CCHOF5yearstoolate

Thank you for discussing why you actually disagree with the article without immediately devolving into name calling!

So that the replies could completely ignore what I wrote in favor of slinging mud? That's not my kind of kink.

Which means we have to call the author a pocket protector defending this year's payroll? That there's no opportunity for discussion about what was actually written?

Very disappointing to see so many people's takeaway from this article is to sling more "pocket protector" mud when the author states many times that the payroll drop is negative. The unrelenting desire to be negative has ruined the comments of an article I guarantee none of you had previously thought about, in a way that attributes some kind of billionaire defense that doesn't exist. I swear some people are physically incapable of discussing the Twins without devolving into a whine-fest about the payroll. Yes, it's sheisty how they run the team like a greedy greedy business but does every comment section need to be a black void of people shouting into the ether about the payroll? My god, it's so tiresome.

An increase in vertical movement means it dropped more. You want a 4-seam fastball to drop less, or "rise" more. That's probably a bad category name from me, sorry about that.

#1 - It may be a lie in the end, but with how vociferous Cory Provus was at the time they announced there wouldn't be blackouts I am convinced they believed that to be true. They didn't see Amazon bailing out Diamond Sports, so if they weren't going to be locked into the same contract they wouldn't have blackouts. I think the worst part of this reality is that they ended up with a pretty good TV deal (we assume) and still cut payroll, which is #2. #3 - Unless you are saying the Front Office is responsible for payroll cuts/restriction, I don't know how you can blame then for not "attempting to improve the team." I think it's at least arguable that the team was improved after the Polanco trade. I also think calling Maeda a "recent Cy Young runner up" is a bit of a stretch. He'd be the 5th starter on this team.

I'm really not sure why you think cherry picking and small sample sizes is forming a cohesive argument. Joe Ryan had a 2.98 ERA before he hid an injury. He had an 8.63 ERA while hiding an injury, then a 3.82 ERA after coming off the IL before a wonky Coors Field game. I'll reiterate, the only point I'm making is that Joe Ryan had 3 very clear segments in his 2023 season. It is very obvious to see how hiding a groin injury affected the stretch that was clearly an outlier compared to the rest of his season. I'm not sure how you're coming up with whatever you're claiming that I said when I clearly said nothing of the sort. Maybe he got figured out to an extent, maybe the injury messed with his mechanics for the remainder of the season, maybe a little of both and something else.

They are only getting better at Tommy John surgeries. Chris Paddack will be a very interesting case to follow this season, as he's basically a year ahead of Prielipp in recovering from a 2nd surgery - this time with the internal brace. Nice article, and welcome!

It is a known fact that he was hiding a groin injury from the team last year and the stretch that he was hiding the injury was by far his worst pitching. He gave up 8 home runs in 93.2 innings before he hid the injury, 17 HR in 32.1 innings while hiding an injury, and 7 in 35.2 innings after recovering (3 of which came at Coors Field). Last season is a pretty simple puzzle to piece together.

They were just speculating if going 9 innings contributed to the groin injury. He was clearly worse in that 7 game stretch and we know for a fact that he was hiding an injury, so it's very easy to conclude that stretch of 8.63 ERA/8.08 FIP pitching was mostly injury related and the 4-game stretch before the shutout is just baseball.

First off, I think it's important to remember that both the splitter and the sweeper were new pitches for Joe Ryan in 2023. In 2021/2022 he threw a slider/changeup/curveball and none of those were good pitches. Joe Ryan's injury not only affected his ERA/results on the field, I think it clearly affected him even after his IL stint. Here are some numbers on his pitches pre-injury and post-recovery. There is a pretty clear break in results for all 3 pitches, and while I'm fairly confident I understand how the 4-seamer lost effectivity and the sweeper was much improved, I'm not particularly sure I understand why the splitter got so much worse. Worth noting he got very, very good results on that pitch before his groin injury. Across the board his release point was lower by around 3-4 inches and closer to 3B by 1-2 inches with 2 inches more extension. I'd hazard a guess that release point change caused a dip in the spin efficiency of his fastball, as it dropped 1.2 more inches (less rise) and lost nearly an inch of run. The sweeper gained over 2 inches of sweep and drop and by location it looks like he did a better job keeping it at the edge of the strikezone and not throwing as many in the dirt - not particularly surprising that he gained more command over a particularly tricky pitch to throw. Now the splitter. Generally with offspeed pitches if you can throw them faster and get more movement it should be much more effective. Maybe that's not the case for splitters, looking at the best splitters it seems like they are thrown hard (87+ mph) and/or only have 1 great plane of movement - Gausman has more run and Neris/Maeda have more drop. Anyway, this got much longer than I intended but I think the pitches are there for Joe. It could just be a matter of dialing in both of the new pitches he added to his arsenal last year.

