chpettit19

Assuming health and performance amongst the major league infield I'd agree with that general idea. If they lose a starter and he's mashing in St Paul he should replace the starter (assuming the team is contending). But lots of variables that go into all this. If Wyatt Langford doesn't find a spot open up for him in Texas this year (I find it highly unlikely, but it's possible) it's going to be really hard to beat him for ROY next year (if he's up early this year he'd be my ROY favorite over Holliday). That's just the first name that popped into my head, but there will be other guys who breakout this year and look like ROY possibilities in 2025 so you can't just sit on him banking on that pick. Too many variables. But it should be kept in the back of their minds when it comes to roster decisions and if things are close between him and someone else it could be the tie-breaker.

I will note that the international selection didn't end up being a final part of the CBA as they didn't come to an agreement on how the international draft would work so that part of the incentive is out. But the rest is spot on and point number 2 is a point that I think will get a number of people all riled up. But should be used as a tie-breaker of sorts when it comes to the Twins making some decisions. Along with the necessary 40-man move that'd have to be made, but there's almost always a relatively easy move there.

Yep. Mostly. They added a few wrinkles in the new CBA. League year is still 187 days. A full season of service time is 172 days. So teams still have that basically 2 week cushion to play with to "steal" an extra year of control. But they added the ROY/Cy Young/MVP voting comp pick incentive to get teams to stop keeping the elite guys on the farm to start the year. To be eligible for that extra comp pick the player has to be on 2 of 3 agreed upon top 100 prospect lists (MLB Pipeline, ESPN, Baseball America) and have been on the roster for enough days to earn a full season of service (so 172+ days). The other "incentive" for not keeping top prospects down is that if they qualify for the comp pick, but they don't earn 172+days of service time, and they still finish in the top 2 (if I'm remembering right, maybe they have to win it? I forget the exact details on this part) of ROY voting they get credit for a full year anyways. So if Lee is called up 20 days into the season he wouldn't be eligible for the comp pick, but if he won ROY he'd get credit for a full year of service. So it's a bit of a double whammy there as the Twins wouldn't get the pick, but also wouldn't get the extra year. For most prospects this doesn't really matter since they aren't on 2 of the 3 lists. But for big name guys like Lee teams are now incentivized to take into account the ROY award (and MVP/Cy Young awards). I don't think Lee has shown enough based on the Twins roster to really take this into account, but I'm hoping it comes into play with Jenkins as early as next year! The thing I'd like to see it start changing with the way the Twins do things is that they start calling up top guys in September to get their feet wet. Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll (last year's ROY winners) had both debuted the previous season while still maintaining rookie eligibility for 2023. Again, not really a factor with Lee (at least I hope he's ready way before September), but in general I'd like to see them start doing that to help those young guys hit the ground running the next season.

They are. If the winner of the ROY award was on your team early enough to earn a full year of service (so in the first 2 weeks of the season basically) you get an extra comp pick in the next year's draft. Or if that player finishes top 3 (I think) in the MVP or Cy Young voting in their first 3 seasons they can get a comp pick if the player was up early enough. Teams with elite prospects care about that stuff now. To a degree, obviously, but Jackson Holliday's chances of making the opening day roster went up because the Orioles would love another comp pick after having already got one for Gunnar Henderson for this year. Teams absolutely take that into account now for top prospects.

I agree Lee has to hit. That's why I said "if he's showing he's ready early." I'm not overestimating his hitting to date. I didn't say he's shown he's ready. I said "if he's showing he's ready" and if "they believe he's ready." If they think Lee is ready they're going to start him over Farmer. If they don't think Lee is ready Martin or Miranda is the more likely call. But once they think Lee is ready he immediately jumps everyone and he's the everyday replacement for any injured starting IFer.

ROY does play into roster decisions now, but not enough that a team trying to contend would call someone up on opening day and force them into an everyday role they haven't shown to be ready for. Don't agree 2 infielders would have to be hurt for him to get a shot. If he's showing he's ready early and Correa goes down the Twins are likely calling up Brooks Lee. If any of the starting IFers go down and they believe Lee is ready they'll call him up over Martin. Martin's added depth in the grass wouldn't be much of a factor when they're trying to replace a starter. If they think Lee is ready they'll leave Castro and Farmer in their respective utility roles and replace the starter with Lee on an everyday basis.

