chpettit19

If you think Polanco, Martin, Lewis, and even Gordon are better depth then what are you even complaining about? Tim Beckham has been a league average hitter over 5 ML seasons. Is your argument that he was juicing that entire time and never got tested until 2019? He's certainly not a good defender at SS. Can't argue that. But, again, he's a proven MLB hitter on a minor league contract. How is that in any way bad? How is it bad to have league average MLB hitters as depth in your minor leagues? So Cave was bad depth and Refsnyder was a bad example of depth, and Beckham has had a better career than both, but he's also bad depth? I seriously don't understand what you want out of depth players. The difference in our stances seems to be that you're at least somewhat convinced this is it. This is the last depth move they make and they'll go to him the second there's any need at SS. The comment you originally responded to from me was literally me saying there's no reason to assume that and people who complained about the Cave deal were immediately shown that their assumptions were wrong and he was waived from the 40-man. So I'll end this back and forth where it started. There's a lockout so no big signings are happening so I get that there's more emotion tied to these minor league deals, but there's literally no reason to think this signing is some sort of sign that the Twins are expecting to rely on Tim Beckham in any way, shape, or form in 2022. And even if he's a main part of their depth plan, he's much better than any other depth options they've had recently. As a backup infielder you can do much worse than a league average hitter with legit power. And he's not even their backup infielder, he's not on the 40-man and, unless he lights up spring training and others flop, he'll start the year in the minors. The options for improvement on your AAA, depth infield signings is quite small and that's why you've yet to provide a single name that would be a better signing right now. We want Drew Maggi back instead? Depth pieces like this are often bad glove, solid bat or solid glove, bad bat. That's why they're depth pieces. This is a bad glove, solid bat infield depth guy. Palacios is a solid glove, bad bat infield depth guy. Now they have one of each. Not a bad place to be in the middle of a lockout.

The throws are different. Competitive throws from the outfield happen far less than competitive infield throws. Most hits to the outfield are "guaranteed" singles or doubles. A strong arm can help cut down the in-the-middle outfield hits where a guy is trying to "stretch" a single or double for an extra base. Most outfield throws have enough time to allow the outfielder to get behind the ball and round it towards the base he's throwing to, or crow hop into it if he's really trying to let it fly. Infield throws come with a player running in all different directions and having to throw against his body, spinning, falling forward, with a guy sliding into him, etc. To go deep in the hole at SS and throw across the diamond happens quite often. Cutting a ball off that's headed for center and having to spin and throw off balance, or open your shoulders with your lower half still heading to centerfield and throwing with your momentum going the opposite direction, to first in the air happens quite often. Charging slow rollers and throwing off balance to get a guy happens quite often. Gordon has the arm to take routine grounders and throw across to first. He doesn't have the arm to routinely make the other throws that come with playing SS.

Again, give me names. You want better depth. Describe what that actually looks like. Which players better than Tim Beckham are you wanting as the backup SS for the MN Twins? Who says Plan B isn't Martin, Lewis, or Polanco? That's your assumption, not mine. What legit ML SS is going to be willing to go to any ML team and be the utility infielder or the AAA SS to start the year? Give me examples of what depth moves the Twins should be making. I mean you listed Rob Refsnyder as real depth before. That's 100% 20/20 hindsight to list him as real depth but suggest Tim Beckham isn't. Go look at their career stats. Refsnyder has negative WAR for crying out loud. Beckham has a career .733 OPS. Not out of this world, but lightyears ahead of your desired depth of Refsnyder and his career .618 OPS.

Who do you suggest the Twins, or any major league team, sign to minor league deals that are significantly better than Cave and Beckham? I'd honestly like a list of players you think would be willing to take a minor league deal with a ST invite that have had better seasons than Cave and Beckham have in the majors. Who do you want them to have as depth? Who should be the non-40-man roster players in the minors that will get you excited about the Twins depth?

