bean5302

Povich wasn't atop draft rankings for Baseball America, MLB.com, Prospects1500, Bleacher Report or any major publication which provides scouting reports. I stated that only to back up the assertion the Twins would have expected to have some development work with Povich, which feeds into the idea the Twins may be having him work on his pitches, not the results. The statement was not to put him down or make any assertion about how good he could be or where he should be ranked now... I did not imply Povich was placed into A+ ball to work on his pitches, which is where I think you're addressing with your "no, that's not what they're doing" paragraph. I'm implying the Twins are undoubtedly working with Povich on developing his pitches and depending on the focus of Povich's development, the objective may reasonably be focused on improving his control or feel for specific pitches rather than trying to get the absolute best possible results in the game by only throwing in his comfort zone. Me: Cade Povich is a 2nd year pro because he's had significant professional experience in two separate years, plus an offseason program including spring training, etc. You: Cade Povich is a 1 year pro. Offseason activities don't really matter and you paint yourself as an industry insider, possible Twins staffer, pitching development expert and experienced MLB pitcher. I thought I was pretty clear why I'm not all-in on Povich. He's given up quite a few hits so his WHIP isn't great and he hasn't been able to pitch out of jams despite the high strikeout rate and that has led to an uninspiring ERA/RA9. I'd put more faith in FIP if the scoring seemed more reliable in the minors. Results matter to me because there have been a dozen Twins pitching prospects who never panned out despite being labeled as studs who were just unlucky with results. You're free to say I'm wrong. You're free to have an opinion, and if you are an insider, your opinion is definitely more informed than mine, but if you do have that insider professional development knowledge, lend yourself some credibility and stop adding/changing the context of my comments. You should have enough confidence in your own position to stop misrepresenting mine.

I just don't see where you're really going with this. Povich is not young or inexperienced vs. his competition and he's had last year real world professional experience on the mound (though limited), and an entire offseason to work on a throwing program, mechanics, etc. He's also had this season to see the results from the offseason throwing program. This is his 2nd year of professional experience. If you want to take the opinion I should say 1 year of experience or I should have said 1.5 years experience because of the two pro seasons and one offseason or whatever, that's your opinion. It could be the Twins aren't actually trying to evaluate Povich's best performance numbers right now and are instead having him focus on getting command and control over one or more of his pitches. I'd say that's pretty likely considering Povich's best rank was #276 by Baseball America and unranked by everybody else when the Twins took him at #98. I agree results are basically all normal fans like myself can get excited about because I'm not part of the Twins' development team. All I can really judge is the numbers, but I also understand the numbers are not a reflection of the work the pitcher is doing on the bump in games, but the work the pitcher put in away from the game. The game itself is proof of the work and the theory. When it comes to the actual results, they are not that impressive. A 4.00 ERA and 5.00 RA9 are adequate, not exciting. The 1.21 WHIP is pretty good, but certainly not great. That's why I say we'll just have to wait and see.

I sorted Fangraphs' team data from a couple days ago. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=0&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=11,a

You believe the only value teams offer players is experience while they're on the mound facing competition? Got it. Here's a thought to consider. Coaches, trainers, medical staff, analytics departments and other staff work on development even while a pitcher isn't actively on the mound including offseason workouts and training programs. What happens on the mound itself is a reflection of all the work (days/weeks/months) which happens off the mound. You think Josh Winder just started throwing 7mph faster than when he was drafted because the pitching coach ran out there between innings and said, "hey, throw harder?" I mean, you're free to ignore all the workouts, throwing programs and buildup...

Matt Capps was a huge upgrade over Jon Rauch and the Twins acquired Matt Capps for the playoffs, not necessarily for the following year. Wilson Ramos was the Twins' 3rd or 4th ranked prospect and he was on some of the top 100 lists to begin the year, but by 2011, Ramos was about the #5 (or lower) prospect for the Nationals. Ramos has managed a 15 WAR career over 11 years since and is a free agent recovering from his 3rd ACL repair. People on this site act like Ramos was Buster Posey or something...

An unmitigated disaster? Twins relief pitchers rank: 16th in ERA 21st in FIP 9th in xFIP 9th in Holds 24th in Saves 29th in Blown Saves To have blown saves or record saves, you have to be winning the game, which is why an excellent bullpen like Baltimore ranks far lower in holds and a dumpster fire bullpen like Cincinnati has ranks higher in blown saves than you'd expect. The Twins relievers have very good xFIPs with a mediocre ERA and poor FIP suggests the bullpen has largely been unlucky with home runs in particular (i.e. Tyler Duffey). I feel the Twins' bullpen is a bit of a victim of Buxtonitis around here. Any memorable blown leads is bad, just like anything less than a 5.000 OPS for Buxton is him underperforming.

