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nicksaviking

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Everything posted by nicksaviking

  1. nicksaviking
    I believe in the Yankees interest, despite the prospects they have coming up; that team is in desperation mode. I don't believe LA as much. They seem to really like 'their guys' and I'd guess they'd rather retain Turner. I do want Correa back, but of the four free agent shortstops, he does seem like the one who'd be most resistant to moving off of SS when that inevitable time comes. And that time is probably coming sooner rather than later for all of them. If you could get one of the others at 2/3rd the price with the understanding that SS isn't their forever home, that might work out pretty well in the long run.
  2. nicksaviking
    Jorge Lopez may have been the best reliever in the league until the Twins traded for him. Diaz was only average in 2021 and he was awful in 2019. Relieves are flakey and unpredictable, what makes you think he'll be good in 2023?
  3. nicksaviking
    I think we can put a lid on deGrom, Verlander and Kershaw. Those guys have already made their big money, are at the end of their careers, and currently play for three of the best teams in the league. These guys rarely chase the top dollar; they'll chose a destination based on contention and/or geography. I'd like Rodon, but since he's the cream of the crop this year, there will be teams that give him deals longer than we know the Twins will offer. The Twins might be right not to offer a long term deal, but I'd like them to try it just once. If they can't bring in one of the top SS, they should be all in on Rodon; this team doesn't have roster space or needs for a half dozen free agents, just do a few. Quality over quantity.
  4. nicksaviking
    Yeah, there's way more of this type of pitcher available this offseason than normal, likely because most teams have wised up to giving these guys multi year deals lately so most are just constantly rolling over on 1 and 2 year deals each off season. Anyway, with this glut, none of them will have any leverage. A couple might find a dopey team like the Rockies or Angels to give them a player friendly deal, but I agree with you, most will get less. Many will get much, much less. Sorry Ricky Nolasco, this isn't 2013 anymore.
  5. nicksaviking
    You see a lot of MLB players demanding trades? Maybe it's happened recently, but I don't recall reading about it. There's 1200 players on the MLB rosters, It's unlikely that Sonny Gray is the most disgruntled of them all. He only averaged facing one extra batter a start his last two years in Cincinnati, it's not like the Twins were a colossal outlier for him; they basically used him the same way. And the Twins pitching strategy seems to change year-to-year and pitcher-to-pitcher. No one knows how they'll use him or the other starters next season. Besides, I wouldn't want to sign a 33-year-old pitcher to an extension anyway. 2023 seems to be about the exact right time to walk away from this union.
  6. nicksaviking
    That's an interesting thought. A move to the pen would likely bump up his velocity, and based on how the Twins have operated the last few years, they'd probably have him drop that sinker in favor of more four seamers and sliders to bump up the strike out numbers.
  7. nicksaviking
    Senga, or let the young arms pitch. These types of pitchers always feel like boring but reasonable depth until they stink it up in April, or even worse, pitch poorly, but not quite poorly enough to pull the plug early. The rule of thumb should be that if a free agent pitcher starts losing the ability to strike guys out, RUN. It's almost certainly all downhill from there. And without looking, I'd guess just about every one of these guys has seen his K rates plummet in the last year or so. There's a reason that year after year, other teams let their pitch-to-contact pitchers hit free agency much more frequently than the pitchers still missing bats. They have an idea about what's in store for these guys.
  8. nicksaviking
    Yeah, even if you take the money and the contract length out of the equation, more often than not, the pitcher's best years come BEFORE he hits free agency, not after.
  9. nicksaviking
    The shortstop market looks to be similar to last year. Four good looking players and absolutely nothing else. The Twins played the game and won once, they could and should do it again even if it means doubling, tripling or quadrupling down. They have nothing to spend their money on in the foreseeable future except for pitching, which they've repeatedly demonstrated is against their philosophy. I'm glad that Polanco was brought up, because he and his subpar defense were manning SS the last two times the Twins won the division. I don't want him back there, but elite defense at short is a nice luxury, while a middle of the order bat is much more essential. And no, I don't think there's much difference between above average defense and good defense. The idea of an Andrelton Simmons or Pedro Florimon starting at SS sounds good in April but by May everyone's grumbling.
  10. nicksaviking
    They won one last year, and if they DON'T win one this year, payroll is probably going to be about 110M, which I don't think neither the fans nor the Pohlad's would deem acceptable. In any case, they better not be trading for a glove only SS, they can pick those up on the cheap any time of year. A SS with a .620 OPS isn't going to win you many more games than a SS with a .520 OPS. They might as well just have kept Palacios if they were going this route.
  11. nicksaviking
    This is MLB, not the NBA, Gray won't get a trade just because he wants one.
  12. nicksaviking
    I think I'd rather do Urshela. At least his bat is somewhat passable, and he's already under contract. Also, while I know knee injuries aren't the end of the world for hitters, I think everyone is making too many assumptions about Lewis' timeframe to return. The team likely won't have a reasonable ETA on his recovery until AFTER they need to make a decision about SS next year.
