2wins87

Saw two more today, putting Mauer and Helton back into a tie at 104. Helton has actually had a lot of trouble adding votes from returning voters, at +0 net from returning voters. He has gotten 9/10 from first-time voters to Mauer's 7/10. I thought Helton would get in this year after being so close last year, but I'm not sure he can pick up enough votes just from first-time voters, so he'll need to pick up some votes from returning voters at some point. He is tracking ahead of where he was last year after 120 ballots though, so there are more potential pick-up opportunities among the votes that are yet to be revealed than those that already have been revealed. At any rate, I still think if Mauer stays where he's been, around 81-82% on public ballots, it's hard to see him not getting to 75% overall. If he dips below 80% before the final reveal it could be really close. Seems to still be in good shape for now.

It's a good AAV but a lot of outlets had him getting a lot more total on a 3 or 4 year deal. Also he's only getting $15 million this year and the rest is deferred until after 2030, so I would guess the "present value" using the same discount methodology as the Ohtani contract is well under $20 million. Maybe call it 1-year $18-$19 million. Is that a big overpay? I think probably not. If he has a good season he will still make out very well, as he'll be able to sign a multi-year deal next year after getting $15 million and a nice annuity for his retirement. But it's a fairly low-risk deal for a team like the Dodgers who have a ton of money and obviously have no problem with deferments.

I don't want to rag on it too much, but kind of confused by a lot of statements in the article that aren't backed up in fact. Wallner hits to all fields better? That's not really how I remember Sano (yes he pulled a lot but also crushed to straightaway center a lot), and for his career Sano's pull rate was 45.6%, while Wallner is at 48.5% so far. Wallner is more patient? Umm, the comps are two of the more patient/passive hitters of the last 5 or so years. Comparing Wallner's walk rate over one season to Sano's entire minor league track record is disingenuous. Wallner made some big improvements to get his walk rate there from what was a weakness early in his professional career. I'm not sure he even makes it to the majors without those massive improvements, so I think it could be point toward his coach-ability and capacity for improvement, but I don't get this argument at all. Wallner is better at laying off the high fastball? I really don't know so it would be nice if there was some evidence presented. I looked at a few heatmaps, and Wallner may very well be better than Gallo there, but I looked over several year's of Sano's career and I'd say Wallner's swing/chase rate against high pitches is very similar. As others have said, it's not a put down of Wallner to say that he is the same kind of hitter as Gallo and Sano either. Both had success in the majors before their declines. Sano's was a little more short lived and there are some confounding factors that Wallner can hopefully avoid. But Wallner seems especially comparable to Gallo, and if he can continue his production for 4 more years to have a stretch similar to what Gallo did from 2017-2021 that would be a great outcome. Hopefully Wallner can continue making adjustments and age gracefully, but he's absolutely got a similar profile to Gallo, and that could be a good thing.

Among the big 3 valuation systems, only Fangraphs has the Twins' side as negative (-0.6 WAR total). BBref has it at +0.5 WAR and BP has it at +1.2 WARP. Pressly only had 1 1/2 years of control remaining, and was extended at around $10 MM AAV, something the Twins would never do and frankly probably shouldn't given their overall budgets, so I probably wouldn't factor any value in his extended years very heavily. Alcala still has time to provide value and though Celestino was never that good in the majors he was desperately needed at the time. Getting two MLB caliber players for a closer with one year of control honestly doesn't seem too bad to me as is, and it could still get better in the next two years.

I don't think it was even the worst trade they made at the deadline that year. Trading 4 guys for a reliever that had been good for half a season was just a worse process forced by not caring about the bullpen preseason and the costs of doing business at the deadline. It is more surprising in hindsight; I wouldn't have expected Cano to be more than a mediocre reliever, while I did have high hopes for Steer and CES (I did have somewhat high hopes for Povich at the time too). But it still just feels so much worse in retrospect giving the Orioles a premier set-up man, under control for 6 years, in exchange for a terrible reliever.

