chpettit19

At this point I'd call this season a success if the Twins win a playoff game and break "the streak." And I actually think it'd be a really important win. Even if they lose the other 2 games in the wild card round. Taking that pressure off the 2023 team would be huge. They all tend to say the right things and act like "the streak" doesn't bother them cuz they weren't here for all of it, but they're human, and there is absolutely added pressure to not be on a team that extends the streak, even if you weren't on the team that started it. And I do think that a relatively healthy Twins team could take a game in the wild card round. If the injured team can get them there.

A large part of it is that the minors are more for building up season long stamina. Especially at the lower levels. Those kids have never thrown this many innings over this long of a season before so they're more concerned about having their arms be able to throw at the top of their game into September and October. So the minors are typically used more about building up season long inning counts to get the body better prepared for the shorter recovery time of the offseason between seasons before having to go another 8-9 months of pitching every 6 days.

Yikes.

Is that a different setup for Martin? He looked to have his hands up earlier than usual. Does anyone who watches the minor league games know if he's gotten rid of the hands low, bat straight up part of his setup or am I just seeing the tale end of his setup in that clip where his hands go up?

You're playing some semantics now, and trying to bounce around a bit. You started off with the stance of "To be honest I don't know how this team will every develop a top end starter with the limits they put on the minor league pitchers." because the Twins limit Varland "to 5 ish innings (not testing them with the TTO)" which were things easily disproven as I showed that almost every "top end starter" has limits put on them while they're in the minors, and that Varland isn't being limited because of TTO, but instead because of innings limits while trying to get him to throw deep into a season. You have a problem with him being 25, and that's fair. Most elite major league pitchers got to the bigs well before they were 25, but they were also drafted out of big schools or high in the first round and expected to move quickly. Varland wasn't and that's why we're talking about "manufacturing" a top prospect instead of simply drafting a guy in the first round and having him become what everyone thought/hoped he'd become. There is no reason to believe he will only be a "4-5 inning starter." The Twins let Ryan and Gray both go deep into games early in the season before they went on the IL, and, in Ryan's case, stopped being effective. They let Berrios throw 200 innings a year, and be on pace for it again before being traded. And, again, Varland isn't being limited to shorter starts this year because of a fear of the 3rd time seeing the order, but because he's thrown more innings this year than he ever has in his entire life and they are working on building season long arm strength. As far as what "top pitching prospect" means you can define it however you want. You can compare him to guys who actually became elite MLB pitchers, but that's not fair to him, or any other prospect. Or you can compare his numbers to the numbers of guys who were ranked high on prospect rankings and then it's a whole different argument. There are a ton of high picks who are highly ranked prospects that don't even make the bigs and have terrible minor league numbers. The Twins have a whole bunch of them over the last decade. Tyler Jay was a "top pitching prospect" at one point. Is Varland a better prospect than Jay in AA? I don't think it's even close. Tyler Jay didn't even make it to AAA let alone succeed there. So who's the "top pitching prospect" out of those 2? The guy who's name was on "the lists" or the guy actually succeeding? I mean if you're simply trying to say you don't think Varland is going to be Jacob deGrom then fine. You win. He's likely never going to be Jacob deGrom. But to suggest he's not a legit prospect with very impressive minor league numbers that hold up to all the "big name prospects" is simply ignoring the facts.

I mean Varland has been fighting the odds since he walked on campus in St Paul. Not a whole lot of MLB players coming out of Concordia St Paul. And, again, I'm not predicting he becomes a front line starter. The fact that he made it to AAA is an absolute success story for him, first and foremost, and the Twins development teams secondly. The fact that he continues to perform well and looks like he has a real shot at making the majors is encouraging for all involved. Pointing out that he's behind the elite, 1st round (or 4th in Webb's case) picks in progression at his age isn't breaking news at all. That's why the article is about "manufacturing" a prospect. He's a late round pick from a small school that has no business being where he is already. I'd say that kind of shows that "the odds" don't necessarily apply to him.

I'm not suggesting he's going to be anything like them on a talent or performance level, I'm simply disproving your idea that you can't develop a top end starter if they don't throw more in the minors. It's an incorrect stance as proven by basically everyone at the top of the pitching leaderboards today.

Have you looked at McClanahan's minor league start data? Average batters faced: 21.65. Average start: 5.08 innings. Average pitches thrown: 82.9. In his season with the most innings thrown in the minors. Don't even look at Webb's 2018 minor league stats. Only made it into the 6th 3 times in 26 starts. Only cracked 80 pitches 7 times. Only faced at least 20 hitters 8 times. The connection you're trying to make simply isn't that easy to make.

