chpettit19

The Twins were looking to contend this year. Flexen didn't fit the mold of a guy that should be plugged into a contending team's rotation. That's exactly why he signed with a team looking forward and not a team looking to compete this year. The Twins went into this season attempting to win the world series while the Mariners were looking to test guys out and see what they have for the future. Plugging a guy who may turn out for future years into the rotation of a team trying to win the world series is not good team management. And every FO factors in the fan base when making baseball decisions to some extent. Obviously it shouldn't be the #1 factor, but the fans are part of the equation. Flexen having a good year in the KBO doesn't outweigh his 3 years of 8.07 ERA in the majors when it comes to a contending team. If the Twins knew Colome, Happ, and Shoemaker would all suddenly forget how to pitch they wouldn't have signed them. If they knew this year was going to go so disastrously off the rails they would've been trying to use their foresight when signing guys to deals. But they expected Colome, Happ, and Shoemaker to be relatively close to their career norms. They expected to compete. Flexen didn't fit that plan.

This is still 20/20 hindsight. Yes, he's been solid this year, but a team trying to win the world series wasn't bringing him in to take a rotation spot because of 1 good year in Korea. That 1 good year doesn't outweigh the 3 disastrous ones in MLB. The Twins also should've drafted deGrom in any of the first 8 rounds before he went in the 9th, but they didn't know that then. Flexen is a fine signing for a team without any real aspirations for winning this year. He wasn't the type of signing a contending team makes a major league deal with.

Real 20/20 hindsight here. He was a guy coming off seasons of 7.88, 12.79, and 6.59 ERAs in 68 innings. Could you imagine how hard it would have been for the FO to sell a fanbase that he's a good signing for a team trying to win a world series? He's still an average to below average pitcher this year (97 ERA+, 4.12 ERA, 3.78 FIP). People were pissed when they claimed Wisler last year as a mop up/mid reliever type who hadn't performed. Imagine them signing a guy with an 8.07 ERA for the rotation when they were trying to win. As for the 1 year deals, they have used that strategy the last couple years because Duran, Balazovic, Canterino, et al were supposed to start showing up last year. Instead the season got canceled and then MLB pushed back the MiLB season this year and injuries have slowed their progression back. They have been trying to contend and signing veteran guys to short deals is a better way to supplement your homegrown core than taking fliers on 5th starters with 8.07 ERAs.

You're on here basically everyday commenting how awful the FO, and Rocco, and most of the players are. You're now stating that everyone who says Celestino is a legit CFer is wrong based on a couple weeks of MLB games. If me pointing out that your assessments are based on less data and going against industry wide agreed upon assessments come off as calling you stupid I apologize. I mean it in a "maybe reassess your assessments since they go against industry wide conclusions so maybe you're missing some information" way. None of us are professional scouts or FO execs (at least that I know of). But many of the writers on this site have contacts with more knowledge and information, and some of the commenters have backgrounds that lend themselves to more educated opinions. We're all entitled to our opinions, and you're entitled to feel as though Celestino doesn't have a legit shot at being an MLB CFer. But just like you get to question, and argue against, the FO decisions and other commenters opinions I (and anyone else) gets to question, and argue against, your opinions. I apologize for coming off as calling you stupid as that wasn't my intention. Simply disagreeing.

There's a lot going on on a baseball field every pitch. He's not just standing there picking daisies waiting for the pitch. The differences between AA and MLB in the game, life style, expectations, everything are very different. I'd love him and every player to just step in and perform at their peak abilities from the jump just like you. But that's not how humans work. Teams try their best to limit the amount of stimulus and information they heap on rookies, especially ones who weren't ready and were forced in due to injuries. So they let him play more or less where he normally does based on the information they give him on hitter push/pull tendencies. I've seen them shift him around here and there. But whether you want to accept it or not there is a difference in fielding at different levels and the comfortability factor of where a player positions himself matters. You may not like it, but it doesn't change that fact. Calling up a player prematurely and then telling him you're going to change how he's played the game while you're at it is poor team management. They didn't change Buxton's positioning overnight either. It took him (arguably the best defensive CFer in the game) years to adjust and you're over here dismissing a kid who can't make the shift overnight. Again, this all says more about your understanding of things than anything about Celestino and his future MLB prospects.

