chpettit19

I don't think the Ober comparison is all that good, actually. Bailey threw 108.1 innings in 2021. He threw 72.2 innings in 2022. Festa threw 92.1 in 2023 and 124.2 in 2024. Zebby threw 105.1 in 2023 and 134.2 in 2024. Those guys threw nearly double the innings that Ober did the year before he was seeing those short AAA starts to start the year. Sure, you can manage AAA starts easier, but why would they? Neither Festa nor Zebby should be on meaningful inning counts at all this year. Bailey Ober threw 167 innings in 2023 coming off those 2 much lower inning total years. The Twins don't need to hold Festa or Zebby back.

Low minors flier. Some sort of 19 year old lottery ticket is probably the best they can get. Or somebody like Mickey Gasper who's an older, borderline 40-man guy on another team that the Twins like more than that team does.

Blind squirrel and all that. But, yes, that is one of the many reasons I don't see him traded after opening day.

I'd trade 10 Paddacks for any other those guys. I'm not saying the Twins shouldn't trade Paddack, I'm saying I don't see a scenario where they actually do after the season starts.

A spring trade to the Yankees or someone else losing arms (Luis Gil likely out til the All-Star break for the yanks already) sounds like a plausible outcome, but I don't see the Twins trading him at the deadline if he's successful. If he's pitching well enough to bring an MLB bat back in return you're threading an awfully tight needle of finding a contending team that needs pitching and has a bat they are willing to trade off their major league roster. And if the Twins are in the race at all and Paddack is pitching well they aren't going to trade him at the deadline for prospects. Don't see many plausible situations where they trade him in season.

Going to have wait a lot longer than 1 day for the Ryan dreams to come true. Try March 6 on for size.

I won't go as aggressively on the clean sweep as you, but I'm ready to move on from Falvey and Rocco. The folks under them are much harder to have any sort of feel for. We just switched up hitting coaches so no feelings on them yet. I also am a fan of what the pitching development and minor league situation in general are looking like (I'd also keep Sean Johnson as I think he's done quite well running the draft), but the things that appear to be core philosophies at the MLB level have run their course for me and I'm ready for new faces with new ideas. But I think there's a very real chance new people in charge are worse than the current guys. There may not be much room for ownership to be worse, but I think there's a larger chance that a new regime could be worse. Falvey will get a new job instantly. New ownership will hopefully have the right connections and knowledge to bring in high quality candidates. But there's a lot of room below the Twins in terms of team performance. 80-87ish wins for years on end is getting frustrating for us all, I think, but it's better than 60-70 wins.

2 things about the Suns comparison. 1. And this is noted in the article, Justin isn't the head guy in Phoenix, his brother is. I don't know how closely they work together, and I'm not sure anyone around here does. Is Justin even meaningfully involved in the decisions there? 2. The NBA and MLB are very different leagues. Every individual player is a key part of both offense and defense in basketball. The most important part of defense in MLB is pitching. They play 0 role in offense (Ohtani being the historic rarity). Offenses have a position that plays no role in defense. While every player needs to be ready on every play in MLB, they aren't all involved in every play like they are in the NBA. Chasing 3 stars like Phoenix did is team building 101 in the NBA. You're not even in the conversation in the NBA if you don't have 2 legit stars/max contract guys. There are no meaningful minor leagues in the NBA. The Suns didn't trade away a great young core. Ayton and Bridges weren't stars. They kept their star and didn't pay non-stars star money while adding 2 other stars. Chris Paul was born the same year as I was. He wasn't young, and isn't a star anymore. Tell me if this sounds familiar...the Suns problem is their stars haven't stayed healthy. Health has been their problem, not their team building strategy. As for Justin's potential ownership of the Twins, just like any other new owner we won't know if they're better, worse, or the same as the Pohlads for years. Justin had some intrigue because he appears to be a legitimate fan of baseball. That's relatable for us mortals and, I think, a basic general desire we have of any ownership group/person for any of our teams. We want to feel like, at a minimum, the owner cares whether the team wins or loses. I don't think many feel that about the Pohlads. So the idea of a legit baseball fan buying the team was refreshing at the least. I'm sure there are some people who also hope that new ownership is going to throw budgets out the window and just go wild. I don't think that's the hope for the vast majority of fans, though. I think most of us have the hope that ownership that are actual fans and actually care about winning will invest a little more during the up swings instead of "right-sizing" their business. On the down swings slice and dice away at the payroll and make all the money you can. On the next up swing make more smart investments. I think that's a reasonable request from a fanbase. And my biggest hope for new ownership is that they can better take advantage of this market. MN fans will show up. The Vikes and Wild don't have to try as hard as we're more diehard about football and hockey around here, but the Wolves and Twins can get big numbers of fans to show up when they give us a reason. Maybe those fan bases would be more diehard, too, if the ownership did better. The Wolves have been an embarrassment for decades and the Twins just won their first playoff series in 2 decades. Do better at getting the fans to feel connected to the team and show you care about winning. Be better about your messaging (hard not to be better than the current Pohlad and DSP group). Run the team better and adding to the payroll doesn't have to mean you'll lose money because you would be making more revenue. I'm excited for new ownership, but I'm not blindly expecting things to be significantly different. They'll still budget. We'll still be mid-market. But there's at least a chance the new owners care about winning at all. There's also a chance they don't. We won't know for years after they take over. Grass isn't always greener, but the grass we're standing on now is actually dirt.

