Cap'n Piranha

Maybe that's the bit...he's get you right where he wants you!

Gameday says Woodruff is hitting 99?!?

So much for Luis hitting 1.000 this year.

I knew getting rid of Eddie was the right decision. He's on pace to post the worst OPS of all time!

Just checkin' in. Did we win yet?

My Prediction; Luis Arraez becomes a national sensation when he enters the month of August hitting .392. He "fades" down the stretch, and ends up at "only" .374, running away with the batting title. In December, it's announced that the Twins and Arraez have agreed on a 7 year, $65M, contract with a team option worth $15M.

That is his career Spring Training batting average (you can tell because it shows him as having AB's with ATL in 2016, and with the Twins in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. In reality, his career BA is .294, with a .747 OPS and a 97 wRC+. Astudillo certainly is not a bad hitter, but he's not a particularly good one either. That is perfectly acceptable for a guy who is 12th or 13th in your lineup, and can play 3-5 positions without being a total embarrassment, especially when he is beloved by the rest of the team and one of the positions he can not be an embarrassment at is catcher.

For their (admittedly short) careers, Garlick has an .845 OPS against lefties, and Cave has an .803 OPS against righties--call it an .820 OPS on average. Since the beginning of 2019, amongst all outfielders with more than 400 PA's, that places 40th, ahead of such "name" players as Mike Tauchman, Whit Merrifield, Eddie Rosario, and Yasiel Puig. It's also only .008 behind the Dodger's third best outfielder, A.J. Pollock, so give your worry about the Twins outfield above, let me ask you this--how would you characterize a Dodger's outfield where Pollock falls off an age-related cliff, and Betts gets hurt?

Kyle Garlick has 40 AAA homers in 645 AAA PA's, or a homer every 16.1 PA's (granted, in the more hitter friendly PCL). Brent Rooker has 14 AAA homers in 274 AAA PA's, or a homer every 19.6 PA's To quantify league impact, in 2019 there was a homer every 26.3 PA's in the PCL, compared to a homer every 30.4 PA's in the International League, so homers were 13.5% more frequent in the PCL than the IL. However, Garlick hit homers 17.9% more frequently than Rooker. Sure, Garlick is also older by not quite 3 years, and so was in his age 27 season, but Rooker was also in his age 24 season--he wasn't some 21 year old facing pitchers 4-5 years older than him. To sum up, while I think Rooker probably has better power potential than Garlick, it's not like Garlick is Luis Arraez there. When you also look at spring training stats (which are relevant when discussing two young players without proven MLB track records), Garlick posted a .987 OPS with 5 HR's and a 28% k rate, while Rooker was at .645 with 1 HR and a 48% k rate. Rooker will almost assuredly get more career PA's with the Twins over his career than Garlick will in his, but starting the season with Garlick and not Rooker is a good decision, imo.

It's a bit much to suggest the FO that oversees a team that has gone 137-85 over it's past 222 games isn't making good moves. Perhaps you meant splashy move, but that should not be confused with good (btw, signing Donaldson would also count as a splashy move). Also, on June 1, 2019, the Twins were 39-18 (111 win pace), had a 10.5 game lead in the Central, and the best record in baseball. On August 14, 2020 (about a third of the way through the season), the Twins had a 12-7 record (102 win pace), had a 1.5 game lead in the Central, and tied for the 6th best record in baseball. I think the FO knows early season games count.

If the Sox want to waste resources on Aquino, go for it. 20% soft contact, 28% k rate, bad defensively, and turns 27 next month. Don't let him hit fly balls, and he's a total disaster.

Max Kepler also plays next to Buxton, and his defense is very good. Why precisely would playing next to a great fielder make someone a worse fielder? If the idea is that the metrics are worse because they get fewer chances, than in reality the bad fielding player didn't magically become a better fielder, they just got to make more plays.

For sure defensive metrics are suspect right now, it will be interesting to see how that normalizes over this year. And given his young age, Lux absolutely can turn into a very valuable player. My comments were more around if both Seager and Taylor were hurt, and Lux moved to short, the depth chart showed the dominos creating a hole in the outfield. If Lux didn't pick it up, that would give the Dodgers a bottom 3 in their order of a not-performing Lux, a AAAA outfielder, and the pitcher--not exactly ideal for a team hoping to repeat as WS champs. Clearly, the situation is not so desperate as all that, so thanks for the clarification!

