jorgenswest

Do you think they still see Gonzalez as an up the middle player? He played the same number of games at 2B as Astudillo last year (2). His UZR at SS was awful in 2018 which I might disregard but combined with the Astros choosing to play others at SS starting in July '18 I wondered a year ago if he was no longer a passable SS. The Twins played him once at SS. If he is not a SS he is not competing with Adrianza.

Marwin should be on the team because of his contribution on the field. I just question whether that contribution has any more space for decline. Is he no longer a super utility player and now restricted to the four corners? If he is a corner player shouldn’t his bat matter most? Consider BP’s DRC+. It factors in context like quality of opposing pitcher. It correlates better year to year than OPS+. His DRC+ was nearly the worst on the team at 92. Astudillo was at 95. Astudillo faced a much more difficult group of pitchers in his plate appearances than Gonzalez and his performance against that set of pitchers put him closer to league average than Gonzalez. Does Astudillo help more on the roster? Does Cave? Wade? What if Rooker or Larnach or Kirilloff are tearing the cover off the ball in the spring? Would they help the team more? The Twins will have four spots on the bench. Unless Gonzalez is a middle infielder Adrianza gets one. Avila gets another. I think Marwin is in competition with those other 6 younger players. At some point at least 2 will be better options to help the team than Marwin. Are we sure it won’t be soon?

I wouldn't be for those two on the Twins board either. He is a corner player likely to have an OPS around .730 at age 31. The super utility player with a .900 OPS is not returning. Reading through comments I do believe he is the best 4th OF option but he has little room to decline and Kirilloff or Larnach could be ready by midseason.

I think you are right. Though 5/60 seems like a reasonable progression in the Nola and Martinez contracts the Twins will need to go higher. There is a number that Berrios will accept to get some security in case of injury and the Twins can get two more years. The 30 million in arb seems right. I had the Twins starting with another 30 but maybe it will take 40 or 45.

Is it a question whether he should be a lock? Does he help the team win more games than Cave or Wade or Rooker? Cave might have a better bat. Wade might have better on base skills. Cave and Wade can play CF. Rooker might be ready.

I would offer 5/60 and be willing to go more. They can get this done. There is a number that will get this done. It doesn’t need to be team friendly. By the time he is a free agent they might have to pay 50 million for those last two years and the qualifying offer might be over 20 in three years. Pay up now.

In imagining the 26 man roster I have been wondering about Marwin's role on the team since Donaldson arrived. I guess there are the following arguments rostering him. Gonzalez' versatility will keep him on the roster. He certainly was in 2017. I wrote last year that Houston stopped playing him at SS in 2018 and that became clear in July when Correa was injured and instead of sliding in Gonzalez they shuffled around the infield while using him in LF. Last year he played the same number of games at 2B for the Twins as Willians Astudillo. Rocco sees the value in positional flexibility yet he almost never used Gonzalez up the middle. His versatility now may be the corners. Gonzalez' bat will keep him on the roster. He is now two years away from that amazing 2017 season. A season where he saw his swing and miss rate at his all time low of 8%. He returned to his 2015-2016 level last year at 11.1%. Take out 2017 and he puts up a pretty consistent OPS line of 759, 694, 733 and 736. I think at 31 it would be foolish to expect better. Projections have him higher but they use 3-5 years of data and probably don't factor in lack of trash can bangs into their algorithms. Gonzalez veteran presence with success in a World Series will keep him on the roster. The Twins have few players with World Series experience. That must earn respect in the locker room. How much of that respect is lost with his involvement in stealing pitches in 2017? How does he explain his role in cheating to pitchers like Michael Pineda or Rich Hill? Will he have lost the respect of some of his teammates? Gonzalez salary will keep him on the roster. The Twins will be very reluctant to release a player making 9 million off the roster. Is a veteran 31 year old that can play LF, RF, 3B and 1B with an OPS of around .730 a lock to make this roster?

