Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

chpettit19

Community Moderator
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    8,094

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    167

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by chpettit19

  1. chpettit19
    Agreed that the major misstep was not replacing Sonny, but the non-prospects is something I worry about. They've had time. They should have starter prospects to fill in now. They needed to replace Sonny no matter what, but still not having any close starter prospects they could feel confident in just makes the problem even more pronounced. If you're going to replace Sonny with DeSclafani you better have a AAA rotation full of guys you're not just ok with being spot starters, but are actively excited to see in your 2024 rotation. Just a brutal situation all around.
  2. chpettit19
    I only had 1 post in that 6 page thread. That may be the most negative thing I've ever done on this site. His signing wasn't even worth me arguing with strangers on the internet. That's where this offseason took us. Me not even caring enough to throw stats around and argue. So sad.
  3. chpettit19
    TD would explode.
  4. chpettit19
    As someone who had a herniated disk when I was barely younger than Brooks and still playing baseball (only pitching and not nearly at the level he's at, obviously) I can say it is really hard to play through that pain when it's herniated enough to be causing constant pain. I ended up needing a discectomy so I'm hoping Brooks isn't that bad because it is definitely a relatively lengthy rehab to get back to playing, and living, pain free. He was seemingly playing pain free for much of spring so I'd guess he's in pretty good shape for recovery here. As the article says, most of these things (at least according to my Dr) heal on their own with rehab so hopefully it was a pretty minor one that they seem to have caught pretty early on and he'll do his couple months of rehab and be back to normal. I was expected to be having surgery every 5 to 10 years because of my situation and continuing to play sports after, but I'm now nearly 20 years removed with no significant struggles beyond flareups here and there. Lots of stretching to help keep things working correctly, but I'm by no means in good shape so there's every reason to believe Brooks can do the necessary maintenance moving forward and this will just be a blip on the radar for him.
  5. chpettit19
    The Julien story is far from written. I don't think he's going to be "special," but I think he's going to be a very good hitter. Too much swing and miss in his game to be special, but I think he will adjust and tweak his approach as he goes and will square more balls up than he is right now. I still think he'll be an important part of this offense, but not a star.
  6. chpettit19
    Fly ball rate up, and overall numbers down, because pitchers figured out he doesn't like to swing at breaking balls, and doesn't hit breaking balls very well because of his bat angle at contact. He mashes fastballs and doesn't swing at breaking balls unless he has to. So lots of first pitch breakers he isn't swinging at which brings his first pitch swing percentage way down and has him start with too many 0-1 counts and then the pitcher is in control. He's still mashing fastballs, he's just getting a lot more breaking stuff that he doesn't handle well. League found his weakness and have a plan for him. Time to see if he can combat their plan. He's likely not as good as he was last year, but not as bad as he is right now.
  7. chpettit19
    Very good point. I wouldn't categorize a half season at AA at 21 as "very aggressive" for a player of his prospect status, but also agree that a quick trigger to the majors should/could be on the table as well. I commented on another thread last week about him that I'd be more than happy with him following the Michael Harris II path. He debuted for the Braves at the age of 21 after 43 games of .878 OPS in AA. His debut came at the end of May. If Emma keeps this up (quite possible) and the Twins still need a bat in a month (quite likely) then a jump straight to the majors may be the ticket as AAA may not provide enough of a difference for him anyways.
  8. chpettit19
    Shota Imanaga was the choice. That deal is so insanely affordable. Polanco and Imanaga instead of DeSclafani, Farmer, Santana, and Margot makes this a better team, in my opinion. No idea if Imanaga was on their radar or if he had any desire to come here, but Chicago isn't a significantly better market from what I can see.
  9. chpettit19
