chpettit19

I don't see the leg kick as a huge hurdle as there are plenty of guys in MLB who have one. I mean Mike Trout gets his leg pretty high up there. The stride is where my concerns come in. If the leg kick is his timing mechanism then let him kick, but I think a shorter stride will help him maintain more consistent at bats. I am not advocating that the coaches bring him in and force him to change anything, but it's something I'd keep an eye on while giving him the chance to adjust. By all reports he's an incredibly hard worker and I wouldn't be surprised if he comes back a little more "controlled" next year. Someone mentioned Javy Baez as a guy with a big leg kick and I think he's a good example of a guy who learned as he moved up that a little more control in his swing helped him produce more consistently. Royce has some pretty good lightening in those wrists and he'll make adjustments as he goes and let his athleticism take him where he wants to go.

The idea of Price and Benintendi would intrigue me greatly if I were the Twins FO. There's already talk of them moving Rosario, and plugging Benintendi into left field to replace him would be great for our short term outlook. If Eddie and some prospects bring back some solid pitching our rotation is set. Then once Kiriloff, Larnach, or whoever is ready we can move Benintendi for an even better return than Eddie brings. I kind of like this idea.

What about winning % and playoff appearances? I have no idea, just feel like MLB probably has a larger discrepancy there. I mean the Marlins have won a couple of championships over the last 20 years, but they have also been the worst team in baseball for half of the last 20 years (I didn't actually look up their records, just speaking generally). The goal is always a championship, but in MLB there are 3 or 4 teams (NYY, Boston, LAD, LAA) who have championship or bust expectations every year because they can lap the field in spending. In the other 3 sports windows open and close and teams have championship or bust expectations for short periods (Golden State for example), but the cap typically makes that a cyclical thing (Patriots are really screwing up the NFL these days). Boston, NYY, LAA, and LAD will always be able to say their season is a failure if they don't win a championship, but never have to risk blowing it up to try again (like Miami or KC or soon Cleveland) after they make a run because of the difference in their resources. With the data and analytics surge those 4 teams should be expected to have championship or bust expectations every year as they are now able to do Cole signings while being better at avoiding Ellsbury signings. With all the teams understanding what it takes to win at a much deeper level now the ability to go get the elite guys while also building strong farm systems to supplement those signings only a select few teams can make there is no excuse for them not dominating every year. My fear, and then hope, is that this gets out of control in the next decade and the other 26 teams do something to even the playing field a little. And, yes, I realize the Angels have been garbage lately, but they are now getting out from under their bad deals and are poised to jump right back into the fight. Can you imagine what signing Trout to that deal would do to the Twins, Rays, As, Os, Indians, etc. etc. etc. rosters? The Twins would be holding tryouts for Twins Daily posters to make the team cuz they couldn't afford any real players. With the knowledge gap shrinking so drastically in MLB the extra money is going to mean more and more.

My question is if people understand that free agency isn't like a store. The Twins can't just walk in and say "Oh, Wheeler costs $118 mil over 5 years, we'll take him!" and then he's theirs. As a number of people have pointed out on this thread and others, the White Sox offered a better deal than that and he turned them down. The FO isn't just shopping for objects that fit into their plan, they're trying to convince human beings that they should come play here for the same amount of money they would go somewhere else to play. Could they have thrown 5 years 130 at Wheeler and maybe convinced his wife that extra 12 mil was worth not living where she wanted to? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of it is also just people's views on what a World Series is worth. I would hate being a Marlins fan. I have hated the last decade of unwatchable baseball out of the Twins. Overspending (which is not a good thing in any situation, thus the "over" part of the word) to get a pitcher because we think it gets us closer to the WS this year, but ruins our chances of sustaining success is not something I'm interested in. The Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Astros all won the same number of World Series this year as the Twins did and they all spent a ton on big name guys. Give me competitive baseball every year over 1 World Series followed by 10 years of garbage. It sure was cool overspending on our hometown hero to show that the FO was serious about winning. I mean all those rings Mauer brought home weighing his hands down must have been why he struggled to hit for power. I think this FO is doing a great job. Not perfect, but definitely hard to complain. They have a budget whether you like it or not. They don't set the budget, they just work within it. They have offered $100+mil contracts. They tried to go get Kimbrel and he was pretty clear he didn't want to play here. Should they have thrown an extra 50 mil at him to convince him to come here so fans believe they're actually trying? I mean his absolutely horrid season wouldn't matter as long as we paid somebody a ton of money, right? So like Mackey said, do you really think they have their PR department set up to just send out fake info of offers they didn't really make in order to look like they're trying or are you refusing to accept that free agency isn't just offering the same contract the "winning" team did and the guy would have been yours instead? If missing out on MadBum, Ryu, Keuchel, et al means we're able to extend Buxton, Sano, and Berrios are you happy or sad? If signing one of them means we can't extend one or more of them are you happy or sad? There's give and take. A 5 year MadBum deal makes it real hard to extend all 3 of those guys and maintain the deep team you need to be successful in a 162 game season.

