nova_twins

The luxury tax is an important factor. The Giants and Mets offered a large number of years to mitigate the AAV impact of the deal; once the long-term health issue became apparent, it blew up the financial basis of the deals from the club side. The Twins were able to go higher on AAV due to their low payroll, which in turn also made them much more flexible in structuring a deal. To put it another way, the Giants and Mets were only ever interested in "Low AAV Correa." That's *before* any physicals took place. The Twins never had that limitation. The same issue is also probably why other teams didn't jump in - clubs across MLB recognize Correa's value profile, and Minnesota was the best fit.

*exorcised

Lewis' debut was absolutely a huge deal, especially in combination with how he's played in AAA. You can dig into the metrics or you can just stick with the basics, it doesn't really matter - he's showing elite offensive upside along with the potential to play shortstop, which is incredibly rare. If anything, Lewis' development has been underhyped, because his 1st overall pick pedigree gets more attention than the fact his last minor league success had been 2018 in A-ball. In terms of expected future value, Lewis' rise this year has to be at or near the top across all MLB orgs.

The Twins are 7th in wRC+ and 16th in xFIP-. Raw numbers are almost difficult to look at because of the run-scoring environment. Pitching is still a significant concern for this team.

Yeah that 2019-20 stretch of winning over 60% of their games was pretty terrible. ?

I am in general agreement with many of the posts here, but I do suggest keeping in mind that offense has been down this year broadly across MLB. I think that may be skewing perceptions a bit. For instance, Polanco and Jeffers have seemed to be struggling somewhat at the plate, but have wRC+ of 113 and 115, respectively. And in a tiny sample size, Celestino is basically performing at a star level by hitting a few singles and playing defense. On the flip side, Joe Ryan has an xFIP- of 98 and Ober is at 118. The Twins' pitching WAR is 6th in the AL. So, while there are a lot of positives, there's still room to improve. Having said that, the pitching pipeline is a big reason why I wasn't ready to give up on the F.O. What it boils down to is this: mid-market clubs have to be able to find pitchers in the middle rounds of the draft, and in trades, and by every other conceivable means. It's not about any one pitcher - successful franchises like TB, CLE, STL, show the ability to do that well over a long period of time. There are signs of that in Minnesota, which is an extremely promising development.

Brutal thread. Let's start here: Martin's drop in prospect status happened before the Twins made the trade. If he was tracking like a star, Toronto never would have dealt him. The public prospect lists take time to catch up. Berrios had value, but not as much as a number of TD posters seem to think. Next, player development is not a linear process, and it can take time. Miranda struggled for years with making hard contact. Lewis' overly aggressive swing took years to tone down. As with other prospects that later had breakouts, Martin has some strong MLB-caliber tools, including contact ability and plate discipline. Historically, hitters with better contact ability in the minors are more likely to become big leaguers. Also, Martin is 13/13 in stolen bases so far this year, and has the speed to be, at absolute worst, a decent corner outfielder. Obviously, Martin isn't going to succeed (even in AA) without hitting the ball harder. If it was an easy fix, it would already have happened. But this is quite literally Martin's job and the Twins' coaches' job. Maybe the swing will get fixed, maybe it won't . . . nothing has changed in that regard. That's particularly true given that his college career was disrupted by covid and he's played the rough equivalent of one full minor league season. The Twins knew Martin needed work when they acquired him, and . . . they're working on it. We'll see.

As some others have noted, the underlying reality here is that the rotation was/is a bigger problem than the bullpen, and a more difficult one to fix. The Twins likely are confident that some of their prospect arms will at least turn into solid relievers (if healthy), and also it's cheaper to acquire relievers via trade, relative to SP. No move is guaranteed to work but the strategy is clearly valid. They just have to execute on it.

Signing Seager makes sense to me, given his age. And Gray was cheap. But paying big money to Semien looks even stranger now. I imagine that Kiner-Falefa would shift to a utility role, but maybe they would look to trade him. He might not be the worst 'cheap' SS option, being similar to Iglesias and Simmons but much younger.

The decreasing supply of options is concerning, but on the other hand, it's not like we'd be happy if they panicked and massively overpaid for mediocrity. Or at least, I wouldn't be. There are still some free agents left and potential trades out there, so there's just no way to judge at this point. It could be a reasonable strategy to trade for a #2 starter with a year or two left under contract, and then sign a couple one-year free agent deals, as a way to avoid blocking young arms. *Could* be in the sense that it would depend on the young arms actually appearing and succeeding, which seems to be a rather uncertain prospect.

I'm very relieved that the deal was made. There is one thing that nags me a little bit - if Buxton himself was highly confident in staying healthy going forward, would he sign this deal? With only one year to go until free agency, he's really *not* betting on himself here, despite the MVP escalators. There are of course a wide range of potential outcomes. The reality will probably be somewhere in between the best case (mostly full seasons with impact production) and worst case (mostly hurt) . . . just have to hope it's closer to the former, and that the Twins put a winning team around him.

The problem is that we don't know what happened years ago, when the Twins reportedly at least explored the possibility of an extension while Berrios still was under team control for a while. He reportedly was not receptive to those entreaties, but while we have some new information about what he would have been willing to accept recently, we still don't know what he would have accepted several years ago. So while I do prefer the cash + Martin + Woods-Richardson over Berrios' contract with Toronto, the general reasonableness of that deal makes me wonder whether an opportunity was missed back then.

The part that gets me is - the Twins have very little long-term money on the books. What exactly is the trade-off here? Is there some funny business going on with Pohlad's budget? I never really believed that Terry Ryan just enjoyed being cheap or whatever all those years . . . if fingers start pointing at Falvine over the payroll being low, surely it means that Pohlad is in the background. Folks are just grasping at straws though, because we just can't make sense of it . . . guys like Buxton are the key to winning the World Series . . . there is no media reporting that Buxton's asking price is crazy high. The reporting numbers seem incomplete in some way, because otherwise it seems inconceivable that the Twins would be holding out on him. Maybe some crazy opt outs or something? I've been supportive of Falvine from the beginning but this issue could flip that. I'm just hoping, without any actual basis, that they're going to extend him. It's hard for me to even process alternate scenarios right now.

I was at the 2nd Baltimore game... what really stuck out was how often Twins' batters don't even try to hit the ball hard. Guys like Span and Mauer like to be patient and work the count, but a lot of times they get into 2-strike counts, between borderline pitches, fouls, etc. The emphasis on making contact really hurts in those situations because they prefer making weak contact to trying to actually hit the ball hard. The result is just a bunch of groundouts. Heck, Span didn't even pull the ball once in batting practice. I think the problem is more organizational but Vavra certainly is part of that.

I think there are a couple different issues at work. First is the idea of pitching to contact, versus refusing to give in. It's a trade-off between extra-base hits and walks. I'm not sure one approach is necessarily better than the other... it just depends on the pitcher and the team around him. The second and more important issue is pitcher quality. If a guy stinks there is no approach that will yield great results. A guy with good stuff can attack the zone and be effective. I think the main reason the Twins lack pitchers with good stuff is their drafting strategy- even after the first few rounds they strongly prefer low-ceiling college guys to raw high schoolers. If you draft enough 18-year olds with a live fastball, some of them will turn into Major League power pitchers. They have obviously drafted high school pitchers over the years, and had disappointments, injuries, etc., but not to the same degree as a lot of clubs. I understand focusing on college pitchers in the first 2 rounds or so, but after that it's really hard to find guys with much upside. Why bother drafting someone with 5th-starter upside? They can get that anywhere. Take a high school pitcher and work with him. Most will flame out but some will add velocity and learn how to pitch.