chpettit19

If this is their only 1b/DH move it leaves a lot to be desired, but I don't think it is. I think it's ST competition for Austin and Sano (and Grossman if he's still around). 5 mil isn't nothing, but he can be cut before the season without having to pay most of that so if he shows up and clearly doesn't have it then you're not doing any real damage to your budget. These boards would blow up during April and May if the Twins didn't make any moves like this and just handed the 1B job to Austin and he comes out of the gates striking out 40% of the time and we don't have any sort of possible replacement. I know the Twins have a history of making this kind of move and just stopping because "$5 mil is a lot in our small market," but this just doesn't feel like that kind of move to me. I don't think they're concerned with it from a budget standpoint. They're taking a flyer on a guy who has some potential. They didn't give up any prospects and I just don't feel that it stops any of their other acquisition plans this offseason. Much ado about nothing if you ask me. Adding depth is good.

Max is (likely) never going to be a 1-4 or even #5 hitter on a championship team, and he never was supposed to be. I see a lot of Josh Reddick in him. Big time defender who hits 6-9 in the order. Not a superstar, but can definitely be a starter on a WS team. No, he hasn't gotten there with the bat, but he's looked drastically better than the guys who were supposed to be hitting 1 and 3 for us right now. Maybe he never hits above .250 with 20-25 HRs and that'd be a shame, but if he's a gold glove type defender that's still useful if you're not relying on him to hit 5th or 6th for you. What is often missed on these boards, and in some of the articles, is that looking at all 25 (or 40) guys on the roster individually is useful only in the connection between them and the other 24 (or 39) other guys. If anyone on here, or in the organization, was thinking Max was the future protection for Sano hitting in the 4 hole they were fooling themselves. That was never what he was supposed to be. I think that is the big thing the front office has been working on during these first 2 years. Getting accurate reads on the guys in the organization and what realistic ceilings for them are. We labeled Sano the next Carbera and Buxton the next Trout. That's absurd. It's fun to think of how great they could be, but Sano was never going to hit .330 with 40 and 120, and Buxton was never going to do that and steal 40 bases to go with it. And Kepler was never going to hit .300 with 30 and 100. I know he had some good numbers in the minors, but using that as your basis for what they should do in the majors is misinformed of how it works. Max came up with holes in his swing and he's done a solid job of making progress on closing them. That's what leads to all the pop ups. He hasn't closed the hole and pitches throw pitches to the places he doesn't have the ability to square the ball up yet. Continued work (and he's certainly showed he puts in the work to fix his struggles) should likely lead to an uptick in the BABIP and in turn BA, but he's still not going to be the 4 or 5 hitter on the next WS Twins team. But if you have him hitting .275 with 25 in the 7 or 8 hole you're onto something. They can't all be superstars and not being a superstar doesn't make them a bust or useless. It just looks bad when the guys who were supposed to be hitting 1-5 almost all completely flop and a guy who isn't supposed to be there ends up getting thrust into that position. If Buxton, Sano, Dozier, Mauer, Polanco, and Rosario all hit the way they should have all season and Kepler was hitting 7th people wouldn't be so down on him and the Twins would have competed for a playoff spot. Kepler isn't a failure for not "stepping up" because the other guys failed. Kepler did his job this year. Would it be nice to see improvement, and should we expect continued improvement? Yes. But if you're waiting for him to hit .300 with 30 you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Maybe he'll do that someday, but it shouldn't be the expectation.

I'm not for or against the decision. I understand why they did it. I also understand why people don't like that they did it. But saying the "human aspect" of it is all bad isn't correct either. Buxton hasn't performed, but because everyone saw him as the next Trout and franchise savior he kept being thrown out there and treated like he was already Trout. I think we can all agree the FO knows Buxton as a person better than we do. Maybe they've seen that he responds better to tough love and they believe this will light a fire under him. Does it strain the relationship now? Sure. But if he takes this anger and turns it into production moving forward and the team starts winning and everyone is happy maybe he doesn't look back in 2023 and say "F the Twins, they sat me for a month in 2018." The human aspect is much more than just "you have a player mad at you right now so you failed." At the end of the day, if Buxton doesn't figure out how to hit he's not a cornerstone player anyways and they don't care if he leaves at the end of his deal. The FO and coaches need to get him to start hitting above .200 or they don't care that he's pissed anyways cuz they move Lewis to center and move on from Buxton.

