jorgenswest

Susac has a wRC+ of 94 in AAA last year. You need to be a pretty good defensive player to make it to the majors with that below average wRC+ in AAA. Susac’s hit tool scouting grade in Fangraphs is 30/35. Jackson is the better defender and had a 100 plate appearance sample with a major league wRC+ of 111. His wOBA was much better than his xwOBA so there is some luck there. I doubt either will have a wRC+ better than 80 in the majors next year but I would take Jackson’s glove and experience over Susac. If the Twins could have put Susac in the minors to get a lot of playing in hopes of improving his bat he would have been a worthwhile add.

Kepler’s 20.5 baseball reference WAR as a Twin is worthy of consideration to be in the Twins Hall of Fame. Playing the same position Michael Cuddyer had 12.8 as a Twin. Corey Koskie was a recent inductee with 22.1. Morneau at 22.9. Dan Gladden had 5.7 but he was also a long time broadcaster. I think there are three retired players with over 20 WAR on the team that have not been elected to the Twins HOF in Dave Goltz, Roy Smalley and Brian Dozier. I would put them in first. Goltz has the greatest WAR among the three. Chuck Knoblauch was elected but not enshrined. His transgressions are not a comp for Kepler’s. Assuming the evidence for Kepler is from this off-season I don’t see any reason it would keep him out. The Twins are going to elect someone every year to have that celebratory weekend. If Kepler is ever the best candidate his post Twins steroid use shouldn’t keep him out. Right now there are better candidates and he will be behind Buxton when they both are retired.

Looked up pipeline a few different places. from Merriam-Webster Going with the idiom “in the pipeline” Edit: just read @mikelink45 post. I asked Google “Does a baseball organizations pipeline includes players acquired in trades for minor leaguers?” The AI overview I think it is fair to call this our catching pipeline as of today. I am glad they added to that pipeline the acquisitions of Tait, Jimenez and Caraballo. Those are promising young players. The pipeline as it stands today does not seem adequate to fill the needs for 2027 though.

In general based on AAA data that is true. I am sure there are done pitchers that will be very good at it as well as catchers that do poorly. It will be very valuable to have a catcher that has an elite ability to identify a strike from a called ball,

Realmuto’s offensive numbers dipped but they are still good relative to catchers. He threw out runners well but his framing has dropped. That will be less important next year. He handles the pitching staff well. BAT X sees him bouncing back some. I would give him 2 years and around 24 million. I think the Phillies will also and this is just noise to get him to sign. The Twins ought to jump in and make an agreement with Realmuto while trading Jeffers to the Phillies for prospects.

I look forward to seeing Keaschall with a healthy arm. He may have had some good luck with his balls in play but he also had bad luck with the injuries. His healthy arm will help in the field also.

Speed is a component of xwOBA. In the list of players who outperformed their wOBA according to their contact you see players like Naylor and Raleigh that don’t have elite speed out of the batter’s box. You will see some faster guys in the list of players that underperformed. Both his xwOBA and wOBA were strong and that is encouraging for next year. Buxton’s difference of 19 is among the larger among starters but not in the top 10 of that list and maybe something that comes with that elite end of really solid contact. Keaschall is a different story. His xwOBA was significantly lower than his wOBA. He needs an above average at bat to mix in with his below average glove at 2B or fit on a corner. I think he will improve his contact numbers as he returns to health. He was lucky last year with his slash stats but can trade better health and experience for that luck and still perform above league average. Roden didn’t play enough or with consistency for any of these numbers to be meaningful.

The point of xwOBA is it is more stable in small samples than wOBA and slash stats. It takes a very large sample for slash stats to stabilize. Julien outperformed his contact in 2023. He had poor contact numbers in 2024. He underperformed his contact in 2025. He probably should be expected to be in middle of his 2023 and 2025 performances. That would be in the neighborhood of a league average. That isn’t enough to start at 1B. He doesn’t help on the bench with speed or defensive versatility. Without improvement his only good fit on a roster is a starting 2B if his glove is at least mediocre. With less than 1000 plate appearances improvement is possible. The Twins need to be open to that possibility and not have their minds fixed. Julien needs to show that improvement in spring. Clemens is a good fit on a bench. He can play 5 positions, run the bases and offers pop. He hit right handed pitching well and is a platoon fit at several positions. Outman was unlucky but that doesn’t matter when his expected stats aren’t good enough either. With his defense he needs a bat in the Michael A Taylor range (career OPS+ about 80) to have a major league job as a fourth outfielder. Taylor was an exceptional fielder and that was good enough to start some years. Outman’s 2023 season and minor league numbers make that a possibility. He will need to show it in spring or I would go with the upside in Roden’s bat as the 4th OF and sacrifice some defense. Once Jenkins or Rodriguez arrive the Twins won’t have a need for a back up CF with an 80 OPS so the clock is ticking. Outman needs to take advantage of any opportunity he gets early this year.