They'll be trying to fix his fastball (which they did wonders with for a number of guys in the pen this year) between now and spring training. Then he'll get to audition for a pen spot during the spring. If they are convinced he can't be fixed they cut him loose without any loss. Smart move to take a flyer on a guy with 1 plus pitch already and see if you can fix 1 other pitch and now you've got a viable bullpen arm for nothing.

What part is false? Signing cheap free agents? Trading for minor leaguers or cheap vets having good years? Developing their own guys? What does "adding quality" mean? Signing cheap vets? Cuz that's what the 6 teams I listed did. Milwaukee, Atlanta, Tampa, St Louis, Oakland, and Minnesota all made the post season without "going big." So again, what part is false?

Agreed.

It is very hard to survive with having mediocre/bad players making 5-8 mil, yes. It is way harder having guys make 2,3,4, or 5 times that much and being mediocre/bad. Like every bullpen guy not named Ottavino that signed this last offseason for 10+ mil. It's easier (and in my opinion smarter) to sign 2 guys at 5-8 each than one guy for 10-16. Or sign 4 guys for 5-8 instead of 1 guy for 20-30. Those signings have to be done smartly and with clear ideas on how to get the guy you sign to improve and start putting up better numbers. Like Perez in the first month. Pitching staffs have become more about the number of options you have than relying on a few big priced guys. Especially bullpens.

That's fair. Still 6 other playoff teams that signed cheap FA, traded for minor leaguers or cheap veterans having good years, and developed their own guys. Like the Twins.

Odo, Berrios, Graterol is a pretty good start to a rotation. I'm not saying never sign outside guys I'm saying the elite arms you're always asking for don't bring enough to the table to offset the deficiencies they cause in the rest of the roster by not being able to afford good players at other positions. Part of our differences is that you want a super wide window and are more ok than I am with having that window only open for a short time as long as you make it open as far as possible. I want the window open more or less all the time without being as willing to risk having it completely closed for 10 years like we just experienced.

Rosario, Garver, Buxton, Berrios, and Sano will all get raises for next season. Every last one of them. No, they likely won't sign extensions, but that isn't the only way they make more money. Arbitration will ensure their price tags all go up. Rather significantly in a few cases.

As in hasn't signed a high priced free agent or traded for a high priced arm? Tampa (unless you're counting Charlie Morton as big name/high priced at 15 mil) Cleveland Oakland Atlanta (unless you're counting Keuchel as big name/high priced at 13 mil) St Louis (unless you're counting Miller being bad for them as a key to their success) Milwaukee Dodgers Just to name a few of the playoff teams this season. Internally doesn't mean draft and develop. Building through the minors doesn't mean only guys you drafted or signed internationally. It means not bringing in high priced guys from other teams. It means snagging an electric arm as a secondary piece for Sergio Romo. It means getting guys cheap and turning them into better arms with your system. Yes, the Dodgers are able to re-sign their studs, but the guys they bring in from the outside aren't the $120,000,000 guys. But go ahead and cut them out if that makes you feel better. 6 other playoff teams this year have pitching staffs built almost exactly the same way as the Twins current staff.

Cleveland seems to do some pretty incredible stuff with their starting staff internally. Word on the street is the guy who do the heavy lifting setting up their system is now setting up the Twins system. With the increases in salary coming for the carry over guys spending the same as last year means they again won't be bringing in any big name free agent arms. You can let a few of the offensive guys go, but then you need your prospects to step up and replace them to continue to be a strong offense. But if we had traded those prospects for the big name guys like Grienke then you're now looking at not being able to keep all your guys and not having guys to replace them. Building through the minors is how this team has to do things to stay competitive.