The point isn't that 105 doesn't equal 105 in the minors, its that there are fewer 105s in the minors. If you're used to guys not being able to beat you over your head cuz they can't hit it hard enough you play shallower to take away the weak contact. If it's an organization wide thing that they position minor leaguers shallow only to see them get beat by it in the bigs that's obviously a concern. But I'd guess they aren't doing as in depth of positioning in the minors (especially AA and below like Celestino has played). And there are enough things for young guys, especially those not ready for the majors, to worry about that you're not going to try to mess with their basic positioning (worry more about left and right shifts than front and back). The bottom line is that you position yourself differently and have to read batted balls at different exit velos depending on the level of play you're at. The longer you spend at that level (I'm talking little league, high school, college, minors, majors, and everything in between) the more comfortable you get with your positioning and reading those balls. If you think there's as many guys hitting the ball with 90+ exit velos on a regular basis in A ball as there are in the majors I have a bridge to sell you. Do you not think there's a difference in the way the average AA hitter hits than the way the average MLB hits? You think the ball is coming off their bat the same way?

It does all count. Including the hundreds (thousands?) of innings he's played before the last few weeks that you've seen him. Your earlier post complained about him playing too shallow (same thing Buxton did when he came up, by the way). You think maybe that's a habit he picked up because he was fast enough (88th percentile sprint speed) to get back on minor league fly balls that aren't hit as hard and now he's seeing in the majors that the ball gets there a little quicker? Same with his routes (although I'd simply disagree that his routes are as bad on a regular basis as you make them sound). If you're used to me hitting fly balls to center you get comfortable knowing the ball over your head you can most likely get to, and the ball to the gap will hang up more due to lack of power behind the swing. But when a major leaguer hits one they travel quicker and farther. That's why they're in the majors and I'm not. The idea that you've watched him play a handful of games and have decided he's a grade 40 fielder when people with years of scouting experience pretty unanimously grade him at 60 as a fielder should say more about your scouting ability than anything.

Thank you for explaining exactly why "Just call up the kids and see what you have" is an awful strategy. Celestino isn't terribly far off from being MLB ready, but he was called up way before they would have liked, and well before he was ready. And you've now pegged him as having basically no value. Players aren't drafted as completed products in baseball. They need time to learn and adjust. Celestino is, and will be, a very good defensive centerfielder, but he's in a league over his head and you're seeing mistakes because of it. This is why the minor leagues exist and exactly why you don't just call up prospects to see what you have. It's entirely predictable that almost all of them will get battered by far more advanced players.

Use of technology. Expert in Rapsodo, Trackman, etc. and being able to use technology to improve a pitcher's efficiency and pitch mix.

If the question is about the crackdown on sticky stuff you need to present RPMs and Bauer units. A comparison of Twins spin rates vs league spin rates would be interesting. Maybe the Twins are the only honest team in the league and that's why their pitching is so horrible and as teams quit cheating we'll be closer to league average? We could hope at least.

Clay is 28 and just making his MLB debut after 6 minor league seasons with an ERA of 4 and a WHIP of 1.5. He has an ERA of 4.5, 1.7 WHIP, and more hits allowed than innings pitched. Has a negative WAR. He's not young, and he's not exactly holding his own.