I would prefer that the Twins devote the time to the young pitchers. One of Chacin or Bailey helps. Two likely mediocre veteran pitchers takes away opportunity in both spring and during the regular season from Thorpe, Dobnak and Smeltzer. I would much rather invest those backend starts on two of that trio and I don’t trust that Chacin or Bailey will be released if they are pitching at a mediocre level. Last year Thorpe, Dobnak and Smeltzer started 13 games and the Twins went 8-5. Two of Dobnak’s were an opener but Thorpe or Smeltzer were the primary those two games where they went 1-1. Why not devote 14-16 starts to this trio before Pineda returns? Is there an opt out date on this deal? If that opt out date is early in the season then I really don’t like the deal. The Twins will be too motivated to roster him over a younger pitcher. Even if he is simply insurance against losing a pitcher in the spring that insurance comes at the cost of giving him valuable spring innings where he is essentially auditioning for other teams. If the opt out date is May 15 or later then the insurance makes sense. Keep him the minors as long as everyone is healthy and give a shot to the young pitchers.

I think the downside is giving him 8-10 starts to find out he is mediocre and not giving that opportunity to Thorpe or Dobnak. It is the same downside with Bailey. We needed one of those guys but we I don’t think they need two. Would Walker have been a better choice? Maybe. He had xFIP- of 100 his last two healthy seasons of pitching. I guess the hope would be a complete recovery where he returns to the league average pitcher he was in 16-17.

The key is improvement from Arraez and Polanco. By every measure Arraez was a poor 2B in a partial season. He now has the job full time. He needs to be a lot better or there are going to many extended innings and shorter starts. I am hoping Polanco’s leg trouble caused his drop from below average to poor last year and he can approach below average with healthier legs. Donaldson may help here a little but it is his weaker arm that keeps him from playing deep cutting down his range. The weak arm compounded with the leg issue that led to too many balls in play turning into base runners. Last year the Twins converted 69% of balls in play into outs. That was new league bottom. At the top the Astros and Dodgers were at 73%. I don’t care how players do individually in the metrics but as a team they must do a much better job of converting balls in play into outs. Better coverage from Arraez and Polanco will be needed to make that happen.

I don’t think that WPA has any projection value and correlates very poorly year to year, it doesn’t seem like a good tool to make a decision on future performance. For relievers and their small sample I would not look at anything other than the pitch level data.

I like the off-season plan to give them the opportunity over an older back end option. It really seems ideal. Two pitchers get 8 or so starts to win one spot when it narrows to one opportunity of likely 8 more starts. By the all star break they would have around 25 starts from their hope for the near future. Even if they all struggle I think this part of the plan is solid and deserves a solid grade. In that case by the all star break They should have a good indication on whether or not to pursue a Robbie Ray rental type at the deadline.

Rosario is more likely to help this year’s team in LF than any other player in the system. If the Twins are in it for this year the only reason to trade him is to improve this year’s team somewhere else. They would need to find a trade partner that needs a LF and is win now for this year but somehow has spare valuable pitching to trade. I just don’t see it. Rosario is a valuable player to this team but he doesn’t have the trade value they need to impact the pitching this year. Maybe they can find a Matt Lawton for Rick Reed type deal during the season if Kirilloff or Larnach is ready. They aren’t ready yet.

Moderators you may need to delete as I am taking this from prospects and Donaldson to the equal playing time discussion but I can't start a new discussion in this forum On the question... Eddie is a better hitter. Using OPS in one season to project the next season doesn't correlate nearly as high as some other measures. One in particular is BP's DRC+. In this measure Cave and Rosario are not in the same realm. Eddie was 109 (112 last year) and Cave 89 (93 last year). The Twins need to plan in rest but in every match up the staff (on field and analytic) must answer the question who is more likely to be successful today. I think in most match ups the answer is going to be Rosario over Cave.

Alcantara career strike out major league rate is 18.7%. Nick Blackburn 10.9%. Alcantara at 23 started 32 games in the majors. Blackburn at 23 was in the minors (mostly hi A) with a 14% strike out rate. Alcantara's average major league fastball 95.7 vs Blackburn 90.6. Swing and miss rate 11.0% to 5.3%. It is Alcantara's age, stuff and the fact that he faced higher levels of competition at a young age that foreshadows upside in his future. Alcantara is a valuable asset and it will take a high level prospect. I don't think it takes both Larnach and Duran to win the deal. I think the Twins can get a good pitcher in return for Larnach whether it is an high upside guy with control like Alcantara or a guy for this year like Robbie Ray.

