chpettit19

The problem is the assumption that you'd "go into 25% of the situations with no chance at the plate." The Twins have a total of 84 PAs of lefties facing lefties this year. 84. That's less than 1 a game. Manuel Margot has 106 PAs against righties. The Twins lefties facing lefty pitchers have a .625 OPS. Margot facing righties has a .472 OPS. Margot is the one with "no chance at the plate," but he's getting more PAs against righties than every lefty hitter the Twins have combined have gotten against lefties despite them doing better. 13 of the 23 MLB lefties with at least 100 PAs against lefties have a wRC+ over 100 this year. And Jackson Merrill seems to have figured them out recently as well so he's on his way up. Devers and Arraez are at 97 and 95 as well. That's 16 of 23 players with at least 100 PAs (again, more than the entire Twins lefty lineup has) that most certainly have a chance at the plate against lefties. The Twins have decided they aren't even going to find out if their guys can do it. They'd rather pinch hit Margot in the 5th or 6th for a lefty knowing he's almost guaranteed to face a righty later in the game than see if their lefties can hit lefties. If Gunnar Henderson were on the Twins do you think he'd have 127 PAs against lefties this year? His wRC+ against them is 152. He's got an .881 OPS against lefties. The only Twin with 100 PAs and a better wRC+ overall than Gunnar has against lefties is Jose Miranda (155). Gunnar Henderson is better lefty on lefty than every Twins hitter is overall outside Jose Miranda. The Twins wouldn't even give Gunnar a chance. That's our problem with their strategy. They've decided it's impossible for their lefties to hit lefties so they don't even try.

Are we sure Matt Wallner is subpar v LH pitching? He wasn't in the minors last year (.848 OPS vs Lefties). Or in 2022 (.911 OPS vs Lefties). He's only been given 65 PAs in the majors against lefties. He hasn't been good against them, but 65 PAs is not exactly a lot of PAs. There's a chance the difference between Wallner and Margot against lefties isn't all that significant. We won't likely find out anytime soon, though.

Well here's some sprint speed doesn't equal in field range data...sprint speed 41st percentile, range 84th percentile. That's one Correa, Carlos. And the point about the arm strength is that you don't have any data either. 9 throws is not even remotely close to enough data to even start talking about how strong his arm is. I mean Baseball Savant itself is telling you neither of those players have enough throws to make a statement on as they don't even rank them. Lewis didn't have enough throws in 2022 either. When your source isn't willing to make a statement on their arms it probably means something.

Lee has 9 throws. Do you have minor league data on his arm? That'd be interesting. 9 MLB throws to reach a conclusion that his max throw is 81.7 is an awfully limited data set.

What will they do when Martin comes back? Lewis is obviously not going to AAA, but should Martin have to? Or should Martin be the one who comes back after the ASB and sends Farmer to the DFA line? The FO is going to have to make a decision sooner or later. There's no way that Farmer can be part of their playoff plans at this point. And if that's true, the "2nd half," and August especially, need to be when they start making decisions based on October and not the 162 game marathon. Decision day is coming. And August 1 should be the latest they set the date for it. Either Farmer turns on the flame thrower the rest of July or August 1 needs to be when he says goodbye. They seem to have the same general idea about things as they tend to give vets through July to figure it out and then start shaping their bullpen and lineup around who's earned it. Will be interesting to see if they're willing to cut bait with a "good clubhouse leader" or if we start seeing the IL be used more for what some would say are minor "injuries."

If Correa, or any player, needs more than 5 days of a break for whatever they're dealing with physically, like let's say 10 days maybe, they should go on the IL. If not, they should play 6 games in the next 7 days and enjoy their 5 day break to recover. The Twins have Thursday off. Then next Monday through Friday off. Then the following Thursday off. And the Thursday after that. They're still 6 back in the division. And they don't want to end up in a wild card series against the 2nd place team in the east whether it be New York or Baltimore. Winning the division and hosting the last wild card team (or getting a bye?) is a far better situation and they shouldn't be taking their foot off the gas at any point.

These are trades where the Twins were the "buyers." The Cruz/Ryan deal was the Twins being "sellers."