  13. nicksaviking
    If they can't get one of the top four shortstops, and I think they do want one, then I don't want any free agent shortstops; the rest are not starter material. Doesn't seem there's been much talk of sliding Urshela over until a young guy is ready. He seemed capable of manning the position in NY.
  14. nicksaviking
    I don't care to rank them, I'm just happy to see they both exceeded expectations. I know this won't go over well in all corners, but with the converted starters Duran and Jax being the best part of the 2022 bullpen, I'm looking forward to seeing them try that trick again in 2023 with some combination of Ober, Winder, Varland, SWR, Henriquez and Sands. Not that the team should wash their hands of any of them as starters (except Sands, he's bullpen material), but there likely won't be room for most or any of them to start the year in the rotation.
  15. nicksaviking
    Watched it with my wife. Strangely, the first episode seemed isolated as all the rest jumped between time periods while the first one was pretty focused on that one incident. Agree with Evan Peters, but otherwise, nothing seemed revelatory; this was all stuff me and my classmates knew and morbidly chided each other with back in my school days. The one thing I didn't recall was Dahmer being a buff workout hound. I'm wondering if that was accurate or if Peters is doing a superhero bod for an upcoming Marvel project. A bit intense at times, but nothing too gory. Some graphic descriptions, but almost all of it was off screen. The grossest part of the show was the name though. Dahmer: Monster - The Jeffery Dahmer Story? Dumb. Sounds like a joke title from a spoof comedy.
  16. nicksaviking
    Well don't hold us in suspense, what was that number?!?!?
  17. nicksaviking
    I'd be on board with finding a good bat in free agency, but not Benentendi. He has no power and has been a disappointment most of his career. Even this year when he "broke out", he only had a .772 OPS. Benentendi actually reminds me a lot of Kepler with all the promise but none of the delivery.
  18. nicksaviking
    I don't know, I really don't think the Pohald's are aiming for that these days. 2017 was the last time they were a bottom 10 payroll team and before that it was 2014. I know it's not popular to say that out loud, but while payroll isn't at our preferred level, they are much better and much more consistent than most of the non-large market clubs. The one caveat to my pitch is that if they absolutely CANNOT lure one of the top four shortstops here (OK, that's a pretty sizable caveat I guess), yeah, payroll will likely be down quite a bit. But I guess that'd be fine by me, because the last thing I want this club to do is go back to nickel and diming free agency. I really dislike when they spend the money on a half dozen barely above replacement level vets. Get a Donaldson or Correa again, don't get a bunch of Happs and Castros and Simmons'. The young internal options tend to end up better than those kinds of players.
  19. nicksaviking
    Depending on how the offseason goes, I may not want Kepler back regardless of the price tag. I'm not saying he doesn't have value, but there's lots of young guys who need playing time and at least offensively, they all have significantly higher ceilings than Kepler.
  20. nicksaviking
    Well there are only four startable free agent shortstops and they will all have a very high price tag. I expect the Twins to go after them, however, if they miss, whatever AAAA fodder that ends up starting the year at shortstop won't be there because they didn't look hard enough. There's just nothing else available.
  21. nicksaviking
    The team has already shown it doesn't feel comfortable with long term deals for pitchers. The only other obvious holes are SS and catcher and there's only one good catcher and he's 31-years-old. My bet all along has been that they'll get one of the shortstops. I think it's much less likely, but the Twins have always been a landing pad for well-respected but aging hitters. Maybe the Twins would be interested in trying to snipe Jose Abreu from their rivals to do the Thome/Cruz/Winfield/Molitor bit. It wouldn't make much sense roster-wise, but it's always fun to kick Chicago where it hurts.
  22. nicksaviking
    Mortgage their future? They gave up quantity, not quality. They traded one low end top 100 prospects and a bunch of lotto tickets for what everyone considered three of the best available pitchers on the trading block. The effort made at the trade deadline may have been the HIGHLIGHT of the year, even if it didn't pan out.
  23. nicksaviking
    I would have liked to see Varland and SWR get more starts this year, but at least Varland is sitting in pretty much the same spot as Ryan was last year. As disappointing as the pitching was overall, the last several weeks at least seemed to show a much brighter future for the pitching options heading into 2023 than it was during mid season.
  24. nicksaviking
    While I like the idea of Zac Gallen in theory, he and his UCL issues would go over in Twins Territory about as well as a used diaper on a Taco Bell menu. That is, half the patrons would recoil in terror and the other half would just accept it as being standard fare for the organization. Also, I thought Dior was a perfume, so most of this conversation is way over my head.
  25. nicksaviking
    Boras can be ruthless, but he does what his clients want. If Correa has a particular preferred destination or two, and most people would, he'll leverage the other teams against those destinations and try to get his client there. Boras is the best at his job. Honestly, if Correa really does like it in Minnesota, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, Boras is more likely than any other agent to get the Twins to come around to Correa's terms.
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