Jorge Polanco didn't depart via free agency...

But that doesn't explain putting 3 lefties in the top 4 spots. Especially when it pushed Correa to 5. That's making the other manager's job real easy. Just switching Kepler and Correa at least makes the other manager decide which 2 lefties they want to go after. Having fewer lefties will certainly make spreading them out easier, but he wasn't exactly trying hard to separate them last year.

How often were all 5 of those lefties on the roster at the same time? Wallner wasn't on the roster from 4/15 to 7/7. AK's career came to a horribly sad end on 6/11. Julien was gone from 6/3 through 7/20 then again from 7/24 to 8/16. Max missed essentially all of September. Larnach wasn't on the team until 4/16. So, from 6/11 until 7/7 3 of them were on the IL or in St Paul leaving just 2 on the roster. Then while Julien remained in AAA there were only 3 on the roster until 8/16. Then again during September when Kepler's Twins career came to an unceremonious end they were back to just 3. That's a pretty significant amount of time throughout the year when there were only 2 or 3 lefties on the roster last year. To start the year Rocco was going Eddie- AK at the top of the order followed by Buxton and then Kepler. 3 of the 4 lefties in the top 4 in the order with only Wallner separated.

Aaron Gleeman has an article on The Athletic today about Wallner leading off. Interesting quote from Rocco in it: "Breaking up the lefties, maybe it asks the opposing team to answer a question in a different way than the way we posed it before.” The question Rocco used to pose was "what inning do you want me to take all my lefties out of the lineup for you." He stacked lefties. Are we about to see Rocco split his lefties like he has in spring so opposing managers not only have to pick what inning they want Rocco to take lefties out in but also which lefty and which righties their lefties will have to face to do it?! What a crazy idea!

Mookie steals 10-15 bags a year. His speed and base running are secondary to his hitting. Same with everyone else I listed. Some steal a bunch of bags, some steal none. Teams find their best hitters (above average to great hitters preferably) and plant them in the top 4 or 5 lineup spots (or 6 if you're the Dodgers). From there they shuffle them around based on other things like speed, handedness, etc. But the priority is absolutely no longer what it used to be. Lineup construction is about getting your best hitters the most opportunities. You're guaranteed to leadoff 1 inning by batting in the 1 spot in the lineup. Teams figured out that weighing that 1 PA over the next 3 or 4 that will come that game was a bad strategy. After the 1st inning, every lineup spot has nearly the exact same percentage of PAs with runners in scoring position (roughly 25%) including the leadoff spot. 4 hole hitters get about 28% of their PAs with RISP, but every other lineup spot is between 24 and 26% (outside of the first inning). Leadoff hitters having to be table setters for the other guys is a myth. Needing speed at the top is a myth. The only difference between lineup spots is the number of opportunities you get in total. So put your best hitters at the top to give them the most chances to be great.

