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Minny505

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Everything posted by Minny505

  1. Agreed on Gallo. He looks like the allstar form of himself so far, but may regress back to career norms. Even that is a win in FA and an upgrade over any other corner outfield option. The underlying numbers, even since his injury 0h-fors are common for hitters like him. When you are not putting a lot of balls in play you are reducing your chances for random bloops, bleeders, misplays, etc, to land in to break up the hitless streak. But those walks mean he is still contributing offensively. His Statcast box is beautiful, especially that xwOBA. He is a player that has underperformed his xwOBA in his career by 12 bips, but that K% might level him out.
  2. While many in the lineup have been ugly for most of the season, the slump "Gallo" is in is still encouraging. He seems more like a BABIP victim right now than a poor plate appearance offender. Correa looks terrible, but his career 135ish wRC+ has me not worried in the long run. I would drop him in the lineup though until he gets it going a bit. Some good-to-great players just go thru this: Jeter, Ramirez, Soto, Arenado, etc. Miranda, Larnach, Vasquez, and Solano are much more concerning for the rest-of-the-season.
  3. A trade at this point seems very unlikely. However, the Mets, Braves, & Marlins could all really use a corner outfielder. I would not be surprised if a trade goes down with one of those teams at some point, particularly the Mets, who are said to have a deep farm system right now.
  4. I'd avoid scouting the stat line for a young pitcher like SWR who is still working on improvement, not trying to prove he is ready for the show with his production. His stuff, command, and makeup are much more important. His stuff is literally top notch. His command is solid. His velo may set his ceiling at a modern day Marcus Stroman, Shane Bieber, or Merrill Kelly equivalent, but that is still plenty valuable.
  5. I think the rotation is the answer. Rotate Kepler, Larnach, Taylor, Gallo, Kirilloff, and to a lesser extent, Buxton. This gives Kirilloff a couple days off a week and everyone else one day off a week, with maybe Taylor sucking up two days on the pine a week. Kepler sits against all the LHP. Without an injury to one of those guys, that rotation seems like the best way forward.
  6. What an unusual Twins team! ...and in a good way. Looking at Fangraphs team metrics, they are basically an average offensive team with average team defense and an ELITE pitching staff. ELITE. This is like a really good psilocybin trip. I'm completely disoriented from my real world grounding of the being a bottom 5 pitching staff thru most of the 2010s ...and I'm loving it!
  7. It very possible that 2022, his age 26 season, was an outlier career year. That's not unusual for MLB players, including Max Kepler and his 2019 season. Lew Ford had a similar season, though at age 27. He might figure it out. His xwOBA is more than 100 points higher than his actual, but even his xwOBA is still not good. I'd give him more runway, but he is not going to turn into a regret by the Twins is they let him find more playing time with another team.
  8. The bunting part was fun. The zone swing and cutter parts were fascinating. Great research and insights.
  9. I highly doubt the Yankees or D-Backs will be sellers. Pederson is redundant. Cron is a hard pass. A right-handed hitting corner outfielder is about the only position of interest (as of now) in the trade market for the non-pitching side.
  10. Maybe. I think it's more likely he replaces Castro on the roster. Castro's been better, but not so much that you dismiss Gordon's upside in his past. Plus, Castro has an option. Kirilloff replaces Kepler in the lineup. Even the Twins' media mouthpieces are saying this. I hope it is with the purpose of prepping the general fan of a coming move.
  11. Yes, but the Yankees always have hurt guys. They are probably the best team in the AL when everyone is healthy, but that will not likely be the case for 90% of the season/playoffs. That's the way it goes when you have mostly post-arb players on the roster.
  12. Agreed...cuz BASEBALL! And becuase BASEBALL! we lose Saturday. It just seems too appropriate.
  13. I agree on Kepler being hot and I like a manager who constantly shuffles the lineup to get the hot bats at the top (Cash of the Rays has done this for years), but Gallo is the hottest of them all and can't get above 5th in the lineup. Kepler, who with a roughly league average OPS is in midseason form, has become Rocco's Little Nicky Punto. He's a solid player who is put in a position to do more than he is actually capable of and it leaves him exposed while making the team worse. Outside of '19 & '20, he makes a perfect 4th OF. I've always thought of him as the Twins' version of Brett Gardner: a solid OFer you can feel comfortable giving 400or so PAs to as the 4th option, but generally sits when everyone is healthy and rested.
