Cap'n Piranha

So Steer has clearly moved ahead of Martin in the Twins MI prospect pecking order; it might be time to start wondering if the same is true for Julien. He’s younger (by about 5 weeks), and is significantly outperforming Martin at the same level. Better average, OBP, and SLG, along with way more walks (although also way more k’s). If there was a team who wanted one of those three in a trade, and let me choose which one to give up, I’d be very tempted to give up Martin.

This loss goes directly on Rocco. If you’re willing to let Duran go two innings, why wouldn’t you make those two innings be the 8th and the 9th? If you want to keep his workload down by only letting him pitch one inning, then why trot him out there in the 10th? Feels like Rocco wanted to have his cake, and eat it too. So to sum up, Rocco used his only good bullpen option for two innings (so he won’t be available Wednesday), the Twins never had the lead while said pitcher was in the game, and they ended up losing. Absolutely brutal.

I find it unlikely as of right now that the Twins would trade veterans. If they do, Urshela is the only real candidate because he has both the extra year of control (to up the return), and the ease of replacement (Arraez or Miranda). You could trade Kepler, but you're then counting on 3 rookies (Kiriloff, Larnach, Celestino) to hold down your corner outfield in a pennant race and postseason. You could trade Sanchez, but he's a FA after this year, and Jeffers as your lead catcher is problematic. As such, I think it's much more likely the Twins swing a couple small deals at the deadline for relief help, unless something crazy falls in their lap. This offseason is where there could be a lot of movement though--I would not be shocked to see the Twins trade Polanco, Urshela, and Kepler, while walking away from Sanchez, Sano, and Correa. They could then have the payroll space to bring in 2 stars (Trea Turner and Carlos Rodon?), or do a lot of Polanco/Kepler style deals for their current pre-arb group (Arraez, Ryan, Winder, Larnach, Kiriloff, and Lewis could all be locked up for a sum total of $30M to $40m a year).

It seems fairly clear at this point that Archer will be allowed to face 18 batters and no more. As such, I honestly have no idea why they wouldn't use an opener for him, and the allow him to face 21 batters (since batters 19-21 would theoretically be 4-6 or 5-7 instead of 1-3).

The Emilio Pagan Experience. Basically, even when Pagan successfully closes out the game, it takes 20 pitches, 25 minutes, and invariably involves baserunners, often in scoring position.

I was at the game, and Emilio Pagan is a worthy successor to Fernando Rodney. The EPE is a real thing.

This is the right question. If it’s actually schedules, Buxton and Correa being scheduled for rest could have been foreseen days ago, and the plan could have been altered. So either the Twins are making schedules for rest for both players, and then not comparing them, or they literally don’t care if both sit on the same day, which would indicate that they will adhere to a schedule as opposed to flexibility. The third option is that the Twins did indeed assume they would lose yesterday even with Buxton and/or Correa playing, so they decided before the series even began to shoot for 2-1 by trying hardest to win Friday and Saturday. No matter what the explanation actually is, I don’t think Rocco was being particularly honest with Gleeman, as a little logic reveals the inanity of Rocco’s rambling, incoherent non-answer.

Maybe we're selling low. Or maybe we're not. That is the gamble that might need to be taken.

Say, didn’t you use to be Austin Martin, top prospect?

In case Rocco was wondering, the 7th would have been a great time to throw Duran out there for two innings, given he’s only thrown 8 pitches in the last 4 days before today. Get through the 8-5 hitters (assumes one base runner), and see what you can do to get a couple more runs. After that, you just have to piece together the 9th against hitters 6-8/9.

I'm not assuming he won't improve his bat. I'm understanding the reality that he did not improve his bat from last year, so you're assuming he will improve his bat, despite all the available evidence indicating otherwise. Why do you have a .300 AVG baseline for him, when he's literally never done that in his professional career? If your thesis is that the Twins screwed him up by pushing him to add power, and he just needs to return to the approach he had while in Toronto's system, you have to acknowldge he hit .281 there. Obviously I would love to have another Arraez player; but there is nothing in Austin Martin's professional career that suggests he is anywhere near the caliber of hitter Luis Arraez is. You know who is actually more likely to be an Arraez type hitter? Edouard Julien, who is younger and performing better than Martin at the same level (and in his first go-around at that level to boot).

