Greglw3

Tempting. When he’s right, he’s scary. But what went wrong?

He currently has 80 IP with 75 Hits, just 22 BB and 64 K, moreover he has a 3.83 ERA. And he’s trending upward as he gets further and further from Tommy John. In June and July combined, he has a 3.63 ERA in 39 IP. He’d make a great 4th starter for us. Lopez, Ryan, Gray, Syndergaard with an average ERA of about 3.30. Last, he’s gone 7 or more innings 4 times this season and he pitched 8 innings on another occasion. Bullpen preventer.

We have Larnach, Kirilloff, Austin Martin, Simeon Woods Richardson, Cade Povich, Edouard Julien, Spencer Steer, Matt Wallner, Winder, Encarnacion, Christian-Strand, Canterino, Kepler any one of whom could be included for a top pitcher. We have plenty to trade!

I like your plan Nick and want Syndergaard pretty badly too. The two relievers would totally revolutionize the bullpen. One thing I would do further is informed by watching the Twins win the 1987 World Series with basically 3 pitchers. To that end, I’d also go after Pablo Lopez of the Marlins. If we have to give up Steer or Wallner, that’s the price of getting in the World Series hunt. We’d still get to keep one of Wallner and Steer and have the monstrous talent, Jose Miranda and Alex Kirilloff and even Trevor Larnach. I’m pretty sure that Lopez, Gray and Ryan would be better than what the Twins ran out in 1987. And the opportunity is now for another reason. The Twins have arguably their best defensive team in Twins history with Urshela, Correa, Polanco, Buxton and Kepler. Heck, Gordon is even at his best in LF. You laid a solid groundwork. If Falvey and Levine will make the sacrifice for Lopez, the Twins could be WS contenders with the other moves you’ve laid out. In this scenario getting Thor moves 2 of 3 of Smeltzer, Archer, Bundy out of the rotation. They can’t win with 2 or 3 of those 3 in the rotation. If they could get Rich Hill, Thor could be 4th starter and regular season breaking ball rich Hill would be #5. And Correa plays his best in the postseason.

Because he’s a good pitcher.

I wouldn’t trade Correa for Soto. The only prudent move would be to extend Correa, IMO. Gordon’s best position is LF and they could try to acquire Michael A. Taylor as Nick Nelson mentioned or my favorite hitting machine Andrew Binentendi.

Was the long-standing way of referring to 75 RBIs correct or is the new style 75 RBI correct? I think the first question that needs to be answered is what does RBI stand for? Runs Batted In or Run Batted in? I maintain that RBI stands for Run Batted in, the singular. You would never say that a player has 1 RBIs or 1 Runs Batted In. But you would say the player had 1 RBI (Run Batted In). That answers the question of what RBI stands for. Run Batted In. If that were not the case, and RBI stood for Runs Batted In, you could not use the singular. You wouldn’t say, Luis Arraez has 1 Runs Batted In after the season's first game. You would say Luis Arraez has 1 Run Batted In (RBI) after the first game. With that established, it’s pretty simple. 1 dog, 2 dogs. 1 balloon, 2 balloons. 1 Bicycle, 2 bicycles. And 1 RBI, 2 RBIs, 1 RBI, 50 RBIs, 1 RBI, 75 RBIs.

I think it’s a great idea! Low cost in prospects. I think we’d only owe about 7MM since there will be only a little over 2 months left. Does that sound right? And maybe he’ll like it here and re-sign. I read that he’s been pitching better lately. They should do it ASAP and then do what it takes to get Montas, short of Miranda and maybe Wallner. I’d trade Larnach in such a deal and more from MILB.

look at Laureano’s current stats, no way is he worth 45.5. That’s nuts! And he’s worth significantly more than Arraez???? I’d say cancel the subscription to that trade simulator. I’ve seen many times when they have had outrageous evaluations. Great idea. Totally unreliable. To me worthless.

I would say that under no circumstances should the Twins even consider moving Miranda. I would only trade Kirilloff (maybe) if they can get an agreement with Montas on at least a 3 year extension and be supremely confident that he’s healthy. And if they included Laureano as well. Ober and Kirilloff for Montas and Laureano? Is that fair? I’d rather they take Kepler before Kirilloff, however.

Can we win in the playoffs if we acquire Castillo, Thor (not expensive), 2 strong relievers, perhaps one a rental, Binentendi for LF or Contreras for #1 C? Don’t forget expiring contracts are much less expensive.

I think first, that any logjam is not a factor with Bell because he is performing as a hitter better than any of those he might displace. Another .300 hitter and with power and high OBP to boot would improve the Twins erratic offense. The cost, IMO, would not involved any of the above named players bt maybe a AA pitcher or at the most Eduord Julien. Montas is a different story. I wouldn’t trade Miranda. Larnach is a possibility because he’s replaceable, especially with Wallner on the way. That would be a fair deal with the Twins possibly throwing in an A or AA pitching prospect.

Definitely make a play for Willson Contreras. He would be such a vast improvement over Jeffers who lugs that .190-.205 average to the plate and hurts the Twins overall run scoring ability. The Twins do need offensive help. The offense has been very erratic. I’m aiming for a WS here. ANother guy I’d love to have for LF is Andrew Binentendi. That would give the Twins potentially 3 .300 hitters plus Contreras. But they do need an ace type. I think Castillo and Montas both went down, one for a start and the other to the IL. If you read @Aaron Gleeman’s excellent article on 10 relievers available, I ws struck that there are some really good ones that wouldn’t cost too much.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Yep, very simple. By replacing Jeffer’s ABs in the lineup as much as possible with Cruz’s, the Twins would be gaining a lot of offense, which is erratic as many have observed.

