twinstalker

Roden has a chance and all, but he clearly takes advantage of spring training pitching. 2025 TOR 37 PA, .407 BA, .541 OBP, .704 SLG, 4 K 2026 MIN 16 PA, .500 BA, .563 OBP, .714 SLG, 2 K As for Sabato, please, please if last year you ever thought he had a shot, understand how wrong you were and why. Striking out is everything in baseball, especially as a predictor. It's nuanced, but it's the key to understanding what you have. So, as I've said for some time, be extra careful with Emmanuel Rodriguez. In spring training's small sample, he's striking out 40% of the time vs pitchers who aren't trying to strike him out. Not as their main goal, anyway.

The problem is thinking spring training is where you get conditioned. You prepare for the season in ST, you don't get in shape for it. Every movement, whether swinging a bat or avoiding a pickoff is intense, and yes, you need to be able to sprint. It's not that hard to be prepared for that by introducing intensity and suddenness into one's offseason training. Jenkins should not be deciding how he trains or how he approaches spring training. This is the Twins responsibility.

Bieber? Bieber didn't have a contract covering his injury year, Pablo does. Exactly how would the Twins afford him in 2028?

Spring training stats mean nothing (unless you're horrible). Everybody's working on their stuff. Roden had much better stats last spring before stinking up the joint in MLB, Doesn't matter, none of it.

Guys don't really "figure things out." Hitting is really hard. You figure out how to get out of a slump if you've been a good hitter. You don't figure out how to hit. It's so incredibly rare that an age appropriate guy for his leagues, which Winokur has been, suddenly learns how to hit that it's not worth hoping for. Maybe if he'd been rushed and placed two leagues ahead of where he should be, there'd be hope. Winokur will move up the ladder and sputter out. If he gets a cup of coffee, good for him. OTOH, the Twins might just be so bad and have such a bad system that they might play anybody. It's sort of happened before in their history. Here's the explanation in simple terms. Go to baseball reference and look at Winokur's slash lines avg/obp/slg each season. It's a good lesson in what goes on. First, note that he's age appropriate for his leagues. The reason he's "younger" than his league is because leagues have a whole bunch of failed guys repeating. A normal drafted-high kid like Winokur is going to be better than others in the league where everybody hasn't yet proven anything. I mean, that's why he was drafted high, he was better than most. And his stats ended up good stats for the rookie league. If a player does well enough like Winokur did, he gets promoted, but now he's playing against others who have also succeeded at that lowest level. Funny enough, his stats took a dive, because where he was a top 20-30% player in the FCL, he's now a top 40-50% player in the FSL., and his OPS decreases by 122 points, who'd have guessed? But it's not just production. Suddenly we notice that low A pitchers strike him out at a rate that's way too high for him him to ever really be a prospect. I mean, if low A pitchers are striking him out at a 28% rate, MLB pitchers are going to kill him. But let's pretend we don't notice that. So now he has an average year at low A where his OPS dropped 122 points, and most others advancing to the next level had better seasons and are most likely better players. They all go to high A, and now our hero is a lesser player playing against better ones. You'd expect his production to go down, and voila! it goes down another 69 OPS points. Basically our guy isn't going to get better as he goes up the ladder. We now all realize that. It makes sense. But the prospect gods have something up their sleeves to torture Twins fans. In their infinite wisdom, the gods supplied Twins ballparks at AA and AAA that are hitters paradises (edens?). Suddenly our hero's stats improve, and the naive among us think he's a true prospect...then get mad and demand to know why all these great prospects fail when they reach Target Field. That was, is, and will be the story of Brandon Winokur, but the thing to understand is that he's not very good compared to the guys/competition who have moved up with him, there are more and better coming behind, and his MLB predictors in his stats predict no MLB for you! (think soup nazi). When I make statements like Brandon Winokur has no chance to play in the majors, it's a bit hyperbolic, but that's because the chances of him doing so are so close to nil, other than than cup and coffee. I'm not a hater, I'm a realist. We're hopeful because we've seemingly seen guys come out of nowhere to be great, but in actuality, we didn't understand the journey and the starting point of those guys. Winokur was a good prospect as an amateur in that he could play some level of professional ball, but the book said he wasn't a good risk, and the Twins crossed their fingers anyway, ignoring the scouts and stats. He's exactly what the scouting reports thought he was. Everything about his trip has been predictable. (no, i don't remember what the weakness were, specifically, it could have easily been chasing out of zone or contact rates in zone but I forget.)

