Rumor: Kepler Staying?

[nicksaviking]

14 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins know what Kepler can do as a baseline. Players like Larnach, Kirilloff, and Wallner all seem like good options but the team has, at minimum, some doubt. The depth is a good. The Twins absolutely do not need to trade Kepler for some guy they release within a year. 

 

That baseline is nowhere near acceptable for a starting RF though. The unknown is a better option than the known when the known can no longer hit.

Keep him as depth, but don’t start him. They cut bait with Rosario after a down season with a .792 OPS. Kepler hasn’t sniffed that kind of production in four years.

[tony&rodney]

20 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

That baseline is nowhere near acceptable for a starting RF though. The unknown is a better option than the known when the known can no longer hit.

Keep him as depth, but don’t start him. They cut bait with Rosario after a down season with a .792 OPS. Kepler hasn’t sniffed that kind of production in four years.

Baldelli has a job and he will need to make the proper decisions. That's all we can hope for.

An outfield of Cave, Contreras, and Celestino .... I wanted them to do well ..... but I feel the depth looks better now.

[Paul Walerius]

On 2/2/2023 at 4:48 PM, CRF said:

Something has to happen with Kep, or one of the other OF's. We have too many left handed hitting OF's. It kind of looks like our FO believes that Kep's trade value is worth more than potential interested teams do, and are asking too much for him. Still time to make moves. Waiting until the deadline is too late. They need to do something before the season starts. 

Nothing HAS to happen.   The younger guys have options.    I don't know that the FO over valued Kep.  I do believe some fans/writers overvalued him.   But this could just be posturing as well.   If they have a team that is interested in him but won't meet your "demands" in a trade.  You say you are keeping and see how desperate they are. 

[bloggymcbloggerson]

despite what a lot of people say, there's no reason to give away a guy a guy with nearly 3,500 league average career plate appearances to make room for two prospects who are great but have been injured and two outfielders with big-time swing-and-miss in their profiles (gallo and baby gallo matt wallner).

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, bloggymcbloggerson said:

despite what a lot of people say, there's no reason to give away a guy a guy with nearly 3,500 league average career plate appearances to make room for two prospects who are great but have been injured and two outfielders with big-time swing-and-miss in their profiles (gallo and baby gallo matt wallner).

League average plate appearances for a RF? No. Not close. Gallo was better than Max last year.....

[Mike Sixel]

14 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

That baseline is nowhere near acceptable for a starting RF though. The unknown is a better option than the known when the known can no longer hit.

Keep him as depth, but don’t start him. They cut bait with Rosario after a down season with a .792 OPS. Kepler hasn’t sniffed that kind of production in four years.

Excellent post.

[bloggymcbloggerson]

29 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

League average plate appearances for a RF? No. Not close. Gallo was better than Max last year.....

he most certainly was not. 

1. i was talking about kepler's career (101 wRC+)

2. kepler last year had a 95 wRC+, gallo was at 85

[chpettit19]

18 hours ago, Matthew Lenz said:

Imagine a world where Kepler’s offense isn’t saved by the shift being banned, Buxton misses significant time (again), and 2022 Joey Gallo wasn’t a fluke. Woof.

Isn't that kind of the exact point of their current plan? Instead of having just those 3 guys they have Taylor, Larnach, Kirilloff, Gordon, Martin, Lewis, and Wallner as possibilities. I don't think they have any expectation that the shift ban will lead to Kepler's offense being "saved." I don't think they're expecting Gallo to go back to being Texas Gallo, but they're hoping he's somewhere in between which is a MLB worthy cOFer. 

2 WAR out of Kepler (he's been worth that each of the last 2 years even while he's been bad at the plate), 4 out of Buxton (he's been worth that each of the last 2 years even while missing significant time), and 2 WAR out of Gallo (that's between his 4 WAR 2021 and .6 WAR 2022) gives them 8 WAR out of those 3. That would've put them in the top 12 OFs in baseball in 2022. They accumulated 7.8 WAR to finish 13th last year with Cave, Tim Beckham, Celestino, Contreras, and Billy Hamilton getting ABs in their OF. 

So a pretty reasonable estimate on those 3 is 8 WAR, or a top 12 OF. And their primary backups are no longer AAA or AAAA at best players, but guys with legitimate arguments for being MLB players (plus Martin). Gordon had 1.5 WAR last year so even if Gallo doesn't get 2 he's backed up by Gordon who could get close to it. Even a trio of Buxton, Kepler, and Gordon is 7.5 WAR which would've still been 13th in baseball last year. Larnach got 1.1 WAR in only 51 games, some of which he was injured for. I'm not seeing the "woof" in this scenario.

