Cody Pirkl

Kirilloff also played 1B less than half of the time in his injury shortened 2019 though, which was the first time in professional career at the position. I believe in Kirilloff's talent as a hitter, but between what you said about keeping him down a bit longer and the question mark with his ability to effectively play there, I just don't think that's the best outcome given all the possibilities they've passed up.

Marwin is a solid 3B on defense but I do agree, I wouldn't expect Sano to move to 1B and be even league average right away. I think he can be down the line but doing so now just to slide Marwin into a full time 3B role would be pretty weak. We'd be left with a likely below average first baseman on defense, a below average 3B on offense, and would sacrifice Marwin's versatility that allows us to give guys off days and cover up injuries. And for what? A few million dollars?

There are plenty of internal moves that we can make. My issue is that we're failing to make moves over and over again and settling for what's left at just about every position we have to fill other than the Romo and Avila signings. At some point this "creativity" is going to catch up to us despite how well it worked last season.

He definitely had a slow start last year, but even when he heats up, he doesn't have the offensive firepower to be an everyday first baseman.

Donaldson is a great player offensively and defensively right now. He has been described as having a great hitting mind similar to Nelson Cruz and keeps himself in tremendous shape. If his defense falls off or injuries become an issue, the DH spot will be open soon. The issue is the context of signing Donaldson at this point. Other corner infield options at the top of the performance chart have gotten signed while we've waited on a decision. The front office has really backed themselves into a corner at this point with their statements of making impact signings and then missing on just about everyone. Opening the season with an internal option at corner infield or with a Todd Frazier or Mitch Moreland type would be a failure and puts us at further risk for another team to catch us in the Central. I don't know that any of this justifies the money, but if they don't make this signing, they're going to have to get real creative to get anyone excited.

I'm very interested to watch Javier this year because he either produces or he's likely out of the picture. I'd be fine with Kirilloff having a chance to take over eventually, but they've got work to do before then. Rolling into the season just playing fill in at a premier position and hoping a AA hitter plays his way into that role isn't the way to operate.

Tonight we received the news that Eric Thames had signed with the Washington Nationals for the VERY reasonable price of $4m. Thames put together a slash line of .247/346/.505 last season, as well as 1.9 fWAR. He was likely a secondary option for the Minnesota Twins this offseason, who in my opinion very much still in need of a corner infielder after seeing C.J. Cron sign with the Tigers for $6.1m. First base was always a position the Twins were likely to wait on filling, as there were plenty of options on the market. Thames could have admirably platooned with his .877 OPS against righties. As somebody who had already moved on from Donaldson, I wondered why the Twins would allow Thames to go for such a cheap price. Shortly thereafter, I got my answer. According to Darren Wolfson, the Twins do not appear to be engaged in the corner infield market. In my opinion, there are two reasons this may be the case. The first is the most likely in my opinion. Josh Donaldson remains on the free agent market. It may be fair to say that the Washington Nationals are out of the bidding war after signing Starlin Castro, Asdrubal Cabrera, and finally Eric Thames. The bigger issue however is the Atlanta Braves involvement. Donaldson has grown up in the area and has been up front about his desire to return in 2020. The last update on the situation had all teams offering 4 years for undisclosed amounts to lock Donaldson up. As we've seen this offseason however, the price may become a moot point to some extent. In fact, it has now been reported that Donaldson may not have any interest in signing with the Twins at all. As I had worried throughout this entire saga, Donaldson may have just been using the Twins to bulk his offer up from the Braves. This report also explains that the Twins are exploring other options, which is perplexing given the above report from Wolfson. It appears the Twins aren't willing to let go of hope of signing Donaldson after making no progress on the "impact" talent acquisition mentioned at the start of the offseason. The second scenario for the Twins passing over the corner infield free agent market is a more troubling one for me. There have been rumblings of the Twins using Marwin Gonzalez as a full time first baseman this winter, and they could be content with their internal options rather than spending in free agency. I had actually just written a blog on Marwin Gonzalez having a better year offensively in 2020 citing a full spring training and hopefully less injuries. I was not advocating however that he be given a full time role as a corner infielder. With league average wRC+ coming in at 100, Marwin was 7% worse in 2019 with 93. The bar to clear for "league average" on offense is higher for corner infield as a position that typically houses premier hitters. Even if Marwin rebounds to a bit above league average on offense in 2020, they will still likely have an offensively below average first baseman. On top of that, he would no longer be utilized so widely on the field, which has been his main source of value in his career. They will essentially be taking value away from the roster to fill a spot that they could have easily done more effectively in free agency. Regardless of reason, the thoughts above remain true. If the Twins don't sign another corner infielder and get stuck with internal options for a premier position like 1B, this will be yet another failure this offseason. Unlike with Bumgarner and Wheeler, this will have been an avoidable one. The offense will no doubt regress to some extent. The rotation is already an injury away from being a mess again. Every roster spot that we put a bandaid on instead of seriously addressing is another opportunity for the teams in the AL Central. If the Donaldson decision is holding up other deals, it's time to come to a conclusion one way or another. If the Twins front office believes they have their man already for corner infield, I seriously doubt it, but we'll have to wait and see. One thing is for certain though. Sitting here in January coming off 101 wins with over $10m less in payroll and this roster is not what I had pictured in October.

