chpettit19

My eyeballs. I watch the minor league games. Yeah, we have coaches. And so did NY and Boston. Both of which played him in other positions and never gave him MLB run at catcher. Not sure why this is controversial. A backup catcher who is passable behind the plate putting up the numbers he did in the minors gets some opportunity. This is now the third organization saying they don't think he can catch. Coaches can't magically make everyone good at everything.

The last 3 years were an awfully nice start. The question is if they can finish their rebuild. I'm not sure what your argument is here. First it was that new ownership may not spend like the new Orioles owners didn't. But that was wrong. Now its that their front office isn't good because this year is off to a bad start even though their last 3 years were good? I don't think their front office is great. But they've been a good team in a tough division for 3 years. I'm not going to let a rough 40 game stretch outweigh that. But to each their own.

They had a rebuild. A very intentional, blow it all up, bottom out and build it back rebuild. That's why I made it about the last three years when their rebuild was finished. You didn't even look at their payroll this year when making it about their first 40ish games of this year so I'm not sure you should be talking about cherry picking. Because, as has already been pointed out to you on here, their payroll under new ownership has gone up significantly. To $165 million this year (according to spotrac). Which is well above the Twins. It is also well up from the 110ish million it was in 2024 when the new owner took over much too close to the season to have a real impact. And up more than double the 69ish million it was in 2023. But you didn't mention any of that when claiming the new owner wasn't spending more. But those 2 years should also have notes next to them that they were part of the rebuild as they we breaking in their prospects so it made sense that the payroll was lower. Lots of missing context in a lot of this that was either cherry picked out or just unknown. I didn't "cherry pick" the last three years, I chose them because the context of their rebuild made sense to talk about them that way. Using the seasons where they were trying to be bad as proof of them not knowing how to build a team that could win wouldn't make a lot of sense. They were actively trying to lose during those other seasons so their record doesn't really apply. Division matters less now than it ever has because of the more balanced schedule. But what is your claim that the central was better than the east based on? Because my statement absolutely wasn't based on just the Yankees. The central was 387-422 last year. The east was 410-390. If you take the White Sox and Yankees out of it. So, take the worst team in MLB history out of the central and the best team out of the east the central only beats the east by 20 games. 346-301 to 326-322. That's partly because the Orioles finished second in that division with 91 wins. The central (with Chicago) won 40% of their games against teams over .500. The east won 47% of theirs. Take Chicago out and the central still was worse than the east at just a 46% win percentage. And to top it off, the AL central went 72-88 against the AL east. Take Chicago out and the AL central went 62-66 against the AL east. So, I disagree that the central was better than the east last year. And, just like I said in the last post, it's May, I'm not saying who's better or worse this year. Far too early to make any declarations about any player or team. They have nearly 120 games to play. A whole lot can change in the next 4.5 months.

He can't throw and he's really rough to watch blocking pitches. He's not an MLB catcher.

I mean the Orioles have a 56.6% winning percentage over the last 3 full seasons. That's a 91-win pace. In the AL East. Many people questioned their offseason and have been questioning their hoarding of all their top prospects, but it's not like they've been awful. Real rough start to the year for them, but it's still May. Just like it's too early to declare what the Twins are going to end the year as, it's too early to bury the O's. Losing Cowser, Westburg, and Rodriguez to start the year is no joke. I don't think Elias has nailed things as well as people thought he had the last few years, and this offseason started showing the cracks, but I don't think we should let their first 40ish games this year outweigh what they've done the last 3 years. I think they missed some opportunities to use their prospects in trades and they're in trouble if they don't hit on them, but they've also made the playoffs in back-to-back years and mixed in a 101-win season. I don't disagree with the idea that new owners shouldn't be viewed as some saviors that are going to come in and automatically lead to crazy changes in on-field results, but I don't think the O's should be used as the example based on the first 40 games of this season.

Oh, I'm not telling anyone not to set parameters or scope. But welcome to the peer review part of the process. If you're going to put your work out there and make claims that it's reached solid conclusions you better be prepared for people to take a critical look at it. And be able to defend it with accurate data and better responses than "I can't take you serious and these are all strawman arguments." If you can't defend your position with better arguments than that, your scope probably isn't great.

