chpettit19

Brock Stewart is making 870k this year. That's 110k over the league minimum. Really breaking the bank on that one! The Mariners paid DeSclafani last year. They had already traded for him that offseason. The Dodgers traded for and then extended Tyler Glasnow who has never made more than 22 starts in a major league season in his 9 year career. Not once. And he's only made 20 starts twice. Only cracked 15 starts those 2 times as well. Only gotten over 11 starts 5 times. They gave him $135+ million. Pretending the Twins have an above average injury rate is being purposefully obtuse. It's why I responded in kind. The Twins could trade Buxton or Correa today without question. Of course it's a more limited list for Correa as there's a number of teams that wouldn't take on 30+ a year for multiple years, but they could easily move him if they wanted to. Carlos Correa played 136 and 135 games his first 2 years here. Walker Jenkins has a twisted ankle. What are we even talking about? Corey Seager, Ronald Acuna Jr, Mike Trout, Walker Buehler, Chris Sale, Stephen Strasburg, Dustin Pedroia, Tulo, Nomar, David Wright, Grady Sizemore, Giancarlo Stanton, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey. And those are just the names I can come up with off the top of my head over the last decade or so who had careers ruined or significantly altered for long stretches because of injuries. Acuna and Sale are on the same team now. Same with Seager and deGrom. deGrom, Syndergaard, and Harvey were all on the same team. Stanton and Judge being hurt at the same time in 2023 caused the Yankees to miss the playoffs for just the 5th time in the 21st century. EVERY team deals with injuries. Yes, Buxton and Lewis getting hurt as frequently as they do is an anomaly and absolutely brutal. It's not because the training staff is incompetent. The Twins as a team are just about average nearly every year even with those 2 when it comes to the number of injuries and days spent on the IL as a team. Go look at the Dodgers and Braves IL from last year. Far worse than the Twins. The Twins catchers and starting rotation have been incredibly healthy for years now. This idea that the Twins are hurt far more than other teams is provably false. Buxton and Lewis are anomalies. It sucks, there's no denying that. But, as a team, the Twins do not have an injury problem.

My answer is the same. We know why arms get hurt more now. Max effort. On velocity and spin. It's not surprising that when you test the very limits of what the human body can do you break the human body. That doesn't make guys now "more fragile" it means they're doing things the guys back then couldn't do. That's the natural progression of the world. In order for me to beat you I have to be able to do more than you. And in order for the next guy to beat me they have to be able to do more than me. Well we're getting to the limits of what the body can physically handle. And, for the record, pitchers aren't used for shorter stints now because of pitch counts for arm health, but performance. Teams have figured out where starter's peak performance is and are trying to maximize that. Again, it's about getting the most max effort out of them. It's about the number of times they go through a lineup, not the number of pitches they throw. From there the teams are tracking far more advanced things than pitch counts. They're tracking spin, extension, arm angle, release points, etc. to determine when guys get tired. Not pitch counts. But that's a talk for another day. As for gathering statistics to prove you wrong, it's a little difficult because the rules of baseball have changed. It used to be that you could only put a certain number of guys on the DL at a time and once you reached your limit you were just out of luck. So, looking at days lost to DL/IL trips or number of guys put on the DL/IL is misleading. The minimum amount of time needed to be spent on the list has also changed over time. Shrinking from 60, to 30, to 21, and splitting into multiple lists with the 15, 10, and 60 day DL/ILs. Every study that's been run on MLB injury rates that I can find states that it's inconclusive because of these changes. The injury rates show they're going up, but the rates of increase go up with each increase in team's abilities to use the DL/IL. Crazy dichotomy, don't you think?

As opposed to all the other teams with no injuries because their Drs and trainers have solved the great mystery of sports injuries? Can't believe the Twins couldn't solve Kirirloff's genetic disorders. Such failures. So incompetent. You named 7 players. Do you feel that is a large number? The Twins are about average when it comes to the amount of injuries they deal with. It just feels like more because they're who we focus on and are emotionally attached to. The Dodgers couldn't keep Stewart healthy either. And the Padres couldn't keep Paddack healthy. And the Mariners couldn't keep Topa healthy. Multiple teams couldn't keep DeSclafani healthy. That doesn't make the Twins medical staff incompetent, it makes the front office overly reliant on injury prone players because they're cheaper. Why should the expectation be that the Twins medical staff can do what nobody else can do? Why should they be expected to keep bodies with genetic reasons why they don't stay healthy healthy anyways? Seems like an unreasonable expectation. Why is the standard "healthier than expected" for injury prone players? Is the standard for development that the coaches get average players to be above average players or they're failures? Alex Kirilloff retired at the age of 27. He had to have his wrist bones surgically shortened. That's the trainers and Drs faults? They couldn't teach him how to lift and stretch his way out of genetic problems like extra long wrist bones and spinal issues? Man, such incompetence over at 1 Twins Way! I see your point.

