bean5302

Honestly, there's really no legitimate argument for Kaat, and Tony Oliva is a very tough case due to the very short career. Kaat is another Jack Morris. Absolutely never great, just a sometimes quite good, but mostly above average steady accumulator over a 25 year career with only 3 All Star appearances. Kaat doesn't even have the historical game 7 World Series shutout to dominate people's mind's when they think of him. The same career bWAR as Brad Radke, only it took, literally, more than twice as many seasons to get there. I can't even fathom why the "Big Hall" guys would support Kaat's enshrinement. There's just nothing truly remarkable about his career other than how long he played. Tony Oliva had an excellent 8 year run, and that 8 years was so excellent it's hard to overlook. He made the All Star Game 8 consecutive years and won the Rookie of the Year award with 3 top 4 finishes in the MVP voting. That said, Oliva wasn't anywhere near the best player in baseball and appeared on the top 10 of bWAR for a season only once in his career. Outside of that excellent 8 year run, Oliva wasn't worth a roster spot. I think he got the nod due to how his knees wiped out his career, but Oliva is dramatically short of the typical HoF career as the 462nd highest career bWAR. Only a handful of position players who didn't play prior to 1900 are lower than Oliva.

Bizarre to point out hypocrisy? If the games are already decided, then the players you have don't matter. 9 years of Buxton is worthless. Literally worthless except the fan interest in his highlight reels because there is nothing Buxton (or any other player) will or could have done to make a difference in any game they play. It just would have been offset by everything else that happened. If the Twins won the game, they won the game because of a different reason. If the Twins lost the game, they would have lost all the same. That's literally your argument. Placing a virtually impossible, and irrelevant, qualifier on a legitimate argument that aces matter in the playoffs and world series is ridiculous. Aces are very rarely traded, but elite pitching performances in the playoffs are almost always the recipe for a World Series winner. I can't prove the Twins would have won or made the World Series with Syndergaard any more than you can prove they wouldn't.

I like Winder's potential a lot. If everything went his way, like literally everything, he could be a top of the rotation guy. I think he profiles better as a mid rotation guy, but he's had shoulder issues in two consecutive years. That's a major red flag to me. If Winder's shoulder can't handle the starter workload consistently, it means he's going to be in the bullpen and the value he brings at that point is heavily diminished.

I think it the Twins draft and development pipeline depends that greatly on a 7th round pick, that's enough for me to call for Falvey's head.

While the Twins may not have won a playoff series with Santana, Johan Santana pitched in 2004 when the Twins won their last playoff game. also, the Twins scored 4 runs in game 1 vs the Yankees in 2019. Maybe Cron doesn't commit that error at 1B with Syndergaard pitching and the Twins win game 1. Not that it matters because everything can change based on in game action, luck, etc. Maybe Berrios pitches lights out in game 2 and the Twins win instead of having Dobnak shelled the way he was. Now the Twins are up 2-0... It's entirely conceivable that series goes different with the Twins anchored by Syndergaard. It's not like Buxton had any impact on the 2019 series since he was *feign surprise* hurt anyway. Based on your response why do you even care about Buxton in the first place? By your logic, he's a colossal waste of money anyway since the Twins are destined to win the same number of games regardless of who is on the field. There's no point in spending a single dollar more than MLB minimum on anybody.

Mudcat Grant was pretty good in his short stint as a Twins pitcher, but hardly great.

Morris was only the 3rd best pitcher on the team in his only season in a Twins uniform (1991). Tapani and Erickson were both better than Morris that year so I don't think I'd give Morris the nod here. I'd definitely take 2010 Jim Thome over Nelson Cruz as well.