    I'm confused here. I don't see a change in approach at all. Julien swung out of his shoes last year, too. Well, helmet (I've never seen someone lose their helmet on a swing so often). I don't see any change in his approach at all. He hit a HR every 25 PAs last year. He's at about 1 every 20 this year. That isn't some massive change and can easily be explained by a 2 HR game in a small sample size. If he had 3 HRs right now instead of 4 he'd be at nearly the exact same PA/HR rate as last year (25.5 last year, 25.3 if he were at 3 HRs right now). You say not every hitter needs to have 25 HR power, but over a full season Julien was at 25 HR power last year. If he played 150 games he'd get around 650 PAs in the year. At his 25.5 PA/HR rate last year he'd hit 25.5 HRs in 650 PAs. Julien is struggling. Nearly the entire offense is struggling. But I don't see any change in his approach. Small sample size noise? Sure. But he's 1 HR off his pace from last year. Which you claim was a good approach while also saying he doesn't need to be a 25 HR guy even though he was a 25 HR guy. Really confused by this stance.
  10. chpettit19
    I'd consider a relatively quick push to AAA to get him some struggles if he needs it. If AA pitchers can't challenge him enough then give him better pitchers to learn against. It's really hard to judge what he needs and how much of a hinderance this could be with the info we have. Patience at the plate is a balancing act that is different for each player and their contact skills. If you don't make contact frequently you need to give yourself more chances to do it. Waiting for 2 strikes is going to lead to a lot of Ks both swinging and looking for someone like Emma. They should be working with him constantly to perfect his approach.
  11. chpettit19
    Is his boost in performance from maximizing his pitches in a short burst that would go away if he were a starter? Or, asked another way, is he Louie Varland 2.0 and you'd be replacing Varland with Varland in essence? I don't know, but that's the question I'd be looking to answer before deciding whether or not to stretch him out.
  12. chpettit19
    *Obert
  13. chpettit19
    Yeah, 1-0 wins are definitely easy to come by and should be the strategy teams take over trying to score runs in 2024. Good call.
  14. chpettit19
    Who's the run at will catcher? Detroit has 8 steals in 19 games. Let's not act like they're some super fast team, either. The idea that a need for defense overweighs a need for offense when 7 of 9 hitters are hitting under .200 is hilarious to me. But I'm well aware that your stance will always be to play defense over offense even though no major league team would ever agree with you. When you're running out a lineup with 7 guys under .200, 4 of those 7 under .150, and 1 guy under .100 offense needs to take precedent. Unless the plan is to win a 1-0 ball game they can't be sacrificing offense for defense with this lineup.
  15. chpettit19
    My bigger concern is Vazquez and Farmer being in the starting lineup in the first place. Miranda need an extra day off after the off day because he's just worn out after 59 PAs this year?
  16. chpettit19
    You think you can force feed pinch hitting opportunities if you don't stack lefties?! Come on. You're better than that. Need to stack lefties to get to their pen early and get Miranda and Martin into the game. He's playing 3D chess and Hinch will never see it coming!
  17. chpettit19
    I think it's a triangle of power with Falvey, Levine, and Rocco all making MLB roster decisions together. Levine appears to do most of the contract negotiating based on the stories I've seen, but I'd bet there isn't a player brought in here that isn't signed off on by all 3 of those guys.
  18. chpettit19
    Jeffers has been great. In the midst of establishing himself as one of the best catchers in the game and that's been awesome to watch. Healthy Kirilloff is a lot of fun to watch. Healthy Miranda is actually pretty fun to watch as well. Martin and SWR both having nice early season showings is really fun. Buxton in CF is always fun.
  19. chpettit19
    My read on the people most strongly calling for heads to roll is that they don't believe in the philosophy. So I was really talking to those people. If their hope is that firing Popkins leads to a Cleveland style contact team coming to a Target Field near them they're going to be disappointed. I think the issue is that many of the Twins hitters aren't very good hitters. I don't think they're this bad, but I don't think they're near as good as many claimed them to be. The Twins have 3 hitting coaches. Are 3 new ones really going to make a huge difference? I guess it's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.
  20. chpettit19
    I'd hope Martin stays if he continues to produce, but he's certainly a realistic guess if the roster were to ever be fully healthy. They still don't have a DH and can rotate everyone through with Martin moving around the field, including taking the CF reps when Buxton DHs, if Martin continues to out perform Castro. I'd hope the move is to DFA Santana, but I'd guess it is probably Larnach or Martin who'd get the boot instead. Although, Castro still has an option available so he could draw the short straw potentially.
  21. chpettit19