First base? The position that requires sudden, full out stretches in almost any direction after a quick sprint to the base? I'm not sure that's a good idea for a guy with hamstring and other soft tissue leg concerns. Actually, I think it's actually possibly the second worst position behind catcher for Royce Lewis.

Such is life sometimes. The Rangers get 160 games a year out of Marcus Semien and 120 from Corey Seager. Royce Lewis can hit a baseball 450 feet and I can't. Genetics is a heck of a thing.

I agree with that assessment of both. And I think it's reasonable to keep both, even if I'd have traded Julien before last year and would move Lee for a top catcher prospect if I could. I don't think either is likely a key to the Twins future, but both are reasonable guys to keep around for the reasons you mentioned. That's the challenge of running a major league team. Every player is a spectrum of outcomes. We all hope they reach the top end, but very few do. The Twins have just added the extra frustrating variable of injuries to the equation far too often recently.

Well, @Lucas Seehafer PT is a trained professional on these forums. And he provided a number of responses in this thread about Lewis' injury. Including this one:

Does it? Or do some of them? Like some of them did in the past, too? Arms get hurt more now because max effort is used. Max velocity and spin is what drives elbows blowing up. It's been studied time and time again. MLB themselves studied it and are even trying to find ways to change rules to get teams to quit doing it. But as far as guys like Royce pulling muscles, I'm going to need you to provide some evidence that it's happening more than it used to.

I am quite certain he does this. He's a professional athlete with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. The Twins are a professional sports team with a lot invested in him. He's gone through 2 ACL rehabs. He didn't do those on his own. I'm pretty sure he's got some pretty smart people helping him when it comes to knowing how to train.

I'm not sure what the suggestion is here. He's an arbitration player playing on a cheap deal. They haven't extended him. I'm not aware of any rumors of them trying to extend him. Fans have become quite upset that the team has had the nerve to move him positions in season (for 2 games) and had him practice playing another infield position over the offseason. The team has multiple other young players ready to play his position. When Royce is healthy Royce is going to play because he has the potential to be an MVP level bat. When he's hurt he isn't going to play. I don't get what this article is suggesting changing. What else are they supposed to be doing? They aren't trading away Lee or Castro or Miranda because of Lewis. They aren't extending Lewis for 10 years. They're going year by year through arbitration and playing him when he's healthy. What else should they do?

I'm not interpreting it that way. I'm saying there wasn't a meaningful difference. I'm saying his performance in 2024 was essentially the same as it was in 2023 which was essentially the same as it was in 2022. You can find stats to worry about if you want to (I'm saying that's what you're doing) and stats that say there's nothing to worry about (that's what I'm doing to counter your article and comments). His fastball had the best whiff% of his career last year (36.1% vs 35.7 in 2023 and 25.8 in 2022), best K% (33.7% vs 30.2% in 2023 and 25.5 in 2022), best put away% (26.4% vs 20 in 2023 and 18.9 in 2022), tied for best hard hit% (33.3% vs 40.7 in 2023 and 33.3 in 2022), best z-contact% (71.6% vs 73.8 in 2023 and 79.1% in 2022). That's a lot of "bests" for a fastball that we need to worry about. His fastball lost 2 inches of vertical movement and gained 1.5 inches of horizontal movement while having the best active spin % of his career. WPA is a counting stat. He threw more innings in 2023. His WPA/Inning pitched in 2023 was .032. In 2024 it was .028. He had 34 shutdown appearances in 2024 vs only 27 in 2023 and 34 in 2022. He had 58 appearances in 2024 vs 59 in 2023 and 57 in 2022. His "clutch" rating in 2023 was negative, it was positive in 2024. Sure, you can find things to worry about with Duran if you want. But I don't see the overall numbers saying it. The "full tick" he lost on his fastball in 2024 was back to what it was in 2022 when he was the most dominant he's ever been. He was still the hardest throwing player in all of baseball last year even at "just" 100.5.

