chpettit19

I simply want to provide some perspective and information. I agree, he's had plenty of times where he had wonderful at bats and they were a delight to watch. I will miss him so much that I'm going to pay whatever ridiculous amount MLB is charging for MLB.tv this year so I can continue to watch him in Miami. But when there's actual information on things I find it important to provide it so people are aware of the actual facts of things. Not just in baseball, but everything. And I realize it's one of my more annoying qualities 😔 But provable facts need to be carried with more weight than opinions in our world again. And I enjoy engaging with you because you put real thought into your posts, and provide useful, and interesting, perspective. It's a sign of respect that I'm willing to annoy you more than others! 🙂

You're trying to make it sound like he was something crazy. There only 131 qualified hitters last year. He was .11 pitches over league average. That's nothing. The narrative that he was up there having crazy long at bats compared to everyone else is simply false. Miguel Sano has longer at bats than Arraez, are you going to miss those "long at-bats and battles?" I mean if seeing lots of pitches is what you want you should love Sano. Jake Cave was tied with Arraez. You going to miss his "long at-bats and battles?" Polanco, Correa, and Larnach are still here so you'll at least be able to enjoy their ABs since they all average more pitches per plate appearance than Arraez. The point is that we can miss Arraez, and wish he was here, without pretending he was someone he wasn't. Arraez was an absolute treat to watch hit. But he wasn't someone up there seeing significantly more pitches than anyone else.

Not going to lie, that is the first time I've ever seen the washington post stats page listed as a resource. I didn't even know that existed. Well done. But here's a real baseball resource. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2022-pitches-batting.shtml League average was 3.90. Arraez was at 4.01. So .11 pitches per plate appearance above league average. He was 41st in baseball for hitters with at least 502 plate appearances. 41st out of 131 is nice, but not something crazy. And when you lower the threshold he falls even further down the list. Not sure what your source is basing their numbers on to get him up to #17. Edited: I see you're on AL only. So that's why he's up higher.

4 years with no arm problems. That's all there is to know. 4 years. If 4 years isn't enough to not be concerned about something you'd never trade for a single major league pitcher. He had no IL stints for his arm in 4 seasons in LA. Trying to pretend he was a higher risk than the average pitcher is simply ignoring the reality of major league pitchers health. He started 32 games his first season there. That's not "handling him carefully to get the most out of him."

And teams like the Astros, Dodgers, and Rays aren't actually all that good at it either. Dodgers 1st round picks from 2013 through 2019: 2013- Chris Anderson (never made bigs, out of baseball after 2017) 2014- Grant Holmes (never made bigs, still fighting but a non-prospect) 2015- Walker Buehler (massive hit- Twins don't have one of him) 2016- Gavin Lux (made bigs, hasn't excelled but has promise- sounds like some Twins guys) 2017- Jeren Kendall (never made bigs, still in AA), 2018- JT Ginn (not in bigs yet, but a decent prospect) 2019- Kody Hoese (not in bigs yet, struggled at AA last year). That's only 2 out of 7 guys who've debuted after having been drafted in 2019 or sooner. Buehler being an A+ pick, Lux being in the same boat as most of the Twins guys in that he's reached the bigs, but not really excelled. A little perspective goes a long ways when looking at draft picks. Astros picks 2013-2019: Mark Appel, Brady Aiken, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker (in the same draft as Bregman-they crushed that draft), Forrest Whitley, JB Bukauskas, Seth Beer, Korey Lee Rays picks 2013-2019: Nick Ciuffo, Ryne Stanek, Casey Gillaspie, Garrett Whitley, Josh Lowe, Brendan McKay, Matthew Liberatore, Greg Jones Drafting is hard. I'm not going to go through all 30 teams, but the Astros hit massively on 2 guys, but completely whiffed on 5. Rays didn't massively hit on any. First round MLB draft picks are an absolute crapshoot.

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.