Why in the love of all that is holy would we expect him to have a 380+ OBP in MLB when HE CAN'T EVEN DO THAT IN AA? Of course I understand the value of high OBP, I just don't think Austin Martin is a good bet to have a high OBP. Martin currently has a .361 OBP in a league where the average OBP is .352, so he's 2.5% better than the average AA Central hitter. That's it. In MLB this year the average OBP is .311, so if Martin maintains his gap in performance to the league, he would have a .319 OBP, which would put him 87th in MLB, just behind Tony Kemp. On average and power, his projected numbers in MLB would be .229 (95.7% of league average) and .329 (84.7% of league average). That's a slash of .229/.319/.329/.648--that makes Martin, essentially, IKF. You really think an IKF clone (except with more speed and much less defensive value) should be considered a top prospect? You're right that my view is based on 2 months--that just happens to be about 35% of his entire professional career. 2 months is not a small sample size unless you're on the IL at least twice during that stretch. I just do not understand why this year's performance is just being blithely waved away as not concerning.

Average is not meaningless. Average is meaningless if you have power--power hitters can maintain high OBPs in the majors without average, because they'll get walks due to pitchers not wanting to challenge them, and therefore nibbling. Without power, to maintain a high OBP, a player is going to have to get hits, otherwise pitchers will never throw him balls--why would they, since they know he's unlikely to get a hit, and if he does get a hit, it will be a single which is approximately the same as a walk anyways? If you think Martin will tee off when pitchers go after him, then how do you explain his strikeouts? He has 28 in 216 PA this year (for comparison, Arraez has 16 in 188). Since he takes a lot of walks, he clearly has a good eye right? So to strikeout that much means he's not an elite contact hitter. Guys at the MLB level who don't make elite contact, and don't have power, do not have high OBPs--they just don't. Name one guy in MLB around the 80th percentile for contact rate, but with no power, who still has a high OBP. I'll wait.

You are correct, Martin has one more non-40 man year. I got mixed up when I saw a TC designation next year for him on Spotrac, and incorrectly assumed that meant he had to be on the 40 man--my bad. I hope Martin takes off this summer--it would be awesome if he followed the Royce Lewis 2019 path and went to the AFL and was the best hitter there. The problem there of course is that Royce Lewis is actually younger than Martin, and had that breakout when he had just turned 20 three months earlier, not five months before turning 24. And given the trend we're seeing from Martin, thinking he'll improve is based on nothing other than hope. I would bet big money that if Austin Martin finishes the year at AA with a sub .725 OPS, he will appear on no global top 100 lists next year. There is plenty of reason to worry about Austin Martin. Pretending there's not is just head-in-the-sand thinking.

And this is all we need to know about your ability to understand statistics. Separate the results from the player--get rid of the name, the draft position, and the fact he was the headliner in the Berrios trade; what about Austin Martin's stat line excites you? Would you be at all excited about a random player with a sub-.700 OPS in his second go-around at the same level? Of course not. So let go of what we hoped Austin Martin would be, and start to embrace the increasing reality that he very well might never be that.

No kidding it was projection--he was a teenager for half that time. The point isn't that we should be shocked his power emerged in 2021 when there was a power projection on him, and we didn't seem him at all in 2020. 4 homers is small--it's also only 2 fewer than Martin has in his entire professional career, so if someone with 4 homers isn't considered to have power, why would we consider someone with even fewer homeruns as likely to develop power? If Martin can't develop power, he will have to be Luis Arraez to have value in MLB--for his MiLB career (during all of which he was younger than Martin has been at any point in his MiLB career), Arraez was a .331 hitter with a .385 OBP. Martin is .262 average and .396 OBP. As mentioned before, a guy in MLB who doesn't hit for power, and can't really hit for average, is going to see his walks evaporate very quickly as pitchers stop trying to paint, and simply challenge him.

I don't know if an IL stint will fix it. But I do know that 7 weeks of playing in only half the games on the schedule sure didn't.

