chpettit19

His height is the "unusual circumstance." James Wood, Aaron Judge, Oneil Cruz, Elly De La Cruz. These are the kinds of guys who are in the 6'5"-6'7" range. That's an unusual size for an MLB player. It's notable and adds a challenge. Takes a little longer to adjust as it's more body to get locked in. Here's all their A ball numbers (BP is Baseball Prospectus, FYI.) Age 19 Winokur: 94 G 411 PA 115 K 14 HR 34 BB .249/.327/.434/.761 8% BB rate, 28% k rate Age 19 Wood: 71 G 329 PA 68 K 12 HR 47 BB .324/.429/.560/.989 14% BB rate, 21% k rate Topped out as BP's #3 global prospect. Was a top 20 global prospect on 3 lists after his A ball season. Clearly better numbers than Winokur at same age. Age 22 Judge: 65 G 278 PA 59 K 9 HR 39 BB .278/.377/.467/.844 14% BB rate, 21% k rate Topped out as BP's #18 prospect. Was a top 70 global prospect on 3 lists after his A ball season. Highest ranking before season he debuted was 45 on MLB. Clearly better numbers, but 3 years older. Age 18 and 19 Cruz: 208 G 881 PA 232 K 24 HR 70 BB .262/.320/.419/.739 8% BB rate, 26% k rate Topped out as BP's #12 prospect. Multiple top 20 rankings before season he debuted. Was a top 100 prospect on 3 lists starting season after his second A ball year. Winokur had better overall numbers and very similar K%. Age 19 De La Cruz: 50 G 210 PA 65 K 5 HR 10 BB .269/.305/.477/.782 5% BB rate, 31% k rate Topped out as BP's #5 prospect. Was top 100 on 3 lists after that A ball season above. Winokur had better BB and K rates and only slightly worse OPS, but in terms of wRC+ Elly's was 106 compared to Winokur's 116. Elly had/has a clearly different level of speed/athleticism, though. I'm not claiming Winokur should be a top 100 prospect or that he's going to be any of these guys. Just saying players at his size are "unusual circumstances" and should be viewed a little differently. Very much boom or bust type players. Him being as athletic as he is at his size and adjusting well and doing well in his first year is a very nice step one.

I hear Dave St Peter has some free time on his hands now. Maybe he can help with the transition.

2 cities are going to get teams, they just aren't getting relocated teams. MLB has been very open about expansion. That's their plan. And they've been very vocal that they're doing it after Oakland and Tampa settle their stadium situations. Those situations looked settled, but now Tampa is a little up in the air. The owners don't want teams moving, they want billions of outside money poured into the league in the form of expansion fees. The only reasonable fear is probably if the league will be ready to expand again in 15+ years or if the owners will want to move the Twins sometime in the 2040s.

That'd be my thought if I were him, but the Cubs can't be thinking they're WS contenders this year. Who knows. If I'm a Cubs fan I'd certainly be hoping we didn't just trade our most recent first round pick, 3 years of Paredes, and a pitcher for 1 year of Tucker.

I don't remember the exact dates, but I believe the Orioles announced they were for sale in early January and were sold by opening day last year. I think these days a lot of it is about having your books in order and being realistic about your asking price.

While having new ownership come in before the offseason, or at the beginning, to allow for some spending and splashes would've been preferable, getting them in by, or around, opening day sets up pretty decent as well. Sets up a pretty natural top to bottom assessment period for whoever the new owners are (Ishbia brothers or anyone else). From Falvey down through the roster and entire coaching staff and minor leagues. Miranda, Larnach, Wallner, Lewis, Buxton, Correa, Lopez, Ryan, Ober, all of them. There are questions from health to talent to consistency to contracts already handed out to arbitration raises all over the major league roster. Falvey has updated the organization in terms of technology and processes to match the modern game. I don't know how anyone could argue with that. But we all have our own personal thoughts and opinions on how he's done on drafting, trades, team building strategies, coaching/manager hires, in-game strategies tied to all those things, etc. The new owners are going to have their opinions on these things, too. Then there's Zoll and all the others in both the baseball and business departments that report to Falvey. That trickles down to thoughts on Rocco and his staff and all the minor league staff. What are the owner's thoughts going to be on all them, starting at the top? While I would've preferred the new owners at the start of the offseason (or 20 seasons ago) getting them in here at the start of the season can be nice and give them some time to assess things before the trade deadline and next offseason. Because if they have different plans and are going to move on from Falvey then I don't want Falvey to be the one running the trade deadline. So this is great news and I'm crossing my fingers things turn out this way and we have new people at the very top by, or around, opening day and 2025 can be a top to bottom assessment of the entire Twins organization so we can start a whole new era in 2026.