Of course, that assumes the Twins don't just DFA Sano. I don't wish him bad luck or any negativity, but Sano has a lot to prove and doesn't have any time to do it. Hitting bombs off Rookie Ball pitchers at least suggests he has his timing back. It's probably just a matter of conditioning at this point and the 20 day rehab assignment is up in 14 days... how much conditioning can you improve in two weeks? I guess a bit, but the best place to improve conditioning is Ft. Myers... where the lowest level of play happens to be. There isn't sufficient time to demonstrate any ability at St. Paul and condition in Ft. Myers.

Who does Sano replace? I expect the odd man out will be Celestino. With Gordon and Buxton on the roster and St. Paul just 30 minutes away along with Celestino scuffling at the plate recently, he's probably first on the list to go down. Garlick's 30 years old at this point, he doesn't take walks and has no speed. He's an easy roster cut as well, IMHO.

2021 2022 Two years.

I don't think Buxton was snubbed ranks #6 in fWAR for outfielders (including Alvarez) and is ranked 4th among Center Fielders. Judge CF - 4.2 fWAR, 3.7 bWAR Alvarez - 3.9 fWAR, 4.2 bWAR (voted in as DH. has played about 40% of his games in LF) Trout CF - 3.7 fWAR, 3.7 bWAR Rodriguez CF - 3.0 fWAR, 3.5 bWAR Tucker - 2.7 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR Buxton CF - 2.5 fWAR, 2.9 bWAR Cedric Mullins II CF - 2.1 fWAR, 2.6 bWAR On top of that, you have Cedric Mullins II, who is a center fielder and will probably represent Baltimore as it's only player. As far as 1B OR 2B, you could make the argument Arraez has been snubbed, but his value has increased significantly lately with him building a lot of WAR from the boost of playing 2B and hitting even better. As a utility infielder, it's hard for Arraez to get the recognition he deserves. Arraez is #2 for both 1B and 2B behind Abreu and Altuve, respectively, but Arraez was well behind several 1B earlier this year. If Arraez was the 2B all year, I'd say he would have been better than Altuve, but Altuve is a household name who is on the path to the Hall of Fame right now.

Byron Buxton is not the greatest batter in the history in MLB. You say you know he isn't, yet you expect his stats will say he is.

Yep. Reached on error is definitely more random than HBP. There are batters who crowd the plate and or have stances making it much more likely they're going to get plunked. In the absolute best case scenario, a hitter directing every single ball (if they could) at the 3rd baseman instead of a 2nd baseman would result in, what, a couple errors? The average qualified hitter gets about 600 plate appearances annually. They have a ground ball rate of 30-60% and a K rate between 10-35%, a BB rate between 5-20% and hit 5-40 HRs per year. That means, ground balls in play = 80 (absurdly low) and 300 (absurdly high). If the all ground ball, never walk, never strike out, never homer player could direct every single ball they hit at the third baseman's playing position, which is already insanely ludicrous, the third baseman would commit approximately 3 more errors in a season based on a median .970 fielding percentage for 3B and .980 fielding percentage for 2B. So are those extra 3 reached on errors worth the worst BABIP and SLG in the history of the game? Anyway, I see you have a very strong opinion on the subject. Perhaps it would have been more fruitful to have stated your opinion rather than asking people if they agreed with you.

What's not to be excited about? The 4.00 ERA / 5.00 RA9 at A+ ball from a two year pro college draftee.

RBI's. Not at all valuable for an individual stat. Very important for a team stat.

Sano hit 30 HR's so he's awesome!!!! Chris Carter hit 41 home runs in 2016. .222/.321/.499 wRC+ 113 In 2017, Chris Carter hit .201/.284/.370 across only 208 plate appearances wRC+ 74. In 2018, he was forced to sign a MiLB contract with the Angels, who traded him to the Twins where we stashed him in AAA. Carter would move onto the Mexican league, never to step foot on an MLB field again. In short, flawed players with unimpressive OBP and streaky power have a very short leash.

The small sample sizes apply to both Jeffers and his peers. I wouldn't have a big opinion on Jeffers if his poor hitting didn't stretch across a bigger series of plate appearances last year as well. If we expand the sample size to last year and this year, among catcher with 450+ plate appearances, Jeffers is 23rd of 32 at the plate. wRC+ 83 with the median at wRC+ 97 (who just happens to be Gary Sanchez). He's not a black hole at the plate relative to his peers, but he is far below average. It's not like Jeffers is going to tank the Twins' chances at competing or something, but he's not a guy you want to count on helping the team to make the playoffs, either. He's just a player the Twins should want to upgrade away from or at least hedge their bets against him, especially since Jeffers' only plus skill (catcher framing) is likely to be nullified entirely by robo umps in 2024.

