Eris

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 think this is Nick Gordon’s last option year. Just guessing that Gordon will be given every opportunity to show that he can contribute. Given the offensive performance of Gonzalez and Adrianza last year, that part of the bar is quite low. I don’t know about his positional flexibility beyond SS and 2B.

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.

Tradevalue has the Rays getting 60.9 in value for Blake Snell. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trades/ A comparable Twins offer would be something like Kirilloff (38), Balazovic (17.1) or Duran (17.9), and Rortvedt (2.9). The closest the Twins have to Patino’s value (48.2) is Lewis (47.7). A trade involving Lewis would be something like Lewis, Celestino (8.5) and Rortvedt (2.9) If the Rays wanted pitching and catching, a package of Balazovic, Duran and Jeffers (28.0) would have a trade value of 63.

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.

What I found interesting is that Alex Kirilloff did not need to be added to the 40 man roster until after the 2021 season. The FO has handicapped their upcoming 40 man roster decisions for one game of using Alex Kirilloff. Of course the FO didn’t know at the time that the season would be over after two playoff games. This offers several insights. First, the Twins had a lot of confidence in Kirilloff. Second, the Twins were really worried about someone (likely Buxton) not being able to contribute for the duration of the playoffs and wanted an additional outfielder who was better than Jake Cave or LaMonte Wade Jr.

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.

What is fundamentally wrong with this is that the major league players association is allowed to represent the minor league players. The minor league players should be allowed to form their own union. Of course the major league players union will sell out on the minor league players every time.

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.

I can not speak for everyone on this board. The Twins are in desperate need of top of the rotation starters. They have not been able to attract anyone via free agency. They have a surplus of corner outfielders in their system. The trade that makes sense is outfielders for pitching. Gaterol for Maeda seems like a fair trade. I don’t like it but understand that our front office thinks his future is as a reliever. Substituting anyone of our other top pitching prospects does not make sense because they could develop into top of the rotation starters.

Lover's Key State Park is nice (it closes at sundown so hard to watch a game and make it to the park, best to do this on an off day) Sanibel Island beaches are open late (past 9:00 pm, expect to pay for parking). Much of Sanibel Island is a wildlife refuge. So plenty to do if you are into birding and wildlife. There are also several other wild life preserves in the area. Everglades National Park is about 1.5 hours south. You can go kayaking or get an airboat ride through the marshes. Plenty of airboat tours in Marco Island or along Rt 41 and also plenty of kayaking tours. Everglades is very unique and worthwhile if you have not been there. The Red Sox stadium (Jet Blue Park) is near by. It is a replica of Fenway so worthwhile to catch a Red Sox game as well if you have time and can get tickets.

I was a little sloppy, I should have quoted the source. It is from a Jay Jaffe's write-up on Fangraphs (about 1/3 of the way down the article). Jay wrote the article before the details of the Betts trade were known. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/david-price-would-offer-dodgers-more-name-recognition-than-certainty/ I have done an analysis comparing our starters from last year to Maeda. On the Twins rotation, based on 2019 numbers he is the 3rd or 4th best starter depending on which stats you wish to use. ERA ERA+ FIP WHIP WAR/100IP Berrios 3.68 124 3.85 1.223 1.65 Odorizzi 3.51 131 3.36 1.208 2.26 Pineda 4.01 114 4.02 1.158 1.71 Gibson 4.84 95 4.26 1.444 0.19 Maeda 4.04 102 3.95 1.074 0.85 Maeda by ERA is tied for 3rd with Pineda, ERA+ is 4th, FIP is 3rd, WHIP is 1st, WAR/100IP is 4th, $/WAR he is 2nd behind Berrios at 2.4 million. Note I used WAR/100 innings pitch because Maeda pitched in relief about 10 times. Edit. The data is taken from Baseball reference.