Gray for Petty was a good trade for the Twins. How much do you think Reds fans wish they had Sonny this year? They missed the playoffs because of a trade they made 2 years ago. The Mahle trade was bad because he couldn't stay healthy. I won't defend it, but at the time a very similar package to Steer/CES would have been Julien/Wallner, and I'd be surprised if they weren't at least discussed in the trade conversations. I'm glad we have Julien over Steer and Wallner over CES right now. Even getting nearly nothing from Mahle, it's hard to say that the major league team would have been any better so far had they not made the trade. The Reds have now stockpiled more young talent than they can realistically keep and are forced to choose which pieces to move. It's a good position to be in, but the odds that they make a move that fans end up regretting is pretty high, especially when everyone knows they are motivated sellers. I would have no problem if the front office made another trade with them, though I don't really think they match up very well need-wise right now.

I think something happens in the first two weeks of January, so I'll say under by a bit, but I wouldn't be shocked if it's the over.

I was curious if there were still any other teams left that had been just as quiet as the Twins. From the Fangraphs free agent tracker, 22 of 30 teams have signed at least one player to an MLB contract. Of those that haven't, the Yankees, Red Sox, Padres, and Mariners have all been involved in fairly significant trades. The other 3 remaining teams besides the Twins: The Cubs, Marlins, and Blue Jays. The Cubs have signed Jorge Alfaro to a minor league deal; the Marlins have acquired Christian Bethancourt and Vidal Brujan through minor trades. You can decide whether any of those moves really count as doing anything. The Blue Jays are probably still the Twins closest rival for the title of last to act, having acquired no one who played in the majors last year so far, as far as I can tell.

The Axios article doesn't have a whole lot of info, there is a bit more info here for those who subscribe: https://theathletic.com/5149762/2023/12/19/amazon-diamond-sports-investment/ Crucially, there are only 5 teams for whom Diamond group actually has digital (streaming) rights and that doesn't include the Twins. (The Twins' already declined to renew their contract with Diamond, so they will no longer be affected by any sort of bankruptcy resolution). That doesn't preclude the Twins from negotiating streaming rights with Amazon (or with Bally's after Amazon takes an ownership stake) on their own or collectively with other teams, but that kind of feels unlikely to me in the near term. I also kind of doubt that Amazon would raise their prime price immediately if a deal goes through. They generate tons of cash and would be probably be happy to use sports streaming as a loss leader if it drove new subscribers to their prime bundle. Although I could also see it as an add on with some sort of pricing benefit available to prime members, like they already do with Audible and a few other services. Honestly a big company like Amazon with tons of cash to burn obtaining sports streaming rights would probably be one of the more consumer friendly outcomes for streamers, at least in the near term. The impression I get from the article and other discussions around this topic are that the streaming fees that teams get are much much much smaller than the cable fees though, so I'm not sure how enthusiastic teams will be about being on Amazon. Most likely this deal won't effect the Twins in any way next year, but it will be something to keep an eye on for sure.

I believe this draft order is nearly set for the first 3 rounds now. Currently the Twins' day 1 picks are: 21, 33 (comp for Gray), 61, 71 (comp B), and 99. I think the last 3 of those picks could move up or down by one depending on who signs Bellinger, but it is otherwise set. I also tried to calculate where their bonus pool will stack up and I think it'll be 11th highest. Day 1 of the draft should be a fun follow the way the picks are spaced out

This is maybe not the biggest thing when considering Kremer's potential, but this just seemed really off to me: Camden used to be a super hitter friendly park, but this just didn't seem like it could possibly be true after they moved the left field wall way back (and up). Baseball savant uses 3-year rolling averages by default, so Camden only ranks as more hitter friendly than Target field if you include 2021, before the wall was moved, in the average. Kremer was terrible in 2021, which maybe isn't super relevant as he was also new to the league. But if we base the discussion off of his last two years when he was pretty good, we should also base the park factors off of only those two years. According to Savant, Camden had park factors of 99 and 96 in 2022 and 2023 respectively, which puts it definitely in the bottom third of parks in terms of hitter friendliness over the last 2 years. Target field's park factor was 100 both years, right around average. Whatever his other merits, I think the idea that he would be helped by Target field is just wrong. At any rate, the Orioles have a system loaded with young mlb hitters and near-ready hitting prospects. I think they would ask for quite a bit for Kremer and I don't see why they would have any interest in Miranda or really any of the Twins most valuable hitting assets. I don't think they really match up as a trade partner for the Twins at all.