1. They aren't dialing Jeffers back. 2. If they did and he only catches 60 or 70 games teams would notice that and take it into account. 3. Jeffers is nowhere near the hitter Contreras is. Below is Jeffers, Jansen, and Contreras. See if you can pick out which one is Contreras... A little unfair since Contreras has played more seasons. So here they are in a different order with their 1st through 5th seasons to account for Jeffer's entire career. Can you pick Contreras out of this one? This one goes through Jansen and Contreras arbitration years. So, their complete body of work when they hit the free agent market. Jeffers obviously having time to make up ground on Contreras in this one. But 14+ WAR in 2 seasons would have him finishing in the top 5 of MVP voting. I'd call that unlikely. The Twins aren't selling Jeffers as their primary catcher to anyone. He's splitting catcher 50/50. They've even been alternating games in spring. Again, you're just making stuff up to fit your narrative. Scott Boras isn't going to go to the Twins and convince them he's their primary catcher as if they're not aware of how they're using him. And, if you're right, and he craters under a heavier load this year or next the stats really won't be there to match what Contreras is/was doing. Boras isn't a Jedi. He can't make the Twins, or any team, believe something that isn't actually true. Anyone who has Boras is expecting him to get them what they want. Sometimes that's the most money, sometimes that's being in a certain location, it's different for every player. I'm not going to get into it again with you on Vazquez having to learn a new pitching staff. That isn't the years long process you make it seem. Every team uses dozens of pitchers every year. Catchers move teams every year. Vazquez learns new pitchers every year. The Twins have no need to extend Vazquez right now. They can sign any defense only catcher for 3-5 mil next year. Saving a little on him this year doesn't help at all. This isn't a catcher thread. We were talking about catchers in regards to what the Twins could get back for one of their arms. So, let's move on from the catcher talk and get back to talking about the possible surplus of arms the Twins have and whether or not they should trade any of them. A catcher is certainly a reasonable target if they do.

These 2 lefty hitters are pretty similar, right? You probably take the one on the left, but neither has crazy better surface stats, right? One of them is currently playing on a 4 year, $79 million deal and is rumored to be working on another similar deal as an extension. They'll have made $100 million by the end of this year (their 10th MLB season). The other just finished a 1 year, $12.5 million deal and is playing on a 1 year, $15.75 million deal with 2 option (1 player, 1 mutual) years for 21.25 and 18.5 after. They'll have made $57 million by the end of this year (their 11th MLB season). Neither is a good defender in the least. Kyle Schwarber had a .481 OPS against lefties his rookie year. Then .648 and .654. He wasn't platooned. Those first 2 numbers aren't significantly higher than Wallner's. After those first 3 years he jumped up into the .700s for OPS against lefties and has mostly maintained that. And he's going to make $100 million more than Pederson for his career. Our concern is that they're going to treat Rodriguez and Jenkins the same as the rest. We don't know if they will, but all signs point to it and that's our concern. And, again, Wallner put up an OPS over .900 against lefties in multiple seasons at AA and AAA. .900! But that isn't enough to get him an early shot at everyday playing time. Your prediction can be that for Jenkins, but we haven't seen it. If they have 4 or more lefties they can't platoon them all. But going back to at least 2021, the Twins have platooned all their lefties during any time they have 3 or fewer lefties on their roster. Always. With no exception. Our concerns are valid as they're based on real life, actual decisions made by the Twins. Pederson wasn't even platooned his first full season. And had a .691 OPS against lefties. Tanked (.469 OPS) against them his second season while being platooned. Platooned again his 3rd year at .597. Has essentially been platooned ever since his 2nd year and has seen his limited PA OPS bounce around, but his career OPS against lefties is .630. Not .450 or anything, but he's a platoon bat now and it's cost him significantly. There are very real consequences to guy's careers.

Yes, there's a reason. He can't hit them. That isn't the point. The point is that you said you weren't "feeling their angst" because lefties still play 2/3 to 3/4 of the time (107-122 games per year, BTW) because that's how many righty pitchers there are. The "angst" of Twins lefties is that they're being forced into the Joc Pederson box without a real chance of getting into the everyday player box and that has a real effect on their career. I never claimed Pederson would put up those numbers if he played everyday, he was the example that there's very real consequences to Wallner, Julien, Rodriguez, Larnach, Jenkins, etc. being put in the "platoon" box for the first 6 years of their careers. Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars worth of consequences. Players care about that. If your bosses were actively holding you back from a potential promotion with a significant pay increase would you "feel angst?" I sure would.

