Cap'n Piranha

Completely agree on the first part. On the second part, I'd rather have Kepler than Polanco, simply because the delta between Polanco and his replacement is much smaller than the delta between Kepler and his replacement.

Generally when you think about subtracting a player you already have, you talk in terms about if it hurts the team or not. When you talk about adding a player, it's about whether it helps or not. Kudos to you for thinking it was clear, I personally found the phrasing confusing, so I wanted to clarify before I proceeded with an incorrect assumption.

I don't know that even if the front 7 is addressed, we're getting to the promised land. The best chance for the VIkings to compete this year is to resign Cousins and roll the offense back, and hope Kwesi can nail the draft. As I've made abundantly clear on this thread, I don't have faith in his ability to do that. As I, like Nick, don't care about being ok to good if all that means is a second round playoff exit, I would rather stockpile draft assets this year by trading back for 2025 picks (unless there's a potential franchise QB, in which case you have to take him).

And if/when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce break up, do all those fans stick around? Sure worked for the Chiefs this year based on what you shared above, but I doubt if that's repeatable/sustainable (that is, did that extra $330M come from increased merch sales? If so, I don't think all the Swifites are going to buy another custom 89 Swift jersey).

I assume you mean doesn't hurt the offense--if so, I agree. Both Lewis and Julien are superior offensive options, and since Correa isn't going anywhere (not that you'd want to play Polanco at short), the only positions available for Polanco are 1B and DH. Kiriloff is at 1B currently, and had a better wRC+ than Polanco last year (albeit by only 2 points), and if Buxton needs to DH on anything approaching a regular basis, all of the sudden it's a struggle to get Polanco into more than 3-4 games a week; I can think of better things to spend resources on than an injury prone part-time DH/weak side of a 1B platoon. Turning a largely superfluous piece (Polanco only has value to the Twins if 2 out of Lewis, Lee, and Julien are injured/ineffective) into sorely-needed rotation depth, a clear top half of the bullpen piece, and a borderline Top 100 prospect is an excellent move in my opinion.

Respectable is a drastic understatement of what Max did in the second half of last year. Here is a list of right fielders who had a better second half by wRC+; Betts, Acuna, Judge. That's it. Max hit .306/.377/.549 in the second half, had a 1/2 bb/k ratio, and hit 12 homers in only 66 games. If 2023 second half Max shows up for the entirety of 2024, he's one of the three best hitters on the team, at minimum. That said, I'm not betting a lot on Max maintaining that production.

Can't help but notice you didn't mention Metellus, Bynum, or Smith. Along with those three, the current FO also inherited Hunter, Jefferson, Cousins, Darrisaw, and O'Neil. That's 8 pretty good players, no? And at Kwesi's current rate of good player procurement (Addison, Hockenson, and Pace in 2 years), he would need 3 more years (5 total) to amass the same quantity of good players as the previous FO left him (which was justly let go for their failures in player acquisition). 2 points stick out here When you have a disastrous draft (like 2022 was), you can't have a better than average draft the next year. You have to have a good to great one to offset all your misses from the prior year. The Vikings will never realistically compete for a Super Bowl if every draft weekend produces one good pick and one good UDFA. I'm fine giving Kwesi one more year to show what he can do, but as I've said before, this is his last shot to show he can actually consistently identify and draft talent. There's a quotation in Rounders; "If you can't spot the sucker at the table in the first 30 minutes, then you are the sucker." To apply the concept to Kwesi; "If Kwesi can't prove he's good at drafting in his first 3 drafts, then he's not good at drafting." Why would we continue to employ a GM who is not good at drafting?

Plenty of people say this. It's one of the supposed justifications for increased strikeouts. The data I provided was simply intended to demonstrate there is no correlation between striking out more and hitting for more power; if there was, why did teams with fewer strikeouts hit more homeruns and have higher SLG? You are correct in saying that bad hitters strikeout. What you don't acknowledge is that bad hitters who strike out don't last long in the league (or they never make the league to begin with). A team will stomach a player who hits .200 while striking out 35% of the time if that is accompanied by a .350 OBP and 35 HR (it's why Joey Gallo keeps getting MLB contracts). They won't if the player hits .200 with a 35% k rate, but only has a .275 OBP and 10 HR. So the only point I'm making with my data is that we shouldn't think the Twins offense will magically get better by striking out less, nor should we think that the Guardians offense would get better by striking out more.

