Minnesota Twins Talk

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/2017-18-top-50-mlb-free-agents-with-predictions.html Has Twins going 4/48 with Cobb and 3/21 with Nicasio. I would be happy with that.

Well, not the best news of the day... And from the Strib too. Here's to a speedy recovery!

Offseason 2017 Blueprint Remove from 40 man roster Buddy Boshers Michael Tonkin Nik Turley 3 Fringe Relievers that are replaceable try to resign turley but that’s it. Niko Goodrum Kennys Vargas Hasn’t proven enough in last few years Non Tender Chris Gimenez Garver is better offense choice and cheaper Trade Robbie Grossman Randy Rosario and Phil Hughes to the Phillies (or other low payroll team) for A ball prospect. Salary dump Trade Kyle Gibson to the Orioles for a lottery Ticket player. Not buying his last few starts. Better pitchers in FA Add to 40 Man Rule 5 Stephen Gonsalves Given Zach Littell Given Jake Reed Given Lewis Thorpe Still believe in his future …

Seems to me there are few camps in the debate over what the Twins should do about the Starting Pitching: 1) Sign a FA (or 2) that fit the budget and is hopefully better than last years starters 2) Trade for a young, controllable, established Ace with prospects of unknown potential, but fair to high rankings in the minors, along with a MLB starter or 2 3) Roll with the young prospects and continue wishing and hoping they are more than the Real Deal 4) Sign (not just attempt) a Free Agent that has shown shutdown, Cy Young performance in the past These all have been, and will continue to be discussed, debated and moderated until next April ad nauseam So, having gathere…

Nice article at TwinkieTown about going after Maddux, the recently fired Nats pitching coach. Myjah notes that Levine worked with him for 7 seasons in Texas. Makes sense. https://www.twinkietown.com/2017/10/20/16510192/mlb-minnesota-twins-should-go-after-mike-maddux-pitching-coach-nationals

I did a bit of arithmetic to try to convert the change in defensive runs saved from last year (-25) to this year (+50). Using the Pythagorean wins share formula, I found: Actual With 75 For 815 815 Against 788 863 Pythag 51.7% 47.1% 4.5% Wins 83.7 76.4 7.4 Actual runs against were 788. If they allowed 75 more runs against, their predicted win percentage would have fallen from 51.7% to 47.1% (4.5% fall) which translates into a 7.4 win differential.

LaVelle E Neal wrote and article in the Star-Tribune this morning with the list of 2017 Twins Diamond Awards. http://www.startribune.com/brian-dozier-is-twins-mvp-again-and-ervin-santana-named-top-pitcher/452786053/ Here are the winners: Brian Dozier: Calvin R. Griffith Award as team MVP, Bob Allison Award for determination and leadership on and off the field Ervin Santana: Joseph W. Haynes Award as the Twins' pitcher of the year Trevor Hildenberger: Bill Boni Award as the team's rookie of the year Byron Buxton: Jim Kaat Award, team's defensive player of the year Chris Gimenez: Mike Augustin "Media Good Guy" Award Joe Mauer: Dick Siebert Award for Upper Mi…

Guess who was a Molitor teammate on the Brewers? Chris Bosio. He was just let go by the Cubs and Molitor looked at getting him on his staff three years ago. Bosio was a Brewer from 86 to 92. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21101785/chicago-cubs-fire-pitching-coach-chris-bosio

How about Ichiro to platoon with Kepler? I know he's left handed, but he hits lefties better than righties. Wouldn't need much playing time. Veteran presence. Pretty darn cheap. Maybe signing him would give the Twins a chance to lure Otani to Minnesota.

Tommy Reinking of Twinkie Town wrote an article after compiling research about home grown Twins players and the WAR they've produced for the team. It should be no surprise that the Twins have much better success developing hitters over pitchers. The pitching chart is pretty sad to look at. The team hasn't had a group of home grown pitchers average over 1.0 WAR per player since 2009. It's possible that the current group we're hoping for in the minors bucks that trend. But I'm sure there were other hot pitching names we've been hoping for over the last 14 years that never worked out.