It's not your career so I'm sure you aren't feeling their angst. Joc Pederson puts up massive numbers. Last 3 OPS+ numbers are 146, 112, and 151. Career OPS of 119. But he's a platoon bat. He's made 62 mil in his career (according to spotrac). Can't get anyone to sign him to big, long-term money. Got 2 years, 37 mil this offseason coming off that 3 year run. Got "just" 12.5 the year before. There's a very real difference between being an everyday player and a platoon bat when it comes to guy's careers. You may not feel their angst, but it's a very real thing.

"Blocked" prospects is a myth. Rushing is already playing 1B and LF for the Dodgers. Endy has been playing 1B, OF, and 2B for years. The kid in Seattle is Harry Ford and he started playing LF last year, and many scouts question his ability to stay behind the plate regardless of Raleigh. William Contreras is a good enough hitter to DH for Milwaukee. I'm not saying not to target any of these guys, or that deals can't be made, but there's no such thing as a blocked prospect if the team wants that guy on their roster. It's why it's not shocking or out of the ordinary that the Twins move guys around defensively. No prospect or player is ever locked in to only 1 position. Unless you're the best guy in the league there's always someone who can bump you. Like Correa moving to 3B had his deal with the Mets stuck.

Jeffers asking for 20 or getting paid 15 would be shocking. That's top 3 catcher money. Those numbers are, shockingly, just made up randomness not based on anything real other than the name "Boras" being big and scary. Boras is real good at his job (most of the time), but every team would point at Will Smith making essentially 13 and say "try again, Scott." Danny Jansen's 8 mil deal is probably the realistic mark for Jeffers. Given inflation call it 9 or 10 in 2 years. Assuming Jeffers doesn't go bananas these next 2 years. Now if/when they deal one of their arms they'll have a very good shot at acquiring a catcher in return if that's what they want to do. I expect Jeffers back for 2026 and a much cheaper Vazquez or Vazquez style catcher to go with him. Perez, Realmuto, Heim, Kirk, Jansen, Jeffers, Rogers, Stallings, Kelly, Diaz, Trevino, Vazquez, Hedges. Plenty of catchers becoming free agents the next 2 years that can be signed for very little or much more. Assuming they don't absolutely nail a catcher pick this year or have Cartaya bounce back to top form, trade is probably their best bet for bringing in a young, top catcher with years of control. And dangling Lopez, Ryan, or Ober could definitely do it next offseason.

Your stats aren't "actual statistics" either as they don't take into account what the actual number of opportunities Wallner had to face a lefty were. Your stats are the same kind of conjecture as mine as you're assuming/projecting his percentage would/should match the team average for the year without taking into account when he was on the team and what instances he could've faced a lefty but didn't. You're using full season team stats to project what Wallner's % should have been. That's conjecture, too. Maybe a little more dialed in than mine, but conjecture nonetheless. But the point isn't about Wallner himself. It's about the Twins approach to lefty hitters, especially the ones who may be stars. It's about Wallner, Julien, Larnach, Rodriguez, Jenkins, whoever you think may be a star. That's where this all started. The article talks about Julien essentially dedicating his entire offseason hitting program to hitting lefties better to try to convince his organization to let him hit against lefties on a regular basis. The guy was one of their best hitters the year before and decided his only shot at being an everyday player was to dedicate his entire offseason to hitting lefties to try to convince his organization to give him a chance to be a star. Julien is telling us that lefties on this team don't feel like they have a legit chance to be everyday players unless they go above and beyond. That isn't the case in other organizations. I, and some others, have a problem with this.

I know people aren't going to like to hear this, but I think the trade move is coming next offseason. One of Ryan or Ober most likely, but maybe Pablo. Because of that I am good with not trading anyone this offseason. All 3 of those guys have 2 years left after this. If SWR, Festa, Matthews, anyone comes close to establishing themselves as someone who can reasonably fill a top 3 rotation spot the Twins will trade one of the vets currently fronting the rotation. With 2 years of control left any of those guys would fetch a sizeable return. I think the Twins are giving themselves 1 more year to see if they trust their system to produce another playoff caliber starter and then the trade will come.