I halfway agree on the analogy. Where you lose me is in not including that the teams that got 20 MPG while hauling stuff probably paid a lot more for their truck/SUV. Atlanta, Houston, the Mets, Toronto and San Diego all appear on the top ten list for teams with the fewest strikeouts; those teams ranked 1st, 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 10th in payroll. Meanwhile, only Philly and the Angels appear on both the top ten list for most strikeouts and highest payroll. Just like you can pay more to get a higher-performing vehicle, you can also pay more to get a higher performing strikeout v homerun lineup.

I was curious, so I did some more digging, looking at 2023 stats by team, and grouping the 10 teams with the most strikeouts, and the 10 teams with the fewest strikeouts, I found that there's not really a difference. Teams with fewer strikeouts had the advantage in HR hit (by an average of 3/team), runs scored (by an average of 29/team, or one run every 5.6 games), and SLG (by an average of .012/team, which is 12 singles/1000 ABs [or 6 doubles, 4 triples, or 3 HR]; that works out to one more single every 2.5 games, one double every 5 games, one triple every 7.5 games, or 1 HR every 10 games. Lower strikeout teams also had a better batting average (not surprising), but only by .012 points; they averaged 8.58 hits/game compared to high strikeout teams averaging 8.18 hits/game. That works out to one more hit every 2.5 games. High strikeout teams held a slight advantage in less soft contact (15.5% for high strikeout v 15.6% for low) and walks (by an average of 6/team), and both groups were essentially tied in hard contact. So given this data, it would suggest that an increased strikeout rate does not result in more hard contact, homeruns, or ultimately runs--therefore the idea that accepting strikeouts as the cost for more power and harder contact does not hold water. However, given the very small advantages low strikeout teams enjoyed over high ones, it also does not appear that strikeouts are a plague upon offensive production. As it turns out, strikeouts are only slightly worse than non-strikeout outs when it comes to season-long offensive output. Therefore, the drive to avoid them is based more on a disdain for the aesthetic of strikeouts, rather than any significant statistical merit. Interestingly, when looking at the middle 10 teams for strikeouts, they look very much like the best of both worlds. This group scored the most runs, hit the most homers, and had the best hard hit rate. Their SLG was the same as the low strikeout teams, and they were very close on walks and soft contact to the high strikeout teams, while AVG was only .004 behind the low strikeout teams (1 hit every 8ish games). Suggests that, indeed, balance is a good thing.

Quibbling to be sure, but strikeouts are not guaranteed outs--passed or dropped third strikes do result in baserunners as opposed to outs. The frequency with which this happens is very small, to be sure. You are correct that a ball in play can do positive things. My entire argument is that while balls in play can do positive things, they can also do negative things. A strikeout is (almost) always one out; it is never 2. A ball in play is at least one out 70% of the time (the league-wide BABIP was .297 in 2023); about 3% of the time (nestled within that 70%) it is 2 outs, and sometimes it's still one out even if the batter reaches (lead runners being thrown out, runners trying to take an extra base being gunned down, etc). As such, I don't agree that strikeouts are worse than ball-in-play outs. Now, if the argument is that striking out is worse than putting the ball in play, result undefined, then I agree. I would rather have a team that ends every plate appearance with a ball in play than a team that ends every plate appearance with a strikeout. However, if the option is between a team that records every out via a ball in play as opposed to a team that records every out via strikeout, I'm not so sure. I agree that better balance is needed--that's what I meant by the issue is the process. When there is a runner on third and one out, contact becomes more important. When you're down 2 to start 9th inning, getting a baserunner is more important. When you have runners on first and second with two outs, getting a homer is more important (which probably means higher strikeout odds). In short, I want our hitters to understand the game situation, and adjust their approach accordingly.

If this is true, then certainly a batter hitting a homerun is the batter controlling the pitcher. Therefore, it might be preferable to lose minor battles in order to win a major one (that is, batters are fine being controlled occasionally in return for the greater instance of controlling the pitcher).

Ks are bad, but so are outs. Striking out is in the grand scheme of things probably no worse than grounding out or flying out. Are there times where a ball in play is beneficial, such as advancing a runner or a sacrifice fly? Yes. Are there times where a ball in play is detrimental, such as a GIDP or a lead runner being erased? Yes. Since almost every hitter will make an out at least 60% of the time, it really doesn't matter in a vacuum whether that out is via strikeout or ball in play. There are certainly situations where a ball in play is preferable (runner on second/third, less than 2 outs), but that speaks more to an issue with approach; if a hitter is swinging the same way regardless of situation, that's an issue. In other words, the issue is the process, not the result.

