jorgenswest

Good find. That would put a possible early return of July 6. I wonder if the coming all star break might motivate the Twins to push it to after the break. Alvarez also matches your comment about performance. Alvarez had a first half OPS of .652 and a second half OPS of .921. His prolonged offensive and defensive slump caused the Mets to option him to the minors to rest and reset 8 weeks after his return. He came back after that month down and put up excellent numbers. I wonder if the results would have been different they had been more cautious and given him a few more weeks initially or DH’d him upon his return. In reality they didn’t get back the major league catcher they needed until July 21 a little more than 19 weeks after the injury. A matching time span for Jeffers would be September 30.

Is it different for catchers? It seems like a burden on the wrist of the catching hand. Would that impact the recovery time and the performance once returning to play?

By my eyes I believed Jeffers is better at handling pitchers than Caratini. I would even said the difference is significant. I went to Fangraphs and Jeffers is a -1 for his cERA and Caratini is a +1. Yikes! My eyes must be way off. Sure enough Jeffers has a catcher ERA of 4.59 with Caratini at 3.88. Will the staff be in better hands with Caratini taking more of the load? Not satisfied I looked deeper to see if anything was skewing the data. Could it be one bad game? In my mind I trust Jeffers much more than Caratini. I looked at the four starters that have pitched the most. Their batters faced is much more than any other pitcher. Here is what I found. Catcher Name PA OPS Caratini Bailey Ober 89 .787 Jeffers Bailey Ober 143 .553 Caratini Joe Ryan 93 .485 Jeffers Joe Ryan 110 .672 Caratini Simeon Woods Richardson 44 1.237 Jeffers Simeon Woods Richardson 159 .893 Caratini Taj Bradley 76 .811 Jeffers Taj Bradley 123 .566 Abel, Prielipp , Matthews and Rojas were not included. Caratini has been his only catcher with an OPS against of .726. Jeffers has almost all of Prielipp's PAs with an OPS against of .592. Jeffers was the catcher for Matthews' start (.408) and the catcher for the vast majority of Rojas (.631) and his one start. Caratini has the edge on Joe Ryan. Ryan is the pitcher coming into the season that needs the least help from a veteran catcher. Jeffers has the advantage with the three others and the advantage is a significant one. Jeffers cERA is tremendously skewed. Look at SWR and PAs. While SWR has been better with Jeffers those 159 PAS completely distort the cERA and Jeffers' resulting Fangraphs defense grade. It would not be hard for Fangraphs to calculate this skew in and give a more accurate number. They need to do better. Alternatively they might throw cERA out of the calculation completely. In this case it gives the completely wrong picture of Jeffers behind the plate. I don't think my eyes are mistaken. Jeffers has done a great job of handling our young staff. I hope his work with them these two months will have a lasting impact on their development. Data

I am glad they were willing to DFA Topa even though they took him to arbitration. I argued that they shouldn’t take him to arbitration because they will stick with him too long if he doesn’t pitch well. Glad to be wrong.

Abel probably could go on 60 day. I think the return date would be around June 12 and I don’t think he has thrown from the mound yet. He is going to need a full rehab before returning. Acton is also a 60 day candidate.

That was a fantastic and encouraging outing from Kendry Rojas. I think it was important to put Jeffers behind the plate for him. Jeffers has been so valuable to the development of this pitching staff.

The Twins are very fortunate to have Clemens on the team. He plays several positions well. He runs the bases pretty well. His bat is at least near league average. He is prearb. His bat and glove probably fit best as a 2B but his positional flexibility really helps. He hasn’t been used at 3B by the Twins but they have had Lewis and Castro. I wonder if his glove is as solid there as it is at 1B, 2B, LF and RF. League average wRC+ is 94 this year and 96 last year. His bat is a fit. Last year the Twins had a hole at 2B when Keaschall was out and he started there. Keaschall returned and the hole became 1B so he played there. He had a few stretches where he filled holes in the outfield. All teams need players that can fill holes. The Twins have a hole at 1B. They should fill it. Clemens will still get plenty of playing time. He could help fill at 3B and possibly 2B. This weekend Kreidler and Outman were starting outfielders. He could have helped there.

I am not as sure about Bowman. His ERA looks nice but it is 21 innings that are influenced by a low home run rate that needs a large sample and a high LOB rate. His swinging strike rate is 7.1% which is lower than his career major league average of 8.6%. A veteran ought to be able to fool AAA hitters more often. Marco Raya is on the opposite end of the “luck” numbers with a high home run rate and a low LOB rate. His swinging strike rate is 13.8%. I am not saying he is ready. Laweryson had his first rehab appearance yesterday. I think he is up by Friday. If they call up Bowman now he won’t be the one they send down Friday. I fear he would get a longer run.