  14. Agreed. Gordon can spot SS if necessary. Even Solano or Miranda (who still has more professional innings at SS than 1B in his career). And there is no harm in sitting Kepler. Gallo, Larnach, and Kiriloff need to be getting the most PAs of those 5 LHB COFers. That's not to say those are the 3 best per se, as Larnach may be a MLB dud, but we need to find out. AAA does him no good at this point as his issue is hitting MLB caliber off-speed pitches.
  15. I'll take your word for it on last year. And that makes sense. Buxton and Taylor have played a higher percentage of the teams games this year vs last.
  16. @Matthew Trueblood, is there a leaderboard for this kind of split? If so, can you link to it? I'd be interested to see the names of other pitchers with this approach. It has to be unusual for such a gap.
  17. Buxton's, and to a lesser extent Taylor's, brilliant baserunning can barely buoy the anchor, that is the rest of the roster, from the bottom of the league.
  18. I agree with putting Buxton and Taylor in the OF together, but I would put Buxton in RF and have him become the primary RFer. Hear me out. There are many solid defensive RFers in MLB who primarily play RF instead of CF, not because they are not good enough to play CF, but because COF puts less stress on the body, which mitigates injury and rest days. Aaron Judge Mookie Betts Ronald Acuna Jr Daulton Varsho Lars Nootbaar Dylan Carlson Max Kepler Randal Grichuck George Springer Fernando Tatis (yes, I may be jumping the gun here) Ichiro stuck with RF for this reason and, while it was never stated, I would not be surprised if Henderson did the same. Buxton would likely be an upgrade on both offense and defense in RF. It would help mitigate physical stress vs CF while still giving us some of the value that we are currently missing in the field with him at DH. What do you think?
  19. It's early for trades, and that is precisely why the Cards are not expected to move O'Neil for a MLB SP until June, but the Twins line up with need right now. O'Neil would be the right handed OF bat the Twins need and he can play all OF positions. Maeda is the quintessential Cardinals SP. Fill in with spare ports around that as needed to balance the excess value of O'Neil. I doubt it happens, but the Twins and Cards do have a history of making a MLB level, need-for-need swap of players, not long ago.
  20. Lopez, Gray, and Ryan have been the story so far. If this is the real version of each of them for the season, the Twins are going to win a lot of games...and possibly even some playoff games🙈
  21. This is satire right? Considering Miranda played 2000+ innings of 3B in the minors, more than all other positions combined.
  22. This is really well written and insightful. It's an angle that makes since that I have never heard. Basically, he should take more strikes in the zone until he has 2 on him, and only swing at those first 2 strikes if they are in his groove zone, not just the strike zone. It's a tried and true method. Ted Williams talks about it in his hitting book. Until you have 2 strikes, you should only swing at strikes that you can handle, while letting strikes that are "pitcher's strikes" go by. I have to believe Max is doing this. Most pros do. Only players with insane bat to ball skills swing at anything on the zone. Your data, however, could mean he is not selective enough with less than two strikes.
  23. It did seem like they got a lot of clutch hits. I guess when you constantly have traffic on the bases it's easy to leave a lot of them stranded and simultaneously convert a lot of those opportunities.
  24. I hadn't considered this. I like it! I'm done with Kepler as leadoff. Sure, he hits the ball hard, but it's often straight down or up. I also like: Gallo (Always a good OBP and minimizes the downside of K's as they don't matter much when no one is on base) Correa (who is likely to lead the team in OBP) Buxton (speed and is likely to lead the team in OPS)
  25. "Sucks to suck" is such a great line😂 Right up there with "Like the things you like" and "Dopest dope you've ever smoked".
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