ashbury

I didn't say that. The others on the roster who came here via trade are a different story entirely from the 3 whom I highlighted. And some pitchers were acquired by other means than draft or trade. No team, except maybe in a very high-end revenue market, can escape an occasional losing season even if "sustainable success" is the mantra and is achieved. As I said, I applaud the pragmatism of making chicken salad from chicken feathers. It's just not part of any pipeline for me - nothing to make a 5-year or 10-year plan about.

Seasons are won, one game at a time. Each game comes down to whether your lineup* is better than the opponent's, in which case you will take your chances and expect good outcomes on average. Lineups come down to individual matchups involving both bat and glove. If your first baseman is better than theirs, that's a plus, and so on down the day's lineup. As with DH, there's a concern that a rotation at first base leaves you with too many days where the guy you run out there is really a second choice and isn't better than the other team's. Hope our roster is so strong overall that everyone we play at first base is a contributor. * (Similar concern about the day's starting pitcher of course, but we're talking about a position player here)

Our front office seems to consistently build a high tolerance for injury risk into their roster decisions. Success boils down to having these bets pay off in combination. I'm going all in with the FO and for this year I'm forecasting a 93-win season. So, in terms of this poll, it's health that I'll be keeping my eye on. Like Falvey and Levine when they have to explain another sub-.500 season to the executive suite, I'll have the usual "oh, that darn injury bug" excuse to explain why my rosy expectation didn't pan out.

I got a contact high just from watching that video, you jerk.

Joe Ryan, Jhoan Duran, and Jorge Alcala are all deadline acquisitions during down seasons. I applaud the pragmatism of the acquisitions but they are windfalls, not part of a sustainable pipeline. Suppose the Twins had been winners in 2021 and 2018 - how do you acquire these three arms when you need Nelson Cruz and Ryan Pressly and Eduardo Escobar for your own pennant drives?

So then to achieve roughly comparable numbers at the same age and league level, he must be more talented and/or accomplished than Duvall was. Cool beans.

17 HR by a 23-year old at High-A ball, followed by 5 more in short duty at AA? Seems like nothing to sneeze at. I decided to take a look back, 10 years ago, and see what happened afterward to anyone with similar age and numbers at high-A in 2012. At first I was going to look at the Twins own farm system, but High-A back then was in Ft Myers, and the Florida State League is widely considered a pitcher's league. Certainly no one on that 2012 squad approached those figures. So I opted for a different franchise and picked the Giants at random. Their High-A team in 2012 was in San Jose in the higher-offense California League. On that team was Adam Duvall, who at age 23 hit 30 dingers. He used 598 PA in which to accomplish that, while our guy Aaron had his HR in only 348 and 99 at A+ and AA respectively. Duvall's BA was .258 while Sabato's was .226/.179, but adding in walks Sabato's OBP was actually a tad higher of the two. Not a perfect comp but close enough to suit me. Lots of minor leaguers fail, regardless of their pedigree or resume up to a given point. So I'm not going to continue looking for additional comps *cough* Kennys Vargas 2013 *cough*. If Sabato turns out like Duvall, for a few seasons, and it looks like he does have a chance, then our late first rounder will have worked out OK.

Quite rightly.

If nothing else, RandBalls Stu thoroughly understands the age demographic he is writing for.

So, we should mark you down for 90 wins in 2023? Or, make it a nice round 100? 😀

He did give up 3 HR in that first game in a Twins uni. Went on to complete 6 innings and got the credit for the win. That was against a playoff-bound team, incidentally - his next game against a lesser foe, he threw 6 shutout innings. And then the ailment resurfaced. His short time with our team hasn't given me reason to think there's anything wrong between the ears. Inside the shoulder, maybe.

The comparison offered between Arraez and Solano would embarrass both ballplayers if they were made aware.

Anthony Slama turned 39 last month.

I wonder if it's got so much movement that batters will be more able to recognize the pitch and lay off it?

Jason Tyner being unavailable, you do what you can.

"Sit. Can you sit? Sit, please." That it so Rocco!

The existence of this article shows that the Yankees are getting free rent in our heads.

MLB.tv is priced so low because it it blacked out wherever a service like Bally has exclusive rights. Someone out-of-town like me gets to see the Twins for cheap this way, because nobody here in the west has exclusive rights on the Twins (however I can't watch the A's or Giants except through Comcast, and everywhere is in at least one team's exclusive area). If MLB uses this bankruptcy to elbow out Bally, expect their own price to go up once the competition is out of the way.

There was a separately priced MiLB.tv option for the minor leagues in years past, wasn't there? Wasn't too expensive either. $10 or thereabouts. Maybe it was 20. I think all this is, is a ploy to get everyone to accept the smaller add-on package, even if at a bit lower price per "seat", thus making them more money because everyone now has to pay it. Not that I'm criticizing - I enjoyed tuning into the minor league games, when I remembered to. Problem was, I would forget, and I think I dropped the subscription the next year because I wasn't using it enough. In effect, this move reels me back in again, like the fish that I am, for the extra $10. I may be misremembering though.

Long shot (which maybe you factor in, with your word "could"). He just turned 29, and using WAR again as the quick-and-dirty measure he is behind all 4 of the incumbents through age-28 seasons. I'll always root for him, but he's lost a ton of time for this kind of all-time thinking.

The panel would also have accepted "Brylcreem."

Not really encouraging. b-r.com (first Google hit I found) explains WARP as having a baseline of about 25 wins if a team was composed of all 0-WARP players, i.e. replacement level. You need about 50-60 WARP, team wide, to achieve a .500 record. Given the WARP projections for the batters and now the pitchers, this isn't a sunny forecast. Very odd given the favorable ERAs - it doesn't "add up," at all.

I basically agree. The problem with a 6-man rotation to start the season is that it's predicated on the idea that nobody's really ready and you need to ease them all into the season. But that means 4- or 5-inning starts for a week or two, and that in turn means you need to rely more on your bullpen and not less, and that in turn means you'd rather not have to operate with a 7-man bullpen when you could have 8. Plus why would the 7 relievers be in mid-season form already and geared up to pitching on consecutive days when needed at times? Now, if your 6-man rotation allows them to roar out of the gate throwing 6 or 7 innings apiece, it'd be a different story. Here's a crazier idea? Ober's your Game 2 starter in Kansas City, after the day off following Opening Day (let's say that is Sonny Gray). Let Ober do his 4 or 5 innings, then send him down to St Paul and bring up that 8th bullpen arm ASAP. You go through the rest of the rotation against the Royals and then Marlins, and our graybeard Gray can now do the Home Opener too, having had a full week's rest. Then there's that additional off-day (cold-weather teams seem to build that into their early schedules), and the other 4 starters get their 6 days of rest. I don't think you can bring Ober right back up, according to league rules, so you can't play musical chairs with him at will. So maybe someone has to do a spot-start, or maybe the rotation is in good shape by now and are into their rhythm. Weather postponements and injuries are going to throw any of this planning off, by this point anyway, so just go with a plan to begin with and then expect to adjust and improvise.

We're all speculating and I've got my theories too. But the ideal society you lay out here also gets you punched in the face for talking sense to an idiot, because everybody is allowed their own opinion of idiocy. And society isn't any less civil today than when I were a lad.