nicksaviking

I know I've got some mental blocks with this stuff, but paying a guy 60M over four years who can't hit 90 MPH makes me queasy. If he can't strike anyone out, he shouldn't be on the team. He's a big name but that doesn't make him a good fit. If the rest of the league didn't agree he'd already be signed; no one's holding him up now, the top free agent pitcher was signed months ago. It's the same reason Lynn and Cobb went for way less than projected and/or had to wait into spring training to sign last year. If a pitcher has to rely on his infield to get all of his outs because he can't get them on his own, he's much less valuable. All outs are not equal and based on trend of sinkerball pitchers on the free agent market the last several years, the teams feel the same. And unless they come up with some new outfield-less shift, I don't know how Buxton and company are going to take away many hits. Only 24% of his outs were flyballs last year. Every batter will be taking aim at the dirt right between Sano and Polanco.

He's a groundball machine and the Twins have Sano and Polanco making up half of the infield. I don't think he's been a top end pitcher in three years, but what ever he was, he is not a fit with the defensive makeup of this team. He led the league in Hits given up last year, I can't imagine how many he would have given up had he been on the Twins.

I don't want anyone rubbing Berrios' right shoulder except for the trainer. Keep it safe and far away from the starry-eyed mob of youngsters!

There are still free agents I want, but I don't want them now. Well, maybe Harper and Machado on a long term deal, but nobody else. It's not just the Twins, it seems that nearly everyone who signs late struggles or is resentful. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but it's too late now. Waiting to sign a guy until he relents and accepts a below market offer needs to have a deadline of before pitchers and catcher report.

Obviously an injury shouldn't increase a player's value, because objectively that's ludicrous. But after seeing Sano's 2015, Kirilloff's 2018 and throw in Luis Arreaz's season last year for fun, well I'm guessing the bookies are hoping everyone takes the under on Javier this year.

That should make it easier for the Twins to negotiate a more favorable TV deal. Or a much worse one I guess.

I love March home openers. It typically snows on me only about a third of the time.

Getting called up after only one full season in the minors seems like pretty unrealistic expectations. There has been one player from the 2017 draft who has gotten called up to the majors, Kyle Wright. He went 4th overall and has pitched a total of 6 innings. By these standards Keston Hiura and Brendan McKay are failures as well. Had the Twins not signed both Nelson Cruz and CJ Cron, I'd be pretty confident that the Twins would give Rooker every chance to earn a spot on the team out of spring training. Or if they were doing the service time bit, call him up a couple of weeks after the season started.

I know I've posted this before, but Rooker improved each month: K% April - 29.6 May - 28.6 June - 28.0 July - 24.2 August/Sept - 22.8 BB% April - 2.2 May - 7.0 June - 11.2 July - 13.3 August/Sept - 13.4 Heading into the draft Rooker was known to be obsessive about crafting his hitting technique, he's a great candidate to always be able to adjust. And his last month isn't much to be worried about, his strikeout and walk rates were peaking at that time but he had insanely bad luck with a .210 BABIP.

If we're trading from excess supply, it would be nice if we did it while someone was peaking, so I guess at this point I'm content waiting and crossing our fingers. It doesn't sound like any good starters are available in trade at the moment anyway. Maybe midseason when a surprise team crashes and burns.

Works for me. Early in the offseason I was up for using Kepler as an auxiliary piece in a big trade. I'm starting to buy into the post-hype hype though. He might breakout big.

Whomever worked with Kyle Gibson to improve his slider last year should be tied to the hip of Thorpe this year. I hope that guy is still on the payroll. Mid 90's or low 90's fastball, nothing is better than a lefty with a killer slider.

Also, does Twitter prevent, or just discourage journalists from using capitalization and punctuation? I mean Jon Heyman is still a journalist right? Or do you give up that moniker when you use social media to report?

