Minny505

I gotta admit, I am shocked that Bieber was taken so low for a pitcher. I would think him solidly in the top 10 pitchers for the next decade, maybe even as high as #3. I took him in the MLB decade contest as the player to win the most Cy Young awards, so you can see where I stand on him. And in an effort to be objective, I would also think Clevinger gets taken in front of Berrios. I strongly believe that the Indians have the four best players in the AL Central right now. This is not to say Berrios should not be in the top 10 pitchers taken as well, just that I think he is probably in the 8-10 range while Bieber is in the 3-5 range and Clevinger is in the 6-8 range. And also, I hope that I am wrong. Dead wrong.

I want the highest level of tension in every AB of a baseball game. A DH delivers that desired experience. Pitchers hitting lowers the tension for, sometimes significant, periods of the game. This lowering of tension makes a baseball game less interesting. Baseball, and all forms of entertainment, need more tension, not less. In the game of baseball, tension creates drama. Drama creates a better baseball viewing experience for the observers of that game. To use a Gleeman-esque terrible analogy of the day, it's like having an automatic garage door opener. We all take it for granted that we'd prefer an automatic garage door opener, but back when they came out, some people probably didn't want one, thinking it's so unnecessary and even diminishes the experience of garage & car ownership. But once you have one and no longer need to expose yourself to the procedural drudgery of leaving your car to park it safely away in your garage, you realize you love it. That is what the DH will be like for NL fans. Ultimately, I am happy for the fans of NL teams that will get to experience the heightened tension and added drama that the DH adds to an observed baseball game. Especially being the I just moved to Phoenix and would like to have more tension in those games I will be watching in the future. The only downside will be that there are less opportunities to go hit the can while at the ballpark watching a game.

As MikeLink pointed out, I think the Dbacks deserve a spot in the Top 15...arguably at #12. I would probably drop the White Sox out. I'm probably a little low on them, but, with the exception of Grandal, they seemed to have a quantity-over-quality offseason. It established a floor and they have the most variance on this list, but I just don't see enough breakthrus for them to be noticeably better than .500. You could talk me into dropping the Angels or Padres as well. Just get the Dbacks on this list already!!! ;o)

First, thank you for introducing Pitch Type Liner Weights to me. That is a stat I was not familiar with. Very cool!!! And now, with that said, I feel like wPT/C would be better for an exercise like this, since it is a rate stat while wPT is a counting stat. I doubt it changes any of the leaders except maybe the changeup. It would like demonstrate further just how good Trevor May's fastball really is. Cuz damn, that is a dominant pitch! This was a super rad article. Thank you!!!

I can't believe no one has said it yet. It's probably because we are the small sliver of the fan base that did not feel this way, but the correct answer is... Joe Mauer It makes me sad that Joe is the answer to this question, but he is. It seems the plurality of Twins fans could talk about nothing else regarding the Twins during the dog years of the 2010's except how they were terrible because of the Joe Mauer contract. How he was not worth the money, as if he took it from them himself without asking. I have never noticed a player the Twins general fan base absolutely loves to hate. In fact, if I sat down at a bar outside of Twins Territory and started chatting with a complete stranger about MLB history and brought up Joe Mauer, I would describe him exactly like this... "He was one of the five best players to ever wear a Twins uniform. I loved him. Most Twins fans loved-to-hate him. I still don't really understand why."

I would love if you put ERA+ in the stats for context. Eyeballing it: -Radke is around a 120 -Baker is around a 110 -Silva is around 100 -Milton is around 90 -Santana is more of a guess. Maybe 160? That's kind of sad that we can't come up with better SPs than Milton and Silva for a decade that saw so many division championships. It's not a surprise they got bounced in so many playoff series. Not that I think pitching is the remedy for playoff losses per se, but league average pitching is. If this is the best team was running out on the bump to start each game, that means the team was likely starting league average, at best, SPs for most games. That is something I did not realize at the time. I understood we had worse pitching than the opposing team, but I always chalked it up to the opponent having really good SPs, not the Twins having below average SPs. The things you learn...

I love it! Baseball could use a harmless shake-up off the field that spurs some other changes. Having three 10-team divisions is so fun!!! That is something no other pro sports league I have ever heard consider. Way outside the box, especially for MLB. I'm in favor of this being a trial run for new alignment in 2021 and beyond as well.

