the_neds

I'd love to see a package deal for Pablo Lopez and Anthony Bass but I know the price would be steep.

Lopez and Bass for would be my targets - not sure what it would take to get it done. You'd likely have to give up Larnach or Miranda to start, Steer, plus one more like Wallner or Encarnacion Strand at a bare minimum. Bass has a team option for '23, and Lopez is under arbitration through '24. I hate the idea of giving up Larnach but we do have a lot of big league bats fighting for space and he'd probably net the biggest return outside of Kirriloff and Miranda. I could be convinced to give up AK for the right price, but Miranda has got to be a no-trade for me. (Unless we get something ridiculous like Castillo AND Mahle.)

I have thought about this one a lot since you spoke about it on the podcast - and the more I think about it the more I like it. I mean, yeah, who wouldn’t be super pumped to see one of the amazingly talented shortstops available sign with the twins? But realistically if we have to pay one of them over $20M that’s going to hamper our starting pitching big time. Plus I highly doubt any of them would be looking for a short term deal. I like the idea of Segura - offensively he is a massive improvement, and defensively he’s not Simmons but Polanco also wasn’t a stellar defensive shortstop and we had him there. And as much as I loathe the idea of trading someone like Arraez, signing Segura would mean we could potentially float him as a trade candidate, which might be the kind of piece that - when coupled with a prospect - gets some looks in exchange for pitching quality.

They better DFA Cave. Cannot fathom how he would still have a roster spot next season.

Absolutely with you on Kepler especially- he didn’t have a stellar offensive year but ranked second in all RF for OOA and 13th among all qualified outfielders. His defense isn’t just average it’s pretty darn good. And as much as I hate the idea of trading Arraez - I like the guy - we have a very crowded situation now and he has all these powerful bats coming up behind him who play the exact role he does on the field. How bizarre that a guy who hits .300ish is considered on the fringe of a team! What a world. Thank you for the kind words also.

