chpettit19

I like the new playoff format. It, theoretically, keeps every team in postseason play trying hard through the regular season. There's not a ton of drama for first round byes this year as the east and west division winners in each league have the byes virtually locked up already. But it will keep the teams in the NL east battling hard as both the Mets and Braves would vastly prefer a bye than hosting a 3 game series. The central winners get a playoff advantage by automatically hosting a 3 game series against the worst wildcard team. Now that wildcard team could actually be better than the division winner (Seattle currently holds 3rd WC spot, but has 1 more win than the Twins who would host them), but that just goes to show there's an advantage to winning the division. Barring any relatively dramatic falls and rises in the NL that playoff field looks to be set, so now it's a matter of jockeying for position between the Dodgers, Mets, Brewers, Cardinals, Braves, Padres, and Phillies. Those teams all know they're likely in the playoffs, but the Braves and Phillies would far prefer to catch the Mets and the Cardinals and Brewers very much want to win the division over just getting the wildcard. The AL has more playoff spots available, and I think the league is probably disappointed to have seen Chicago, Cleveland, and Boston basically stand pat at the deadline, and Baltimore actually sell at the deadline as they're all within 3.5 games of a playoff birth. NY and Houston are going to play out the season full bore as they want homefield advantage throughout. We know the situation in the central with 3 teams battling for that title so you'd expect them to go all out. Toronto, Tampa, and Seattle all want to host a 3 game set instead of play on the road so they aren't going to unnecessarily sit guys down the stretch. Mixed with 28 instead of 40 man September rosters I like what MLB is doing with the playoff setup to keep as many good teams as possible playing their best players. And the 28 man rosters means the games against the non-playoff teams in September won't be playoff hopefuls vs AAA squads. I think they're doing well keeping the competition high as the season comes to a close. And balancing the schedule more moving forward is a great move as well.

I still say there's a 0% chance he opts into the 35M next year barring a catastrophic injury. Why opt into that even if he continues to struggle offensively? All it does is take away any chance of finding out what he could get on the market. It only takes 1 team in a full offseason to offer him a huge deal. Nobody thought Jayson Werth was worth much except for the Nats, but that's all he needed as they gave him a huge deal. I don't think Boras is shortsighted enough to take away all market possibilities for 1 year and 35M. What would Correa have to do next year to make taking away his bargaining power this year worth it? His career OPS+ is 127. He was at 131 last year. He's at 124 this year. He's having a pretty typical offensive year for him. His being 6'4" and the risks that come with that as a SS isn't new news to teams. Corey Seager had even more risk at SS since he's never been the fielder Correa is and he got paid last year (for reference Seager career OPS+ 130 and is 126 this year). I don't see any way Correa doesn't opt out of his deal and see what his market looks like again in a normal offseason without a lockout right in the middle of it with his new super agent leading negotiations now. No reason to limit their options.

Well thank you. I appreciate the kind words and appreciate what you bring to these forums as well!

Celestino is on the bench tonight.

That's what I'm most interested in tonight as well. Since the start of May he's gone at least 6 innings in 10 of his 14 starts. He's "built up" and can do it. If he's pulled after 5 innings and 72 pitches while only giving up a run or 2 I'm going to lose a lot of faith in this orgs ability to build a good pitching strategy.