This is just the natural progression of hitters vs pitchers. Hitters get better so pitchers have to get better. Once the pitchers get better the hitters have to get better. That's the constant adjustment of professional baseball. Add in the overwhelming amount of information we can produce about guys now and this is what you get. Maddux is the guy everyone tends to point to as an example of "see, it can be done another way," but that's like pointing to Michael Jordan and saying "why don't guys just do what he did?" Could Maddux survive in today's game? Absolutely. Would he have been as good? That's a tougher question to answer. Guys see movement like his all the time now. Guys see changes of speed all the time now. His control would absolutely still give him a career, and he'd likely still be really good, but as dominant as he was? I don't know. It's possible, but it's also possible he'd have struggled more. Teams don't actually care that much about player health beyond what a healthy player can provide for them. It's a cutthroat business on the field and in the executive suites. It's not easy to get a top job in a baseball operations department, and it's even harder to keep it. Those guys can't afford to be too sentimental about players. They need to produce winning teams or they get fired. With all the technology and data they have now they know what performs best on the field and do everything they can to build teams that are good at those things. A big part of sports science in every league now is the idea that having players be able to perform as close to peak as possible while playing less is the best way to maximize your odds of winning. Randy Moss got roasted back in the day for saying he would take plays off, but now every NFL team is tracking an insane amount of player data and they're the ones taking guys out for plays (or even practices). NBA teams rest guys all the time. MLB teams have starters go shorter and give position players rest days. It's the smart thing to do if you're in charge of a team, but it's not good for the leagues themselves as it hurts entertainment value (or fantasy value in the NFL as folks are hyper focused on touches for "their" guys). Professional athletes test the bounds of what's possible for the human body. Some of them seem super-human in their ability to just keep going and going. Most of them break down. The team that figures out the "perfect" balance between maximizing results and avoiding injury will enjoy a nice stretch of success while the other teams figure out how they did it and how to replicate that. Nobody has figured it out yet. I don't blame guys running teams for riding the guys on their teams as hard as they can, and I don't blame players for doing everything they can to maximize their bodies. It's a $10+ billion industry and you won't make it anywhere on the field or in the offices if you're not willing to do those things. Pitchers are pushing their arms beyond what they're meant to do. The max effort velocity and spin isn't going away, though. It's not good for their arms, but it's what's required of them if they want to make their MLB dreams come true. Only option is to do everything you can to maximize your body and hope it holds up. Twins fans know all too well that not all of their bodies can handle it, unfortunately.

As @Squirrel said, Brooks Lee was just drafted 2 seasons ago. If not getting guys to be everyday players in the bigs within 2 calendar years of them being drafted means people need to get fired every team would be firing people every season. That's an unrealistic expectation.

No deal unless it's Miller, Rodriguez, and the Mariners pay down half of JRod's contract.

This should be an interesting thread. Hitting the ball hard and in the air is good even if it leads to a slight (don't ignore me saying slight when you yell at me about Ks) increase in Ks. It's what all the best hitters in baseball do (outside of the extreme outlier Arraez).

Does anyone know what they have in Luke Raley? Tampa just traded him as well. First half last year he had a .925 OPS, 2nd half was .677. OPS by month went .913, .859, 1.039, .754, .662, .630. He will be very interesting to watch in Seattle this year. Did he just have a hot streak to start the year and now he's back to the well below average hitter he was in his first 55 games in the bigs in '21 and '22? Or did he figure it out and just have a bad stretch to end last year? Who is the real Luke Raley?

Do you have anything specific that Brooks Lee has done on a professional baseball field to suggest he's better than Castro and Farmer? Or anything he's done to show he's ready for an everyday role at the big league level?