This nerd concurs In 2018 players were asked about the stats they valued the most. RBIs were third behind OPS and OBP among the 35 position players asked.

The three significant injuries to his right side seem to have destroyed the strength of his back half. He hasn’t been the same since returning from his quad injury on that side in 2024. I can’t imagine the hitting coach he hired this winter advocating for this swing. He needs to trust his back half to be stable and use that base to generate a powerful short path to the fastball. Subconsciously he may be worried about injury to the back half but he needs to risk it.

If you are DH only you only help if you hit like Nelson Cruz. I don’t see a healthy replacement though. It is Wallner’s spot to win back if he can get reset. They really need a healthy Rodriguez, Walker and Roden.

Would it better to use “as 1B” or maybe league average at 1B? League average as 1B is 115. The problem with average is that it can be heavily weighted by the top of the list and might not match the median. Going by teams as 1B the median is 113.5. It does make me wonder how Clemens would compare to 2Bs. He is a better defender than Keaschall. League average as 2B is 100. Team median is 95.5.

Martin and Larnach have earned the full time play in the outfield. I don’t see anyone healthy I would add though. Fedko has a pedestrian 115 wRC+. Sabato has a Vegas driven stat line. Mendez and Ross just made it to AAA. I don’t think it would be wise to add them to the 40 or the 26 in Mendez’ case. Give him more time in AAA. They called up McCusker last year and he was legitimately crushing the ball in AAA. He needed more time but they reduced their roster options once he was on the 40. We need Rodriguez and Roden to get healthy.

The Twins really need Matthews to take this opportunity and claim a spot in the rotation. It sounds like Bradley may not need more than the 15 days. At that point he has to takes Simeon’s spot. Keaschall had another rough night at 2B. He just takes too long to load up the throw. His worry about the throw probably caused him to miss the easy ball on the possible but unlikely double play in the first. The Twins have a better defender at 2

You would think it would be 1968. I recalled a game against Gaylord Perry with Jim Hughes pitching and Carew stealing home. My recollection probably comes from reading the account of the 1975 game on SABR. Box score

That was fun to watch! Bailey Ober’s last shut out was as a freshman for the College of Charleston against the Citadel in March of 2014.

Let’s see if what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas.

I would bet on Aaron. I think his writing talent mixed with his knowledge and passion for the Twins will make it regardless of the success of the season.

I did not advocate for this role though many teams don’t utilize the 13th position player as a starter very often. I think I would have had Rodriguez in the team playing RF 5 times a week. Taking playing time away from Caratini and Clemens with Bell at 1B. I do have to acknowledge that Outman is 4th on the team in win probability added at 0.12. That only accounts for his stolen bases and plate appearances. Defense and running the bases are not a factor so his impact is probably slightly more.

Great defense around the diamond. Great clutch pitching start to finish. Buxton.

On the point that it will expedite… I would think that teams would be more hesitant to make a deal and Joe will need to show he is healthy and effective. It may slow trade talk. I really don’t get the lost season mindset. There are 162 games. If you love baseball they all have meaning. The only lost season is a lock out or strike.

He still needs to throw from the mound. In any case the only way the Twins are going to get prime years from players is to at least keep them through their 5th year. They are signing premium players in free agency. If they trade Ryan after 4 years they really only get one premium season from him. In his second full season he want trusted in the playoffs. He was injured his third season. Maybe it isn’t the only way. If they are going to trade players with two years of service left then they better maximize the first four. They can do this by keeping players in AAA using options so that they are as close as possible to their prime. They will still need to adjust but maybe you get another premium season. Does it make sense to both advocate to start the service clock early and then advocate for trading with multiple seasons of control? The Marlins are the team that trade with 2 or more full seasons of service time. Maybe it will work for them.

The left field play has improved and so has his baserunning. His BSR is third on the team behind Keaschall and Outman. I am glad they did not trade him.

Wouldn’t that 1989 trade be a parallel to a Lopez trade? Viola was now among the highest paid pitchers. You could conceivably take those prospects and then use that money to add a starter in free agency.

After the 1986 season the Twins took a risk in keeping Viola instead of trading him with two years of control. So foolish for a last place team to take such a risk. Why not trade him at his peak value? They probably should have traded Gaetti annd Brunansky also. Note: The Twins did extend Viola for two years but that wasn’t until after the 1987 World Series.