chpettit19

Scoring runners from 3rd with less than 2 outs.

I'm thoroughly confused as to where this idea of just moving guys behind the plate came from. We don't have much for SS depth in the minors either, should we move Wallner there next if he isn't good at catcher? Matt Wallner is 6'5" tall. Grayson Greiner is the tallest catcher in MLB history at 6'6". Matt Weiters, Joe Mauer, and Larry McLean are the only other catchers I'm aware of that were 6'5" or taller. The average catcher is shorter than 6'1". The receiving techniques the Twins teach now are all based around getting as low as possible. I don't have any idea why people think a 6'5" Wallner could just pop behind the plate and catch. Why would he even be open to putting that extra wear and tear on his knees anyways?

You should look into the Los Angeles Angels sometime. They have some opinions on the idea that "it only takes a couple of players to make a difference."

You want the Twins to be more like the Marlins on offense?

I'm impressed you think they're a .500 team if they only have 7 guys you think are any good. Those 7 must be really good.

What is your favorite part about this team? Do they have any strengths that would they'd rank in the top 5 in the AL in in your opinion?

Arraez doesn't start against lefties very often. Hasn't all season. He'll pinch hit for someone late in the game if it's close and they need a big hit. It's how they've done things all season.

For this season Sanchez and Jeffers are fine. They're not stars, but they're both decent enough hitters for catchers. For next year I'd be happy to see Omar Narvaez signed. I'd guess Milwaukee tries to bring him back, but if he hits the market I'd sign him and platoon him and Jeffers.

I agree in general, but at some point you have to do what's best for the team. I'm sure the idea was that he'd eventually be able to go more than 4 innings in starts. At some point he needs to do more than that. If he goes the entire season without ever stretching out beyond 4 innings I don't see anyone being willing to pay him 10 mil. To me the question is how long do they have to go along with the 4 inning starts to say they operated in good faith? If the answer is the whole season then the contract wasn't smart and all you did was handcuff yourself into a situation that hurt your team. At some point they have to be able to say "look, we gave it a shot, but you just can't give us enough as a starter and we need to make a change." And I also hope they're getting to the point in their pitching development that contracts like his aren't something they need to rely on so I'm not too concerned with guys signing them in the future. They've done their part and given him his chance to stretch out. It's been half the year. Not only has he not stretched out, but now he's on the IL. Not a serious injury from any reports I've seen, but it is just another data point showing he's likely not able to stretch out and be a 5+ inning guy. To me they've done their part and operated in all the good faith they needed to. Signing any deal is a good faith agreement that you'll let that player play that role until they show they can't. I'm saying he's shown he can't do enough to be a starter. Nobody says a team should operate in good faith when they DFA a guy under contract. Same thing here. I think it's more than reasonable at this point to discuss a role change. They operate in a risk reduction strategy with their pitching in every other sense and it's time to do it with him before that 3.08 moves its way towards his peripherals and then he's giving you 2 inning blowup starts and putting the pen in an even worse spot.

Baltimore is clawing their way into wild card contention largely on the strength of their bullpen. They've thrown 355 innings (Twins at 352.1 for reference), and have the 5th best pen ERA. Not sure anyone on here was really clamoring for Keegan Akin, Jorge Lopez, and Dillon Tate this offseason... Actually, the Twins have a Dillon Tate, his name is Jharel Cotton. Former big time starting pitcher prospect who couldn't get it done in the rotation so moved to the pen. The Orioles have just done better at getting Tate to perform.

I think him continuing to fail to go more than 4 innings in his starts is hurting his contract negotiating power for next year if he's trying to get a starting pitcher deal. I'd argue moving to a closer role (allowing Duran to maintain his "heart of the order, high leverage situations" role) and being a shutdown closer for the rest of the year would fetch him a better deal than being a 4 inning starter.

Reminds me of the Maeda deal. LA used to put him in the pen in the second half of seasons and playoffs which stopped him from reaching some of his inning based incentives, if I'm remembering correctly. Not saying they were doing it to save a couple mil, just saying it's what they did.

I don't think that's true. Rogers is being used as a strict closer. They are using him for the 9th inning only for the most part. There's no reason to think the hitters in the 9th inning are going to be a more difficult sample of hitters. That thought process works for someone like Duran who the Twins use against the heart of the order as often as possible without concern for it only being in the 9th. Rogers just gets whoever comes up in the 9th. Taylor has only appeared before the 9th inning 4 times this year. All 8th inning appearances as they tried to get more than an inning out of him. Blew 2 saves and got 2 1.1 inning saves in those appearances. PAs by batting order position for Rogers this year: 1st- 12 2nd- 14 3rd- 17 4th- 18 5th- 16 6th- 15 7th- 19 8th- 19 9th- 16 So he's faced the 7 and 8 hitters in the lineup more than he's faced any other spot in the lineup. 1 and 2 hitters the least. Although, to your point, the 1-2 hitters in those 26 PAs have an OPS of 1.283 against him. But that doesn't help his case as a big time reliever when he can't get the top of the order out.

Very true. I hope it's something that's being discussed. If he can be a legit bullpen piece (multi-inning or shutdown backend guy) and they can get Alcala back by the end of the month they could see a nice improvement on the pen without having to make a bunch of trades. I'd still like to see a trade or 2, but those 2 arms could be a huge improvement for the pen. If I were the FO I'd be looking more to bring in Castillo for the rotation than a bunch of pen arms. Reshuffle the good arms they have and add a frontend starter. That'd be my ideal move.

