jorgenswest

Four pitchers have earned multiple saves for the Brewers this year. One was acquired in a DFA trade. One was acquired as a minor league free agent. One was a failed starter. One was a minor leaguers signed in 2018 in his first full season with the club. Four of the Mariners top 5 relievers were acquired in trade as minor leaguers. The other was a waiver claim. The Guardians have an undrafted free agent, pitchers acquired as minor leaguers in trade, a rule 5 pick up and a drafted failed starter. None of them required significant prospect capital or free agent dollars. Instead the Mariners and Brewers have been trading away established relievers. There is a road map to follow here. It may be the route Falvey chose to take as he navigates difficult payroll restrictions from the owner.

I think he is a waiver claim so picking him up would mean tendering him for arbitration. As a waiver claim the Twins probably have a better shot at getting him as opposed to a free agent who has cleared waivers. His 4 seam fastball velocity in AAA was 91.0 when he returned this year. It was 93.7 and 93.9 on his successful seasons. His best pitch was his sinker. It was on both sides of 93 his successful seasons. It was 91.2 in AAA this year. His walk rate in the minors this year was 12.8%. It was 8.7% and 6.5% in his successful seasons. I would sign him and give him a shot as a reliever. My fear is the Twins won’t cut him loose if his control and velocity does not return.

Fair enough. I won’t find debating whether someone should have challenged or not entertaining. I don’t want a loss or win to hinge on whether someone challenged a strike/ball call. If it is clear I will be more entertained if they get it right.

The NFL also has the expedited review which keeps the flow of the game. ABS is more like that. No one needs to watch replays of the pitch from multiple angles. The result is clear and immediate as it is for the expedited review. Use ABS if it’s accurate. If accurate it doesn’t make any sense to let bad calls go unchanged that could be changed immediately with no stop in the flow of the game. If it isn’t deemed to be accurate enough for full use it doesn’t make sense to slow the game for a challenge.

Didn’t they get the Marlins version of Gordon? Okert had not pitched well in 2023 but the Marlins took him to arbitration hoping to trade him for a living breathing human. They found Gordon. Neither performed well and both remained on the roster for nearly all of the season. Both teams lost this deal and would have been better served with a player from their organization or a minor league signing in the roster. If anything the Marlins won the deal because Gordon’s arb salary was less than Okert’s arb salary.

Sometimes they get moved… They tendered Gio Urshela in 2022 and received Alejandro Hidalgo. He pitched in AA with a 6.42 ERA this year. They tendered Gordon and picked up a reliever in Okert who had been tendered by the Marlins in 2024. Neither made it to 2025 and performed poorly on 2024. Sometimes they don’t… They tendered Kyle Farmer and couldn’t move him. He remained on the roster performing poorly all season. How much different was Okert than someone they could have added as a free agent or minor league free agent? Is it worth the risk of not finding a trade for Larnach and retaining him on the roster?

My thought also. If it works use it every pitch. If it is flawed don’t use it. The only way the middle ground makes sense is if the flaws have to do with tolerance. If for instance it is known to be accurate within a quarter of an inch then they need to build in that tolerance to overturn a call. In other words to turn a strike into a ball there would need to be at least a quarter inch of spaces between the ball and strike zone.

Agree. That isn’t what I said though and I must not have been clear. I think there is value to Matthews in ending the season with a good start and I think Vazquez or Jeffers increase the likelihood of a successful start.

I don’t know if the second catcher is going to be the tipping point between winning and losing. They should be looking for an inexpensive second catcher. He might not be it. I honestly don’t know. At times he looked like a major league catcher like the Woods Richardson start. I think it was his next start where he struggled to block pitches, throw out runners and failed to make a play at the plate.

A claim and they will be taking him to arbitration. He is arb 2. Do salaries ever go down in arbitration when injury is involved? I think it goes up a little from his 2.2 million this year. Are they better spending those dollars on a reliever? I would do it and pay for some of it by not tendering Topa. Pay for the upside. I guess that doesn’t work if they were already planning to cut Topa loose though.