*All WAR numbers are Fangraphs

[Matthew Lenz]

5 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Isn't that kind of the exact point of their current plan? Instead of having just those 3 guys they have Taylor, Larnach, Kirilloff, Gordon, Martin, Lewis, and Wallner as possibilities. I don't think they have any expectation that the shift ban will lead to Kepler's offense being "saved." I don't think they're expecting Gallo to go back to being Texas Gallo, but they're hoping he's somewhere in between which is a MLB worthy cOFer. 

2 WAR out of Kepler (he's been worth that each of the last 2 years even while he's been bad at the plate), 4 out of Buxton (he's been worth that each of the last 2 years even while missing significant time), and 2 WAR out of Gallo (that's between his 4 WAR 2021 and .6 WAR 2022) gives them 8 WAR out of those 3. That would've put them in the top 12 OFs in baseball in 2022. They accumulated 7.8 WAR to finish 13th last year with Cave, Tim Beckham, Celestino, Contreras, and Billy Hamilton getting ABs in their OF. 

So a pretty reasonable estimate on those 3 is 8 WAR, or a top 12 OF. And their primary backups are no longer AAA or AAAA at best players, but guys with legitimate arguments for being MLB players (plus Martin). Gordon had 1.5 WAR last year so even if Gallo doesn't get 2 he's backed up by Gordon who could get close to it. Even a trio of Buxton, Kepler, and Gordon is 7.5 WAR which would've still been 13th in baseball last year. Larnach got 1.1 WAR in only 51 games, some of which he was injured for. I'm not seeing the "woof" in this scenario.

*All WAR numbers are Fangraphs

I hope I’m wrong and tbh I’m not expecting them to all suck. Just don’t think people are realizing there is a possibility that “the plan” doesn’t work out for the third consecutive season.

Honestly not being a dick..trying to be helpful, but when you use Fangraphs you can just call it fWAR or bWAR for baseball reference.

 

[chpettit19]

10 hours ago, Matthew Lenz said:

I hope I’m wrong and tbh I’m not expecting them to all suck. Just don’t think people are realizing there is a possibility that “the plan” doesn’t work out for the third consecutive season.

Honestly not being a dick..trying to be helpful, but when you use Fangraphs you can just call it fWAR or bWAR for baseball reference.

 

I know, but I realized after I wrote it all out that I'd just written war and didn't want to go back and add f to them all so just used the disclaimer. 

I don't expect them all to be great. Buxton will be hurt. Kepler won't get any significant boost (the idea that he's going to hit 40 or 50 points higher that some suggest is crazy to me). And Gallo isn't turning back into an all star. I don't think they're banking on significant improvements from those 3. They'd enjoy them, but aren't expecting it. "The plan" is the youth. And if that fails it dooms the team for years. Larnach, Kirilloff, Lewis, Martin, Wallner, and/or Gordon taking Kepler and Gallo's jobs is the plan. And the need. But handing that group all starting spots destroys all depth so you have to start with some veterans. 

The scary world to imagine for me is Kirilloff's career basically ending because his wrist simply won't work. Larnach being hurt again, and not claiming a starting spot. Gordon turning back into a pumpkin. Lewis not being the same athlete, and thus losing his star potential. Martin being regular season Martin, and not AFL Martin. And Wallner being Gallo with the bat but no defense. Now that's scary.

[NotAboutWinning]

32 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

The scary world to imagine for me is Kirilloff's career basically ending because his wrist simply won't work. Larnach being hurt again, and not claiming a starting spot. Gordon turning back into a pumpkin. Lewis not being the same athlete, and thus losing his star potential. Martin being regular season Martin, and not AFL Martin. And Wallner being Gallo with the bat but no defense. Now that's scary.

Yikes!!!

[Riverbrian]

41 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

The scary world to imagine for me is Kirilloff's career basically ending because his wrist simply won't work. Larnach being hurt again, and not claiming a starting spot. Gordon turning back into a pumpkin. Lewis not being the same athlete, and thus losing his star potential. Martin being regular season Martin, and not AFL Martin. And Wallner being Gallo with the bat but no defense. Now that's scary.

[stringer bell]

There is a lot of room and a lot of players between "all" (three All-Star level performances) and failure (an outfield of Contreras, Cave and a not-ready Wallner). About nine outfielders are in contention for three positions and DH. If every single one of them don't reach expectations, this truly will be a lost season. I expect, with this many candidates, that the Twins will have some not perform to expectations, but a few who do. 

Because of the injuries suffered in the past two years, the Twins aren't going all in on three of their home-grown number one draft choices--Buxton, Kirilloff and Larnach--and this makes sense given the time this trio has missed since the COVID year. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm pretty much over Max Kepler and the acquisition of Joey Gallo isn't my favorite but going all in on "the best defensive outfield alignment in MLB" isn't the absolute worst idea ever.