Pablo Lopez (this year's leader in ML innings pitched) threw 145.1 innings in 2017. Highest he ever totaled in the minors. Varland should get awfully close to that total this year. And Pablo Lopez is a top end starter. Jacob deGrom maxed out at 147.2 innings in 2013. Max Scherzer topped out at 90.2 in 2007. Verlander 118.2. Kershaw 122. Gausman 123.2. Bieber at 173.1 is an outlier for you. Fried 118.2. Cease 124. Rodon 132.1. Alcantara 125.1. That's a pretty good list of "top end starters" that weren't exactly throwing a ton in the minors. I just think the connection you're trying to make isn't one that can be so easily made. According to Fangraph's minor league leader board, Louie Varland is 12th in all of affiliated minor league baseball in innings pitched this year. Again, this isn't about letting him go 3 times through the order, it's about building up arm strength to endure an entire major league season. The goals in the minors are different than those in the majors and it's not such a straight line connection between the strategies.

He's gone into the 6th in 13 of 23 starts this year. He had never thrown more than 103 innings in a season in his life. He's at 126.1 this year, and will make several more starts. They're limiting the length of his starts because they want him to be used to pitching the entire season while also not overusing his arm so much that he struggles to stay healthy next year. He didn't pitch in 2020. Threw 103 innings in 2021. And is going to get to the 150 range this year. Next year he'll likely not have any inning limit beyond how he performs and whether or not he's worthy of making it through the order a third time, etc. They aren't limiting him because of the third time through the order, they're limiting him because his arm has literally never done what they're asking it to do before.

I think their stated concern with Archer coming out of the pen is the amount of work that goes into getting him ready to pitch. He's the Buxton of the pitching staff. Getting his body ready to play is a whole ordeal and he's not suited to sit in the pen and then get warm when needed. I assume they have no plan to take him out of the rotation, but if they insist on him staying here I'd like to see someone who'll piggyback him after the 4th every start for the rest of the year. Just let him do his 4 innings and sit down. Let Sanchez or Winder or Ober take the game over in the 5th no matter what (he's never going to go 9 innings so I don't even care about having a perfect game through 4) and then let them go for as many as they can.

Kyle Garlick is not a homegrown player either. Weird that you'd give other organizations credit for developing Urshela while putting the blame on the Twins for Garlick who was developed by the Dodgers (clearly terrible at clutch hitting organization there).

He's got a great arm. But really bad reads and slow.

I wouldn't bet on Wallner having more speed. They're probably pretty close. Gallo is 46th percentile in sprint speed. Wallner gets pretty universal 40 grades on his speed which means he's actually probably slower than Gallo. Wallner gets mostly 40-45 grades on his defense (fangraphs actually has him at a 30, yikes) while Gallo has 2 gold gloves. Wallner is not a good defender and not even in the same league as Gallo.

Your point seemed to be that he may consider picking up his player option because he's having a "substandard production" season, and thus wouldn't be able to get a big contract on the market. If I misunderstood what was meant by "the other "insurance" his current contract provides is against "substandard production" I apologize. But he won't be chasing AAV this offseason, he'll be chasing total guaranteed money. I provided some statistical examples of why he has every reason to believe he's going to be able to blow 2 years and 70 mil out of the water. Marcus Simien was entering his age 31 season when he got 175 mil last offseason. He'd only topped 100 in OPS+ twice in his entire career, and is only at 102 this season. He got 100 million more than Correa currently has locked up despite now being a 2B and being a worse hitter. It'll certainly be interesting to see how Correa's market plays out, but the decision to opt out doesn't seem all that interesting. Either he's hurt and picks up his option since he won't play a whole season next year, or he's opting out. His production absolutely warrants a massive contract, and he'll get it. AAV likely won't be 35.1, but total will be much bigger than 70 mil.

They can still negotiate a long-term deal, but Correa and Boras can't say "hey, we have 7/220 from Team X so you guys need to beat that." He gives up any chance to create a bidding war by picking up his option. Why would Correa and Boras want to do that? Correa didn't fire his agent last year and sign up with Boras just to try to negotiate from that position. Correa signed up with Boras to let Boras do his thing, and that's find him the best deal he can.

Correa has a 125 OPS+ this year. He was at 131 last year. 127 is his career OPS+. wRC+ numbers are 124 this year, 133 last year, and 127 for his career. Corey Seager's career wRC+ is 131, and he's significantly worse defensively, and he got 10/325 last year. I'm just not seeing these arguments that his value has tanked. Maybe he doesn't get 10/325, but he's going to get significantly more than the 2/70 he has in his back pocket right now. He has no financial reason to opt-in unless he gets hurt. This isn't "substandard production."