That sounds like a good strategy to me, and quite possibly what they're looking at. Part of their diminishing market here, though, is that they don't get their product in front of their audience. I think I read something that the Twins were in basically 25% of households in their viewing market. Hard to even maintain your domestic market when you're missing on 75% of possible customers. Growing at home and globally is obviously the ideal situation, but they need to make some real changes in how they do things and there's many hurdles to that with RSN deals with years left on them, team owned stations/services, and teams like the Twins who are on short-term deals or have no deals at all. Hopefully the owners can take a realistic view on the league as a whole and come to some quality decisions.

Getting out of the TV deals and into streaming deals is the obvious way to get more young eyeballs on their games. The younger generations stream things, they don't watch cable TV. Baseball is at a vital point in their organization's lifespan. They need to get this viewing thing correct over the next handful of years if they want to continue to grow their sport.

Lee is being kept on the farm because he hasn't shown he shouldn't be. He's also being kept on the farm because it's what's best for his development. Platooning against lefties and pinch hitting here and there against them is just fine for Farmer, it's not how you get Lee to become a better player than Farmer. Playing 5 or 6 different positions while pinch running/hitting here and there is just fine for Castro, it's not how you get Lee to become a better player than Castro. The team is absolutely better served with those 2 guys in those roles than Lee in those roles. And Lee is absolutely better served playing everyday in AAA than filling either one of those roles. That's without even getting into the discussion over who the actual better players are today. We all hope Brooks Lee is the better player in the long run, but his .731 OPS in AAA isn't super convincing that he's better than Farmer and his .725 in the majors or Castro and his .750 in the majors. Pretty reasonable to question whether or not Brooks Lee is a better player than Farmer and Castro on March 12, 2024. Really not questionable at all as to who the better options are to fill the roles Castro and Farmer are pegged for.

I think there's basically a 0% chance he starts in AAA. I don't think there's a lot of guys who've OPS'd .877 with a 139 OPS+ in 76 games and 254 plate appearances before being a regular starter in a playoff lineup who turn around and get optioned down to AAA before the next season even starts.

They tried Julien at other spots early on to see what he could do and to figure out where he belonged best. Then, as others have pointed out, he stayed at 2B for basically 2 years outside of a handful of games at 1B when injuries forced some creativity last year. Nick Gordon: 2014 only SS. 2015 only SS. 2016 2 games at 2B, 1 at 3B, 103 at SS. 2017 14 games at 2B, 104 at SS. 2018 26 games at 2B 103 at SS. 2019 30 games at 2B and 40 games at SS. He didn't start really moving positions until 2021 when the need on the big league club was the OF. He was essentially a SS only for the first 4 years of his career before they started to accept that he likely couldn't play SS in the bigs and started getting him more time at 2B where his arm played better. Pretty typical development route there. Royce Lewis: 2017 only SS. 2018 only SS. 2019 1 game 2B, 1 game 3B, 1 game CF 113 games SS (AFL he didn't really play SS, but that was because of roster rules). He didn't start really moving positions until 2022 when the need on the big club was the OF (and 3B). He was a SS only for the first 3 years of his career. Pretty typical development route there. Not going to do this much detail with your whole list, but Polanco played 343 games at SS in the minors compared to 210 at 2B and 30 combined between every other position. And that was with the previous regime. Martin was getting split between SS and CF in Toronto before he even came here after having played 6 different positions in college. Think it's a stretch to suggest the Twins were doing anything crazy with him compared to the type of career he'd had up until he came here. Do you mean Eduardo Escobar? He came up with the Sox, not the Twins so not sure why you'd put his development from 18 years ago with a different franchise on the Twins. Prato and Castro have no MLB futures if they can't play multiple positions. And Castro came up with the Tigers, not the Twins, so, again, not sure why you'd put his development with another organization on the Twins. The Twins gave Severino every opportunity to stick at 2B. He wasn't good so he moved down the spectrum to 3B where they gave him every chance to stick and he wasn't good there either so he continued down to 1B where he's still not very good. Almost exactly how you draw up an IFer's development if they aren't good enough to play SS. Steer played 2B, 3B, and SS in college. Twins moved him around the same 3 spots early to see what he could handle. He couldn't really handle any of them, but his flexibility helped him get to and stick on the Reds roster as they moved him to 1B, RF, and LF after that. The Twins aren't doing anything crazy, and a number of the guys you say moved all over really didn't do it for 3 or 4 years after their careers started. Others have to be able to do it or they'd have no chance at making an MLB roster. And a couple weren't even developed by the Twins.