As we're all discussing ways to improve the pitching staff, one name seems to be forgotten around here... Gerrit Cole. The Pirates are at a cross-road with their franchise. After 3 years in a row making the playoffs earlier this decade, they've failed to have a winning record the last 2 seasons. They need to decide what direction they want to go as a franchise, as some of their key players over the years are aging, and about to become free agents in the next year or 2. Gerrit Cole has 2 years of arbitration remaining before hitting the open market in 2020. He's 27 years old and has been fairly durable during his career, without any significant arm injuries in his pas…

Excluding external (outside the Twins' organizations-- major and minor) options, who would / could be the Twins' DH next year? Grossman? It's a little unusual to have a DH with an ISP (iso power) of .138. Sano / Escobar? (whoever is not playing 3B that day) Vargas? Park? (How was his second half in AAA?) Garver?? (against LHP) Someone else from AAA / AA? (Including, perhaps, Granite / Goodrum)

Over at Twinkie Town, they've found a quiz asking how many of the 2017 Twins you can name... It's kind of fun. You get like 10 minutes to come up with as many as you can name. I got 42 out of 52... I missed a couple of obvious ones, and I got some of the more random ones. How do you do? https://www.twinkietown.com/2017/10/21/16512196/can-you-name-every-player-on-the-2017-minnesota-twins-mlb-quiz-sporcle-roster

MLBTR reporting Super-2 Cut-Off at 2.123 and Rosario comes in at 2.120 3 Days costs him nearly $3M...ouch

No surprise. In fact, in his article last night, Nick noted that it was an obvious decision. Today the Twins announced that they have declined to pick up the 2018 option on Glen Perkins contract. He is now a free agent.

Here's a look at one possible 6 year scenario where the core young guns (Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Berrios, Polanco) are extended (had to save a few dollars somewhere so hoping Kepler would take an Arb Year buyout) as well as keeping the old foagies (Dozier, Mauer) around for a few more seasons Includes Free Agent signings of Kintzler and Chatwood for 3 years and a little Dead Pool Money in case anyone gets traded and salary needs to be eaten 2018 Extension Total Dollars Committed: $315M 2018 Free Agent Dollars Committed: $54M 2019 Extension Total Dollars Committed: $107.5M 2019 Joe Mauer 3 year (please get to 3000 hits contract: $30M Think of the manilla co…

The Star Tribune contacted Twins pitching coach Neil Allen at his home. Allen acknowledged that he had learned that he was fired. He thanked Paul Molitor for being good to work with and Terry Ryan for being there for him in his tough times. While he won't be given much credit for his three years with the Twins, he helped the Twins pitchers move up to 19th in pitching in two of the three seasons (which isn't great, but much better than we've seen). Here is the Strib article. http://www.startribune.com/twins-fire-pitching-coach-neil-allen-after-three-years/450155373/

I keep reading that a team shouldn't sign FA pitchers, because they don't always work out. Or, that a team shouldn't trade "real" prospects for good MLB pitchers because you can't sustain a team if you trade your prospects. Here are the Twins' starters the last three years, that are not legit FA pitchers.....(that's ERA, if I knew how to post a table.....I'd show more)....so, it's not like going with AA, AAA, AAAA or cheap filler FA or trading low end guys for flyers actually works..... 2017 Jose Berrios 3.93 2017 Kyle Gibson 5.07 2017 Adalberto Mejia 4.5 2017 Bartolo Colon 5.18 2017 Jaime Garcia 4.05 2017 Hector Santiago 5.45 2017 Aaron Slegers 5.52 2017 Dillon Gee 7…

The Twins should try and acquire Chris Archer from TB. The offer would be Rosario or Kepler, Nick Gordon and some minor league pitcher from AA or A ball. Then if they could pull that off, they should try to sign FA J D Martinez to fill the void left by Rosario/Kepler. This would give them a veteran masher to bat 4th or 5th, plus Archer, who has a pretty friendly contract. I know, either one of these transactions is just dreaming, but it would be nice if you could pull it off. Realistically, I think Alex Cobb from TB, would be a good FA target for the rotation.

This article has lots of information about what the front office is targeting, including a possible reunion with Brandon Kintzler. http://www.twincities.com/2017/10/13/next-twins-pitching-coach-must-find-ways-to-miss-bats/ "The Twins’ primary closers in 2017, traded all-star Brandon Kintzler and fellow right-hander Matt Belisle, have career swinging-strike rates around 8 percent while league average for relievers is 11.6 percent. The Twins have interest in signing both as free agents this winter, but they also figure to target personnel with a penchant for missing bats." Comments?

