chpettit19

Certainly could be. It'd depend on what the coaches (way smarter than me) see in him and what they know about his ability to learn and work. And what kind of return you could get. If he's the missing piece in a trade that returns me a more complete player with just as much control, I'd absolutely trade him. I love the bat to ball skills, but he's a 2 tool player at this point. And hit/arm is not a great combo for major league success. If their development people see more power coming then hold onto him. But if another team values him highly and you don't think there's more power coming I'd be very open to moving him.

Rooker is an all-around bat. Power and average. There's a question as to how much power Gonzalez will get to at the major league level. And then you've got a guy with no speed, no defense, and he has to hit for a crazy average to be a worthwhile major leaguer. Luis Arraez is the guy many are naming (I agree with Trueblood that it's a bad comp) and he's hitting .283 this year and is an overall below average hitter who brings nothing else to the table because average is his only tool. Rooker brings massive power as well. He's a good enough overall bat to get MVP votes as a primary DH. That's the point of this article. Gonzalez isn't bringing that kind of bat. He's bringing a contact with minimal power bat and nothing else but a big arm. It's about how many tools you bring, and which tools they are. Hit/arm is not a great combination. Hit/speed would be better. Hit/power (like Rooker or Cruz) is one you can build a career around. But hit/arm leaves very little wiggle room as the "hit" has to be top of the charts good to build a career around it. Right now Gonzalez is making the case that he can build himself some kind of career around that hit tool. At least give himself enough time to see if he can develop more power. And that's all you can ask. But Rooker is an awful comp at this point.

Jose Miranda is who I see. Bad corner defender with less-than-ideal power who swings too much but good bat to ball skills. 115ish OPS+ bat in the majors.

Fangraphs has them at 15.2% so you'd obviously choose that number instead. And make up your own internal number that'd put you closer to 50/50 because you know when Lopez, Ober, and Keaschall are coming back and that's going to boost your odds. Super easy to ignore that number and look at others. (This is sarcasm and not an endorsement of the Twins pretending like they're a contender this year. But also not really a joke because they absolutely have their own internal numbers.)

He moves pretty smoothly on the field, which I think is a good sign. But he's simply not built for speed. He clearly put in work to get in better shape this year. It's noticeable from last year to this year. Hopefully that's a good sign of things to come. I also question the Twins playing him more in LF than RF this year. Feels like taking away his best defensive weapon. I don't know if that is to prepare him to play opposite Wallner, or what, but it feels weird to me. I hope they give him every opportunity to learn and improve in the field before making him a DH. But he'll need to put in the work, too.

Oh, the arm is great, but he's not in terrible shape right now. He's never going to be a skinny guy. His legs are massive, but not because he's out of shape. It's just his body type. He's never going to be fast. It's entirely possible he works his tail off and truly improves his reads, jumps, and routes. And I hope he does. I'm not writing him off, just stating my opinion on the odds. The odds, in my opinion, are not high that he's ever better than a Larnach or Wallner style defender. Not Willingham or Delmon bad, but somebody fans are going to complain about. But, again, I've been wrong plenty of times.

Yeah, I thought it was weird when I read it and there was no mention of the injury. I'm not really arguing one way or the other. I prefer ceiling because ceiling wins, but I completely understand the argument for GG over Soto. All I'm really saying is I think there's an argument. Like I said, assuming health and continued performance, I'd put GG in the majors this year. I just don't see much ceiling. But I've been wrong many times before.

Gonzalez is a tough one. He's a minus defender at a corner, perhaps DH. That's a huge ask from the bat. And 20+ HRs, as the article suggests, may be asking more than he can actually deliver. 15 may be the more accurate number. Either way, it's not huge power by any means. Bad corner defender without big power? Not exactly a huge prospect. Soto's ceiling is significantly higher, in my opinion. Gonzalez is a more sure thing to reach the majors because he's making a real good argument for a September call-up right now. But his ceiling is probably a 115-120 OPS+ bat with negative defensive value, right? Sort of an Alejandro Kirk without the elite glove behind the plate? 2025 Maikel Garcia without speed or defense? 2022 and 2024 Jose Miranda? That's who he reminds me of most. With more patience right now, which is why I'm on the Gonzalez train now after hating his inclusion in the trade originally. But he's a contact oriented corner bat who doesn't have much power, any speed, or defense. I don't totally disagree with you, but I don't think it's totally outrageous. If you go by ceiling, I think Soto is the easy choice. How you weigh ceiling and likelihood of simply reaching the majors is the question.