Such a dangerous game to play picking out 1 player and saying "Team X missed on him and should've known better." You can do it for any number of players and every organization. Littell is a bummer because it felt knee jerk to cut him from the 40 man when he was hurt, but let's not forget, as the OP mentions, no other team claimed him. It's not like he was some great prospect or player that had teams knocking down the door to get him. He went unclaimed and then signed a minor league deal. Happens all the time to thousands of players so picking out 1 and saying "look what the Twins screwed up!" is quite a bit misleading. Obviously Ortiz leads Twins fans to make these complaints quite often. Hendricks is often brought up, too, but he's a great example of 20/20 hindsight. He wasn't good for the Twins as a starter. Was here under a different regime. Was bad for Toronto and KC after he left (KC even tried him in the pen in the year they were the bullpen whisperers and couldn't get him right). Was mostly solid with some flashes of greatness for Toronto and Oakland for the next 4 years (8 years deep in his career at this point). Then finally blew up in his 9th big league season at the age of 30 for Oakland. So acting like the Twins clearly missed something in Hendricks is revisionist history at best. You can make a list of very good players that were DFA'd, traded, lost to rule 5, etc. for every major league team. Even those super geniuses in Tampa. It happens every single year. Just feels like whatever team you cheer for does it more because you pay attention to that team more closely. Littell certainly looks like he'd help this embarrassment of a pen this year, but he went unclaimed last year and most of the people now clamoring to have him back would have been complaining about having him part of the bullpen plan as we started the season. Plenty of people complained the Twins didn't bring Wisler back and complain about the way the Twins build a pen, but the Giants used the same approach and brought them both in only to see Wisler collapse and Littell succeed. Thus is the life of 90% of bullpen arms.

OF: Buxton, Larnach, Kepler/Player X (Garlick? Rooker?) platoon IF: Donaldson, FA Signing (Really hoping Twins do non-Twins thing and sign a big name SS), Polanco, Kirilloff Catchers: Garver, Jeffers Bench: Gordon, Arraez, Player Y That offense can compete for the division next year. If Player Y is Sano that's cool, but I'd prefer to move on from him. Starters: Berrios, Maeda, Pitchers X, Y, and Z Pen: Rogers, Alcala, Pitchers A-Z This staff cannot compete next year. Hoping during the second half of this season we see if Duran can take a spot in the rotation. Or Balazovic. Or Canterino. They need to sign a legit starter (not a 30m guy, but a 20m guy). The pitching market is not overly impressive this offseason, but they have to get 1 of the top 5 guys. The pen needs all the help it can get. Wouldn't be upset seeing Robles come back, but if he's one of your top 3 or 4 guys it's probably going to be a long year again. Second half of this season hopefully provides a chance to see if Moran, Cano, etc. can provide help next year. They also need to sign 2 legit guys. I'm not a fan of paying pen guys 15m a year, but find two 10m guys and pray they don't become Colome 2.0. The offense is ready to compete and I think that should stop the FO from doing anything crazy and blowing it up. There's a lot of young guys in that group and blowing it up wastes all of them. Pitching needs to be addressed in a big way. The time is now to see if their pitching pipeline plans were developed the right way and can start producing. Plenty of talk on here of Falvine being a bust with pitching prospects, but that's ignoring how long it takes to develop pitching and the fact that there was no 2020 MiLB season. But results need to start to be seen late this year and next year would be the measuring stick if I'm ownership. Can one of the stable of young arms come up and look like a legit front end arm? If not its much more acceptable to doubt the FO. Firing the FO and Rocco is a knee jerk response to an abysmal year, but ignores the progress that has been made the last few years. Picking out Shoemaker, Colome, and Happ and saying the FO is a complete failure at signing FAs, etc. is ignoring Cruz, Donaldson, Pineda, Refsnyder, Garlick, Wisler, etc. The Twins had a top 5 pitching staff the last 2 years. Now they have a bottom 5. If you're going to blast them for this year at least give them credit for the previous 2. I'm not a fan of their "must be 100% to play" approach and all the off days and all that. If you prepare to only perform at 100% strength you're going to struggle when you have to perform at 75% strength. And nobody is at 100% in October. They've done so much to reduce any friction, stress, or adversity that it shouldn't be shocking that they crumble with friction, stress, and adversity in big moments and the playoffs. I'm not a Rocco fan, but firing him for this disaster is knee jerk as well. This season has been an embarrassment, but the whole team isn't in need of pink slips. The offense is ready to go (if the young guys haven't been infected by the "shrink in big moments" virus). Now they need to get a legit pitching staff and 2022 can look much different.