2019 was a fun year for so many reasons. Our Minnesota Twins fielded a historically great offense, bashing teams into submission for the entirety of the regular season. We watched huge homeruns soar out of Target Field, we watched clutch performances from our workhorses like Jose Berrios, as well as game ending dominant performances from Taylor Rogers. 2019 will be a year of fantastic Twins memories for me. Looking back on it however, no memory is quite as vivid to me as Devin Smeltzer's debut for some reason. Smeltzer was acquired at the trade deadline in 2018 along with Luke Raley for Brian Dozier. Twins fans were sad, Dodgers fans were happy, just another year for Minnesota sports fans. As 2019 rolled on however, we started to see that we hadn't just given Dozier away for peanuts. Smeltzer rifled through AA after 30 innings. Apparently a .60 ERA was enough to get a promotion. In AAA, Smeltzer fared well, pitching to a 3.63 ERA and respectable 23.2 K%. When the Twins were in need of a spot start on May 28th, Smeltzer got the call. Smeltzer was tasked with facing a vaunted Brewers lineup. The big storyline as you have all likely heard by now was that Devin Smeltzer, a childhood cancer survivor, had fought his way into the major leagues. It was about as fantastic of a storyline you'll find in the MLB, and that paired with my excitement to see the individual behind the gaudy numbers he had put up in the minors, I was glued to that couch cushion for this one. He went on to allow 3 hits over 6 innings, striking out 7 Brewers that night. Smeltzer would finish the year cycling in and out of the rotation, as Pineda's suspension and Kyle Gibson's illness left plenty of innings to fill. He would finish the season with a 3.86 ERA and 4.58 FIP. He had a tougher time striking out hitters at the major league level, sending only 18.8% of the batters he faced down on strikes. This along with his difficulty with the longball (1.47/9) were the reason for the discrepancy in his ERA and FIP. Smeltzer was used in a few roles as the season went on. He accumulated 30.2 innings pitched as a starter, finishing with a 4.11 ERA and holding opposing hitters to a .239/.294.410 slash line. As a reliever in 18.1 innings, Smeltzer had a seemingly better 3.44 ERA, although this appeared to be questionable given his triple slash allowed of .306/.342/.556. Let's also not forget the 3.1 innings of 2 hits 4 Ks, and no runs against the Yankees out of the bullpen in the playoffs. Looking ahead to 2020, Devin Smeltzer's role is up in the air. He comes off a relatively strong rookie season. While some peripherals say he overperformed, he also has some favorable Statcast number with his fastball spin rate falling into the 87th percentile, as well as a curveball in the 81st percentile. Would these measurements be best maximized in the traditional starter role we saw Smeltzer debut in? As it stands, there are two rotation spots open for the combination of Dobnak, Thorpe, and Smeltzer until Rich Hill returns from injury and Michael Pineda comes off his suspension. Even if Smeltzer gets the short end of the stick for a rotation spot, he can begin the season in AAA to stay stretched out until we need him (A strong possibility after what we've seen in 2019). Would Smeltzer's skill set play up in a bullpen role? The Twins still lack a lefty other than Taylor Rogers in the bullpen. Where would you like to see Devin Smeltzer in 2020 for our Minnesota Twins? I would also like to take this opportunity to share the link to Devin Smeltzer's ongoing fundraising for pediatric cancer. As a childhood cancer survivor himself, Devin has set up a page of awesome merchandise where the proceeds go to Katie's Krusaders, a foundation that funds expenses for pediatric cancer patients. This program made headlines a few months ago, but I wanted to make sure people are aware of the great work Devin does off the field, which can be lost in the shuffle when you're tuning into what he does on the field. https://www.500level.com/collections/devin-smeltzer-catch-cancer-looking

