chpettit19

Kenta Maeda had no arm and injury concerns while he was with the Dodgers for 4 seasons. He made 32 starts his first year. 25 his second year before going to the pen for the end of the season and playoffs. 20 in his 3rd year before going to the pen again. 26 in his 4th year before the pen move. He may have had concerns before they signed him, but while he was with the Dodgers he had no issues at all. Trying to sell Maeda as some sort of higher than usual risk when the Twins acquired him is ignoring the realities of what he did in LA. He had 3 IL stints with the Dodgers. All of which he spent the minimum amount of time on the IL and were for leg injuries. That is by no means a guy with "arm and injury concerns with the Dodgers." That's just a regular MLB pitcher.

Strongly disagree that Celestino is the one on the bubble and Larnach will have to "power his way from St Paul to Minneapolis." Celestino has no role on this team with Taylor here. Larnach is on the roster as of now with Celestino finally getting his much needed time in AAA to work on his game.

I'd give Balazovic at least the first half of this season in the rotation in St Paul before making that move. I think Winder, Ober, and Canterino are already well on their way to bullpen roles due to their inability to stay healthy in the rotation. Would like to hold off as long as I could on Balazovic (and Ober, but 1 more injury for him and it'd be to the bullpen for me). At some point they need one of these kids to be able to throw 180 innings in a season without being hurt.

Kenta Maeda had no injury problems in LA. Not sure what the complaint is here. Graterol has never even struck out 9 per 9. Relievers that don't average at least 1 K per inning are not "the highest upside pitching prospects." Even missing an entire season to TJ Maeda has provided more value to the Twins than Graterol has to the Dodgers. By a significant margin.

I agree it's probably a fool's errand to be predicting the opening day roster at this point. Was just curious on the Larnach in St Paul idea. I also would love to see Julien go bonkers in Florida and at least make it a tough decision. I'd guess they'd still bring Larnach north and play the old service time game with Julien, but I hope he makes them at least think about it. I'm not writing this team in as WS contenders yet, but I'm much happier with how the 40-man looks today than I have been in January for a very long time. I don't want Taylor starting on an everyday basis, but he's a legit MLB bench player. The 40-man is getting to the point where there's real thought that has to be put into who gets DFA'd and they can't just throw a dart at it and ship out one of 20 guys without worrying. Kinda fun.

Who do you have as their 13 position players now if Larnach is in St Paul?

It's an "eh" depth move. Nothing to write home about. But, even given he's not a good hitter, he's significantly better than Celestino at this point in their careers. Taylor's career OPS is only .677. Not impressive at all. But Celestino has had an OPS over .600 for 2 months of his (short) MLB career. Last August he was a .606. May he was at .844 and it made his overall season look slightly less than completely and utterly unplayable. He OPSed .458 in June and .477 in July in 2021. March/April of 2022 he was at .581, June .589, July .468, September/October .552. He needs to be in AAA. He's absolutely, totally, and completely not ready for major league baseball yet.

Celestino needs to progress at AAA. He's not ready for MLB yet. That's abundantly clear. Having him back in AAA is by far the better option for him and his development.

Will be interesting to see where the position player moves go from here. Right now I have the 13 position players as: Jeffers- C only Vazquez- C only Correa- SS only Farmer- IF/cOF or C in a pinch Miranda- cIF/2B in a pinch Polanco- 2B only Buxton- CF only Gallo- OF/1B or 3B in a pinch Gordon- Utility with emphasis on OF Kepler- OF/1B in a pinch Kirilloff- 1B/cOF Larnach- cOF only Taylor- OF only Obviously all eligible to DH as well. But that's a lot of versatility. Even if they all have dominant position areas, there's a lot of guys who can cover other spots. And those are all guys who deserve a legit MLB shot. Wouldn't be shocked if they stick with this or if they make more moves. FO is cooking now.

I'd guess he's the first one on the chopping block, but I just want Pagan to go away so I'm willing to release him for anyone. I'd sign you and put you on the 40-man over Pagan, and I've never even see you play baseball!

If I'm remembering correctly, about 66% of 1st round picks even make the major leagues. With that as the bench mark, and not counting the picks from 2020-2022 as it's not realistic to expect players from the last 3 years to have debuted yet, the Twins were 5/7. This regime was 2/3. That's not too bad. Nothing to claim they're great at, but nothing to be upset about either.