Maybe they made the call on Pereda. If they made the call and will remove him from the 40 at the end of the season I am OK with that. I would rather have Vazquez catching our young pitchers in their last start. If he is still in their plans he should be playing this week.

@Cody Schoenmann I appreciate the work and the forward look. It is impossible to name the acquisitions particularly if they are in a similar career place as Castro and Stewart were when they were acquired. They need to bring in a catcher or two to compete with Pereda and hope a once good prospect turns into a useful player. They need to do the same in the middle infield and bullpen. Hoskins may be better than any other 1B option on the roster but I wouldn’t want another 1B on a one year deal and I don’t want Hoskins on a multiyear deal. He did not come back all of the way from his injury and at this age will be declining. I would trade some of their prospect capital for a middle of the lineup bat.

None of the three is a top flight prospect. Tolle has the future value (50) of a number four starter. Arias has the same future value from the position player side. Garcia is the next prospect tier down (45+) and high risk of getting to his future value. If true they were wise to keep Ryan. I hope they remain wise this off season.

Falvey traded Berrios for prospects and then replaced him by trading our first round pick for Gray. Berrios and Gray were at about the same salary level but they had control of Gray in 2023. I thought it was a brilliant move though some argued the Twins didn’t know what they doing trading for prospects and then trading prospects 6 months later. I also believe every win matters and more competitive games helps the development of the young players. Scoring more runs takes stress off the pitchers. Runners on base make it easier to hit. A better bullpen can put out the fires of inexperienced starters. All of that matters for development. I don’t believe it is the binary of playoff bound or not.

They need to hold out for a top flight prospect and more. I said the same for Duran. There is value in keeping him beyond the hope they are competitive next year. Winning matters. It matters to development. His innings matter. It helps the bullpen and in turn will help the younger starters when the they get a more rested bullpen. Even if they can acquire that top prospect they need to build their own and be willing to live through their mistakes.

It is much more rare to acquire a talent the level of FV55 or better this decade. In the 2010s teams were willing to trade those top flight prospects like Anthony or Kurtz. Other than DeVries who was acquired for an all star with 5 years of service time, has there been a top flight player moved in the last three seasons? I don’t think they get better than a Martin/Richardson or Tait/Abel type return by trading Ryan or Lopez. I think they were a 50 and 45 using Fangraphs. Just for scale here is the number breakdown from the current fangraphs FV60: 9 prospects FV55: 11 prospects FV50: 79 prospects FV45: 192 prospects FV40: 637 propects How many significant players will result from those 928 prospects or the 908 after the top 20? How many of those 908 are going to need to use up two or three options before they settle in?

They have Lopez and Ryan. They have Buxton and some young hitters that should get better. I think it is the right mix to improve many games. Maybe not enough to be a contender but enough to be competitive, The younger players also need to compete and win. They benefit from staying in the race longer. They can spend money and make this team better but they need to do it with an eye on 2027 and 2028. They can’t sign one year stop gap position players. They need to close those gaps. Either acquire a middle of the line up hitter under contract at least two years or go with the upside in the organization. I think they need one veteran middle of the line up hitter. I think they need to be aggressive with their best positional prospects The bullpen is different. They might need to acquire a few one year relievers. If Abel or Matthews or Bradley or Festa aren’t in the rotation put them in the pen. Someone will thrive there. The pen if they are among the 12 best arms. Acquire one or two late inning relievers. They should spend money because spent well they will win more games. Winning games and playing in more competitive games benefits the development of the younger players.

I find myself wondering about the scout they retained. I could not have named Wesley Wright as a Twins scout though I would have listened to @Seth Stohs podcast. They let go of three guys I did know in John Manuel, Jose Marzan and Keith Compton as well as Keith Stohr. Wright was the coordinator and by far the youngest of the group.