Players debut young all the time, but they're often for teams that aren't going to put them into roles where it will significantly hurt them if they don't flourish. We're coming off 101 wins and the teams around us like the White Sox have gotten aggressive in trying to challenge us. Our front office doesn't want to risk running rookies out there and costing us the division because of it, they would get spitroasted by the fans and baseball officials because it's a gamble you quite simply don't have to make. There's also something to be said about the difference between guys being ready and just rushing them through the system. Maybe guys like Kirilloff could hit at the major league level because of his skillset. Lewis for example doesn't look even close to the majors though. He had a pretty bad year and some believe his entire swing will need to be retooled to hit in the majors. Trusting him at a premier position and seeing him fail would be a huge mistake. I'm also not really sure where the idea of trading Marwin got started. He's the opposite of a problem for this team and his numbers don't match up to the value he provides by being able to move around. Trading away a swiss army knife position player and throwing caution to the wind in favor of a minor leaguer would be a huge mistake. Of the group of Larnach, Kirilloff, Rooker and Lewis, if 3 of them become at least league average that would be an enormous win. That's the nature of prospects, you can't rely on them until they actually do it.

There were good moves made this offseason but the bottom line is that even the front office has admitted to wishing they could walk back their promises. Regardless of circumstances, when statements are made about stiking when the window opens fans are going to be disappointed in an offseason like this. Fans got the idea that we had become a team that would get that big free agent and take that big leap. This offseason, despite the wide range of opportunities, showed that isn't the case. It's a solid team, yes. We should contend again and I feel confident that we win the central again, but I'm still sitting in in the C-/D+ range. Especially if we open with Marwin pivoting from our ever valuable utilityman to a below average 1B, I could see that grade falling for me. We can keep developing guys but even the Astros had to acquire big guns from outside the organization to win big despite their unbelievable core. We still have time to do this on the trade market, but I wonder if the front office will just clutch their pearls in the minors. If we're done making moves and the White Sox can somehow take the division, I say good for them. At least they're taking risks.

What we've seen now since the front offices promise to strike when the window is open is two opportunities that they've failed on. We saw them get Romo and Dyson at the trade deadline. Both solid moves to try and moderately help the team despite Dysons injury, but they ignored the biggest issue which was starting pitching. Now we're looking at this offseason which looks eerily similar. Plenty of moves that marginally help us, but not really addressing our biggest needs in an exciting or aggressive way. Meanwhile we've seen the White Sox push their rebuild by being aggressive, challenging us to respond. Last years trade deadline cost us greatly when we essentially has 3 starters for the playoffs, one totaling under 30 innings in the majors. Will this bland and disappointing offseason cost us again? We're due for regression in 2020 and haven't done much to combat it other than run out a similar team. In fact, we're currently looking at Marwin Gonzalez as our 1B which would be about as sad as we could have expected coming into the offseason. The front office is due for every bit of criticism they'll get at this point. It's become a situation where Falvey and Levine need to earn the good will of the fanbase back. They've done a good job of putting this team together to be a contender, but at some point they have to stop settling for scraps and do something to significantly improve. The minors are stacked with future logjams of tradeable talent. The payroll is embarassing as it stands for a team coming off 101 wins. Do something.

Because by fWAR they were both 4+ win players and were top 20 in all of baseball by that measurement. Can't imagine there were too many rotations in history with 5 top 20 pitchers in the MLB.

