by jiminy

I still think there's hope. The pitching has improved significantly. And with the offense performing like they did in last year's second half, they would be a legit playoff quality team. Could that happen? Yes! They still have all the key players from last year's offensive breakout, plus Morrison. Why not? Is it a huge surprise they haven't? Not really -- subtract Polanco, and significant stretches of Mauer, Sano, Buxton and Santana to injury, and it's exactly what you'd expect! The real question is whether their performance last year can be replicated. And all those guys could rebound. We don't even need all of them at once; just take turns getting hot like last year, and we'll be fine. But I have to admit it's looking less and less like something to count on. What if Buxton and Sano really have incurable problems with pitch recognition? What if Mauer's concussion symptoms return long term? What if Polanco's offensive surge was chemically enhanced? It might be that last year was the illusion, not this one. Still, it happened before, for three whole months, so it's not total fantasy to imagine it happening again. The potential is there. Maybe Buxton's slow spring was really about migraines he wasn't mentioning, even before his broken foot. Maybe Sano's legs are still bothering him but he'll be back. Maybe Mauer will pick up where he left off with a .400 OBP. Maybe Polanco, Morrison, Dozier, and Kepler will surge again. The good thing is, they don't need all of these to happen -- just any three, on any given day, and their offense will be right back where they were last year. And that would be fun to watch. If it turns out Buxton and Sano just can't hit big league pitching, then I'll be very, very bummed. But I've despaired about them both before -- which only made their hot streaks even more exciting! They have it in them, somewhere. If they finished strong, think how good that would feel. Just seeing them get back on an upward trend would be a huge weight off, and make every game fun to see. But add a few other players getting hot as well, and a few key injuries to Cleveland, and it could still happen this year. Think back on the past six years, and then to the end of last year; we're a lot closer than it seems.

For me, it's Berrios. His curve and fastball would look good on that stage. He may not have the consistency yet to really deserve it, but he has the talent. He can stand up to anybody. But considering that it is still seven weeks away, I think two other contenders have a good chance, if they have a hot streak. If Dozier bangs out 15 homers in the next 7 weeks, he'd be an obvious choice, and he'd deserve it. And he has the talent to make that a real possibility. And if Romero keeps up what he's been doing for seven more weeks, so would he. Managers would be drooling to call his name as a reliever. Anyone else (barring a similar hot streak of course) could feel a bit forced, frankly, like a pity pick. Yes, Rosario is carrying the team offensively. But is he really one of the best outfielders in the game? Is Escobar really one of the best infielders in the game? Just doesn't feel right, to me. But Berrios, Dozier, and Romero are all capable of dominating the league for weeks at a time. And I think there's a good chance one of them will, which would make the pick easy. But if I was picking someone right now, I'd send Berrios. I'd love seeing him make an All-Star freeze or flail at his curveball. And I believe he could do it.

Knowing what I know about Falvey and Levine (they're smart) and the Pohlads (they're cheap), my guess is that this deal was made to fulfill a condition the Pohlads put on a deal Falvey and Levine wanted to make but the Pohlads wouldn't pay for. Probably one of two things. 1) Falvine wanted to eat Hughes's salary to clear a place on the 40 man roster for someone more productive, and Pohlads said no, only if you get someone to take on some of his contract. Which of course no one wanted to do, so they had to throw in a draft choice. 2) Falvine told Pohlad, We really need another catcher, and we can get one by trading for an overpaid veteran and taking on some salary. Pohlad said no, your budget isn't going up. They said, okay, what about if we pay for it ourselves? Pohlad said sure, as long as I'm not paying for it do what you want. So it's a creative way to trade the 74 pick for someone like Wilson Ramos, as someone mentioned above. If they take on additional payroll this year, I'd guess #2. If they just pocket the money, I'd guess #1. I'm sure there is a #3, but I can't even imagine what it might be.

I agree they're really not doing that bad considering they have been playing without Santana, Buxton, Sano, Mauer, and Polanco. Those guys were a huge part of their success last year. The problem is, we don't know if any of them will ever be what they were last year again. Buxton and Sano are not on a predictable trajectory. Mauer's concussion symptoms may have recurred. Castro is out for the year. Santana could come back as good as ever but that's far from guaranteed, and could take a while if he does. Polanco at least wasn't injured, but was his surge last year sustainable? Who knows. I'm not saying they sky is falling. They're only 3.5 back, even without those guys for so long. And the pitching depth is better than I've ever seen. Rosario, Kepler, and Escobar are doing their part. If the hitters get hot like they did last year, they could play with anybody. Add a rejuvenated Santana and Berrios and sustained success from Romero and they could be really good. It's definitely not over yet. I'm just thankful that Cleveland has struggled so far. It would be hard to be 12 games out right now, knowing the Twins could have a long, sustained hot streak and still never catch up. But as it is, the season could get very exciting up till the very end. The Twins could finish below .500, if things break the wrong way. But what happened last year could happen again. I guess I'm not saying anything that isn't obvious to everyone. It's just that I agree with both the person who marveled at how bad our offense has been, and the person who said we got through a lot of injuries pretty well, all things considered. I have no idea what's going to happen. And that's kind of interesting.

