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jmlease1

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Everything posted by jmlease1

  1. jmlease1
    He looks more cooked than McCutchen, unfortunately. Was pretty bad last season, struggled in the half season after leaving MN for TB the year before, can only play DH...$1M isn't much risk, but the Twins don't really have the roster spots and the upside seems low. McCutchen would have been a reasonable fit, but also might not have that much left in the tank. I do think he's got more than Cruz and can still play the field.
  2. jmlease1
    I think this is a smart move. Even with the injuries, this is still likely a bit below market rate on arbitration, and assuming Paddack comes back reasonably well off the TJ it's well below market for the free agency year. A good compromise for the injury rehab that cost him most of last season and likely most if not all of this year. Paddack has talent and it's worth the gamble, especially at this money. He could be a very good fit next season as a rotation piece, and might be an option late this season, depending on how his rehab goes and what the Twins need for the rotation based on other pitcher's success or health. Good move for both parties: Paddack gets insurance/guarantees after a significant injury, the Twins get a discount for paying his rehab. They were always going to pay the arbitration number this year anyways.
  3. jmlease1
    I can't help it, I love pitchers with a filthy changeup. And boy does Moran have one! A little wildness is survivable for relievers when they can hunt Ks like Moran can. But he can't totally have it fall apart.
  4. jmlease1
    SS has not been a position of real strength for this franchise. After Versalles, Gagne, and Smalley it falls off pretty quickly. We've churned a lot of players through looking for a long-term solution, and made some bad choices over the years (i.e., dumping JJ Hardy after one season). Correa's performance last season was already one of the better single season efforts and if he lives up to his contract (mostly) over the next 6 seasons, he'll be the best SS in franchise history. Smalley is a bit underrated still as a player; during his first stint as a Twin he provided quality defense with better hitting than was really appreciated at the time from the position. But at the end of the day he only spent 6 years with the Twins as a SS, with 2 all-star quality seasons. Correa already has 1. Gagne had 8 seasons at SS for the Twins, 5 of them were quality, but never had the peaks because of his inability to take walks and get on base. A fine defender, but not a good hitter. The odds are good that Correa will go down as the best SS in Twins history if he's able to stick at the position for at least 4 more seasons.
  5. jmlease1
    Stashing a quality reserve in AAA because teams won't want to pay the extra $300K on his salary? While I think the Twins are imbalanced in their OF right now and management needs to make some moves to adjust it, I do think the front office has an interesting and creative strategy for stashing those borderline MLB players who can make good backup options/injury insurance at AAA by paying them higher salaries. Minor leagues can be tough for players...but it's not so rough for a player when they're making $750K, get to play in the same metro area as the MLB club so when they're called up they don't have to move, and get to keep playing baseball for a living. In context that extra money isn't that impactful on the overall payroll for the team, but it can keep a player available after their options would have been exhausted. Clever way of being able to functionally get an extra option year with a little guaranteed money to fence off other teams.
  6. jmlease1
    There's been multiple posts in here about the front office "getting lucky", not giving them credit for having Correa land in their laps etc. It seems to boil down to if you already didn't like the front office, don't like the style of baseball, and/or refer to management running things via spreadsheet, then they get no credit or approbation for signing Correa. The offseason wasn't saved. It's all still terrible. That's pretty muddled thinking to me.
  7. jmlease1
    Eddie Rosario has never scored 100 runs in a season. Now, that's not really a knock on eddie; it's very difficult to do. in 2022 only 10 players in all of baseball hit that number. (BTW, Carlos Correa accomplished it in 2021). The last Twin to do so was Jorge Polanco in 2019. yes, you need situational hitting to help it along, but you also need players that are healthy all year. The idea that Rocco doesn't know what his players are capable and doesn't put them in winning situations of is fairly silly, especially in the context of a desire to play more "small ball". The roster of players we have are not suited for it. Luis Arraez has excellent contact skills, but his terrible knees make him a poor baserunner that shouldn't be trying to steal bases. Polanco, Miranda, Jeffers, Larnach, Kirilloff, Garlick, Sanchez, Sano...these are not base-stealers. By not asking them to do things that they're not good at, Rocco is trying to maximize their success.
  8. jmlease1
    ooh! ooh! Someone referred to Rocco as a computer! that's like, BINGO, right?
  9. jmlease1
    I was one of the people leading the charge for the Twins to sign Story a year ago. Shows what I know. And a reminder that you never know who is going to stay healthy. People were talking up concerns with Correa's back, but it wasn't a problem for him last season; Story spend a good chunk of time on the IL and now is having a significant surgery. (It's also hilarious watching East Coast media backpedal on Correa now that he's with a midwest team. They've now discovered "sources" that practically have Correa in traction every day to get ready for games...)
