Eris

Luis Gil out for at least 3 months (sorry not being allowed to post a link, article is from the NYPost)

The challenge here is that the statistics are accumulated over an entire season or more and having a player who has a higher K% because of trying to achieve more power will statistically result in more runs over this period . The metric being used is the number of runs scored, not how many times a run scores. In the playoffs, or in the case of a specific desired outcome, e.g., 2 outs with a runner on 3B and team needing 1 run. In this scenario, most people would prefer to have Ichiro Suzuki or Joe Mauer at the plate as compared to Aaron Judge because the probability that a runs scores will be higher with Suzuki or Mauer. However, were this situation to repeat itself 20 times, it is quite likely the Judge will drive in more runs because some of his hits will be home runs. There are also situations where the opposite is true, Where a HR is needed an the player most likely to achieve that strikes out almost 40% of the time but hits a HR every 12 at bats

Bader was signed because the Twins have a Buxton problem. No one is expecting Bader to hit, but the Twins need a backup centerfielder who can play 80 games or more a year in Center. It is very hard to have two starting caliber centerfielders on the roster, as each would like to be paid like a starting CF, hence the need to compromise either on offense or defense. In 2023, the Twins got lucky with Michael Taylor having close to one of the best years of his career. Not so much in 2024 as the backup outfielder Manuel Margot couldn’t hit or field. This year we hope that Bader recovers from his 3 year slide. Hope is not a good strategy. The backup to the backup appears to be hoping that Austin Martin can play a serviceable CF. Hope is poor situation to be in. Let’s hope that Buxton can play 140 games in CF.

Upgrading the Twins is really hard as the Twins are an above average team offensively, but below average defensively. It is not just one position, it is across the field. A major issue that does not have an easy solution is too many players are injury prone (Buxton, Lewis, Correa, Miranda, and possibly Lee). 2B was an issue last year, but not because of personnel as putting Castro or healthy Lee at 2B would have solved the 2B problem. Having both Wallner and Larnach in the outfield poses defensive issues. One of them needs to learn how to play 1B and the other needs to be traded if you want an outfield that is above average defensively. (Adding Rodriquez, Jenkins and possibly Keaschall substantially changes the OF discussion ) At C, Ryan Jeffers has been too slump prone to be counted on as full time C and it is the one position where the Twins do not good organizational options. I don’t see the Twins as being one player away from advancing further into the playoffs and therefore I would not be trading any SP to improve a position. Likely the Twins will need acquire a C for next year and it is probably necessary to include pitching in a trade that substantially upgrades the catcher position. As an aside, taking into consideration my opinions and other TD writers, the Twins have a future log jam at 1B with 1B possibly being the most suitable position for Lewis, Julian, Larnach, Miranda, and Wallner. The FO solution is to bring in Ty France. Any potential trades should focus on clearing this future log jam at 1B. The challenge is that among those listed, only Lewis and Wallner are likely to return value that this time which means they should also be retained as being most likely to be future contributors.

What does it say about a player when trying to improve against left handed pitching, his swing is messed up for an entire year. Roster spots are at a premium, how many players can a team carry that need to platooned. Maybe the learning here is that high K% hitters are inherently limited. (Or are more prone to longer periods of under performance. Even Aaron Judge was effectively neutralized for much of the 2024 playoffs).

This is good read. Thank you. Finally a top prospect (2 including Walker Jenkins) who don’t strike out 25 - 30% of the time.

This article raises some interesting points. I generally don’t get the Ty France signing. I think if Lewis continues to be below average at 3B he needs to be moved to 1B. The Twins are tracking towards having below average defense at all positions except SS, CF, and possibly C. Where several or fewer preventable losses is the difference between making the playoffs or not, I don’t see how their defensive alignment is going to be a winning formula.

Putting Castro at 1B strikes me as poor use of defensive skills. Castro (and possibly Lee) are likely the best defensive 3B on the team. The 7 players behind the pitcher should be positioned to maximize defensive efficiency. A factor that complicates this assessment is that both Lewis and Miranda have been hurt over the past 2 years. So it is possible that they are defensively better than their past results. An additional factor that complicates these decisions is that Miranda and Lewis’ long term value is more limited if their primary position is 1B.

Power hitting first baseman with defensive liabilities are a dime a dozen. Casas so far has put up 1.7 WAR in his best season. Any GM who trades Ober or Ryan for Casas should be fired.

Baseball really misses opportunities to market itself to young audiences (the future). Too many playoff games are on cable and they start and end much to late to have younger audiences watch the game.

It was demoralizing to spend the last 2 months reading articles on TD, most of which began with some variation of “because of the need to cut payroll…” Oh boy! The Twins are fielding trade offers for Carlos Correa or Pablo López. Let’s trade Ryan Jeffers for a middling RP, Willie Castro— no room in the budget for him. And Joe Ryan lets trade him while he has maximum value, etc…. I found all this to be very depressing. So much so that I stopped reading most articles on TD. It sucked all the enjoyment out of the off-season. And now we learn less than 40 days from pitchers and catchers reporting that maybe-just maybe- payroll doesn’t need to be cut after all.

