chpettit19

Sorry, the pitch before was the fastball, you're right it was a breaker. I think we're all always disappointed to see someone strike out looking. Many of us are disappointed to see any kind of strike out. It was a disappointing outcome for sure. My problem is with the phrases "begging for a walk" and "totally comfortable allowing the ump to decide his fate." There's a difference between being disappointed in the outcome of the AB and making statements like that. Especially about that hitter. He got fooled. That's disappointing. Worthy of discussion about it being disappointing. "Begging for a walk" is a gross misrepresentation of that AB and that was the first comment I replied to. He got fooled. There's a difference. Then someone replied to me stating he was "totally comfortable allowing the ump to decide his fate." Which is also a misrepresentation of that AB. He got fooled. He was frozen. However you want to say it. It happens. It's disappointing, but suggesting Arraez wasn't up there looking to drive in that run by swinging the bat is flat out wrong. He swung the bat. Miguel Cabrera got K'd looking to end a world series. He's one of the 5 best hitters of his generation and a top 5 to 10 right handed hitter of all time. It happens. Guys get fooled. As for RBIs being downplayed (and I'm someone who downplays them) picking 1 AB where he failed to come through after having driven in 3 in his last 4 games is something else I'd throw into the small sample size bias. Picking out 1 AB is never a good idea.

He got fooled and got caught looking. It happens literally 1000s of times a season across the league. Including to Trout, Acuna, Soto, Tatis Jr, Vlad Jr, and every other superstar hitter. Even in late game, clutch situations. It makes no sense to me to say how he's been coming through in these situations since coming off the IL and then suggest he was "totally comfortable allowing the ump to decide his fate." If he hadn't swung at a pitch all at bat maybe you could make an argument somewhere along those lines, but he got fooled. It happens. But it almost never happens to Arraez. So picking out the 1 time it does seems off base to me. And h2oface suggested he was up there "begging for a walk." Again, if he hadn't swung at a pitch all AB maybe you could argue that, but he had fouled off a pitch 2 pitches earlier so he was clearly up there to hit. He got froze on a fastball on the black. It happens. They made a 5 run comeback in that inning and the choice you guys are making is to focus on one of the least strikeout prone hitters in baseball finally being struck out. Why choose that as your focus? It was unfortunate it happened, but to suggest that specific player was "begging for a walk" or "totally comfortable allowing the ump to decide his fate" is the epitome of unnecessarily negative fandom.

Arraez is in the 99th percentile for K rate and he's the one you want to call out? Talk about small sample size bias.

I think there is a generally held idea that you take a bat over an arm in the draft if they're graded similarly. Hitters tend to be more likely to become the player you think they will be. I mean that list of 6 pitchers is not exactly a who's who of big league pitching talent. Cleveland has built their pitching pipeline off non-first round picks. deGrom was a 9th round pick. Plenty of examples of not needing to spend a 1st to get a big time arm. The Rooker and Sabato picks are questionable ones to me. They were incredible in college, but they're basically DHs only so need to be Cruz in order to be a good pick so you don't leave yourself much room for error there. I think Cavaco is a different type of pick than that. Same with Lewis. I loved the Larnach pick at the time and he's showing to be quite talented and I see him as different than Rooker and Sabato in that he's a legit OFer (not gold glove, but he's an average defender) and he just seems like a professional hitter who's born with contact skills and a work ethic that makes him rare. In order to say Rooker and Sabato were bad picks, or any of the others, you have to go back to the time they were made and see who else was available and how they were perceived at the time. It's quite possible the Twins didn't have any arms rated better than the bats they took. It could be they are a "best player available" type FO. Which I'd argue is the best way to go in baseball as there's typically at least 3 years between a player being drafted and debuting in the majors. And those are the start players. SO your team could look very different by then so drafting for need isn't a great idea. But they've taken 2 shortstops and that's certainly a positional need for this team moving forward. Rooker and Sabato are "interesting" picks, but the other 3 firsts they've made don't look like ridiculous picks to me.

Since 2010 they've taken Alex Wimmers, Hudson Boyd, Jose Berrios, Luke Bard, Kohl Stewart, Tyler Jay in the 1st/Supplemental round.