I don't think this is all that attractive from Lewis's side. Yes it does guarantee some money in case of more injuries, but is $37 million really more than he can expect to make in 4 years of arbitration? If he is mostly healthy that seems like more or less the salary track he'll be on. If the team options were guaranteed maybe it becomes a little more attractive, but I still don't really see the appeal from his side. I have felt similarly about most of the extension talk around Lewis. It's not even so much the specific monetary proposal, it's more the timeline he is on right now. He is currently on track to become a free agent at age 30, giving him a shot to potentially get a 10-year mega deal. Delaying this opportunity for 2 years until he's 32 could significantly reduce the potential value of his big FA deal. I think they would have to guarantee significantly more money in 2029 and 2030 for his side to even consider it (like at least $30 million per year). Even then, there is a good argument that the best way for him to maximize his money would still be to just go through arbitration normally in order to cash in big at age 30.

Prielipp was not in their top 10, and Cooper did address the injury history in the chat, making it pretty clear that it's the main reason. I don't really get why Canterino doesn't get knocked down more. He has performed in AA, but the injury history is probably just as worrying. Soto is quite the physical specimen for his age, I think he's going to be built like Jhoan Duran in a couple of years. I'm hopeful that he'll be fairly durable because of it. Maybe the pitches don't develop as well as hoped, but personally I think he's worthy of a top 10 position, and could see him becoming their top pitching prospect pretty quickly with a strong showing. I'm guessing Winokur will be in the 11-15 range which is not much different than being in the 6-10 range. It sounds like Rodriguez will probably be in the 20-30 range. FWIW, Winokur's 32% K rate is quite a bit different than Rodriguez's 19% rate at the same level. The athletic ability from Winokur is on another level though, I think he'll provide good defensive value wherever he ends up, just not sure about the hit tool.

This is not a team built around superstars, certainly not the kind of offensive players that mostly populate that list of duos. Correa did it for two months in 2022, Buxton has done it for stretches, and maybe Lewis establishes himself as a superstar hitter, though he looks like he's overperformed by a bit so far. But if this offense is going to be good, I don't think it's going to be two guys with .900+ OPS, they'll need to have a deep group of guys with .800+ OPS. Lewis, Correa, Buxton, Julien, Wallner, Kirilloff, Kepler, Polanco, Jeffers; all of those guys could do it if they are on the roster and healthy. Probably unlikely that all of them will, but they need a solid majority of them to perform.

I'm optimistic about Alcala this year. He's always had a good FB slider combo, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise if he can become one of the top 4-5 relievers this year. I am also encouraged by his LIDOM performance. It's true that it isn't the majors but there are a lot of marginal or former major leaguers. I'd say it's solidly AAA level and certainly the highest level of the foreign winter leagues. Expectations on him did get really low though with a lot of people assuming he'd be dropped for a 40 man spot early in the offseason. On the whole, the bullpen could still use some help. I think Alcala makes the opening day roster and probably sticks as long as he's healthy. Even then, it seems that Winder and Sands are also penciled in for now, and Funderburk isn't completely proven yet either. I don't expect them to spend any kind of significant money on the bullpen though. They will try to address it with a couple of intriguing arms to try to find their next Brock Stewart.

Culpepper and Canterino are the only ones who weren't in the latest TD top 10. Winokur and Keaschall (already mentioned in the chat) missed their top ten.

Pre-season prospect list season is upon us! BA released their top 10 for the Twins yesterday. Since lots of the content is behind a paywall but I will just say that the biggest surprise is definitely CJ Culpepper in their top 10. They are complimentary of his deep repertoire of pitches and big improvements last year including his big velo jump. They are also still high on Canterino due to his mix of pitches. Personally it seems too high, as I just cannot see him making it as a starter with his injury history and delivery, and JJ Cooper did put the odds of him being a starter below 40% in the chat, but also says he wouldn't be shocked if Canterino was among the team's best relievers by the end of this year. Also interesting to me from the chat was Cooper's overall view of the system with a couple of clear tiers in the top 5, then a muddled tier in the 6-15 range. He specifically mentions Keaschall and De Andrade as guys outside the top 10 that could just as easily be top 10 guys.

So far tracking exactly with Sheffield. Going into the vote I would have expected Sheffield to get close to 75% with a big bump in his final year of eligibility. But having only got 55% last year, I'm still skeptical that Sheffield will get a big enough bump, and think he'll probably fall just short. I'll be watching to see if any gap opens up between Sheffield and Mauer. I think pretty much every player does better on the announced ballots in the tracker than they do on the rest of the ballots. Mauer could do better on the non-public ballots than Sheffield, as I think those voters have generally taken a harder stance against PEDs than the public ballot voters. But I kind of think those voters would also care more about 1st ballot distinctions and may also just be more similar to past voters that have historically done a terrible job electing catchers. I still think Mauer getting elected on his second ballot is the modal outcome, but there seems to be a solid chance that he will get in on the first ballot.