In the three years Correa has played for the Twins, he has led the team in fWAR. Buxton is second and Castro is third. Not sure why a Correa trade is being discussed.

I disagree with premise of the article regarding having blatant holes in their lineup. A team can never have too much pitching. The Twins have plenty of young talent in their system (ERod, Jenkins, Keaschall). Let them play if need a bat. Of the position players mentioned as having left, only Santana and Kepler were contributors. Wallner will take over in RF. Julien is somewhat of an uncertainty because great one year very poor the next. The Twins do have an injury/reliability issue with Buxton, Lewis, Lee, Correa and Miranda missing significant playing time. This issue will not be solved by trading away pitching.

Posting this here as a Correa trade has also been linked with the Yankees. The hold up in a Bellinger trade is the Yankees are expecting the Cubs to take on part of his salary. The Yankees had horrible production at 1B this past season. https://nypost.com/2024/12/11/sports/yankees-targeting-cubs-cody-bellinger-but-money-issues-remain/

The original this offseason Correa to the Yankees was written by Joel Sherman conjecturing the the Twins were so desperate to dump salary that they would be willing to trade Correa for nothing of value in return. He was not proposing a trade make both the Twins and Yankees better.

Trying to be optimistic about this. In the short term the Mets will benefit a lot. However, the backend of the contract is likely to be drag on their payroll. Soto’s contract is front loaded, but it is still 46 million per year until his age 41 season. Consider the Yankees as an example. They have not won a World Series since 2009 despite repeatedly having one of the top payrolls in baseball. This year was there only appearance since their last title.

Agree with the general opinion that is is very difficult to find a home for a one dimensional player. I also feel that the Twins have too many players who are below average defensively to justify picking up Arraez. He did however, score 83 runs in down year for him. He would have been second on the Twins behind Castro’s 89 runs and about 40th in MLB. Does the metric of runs scored not have a lot of value.

I struggle to understand how someone who has greater than 30% strikeouts at most of his stops in the minors and can’t hit off speed pitches should be a top 30 MLB prospect and the #2 TD prospect. It is almost as if strikeouts don’t matter. Don’t get take my comments wrong, I hope Emmanuel Rodriguez has Hall of Fame career and leads the Twins to multiple World Series championships. But his current path seems all too familiar (Buxton, Larnach). He will be called up and see curveballs after curveballs from MLB pitchers who can throw these pitches for strikes and will have close to a 40% K rate. Hopefully he and the Twins figure this out before he is called up.

Many years go, I was able to attend a presentation by Sandy Alderson when he was GM with the Mets. He was asked how the Mets assessed trades. He indicated there was an ongoing continuous effort where employees (including interns) propose trade ideas with different organizations and these are presented and discussed at weekly meetings (more frequent approaching the trade deadline). In a way it is probably not much different than the discussions on TD regarding proposed trades (except they have internal data).

This is the current trend in baseball. It seems as if the bomba days of 2017-2019 have had a long term influence on player selection. Per fangraphs, in 2024, only 6 teams had a positive defensive metric (which includes a positional adjustment). In 2004, 21 teams had a positive defensive metric. (hmm, can’t paste the fangraphs links )

In addition to evaluation methodology that was included in this article, which showed a small overall WAR impact, I would add a subjective win, lose or draw assessment to the trade, for example did the trade accomplish the immediate goal. I would have also included all the trades, including for minor leaguers. It also possible for both teams to win or lose a trade. Examples: Margot trade was a loss as the immediate objective was to acquire a capable 4th outfielder (he had -0.2 fWAR in his only season with the Twins) Polanco trade was a loss (for both teams) as the objective was to acquire a very good reliever (Topa) and a fifth starter Sonny Gray trade was a win even if Petty has a HoF career as the objective was to acquire a frontline starter

Agree with @bean5302 given the Twins lack of depth of MLB capable catchers in the farm system, a trade needs to return a catcher and therefore there is only surplus value in a Jeffers trade if the Twins downgrade the catcher quality or accept higher risk by, e.g., trading for a minor league catcher with a higher ceiling. This does call into question the Twins draft strategy of generally not drafting catchers higher in the draft especially since good catchers have a lot of trade value. (Easier said than done as players who profile as good hitters with strong defense behind the plate are rare and would likely go high in the draft). Ben Rortvelt was a second round pick and has failed to live up to expectations.

I think a team can never have enough pitching. Therefore I would not be in favor of any of these trades unless a high ceiling A or AA pitcher was included. I think the trades that Twins need to explore are trading some of their hitters for players that could offer more defensive upside. From Fangraphs, the Twins have only 4 players returning next season that provided positive defensive value (These are Vasquez , Correa, Castro, and Buxton). That is a lot of opportunity for improvement on defense. (not sure why, but I can’t paste the fangraphs link here)

From Griffin Jax’ perspective, a good starting pitcher is normally worth more than a good relief pitcher. Therefore he should be given that opportunity.

World Series games frequently come down to 1 play made vs. 1 play not made. Fundamentals and good defense matters. I don’t recall a series where one team played such sloppy baseball. On catcher interference. There is a write up somewhere that catchers are moving closer to the plate in an attempt to steal more strikes. Here’s a play that was made.