Lots of variables at play here. Can't imagine they're bringing Simmons back next year (hope he's traded for a low A flier next month), and can't imagine they'll sign one of the big name SS this offseason (although I'd love it if they did). If they are convinced Lewis can be the SS of the future and will be ready mid to late 2022 or early 2023 I think they move Polanco back to SS and plug Arraez in at 2nd for next year. My plan, however, would be Arraez at 3rd, FA signing at SS, Polanco at 2nd, Kirilloff at 1st with Donaldson and Sano shipped out for a bag of balls to get their $ off the books to help sign FA SS. I don't think Arraez is ever going to be an above average fielder, but he's not an OFer and we have plenty of corner guys there. I do think he can be serviceable at 2nd or 3rd if they'd just put him there and let him work at it. He appears to be a lover of the game and hard worker so I'd think he could make improvements if given a position and some drills to help improve himself. It's all well and good to have "positional flexibility," but, as many others have pointed out on this site, being bad at multiple positions isn't really flexibility. I don't know if Rocco and the FO are learning anything (Rocco changing the lineup literally everyday doesn't lend itself to that idea), but I think having most of your players focus on 1 position on the field and in the lineup is helpful. I think Arraez is a vital part of this lineup that's full of too many K heavy sluggers with poor bat to ball skills. Same with Polanco. The idea of trading either makes me cringe. Playing for 3 run jacks without any real ability to just drive in a run (BA with RISP is embarrassing this year) is fun and all, but having Arraez and Polanco type hitters who can just put the ball in play when needed isn't something that should be overlooked.

Take 7 of 10 from Chicago. 3 of 4 from Cleveland. 7 of 11 from Detroit. 2 of 3 from Kansas City. 3 of 6 from non-division foes. 22-12 over the next 34 and there's a glimmer of hope. The real hope is dominating the division the rest of the way. Especially Chicago. Only way to really catch them is to beat them head to head at an incredible clip.

All their hitting prospects have basically been complete busts since that run and it's crushed them the last few years, but that doesn't make their WS run a fluke. That's the nature of the playoff beast. The Dodgers couldn't break through the WS ceiling until last year despite having invested in every part of their team for nearly a decade. The Yankees haven't been a playoff threat for years. Tampa doesn't invest in anything but data analysts and scouts and they're one of the best teams in baseball year after year. Cleveland is clearly a flawed team, and I don't want the Twins to be a team based around 3 big time starters, 2 bullpen studs, and a bunch of hopes and prayers, but they've been a competitive team for a while now. Was just pointing out that their strategy did work and got them right to the doorstep of a championship. They just have very little room for error when it comes to hitting and missing on prospects.

They did make it to game 7 of the World Series not too long ago.

It's been reported that they've approached Berrios about extensions the last few years and talked with Buxton and his people about one during ST this year. I'd hope they have a decent idea of what those 2 would be expecting. As they are so close to free agency now I'd think the Twins would need to offer pretty close to the player's desired money to get a deal done. Berrios seems more than happy to take it year by year and hit the open market if the Twins don't give him what he expects to make on the market. Maybe he's way off on his estimate of what he'll get, but he still likely doesn't sign for less than he thinks he'd get on the market. Buxton may be the hardest extension, trade, whatever candidate in baseball history. He's a top 3-5 player in the sport when healthy now. But he's never healthy. He could demand Trout-esque money based on talent, but can't imagine any team gives him anything crazy. Hopefully the Twins have an idea of what the contract demands for both are and have done a great deal of budget work trying to determine if they can sign one or both. As we approach the deadline I'd hope they reach out to the player's agents with a final contract offer before making any trade. Or if they know they're not going to meet their money demands then trade them. Worst case scenario is having both for 1 more year and only getting 2 comp picks out of the whole situation. Twins need to play the Rays game of trading big name guys before losing them for nothing sometimes. Not every big name guy as they can spend much more than the Rays, but they'll never be NY or LA so they can't sign them all and need to maximize returns on the ones they can't/don't resign.

Not sure what incentive Berrios would have to sign an incentive laden extension at this point. He's 1 year away from free agency and has had no injury concerns to this point in his career. Even TJ surgery next year doesn't stop him from getting a fully guaranteed deal during the offseason from someone. At this point the Twins will have to get pretty close to, or go over, what he feels his max value on the market is for him to sacrifice the chance to pick his team and go after the biggest money possible if he so chooses.

Resigning him should be option 1 for the Twins, and I think it is. They've reportedly offered him extensions the last few years and he's turned them all down. I'd guess those numbers were around the 5/80 type idea suggested in the original article. Berrios seems to be willing to bet that he can get more than that, and, frankly, he should make that bet. He's been incredibly durable and had no injury issues. If I remember correctly he just set the team record for consecutive starts with 4 or fewer runs allowed (or something like that). If 5/80ish is all he can get on the market I'd be absolutely shocked. 5/110 would be my guess for the area he ends up in. Maybe it's 5/100 or 5/120, but I'd be floored if he doesn't get 100 from someone. Have the Twins already offered that? We'll never know. If I were them I'd approach his team with 5/100 between now and the deadline. If they say no I offer 5/110. If there's no sign that we're close I shop him to the highest bidder. Assuming he brings back a legit arm in return I move him. I think 2022 will be better than 2021 has been, but they aren't going to contend for a WS even with him. 2023 would be my target year. If I can get a close to ready arm that I can throw in with Balazovic, Duran, Canterino, Winder, et al I do it. If I can lock him up for 5/110ish, or at least feel I'm in the ballpark and an extension is possible, I do that. What I don't do is go into 2022 with Berrios on a 1 year deal. He'll hit the open market for sure then and I don't want any part of losing him for a comp pick only.