The first thing I notice is that the vast majority of their starting pitching was acquired via MLB trade. I don't know if that'd be the case if guys like Canterino, Ober, and Winder could stay healthy, but that's where things are at. The key moving forward now is filling that rotation with more pre-arb guys. Ryan, SWR, Varland, and Balazovic need to step up and take over 60% of the rotation. Ryan is already there. So need 2 of the others, at a minimum, to step in as well. Ober is an interesting piece. He's broken down basically every year of his career, and a move to the pen may be the move for him, unfortunately. Same with Canterino and Winder. But a pen of Duran, Jax, Alcala, Moran, Canterino, Ober, and Winder could be real cheap and real good if they can all stay healthy in those roles. Prielipp and Raya are also really big pieces moving forward (but not on the 40-man so didn't want to discuss too much in this thread). The second thing I notice is that they seem to have a really good ability to develop legit MLB quality position players. They need their star position players to be healthy, but the last few years have seen a pretty steady flow of legit major league prospects graduating or being traded for current major leaguers. Steer and CES can be added to the current stable of Lewis, Kirilloff, Miranda, Julien, Jeffers, Larnach, Wallner, and Gordon. I'm not sold on Celestino, but that's 10 guys in the last couple years who look like guys legitimately worthy of a shot in major league baseball. You can build a team around that kind of development.

Twins pitchers and catchers report Feb 16, and position players Feb 20. Unless they're playing the WBC, and then it's the 13th and 16th respectively. Less than a month before things start getting going! Kirilloff is already in FL at the complex, and reports are he's swinging freely. But he was also feeling good at this time last year so that's no guarantee of anything. I think having a backup plan for him is entirely reasonable even though things are looking really good right now. Larnach was actually one of the best graded outfielders in baseball in his short time last year. Not saying we should take that as gospel, but he was significantly improved defensively last year. Certainly a downgrade from Kepler, but almost every RFer in baseball is a downgrade from Kepler. I haven't seen many reports on his health, but I believe he is healthy right now.

Trading for these types of guys with with just a couple years of control left likely isn't sustainable. But isn't a bad part of an overall strategy. They need to start developing some frontline guys in house. Whether by drafting and developing, using the international signing period and developing, or trading for prospects and developing. A mix of improved development (I think they develop major league pitchers pretty well, but need to produce some frontline guys. My hope is on Prielipp) and these types of good, not great pitchers that they can turn into great pitchers would be wonderful and lead to real success. I will say that if Duran, Alcala, Moran, Jax, Canterino, Ober, Winder, and Henriquez can form a shutdown bullpen that is definitely a nice bit of internal development. Canterino, Winder, and Ober on the list due to real questions about their ability to hold up in the rotation.

Respectfully, you're wrong here. For 1 thing, as a singles hitter Arraez wouldn't try to beat the shift by hitting over it, he'd just lay down a bunt or slap the ball to left since he's most likely to get a single anyway. You wouldn't be taking anything away from him by shifting him. You'd actually be making his life easier. For a 2nd thing, there were 19 of 30 teams who shifted left handed hitters over 50% of the time. And only 2 that didn't shift them at least 40% of the time. You really think they shifted him 2% of the time on accident?

Wait, you're surprised teams didn't shift him more to the right based on that spray chart? I mean that thing is about as shift proof as you can get. Last year he pulled the ball (so to the right) 28.4% of the time (27.1% for his career), hit it up the middle 41.2% of the time (40.4% for his career), and went oppo (so to the left) 30.4% of the time (32.5% for his career). Why would teams shift him ever, let alone to the right?

If they can get about 25 starts a piece out of their top 5 guys I think they have a real shot at the division. That would leave about 40 starts to be covered by the young guys. One of which is probably Ober since it doesn't sound like he'll start the season in the rotation as of now. If he gives you 20 starts and you're looking at about 145 starts out of Lopez, Gray, Mahle, Ryan, Maeda, and Ober I think they win the division.

Comparing to the White Sox and Guardians is interesting. Both of them have guys with far better chances to be #1s, no doubt about it. But during the regular season (to me, if you're talking "3rd best team in the division" you're talking regular season) I'd argue the Twins ability to role out a deeper rotation than either squad puts them in a good spot to compete. If you're a believer in fWAR you should be relatively happy with the Twins regular season rotation (playoffs is a different argument). Last year the top 5 guys for the White Sox (Cease, Lynn, Giolito, Clevinger, Kopech) totaled 9.5 fWAR between them (average 1.9), and made 130 starts (average 26). The Guardians top 5 (Bieber, McKenzie, Quantrill, Civale, Plesac) totaled 12.9 fWAR between them (average 2.58), and made 137 starts (average 27.4). The Twins top 5 guys (Lopez, Gray, Maeda (stats from 2021), Ryan, Mahle) had a total of 11 fWAR (average 2.2) and made 127 starts (average 25.4). Top 15 guys in order of fWAR from last year (or Maeda's 2021 when he only made 21 starts and people thought he was having a down year before he was hurt): Bieber- 4.9 in 31 starts Cease- 4.4 in 32 starts McKenzie- 3.6 in 30 starts Lopez- 2.8 in 32 starts Gray- 2.4 in 24 starts Quantrill- 2.2 in 32 starts Ryan- 2.1 in 27 starts Mahle- 2.1 in 23 starts Lynn- 1.9 in 21 starts Giolito- 1.8 in 30 starts Maeda- 1.6 in 21 starts (sub in Ober at 1.4 in only 11 starts if you want) Civale- 1.3 in 20 starts Kopech- 1 in 25 starts Plesac- .9 in 24 starts Clevinger- .4 in 22 starts I won't lie, some of those numbers surprised me. I think part of the struggle is that we watch/follow the Twins constantly while we only follow those other teams on the periphery. The Guardians get a ton of credit for their pitching, but the back end of their rotation is not great. Plesac and Civale are worse than any Twins starter, and Quantrill is right in the same category as the main Twins guys. Their advantage is Bieber and McKenzie, but that's a bigger advantage in the playoffs than the regular season. The White Sox are banking on Kopech figuring it out and Clevinger getting back to being even half of what he was in Cleveland back in the day. Cease is likely better than anyone the Twins can throw out there, but Lynn isn't getting younger, and Giolito is far from a sure thing. They'd both be right in the mix with what the Twins are doing. For 162 games it sure looks like the Twins have the ability to run out a deeper rotation than either of these teams (unless Cleveland brings up another superstar prospect which is always a possibility). I wouldn't say the Twins pitching is any sort of distant 3rd here, and has a very real chance of being better than the White Sox and challenging the Guardians for overall performance.

