jorgenswest

What is the obsession with rankings? How does it matter? There must be a ranking article of some sort weekly. Wouldn’t it be better to have an article about Rodriguez and his assets that stands alone. The following discussion would be about the readiness of his major league glove in centerfield and whether he might be able to stay in centerfield. Does he need to be more aggressive at the plate before he arrives? Are there certain pitches where he struggles? Will he be an asset on the basepaths? All these players are worthy of their own discussion.

Woods Richardson doesn’t have a low BABIP or high LOB% that is often simply luck. He throws strikes and that is a good foundation for a 23 year old rookie and also valuable to the team as the 5th/6th starter.

The best OF option on the 40 is Rodriguez. They should have called him up when Buxton went on IL and batted him 9th. If Buxton isn’t ready to play everyday in CF they need to bring him up now and be patient with the bat. They also need to get Lewis ready for the outfield.

I wonder how many teams have gone last season and the first quarter of this season using only two catchers. The Jeffers/Vazquez plan may have some benefits as well as the plan to not sign a DH only bat like Martinez.

Thanks. That makes it more difficult to get him in the line up Vazquez is catching. They probably also wanted to avoid Toronto’s turf which might be where I noticed Kirilloff in left field as opposed to Larnach.

I would like to see him get a few starts against lefties. I have wondered why Kirilloff is starting in the outfield with Larnach at DH. Is Kirilloff a better outfielder? That wasn’t my perception entering the season.

I wouldn’t catch Jeffers in that night game/day game lead up into the Cleveland series. I want him catching Friday/Sunday in that series and at DH on Saturday. I also would have started Pablo today on his regular rest and given Paddack a few extra days so that he starts the Cleveland series and Pablo finishes it with Ober in between. Net result is SWR starts against the Yankees instead of Paddock and Lopez starts in the Cleveland series instead of SWR. Paddack gets a few extra days off to help limit his innings and most others of regular rest.

I loved his all out attempt on the foul ball diving head first into the wall. Seeing their 38 year old teammate with that effort has to fire up the bench. I enjoy watching him play first base. I have said I would have spent the money differently but I was wrong. Santana is valuable to this team.

The prospect designation is pretty useless. Which teams have the best 25 and under talent? That is so much more important. At that age you expect growth. Option status is also far more important than prospect status. Celestino and Martin had virtually the same performance with the bat last year at the same age. Celestino was out of options. Martin had three. The options make Martin much more valuable though they may be very similar in their careers going forward. At some point Woods Richardson will move past the arbitrary prospect status line. He will still be younger than many of the pitchers in the list and he will have played at a more challenging level. He will still have options that he will likely need to reset and adjust in AAA. Isn’t that what matters?

Is it possible that TD just got it wrong? Maybe he hasn’t passed anyone. He is younger than most on the list and was challenged at a higher level of the minors. His stuff+ was very good last year. His velocity was reported to be up this winter. The Twins may have always viewed him more ready and capable than the others. They certainly pushed him up to AAA before the others. My guess is the Twins don’t rank but are asset based in their evaluations. Rankings don’t have a lot of value.

It would really help if they would utilize Royce Lewis’ athleticism and right handed bat in the outfield.

I don’t see how it could be significantly different. Woods Richardson isn’t struggling significantly more in the majors and really isn’t probably that different from Varland or Festa. Miranda and Martin have been both levels and don’t seem that different from the ends of a major league roster. Is it possible there are more injuries at both levels this year? More injuries drain AAA and teams might elect to move up older organizational players or sign journeymen minor league players to fill those holes in order to keep their prospects developing at lower levels. That might have a small effect.

I wonder if there are more unmeasured aspects to the catching than the other positions. Many successful teams have employed veteran catchers with pretty empty bats. Why? The Astros main catcher through much of their success could not hit. They won the World Series two years ago with the tandem of Maldonado and Vazquez. Neither was on the team for their bats. If you try to convert their measured defensive contribution into wins it really doesn’t appear to outweigh the deficit with the bat. There must be critical aspects of their contribution that goes unmeasured. This is the first year in many the Astros have not had one or even veteran catchers. Could it be part of their struggle this year? I can’t back up the appreciation I have for Vazquez with data, but I don’t think for a moment he could be replaced by an average or even good minor league catcher. I believe he brings value to the team that is simply not captured very well by the data.

