chpettit19

That BA video is 2 years old. So BA would have him being 16 right now as well.

Duran feels like a reliever to me. A potentially really good one who throws 100 with a secondary pitch ("Splinker") that some people rate as a 70. If he comes back this year I throw him in the St Paul bullpen for a few outings and let him go a couple innings at a time. Bring him back next year with a shot to carve out a spot in the Twins bullpen or put him in St Paul's bullpen and follow the approach the OP is suggesting. I don't know that I'd really be banking on him being a starter ever, but I'd be looking to turn him into my Hader type fireman who can throw a couple innings sometimes or just come in and K the side. (I actually think Joe Ryan ends up in that kind of role, too, but that'd be real nice to have multiple shutdown guys in the pen)

If I'm the Twins ownership/FO I negotiate with Buxton until the new CBA has been finalized and I know next season is happening. If it's clear that we're not going to get a deal done then I look to move him for a package that's better than whatever the QO "reward" is. If it stays the current comp pick situation I need a first round pick type talent plus another prospect. If I don't get that I play out next year with Buxton knowing I finally have someone who can backup CF defensively in Lewis who will get his shot next year at some point. If Buxton stays healthy all year and is an MVP candidate I extend a QO and let him see if he can get the money he thinks he can. If he accepts the QO then I have to decide if I want to play with him on the 1 year deal or move him for prospects. If he's coming off a season of MVP type play in 150 games I'd think you can get a pretty decent return for him during the offseason from a team who wants him for a full season. Not having a legit CF backup for the last handful of years has been a huge mistake. I think moving forward they're finally in a position to better survive losing Buxton to injury for different stretches with Lewis, and maybe Martin, able to cover CF. Buxton on 7/80 plus incentives with a league minimum player able to step in if he goes down is a nice situation to be in, and I'd be willing to give Buxton year to year incentives (no vesting clauses that would guarantee future money) up to 30-35M based on games played. I think his glove alone is worth 15M a year and even league average offense from him makes him worth 25+.

Fair enough, I can appreciate that. I was just agreeing with the general point and not specific players.

Not sure why you'd tag me in this. I haven't said anything about Kintzler, or any specific player outside of Reed. All I've said is that Reed types are added and cut multiple times a year and this is a clickbait article.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/transactions/#month=8&year=2021 Trying to get some people to understand that this is what the MLB transaction tracker looks like is difficult. Literally every major league team loses multiple players to the waiver wire every single season. Some of them turn out to be something, most of them don't. If somebody wants to make the claim that any team's front office is bad and should lose their jobs they need to go through that list and track every transaction by every team and see which teams actually perform better or worst. Picking out 1 random guy and saying "see, Falvine sucks!" is completely useless and can literally be done for every single team. When you track 1 team you're aware of their failures while not being aware of the struggles other teams have. It's why articles like this are nothing but clickbait. No context and are just here to stoke emotions, not critical thought.

You could write this exact story for a dozen guys from every organization. This is nothing. The question shouldn't even be "did the Twins miss something," it should be "did the Twins, Angels, Dodgers, and Rays miss something." This is the life of fringe MLB players. Sometimes one will hit down the line somewhere, but there are dozens of guys a year who get DFA'd, claimed, DFA'd, claimed, DFA'd, claimed, and on and on until every team who wanted to see him for themselves has done their claiming. This is just click-bait chum in the water for fans already angry with the Twins FO this year.

Agreed there's no way Martin gets called up this year. No reason at all to take a 40-man spot for a September call up. But I'd be shocked if he isn't in Minneapolis before September next year. I'd argue he could hold his own in the majors right now with his approach and ability to get the barrel to the ball so it'd be really disappointed if he put up a huge minor league season next year and they didn't call him up midseason. Have to assume there'll be injuries and I think he'll show he's ready to hit for average and get on base and they'll go to him midseason. Or maybe post trade deadline if they move Sano or someone. But certainly no reason to add him to the 40-man mess now. Wait til next year.