I'm probably considered a "sbrnerd" or "data boy," but I love intangibles. Said I believe in them in this thread. They're important. They boost skills. They were actually discussed quite frequently and very positively in every analytics job I had. Nobody "hated" them. They may have wished they could measure them, but they didn't hate them nor deny their existence. Like you said, a guy needs to be able to play first, though. Otherwise, they're just a coach. I do struggle with the idea of people outside the clubhouse/organization having too strong of opinions on intangibles and player personalities, though. We can gather a little bit of info from interviews and what the media tell us, but we're not in the clubhouse. It's why I personally stick to stats as much as I can. I can't tell you what the interpersonal relationships are in the clubhouse. There is actually at least one poster on here who can speak to things a little due to a personal relationship to a player on the Twins roster, but, to my knowledge, none of the rest of us know any of them personally. People are always welcome to disagree, and this is a hard to define subject that's easy to disagree on. But, for me, if you can't define/describe that player's intangibles beyond using the word intangibles, or show where their intangibles are improving the performance of the team you haven't convinced me of anything. If the team performs worse with you and your intangibles on the field than the guy who replaces you then I don't really care about your intangibles. I just want the Twins to win. And what gives the Twins the best chance to win are the guys who perform best on the field. Manuel Margot can bring a whole wheel barrel of intangibles with him to the plate to pinch hit, but if he goes 0-30 doing it that wheel barrel doesn't impress me and I still don't want him on the team.

Be interesting to see if they lock him in long term before the hearing. I'd have to think you trade for a guy like that with the hope of locking him up for 6 to 10 years before the season, right?

Keeping Berrios doesn't change that, except for 1 of those starting pitchers. Or are you arguing that Jose Berrios is so good he would've made up for multiple pitchers? That's why I gave you the math on Gray for Berrios. That was the swap. If they still had Berrios instead of Gray they still would've needed/wanted a Mahle, or they would've been a worse team if you believe he would've had the same ERA he had in Toronto in which case they wouldn't have gotten anything useful for him and they would've let him walk for nothing at the end of the season after 2022. If they had Berrios instead of Gray with the failed Mahle trade they still would've wanted/needed Lopez, but they wouldn't have had Berrios to overlap with him in 2023 so that season would've had less pitching or they would've had to give up more assets to go find somebody like, I don't know, let's say, Sonny Gray, to pair with Lopez to get them to their first playoff series win in 2 decades. Your logic is flawed. The Berrios trade lead to them trading for Gray, sure you can draw that 1 line, but you can't draw multiple others. He was only replaced by 1 guy. They were always going to need to either spend big in free agency on arms or trade assets to get starting pitching. Whether Berrios was here or not they would've needed to add a Mahle and/or a Lopez. Berrios wasn't suddenly going to take up multiple rotation spots. He was replaced by Gray. That's it. And it wasn't "over" a full season before they had to move him if they wanted to get something for him. Sure, they could've had him for all of 2022 and let him walk for a singular comp pick, but that's a worse return than what they got. So, they traded him a season before they had to, not "over" a season. And, I agree, both need to improve and be better than back of rotation or bench type players to say the Twins won the deal. I never claimed they won the deal. My stance is the Twins are disappointed in the return. My disagreement with your post was your claim that the Berrios trade alone lead to 3 separate trades. That's false. His rotation spot was filled by Sonny Gray. And it was filled really well by Gray.

I love to challenge things, absolutely. And I love to be challenged, I think everyone should because I think everyone should be able to defend their stances and opinions with well thought out arguments. It's how we maintain a well educated and thoughtful society. But I wasn't challenging anything about intangibles here. In fact, I didn't even say the word "intangibles" in that post. Other people brought up intangibles in other posts. I was challenging the idea that he's a superior defender. You've stated that you essentially don't care if a catcher doesn't hit at all because he's there for defense. What is the defensive purpose of a catcher if it isn't to help pitcher's prevent runs? I'm not sure what you want me to take out of that Wikipedia entry. "It is possible that catchers may have a significant effect on a pitching staff." Most of the defensive metrics we have today have a lot of yearly variation. Carlos Correa's OAA for his career go -18, -2, 23, 11, 4, 10, -3, 1, 5. Not exactly stable. He apparently had no idea how to catch a ball when he arrived. Turned into Ozzie Smith by his 3rd season. And 2 years later was just a little above average before being below average 2 years after that. JT Realmuto's catcher runs go -8, 5, 5, 21, 5, 7, 13, -9, 0. So he was awful, solidly above average, prime Johnny Bench, then immediately back to solidly above average, really, really good, then completely forgot how to catch, and then average? Point being that we haven't figured out defensive stats yet and there's year to year variance in basically all of them. You're big on catcher defense. You say it's really the only thing a catcher needs to do. I think it's important, too. But the importance I see in it is managing the pitching staff so that they pitch well and limit runs. Is there a different defensive goal you have for your catchers that isn't focused on the pitchers limiting runs that would make the fact that the pitchers have allowed fewer runs with Jeffers behind the plate both seasons Vazquez has been here not mean anything?