The SS market will be fascinating again this offseason. Early guesses would be that Turner returns to LA and Swanson returns to Atlanta, but there's no guarantees on either of those. I think the Yankees postseason performance will dictate a lot of their offseason strategy. If they flop in the playoffs I wouldn't be surprised at all if they take a swing at any of the big 4. Volpe isn't exactly lighting the world on fire in AA, and they've been without a championship for way longer than they like to be. Does Boston decide they want improved defense at SS and are willing to let Bogaerts walk to make a run at Correa? Is there a surprise team like the Rangers last year who just say "f it" and sign a big named SS even when the rest of the team doesn't look to be ready to compete? Are the Cardinals ready to move on from DeJong and are willing to pay Correa to pair with Arenado for the best defensive left side in baseball? Will be fascinating to watch how a lockout free offseason plays out for this SS class. Correa hired Boras for a reason and we're about to see why.

Barring injury, I don't see any reason whatsoever for Carlos Correa to pick up his player option for 2023. All picking up that option does is guarantee that he has no ability to negotiate with other teams. Why would the Twins be willing to pay what he wants if he opts-in and he can't negotiate with anyone but them? Opting out doesn't automatically mean he signs somewhere else, but it gives him leverage, and the ability to chase far more than $70 million. Correa, and Boras, are good at playing the PR game, and saying the right thing. But there's no chance he's picking up his option unless he has a catastrophic injury before the end of the season. There has never been a chance he's going to pick up his option unless he suffered a catastrophic injury this season. Those players options were nothing at all except injury insurance for him. And the Twins knew it the day they signed that deal. The FO is not waiting in anticipation of his decision. They know he's opting out. I don't know if he'll get $300 mil this offseason, but he's going to get way more than $70 mil. It'd be nice for him to stay with the Twins, but it won't be on his player options.

You're right, that '09 team didn't fall 5 games back until September 3rd. Then 6 games back September 4th. Then 7 back on Sept 6th when they were sitting at 68-68. I did get my years wrong on the other one, though. It was 2006 that they were way back to start September. They were 6 back on September 1 that year, and in 3rd place. My point is the same, though. Giving up on the season when they're 2 games back on August 23rd is silly. They were 7 out, and in 3rd place on this date in '06. And 4.5 out, and in 3rd place, on this date in 2009. In fact, in 2009 they were not only 4.5 out on August 23rd, but they were 2 games under .500. According to some on this thread they should've shut injury prone Joe Mauer down on Aug 23rd, 2009 to save him for 2010 since they had no shot at the division.

It might not matter. But that wasn't your stance. Your stance was that it wouldn't matter so don't even risk it. My stance is to give them a shot with their best players. Now if his hip is never good enough to come back this year then none of this even matters. But if they're still mathematically in the race when he's healthy again I'd bring him back and see what he can do.

My point is they don't even need to play drastically better to be in the fight. They haven't been good for 80 games yet they're still only 2 games back. That's the point. They don't need to have Buxton, Correa, and Polanco turn into MVPs or have Larnach come back and blast 12 homeruns in 3 weeks to win the division. They aren't playing well. Not arguing that at all. They're still in the fight, though. So why shutdown your best player in the name of 2023 when you blindly hope they'll be better than 2 games out by August 23rd?

You came on and responded to every single comment in the thread that slightly suggests the Twins shouldn't quit on the season. I'm responding to the 2 people responding to me. Isn't this the entire point of the comment section on Twins Daily? They've been a bad team that's still within 2 games of the division. I wouldn't care if they were 10 games under .500 if they were only 2 games back. When you're in the hunt you should keep hunting. Shouldn't have traded any prospects for reinforcements if being 2 games back on 8/23 meant throwing in the towel.

You're asking them to shutdown their best player for no reason other than you don't want him to get hurt when they aren't going to make the playoffs. You don't call that giving up? What do you call it when you suggest not playing your best player even though they could play?

But you've been saying that the last 30 games and they still haven't fallen out of the race. This division is awful. The Twins should be getting multiple players back in September. Maybe they'll come to life like the 2009 and 2010 teams and chase down the division title. Maybe they won't. But why would we ever want to give up on a season with over a month to go when they're only 2 games out? I'm not predicting a WS title. Not even a playoff win. But why just throw in the towel in August?