All the talk about affording the Future Twins got me started messing around with a Google Spreadsheet that I'll share here Twins Payroll Tool You will need to make a copy of the File to be able to make changes Only Free Agents (including those with Opt Out and Options) along with most 40-man Twins are included with Salary info I was able to find To change players just start typing name of Twin or Free Agent you want for each position, Select there name and the Salary Info will fill in (Tip: Type in 2B and only those with 2B designation will show) If you want to enter your own contract info, for say Buxton, use the IM THE GM tab and manually enter your Proposed C…

heh....that title might be obtuse on purpose....there are 50 names here. I will endeavor to analyze them throughout the day and next week.... Right-Handed Relievers Matt Albers (35) Al Alburquerque (32) John Axford (35) Andrew Bailey (34) Tony Barnette (34) — $4MM club option with a $250K buyout Matt Belisle (38) Joaquin Benoit (40) Blaine Boyer (36) Trevor Cahill (30) Jesse Chavez (34) Tyler Clippard (33) Steve Cishek (32) Wade Davis (32) Neftali Feliz (30) Dillon Gee (32) Jeanmar Gomez (30) Luke Gregerson (34) Jason Grilli (41) David Hernandez (33) Greg Holland (32) — $15MM player option Tommy Hunter (31) Craig Kimbrel (30) — $13MM club option with a $1MM buyout Brand…

The tape says it all ...

from mbltraderumors: Brett Anderson (30) (why would anyone sign him and expect him to be good?) Jake Arrieta (32) (too expensive for his production?) Clay Buchholz (33) (uh, no) Madison Bumgarner (28) — $12MM club option with a $1.5M buyout (not going to be a FA) Trevor Cahill (30) (if this is what they sign, good luck) Matt Cain (33) — $21MM club option with a $7.5MM buyout (NL starter with an ERA over 5 three straight years) Andrew Cashner (31) (no idea, but he wasn't terrible this year) Jhoulys Chacin (30) (first good year in 3 years) Tyler Chatwood (28) (a flyer maybe, but I bet he stays in CO, would you bet on him as your big acquisition?) Jesse Chavez (34) (no tha…

So this is really more of a fantasy thread since I'm pretty sure the Twins plan for next year is to have Sano start at third and if/when he can't handle the position, move him to DH and give the UI (probably Escobar) the majority of starts at third. And that makes sense and I'm not really against it. BUT, what would other options be? The defensive metrics didn't love Escobar or Sano but both sorta played third base to a draw. They weren't horrible but they probably aren't getting better and might get substantially worse. Crazy idea 1 - So what about Mike's idea of moving Dozier to third? That frees up an infield spot for Nick Gordon. Dozier's bat would play at third…

Thoughts? Who did I overrate and who did I underrate? https://wgom.org/2017/10/09/one-mans-opinion-of-the-top-300-twins-of-all-time-updated-through-2017/

So, here are my picks for Regression: Starters: Ervin Santana - He's the most obvious. Getting older and coming off of a career year. (I believe Big Sexy will retire, so I didn't consider him) Relief: Matt Belisle - Another aging player who showed he was capable of poor performance during the early part of 2017. Might have one good season left in him, but the most obvious nominee for regression on the staff. Starting Nine: Tougher Choice here. Looks like Joe Mauer has regained his stroke, along with excellent fielding - so Joe is not my nominee. Hard to bet against Dozier, too. So, I'll pick Eddie Rosario - just because there will be some regression somewhere in th…

Some of you enjoyed the Nick Punto episode that we put up on the Moonlight Graham Show last week so I thought I would make a plug for my latest interview with Todd Sears. You may remember him as the 1B that we got for Todd Walker and Butch Huskey who hit a walk-off bomb against the royals in 2002. He ultimately got buried behind Mientkiewicz and Morneau in the pecking order and then got injured. Todd was really generous and relaxed. It was interesting to talk about life after baseball with a guy that was kind of a Crash Davis. You can find the interview on iTunes, Stitcher, etc.. - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-moonlight-graham-show/e/51756957?autoplay=true

We will spend the next four plus months examing the roster, moves we'd like to see, moves that are actually made, etc. But I thought an early look at the 2018 payroll situation was warranted at this point. From what I can gather, the Twins opening day payroll ranked 22nd in MLB at $108+. The top payroll, opening day, belonged to the Dodgers at just over $242M. The bottom team was the Brewers at just over $63M. The Royals were dead center at 15 with just shy of $141M. Now, there really is no true mean when you have discrepancies for teams in huge market areas and 30 teams to discuss and debate. And I think we're all educated enough to understand the Twins are really not …

The Twins are airing video of the Paul Molitor Press Conference. Here is the link on their facebook site. https://www.facebook.com/Twins/videos/10155758259189841/