Yes, perfect for the Twins: OPS less than .700 and strikeout rate 32% Check out his 2025 statistics from conference games. If the Twins draft this guy, it will save me a lot of money going forward. Bring on the excuses and justifications for a guy being that bad. Smart teams don't even consider this guy.

Festa should be expected. He had a surgery injury and didn't have surgery, so let's wasted a year.

I'm so excited to see who's #1 I have to pee! DeBarge should not be in even the Twins top 20. Mendez, as meh as he is, at least has a chance to hit in the majors and should be much higher.

His bat speed is the outstanding trait. But of course there are many lumberjacks likely to have great axe speed, and I doubt they also can't play in the majors.

yeah, meh, bleh

Can't get this on my computer, but I think Hill is the Twins #2 prospect. I'm not so sure it's a big compliment, though.

Maybe I missed the premise, but why is it surprising Funderburke, Martin, and Roden are competing for roster spots this spring? Far more surprising would be Austin Martin not getting one.

Baseball-wise, there are a number of things that keep him from being a top 100 guy, or with those numbers at his age, he'd be highly ranked. He's just not athletic, can't play defense very well (he's thought of as a DH at age 21), and there are issues with his hitting peripherals which I can't be precise about this moment (I'll mention at some point in another thread). The ranking gods see him as a DH, PH, maybe COF vs lefties. They're usually not too far off, so keep your fantasies in check. I hold out hope he just might surpass their expectations and become a regular, but I'm not in any way counting on it at this point.

Clickbait title. Or haven't lived more than a few years.

Well, the Twins system sucks, and Jenkins doesn't. That's why.

I think you need to do some math on the backup CF.

Well, no. Zebby has #2 potential, just like 0 other Twins starters. Since we've had only Johan as an ace #1 for the last 37 years, this should be an exciting development. He might be a 3+, but that's not his potential. His potential is basically as ace-ish as we've had around here.

While I usually found reason to have a connection with the '65 players (my watch started in 1970), Nossek was only a name I heard in passing, and if I had to list the players for that team, I'm afraid I would have missed him. Sorry, Joe, but thanks for your contributions! RIP

This team was never going to win. The SP might have been good, but it wasn't that good. I so much wish Minnesotans wouldn't count on best-case scenarios out of a mediocre 50th percentile. Lopez going down was unfortunate (at best). That, by the way, was a significant risk and maybe a likely scenario when a pitcher has forearm issues that he's shut down for. Forearm problems are the precursor to UCL tears. Trading Joe Ryan is and should be and should have been independent of everything else. It should only be dependent on the FO knowing what it's doing (questionable) and the return available if they know what they're doing.

I can give you 4,450,000 reasons why it's impossible to trade Trevor Larnach. Twins are trying to save money, but they don't understand the simplest: Larnach doesn't add value, or what little value he might add if used optimally doesn't get you extra wins. They could have dropped him and put that money toward their debt. Stupid. I'm betting the Twins will realize this and non-tender an actually good player in the future, a la David Ortiz. (and yes, he was to me the best hitter on the team and coming into his prime)

All fine and good, but hardly any of those names should be in an opening day bullpen.

Twins are likely the dumbest team in the league. He hurts his arm in September. Did they even think about having an MRI then? He lost five months, and that means he may be just starting to pitch games by the trade deadline 2027. If he'd had an MRI, and if it had shown a tear or stretch (it might not have, but it probably would have with the forearm strain), they could have saved his full 2027 and had a trade chip if he pitched decently. Twins don't seem to even consider that.

When a team sucks and can't spend much money, the way to spend what you have is on the system. Build the foundation: coaches, instructors, international players. You don't do the opposite. I guarantee Banda is of zero value. If he pitches well it won't help. If he pitches well and gets traded, it will be for something that doesn't ultimately help. Meanwhile, the Twins are not even saving money by doing this, as it costs about $1 million more than the minimum to have him on the team. So, they could take that $1.5 million and invest a third in world players and, frankly, use the extra million to support infrastructure. How they could give up $500k of pool money for Banda is beyond me. This is assuming we're talking about 2007 money.

What does that have to do with 2027 money?

Set-up man or closer?