Sounds like Shoemaker has been moved to the pen. Ober starting tonight.

Retooling is the path, I think. Lots of doomsday talk on here (I get it, this year has been a disaster). The offense is good. Definitely need to raise the level of at bats with runners in scoring position, but overall it's a good, playoff winning caliber offense. And should be next year. I think it all comes down to pitching (weird, I know). What do Duran and Balazovic look like the rest of the year and when they get their shot this year? I have to imagine the plan is to get them both to the majors this year. Berrios and Maeda are a nice start to a rotation. Not crazy good, and I'd like an upgrade in there, but you could do worse. If 1 of Duran or Balazovic look like the real deal and can be a 2 or 3 type pitcher next year with a chance to become a number 1 down the road I think your rotation has a really good base. The pen is going to need some major work, but they've shown the last 2 seasons they can build a very good pen. I think this year being such a complete disaster, and the memory of playoff losses from 20 years ago, are blurring some of the details. This team has the bones of a contender and can be pretty reasonably easily built back into a contender next year. Not getting caught up in any mini-runs they make before the deadline is key for the FO. This season is lost. Shipping out some bats for some pitching should be the goal between now and the end of July. Polanco looks to be back (knock on wood for his ankles), Buck will be around next year (pray for 100 games of health), Kirilloff and Larnach look like the future 3 and 5 hitters. Arraez will keep hitting .300. Donaldson will maintain at least a slightly above average bat for another year. Don't know how Garver ever gets behind the plate again, but I assume he will and him and Jeffers both look to have found themselves again. Kepler as part of a platoon in RF is more than serviceable. This offense should be good next year even with a few losses. Is Gordon for real? Can you get an arm for a package built around him and Sano? They have pieces that can be shipped out to help teams this year and still have a solid offense for next year. My plan for the rest of this year is to cut my offense down to a core 10 or 11 guys. They're about to get a bunch of guys back and they'll have too many hitters to carry on the 26 man. Ship some out for arms before the deadline. Spend August and September testing out the young arms. Can Dobnak figure things out or is he a 2m a year AAAA pitcher? (That'd be pretty disappointing, but it's what I think he is) Duran, Balazovic, Canterino- Who is ready for a spot next year? Are they 4/5 types next year? Or can you reasonably expect one of them to be a legit 3 who flashes 1 and 2 ability throughout the year? Pick a FA target, guess what he'll take to sign, cut that+5m out of your budget and go get him in the offseason. (It's not an overly impressive list of arms so maybe bring in 2 of them) Decide who you want your top 10 or 11 bats to be next year. Trade the rest. Determine which, if any, young guns can contribute in the rotation or pen next year by cycling through everyone this year. Sign legit arms (not meaning 35m guys, but 15-20m guys) this offseason. Compete next year. (Sorry for how long this got)

I can see the complaint, but just don't see it as that big of a deal to do once. If he hits the IL today or something you'll definitely be proven right, but those guys throw everyday anyways. I think he threw about 25 pitches the day before. Basically a bullpen session. Certainly wouldn't make a habit of it, but I think as a 1 off thing, that saved the pen and helped get a W last night, it's probably alright.