I just wish it wasn't built around two infuriating-to-watch lefty bats.

[Matthew Lenz]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

I know, but I realized after I wrote it all out that I'd just written war and didn't want to go back and add f to them all so just used the disclaimer. 

I don't expect them all to be great. Buxton will be hurt. Kepler won't get any significant boost (the idea that he's going to hit 40 or 50 points higher that some suggest is crazy to me). And Gallo isn't turning back into an all star. I don't think they're banking on significant improvements from those 3. They'd enjoy them, but aren't expecting it. "The plan" is the youth. And if that fails it dooms the team for years. Larnach, Kirilloff, Lewis, Martin, Wallner, and/or Gordon taking Kepler and Gallo's jobs is the plan. And the need. But handing that group all starting spots destroys all depth so you have to start with some veterans. 

The scary world to imagine for me is Kirilloff's career basically ending because his wrist simply won't work. Larnach being hurt again, and not claiming a starting spot. Gordon turning back into a pumpkin. Lewis not being the same athlete, and thus losing his star potential. Martin being regular season Martin, and not AFL Martin. And Wallner being Gallo with the bat but no defense. Now that's scary.

Thanks for the nightmares 😂

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, NotAboutWinning said:

Yikes!!!

 

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

 

20 minutes ago, Matthew Lenz said:

Thanks for the nightmares 😂

Just wanted to get everyone's Sunday started on a high note of hope and possibility! 

[Fatbat]

On 2/2/2023 at 3:06 PM, JD-TWINS said:

By the trade deadline we may be psyched about Max hitting .260 & his 55 RBI & 12 HR……..& ready to trade Gallo to anyone that will take him!!! Joey is definitely a glove first guy.

Fingers crossed!

Gallo might have 23 hr’s by the trade deadline and a .260 ba

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 2/2/2023 at 3:02 PM, LA VIkes Fan said:

Oh, the humanity! Looks like the classic thing a team would say when they would like to trade a guy and can't get enough value on the market. "We like him and adds value to us". My bet is that they tried to trade him, couldn't get much for him, and have decided to wait and see if the market comes to them through an injury or another team striking out in free agency. We didn't sign Gallo to have him play LF or 1B and then sign Taylor to be the backup CF all so we could put Kirilloff, Gordon and/or Larnach on the bench. We signed them because we thought we cold trade Kepler for MLB value. It looks like we can't get that value so far, so plan B is to use him as part of an OF/1B group and as a backstop in case Kirilloff can't go.   

The real issue if he stays is whether we play him at the expense of a Larncah, Gordon and/or Kirilloff. We know what Max is - very meh. Are those three better? Gordon was last year by a pretty wide margin, but that's one year. Who knows on Larnach or Kirilloff? One thing we do know is that we won't know on any of those 3 if they don't get to play. And if Kepler stays and Rocco plays him everyday like he has in the past at least 1 or 2 of them won't get to play much. 

That's my response to those of you who say "we have room, why not keep him",  This isn't a cost free decision, there is a real opportunity cost to keeping Kepler on the roster and using thim the way Rocco has in the past. Doing that moves back the development of Larnach and Gordon for yet another year. To me, that's potentially problematic because this team wasn't good enough last year to contend and one of the  big problems was the offense, We have to get better and getting someone better than Kepler to play every day in the outfield is an obvious way for us to get better offensive production. We lose that opportunity if we keep him. I'm not saying just give him away, but we should seriously be trying to trade him. My prediction is we do we eventually do so.

By wRC+ Gordon was the second best OF on the team last year, by fWAR he was 3rd, and played 138 games. Larnach and Gordon are the two guys I want to see most at the corners of the OF in ST. If they can’t win a spot, so be it, but a 111 wRC+ looks a whole lot more appealing in LF than 85 or 95, even if those we’ll below average numbers come with better fielding.

[LA VIkes Fan]

Well said, Richie. 

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

By wRC+ Gordon was the second best OF on the team last year, by fWAR he was 3rd, and played 138 games. Larnach and Gordon are the two guys I want to see most at the corners of the OF in ST. If they can’t win a spot, so be it, but a 111 wRC+ looks a whole lot more appealing in LF than 85 or 95, even if those we’ll below average numbers come with better fielding.

Pitchers may love it but three players in one outfield with WAR metrics primarily generated by defense is an offensively scary thing for me. 

 

[Major League Ready]

11 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

The scary world to imagine for me is Kirilloff's career basically ending because his wrist simply won't work. Larnach being hurt again, and not claiming a starting spot. Gordon turning back into a pumpkin. Lewis not being the same athlete, and thus losing his star potential. Martin being regular season Martin, and not AFL Martin. And Wallner being Gallo with the bat but no defense. Now that's scary.