In a vacuum I move Garver for pitching at the deadline if I can. There are a number of contenders who could use him and may be able to bring back a legit pitching prospect. But I think this comes down to other moves and what the rest of the offense looks like. Can we move Sano? Cruz won't be back so there's DH ABs to go around. Do they want to move Kirilloff to first more or less full time? Extra depth at catcher is good with the beating they take back there (this year is a great example). But Garver is also 30 so have to take that into consideration. My preference would be to hold onto them both and get Garver ABs at 1B/C/DH, especially against lefties. I'd prefer to move Sano if any team would take on his contract (it's not gigantic, but an extra 10m next year would be nice). But if a team comes calling at the deadline offering something of real value I'd certainly listen on a Garver deal.

3 Full blown starters- No/limited inning/pitch counts. If they're getting people out let them go as long as they can. 4 Long guys- 2 pairs. "Starter" gets the first 5, "reliever" gets the last 4. Example: Happ gets first 5 innings, Dobnak gets last 4. Next time through rotation Dobnak gets first 5, Happ gets last 4. (They're just examples of back end guys, I don't want to see either of them really pitch right now) 6 relievers- 3 "go to" guys used in concert with the 3 starters. 3 "mid-reliever" types who come in when 1 of the 4 long guys have a bad game (2nd long guy always comes in in the 6th to allow them to go through their whole warmup routine) and need a reliever. Twins seem to like 13 arms, but could also do 12 and go with 5 relievers. I'd go every other Starter/Pair/Starter/Pair to allow the 3 big time pen arms to have a day off in between each starter game. Obviously can adjust some with off days, etc. When a starter gets hurt whoever your best pair guy is gets bumped up to take that spot and you call up your AAA guy to replace him in his pairing. I'd be interested in the Twins "piggy-backing" young arms the second half of this year. Let them get in the routine of going every 5th/6th day, but limit their innings by having short (4/5 inning) stints. And anything to reduce having to see these bullpen arms in games would make everyone happy I think.

According to Gleeman in his Athletic article today, Ober has the second longest average extension in the bigs at 7'2" (Tyler Glasnow #1 at 7'3"). Gleeman says 7'2" is "nearly a foot more than the MLB norm" for what it's worth.

I think it's a combination of spreadsheet and wanting him to build confidence. I think getting him his first ML "W" would have been a nice confidence boost, though. 1 more inning, after the team just extended the lead to 7, felt like a good way to let him get the pride of that first "W" (even though I think pitcher W's are a useless stat, it's still nice to get). Think it set itself up nicely to get him that boost, get 4 relievers an inning of work, and not have him throw a crazy number of pitches on the night.

Houston is the best hitting, and hardest to strikeout, team in the league and he struck out 7 over 5 against them. Certainly not anointing him the ace of the future, but his last 3 starts have been him doing what he should against bad hitting teams (8 innings, 1 earned, 10 Ks against KC and Sea) and looking quite good against a very good hitting Hou team (5 innings, 2 earned, 7 Ks). I wouldn't list that as blowing people away necessarily, but it is definitely noteworthy and should give a little hope for the future in this bleak mess of a season. Hard to wrap our heads around, and get excited about, a guy who throws 90-93 and gets really good results. We're so used to guys having to throw 95+ to get those results. Based on his MiLB track record and early results I think we can allow ourselves to believe he has a more than reasonable chance of being a solid rotation piece in the future.

Happ has been an above average pitcher in the majors all but 1 year since 2015. If you want to complain about Shoemaker in the 5 spot, fine. But if you're suggesting you expected Happ to be as bad as he has been recently you were simply ignoring his previous performance. He wasn't expensive, or flashy, or anything like that, but there was every reason to expect him to be a serviceable back end of the rotation arm. Especially in a year where you're going from 60 games to 162.