Hoskins remains, I think, the most plausible way to add a truly impact bat to the lineup. He really crushes left handed pitching, so I do think he would fit playing mostly every day with a few off days against tough righties, playing DH/1B while Kirilloff would be 1B/LF. It also depends on Buxton, but I don't think they want to DH a partially healthy Buxton again this year. He'll either be healthy enough to play the field at least part time, or on the IL. If he ends up on a 1 year deal, I do think it is plausible for the Twins. There are reports that he has also discussed multi-year deals with the Cubs, and I'm less sure the Twins would be willing to multiple years based on their obligations in 2025 and general avoidance of long term commitments. If it lowered the AAV from something like $18 to $15, maybe?

Twins selected no one in the MLB portion, and lost no one either. In the minor league portion they also lost no one, but selected 4 players: 1- Rafael Marcano: a 23-year-old LHP from the Phillies org, who reached the A+ level this year 2- Rafaele Escalante, a 22 year-old-catcher who played in the rookie complex league for the Pirates 3- Angel Del Rosario, a 20-year-old utility infielder from the Blue Jays A+ level team 4- Sheldon Reed, a 26-year-old RHP from the Cubs A+ level Here's a recent scouting report on Marcano. As a lefty that can get into the mid 90s he certainly seems like someone to keep an eye on. Predictably, he seems to have struggled with control at times, but also finished the year strong in August and September with an ERA under 2 and 34 Ks to 11 BBs in 31 1/3 innings. The others seem to be more organizational filler, though Reed, while old for the level, had a good year in A+ with a 3.38 ERA in 53 1/3 innings.

I kind of see Bader vs Martin similar to Gallo vs Larnach this year. Does Bader really have that much more upside or floor to justify spending the money and potentially blocking Martin from getting MLB experience? I'm not even that high on Martin but he'll almost certainly get on base more than Bader at the very least if given the chance. Bader's defense would likely be better but his foot speed has clearly started to decline, so I'm not sure the defensive gap would be as big as expected either. The Twins may not have great options in CF besides a miraculously healthy Buxton, but they do have options with Castro, Gordon, and Martin currently. I'd be interested in Kiermaier or Taylor at the right price, but below that I'm not sure I'd even call it an upgrade so much as just depth.

2 years $16 million total. I think fans will be in agreement with the front office on this one that Pagan is not worth that much. I still don't trust Pagan in high leverage roles, but there is a hole in the bullpen for a guy with his kind of stuff. I'm going to keep checking up on him because I do find him interesting for the fact that he continues to be consistently worse in high leverage situations and I think it's hard to argue that it is luck at this point. Even with his second half pitching about as well as he ever has, on the season he still had an .828 OPS in high leverage vs .395 in medium leverage and .526 in low leverage. He's done basically that every year so I don't see it changing and would want no part of that contract.

Heyward is projected by steamer for 1 WAR, Kepler is projected for 2.3 WAR. That would put Kepler's valuation right around $20 million, maybe a bit more if a team has a more favorable projection. And presumably the Dodger's model isn't too far off from steamer, which perfectly explains why he got the contract he did. I think Kepler will be borderline for a QO. If he plays close to his second half for a full season he might even be a no-brainer for a QO. Most likely he'll have a bit of regression and be a pretty close call.

I tend to think Kepler stays put as well, but more for depth chart reasons than contract/QO. While it is true that a QO compensation pick is worth less to a revenue sharing payee like the Yankees, I think a team like the Yankees is more interested in exclusive bargaining for an extension. If Kepler's side indicates that they are interested in signing a somewhat team friendly extension, that could have at least as much value as a QO compensation pick would have for a revenue sharing recipient. I think they just won't want to rely on Larnach/Castro/Gordon in a corner spot. Kepler is still a cheap solution, and I don't really see a clear path for them to fill his spot with a similar level of production and value, while still getting a good enough return for Kepler. Maybe I don't see the creative path, but as the roster is currently constructed, I think it just makes sense to hold on to Kepler.

Seeing 3 years $75 million on twitter now.