In a vacuum? Grienke. In the real world where, whether you like it or not, we have a budget and that means we can't just spend whatever we want on whoever we want? Berrios, Pineda, and Odorizzi. Unfortunately Pineda but a real dent in those plans. I would like them to continue to build from within. I would prefer to have a complete team than have 1 ace making 25-30 million a year. This front office has been in place for 3 seasons and have seen the team ERA go from 5.08 to 4.18 through savvy trades and signings while developing the guys in the system. Your refusal to accept that they have a budget they are forced to work within doesn't mean they're doing a poor job. One game proves that your complaints about this series being a disaster because we didn't trade for Grienke or sign some high priced free agent is just confirmation bias because they didn't do what you wanted. Unless you think that pitcher, or even 2 of them, were both throwing 7 innings of 1 run ball, but that isn't likely. And the last part of that post mentioned 162 games of evidence, not 1. And, actually, Tampa has been quite good at pitching over the last decade without signing any high priced free agents, and actually letting them walk instead. So there's way more than 1 game of evidence.

Squandered 6 runs in 2 games? The offense hasn't been historic this post season. Keuchel gave up 1 run in 4.2 innings in his first start this post season. Has given up 2 in 2 innings so far today. Berrios gave up 1 earned run in 4 innings in game 1. Grienke got absolutely blasted by the Rays today. 6 earned in 3.2 innings. And those guys are throwing against the #18 and #19 offenses in baseball this year. Teams that scored 174 and 179 fewer runs than the Yanks. How exactly do those performances make it so we didn't squander this? The offense hasn't lit the world on fire in the series. This has been an almost complete team collapse.

Totally agree. But under this regime they are showing they can develop their own guys. It just takes time to change your minor league systems to start improving what they're able to call up. They've had 3 seasons to put their plans in place and the current playoff pitching staff is mostly homegrown guys. The ones that were in the majors before this FO are experiencing career years and look like completely different guys and the ones who have been called up this year look drastically better than anything the previous FO ever were able to call up. In a previous rant I mentioned that I think the team is a year ahead of schedule. I think the FO was looking at the next couple years as the time they hit this mark and their young arms would be closer to the level of the offense. At the end of the day people need to get over the idea that getting big name guys isn't the way this team will likely ever build their staff. It doesn't make sense with the budget the owners give the FO. And losing game 1 with Grienke on the mound and losing game 2 with Berrios on the mound still puts us in the same position we're in today.

Grienke really showing how necessary trading for aces is right now...I mean if only the Twins had him and his huge contract giving up bombs instead of the cheap guys they have giving up bombs instead. Astros may very well come back and win this game. Just getting sick and tired of the same old complaining about how the Twins need to get high priced guys to ever have a shot. The Nats run out 3 high priced studs and they're at risk of elimination today. Grienke makes a ton and has given up 4 in 3 so far today. Clayton Kershaw has terrible numbers in the postseason. Tampa had the second lowest ERA in baseball this season and their whole team has a $60 mil payroll. Washington was 13th and have $60 mil invested in just 3 of their starters alone. It's time to get over the obsession with big name guys and start to realize that isn't how pitching staffs have to be built.

Regarding Rocco: He's been so badly out managed in this series that its not even worth talking about. No excuse for using the bullpen the way he has. Better be learning from his mistakes. Regarding the FO: Would another arm be nice? Absolutely! Are the Nats still at risk of being eliminated today despite having 3 legit #1 arms? Absolutely! Let's get a little perspective here. The new FO took over after a 103 loss season and in 3 offseasons turned them in to a 101 win team that looks like it is set up to be awfully competitive moving forward. Has the FO been perfect? No. Have all their moves turned out? No. But have they built a sustainable winning team? Yes. If Pineda didn't cheat and get caught we are looking at 3 guys in Berrios, Odo, and Pineda that are good enough to keep the team in the game assuming the offense shows up and does what they do. It seems to me that the anger towards the FO is more about not getting recognizable names than it is about not getting good players. Patrick Corbin is 0-2 with 9.45 ERA, has walked 7 guys in 6.2 innings and given up 8 runs (7 earned) this post season. He was one of the big free agent arms that everybody wants the Twins to sign every year. Would you be shrugging your shoulders and saying "Oh well, bummer we lost 10-4 and 8-2, but at least we signed a gigantic contract so now won't be able to make any decent sized adjustments this offseason. I just love that we actually tried this time. Because we all know the only way to show you're trying is to pay 3 starting pitchers over $20 mil a year each. Nats fans can't complain that they lost their series cuz they have 3 aces." At the end of the day the budget is the budget and the FO has done a pretty darn good job putting together this team with those constraints. The Pohlads deserve some complaints, but the FO doesn't dictate their budget, all they can do is work with what they're given. I'm not going to take the time to look up all the big relief pitcher deals this offseason that the Twins passed on, but Ottavino is the only one that worked out. Yu Darvish last year? He was basically Michael Pineda this year, and was a complete loss last year. Pineda made 5 mil this year and now we're out of that contract and can adjust, Yu still has 4 years and 100+ left on his. The Twins are a year ahead of schedule I'd say. I don't think the FO or the fans were expecting 101 wins this year. I think 90ish and fighting for a playoff spot was kind of the high water estimate for most people. My guess is you're about to see some trades from areas of strength (offense, especially outfield) in the organization to get things to fill the holes (pitching) in the organization. So get all your complaints about trading away guys you like for guys who end up not playing well and telling us all how the FO screwed that up, too.