Depending on which WAR you like, Steer was a 1.9-3.5 WAR player last year. So anywhere from 7th best to absolute best position player on the Twins roster last year. I just don't buy that the Twins are so good that they don't have room for a 2-3 WAR player. But my overall point is that there are chances for every decent to good to great prospect on every team, it's just a matter of that team giving the guy a chance. There's no such thing as a prospect that is redundant. Larnach, Wallner, and Kirilloff have been redundant for years (especially when you add in Kepler), yet none of them have been able to claim a starting job for more than a few months. Julien is part of the argument for not needing Steer, yet he's back in AAA continuing to struggle. Lewis has been an argument for not needing a lot of guys yet he still hasn't played 100 games in the majors after having been part of the plan for the 2021 team. Manuel Margot's specialty is hitting lefties, but his career line against lefties is barely better than Steer's against righties. None of this means the Twins shouldn't have traded Steer, et al for Mahle. But you listed Polanco, Arraez, AK, Miranda, Larnach, Wallner, Gordon, Julien, Lee, and Martin as the reasons he was expendable. 3 of them are no longer with the Twins. 2.5 of them (Wallner and Julien with AK being the .5 because he was/is going to be demoted) are in AAA. 1 of them missed basically all of last year (Miranda). 1 is maybe saving his future with the Twins by finally maintaining some semblance of production (Larnach). 1 just debuted (Lee). And one has tumbled down the "prospect list" and has been up and down (Martin). Who would you take over Steer right now from the guys left with this team? Lee and Miranda? Anyone else? Log jams of talent don't exist. There isn't any prospect that we don't need. It's a numbers game. Steer was expendable because of these other guys? Sure doesn't look like it right now. I thought it was a good trade at the time because I didn't think Steer would be this good. But the idea that a prospect isn't needed because we have other guys who rank higher should never be the logic for a trade. Because guessing which of those guys actually turns out is a fool's errand. Prospects miss all the time. At this point Lee and Miranda look like the only 2 guys on the list of youngsters from 2022 (and Lee was just drafted at that point so shouldn't have been a reason to trade anyone since he'd literally never played a professional game of baseball when Steer was traded) who were better bets than Steer. Trades happen, and prospects will always be the capital used in them, but there's no such thing as a redundant prospect. It's a numbers game. You need them all because most are going to miss.

While I agree with the general idea here, that 2022 Twins team finished with 78 wins. Billy Hamilton, Caleb Hamilton, Tim Beckham, Mark Contreras, Kyle Garlick, Jake Cave, Gilberto Celestino, and Jermaine Palacios were getting ABs for that team (plus a few horrible catchers, but Steer obviously wouldn't have taken those ABs). There were chances to get Steer looks on that team if he hadn't been traded. Then going into 2023 they likely don't sign Donovan Solano as a 1B/2B option because Steer is taking those ABs. Jordan Luplow, Andrew Stevenson, and Kyle Garlick got ABs for the Twins last year. I agree that simply looking at WAR can distort things because of opportunity, but I don't agree with the idea that the Twins had no place for Spencer Steer. He would have made the 40-man in September of 2022 if he were still with the Twins and would've taken Solano's 450 PAs last year. That doesn't make it unreasonable to trade him, but he would've had a role with the Twins pretty easily.

Looks like Stewart to the 60 day is the move they made on the 40-man. Lewis on the 10-day. Congrats to Brooks. Let's hope he hits the ground running and makes it impossible for them to send him back whenever Royce is ready again.

Dang, hitting .426 for a month with more walks than strike outs and power to go with it (.688 slug) doesn't get you hitter of the month?

I just used his baseball savant percentages. They use PAs not ABs.

FYI, he's below his career norm in K%, but above his 2019-2021 stretch which was the best run of his career. He's at 27.5% this year compared to a career 29.2%, and 30.4% and 31.4% the last 2 years. So some improvement for sure.

Are we grading process or results? Process was ok (not great, not horrid) for these deadlines. Results were a mixed bag, with the Mahle and Lopez deals being so horrendous they will be brought up in Falvine lore forever.