I haven't viewed Buxton as a prospect for years. I viewed him as an incredibly talented player who was drastically underperforming his skills while changing his swing, drastically, multiple times mid-season. He then went back to square 1, simplified his swing, got real aggressive hunting fastballs, and started hitting the way basically everyone thought he would. Josh Donaldson didn't figure his hitting out until he overhauled his swing before his age 27 season and became a perennial MVP candidate. Nelson Cruz didn't figure it out until he was 28. Jose Bautista was 29. Max Muncy was 27. Justin Turner 29. The list goes on and on. And none of those guys had anywhere near the natural abilities Buxton does. You're more than welcome to view Buxton however you choose to, but to suggest that him being 25 before he figured it out means he's not actually a good hitter and is the 90-95 OPS+ guy he was his first few years seems overly negative. And, by the way, he got MVP votes with a 93 OPS+ in 140 games in 2017 because he does so many things on the field. And as for his infield hits falling off because he's going to get slow, again, he's 27 years old, not 35. And there's no reason to believe he's suddenly going to stop being fast. He comes into camp in shape every year and clearly puts in the work to keep his body in top shape. Him going from the 100th percentile in sprint speed to the 95th percentile (he's in the 99th percentile this year) in sprint speed takes almost nothing away from his production. You're talking the loss of a handful infield hits per season starting 4 years down the road. So from the age of 31-34/35 he'll be still OPSing higher than league average while still providing gold glove defense in CF. I just don't understand any part of your stance. At basically 11M/year base there is just very little downside to signing him to an extension.

Agree to disagree on what? Literally everyone actually involved and with direct knowledge of the situation says 7/80 is/was agreed upon. Your argument is that they're all wrong (or lying) and you know better. So, sure, agree to disagree.

Well both him and his agent have publicly stated that they agreed to a base of 7 years and $80M, but they couldn't come together with the team on the incentives so I think I'll stick with him being good with the 7/80 and wanting more incentives.

Since 2015 Buxton has a a 3.6% weak contact rate and 28% topped ball rate. Mike Trout is at 3.6% and 22.4%. League average is 3.7% and 33.3%. He's under league average for both. Since 2019 his weak contact percent's have been 2.4, 2.1, and 2.6. Well below league average. His topped ball %s have been 23.8, 25, and 38.5. 2 years of basically 10 points below average and this year above. Yes, his speed does give him a great advantage over other players in beating out infield hits, but you're making it sound like he's a slap hitter or something. I think you just have a very different view of Buxton than I do and what his recent stats have shown him to be. He has 10 homeruns in 27 games this year and you think he's a 20-25 homer guy in a full season. You're suggesting he would have gone from 10 in 27 games to 10-15 in the next 130 games. So from a 60 homer pace (he wasn't going to hit 60 hrs this year) to a 19 homer pace. You think his recent production is more than 3x better than who he really is. That's one heck of a hot streak for any player. Especially bold stance considering this is the type of player everyone thought he would be for years.

And as I pointed out in the original comment you responded to there's no reason to believe he's suddenly going to be super slow. Kevin Kiermaier topped out at 29.7 ft/s sprint speed back in 2015 at the age of 25. He's now at 29.1 ft/s sprint speed at the age of 31. Buxton is at 30.0 ft/s sprint speed at the age of 27. How much slower do you think he'll get in the next 5 years? Even dropping down to 29 ft/s keeps him in the 95th percentile of MLB players. There are only 40 players in MLB who have sprint speeds of 29 or faster. So there's no real reason to think he's suddenly going to be slow. Trout is 30 and has only dropped to 29.3. Jon Berti for the Marlins is 31 and sprinting at 29.9 ft/s. Billy hamilton is 31 at 29.6. Adam Engel 30 at 29.7. Phil Gosselin is 33 and sprinting 29.2. And none of those guys are coming from Buxton's top speed at 30.9.

In decline? At the age of 27 he's already at the point in his career where he's going to be getting significantly worse? Bold claim there. Not going to argue with you on the batting stats. If you want to believe he hasn't figured his hitting out over the last 2 years and is a different player than he was early on when they were changing his swing every other week I'm fine with you believing that. Agree to disagree. But he's still worth 7/80 plus incentives.

September will be a big month for Buck. If he comes back and plays the whole month at anything close to how he played his first 27 games this year it makes this offseason real interesting. He's going to stick to his demands of big incentives on that reported 7/80 base deal. But will also raise the type of package the Twins could demand if they refuse to meet his contract demands. I'm of the belief the Twins should sign him to whatever incentives he wants (assuming all incentives are based on that season and there aren't any future season vesting options he's talking about) as his value from his defense alone will be incredibly high into his mid 30s. I'm not a believer that he's going to hit 30 and suddenly go from 30 ft/s sprint speed to 25. Dude is fast enough and gets good enough jumps that even losing a step or 2 in his early 30s means he's the best defensive CFer in baseball. Reference point: Kevin Kiermaier is 31 and has gone from 29.7 ft/s in 2015 to 29.1 ft/s this year and is still in the 95th percentile for sprint speed. Buxton should be an elite glove man for his whole career. If he's a .300 hitter with 30+ bombs you're talking MVP and he's worth whatever incentives he's asking for. If the Twins can get him on a 7/80 base it's the absolute right move. With their limited payroll (whether self inflicted or not) this is their best chance to sign a player of this caliber to a long-term deal that doesn't kill their budget. If the Pohlads won't sign off on a deal like this due to the risk of their payroll jumping 15M in a season where they have the MVP then MLB should force them to sell.