I'm with @Dman, the offense is in a good place with Celestino, Lewis, Kirilloff, Miranda, Arraez, Jeffers, Larnach, Gordon, Buxton, Polanco, Kepler all under 30 years old and under team control for 2 or, in most cases, more years at super cheap rates unless any of the real young guys blow up and get big arb numbers coming their way. That's 10 guys who've shown they have big league abilities in same way, shape or form. That's a really great place to be when building a team as their cheap deals mean the FO should be able to splurge in FA to fill specific holes with top quality talent knowing they have a base of competitive position players in place already. Health is a concern with a few guys and that's where the minor league system needs to kick out solid players here and there, but you're not in dire need of the system producing superstars in the next couple years because of those 10 guys being so cheap. Having someone like Brooks Lee bust out this year and next to possibly become a star would just put them in that much better of a position. The pitching is the concern still. Next year you have Mahle, Gray, Ryan, and Maeda as a pretty decent 4 pieces of a rotation, and, again, with them having extra money due to the young position players they could go out and spend a bunch on a guy to front those 4 in the rotation. Don't know that I'd bet on them doing that, but it's financially feasible at least. The pen is always difficult to assess as they're such volatile pitchers, but Duran and Lopez hopefully can form a really, really good 1-2 punch at the back end for 2 more years with Duran being around for 3 more on top of that even. Hopefully Alcala comes back and is a really nice middle inning guy and Jax can continue to be solid in that role. If you can have those 4 fill those roles for the next 2 years on arb or pre-arb deals you're again in good shape to splurge on the other 4 spots in the pen. They're in a good spot to supplement their holes going into 2023 due to the cheapness of the majority of the roster, but they still need to figure out some #1-3 pitchers from the system. Ryan could be a 2/3, but looks like he's probably best served as your 3/4 guy. The other top arms in the system have really taken steps back this year which is a real bummer. Maybe Prielipp comes in looking like his old self and cruises through the system in 2 years and can front the rotation, but the more likely situation is they're going to have to finally pay for some pitching. If they can keep churning out position players in the Miranda, Kirilloff, Larnach, Lewis talent range they can afford to pay for pitching, but I think we'd all prefer they start producing some top end pitching of their own. Or at least fill the pen with young shutdown arms (I'd move Canterino to a pen role now and see what he can do in the minors to be ready for 2023 as a pen weapon in Minneapolis).

Duffey has been around for a long time and seems like a really good dude. Seems to have been a good teammate and gave the Twins a lot so it's unfortunate things ended this way, but he just didn't seem to have anything left in the tank. He did some really good things for the Twins over the years, though. Wish him well and hope he can revive his career for another couple years somewhere else.

It was definitely a fun time, but today is not a productive workday for me. Boss can't actually expect me to work EVERY weekday, right?

The scoreboard at Target Field called the bomb an 89 MPH splitter if that makes you feel any better...

I definitely had a friend or 2 turn down the chance to go to the game because it was a Thursday, which is a bummer. And I'm quite jealous of your work situation right now. My cube isn't as comfortable as I'd like it to be for days like this. And multiple meetings this afternoon means I can't even take a "long lunch" and not come back. Adulting is hard sometimes.

I'm not a big country music fan, but I stuck around for the concert and it was a cool addition to the game. Wish they'd do that kind of stuff on Friday or Saturday so work wasn't so tough today, though. I suppose I could also have chosen to indulge in one or two fewer Trulys, but then I'd have to partly blame myself for how I'm feeling this morning and that'd make me feel bad about myself so I'll just blame it all on Pagan and Duffey.

Agreed.

I'll start by saying I think they need to DFA Pagan, but to be fair to him for last night he did follow up Correa's error with another groundout that Miranda threw low and Arraez couldn't pick. Back to back errors that lead to a run can't be put on the pitcher.

Rocco doesn't manage the IL. I'm starting to lean towards him not being the right guy to manage the Twins, but let's at least complain about the right things. Rocco doesn't "use the IL" as a means of anything. The FO decides who goes on the IL. Now the bigger concern is that the FO also plays a large role in the lineup and pitcher usage. That's where I've always pushed back on the "fire Rocco" narrative. They aren't going to fire Rocco and bring in someone who runs a "7th, 8th, 9th innings guys" bullpen or a guy who let's every starter attack the lineup a 3rd time every time out. The 3rd time through the order philosophy is shared by the FO. If it wasn't Rocco would've been fired long ago. So if they fired Rocco you'd just get another guy who doesn't regularly let the starter go 6 or 7 innings. That's now an organizational philosophy, not a Rocco philosophy.

This is how it's supposed to work. Have a young offensive core in place for multiple more seasons. Way short on pitching. Trade a couple hitters (and an arm) for a controllable starter. Love it, even though I liked Steer as a utility guy next year.

Ceiling? #2 starter. Likely outcome? #3-5 starter.