Trevor Bauer and Zack Greinke are my two favorite personalities in baseball today. Bauer has stated that he will only be taking one year deals in FA. If he sticks to that, he will likely cost $30mil or more, provided he gets back to even career numbers in 2020. That seems like a much more important discussion point and may price him out of the Twins budget. He would not create a media circus in any way possible. This is not signing someone like Aroldis Chapman, AJ Hinch or, from other sports, Colin Kaepernick or Lebron James. From listening to current and former teammates of Bauer's talk on podcasts and YouTube with other MLBers, they absolutely love him...especially the pitchers. I mean, Mike Clevinger, who I'm going to guess is about as far to the other side of the political spectrum, based on his publicly stated values and philosophies, as you will find, calls Trevor Bauer his "best friend". That's the kind of player I want on my favorite team. If he can be had on a reasonable deal, hell yes, sign him up.

I feel like this was written for me I constantly espouse the greatness of Shane Mack when in deep conversations with fellow baseball fans. Mack was arguably the best player on the Twins during my formative Twins years of 1990-94. A true 5-tool player who did not have any standout strengths, but no glaring weaknesses either. His career is so strange. He is one of only 2 players to put up more than 20 brWAR without getting a chance to reach 3300 PAs. (remarkably, the other player also spent the bulk of his career with the Twins) For those five years, he was essentially the same age as, and out-brWAR'd, players like, David Justice, Bobby Bonilla, Mark McGwire, Cecil Fielder, Jose Canseco, and Will Clark. Most of those guys were perennial all-stars in that time while Mack never even seemed in the discussion. He matched the OPS of Will Clark, Bobby Bonilla, and Cecil Fielder while playing much more valuable defense. Bobby Bonilla, roughly the same age as Mack, will make about 2x more money on his final MLB contract to not play...than Shane Mack made his entire career from MLB contracts.

Funny how different readers are. My absolute favorite section of The MVP Machine was Lindbergh describing his coaching session. I'm not sure if it's because I have played amateur ball for years, and still do in my late 30's, but I get goosebumps reading about an amateur, who has no idea how to properly swing a bat, find incredible success in a brief session with a modern professional. I was once just like that until I worked with THE guy here in Albuquerque, New Mexico who tutored Bregman, Garver, and almost every other pro player from the area. The elation of crushing pitch after pitch with true consistency after just 30 minutes with a coach like that is something every baseball fan should experience once in their life.

As stated, this has little-to-no value in measuring discipline. The headline was rather misleading That's on Ben Clemens, not Patrick Wozniak. There has to be an algorithm just waiting to be discovered that aggregates swing rate on pitches in the zone and out of the zone. That is what I was expecting when I clicked on the article and was super excited to read. This was a bit of a letdown.

I find it likely that Hill will now be on the "opening day" roster. Provided his rehab stays on course. If that's the case, I think Chacin is likely gone. And if there is a condensed schedule of playing 7-8 games per week, teams may implement a 6 man rotation as well, meaning Dobnak and Thorpe will play a larger role than in a normal season.

OMG!!! That's a game I haven't heard mentioned in decades. I still think about it from time to time. My 7-10 year old self sunk so many hours into creating custom teams and completing against other friends while we all huddled around one kid's computer. Microleague needs a kickstarter reboot. One of few games I would invest in to see come to market.

1) Sign me up for some Joe Musgrove, though that would understandably be a big haul. 2) Would like Chris Sale if he's available, which I doubt he is. Sox are going to want to get him back healthy and dominating to maximize value. With a five year contract, they are in no hurry. 3) Would love to get Price if Sox will take that down to something like 3/$60. He is on that "Odorizi or better" level that everyone seems to have as the bar. 4) Hard pass on Alcantara. I'll probably never change minds on this, but here goes. The man is exactly the same age as Devin Smeltzer, to the day. They pitched all thru the minors against the same competition, same levels, same age. Smeltzer was the superior performer thru it all by just about every analytic stat. At every individual level. You could easily argue Smeltzer had better peripherals in the majors in 2019. I know some people warn against scouting the stat line, but their is some value there and the four years of directly comparable results would indicate that they are essentially the same level of pitcher. I do not argue that Alcantara will likely be a better major league pitcher, but if you think Smeltzer is a 5 at best, then Alcantara is a 4 at best. We don't need more pitchers to fill out the middle/bottom of the rotation. We need guys who are going to pitch game 1, 2, or 3 of the ALDS. Alcantara will never be that good (in this man's 'scouting the stat line' opinion) and is not worth anywhere near the prospect capital he would likely require. I'm good with something like an 11-15 prospect paired with a 16-20 prospect in our system, but I doubt Miami would go for that. Alcantara is a Bill Smith wet dream. Throws hard as hell, but has never indicated he can get great results from it. 5) Regarding Jon Gray and all ground ball pitchers, I'm not sure they are a good idea with this defense that is amazing in the OF, but mediocre at best in the IF. I'd love if there was a study available about pitcher BIP tendencies and OF/IF defenses. Anyone have anything to share? 6) As for the rest, if the pitching coaches see tweaks to be made that can make them Odorizi or better, make it happen. None of them really are Odorizi or better as of now.