For sure, being not super read in to the Dodgers roster, I was going purely off their Depth Chart at MLB.com, where moving Lux off second cascaded into having an open spot in the outfield. A cursory glance at Rios' stats seems like they would much prefer to move Muncy to second and Rios to first, rather than McKinstry to short. In that sense, I would say the Dodgers, like the Twins, are one of the few teams that could absorb injuries to two of their top three shortstops, and still be ok.

Per club revenue is a black box, so no, there is no way any person outside of MLB's central office would be able to truly crunch the numbers on this. The idea here is that each team should be able to get at least $250M in revenue ($100M or so from National Sources, and at least $150M from revenue sharing). The "poorest" team would probably end up around $250M in revenue, with the richest in the $350M to $400M range (if even 5 teams end up exactly at $250M, the other 25 average out to $350M). Would the owners of rich teams be super excited about this? Maybe not. But how much are the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, etc. worth if 5-10 teams fold? I say that because baseball already has a fan problem, which will continue to accelerate as their average fan gets older and older. They need to attract new fans now, and that's hard to do outside of NY, LA, and Boston if there's a feeling those other teams won't compete.

My proposal to fix this; All National revenue is equally split amongst all 30 clubs (after MLB corporate operating expenses are paid--commissioner, umps, marketing, etc.).The first $100M of each team's local revenue is taken by the league, and then split back out in such a way that teams still remain in the same order in terms of total revenueThe next $50M of each team's local revenue is taken by the league at 50%, and split back out same as aboveAll revenue each team earns above $150M is kept by the earning team in totality.This system ensures smaller teams will have access to more revenue, while still encouraging the big-market teams to maximize their revenue. With this established, the below changes are implemented. A salary floor is established at 1/30th of 45% of the previous year's total MLB revenue (national and local, and would include any sales like MLBAM, or expansion fees, but not the purchase of existing franchises). If MLB revenue is $10B, that means the floor is 1/30th of $4.5B, which is $150M.A hard salary cap is established at 15% above the salary floor. At $10B in revenue, that works out to a cap of $172.5M. If every team spent to that, the salary share of revenue would be 51.8%, so splitting the difference, players would get 48.4% of all revenue (which is an increase to where they're at today).The salary cap and salary floor apply only to players who are either on a team's 26 man roster OR have signed a contract after their initial drafting/international signing contractAny team which does not meet the floor is ineligible for any form of revenue sharingTeams which exceed the salary cap have their first $200M of local revenue taxed at 100% (some of which will be distributed back to them), and all subsequent revenue taxed at 50%Small teams will be forced to invest every year in players, and large teams can still spend like crazy to win a world series if they want, but the revenue hit would only be sustainable for a couple of years at most. Now for the changes to the players; All players enter unrestricted free agency in the offseason after the regular season during which they are 27 (even if it's only on the last regularly scheduled day of the offseason). They enter restricted free agency (any team can make any offer they want, and if the player signs, their current team has the right to match. No poison pills--RFA deals can only cover years, money, and no trade clauses. Opt-outs are not allowed in RFA deals) two offseasons before UFA. The salary for any player who has yet to reach RFA is $2M a yearNo player can account for more than 15% of a team's salary cap, no two players can account for more than 25%, no five players can account for more than 40%, and no 10 players can account for more than 60%. This is voided if MLB revises the salary cap down after a contract was signed.This means teams have no reason to not bring players up as soon as they think they're ready, and players make more money early on. It will be much harder to assemble super teams, which means small market teams with clean balance sheets into the future will be able to offer more money than big market teams (for example, the maximum contract for a team spending to the cap in a year with $10B in revenue is $25.875M. If a team already has a player making that amount, the most they could pay another player is $17.25M, whereas a team with no player making that amount could offer it). I think this solves the problem of everyone--small market teams get guaranteed revenue, big market teams still get to make more than the small market teams, the players get to make more money earlier, prospects get called up faster, and fans get to see 30 teams that are all going to be competing pretty much every year, since it would be hard to put together a team that would be awful, and still spend $150M or more.

To clarify, you're saying Eddie's defense suffered due to playing next to one of the 2-3 best defensive center fielders in the game? Eddie has not had a season fangraphs rated as positive defensively since he was a 23 year old rookie in 2015.