We have about 10 young players / prospects that are here or AAA that have a big gap between floor and ceiling.  It's scary but exciting too.  I will be pulling hard for Kirilloff.  He could be a fixture in the middle of the lineup for several years or be a complete non-factor.  We all loved what we saw in Lewis but he is traveling a tough path.  We have a couple guys that are yet to make it in Canterino and Balazovic who could be great or never see a MBL field.  How big would it be for those two to put it together this year?

[stringer bell]

59 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

We have about 10 young players / prospects that are here or AAA that have a big gap between floor and ceiling.  It's scary but exciting too.  I will be pulling hard for Kirilloff.  He could be a fixture in the middle of the lineup for several years or be a complete non-factor.  We all loved what we saw in Lewis but he is traveling a tough path.  We have a couple guys that are yet to make it in Canterino and Balazovic who could be great or never see the major leagues.  How big would it be for those two to put it together this year?

I think every team has a number of players that are in the unproven range due to injuries, but I think the Twins have more than most. To expect to "hit" on all is overly optimistic, but to expect someone to break through seems realistic. I think the biggest question mark is Kirilloff and 2023 might be a make-or-break year for him. 

 

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

I think every team has a number of players that are in the unproven range due to injuries, but I think the Twins have more than most. To expect to "hit" on all is overly optimistic, but to expect someone to break through seems realistic. I think the biggest question mark is Kirilloff and 2023 might be a make-or-break year for him. 

 

It's going to be really interesting to watch and very exciting if we get fortunate in terms of the percentage that work out.  

[nicksaviking]

21 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

We have about 10 young players / prospects that are here or AAA that have a big gap between floor and ceiling.  It's scary but exciting too.  I will be pulling hard for Kirilloff.  He could be a fixture in the middle of the lineup for several years or be a complete non-factor.  We all loved what we saw in Lewis but he is traveling a tough path.  We have a couple guys that are yet to make it in Canterino and Balazovic who could be great or never see a MBL field.  How big would it be for those two to put it together this year?

And the Twins have had just as much luck, if not more luck, in getting the less heralded offensive prospects to perform. I'm looking forward to seeing where the guys who played in Wichita last year end up. Everyone's excited about Brooks Lee, and people still talk about Austin Martin, but Edouard Julian, Jair Camargo, Anothy Prato, Alex Isola and Yunior Severino were all hitting well in AA. That's five under-the-radar guys that could get looks this year if they keep producing.

[Florida Flash]

Does Kep flat out refuse to even attempt to go the the left side, even bunt, or is he simply incapable of doing it??? A few bunts up the third base line with the third baseman by second would a stopped the overload to right.

[stringer bell]

5 hours ago, Florida Flash said:

Does Kep flat out refuse to even attempt to go the the left side, even bunt, or is he simply incapable of doing it??? A few bunts up the third base line with the third baseman by second would a stopped the overload to right.

In looking at their spray charts, Kepler had more opposite field singles than Buxton and also more ground ball to the oppo side than Buck. Neither of them had a bunt single. On the other hand, it looks like Kepler must have grounded out about 100 times to the right side with about a half dozen grounders that slipped through the infield.

[bighat]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:37 PM, Trov said:

The way I see it is no deal was out there that the Twins found to be of good value for them.  

Agreed. Kepler's value is about as low as its ever been, so trading him now just doesn't make any sense. 

[nicksaviking]

4 hours ago, bighat said:

Agreed. Kepler's value is about as low as its ever been, so trading him now just doesn't make any sense. 

It wouldn't make sense as far as getting equity is concerned.

But if one had the opinion that his absence would improve the roster, that would make sense. Not saying that it necessarily would, but I'm also not saying it necessarily won't if he doesn't show a dramatic offensive improvement early in the season.

[Major League Ready]

45 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

It wouldn't make sense as far as getting equity is concerned.

But if one had the opinion that his absence would improve the roster, that would make sense. Not saying that it necessarily would, but I'm also not saying it necessarily won't if he doesn't show a dramatic offensive improvement early in the season.

He seems like a good candidate to get traded to a team in playoff contention that sustains an injury in the first couple of months.  

[nicksaviking]

13 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

He seems like a good candidate to get traded to a team in playoff contention that sustains an injury in the first couple of months.  

Maybe, but teams are much less eager to take on salary in-season. The Twins might have to eat most of it. Which is fine by me if it's fine by them.

And honestly, he's probably still here because no other team found the remaining 9.5M salary reasonable. Particularly since you can still get David Peralta, Robbie Grossman, Tyler Naquin, Ben Gamel or Kole Calhoun for a fraction of that.