Eris

Alex Colome deserves to be on the list as he is single handedly responsible for 4 losses. He was also the Twins big bullpen acquisition for the winter. In addition to many of the names mentioned above, I would have Ryan Jeffers on this list. He went from being in the pre-season RoY discussion to playing himself off the roster with a nearly 50% K rate. The consequences are that we have lost several games with passed balls or WP with Garver that a decent defensive catcher would have corralled. It is really approaching total system failure. The number of regular starters and pitchers who are meeting expectations are rather low

It looks like the euphoria is over. Against KC, today 3K, 7 LOB. A batting average that is nearing the O’s Chris Davis recent years of futility. It is really frustrating to see Sano flailing at sliders low and outside.

Garlick was a defensive substitution in the bottom of the 7th after Kepler reinjured this hamstring. To describe him as a pinch hitter in the 10th is not the most accurate description.

I think so. The Twins were able to convince the umpire(s) to give Jorge Alcala extra warm-up time despite LaRussa's disagreement. Therefore assume that Maeda is at least somewhat hurt. (There are likely consequences for lying to umpires under these circumstances as well although I do not know what they would be).

This team was built / trained / coached to hit home runs. In 2019 they led the league in home runs and (I think) percentage of runs scored by home runs. In addition to bad luck, the Twins are very poor in situational hitting. This shows by horrible results with runners in scoring position. How many times do the Twins have a runner on second with no one out and fail to score. This aspect of their game is depressing.

It was mentioned on the broadcast today that Sano is working on changing his swing. Can anyone describe the mechanical changes.

I would have Alex Kirilloff as the Twins player with highest trade value. Since coming up, and before his injury, all he did was smash the ball.

From Fangraphs https://blogs.fangraphs.com/willians-astudillo-and-hanser-alberto-are-here-to-swing-the-bat/

The Twins need more than one long Bullpen arm. Right now they have none with both Smeltzer and Dobnak optioned. The two best options available without a trade are Balazovic and Duran. That is what pushing the panic button will look like. Shoemaker also needs to be DFA as ineffective starting pitching is also part of the problem. It was painful to listen to the game with Waddel pitching in the 10th knowing he had been hammered the night before. Hope and praying is never a good option. Unfortunately that is where we are today.

Fangraphs has a write up on Maeda https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kenta-maeda-has-made-a-lot-of-mistakes/

I am confused about Riddle and Lin being DFA. In a previous thread on players being called up as part of COVID IL, it was mentioned that non 40 man roster players did not have to clear waivers to be reassigned to the minors. If this is the case, it would make DFA unnecessary if the Twins want to keep them.

Although it is early in the season, only Ehire Adrianza is having a season that suggests maybe the Twins should have brought him back. Data is from MLB.com Eddie Rosario .212/.264/.628 Ehire Adrianza .286/.303/.946 Marwin Gonzalez .222/.358/.692

I haven’t seen it mentioned on this thread but Nick Gordon has been dealing with gastrointestinal issues for awhile. I believe this contributes to his inability to put on weight and his tendency for late in the season fading performance. Also likely explains why COVID-19 sidelined him most of last year as one of the symptoms is of Covid is gut inflammation. I can’t remember his medical condition but it may be Crohn’s disease. I am happy for Nick Gordon that he got the call and hope he does well. https://www.bemidjipioneer.com/sports/baseball/6925813-After-more-health-issues-Twins-prospect-Nick-Gordon-‘thankful’-to-be-back-on-field

I have always thought it would be better to have relief pitchers throw more than one inning in exchange for more rest. I have not seen any data. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to have someone throw 10-12 pitches in one inning and then run someone else out for the next inning. Although getting lose in the bullpen is not high leverage it has to contribute to some wear and tear on the arm. A counter argument would be that having relief pitchers throw only one inning allows for better match-ups and makes them available for the following day if needed.

