The Twins 3 Most Underrated Players

I am less a fan of Max than most readers on this site.  His lifetime 237 bothers me.  He has had one good power year.  I can understand why he would not be ranked with those other studs.

Jeffers is my favorite on the list.  

Rogers is a mystery - I hope last year is a fluke.  RP have up and down years, but if last year was real we have a big hole in the BP. 

Jeffers has been underrated since he was drafted and looks poised to be a top of line catcher.  So he would be my pick.  Rooker might also be an underrated player but with so little info to go on it is hard to say.  This will be big year for him as well.

I am starting to lose faith in Rogers.  Teams seem to have figured out his approach and aren't swinging at the balls he throws inside.  He looked very hittable last year.  He either needs better placement or a new wrinkle to keep hitters more off balance.  Hopefully he find the mojo to get back to elite status.

I disagree with Max being underrated. In fact, I think the community overrates him greatly. His 2019 standout year(a year that many players had career years due to juiced balls) had him hitting a whopping 36 HRs while racking in 90 RBIs. A great .855 OPS, but a pretty underwhelming .252 AVG for a leadoff hitter. Max saw a huge regression in 2020 and to be honest, I think his numbers in 2020 aren't too far off his true value. He's a career .237 hitter with an average OPS of .763 during his 6 years with the Twins. Is he worth his contract right now? Sure. Will he be worth an extension? I don't think so. I think he is a good candidate to be traded and replaced with Trevor Larnach, who I believe has a much higher floor and ceiling than Kepler. 

 I think he is a good candidate to be traded and replaced with Trevor Larnach, who I believe has a much higher floor and ceiling than Kepler. 

This is clearly not correct - Larnach's "floor" is to never even make the big leagues. 

Great article, Cody, thanks.

I am probably a bigger fan of Kepler than anyone here or elsewhere. As I have stated previously, if Max can get his average up some and enjoy a long career I believe he will have consideration for the HOF. Why I believe his average can still improve at this age is because of where he came from and that it is still early in his baseball career. Its a heck of a lot different coming out of Germany than Florida, California, the D.R. or Venezuela.

I will give Rogers a pass on last year as I believe his involvement in the ongoing negotiations as Player Rep might have had an adverse effect on his performance. I also understand that Duffey is as stud and want the Twins to get he and Rogers signed to extensions a.s.a.p. 

This is clearly not correct - Larnach's "floor" is to never even make the big leagues. 

Ok. I believe *he will* have a higher floor and ceiling than Kepler. Happy?

Yes I am happy, thank you.  

 

For Kepler, I think we saw his floor in 2018 and his ceiling in 2019. He will reliably perform between 97 OPS+ and 123 OPS+ for the bulk of his career. This isn't bad by any means, and he's an asset to the team, but the Twins need other better players on the roster if they want to get anywhere.

I was replying to other guy's name that started with D, but yeah I agree with you about Kepler. I was just saying that I believe Larnach will have better numbers in his future career than Kepler has given the Twins.

Yes I am happy, thank you.  

 

For Kepler, I think we saw his floor in 2018 and his ceiling in 2019. He will reliably perform between 97 OPS+ and 123 OPS+ for the bulk of his career. This isn't bad by any means, and he's an asset to the team, but the Twins need other better players on the roster if they want to get anywhere.

I mean, a guy who averages 110 OPS+ and has great to elite defense is a stud at just about anywhere on the diamond.  Granted that statement is more impactful at C, SS, or CF, but none the less I don't think Kepler is going to be the weak point of this team.  

Has anyone noticed that Blankenhorn is the exact same size as Cruz? Imagine if he could duplicate Cruz's swing mechanics

Kepler is an above average RF. But Please do not bat him leadoff. I don't get the fascination of batting him first in the order. Does anyone feel differently, please convince me. I know the win probably increases when a team scores first. But what would be the win probability if we scored 2 or 3 runs first, as opposed to a single shot hr.

If you look at the Kepler stats highlighted in the article, including WAR placing him as a top RF-er- it seems to me all the detracting commenters simply confirm/verify that he is in fact an underrated player.