twinsfanstreif

Haven't been following much as there's a lot going on in my life so just catching up on these signing. So far I really like it. We needed a defensive shortstop as Polanco wasn't cutting it there and Simmons is certainly that, hopefully his bat can be adequate and not fall off a cliff. I love Cruz and want him to stay forever! He's becoming a player I am irrational about. Colome looks to fit in really well too. My only concern with these moves along with Donaldson last season we are starting to get a bit long in the tooth and aging rosters have a tendency to drop off quickly

We all know who we're gonna face, we knew that from day one, nothing changes

It seems like we've been playing the Royals for like 2 weeks

I gotta pass on trading Rooker, Kiriloff, or Larnach for a LH Reliever. Those are way too promising of prospects to be trading for a reliever who won't be a closer, even then it gets dicey unless they're really good, maybe I'm too scarred from the Capps trade though

Nelson Cruz is really good and I don't want him to ever leave! That is all.....

It sucks to have missed the game, I live in the UK and first pitch was 1:10am, there's no way I was staying up for it, unfortunately I'll only be able to catch day games. But it's great to wake up to a victory! Kepler is on pace for 120 home runs! Breaking records baby!!!!! I'm a little worried about Berrios' rough start, hopefully it's just breaking off the rust

It's 2020 man, you can't joke like this. The thing is, this could actually happen and it wouldn't even be in the top 10 craziest things to happen in 2020........I hate (and weirdly kind of love) this year so much

Suddenly their recent draft strategy is making a ton of sense. These type of hitters are likely to succeed at the next level and now there's 15 more teams in the market for bat first type of prospects. Now if the Twins can corner the market on these guys they hold the upper hand. Genius

Wolfson is also saying we signed a guy named Allante Hall. All I could find was that he's a catcher and his stats were pretty poor. Anyone got anything else?

Any reason why the Twins have only signed one guy so far? Several teams have signed 5+, the Cubs are at 8. Are we just a bit slow or do we not plan on signing a whole lot of guys?

Great name, great curve ball, great body type, great production, $20k, what's not to like?!

I wonder if this is preparing for the inevitable rule change to allow 2 DHs in a line up

Answer: because when Terry Ryan came back as GM he had lost touch with the game and we were absolutely AWFUL at drafting in those years. With the top of 2012 being the lone exception although outside Berrios and Buxton that draft was pretty bad too. We had some real clunkers during that time. Jay was a terrible pick at the time and an even worse one in retrospect, basically no one wanted us to pick him but TR had this thing at the time where he believed that converting college relievers to starters was a really good idea and the experiment turned out to be a massive failure.

There are a couple of things wrong with this line of thinking. A. not every MLB player is paid millions, in fact there are a ton of players who make very modest salaries and they will be impacted greatly. Think about someone like Dobnek, he doesn't have the service time and will only be paid the minimum if they play, if they cancel the season all together he's straight to the unemployment office just like everyone else. And B. it's not like there's an option where everyone wins here, our opions include playing some limited ball where some get paid but some workers lose their jobs or we cancel everything and no one gets paid and everyone loses their jobs. This whole scenario isn't ideal for anyone but the MLB is a business like any other where there are thousands of employees that rely on it for their income. It's not just about getting overpaid players their overpriced salaries or billionaire owners their money, it's about so many more behind the scene people trying to feed their families as well. Yes it sucks that concession people and ticket booth people will be unemployed and many of those are also just trying to feed their families as well but at least it's something rather than nothing.

Gotta admit, I've got no clue who Jimmy Kerrigan is

A. That sucks for Kepler and B. How in the hell is a torn calf only a 1-2 month recovery?!

Crazy that most likely 4 out of these 5 will be at AAA this year. That along with the 3 of the next 5 in line (Thorpe, Jeffers, Rooker) also being at AAA means Rochester is gonna be a scary good team, we could have over half of our top 20 prospects there by year's end!

I tend to agree with you on this one. The Astros are extremely top heavy and are relying on two guys who are 37 and 36 respectively. They've been great throughout their careers, potentially both HOFers but even if they both have similar production from last year (unlikely), their rotation drops off a cliff after that. I would be bold enough to say that we have 6 or 7 guys who I would put at their #3 spot. Yes I would love a top end ace like Verlander but a. It's possible we already have one and b. Our depth could prove extremely valuable in the long run

I think you're under estimating Donaldson's impact. The gap between Donaldson and Moreland is MASSIVE, especially considering defensive value. Conversely, the gap between Ryu and Maeda is much less and that trade off for me is worth sacrificing Graterol's upside (which I don't believe to be all that high)

"Another thing about Maeda is that he allowed the Twins to go get someone like Josh Donaldson because of his cheap price. If the Twins had landed Wheeler for the contract he signed, Josh Donaldson would not have ended up in Minnesota. The impact of Maeda/Donaldson is above the impact of Wheeler or Ryu/Moreland or someone like him." This is key right here. If we're purely doing a bWAR comparison Maeda + Donaldson = 7.4 bWAR where a Wheeler + Moreland combo = 4.8 bWAR which is pretty significant and also doesn't account for Sano's poor defense at 3rd still being a factor (coupled with Moreland's poor 1B defense btw). I think we did pretty well in this context, even adding the fact that we lost Graterol for it

Didn't he abandon it before last year? Am I misremembering?

I'm all aboard the positivity train!!!!! Choo Choo MFer!!!!!!

Yeah, Berrios and Odorizzi also have a very similar WAR to Wheeler as well and they both had better WARs than Syndergaard no matter how you calculate the metric

I'll counter point these: 1) we added Josh Donaldson to this infield defense and that should trickle down meaning that Polonco should be better with a better 3B next to him and Sano's metrics should improve at 1B. 2) this narrative is simply wrong. Both players placed in the top 30 MLB pitchers in bWAR and fWAR. Both also placed among the top 10 AL starting pitchers in both metrics. Sure neither are Cole or Verlander but they are hardly "#3s" 3) Nothing in that article you posted states that he's hurt or delayed, it's mostly positive on his recovery 4) as for Garver he may come back to earth a bit however he was very good in the minors and he credited his 2019 break out to a change in swing. This kind of thing can happen to players and there's plenty of evidence for sustainability with changes in swing or approach. As for the rest of the offense it's not like anyone other than Garver were experiencing way above their average output. Cruz was a bit higher but he's always been a great player. Adding someone like Donaldson and having Sano healthy for a whole year could do a whole lot. Honestly even if there's some regression we will still have a top 5-10 offense, that's just how good this group is. 5) Injuries happen, literally every player outside of Cal Ripken Jr has experienced injuries and every team in history has had to deal with them, this is nothing new. This is also the first year in a long time that I feel like we have the depth practically across the board to deal with injuries anywhere. This part doesn't concern me outside of a freak string of injuries at every position. We'll be good