2wins87

I have lots of thoughts on Mauer and the HOF, but citing only fWAR for catchers in Molina and Mauer's era is a little problematic due to the huge impact of framing in the first half dozen years that it was included in fWAR. It's not that I think the framing numbers are wrong in their impact, but I don't think guys should be in the hall conversation solely on the basis of being a good framer. Brian McCann and Russell Martin are pretty close to Mauer in fWAR but 15-20 of those wins come from framing for both of them, and most of that from 2008-2013 when a few teams were measuring framing and understood its impact but many didn't. McCann and Martin were both good catchers, but both benefited from being on teams that understood framing early and neither belong anywhere near a Hall conversation. Molina also gains maybe 10-15 wins from framing, but in his case his reputation is defense, working with pitchers, and other leadership aspects that are difficult if not impossible to measure. I buy it for the most part so I think Yadi should go to the Hall. Same for Posey. I think it is often unappresiated how hard it is to maintain a high level of offense while catching for many years. Mauer should have the most straightforward case of the three. He also ticks a lot of traditionalist boxes with things like the 3 batting titles. I do think national writers have often seemed to be more clear headed about this than many in Minnesota, so I think there's a very good shot he gets in on the first ballot.

Brendan McKay was a potential two-way player. Ended up with the Rays, looked like a good pitcher until he had Tommy John and the bat was never good enough to make it as a hitter. Kyle Wright was the top college pitching prospect who was pushed quickly to the majors by the Braves. Has been mostly mediocre in the majors. McKenzie Gore was the top lefty HS pitcher. Probably not really in the conversation above Greene. He's in the majors now and has been ok so far, so could still be good. Lewis was ranked behind those 4 in most lists. I don't think there was really a college bat in the conversation. 2017 ended up being a very weak draft in retrospect. The best player so far is probably Dalton Varsho out of the second round. Lewis should probably still end up being the best player from the draft if he stays healthy enough.

Great to see the Kernels come out on top. That was a really stacked roster for most of the season. Outside of top prospect ERod, pretty much the whole lineup was full of legitimate prospects, maybe not future stars but a lot of guys who are still young enough for the league and could easily figure to be future role players at the very least. The rotation was also full of guys who have shown some promise in their first year out of college who could be just a few steps away from turning into top pitching prospects. I caught parts of both playoff series. I came away pretty impressed with the playoff run that Cardenas had. He was really great working the count and finished 4 for 11 with 8 walks and only 1 K in his 5 games. He's not a guy that has gotten much attention but with a good defensive reputation as a catcher he could certainly turn into a solid major leaguer still. I didn't catch much of Culpepper's start, though he seemed to have been dominant. I was impressed with Morris in his second start bouncing back from a rough first outing. He was just cruising outside of one mistake. It was good to see 12 Ks in 10 playoff innings too, since the K rate this season was the one weak spot in his profile. I think most of the Cedar Rapids team should start next year in AA, so the Wichita team should hopefully be a lot of fun next year.

I think Greene has a bright future but he hasn't yet been as good overall as he was against the Twins lineup yesterday. The track record for HS pitchers in the first few picks of the draft is pretty spotty. Not going for Greene 1-1 made a lot of sense at the time, and Lewis is now finally proving to be the right choice among the others that were in the mix that year. I'll take Lewis over Greene going forward, and as injury prone as Lewis has been, it's hard to say Greene doesn't have at least as much injury risk with one TJ already in the books.

This is a painful announcing discussion. The ruling was a swinging strike and dead ball once it hit his hand. I feel like Bremer should understand the rule. I don't know if there are any rules about where the batter can hold the bat but the hbp strike is something they should know.

