jorgenswest

I am encouraged by Roden’s quality of contact and approach at the plate. He has 8 strikeouts and 7 walks showing good plate discipline. His xwOBA of .332 is very good and is a much better predictor of the remainder of the year than his wOBA. I sure hope that the Twins front office knows that Roden’s slash stats are of no value at this sample in predicting how he will help the team the rest of the season. @ashbury pushed me on his bad luck. He had a game in Cleveland where he reached based 5 times. Three of those times were ruled errors by the Cleveland scorekeeper. One was a clear hit. Another probably is a hit with several scorekeepers. He also had a walk off single that could have been a triple but with a runner on third he only needed to get to first. That was to help them beat the Guardians also. That bad luck has been with the scorekeepers and his own stat line but not with the scoreboard. He is 6th on the Twins in WPA. When Buxton returns they need to send out an outfielder or catcher. The catchers don’t have options. Martin and Roden do. Both are taking good at bats and have value to this team. Neither deserves to go down but this is a good problem.

It is one thing to bunt for a hit successfully when the other team isn’t expecting it and another to bunt successfully when the pitcher and defense know you are going to bunt and do their best to stop you. Jackson has one successful sacrifice bunt in his major league career. That was in 2024. The last time he had a sacrifice bunt in the minors was in 2016.

No one has successfully bunted against Ashby this year. I am not blaming Martin. The blame lies elsewhere.

Watching the Twins try to bunt this year is painful. It was particularly painful this weekend. Bunting is hard. Some pitchers are really hard to bunt against. No one has bunted successfully against Aaron Ashby this year. He has allowed no sacrifice bunts and no bunt hits. Maybe you take a chance with a really accomplished bunter. Do the Twins have one? They have 6 sacrifice bunts this year while allowing 23. I can’t blame Martin for this failure this weekend. I do blame Shelton for putting on the bunt. What is the likelihood that he or any Twin would bunt successfully against Ashby? Almost zero. It isn’t a team priority. Shelton should never have put on the play. Is it something they are working in AAA? Perhaps it is a developmental priority. They have even fewer sacrifice bunts in AAA. They have 4. How about the Brewers? They have 27 sacrifice bunts this season and allowed 15. Two top prospect call ups Pratt and Lara have sacrifice bunts in AAA this year. Culpepper’s last sacrifice bunt was his freshman year in college. Bunting made a difference in this series. That doesn’t happen by accident.

Martin has an OBP of over .400 against left handed pitching that is backed up by more walks than strike outs. I think he will get better against right handed pitching over time. I think his routes in the outfield will continue to improve in the outfield. For now he is an inexpensive pre-arb right handed outfield bat. The Twins need one of those.

I would have Kreidler, Martin, Jackson and Caratini on the bench against a right handed pitcher instead of Roden so I see a fit. Hays isn’t helping here. In games where Jeffers isn’t catching. He might be at DH with Bell at 1B, Lewis at 2B and Clemens in RF but even then the defense is worse and it might be better to sit Bell or Lewis and play Roden. I wouldn’t option Martin or DFA Jackson for Hays.

Concur on Hays. I don’t think he helps. We can debate Mauer’s luck as related to the quality of his contact in another place.

Roden is taking good at bats and making good contact. He has among the better xwOBA. His poor OPS is partially bad luck. He also reached on base three times on error in a Cleveland game and two could have been hits. He had a walk off drive off the wall that was rules a single since it ended the game. It takes nearly a full season of regular play for slash stats to stabilize. Let’s not look at them until we get there.

To me this is an irresponsible take by @Sam Caulder. Was their reporting to support this claim? I went and rewatched Pohlad’s interview. He made it abundantly clear leading up to the deadline they needed to add relievers. In order to acquire that major league reliever the Astros were not looking for prospects. They were looking to add a valuable major league piece that happened to be Larnach. In no way is that an intention to move Larnach. It is an intention to add a major league reliever.

With the buyout it is really 10 million for Caratini. If they put him on waivers and he goes unclaimed the Twins would be responsible for his remaining salary. It really depends on much they believe in Jackson as the primary catcher.

Looking forward to a big weekend from Culpepper. We need him against those those left handed starters.

Am I understanding that trading Ryan at the 2025 deadline was his highest value and he should have been traded then. If not then he should been traded this winter where his value would still near its peak. I have a hard time seeing how this strategy is going to lead to a successful team in the playoffs. Out of the 6 guaranteed years of service time the first few are developing. Ryan wasn’t ready to be a playoff starter in 2023. At best the Twins get the two seasons of the 6 where he is ready to make ann and this is only if they hold off trading Ryan at the 2025 deadline and trade him in the offseason . Otherwise it is only 1 season of playoff control. Can I conclude then that we should trade Bradley at the next deadline or certainly next off season? He could get injured in 2028 after all. Hopefully the Twins can make the playoffs in this small window. If not maybe they can make it in Abel’s window down the road. I hear arguments about the Brewers but they kelp Burnes through all but his last season of control. The Tigers went further with Skubal. The Marlins have frequently gone with this trade high at 2 or 2+ years of service time strategy. They have traded some good pitchers in Cabrera, Luzardo, Rogers and Lopez. The churning has kept them around .500 in three of the last four years.

Bell has 4 years of an average to slightly above average bat. If Wallner can do better than that against right handed pitching he should up. They will still have a problem against left handed pitching but Bell wasn’t much help there anyway. Bell is stronger against right handed over his career and 6% better than league average this year. That is not a difficult bar for Wallner to surpass.

You sound confident that the 2022 season will also count as full.

Using slash stats in a sample short of beyond a full season to predict future slash stats is unwise. Roden has solid contact numbers. He has an above average xwOBA behind only Jeffers, Larnach and Buxton. It his 50 plate appearances he is taking good at bats and striking the ball well. Everything points to the next 50 being better. Jackson is doing the opposite. His strike out walk ratio is awful. A .452 BABIP will make anyone look good. His xwOBA betters only Outman and Fedko. Keep him if he brings league average defense but don’t expect that his hitting up numbers will be anything close to the last two years. That strike out walk ratio persists through this two small sample years of luck on his side. I look forward to seeing Culpepper, Jenkins and Rodriguez. They may be able to contribute with their speed and defense even if their bat has ups and downs. I am not confident that any of the three are ready to hit better than Roden going forward this year. They could give it a shot though. It would be good to know if Wallner has figured things out going into next year. I think that is best done at DH. For four straight seasons Josh Bell has been an average major league hitter. I think we are getting what we should have expected. I don’t think it is enough at DH. They might consider Wallner for his roster spot. They also might consider Culpepper or Jenkins for his roster spot and move Larnach to DH. I would remove Bell from the roster before either Jackson or Roden but if Buxton returns before September they will really need to remove four. I don’t think Roden and Jackson can survive 4 moves off the roster unless they want to waive Caratini.