2wins87

.935 OPS for Correa in his last 7 games now. Still only a .720 OPS in his last 14 games, so he needs to sustain it a bit longer before I think it's real. I definitely didn't think he'd been doing enough prior to being put in the leadoff spot after the players meeting. Although the upside was he could get a lot of at bats without necessarily always ending up in the most important RBI spots all the time, which he had just failed in so much in the first half. Turns out it's worked out well. There have been a couple points earlier in the season where it seemed like maybe he was turning it on only for him to go super cold again. It does seem like he's made much more consistent contact in the last week stretch. He really needs to keep it up for the team.

I've heard that the umps have a buffer zone at the edge where neither missed balls or missed strikes count against their grading. Kind of similar to having a larger zone. The box on the TV is definitely not always accurate, though I think it is usually pretty accurate on the sides but is often clearly wrong at the top and/or bottom. I think there is a bit of a range in where the dot for the ball crossing the plate ends up too. You can't take it for gospel. I think the ump last night wasn't great, but I've seen a lot worse.

Gallo and Kepler, winning ball games, just like we've all been saying all year.

I don't really disagree but my current take on the front office is slightly different. I don't think we can deny that they have brought the organization many years forward on player development. The organization was already mired in a pretty bad development rut prior to them taking over. They brought in technology and personnel that brought the organization up to speed with what had been going on in other organizations for years. Getting the infrastructure in place is a big part of the development pipeline, but the pipeline also involves competent coaching and scouting. As just a fan, it's impossible for me to really untangle those two, but clearly they have left a little to be desired. They haven't been completely without success on the hitting development side. I do still kind of believe that they have gotten big improvements from guys that the previous regime wouldn't have even had a clue of what to do with. I think we have to include Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand as well. Steer may have benefited from adding a slightly different philosophy from another organization, but the Twins organization had already laid the foundation unlocking his power and elevating him from a 4th rounder to a top 100 prospect. I do think hitting development is harder and much more dependent on the player's innate abilities. Hitting is about reaction, and a lot of the ability to make contact on the barrel, and even the ability to make split-second swing decisions is more down to individual ability than any coaching, though getting the right mechanics for the right guy is still hugely important. That makes me wonder how much blame to also put on the scouting and decision making. Cavaco seems like a clear scouting mistake, and I think there are probably other more subtle ones. But I'm also thinking beyond the amateur level. They have had some good trades and some bad trades, some good signings and some bad signings, but I don't think we can rate their overall decision making on those as any better than mediocre. I don't think that I really disagree with their philosophy of how they have tried to build the team, but whatever model and scouting is going into the final decisions, it doesn't seem like it's really led to particularly good results compared to the rest of the league. I also been wondering about their advance scouting reports. The number of times that they have made mediocre pitchers look great makes me really wonder if the pre-game info is just bad or poorly conveyed somehow. I want to give the front office credit for bringing the organization forward, and it seems that they do now do some things, like getting the most of their pitchers, better than most other organizations. But it still feels like overall the level of competence when it comes to signing, trading, and drafting is just pretty average.

Yeah the schedule gets pretty easy for most of the remaining season. They could probably muddle through as a very mediocre offense and still have a very good shot at the division. The offense just getting worse is really disheartening though. Ultimately Buxton and Correa will need to be better, but I'm ready to see more from guys who might actually help the team in future seasons. At this point it really can't hurt.

I think you are looking at it backwards. Berrios pitched 140 innings because he was healthy. Raya hasn't been particularly healthy. He missed all of 2021 because of his shoulder. He started this year on the IL because of his shoulder. I don't remember many specifics around his skipped starts last year probably because there weren't any details out there. One stint was wisdom teeth, but there were two other stints when he missed one or two turns in the rotation. I can only speculate but I would have to think that there were additional physical concerns beyond just the typical soreness/tiredness that comes after throwing a bunch of baseballs over 90 mph. Probably they are being very far towards the cautious end of the scale, but I don't see how we could expect him to stay healthy if they were to just let him pitch more. If they can get him through the season without a more serious injury I think it's a win, and it's much easier for him to continue working on conditioning behind the scenes if he's healthy as well.