  10. jmlease1
    It absolutely doesn't matter how we got here, only that we made it. We weren't Correa's first choice last season either; he was aiming for a big, long-term deal (and likely in a big market). He didn't treat us like a consolation prize last season and was a great player for us. He's here. He's our guy now. That's all that matters. I hope he crushes it, stays healthy, wins an MVP and leads us to a title and plays for us for the full 10. I hope he's legend--wait for it--dary. I hope he plays so well that he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer and goes in wearing a Twins cap. Looking forward to it. Loved watching him play this year. Thrilled he's back, and I don't care how weird it got in getting him. It just doesn't matter. We got a great player, and I think he's going to play great for us.
  11. jmlease1
    my goodness, it's actually a done deal! Love it. I'm also enjoying the saltiness from Mets fans as they pretend they never wanted him in the first place, somehow dodged a bullet, they never would have done this deal, etc. What a bunch of lying clowns. I'm thrilled with this. The team is taking a big swing here, and I love that. Eventually you have to take a shot, and Correa is the kind of guy that's worth going all in on. Maybe he gets hurt, but that risk is always out there. The upside is having an MVP-caliber player in your lineup every day at a position you haven't filled well for a long time. Let's gooooooooooo!
  12. jmlease1
    he played 30 games there in 2022. (he'd barely played 1B his whole career before being asked to jump in there for the twins in 2022) Maybe give him a chance before consigning him to DH. Trevor Plouffe started out so poorly at 3rd he described himself as having winning an Iron Glove. Corey Koskie had stretches early on where it looked like he was using a frying pan instead of a glove. both turned out pretty well over there.
  13. jmlease1
    Miranda is going to be given every opportunity to play 3B, he's played is acceptably in the minors and wasn't dreadful so far in MLB. There's basically no way Farmer starts at 3B unless Miranda becomes unplayable there and so far he's not. Garlick almost has to slip on to the roster somewhere (replace Celestino; between Gordon, Gallo, and Kepler there's enough options when Buxton gets a rest and Celestino can come up if Buxton goes to the IL) right now. We still need his RH bat availability. Gordon is out of options I think and played well enough last season that he has to make the Opening Day roster or be traded.
  14. jmlease1
    I think the issue with the ankle has a lot more to do with how the Giants & Mets were planning to stretch the cost of this contract over longer periods of time. They probably weren't any more worried about it in the short term than anyone, but had more serious questions about whether this would keep him off the field consistently when he turned 36-38. It's one thing to look at 1-2 years or dead money (although I think these teams that are doing these 11-14 year deals are convincing themselves that they'll beat the odds and have productive players into their 40's) and another to be thinking they're looking at 3-4 years or dead money. Because you can't count on a player to retire and forfeit the last years of a deal, especially when the injury is something chronic and there are ways to get yourself back on the field.
  15. jmlease1
    I'm a big fan of Torii Hunter as a player, and he was one of the more exciting players in Twins history. But for me, he falls short of Hall of Fame. I'm not militant about small hall v big hall, and I think there's room for players who had really high peaks as well as those who didn't rise quite as high but had long runs of sustained excellence. Torii's case relies more on the second than the first; he just didn't have any of those amazing seasons where you had to consider him one of the best of the best in baseball, a true MVP contender, etc. There's something to be said for having 13 years in a row where you don't have a bad season, but he only landed 5 all-star appearances...and that was fairly generous based on his performance. Yes, he won 9 Gold Gloves, but the metrics suggest that most of the later ones were probably more due to reputation than performance. (This is where the Ozzie Smith argument falls flat: Oz really was that great on defense by any analysis) When Torii's bat got going, his defense was already slipping. When he was a great defender, he hadn't figured out how to really hit yet. He was frequently a good offensive player, never a great one (never had an OPS+ over 130) Looking at a couple of Torii's peers is instructive: Jim Edmonds & Mike Cameron. Neither is in the Hall, and I'd argue Torii is closer to Cameron than Edmonds...and no one is really advocating for Mike Cameron as a Hall of Famer. (Lofton was better than any of them, but seems to have detonated his chances through his personal conduct) Torii was a wonderful player. But he falls short for me.
  16. jmlease1
    Pretty much everything about Bauer screams "garbage fire". Borderline criminal sexual conduct (no, he wasn't convicted of anything, or charged...which is why I say "borderline") that many people find unacceptable, expressed bigotry on social media, evidence of being a bad and disruptive teammate. Even if you find all of that excusable (I don't), you still have to question whether or not he'd even be any good. Personally, I don't need to look at whether or not he might have anything left in the tank...I don't want this guy. Too many red flags. He's basically a walking red flag. Part of why we kept chasing after Carlos Correa was the team looked at him as a being a leader, mentor, and role model on the team and in the community. Bauer has none of those things. Anyone bringing him in invites a media circus that by definition can't be good. He's never shown remorse for anything or any interest in changing. I don't care how cheap he might be, I don't care if he might still be able to throw the ball real good. I don't want Trevor Bauer on this team.
  17. jmlease1
    That's a lot of speculation. As far as we know, he hasn't actually failed a physical, just had something show up that made teams concerned further out on these really long deals. There's been nothing that says he can't pass a physical this year, just that they think he's at risk for something 6+ years down the line.