42 plate appearances is nothing, looking at his AA numbers also is fair, but with such a short track record, especially for judging a platoon split, why not just add up all of his professional experience so far? For his career at all levels: vs RHP: 1200 PA, 293/438/503, 941 OPS vs LHP: 334 PA, 241/377/370, 747 OPS He has a big platoon split, which is about the least surprising thing you could say about a left handed hitter. It might be bigger than your average lefty, but his sub-500 OPS in 42 PA is basically meaningless. I find it hard to believe he won't be at least around a 650 OPS against LHP long-term. I would hope that the numbers Rocco is looking at in the dugout are some kind of reasonable projection based on Julien's whole minor league track record. It would be incompetence for the analytics team to give him a 42 PA sample as meaningful data, so I have a hard time believing that was the data behind the decision. Is Julien against a lefty a better bet than Vazquez against a righty? For his career Vazquez has a 667 OPS vs righties (734 vs lefties). Vazquez has also hit much worse than his career this year. I'd say it's a close call, but mostly I just haven't enjoyed watching Vazquez at the plate this year so I never like seeing him as a pinch hitter.

For the record, the first base coach had no idea what he was talking about. That wasn't a homerun, it was a throwing error giving the runner second base. Didn't end up affecting the score, though it is still very critical to know how many outs there are.

Watched most of Festa's start. He did have some general trouble finding his locations, particularly with his breaking ball, but he also seemed to have some issues with the automatic K zone. There was one particular at bat where he threw 4 straight pitches belt high over the plate and ended up with a 4 pitch walk. He was visibly baffled after that one. It seemed like he eventually started mostly working at the bottom of the zone, even with his fastball, which is typically more effective at the top of the zone. I'm still encouraged by how his stuff played when he got it in the zone. The hitters that spent a lot of time in AAA and the majors have apparently commented on how they learned to just not offer at anything up in AAA since the top of the zone was so different from the typical zone in the majors. I think there are still some kinks to work out before we see it in the majors. From my understanding, the zone is determined for each player by taking measurements, but I don't know exactly how this is done. Presumably they use the rulebook definition while they are in their batting stance, but that seems like it would give hitters a lot of incentive to alter their stance a bit when taking measurements to get a smaller zone. I think the rulebook probably needs to be changed for an automatic zone, and they have to find a reasonable anatomical marker in standing position that is fair for hitters and pitchers. Anyway, Lee also had a nice play deep in the hole at short. He looks like he would be a serviceable SS in the majors, but it'll be interesting to see where he can find a spot next year with Correa and Lewis currently manning the left side. I think Martin now has to be pretty much a full-time outfielder. The Twins just have too many better options in AAA and the majors for the infield spots.

Twins coming back off Moore and/or Lopez today after torching Giolito yesterday would be objectively the funniest way to win this series

I think it was one of those where the photo footage wasn't good enough to see exactly where it hit, but the way it bounced clearly looked like it hit the concrete behind the yellow line, to me at least. Not enough for NY though.

Bibee should know that there's always a price when you wish on a monkey's paw. This is getting ridiculous

Jay Harry is looking like a steal in the 6th round. I'm not a fan of those high contact, no impact bats in the first round, like Madrigal or Jacob Wilson this year. I'm not sure what separates those guys from someone like Harry in the eyes of scouts though, and if Harry can keep making contact and be a solid defender in the infield on his way up the ladder, that's a useful MLB utility type, and a great outcome for a 6th round pick.

As TwinsDr said, he will have an innings limit and they will be careful managing him for his long-term durability. I don't think even think Varland starts next year pencilled into the rotation as I expect they will build similar to this year with the young un-established guys waiting in the wings. That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was 7th on the depth chart like Varland was this year, so he could be pretty likely to get at least a few starts for the Twins. Long term, he's got as good a shot at being a starter as any prospect or recent graduate. I've been pretty high on him since he came out touching 98/99 as a starter in low A last year. He has a three pitch mix and I think all of them should play in the majors. I already mentioned the fastball which averaged 95 last night, still pretty good late season when velocity tends to be down a bit for most pitching prospects. He absolutely has the ability to sit around 96 and reach back for 99 when fresh, and hopefully he builds up his endurance over time to do that regularly. I think his changeup might be his best pitch, and it was working really well last night, racking up 12 whiffs on 21 swings. He was selling the arm action really well and the Columbus hitters were repeatedly swinging out front and over the top of it. The slider wasn't featured as heavily, but it should also be at least MLB average, and improving breaking balls has been something the Twins have done pretty well at the major league level. I think the main knock is that he's still really lanky, and seems like a guy who maybe doesn't put on muscle mass easily. So far he hasn't had an serious injury issues but I think that's why they've been particularly careful with him so far.