I'm just going to assume sarcasm in all of this and move on. But will note there were 189 guys with at least 100 PAs last year that earned enough bWAR/Game to have reached 2 WAR in 150 games. That's about 6 guys per team. If Wallner, Julien, Lee, and Keirsey have to be good enough to be a top 6 player on an MLB team right now or have no future value I think you're going to find a lot of teams have a lot of young players who have no future value. If you get wild and jump that number to 200 PAs as the cutoff you're down to 174 position players. Now you're below 6 guys per team. 300 PAs? 162 guys (5.4 guys per team). 502 to qualify for a batting title? 94 position players. So just over 3 guys per team. Tough crowd if 2 WAR is your requirement. 87 qualified hitters reached 2 fWAR last year. 133 total hitters.

Totally fair. FYI, his OPS against righties since May 1 is .825. I admit I'm not a huge Santana believer. I don't think he can maintain that kind of production since he hasn't done anywhere close to that well since 2019. I certainly hope he keeps doing it, and I appreciate his defense (especially with Miranda and Lewis throwing it from 3B), but I'm not willing to bet he can maintain that kind of production over the next 3+ months. I've been wrong about him so far, and I hope he continues to make me eat crow, but the last 4 years suggest his overall .715 OPS against righties is probably the safer bet. And I hope Lee, Wallner, Julien, or Keirsey can provide better than that. The Twins are in a very weird spot with their roster being so healthy and so many young guys still trying to figure it out. Will be fun to watch who gets chances as injuries start popping up again, or they finally move on from Farmer. I'm excited to see which guys can take a job and run with it. But your point on Santana's recent performance is a very good one, and I must admit he's been doing far better than I expected recently.

So if they can't produce at a 2.0 WAR level now they have no value in the future? Isn't it possible they get better and are able to produce at that level, or better, at a later point in time? Ed Julien has 0.6 bWAR in 58 games this year. Max Kepler has 1.2 in 60 games. Wallner had -0.1 in his 13 game disaster. Brooks Lee has played 57 total games at AAA, he's no sure thing to outdo a 1.2 WAR per 60 game performance right out of the gate. Keirsey is interesting and I wish we would get a chance to see what he can do in the majors. Kyle Farmer has -.05 bWAR in 57 games. That's a 1.7 WAR difference between him and Kepler in roughly 60 games. That's a 4.6 WAR player over a full season. That leaves an awful lot of space between being a massive upgrade over Farmer, but not being an upgrade over Kepler. I would be fine moving on from Farmer, Kepler, Margot, and a number of other guys for some different roster construction options, but there's a huge gap between Farmer and Kepler. And just because people don't think already demoted guys or completely unproven prospects can produce at a 2 WAR clip right now doesn't mean "they're of no future value." Injuries are going to happen again and doors will open. Hopefully all the young guys kick them in when they get their chances.

Santana is still not very good against righties. Miranda and Lewis should start every day, but the Twins should be able to find someone else on the roster who can OPS better than .715 against righties. I don't know that they have a better option on the roster at this very second, but generally speaking they should be able to find a 1B/DH who can OPS significantly better than Santana against righties. He shouldn't be an everyday player.

I don't see a QO in Kepler's future. The Twins won't risk having to pay him over 20 mil next year. I also don't see the Twins trading Kepler. They're trying to win and their belief seems to be pretty strongly that veterans are the way to do that unless a prospect gets a chance as an injury fill in and goes off. It also would appear the rest of the league doesn't value Kepler the way the Twins do based on all the trade rumors but no trades happening. The Twins want a certain return for him and have never been able to get it. Doubt that changes now.

Lewis tagging up on a leadoff fly ball to right center was the right baseball play. Just didn't work out because of a perfect throw. That wasn't a "sloppy baseball" play. It was just the other team making a great play.

While I agree Rocco was terrible last night, the Twins are 14-10 in 1 run games. They were 14-5 before this little streak of 1 run losses. Was management the reason they were so unbelievable in 1 run games before?

