chpettit19

2 years/54 mil with an opt out for Alonso. Give me him, Diaz, and young guys over Vazquez, Paddack, Castro and Bader for the same money 10/10 times. So, no, I don't think this was as effectively as they could've spent that 30+ million in money on February 5th.

He is until he gets hurt. And, yes, I understand he will get hurt. But knowing he'll get hurt means you need a real everyday guy to take his spot, and Bader isn't that. We disagree on Rodriguez. It's all good. You don't think Bader is a starter right now and I do. I'm happy to hear what other people think their lineup looks like most days (I understand it's a shifting thing). I'm interested who people think is taking the opening day LF job from Bader if the roster is healthy. And if it isn't he's even more likely to be starting. I don't think Lee or Julien or any of the other young guys are pushing Castro to LF on opening day or taking the DH spot so that Larnach is in LF. I think the most likely answer is Bader starts in LF with Castro at 2B and Larnach at DH.

He'd be on my opening day roster because I think it's so easy to find him a spot. I don't think the Twins will do that, though. And if they do trade Larnach (or Wallner) then adding Emma just puts them right back where they are. Short a bat.

I think Gasper makes the roster over one of Lee or Julien. With that being said, I can't make an "ideal lineup" because I don't see 9 guys worthy of a spot in an "ideal lineup." The Twins are still at least 1 bat short. They have plenty of "floor" style backup guys worth about 200 PAs in a season. Correa, Buxton, Lewis, Miranda, Larnach, Wallner, Jeffers, and Castro are the only hitters worthy of 400+ PAs. I very much hope they aren't trading offense for pitching. Even if that pitching is Cease or King. Seattle has spent a long time showing us what happens when you can't hit a lick. No matter how well you pitch you won't make the playoffs and won't advance if you do sneak in. The Twins need position players! Or to turn some spots over to youngsters and let them grow (Emma being my first pick).

What outfield depth? Everyone is telling me they didn't/don't have any and that's why this is such a good deal. And I actually agree that they don't have any. Larnach is the DH as I see it right now. Bader, Buxton, Wallner across the outfield. Nobody seems to think any of the rest of them are worth a darn. So trading Larnach (the outfielder I think is most talked about as trade bate) just puts them back to having only 8 lineup spots filled but now 1 of those 8 is a no bat, glove only LFer instead of a legit bat in Larnach. Until they have 9 legit guys to put in their starting lineup I'm going to care about their offensive additions. Trading one of the 8 guys worth actual starter PAs is a real concern to me.

When you're coming from the base of "he's not a good overall hitter" then I don't know that .020 or .220 really matters. His OPS against lefties should, theoretically, carry his OPS up to an acceptable spot. I mean, that's the whole theory around platooning, isn't it? Take away their weak side so they face mostly their strong side and they're then an overall better hitter because you've put them in position to succeed at their strengths while avoiding their weaknesses. It's why you platoon guys. So if he's a bad all around hitter to start with and he's hitting worse against lefties who cares if it's an inch or a mile. It's either an inch or a mile worse than bad. And he's been either an inch or a mile worse than bad more often than not.

By year is a weird way to splice up splits? You said you don't care about 2024 because you care about the bigger sample size. You don't think looking at what compiles the bigger sample size matters? If the question is how much you can count on him to be good against lefties in the upcoming season, you don't think how consistent he's been at accomplishing that goal makes sense? Isn't that what you'd do with their OPS as a whole? You wouldn't use the stability of his OPS numbers season to season as an indicator of how well you can predict how he'll perform in the next season? I think looking at the wild fluctuation in his numbers is pretty telling that there's no telling what he is really like against lefties or righties because he's been wildly inconsistent against both. I think having no faith in what you're going to get from a player is important. Consistency is very helpful in predicting the future. And that's what they're trying to do, predict the future. People here seem to think he's here to be a short-side platoon bat 4th outfielder. If that's his role I'd think you'd want to be awfully confident in how he'll perform against the short-side, no?

Correa, Lewis, and Buxton are the only "every day" starters they have. So, sure he isn't the everyday starter, but he's the main starter there. Unless you have a different lineup you think they'll go with. Nobody was, and it was a problem. Emmanuel Rodriguez is my answer to both of those questions, though. He'd have been my opening day LFer and he's the CFer when Buxton gets hurt. And after that I'm fine with Keirsey, Helman, Martin, Castro, etc. filling in for any role Bader plays. I don't believe their collection of young players with options would perform meaningfully worse than Bader with a chance to have someone who performs better. My complaints are about their strategy as a whole that has them continually bringing in veteran players who they pay millions to that they won't ever move on from while they could be getting the same production from minimum salaried players and pooling those veteran salaries into an individual veteran player who actually raises the ceiling. How many more wins do you think this signing brought us for that 6.25+ million? How many more wins does Paddack provide for his 7.5 mil? Vazquez for his 10? Castro for his 6.4? That's over 30 million in salaries for those 4 guys. I'd argue you could get more or less the same production out of about 5 million in their place while using the other 25 mil to sign a legitimate difference maker. My complaint isn't about Bader alone, it's about what he represents in their team building strategies.