I like the numbers, too, but ignoring the other stuff, in my opinion, misses part of the point. There is a mental aspect to things in believing you're an everyday guy and worrying about every PA and what it'll mean for your career. But back to the numbers. A player who plays 150 games in a season (a pretty good mark to measure an "everyday" player this day and age) will get between about 625 and 675 PAs depending on where in the order they hit and how good their offense is. Some may be as low as 600 others up by 700. But 625-675 is the general range. Let's call it 650 for the ease of discussion. At 650 PAs a year, 23% of your PAs would be 149.5 PAs. 18% would be 117. So now we're talking low 30s in missed PAs. Keeping with our 4.3 PAs/GM measure, that's over 7 games worth of PAs. 28% of PAs would be 182 PAs vs 17% at 110.5. Now we're talking over 70 PAs. That's 17 games worth of PAs at the 4.3 PA/GM measure. I believe those are significant numbers. It's not just about the limited PAs Wallner has gotten since he hasn't played full seasons, it's about the overall approach. The Twins have gotten extreme with their platooning the last few seasons. Shohei and Schwarber were at 249 and 248 PAs left on left last year. I already gave you that Henderson had 217. There were 12 guys over 200 (that's more than the entire Twins team). 27 over 150. The high mark for Wallner based on a full season's worth of PAs and your percentages would be 117. There were 42 guys in baseball that beat that number last year. There aren't 42 guys in baseball putting up Matt Wallner numbers. The concern is the overall approach. Will they change it for stars or are they going to limit them to 100 to 120 PAs when they could be getting 200-250? Of the 42 guys with 120 or more left on left PAs, the average wRC+ against lefties was 105. 20 of them were at or over 100. 25 at or over 90. 35 at or over 80. The league's total wRC+ left on left was 89. That's a .668 OPS. The Twins pinch hitters last year had a wRC+ of 57 and an OPS of .546. Rocco stated in an interview about a month ago that they plan to keep doing the pinch hitting/platooning stuff because they believe it was a big reason for their success in 2023. That's a solid belief based on their wRC+ of 101 and OPS of .724 pinch hitting in 2023. But in 2022 those numbers were 66 and .546. In 2021 they were 59 and .552. So, my question to you is, do those pinch hitting numbers make you believe it's the right strategy to pinch hit for all lefties as frequently as they do or do you think Wallner (who had a better left on left OPS than the Twins pinch hitters as a whole had last year) or Jenkins or Emma or Larnach or Julien or any of them should be given the chance to just be an average lefty hitter against lefty pitching which would blow our pinch hitters out of the water in 3 of the last 4 seasons? And this doesn't even get into Rocco's weird habit of stacking his lefties specifically to get a lefty into the game so he can go to his pinch hitters. Spacing them out would give Wallner, Julien, Larnach, etc. more PAs against righties as the opposing manager would have to pick his place to use his lefties. Either they are burning multiple lefties every game or the one be brings in faces 1 lefty and multiple righties just to get to another lefty. The strategy, to me, feels awfully flawed.