As always with Cleveland, how will the youngsters perform? Can Manzardo make up for the loss of Naylor? Can DeLauter get then stay healthy (shockingly the Twins aren't the only team who has big time prospects with health concerns) and live up to his potential? Can Bazzana jump to the bigs at some point in his first full season (oh the horrors of a prospect debuting without hundreds of upper minors ABs!) and provide a spark? The Guardians will do what they always do. They'll start with the guys they hope will be good and then they'll start cycling through the rest of their options until they find the combination that "has it" that year. They'll play with energy. They'll bring a bunch of filthy guys out of the pen. And they'll make you play quality baseball to beat them. Jose Ramirez is a top 5ish player in baseball. Steven Kwan is star if he maintains his power gains from last year (how dare a team teach a speedy contact hitter to add some power to his game! Just let him be who he is!). Clase and Smith may be the best 1-2 pen punch in baseball. Clase-Smith-Gaddis may be the best 1-2-3 pen punch in baseball. What can the rest of the roster do? My line for Cleveland is always right around 85 wins. They can go +/-10 from there, but they're always a preseason 85 win team for me. They're so hard to predict because that's just the nature of young players and they always have a heavy dose of young players. They have talent, but they're volatile. They're going to come out fighting every time they step on the field, though. And Ramirez is a treat to watch.

My point is that his 3rd season wasn't actually meaningfully different than his first 2. Are the 3 seasons below in order or not? Can you tell without looking super closely at certain numbers that you know? My point is that Duran didn't significantly change last year. That's why I pointed out the nonsense of you calling 32.9% "still-solid" as if it wasn't actually great. He was still elite last year. He didn't suddenly start getting hit hard. He was still striking people out. Yes, his ERA ballooned, but not to 5 or 7 or anything crazy. The point is that he was still great. Especially in the 9th where his ERA was 2.17 and he had a .207/.280/.311/.591 line against.

Fastball shape absolutely matters. But he hasn't always thrown 102. Including in his dominant rookie season. His fastball velo in 2022 was 100.8. Last year it was 100.5. His whiff rate in 2022 was 34.7. 94th percentile. Last year was 32.9. 93rd percentile. He's been over 100 MPH multiple times this spring. His K rate in 2022 was higher than in 2023 even though he wasn't throwing as hard. He didn't have to throw 102 in 2022 or 2024 to be effective so why should we believe he has to do it in 2025? How many swings has he had against him this spring to generate that 11.8% whiff rate? How many of them came in the game Tuesday? I agree, teams should be looking for trends and trying to decipher what they mean. I mentioned pitch sequencing and tipping specifically because of his chase rate. If he's hurt that's a massive concern. What is your concern if he isn't hurt? The league "figured him out?" They have him solved at 100.1 vs 100.5 to the tune of a 20% difference in whiff%? 10% difference in whiff%? That's why I point out the misleading statement of "still-solid 32.9% whiff rate." That's the 93rd percentile. And he was throwing 100, not 102 last year. He was "touching" 100 on Tuesday. He's been over 100 multiple times already this spring. So, he's in the same range he's been in for 2 out of 3 years in his career where his whiff% was in the 93rd and 94th percentiles. I'm not so concerned about the crazy small sample size producing a 11.8 whiff rate at this point, no.

What I described was a player who I believe has a range of outcomes between a utility infielder and average regular. Which is why I said he'd be between a utility infielder and average regular. Luis Arraez doesn't hit for power or take walks and he's most definitely not a below average bat. I'm not predicting Lee will hit like Arraez, just saying there's a wider range of outcomes and a path to a successful hitter. Correa has slow feet and is still an elite defender because of his size, instincts and arm strength. I'm not predicting Lee will field like Correa, just saying there's a wider range of outcomes and a path to a good fielder with his size and instincts but lack of arm strength. He's not a finished product. I watched him a lot in St Paul. I don't think he's going to be a star. Never did. But I think he has a chance to be a solid regular. Don't think it's a sure thing by any means. Maybe a 50/50 shot. If he ends up on the low end of all his outcomes he won't even have a major league career. If he ends up on the high end of all of them he'll be an above average regular. I don't find that to be a realistic outcome. What I described was a guy who has a range of outcomes. Like every other human who's ever tried to be great at something.