Your first paragraph actually argues that neither Emma nor Bader would be 4th OFers. If Castro is at 2B/util who is your starting OF and DH? I'd bet Larnach is your DH and you don't have anyone in LF but Martin, Helman, or Keirsey.

4 of his 7 non-2020 seasons had him hitting better against righties than lefties. It wasn't just 2024. In the other 3 years his stats against lefties were insane, but more often than not he's had reverse splits.

If Emma is a year away they should trade him immediately. His value will never be higher and he's not the piece they want if he's a year away. And, I agree, Keirsey is a "floor setter." But he costs 6 million less than "floor setting" Bader. Just like Zebby costs 7 million less than Paddack and Elias Diaz costs 6.5 million less than Vazquez. My point is that "floor setting" should be done by people making significantly less than these types of guys so that their money can be spent on "ceiling movers." Keirsey is a competent glove. So is Emma. How are they going to prove they can hit left-handed pitching when Bader and Martin are taking all those PAs? And, right now, I'd argue very strongly that Bader isn't taking away PAs from them, but he's getting more than them. Because he won't be platooned, and he's currently the starting LFer with Larnach at DH. So he'll start every game Larnach and Wallner do while also getting starts against lefties. Unless you think Lee or some other young guy is starting over Bader. And if he can't beat out Lee, Julien, Helman, or Keirsey on paper right now what is he really bringing to the table? Either he's better than those guys and he's starting or he's not better than them so we paid over 6 million for a guy who they could cover with minimum salary guys. Which is it? Margot was a "traditional fourth outfielder," too. There's no such thing on this team. They're all key players who will get real at bats. You better be prepared to use them as true starters because they will be at some point.

My point is that they don't have to fill it with a FA like Bader or a trade. Let the young guys try. I'm arguing against these types of $2-8 or 10 million veterans that don't provide more than a collection of minimum salaried guys can provide. Take all those below average to (at best) average vets and use their salaries on 1 bigger, actual needle moving vet and let the kids fill the below average to average role for far less money, and no prospect capital in trade. It's what Cleveland does. They dump their veteran underperformers and they cycle through their young guys until they find one that's clicking that year. Then if they aren't clicking the next year they start cycling more young guys. And there are many other examples throughout MLB of guys who don't bounce back in the 2nd half. Like Kepler for the entire rest of his career or Margot last year or Gallo in his 1 year with us. Of course guys can bounce back, but how many games are they costing in the meantime? And how many more if they don't? If Farmer and Margot weren't both horrible in the first half do the Twins win 3 more games? 1? 5? And Castro is one of the guys in the range of veteran contracts that I'd be happy to move to free up money for a better player. If they cleared out Castro, Vazquez, Paddack, and Bader they could afford a star. I'd rather have the star. Teams do discard players like trash. All the time. The Twins are an outlier in keeping these underperforming vets all year. They got Tonkin last year because multiple other teams discarded him. My, and other's, argument is that if you rely on young guys to fill these roles then you don't have to discard them at all. You just option them and bring up the next one. And it saves you millions to go spend on an actual needle mover. Bader, Margot, Farmer, etc. are all "floor setters." They're guys the front office hopes keeps them competitive and from completely falling apart. But none of them are "ceiling movers." They don't provide any realistic upside. It's planning to be an 80-85 win team and hoping to catch lighting in a bottle. I don't want that. I want guys with realistic upside even if it increases the variance. I'll take a 75-95 win range over an 80-85 win range.

And it's not just the outfield prospects that are options. Isn't that the value of Castro? He can be that Bader role and you can add Lee/Keaschall/Eeles/whatever in field prospect you want to the list, too.

If he turns into Profar that'd be great. How much you willing to bet that's where this goes? Does anyone really think that's a realistic outcome here?

You don't care to because changing Bader out of that lineup means putting in a younger, unproven player and suggesting that's a better option than starting Bader. Just like others of us have been suggesting. If it's so improved then why wouldn't you be happy to believe he's the starting LFer?

