jmlease1

If MLB was changing the ball for Yankees & nationally televised games, then someone (and likely several someones) needs to be fired and run out of the game for life. That's a manipulation that cannot be allowed to occur in professional sports (or any sports, really). Yes, both teams would be playing with the same ball still, but you cannot allow any kind of manipulation of games like that. Want fans to see more offense? Make rule or ball adjustments in the offseason, be transparent about it, and make it uniform across the game. not so Judge can chase the HR record or you can get more action on the nationally televised game. I'm not terribly worried about how this nonsense will impact the Twins this season. If they've juiced the ball up again, their sluggers (and they have a few) will launch additional balls out of the park, and so will the opposition. Yes, the Twins are mostly flyball pitchers, but so is most of the league. The focus across baseball for pitchers has been on getting strike outs, and that's not the specialty of groundball pitchers. And the focus for the Twins this offseason on improving the defense wasn't just in improving the OF defense: I think the infield defense will be better too.

That's good news, generally. I'm not surprised if he's still not there on the changeup, which is definitely a "feel" pitch, but if he's velocity is up in the mid-90's then then it's a good sign overall, i think. I'm still very high on Alcala.

Hopefully he's just trying to get himself built back up. It's been a while since he's really thrown, so he might be a bit behind everyone else (and cautious to see how it feels out there. I'm still hopeful. I have no problem with kicking the tires on guys like Santana or Hoffman for spot at the end of the bullpen. Maybe you find a guy who finally got something to click, maybe you catch lightning in a bottle. but it's a low risk move so long as you're not trying to fill slots in your top 4-5 guys. (and the twins aren't doing that: they already have quality locked in with Duran, Jax, Thielbar, and Lopez for the back end)

There's very little not to like about Brooks Lee. He's had about as good a start to his professional career as you could ask for. I love the fact that he's a switch hitter, he can/should be a superior defender at 3B/2B, and I wouldn't be surprised if he adds a little more power as he matures. The approach at the plate is terrific. I honestly think the only reason he's not ranking higher on global prospect lists is he was a college player and many prospect rankers tend to value younger players with tools that they can "project" over older ones with demonstrable production.

Wallner has made it to MLB, though. yes, his role this season will be as an injury replacement...but he got there already. It's fair to question the Miller pick, but he does appear to have the defensive chops to stick at SS, which means his floor is still pretty high even if he doesn't hit because guys who can legit play SS aren't that easy to find (see also, twins, for like a decade). And Miller was an end of round guy, not a top 10 or anything. Petty might be legit...but we turned him into Sonny Gray and when you consider how many high school arms bust...even if we only get 2 years of Sonny Gray that's 2 years of a proven, quality MLB arm. A legit playoff-caliber starter. Rooker wasn't great, but he still played for us at the MLB level, so you can't call him a bust, and you can't put him in the same class as Cavaco or Sabato, that's just not fair to him. I get the desire to downgrade Lewis & Larnach because of their injuries...but those injuries are not a failure of draft evaluation, which is what we're talking about here. how can you predict that Royce Lewis is going to tear his ACL slipping on the ice in TEXAS? And despite that injury costing him a season, despite missing another season of developmental games due to the pandemic (on the back of his knee injury), Royce Lewis crushed it in AAA last season and looked legit in his cup of coffee in MLB before getting hurt again. Honestly, that's a heck of an argument for their evaluation of his sheer talent coming into the draft.

They seem to have done ok with last year's #1, Brooks Lee. Baseball draft can be a big crapshoot, unfortunately. While this front office hasn't produced a superstar from their drafts (yet), their 1st round results aren't awful even with some misses on the resume. Royce Lewis has debuted in MLB and looked good (can't blame the drafters for the injuries) Brent Rooker made it to MLB before being dealt Trevor Larnach has made it to MLB (injuries seem to be the only thing holding him back) Keoni Cavaco looks like he might bust...but is still only 22 Matt Wallner has already debuted in MLB Aaron Sabato is looking like a bust Chase Petty netted us a proven quality MLB starter Noah Miller looks like a quality defender at SS at age 20 in A-ball (we'll see if he hits, but seems ok for late in the round) Brooks Lee is already in AA, a consensus top 100 prospect, and literally doing everything right 2 busts (so far) out of 9 picks isn't too bad, the Lee pick is looking fantastic, and there's definitely some upside left here. the Cavaco pick is probably the worst one: it was a relatively high choice, there were other good options, and even at the time it looked like a reach. While I didn't love the Sabato pick, it wasn't unreasonable at that point in the draft, and frankly that draft was just a little weird because of the pandemic. I'm of the opinion that you can't call a player who makes it to MLB with your club a bust. And if you can trade a player drafted in the first round for a current starter it's hard to say he wasn't worth the pick.