While RPs are generally mediocre at best starters that found themselves pushed to the pen, I do think the elite of them should be in the HOF. I do not think Hoffman is part of that elite club. Billy Wagner absolutely is. With Hoffman in, I can't believe Billy Wagner is struggling. This coming from a guy who can't understand how Kenny Lofton was one and done while his vastly inferior teammate for many of those years, Omar Vizquel, is likely going to make it. But that's another discussion. Joe Nathan is a borderline case. I am a big hall guy, meaning put in guys like Kenny Lofton, Andrew Jones, Tommy John, & Scott Rolen (not Omar Vizquel & Harold Baines big hall though...I have SOME standards). As far as reliever go, Nathan was clearly one of the six best ever. I'd say five best ever. I'd put him in, but like Andrew Jones or Scott Rolen, it's not a travesty if he doesn't make it. As long as they don't include Harold Baines or Omar Vizquel. Then all the standards are broken.

I disagree with the pitcher grades a bit. I would give Bailey a D, while I would give both reliever signings a B. The Statcast Podcast guys called the Donaldson signing the best signing of the offseason. His statcast numbers in 2019 were outrageous. The Twins now have 5 of the top 6 guys in hard hit rate in 2019 in all of MLB (someone correct me if it's only 4). That's one of those "normalizes quickly" stats that is very predictive. I'll take the Twins against the field on a straight up prop bet to be the best offense in MLB in 2020 by several measures.

I still hold to a modern day version of Blackburn. It's hard because velo and K% are just so much higher today than 15 years ago. That said, let's use a modern comp. Smeltzer and Alcantara are literally the same age. If they were fraternal twins, one would claim being older by ten minutes. Take a look at their track records. Smeltzer has been so, so, so, so, so much better at every level in the minors and in The Show. Better K%, much better BB%, better FIP, ERA, etc. The two places Alcantara has him beat is velo (but Romero and every other pitcher in the Twins system that will never make it to the majors has Smeltzer beat there too) and HR/9. If there was a prop bet of which pitcher will perform better at the MLB level over the next six seasons, I would take Smeltzer. If we based it on WAR, I'd probably take Alcantara, but only because he might be the best pitcher on a bad MLB team where Smeltzer is currently the 8th best MLB ready pitcher on his team. If we based it on WAR per IP, I'll take Smeltzer. Smeltzer is still rookie eligible and will be ranked somewhere abound the 17th best prospect in the system, give or take a few spots based on your publication of choice. Alcantara, if still rookie eligible, would likely be somewhere around the same 15-20 rank. Alcantara has higher upside with that velo, but he has never looked like he has figured out to harness it effectively, a la Fernando Romero. Actually, Romero did at least look like he had it figured out, then lost it. Maybe Alcantara still will, at which point I'll eat crow. But the view from the cloudy mountaintop of prospect projection looks like the better pitcher that will have the better MLB career is Smeltzer and he may not crack 50 innings for the Twins in 2020. I doubt any of us would opt to trade a high end prospect for Devin Smeltzer. It doesn't make sense. That's essentially who you are trading for in Alcantara, they just get there in different ways. Even offering Jake Cave & Devin Smeltzer for Alcantara seems like a bit of an overpay after digging thru more numbers.

I don't quite understand the Alcantara love. He has not been a strikeout pitcher since A ball and has a K:BB ratio worse than 2:1. He seems kind of like a modern era version of Nick Blackburn. I'm not saying he is worthless. Seems like a good innings eater that has a chance to top 2.5 fWAR a few seasons in his career, but just as likely to crash & (Black)burn. He's definitely not worth 2 of our top 6 prospects (arguably our 2 best prospects after Lewis) plus a ML capable OF. That's how GMs get blacklisted from running a team, a la Dave Stewart. How about Cave & Matt Canterino or Cave & Cole Sands (though I hate to trade someone with a badass name like that) or Cave & Edwar Colina or Cave & Maciel Urbina? That's more in the range he is worth. I could be talked into Thorpe if they throw in a lottery ticket.