Having that money is progress. You complain that they acquired mediocre players, but that's what you get when you don't have money to spend. They turned those players into an even deeper stash of good young players and freed up a ton of money to go out and try to find better players. My point is that complaining about the 40 man roster at the very end of a sell of season that went terribly wrong is completely missing the big picture. This season went badly. If Dozier, Santana, Buxton, and Sano play the way they were expected to for the first half this article likely is about where things are going right. The Twins were a playoff team with young guys showing they were going to take a step forward to become the superstar core. The front office went out and got pieces to put around that core to compete while also maintaining flexibility. That's their job. Santana and Berrios were supposed to be your 1 and 2 in some order. Lance Lynn is a legit 3/4 guy. Gibson and Odorizzi are legit 4/5 guys. They had young arms in the minors ready to get their shot when any of them faltered or got hurt. And you hope 1 or 2 of those guys takes a step and produces more than expected. Which happened with Gibson. They brought in veteran relievers who throw hard and strike people out like everyone was asking for. They supplemented that with veterans who can eat innings and had young arms waiting for their shot in the minors. They had 2 young supposed stars looking like they were ready to explode. A handful of other youngsters who'd showed potential and that they were ready to be everyday guys. They had a couple old guys who still had a year or 2 of solid play left in the tank and added a power hitting lefty to supplement that. They built around their young core with an eye on contending and everything fell apart. Is it the FO fault that Buxton and Sano both performed like AA guys? Is it their fault that Dozier was terrible the whole first half? Is it their fault Santana never healed? Is it their fault it took Lynn a while to get going? Did they know their young SS was about to get suspended for cheating? Everything fell apart and the FO shifted. They sold off guys who had expiring deals they weren't sure they could resign or didn't want to, just like every other good team does. The players failed. Miserably. So, yeah, the 40 man looks terrible right now. A bunch of those guys are going to be shipped out. This is a lot like small sample size problems. You're picking the end of a lost season in the middle of a roster transition (that was happening to some extent no matter what the W/L record looked like this year) to and saying the sky is falling. This is what 40 man rosters look like when seasons blow up in front of your face. How the FO responds is what matters. If it's the same 40 man to start next season you can be pissed. But don't walk in in the middle of their work and say the finished product is a disaster. Let them get to the final product.

Your last sentence is the only one that truly talks to next year. The 40 man as it currently sits is not what it will be next season. They have about $100 mil to play with this offseason. They were fine getting rid of a streaky, declining second baseman who was going to be paid more than he produced. They're fine walking away from an old pitcher who outperformed his career stats drastically in his mid 30s and lost this entire year to injury. They are fine sitting Buxton for a month to save a year and give him that extra chance to prove he's got anything close to the hitting ability he showed in 2017. Progress isn't a linear idea when it comes to professional sports teams. Freeing up money from old, declining players is progress. Not resigning Phil Hughes type guys to big extensions after 1 outlier season is progress. The front office's job is to set up a sustainable system to be competitive year after year, barring injuries. They are paid to look to the future and do what's best for the team as a whole for now, 5 years down the road, 10 years down the road, and indefinitely into the future. The coaches and players are paid to make right now as successful as possible. The front office did a great job of adding supplemental pieces to a playoff team while also maintaining flexibility moving forward in case things didn't turn out as planned. And boy did they not turn out as planned. Dozier and Santana can complain all they want about the trade deadline moves, but the fact of the matter is that if Dozier played up to the level he's expected to and Santana didn't miss the entire year they would have won more games. Another poster mentioned wanting a tougher, more cutthroat, clubhouse and I couldn't agree more. Dozier bitched and moaned because a guy bunted against the shift and another guy stole second base in the 4th inning of the game. I'd hate playing with guys like that. You're paid to get them out so go get them out. Don't whine and cry that they are being mean by beating you. It's a business, and whether you like it or not, every business is the same way. If you don't produce and the company is suffering they're going to find someone who will produce and help the company succeed. That's how it works. The players didn't produce this year and the company is going to go find different ones they believe will. Could Falvey be more personable? Sure. But if the manager was it would make up for it. Every MLB team treats their players as just numbers. Every company you don't personally own treats you as just a number. Produce and you're fine. Don't produce and changes will be made. Time to be big boys and deal with it. Buxton has nobody to blame but himself. Figure out how to hit or don't expect to be in the bigs. Simple as that. Nobody owes him anything. He gets paid to hit, not just field. If he is only doing half his job he needs to figure out how to do the other half. It's not up to the FO or Mollie to put him out there just because he's Byron Buxton. Same with Sano. Don't care if you had a good rookie year. This is a new year. The world is a "what have you done for me lately" place and it goes for baseball players too. Produce or we'll find someone who can.