To me you're just defining minor league depth. People were all angry last year because the Twins didn't have "depth" to deal with their injuries. Now people are mad that they have former major leaguers in the minors. Cave has no more of an inside track than any other player not on the 40-man. They're going to fill the 40-man before the season starts. They're not going to cut someone to put Cave on it over Rooker, Larnach, or Celestino. This is exactly what I'm talking about, though. They didn't sign Beckham to be their starting SS or waive Cave with the intention of him being their 4th OFer. I'm thoroughly confused by the idea that signing Beckham is bad if you expect their move is to sign a "middling journeyman SS" and you don't think Lewis or Martin are the answer at SS this year. Signing Beckham has no impact on, and makes no statement about, them making a "major splash" at SS. Either they're signing Story, a "middling journeyman," or making a trade. None of those things are impacted by Beckham. If you don't think Lewis or Martin are the answer you should be happy they added a former major leaguer between them and the bigs to give more cushion. Is the better move for a team that says they want to compete to have no former major leaguers in the minors as depth for injuries to guys on the 40-man? That doesn't make even a little sense to me. Why is it bad to have former major leaguers (who, by the way, had at least a little success in the majors) in the minors? I don't understand how it's a bad thing in any way, shape, or form.

It honestly blows my mind that people get so up in arms over these minor league deals. Remember when Cave got resigned to a nothing deal and people's heads exploded because he was still on the 40-man and it meant he was basically guaranteed a starting spot and all that then he was removed from the 40-man like 2 days later? I know things aren't exciting with the lockout ruining the offseason, but we need to gain some perspective. These deals happen all the time. They aren't some org altering thing or any sort of guarantee that he's the starting SS opening day. It's a minor league deal with a ST invite. It means nothing. Teams hand them out like candy to get veteran players to take minor league deals. Can we all just relax?

Fair enough. I'll never understand why you'd trade 150-200 innings for 10-15, but to each their own. As far as Winder himself goes I hope we can agree that he's got some exciting upside with that 4 pitch mix and I definitely want to see a bunch of him in Minneapolis next year!

Your assessment of the rule isn't all that accurate, though. The rule as currently written is that 172 days counts as a full year of service time. There are 187 days in the MLB year. So they have to hold a guy in the minors for 16 days during a year to save an entire season. The idea that they need to sacrifice the majority of an earlier age season to gain that extra year of control is false. If they put Winder on the opening day roster he'd likely be the #5 starter since he's never pitched in the majors before. Here's the Twins first 16 days of the schedule (for now...) Mar 31- Starter 1 Apr 1- Off Day Apr 2- Starter 2 Apr 3- Starter 3 Apr 4- Starter 4 Apr 5- Starter 1 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 6- Starter 5 Apr 7- Starter 2 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 8- Off Day Apr 9- Starter 3 (1 day extra rest) Apr 10- Starter 1 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 11- Starter 4 (lots of extra rest) Apr 12- Starter 2 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 13- Starter 5 (lots of extra rest) Apr 14- Off Day Apr 15- Starter 1 (keep him on his normal rest) The question is whether having Winder (or whatever rookie) on the opening day roster so he can make 2 random starts in the first 16 days worth an entire extra year of his career when he's an established pitcher? I'd say no. I'd throw bullpen games on those 2 days. Especially since the second one has an off day immediately following it and the first one has an off day 2 days later.

To be fair the rules make it so they only need to keep them in the minors for 16 days, not 2 months. 2 months would be for super 2 status. But 16 days gains them an extra year. I agree it's a bad look, but for a league with the disparity in spending power like baseball has it's not too crazy to keep a guy down for 2 weeks. Especially a back end rotation guy who would make maybe 1 start in the majors in the first 2 weeks of a season.

Feels like maybe that's just being stubborn to be stubborn. It's certainly not ideal if Martin, Lewis, and Gordon don't produce a major league SS, but just refusing to improve the position because you missed on those guys seems unproductive at best. At this point it's a done deal on Gordon. He's not an everyday major league SS. There's no sense in complaining about it or holding onto hope anymore. Martin has very, very little chance of sticking there. Lewis is a tossup at this point and it will depend on what improvements he made during his rehab and the covid year. The Twins should have a very good idea of if he can stick there or what he's looking like after having him in their facilities and working directly with their staff 7 days a week for nearly 2 years. If they don't think he's going to stick there either what is the point of being stubborn and not signing Story just because you really wanted one of those 3 to turn out? I don't get the argument of "we have a really big problem in 2 spots, but this problem is much bigger so let's not invest anything to fix the second really big problem." The Twins don't have a starting SS for opening day 2022. Why not sign a top 10 SS to fix that hole when they have 40 mil left to get to the place the payroll has been at the last few years and there's no SP worthy of that kind of money? They're not fixing the rotation as drastically as people want. At least not in the way people want. They're not spending a ton of money there. It's just not happening. So at this point why not invest in Story and have him, Buxton, and Polanco all locked up in the middle of your defense and lineup for a number of years? Donaldson and Sano both coming off the books soon so it's not like it'll crush their payroll. Just because the pitching is bad doesn't mean they shouldn't fortify the rest of the roster. Why go into 2023 with question marks on the pitching side still and the very real chance of still needing a major league short stop? If Lewis turns out to be a real SS then you can trade him or Story for the pitching you'll still need. I just don't get the idea of not bringing in good players just because they need good players at other positions as well.

