Hans Birkeland

Don't overhype the defending division champs coming off a season where they were gifted incredibly good health and a Twins second-half collapse. Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn, USA Today Sports Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good? The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later. The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season. The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly. “But Cleveland always finds pitching.” Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right. As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons. Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?. Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022: Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status. That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were. To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe. Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino. As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year. 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The team control is what makes them more valuable but you're right, there is more present day value with Maeda Mahle an Gray. Next year is a different story but hopefully Paddack recovers well and Ober can get established.

You said it, you gotta have a little luck. Would you say the last ace pitcher the Twins drafted and developed was Radke, Erickson or Viola?

To be fair, Chase Petty had a pretty good year for the Reds, playing the year at age 19 and holding his own against much older competition. Spencer Steer looks like he has a floor of a good utility man, and made his debut last year. Christian Encarnacion-Strand looks like he almost certainly will hit, even if he ends up a 1B/DH type. He'll likely see time at the MLB level this year. Steven Hajjar was a second round pick in 2021 who has looked great thus far. He hurt his shoulder after the trade, however. Brusdar Graterol is a quality reliever at minimum. That's three MLB players and two young pitchers with upside and decent prospect pedigree. Maybe not the sexiest collection of players but still extremely valuable.

Boy, If Milwaukee only wants Ober Wallner and Martin I am all in. I would imagine Lewis, Lee and Rodriguez would need to be involved to realistically get it done.

The Twins have a lot of pretty good starters, but a true No. 1 remains the missing piece in their championship puzzle. What's the most realistic method for acquiring one? Image courtesy of Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports With Jordan Balazovic sliding down the prospect rankings due to a tough 2022 season (and now a tough start to this 2023 spring), it appears that the number of organizational Twins pitchers who could reasonably project to being a top-tier MLB starting pitcher is down to two in Marco Raya and Connor Prielipp. Both haven’t pitched a lot due to injury, with Prielipp in particular only logging seven college starts since 2019. Raya has a small build with electric stuff, so paired with his injury history, his ability to hold up for twenty-five starts is a serious question. Teams like to have a number one starter, or “ace,” but the sad truth is that there aren’t enough to go around among the 30 teams. The Twins had a taste with Kenta Maeda’s 2020 season, and arguably Phil Hughes in 2014, but otherwise have been searching since Johan Santana left in 2008. The 2023 rotation may be the deepest the team has featured since then, but it clearly lacks a top-end guy to lead the group. By my count, there are 24 starters who could currently be described as an ace or No. 1. Here they are with projected fWAR for 2023 along with how they were acquired: Drafted or signed as international free agent: Shohei Ohtani (4.3) Shane Bieber (4.2) Triston McKenzie (3.3) Corbin Burnes (5.4) Brandon Woodruff (4.2) Alek Manoah (3.3) Julio Urias (4.0) Walker Buehler (2.9*) Logan Webb (3.7) Aaron Nola (5.0) Shane McClanahan (3.5) Trade: Luis Castillo (3.9) Dylan Cease (3.7) Joe Musgrove (3.6) Zac Gallen (2.9) Max Fried (4.0) Sandy Alcantara (3.8) Free agency: Jacob deGrom (5.7) Carlos Rodon (5.0) Gerrit Cole (4.9) Kevin Gausman (3.8) Justin Verlander (4.0) Max Scherzer (4.3) Zack Wheeler (4.7) That’s 24 guys for 30 teams. Seven teams – the Brewers, Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies, Blue Jays, Guardians and Mets – have two each, meaning only 10 aces remain among the other 24 teams. Most were signed or drafted, but outside of Castillo who was acquired at his peak, the trades were consummated with the future ace having had little or no major league success. Here’s why that might be the best avenue for the Twins: For starters, the draft and development approach hasn’t worked out especially well. Trading for established starters (Gray, Mahle, Maeda) has hurt the farm system, and has given the team a bevy of good, but not great, starting pitchers. All three of those trades were bold, but perhaps not bold enough. What the Twins do have, is a glut of high-minors bats who could help a team as soon as this year in Austin Martin, Matt Wallner, Royce Lewis, Ed Julien and Brooks Lee. All are decent-to-great prospects without an obvious role on the Twins, at least this year and the next. The Twins certainly hope with their newfound depth they can avoid asking all five to contribute in Minneapolis this year, meaning the team could take the reasonable gamble of dangling one or two from that player crop to seek out some high upside young pitching. It’s time for a challenge trade. The Marlins come to mind as a trade partner, as per usual. I would imagine top 10 global prospect Eury Perez would not be available, but the Fish may still listen on Edward Cabrera if one of the higher-end Twins is involved. He was once a top-50 global prospect who posted a 3.01 ERA in 14 starts last year in his age 23 season with potentially four plus pitches. He does have a lengthy injury history, however, missing time each of the last six years. A truly bold move would be to trade Lewis for Cabrera’s teammate, Max Meyer, another former top prospect recovering from Tommy John surgery this year. Meyer was the third overall pick in the 2020 draft, and is also a Minnesotan and a Gopher if that matters to you. He has a devastating slider and a fastball with some weird gyro movement a la Josh Hader. Like Lewis, he’s a difference maker if he bounces back from injury. On the other hand, betting on injured players hasn’t gone well for the Twins in recent memory. Let’s try some other names. Tanner Houck is a little more established, although it isn’t clear the Red Sox plan to use him as a starter, despite him being effective in that role, striking out 10.7 batters per nine innings with a 3.20 ERA. A former first-round pick, Houck throws a good slider (5.9 runs above average) breaking away from righties, and a quality sinker (5.3 runs above average) that breaks away from lefties. If I’m Houck, I want to go somewhere where I can start, even if it sounds like he is interested in an extension with Boston. Nevertheless, Boston could use lineup depth with upside. Mitch Keller of the Pirates took a big leap forward this past year after appearing to stall his first few years in the league, posting a sub-four ERA in 29 starts. He’s a former top prospect and had success converting to a sinker-slider pitcher last year. It’s notable that Pittsburgh also witnessed Cole and Musgrove’s careers being put in neutral before blossoming elsewhere, but its impossible to say whether Keller has another gear (or quality third offering) in him, or if he would be the Twins seventh number two/three starter. Going for Burnes either now or at the deadline wouldn’t be the worst idea, and would make the Twins a legitimate threat in the AL. However, it might cost them three of the five position players mentioned, in addition to someone on the major-league squad like Bailey Ober, and/or 2022 breakout prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez. Trading for someone less fully formed would cost a lot less of the team’s future, and could bring in someone to win that game of pitching-ace musical chairs for a longer period. It remains a dicey proposition, though. Who would you target? Or, do you hold out hope that one of the Twins’ current crop can take the leap to ace-dom? View full article