Yes, Eddie was third in walks last year, and raised his bb% to a new career high, but that doesn't tell the whole story. In 2019, Eddie swung at 59.1% of pitches while in 2020, he cut that down to 51.7%. The problem is that while Eddie did cut his chase rate (swung at 46.3% of pitches outside the zone in 2019, compared to "only" 42.6% in 2020), he even more dramatically cut the rate at which he swung at pitches inside the zone (80.4% in 2019, 69% in 2020). The number of pitches he saw in the zone also decreased from 37.6% to 34.3%, which is not enough to explain the surge in walks (Eddie saw 3.51 pitches/PA in 2019, compared to 3.58 in 2020--this means he saw 2.2 out of zone pitches/PA in 2019, compared to 2.4 out of zone pitches/PA in 2020. Essentially, Eddie saw one more ball per game, assuming he batted 5 times). Thus, Eddie's increased walks came not from refusing to swing at the slop pitchers threw him, it came from pointedly deciding not to swing at pitches inside the zone--the exact pitches he should be swinging at. Given the cratering of his hard hit rate (30.3%, 152 out of 203 players with more than 150 PA's last year), and the sharp increase in his soft contact rate (21.3%, 24th highest of those same 203 players), Eddie is certainly on his way to being cooked. Will he have stretches where he's a house on fire? Absolutely. But those will probably be followed by stretches where he doesn't get on base even 30% of the time, and hits for not much power.

The Twins history of playoff failures pre-2017 has nothing whatsoever to do with Polanco or Arraez. You can't hold Polanco accountable for 12 postseason losses he didn't appear in, or 13 in the case of Arraez. Also, not for nothing, but before 2020 Polanco was 4/15 against the Yankees with 3 walks and 1 homer, so a slash line of .267/.389/.467/.856, with no errors. Arraez, in the 2019 series against the Yankees was 5/11 with 4 doubles, so a slash line of .455/.455/.818/1.273, also with no errors. While the 18 game streak is painful for us fans, we have to remember that it started in 2006, when Polanco was 13, and Arraez was 9. It's not like the exact same core of players has made the playoffs 6 straight years, and been swept in 6 straight best of 5 series.

Chris Taylor is listed as the backup at shortstop, and as such, is not germane to this discussion, as I was discussing only who each team's third option would be. In looking at the Dodger's depth chart, I assume Gavin Lux will be the starting second baseman; currently Muncy is listed as the starter at both first and second--if Muncy plays second, Bellinger is listed as the backup at first, which means Pollock becomes the starter in center, and Taylor the starter in left. I generally avoided these kind of scenarios in my speculation, as I assume if both Seager and Taylor get hurt, the Dodgers are more likely to install McKinstry than call up an outfield prospect (according to Kiley McDaniel, the Dodgers only have 1 outfielder in their top 10 prospects--Andy Pages, who has never played above rookie ball). Their other options, according to the 40 man, are DJ Peters (0 MLB experience, OPS'd .879 as a 24 year old in AAA in 2019), Luke Raley (0 MLB experience, only 33 games above AA, OPS'd .878 as a 25 year old in those 33 AAA games in 2019), and Zach Reks (0 MLB experience, OPS'd .901 as a 25 year old in AAA in 2019). Even putting Lux at short might not be a great idea--sure he has the prospect pedigree, but in his small MLB sample size, he's been pretty bad; .655 OPS in 151 PA's, striking out 28.5% of the time, and posting a -21.4 UZR/150 in 321 innings at second base. He was definitely young (debuted at 21), and so there's certainly reason for optimism, other than that his numbers offensively were notedly worse in 2020 than in 2019. Maybe he was hurt last year, maybe he hadn't yet adjusted to the league adjusting to him, but I wouldn't feel great if I were the Dodgers about the prospect of Lux AND one of my AAAA outfielders in the lineup every day, which is what happens if Seager and Taylor are hurt.

Yes, we should definitely base our plans on a two game sample size. If that's the metric we're using, we should immediately cut every hitter not named Nelson Cruz from our roster.

