jorgenswest

I was going by the expected batting average. The only home run that game with an expected batting average of 1.000 was Buxton’s. Hosmer’s was in the .900s. Two were centered at .200.

Ryan was at 82 pitches. he was throwing strikes. Two of the home runs had an expected batting average around .200. All were just out of the reach of the outfielder. If he had pitched exactly the same but different conditions/park resulted in two home runs and three outs on the warning track would we be frustrated that he was pulled too early?

On the Lewis thought..,, The collision into the wall didn’t seems unusual. There had to be a weakness that would have surfaced at some point.

I would have left him in. The pitch count was low enough. He was throwing strikes. He got hit hard but all 5 home runs were in the first row. Outfielders made a play on all 5. They need him to be able to work through a struggle and go deep. That didn’t happen last night. If he can’t handle getting beat and coming back stronger then he won’t have a long career in baseball.

I guess it depends what the Reds are looking for in return. If they are looking for the best pitching prospect offered the Twins don’t have anything to offer today that will convince them to make that deal. The Twins don’t have top end pitching prospects. The Reds might get to the deadline without that offer of someone better than Woods-Richardson and turn to the Twins who can add some good bats.

I think their best chance to win was counting on Duran to hold down the 8th and 9th and finding a way to score in the top of the 9th. Neither happened.

I expected Duran was in for two innings. Unfortunately he couldn’t throw strikes and couldn’t make it to the 9th. If Duran does well in the 8th they don’t need Duffey until the 10th at which point they probably still lose with the absent late game offense. The offense could have taken some pressure off by scoring a run or two in the late innings.

The most important addition is a starter to push Gray and Ryan down a slot. Five innings and two runs is a reasonable performance from a bullpen. I would take an ERA of 3.60 overall from the pen. I don’t know how they can come up with the best offer for Castillo but it is essential. They also need to expect Ryan and Gray to go through the order a third time as well as Castillo. That will reduce the burden on the bullpen. Two arms are needed in the pen also but the top prospect capital has to go for Castillo.

I don’t see a roster crunch. There are several players that can be removed from the 40 to make space even accounting for the players in the 60. All of the players are near enough that they can contribute next year with the exception of Urbina. I would no put him on the 40. Trade partners want near ready players also so they might need to be traded but the motivation shouldn’t be the 40 man roster.

Is there a level of performance where the Twins should retain their control of Sano for next year? I think I would focus on the strikeout rate, walk rate and exit velocity. Those were already better than career norms in April. They need to continue in that trend. His April launch angle of 31.3 isn’t going to lead to success and that must drop.

I am not sure Verlander counts as Houston was doing well and would have made a strong run without him. He was 5-0 in his 5 starts down the stretch as well as ALCS MVP. Do they make it by the Yankees without him?

Did you know that batters 7 through 9 in the order have an OPS against Bundy of .582? The top two hitters in the order have an OPS against of .994. It probably isn’t that shocking as the top of the order is way better than the bottom of the order. This has significant meaning for his split of 55 batters faced the third time through the order. Of those 55 a total of 5 are from the bottom three spots in the order. The top two spots have seen him a third time 23 times. The data for the third time through is made up almost entirely of the best hitters. Of course Bundy will do much worse in that context. Do you wonder why we don’t here the same in context of hitters? You would expect a veteran like Correa to have a real advantage seeing a pitcher the third time through. The first time Correa is facing a pitcher this year his OPS is .962. The third time it is .724. Wouldn’t it be wise to pinch hit for Correa in this situation? Clearly the pitcher has figured something out the first two at bats. It is the same with Kepler. He really falls off the third time through to .564. The reality is the data set is skewed for each. The data set for pitchers the third time through is mostly the top part of the order and the better hitters. It is the same for batters. The set of pitchers that make it to them a third time is going to be the better pitchers or a pitcher really on top of his game that day. It probably is more extreme for Kepler hitting further down in the line up. OPS also needs a pretty large sample size so that variance also plays in. Is Bundy going to have trouble with the top of the order? Absolutely. He will have trouble with them the first, second and third time he sees them. I don’t think the data says that his third time against the same top of the order will be significantly more troublesome.

Take the deal. Some would argue that it may not be enough to beat the Yankees and Astros and we should not deal the future. I think there is value in winning the central and winning a playoff series against the wild card. I think an addition to the top of the rotation helps the Twins get there.

There are rumors of trading for Robertson. He has blown 5 of 18 this year. Puk has blown 6 of 19 in 63 career innings but that wasn’t the point of my original comment in the thread . It was much simpler about selling low. I am still glad they did not sell low on him after two bad stints in the minors. I am also glad they didn’t sell low on Lewis or Duran who were the other two in my short original response. All of the rest of this rabbit hole is because a respondent thought I meant Alcantara instead of Alcala.

I think since the cost of acquisition was low in a rental DH and he wasn’t listed as a top 100 prospect I think they should get credit.

I agree. The early years of the respected Cleveland pipeline included several trade acquisitions like Kluber, Carrasco and Bauer.

I simply pointed out there are players of value that had bad stretches that I am glad they didn’t sell low on and super confused why I was slammed with a bunch of Alcantara stuff. Best that we add each other our ignore lists. I think Alcala is the kind of bullpen piece the Twins need and hopefully he will be healthy for the stretch run and playoffs. I am glad they didn’t sell low. He isn’t made of gold but a winning roster will need a farm system that produces valuable pieces even if they aren’t so elite.

Alcala. He plays for the Twins. Though he is injured I am glad they didn’t sell low on him after two bad minor league stints.

It is just a half season. I would be happy to buy either player cheaply if I were another team. I am glad they didn’t sell low on Lewis who am a similar WRC+ in a season that stuck with him the next two years. I am glad they didn’t sell low on Duran with his injury filled shortened year of an ERA of 5.06 and almost a walk an inning. Alcala had ERAs of 5.85 and 5.87 his first two years in the organization. I am glad they stuck with him.

Someone smart made this valuable resource. https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/depth-charts/twins Look for rule 5 status listed as DEC’22 or R5 if previously reached that level.

He has earned this opportunity. It had to be a tremendous amount of work and sacrifice to get to the majors. Hamilton was selected in the 23rd round at pick 693. Only 1 other player has signed and made it to the majors from pick 693. Stephen Smitherman was drafted by the Reds and played 21 games hitting .159. I hope he makes the most of his opportunity.

In that case do you trade Correa and build for the next few years? I guess the other option is to trade off some of the future and add a few bullpen arms in hopes of making the regular season more competitive. I would go big either by adding the best starter moved at the deadline as well as a few good relievers or I would trade Correa.

The Twins are competing with the Yankees, Astros and so on for the same players. BTV grades out the trade I posted as a fair deal. In order to beat other offers and win the deal they may need to overpay by upgrading the Strotman part of the deal.

I think the Twins would need to include a pitcher in the deal. The only pitcher currently in the minors with significant value (according to BTV) is Winder. If the Twins package Larnach and Winder and add Strotman it is a competitive deal. In order to win the deal they would need to upgrade the Strotman piece.

I think they may have done that and maybe that is what you are stating. Was their purpose of any under slot picks in rounds 3-10 to gather enough savings to pay Prielipp in round 2 over his slot amount?