nicksaviking

Firing Popkins seems like a reasonable move, but where do you get a new hitting coach mid-season? Dipping down to AAA seems like the only logical option.

Good news, he can't break it then.

I don't presume to think a half year of production is indicative of the kind of player you'll get.

A Mahle extension wouldn't bother me, but the offensive free agent class next year looks pretty terrible again. Some intriguing starting pitchers though, so if they're going to spend, that might be where they look. In which case, the rotation will be fairly full for the foreseeable future. Never hurts to have extra arms though I guess.

I might finally get to watch a game. The last game (that I knew about) on Apple TV was Mother's Day, which was a poor time for me to tell the wife we weren't going to do what she wanted to do that night.

Tampa would have traded high on Kepler after 2019. And to their credit, they probably would have been able to tell what would happen to him offensively after the league deadened the ball.

I don't tend to like players who've only had a half of a bounce back season, I think it's just as likely they revert back to a pumpkin when they uproot and change teams. Most of the offensive players are out for me, because that's how I see most. However, Cody Bellinger's K% has somehow dropped 9% this year. I don't know how that happened, but it's back to his ROY/MVP era levels. If that's legit, I'd be interested. Possibly significantly interested. Mark Canha is about as boring as it gets, but he's a right handed outfielder and does draw a ton of walks, so I could see the value there as well. Justin Turner also gets on base at a high level, and he does have that name-brand cache that often elevates clubs intangibly. I don't like to rate guys based on "intangibles" but if the rest of the club buys in, that can be pretty valuable. I don't really think Boston's selling though unless the wheels completely fall off. They're only two games back. I don't believe the Twins will trade off Gray or Maeda, BUT, depending on which one they moved, doing so in conjunction with trading FOR Jordan Montgomery would either improve the rotation or mitigate the loss. The fact that he's kept his production across two teams and two leagues makes him a guy that I'd like much more than most. Getting a reliver is always a good idea, but I'll still never trust any single one of them.

My guess is that the Cardinals are so out of practice being 'sellers' that they won't entertain offers for any of their biggest names.

Anthony Prato is throwing his hat in the ring for one of those MLB OF or utility spots. He lacks the high end pop, but it sure looks like he's taking professional at bats, which obviously is what everyone's been complaining about with the MLB roster.

That's pretty new though. Atlanta went about a decade and a half where all of their top prospects were stud pitchers and all of them flamed out, mostly due to injuries.

Yeah, I'd guess they don't trade pitching. Gray only if they get a deal that would floor us all. Maeda only if he somehow losses his job to one of the prospects in the next month, which is looking more unlikely by the day. Missing the playoffs will put their jobs on the line and the rotation is what's saving them all at the moment. Even if they should be, I doubt many of them are looking too far into the future at the expense of winning a terrible AL Central.

If the Twins trade Gray, and I'd guess they won't, my money is on them actually bringing in another starting pitcher, even if that's counter intuitive. Another controllable arm to pair with Ryan, Ober and Lopez would help ensure the rotation is stabilized, and seeing as how a stable rotation has saved the team from imploding this year, I could see them doubling down on that approach. If AZ is the target, maybe Brandon Pfaadt? He didn't have much of an audition, but surely his early struggle has lowered his previously top 50 prospect value.

He's had an OPS over .760 once. Only twice has he had an OPS+ over league average, the second being 2020 which I'm fairly confident in saying was a let down considering his 2019 season appeared to be his big breakout. He was a top 50 prospect, I think saying he's hit below expectations nearly every year is an understatement if anything. Teams don't usually ride out these kinds of players for a decade, particularly not at the most easily replaceable position on the field. . If he was a Randy Bush, who was a rotational player who'd always give way to the new prospects and free agents, Kepler probably would be beloved. But he's not, they've basically ran him out to start since day 1. They've made a concerted attempt to upgrade every single other position on the diamond, but never right field.

I don't like how Miranda is only getting 2-3 PA per game. I'd like him to go into a game knowing he's not getting pulled.

Surely next year will be better regardless of what path they take, but I hope the Twins don't just go hunting for a solution by themselves. This is a league-wide problem, and the teams without giant media markets that easily fund major city clubs, should be collaborating to figure out the best way to reach as many fans as possible to ensure the game is viable for decades. And reaching as many fans as possible likely does not mean profiting as much as possible in the immediate future.