If indeed we're not going to get much in return for trading him right now, doesn't that pretty much prove my original point? That Martin should be well down the Twins' list of prospects, and if you can find a team that is still somewhat optimistic about him, you should trade him in a heartbeat, even if you have to recoup significantly less value than you would have had you flipped him last July?

If only the Twins had done this 6 weeks ago, Buxton could theoretically have been back at full strength now, as opposed to still not being at full strength.

Are you sure that this is Martin's low? What if this is actually Martin's high? What about his current results as a 23 year old repeating AA screams breakout candidate to you?

Your math is wrong--he needs to be on the 40 man next year. If you think he's going to be an outfielder, then that means he won't have a starting role until at least 3 of Buxton, Larnach, Kiriloff, Celestino, and Kepler are gone (and that doesn't even mention Emmanuel Rodriguez, who is almost 4 years younger, and is putting up an 1,000+ OPS in a pitcher's league--granted it is two levels down, but at this pace, he'll get promoted soon, and be only a level behind, despite the massive age difference). All 5 of the Buxton, Larnach, Kiriloff, Celestino, and Kepler group have at least 2 years of control, and other than Buxton and Kepler, cheap control. At this point, Austin Martin is the definition of excess, and should absolutely be bait to return players ready to help this year.

I mean, to be fair, 2019 was Steer's first year with wood bats (and he still hit 4 homers to Martin's career 6). He then didn't get to play in 2020. So it's pretty disingenuous to say Steer wasn't a HR hitter until last year. In 2021, Martin had an XBH every 13 AB's. This year it's one every 18. At this point saying Martin could take off in the power department is pure unadulterated wishcasting, and is not based in any kind of trend. Why is being in the Twins organization a reason to explain lack of performance? Are you saying the Twins are much better at developing hitters than the Blue Jays? How does that make sense given that Martin was better with the Jays org than the Twins org? If it legitimately takes almost a full year for the Twins to make changes to one of their top prospects in the minors, then either the coach should be fired, or clearly Martin is not able to understand what the coaches are getting him to do--which is it?

When I say 50 cents on the dollar, what I mean is the value you get for him will be much less than the value the Twins had to give up to get him last year. Do you think the Twins could trade Austin Martin and say, Blayne Enlow for Frankie Montas right now? Austin Martin's value is clearly lower now than it was 11 months ago--to say otherwise is to simply not be tethered in reality. As such, if you trade him, you will have to take less value for him than you would have otherwise gotten last year--thus, 50 cents on the dollar. Of course the Twins can hang on to him, and hope he rebounds, but if he doesn't turn it around, and now it's 2024 and he's a below average 25 year old repeating AAA, his value is even lower, and now you're either releasing him outright, or trading him for 10 cents on the dollar. None of this is to say I don't like Martin--I hope he can turn it around. But when it comes to MiLB players I've never seen, but have meaningful track records, I am going to lean heavily on the stats. And the stats tell me that for whatever reason, Austin Martin looks like a career AAAA player at best right now. Given that there is no need for him to be part of the Twins plans in the next 2-3 years, given the number of players the Twins control for the next 2-3 years, I'd rather recoup some value now, rather than risk getting almost no value for him in a year or two. Perhaps that will look really dumb. Perhaps it will look really smart. Only time will tell.