Absolutely can't be viewed in a vacuum. Including the fact that they were going from 60 to 162 games. Meaning they needed to make up 900 innings. There are a couple minor leaguers who would've been up last year who didn't get the chance because the season was canceled. They also had Smeltzer, Thorpe, and Dobnak to take up some back of the rotation starts. They probably planned on being able to cycle through a few of the young guys starting about this time (or early July?), but then MLB pushed the MiLB season back a month and their 2 top arms, and the 2 closest to the bigs, missed time with injuries. They didn't have to just ignore '19 in favor of '20 for Happ. '19 was the 1 bad season he's had since '15. He was more than reasonable as a back end of the rotation guy. Shoemaker wasn't a 30 starts signing. If he made that many starts for them it would've been an incredibly pleasant surprise as he would've been drastically outperforming their expectations. Being completely unusable wasn't what anyone's prediction for him would have been. Same with Colome. Shoemaker in the 5 spot to get you through 2 or 3 months of starts wasn't unreasonable. Maybe not preferred, and maybe not the best move they could have made, but not unreasonable in trying to find an extra 900 innings this year. Someone else mentioned him, but Taijuan Walker in the 4 spot with Happ in the 5 was what I was hoping for. But suggesting Happ in the 4 with Shoemaker in the 5 and Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, and the young guys starting to knock at the door behind them should have been obvious that they'd be 15 games back by the middle of June is ridiculous. They didn't have the pitching to win the WS, but coming into the year certainly should've had enough to compete for the division.

Hopefully they're always learning and adjusting.

There's a difference between a smart signing that doesn't work out and a bad signing that predictably didn't work out. Signing Jackie Bradley Jr to a 2 year, $24m deal and watching him struggle to hit major league pitching is a bad signing that predictably didn't work out. Signing Albert Pujols to a 10 year deal and watching him immediately stop performing to career norms is a smart signing that didn't work out. Or signing Joe Mauer to a big extension that he earned to only watch him come down with head injuries and have to move to 1B is a good signing that didn't work out. There's a difference. Signing Happ to a 1 year deal to bring up the back of your rotation in a year you're going to need extra arms because last year only had 60 games is a good decision. It just didn't work out. But the process and decision making that went into it weren't flawed.

That's all fair. I'm mostly just coming from a point of the 20/20 hindsight being thrown around as proof the FO is horrible is getting a bit much. There was an article on here about Littell the other day, too, where I said the same thing. He's different cuz I think they gave up on an injured player too soon, but it's lead to a lot of talk on these comment threads about the FO missing obvious signings which is really just fans using 20/20 hindsight. But your points on Shoemaker vs Flexen are more than fair and I could see that as being a decision the FO should have put some serious thought into.

During the offseason they weren't seen as bad pitchers. That's what this discussion is about. In hindsight the moves were bad because they've both imploded. Since 2015 Happ has had more than respectable ERA+ and ERA- numbers. His peripherals have matched as far as FIP, etc. go. The Happ signing made a lot of sense and was a good signing. It has now turned into a bad signing because he's fallen off a cliff his last 5 or 6 starts. His first handful of starts were right in line with expectations, but he's fallen apart. Same with Shoemaker. He wasn't a bad pitcher coming into this year. His problem has been staying healthy. The Twins weren't necessarily concerned with that as they weren't signing him for 200 innings, they were signing him to be an added arm to help extend the team from 60 games to 162 games. In hindsight he has provided almost nothing of use in a completely lost season. The thought process was sound. They have been productive major league pitchers in the recent past and even with expected regression there was nobody who would have predicted the recent results. There was far more expectation of those 2 being productive pitchers than Flexen. That's what this discussion is about. Hindsight is changing the narrative. Coming into the season Happ and Shoemaker made infinitely more sense for the Twins than Flexen.

My comments were never about anyone saying Flexen is top of the rotation, or even a useful pitcher. They have been that any idea of him having been a good signing for the Twins this offseason is based on 20/20 hindsight knowing he's been better than Happ and Shoemaker. He had done nothing prior to the last 10 weeks to make any claim that he had a chance to be useful on a contending team. Happ and Shoemaker, on the other hand, have both had success in the majors. Shoemaker couldn't stay healthy and was brought in to get some early season innings since the league was coming off a shortened season and covering innings was going to be a problem. The wheels fell off almost immediately, but the thought process in the offseason was sound. Happ has had above average ERA+s every year since 2015 except one. He was brought in to provide solid veteran innings at the back end of the staff and eat innings coming off a shortened season. The offseason thought process was sound. Flexen was coming off 1 good year in Korea and 3 DFA quality season in MLB. He was a flier for a non-contending team to see if he had made an adjustment overseas and could be an option in the years to come. Signing a player like him in the offseason would not have been a sound process for a contending team. Hindsight says he'd be a better #5 arm than Happ and Shoemaker, but suggesting the Twins missed out on some obvious sign or should have made a "creative" signing while trying to win a world series is not based in sound team building based on the information the team had during the offseason.

Miles Mikolas had had success in MLB prior and had 3 dominant years overseas, not 1. And Sanchez and Smyly match the Happ and Shoemaker signings, not the Flexen signing. That's the point. Contending teams don't bring in guys with 1 good Korean year and 3 horrid MLB years. I'm sure you can find an example, but it's certainly not the norm. As for the FO being open to creativity/upside they bring in "creative/upside" bullpen options every year and fans are pissed.