Seems like this group would have been key advisors on the players they acquired or opted against acquiring when they traded 11 players at the deadline. Could performance at their main responsibility of scouting professional players factored into the decision? Do the Twins have some buyer’s remorse on any of them? Maybe they voiced opposition to some of the deals. We won’t know but I don’t think it is dollars. The money just isn’t enough in the context of the budget. To bring value this group needs to identify players with a future value greater than perceived by their team as well as greater than the varied public services rank of the player. Have they been bringing that value? Somehow the Twins found Joe Ryan and Willi Castro. Did the push for either of them come from one of the 4 guys they let go? If so, they will missed.

I appreciate the topic. I don’t need yet another thread arguing whether they will spend. I appreciating speculating the possibilities about what they might add if they spend. There are others that will see this discussion as a waste of their time and avoid it. A middle of the order everyday bat like Naylor is a need. A few good bats will be moved in trade. If they don’t get Naylor they certainly can use their prospect capital to win one of those trades. Add that middle of the order bat and then add arms to the bullpen. That would be my direction. I hope there are no team friendly one year free agent deals for position players.

The Twins traded away four positional starters at the deadline. They have been without their starting catcher for a good part of September. I wondered how the new bats stepped up. Together they have a collective wRC+ of a league average 100. They are 7th in the AL in runs scored with Detroit the only team in the central above them with 5 more since the deadline.

What are the main responsibilities of the pro scouting department? Scouting teams in advance of an upcoming series? Advising on potential acquisitions in deadline or off season deals? Advising on free agent pick ups including minor league and rule 5 acquisitions? Where will those responsibilities be assigned now? I read both the Twins article as well as the Cubs from a year ago and it isn’t clear to me what holes will be created. Certainly the dismissing of four talented and experienced voices in the room will be a loss.

Thanks for putting a spotlight on these games. I don’t care what number starter he is given. Do teams assign starters a number or is that a creation of the media? I do care whether the starter shows qualities of. Pitcher that I would want to start a playoff game. Those 5 games can’t be merely luck. I can for the first time imagine Woods Richardson taking another step next year towards being a pitcher they would start in the playoffs.

He might be going back but he is hitting the ball to the opposite field less and hitting more line drives than he was last year or in the minors with Toronto. Like Clemens he has increased his bat speed this year. I suspect that bat speed wasn’t something he returned to but rather something new he has added. I don’t have inside knowledge but launch angle may have been something that the Twins tried to change. If true, that didn’t work. He kept working though and hopefully made the tweak necessary to be a major league starter.

Clemens was born in 1996. Larnach and Wallner 1997. The span between the three is about a year and a half. Rooker was just less than half year younger than Clemens when he got his first shot. He was good but not great that year with 2.1 WAR over a full season and a xwOBA of .343. That is pretty similar to Clemens. Clemens WAR is less but that is weighted by playing time. Rooker had his real breakout in his second full season. Wallner isn’t going to play 1B. I am certain it has been tried in college or summer league or the minors and wasn’t good enough to put in the game. There are no easy positions on the diamond. All positions take talent and skill. He fits best as a starting RF or DH. The challenge with Wallner is left handed starters. He isn’t very helpful on the bench when a lefty starts. He isn’t going to pinch run. He isn’t going to be a defensive sub. He isn’t the hitter you want pinch hitting with runners in scoring position and you need a ball in play. He hasn’t been successful coming in as a sub over his career with a .362 OPS. The challenge with Clemens is you have to believe that this season is not an outlier. He is much more helpful off the bench with his average or better defense at multiple positions. He is also 4th in the team in BSR. Like Wallner he is prone to long slumps as a hitter. The challenge with Larnach is that he has had enough plate appearances to believe that he isn’t going to be better. He isn’t that helpful off the bench either but probably a better option than Wallner to put the ball in play with a runner in scoring position. Clemens and Wallner would both be in my roster next year. I would not plan to tender Larnach and try to find a trade partner with a similar player at catcher, reliever or middle infield that might benefit from a fresh start.