That should teach you to never ever use OAA or DRA or UZR. Use your baseball knowledge and learn from people like Roy Smalley who said Gio was the best 3rd baseman in the AL and Rocco who said Gio’s defense was exceptional and your God given 5 senses.

My pick is Joe Mauer. Both were great defensive players. I think Mauer, through no fault of his own, had his performance lowered by concussions. The real difference is that Mauer accomplished something the no catcher in the AL in the history of baseball had, that being winning a batting title as a catcher. To do it 3 times as a catcher is mind boggling! Further Mauer had a season of .365 with 28HR in one of his batting titles and a .444 OBP afor his season that got him the big contract. Puckett’s batting title (1) was ,339, lower than 2 of Mauer’s batting titles. Another of Mauer’s batting titles featured a .347 average with a .429 OBP. Another factor is that Mauer won an MVP award while Puckett never won one. As far as championships, I was very displeased that they didn’t take full advantage of having Mauer and Morneau by adding the pieces that would have put them over the top After all that, I firmly believe that Rod Carew is the best player in Twins history.

OAA is complete garbage.

Here’s a play by the average at best defensive third baseman. It might be the best defensive play I’ve ever see a 3rd baseman make.

I agree with you Mark. One easy solution would be to start Sanchez 70% at C, Jeffers 30% and have Miranda DH full time. I calculated his batting average a few days back starting on May 20. It was .343. Hmm. .345, .344, .343, AA, AAA, MLB. I’ve been assured by Latroy and Roy Smalley that they and the Twins have no doubt he’s gonna hit. I also agree with you on Urshela. Roy Smalley said on the Twins telecast that Urshela was the best defensive 3rd baseman in the league and I agree. I also agree with you that Urshela has played a level of defense at 3rd that I just haven’t seen in years. Rocco Baldelli said that Urshela’s defense was exceptional and he had a very high IQ for the game. I loathe those SABR defensive statistics. They’re so out of touch with what solid baseball men can easily see. Especially Smalley who has a brilliant baseball mind. After all he’s Gene Mauch’s nephew and Mauch was a tactical genius.

Just another misleading statistic like WPA, OAA, UZR, WAR, OPS+ (slanted heavily toward power hitters and against Arraez), launch speed (Arraez’s probably low but hitting ~.350). Correa and Arraez are the only 2 holding the offense together. I think this recent phenomenon of these very questionable SABR type statistics is quite unfortunate. All of the defensive statistics are meaningless and almost always misleading if you compare to Scouts, managers, broadcasters - people that deeply understand baseball - takes.

I agree with those who say don’t trade Correa and would add they must sign him to a long term deal. IMO just as important or more (due to Correa’s relative durability) than signing Buxton last offseason. I would not trade Urshela because he provides somewhat of an iron wall with Correa on the left side. I would trade Kepler and think the Twins OF would be just fine with Kirilloff, Larnach, Buxton, Celestino, Garlick. And the no brainer is that Sano is getting passed by, perhaps by Miranda. So I’ve got Kepler as the main trade chip and they could tap the minors for the extra ingredients.

We can’t have a discussion on Urshela’s defense vs. anyone because you completely lost Me by considering it necessary to state that Urshela’s metrics put him as one of the worst in the league and that he isn’t even top 10 by the eye test. Ridiculous!!! I don’t know of any other player that has made a reaching, near miraculous diving stop, roll over on his back and laying on the ground, on his back, from his but get enough on the throw to throw the runner out. Cite me an example where another player has done that. Plus, his throwing arm is strong and reliable and he has made many more spectacular plays than the one I described. I’ve followed baseball for 58 years and NEVER, not once, see a 3rd baseman make a play like that. And he almost did it again. Per Aaron Gleeman quoting Rocco Baldelli: Rocco Baldelli, pregame, on Gio Urshela's defense: "He's been exceptional at third base. Really on all kinds of plays. His feel for the game is high-end. He has one of the better baseball minds of anyone. His feel is exceptional, his awareness is great."

Those metrics, in my opinion, any defensive metric except errors (which is of limited value) is attempting an unobtainable reading of a defensive player’s worth. This was an accepted fact until what I would call the SABR fad grew into increasing, but ill-placed popularity. I don’t reject SABR stats because I’m old school but because I constantly see them being used to draw conclusions that any good scout will tell you is unwarranted. But, in the end, anyone - be they a fan or a front office person is free to use UZR and whatever evolving version of WAR they like or the flawed OPS+ to make their evaluations. Stats are exciting. I took 6 courses in Northwestern’s Masters in Predictive Analytics courses so I love stats. But the expression, "there are lies, damned lies and statistics" kind of holds true when new, unproven statistics are used to come up with such silly conclusions as " Eddie Rosario with his ~300 batting average and team leading 109 RBIs and overall at least average defense, fantastic throwing arm, is the worst left fielder in the league. Or in the current case Gio Urshela is not a good fielder due to UZR or some other totally unreliable defensive statistic. WHen some Twins fans (a lot?) were saying Eddie was a bad overall LF. I did some research and his WAR was north of 3. Then they subtracted all the way from 3.2 or 3.4 down to a final 0.9 due to defense. No way his defense was so bad that it took about 75% of his overall value away! He caught most balls hit to him, made an occasional bonehead play but then contributed to winning with his throwing arm I don’t think that in the tradition of statistical analysis, there is any way to run a two group trial and prove whether any of the statistics are accurate or not.