I was in Fangraphs and did a lot of sorting of 1Bs. Bell doesn’t come up when sorted by first basemen unless you go down to 100 plate appearances as a 1B. Of the 1Bs listed in the group his wRC+ of 120 as a 1B was 17th of 52. His defense in that group was 42 of 52. That ranking is doesn’t take into account playing time. He probably would really be near the bottom with Tyler Soderstrom and Yandy Diaz. Pete Alonso and Vinnie Pasquantino would be down there too. He was mostly a DH last year so both WAR and OAA are not very useful in comparing to regulars 1Bs since they are both tied to playing time as a 1B. If the bat is of primary importance at 1B his overall numbers last year are comparable to the league average 1B and that is much better than the Twins 1Bs last year. If for some reason he is truly hits better when he is on the field then his wRC+ of 120 as a 1B is better than the average for the position.

I tried to find a measure that had them 37th and 43rd. I even tried WAR to find 37 and 43 even though I know it would not be valid since Bell played mostly DH and all those DH games would carry a defensive penalty in the WAR calculation. Those ranks still did not come up. Bell had a wRC+ of 107. As a league the wRC+ overall was 109. The team median was 106. The Twins first basemen had a wRC+ of 90. Assuming he performs similarly to last year I would describe Bell as more of an upgrade than a ranking of 37 suggests.

I think Martin will always fit on a roster. Positional flexibility, speed and the ability to take a good at bat will always work on a bench even if there isn’t enough power to be a starter. I think Martin’s best fit is 2B. There has to be some concern about Keaschall at 2B. He was a questionable fit at the time of the draft before the arm injuries. Keaschall’s arm strength was 6th percentile last year. If Keaschall’s average of 74.7 MPH improves to around his max last year of 78.3 MPH that will probably work for most double play turns. We can’t compare Martin’s average of 85.5 MPH from outfield with Keaschall from second base directly as it is a different throw. Willi Castro’s MPH from 2B is a few MPH less than outfield. The difference between Keaschall and Martin is enough to believe that last year Martin’s arm was significantly better. Does a healthy Keaschall have enough arm to play 2B or is Martin the better option?

I don’t think a short side platoon is worth roster spot unless they can contribute defensively or have some speed but I am probably in the minority on that view. Wagaman did have an OPS of .783 against lefties his rookie season. He did well as a sub entering with an OPS of .826. His overall OPS was 103 points better in his second half. He has three options remaining. He might not be a bad option for a right handed short side platoon bat.

I honestly have no idea if that would have made a difference. They could have given any of these seven time in the bullpen to end the season. Matthews, Woods Richardson had spots in the rotation until the end. Starting Abel and Bradley gave them the opportunity to see the most innings out of these two new acquisitions. Festa was injured. Prielipp was on a schedule that appeared to me to be very connected to rebuilding his arm. They didn’t deviate much from that progression. Raya was moved to the bullpen. His last start was 6 innings on August 14. After that he made 10 relief appearances. He was still needed in the rotation. McLaughlin started at least three bullpen days in September. I am not sure if the move to the pen was about gaining bullpen experience or lessening his innings or both. With Lopez, Ryan and Ober these seven make 10 starters with a few others that need to get starts in AAA. I think the plan was to use some of these arms to build a bullpen this year. I hope it works.

I hope they keep giving him work at 2B. If Keaschall suffers another injury or can’t play 2B adequately following the arm injuries they have options in Jenkins, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Roden and Fedko in left field but not near the options for 2B.

His numbers were solid last year and it doesn’t appear to be luck. His xWOBA was greater than his wOBA. His challenge will be how he responds as the league adjusts to him.