Syndergaard had a 3.32 FIP in the second half and a 3.70 FIP in September. His final game was 7.0 innings, 9 Ks, 5 H, 2 BBs against Atlanta who won the NL East with 97 wins that year. Syndergaard's fastball averaged 97.5mph that game. He was not hurt. He injured himself in Spring Training 2020. Game 1 - 10/4 Syndergaard pitches instead of Berrios Game 2 - 10/5 Berrios pitches instead of Dobnak Game 3 - 10/7 Odorizzi pitches Game 4 - 10/8 Dobnak pitches if needed Game 5 - 10/10 Syndergaard pitches if needed, or he's ready for Game 1 vs. the next opponent. 1 pitcher has been the difference many times. If you don't believe a true ace makes a difference in the playoffs... well, we have utterly no common ground and there's nothing to even discuss.

I know who Alcala is, I just didn't know why you'd covet a middle reliever like he was made of gold. I guess my head was stuck on Alcantara at that point.

Okay, I'll imagine the Twins won the World Series in 2019 with Noah Syndergaard, but lost Byron Buxton in the process. I'll take that. every. single. time. Mediocre teams that got hot/lucky at the right time can happen, but the likelihood it happens is low and the commitment to that low-risk philosophy leads to potentially decades of mediocrity like the Twins have experienced. Just good enough to win a weak division and be forgotten as a playoff team. That said, it may be a more viable philosophy with the ever expanding playoffs.

Alcantara... you mean Sandy Alcantara? ERAs at the highest level each season. Where were these 5.85 and 5.87 ERAs you're talking about? a19 Rk - 3.22 a20 A+ - 3.62 a21 MLB - 4.32 -> Traded to Miami from St. Louis a22/26 MLB - 3.44, 3.88, 3.00, 3.19, 1.76 Btw, I'm not saying sell low. I'm saying you cannot sell them for anything of high value right now because other team front offices are not stupid. If the Twins were able to get another front office to see Martin or Balazovich as a major piece in a trade for a front line starter, it would be a huge coup.

Low on innings, but otherwise... yes. Right now, ranked #10 at ERA and FIP for starters with 70+ innings. I'd say Alcantara, Rodon and Burns are probably favorites.

I don't think the problem is trade assets. I think the problem here is the attachment to the prospects who are performing. Essentially, the fans here don't want to give anything up. Larnach, Kirilloff, Kepler, Polanco, Arraez, Miranda, Ober... they're all established or semi-established and team controlled for a few years. The non-established guys like Lewis, Steer, Wallner, and Winder all have value. Some high upside, but further away prospects Miller, Encarnation-Strand, Hajjar, Povich. There's plenty of value, but the Twins have exactly 0 elite prospects who aren't injured at this point so trade packages are going to be tough to hammer out without parting with coveted pieces.

AA - a23 - 3rd professional year - .249/.378/.313 - OPS .691 - wRC+ 93 - 11.7% BB, 13.8% K. No power at all. Worst fielding percentage and range factors at SS in the entire league by a mile. AAA - a23 - 7th professional year - 10.13 ERA, 7.70 FIP, 5.01 xFIP, 8.28 K/9, 4.60 BB/9, 2.32 WHIP Selling that at all would be an achievement.

I suspect Larnach, Steer, Ober would be the ask.

Chase Petty is pitching pretty well in A ball right now as a 2nd year pro out of high school. Gray isn't exactly free with a $10MM salary this year and a $12MM club option next year, though he's definitely more than earning his keep. With Gray being a frequent flyer on the IL, he's about a 2.5 WAR pitcher with declining velocity. Good, but hardly excellent. A nice #3 guy when healthy who should be hauling in $15MM-ish per year. So there is some value with Gray, but it's not like he's a front line starter the Twins stole for a middle rank prospect. The Twins need the front end starter so dropping Martin and Balazovic is fine, but considering how they're playing, I'm not sure those would be the prospects the Reds would be asking about.