It does feel thin but Varland and Festa do have some upside.

Why debate about pipeline? Do any two people agree on what is in or out of this pipeline? Why does it matter? They have built a very good pitching staff without spending big dollars in free agency. Isn’t that what matters?

Somehow the phrase pitching pipeline got tied to Falvey and Levine. I went to their introductory news conference. Falvey talked about pitching. He spoke about the need to explore every avenue. I think we have seen them add pitching through those various avenues. He spoke about the need to be cohesive and collaborative throughout the system. I believe they are consistent in their approach throughout the system. He spoke about identifying and pursuing top performing people. I think we have seen some quality pitching coaches enter this organization. They entered this organization with a pitching throughout the system that did not miss bats. They took on a Jose Berrios that was 3-7 though 14 starts with an 8.03 ERA. He immediately became a very good starter. Pipeline or not… why does it matter? Fast forward to 2024 and they are number one in K/9 and it really isn’t very close. They pair that with the third lowest BB/9. They have done this without spending significant free agent dollars on pitching. The phrase “pitching pipeline” seems to be a moving target impossible to define. Let’s get rid of it. I don’t know where it started or what it meant to the reporter/podcaster/Twins official that first uttered what has become nonsense. How can it possibly matter if a pitcher meets someone’s definition of pipeline? It does matter that they have built the staff efficiently using their resources. They have built a staff that has been one of the league’s best over the last two years. Isn’t that what we hoped for when Falvey and Levine were hired? Let’s bury the pipeline talk.

I don’t think having so many short side platoon players is a sound strategy. A lefty or two in the line up against a left handed pitcher doesn’t hurt and may actually be a good thing. It doesn’t hurt because they likely won’t face that starter three times. They can be placed in the lineup batting 6th and 9th making it more difficult to target a reliever at a part in the order. The pitch mix changes for a pitcher and maybe gets them off rhythm which could help the right handed bat after the left handed bat. In the winter they really needed an everyday bat or at least a bat to relieve Santana of starting against every right handed pitcher. Buxton could be back after the Toronto series. I think Martin helps the team more. If Buxton is out long term I think they need to give Rodriguez a shot. It won’t hurt his development if he struggles. Play him in centerfield and bat him 9th.

I have a few wonders from the business side. Whenever a team makes the playoffs a big push for those playoff tickets is to commit to a season or partial season ticket package for the next year. Those sales are a big part of the boost in that ticket put base. How did those future sales go during last year’s playoff run? Did the fans respond and support the team through buying ticket plans for 2024? Were disappointing future ticket sales one of the factors in reducing the budget? I have seen sources where the Twins rank 29th in average ticket price or average price for a family of 4. Only the Marlins ranked below them in generating less revenue per ticket. These pages from Statista and Moneygeek are the sources. Moneygeek listed their methodology using data from Seatgeek. I needed an account to see Statista’s source and I chose not to make an account. Their data may also come from seatgeek. Is the rank of 29 close to accurate? Generating money through ticket sales as well as through media rights has to be a big part of St. Peter’s responsibility. It seems as if he has failed on both.

Looks like a change in the forum to show more of the content of a topic. Maybe I am wrong. If topic lines are taking more space I wonder if the pinned topics can dominate the screen so that any new topics are pushed too far down. Limiting the pinned topics or posting only the title to pinned topics might help bring to the front any new or updated content.

Like many stats wins tell the story of the game. The blown save and win in Jax’s line represents yesterday’s story well. WPA also helps tell the story and does a good job of representing Woods Richardson and Correa. Neither stat has value for projection or evaluation.

His entire sample size takes the good with the bad. I think going back two years is pretty typical particularly when looking at slash stats that need a very large sample to stabilize. This year’s small sample is more encouraging because of his play in 2022. If he doesn’t play or played poorly in 2022 there is less hope with his start to this year.

Wasn’t your argument about sample size?

True. Although that 69 mph single doesn’t happen as the inning is over if the swing is called correctly earlier in that at bat.

Does our perception of Alcala’s outing change if Angel Hernandez correctly rules on that check swing and he gets out of the inning with a strikeout?

Wow! 12 in row Castro batting 3rd on a 10 game hitting streak Cole Sands the closer in a real save situation