Actually I think that might be the problem: He thinks he can rely on his immense talent and that will be enough.

I think Lynn will very likely return to form at some point, I just wish he wasn't trying to figure things out in games that count. If he hasn't gotten back on track when May is available, my preference would be to give his rotation spot to May, and send him on an injury rehab assignment in the minor leagues. I think it would greatly improve Lynn's free agency prospects to attribute his current failures to some phantom injury. And it would clean up his stats to wait till his command returned instead of digging a hole he won't be able to get out of. Once he's pitched three or four weeks without walking so many people, bring him back up, and let him finish the season strong. You can always move May to the bullpen then. Or if he's noticeably better than Lynn, leave him in the rotation and put Lynn in the bullpen. One benefit of a one-year contract is it's not our problem. But at this point, I think the team's needs (to win games, now) and Lynn's (to enter free agency with decent statistics) might both be served by getting him out of the rotation till he stops stinking things up.

I expect the team to fail to win the world series, as 31 of 32 teams do each year. But I also expect them to win it all ...someday! Sure, their odds of going to the playoffs this year took a hit -- but far from a fatal one. Even in this season of woe, I am not convinced they are a bad team. Lynn and Lomo missed spring training; they'll be back. Buxton, Sano, Santana, and Polanco -- four key players from last year's surprise team -- will all be back. Hughes is out of the rotation, and Romero is in. Max Kepler is hitting left-handers. The Eds are hitting everything. Gonsalves is knocking at the door. The team is on a three-game winning streak. The Indians are losing. Things are looking up! (Cue wailing and teeth-gnashing next time they lose two games in a row...)

Thanks for focusing on a happy story! It's true, he's been a huge lift. I have a question about launch angles. I've always accepted the standard argument that increasing your launch angle by a few degrees increases doubles and homers. But that's not the only way to increase your average. If you hit 90 percent of balls exactly the same, but eliminated some grounders, it would look on paper like a slight increase in average launch angle. It's great to stop hitting nubbers, maybe even better than hitting more flies. Replacing some groundouts with line drives is wonderful. But it's not a whole new strategy. In Escobar's case, becoming a league leader in doubles, and all the homers he started hitting last year, implies he's launching more long flies. But in general, I wonder how often an uptick in average launch angle is really that, or something else?

I'm excited -- I just added him to my fantasy team. But I have one nagging worry. I read he's still working on his changeup. Right now it is 89 mph, and they need it to be slower to separate from his fastball. At 89, I'm worried people will just tee off on it like a weak fastball. But without it he is a two pitch pitcher. Given that the playoffs are looking doubtful, I might rather have him focus this year on improving his changeup than trying to get past major league batters with two pitches. Maybe it's almost there and he'll perfect it with the big league coaches between starts? If not, they can always use him in relief. But my ultimate goal is for him to perfect a changeup and become truly dominant.

Remember they're stretching out Duffey, too, so he's also on the list of potential AAA reinforcements.

"It's important to keep in mind that he was extremely limited in his ability to condition this past offseason. To pin the lack of weight loss on disinterest would be ignorant." So that's why Teddy Bridgewater and Adrian Peterson managed to stay in shape despite leg injuries -- they were ignorant? What does your shin have to do with how much you eat? Apparently I am ignorant too.

I recall a post showing that Dozier's home runs were the least productive of any player in the league. Hitting a home run with the bases empty will score 1 run. He had the highest percentage of solo homers in the league. Why would you do that? Why would you put your best home run hitter lead off? I also recall that Dozier's argument was he wouldn't hit as many homers if he didn't. Something about seeing more fastballs. Maybe it's true that you can't just decide to hit 40 homers in the 4 spot instead of the 1 spot because there are variables I don't understand. I don't buy it but who knows. If I was managing he would not be leading off, Mauer would. He takes a lot of pitches -- which everyone says is good in a lead off hitter because it lets his teammates time the pitcher -- and he has an unbelievable on-base percentage. I'm all for challenging orthodoxy with statistical evidence. But if someone has read a great rebuttal against the standard idea of putting your best OBP guy in front of your best SLG guy, I'd love to hear it. Why wouldn't you want to optimize the number of guys on base in front of your best sluggers? Mauer in front of Dozier will produce a lot more 2 run homers than Dozier in front of Mauer. Right?