He just seems like such the obvious piece to change roles, but that certainly doesn't mean the guys in the FO and coaching staff see it that way.

I've wondered to myself if they've had talks with Archer during his IL stint about coming back as a bullpen piece. If he were younger I could understand him pushing back and wanting to continue to reestablish himself as a starter to get a nice contract next year, but he's 33 and I think his stuff would play really nicely in the pen. Only going 4 innings a start isn't really helping his FA contract cause anyways. I'd approach him about moving to a high leverage pen role and tell him his chances are higher of getting a deal next year if he comes out and shows he can be a shutdown reliever at the backend of a pen.

My guess is that they'll want to keep Winder in the 120-130 inning range for the year. He's thrown 48.1 to this point. Let's hope for 5 more tonight. So after tonight (the Twins 89th game) Winder will be around 53 or 54 innings. The Twins have 14 full times through the rotation left after tonight. If each spot in the rotation averages 5 innings a start there's 73 innings left for each spot in the rotation. It'll be interesting to see how they manage his innings. He threw 125 back in 2019 so he's shown he can handle that kind of workload. If he were to take a turn in the rotation and average 5 innings a start for the rest of the season that'd be the range he'd be in. They let Ober throw 108 last year after no innings in 2020 and being an injury risk. I think 125 is doable for Winder. As for role, I think it all seems to work itself out with injuries. Won't be surprised to see him sent down at some point after a bad start, but also wouldn't be surprised to see him stay in the rotation if he keeps pitching well. He wouldn't be the one I'd move to the pen as he's far more important for the Twins moving forward than the other options for a role change and I'd try to build him up and keep him working as a starter to work on perfecting his routine as a starter. I'd expect them to send him down to start before they put him in a 1 or 2 inning bullpen role.

The Paddack injury basically guarantees the trade was a negative for the 2022 MN Twins, but I still see the logic in making the deal and think it was reasonable. Rogers is better than he's been lately, but he's always been a bit of an up and down guy. I'd certainly rather have him than Pagan, but some fans do seem to act like they traded away prime Mariano.

Yeah, not sure how Kuhl or Colome help the Twins this season. Bard would be a much more preferred target from Colorado.

Would absolutely love the Twins to get Parada, but I see basically no chance of him falling to 8. Lots of talk about Washington being in love with him and him being the favorite to go #5 to them.

Dang. That was an in depth comment.

I agree with that. They have not made any "win now" trades at the deadline that have helped them "win now." At least none pop to mind quickly. Based on the trades they've made in general, though, I trust their ability to make good trades. I hope to see them make some quality "win now" trades over the next few weeks.

Kenta Maeda trade seems to have turned out alright. Sonny Gray has been pretty solid. Celestino came over in trade. As did Duran. Jorge Alcala also brought in via trade. Joe Ryan seems to be a decent little trade acquisition. Odo turned out pretty well, and they even have the prospect they gave up for him back in their system. They brought in Devin Smeltzer via trade. Sanchez and Urshela have been solid pieces to this team that they brought in with a trade. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I'd love Johnson to fall to the Twins. I love contact ability with zone control. Hitting is all about swinging at good pitches and getting your barrel on the ball. Those are Johnson's strengths. While I'd love him to be able to stay at SS, I'd be more than happy with him replacing Jorge in a few years at 2B and mashing. Khalil Watson fell to 16 last year, so maybe Johnson will fall to 8 this year? Although, the baseball, not Twins, fan side of me would like to see him go to Miami so they run out Watson at SS and Johnson at 2B. I want a picture of 6'7" Oneil Cruz on 2B after a double standing between 5'9" Watson and 5'8" Johnson.

I'll honestly be surprised if Pit trades Bednar. He's under team control through the 2026 season. They have to think they'll be competitive by then. If not they should be trading ONeil Cruz and Ke'Bryan Hayes as well, and really loading up the farm. If they do trade Bednar it's going to be because they got some team to overpay for him in prospects, and, while I have no problem moving prospects, overpaying is not good team building. They should call the Pirates and see what the asking price is, but there shouldn't be a second call on him after Pit names 3 top 10 system prospects they'd demand in return. I'd like Robertson as he's got playoff experience and is having a good year. He'll probably cost a little more than desired since he'll be a hot commodity, but should still be just 1 prospect so you should be able to live with it just fine. Daniel Bard seems like a decent target as well. I'd think he costs just 1 prospect as well, but the Rockies are the least predictable team out there. I wouldn't be surprised if they demanded Royce Lewis in return or if they just asked for MN to pay his contract and didn't take any player in return. They're a terribly run wild card. Noah Syndergaard is an interesting possibility to me. The Angels are doing their annual "we employee the 2 best players on the planet, but still completely suck" show and I'd expect they'd be willing to move him. His velo is way down, but with how the Twins use pitchers he'd be an interesting target for a bulk inning role where maybe he cranks it back up a little. The Twins will have far better data and a far better idea if he still has 100 MPH in his arm, but he's an interesting target. Mike Clevinger is another interesting target. I wonder what they'd think about a Jake Cave return. He's lighting up AAA and SD could use a player like 2018/19 Cave in a corner. He's far cheaper than Clevinger and the Padres may just be happy to get some luxury tax relief. I'd make the call and see what he'll cost at least. And my last, and most important, target would be Alex Colome from the Rockies. I'm just kidding, settle down. Although, a Pagan for Colome trade would make the evil side of me laugh while Twins' fans heads exploded.