Charlie Morton is making 15 million this year. Tomoyuki Sugano is making 13 million this year. There's 28 million of the Burnes money. You add in Zach Eflin who was only there for the end of 2024 and his $18 million deal this year and you're well over the 35 million Burnes is getting before Gibson is even in the discussion. They also added Tyler O'Neill to their roster for 16.5 million. Those are their top 4 paid players. None of which were on their roster to start 2024 and they paid Eflin less than 4 mil after they got him at the trade deadline last year. They spent the cash.

I think they need to find a way to separate the "museum" side from the "Hall of Fame" side as most people think of it. When most people hear "Hall of Fame" they think of honoring the great players. "Inducted into any Hall of Fame" is how most people think of it (is my read on things at least). But The Hall of Fame has a bunch of Pete Rose stuff in it already. They talk about his accomplishments. He's "in" there, he's just not IN there. Same with many of the steroid era guys. I don't know how you separate those things in the consciousness of the public better, but if they could find a way to make it understood that his story is told in there while he's not enshrined as a Hall of Famer because of decisions he made, I think that's the best case scenario. The Hall needs to figure it out. Because they're going to look pretty hypocritical if they let Pete in and not the steroid era guys. Even though they'll do what they always do and shrug their shoulders and say "it's not us, it's the voters." As for whether I'd put them in, for his off the field, non-baseball awfulness I'd never let Rose in, but when it comes to the baseball stuff it'd just be a one size fits all decision I'd make as a group. Either we're telling voters they are voting strictly on baseball performance and ignoring any other baseball related infractions or we're making anyone with baseball related infractions ineligible. I'd vote for letting them in because they were great for the popularity of the game. Steroids saved baseball and baseball loves betting now. Buncha hypocrites.

Get out of here with strawman if you aren't willing to accept that Luis Arraez and his 4.1 bWAR All Star season in 2022 was Falvey developing him. You're no different than the rest of us. You tilt the rules of your little game to make it so we have to ignore certain things so the narrative fits the rules you want it to fit. Arraez was at 3.2 bWAR the season before that. Falvey developed him. Not TR. But you don't want to admit that because it doesn't fit your narrative. You want your rules set how you want them so you don't have to fight against these obvious holes in your argument. Some would call that a strawman. I don't care about All Star games. Because, as you said, "the Twins have to send somebody." No offense to Willi, but he's no All Star caliber player. But he has an All Star game on his resume. Good for him. But you want to set the rules in your favor so we have to ignore certain players that don't fit the narrative you want to push. Ober has the 3.1 bWAR season. And another at 2.9. Not too shabby, but I guess it doesn't fit your arbitrary rules of having to be an All Star so he doesn't count. I know, I know, TR gets credit for fully developing Griffin Jax because of the 8.2 innings he threw in rookie ball under him, but if we don't follow your unserious rules and accept that Falvey actually developed him, he has a 2.8 bWAR season. Hmmm...better than that Rogers season. Shoot, Wallner got to 2.2 bWAR last year in 75 games. May be on to something there. Jeffers has a 3.2 bWAR season, but no All Star game so I can't use him because you've decided the All Star game is the deciding factor on who's good and who isn't because you'd never build a strawman. Oh wait, that also means your statement about Julien being the best position player drafted and developed by Falvey is false. Now how are we supposed to take you seriously when you aren't even providing accurate information? So, we also have Julien in there at 2.6 (not 2.8, so you're still providing bad information). Now I'm at Arraez, Ober, Jax, Wallner, Jeffers, and Julien who Falvey deserves at least some credit for in his 8 years. That's 7 guys (adding Rooker) in 8 years. You listed 9 from the Smith and 2nd TR regimes. So, 7 in 8 years vs 9 in 9 years. So, again, you want to set hard and fast rules about when a guy was drafted and ignore who was in charge when they were developing. Don't go throwing around "strawman" so easily when you're spinning it pretty well yourself. You do the same thing everyone else does by tilting the rules in your favor. Don't get upset because you got called out on it. And make sure you're providing accurate information before you start questioning taking people seriously. And I don't even think Falvey has been good enough at developing guys. Just like Smith and TR weren't. And it's why I'd fire Falvey like Smith and TR were fired.