Is Brooks Lee ready? Maybe. Has Brooks Lee come even close to showing/proving he is in professional baseball games? Absolutely not.

Bullpen could be great. Bullpen could be horrible. It's the nature of bullpen arms. I have confidence that Duran will be really good. Confident Jax will be solid. The rest are typical bullpen question marks. Thielbar is a question mark at his age and injuries starting to creep up more frequently. Topa is a question mark as a 33 year old with 1 good MLB season. Jackson is a question mark as a 36 year old with 1 good and 1 ok MLB seasons. Alcala is a question mark with his results against lefties and injury concerns. Funderburk is a question mark with his limited track record. Okert is a question mark as a 32 year old who took a step back last year. Stewart is a question mark as a 32 year old with major injury concerns and only 1 unsustainably great, brief MLB season. Staumont is a question mark with his injury concerns and his decline the last 2 years. Weiss is a question mark as a 32 year old with limited MLB time and success. They did well bringing in a lot of options. Gives them the best chance possible to find a handful of guys who are solid to great. That's a wonderful bullpen strategy. They'll give these guys the first half of the season to try to show they're worthy of stretch run and playoff innings. History tells us a number of these guys aren't going to be very good this year. But they've given themselves a number of shots at success and that's all they can really do. Predicting bullpen arm success is a fool's errand. Give yourself as many shots at the target as you can and hope a few hit.

If their goal is to score fewer runs, sure. The math is overwhelming, sacrifice bunts are not a good strategy in most situations. There's a reason it's such a seldom used strategy in the league as a whole. You don't have to like it, but the sacrifice bunt isn't a weapon that will be used frequently anymore. It's just not a good way to win baseball games.

I'd say they shouldn't work on it in any game situation. They should practice it during BP and that's it. Arizona (team with the most sac bunts in the entire league last year) had 36 sacrifice bunts the entire year. They had 6124 total plate appearances. They sac bunted in 0.59% of their plate appearances. That lead the league. Practicing something you're going to do .59% of the time instead of something you're going to do 99.41% of the time doesn't seem like a great use of game situation reps. Let's say they were really bad at it and they were only successful 50% of the time so they actually used 72 PAs on that skill. That jumps them to 1.2% of plate appearances. Still going to say they should spend 100% of game reps practicing the skill they use 98.8% of the time. Wonder how many sac bunts have been laid down by any team in spring training this year.

If Wallner is that good this offense can be really, really good. Of guys with 250+ PAs (he had 254) he was the 6th best OFer by wRC+. Behind guys named Judge, Acuna, Alvarez, Betts, and Soto. Ahead of guys like Tucker, Trout, Carroll and Rodriguez. If Wallner puts up those numbers for an entire season he isn't a borderline All Star, he's a top level All Star.

Really looking forward to this whole series of games. Fun idea by MLB and will be cool to get to see a bunch of the big name youngsters play each other.

That's a tough situation. They likely are platoon players (most lefties are), but they're the strong-side of a platoon so they'd be playing 75+% of the time. What's the definition of a "regular?" Feels like a situation where both things are true. They're regulars who should be platooned, especially Wallner.

You don't think Kirilloff has a "guaranteed opportunity" vs right-handed pitchers in 2024? Who's the starting 9 against righties in your mind? You honestly think the Twins are going to send Kirilloff to AAA after he OPS'd .858 against righties last year because they want to get a look at Martin? Health is the only thing that's held Kirilloff back. He hit 3rd in the lineup more than he hit in any other lineup spot last year. Followed by 4th and 2nd. He hit in the 2-4 hole in 74% of his starts last year and had an OPS+ of 117, but you think they've "moved on from him" and he'll be "relegated to AAA depth?" That'd be one of the boldest moves I've ever seen a baseball team make.