I agree with everyone's bullpen fear and that increases my frustrations with Molitor's obsession with bunting and playing for 1 run. As the OP, and some comments, said, this team tends to score in bunches and that's how they win games. I think anyone can beat anyone on any given day and have hope that Ervin could go in and shut down the Yanks enough to give them a real shot to win that game. In any series after that I'm hoping and praying that Molitor doesn't lose us a game by bunting his 3 hole hitter, or playing for 1 run in the first, or any of the other "old school" things he tends to do when this team needs to be playing for big leads to take pressure off a less than stellar, or proven, bullpen.

It's not a different context. We're not talking about running the Minnesota Twins Organization. We're talking about managing the team on the field. And yes, if your job is to manage a small group at Exxon it is like a small business. The CEO of Exxon doesn't expect you to do anything other than manage that small group. This thread is discussing the manager of a baseball team. That individual is responsible for 25 players and a number of coaches. So 30-40 people. That's his only job. That's more reflective of running a small business than running a corporation. In a small business you're trying to maximize profits and when managing a team you're doing the same thing, only the profits are wins not money. You job is to put the people under you in the best position possible to succeed at their jobs so the unit as a whole can produce results.

Managing a professional baseball team involves dealing with 25 players and a handful of coaches. That's a small business. Every manager in baseball is scrutinized by the media and fans. If you can't handle that then you weren't the person for the job in the first place. To suggest that Jake Mauer shouldn't be hired simply because his brother is on the team is to suggest that Jake Mauer couldn't manage 25 players and a handful of coaches and their opinions about him and his brother. That is managing a small business with a family member involved, not running a corporation. The manager is not the president of baseball operations or GM or owner or any of that. His job is simply to get the best out of the 25 players he has. ​This article and message board is literally based around us questioning the current manager of the Twins. A number of people on this site question the use of Joe Mauer already. If Falvey and Levine are going to make all their decisions on hires, fires, signings, etc. based off what the media and fans say and not what they've decided is the best answer then it's time for a new front office already.

That's not quite apples to apples there. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you or I or anyone outside the clubhouse questions the managers moves. If Jake is open and honest with the other 24 guys on the roster that's all that matters. If "random scout A" or "season ticket salesman B" questions Jake or anyone else in a management position who cares? The manager's job is to get the best out of the 25 guys on the roster at any given time. A lot of this, I assume, is based off the idea that Jake would continue hitting Joe in the heart of the order. What if Jake comes in and tells Joe he's hitting 7th cuz he's just not fit to hit 3rd anymore? Would there be concern then? As long as the manager is clear with his bosses and the team on why he's doing things the rest shouldn't matter. So it really is more like a small, family owned business in that sense.

Totally agree that outsiders, and other players on the club, would have doubts in the back of their minds about why decisions are being made about Joe by his brother. I don't think that Jake would consciously make decisions based off Joe being his brother, though. And I think plenty of people already question decisions being made about Joe right now and for the last number of years as he declines but continues to hit in the heart of the order. That is something the powers that be would need to take into consideration, but if all their other assessments point to Jake being the best possible candidate to help this team succeed then you can't let the doubts of some outsiders stop you from making that move. If it's a close call then those doubts could swing things against Jake. But you don't pass up on the most talented candidate because of that. I don't believe Jake is head and shoulders above others, but just in general, you take the best candidate because talent is still talent.

While Win-Loss record is the easiest way for the average person to judge a manager I don't think it's what's going to matter to Falvey and Levine. They're analytics people and this teams analytics are not great. As the original article here states, the Twins have been outscored by 50 runs this year, which is good enough for 21st in the majors and 4th in the division. They've been quite successful in 1 run games, but one would expect that to regress to the mean next year and the Win-Loss record would reflect that. The front office's job is to take a big picture approach and be realistic about where this team is at. That's why they quickly flipped to sellers at the deadline when it was clear the Twins couldn't hang with the elite teams they'd be facing in the playoffs. ​When it comes to making a decision on Molitor I'm sure a big part of it will come down to how well he aligns with their thought processes. I'd be willing to bet large sums of money that Falvey and Levine cringe every time Molitor bunts and wastes an out. Molitor appears to still have quite a bit of an "old school" approach to the game and I'm not sure that mixes well with the approach of this front office. I'm not sure what he bases his lineups on, but if the, seemingly, constant tweaking is based on anything other than numbers I'd be willing to guess that the front office doesn't really agree with that either. ​I, personally, don't think Molitor is the right manager for this team, but as many others have said, I don't know enough to be 100% confident in that position. I'd enjoy seeing a more "21st century" style of play from the manager and wouldn't be surprised at all if the front office makes a move to a guy who approaches the game differently than Molitor. I don't think Molitor kills this team by being manager, but I also don't think his game strategies make them the best team possible. Overachieving Win-Loss record or not.