Its a good point, speaking to their over-reliance on Judge being amazing. But I'd rather have Correa, Polanco, Miranda and Kirilloff over Rizzo, Torres, LeMahieu or Stanton. Match their Volpe and Peraza with Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis. Throw in some Ed Julien. Plus we don't have to play Donaldson, Hicks and Trevino in our lineup.

The Yankees definitely live rent free in my head. It's an illness. Stanton is toast, and the eye test confirms it. His stance has gotten increasingly awkward, he's easy to pitch to, and offers nothing outside of his bat. I think its unfortunate because I really liked Stanton and he was a top five player prior to joining the Yankees, but his descent reminds of how Miguel Cabrera turned into a slap hitter the past few years. And like Cabrera, he torches any flexibility the lineup would have without him. I'm not sure Miranda is a future All-Star, but he has power and contact ability, and Stanton is only power at this point.

The New York Yankees tend to set the benchmark for offensive greatness in the American League, and they've got the reigning MVP. However, a comparison to Minnesota's projected lineup brings the truth to light: This Yankees’ lineup is patched together with scotch tape and dreams of 2017. Image courtesy of Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports One of the quirks of the new MLB schedule is that the Twins end up playing all of their seven games against the New York Yankees in April. The Twins have had a bit of a hard time beating the Yankees in recent decades, and last year was no exception, with New York winning five of seven games. One thing that stood out to me though, particularly in the September matchup between the teams, was how surprisingly thin New York’s lineup was. They had some key injuries by then, sure, but even when healthy only two qualified hitters posted an OPS above .800 for the year. In the offseason, they re-signed Aaron Judge and acquired Carlos Rodón to slot in behind Gerrit Cole in their rotation. Their pitching certainly looks great, but the lineup looks exactly the same, with the team putting a lot of faith in its two young shortstop prospects settling in quickly. It almost feels like we take for granted that New York will have a powerhouse lineup. Reality paints a different picture, so I thought it would be fun to look at why the Twins lineup will outperform the supposed “top ten” lineup of the Yankees. Looking at this position player group, the first thing you notice is they can’t start their best hitters if Giancarlo Stanton plays DH, his natural position. One of D.J. LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo need to sit unless you throw Stanton out to left field, and that doesn’t seem wise. Let’s run through their options in the lineup: The Yankees’ best hitter is Judge, and he makes up for a lot of deficiencies. Last year, he played like two MVP candidates in one, finishing the year with a 10.6 bWAR season. He’s amazing. Their second best hitter last year was Rizzo, who posted a 131 OPS+ with 32 home runs and mistake-free defense. He will turn 34 this summer, spent time on the IL last year, and hit .228. Torres was next best. He got some of his power back after a few down years, but maybe at the expense of being selective at the plate, with a career-low .310 OBP to go along with his 24 home runs. Here you start to see the issue. Jose Trevino fooled us for a little while, upselling a hot start into being the starting catcher in the All-Star game, but in the second half he settled back into who he is: an overly-aggressive hitter with little power but some decent contact ability who is good for an 85 OPS+. LeMahieu wasn’t very good last year with a slugging of .377, an improvement on his .362 from a year before. He still gets on base, but the drop in power is a little alarming for a guy set to turn 36 next summer. Center-fielder Harrison Bader played well for the Yankees in the playoffs, but got into only 14 games during the regular season due to a foot injury. He’s a New York guy, and he’s had a couple of 114 OPS+ seasons, but he’s not a good bet to stay healthy, having never come to the plate 450 times in a season. As for Stanton, he’s the kind of player that the team may have cut bait with if money were no object (he is still owed 175M, 20M of that paid by the Marlins). He can no longer field and he can’t run, ranking in the bottom five percent in the league by sprint speed. He also can’t stay healthy, with leg injuries decimating his career. New for 2022? He can no longer get on base, with a .297 OBP. Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson are albatrosses on this team, and they couldn’t find any takers for either contract this offseason. New York will presumably roll with the pair, who combined to hit to a .663 OPS and 23 home runs in 2022. The Yankees think both can bounce back, especially Donaldson. But he’s 37. Hicks hasn’t been good since the Rockies were making the playoffs. Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza are big-time shortstop prospects who both figure to play roles for the team in 2023, hopefully in place of Isiah Kiner-Falefa who managed only an 84 OPS+ last year. But IKF figures to still start a lot of games, at least in April. Add it all up and you have a solid-enough offense, but if Judge misses time, this lineup is listless and will rely heavily on its pitching staff to keep them in games. Even with Judge, the Twins have roughly as much top end talent with a lot more depth. Let’s confirm that going player by player. Note that this assumes Stanton starts in left field, because I’m feeling charitable. Leading off, Jorge Polanco beats out LeMahieu. Both have injury concerns but Polanco is much younger and had a much better year last year. Judge beats out Carlos Correa. Can’t do much about that. Byron Buxton beats out Rizzo, although that can change quickly based on availability. I think José Miranda is a more valuable hitter than Stanton at this point, based on performance, diversity of approach and quality of at-bats. And while Stanton’s place in the lineup costs the Yankees a bat, Miranda allows the Twins to see more of what they have in Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach at first base and DH. Torres beats out Joey Gallo pretty easily, unless you are a big believer in a Gallo bounce-back. Donaldson is ahead of Kirilloff, but only slightly. This could swing really quickly if Donaldson continues to slide, and Kirilloff emerges from Spring Training healthy. Bader beats Max Kepler, but Kepler also beats Hicks, who figures to play here whenever Stanton is DH. I’ll call this a tie. Christian Vázquez is a better hitter than Trevino. Yankees fans can take solace that their catcher is probably a better defender. Larnach and Nick Gordon both are better hitters than IKF by quite a bit. If Volpe or Peraza have strong rookie seasons and IKF heads to the bench, this is a different story. You can quibble about a few of these in both directions, but the Twins take at least five of nine, if not seven. The fact is, the Yankees are forced to play a lot of guys with a sub .700 OPS. Worse yet, none of them have any remaining upside, outside of maybe a mild bounce-back from Donaldson. The Twins have injury issues, but their depth has improved to the point that all four of their bench players could capably start on other teams, including the Yankees- outside of Ryan Jeffers. That helps. The Yankees can’t say the same, with only the shortstop prospects and Oswaldo Cabrera available as reinforcements. The Yankees, with their resources, have the luxury of deciding when they need to stop investing in their offense. The Twins don’t, and still have a better projected lineup with better fallback options. The top end pitching is a different story, however. Maybe the Twins should call Corbin Burnes to tell him they’re there for him. View full article

I just want to bring it back a smidge. Initially your claim was that using Gibson as a comp does not inspire confidence. If not Kirk Gibson, who would inspire confidence for you?

Yeah cuz Ray Lankford was awesome! Power-speed threat, OPS topped out at .996. 123 career OPS+. Good defender. Always had him on my team in video games.

A team whose biggest strength is outfield defense, yet their 8th and 9th inning guys are the lone ground ball oriented pitchers. I'm sure it'll be fine.