I think offering him 4/50 gets laughed at and ends the conversation. Maybe he considers 3/50-60, but there's no chance he gives up 2 years of free agency in his prime for 12 a year. He's set to hit free agency before he turns 30 and the Twins will have to pay him 20+ per year to get him to forego that. I would be surprised to see him sign a deal at all, and think the most likely situation is the Twins offer him a deal to be able to say they tried, he rejects it and plays out his deal or gets traded before his last year of arbitration.

Strikeouts verse ball in play outs matter based on situation. Nobody on and 2 outs swing away and see if we can't score that inning cuz you hit it 400 feet. If you strike out, oh well, chances were very small we'd score that inning anyways. Extra innings against the defending champs with the winning run in scoring position put the ball in play and see what happens. There is a difference between a strikeout and a ball in play out, but it depends on the situation. Lead off triple can't be followed by 3 straight strikeouts. Or even 2. One of the next 2 guys has to put the ball in play and give you the chance to score that run. That is what frustrates me most about Sano. Well that and watching him miss 91 MPH fastbals down the middle by a foot. It's nice when he hits them 450, but sometimes when you get to 2 strikes you have to cut down and just get the job done. The "do damage all the time" approach is a good one in that 3 run homers make it much more likely you'll win a game, but in the playoffs, and against good teams in general, you still need those single runs on a sac fly or a blooper to the opposite field. The Twins won Tuesday night, but at the expense of their entire bullpen when Sano (and to be fair a couple other guys) simply putting the ball in play wins them the game numerous times before Kep finally did it in the 17th.

I don't know if some people on here are just waiting for Twins pitchers to have a bad day so they can say "I told you he sucks! We're doomed!" or if they just ride an emotional rollercoast through the season where their feelings on the team and individual players (mostly pitchers these days) vary this dramatically from day to day. Gibson's last 3 starts (as an earlier poster mentioned) go 7 innings 1 earned, 5 innings 0 earned (1 unearned), 5 innings 5 earned. No he wasn't at his best yesterday (I don't think any of us have enough knowledge on what he did for his pregame preperation to say whether any possible change had anything to do with anything), but that's 1 game. His starts in May and his 2 so far in June have produced 39.2 innings with 16 earned runs. His first 3 starts of the year we subpar, but since then (9 starts) he has 6 starts where he has allowed 0,1, or 2 runs, 1 start giving up 3, 1 start with 4, and 1 with 5. If he's producing 2 out of 3 starts with giving up 2 or fewer runs I'll take it all year long and love it. The sky is not falling because of 1 rough outing. Let's all take a deep breath and relax. As for the sky falling on Perez, I think that's a little aggressive, too. Was he going to maintain his Pedro Martinez type start? No, but let's not act like it's suddenly me standing on the mound out there.He's made 10 starts this year. He has 7 where he's allowed 2 or fewer earned runs. 1 start with 3 earned, 1 with 4, and 1 with 6. Let's have a little perspective here. At some point Odo will probably have a rough couple starts too. Berrios will have some clunkers. We don't need to act like we need to blow up our minor league system to completely rehaul the team every time we lose a game, even if it's to a bad team. Those are still Major League hitters out there every night. The Marlins, Tigers, Orioles, etc. are all going to win games. And sometimes they'll put up a whole bunch of runs (Marlins dropped 16 on a playoff team earlier this week). The bullpen needs help, but lets not act like a week where the team doesn't win at a .670 pace means things have fallen apart. Just because our pitching staff doesn't run out a bunch of super expensive, big name guys doesn't mean we're automatically doomed.