Yeah, I'd say if the Twins failed on this, it's in not targeting one of Toronto's three young catchers, Kirk, Jansen or Moreno. Not because they were necessarily better prospects, but it might have kept them from making a poor decision with Vazquez. But since all three of those guys are struggling to one degree or another this year, we'd probably still be having the same discussion.

I think the bottom line is that Kepler has been here eight years, and has hit below expectations in seven of them. Few players get that kind of leash. If the team is looking to upgrade the offense, his spot in the starting lineup is by far the easiest to replace because of the options behind him. Even if Wallner doesn't pan out, they literally have a half dozen options in the high minors they can cycle through to see which ones will.

Speaking nothing of the return the Twins got, had they extended Berrios, I'd be fairly uncomfortable at the moment. Last year was obviously a disaster, but while he's turned things around this year, his strikeouts are down from his heyday despite strikeouts being up league-wide the last couple of years. That's not the end of the world if the results hold, but it's usually a big indicator that the pitcher will not age well. Most of the good grey-beards who keep their production into their 30's don't lose the ability to miss bats.

Yeah, I mean you’d have to REALLY care about the uniform design.

Firing them now would risk whichever internal replacement getting and keeping the job if the team turns the corner, regardless if that person had anything to do with it. I think I’d rather let them all sink rather than appoint a captain who’ll steer the ship on the same course.

Completely agree. I’m not trying to dis Arraez, but this team is missing all around good hitters. They need to START with a Jose Rameriz, Mookie Betts or Paul Goldschmidt type.

Well there's almost certainly no way to replace the front office midseason unless you're just going to promote from within. As for replacing everyone in the offseason, I'm on board with that. But my fear is that these things tend to pendulum, and I 100% do NOT want the organization to think they have to go with 'old school' hires. The failure isn't implementing modern baseball within the organization, it's a failure to do it as well or better than the other 29 teams. As for the manager, he could be replaced midseason, that happens with varying degrees of success all the time. Some times to great success. But I don't think a reasonable replacement is already in house. And bringing an outside hire in midseason sounds like a disaster, especially if the front office is on the hot seat. Not that I'd want either here for more than the end of the year, but Paul Molitor and Ron Gardenhire are still Twins-tangent enough that they'd have enough familiarity to make a smoother transition. Plus it would be a good amount of fan service I'm sure ownership is desperate for (maybe not TD fan service, but certainly casual fans who like the good ol' days). Obviously, neither are ideal and they were already behind on the times when they were originally dismissed, so bringing either in would really just be a dart throw trying to create the missing spark. Though I would say that Ron Gardenhire's best skill was getting the young players to buy into the system while somehow simultaneously forcing them into the leadership spotlight. I'm not sure if that was something he was trying to do, and it was usually done out of necessity because the team didn't spend on free agent veterans back then, but it regularly worked and it was why he succeeded with young guys when Tom Kelly didn't. (Don't kill me, I still love TK). And that's something this club needs to happen ASAP.

Yeah, it's almost become predictable how the critical and fan support goes these days. Collectively society finds a great new show. Then depending on how big it is, either season two or season three people turn on it even if it doesn't really deviate from the season one formula. In a world of hot takes, arm-chair analysts with zero credentials and trends that don't last longer than a week, people seem to be afraid they'll be the last person on the bandwagon and their reputation will be ruined. It's always better to be a hip contrarian as that's going to be edgier.

And three HR, he needs help creating runs. He'd still be standing on third when the inning ended more often than not. I mean, no doubt he'd be helpful, but he'd be mostly adding to the times everyone turns off the TV because they leave runners stranded. I don't think he'd be increasing the win percentage by as much as people think.

I'm not writing this trade off yet. Even if it turns into a 'win' for the Marlins, Lopez and his extension also provides a historical need for this team in rotation stability. But even if the Twins had kept Arraez, they might have a couple more wins, but I can guarantee the level of frustration with this club would actually be even higher, than it is now. Arraez ONLY hits singles, and he'd be batting at the top of the order. This team continues to demonstrate a historically inept inability to drive runners in to score. Even if he was hitting in the high .300's, he doesn't get extra base hits or steal bases; the Twins would just be stranding more baserunners, which is what drives everyone crazy. The extra runs the team would score with Arraez would likely be the few RBI he gets hitting at the top of the order, which wouldn't be many considering Michael Taylor's .258 OBP.