Confused by people saying you can find Colina types anywhere. 24 year old who's dominated the minors, throws 100, and has the best slider in the org and you think you can just cut him and find someone else who fits that mold? He's the type of arm we've all been begging for in the Twins pen. Nobody is saying he's a sure fire stud, but he's most definitely somebody you keep on the 40 man and give a shot to next year.

Certainly don't want Simmons back next year, but pitching is why the Twins failed this year and now that they have young guys up I think keeping Simmons for his glove alone makes sense for the rest of this season. Let those young arms build confidence with their best SS option behind them instead of having 4 negative fielders behind them (assuming Donaldson DHs as is being suggested here). Making your young pitchers get 4 outs in half their innings because you have Miranda, Polanco, Arraez, and Sano behind them is more harmful to the 2022 Twins than having Miranda stay in AAA for a "playoff" run and keeping Simmons on the Twins. Help your young pitchers build confidence going into 2022. I'd love to see Miranda get his feet wet this year and make his debut with sky high confidence during the best hitting season of his life, but I think there's legit reasons he isn't up. I don't think he's being wasted in St Paul, and think there's something to be gained from him playing in competitive games during a "playoff" push and leading the team during the "playoffs." I don't think the experience of playing in pressure situations in St Paul this year instead of playing in meaningless games in Minneapolis is a complete waste. He doesn't get to face ML pitching, but he's learning to excel under pressure (hopefully). Also a lot of underselling of current Twins position players in this thread. If you don't like what Donaldson is doing for the money he's being paid you really shouldn't ever ask for the Twins to sign big name FAs ever again. He's missed a little time with health problems, but people make it sound like he's Buxton playing 35% of games or something. He's going to play in 120ish games (not ideal, but not crazy). He's got an OPS+ of 123 and wRC+ of 118. His defense has slid some, but he's still the second best infield glove we have. The Twins are getting what they paid for. This is what you get from most big name FA signings. Reference point: Manny Machado (significantly younger, and on a much longer and more expensive deal) has an OPS+ of 130 and wRC+ of 121. His defense is still really good as he's much younger and hasn't seen his athleticism decline, but offensively he's putting up quite similar numbers for even more money.

I'm interested to see what Larnach's approach looks like in 2022. He was a left-center gap hitter his whole amateur career so I was surprised to see him looking to pull so much at the major league level. Will he come back next year looking as pull happy as he did this year, or be back to using the left-center gap and being a little more hit over power? From all the reports I've read he spent all last year working on being able to pull the ball for power so I wonder if the early promotion got him locked into that swing without the chance to take the next step of having both his opposite field approach while being able to turn on pitches inside.

Teams definitely keep places open for FAs. They can add and remove guys from the 40-man as they want in the offseason, but removing them still makes the player go through waivers. And the crappy teams with open 40-man spots would much rather take a kid off waivers and be able to move them up and down next season between the minors and majors than have to take the kid in the Rule 5 and keep them on the major league roster all year. That doesn't necessarily mean they cut the Smeltzer's of the world immediately after the season. They "keep a spot open" by knowing they have someone like Smeltzer that they're willing to move on from if they find an upgrade. My list wasn't saying they should cut and add those specific players day 1 of the offseason, but those are the 35 (or 36) guys I'd have marked on my board as IN for next season and are only not on the 40-man at the Rule 5 deadline if I've found better players to replace them. The Twins need to have an idea of who in the org they are putting on the 40-man. They need to know which guys are expendable. Then they use that information to make decisions in free agency and trades. They don't just cut borderline 40-man guys immediately, but they see if they can move them for a low level lottery ticket that clears a 40-man spot and adds talent to the system. So I don't mean literally having open spots on the 40-man the whole offseason, but knowing which guys are coming and going and not putting 40 guys on the 40-man that they're not willing to cut when they know they need to sign free agents.

