chpettit19

Cruz is an outlier in the names you provided. He's not at all comparable to Cron and Schoop. Here's 6 batters and their stats from the 3 years before the Twins brought them in. See if you can pick out Cruz, Cron, and Schoop vs 3 guys who the Twins brought in after 2019 (I included 2019 if 2020 was one of the 3 years since that year was so short). And, for comparison sake, Profar's last 3 is 435 G, 1598 PA, 409 H, 48 HR, 189 RBI, 16 SB, .256/.346/.409/.755, 109 OPS+.

I'm not going to be a victim of recency bias. The Twins finished with 82 wins despite an epic run of failure at the end of the season. They were one of the best teams in baseball over a far longer stretch. Minus Kepler, Farmer, and Thielbar doesn't bother me. None of those guys were vital parts to the Twins success and all are easily replaced or improved upon. A number of their young guys will fail. I'm not a Julien believer, and I don't think Lee is a star. Lewis ran out of gas, hopefully his new offseason program helps with that. But they have no choice, the young guys are what supplies every team, especially those in the lower payroll regions, with the chances to win. I don't know what "outlier Falvey" means in how you're describing things. He hasn't stopped bringing in the Cron, Schoop, and Cruz types. That season just happened to come with a juiced ball that allowed the non-Cruz players to play above their career norms for a season. The reason they've averaged 81.8 wins a season since then is because the rest of the "outlier Falvey" signings have played as expected, not very well. Farmer, Margot, Gallo, Santana, Solano, Vazquez, MAT, Luplow, Garlick, Gary Sanchez, Gio Urshela, Andrelton Simmons, Refsnyder, Donaldson. These guys are all in that Cron, Schoop, Cruz type mold of "outlier Falvey." It's why they've been bad. Because relying on outliers to succeed is a bad bet. You're disappointed in the Happ, Shoemakers, Mahle, Bundy, and Margot acquisitions, but it's what you're asking for. That's my point. You point to Cron, Schoop, and Cruz like they were somehow different than the collection of players I've named and the 5 you did. The only difference is that 2019 team played above career norms that season. That's not a good team building plan. And Cron, Schoop, and Cruz all had a higher percentage of successful seasons before they came here than Profar has had. You can be a Profar fan. Not telling you not to be. But I doubt you were watching him play in Colorado in 2023 and thinking he was the answer to the Twins problems while he hit .236/.316/.364/.680 over 111 games. Maybe you enjoyed his 2022 season where he was a slightly above average hitter. But suggesting he's not a question mark just because you've been a fan of his and the Twins are full of question marks even though they've performed as well or consistently as he has doesn't make sense. Profar has had 1 clearly above average season in 10 seasons. You can suggest that's enough to make you want to take a chance on him, but claiming the Twins problem is that they're full of question marks and then pointing to a guy with a 10% success rate as a clear answer is contradictory.

I have no idea what their thoughts are on him being able to succeed as a starter. If his pitches are more successful now because he's a max effort guy that'd be enough reason for me to keep him in the pen. Because he couldn't be a max effort guy in the rotation. I'm also ok with them just deciding that he's more useful in the pen as that's where he's needed more. Whether it's the same decision I'd make or not, it's a legitimate reason. Yeah, Cleveland targeted Clase and Smith as relievers and just let them do their things. They made the decision much earlier on them than the Twins did with Jax and I think that skews our view a little. If Jax had been a reliever since A ball we probably aren't having this conversation. But he got to fail in the bigs as a starter first then transition. I don't know if there's a right or wrong way on that, but it is interesting to see Cleveland seemingly target high velo, nasty stuff guys and just put them in the pen from the jump. James Karinchak being another one who was very good before injuries derailed him.

While I'd love Ford, I don't think Jeffers fits in Seattle. They also have Garver at the DH spot. Garver may be toast, but that stadium is likely to eat up a lot of Jeffers' power and I don't think he'd put up the DH numbers they'd hope for. Maybe Raleigh could, but he's a better defensive catcher than Jeffers so you'd want him back there more than Jeffers.