Getting HBP is a significant part of Martin's game. He's our version of Don Baylor!

All reasonable choices. Cavaco needs to start showing something, but isn't necessarily at a break point, just because he's still only 21. Even if he doesn't have a real breakout the Twins aren't going to be "sorry, kid, but it's just not working out." after this season unless he regresses even further. His age and tools will give him a little longer rope. Sabato is increasingly in trouble. It doesn't matter if you have moonshot power if you can't make contact. He lit it up as a college hitter in a real league, but he's been pretty poor as a pro. Did his bat speed slow down since college? Is it the wooden bats? Pretty surprising to see a player who crushed it that much in college show so little straight out the gate, but at the end of the day he didn't actually play that much at North Carolina, and maybe that has something to do with it too. He played more games in his first year as a pro than he did in his whole college career, which might be an indicator. Balazovic is the most disappointing. High school players don't make it all the time, and a lot of us were questioning Sabato from the jump, but Balazovic had shown so much promise and earned his way up the ranks so for him to have collapsed at AAA is a bummer. Coming off a messy, injury strewn year there was hope that it was a one-off and he could bounce back quickly, but the off-field incident is going to set him back again and clearly the team is unhappy with him.

I've been high on Joe Ryan since we traded for him and he's done nothing to change my opinion. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the slider works for him this season, because if he has sharpened it up it should be a weapon. (it's anecdotal, but I clearly recall times where he was trying to get guys to chase it but couldn't get there) If the split change proves to be effective against lefties and settles in as a solid off-speed pitch for the arsenal then i think he's going to have a pretty terrific year. the dreadful "you got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out of it" game against SD really skewed his numbers for the year, but it's not like Ryan rolled up all his good numbers by beating up on KC & Det. He was also good in every one of his starts against Cleveland, and they were a damn good team last year (I'll take 3 runs yielded in 19 2/3 innings every single time). I'm very excited to watch him pitch this year.

very weird draft. Only 5 rounds? I'm guessing the pandemic was already messing up scouting opportunities as well. I wasn't thrilled about the pick at the time, but I do understand the thought process: they looked at his power production in college and his batting eye and thought he might be someone who could contribute quickly with his bat, even if he didn't add anything defensively. At the end of the round you're going to have more flaws in a player's game and/or more risk in their development. Sabato has immense power, and he's still able to draw walks, but his contact rate is dreadful. Wooden bat problem, maybe? ball that still flew out in college are just getting fouled back? The regression in cedar rapids last season wasn't enough to stop him from getting promoted, but it was still disappointing after his short stint there in 2021. there as hope that getting him out of the FSL might have unlocked something for him, but it's not really looking that way. He's got a lot of work to do in order to get himself on the 40-man. Right now, he's a pretty easy guy to expose in the Rule 5: he adds little to nothing on D and his contract rates don't allow his power production to play. The good eye at the plate isn't enough if he can't make contact when he swings, and eventually better pitchers will pump the zone on him if he can't punish them for it. You never know, but it's not looking great here.

I love Joe Ryan. He's my favorite Twins starter to watch, and if that split-change is working for him, then he's going to be even more fun this season. Ryan's got the mentality you want out there: fearless but smart. That fastball is really good, with that extra bit of deception on it. It's sort of what they used to call a "Positive" Fastball, because every hitter is positive they can hit it. (The old Jim Palmer bit) Mahle's shoulder issues are a weird one. There's nothing showing up structurally, so he should be fine...but obviously he wasn't at the end of the year for the Twins. Hopefully a normal offseason addresses that and he can focus on sharpening up that slider and making it a consistent weapon. I appreciate how direct he's been about where some of his pitches were last year. That tells me he knows what he needs to do to improve, and the time at Driveline shows he's putting in the work even when it's not on the team's nickel. Hope it works! I mean, a guy coming in to camp talking about the new/improved pitch they have is sort of the equivalent of "best shape of their life" on the cliché meter, but things become clichés in part because they're true as well...