Hendricks is at the end of his career so weird choice to use there. Cruz has been an MVP level hitter since the Twins signed him so another weird choice to use. Donaldson has been an above average hitter for the Twins. And you realize most players hit the FA market in their early 30s, right? Like Hendricks who is 32. Cole is making 36m a year. So, again, it comes back to how big of a payroll the Twins can have. It'd be great if they could have a Yankee style 200m payroll, but that isn't realistic. So you can have Cole for 36m making up 24% of a 150m payroll (I think the Twins could manage a payroll that size) and try to build a roster around him that can compete (hint: going to have to hit on a whole lot of the prospects you call up) or you can have Maeda at 3-10m depending on what incentives he hits, Berrios at 6, and Pineda at 10 and still be 10m less than Cole by himself. Not to mention the absurdity of comparing Gerrit Cole and Randy Dobnak. Dobnak wasn't even in the opening day rotation. Comparing a top 5 pitcher in the game to our 6th pitcher isn't a useful exercise. When the Yankees have Cole as their 6th guy then you can make that complaint. Jameson Taillon brings up the back end of the Yankees rotation for 2.25m and has an ERA of 5.09 and a 1-4 record. Yankees get what they pay for! So cheap out there. How could they expect to be competitive with the likes of Taillon on their team? Would you like me to go into examples of big contracts that didn't turn out to disprove your idea of you get what you pay for? The Angels would love to speak with you about that. Oh, so would the Phillies. And the Mets. Cubs were 3rd in payroll and Red Sox were 4th last year, how'd that turn out? You don't get what you pay for. That's not how this works. Or the standings would simply reflect payroll size and the Rays wouldn't have a chance to ever compete. Simply put you need to deal with the Twins (and almost every team in the league) never signing Cole or Bauer style contracts. It's not a good use of resources.

Dobnak lost a fingernail in his last start. He's had an acrylic nail since then. Happens a number of times a year. Sounds more like Dobnak making excuses for getting shelled.

So you're upset that Donaldson's big deal isn't working out how you'd like and you think the answer to that is signing Trevor Bauer, fresh off a career year where he was clearly cheating, to a 3 year $102m deal? That's how you save the Twins? Sign a guy for 40m this year? And Liam Hendriks on top of that? You want a starter and a closer for over 50m a year and you think that saves this Twins team? Even if they just added those 2 guys on top of these team and pushed their payroll to almost 200m you'd still be looking at a losing team. That ignores the fact that it's not realistic for the Twins to have a 200m payroll so they'd have to get rid of a number of guys and you're looking at your 2 mammoth contracts and a bunch of AAA players.

Yes, Jax has been a starter in the minors. That's why they used him yesterday to get through multiple innings. Earned himself another look and may get a spot start or 2. I'm guessing he's sent back to the minors today, though, so they can add a usable arm to the pen. Welcome to the life of a borderline prospect.

Combination of things. Extra torque from throwing harder. Extra stress from throwing different pitches (splitters, etc.). Training is different and designed for max effort for more velocity so more stress on the arm that wasn't there back in the day. New technology lets us know there's an injury and how to treat it instead of trying to pitch/play through it. Even now players are given the option to play through partially torn UCLs. More stress put on arms from a young age without proper rest and recovery plans (velocity gets you noticed so they're going all out from the age of 12).

When do you use Jax then? If the team is made up of guys who think any rookie coming in to a game means they're quitting and shouldn't be fighting to the bitter end you need to replace the whole team. When Kirilloff made his debut did they think they were quitting? Larnach? Gordon? Ober? What about when Refsnyder had to start playing? Not a rookie, but not known as an elite level guy. Did the team throw in the towel for those guys too? Or just Jax because his debut didn't go well? Jax has a 3.20 ERA in over 280 minor league innings. They weren't exactly bringing me into the game.