You're not improving the team that way. What's the point? All you do is end up with an even worse team moving forward. The controllable pitching is the only thing with value the Twins have. Trading all your unvaluable pieces isn't how you improve the team. I wouldn't trade them all right now, but eventually (this offseason would be my vote) they're going to have to move at least 1 of their starters to get some actual difference making pieces on the position player side. Otherwise, you're just rearranging deck chairs on that big ship that sank.

Buxton has been more than clear that he has no plans or desire to leave. As recently as last week. He hasn't been anything but abundantly clear about this. Your "100% belief" in him being willing to waive his no trade isn't based on anything he's ever said. He's not going anywhere. He has every intention of retiring a Twin. He literally said it last week. At some point people need to start listening to what the man says and quit just making up their own narrative on this.

Yeah, that's not how science works. It's far more complicated than that. A ball hit with a 24-degree launch angle (like what Lewis hit) is not losing 10% of its distance. When accounting for the exit velo of 102 MPH that ball would've lost about 3% of its distance. Putting it at more like 399 or 400 feet at sea level. And I'm not aware of any MLB stadium with a LF porch longer than 400. Which is where Lewis hit that ball. Why would we care about dead center or deep gaps when he didn't hit it dead center or to the deep gaps? He hit it to left. Although, it certainly wasn't high enough to clear the monster so it shouldn't be 30/30. They clearly don't account for trajectory well enough. Camden yards and Cleveland are questionable, too, depending on the height. I don't know the exact trajectory. But 370 is the wrong number, and he hit it to left so dead center and the deep gaps don't matter.

Rushing is going to be controlled through 2031. They'll get 6 years of service time from him. He wasn't called up early enough to qualify for a full year of service time.

I mean, Rushing is nowhere near the prospect those 2 guys are, but sure. There are MLB ready, or already debuted, prospects that get traded. Just because people are obsessed with Rushing around here doesn't mean he's Roman Anthony or Roki Sasaki.

It 100% depends on what kind of trades you're looking for. Are you dealing Duran for a Rushing type who is already in the bigs or somebody who was just drafted so is likely years away? Are you relying on your internal guys to fill the roles for 2026 and 2027 while the guys you receive in trade are the guys you're looking to be the 2028 or 2029 wave? I'm not arguing one way or the other. I'd also wait on the bigger trades. Not a year necessarily, but until the offseason, at least. I'd trade every last expiring contract this month, though. And anyone else I didn't plan to have back that I could get anything at all for. I'd trade one of Lopez, Ryan, or Ober this offseason, though. Because I don't see any other path to improving the position player side. And without improvement there all you're doing is repeating 2024 and 2025 in 2026 and I see no point in that. But I think that deal is better made this offseason. But, yes, you can come up with countless examples of prospects that got moved in trades and didn't do anything. It's absolutely no sure thing. Prospects fail all the time. It's why counting on Jenkins, Emma, LK, GG, et al to be the answer to 2026 isn't a good plan to me. You need to add more to that group because so many of them are going to fail. I just don't get what other answer there is. Continuing to run it back with this same position player group until the pitching all runs out of team control makes no sense to me. This position player group isn't good enough. There's no money to go buy better ones. You can't trade the expiring contracts for good enough guys to improve them. It's going to take a trade that hurts to truly improve. And waiting until after 2026 just means, to me, that you wasted 2026. So, I think you have to take the risk this offseason. And it is a risk. But not taking that risk is just a different kind of risk. One we've seen play out already.

I'd say looking at 5 prospects from 1 year is a pretty small sample size. The Nats are pretty happy with Abrams, Gore, and Wood who they got in a singular trade. The Astros are sure glad they traded Josh Fields. They got some fella named Yordan for him. The Royals are pretty happy with Cole Ragans for a couple months of Aroldis Chapman in a lost season. Cleveland traded 2 years of a breaking down Kluber for Clase who they're eventually going to flip for more pieces. The Rays flipped Archer for half a team's worth (slight exaggeration) of prospects, including Tyler Glasnow who they then flipped for Ryan Pepiot plus. Trading for prospects is far from a guaranteed outcome. You never know what you're going to get. Sometimes you flip CC Sabathia for Matt LaPorta. But sometimes you flip Juan Soto for a 24-year-old SS with a 134 wRC+, a 22-year-old LF with a 147 wRC+, and a 26-year-old SP with a 3.02 ERA. And maybe 23-year-old Robert Hassell figures it out for them, too. And 21-year-old Jarlin Susana is still a top 100 prospect from that deal on his way to the majors with a 100 mph fastball and one of the best sliders on the planet. I'd say that trade is turning out alright for them and Soto had multiple years left on his deal. It's all a crapshoot. Always. Holding guys and losing them for a singular comp pick is a risk, too. Every roster decision is a risk one way or the other. If you get a Soto deal it most definitely pays off.