That draft list is reminder why the previous regime is no longer here: Stewart & Jay being top 10 picks who busted sandwiching Nick Gordon who needed 8 years to become a viable pro is pretty rough. The current regimes back-to-back of Cavaco & Sabato is pretty bad, but both were drafted outside the top 10. Missing on high draft picks hurts, even with baseball being the hardest sport to predict draft success. Twins have definitely had injuries derail some of their best prospects. I will admit to thinking that Fernando Romero was going to be something; probably should have looked closer at his performance over his tools back then. He was never that good after A-ball and flamed out pretty quickly once he had to face the higher quality hitters. I'm still really high on Kirilloff. He's so talented with the bat and if this latest surgery has actually fixed the problem then he could fly.

sigh...yeah.

The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking that the team is worried a couple of guys aren't going to be ready for Opening Day (Kirilloff, Polanco are the two that seem to be the most likely?) and they don't have a lot of confidence in Nick Gordon filling in at an infield spot. I still feel like I'd rather have Larnach on the roster (I'm still pretty high on him), but he does have an option left. Not that he really has much to prove at AAA really, and I think his upside on offense more than offsets any superiority Kepler has on defense, but maybe they're also entertaining Kepler deals as camp continues and an injury reveals itself on another team. Solano seems like an ok platoon guy, and after last year's nightmare I love having depth, but I still think we'd probably be better off with Gordon & Larnach getting Kepler's ABs, and by adding Votto & Solano to this roster there's not a lot of room for Larnach.

It's an interesting idea. While Lewis got a big signing bonus and hasn't been running broke like so many minor leaguers, that was quite a few years ago and it's not the kind of generational money that a deal like this would be. There might be some attraction for Lewis after the second surgery, no matter how confident he is in his abilities. I feel like it's worth exploring. I think the numbers are probably a little light, just considering where Lewis' upside is and where baseball economics have gone in the past few years?

It's the sort of move a team makes when they have a guy coming back from injury that isn't going to be ready for Opening Day with the potential for it to linger longer, IMHO. Which makes me nervous. I was expecting the Twins to sign someone to a minor-league deal who was trying to hang on for another year or work their way back to MLB, not add someone on a MLB contract. I'd hope the value of the deal wouldn't guarantee them a roster spot all season? He's not a bad player or anything, but the ceiling is limited.

Souhan is the worst. A consistently bad hack who approaches almost every article with the angle predetermined. He's one of the most skippable writers in the Twin Cities. the two backups referenced as "reducing his role" are both right-handed. Much more likely they're not going to run Gordon out against LHP pitching any longer now that they have actual options, since he's terrible at hitting LHP. not that i would expect souhan to pay attention to that...

Yankees did win 99 games last season. more importantly, they're in our heads in a way that the Astros are not (even though we actually performed better against the Yankees than we did against the Astros last season). but your point is taken. i don't know if Miranda is better than Stanton right now or not. Stanton is more proven, but coming off what looks like a worse year (even if the OPS+ is comparable, Stanton was worse in the 2nd half and missed a lot of time; Miranda recovered from a rocky start and finished out the year pretty well) and with some serious injury issues...maybe, maybe not. Yankees have kind of a weird lineup.

The fear is, of course, that the Twins don't see him as the 7th/8th guy in the bullpen but instead as more like the 4th/5th guy. Which is the sort of aggro that makes us not want him on the team at all. But you are absolutely correct in that there are a lot fewer of those "who's going to do X or Y" on this team this season. The questions are much more around "can X get/stay healthy?" or "can Y improve on last season". the roles are fairly well set, unless there a significant injury or major underperformance in camp.

Twins already know Martin is good enough to slot into the OF if needed; the question is whether or not he can be a quality defender on the dirt too. Seems a little unlikely at SS, but there's indicators that he could do quite well at 2B. He's an on-base machine with good speed and superior baserunning ability, so he doesn't need a lot of power to be a very good offensive player in MLB. But we'd sure like to see some. He's had trouble showing it at AA, but showed good flashes in the AFL and certainly did fine in his last two years of college. Martin's only had 2 years in the minors, was probably rushed to AA and had his development disrupted by a trade...so who is the real Martin? I'm still a fan. He could be a great 4th OF for this team as early as next season; he could backup Buxton well, and as a righty bat be a nice fit amongst the LH corner OFs we have. I like his speed and baserunning, which would add a different dimension to the Twins offense.