Wouldn't the change in the shift rules hurt Arraez's value? He wasn't shifted on to start with so he's not going to hit any better than he did simply because of the shift (he might hit better, but the shift wouldn't be why). But other guys will. If the rest of the league is now hitting for a higher average because of the shift ban, doesn't it make Arraez hitting for average a less valuable commodity?

If Chourio makes the bigs at all it'll be quite impressive. I don't bank on any 17 year old who hasn't even debuted in full season ball making the bigs. He's just a nice lottery ticket to have. But I think 3 years for Salas seems reasonable. As far as prospects go, he's got as good a shot as any. My hope is that he ends 2023 in AA. If he does that he's a big time prospect and on the doorstep. A Miranda style season this year would be incredible and I'd very much like it. I'm not a Lopez believer. Cognitive dissonance has me trying to see the positives in him now that he's on the Twins, but I was very much against a 1 for 1 swap of Arraez for Lopez. But adding a borderline (some evaluators have him in, some don't) top 100 global prospect in the deal makes it reasonable to me. Really hope Julien tears Spring Training apart and is the leadoff hitter for the Twins sooner than later. Assuming there's no other trades that bring in a leadoff hitter type.

Ok. But 2025 isn't 4 years away. It's 3 seasons away. If he's debuted in the majors at the age of 21/22 this trade would be a massive win for the Twins.

The comp to me, as a player, is a young(er) Brooks Lee. Switch hitting SS who has the hands and arm to stick, but maybe not the lateral quickness. Comes from a baseball family (Lee's dad being a college coach, and basically every male in Salas' family playing professional baseball). Currently more hit and approach than power, but there's hope 20 HRs a year is doable down the line. If they end up with 2 switch hitters who can bat .280+ with 15-20 HRs in a few years I think we'll all be really happy. I hope the kid ends 2023 in AA. That'd be a huge step for this system. Salas and Rodriguez in AA at the end of the year? That's what my dreams are made of.

What makes Salas "at least 4 years away?"

I guess it depends what your definition of "decent" is. To me, Kepler is the very definition of a "decent" bat, as he's only had 1 year truly above average, but the rest of the time is right about league average. While I think the effect of the shift ban is seriously overstated by some fans, if he had 12 more singles last year his BA would've jumped 30 points. Now that wasn't a full season of ABs, so the stats are a little skewed. But he did play a full season back in 2018, and 12 extra singles there would've raised his batting average from .224 to .246. Even 6 more singles would've raised his BA to .235 that year. It's part of why batting average isn't looked at as being so important anymore. Another example: if Luis Arraez had 3 fewer hits last year he would've beaten Judge for the batting title by .0002. 4 fewer hits and he'd have lost by .002 points. It's why teams tend to care more about overall batting performance, and not just BA.

When the 2nd sentence of the article is "Terry Ryan, the former Twins general manager, used a 2-through-8 system to have his scouts evaluate players" you know it's just going to be about how the game was better back in the day, and these new young guys, and their "analytics," don't know what they're doing. While I'll be the first to say that analytics have made the game far less entertaining with the 3 true outcomes, it's embarrassing to tie the scouting scale to Terry Ryan like that. News flash: the Twins current front office also uses the 20-80 scale! Terry Ryan wasn't some super genius who was doing something outrageous. The 20-80 scale for scouting players was used by Branch Rickey who died back in the 60s. It's been around for a little while. Using Terry Ryan's name there is simply an attempt to get the "old school" crowd riled up. As for Arraez and an extension, he's not the first player to turn one down and won't be the last. Good for him for not taking less than he feels he's worth. And good for the Twins for not paying more for a player than they think he's worth.