The Dodgers third option (according to MLB depth charts) is Zach McKinstry, who has 7 MLB PA's. Of the infielders on LA's 40 man, only Seager and Turner have played even one inning at SS in MLB, and Turner last did it in 2015. The Yankees third option is Thairo Estrada, who has OPS'd .615 in 121 MLB PA, and only played 5 innings at short. Of the infielders on NY's 40 man, only Torres, Urshela (65 innings in 2018), LeMahieu (4 innings, none after 2014), and Tyler Wade (142 innings in 2020) have played SS in MLB. Wade has a career .575 OPS in 346 PA's, and if you play Urshela at short you have to play Andujar at third, who has OPS'd .476 over 121 PA's in 2019 and 2020, and has a career -27.7 UZR/150 at third in 1,244 innings The Met's third option is Jonathan Villar, who has a career -14.9 UZR/150 in over 3,000 innings at short (although that has been better lately). Of the infielders on NY's 40 man, only Lindor, Villar, and Luis Guillorme (57 innings in 2019/2020) have played SS in MLB. Guillorme is actually listed as the backup at shortstop, and in his 212 MLB PA's, has a .684 OPS. The Astros' third option is unlisted (there actually isn't even a backup listed). Of the infielders on Houston's 40 man, only Correa, Altuve (6 innings), Bregman (966 innings), Diaz (2,321 innings), and Gurriel (9 innings) have played SS in MLB. Gurriel would probably be the third choice behind Correa and Diaz; Gurriel will turn 37 this year, had a .658 OPS last year, and by UZR/150 is below average defensively at 1B. The Blue Jays' third option is Joe Panik, who had never played SS in MLB before last year, and has a .645 OPS over his last 1,024 PA's (2018 through 2020). Of the other infielders on Toronto's 40 man, only Bichette, Semien (6800 innings), and Espinal (156 innings) have played SS in MLB. Espinal has only 66 MLB PA's, and put up a .641 OPS. The Red Sox' third option is Jonathan Arauz (second is Marwin), who has played 21 innings at short in MLB, and has OPS'd .644 in 80 PA's. Of the other infielders on Boston's 40 man, only Bogaerts, Arroyo (93 innings, all but 11 coming in 2017), Devers (2 innings), Marwin (2,252, only 9 after 2018), and Hernandez (536 innings) have played SS in MLB. Hernandez OPS'd .680 last year, Marwin had a -30.6 UZR/150 at SS in 2018 (his last significant time at short) while OPSing .606 last year, and Arroyo has a -10.3 career UZR/150 at SS. The Phillies' third option is Scott Kingery, who has a career .677 OPS in 1,108 PA's, and a 0.6 UZR/150 in 1,000 innings at SS in MLB. Of the other infielders on Philadelphia's 40 man, only Segura, Gregorius (7,643 innings), and Miller (3,133 innings but only 44 after 2016) have played SS in MLB. This honestly seems like probably the deepest shortstop position of the teams you listed. As you can see, it's almost impossible to have a first division regular (which means a top 15-20ish shortstop overall) third on your depth chart--very few teams actually even have 2. To answer your question, I think putting Polanco at short in the event Simmons is hurt is a better situation than 20-25 other teams have at short, and being upset the Twins don't have a better fourth option (which is what we're really talking about here), is just crazy.

Please list all the teams that have a viable first-division SS currently third on their SS depth chart. I'll wait.

I think we're actually mostly in agreement here--the reason I called out being forced to resign is because much of the reporting I've seen around this story has included words like offensive. To paraphrase Sean Bean as Odysseus in the movie Troy, "It is no insult to say someone who speaks terrible English speaks terrible English". If a player is offended by the Team president saying that about them, and yet it's true, that seems like a problem with the player, and it is not the job of the President to engage in fantasy realities where players who do not currently speak serviceable English must have their feelings coddled. If you don't want to be seen as someone who speaks terrible English, take some classes (just as an aside, if I were running an organization, I would require all my minor leaguers to learn English, unless English was their native language, in which case I would require them to learn Spanish). Was it a good idea for Mather to air these views in public? No, absolutely not. There was no reason for him to say the things he said, and for that reason, I would have had no problem with the Mariners firing him--but because he was revealing the inner workings of the organization, not because he said or did anything offensive. Mather resigning is either the Mariners allowing him to resign to avoid being fired, or it is because of the public posturing of his comments as offensive, which both you and I agree is not accurate.