Mr. Mauer needs to send him a Quick Swing and shorten up that swing. All Star break should be dedicated to him deciding what his swing will look like for the rest of the year and working on it day in and day out. Shortening swing and recognizing breaking pitches. All he should be working on from now until opening day next year.

Why does the surgery make him being a top prospect a joke? He was a top 100 prospect in all of MiLB coming into the year. Now you think he's not even top 5 in the organization? The surgery won't effect his skills in any way. It means he'll arrive in the bigs a year later than he would have before, but his ceiling and skills are still the same ones that made him a top 100 prospect. You argue that Romero should be higher because he has the highest ceiling, yet he's struggled a ton with injuries for years now. If you want his ceiling to matter and not his injuries then you should want Kirilloff's ceiling to matter and not this 1 injury.

Fair enough. This is what makes these exercises so fun/interesting. Other than Thorpe, I can see why you rank those other guys highly, but I don't know that them being "significantly higher than Kirilloff" makes a lot of sense to me. He most certainly will drop off the top 100 lists for the rest of this year, but we should expect him to be right back on them next year when he starts playing again. If Romero puts together an entire healthy season I'd put him right up there with the others I have in my top 4 and once we see what Javier does in the states we'll have a better idea of where he's at development wise and what sort of prospect he really is. To me if you're hoping on someone to be a big time bat Kirilloff and Javier are probably the ones I'd hope on. I don't see Gordon or Lewis ever bringing a great deal of power, but I think the potential for Kirilloff or Javier to be 30 homer guys is there. Gordon and Lewis bring higher defensive potential and this exercise is all about weighing different potentials and likelihoods to reach those potentials.

He was a top 100 prospect on basically every prospect ranking before the season. I don't see how this injury suddenly means his talent drops to barely being in the top 10 in the organization. If you believe Diaz is now a top 100 prospect that's one thing, but Tommy John doesn't really hurt people's careers anymore, other than losing a year on the field. With a position player it has even less of an effect. As far as Diaz "greatly out performing" him I'd disagree with that as well. In his second season in the Appy league he put up slightly better numbers than Kirilloff did in his first year while being a year older. He's playing well in low A this year, but he's not blowing the league away or anything. Kirilloff had a strikeout percentage under 14% in his age 18 season coming out of an area that isn't known for incredibly great high school baseball so he made his professional debut at the age of 18 and more than held his own against a higher level of talent than he'd seen over an extended period of time. And, on a lesser note, I'm not a subscriber to the "this position needs to hit like this" school of thought. I think baseball is getting further and further from defensive positions dictating offensive numbers. Playing up the middle no longer means you're a glove first, bat is a bonus, kind of guy anymore. If he's a .280 25 hr guy playing good defense in the outfield he's a top 2-3 guy in our system.

The loss of a year is why I have him after Gonsalves, but TJ doesn't really concern me in this day and age. Sano seems to have recovered well. He was the 15th pick and came out and did exactly what we'd all want that guy to do.

Is the TJ surgery the reason Kirilloff is so far down on so many lists? First round pick out of high school who hit over .300 and was the Appy league player of the year in his first season. Doesn't seem to be a lot of love for the kid who has the chance to be a pretty darn good lefty bat for years to come. I'd go... 1. Gordon (simply because he's doing it in the minors already) 2. Lewis (have to have faith the team picked a guy at #1 who is a top prospect) 3. Gonsalves 4. Kirilloff 5. Romero 6. Jorge 7. Jay (I have hopes for him still being a starter down the road, but will take a big time reliever as well) 8. Blankenhorn 9. Diaz 10. Stewart (Mostly wishful thinking that Falvie has some cool pitching development tricks up his sleeve) 8.

Ah, interesting. Learn something new every day. Thanks!

It's also possible Carlson has no intention of going pro straight out of high school and he made it clear to everyone he was going to school. The Mariners do a reverse of what the Twins possibly did and saved a small chunk of money by using the 55th pick on a guy they don't intend to sign so they can go above slot on an earlier pick (or later pick for that matter).

Carlson is from Burnsville, not Eden Prairie. But otherwise solid article.