Arbitration dealings are notoriously nasty. Shouldn't expect that to be any different outside the actual cases. The team is always going to offer the lowest number they think they can and the player is always going to go for the highest they think they can. One would hope the agents prepared the players for what the numbers were going to look like and feelings aren't too hurt today, but I'm sure there's a few bruised egos in there when the numbers were initially heard. Ryan and Ober are surprising. Lewis is a really tough case with his lack of games played so that's a little tougher to get a read on, but it is quite a bit lower.

I don't know when they announced it, but it was an equal tandem from the very start. He caught games 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21...you get the idea. Vazquez and Jeffers both started exactly 81 games at catcher last year. Jeffers caught 720.1 innings to Vazquez's 719. There was a 4 out difference in catching. It was an equal tandem from the very beginning of the season.

Intangibles are important. I believe in intangibles. They are skill boosters. But they aren't skill creators. And if your main "skill" is your intangibles you should be a coach. In my opinion.

I'm not trying to be combative, honestly want to know your feelings on the below numbers. I agree catching defense matters, but isn't the point of catcher defense to improve the pitching staff so they give up fewer runs? Back-to-back years Jeffers has had the better ERA and RA9 while pretty evenly splitting catching duties (both starting 81 games last year) and having neither catcher get special privileges of catching superior pitchers. Based on these numbers do you truly feel Vazquez is the defensive catcher on the Twins staff? 2023: Vazquez- ERA: 4.09 RA9: 4.28 Jeffers- ERA: 3.67 RA9: 3.86 2024: Vazquez- ERA: 4.34 RA9: 4.63 Jeffers- ERA: 4.17 RA9: 4.54

Want to sit next to each other at the WS parade?

I think you can get Elias Diaz for more like 3 mil if that makes your eyes twinkle a little brighter...

I'm not trying to cut payroll for them I'm just trying to have an adult conversation based on the general 130-140 million we all assume they've set. I know you hate them and the rich and all that. It's not productive to have this conversation outside of the reality they set forth for the payroll. If I don't have to follow their rules then I'd have signed Shohei last year for 1 billion and Soto this offseason for 900 million. But that's not a conversation I find to be productive so instead I try to have conversations around the guidelines in place whether I think they're the ones that should be there or not. Do I think the payroll should be higher? Yes. But it isn't, so the 10 million matters. You can call him a backup all you want, but he's never been a backup here. In 2023 he started 91 games at catcher and caught 793 innings. In 2024 he started 81 games at catcher and caught 719 innings. Whether you like it or not he's not the backup. Just repeating the words over and over doesn't make it so. And it's not decent production. He had a 60 OPS+ and wRC+ last year. His WAR number based on defensive metrics that didn't result in the pitchers being better with him on the mound than Jeffers doesn't make it decent production. I've never said it's easy to move him and his salary and then replace his production. In fact, I said the opposite. This has stopped being a productive conversation so I'm moving on with my day. I hope you enjoy the rest of yours.

I'm actually with you on the Lee for a catcher idea. But I agree we're in the minority there. It's all good. I don't mind the Twins catching plan since neither guy seems qualified to take the bull by the horns and it's kept them both healthy for 2 straight seasons. I'd prefer a Realmuto in their prime, but those guys aren't easy to come by. 2-way catchers aren't falling off trees. I don't want Julien released, but I'd trade him. Actually would've traded him before last year. For me it's about why a guy struggles. Lewis, I believe, based on his bat speed dropping 1.7 MPH in the last couple months, ran out of gas. Julien, I believe, has a swing problem. 1 is easier to fix than the other. Neither is impossible, but the odds are much greater for Lewis than Julien. And, for me, that's what all sports team management is about, playing the odds. It's all guess work. Educated guess work, but guess work, nonetheless. I think it's incredibly hard for a guy to change his swing angle he's had his whole life in his mid-20s so I'm quite skeptical Julien will ever be able to handle MLB breaking balls. And if he can't, I don't think he can succeed. Hope to be wrong, but that'd be my bet as the FO of the Twins. Lewis, I think, just needs to be able to make it through the grind of a season. I think that's easier to do. I think the Twins are looking for trades, but I have no idea if they'll pull any off. It wouldn't be the first time they swung a bunch of moves after the new year. I think they like the team in general and it's hard to make moves on the edges when there isn't really any financial room to add, whether you have to subtract or not. You can do some shuffling of pieces stuff, like the reds moving India for Singer then replacing India with Lux, but those string of trades can be tricky. I'd like to see some moves, but I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other. No idea what they'll do.