I don’t think it was ever a rebuild. I think they believe they can restock prospects using the bullpen and find inexpensive bullpen pieces among their many pre-arb starting arms. The first half of the plan leaves them with many FV45 to FV50 players. I am not confident that they can build a bullpen from the starters beyond number 5 but I am hopeful. The Brewers and Guardians have found several bullpen arms using few resources. The Mariners traded several closers since Dipoto took very in return for prospects. One year they traded their closer at the deadline while contending. None of these teams have tried to turn it over all at once though. Falvey’s job should be connected to its success.

I don’t think all three of Julien, Outman and Kreidler will make the roster. I think each of the three needs to show promise of their upside in team spring training. All teams have a roster crunch as they set their rosters at the end of spring. I don’t think it is a high risk of losing them to waivers unless they have a strong spring. If that happens the Twins will roster them. I also don’t like projections because I don’t believe players are fixed in their skills. Players with less than 1500 at bats may take a significant step. While spring training stats are pretty useless I don’t believe spring training is useless. The staff has eyes on these players in workouts and drills for several weeks. Any player who finished in AAA last year ought to have a chance to win a job in spring. Players who performed poorly last year should have to show something in spring training to earn a job. It is hard to imagine all of Julien, Kreidler and Outman will have a strong spring.

This year four starters with two years of control in the top 10 of ESPN’s off season trade candidate rankings. Skubal, Ryan, Lopez and Gore have not moved yet. Maybe it is too early and free agency needs to be sorted out and the offers will get better later in the winter. Maybe the offers for that extra year of service time don’t come near meeting the value. Two years of Skubal has more than twice the excess value compared to his last year as his salary will increase. I wonder if the offers don’t reflect that excess value. The Twins have more FV45 or better players than any other team. They are missing that top flight talent of FV55 or better. If the trade offers are multiple FV45 and 50s instead of that elite talent they lack I support their decision to hold onto Ryan.

Is that looking at the range in any year? I think the long length of the schedule would tend to shrink that range. I wonder what the year to year variance in winning percentage is for each team. I guess the 162 would impact that also. Would looking a playoff participation over the last 10 years be helpful? Is the ratio of playoff teams close enough to make that work? I would think a more competitively balanced league would have fewer teams with near 100% or 0%.

Intriguing. I don’t know how to think about a league’s competitive balance. How would we measure the degree of competitive imbalance? Variance in Wins? Playoff success? Would the year to year variation of teams in a league with more competitive balance be greater?

I don’t get the binary of all in and going for the World Series or bust thinking. Baseball is a great game and almost every year we are guaranteed 162 games. I enjoy watching Ryan pitch for the Twins and every game he starts gives them a better chance to win than who ever happens to be the 5th starter at the time. Those 162 is why I watch baseball. It isn’t the dream of a pennant.

For a few years I kept hearing on this site that Buxton was unhappy though I don’t think there was ever a direct quote from him that he wanted out. I don’t think we have that from Ryan either. I saw quotes related to Gray and the decision to right size payroll. I don’t see unhappiness in those comments. He simply spoke the truth.

He might. He risks injury in the next two years that could significantly cut into his next contract. The injury risk is on the Twins also dropping his trade value. I think there is a contract structure possible that the Twins can afford and Ryan can accept. Your numbers might be in that ballpark. For the Twins the value of this deal would go beyond Ryan. It would show both the players in the clubhouse and the fans that they are committed to putting out a competitive team now and down the road.

If there is a surplus of major league quality starting pitching they have a need for those arms in the pen where there is a deficit. I wouldn’t be actively trying to trade starting pitching. I would be actively trying to trade at least one corner outfielder.

Vientos does little to help the bench. He doesn’t run well. He doesn’t play a position well or have positional flexibility. He either hits well enough to start at make up for a bad glove at 3B or he will be a journeyman. While his OPS and wOBA dropped significantly from 2024 to 2025 his xwOBA based on the quality of his contact did not. It dropped from. .331 to .319 which was one point off his career mark entering the season. I suspect he is better than last year but his talent is closer to the 2025 numbers than the 2024 numbers. The Twins do have a back up at 3B with the addition of Bell in Kody Clemens. Clemens quality of contact was better than Vientos and he adds better positional flexibility as well as better base running to contribute from the bench.