I'm not against Duran and/or Jax trades if somebody blows you away, but you still have 2 more deadlines with them. I fully understand there's extra risk with a reliever that their value tanks, but those two have enough track record that I'd take my chances if the return isn't pretty astronomical. But I do agree the deadline at least feels like the better time to deal them.

Because he pitched Tuesday. Whether you want to admit it or not, he did. I know you think the Twins are completely and utterly incompetent, but the Mariners, also fighting for that last wild card spot are throwing Bryan Woo today. He also threw in that game that should apparently be ignored on Tuesday. Yankees fighting for their division or to stay in a wild card spot still haven't thrown Rodon. Fools! The Rays, trying to catch the wild card teams, haven't used Rasmussen yet. Not even today. Tigers are starting Skubal today, but haven't touched Mize yet (and his last start was only 3 innings on the 12th). But I'm sure they don't care about wins. And the Royals waited until today to use Bubic even though they're right with the Twins fighting for every last win to chase down the last wild card spot. Maybe you're not so much smarter than all these teams? I mean, don't you think it's a little weird that not a single starter from that AL team has stepped on the mound yet? And some of them won't even step out there today even? But, sure, it's "nothing more than a normal between starts bullpen." Teams clearly agree.

Ryan has been scheduled to pitch today for days. He's known he was pitching today since he threw in the all star game and has built his bullpen and workout schedule around it. I'm all for firing everyone and getting some new blood in here, but they're not just making stuff up on the fly and moving starters around based on what games they win and lose. Ryan pitched Tuesday and then went into his normal 4 day schedule to be prepared to pitch today. If it's "clown show" to have your best pitcher follow his normal routine, I don't know what to tell you.

And the rest of my post was about not having to trade people right now. They can get a deal for him in the offseason when I think it makes a billion times more sense to trade any of their guys who are controlled for 2 more years. Instead of trading them now when they won't get equal value just because people are upset this season isn't going well.

On the pitch selection stuff for Stewart... On the season Stewart throws his 4 seamer (54.7), cutter (11.4), and sinker (11) 77.1% of the time. Yesterday he threw 6 four seamers (66%), 1 cutter (11), and 1 sinker (11) out of 9 pitches. That's 88% for them as a whole. That's 1 pitch (extra 4 seamer) more than his average (8 out of 9 instead of 7 out of 9). Stewart throws a lot of fastballs. If you're just noticing it now, you haven't been paying attention.

Agree they should listen on everyone, disagree they need to make huge deals now on guys controlled for 2 more years. This is actually a time Falvey should stick to his guns on his demands for those guys. They have so much time to trade those guys that it'd be foolish to trade them for anything less than what appears to be an overpay. Duran and Jax are the more likely trade pieces than Ryan. It's hard to get value for big time pieces with that much control. Other teams are very hesitant to trade the type of pieces that the Twins should demand for him. Especially with 3 playoff runs of control left. He should return an MLB ready, or near ready, elite prospect plus other pieces. That is not an easy thing to get teams to give up. Don't accept anything less just because this team is going nowhere this year. That'd be even more foolish than holding onto this team and crossing your fingers for making the last wild card spot. Falvey should be a stubborn SOB on that. And also disagree that it's automatically Lopez staying and Ryan going. If you can get a deal for Lopez that makes more sense than the offers for Ryan, then trade Lopez. Now or during the offseason. Just because people call him the #1 or the ace or whatever, doesn't mean he has to be the one to stay. He can absolutely be traded, and should be if that's what it takes to make the team better overall.