I'm with others that I'm not particularly enamored with Wilson. I do think contact is the most important part of the most important tool, but it's unlikely to carry him to a particularly high level. There are other players in the majors that can make contact as consistently as Arraez, but Arraez is still a unicorn in his ability to turn that contact into such a high batting average, not to mention that he's also at the high end of the plate discipline part of the hit tool as well. Maybe Wilson could also be a unicorn, but I'd agree that it would seem like a high floor/low ceiling pick.

Really hard not to make comparisons Berrios. There is even a little delivery similarity with the slide step in his stride. I remember the biggest knock on Berrios was always durability as well. Looking at Berrios now and through his later years with the Twins, he is still undersized for a starter, but is pretty built, with super broad shoulders, and I think that is a big part of his durability. I don't remember how quickly he built up that strength or if he still had a more slight build early in his mlb career, but he always worked very hard on conditioning and he's been remarkably healthy in his career. Raya has the same knock, and looking at him now he still has a somewhat slight build, but I could see him putting on muscle like Berrios. Raya has already dealt with a few health issues early on though too, so that is a difference from Berrios. I don't think we're going to see Raya pitching 6 innings anytime soon, rather it will be a slow build with lots of conditioning work in the background. If they can keep him healthy though it could be a great benefit to his ultimate career and his chances to start long term.

Teel is my favorite outside of the consensus top 5, not for positional need but for positional value. I believe that truly good catchers do provide value beyond what we can typically measure. I don't know that Teel is guaranteed to be successful in the role, but I'm willing to give a little extra bump in value to someone like Teel that could potentially impact both sides of the ball and lock down a crucial roster position for many years.

Grace was a starter prospect 2 years ago and has gone two or more innings pretty regularly this year. The list of relief prospects that looked good in A ball only to get shelled in AA or AAA is very very long. It's still early in his AA career so I'm not saying that's what happening, just that around 100 innings in A/A+ is a tiny, not very predictive sample.

Also, while on the topic, I find it interesting that Law believes they would take Clark if available but not necessarily Jenkins. Most of the assumptions around here have been that they would prefer Jenkins due to his 80 grade makeup, but it seems that is not true.

Reading Law's writeup, specifically on his not using his lower half to generate power, I wonder if the thought process might be them thinking they know how to add power specifically to a player like Gonzalez, in the same way they did with Spencer Steer, where the adjustments included adding a leg kick which unlocked the power. I trust the consensus for a large part, but I think it's foolish to believe that I have any clue on a proper order. I feel very confident that the consensus top 5 will not be the 5 best players taken in the draft. It'll probably be very unlikely that even the top 3 players from the draft come from that group. I also feel very confident that there will be a lot of teeth gnashing from fans who have spent about 1 minute researching a couple players for whichever team breaks with consensus. If it is Gonzalez, I will be disappointed in the moment. And if they decide to break with consensus and they are wrong, they will deserve all the blame. But I won't pretend that I know better, or even that the public industry definitely knows better.

I've been tracking mock drafts over the last month or two and Langford lasts to the Twins in about 20%. This feels about right for the odds; I might have put it a little lower on first thought, but the draft usually is a lot less predictable than it feels in the leadup. Not sure how many times they can get lucky in the draft process in two years, but if he's there I'm sure they'll be ecstatic and I will be too.

Severino with a homer from both sides of the plate. Lee about a foot away from doing the same. Good night for the bats, indeed.

He's a below average offensive player. There's no reason a team with a decent offense should be finding time for him in a corner outfield spot. Now, given the other options, it's fine that he gets the nod over other non-performing hitters, but he's still best suited for the utility role.

I don't think ERA is meaningless, but it's much less important for a prospect than those peripheral stats. I'd be much more down on him if he had a 2 ERA but wasn't striking guys out and had a bunch of solo home runs off him.