That's the thing, though...no baseball people are saying he's the second coming of Ruth or any big time prospect. That SI cover did nobody any favors. Greene isn't really considered a better prospect than Wright etc.. There's a handful of guys who are basically considered the same level of prospects at the top of the draft. Bryce Harper is what you would consider a "second coming of Ruth" type prospect. Greene is not in that class. Not even close, really. This is not a strong draft. 17 year old throwing 100 gets a lot of attention in a weak class. If he was in the same draft class as Harper there wouldn't have been any debate at all about who was the better prospect. Heck, if you just want a teenager throwing gas why not take hometown boy Carlson? He's throwing 96 and has offspeed offerings.

The Twins have a -28 run differential right now. Yes, a big part of that is from the Astros series, but even before that debactle they weren't getting better than about a +5 in run differential. They are not a legitimate threat to go deep into the playoffs by any means. And no, I don't buy into the "anything can happen" theory. That's not a way to build a team. They don't have anywhere near the pitching needed for a run this year or next year. Even the biggest of Santana supporters couldn't make any reasonable argument that he will be able to anchor a legitimate WS rotation going into the future (and I'd say he can't do it this year either). There is something to him being a good leader for the young guys as they come up, but that's no reason to keep him. If you get a legitimate prospect and a couple other ok ones you take the deal. Wins and loses are all that count, but you have to look at how the team is getting there, too. The peripheral stats on Santana and this team are not very good. They can't hang with the big boys in the playoffs yet, and sneaking in by winning a terrible division and then getting slaughtered shouldn't be the goal. Santana is pitching out of his mind, but holding on to him during a career year when the team as a whole isn't realistically ready to compete would be the old regime's way of doing things. They'd probably extend him for no reason as well. Hughes, Suzuki, Willingham, the list goes on and on. If you can't compete in the FA market (or choose not to) then you have to trade veterans at their peak value. It's not fun as fans, but it's how you have to do it. If they get a reasonable offer they have to pull the trigger.

I wouldn't be upset by a McKay pick at all. I think Wright would be my first choice, but I'd be ok with McKay. I'm not overly concerned about him being a 1B instead of a middle of the field player. I'd be fine with them taking him and putting him in A+ and letting him work on hitting and hitting alone. He's got a GREAT eye and approach at the plate and I think that goes a long way in a player being able to succeed as they move up the chain. Would everyone complain if he turns into a .300 30 hr 100+RBI middle of the order bat? He's a little smaller than Schwarber, but he reminds me a lot of Schwarber coming out of college. Would we be upset if we drafted Schwarber 1:1? I wouldn't be (yes I know he's struggling right now). And if he focuses on hitting for a 2-3 years and it's clear he's not going to be able to cut it it's pretty nice to know he isn't necessarily a complete bust at that point because you haven't used his arm since he's playing 1B and now you put him on the mound and see if he can become a rotation or bullpen piece. If Wright can't pitch his career is over. I think Wright has a much higher ceiling on the bump, but I'd be ok with McKay for his bat. When a middle of the rotation arm is your backup plan for a guy it's not a bad deal.

The only real debate about Greene is whether or not the Twins feel they can get him to develop 2 secondary pitches. They've scouted him a ton, obviously, and if they've come to the conclusion that he is all velocity and nothing else he's not the pick you make. No organization cares that he was on the cover of SI. Nobody has him in the Harper galaxie of prospects. That SI cover is nice and all, but he's not that type of prospect. The most encouraging and positive scouting reports I've seen on him have him with a plus-plus fastball (obviously) and the possibility for 2 average secondary pitches. Those are the best reports. Nobody I've seen is predicting him to have any plus secondary pitches. That's an awful big risk at pick 1-1.

No control=no success in the bigs (unless you're throwing 103 and are 6'4" with crazy long arms so you're halfway to the plate when you let it go). If you can't move your fastball in and out, up and down or throw your offspeed for strikes when you need to you're going to struggle big time. As far as catchers being to blame it's probably a very small percentage of the blame. At the end of the day it's the pitcher's choice whether to throw what the catcher (or pitching coach) suggests. And that's all it is, a suggestion. I'm guessing the Twins' catchers are going by the scouting reports discussed for each hitter prior to the game and calling pitches accordingly. Someone would have to go back and look at the percentage of times Pressly shook off a pitch and also the number of times he completely missed the spot it was called for. If a catcher calls for a fastball away and it's thrown down the middle it's not the catchers fault for calling the fastball. And pitch framing is only accomplished if you're around the zone. I don't care who the catcher is, if the pitch isn't close to the black there's nothing they can do to "steal a strike" by framing it.