Pablo Lopez had a stretch of 4 games with a 6.95 ERA from 5/15 - 6/1 last year. Sonny Gray from 7/8 - 7/28 had a 6.08 ERA. Gerrit Cole had multiple 4-game stretches of 5+ ERA, Blake Snell's first 4 games had a 6 ERA. That's just baseball. Joe Ryan had the 4-game stretch of 6.08 ERA you're referencing and then threw a shutout.

Because players and agents are smart enough to not sign those kinds of contracts because they know some team is going to be willing to offer a big, fully guaranteed contract. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but who can you list other than Byron Buxton who has signed this kind of contract?

Do you want to get a contract signed or be happy with the contract if a player falls off? Can't have both.

As long as they actually use the 'long guy' more than once a week. I remember Cole Sands not pitching for 8 or 9 days a few times last year.

Still a Boras guy, which makes me doubt he'd accept that. Maybe he agrees to a Bobby Witt-style contract that has a bunch of opt outs after a couple of FA years?

For all the pitching consternation, Fangraphs is still projecting the Twins to have the 5th best rotation and the 2nd best bullpen. Pablo should be thought of as a Cy Young candidate, and Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober add in to become one of the best 1-2-3's in the league. Chris Paddack and DeSclafani should be at least capable 4-5 starters and Louie Varland is very good depth to have waiting in the wings. All the work they've done to bolster the bullpen will only help if the back end of the rotation falters.

This is one of those cases where technically it works, but maybe it's best to leave that one out of the arsenal lol

Maybe it was meant to be "dad-become-coach" ?? I made an ill-advised google search to see if I was missing something with that term - apparently not!

Would obviously be a ton of fun, but hard to project anyone other than the O's & Brewers to get the extra draft pick this year. Also hard to see Lee getting enough playing time sans some major injury to Lewis/Correa/Julien - don't worry I knocked on wood after typing this out. Lewis and Julien have a pretty good chance at being the best hitters on the team this season, so unless Lee comes out hotter than hot in Spring Training I don't see them blowing up the 1B platoon of Kiriloff and Santana to move Julien over there full-time to fit in Lee at 2B.

I don't know EV percentiles well enough to know if they are strong predictive indicators for 19 year olds in High-A, but I'm more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt given his age. Totally agree he's a wide variance prospect, since outside of an elite arm he doesn't have much else going for him. Michael Cuddyer comes to mind.

True, but his previous lowest BABIP was .313 and .233 was the 15th lowest of 490 hitters with 100+ PA in High-A. I'd wager most of that low BABIP is due to luck and being very young for the level, and he should come back to somewhere in the low .300's. His batted ball numbers in High-A were very close to his first stint at Low-A, which makes me think it's just part of him getting used to a new level of ball. 2022 Low-A: 18.6% LD, 53.6% GB, 27.8% FB, 18.5% IFFB (.330 BABIP) 2023 High-A: 19.5% LD, 53.4% GB, 27.1% FB%, 13.9% IFFB (.233 BABIP) 2023 Low-A: 22.1% LD, 44.7% GB, 33.2% FB, 10.7% IFFB (.379 BABIP) I also see that Baseball America wrote he had a 116 mph max exit velocity, which is really good even for the majors, but I know there is some concern about his 50th/90th percentile EV which basically means to me that he is too good at making contact on bad pitches. Totally agree with the Miranda comp. If he can be selective and limit the contact on pitches in bad locations, he's got a lot of potential.

Not sure what you guys are reading if you think he's a high strikeout guy. In Low-A he was in the top 10 for (lowest) strikeout rate, and even after jumping a level and being 3.5 years younger than the average High-A player he was in the 65th-70th percentile for (lowest) strikeout rate. Absolutely not a K King or a swing and miss guy.

A little bit of patience at the plate would go a long way for Gabby. His first taste of High-A was a little rough, but he was the 3rd youngest player in all of High-A and an unlucky .233 BABIP there didn't help his case. It looks like he has some lower-half noise to clean up in his swing, but the hands are there. Whether he's traded as part of a package for a front-end starting pitcher or the Twins continue to develop him into a much needed right handed outfielder, this looks like a very promising pickup.

Plenty of smart people get overconfident and go off on something when they have no idea what they're talking about. Good luck finding one comment from me touting Gallo's ability to reach base. Whenever you get tired of strawmanning, let me know. Would be nice to actually have a good faith discussion.