  18. jmlease1
    These are really good numbers for the Twins and the team options are excellent. Gives them a lot of flexibility to move on if needed, but also retain if the production is there. If Correa has an OPS+ of 140 or better and a bWAR of 4 or better, the Twins wouldn't want to let him go just because he only hit 540 plate appearances or something at age 34. This structure works out very well for the Twins and Correa; he gets more money up front, the Twins get a lot of mitigation on the back end, but also are paying the bigger numbers during the likely most productive years. Guess the Twins actually will spend what it costs to secure a premier free agent.
  19. jmlease1
    That's pretty great for the Twins. I don't worry about no-trade clauses like this; they can always get waived. But the structure makes so much sense for the Twins. They're not locked into a bunch of years after Correa turns 40 (there are so few players that have hit well at that age, let alone be effective defensively at any position), they've got outs if he can't stay on the field, they don't have to worry about him opting out if he has an MVP-type year in year 2, and the bulk of the money is located in his prime years. And I really really like Correa as a player. There aren't that many players at SS who can hit like Correa does. Heck, there aren't that many 3Bs that hit like he does. He's a player you can build around. I bashed the FO pretty hard for appearing to whiff on Correa and seeming to settle for Vazquez and Gallo. But in the end, they got it done on Correa (pending physical, lol) and this offseason has gone from poor to great in a hurry. I'm still not sold on Gallo (and the plethora of LH corner OFs) but if they can make another move to bolster things from the right side and solidify the bullpen, then I feel awfully good about this offseason.
  20. jmlease1
    Replacing Archer & Bundy with Mahle & Maeda is a definite upgrade, injuries or no. Having Varland & Woods Richardson at the next options up with them already having some MLB experience and success is also an improvement. The rotation is deeper and better than at the start of last season. There's a good argument to make that the bullpen is better positioned as well; Lopez is more talented than some of the pitchers we were running out last season, Duran is proven now, and Pagan is pushed way down the depth charts. I'm not ready to say we have the bullpen locked yet, but it's in at least as good a position as opening day last year, arguably better. Correa is just such an upgrade at SS over Farmer. (who is a nice enough player, but much better suited to a utility role)
  21. jmlease1
    If that's correct, it's an excellent stipulation for the team that really does protect them pretty nicely. And considering how much lower the dollars are in those last 4 years...it's a very good structure for the Twins. And to be very honest, front-loading money is very good for Correa too, unless he gets ripped off by his money managers.
  22. jmlease1
    If the vesting option on the last 4 years doesn't kick in unless CC plays essentially a full season in year 6 of this deal then the Twins have done an excellent job of mitigating the risk. Teams frequently prefer to defer money to later in a deal, and from a pure finance standpoint that makes sense (a dollar now is generally "worth" more than a dollar in 5 years), but in terms of roster and payroll management, front-loading can really help you out. I like this structure quite a bit.
  23. jmlease1
    It's a pretty great deal for the Twins. The shorter term works for them and they have the payroll space now to front-load this contract for his prime years. 4 years on the back end if it vests at an AAV of less than $20M should look pretty reasonable assuming Correa continues to hit and stay reasonably healthy. There's still real risk with this deal, but they've mitigated it pretty reasonably considering the caliber of the player they are getting. But there's always going to be risk with any long-term deal, and sometimes you have to roll the dice. Correa is worth it, especially right now. So nice not to have to worry about SS for a while. Correa checks every box; literally the only issue is whether or not he can stay healthy for the duration of the deal. You know what? That issue exists for every other SS who signed this offseason. I wish no ill on Dansby Swanson, but if he tears his ACL in year 2 of his deal...yikes. Correa is a leader, a complete player who adds plus offense at the plate and elite defense in the field. I'm thrilled to have him back and glad the Twins stuck it out, accepted the risk, and made it happen.
  24. jmlease1
    Well, I will admit I didn't think this was going to happen. Always felt like the Mets would outspend us in the end. But I'm thrilled with this deal (assuming it finalizes, which apparently is not something we should presume any longer!). Correa is a great player, he'll be excellent at SS in the short term and will be able to slide down to 3B if needed later in the contract. Having his RH bat in the middle of the lineup and his stellar defense is just fantastic for this team and take what was a dismal offseason straight to an excellent one. I do think the Twins need to still look at a deal to clean up some of the many LH corner OF bats (Kepler still seems like the obvious choice) and balance the roster, and frankly I'd love for them to deal Pagan as well. Get in one more RH bat for the lineup and swap Pagan's roster spot for a RH reliever and...I feel pretty good about this roster. wow. Correa back!
  25. jmlease1
    Nah, best trade is still Nelson Cruz for Joe Ryan. Cruz only had half a season left on his contract and was already 40 years old. Immediately after being dealt, he fell off the table. Joe Ryan had already provided more value and looks like a rotation mainstay. That was a fantastic trade.
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