 30 mil a year by then or he won't be around and you'll have 1 comp pick to show for it.

He turns 30 in 3 days. How long are you planning to build around him as the foundation? 35 year old Joe Ryan going to be worth the 30 mil you'll need to pay him? Joe is great. Its never fun moving on from talent like his. But building around a 30 year old pitcher who's never made it through and entire season dominant feels like a questionable decision. He most likely has 2 or 3 more years close to this level of performance. Doesn't feel like somebody you build around.

Your argument is that it showed a lack of a plan because they didn't need LH corner OF's at the time but everything since then shows that they actually did need LH corner OF's. Or any OF really. That argument doesn't resonate with me. Sorry. The actuality of what has happened is that they did need Roden. And there's never any position that is log jammed, or blocked, or however you want to describe it. It feels like people's memories get wiped every season. There's no such thing as too much depth. Anywhere. Again, Roden would be playing RIGHT NOW if he wasn't hurt. He also plays 1B. The Twins could use a long-term 1B, right? I wouldn't put money on it being him, but he would've given them another option at least. The plan should always be to acquire talent. That is the only plan you need. Have more talent today than you did yesterday. I didn't love the deadline at the time either. But so far this year all of us who complained are being shown we were quite possibly very wrong. And again, you can name 2 guys out of 10 they brought in that you don't like. 80% feels like a pretty successful deadline. And since it's turned out they did need Roden, I think maybe it's not real smart to continue with the narrative that he was a bad target. Tommy's little brother? You mean Joe? The guy who was never around and everything ever reported or talked about him is that he wasn't only not a hands-on owner, but was actually much closer to an absentee owner? I'm not a fan of the Pohlads, but I still have a relatively realistic view of them. You're arguing the opposite of reality.

Outman is bad and should be cut. But Brock Stewart has thrown 5.2 innings for the Dodgers. The idea that they were getting anything besides a severely flawed player back for him is simply ridiculous. The Twins have Kody Clemens and Ryan Kreidler playing CF and you want to argue that outfielders are not a position of need? It looks like Wallner is toast and Larnach is not going to be around much longer (they aren't extending him). Emma can't stay on the field and has used all 3 option years with likely 0 MLB PAs. Jenkins is hurt AGAIN. I'm no huge Roden fan, but he'd be in the majors playing regularly right now if he hadn't gotten hurt. Not to mention that if your expectation is 100% wins on trades you're going to be disappointed in every person who has ever made a trade in professional sports. Outman for Stewart and half of the Varland trade being the only thing you can come up with out of the record setting number of deals they made last deadline should probably say something to you. Tommy boy doesn't care about the baseball reasoning. The only thing the Pohlads care about at this point is money and maximizing it. Likely hoping to maximize their sale amount after the CBA is finalized. If Tom thinks the team is worth more with Joe Ryan on it, it doesn't matter what Zoll or anyone else says to him, Joe Ryan isn't getting traded.