I don't understand keeping Varland as a starter as he seems to have been, or will shortly be, passed up by younger prospects already reaching AAA. I've seen enough and would put him in the pen. But I'd need to understand why they aren't trying Jax as a starter before I say whether I think it's a good choice or not. There are very legitimate reasons why some guys aren't good as starters and are good as relievers. If they have good reason to believe he wouldn't succeed as a starter then I have no problem with him staying in the pen where he's one of the best arms in the league. Cleveland had the best pen in the league last year. I haven't seen anything about them moving Clase, Gaddis, or Smith to their rotation where they need more help than the Twins do. I don't think you'd find many people who say the Guardians don't know what they're doing with pitching. Clase and Smith are every bit the pitchers Jax is so why wouldn't they put them in the rotation? I don't know why Jax isn't going to get a shot to start, but there could be a very reasonable answer. Otherwise, you could say the same thing about every top reliever in the game. The A's could certainly use somebody like Mason Miller in their rotation, have there been any rumors about him going there? He was a starter up until last year, so moving him back would be much easier than moving Jax.

For what it's worth, in his interview on Inside Twins Jeremy Zoll said they were keeping Varland as a starter. That can obviously change quickly, but as of 2 weeks ago that appears to be their plan. I'd put him in the pen as a 2 inning guy, but it sounds like they're giving him another shot to start. This pen certainly has the chance to be pretty special. If they can replace the Jackson, Okert, Irvin, Richards innings with innings from guys with significantly higher ceilings and better stuff they could/should take another step. Health for a few is still a major concern, but they have more youngsters who can come up blowing smoke to replace them now than they did in previous years. I have no problem with the "collect a lot of options and see who works" approach to the pen, as long as the options you're collecting have options and aren't 1 hit wonder veterans with below average stuff. The Twins are starting to collect more and more options with top end stuff. If they keep converting a failed starter or 2 a year into a pen weapon they'll be just fine.

I don't want to shut the door on him as a starter, but his innings are going to be severely limited this year. He wouldn't be in my opening day pen, but if he's needed or kicking down the door then by all means put him there at some point. But I'd start him in the minors (AA likely) and have him working 2 innings to start and see how it goes from there. If he continues to dominate then move him up and to the pen to get him MLB experience and limit his innings. Then reassess next year. Plenty of relievers get hurt. Sending him to the pen doesn't guarantee him health. If it did, sure make him a reliever and forget about it, but it doesn't. I don't like the idea of giving up their best chance at an ace from the system yet. Be smart and conservative with him in 2025, but all options should remain on the table for his career. Get through 2025 healthy and make a decision on 2026 from there. Having him be Crochet is significantly more valuable than having him be Duran.

Profar got cut by the Rockies in 2023. The Rockies. That's how bad he was. He didn't hit over .280 in 2023 and 2024 combined, he hit .263. So, your stats are already wrong. Because he hit .236 in 111 games with the Rockies. It's why he wasn't able to get more than $1 million last year. Yes, he has 3 seasons of 20 or more homers. The first 2 were 20 on the dot and he managed to be a slightly above average hitter in the first one (107 OPS+) and below average in the second one (91 OPS+). And, out of 10 full seasons he's had 4 seasons with double digit HRs. So less than half of his MLB seasons he's even reached 10 HRs. If you believe in WAR then 3.6 out of his 8.4 total career bWAR came in 2024. Nearly half of his entire career WAR came in that one season. He's the very definition of an outlier and question mark. He was a very well thought of prospect. And then he played 9 seasons in the majors. Who cares what his prospect ranking in 2010 was? That was 15 freaking years ago. That has nothing to do with whether or not he's had a successful MLB career. Because he hasn't. Yes, his 2024 was incredible. And a complete and total outlier of a season. There's a reason he isn't signed yet. Every team could have signed him by now and haven't. Because he wants to cash in on his 1 big season with a multi-year deal and teams don't tend to trust outlier seasons in your age 31 season after 9 bad seasons. The Twins have a lot of guys who have shown flashes before. And were well thought of. If "showing flashes" suddenly makes a guy not a question mark anymore you have to change your list of question marks. Jurickson Profar is a massive question mark. He has 9 seasons of previous MLB play that show that. Maybe he figured something out at the age of 31, but that one season doesn't make him a non-question mark. Sorry, his entire career disagrees with you. And, yes the Twins get revenue sharing. That isn't a new revenue stream for them. They get that every year. And they also lost well more than $15 million on their TV deal. Those numbers you're throwing out aren't changing their payroll. It's money they already knew they were getting.