Their whole lines: Prato- .255/.402/.435/.837 in 455 PAs Severino- .272/.352/.546/.898 in 528 PAs 1. Would a team take a chance on a 23 year old who lead the minors in HRs while playing in the upper minors? Probably. 2. Would he have started the season the same way playing for a major league team? We'll never know. The A's have given Lawrence Butler 147 PAs over 50 games with a 58 wRC+. Seth Brown wRC+ of 64 in 63 games and 195 PAs. 244 PAs in 61 games for Zack Gelof and his wRC+ of 72. All of those guys have options and are still getting run because teams that aren't trying to win give young guys with upside chances. And just because the other team wanted to take him off their 26-man doesn't mean the Twins would have him back right now. The bigger likelihood is that he'd be putting up these numbers with another team's AAA squad and be getting a chance because the Twins took 150K and put it in their pocket instead of taking him back. And he OPS'd .907 in 2022. So his age 22 and 23 seasons were a .907 and .898 OPS while leading the minors in HRs playing in AA and AAA as a 23 year old. The A's took Ryan Noda the year before coming off a .904 and .870 OPS the 2 previous years at AA and AAA as a 25 and 26 year old. I think they may have looked at Severino pretty closely.

The Twins did lose games last year because Correa was "off kilter." Your defense doesn't matter if they don't hit the ball to you. You know you're going to get ABs every game. You don't know you're going to get the ball hit to you. Defense is important. Absolutely. Nobody is saying it isn't. It is not as important as hitting. Because if you can't score you can't win. League average defensive chances (putouts, assists, and errors) last year was 5794. League average plate appearances was 6137. The average team had 400 more PAs than defensive plays last year. Nico Hoerner lead non-1B/C position players with 667 chances last year. Marcus Semien lead baseball with 753 PAs. The guy who had the ball hit to him the most in the majors was nearly 100 plays behind the guy who stepped to the plate the most. Nico himself stepped to the plate 688 times. So even the league leader in defensive chances hat more PAs than chances. Semian had 664 chances, for what it's worth. Trea Turner lead the league in errors with 23. That's an error every 6.65 games. Guy at the top of the order would get 4 PAs a game probably. So he had 1 error for every 26.6 PAs he had. There are more offensive chances, and fewer defensive screw ups. Teams care about defense, but offense is king.

The Dodgers didn't "have to" put Mookie at short. Miguel Rojas is actually one of the better SS defenders in baseball. But he's historically not hit so well so they went with Mookie to get their best offensive team on the field. And the Twins played Andrelton Simmons at SS and lost a bunch of games because of it. Because he couldn't hit. Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis are much more than "zero reason." They are a very good reason to put Lee at 2B if they think he's the best all around player available and that's the alignment that is best defensively (plus roster considerations). They actually make the Twins "want to" put him at 2B. Kyle Farmer isn't holding Brooks Lee back. The Twins won't DFA Farmer to get Lee up for 30 PAs a month. Farmer interestingly has a job still because his role is so small it's not worth replacing him. The Twins put Julien at 2B last year even though he wasn't a good defender. Your belief that they're letting defense outweigh offense is simply wrong. That may be your approach, but it's not how MLB teams operate. If you can hit they'll find you a place to defend even if you're bad. And we've been over the defensive numbers already. Teams aren't using those to determine who's good on defense. The Twins aren't hopping on fangraphs, baseball ref, or baseball savant to see if they think Brooks Lee (or anyone else) can field a certain position to their standards. They have coaches and other internal personnel to decide that. They aren't using arbitrary grades from dudes deciding how hard a play was to figure out who to play where.

.245/.328/.540/.869 37.5% K rate .258/.375/.475/.851 34.8% K rate Which one is the next Bryce Harper and which one is a AAAA hitter? Last 28 days: .326/.396/.758/1.154 33.6% K rate .463/.589/.776/1.365 22.3% K rate Which one has been "raking for months" and which one is a AAAA hitter? The first hitter is 26 years old and in his third season at AAA (178 games and 805 PAs). The 2nd hitter is 24 and in his 2nd season at AAA (103 games and 446 PAs). For the record, this isn't a shot at you or Wallner. Just pointing out that he's doing everything Wallner has at a younger age. That's a player teams take a chance on.