These signings in a vacuum are great. If Indians fans are saying they're happy to see these signings, they don't understand what they're talking about. Homer Bailey is better than Gibson and Perez and the front office has said they have been watching him since the end of last year with changes in mind to improve him even further on his 4.57 ERA and 4.11 FIP. This isn't a Martin Perez "let's take a bad pitcher and make him serviceable" move. Bailey is serviceable already and will at least be a good fill in for Pineda with the ability to stick down the stretch. If you're mad at the Rich Hill move, you're looking too hard for something to be upset about. He's 40 but he's been an enigma since he returned to the MLB. Even if he doesn't pitch until July, he's a wild card that we have in our back pocket down the stretch and has put up ace like numbers in pretty much every healthy stretch he's had for the last 5 years. He's being paid $3m with incentives, and if he never pitches again we pretty much lose nothing. You can be mad that they didn't sign any of the top free agent starters, I am. Would you rather they just admit defeat and go into the season with only Berrios and Odorizzi in the rotation though just so the fans can say "I told you so"? They got a guy who can eat up innings which we desperately needed and a guy with tremendous upside and playoff experience. They're doing all they can after missing on the top end of free agency and they made probably the best moves they could have with what was left. They're also still talking to Donaldson and I'd expect them to pivot to the trade market for more pitching if they can't get him. They were likely favorites before making these moves and both of them likely increased their odds, granted not as much as signing Gerrit Cole would have. I'm pretty happy with both of these moves.

I don't think fans understand that Wheeler and MadBum were never coming here. They had destinations they wanted to go to and actually took less money to get there. As for Ryu, while I would have paid him, he's essentially Rich Hill a few years younger with the same injury risk. The only difference is that Ryu is (maybe) starting the season healthy and Rich Hill only cost $3m. I can see why the front office may have been worried about paying a guy $80m and risking getting 100-200 IP in return.

Bailey was better than Kyle Gibson and Martin Perez last year both by raw ERA and in his peripherals. He's a solid pitcher and could easily have a season that could classify him as a number 3 while he'll be our number 4 when Pineda is back. Believe it or not, you can't stack a rotation 1-5 with guys like Berrios and Odorizzi.

Just looking at his game logs, there's a pretty interesting trend that you notice. I remember watching his start against Cleveland on September 14 in particular. When he's putting up bad walk numbers, he's racking up his strikeouts. That Cleveland game I remember him lulling Cleveland to sleep by walking 3 guys in the first inning and then basically surprising them with strikes and striking out the side to finish the inning. Every outing he had but one where he had 10+ K/9 he also had a BB/9 of at least 3.60 which is going to get him in trouble.

I've got two takes on Lewis Thorpe after following him through the minors and watching him in the majors last season. 1. He needs to drop his BB/9 by about 1 in order to be a serviceable pitcher. He had a couple times last year where he was just walking the house and it seemed to come out of nowhere. 2. He did get unlucky last year according to his 3.47 FIP and 6.18 ERA, mostly because of a ridiculous .438 BABIP. While those indicators suggest he could have had a nice year, I don't know that I trust it. With his statcast numbers laid out above and his 91.5 mph fastball, his K rate seems to be the outlier. He could easily be a guy whose value absolutely tanks when he gets full exposure to the league, especially the righty heavy Central teams. He may be an intriguing arm to include in a trade for another higher end pitcher if a team values him currently. I don't know that he's the kind of arm that winds up anchoring another team's rotation that we regret for years.

I think you could argue that I could have called him an improvement candidate instead of rebound candidate. In terms of WAR, he put up similar marks last year in about 100 fewer ABs. My main argument that we could see more from Marwin in 2020 is based around him hopefully not getting off to that absolutely terrible start that weighed his season down, as well as hopefully avoiding those injuries that limited his plate appearances and likely overall production. He finished the season on an incredible note after the first month.