It's been shown that the road/home splits for Colorado players don't mean a whole lot. It is easier to hit at mile high, but also then harder to hit on the road when pitches do different things. So it creates an even wider gap and you can't just say "his road stats are his real stats" or even "his road stats are closer to his real stats." Arenado had some pretty gnarly home/road splits too and I think St Louis is quite happy with his 121 OPS+ for them last year. For the most part good hitters are good hitters wherever you put them. And he's still drastically better as a whole package than anything the Twins have run out at short in a long, long time. He's night and day better than Simmons with the bat and way better defensively than Polanco at short.

Brusdar had pitched 9.2 innings for the Twins before he was traded. Our definitions of major leaguers vs prospects are very different. He threw 23.1 innings for the Dodgers his first year there. Your original argument was for wanting major leaguers because they'd established they were major leaguers. 9.2 innings is certainly not establishing that you're a major leaguer. You're moving the goal posts on me a little there. I don't know if you're being serious about their usage of the starting staff or not. If you're trading for Glasnow as a "true ace," as you described him, the Twins would absolutely be looking for significantly more than 100 innings for him. Berrios threw 121.2 innings for the Twins as their de facto "ace" last year and he was traded in July. Maeda threw 106.1 and he missed half the year with multiple injuries. Happ threw 98.1 and he missed starts before being traded in July. Ober threw 92.1 and he was on a strict pitch/innings limit in his 20 starts. Shoot, Griffin Jax threw 82 innings and only made 14 starts. Not expecting Glasnow to get to more than 100 innings is even more confusing to me. You're now suggesting the Twins trade for a "true ace" that will pitch barely more than a bad closer (Colome threw 65 innings last year). Him being 28 doesn't have anything to do with him being able to throw 170+ innings that you'd want from him. He didn't do it before he was 28 and not coming off TJ so I'm not sure why him being 28 would suddenly make him able to do it when he couldn't when he was younger and not coming off surgery. Buxton was a homegrown superstar. It took Buxton wanting to spend his entire career with 1 team to get that deal done. And took years of back and forth to get it figured out. They're very different situations. Not to mention this FO very clearly being far more weary of pitching injury struggles than position players. They also paid JD a ton with his injury concerns. They're more willing to take on position player injury risk than pitchers. I don't have any problem with people wanting to take a gamble on him. And if the price is right every player should be a target. I just don't get people suggesting he's going to come here and be the savior when he's never pitched an entire season and will then be coming of TJ with 1 season of playable control. If they're trading a bag of BP balls for him so it's just a financial thing, cool. But talk of Duran and other top 10 prospects being the cost blows my mind. Glasnow isn't the pitcher to be sending top 10 prospects out for. There's nothing at all to suggest he's the missing piece to get them over the postseason hump in 2023 because there's nothing at all to suggest he can pitch an entire season and lead a postseason staff.

I love this move. Nobody would argue that pitching isn't the biggest need, but I don't get why they wouldn't sure up the offense/defense with Story for the next 5 years and be in a spot to not really have to worry about much, if anything, offensively for the next 3 or 4 years. At that point you can put all efforts into the pitching knowing you're set on the offensive/defensive side. Buxton, Story, Polanco up the middle for the next handful of years would be a great place to start from with the young guys on the mound and corners coming up.

I'm with Matthew... the 2022 pick will be the #1 prospect in 2024. Or at least they better be. If you're picking at #8 and the majority of your prospects are supposed to be "graduating" to the majors in 2022 or 2023 the kid you pick in 2022 better be at the top of the list in 2024. But if I'm picking from these 3 I'll go Rodriguez with Petty as second and Miller a far 3rd. Miller doesn't have the loud tools to be considered for top prospect spots even though he'd probably be #1 of these 3 if I'm picking most likely to have a major league career right now.