I just...come on man, you can't objectively think this. I get having a prospect you love, and are excited about, but a non-biased look at what Martin is doing this year is red flag to the max. A few counterpoints If Martin is regressing to the mean, that's a huge problem. His OPS is down 12%, while the league he plays in is up 5%. in 2021, his OPS was better than all but one team. This year it's worse than all but one team. If Martin is actually a league average AA player at the age of 23 (repeating), that is all kinds of bad news in terms of the status of his top prospect ranking. Correa currently has a .751 OPS--definitely not in the .700 range. It's June. There's no more slow start logic to apply anymore. If you look at Martin's splits, he did have a better OPS in May (.711) than April (.675), but if that's warming up, he's cooling right back down with his .602 so far in June Arraez was inndeed at .733 last year--but as a 23 year old in MLB. In other words, at the same age (Martin's birthday is actually about 3 weeks before Arraez on the calendar), Arraez outperformed Martin's current OPS by almost 8%, despite being in MLB compared to AA. I did compare them both in the same age, that age being 23. If you want to do age 22, Arraez still outperformed Martin, and it was still Arraez in MLB and Martin in AA. I don't know why I keep having to say this--LUIS ARRAEZ, AT THE SAME AGE, PERFORMED BETTER THAN MARTIN, AT A FAR MORE DIFFICULT LEVEL Austin Martin's career OPS is .757--not close to .800. He has been above an .800 OPS once in his career, and that was an .807 in 56 games for the Jay's AA team last year I'm not speaking of Asutin Martin's ceiling--I'm speaking of whether or not he is a top 11 non-catcher position player for the Twins in the next 2-3 years. Considering Buxton, Kepler, Larnach, Kiriloff, Celestino, Miranda, Lewis, and Arraez are all clearly better with cheap control or newly-signed long-term deals, he's at best 9th. Add in Kepler, Polanco, Steer, Gordon, and Palacios, and he might be as low as 14th; is the Twins' best use of Austin Martin to have him be the third guy called up from AAA for the next 2-3 years, or trade him for rotation/bullpen help? You can not care about his OPS all you want, but OBP is half of that calculation, and his OBP is currently only good at AA (it's worse than what Luis Arraez had at the same age, but in the majors). When you can't hit for power, and you increasingly can't hit for average, MLB pitchers are going to attack, and not give up walks; take away Austin Martin's walks, and what exactly does he do well at the plate? You state that you agree that the way Martin is playing right now he would not be an OBP machine. You then immediately say you think he would be a top 20 OBP machine in MLB now. You understand those can't both be true, right? Why exactly do you think Martin's performance would get dramatically better when moving up not one, but two levels, one of which comprises the largest gap in performance in all of professional baseball. Luis Arraez in 2018, in his first look at AA, at the age of 21, OPS'd .710. That is still better than what Martin is OPS'ing this year, in his second year at AA, at the age of 23. You really think that's a comparison you want to make as to why Martin and Arraez are good comps?

For a more serious response--when the Twins acquired Martin, he was a global top 50 prospect. Unless something drastically changes in the next month, he will probably be dropped off most lists. A 23 year old repeating AA and getting dramatically worse while the rest of the league gets better (Martin had an OPS of .780 in Wichita last year, compared to .685 this year. In 2021, 4 teams in AA South had an OPS above .750, this year it's 8 ) is not going to remain on top 100 lists. Given that you have to put him on the 40 man at the end of the year, and the Twins already have too many quality prospects, trading him is a legit option, especially if you don't really have a place on the team for him coming up. The Twins will keep 2 catcher, 6 infielders, and 5 outfielders--over the next two years, here's how that breaks down; C--Jeffers, ? (the Twins could try and extend Sanchez, or promote one of their prospects) 1B--Kiriloff, Miranda, Arraez 2B--Polanco (3 more years of control), Arraez SS--Lewis, Palacios 3B--Urshela (final year of Arb), Miranda, Arraez LF--Kiriloff, Larnach CF--Buxton, Celestino RF--Kepler (two more years of control), Larnach Flex--Gordon That's already 15 guys, meaning two of them have to go before you even consider adding Martin to the 40 man. Even if those 2 were Urshela and Sanchez, you still have to replace Sanchez' spot, which means at the end of this year the Twins are getting rid of Urshela and....who? Probably Kepler, but that still leaves 5 quality options in the outfield, not to mention Gordon. Maybe the Twins decide to go cheap, and get rid of Urshela, Polanco, and Kepler--you're still at 12 guys before mentioning Gordon, Steer, or anyone else the Twins decide to bring in with the money they free up there; those 3 make probably $23M next year, which is two thirds of the way to keeping Correa, or signing a top flight bat. As such, it just makes way more sense to me to use Martin as a cornerstone of a trade to a team that thinks they can fix him for rotation or bullpen help. If you have to bite the bullet on his reduced value, I think that makes sense right now, given that he is probably still your best trade chip, given his draft position and replaceability within the organization.