Of 52 pitchers in the Texas league with at least 40 innings (he's pitched 51): 10th in K/9, 15th in K/BB, 13th in FIP, 8th in xFIP. Not dominating quite like he did in the low minors but I'd say still better than mediocre number-wise.

I wouldn't be upset with Dollander at #5. The Twins staff can certainly develop good breaking balls, so hopefully they would be able to help Dollander regain his. Although the coaching in a big D1 program should be pretty competent too, so the regression this year is still concerning. With all the good bats at the top of the draft, if they were going to go outside the consensus top 5 I think I would prefer Teel, and I would even hope they would be taking a hard look at guys like Matt Shaw and Tommy Troy.

With 6 games against Atlanta and Baltimore on the road, this is probably the toughest week left on the schedule. The other week that stands out to me is Aug 21 with 2 in Milwaukee followed by 4 at home vs the Rangers. I hope the offense shows up. It's not going to be the toughest week of pitching they've faced (not bad, just not great), but they are going to need runs. They can't afford to make the mediocre pitchers that they get this week look like aces.

Under the table deals on the international market? That's a little glib, but I think Acuna and Albies were in the period where they were probably already breaking rules but before they were caught. I won't pretend to know their system much, so I'm getting a lot of this information on the fly, but it's my understanding that it's not a very deep system largely because they are more aggressive with their top prospects than probably any other team. The guys that are truly good enough seem to figure it out, but I wouldn't say it's always successful. Kyle Wright has never been a good major league pitcher despite getting to the majors quickly. Christian Pache is on his third team now. Braden Shewmake spent 4 years in AA/AAA after being pushed to AA in his first pro season, and just got his cup of coffee this year. I won't claim that any of those players would have been better if they were moved slower, but just that getting guys up quickly doesn't mean they will be good over time. The Twins under Falvey and Levine aren't really slower than the average team, though they have focused much more on college players so we probably aren't going to see too many really young debuts. Royce Lewis probably could have been up at 21, but then there was the covid year and injuries. Michael Harris is basically on a similar timeline for the Braves.

There have been a lot of rumors about them really preferring a college hitter, even over Clark and Jenkins, though Teel hasn't really been linked to them. Doesn't mean Teel isn't actually on their radar at #5 though. And you can't put that much stock in the rumors and linkages.

Getting a leftover college bat might be a good play of going with the strength of the draft, but at this point I also like the idea of a HS pitcher, particularly if they've already landed two position players which seems fairly probable. HS pitching seems to be kind of weak at the top with Meyer being the only surefire 1st rounder, and White and Soto being the other probable guys who might also slip out of the first round, so there don't seem to necessarily be many targets with their earlier picks. Seems to be a few projectable HS arms that could go in the 50 range though. Maybe Blake Wolters or Landon Maroudis. There are a few other names too.

I'm very interested if they are going to keep developing him as a reliever/utility player. Seems like his stuff could be similar to Jordan Gore who they tried the reliever conversion with recently, the difference is Bechtold's bat seems good enough that he could hold his own in the majors, and I know his defense is very good at third and would think it could at least be solid elsewhere. My first impression is that it's hard to see that much utility in the majors for a guy that can literally do everything but might be just marginal at everything. Would still be intriguing to see how that could work out though.

Festa seems to be a pretty frequent victim of the one-bad-inning syndrome. Worth noting that 3 singles and 2 walks were all in the 4th inning, and the only other base runner was a leadoff single in the first. I did watch some of the outing and it seemed that his changeup was baffling the opposing hitters a lot. He's still a very lanky guy, and I think a lot of times his bad inning has come in the 4th or 5th, so building strength and stamina could be a significant help. ERA is pretty far down my list of useful metrics for judging prospects anyway, and his FIP, xFIP, K rate are all quite good.

I would hope the crankiest fans will be pleased with this game. I can't think of any common complaints that weren't satisfied by this game. Except maybe that Buxton didn't play center but he did hit two bombs.