A fine list, and probably mine as well. Tony O was great, but I'd rate Mauer a little higher if forced, because of the defense. Mauer was more consistently good on D at a tougher position, and even after moving off catcher developed into a Gold Glove caliber defender at a new position, which is pretty unusual. Harmon, Rodney, and Kirby are easy picks unless you fold in the Senators years. Johan is an interesting case; the peak was insanely great. I think I want my Team Mt. Rushmore guys to play at least 10 years for the club. It's a little arbitrary I admit, but you have to find criteria somewhere. Bert has enough seasons in MN...barely. The last years weren't as great, though, even if they did include a title. Buxton could get there, depending on how the next 5-6 years go. He's got the talent, no question, just needs the health. Can Correa contend? He could make me reconsider my "10 years" rule if he dominates the next 5-6 years, even if he doesn't get through all years of the deal.

I'd be really interested to know how many times Pagan's sinker got hammered and how many times it was his fastball but with a few mph taken off it (some of the pitch trackers sure seem to struggle IDing which is which). Without having all of the Twins internal stats and tracking it'd be hard to know for sure, but I wasn't clear whether he was lobbing over the blah "sinker" or trying to dial back his fastball to get a strike when he started getting into trouble. If it was pretty much always the sinker, then you can start fixing some of that by eliminating the bad pitch. If a big part of the issue is whether or not he can control the fastball enough to throw it for strikes and he eases up on the velocity when he gets behind in the count and doesn't want to walk another guy...that's harder to fix. He did seem to do better with the curve than the slider, but it's a pretty small sample size. He's got good stuff, but he needs to be able to find the strike zone more consistently. I'm rooting for him, like I do for all Twins, but I would not have have kept him. I think they could have found a veteran righty for roughly the same cost with a better track record and less need of "fixing", and it sounds like they could have gotten at least a C prospect for Pagan, so I would have moved on. Especially considering just how much damage he's done to the psyche of the fans. There's a real chance that the Twins are stuck in a sunk cost fallacy with Pagan and will give him too many chances in an effort to prove that they were right about him all along. Hope I'm wrong. relievers are volatile enough I could be very wrong, and at least there's evidence of actual changes happening not just "he's in the best shape of his life" or other Spring Training nonsense. But he really makes me twitch.

It's going to be really interesting to see how the system develops over the next couple of seasons. They're looking at graduating quite a bit of talent over a period of 3 years or so, combined with having made some trades of prospects for MLB talent, so it's a little thinner and more vulnerable than in recent years. That said, the goal of a system isn't to be highly ranked, it's to turn guys into productive major leaguers for the club, or flip as assets for the club. I think they're going to need some of their international signings to pay out in order to keep the pipeline flowing. Hopefully they do well with the upcoming picks and can add high-end talent as well. The weakness at catcher is definitely an area of concern...but I think that's going to be a problem for a lot of teams. It's one of the toughest positions to fill with a player who can both hit, receive, and throw. It's arguably harder than SS to find; clubs tend not to accept a flawed candidate at SS, but catching is so limited that you'll pass along a guy who is well below-average in one of those areas if they can compete in the others. At SS, guys get moved off to another position rather than settle. Hopefully the Twins can start finding some options to add to the system, because the need will always be there. It's going to be interesting to see how the pitchers develop. There's some really interesting options. Is there an ace in there? Hard to say. Most evaluators won't rank any starter as an ace (no one wants to go out on that limb) so it's not worth getting upset if they call a pitcher a middle or back of the rotation upside guy. That's butt-covering 101 to me. If you have enough quality guys that can fall in that range, don't be shocked if one emerges.

He's 24, he's not a kid. I'm not going to bury him forever because of a mistake, but let's not pretend he's a child. He's old enough to know better, and it's a significant lapse in judgment to have put himself in that situation. His professional career in baseball is already wobbling a bit (everyone except Keith Law has downgraded his prospect status significantly) and he's still never pitched in a single MLB game. Not a smart decision the first week of camp. He's putting himself way behind.

Jax is guaranteed a spot (as you noted elsewhere), Alcala is likely if he's healthy/effective in spring training (if he's not effective they might try to slip him on the IL). Coulombe isn't on the 40-man, so he's unlikely to be on the squad; Moran is a more likely LHP option. They seem to like Megill, so I'd say he has an inside shot at that last spot, but that's why Ober seems unlikely to make the team: they're not keeping 6 starters. If they did, I'm sure Megill would be the most likely one to get dropped, but while keeping 6 starters might keep the best 13 pitchers on the squad, there's no real need for a 6th starter with this squad. there's no one that looks like they'll need extra days off between starts, is there?