jorgenswest

It is hard for a contending team to carry a player on the 40 that will not be ready for the majors this year. That player needs to be a really good prospect in order to protect him. On the other hand teams where contending is not realistic should retain upside over players in expiring contracts. It is like investing in a rule 5 player but instead you have to keep him in the 40 rather than the 26. Is contending in 2025 still realistic? Does Cartaya still have upside? I think Cartaya should still be given time and the Twins sure aren’t trending towards contention. It is quite possible the Twins asked Cartaya to make some changes in his swing. Any change is likely to cause struggle before growth.

Baseball drafts are always about failure. You can virrually always find someone in hindsight they should have drafted in that spot unless of course you draft Bailey Ober in the 12th round and he has the 4th most WAR in the class. There will always be players that need more time than options allow and end up making it with another team. If there was a redraft today would Royce and Bailey be in the top 10 picks? That would seem a success. If you summed the WAR of the players selected and signed where would the Twins rank? I think the DBacks might be number 1 with Varsho and Caballero though neither is in the organization any longer. They do still have Lourdes Gurriel in trade for Varsho. Nothing for Caballero. The Twins might slot in number 2 in total WAR of drafted and signed players. I think that I would need to go way down the list of mistakes the Twins organization has made in the last 8 years before I would put 2017 draft on the list.

For McCusker the risk is the 40 man spot. If he struggles in the majors and needs this full year of AAA either that 40 man spot is unavailable or they need to DFA McCusker to open it up. They really need to be pretty certain he is ready. The same would be true if they wanted to take a look at Morris or Eeles. It might be worth the risk.

Jonah Bride’s platoon splits (versus right/left) Career in majors .711 in 384 PAs/ .522 in 228 PAs Majors and Minors combined last three years. 2024: .890/.735 2023: .959/.648 2022: .797/.719 Is the Twins plan to use him against left handed pitching? Maybe he has just had a three year run of bad luck against lefties.

Jonah Bride’s platoon splits (versus right/left) Career in majors .711 in 384 PAs/ .522 in 228 PAs Majors and Minors combined last three years. 2024: .890/.735 2023: .959/.648 2022: .797/.719 How would you utilize him on the roster?

I am saying the Dodgers used 565 relievers last year not including the 10 relievers I used as an opener.

The Dodgers used 565 relief pitchers last year. That is 3.5 per game. The 10 openers they used (most pitching 1 inning) should be added to that bullpen use also.

Wouldn’t Julien DH if Keaschall gives them a better glove? I don’t know which glove is better or how often they would play Keaschall on the field coming back from TJS. I will take whatever I can get on the field as opposed to waiting in AAA assuming his bat is ready. If Julien and Keaschall give them a line up with the best bats I hope they are both in the line up.

If he is ready to hit above league average I will take whatever defense he can give them at 2B.

He can also consent to be optioned. I am not sure where the motivation would be other than he would remain on a 40 man roster. In waivers he could risk no one picking up his contract and then not be on a 40. Would that be any motivation?

I am sure you are correct but I see he has 2 options with 4.165 years of service on Fangraphs. I guess he must have reached 5 years now and the 4.165 represents the service time entering the year. I think he would have needed 7 days and now would have to give his consent to be optioned.

I don’t think I have ever griped about the Twins not having a second replay and it costing them the game. I am sure that they have been on the other side in the past. The last thing I would want is more replay. Give a manager a second replay and there will be more frivolous first replays. That will be followed by a cry for a third replay when the two are used up. One is enough. I would hope the takeaways for both teams would be… Be judicious about using a replay early in the game. You need to be absolutely certain of a reversal or the win expectancy change in turning it around is very significant. If not trust your team to get out of the situation. Keep playing baseball in the face of a bad call. The play was not over at the moment of that bad call. In this case be aware and throw the guy out at home.

Thanks for the update. Varland at 77 innings would ranked 7th last year. Duran at 69 would have ranked 33rd. There were several relievers without double digit saves and more than 69 innings including Clase, Hader, Scott and Iglesias. it seems like a pretty reasonable workload so far.

Bride has a career OPS of .640 with a career split where he has an OPS of .711 against right handed pitching and .517 against left handed pitching. That much reverse split didn’t make sense so I looked at his last three AAA seasons and he has hit right handed pitching better than left handed pitching each year. He hasn’t hit left handed pitching so he can’t platoon with Julien nor should he ever pinch hit for Julien. His career defensive metrics center suggest he is an average defender. He is out of options and will likely be DFA’d when the Twins get some of their left side of the infield back. Seems like a reasonable temporary solution for 3B against right handed pitching.

Concur. To add… mlb gameday reported as a missed catch by France.