The previous regime didn't exactly fare well at developing their prospects. It's why they're the previous regime. I'm not here to defend Falvey's track record developing prospects, but I don't understand not giving him some credit for Arraez or AK. Arraez was an A ball player when Falvey took over and AK had just been drafted. Hard to argue Arraez didn't turn out alright under Falvey. Jose Miranda and Rortvedt both made it to the bigs under Falvey. Akil Baddoo and Tyler Wells were developed enough to become Rule 5 picks that were kept. And some guy named Jax seems to have been developed alright out of that 2016 draft. Obviously TR and company deserve credit for the scouting, but feels pretty insincere to ignore that they were developed under Falvey. None of that is even counting Moran, Wade, or Stashak from 2015 that were developed in part under Falvey. Giving all the credit to a guy who wasn't around for most of their development seems awfully arbitrary and like it's ignoring a whole lot of the development part of the "draft and develop" idea. And, FYI, Caleb Thielbar wasn't a Terry Ryan signing, he was a Bill Smith signing at the end of the 2011 season.

How do you decide who gets credit for guys like Arraez, Rortvedt, and AK who were brought in by TR but did their developing under Falvey?

Poster child for what? I'd argue Martin is an example of them working hard to make him great at a position. They gave him 591 innings at SS in 2022. What he's a poster child for is them wasting 591 innings on a position he had a physical limitation at that was never going to let him play it at the big league level. But they gave him a lot of time at one position. To Linus' point, that was bad evaluation on their part. But once Martin showed he couldn't impact the ball well his most likely ticket to a major league career was as a utility guy. They did him a service by getting him time at 2B and the outfield. It gave him more paths to the majors because he wasn't going to get there through his glove or bat. Unless the argument is that Austin Martin was going to be a gold glover somewhere I'm not sure what complaint there is other than them not having made him a utility player sooner and wasting all those innings at SS trying to make him great. I'd argue he's the poster child for what you're asking for going wrong. They did work hard with him at one position and it slowed his development. Brooks Lee played almost exclusively SS his first full season (7 games, 60 innings at 3B). Most of the complaints around here were that they didn't move him off SS soon enough. Royce was almost exclusively a SS until he got to AAA and they started figuring out how they could get him on the major league team. Correa being the reason both of them started moving around a little. Jose Miranda got over 1300 innings at 2B before they gave up on him there. Julien got a taste of a few different spots his first season and then has been essentially 2B only. Over 1800 innings at 2B with 247 at 1B being the next closest. I think it's overstated how much they move guys around.

I think their biggest problem is that they just haven't tended to bring in a lot of guys with much defensive ability. Julien is/was never going to be a good defender anywhere. And that may be true for Amick as well. But it made sense for them to try him in a few different spots. Miranda worked his way pretty steadily down the defensive spectrum. Martin has been a utility guy since his college days, partly because he's a great athlete but not defender. 3B/1B split is pretty standard. Plenty of guys do that in plenty of organizations. Locking guys into the bottom of the defensive spectrum is not a great option if it can be at all avoided. I think people underestimate how many guys in other orgs move positions in the minors and as they reach the majors. The needs of the major league team change frequently. Jordan Walker was a top 3B prospect for the Cards until some guy named Arenado showed up and suddenly he was an OF prospect. Jackson Merrill was a SS only until he was MLB ready with the bat and the Padres needed a CFer and not a SS. Mookie Betts was a middle infielder until he got to AAA and wasn't going to supplant Pedroia or Bogaerts. I'm not going to claim the Twins are great at anything with the position player prospects. They've struggled far too much with developing their bats and gloves for me to claim that. But I think their decisions on where guys play are mostly pretty defensible. Outside of a few, like Martin at SS for far too long. I think they've been far too bat driven with the types of players they've drafted and that's been their bigger problem. I don't know that Amick is going to be a good enough defender at 3B, but I think splitting 3B and 1B reps makes sense at this point.