The three batter minimum rule seems to be getting the most push-back, which I understand as it is the most impactful, even more so than the DH. I'd be really curious to see how it played out though. Will it make guys who can ONLY go one inning marginalized? The staple 2000's bullpen of six one inning relievers and one mop-up guy couldn't work any longer could it? Seems to me that would force teams to start carrying more traditional starters in the pen. So even without thinking about options, it would seem like guys like Romero, Gonsalves and Mejia would need to be on the big club instead of guys like Busenitz, Moya and Curtis. Would these multi-inning BP roles for young relievers turn into a defacto waiting list for starting gigs instead of waiting things out in AAA? Also, I'd have to think it would help extend the careers of aging starting pitchers. A Clay Buchholz or Ervin Santana may be a better fit than say Brad Boxberger. So aside from the decrease in strikeouts due to playing matchups, I'd think some of the guys who typically get strikeouts would be replaced by guys who don't. If you have a BP made up of more guys than not that go multiple innings will teams go back to seven man bullpens? Or dare I speak it, six? With that 26th man could teams possibly go with a five or six man bench? Also, it sure would make it more enticing to be a switch hitter again and it would decrease shifting. You'd still have shifting, but if you can't dictate righty/lefty matchups at will, it won't be happening every at bat. I might also think this would actually help the traditional use of the starters. The good starters who don't have awful RH/LH splits won't be pulled for a LOOGY in the 5th, it will be more incumbent on the team to have it's best pitcher out there, not their best pitcher against a specific batter. 200 IP might become a realistic goal again and maybe we'll see another 300 win pitcher! Plenty of questions with doing this though. Losing some strategy seems to be the biggest thing. I don't know though, current strategy would basically be shelved, but I think a more complex strategy would be developed. Would a team bait the other with a reliever to see if the other manager will use TWO of his bench players in the same inning? Do you save your best relievers for the highest pressure situation, or do you save him to face the big bench bat that you know the other manager is saving? Originally at the top of my post I said I was just playing Devi's Advocate, but then I ended up talking myself into really wanting to see how this would play out. I like trying new things, of course that's with the understanding that I'm not opposed to dropping the new thing if it doesn't work out.

Sergio Romo close to signing. Formerly in Tampa? The original "opener"? Cloak and dagger team that hasn't leaked anything? One year deal? I got my money on the Twins having a new reliever very soon. And the fans collectively groaning/shrugging about him.

Yes to all, I like trying new things. That last one sounds a bit odd though, I'd think other repercussions might help with the tanking, because getting a high draft pick is only part of the motivation. I think a lot of tanking is caused by trading off vets for prospects and getting young players experience. I think in most cases, the low record and the ensuing high draft pick are mostly just a bonus. If you want to stop tanking, make a salary floor; force teams to go get free agents to fill their needs.

Nick Blackburn, Kohl Stewart Brandon Kintzler and Matt Capps threw relatively hard too. If they're just up there throwing sinkers half of the time, they're not going to miss many bats.

I'm guessing it's less of an indictment on Castro and more of a preference for Garver. While Castro hit better than average for a catcher two years ago, Garver hit better than average for any baseball player last year.

Despite what seems like a league-wide consensus that Kimbrel is the best available reliever, I still preferred Familia, Robertson and Soria due to expected length of contracts. Still, if it's only three years, I find it next to impossible that his contract could ever be a hindrance even if he implodes.

Fingers crossed with Enlow. Still, I'm a guy more interested in strikeouts, hope those hit a significant uptick. A 6.8 K/9 in Cedar Rapids is a bit ominous to me. I'm guessing he's throwing too many two-seamers?

I thought the knock on Turner was his swing was too long, his BABIP was too high and people thought his hit tool might come up too short to get on base enough to use his speed. Anyway, his weaknesses were clearly over stated which I’d think was due to over analysis since he was great in college when he wasn’t injured. I know I bit on the negative reviews; I also wanted the shiny, new, unknown Gordon.

I think this team needs better OBP guys so I wouldn't be interested in Jones. Gonzalez looks like a shell of himself even at Coors so I think I'd skip him. Plenty of room for Marwin though, he can play infield too. Span would be interesting. While a guy like Jones is likely looking to start, Span might be more amenable to just taking a job. Being a rotational outfielder might work for him.

Great contribution, welcome aboard!

Excellent article. Surprising the Twins are on three of the five lists. Seeing as they are not in the top ten in overall spending in any of those years, I think there is a pretty solid conclusion to draw: the Twins have been awful at developing players of their own worth paying money to.

If so, I’d think that would help to open the door to greater revenue sharing which is probably going to be key in the CBA if the MLBPA is going to have any hopes of thrifty teams substantially increasing their payrolls.