The post you "liked" and I responded to literally said the Twins are bellow average in OBP because they are ranked 17th despite the fact that their actual OBP is above league average. So I said to look at the range of what the actual numbers are instead of the straight ranking. So, as I explained in my original comment, I wouldn't look at strictly where they are compared to other teams in the ranking sense since that ranking really doesn't tell any sort of story at all. Instead I would look at what the actual numbers are compared to the other teams.

Well they're 19 points away from the league leading Braves, but if they went down 19 points they'd only drop 5 spots. I think team ranking stats are almost completely useless. If you're technically 13th as a team, but you're only 10 points off the leader do you still feel like you're struggling a great deal? Take team FIP for example, the Twins have a 4.10 FIP and are 13th in the league. 14th place is a tie between the Cubs and Phils at 4.27. That .17 difference between us and the next team would be good enough to move us into a tie for 8th and .01 away from 7th. Team rankings shouldn't be used solely on their own. As for being a top 5 offense, I'd say we're the 7th best offense right now. The point of offense is to score runs so whoever scores the most runs is the best and so on. There's a number of different strategies to scoring runs, but as long as you're scoring you're successful and I don't care what your OBP, OPS, BA, HRs or any other stats are. Just score runs.

No, I expect to get 7 or 8 out of my starters in most of my wins. I was using 6 innings to prove the point that you don't need 8 Riveras in your bullpen, but instead need 3 really good arms, 2 guys a notch under them, and then fill in guys. Some of the wins will be like Tuesday when you don't need to use any of your stud arms because you put up 14. There's a certain segment of people on this thread that act like the good bullpens out there are running 8 all stars out there. That's not the case. If May, Rogers, and Parker are legit late inning guys, and especially if Romero settles in to a bullpen role and comes up as well, you're in good shape. My point in all of my posts on this thread is that the starters are putting the bullpen in a position to fail by "forcing" Rocco to use his mop up guys in spots they aren't meant to be in there for. If you don't believe in Rogers, May, and Parker then the bullpen is a major problem. But if you think those guys will come in and shut it down 85%+ of the time you're in a good spot. Most major league teams look to win series. So you're talking 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4 games. 3 shut down guys and 1 or 2 guys who can fill in on a less frequent basis is plenty for getting that done. I don't know what some of the people on here want the bullpen to be. $12+ mil for each of 8 shut down guys? I mean be realistic with what major league bullpens look like. This entire article and thread is Example A in small sample size, 1 bad early season showing non-sense. If you want to complain about pitching complain about the fact that Berrios is the only trustworthy starter we have so far. That's the hole in this team currently, not the bullpen.

Let's start with 90 wins as our goal. Let's say we only get 6 innings out of our starters in all 90 of those games. That means we need 270 innings worth of bullpen usage in those games. If you have 4 guys who throw all of those innings they're all throwing 67.5 innings. That's obviously a ridiculously perfect situation, but that's the plan you build for when you're a small to midmarket team because it's not sustainable to pay bullpen guys big money because they're too volatile. The argument I made in my post was you want 3 shut down type guys to lock down sure wins. Then you have 1 or 2 others are quite reliable. That's 4 or 5 guys. Yes, every guy in the pen will throw innings, but the plan is to use those 4 or 5 in the "important innings." Good bullpens do have multiple good arms, 3-5 of them. They don't have 8 guys that they expect to use regularly in high leverage situations. They have 3-5 and then pop some of those other few in there in the 6th or 7th in stretches where the team is in a bunch of close games. But that's only a few stretches of the season. Vasquez was brutal last night, yes. But to act like the bullpen is just collapsing right now is inaccurate. Harper, Hildy, and May haven't allowed runs yet. Rogers and Parker have allowed 1. That's 2 runs in 21+ innings. That's your 4 guys you're counting on at the end of games and 1 random guy. The expectation is that Romero will come up and be a 5th end of game guy. What else do you realistically want from a bullpen? This article and thread have people acting like the season is over because some random dude the team was never counting on came in and was absolutely brutal in 1 game. But in reality the bullpen is doing it's job. It's not doing the extra stuff the starters are forcing it to try to do.