4 FA pitchers and maybe a SS depending on their feelings about having Polanco back there next year would be my offseason moves. So they need 4 or 5 40-man spots available for outside guys if they're not trying to basically hand half the pitching staff spots to rookies next year. The I'd protect are: Alcala Balazovic Colina Dobnak Duffey Duran Gant Jax Maeda Ober Rogers Strotman Garver Jeffers Rortvedt Arraez Donaldson Gordon Polanco Sano Buxton Celestino Kepler Kirilloff Larnach Refsnyder Miranda Winder Ryan Sands Lewis Moran Enlow Hamilton Vallimont Severino- If only bringing in 4 FAs and not 5 I think I counted right and that's 35 or 36 guys. It feels a little pitcher heavy to me, but that's where they need their options going into next year. I think Refsnyder is the only guy on the maybe list that I keep. Wouldn't be sad to see him go either. I don't think there's anyone on that list with a ceiling high enough to risk losing a more controllable player or stop them from bringing in a FA.

I guess I read this differently than some others here. I read this as "hey, these guys don't have great stuff, weren't top prospects, and weren't really expected to be MLB contributors, but look what they're doing. If these low level guys have been developed into useable arms, even if it's just a short stretch, we can look at that and have hope that the big name guys can come up and be the kind of arms we need." I didn't see anywhere in here that Ted suggests these 3 are the future of the Twins starting staff or are what we've all been hoping for in homegrown, top-of-the-rotation arms. He doesn't even suggest that this is what we should expect from the rest of the prospect arms and should be happy about it. My read on the article is simply that there's light at the end of the tunnel and reason for optimism. If the lesser thought of arms can produce at this level we can have reasonable expectations that 1 or 2 or 3 of the 10 bigger named guys can perform at the level we want/need.

The way some people on here talk about rookies, and Larnach's current struggles, they would've cut Trout, or traded him for a vet, after his rookie season. Not at all predicting Larnach is going to become Trout with the bat, or even be an above average MLB player (although I do think he'll be an above average bat for many years), but lets get a little perspective here. He's a rookie forced into MLB time earlier than they would've liked because of injuries to vets. And, as others have pointed out, the Twins WON THIS GAME. To each their own, but why choose to be negative when you could be positive?

I'm all for being active on the fringes of the 40 man, but you have to make the right choices with it. And ML data is more helpful in that than AA or AAA data. They've got a lot of guys on the fringes and will have to make a lot of decisions before and after the rule 5 deadline. I think/hope they'll have a good 50-60+ mil to spend this offseason. Much of which should/will go to the pitching staff. Going to need 40 man spots for those FAs. Moran looks great in the minors, but I'd prefer to see him actually succeed in the majors. Same with Garza and Garcia. I know I'm in the minority, but I see a pretty reasonable path to competitiveness in 2022. The whole offense, minus Simmons, is back and good enough to compete. And if they can spend 60m on FA arms in addition to an influx of some of these young guys I don't see why they couldn't build a competitive staff. If that's the case then you need to know if you can count on Moran to help the big league club next year for peanuts, or if that's another spot you need to spend real FA $ on. Same with Garza and Garcia and Burrows, etc. I agree Coulumbe and Minaya are easy DFAs, but there's a number of other guys on the edges that they need answers on. Or I'll be back on here next year having to read 1000 comments about how dumb they are that they let fringe 40 man pitcher X go and he's crushing it in Tampa while fringe 40 man pitcher Y is in St Paul getting shelled. So, sure, bring in the Garza's and Garcia's, but DFA Coulumbe and Minaya now if you already know you're going to do that. Get some of these guys ML innings and have a more informed data set for the offseason. And if Moran (or any other fringe guy) is going to struggle early, let them struggle in this lost year instead of struggling at the start of next year and tanking that season, too.

My hope is they're trying out the likes of Coulombe, Minaya, and Burrows now. Once they're convinced one way or the other on those guys being on the 40 man they'll try out a few more guys. At this point the rest of the season should be meant to decide who's earned 40 man spots for next year. They're in a situation where they have a ton of fringe 40 guys and need to pick the right ones to protect. It is interesting that they keep claiming fringe 40 man guys from other teams (Garza and Garcia types), though. I'd think testing Moran out and seeing if he should be protected would be more important than either of those guys. Moran will get taken in the Rule 5 if he isn't protected. Perfect candidate as a pen guy who you can stash even if he struggles.

Soularie has average to slightly below average speed. But he's a good athlete and knows how to use his limited speed well. He was an OFer in college, but last I heard the Twins were going to try turning him into a 2B. Anyone have any update on those plans?