chpettit19

Now do the top HR hitting teams and where they rank. I bet they're a lot higher on the runs scored list... Stolen bases are fun to watch, and teams like Cleveland who don't have power need to use it because they need to make every hit matter more. But "small ball" didn't go away because teams are stubborn or stupid. "Small ball" went away because it wasn't effective at scoring runs, and once teams realized it they stopped doing it.

I think there's a difference between entertaining and smart. Julien's bunt showed me a lack of confidence way more than any baseball savvy. He didn't think he could get a hit off Cole swinging so he took his chance with the bunt. Bunting is almost never the smart play because it far too often leads to an out, and giving up outs to advance 1 base is almost never the smart play when it comes to scoring runs and winning games. Julien was trying to bunt for a hit so it's different, but, generally speaking, it's an absolutely awful decision to ever bunt a guy to 2nd when the bunter will be the 2nd out. Getting the guy to second is nowhere near as valuable as the 2nd out. Especially at the top of your order. A 2 strike approach to push one down the line for a 2 run double is very different than bunting. Going one base at a time is sometimes just guys being slow (Vazquez will rarely take an extra base), and sometimes bad baserunning. The Twins have been very bad at taking the extra base the last few years, and definitely need to improve their base running. But that doesn't make bunting the smart decision. I don't think the Twins runners don't go first to third because they're waiting for a HR, I think they're just bad baserunners, and/or slow. And if they really want to raise their chances to do damage in the playoffs they need to improve their baserunning.

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.

There have been a few situations with Taylor on that I remember thinking "he should steal here," and being disappointed he didn't (he did attempt in at least 1 of those situations but ball was fouled off). This team is not built to steal, though. They have guys in the minors who've stolen a bunch of bases the last few years. Julien and Martin being the ones most likely to get some MLB steals. I just don't know who people want stealing on this team. I agree Buxton has the speed, but, as others have mentioned, every time he slides I expect him to stay down because he's hurt. It's crazy how terrible he can be for being such an amazing athlete. But I don't expect to see him steal many bases because of injury risk, and he's just not the type of hitter that ends up on first frequently. Gordon and Castro have the speed, but have been terrible at actually reaching first base safely. Can't steal if you're not on base. I already mentioned being disappointed a couple times that Taylor didn't go. Not really sure who else people expect to be stealing bags. Kepler and Gallo maybe? But they've been hurt, and not on 1B often. I think this is a lot like the "quick hooks" narrative that people are too broadly applying as a team philosophy instead of just a lack of personnel. They let Gray, Ryan, and Paddack go 6 and 7 innings last April, but somehow it became a narrative that the Twins wouldn't let any pitcher go 3 times through the order. Now the only guys getting on are slow and shouldn't be stealing, and fans want to say it's a philosophy. If it were a philosophy they wouldn't have guys stealing in the minors. Why risk the injury to them if they don't believe in steals? It's not a philosophy, it's a lack of personnel.

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.

I'm a Fangraphs guy for straight stats. Baseball Savant is my 2nd go to, but they serve different purposes as Savant I use more for batted/pitched ball data. Fangraphs splits leaderboard and roster resource are my 2 go to places.

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.

If he really cared about his fans that's exactly what he'd do!

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.

Really didn't understand hitting Gordon for Solano, but I have accepted that I will need to accept Rocco wanting his middle infield to look a certain way over what his corner OF looks like. And I guess that's a pretty reasonable idea. Although, I'm guessing Wallner is gone tomorrow and Kepler will be in RF so it's probably all moot for a bit.

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).

Well of course he doesn't have Freeman's bat-to-ball skills. Freeman is a first ballot Hall of Famer. Just saying that's his general swing type, and approach. The K% is definitely a problem. He still has struggles with off-speed pitches, and that'll be the key to his career. Has to punish in zone, get-me-over breakers. If he hits .280+ with only 10ish homeruns he'd still have value as a player, just not a star of any sort. I think that's what a lot of talk about players comes down to. Expectations and a view that certain guys are failures if they aren't stars (Sano being a poster boy). He's not a heart-of-the-order guy if he can't slug better, but he'd still be at, or slightly above, league average if he's at .280, 30% Ks, and 10 HRs. I mean he's currently at a 106 wRC+ with his .100 ISO. Not what you want out of a guy in the top 5 of your order, but 6-9 hole? You'll take that for sure. Can he maintain his batting average if he doesn't cut down the Ks and/or impact the ball better? That's a tougher task. Larnach is really hard to judge because he's played hurt for a large chunk of his early MLB time. I don't know what to expect out of him, but there's definitely talent there. Will be interesting to see where his career goes. I'll be surprised if he ever turns into a true slugger, though. Just not how his swing is geared. Unless he's hitting a lot of bombs to CF. He's strong enough to, but not many guys slug that way. He gives good ABs, but needs to figure out those pesky off-speed pitches for things to really click.

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.

Larnach is an up-the-middle/left-center gap hitter. He's never been a huge power guy as it's not how he's developed his swing. They spent the first few years of his professional career attempting to turn him into more of a pull power hitter. This year he looks to have gone back to an up-the-middle/"big part of the field" type guy. His current swing reminds me a lot of Freddie Freeman, who's also an up-the-middle guy. Freeman hasn't typically been a big HR hitter (low 20s most years), and that's kind of how I see Larnach. He he's hitting in the high .200s with 20ish homers and a couple dozen doubles I'd be more than happy. I think that's the type of hitter we should hope he becomes for the next half dozen years.

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.