My issue is with the team, yes. My issue is not with Vazquez himself. It's not personal. Why would I have a personal issue with any player? All of these discussions are about the team building, player usage, etc. strategies the team deploys, not the players themselves. I have no issues with Vazquez. I wish he was better at baseball, but I also wish I'd been better at baseball so I could've played in the majors. I have no issue with him. Why would I? Do you have personal issues with Wallner and Lewis since you don't think they're as good as some of the rest of us do? No, actually I'm not. The fact that I added 200 PAs to the cutoff and he went from 31 to 22 is bad for him. It means that guys who had fewer opportunities to gain WAR were ahead of him. That means guys sitting on their butts doing nothing (actual backup catchers) outperformed him in a cumulative stat while he was playing. A guy with 100 PAs having more WAR than a guy with 300 PAs is bad for the guy with 300 PAs. removing those guys from the list so his number looks artificially better isn't saying he's even better, it's showing he's worse. You claimed he was basically in the middle by being 31 of 60. Essentially 50th percentile. But that's because you added a bunch of guys who shouldn't have had any shot at being close to him because they had 200 fewer times stepping to the plate which also means they had significantly fewer innings behind the plate to gain defensive WAR which is the only reason he had any WAR at all. Once you put him with the guys who had similar opportunities he dropped to the 19th percentile showing that he is actually very easily replaced by just about anybody and many of those 29 guys behind him on your list would've jumped him given the same amount of opportunity.

I've never said anything about not having a real catcher. It's not personal. I'm a fan of the Twins and would like them to win as many games as possible and, most importantly, a world series. I come on here and give my opinions like everyone else, including you. There's not a lot happening during this offseason so the same topics come up often. It's often stated that Ryan Jeffers is the lesser defender and a hitter who happens to catch. Here's how the pitchers have performed with each of them behind the plate each of the last two years while Vazquez has been here and supposedly been the superior defensive catcher which is supposed to be the value he brings to the team and the reason you put up with his complete lack of any offensive production: 2023: Vazquez- ERA: 4.09 RA9: 4.28 Jeffers- ERA: 3.67 RA9: 3.86 2024: Vazquez- ERA: 4.34 RA9: 4.63 Jeffers- ERA: 4.17 RA9: 4.54 If he's not helping the pitchers perform better I just don't know what defense he's bringing. Backup catcher? Christian Vazquez is not the backup catcher. They split the catching duties 50/50 last year and he caught more in 2023. And nobody has said it's his fault he has an over market deal. I'm happy for him that he got his money and convinced the Twins to throw in an extra year to get him to come here. Doesn't change his talent level or make him more likely to help the team win games, though. And he was 31st out of 43 catchers with at least 200 PAs. 22 of 27, or 19th percentile if you go to the 300 PA mark that he was at as a non-backup catcher. When you add in an extra 30 players with 200 fewer PAs to a counting stat it can skew the numbers a little.

I'm so sorry for my wording. Vazquez is no longer an MLB quality catcher on a team attempting to win their division.

I'm generally with you. Vazquez isn't an MLB catcher. Our pitchers have better numbers with Jeffers behind the plate. Vazquez is one of the worst hitters in baseball. He costs 10 mil. He's a net massive negative on the field. Although, it does sound like he's probably a general positive in the club house, but he can be that as a coach for far less than 10 mil and not hurt the team on the field. I don't know how you get that 10 mil off the payroll, though. Without paying in prospect costs that I don't want to pay. The Pohlads aren't eating it, as much as I'd wish they would. Carrying 3 catchers to cover up Vazquez seems like making the situation worse. I don't know what Gasper's defense behind the plate looks like but it sure feels like that's a complete no go, so it's probably Camargo and Cartaya. I'd prefer giving them a go (I'd prefer Elias Diaz, actually). But I don't know how they dump Vazquez. I wish they would. But I don't see it happening. I'm glad to have an option for 2026, but I don't feel confident that this solves much of anything for 2025. At least not yet.

I mean Vazquez can't hit MLB pitching, but Cartaya couldn't hit AAA pitching. Matching wRC+ at the different levels actually. .575 OPS is bad. Now imagine a .375 OPS. Actually, don't. That's mean to wish that thought on someone. I apologize.

I like this move. Needed to add some catching depth. You never say never on a prospect, but they gave up a very low probability prospect even relative to the low probability of all prospects. Cartaya has been brutal with the bat the last 2 years. Vazquez-like, but relative to minor leaguers instead. The arm had always been good and the reports on the defense are promising so it's a nice profile on that side of the ball at this point. The option year gives them a year to figure things out in St Paul between him and Camargo. I don't see this as a sign of an imminent follow-up move. Not that there won't be another catcher move, but they didn't trust Camargo last year and Cartaya has no business in an MLB batters box. They'd still need to bring in an MLB catcher if they move either of Jeffers or Vazquez.

I watched him probably 25 times on MiLB.tv and each time I came away feeling like there was something special.