Marwin Gonzalez was an absolute God send in 2019 for the Minnesota Twins. The front office locked up the utility man on February 25th to a 2 year $21 million contract. His ability to play all over the diamond was priceless as it turned out, as we saw him start the year at 3B to fill in for an injured Sano. We saw him go on to fill in all over the field as we saw injuries from C.J. Cron, Max Kepler, Byron Buxton, as well as plenty others. Marwin's value goes beyond the statistics. The Twins would have been lost without him in 2019, who despite the depth and versatility within the organization, found themselves relying on guys like Ronald Torreyes down the stretch as the injuries piled up. Despite the value Marwin Gonzalez provided in 2019, I think there's reason to believe that his 2020 could prove to be even more valuable. As previously mentioned, Gonzalez was signed on February 25th, two days after the Twins began their spring training games. The slow progression of the free agent market caused him to wait around on a longer term contract that would never come. The Twins being ever opportunistic, took advantage of the market and signed Gonzalez to a team friendly deal. Gonzalez had waited long enough. He reported right away, but still had to ramp up before being game ready. When he finally did finish playing catchup, he managed a line of .115/.179/.397 by the end of the spring. He had struck out in 13 of his 26 at bats. We hear all the time about the importance of the spring training routine for pitching, but why wouldn't the same be true for hitting? Gonzalez had a triple slash of .167/.244/.256 through the first month of the season, good for a 33 wRC+. He struck out about 24% of the time. His offseason was clearly out of the ordinary for him to that point in his career, and his spring training was a rushed and shortened experience that I would argue carried into the season. 2020 is an opportunity for Marwin to settle in and have a normal spring training again, hopefully leading to a more consistent start to the season. At just 30 years old, Marwin shouldn't be on the decline quite yet. His 93 wRC+ however was his worst since 2016, and well below the benchmark he had set for himself on average over the last 5 years. When looking at why this may have been, I saw that Marwin had an IL stint from 6/19-6/29 for a hamstring injury. This itself is an injury that's known to linger for what can be weeks. I was searching however for the IL stint for the oblique injury I remembered Marwin having, but it doesn't exist. He was scratched on September 24th as a precautionary measure for an oblique injury having played in 6 of the last 8 games. However, he didn't play a single game from August 28th-September 15th for the same oblique injury. He was likely playing through this oblique strain (those are not fun) for weeks. Marwin's 2019 was far from a lost season. He was worth 1.4 wins according to fangraphs measures and filled in admirably at just about every position. He's likely to be the same super utility man in 2020 as well, as the Twins are returning a solid lineup only currently missing a full time corner infielder. While he will be another year older, Marwin Gonzalez stands to benefit from the normal spring training routine this year unlike in 2019. Not only might this get him more prepared to perform come the regular season, it may even mean he will be in better shape to avoid the soft tissue injuries that plagued him in 2020. Despite the rough start mentioned above, from April 29th forward Marwin seemed to get back into the swing of things to the tune of a .283/.337/.446 triple slash. Penciling that into the bottom 1/3 of our lineup is simply ridiculous, and I believe that in 2020 we will see Marwin Gonzalez thrive in a similar way for much of the season.

I don't think Bailey is the next Martin Perez in the sense of starting the year on fire and then being downright not deserving of taking the mound every 5th day. Bailey seems to have a higher floor and showed last year that he can at least be somewhat effective across an entire season. Bailey seems to be more of a Gibson replacement than Perez replacement. Pretty similar career numbers and I think he could be a good number 4 pitcher.

Homer Bailey is essentially a Kylre Gibson replacement which is just fine. If you have an issue with Rich Hill however, I'd love to hear why. He wont take up a 40 man spot and we got him for $3m. He could be a huge boost down the stretch or contribute nothing and we forget about it. He isn't being sign to be relied on as seen by the lofty incentives. I also think more moves are coming via trade. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm still thinking this can be a success without Donaldson, though my confidence in that coming to fruition is pretty low. Such a bummer.

I'm at a point where I know price isn't the answer. That doesn't mean I wouldn't take him. I just don't know that I'd want us to take on that whole contract and shoestring ourselves. We missed our shot at a somewhat sensible contract via free agency. Everyone says we could get Price for free if we pay his whole contract. Why not send some mid tier prospects over though if this is the route we want to take? Suppress his money owed and have some flexibility to make more moves as needed. We're going to have yet another 40 man crunch next offseason anyways. Hes probably a 3rd starter when healthy at this point. Hes a good pitcher, but do we want to hear about the payroll crunch for years because we let the Red Sox unload that albatross of a contract onto us? That's how they got into their tight situation.

Donaldson would actually likely improve the pitching just because of his defense at 3B. The left side of our infield has been terrible in terms of defense, and Donaldson would improve it bigtime. If his defense deteriorates so badly that he can't stick at 3B (Likely years down the line considering how great he still was last year) we'll have a DH opening in a year or two. Cruz won't be around forever. Donaldson would also be added to our list of core players that are locked up to build around for the next 3-5 years like Polanco and Kepler. He has a great mind for hitting and would be a great mentor for younger guys debuting in the coming years. The only complaints you can really have for Donaldson is his age which I think is overblown and his injuries which he's a year removed from.

I don't know that Jimmy Nelson will be able to command a major league spot given the nature of his injury, time off over the last few years, and only having one year of success before getting injured. Also, I think whether we can afford him a 40 man spot depends on the rest of the moves we make. I believe it stands at 38 right now and while I do think they'll make some adds via trade, the price may include a 40 man guy or two that could open another spot.