Tom Froemming

Congrats to Molitor. I don't think he's the best game manager, but I was very impressed with how his club finished out the year despite facing quite a bit of adversity, some of which was self inflicted by the front office. It would've been really easy for the team to just have quit in the second half. That was certainly a huge issue in Gardy's last four years. His clubs had a .444 winning percentage in the 1st half and just .365 in the 2nd half over that run. Anyway, here's hoping Molly can continue to set that tone of professionalism and consistent effort while also picking up some tricks from the new faces in the org.

Thanks for the comments. There's a lot more support for Kennys than I had expected. It seemed like most of the offseason blueprints I was seeing had him left off the roster. Anyway, let's say Sano opens the year at something like 85-90% health. You feel comfortable DHing him, but not putting him at 3B. What do you do? Have him start the season on the DL until he was healthy? Or would you DH him and hope that doesn't hinder his recovery at all?

Very fair synopsis. I'd like to see him get another look, but with Sano's uncertainty it seems like that may be very difficult. Is there evidence he's had issues with that? True. He has the potential to be a star over there and make some good money for a few years, so if that's how it ends up I'll be happy for him. 2016/17 HR% (HR/PA) Dozier 5.46% Vargas 4.76% Put in other terms, if you gave both of them 600 plate appearances, based off their performances the past two seasons Dozier only out-homers Vargas by roughly four. Also, while we're comparing the two, Dozier's breakout came in his age 27 season, after he'd compiled 963 PAs. Vargas is entering his age 27 season and has 859 PAs. I think it's entirely possible Vargas is on the verge of taking the next step, but with his lack of any defensive value it's going to be pretty difficult to shoehorn him into the 25-man roster for the entire season, unless something unforeseen happens

The Twins have already been busy trimming down their 40-man roster, but the shuffling has only just begun. As we approach a couple of important dates on the MLB transaction calendar, we should begin to get some clarity in regard to the future of one player in particular: Kennys Vargas.There's a legit argument to be made that Vargas has the most power in the Twins organization, and entering his age 27 season it's possible he's just now reaching his peak. He hit some of the most impressive homers of any Twins hitter last season. Here’s a look back at the five longest home runs hit by the Twins in 2017: It should come as no surprise that Vargas led the Twins in average home run distance, but his mark of 423 feet also led all of baseball among hitters with at least 10 homers. Only four players hit a ball farther than that 483-foot mammoth he destroyed. Vargas will be out of options in 2018, so he'll have to stick on the 25-man roster all season, but he'll still be incredibly cheap. He's not even eligible for arbitration yet. And when you take a look at his numbers, it appears he could the solution if the Twins are looking for an everyday DH. Vargas 2016-17 .244/.322/.466 (.788 OPS), HR/18.7 ABs AL DH Averages 2017 .243/.317/.418 (.735 OPS), HR/23.2 ABs It would be tough to lose a guy like that on waivers and get nothing in return. Still, Vargas’ future is heavily dependent on how the Twins think Sano will recover from his surgery and whether or not they bring back Robbie Grossman, among other things out of his control. The deadline to add players to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft is this coming Monday (Nov. 20). If Kennys makes the cut, the next big date becomes Dec. 1, the deadline to tender arbitration-eligible players, like Grossman, contracts for 2018. With his place on the roster tenuous at best, it doesn't seem likely Vargas would fetch much of a return via trade, but the Twins could always explore selling his rights to a team overseas. Earlier this offseason, Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press wrote a piece that indicated Vargas has some interest in playing abroad if the opportunity presents itself. Still, I'm sure Vargas would love to stick with the Twins in particular because they'll be playing two games this April in San Juan, Puerto Rico, his home country. It'll be interesting to see where he ends up. Fun With Numbers Here are some more offensive numbers I found interesting while digging around at Baseball Savant: Twins Avg HR distance in feet (min. 10) 423-Vargas 413-Sano 405-Jason Castro 404-Eduardo Escobar 403-Byron Buxton 398-Max Kepler 397-Eddie Rosario 394-Brian Dozier 392-Jorge Polanco Twins Top 5 Avg. Exit Velocity (MPH) 92.4-Sano (fourth in MLB) 90.2-Joe Mauer 88.3-Kepler 87.5-Dozier 86.9-Castro Twins Top 5 Avg. Exit Velo on Fly Balls in MPH (min. 30 results) 97.7-Sano 95.0-Dozier 93.3-Buxton 92.7-Rosario 91.5-Vargas That's some particularly interesting stuff on Dozier. Is it possible to say that a guy doesn't necessarily have plus power, but at the same time say he's excellent at hitting home runs? That may sound like a backhanded compliment, but if anything it speaks to Dozier’s skill in capitalizing on the pitches he can hit out. He led the team in homers, but Dozier's most prodigious shot (435 feet) was just the 18th-longest on the team. But he also led the team with three in balls hit at least 400 feet that stayed in the yard. As a team, the Twins had 15 balls hit 400 feet or more that weren’t homers. The longest was a 428-foot blast by Sano on April 11 that went for a double. On Aug. 6, Jason Castro hit the longest ball for an out, it traveled 411 feet. Eddie Rosario hit the shortest homer of the year for the Twins, a 349-footer on June 16, but that wasn’t even a cheap one, comparatively speaking. The shortest homer in baseball last year was a 302-foot oppo taco Lorenzo Cain wrapped around Pesky’s Pole in Boston. Click here to view the article