I remember when he was drafted that some scouts were worried he had a long swing, or slow bat speed, which would limit his upside. Their take on his extremely well-coached approach was that he might already be maxing out his upside and have little room for improvement. I haven't heard any discussion about this since. Has anyone heard anything since then about whether his bat is quick enough to hit major league pitching?

My favorite thing is reading comment after comment, each of them convincing, and having my mind changed, or at least opened a little, to new points of view, in such a collegial and friendly manner. I love that differing opinions are not an occasion to bluster and get huffy, but are mutually considered the very thing we come here to seek out. That open-minded curiosity creates a sense of community, intellectual stimulation, and shared fun. It feels like a warm hearth to gather around and chat, in what can be a cold, cruel world. So, thanks to literally everyone! But especially to the moderators, who make it all happen so seamlessly you don't even know they're there. Well done indeed.

Bard and Reed were names I've looked forward to seeing in the majors a long time -- high draft picks with mid-90s fastballs. I guess this means they didn't pan out. Not protecting them means you either don't think they're good enough to get selected, or you don't care if they do. Fortunately less famous names like Busenitz and Curtiss came through instead. But I still had hopes for a deep bullpen populated by Bard, Reed, Burdi, Melotakis, Chargois and Jay, based purely on what I've read. Not second-guessing Falvine; they're not going by words on a page like I am. Just disappointed those guys didn't work out.

In an average payroll Mauer's salary would only be a sixth of the total. If we had an average payroll we could be competitive. Until we do, we won't be. The problem is not Mauer, it's the missing pitchers.

I just saw him sac bunt in the second inning or son. That's just wrong, wrong, wrong. If you're tied in the 9th, sure, sacrifice. You only need one run. If it's the second, you need more than one. Sacrifices kill big innings.

One puzzling thing about last off-season was that in a market flooded with good relievers the Twins stood pat. I interpreted this to mean that, one, they didn't expect to contend this year, and two, they had a lot of confidence in the relievers in the low minors. Both of which made sense. I mean, I think the budget and future roster could have accommodated one good reliever! But it wasn't crazy to wait on the young guys. Given the early success, that logic changes. If their current record isn't a mirage, the question for 2017 becomes, is there anyone in the minors who can contribute? And if not now, soon -- like in a few months? Because if they're in this, they need help. And they may have it. The list of genuine prospects in the minor leagues is impressive: Chargois, Burdi, Melotakis, Jay, Hildenberger, and more. Is it unrealistic to think that two of those might be ready to contribute to a winning team? And soon enough to save them a costly trade? That will be a fascinating story to watch unfold.

I agree, I'd much prefer the money go to the players than to the owners. Of course I'd prefer even more to have lower ticket prices, lower parking rates, cheaper beer, and NO STADIUM SUBSIDIES. Once you've been fleeced, who the money goes to is a minor concern.

"I know a lot of people hate the idea of having three catchers, but Castro is so vulnerable against lefties (career .192/.254/.289 hitter off southpaws) that having the ability to pinch hit for him late in games could be a big asset. You’re never going to see Paul Molitor do that when he’s only got two catchers on the roster because the very last thing he ever wants to do is put his emergency catcher, Escobar, behind the dish." Man, I really hope this is still not an issue! As an actual risk, the numbers are so far from adding up to a legitimate concern that I would assume Falvey and Levine are way past this kind of Gardenhire era paranoia. If you pinch hit for Castro in the 7th with Vargas and play Gimenez for two innings, what's the downside? The extremely low probability that Gimenze will get injured? And that Escobar -- or Mauer for that matter -- would catch a few innings? That seems so far from catastrophic as a worst case scenario, and so unlikely to occur anyway, that it pales in comparison to the very high odds of losing a game by letting Castro bat with men on base. Shouldn't you be more worried about losing a game by a needless but oh so predictable out? And it's not like letting Mauer or Escobar catch two innings automatically loses you the game, either. The odds of a catcher injury in any particular inning are pretty small. The odds of Castro or Gimenez stranding the potential winning run on base are close to 80%. It's like Gardenhire's phobia of losing the DH. So what? On a team that regularly started Jason Tyner at DH, you're worried about the tiny, tiny chance a pitcher might have to bat, due to a very unlikely freak injury? Even though it it's a big at-bat you can just pinch hit anyway and replace the pitcher? There's a statistical term called Loss Aversion that refers to exaggerated worries about a potential loss blinding you to the opportunity of a potential gain. If there are two men on base, you're down by a run, and you bat Gimenez instead of pinch-hitting, because you're afraid that if you put Castro in the following inning he might get hurt, that's a text book example. It's like refusing to go outside because you don't want to get hit by a meteorite. The loss aversion you should feel is to losing the game, by leaving the winning run on second base when you had Vargas or Grossman on the bench! And that's true even if you only had Escobar as a third catcher. But you also have Mauer. I'm all for moving Mauer out from behind the plate because of his concussion history. But to me that doesn't mean he's not available as an emergency fill in. The risk of catching for a year is too high to consider. But the rosk of taking a ball to the mask in any given inning are very small -- probably about the same as getting a concussion diving for a grounder, like Morneau did. A couple innings are no big deal. Especially if the only scenario in which you play Mauer is that both Gimenez AND Escobar got injured in the same few innings! Anyway if you're worried about concussions, the real ticking bomb is letting Buxton keep smashing into walls. That's a huge, huge fear of mine. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that any hopes of a future Twins' dynasty rest on Buxton and Sano. As it stands, I can't see Buxton surviving, the way he plays. I love his attitude but to me it seems like a matter of time before he goes the way of Koskie, Morneau, and Mauer. And for what? If you look at the cost-benefit ratio of running full speed into a wall, it's not pretty. On the one hand. you're adding a tiny increase to the chance of getting an out that has a tiny chance of affecting a game that has a tiny chance of affecting the season standings. On the other, you're running a major risk of torpedoing the team's chances of ever making the World Series in the next ten years. We take out pitchers based solely on pitch counts to reduce the chance of injury. And we should. Injuries are bad! Yet we don't tell players not to concuss themselves against walls, or tear up their hands sliding head first. In a truly analytically based franchise, these things would all be subject to rigorous cost-benefit analyses. Pointless, major risks would not be tolerated. And tiny risks with potentially large payoffs, like pinch-hitting for your catcher with men on base, would.