    Yeah, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I agree he should've been seen as no more than a short side platoon 1B option, but from both their words and actions that wasn't their plan. Everybody knows he has a better glove than Kirilloff. Rocco saying "the guy who plays better defense will play" was maybe a bit of motivation for Kirilloff, but there was no chance Kirilloff was magically going to be better than Santana defensively after spring so either Rocco was lying about that stance or Santana was always going to be an everyday guy. Like he has been. But I do hope they're starting to get away from that now as they see they need more offense than he was ever going to be able to provide.
  22. chpettit19
    The point of bringing up the other guys stinking is that none of them are hitting to their career norms. Your entire stance is that it doesn't make sense (I believe you even said it was absurd) to suggest Kepler would continue to struggle when his career norm is a 103 OPS+. If that's true, and I'm being absurd, then it'd also be true that none of the other guys who are still struggling well below their career norms would be struggling still. Nearly the entire Twins lineup is proving that it is absolutely not absurd to suggest Kepler would still be struggling. Because they're all still struggling! What are the odds of 8 guys hitting below the Mendoza line right now? Extremely low if they're not injured? Because that's what's happening. End of story. Kepler was awful all spring. He was awful to start the year. Most of the lineup was awful all spring. They were awful to start the year. And they're still awful now. It's pretty reasonable to say Kepler would've continued to be awful too, just like the majority of the team has continued to be awful.
  23. chpettit19
    For the next 10 games after he went out? Which is what I'm talking about. And have said repeatedly since I was contradicting the other poster's stance that the PAs that went to Wallner, Santana, Castro and Farmer would've been better had Kepler been healthy. So, yes, to answer your question again, it does make sense. Or does it not make sense that Wallner continued to suck? And Vazquez. And Farmer. And Julien, And Castro. And Santana. And Margot. The same small sample size situation still applies. I never, not once, said he would maintain a -56 OPS+ for the season. I said the other poster's suggestion that in the 40 PAs Kepler has missed since he got hurt it absolutely makes sense that he would have continued to suck. Like the majority of the rest of the lineup has.
  24. chpettit19
    I'm on the record many times saying I don't think coaches/managers at the major league level have a dramatic impact on player performance. It's nearly entirely skill with a couple tweaks here and there to give a slight, almost unnoticeable boost. So I don't care at all who they have in those positions. The reason I'm not going to call for any coaches/the manager's heads is because they'll just be replaced by people with the same philosophies. Nothing changes if the FO doesn't change. They wouldn't say "oh, Rocco didn't work out so let's bring in a no analytics guy who's not going to use platoons and will have starters go 7 every night followed by a pen that is full of guys who only throw certain innings instead of matchup based appearances." They'd bring in Rocco 2.0. The FO wouldn't say "dang, these hitting coaches didn't work out so let's bring in a slap hitting staff to have everyone start hitting the ball the other way and not try to hit the ball hard, in the air, to the pull side." They'd bring in Popkins, et al 2.0. These are FO philosophies. If the goal is to change the overall approach of the team you have to start at the top with the guys dictating the approach. A FO who believes in the current approach isn't going to hire people who preach a different approach.
  25. chpettit19
    Julien played 4 games at 1B for the Minnesota Twins in 2023. So, yes, he has played 1B. Santana played 14 of the first 15 games at 1B for the Twins. He was never a platoon there. Injuries didn't force that. That was the plan. Max Kepler and Matt Wallner were both in the lineup against righties on 4/2, 4/4, and 4/6. Carlos Santana played 1B for 2 of those games and DH'd the other. Again, against righties. Carlos Santana was brought here to be an everyday player. Larnach's injury had nothing to do with Santana's playing time because he wouldn't have been on the roster even if he wasn't hurt. No, Farmer is expensive for a short side platoon bat who isn't your primary SS backup. He literally said he didn't expect to get tendered at that number. Gleeman and Bonnes have said on their podcast that Twins sources have said they misread that situation and overpaid him. Don't believe the sources if you don't want to, but when Farmer himself publicly states he was surprised he got tendered at that number it's pretty easy to say he's overpaid, and thus expensive. A 2B/3B short side platoon bat isn't worth 6 million. It's a bad contract.
×
×
  • Create New...