Oh. To answer the question, no, it's not a skill worth mentioning. It's just speed and luck for Buxton. It's just pure luck for Celestino (who isn't all that fast).

Agreed, if a fielder is rushing the throw because they're trying to make a miracle happen, it shouldn't be ruled an error. In fact, I'm sure Buxton's OBP does reflect this already. Buxton creates a lot of personal opinion judgement calls for official game scorers. Some for ruling an error, some for ruling a hit because it wasn't reasonable to expect a fielder to make the play.

Eduardo Escobar and Danny Santana both had more impressive streaks than Buxton's to start the year last year over the same number of plate appearances. Buxton is not the greatest hitter/player in MLB history. Fans should really appreciate him for what he is rather than taking the stat line from a handful of games and deciding that's who the player is. Buxton is a flawed hitter, who has poor contact rates, strikes out a lot and takes few walks. People asking for Buxton to change his swing to hit more line drives are actually asking for Buxton to go back to pre-2019 Buxton. You want Buxton to stop selling out for home runs? Get ready for a below average hitter at the plate. Buxton has done a remarkable job adapting his strengths to a plate approach which provides ANY value. This is as good as Buxton gets. In fact, I think Buxton is still exceeding his ceiling right now.

College arms are expected to dominate at Low A since Low-A is probably similar to the top Division I college baseball conferences in terms of competition level. High-A is a big step up, but if a college pitcher struggles there, it's a very bad sign. Generally, I don't get too excited about pitchers until they produce at AA because a single component of pitching can carry up until that point (stuff/control/command). Mechanics are obviously key to velocity as the right mechanics turned 5'10" 155lb Tim Lincecum into a 100mph fastball monster. Elite velocity can make a big difference below AA/AAA, but there are no MLB hitters who cannot put a 100mph straight-ball into the seats. Also, I don't really see the "filling out" as a good thing so I don't understand the obsession with everybody looking like Ben Rortvedt. Pitchers aren't impact players like NFL linebackers or something. The extra weight = extra strain on the body and body type means much less than mechanics in regard to velocity, but there seems to be a school of thought players who look like defensive lineman are ideal. Some people have wondered if the Twins pushing pitchers to change their mechanics to add velocity has led to the incredible level of injuries among Twins pitching prospects. It seems reasonable "filling out" could help in regard to building up certain muscle groups to relieve strain on joints, etc, but until the muscle groups supporting the mechanical changes are built up, I'd wager changes of injury increase quite a bit. I'm probably just babbling at this point. Back on topic... I'm not all in on the Povich bandwagon. Almost all prospects are younger than their competition and 1 year means nothing meaningful at any level of baseball. Povich is sitting at a 3.96 ERA (which isn't good) and considering he's a Division I college pitcher in his 2nd professional year at A+, I'd expect him to be good. Povich is a strike thrower so he doesn't walk a lot of guys, but he's not exactly skimpy on the walk rate, either at about 3/9. He also gives up a lot of hits so he's been unable to strand runners despite the high strikeout rate. His inability to strand runners has led to a rough 5.09 RA9. If a runner reaches on an error, it seems Povich isn't able to pitch out of the jam. Small sample sizes and less than stellar fielding in the minors no doubt contributes to the situation, though. Just have to wait and see.

Buxton goes 0-4, time for a trip to the IL! Buxton goes 4-4 with 4 HRs, he's back and his knee is perfect again! In any case, Buxton will likely always be a streaky hitter because he has pretty weak plate discipline. He doesn't take many walks and his contact rates are pretty poor. Buxton is not and never will be an MVP level player in my opinion. He's a potential perennial All Star talent, though. A 5-6 WAR full season player while his sprint speed and defensive value remains intact.

The same way every team looks to upgrade. They look for available talent internally and externally, and if they can acquire it for a reasonable cost, they obtain it. Looking to upgrade is not some sort of requirement to upgrade. Side note, there are a dozen catchers significantly better than Jeffers on other teams' rosters. It's not like Jeffers is above average, even now when good catchers seem to be at a premium.

Gaetti didn't play for the Twins in 1991. He had already moved to the Angels.

Jhoan Duran sure gets a lot of love for a guy with 37 innings pitched at the MLB level. I don't know what the core of the Twins is going to look like. Buxton is a part of it. Apart from him, there's nobody on the roster I couldn't see being traded or regressing/declining off the roster.

It doesn't matter whether or not other teams also have underperforming catchers. What matters is whether or not catchers are pulling their weight as position players on the team or whether a team would be better off trying to upgrade. Jeffers isn't a good starting catcher and I don't expect he will ever be a good starter. He's on pace to provide about 1.5 WAR on a full season, which is similar to how he performed last year. That's not nearly good enough to warrant wanting to stick with him and not upgrade.