I think some important things to consider with Ramirez is that he was already getting significant major league exposure at age 21, and before that he was making Arraez levels of contacts in the minors. His contact ability has always been on another level not just compared to Severino but compared to nearly any other major or minor leaguer, and then he added better plate discipline and significantly more power starting at a young age in the majors. Statistically, I think maybe Cal Raleigh is sort of in the ballpark as a potential comp as a switch hitter.

Really glad they pulled it out particularly looking at that bullpen usage chart. I guess Pagan could be available since he's supposed to have a rubber arm. But it seems like they could be relying on Balazovic, Winder, and Sands for some important innings tomorrow

Wow, what a weird ending to a kind of crazy game

None of the Braves guys (Acuna, Albies, Riley, Strider) were repped by Boras. Ultimately up to Lewis if he wants to sign a big extension or try for a bigger post arbitration FA deal, but I think the representation makes a big difference, and Boras very much likes negotiating in the open market.

None of the Braves guys (Acuna, Albies, Riley, Strider) were repped by Boras. Ultimately up to Lewis if he wants to sign a big extension or try for a bigger post arbitration FA deal, but I think the representation makes a big difference, and Boras very much likes negotiating in the open market.

I would guess that starting next year the rotation would be something like: Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Someone, Paddack. Varland would be in Ober's position waiting in the wings in AAA, and Paddack sort of in Maeda's situation where we're not sure what we're going to get. As a 3rd or 4th starter in that rotation Maeda definitely fits. I don't think they should really want to go more than year to year with him, and he might look for one last multi-year contract at whatever AAV he can get. They could also aim for more of a #2 to try to replace Sonny Gray. Maeda's current performance does fit, but I don't think anyone will be counting on him to maintain quite this level for another year. I doubt they will be competing for one of the few top free-agents, so there might be someone they could get in a trade, but I'm not sure who that pitcher would be right now.

Logically, Cleveland should be pretty much cooked at this point. 6 games back, below .500, just dropped 3 of 4 to the same Tigers team that gave the Twins so many problems. I still don't trust this Twins team not to suddenly go on a terrible losing streak though. If they did, this would be the week to do it with the Brewers and Rangers. Honestly just making it through this week no worse than 2-4, and then playing Cleveland at .500 the rest of the way should be enough to lock up the division. I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to make it more interesting though.

I think a good first baseman catches that throw though too. Solano had time to set up and looked very flat footed trying to adjust. Either way, not exactly the defensive alignment you want for the kind of game Sonny was pitching.

Sits low-to-mid 90s with the fastball, averaging above 93 and touching 97. Fastball might not have particularly good secondary characteristics though as he didn't get that many whiffs on it in low-A. Decent slider and changeup, but I don't know that either would project as above average right now. He and Zebby Matthews are pretty similar in terms of velocity and control/pounding the zone. The K rate isn't exactly a plus in my mind. He's only at about 25% in both A levels, and at those levels I'd kind of like to see it closer to 30%, but it's not a red flag. He's done a good job of limiting walks and not giving up too much hard contact so far. My question is whether he gets hit harder when moving to the upper levels, but if he does maintain his strengths so far there is mid/back of the rotation potential.

FCL only plays 5 times a week vs 6 for the higher levels. Florida can be rainy. They got a couple off days as they were first getting going but are playing in almost every game now. No idea what happened with yesterday's scheduled game, no indication of a postponement, just no box score.

Is there a direct RSS link? I can't find it via search in my podcatcher app. Definitely interested in checking it out.

Interesting defensive lineup today. Get some Ks Maeda.