Hmm, you seem to have left out Joe Mauer's 2017 season Man, those Twins teams of the early 2000s were so fun to watch in the field. I'm interested if anybody in TD land has any recollections to share about catcher Butch Wynegar's 1979 season. He led the league in caught stealing at 53%, was behind the plate for 146 games and only had six errors and five passed balls. He was before my time, so I never saw him play. Obviously, evaluation of catcher defense has evolved quite a bit in recent years, but did he have a pretty strong reputation at the time?

Man, these are five super talented guys to be outside the top 20. Would you say the depth across the system is above average compared to the last 10-15 years?

This is an idea I've seen presented a few times now and it makes a ton of sense. Nothing against Polanco, he showed a massive improvement defensively, but it is fun to think about what could be with another stud defender at short.

I'm gonna to have to get down there one of these years. As someone who doesn't always really love the crowds and rarely sits in his assigned seat, this sounds great. Also, my go-to beverage at Target Field is the 24 oz PBR can. Not my favorite beer, but it's the best bang for your buck at the stadium.

I'd love it if they brought back Kintzler to close and got Iglesias to be the setup guy/bullpen ace. That allows Iglesias to pitch in the most high-leverage spots and prevents him from opting into arbitration. The only thing relievers can do to make big bucks there is rack up saves. It's always going to sting to give up prospects, but I think this team is in the position to make that kind of a move, especially for a long-term asset like Iglesias.

How was the ballpark experience?

This is great. I know he's on the decline, but I still think Bautista would make a ton of sense, especially on a one-year deal. Even in a down year he had a walk rate of 12.2% and averaged 4.35 pitches/plate appearance, which was the sixth in all of baseball (right behind Mauer). Toronto gave him 686 PAs last year. If used a bit more sparingly, could he have a Thome-esque renaissance season? Maybe that's too much to ask, but I certainly agree that Bautista represents a low-risk, potentially high-reward option.

That's some odd logic. You don't think he's much of a prospect, but you think he should be higher up on a top prospect ranking? I guess it all depends on your methodology in ranking guys. Personally, I wouldn't put much of an emphasis on proximity to the majors and may have Slegers even lower than Seth. That's not to say I don't like him, but his ceiling is quite a bit lower (funny thing to say about a guy that's 6'10") than a Leach/Lachlan/other guys of that ilk.

Another good one. Nice work on these, Ted. My concerns with FA pitchers are much more around decline in performance rather than injury risk. You hate to pay a guy to sit on the DL, but having a high-paid starter who you're all but forced to keep rolling out there despite struggles is maybe even worse. With that said, I'm really intrigued by Cobb. He's got a 112 ERA+ over 700 innings in his career. The injuries are a concern, but if healthy I'm confident he'll be at the very least a guy you want in your rotation. Chacin has a nearly identical 111 ERA+ in over 1,000 career innings, but he's been much less consistent. The big gap between the two comes in K:BB ratio. Cobb has a career mark of 2.79, Chacin 1.94 (2.13 and 2.16 the past two seasons). I could definitely see a scenario in which you sign Chacin and three months later you're already thinking "geez, we have guys in the minors I'd way rather see pitching every fifth day than this guy."