I think there's a little difference there. Martin at SS didn't make any sense because he didn't have the arm strength for it and was never going to have the arm strength for it. Keeping him there didn't make any sense because he was never going to be able to play the position in the majors because of a physical limitation. Amick has the arm for third. The defensive questions with him are ones that can be taught and improved as opposed to a straight physical limitation like Martin's arm. I don't think splitting his time at 3B and 1B is unreasonable. Giving up all hope at 3B in his first full season would be an awfully quick hook and an awfully gigantic indictment of your player development team. Essentially saying you have no faith in your people being able to improve defensive skill. You should fire those people if you think that's the case.

I think the Twins should look at trading one of Pablo, Ryan, or Ober, but not until after the season. I don't like the idea of bringing back Povich, but Mayo is a top-100 prospect. Top-50 prospect on most lists, and Top-20 on quite a few. Not the type of prospect I really like (power over hit and bad defense), and I'd far prefer Basallo if they're dealing with Baltimore, but Mayo would be incredibly hard to get in a deal. He's a big time prospect and if you're expecting more than that as the main piece in a Ryan deal you're expecting too much. Baltimore fans were all over that Bowden piece ripping him apart for it being an overpay for Ryan. Generally a sign of a good trade when fans on both sides are upset. As for trading one of their top 3 arms in general, if they fall apart again before the deadline, do it then. But if they stay in the race, do it after the season. They can't/won't pay all 3 of them and their maximum value will be with 2 years left. You won't get a Crochet package for them, but you should get 1 near MLB ready top-100 prospect for them. And if it's a catcher that'd be huge. If you don't trust Festa, Matthews, or any of the other AAA guys to step into the rotation next year by the end of this year you should be out of a job anyways.

Just keep finding ways to score 5 runs a game and they'll be alright.

I think it's between the ears for both of them. And about swing decisions for both of them. But Miranda is more likely to get himself right in his time in St Paul. Julien lost his approach. I know I'm an outlier here, but I've never had much of a problem with his approach. Watching 3rd strikes was a problem, but he knew what pitches he could hit and what he couldn't. He needed to fix his VBA and he made a pretty significant swing change this offseason to give him a chance against breaking balls this year. But then he started swinging much more early (10% increase in first pitch swing rate) and chasing much more (5% jump in chase rate). His swing speed was down to go with that. I don't know if that was from his swing change or him just swinging to make contact more, but it's not a good sign in general. He seems to be too in his head where he doesn't just trust himself. I think a change of scenery would do him wonders. Miranda's success has always been about his swing decisions. When he's locked in and swinging at strikes and laying off a decent amount of the balls he's a solid hitter. When he's swinging at "everything" he struggles. Well, he started the year with a career high chase rate and career low in zone swing percentage. Not surprising he was struggling. I expect him to put up some really nice numbers in AAA because he has really good hand-eye coordination and he's going to get enough mistake pitches down there to do damage. Hopefully he's able to lock in and get his swing decisions where they need to be. If I had to bet on one of these guys being successful moving forward it'd definitely be Miranda. I think there's a better than 50/50 chance they both see time with the Twins again at some point this year, but that's just the nature of being on the 40-man and injuries happening on major league teams. Miranda has the much better chance of sticking once he gets another chance, though.

I'd like to know if his lack of HR output to start the year is part of a conscious approach as he works on making more contact and there's a plan to start being more aggressive in his swings and looking for more power as the season progresses. I haven't watched many of their games so I don't have any guess on that, but it'd be interesting to hear. His contact rate doesn't suggest that's the case, but he's also going the other way significantly more. I'd take Clemson Amick (more doubles than HRs, higher BA) over Tennessee Amick so I'm not overly worried about the HRs. The BABIP is obviously going to come way down so it will be interesting to see where he goes from here.