He can beat the odds. Brendan Donovan has played a just little shortstop professionally and Brandon Lowe hasn’t played shortstop professionally. They play a lot of second base. Both Lowe and Donovan also have played a lot of games in the outfield. They play well enough at 2B with very good bats. I don’t think Keaschall has the power of Lowe but maybe his hit profile is similar to Donovan. In any case he doesn’t have many professional innings on the diamond in the outfield or second base and he will benefit from the AAA season this year.

You could go to about 11:53 on the podcast. My paraphrase… The next step is full games and then back to back days. In mid May early June begin working in the outfield in practice off days before getting him back in game action in the outfield after that.

Jeremy Zoll on Inside Twins yesterday. He will progress to back to back at second and eventually progress to the outfield where he says the arm action is different.

Do you think Keaschall will stick at 2B? It is rare for a college second baseman to stick at that position. Virtually all major league 2Bs start as shortstops in the minors. Most that come in as drafted as 2Bs move to a corner like 1B or LF if they have enough bat.

I couldn’t watch Julien with a 1-2 count last year. Today he went after a 1-2 pitch on the high outside corner of the strike zone. It is progress even if he fouls it off down the third base line. For now he has earned that spot at the top of the order. If he was worried about losing his spot to Brooks Lee he responded perfectly. Other need to follow suit.

I don’t disagree. However, I am not trying to guess what the Twins will do. I was simply curious if changing managers in the first 10% or so of the season has successfully turned around a season. You are right about wondering who they would call in? It should be its own thread and right now I haven’t done the work to make a list of who might be available.

I appreciate the addition. Maybe I should have expanded towards 40 games. Left them off because they were 16-22 at the time of the firing. After 30 games the Marlins were 15-15. I was looking for a team that fired their manager early in the season. I was looking for hope that this season could be turned around by replacing the manager. So far I didn’t find it. I think a new thread is warranted though. What elite managers are available to replace him? Is there a Jack McKeon out there to take over?

Can a team turn it around by firing a manager early in the season? Can the Twins? I was curious to look at teams that fired their manager early in the season and how they responded. My source was an article from mlb.com in 2018. 2002 Tigers started 0-6 and fired Phil Garner replacing him with Luis Pujols. They finished the season 55-106. Pujols was not retained as manager the next season 1988 Orioles started 0-6 and fired Cal Ripken Sr replacing him with Frank Robinson. They finished 54-107 after starting 0-21. Robinson led them to an 87-75 record in 1989. 1972 Padres started 4-7 and fired Preston Gomez replacing him with Don Zimmer. They finished 58-95. Zimmer led them to a 60-102 record in 1973 1991 Phillies started 4-9 and fired Nick Leyva replacing him with Jim Fregosi. They finished 78-84. Fregosi led them to a 70-92 season in 1992 and a World Series appearance in 1993. 2001 Rays started 4-10 and fired Larry Rothschild replacing him with Hal McRae. They finished 62-100. McRae led them to a 55-106 record in 2002. 1982 Yankees started 6-8 and fired Bob Lemon the manager that led them to a title in 1981. He was replaced by Gene Michael who was later replaced by Clyde King. The Yankees finished 79-83. King was not retained as manager in 1983 2018 Reds started 3-15 and fired Bryan Price replacing him with Jim Riggleman, They finished 67-95. Riggleman was not retained as manager in 2019. I was hoping to find a team that turned things around with so much season left to play but all teams finished with losing records. Now I wonder if a team can get off to a bad start like the Twins and finish with a winning record having retained their manager. Addition… There are at least a few teams that started similarly to the Twins and finished successfully after retaining their manager. 2002 Athletics started 4-11. They stuck with Art Howe and finished 102-60 1914 Braves started 3-12 (also 4-18). They stuck with George Stallings and finished 95-59-5 winning the World Series. This is probably the most famous of the turn around teams. It isn’t a parallel fit to the top set since I didn’t have a list of manager changes prior to the expansion era. 2021 Braves started 6-9. They stuck with Brian Snitker and finished 88-73 winning the World Series 1991 Twins started 5-10. They stuck with Tom Kelly finishing 95-67 and won the World Series.

The Friday starter will also start Wednesday. Pushing Paddack back to Saturday gives them the opportunity to skip his next start in the rotation with both a Thursday and Monday off. The next time he would be needed is April 26. By then Pablo is eligible to come back. I am not suggesting this is what the Twins are doing. It is what I would do if they bring up Festa. If Paddack fails again Saturday I would send him to the bullpen and hope Lopez is ready on the 26th. I would also support pitching Matthews on Sunday instead of Festa Friday but that wouldn’t push Paddack into a spot where he could be skipped.

I think Ryan fits my point. His strike out rate in the minors was 37% (same in AAA). It dropped significantly in the majors where that swing and miss turned into weak contact. Both home runs and hits overall are up in the majors as some of the weak contact in the minors turned into hard contact in the majors. Back to my original wonder… Will too much of the weak contact in the minors turn into hard contact in the majors? Ryan had a lot of space to drop in strike out rate and increase in hard hit rate. Does Morris?