Good stuff, but if I'm the Twins I think I'm approaching the 2018 season under the assumption that Miguel Sano is going to be DHing more often than not. The whole fact that he might need a titanium rod in his leg is freaking me out. Maybe everything will be fine and he'll be able to return to 3B without issue, but I'd rather not bank on that.

Good points about catching. Chatwood's called strike percentage heatmap looks considerably worse than Ervin Santana's, Jose Berrios' or Kyle Gibson's. That's not 100 percent on the catcher, as we saw in the Wild Card game if a pitcher misses his spot badly a strike can often get called a ball, but by comparing those heatmaps I'd be willing to bargain Chatwood would have a nice boost in called strikes throwing to Castro.

This scares me: 2017 BB% (min 100 IP) 12.8 Wade Miley 12.5 Sean Newcomb 12.2 Tyler Chatwood

While statistical analysis has evolved greatly, the valuation process in arbitration hasn't, and I don't believe it will. Sano puts up the kind of numbers that make you the big bucks in arbitration (HRs & RBIs mostly) so I think it would be a good idea for the Twins to try to get some cost certainty and lock him up. But, if they're going to try to do it this winter, I'd expect a bit of an uncertainty discount given his injury. If he really ends up needing a titanium rod in his leg, who knows how he comes back from that. With all that said, I doubt anything gets done. It's just kinda weird timing for both sides.

Problem is you could say the same thing for 7-8 guys this year. Who do you take out of the top 5 to put Escobar in? What does your top 5 look like?

This may surprise some people, but I think this is great. I think Paul Molitor as manager gives this team the best chance to take the next step in 2018. With some key names entering the last year on the contracts (Mauer, Dozier & Ervin, though he has an option for '19) this next season could represent this group's final shot together. The fact that he got a three-year deal is on the Twins. At this point, Molitor had every right to request that long of a deal. I'm sure they could have signed him to a shorter extension if they'd approached him earlier. I'd expect he would have gladly agreed to a one-year extension at this time a year ago, or a two-year deal in July. The Twins dragged their feet in their evaluation of him, the three-year deal is the price they pay for that (not that he can't get fired if things go south). But this should put to bed any speculation that Molitor isn't Falvey's guy and that he'd prefer to bring in someone else. If this front office had another guy in mind, this deal wouldn't be happening. Having both the front office and now the manager under long-term commitments should foster further continuity throughout the organization. Hopefully that strengthens the relationship between the manager and the front office and encourages further collaboration from the two.

That's the number of successful sacrifices. B-Ref has the number of attempts: 58-White Sox 53-Twins 40-Rangers 40-Blue Jays AL average was 32.

In the list of games. The 10 are in bold and have a couple indented sentences under them explaining why those games were special.

Stop watching all the men's teams and just follow the Lynx. Problem solved.

I think it's entirely possible that the Twins will want him back, Molitor will want to come back, but they won't be able to come to an agreement on length of contract/balance of power. I would think it'd be likely Molitor would request a three-year deal and increased influence over roster decisions. And I see nothing wrong with that. Why come back on a short-term deal and be at the mercy of the front office? That's all speculation, of course, but I could definitely see a scenario in which both sides desire a reunion, but the fine details prevent it from happening.

The fun part is there are still a lot of things I would love to include in these things, but just didn't quite find the right way to do them. That constant evolution of the format is another thing that kept these fresh and fun for me. The win expectancy charts are like my favorite thing ever, but I'd also love to somehow include a traditional box score and have it look good. I'd also love to do more with video, but it's time consuming to throw stuff together and MLB doesn't make it very easy to share their stuff. The big thing for me with video is I don't want to have to direct people to an external site to watch or make them sit through ads, so that stubbornness puts a limitation on things. If anybody else has any other ideas to improve these I'm all ears. I can't make any promises that I'll be able to implement those ideas, time is a factor and a lot of stuff isn't even available right when a game ends (I'm looking at you, baseball-reference), but I will definitely look into it.