We don't need projections for Bride in the majors, we have 639 PAs of him in the majors. He's been mostly awful. Like Vazquez level awful. He's slugged .322 in the majors. What stands to reason is that if Bride were a Twins prospect you'd be screaming that he has no business being on the field just like you do with Martin. If Bride debuted at the age of 26 for the Twins and put up an OPS+ of 65 in 187 PAs you'd be all over these boards destroying him like you do Martin. If they brought him back the next year for 106 more PAs and he put up an OPS+ of 43 you'd be losing your mind at any suggestion of him being an MLB player. But the Marlins gave him 272 PAs last year anyway and he put up a 123 OPS+. And now he's back to a 20 OPS+ in 74 PAs. He has more PAs of sub-Christian Vazquez level performance than playable performance, but he's a veteran waiver claim so he gets the benefit of the doubt. And I'm not even a Martin guy. Don't think he's more than a backup utility type. But that's the point here. Bride is a corner infielder, and he's not Brooks Robinson at third. If Martin has no place on an MLB field, neither does Bride. And it's obvious and they should know it and yet he's been in the starting lineup 2 straight days. But not today. Because today Kody Clemens is. Even if McCusker is terrible, he has to replace a 20 OPS+ hitter who's 1 for his last 13 with 0 extra base hits in 74 PAs. Or a 27 OPS+ hitter with 2 extra base hits in 20 PAs. At least Clemens can say he hasn't had many trips to the plate this year. But, either way, we continue to start a guy we already know can't hit everyday. A guy we know is worse than Vazquez. And sometimes we add Vazquez to the lineup with them. Maybe McCusker can't hit. But we know these 2 can't and we keep running them out there everyday anyways. Let's at least see if McCusker can. It's not the end of the world that they haven't called him up. But another 2 or 3 weeks isn't some gigantic sample size of performance either.

Is there? Jonah Bride's career OPS+ is lower than Martin's. That's how bad the rest of his career has been. His 123 last year in 272 PAs was really good, obviously, but he had 293 career PAs in 2 seasons before that. And his OPS+ in those 2 seasons were 65 and 43. He's at 20 so far this year. Martin hurt himself again last night so it's a moot point on him anyways, but even with his 88 OPS+ last year clearly being bad, it's better than the 81 Bride is currently running with for his career, and the 57 Bride was at after the first 293 PAs of his career (Martin is at 257). Are you sure there's more reason to believe in him? McCusker earning it is the point of the debate, isn't it? Some of us feel he has and others (including the ones who matter who run the Twins) feel he hasn't. And part of the equation for "earning it" is what other options the team goes with instead. It's kind of the Rooker situation (again, not suggesting he's Brent Rooker). Rooker didn't "earn" his opportunity with the Twins, Padres, or Royals, but, to your point about Keirsey and the wildcard last year, the A's weren't trying to win anything so Rooker "earned" an opportunity with them (despite a K% just 3% worse than McCusker at AAA). And look at him now. I don't know if McCusker would succeed in the majors or not. Nobody does until he gets a shot. But I've watched probably 2 dozen games of his between last year and this year for the Saints. I won't claim to be a pro scout. Won't even claim to be a better judge of talent than anyone else on this site. But I will say my opinion isn't from just looking at his stat line and his ABs look noticeably different than most of the guys stepping to the plate at AAA. And they've clearly gotten better over time. He has a plan when he goes up there and he takes good ABs. I think the vast majority of us on here know the game well enough to judge that. I don't know if he'll succeed or not, but I think he is worth a shot over Kody Clemens on a team that's been starved for offense this entire season. I don't think it's incredibly outrageous that he hasn't been called up, but I would have called him up instead of trading for Clemens.