I'm generally a "glass half full, silver linings, it's better to be in first place than last place like last year" kind of guy, but the current state of Twins pitching is making that a little difficult these days. Aaron Sanchez will take the mound for the Twins tonight. Aaron debuted in 2014 at the age of 21 as one of the bigger pitching prospects in baseball and a big hope for a bright future in Toronto. He is not that guy anymore. Sanchez began his career in the bullpen and was quite effective in 2014 (1.09 ERA in 33 IP). In 2015 he started working his way into the rotation with 11 of his 41 appearances being starts. He was again quite effective with a 3.22 ERA in 92.1 innings pitched. He claimed an all star spot, and finished 7th in the Cy Young race, in 2016 as he made 30 starts with an AL leading 3.00 ERA. He had officially arrived! And then 2017 happened. And 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022. Aaron comes into his first start as a Twin sporting a not-so-sparkling 8.33 ERA after 7 starts with the Nationals this year. In 8 starts for the Saints, Sanchez sported a 4.26 ERA. Not exactly the guy many of us hoped would be starting on August 1st for a 1st place Twins team. But they are still a first place Twins team so we do still have to be a little chipper as the trade deadline rolls around tomorrow. Starters: Twins- Aaron Sanchez 8.33 ERA, 16 Ks Tigers- Tarik Skubal 3.67 ERA, 113 Ks Lineups: Twins: Polanco Correa Arraez Miranda Garlick Urshela Gordon Sanchez Contreras Tigers: Greene Reyes Castro, H Cabrera Candelario Schoop Castro, W Barnhart Baddoo

Ah, I got ya. That makes much more sense then ?

Rosario was a salary dump last year, not some generous move by Cleveland. He also was a rental player they'd just signed the offseason before. Not a great comp there. I'd be a little surprised to see Baltimore trade Mancini when they're actually playing well after keeping him when his value was higher and they were terrible. Same with Merrifield in the sense that he was worth significantly more the last couple years and they refused to trade him then. Would be absolutely shocked to see either of those guys moved. Would be very happy with Whit in a Twins jersey, though.

Other than Arraez, there's no hitter in the Twins lineup I'd rather have up when the team needs a big hit right now than Miranda. Kid looks to be figuring it out and setting himself up for a very nice career.

Yeah, Kepler should be back as soon as his 10 days are out from what I've heard. Larnach was supposed to be out about 6 weeks following surgery. I think we're around week 5 now so I'd expect to be hearing about a return from him around the same time Kepler is back. Probably a rehab stint for him, though. But I believe they are both expected back by mid-August for sure. Kirilloff I don't expect to see again this season and that's brutal in general for that kid.

I've seen you mention a couple times that guys are "out for the year." Have I missed some reports on Kepler and Larnach? Assuming they're 2 of OF 2-5 in your comments. Lewis is obviously done for the year, but I was unaware of Kepler or Larnach being done for the year. Aren't they supposed to be back in a week or 2? Kepler especially. I assume Kirilloff is the other OF you're thinking of, and I fear he may be done for the year with that wrist, but he's not even on the IL yet so I'm confused on all the "out for the year" comments.

It goes way beyond a terrible record this year. Patrick Corbin is one of the worst pitchers in baseball this year, and was last year, too. Corbin was actually tied with Castillo in losses last year for the record (I hate pitcher records as a stat, but it's the stat you presented). The Nats would have to trade a big time prospect along with Corbin while eating most of his deal (he's paid 24M next year and 35M the year after) just to get teams to listen if they called other teams on him. He's the least tradeable asset in baseball right now.

IKF is hitting .275 for the Yankees. 3rd best on the team among qualified hitters. Why isn't he hitting in their top 5 like you suggest he should be? Anthony Rizzo is last amongst their qualified hitters at .223 and you're all excited that he's consistently in their top 5. Donaldson is second to last at .226 and also consistently in their top 5. Again, you're provably wrong. By all means provide a different example now that the Yankees clearly don't fit your narrative, but you're wrong on this.

I mean you're provably wrong. Again, you're welcome to your opinion, but your opinion is easily proven to be incorrect.