We traded a prospect for Odo and an MLB ready prospect for Maeda. And that's just the 2 most obvious answers. Wade for Anderson was a prospect for a major leaguer. They've also made minor in season trades of prospects for major leaguers. Luis Gil and Huascar Ynoa are brought up on this site weekly if not daily. So the idea that they're not willing to trade prospects for major league players is false. And, yes, major league players have proven themselves. The major league player being discussed here has proven he can't pitch a full major league season. He's literally never done it. Now he's going to be coming off TJ surgery and you seem to be suggesting that the assumption should be that for the first time in his entire career 2023 will be the year he finally pitches an entire season. A "true ace" pitches more than 100 innings in a season. So your thoughts confuse me.

I seem to remember a trade with them for a pitcher a few years back, too. Something like Jake Odorizzi for Jermaine Palacios. If I'm remembering correctly Mr. Palacios is back in the Twins system now. I think we could call that a win for the Twins ?‍♂️ If it's not clear I'm being sarcastic about not remembering the details of the trade. The Rays are great at what they do, but they are certainly not "winning" 100% of their trades. They win enough and develop better than just about anyone, but, I agree, the current Twins FO has "won" their trades with the Rays.

What do you expect out of Glasnow in 2023? Since 2018 he's thrown 111.2, 63, 57.1, and 88 total innings per season. Next year he will throw 0 innings. What kind of workload do you think he'll be ready for in 2023 and do you think he hits the ground running or will have to spend time knocking the rust off?

Way too early to give up on a kid with 1 year of professional experience. Not predicting he's Mark McGwire in 2 years, but let's not write him off after 1 year either. My bigger take away from these comments is people's takes on MLB draft strategy. I don't know of a single team who drafts "for need" in the MLB draft. It's basically universally "best player available" with some lean towards organizational depth charts when the evaluations are close enough. What team doesn't need pitching and SSs? You won't find a single ML organization that says they have enough pitching or SSs in their system. Not one. By this logic the first round of the MLB draft should just be teams picking the top rated SS or pitcher on their board. The Twins approach is to go after "difference making bats" in the first round if they feel someone available could be one (per Thad Levine). They believe it's easier to get pitchers and improve their velo, spin rates, command, etc. than it is to take a hitter and improve his hand eye coordination, pitch recognition, or sprint speed. So they go after offensive/athletic tools at the top of the draft. They take homerun swings in the attempt to find superstar offensive players as you find far less of them later in the draft than you do pitchers. I like the approach. And it's the approach most teams take (within reason when it comes to their evals of players). The draft is an absolute crapshoot. I mean people are angry the Twins took Lewis over Greene, but if you'd asked them at this time last year they'd have been praising the pick with Greene coming off Tommy John and Lewis coming off an AFL MVP award (with the covid year in there for both). There's a reason teams don't care about top 100 lists or make spur of the moment decisions on prospects. Development is far from a linear process. Draft for tools and stick out the ups and downs of a baseball career. That's all teams can do.

No thanks. Would I love an arm like that in the Twins rotation? Absolutely. But trading top prospects for 100 innings of Glasnow in 2 years doesn't sound like a win in any way to me. It's similar to the Buxton situation in that if it weren't for injuries Glasnow would never be in the Twins price range, but this FO is already super against long-term deals for pitchers. I don't see any chance they'd extend Glasnow with his injury risk. Add in that this FO is not likely to just let him rip in 2023 after coming off a lost season after 2 shortened seasons and I don't see any reason to think the Twins would be acquiring any more than 100 innings from him. If he spends 25 innings getting his feet under him again then you're looking at 75 innings of nasty Glasnow. Having someone like him would be a move to make for a playoff run. Coming off 63, 57.1, 88, and 0 inning pitched seasons do we really think Glasnow is going to throw an ace's workload in the regular season then have elite production still in the tank for a playoff run? I'm not betting any real future assets on that.

I'm biased because the lasting image I have of Nathan is that bomb to right center A Rod hit off him in the bottom of the 9th in the ALDS. Nathan was among the elite relievers of that time, but never the best. Santana was the best pitcher in baseball for years. In my eyes whenever you're the best in the game for more than a season you get a boost. This particular round of HOF voting pretty much ruined the process for me. Even if these 2 never made The Hall, they deserved far better than 1 and done. That's an embarrassment to the writers. Mixed with Selig being in The Hall and the hypocritical move of then not putting the players he allowed to juice in just destroyed any credibility the writers had left for me. I think it's time we start a new HOF and make it the baseball museum that actually tells the story of baseball.