Like @Hrbeks Divot, I'm also confused by the true plan here. Is the suggestion to carry 3 catchers all season so that 2 of them can split 72 games behind the plate? That can't be the real suggestion because nobody would carry 2 guys for that little playing time each. So, it has to be that you'd send one down to play in AAA while the other is in the majors and then swap them. My other question is why Gasper is getting more games behind the plate than Camargo (my math says there's 17 games not accounted for by the others) if he's supposed to be the worst behind the plate. Oh, and what are you really going to learn/develop with 10 games for Camargo behind the plate in the majors? He may hit .000 or .750 in any random 10 game stretch. Way too small of a sample size. The situation laid out by the author is not a 3-man catcher rotation. It's a starting catcher with 3 massive question marks who haven't earned their way onto an MLB catcher depth chart being backup catchers. So, really, it's questioning whether or not trading one of Vazquez or Jeffers would be a reasonable plan to get a look at these other 3 options. And my answer to that is "no." None of those guys are real catcher prospects anymore. You don't clear space for non-prospects just because. Unless you aren't trying to win this year, but if that's the case they should be looking to trade more than Vazquez or Jeffers and should be getting a real catching prospect to put in there to learn and develop. I don't see the appeal in this plan at all.

I'm pretty neutral on him. He has his strengths and minuses. I think it'll be a lot easier to get worse than better if he's fired. But I'm happy to have new owners come in and assess him for this first year and make adjustments from there. If it's Justin Ishbia, I'd guess he'll be a harder grader than the Pohlads since he has far more baseball knowledge than them. If he doesn't like what he sees and moves on I'll put more faith in that being an educated decision than the Pohlads just looking at ticket sales/revenue. If he keeps him around a while I'll put more faith in that being an educated decision over just Pohlad loyalty. That's all I ask from a decision like that. Make it an educated baseball decision. Don't be afraid to move on if it's needed, but don't be too hasty and move on at the first sign of struggles. The Pohlads didn't feel like they were making educated baseball decisions, they felt like they were making loyalty, financial decisions. I just want it to be about baseball.

My guess would be that he's focused on getting ready for the year, but with an eye on the moves being (or not being) made by the team. He's a guy who seems to pay attention to that kind of thing so I'm sure he's aware. And he's human so I'm sure he has feelings on it. But I'd guess they're secondary to his focus on having a full, healthy campaign. Now, if the Twins were blowing things up and he was seeing the top of the rotation sent packing and the hitters at the top of the lineup with him shipped out he'd likely have some stronger feelings. But he seems tuned in and in touch with the industry and how it all works. So, I'm sure he'd like to see a trade or signing or 2 that would improve the squad, but I'd guess he isn't sitting around all day stewing over it.

I don't know that Falvey is a made man, but I definitely agree that this idea that he's getting axed straight out of the gate is pretty misguided. And if the Ishbia brothers are the buyers then we can look at the previous team they bought and notice they didn't fire the GM/President of the Suns. They did replace the coach, though. And then fire the guy they replaced him with. But I don't think it's an immediate buy and clear house like many seem to think. Especially for those at the top. And Rocco's job probably comes down to how strongly Falvey fights for him. Edit: Falvey's tenure as President on the business side may be shorter lived, though.