Brooks Lee isn't likely to stick at SS. Aside from that, Correa is 95% gone after this year, and that's a good thing. If Correa is here next year, it's because he had a catastrophic injury and won't be ready for the start of (or any of) the 2023 season so he decided to take his player option. Lewis has all of 41 plate appearances at the MLB level and will miss a couple months next season, at least. In addition, the Twins don't think much of Palacios, Cavaco is a bust and Noah Miller is at least 3 more years away. I'd say the cupboard is much more bare at SS than you think.

Sano could go 1.000/1.000/4.000 for the rest of his rehab assignment and I wouldn't have any interest in him long term and I suspect there's little Sano can do to pique the interest of other teams in terms of trade value. No idea what to do with him once the Twins activate him.

Kumar Rocker is interesting, but you have to hand it to the Mets on that one. They got absolutely trashed for not signing Rocker. Good 'ol Scott Boras insisted everything was fine and then... On Saturday night, teams received medical records pertaining to right-hander Kumar Rocker and learned that he had shoulder surgery last September. The Mets selected the former Vanderbilt star 10th overall last July and agreed to a $6 million bonus deal that fell apart when they balked at his post-Draft physical. After New York offered him a $0 bonus -- a formality so it could get the No. 11 pick this year as compensation for failing to sign him -- he opted not to return to college. Hard to return to college when you don't know if you'll be ready to pitch by then...

Yep. Not as rare as I remembered it being. About 20% of playoff teams have done it at 89+ wins. Under 88 wins gets the "rare" mark from me since it's unlikely any team with 87 or fewer wins makes it in a given year. It's why I threw the graph up there so it was easier to see what was really happening rather than cherry picking numbers. From 97-88 wins, it's a fast linear drop off with a steeper drop off for winning the division from 96-89 wins. Any way you look at it, the Twins are not in a great spot if they don't pick it up. Historically, 7% Wildcard, 0% division win at this pace. I was also looking at the trends on whether or not big win seasons (teams with well over 100 wins) increased the number of low win teams making the playoffs. I didn't see any correlations there or really any correlation between low win playoff teams and how the division winners performed or an obvious pattern as to how the teams in the division performed.

You only have to go back to 2018 for a team without at least 90 wins to make the playoffs. I'm assuming you chose 2014 as the cutoff for a random reason, right? haha. Using 2012 as the cutoff (when the expansion to 10 team playoffs happened) You can see the chances of the Twins team making the playoffs under the 10 team playoff system from 2012+ (ignoring 2020). One team has ever made the playoffs with the win total the Twins are projected to have at .500 ball continuing (85 wins). No team has won a division and only 7% of playoff teams have made it at the Twins' current pace. The added 2 playoff spots may or may not matter at the win totals we're talking about.

Well, if you're saying it's personal relationship information, I have no reason to doubt you. I don't think we get a ton of this kind of inside information as I'd imagine players don't like to have the team doctors thrown under the bus publicly this way, but it's fun to have the 6* of Kevin Bacon thing going on here.

It's kind of fun to imagine stuff like this, but I'm only interested in former Twins who the Twins actually would still control. Lynn Pineda Gibson Pressley May The Twins wouldn't have any control over those players so they all would have been signed in free agency or extended before getting there. I'd easily take Maeda over Graterol should Maeda return in September and Berrios is getting thrashed this year after getting paid.

It'll be great to have Maeda back this year provided there are no setbacks whatsoever. I think anything before mid September is probably overly-aggressive. The Mets pushed Syndergaard onto the mound last year but didn't allow him to throw a single breaking pitch. Similarly, Maeda has yet to throw a single breaking pitch and is just up to 85mph on his fastball. He's got a long way to go. As the article points out, he's hoping to face live batting practice starting next month some time and he's just started throwing off the mound and he hasn't thrown a single breaking pitch yet. A single setback/flareup and his season is officially done. Maybe early August for live batting practice? Rehab stint starts mid August once he gets close to max effort and can start mixing off-speed and breaking pitches in? Activation early/mid-September. I think that's probably an optimistic time table.

Can you provide a link to the source which said the Twins staff misdiagnosed him?