The minors have a 60-day as well. They'll have to use an option year on him, but they'll put him on the 60-day after that and he'll accrue no service time this year while also not counting towards the 40-man until he comes off the 60-day. The only time someone in the minors isn't able to be taken off the 40-man while on the 60-day list is if they're on an optional assignment. Enlow won't be on an optional assignment because he has option years left so the Twins can option him to the minors, wait 20 days, put him on the 60-day, and take him off the 40-man. At least that's my understanding of the rules.

The 40-man is in an interesting spot. I count 22 pitchers and 16 hitters right now. I believe the rule is still that you can carry no more than 13 pitchers so the Twins need at least 13 hitters on the roster. So right now they'd only have 3 40-man hitters starting in the minors. That feels awfully unbalanced. Especially because I see 4 guys likely to be in AAA on opening day (Miranda, Lewis, Larnach, Celestino). If I'm Garza, Jax, or Strotman I'm certainly not feeling great about my spot on the 40-man yet. Enlow and Maeda go on the 60-day asap so that frees 2 more spots. So they really have 4 open spots. I'd guess 1 is being held for a SS (which then pushes the 4 I listed before to St Paul). The other three really going to pitchers to where they have 25 pitchers and 17 hitters? Feels like they've painted themselves into a tough 40-man spot and are going to be losing some guys this year. And I definitely wouldn't be trading a hitter for a pitcher at this point and pushing those numbers to 16 hitters and 26 pitchers. A tough start injuries wise to the season leads them to losing a bunch of guys to waivers/trades. The 40-man situation isn't great and has me even further into the "youth movement" group. Can't risk losing controllable young talent for a long shot at contention in '22.

I think I'd wait and see how things go this year. They have a ton of arms hitting the 40-man roster and some of them will have to move to the pen. There's enough question about his ability to keep being dominant and his injury that I wouldn't extend him before the year. Unless, of course, he's willing to sign for something crazy low, but being a player rep makes me think that won't happen as the union would be really mad with an elite reliever not going after elite money. His being lefty is certainly a point in his favor as they have very few young lefty arms, but I still wait. Take our chances with him on the open market after the year. I don't want to get stuck with 10+ mil a year on the books for a guy who never recovers from this finger thing. If he's back and shredding lineups I approach him midseason if he's willing to talk then or see what happens on the market after the year.

I'm not a fan of trading for relievers during the offseason. Midseason is a different story as you can see who's having a good year and who isn't. Relievers are so volatile that giving up any sort of prospect capital for them during the offseason doesn't make much sense to me (see Wade for Anderson). And with a number of relievers on the open market as good or better than the trio listed here I'd much rather the Twins sign some guys if they're intent on bringing in outside arms for the pen still. They're running awfully low on 40-man spots, too (and we still need a SS). I'm guessing we'll see a whole bunch of young arms in 2022 as somebody would be getting fired if they move more young guys for vets and the young guys outperform on their new teams. Time to see what's been developed.

Depth is absolutely supposed to be impressive when the discussion is whether or not to trade a proven major league player. Which is the discussion here. If the depth isn't impressive and can't reasonably be expected to replace that player you have no depth in regards to the discussion at hand. The Twins don't have Arraez replacing depth. That's the point. The list you provided shows how little depth the Twins have at any position and this idea that they're so deep offensively that they should be trading offense for pitching isn't based in reality. That's the discussion. They have no proven depth at any position. Best argument is Jeffers and Garver, but Jeffers is far from proven and Garver is far from a sure thing to stay healthy. Plus you need 2 catchers. Now there's always risks to be taken and that changes the discussion a little, but not drastically in this case. Martin looks like Arraez at the plate with much more athleticism. I have very high hopes for him, but he's not even close to proven. And I'd prefer him in LF over the IF (I'm not a "you need to hit with power to play here" person so I'm sure many will disagree with that stance). At some point some chances need to be taken on young guys replacing established major leaguers. It's usually a financial situation that leads to that. The Twins aren't in that spot with Arraez. The question here is really about putting your faith in the young pitchers to perform or the young hitters. Either you need a young hitter to replace Arraez or you need a young pitcher to fill a rotation spot. With the Twins having drastically more near MLB ready arms than bats I'd prefer they see what they have in the arms.