I think they'll dump Clemens relatively soon. But I have very real doubts on how quickly they'll drop Bride. I think they like him. I think they think they can "fix him." And I think they'll sit on him and let him play through him being terrible like they have with more than just Margot. Me saying they never DFA position players is an exaggeration. They do, they are just very slow to do it. And Diego Castillo was a younger guy with very little major league experience while Bride has over 600 career PAs. Bride is the type of veteran they trust to "play through" his struggles and "figure it out" so they'll let him OPS+ 20 for 3 months without DFAing him while he "gets right." It's not Margot alone for me. It's Farmer. And Gallo. And Vazquez (contract obviously changes the equation some). And Andrelton Simmons. Just off the top of my head. I don't think Martin is an MLB regular at all, but I don't think he's as bad as you do so we'll just agree to disagree on that one. And part of my argument is that the depth isn't just Keirsey and Martin. It's Prato and McCusker and Holland and anyone else in your system. If they'd have dropped Margot last year and given Keirsey some real run there's no question coming into this year about whether he's an option or not, right? You didn't lose much on the field in going from Margot to Keirsey and you gained a lot in knowledge off the field in your team building for 2025. In this situation you could've gone with McCusker instead of Clemens for that second roster spot after having already brought in Bride to fill the infield hole. Not losing a lot on the field because Clemens is garbage so even if McCusker is garbage too it's garbage for garbage. But you're learning a lot off it for your team building. But if McCusker isn't garbage you're gaining that extra bat you've been in need of all season. And maybe he's a one year wonder and it all falls apart next year, but at least you got a boost this year. But you know Clemens is garbage. And if McCusker comes up and does ok, but shows promise for 2 weeks and then Lewis and Castro get healthy and you want to send McCusker back to work on a couple things you can do that because he has options and there's no extra concerns about having to DFA guys or whatever. There are real benefits to going with guys from your system who have options instead of vets without them when you're hesitant to DFA guys and the vets you bring in aren't good. And it's not just Margot who hasn't been good.

No, I don't think we're far off. I don't think Prato or Fitzgerald are better players than Clemens. May even be slightly worse. But they offer more flexibility in your roster moves because they have options and they aren't meaningfully different. So, the 40-man issues aren't there. That discussion you described is easier because now you have guys with options so it's a matter of calling a guy up and sending a guy down to make the pieces fit instead of DFAing and claiming and all that. And I don't think you're missing much of anything on the field with them instead of Clemens. None are true MLB players you want to be counting on. I also think that plays into the McCusker situation because the 40-man issues weren't there for calling him up until they got Clemens. They had an open 40-man spot they could've handed to McCusker but chose not to. And I don't know if he'll be any good. I've watched a lot of Saints games on TV and in person and he can hit the ball a ton but he does swing and miss. But he has a controlled swing and he has a plan at the plate. I'm not a pro scout, but his ABs look different from most. And that's enough for me to want to see what he can do.

Oh, you got me. 2 players. Because Luplow's DFA was rescinded. I mean, unless you want to count his offseason DFA which is super meaningful to this conversation. I'm sorry, I will be nothing but super technical and exact with all my statements from here on out. No more exaggerations. I'm sure you'll do the same.

Because I don't think they'll do it soon. And I think it's a problem. Because they'll continue to give Bride starts and likely carry him for most of the season. You're welcome to not participate in that conversation if you don't find it important or fun.

Yeah, I thought the Bride move made some sense. I don't love any of their moves for position players without options because they're so slow on the trigger to move those guys no matter how much they struggle, but he was a solid hitter last year for the Marlins. He's been awful this year, though. I thought Clemens was a waste of a move, though. I didn't think there was a need for an infielder specifically at the time, but offense. They had an open 40-man spot and just needed offense. Could've gone whatever direction they wanted and I wasn't impressed with that being their choice. And, again, I get nervous that they'll hold him for too long because he doesn't have options and they need/want the "depth" and won't DFA him. They don't seem to have any problem moving on from relievers, but they are very slow on the position player side. I really don't doubt that neither Bride nor Clemens finishes the season in a Twins uniform, but I do worry that they'll be here well beyond their usefulness. I don't even think it's a complete travesty that McCusker hasn't gotten a chance. But I think Clemens over McCusker was a missed opportunity to give the guy a couple weeks and gather some data on him and see. I think they miss a lot of those opportunities and I think it hurts their team building.