You're trying to build a fantasy team. You're ignoring a lot of other things. The Pohlads always say they're willing to increase payroll, yet it never happens. You think the FO told them they want to spend less money? Find that hard to believe. And signing Brantley (one of the best pure hitters of the last 10 years) would've been great if you ignore his 2 year, 32m price tag that he got to stay with a team that just beat the Twins in the playoffs. Twins weren't going to block a corner OF spot with him and were going to bring Cruz back before putting Brantley in at DH. Maikel Franco is a dime a dozen player who wouldn't be helping this team at all. Already explained that Bradley for 12m a year is a joke. Sano just signed an extension and they weren't going to sign his replacement with Kirilloff on his way. Of course insurance is important and the FO wants to get as much as possible, but if you're a Maikel Franco type would you sign to play everyday in Bal or backup Donaldson in MN? He's trying to revive his career and get another contract. Being a backup is his last choice. You don't spend 12m on a backup OFer like Bradley. Especially when you have Cave who is basically the same player. Kirilloff and Larnach were the insurance for the OF with Kepler and Cave able to move to CF when Buxton went down. Having all 3 hurt at the same time isn't something you can easily insure for. No quality player is going to sign a deal to be the 4th string CFer and sit in the minors hoping 3 other dudes get hurt so they get their shot. Lewis and Gordon were insurance for the middle IF. Hard to pick up a quality MIF player at the start of ST when you find out Lewis is out for the year. If your desire is just that they spend more money that's not a great goal. Ie spending 12m on Bradley. They need better pitching and spending on May would've been nice. But nobody would've predicted Colome would've suddenly forgotten how to pitch. He's been a very good reliever for a long time now. Duffey, Rogers, and Alcala already had spots locked up. Things have fallen apart and it's awful. I would've liked to see a better signing than Shoemaker and 1 other big time pen arm, but there wasn't really any moves to make on the position player front. Sometimes things just don't turn out. FO could've done things different, but they haven't been the disaster you're attempting to make them into.

So your argument is to ignore his age 23-29 seasons and only worry about his age 30 season? That's exactly how you end up paying someone like JBJ $24m over 2 years for a .157/.226/.285 slash line that he has now. That is not how any front office should work. 2020 is not "the relevant season." They're all relevant. There's plenty of late bloomers, but you're flat out wrong about it ever being a good decision to sign JBJ to that kind of deal. There was never a point in his career that he was worth 12m a year to block players like Kirilloff and Larnach. Never. Lynn's stats with the Twins: 20 starts, 5.10 ERA, 4.72 FIP, 84 ERA+, 1.63 WHIP, 8.8 Ks/9. He wasn't exactly lighting it up here. You complained earlier about people using 20-20 hindsight, yet here you are claiming they should've known he was better (and he wasn't much better with NY the rest of that year). Right after suggesting using JBJ's 2020 slash line as a determinant of how good he was. So ignore Lynn's most recent stats (at the time) and sign him to a massive extension, but only care about JBJ's most recent stats when signing him? Which is it? Care about recent stats only or don't? Kyle Gibson's 2020 stats with Texas: 12 starts, 5.35 ERA, 5.39 FIP, 86 ERA+, 1.530 WHIP, 7.8 Ks/9. Can't imagine you were on here complaining about not resigning him after he did that last year. More using 20-20 hindsight. Rich Hill is 41 years old and has thrown more innings this year than he has since 2018. That was your prediction for him? Falvine should've known that? Check in with me again come postseason time and let me know how Hill is doing. Trevor May would've been a nice resign and I was hoping they'd do that in the offseason. So of the 5 guys you've mentioned 1 was a signing that made sense at the time. Of course the FO has some responsibility for this collapse. Are you going to give them credit for Garlick and Refsnyder, though? Combined make $1.1 mil and are having much better years than JBJ and his 12m. Refnsyder, Garlick, Kirilloff, Larnach making just over 2m combined and all having better seasons than JBJ or Rosario who make 20m combined. Giving the FO credit for completely nailing those choices or just picking a bad JBJ deal and trying to suggest it would've been smart when there's nothing to suggest it would've been smart?

Not to mention there being A LOT of season left. Not to compete (I think they're toast in terms of the playoffs), but simply in terms of having to get through the games. Without a minor league season last year they need all the arms they can get. A few more Shoemaker Ls just gets us a slightly better draft pick and gets us a little closer to the end of this miserable season. Hoping to see lots of young guys come through in August and September (especially those who need to be added to the 40 man this offseason), but at this point we just need guys who can get us through a few games, no matter how ugly the Ls end up being. Blowing out a bunch of prospect arms this year by forcing them to fill all the needed innings just ruins next year too. Gotta get them a taste this year, but innings counts actually matter this year.