They get credit for signing Pace. They don't get credit for drafting Pace (that is, you can't say the 2023 draft was ok in part because of Pace). Whether or not Kwesi was given free rein, I don't know how you can argue he's clearly improved the team's talent level. At best, we've treaded water. Doesn't give me much confidence that Kwesi will all of the sudden figure out how to identify talent in the draft and FA, since he's yet to do it. I'm not saying I'd fire him now, but I'd make it pretty clear that if there aren't some immediate returns on this year's draft, he can find a job elsewhere for 2025 They won 13 games with the greatest amount of luck any NFL team has ever had. They were outscored on the season, and score fewer points than in the last Zimmer season of 2021. The 13-4 season papered over the team's actual issues, and if you could go back and replay that season, odds are they finish more like 9-8 or 8-9. They should have lost to BUF and IND, and with the number of close games they played, another loss or three was hardly improbable. They were in the playoff hunt this year because there was a massive number of middling teams, which is why 9-8 was enough to make the NFC playoffs.

2024 is a hot-seat season For Kwesi, and by extension, KOC. If the Vikings miss the playoffs again, I think you have to move on (barring the reason the playoffs were missed is a completely biblical spate of injuries). The team went 13-4 with Spielman's players in 2022 (along with massively unsustainable amounts of luck), so if they drop to losing records in the next 2 seasons, once the roster more reflects Kwesi's picks, that's a pretty clear indictment in my opinion.

I go the complete opposite way. If you're going to spend big on Cousins, lean in. Get IOL help, a bona fide receiver, and some RB help. Try to put together the best offense in the league for next year, and tell Flores that all he has to do is keep the other team under 30 every week. As pertains to the draft, that probably means drafting a WR in round 1 (with a potential trade back depending on how the first 10 picks shake out; Marvin Harrison there at 11? Draft him. 4 WR already off the board? Trade back.) Use your second rounder for a center or guard, and hope Audric Estime drops to the fourth.

The two most important things a hitter can do to be a good/great hitter is to make a lot of contact, and to have that contact be skewed towards hard/medium. There are almost no good/great hitters who don't consistently make a lot of contact with most of it hard/medium contact.

Brooks Lee's ceiling is absolutely perennial all-star. If Brooks Lee hits his 100th percentile outcome, he will hit something like .310/.370/.500, and finish his career with 2500ish hits, and probably 6-8 AS appearances. He's very VERY unlikely to hit that ceiling, but that's why it's called a ceiling. If I had to put a peg on his career, I'd say he ends up something like a .280/.350/.450 hitter with 1-2 AS appearances. He'll be a guy you're perfectly happy having on your team during the first 6 years of his career, but you won't necessarily want to pay FA money for. My guess is his career will end after 2035 or 2036, and he'll be remembered as a nice player, but he'll never make a team's HOF/ROH.

It should also be pointed out that the original report says “might”. I assume every team always “might” be willing to listen on any given player. The Braves might be willing to listen on Acuna if you offer Julien, Lewis, Jenkins, Lee, Duran, and Lopez (while paying his full salary). To me, this sounds a lot like a new FO signaling they are open for business, but it’s not a fire sale. As such, I have no idea why the Twins would devote any portion of their limited resources to acquiring a player whom would not have a defensive home, and costs the same with no additional control over a potentially superior player already on roster (Polanco).

Beware the Alabama QB. For all his success, Saban never really figured out how to get a QB that could play at a high level in the NFL. My theory is that Alabama had so much talent that QBs never really had to do anything other than not screw up. That doesn’t work when you get to the NFL.

This has already been explained in this thread. Page 3.

Thank goodness we didn’t hire someone from that organization to run our team. *Checks Kwesi Kupcake’s CV* Dang.

What are Akayleb Evans, Mekhi Blackmon, and Andrew Booth up to now?

I read the quote, and he pointedly brought up the price aspect--here's the quote; "I think I've been pretty consistent with that," Adofo-Mensah said. "I thought we were was playing pretty good football before he got injured [in Week 8]. It's the most important position in sports. Now, ultimately it always comes down to, 'Can you find an agreement that works for all sides,' and all those things. But as a player, it's certainly my intention to have him back here." To me, so much hangs on that penultimate sentence; if Kwesi is unwilling to go above 2/$60M, I don't know that Kirk is back next year. If Atlanta offers him 4/$160, is Kwesi willing to match that? I think Kwesi probably is willing to do more now than he was before the season started, but I also understand the reality that Kwesi had two entire offseasons to extend Kirk, and declined/failed both times.

It's a reference to the show Brooklyn 99. In one episode, a character becomes obsessed with a fictional mobile game called Kwazy Kupcakes. The character pronounces Kwazy exactly like Kwesi, so I have a pavlovian response to say Kupcakes every time I hear Kwesi.