"His overall whiff rate was the worst of his career at a still-solid 32.9%." A little misleading here, aren't we? "Still-solid?" 32.9% was the 93rd percentile for whiff rate in baseball last year. That's a little more than "solid." The 75th percentile is "solid." The 93rd percentile is quite a bit better than "solid." Duran was at 99.7 that day that Nick said he didn't "touch" 100. He "touched" it, he just didn't break it. Again, what are we talking about? Duran can't get guys out throwing 100 instead of 102? If Duran is hurt, that's very much a problem. Otherwise, I'm not so worried. He's broke 100 multiple times this spring. 100 with a hammer curve is plenty to get guys out. Pitch sequencing and possibly tipping pitches has always been my concern with Duran. There are a whole lot of teams that'd be happy to have this "concerning, decline season" from a guy in their pen: My goodness. That fastball velo of just 100.5 instead of 102 was good enough for just the 100th percentile.

Yes. The homerun races were awesome!

I've never seen the star in Lee that many have seen, or at least hoped for. He simply isn't very athletic. His arm isn't strong enough (but is accurate) and his feet aren't quick enough for him to be an elite defender, but his hands and instincts are good enough for him to be a good defender anywhere on the infield, in my opinion. He has some quality bat to ball skills, but he doesn't have super quick hands or great patience. He doesn't drive the ball super well so doesn't hit for power and doesn't take a ton of walks. He may become an average regular, but I don't see anything more than that. Probably better served as your backup IFer to start the year on a championship contender. As for all the talk of moving Lewis to 1B to keep him healthy. Why would you move the guy with leg issues to the position where he'll have to stretch at a moments notice multiple times a game? Why do people think 1B is this position that just magically keeps guys healthy? 1B would be a terrible position for Lewis. You really want him stretching to pick off-line throws? That's what's going to save his hamstrings? Or would they just be telling him to make no attempt at all to go after throws that aren't right at his chest? Put him at DH or where his skill set fits best with the rest of the team. Either he's going to get hurt or he isn't. 1B doesn't have this magical forcefield around it that saves guys from getting hurt.

Fangraphs

I think your assumption on how baseball players lift is incorrect. Even when I was in college in the early 2000s we were being trained to not lift to add bulk but to focus on range of motion strength. You think MLB teams aren't aware of this?

How do you explain the NFL? Or the NBA?

That's the interesting thing about that survey, to me. I voted "optimistic" on it, but it was before the Ishbia news broke (if I remember correctly). I voted the way I did because I am (was) optimistic we'll get new ownership and that's just an exciting thing for me. The survey is really just a look at the overall "vibe" around an organization as the definition of "optimistic" is really up to each individual voter. The real shocker of that survey is .3% of Dodger fans not being optimistic. How spoiled can you be?!

Sure, there's difficulty in managing a roster with injury prone players. But there's even more difficulty in managing a roster with less talent. No, they have Bader precisely because they can't develop their own average at best, all glove, no bat players for league minimum. Even if Buxton played 150 games a year this front office would bring in right-handed veteran outfielders. Kyle Garlick and Jordan Luplow weren't here because of Byron Buxton. Harrison Bader is going to start a whole bunch of games WITH Byron Buxton in the outfield. Stars that stay healthy are obviously better than stars that get hurt. But stars that get hurt are better than average players that stay healthy. And stars that get hurt that only make 15 mil a year are better than average players that also get hurt and make 6 mil a year. The Twins are better with Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis. The fact that it's even a discussion is mind blowing to me. The Twins have literally 0 chance of replacing their combined talent for $17 million. No chance at all. Any difficulty they bring in managing the roster because of their injuries is less than the difficulties in not having them. Emma and Jenkins are hopefully stars that will play WITH Buxton while he's healthy and without him while he's hurt.

Easy to say they're doing their jobs poorly and they should get rid of these guys but not so easy to come up with a better answer on what they should be doing, huh? 3B: .254/.320/.410/.730 wRC+ 108- tied for 10th best in baseball SS: .283/.350/.459/.809 wRC+ 129- 4th best in baseball CF: .263/.321/.465/.786 wRC+ 122- 3rd best in baseball

Let me know when you come up with a plan for a championship team that doesn't include stars for the Twins or any team.