But he didn't get almost the same amount of PAs by percentage. 11% less is a significant number. 5% is nothing to sneeze at. And those PAs come sporadically. He never starts against them if they have a decent righty option and if the Twins have a choice and the PA is in a situation where things matter at all he's getting pulled for a pinch hitter. March and April he got 1 PA against a lefty. 33 total PAs. July he got 9 PAs out of 51 total. August was 13 out of 93. September he had 21 for 84. So, 3%, 17.6%, 13.9%, 25%. That's one month of getting real PAs against them and it came as the team was collapsing and now he's suddenly supposed to be an everyday star. Yes, there are a lot of opportunities outside the game to improve his ability. The technology today is why the idea that lefties can't hit lefties is needing to be looked at again. The Twins are extreme in their platooning. They had by far the least number of left on left PAs last year. They aren't shy about it. The manager of the team openly states he plans to continue to do it. Gunnar Henderson is always my go to here. Orioles expected him to be a star. Just like I'd think the Twins should expect Wallner to be a star with the numbers he puts up. Gunnar had nowhere near the success as Wallner did left on left in the minors. But when Gunnar got called up in 2022 they didn't platoon him even with his .448 OPS against them. And despite that awful line in 2022 he didn't get platooned in 2023 and put up a .618 OPS against them. Last year, still not platooned at all despite 2 straight seasons of less than ideal OPS numbers against lefties. OPS of .829 against lefties. In 217 PAs. That's more than the entire Twins team had left on left last year. So, your percentage numbers don't impress me. Gunnar had 167 PAs in 2023 which was only 27 fewer than the Twins entire team had last year. That is what not platooning a player looks like. I don't think there's many of us calling for the Twins to just blindly throw every lefty in there against lefties at all times. What we question is turning possible stars into platoon hitters. And that's exactly what they're doing. Max Kepler lead the Twins in left on left PAs again last year. 82. That was good for the 67 most in baseball. So, on average, every other team had 2 other hitters with more left on left PAs. It's extreme. Jackson Holliday, at 20-years-old, played 60 MLB games last year. 208 PAs. Matt Wallner, at the age of 26, played 75 games and had 261 PAs. Jackson Holliday, as a rookie with an OPS of .417 against lefties, and an overall OPS of .565, got 46 PAs left on left. 22% of his PAs if you want to go with that metric. Matt Wallner, in his 3rd big league season, with an OPS of .611 against lefties, and an overall OPS of .894, got 44 PAs left on left. As you said, 17% of his PAs. It's a clearly different approach to team management. 1 team sees potential star, everyday players and puts them in there everyday. The other sees a platoon hitter. And neither Gunnar nor Jackson put up anywhere near the numbers against lefties that Wallner did in AA and AAA. Like 200+ points of OPS difference. Now the Orioles do platoon O'Hearn. So it's not just giving every lefty a shot. It's giving possible stars the chance to be stars. The Twins are actively making it harder for Wallner and holding him back from reaching his full potential. If they thought 2023 was the real Julien, not giving him a lengthy leash to play everyday and be a possible star is holding him back from reaching his full potential. And if I'm those players I'd be pissed. If I'm Matt Wallner I'm telling them to play me everyday or find me a team that will let me take my chance of becoming a star because you're costing me millions and millions of dollars. I don't want to be Joc Pederson making 60ish mil for my career (obviously still crazy money). I want to be an everyday star who signs a 9 figure deal. If your team relies on getting the perfect matchup as often as possible to win games, your team likely isn't talented enough to truly contend. Stars win in the playoffs. Hoping to mix and match your way to a championship by platooning guys even at the top of your lineup and hoping to nail your in game pinch hitting decisions is not a strategy I'm confident can lead to a championship. You're welcome to disagree, but I can't think of many World Series titles from teams who were pinch hitting for their leadoff man in the 5th or taking their near .900 OPS hitter out in the 6th. But my memory isn't what it used to be so maybe I'm forgetting a bunch.

If you're not one of the stars, it's a great place to be because whenever you're on you get the big boys coming up for the fireworks.

The 2022 MN Twins opening day roster had Luis Arraez, Max Kepler, Nick Gordon, and Alex Kirilloff on it. That's 4 lefties. You can only platoon 3. Your assumption that Kepler was getting ABs against lefties because he was succeeding is wrong. It's actually a stronger case that once they just let a lefty hit against lefties he got comfortable and succeeded. I wouldn't make that argument necessarily, but 2022 is a stronger argument that way than it is for them giving him PAs because he was succeeding. You have your order of events wrong. Trevor Larnach was added to the roster on April 13th for their 6th game of the season. Replacing Kirilloff and keeping them at 4 lefties. Then Kirilloff replaced Arraez on May 6th. Still 4. Mark Contreras replaced Larnach May 10th. Still 4. On the 12th they brought Arraez back for Jose Godoy making it 5 lefties on the roster. I'm not going to go through the whole season as I think you get the point here. 2022 wasn't about them giving Kepler a chance because he'd earned it, they had no other choice because you can only platoon 3 spots on an MLB roster and they had at least 4 lefties on the roster nearly the entire season. This year they're going to start with very likely no more than 3 depending on injuries and Julien's spring. The Twins aren't shy about their belief in platooning and pinch hitting to win platoon matchups. I don't know why you'd argue against that. Rocco is very open about it being a big part of their philosophy. Including in at least 1 interview last month where he says they're not planning to change it as they believe it was a key part to their success in 2023. It's why they have continually employed Margot, Farmer, Garlick, Luplow types. They're never going to have their lefties get 0% of the PAs, but they are very clear with their plan to not have lefties face lefties if they can help it.