I love this exercise, but I would really prefer to see FIP, DRA, SIERRA, or some other metric than ERA to state effectiveness over the last 2-3 years. I had to go to Fangraphs to look up their numbers to get any true gauge. And having done that, Salazar would be my pick with a bullet. We only need him to make eight starts. If he is healthy, he is a far better option than any of Thorpe/Dobnak/Smeltzer. And if he goes down on May 10th, oh well. He more or less bridged the gap. Anything more than that is a bonus. Walker would be a solid pickup as well. I would rather have Salazar because of the upside, but he would do. I think Dobnak & Thorpe are on the same level or better than the rest of the list. I'm not opposed to bringing on any of the rest, but more as AAA depth for the season, with the understanding that they are the 6th or 8th guy on the depth chart in April.

It's interesting seeing all the prospect hoarding comments on this article. Nowhere did Matt mention trading any IFs, Cs or Ps. He only suggests trading away OF prospects. We have a proverbial game of musical chairs going on right now with 3, maybe 4, chairs in play over the next 4 years for all our current OFs that are at AA or higher. Kepler and & Buxton are pretty much locks to hold 2 of those down over the next 3 & 4 years. That leaves 2 chairs left for: Rosario, Cave, Wade, Raley, Kiroloff, Rooker & Larnach. If you put the Twins 2020 AAA OF (Cave, Wade, Raley, Kiroloff & Rooker) on a ML roster together, they might out-fWAR the OF of a third of MLB teams in 2020, a bar I will set at 4.5 fWAR total based on 2017-19. They would almost certainly out-fWAR the bottom 5 teams at just 3.3 fWAR. That is a surplus and a situation where trading from that particular sliver of prospect depth would be the responsible way to manage resources. Don't trade them all, but if you trade any four of those away (holding onto Rooker, the only RH bat, and one of Larnach/Kiroloff) the team would likely never miss them over the next 3-4 years with the A ballers coming up behind them. Plus, you have guys like Lewis, Blankenhorn, etc that may not be able to cut it on the dirt at the MLB level and will need to be thrown in the OF mix as well.

This is not likely going to be a popular take around these parts, but I hope he goes to Miami. Having a superstar Cuban player in Miami would be so great for MLB and would almost certainly bring more pride and joy to that community than any other MLB community in the country.

"Polanco doesn't play shortstop all that well but he can handle it." Barely. Polanco is quite possibly the worst starting SS on defense in MLB. He ranks dead last among SS in the percent of plays that he makes. He is somewhere between bad and brutal. We could add someone like Galvis of Iglesias and improve the team by 2 wins on defense...at minimum. Whatever you think of Sano's defense at 3B, he's at least competent compared to his peers, ranking at somewhere in the vicinity of below average. Polanco is far and away our biggest liability on the dirt. As stated by other commenters here, the problem is that no one has enough offense to make up the difference that Polanco brings. Move Polanco to 3B though and he may become an MVP candidate.

If we go with the assumption that the squad has $70mil for pitching: Pineda @ $10mil AAV Odorizzi @ $20mil AAV Cole or Strasburg @ up to $40mil AAV Offseason shopping for the rotation done! You're welcome Falvine

I really want to give it to Garver. His WAR per game is Troutian. Ruthian even! It's ridiculous. And the Twins would be so screwed without him, giving Castro more starts than he should shoulder at this point, along with a bushel of starts to whoever is fourth on the depth chart at catcher this season, as Astudillo missed a big chunk due to injury, all the catcher reps. Garver is likely a 4-5 win swing based on this roster. Berrios is probably the only other player that can come close to that kind of swing vs the next man up. So I am going Garver. The best player per game has also been the most valuable.

Not super high, but higher than most. They ranked him as the number 12 prospect in the Twins system coming into the 2019 season. Not many other outlets even had him in the top 20, including Twins Daily. So, as far as national outlets are concerned, Fangraphs was probably the highest on him. I haven't dug back into it, but I suspect he ranked well on their KOTAH system as a minor leaguer, which would explain why he ranked well in their team prospect rankings.