Although Luis Arraez’s defense at 2B was atrocious in 2019 (4th worst) he improved substantially in 2020 and was close to being an average 2B. Data is from def Fangraphs. Ozzie Albies had a freak elbow injury that likely affected his value and possibly his insurability. Before the injury he was a SS. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mlb.com/amp/news/braves-prospect-ozzie-albies-injures-elbow-c200237922.html

Not sure when the proposed Castillo trade with Gleyber Torres as the centerpiece was suggested, but Torres is very overrated as a SS. http://www.backsportspage.com/sorry-to-burst-your-bubble-yankee-fans-but-gleyber-torres-is-not-an-elite-shortstop/

This may possibly be true. However, if Buxton was honest with himself he would also realize that he should never have accumulated 2 years of service time while hitting 0.209 in 2015 and 0.225 in 2016. The only reason he was accumulating MLB service time during this period was the Aaron Hicks for John Ryan Murphy trade. Over this time period the Twins position players with a K% greater than Buxton's are Darin Mastronianni and Miguel Sano and Buxton was marginally better than Oswaldo Arcia. Position players with a batting average worse than Byron Buxton are: Darin Mastroianni, Chris Herrmann, John Ryan Murphy, Byung-ho Park, Doug Bernier, Jordan Schafer. 2015 to 2016 OBP. Position players worse than Byron Buxton are: Darin Mastroianni, John Ryan Murphy, Chris Herrmann, Jordan Schafer, Danny Santana, James Beresford. OPS. 2015-2016. Position players worse than Byron Buxton are: Darin Mastroinni, John Ryan Murphy, Chris Herrmann, Jordan Schafer, James Beresford, Danny Santana, Shane Robinson, Kurt Suzuki, and Logan Schafer. I hope Byron Buxton does well as I would like the Twins to win another World Series before I die. I would not consider extending Byron Buxton unless he demonstrates that he can stay on the field. It is very difficult to build a team around a player who can not be relied upon. Currently the Twins have Josh Donaldson and Byron Buxton for whom they must prioritize contingency plans.

At 37% K rate, Sano is rank 9th worst of all time. This is approaching historic levels of bad. Granted, attitudes towards strikeouts are different now compared to years past. I am not totally up to date on hard hit rates. Does the rate include strikeouts, with a SO counting as 0 mph exit velocity. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=1871&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=1871-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=10,d

Who profiles as the better defensive outfielder, Larnach or Kirilloff?

Reminds me of another top Twins prospect with elite defensive skills, but with a hole in his swing. It is really not a good sign that Royce Lewis is dropping in the prospect rankings nationally (and also here at Twins Daily)

Just curious, if the spring training game is reduced to 5 innings by an advanced agreement between the 2 teams, are the ticket prices going to be reduced by 5/9 of the original value. I am not planning on going to Florida to watch spring training games his year. But if I were, I would not be happy with this 5 inning rule.

Byron Buxton played in 140 games in 2017. If he manages that many games this year the impact for the Twins will be huge.

I recall that although the Yankee offer was originally reported as Hughes AND Kennedy, it became Hughes OR Kennedy. Not sure in the Yankees changed their minds or that the original details were incorrectly reported. Jon Lester had, in the latter part of 2006, been diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. At the time of trade it was not clear that he would remain in remission ( in young men non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has a 5 year survival of about 84%) . Therefore the Twins had wanted more than Jon Lester. (In 2007 Lester appeared in 11 games with an ERA of 4.57 and an FIP of 5.24 I am a little confused about the link below as they are reporting Lester's cancer to be both a lymphoma and a blood cancer. I don't really understand that. http://archive.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2006/09/02/lester_diagnosed_with_cancer/

The J.J. Hardy for Gomez trade was not such a bad trade. In the seven years following the trade, Hardy put up 17.3 WAR and Gomez put up 19.8 WAR of which 12.8 was in the 2 years of 2013 and 2014. Over his career Hardy had slightly better WAR 27 to Gomez's 24. All data is from fangraphs. The problem was trading after one year Hardy and Brendon Harris to Baltimore for and Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson.

“Even with a poor 2020 season, Báez has an extremely favorable outlook. He isn’t as good as Lindor but also costs nearly $10 million less. His price in a trade would likely require one of the Twins’ top five prospects or a slew in the 6-15 range.” https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/teams/457/ Baseball trade values has Baez median value at 11.7. Therefore a package of Cavaco (7.6) and Enlow (4.1) would be about right.