One interesting stat: Chapman's strikeouts well outnumbered his innings pitched at every stop in the minors. Every single one. Cumulatively he had 441 strikeouts in 352 innings, with 185 walks. That surprised me. His major league numbers are a mess, and make him look like a soft tosser with poor control. I know, anyone can strike people out in the low minors. But I had assumed he was utterly worthless. His team had to have totally given up on him, to swap him for someone whose team had totally given up on him, too. But the fact is people kept giving him shots in the majors. So they thought he had potential once. Do I expect anything? Of course not. The goal was to vacate a roster spot on the 40 man, and this guy doesn't need one, so that's his main value. And I'm fine with that. But I just had a tiny little glimmer of interest, reading those stats. And who knows. Sometimes a coach sees something other guys missed, and something clicks. Santana never had good plate discipline even when he was hitting, and those things rarely click later. I don't think he'll improve. But you never know with pitchers. As long as he doesn't block a real prospect, what have you got to lose? So, better than I expected!

I think Santana could be a valuable role player, if his role is pinch runner. And emergency injury replacement.

Why not Dozier? You say it would cause problems with lineup construction. I say, it would kill two birds with one stone. You'd stop wasting rbi opportunities by leading off with your top slugger (excuse me, second best slugger!) while protecting Sano at the same time. Preserving the opportunity to hit solo homers, and bat in the bottom of the order, are not things to construct your lineup around!

They used to call ace relievers firemen, not closers. That made sense. Everyone understood that the time you needed your best reliever was when there were men on base, a dangerous hitter was up, and the next at bats could decide the game. I.e., high leverage situations. Rolaids even sponsored a fireman of the year award. It made intuitive sense; they put out fires. Anyone can lead off an inning with the bases empty. Big deal. And as many have pointed out above, if the ninth is the bottom of the order, it's even more irrelevant. This fetishising of the ninth is so mindless. I know, I know, this has all been said before, sorry. But imagine you were a bartender or waiter who had to scramble like crazy during the busy time, and when it slowed down, someone came in during the quiet time just before closing, and got paid three times as much as you. Would it not drive you crazy?

The outfield defense is great but their hitting is terrible. Yes there is the potential for them to be a good-hitting group as well, and one advantage of not being in the playoff hunt is you can give them time to develop. But if you're going to say they have the potential to be the best-fielding outfield in baseball, you have to acknowledge they also have the potential to be the worst hitting outfield in baseball. At least this year. They could become a good hitting group; the tools are there. But the is a real question whether they can even remain a group. How long a leash do you give them? My hope is a long, long leash, as they are young and talented and still on the up swing, and they really help the pitchers. I'm bullish, too. With one caveat. How many people really develop plate discipline late in their career? If Rosario were ever going to stop swinging at bad balls, wouldn't it have happened by now? Can anyone name one player who had such a consistently terrible K/BB ratio, and then changed? I can't think of any. He's like the mythical QB with a cannon fot an arm, who if he only could learn to throw more accurately... Never happens. I think all three of these guys were promoted too​ soon. If they do figure it out, it will be just in time to get really expensive. And Rosario should have had to earn his way up by working on his plate discipline. He's not going to tinker up here, he's going to stick with what he does best. Sorry to be so negative, and I know the thread was specifically about defense. But it's kind of the elephant in the room.