Then give me the starting lineup. Lee starting at 2B and Castro in LF? Julien at 2B or DH so Castro is in LF or Larnach is? Come up with a different lineup that you want to honestly argue is what the starting lineup is going to look like as of this moment. Keirsey can hit just as well as Bader and plays an average defense out there. Suggesting this "significantly" improves the team is suggesting that Bader's glove is so good this team is "significantly" better. Sorry, not buying that in the least. And, sorry, your admittedly 1 highlight scouting report on Rodriguez's defense doesn't impress me. I'll go ahead and listen to all the scouting reports and the dozens of games I watched and say it's not questionable at all. He can field that position. He's not Bader or Buxton in his prime, but he's plenty good out there. And I don't care about the number of PAs he's had above A+. Michael Harris II had 196 before he debuted. Kyle Isbel skipped AA and AAA all together. Jackson Chourio essentially skipped AAA at the age of 20. Merrill had 211 at AA and skipped AAA to debut at a new position at the age of 20. He had a .782 OPS in AA. Chourio's was .780. Harris was much better at .878. Emma's was 1.100. And even if/when he debuts, they're now going to platoon him like they do with all the other young lefties which is going to slow his development. So, you don't have to be concerned, but I will be. Glad we got that .650 OPS from Bader in the starting lineup to "significantly improve" the team! World Series here we come!

I don't think they would have cut him, because they didn't and Martin wasn't "awful" compared to Margot. Martin outplayed Margot last year. Neither could field, but Martin hit better. Better BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, more stolen bases, all of it. Martin was the clearly superior offensive player, and when neither option brings any value at all defensively the better offensive player feels like the pretty obvious choice. And they still didn't cut Margot. I'm not disagreeing that it's a management problem. That is very much what it is. But the management is the same so I'd prefer they just don't bring in Bader because they know how it's going to go. It's not about Bader specifically, it's about the type of player they keep signing and using year after year. The names change the strategy doesn't. And it's the strategy I have a problem with. Bader is just this year's weapon in that strategy so he's the one we're discussing. That isn't my argument. My argument is that I don't think Bader improves the team over the combination of the other players. And, no, obviously they didn't cut those guys, but they aren't going to sit Bader on the bench while they cycle through them. He's going to get the playing time. I hate their MLB strategies. It is 100% on Falvey and Rocco. And I've never said they shouldn't acquire free agents. Never. Not once. I said they shouldn't acquire multiple of these 2-8 million a year vets. I'd rather have them trade Paddack and Vazquez and pair that money with this Bader contract and get somebody like Alonso or Bregman for a year. I'd rather them sign Kim and Diaz than pay Vazquez and Bader or Vazquez and Paddack. It's not about not signing free agents. That isn't the argument at all. It's not spending millions on production your minimum salaried guys can (or should) produce and using the saved millions on an actual needle mover.

It was always going to come and we were always going to despise it. I'm glad they added some defense, but Emma adds defense, too. They are who we thought they were.

He's actually been worse against lefties in 4 of his 7 non-2020 seasons. It's just that when he was better against lefties he put up crazy numbers against them in those other 3 years so his career splits favor lefties slightly. But he's certainly no lefty killer. Glove only player.

And I'd start Emma instead of all of them. But I'd rather be able to cycle through Martin, Helman, Keirsey, Lee, and Julien (not to mention Eeles, Keaschall, etc.) than be stuck with Bader all year. When none of the options are good, I'd much rather have more options.

And I don't care about the paper depth chart. I care about the real-world happenings. And, as I said, even on the paper depth chart he's the starting LFer right now, not the 4th OFer. Unless you think Lee, Julien, Martin, Keirsey, Helman, or Rodriguez are taking his spot in the starting 9. The best bet for the opening day lineup is: C- Jeffers 1B- Miranda 2B- Castro 3B- Lewis SS- Correa LF- Bader CF- Buxton RF- Wallner DH- Larnach Harrison Bader is a starter for the MN Twins, as of right now.

Yeah, just like Margot was last year, except he ended up with the 9th most PAs on the team. That's the point. He won't get 4th OFer playing time, he'll get starter playing time. This has become an unproductive conversation. I'm glad you're excited about Bader. I hope he lives up to your hopes.

He was the 32nd best hitting CFer with at least 200 PAs in baseball last year. Not outfielder, center fielder. Would've been the 39th best hitting LFer with at least 200 PAs. 51st best RFer. 102nd best hitting outfielder in baseball. He wasn't a starting level hitter at any outfield position. So, no, it doesn't take him being a DH to feel that way. His defense makes him a wonderful 4th outfielder. But he's not a starting caliber outfielder on a contending team. He's going to be a starting outfielder for the Twins. That isn't good.

How any baseball fan could think Harrison Bader getting starter level PAs is a good thing for their team is wild.

This move very well could move Larnach from LF to the vacated DH spot with Bader taking LF. Nothing in this regime's history suggests Bader will be the 4th OF. That's the point. He will likely end up with top 5-8 PAs on this team. Or maybe he'll be 9th like Margot was. That's why we don't like signings like this. Because he's not going to be the 4th outfielder, he's going to get starter level PAs.