You talk about the Twins having too many question marks but your solution is to add more? Iglesias: Didn't play in the majors in 2023. Instead he was a 33 year old in AAA putting up a 108 wRC+. So a league average AAA hitter. In 2022, he had a wRC+ of 87. In 2021, it was 89. He had a wonderful 85 games for the Mets last year, but that was the first time he'd been an above league average bat in a non-2020 season since 2013. That's an awfully big offensive question mark in my book. Would help the defense, though. Winker: Had to sign a minor league deal in 2024 because he had a 66 wRC+ in 2023 while hitting .199. He hit .219 in 2022. If sub- or low-.200 batting averages concern you he should be considered a question mark. Profar: Last year was his 10th major league season. It was the 4th time he had an above average bat. His 2nd best season was in 2020. So, for non-pandemic seasons he's had 3 out of 9 years as above average. Last year his wRC+ was 139. His 2 other seasons above average were a 107 in 2018 and a 110 in 2022. Last year is a massive outlier for a guy now in his 30s with a decade of MLB experience. If that's not a question mark, I don't know what is. The reason these guys are still available is because they're massive question marks in their own rights. 2 of them were on minor league deals going into last year and the other signed for $1 million. They're just as big of question marks as any of the 8 spots the Twins currently appear to have set in their lineup.

If they can trade Vazquez and Paddack and sign Kim and Elias Diaz I'd give the FO a passing grade on this offseason. I want Emma on the opening day roster (assuming he doesn't face plant in spring), but he comes with enough question marks that trading him wouldn't be anything crazy if you can get a legit MLB piece in return for him plus another piece or 2. And that'd earn a passing grade from me. I also disagree with the "injury prone" label for the rotation. They've been abnormally healthy for 2 straight years now. They're less injury prone than the average MLB rotation. So, losing Paddack (who should be in the pen anyways, if you ask me) isn't really that big of a blow at all. This was always going to be a tough offseason to thread the needle, but there's still a path to improving the team. It may not be easy, but it's possible.

Oh, I read that as switching to switch hitters with Castro and Helman. My bad.

This is a fun exercise but really hard to do with the Twins position players. And their front office being notoriously slow/patient/whatever descriptor you choose when it comes to offseason roster moves doesn't help. There are just so many questions on what this team will look like come opening day. For example, if these are the 4 starters I'm given for this grouping Castro is in LF and Larnach is the DH (don't think many would argue there) but Castro may actually be the starting 2B if Lee et al don't put on a show in spring. Buxton, Kwan, and Greene are probably the 3 best OFers in the division if you're going with 1 CF and 2 cOF. Greene and Carpenter vs Larnach and Wallner is an interesting match on the corners, but I'd give the edge to the Tigers paring as I think they'll play better defense while the offense will be pretty similar. Buxton clearly the best CFer, but then it's a question of how many games you get. If he plays 100 games the Twins CFers will very likely have the best stats in the division this season. Kyle Isbel is actually my comp for Keirsey. Neither are lighting fast, but both are solid defenders. Neither is somebody you want at the top of your lineup, but I think Keirsey can OPS in the .650 range like Isbel. I wouldn't want either as my primary CFer, but as the 4th OFer I'd be happy. Manzardo has the chance to run away with the best DH in the division if he hits like Cleveland hopes he does. Bench is hard to define and rank. It really goes deeper than the 10th-13th guys on the opening day roster. It's more about depth at the top of the minors as well. I don't know enough about all the other team's AAA and AA squads to comment there, but it's pretty easy to see the Twins being anywhere from the best to the 4th best in the division. I just assume Chicago is going to be the worst at everything until they prove otherwise.

FYI Helman is a right-handed hitter.

Arbitration hearings have lead to a couple players being vocal about what their teams said. That's what's upset the players. The things the team has said about them in hearings. Otherwise, it's just the system in general. It's not the Twins fault these specific players agreed to sign these deals. There's no reason at all to believe there's broken relationships that need to be repaired. Royce Lewis has never played more than 82 games in a season at the MLB level. The majority of his service time has come on the IL. His arb number was always going to be low because he doesn't have the counting numbers and his numbers in his largest sample size season ended up being pedestrian. Scott Boras isn't some first time agent who didn't know what to expect in arbitration for Royce. He has a whole team of people who put together data and info. If Royce signed that deal it's because the biggest agent in baseball told him it was a good idea. And Royce was very likely well aware that the contract was likely to come in around those general numbers. He was the one the public predictions were the furthest off on and it makes sense. The Twins shouldn't be in the business of handing out higher 1st year arb deals than they have to just because a player may want more. Welcome to negotiations in pro sports. Pete Alonso is getting a hard lesson in it right now. Teams will never pay more than they have to and every player knows that. It's a business. If the new owners plan to come in and hand out contracts that make players happy instead of what's best for the team I'd rather we find different new owners. Players should fight for as much as they should get but the team shouldn't be handing out more than they have to. That's just bad for team building. Every team does it to every arb eligible player. There's no "which team, which player." They all offer every player the lowest contract they think they could win in arbitration with and then negotiate from there.

