Eris

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.

From Fangraphs, Sano is 9th worst all time with 37% K%. His stats are comparable to the Rangers Joey Gallo. 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&page=1_30

If no team would be willing to take on Donaldson’s contract and his unreliability is such that the Twins need to prioritize adding depth behind him doesn’t that mean he has negative value. An asset is not supposed to be a liability. The contract does matter.

Wouldn’t he need to clear waivers to become a free agent?

The Atlantic Braves are public company and are required to report there financials. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves/braves-latest-financial-results-revenue-falls-48-in-third-quarter/5GWLRGUQK5EWBOJZI5HRAWX2AA/%3foutputType=amp

My memory is that Blankenhorn started his career in the Twins minors at 3B. He was then moved to 2B and then in 2019 seeing some time in the outfield as well. Being that he was moved off 3B at a time the Twins lacked any depth at that position indicates the Twins management feels he would not be a long term solution at 3B. Maybe someone on this thread who knows more about Blankenhorn's initial experience at 3B can add to this. If Blankenhorn can hit in the majors, they will find playing time for him. Corey Koskie was a very below average defensive third baseman when he first came up, but worked his way to be an above average fielder.

According to MLB prospect rankings https://www.mlb.com/prospects (mid-season 2020). Dane Dunning is the 98th ranks prospect. As a comparison Jordan Balazovic is ranked 81st and Trevor Larnach is ranked 77th. So an approximate comparison would be Balazovic or Larnach headlining an equivalent trade for the Twins.

By starting the discussion with 2011, this article does not do justice to the Terry Ryan's Twins first round draft ineptitude but does avoid reminding us of many additional years of draft futility. The first round failures Matthew Moses 2003 Steven Waldrop 2004 Matthew Fox 2004 Supplemental Jay Rainville 2004 Supplemental Henry Sanchez 2005 Chris Parmelee 2006 Carlos Gutiérrez 2008 Shooter Hunt 2008 Supplemental Matthew Bashore 2009 Alex Wimmers 2010 Successes or partial successes in this time frame include Aaron Heilman 2000 (drafted but did not sign) Joe Mauer 2001 Denard Span 2002 Trevor Plouffe 2004 Glen Perkins 2004 Matt Garza 2005 Ben Revere 2007 Aaron Hicks 2008 Kyle Gibson 2009 From 2000 - 2016, about 48% of the Twins first round picks had some type of decent career in the majors. (I put Luke Bard in the disappointment category). There were in this time frame multiyear stretches of futility. I am not sure if this number is historically bad compared to other teams. Revisionist history is not the proper way to evaluate draft selections. In hindsight everyone knows that Mike Trout and Mookie Betts should have been selected. However, most other teams also passed on these talents. A proper way to judge the draft would be compare the Twins long term draft results to other teams based some pre-defined objective criteria. My choices for this criteria would include: Did they make it to the majors, 3 highest years of WAR, number of years played and total war. I would also be interested in median as well as mean results. My instincts are aligned with the theme of the article in that the Terry Ryan was doing a poor job in selecting the Twins first round pick(s) each year. However, I have not seen statistical data comparing his success/failures to those of other MLB teams. Most of the current starting team was signed by Ryan. And there are still promising players in the minors that were drafted under Terry Ryan (such as Jordan Balazovic and Ben Rortvedt) Presently, it looks like Thad Levine’s is running at about at least a 60 - 80% success rate. Keoni Cavaco is likely to be a disappointment (although he is still young) and it is too early to determine the outcome of Aaron Sabato’s selection. However in order to achieve a higher success rate, they have sacrificed defensive value by choosing mostly bat first college players. There are some long term limitations of this strategy. Some of Levine’s non-first round picks such as Ryan Jeffers are likely to have decent MLB careers. Levine also seems to be doing better in getting value in trades.

Analytics is about long term outcomes with large sample sizes. How did the infield shift work for the Twins vs Astros? The shift doesn’t stop a run from scoring if the hitter is willing an able to execute on an opposite field single. Nick Anderson may have been the Rays best reliever over the entire season (and perhaps analytically he still is) but he had allowed at least one run in 6 straight postseason appearances. This is why teams have managers. Sometimes human judgement and instinct are needed.

From the NY Post today https://nypost.com/2020/09/18/yankees-making-history-with-this-show-of-home-run-power/

Houston is currently the 2nd seed in the AL West. That is unlikely to change and they don't play the Yankees anymore in this regular season. There is nothing the Astros can do to effect Yankees playoffs. I am rooting for either Baltimore or Detroit to claim the final AL Wild Card.

I had forgotten about Chilli Davis’ game 3 home run. When I am feeling down and need cheering up I pull up Puckett’s game 6 home run. Therefore I would have that as number 1. It should noted that before game 6, facing elimination, Kirby asked teammates to “jump on his back” as he would carry the load. I am not sure correct quote. What I remember is “hop on the bus, I will carry the load.” https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/kirby-puckett-world-series-minnesota-twins-atlanta-braves-25-years-ago-102616%3famp=true On Gene Larkin’s heroics. Larkin battled a knee injury most of the season and by the WS could barely run and therefore was limited to mostly pinch hitting duties for the WS. My memory is foggy but he may have actually reinjuried the knee in one of the early rounds of the playoffs. Not quite Kurt Gibson heroics but very close.

Here is a link to WAR calculations. Catcher has the greatest positional increase in WAR at +9 and DH the largest decrease at -15 per 1350 innings. This is from baseball reference. FanGraphs is probably slightly different (I haven’t looked). https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml Current values (per 1350 (150*9) innings played) are: C: +9 runs SS: +7 runs 2B: +3 runs CF: +2.5 runs 3B: +2 runs RF: -7 runs LF: -7 runs 1B: -9.5 runs DH: -15 runs P: see Pitcher Positional Adjustment

Seth, thank you for these informative write ups. I have read several articles over the past two or three weeks commenting on Lewis’ swing. Here’s one from Fangraphs. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/sunday-notes-twins-prospect-royce-lewis-has-a-cacophonous-swing-and-a-sky-high-ceiling/ I think the general conclusion is that his swing needs to be modified for the big leagues. Remembering the two lost years modifying Buxton’s swing, I am curious as to why the Twins are not taking a more proactive approach and modifying his swing while he is in the minors.

Running into a wall going more than 20 mph in a game with the Twins having a sizeable lead is not an accident. It shows poor judgement and lack of situational awareness.