Ah, we are on the same page here. Yes, too big of a collection of "unknowns." Whether by their own doing (holding Miranda down in a lost 2021 season while he's destroying minor league pitching) or injury problems (Larnach, Lewis, and Miranda mostly). My bigger concern is that they appear to me to compound the problem of these unknowns with misjudging talent and caring more about securing the floor than raising the ceiling. I think Detroit made a mistake moving on from Castro because he's a valuable player, just not a core player. But the Twins make the opposite mistake in not moving on from guys in his range of talent because they believe they're core players. Kepler being the one that sticks out most to me recently. They claimed to have been open to trading him for years but never getting enough offered in return. Well, that probably means you overvalued him. And they kept hitting him at the top of their lineup (sometimes he was the best option, sadly) because they expected him to be better than he was. He was a fine player because of his glove, but he wasn't a core piece. They treated him like a core piece. I would've liked a shakeup to the position side for this season, but think it's completely and utterly vital for next year. Even if you think you're risking the next Big Papi. Too bad. Have to make some decisions and shake some things up and get new blood in here.

I'm all for giving Jenkins a shot to start next year if he keeps doing well. But I'm not going to assume what he'll do the rest of the season. He's slugging .365 at AA right now. There are certainly some things to keep an eye on the rest of the year before I'm handing him an opening day gig. He still has to earn it with his play and not just my scouting report on him. If he ends the season slugging under .400 at AA I wouldn't want him anywhere near my major league roster. Miranda had a 112 OPS+ last year and a 114 OPS+ in his previous healthy season at the major league level. In over 400 PAs both years. If that's not good enough to assume he can be a 7-hole hitter in a major league lineup, I don't know what you're looking for. Julien, Martin, and France are different stories, and I wasn't happy with the France signing at all. But Julien and Martin are the types of guys I want them to give ABs to over somebody like France. Martin isn't likely a starter type, but he may be a utility type. And there's absolutely room on a 40- and 26-man roster for a league minimum guy like that. And cutting Julien after 1 great year and 1 bad year without seeing if he could make the adjustment would've been an awful decision. His odds of being a starter were 50/50. Plenty of guys like him on 40-mans all over the league. I think complaining about Miranda, Julien, and Martin on the 40-man is incredibly aggressive. Those are guys you'd find on every 40-man. How deep do you think other teams are that they're cutting guys with OPS+ of 112 the season before or who had a 130 OPS+ their rookie year 2 seasons before? I think our definitions of "starter" are different. There's starters, above average starters, and stars. There was very good reasons to see if those guys could be starters, and every reason to expect Miranda was a starter. Not stars or above average starters (mostly because their gloves would never allow them to be above average overall), but starters.

Oh boy, you're going to get some strong feelings on both sides of the Jenkins idea. If he crushes it for the rest of the year I'm all for it. I'd have Culpepper up in September to get his feet wet if he keeps going for another month+. I don't know that I'd already be planning on trading a second arm next deadline, but I wouldn't be totally closed off to it like I'm sure the majority of posters will be. It would depend on how the season is going. But the offseason after next year? Different story, especially if other arms are stepping up. Which is the whole reason Cleveland and Tampa are typically good. They keep back filling from their system. The Twins need Festa, Matthews, SWR, Raya, Lewis, whoever to claim spots. Hard to speak on the 40-man thing. I don't think they expected Julien, Miranda, Martin, Emma, or France to be backups. The first 4 on that list are just examples of them needing to be better at getting the guys from their system who are supposed to be claiming starting or core roles to actually be starter or core players. But I don't know what the average 40-man roster looks like. Gasper was on one the previous year. I'm pretty positive you'll find a lot of Camargo types on them as 3rd catchers. And there's a billion relievers on the back end of 40-mans across the league being DFA'd and added and subtracted and moved around. Their refusal to move on from them sure feels like an extreme outlier, though. And part of that is the core of all of this, they simply don't have anyone to push them off the roster because they aren't developing at near a good enough rate. Culpepper should push Fitzgerald off by September to get his first cup of coffee, but they don't have many guys in the minors threatening those spots. Because they've been pretty awful at developing position players.

And now we've circled back to the development that drives this all. You have to develop a Jose Ramirez in order to extend them instead of signing free agent Correa. Extending internally developed stars before they hit free agency is how you get them for cheaper. Buy out arb years early. Like Atlanta. You're not going to get Acuna/Albies crazy deals, but you're going to get better than Correa deals. But the Twins haven't been able to develop an Acuna or Ramirez or Franco (before we knew he was a terrible person) worthy of an extension that would save them money. Buxton, obviously, is on a steal of a deal (for his talent), but that's for a very different reason. Ramirez also took a discount to stay there, so he's a bit of an outlier, but the idea remains. Internally developed stars are the far easier way to cheaper deals.