Plouffe seems like a good comp. He was a valuable player for 4 years posting DRC+ numbers of 107, 102, 111, 107. He was below average with the glove at the start of those 4 years but became an average or better 3B. Rosario has similar DRC+ numbers. He is a valuable player and I expect he will be this season again. Like Plouffe he has little space to decline given his arb status.

Questions that come to mind... Will he be able to really work on his change up as a reliever in the majors? Will he get consistent work? What went wrong with the Romero shift to the pen? Anything to learn there? Who are we developing for the 2021 rotation? Will his limited innings be more valuable in relief than starting? I might have more confidence had Romero been a success.

My favorite Astudillo moment last year was his pinch hit against Boston. My take here is probably better than going by my memory. http://twinsdaily.com/blog/36/entry-11646-baldelli-and-line-ups-which-twin-has-faced-the-best-pitching/ I don’t know how much Astudillo helps but if you have runners in scoring position and need a ball in play against an extreme strike out pitcher he might not be a bad option.

A second take on Odorizzi and his higher pitch counts. He does not give in to batters early in the count. You can see it when you compare Odorizzi and Berrios early in the count. 0-0 count Berrios: 100 PAs 1.321 OPS against Odorizzi: 61 PAs .839 OPS against Not only is Odorizzi much more difficult to hit but he is allowing a first pitch PA much less often. Even with the count 1-0 where Berrios and Odorizzi have about the same OPS against over 1000, Odorizzi had many fewer plate appearances (34 v 55) completed at that count. Odorizzi doesn’t go deep in games and a big part is that he doesn’t give in early in the count. I don’t know if that is a bad thing in an era of 8 man bullpens. Those early in the count PAs are often very favorable to a hitter.

The largest reason starting pitchers fare worse the third time through is that they get to their pitch count somewhere in the middle of the line up the third time through. The data is heavily skewed with plate appearances from batters at the top of the order. Since Odorizzi has a higher rate of pitches per plate appearance his data is skewed a little more. When you look from the batters point of view you and consider how well individual batters do the third time through you find that there is a slight shift. The data I have is from two years ago but about 38% of batters performed better in the third time seeing a pitcher as compared to the first two appearances. That isn’t significantly different than the 31% in each of the other two at bats. Odorizzi doesn’t necessarily have more trouble against a batter the third time he sees them but rather he is only seeing the top of the line up and very good batters the third time through skewing the results.

Just a little puzzled why I was quoted. I think I was in support of retaining Romero though I possibly used a tool contrived by BP to support Rosario. I believe it has a year to year correlation of .69 compared to OPS+ of .51. A 109 DRC+ is a good thing. Cave has been around 90 the last two season. Ranking 67/68 over all qualifying hitters and in line with Gardner is a good thing. The Yankees still value Gardner. That 109 ranks above Votto, Abreau and Machado which is a good thing. There are new metrics that put Rosario in a good light and the Twins have him at a contract that is favorable relative to many similarly ranked players. Does he have significant trade value? Probably not given his limited years of control, position and arb status. Does he have significant value the Twins? Absolutely.

Have the Twins signed a proportionally greater number of free agents also? Why 34? Why not 36 or 32? Would it look the same?

Free agents are old. If they are high caliber you are either signing them old or giving them a contract well into their 30s. Want a younger team less expensive team? Don’t sign free agents.

For projecting forward BP’s DRC+ has a higher correlation than looking at a previous season’s OPS. Rosario had a DRC+ of 109 ranking 67/68 with Brett Gardner and ahead of Marte, Votto, Abreau, Seager and Machado. I would be very reluctant to move on from Rosario. They would need to get in return a pitcher who is ready to perform at his level in 2020.

Like the change. I appreciate having Seth’s minor league writings mixed in. It really is the only place I need to stop now. I hope you will consider placing on the front page and the front page some of the unique takes in blog from outside writers. I know I have overlooked those before the change. If that is already happening be more aggressive in adding those entries and encourage the blog writing.