Toronto is such a unique outlier in this. A team on the brink of blowing it up must be a hard sell to him, but they seem to have done something well in selling him on their team to some extent. Good for them. The Dodgers have so many arms in their rotation already it would/will be interesting to see how they handle that. San Diego was my prediction for his landing spot from the beginning and I'm going to stick with that even though they have some weird ownership infighting right now. Just think they provide the most opportunity for him in a nice location and a team that's invested in winning for essentially the entire length of his initial team control. And a pitcher friendly park to throw in helps, too.

Every team does this. If this broke their relationship with a player the relationship was already in quite bad shape. This isn't new practice or a Twins only thing. This is how arbitration works. For every team. Not sure why the new owners, or even the current front office, should have any relationship repairing to do. Every player knowns how arbitration works and knows the team is going to go after the lowest possible dollar amount. If they were surprised by that that's on them and their agents. If they didn't like the number they signed at they shouldn't have signed at that deal. This is just how the MLB system works. It shouldn't effect the relationship with any player.

Jax was on all the human lists for the Top 10 relievers so he's getting his recognition nationally. And he'd be on my top 10, too. Definitely deserves to be there. I think that with the makeup of this team it makes a lot of sense to keep him in the pen. I wouldn't have minded trying him in the rotation for the first month and then moving him back to the pen, but just leaving him in the pen is fine with me, too.

I was just giving the extra info on Martin. I think it's a relatively average outcome for prospects. But I don't think it's what the Twins were hoping for. I don't find that to be an overly controversial statement. Martin had just been the #5 pick in the draft and was a top 25 prospect in baseball already in AA. I think it's reasonable they believed he'd be a top of the order bat or middle of the diamond everyday player. That doesn't seem to be a likely outcome at this point. SWR was a 20 yr old already in AA. Reasonable to believe he had higher upside than back end of rotation starter, but that's what he's looking like. At least to me. Others may feel differently. Getting 2 mlb players for 1.5 years of Berrios isn't a disaster by any means, but it wasn't the hope or goal with these two players. Big picture we should absolutely care far more about the overall rate of prospect development success than just these 2 guys from this 1 trade, of course. But this article is about this 1 trade so we were just talking about these 2 guys. Even when it comes to trades we should care more about the success rate of all trades combined and not focus on just one trade. But in order to determine overall success rates you need to look at individual situations first. And that's what we're doing here. I wouldn’t call this a success or failure. It'd get a C grade from me. They added years of control but lost the high end talent level.

Austin Martin was #19 on Baseball America's list in 2021 and #22 on both MLB and Baseball Prospect's lists that year. According to his baseball reference page, at least. And MLB.com. I don't have memberships to the other 2 so I'll have to trust b-ref is correct about those 2 as well. The Twins got 2 top 100 prospects for Berrios. Including 1 top 25 prospect.

It wouldn't be the end of the world or anything, but if they decided they didn't want Falvey anymore it's because they either didn't think he was good at his job or they didn't agree with his team building strategies. So, at the deadline they'd either have to let somebody they essentially think is incapable make trades anyway or let somebody they think is capable make trades that don't fit the type of team building strategies they want to follow. If they're only bringing in rentals and not trading any "real" prospects then who really cares as he's not hurting future years. But if you think he's incapable he shouldn't be in charge of future years and if you're going to be changing your strategies, he shouldn't be allowed to change the makeup of future teams. Nothing earth shattering, but just a preference. I don't mind Falvey. Don't think he's nearly as bad as some do, even though I absolutely despise some of the strategies they follow. You're never going to agree with anybody on 100% of things, that's an unrealistic idea. I just prefer to not have a lame duck person making moves that effect future teams. It's not that I think he'd do anything nefarious, just something I prefer.

Walker Jenkins wasn't a top 3 MLB draft pick...