The Twins have some holes coming into the 2022 season, some question marks, and some big decisions to make. Whilst most offseasons of late seem to have been kind of quiet and at times last-minute in terms of moves, this offseason has the potential to be very busy for us. There is a clear need to upgrade the pitching - having penciled in Ober and Ryan as our only lock starters makes me more than a little anxious - and there is a big gaping hole opening up at shortstop. Where we don’t seem to need to put any money, though, is designated hitter. Let me get this out of the way - I love Nelson Cruz. What Twins fan doesn’t? For nostalgia’s sake, who wouldn’t love to see Nelly come back for another season at Target Field in ‘22? It would feel good, and we’d have pimp-robes back in the dugout and Miguel Sano would be the happiest man alive. He had a long lasting impact on the clubhouse culture and was an outstanding leader and player. But is it necessary? We managed the rest of the year without a true DH and we also saw Nelly’s numbers dip a little after he made it to Florida. It’s hard to tell whether he just didn’t feel right in Tampa or whether it was the inevitable beginning of Father Time making up ground and starting to catch up to him. Just looking at the dollars involved, we forked out $13M for Nelson Cruz in 2021 and whilst he was invaluable to us when we expected that we were truly contending, hitting is not the priority any more, not since the pitching staff exploded. The Twins have DH options that involve zero dollar investment above what’s already been committed, enough to rotate the DH through a few players without even thinking - even if we lose one or two as trade bait. Josh Donaldson - Even though he’s the best defensive 3B we have, and even though he was one of our more productive players in this disastrous 2021 season, he has a storied history of injury to his legs. He can still hit the snot out of a baseball, though, and still shows enough hustle that you trust him hitting for your team. Likely eventual third baseman Jose Miranda looks likely to get a big league callup this season after demolishing the minors, and having Donaldson on the roster while we blood the new guy isn’t a bad idea. He definitely stepped up as a leader after the departure of Cruz, and has repeatedly stated that he’s here to win, and he believes we can win. If the Twins go all in and want to contend next season, I believe Donaldson does need to be on the roster, and it goes double if Cruz isn’t on it. I’ll take him at third or designated hitter just to protect those calves, I’m not fussy. Miguel Sano - He’s not a great defender, and he’s streakier than a good cut of bacon. We’re well aware that he strikes out a lot. A whole lot. But when he hits the ball, he murders it’s entire bloodline and obliterates it from history (see this shot from August where he murdered a baseball with the longest HR of the year). I’m banking that Kirilloff will be back in action next season and if he picks up right where he left off, he may well play himself into the 1B role regardless of how bad Sano wants it. Kirilloff struck out a little more than Josh Donaldson, a little less than Byron Buxton (and a lot less than Sano), and went out for wrist surgery carrying a higher average than Sano, Kepler and late season hero Nick Gordon. Sano would also find himself a possible (not probable due to aforementioned strikeouts) trade target if the NL adopts the DH as well. Mitch Garver - I have a lot to say about catchers, and I have already posted about that here, but in my mind, Garver is the best catcher we have because of offense alone. He’s average to good as a catcher, not fantastic. Both Jeffers and Rortvedt have projected defensively better, but their bats are stone cold. That being said, Garver can’t (and shouldn’t) catch every game, and he could easily play a couple at DH to have a low stress day. He was having a good season until an unlucky injury landed him on a surgeon’s table, and was having flashes of that good even being great. I think he’s going to get interest from trade candidates but I like him hanging around. Brent Rooker - A lot of people like to mention Rooker sliding into the DH role, but his 2021 performance doesn’t paint a promising offensive picture. Baseball Savant has him profiled as a similar batter to Niko Goodrum and Chris Taylor - neither of those guys are superstars either, but they have him beat because they have defensive homes. Rooker would be trying to figure into an already crowded outfield situation and might very well find himself starting the season in St Paul. That isn’t to say he couldn’t fight his way back up, but he’s definitely at the back of the pack when we speak of designated hitters. Luis Arraez - He certainly seems like the odd man out in a field full of hitters who’ve been known to crack one over the fence. But someone who puts the ball in play like Arraez, particularly against righties, shouldn’t be ignored. He has a phenomenal eye at the plate, with a tight 9.1% strikeout rate over his majors career, and he puts the ball in play with great consistency. He may not be the guy who hits you a walk off homer, but he would definitely put the ball in play for a runner to make their way home, and that’s just as valuable. Add into the mix he’s also jostling for playing time in a roster full of plug and play types (Miranda, Larnach, Gordon, Kirilloff) with admittedly better defensive upsides, and he might see some time at DH while other people are trying to slot into homes or spelling short injured stints for other players. Now, as I mentioned above, there’s a solid chance a couple of these guys get traded this offseason. Donaldson would be prime candidate if someone was willing to take on his $21M paycheck, Sano is figured to earn $8M which isn’t bad, Garver will get plenty of sniffs since he’s projected to earn just $3M in his final year of arbitration, and Arraez is probably a good candidate to bundle with a prospect given how cloudy his future is becoming. Some of our up and comers could very well spend time in DH as well - if Miranda's bat holds up as well in the bigs as it did in the minors, he'd be a certainty to put in a few appearances there. But even if there is an aggressive trade market coming, I’m confident that we have enough bats around to not have to sign a designated hitter for the 2022 season. I’m not saying a Nelson Cruz reunion wouldn’t be beautiful, but it does seem like an extraneous pressure on the payroll that we could probably do without.

Not saying Kepler had a fantastic year - he definitely didn't. But can his defense be replaced? He ranked second in OAA amongst all RF players and 13th amongst all OF. That's not something to be sneezed at.

Thanks for the discussion guys! Like most of you, I think Garver is worth more to the Twins than he is to another team at the moment because Rortvedt isn't ready. Jeffers is younger, more team control, higher defensive upside. Basically if we trade Garver, they get him this year and then he hits free agency. I like (which means hate) the idea of a Larnach/Jeffers deal - I could see some bites for that. I think we'll see Arraez get some trade queries this offseason too, and as much as I'd hate to see him go, we need a pitcher.

The Minnesota Twins have four catchers in the conversation for the 2022 season that I can see - even if some of those conversations aren’t going to be very long. Let’s start with what I consider one of those quick ones. Willians Astudillo La Tortuga is a folk hero, and we love him. Everyone loves our relief pitching, chubby base-running, helmet losing backup-backup-backup catcher. But at this point, keeping him on the 40 man is pretty much just keeping someone else with more value off of it. He doesn’t have a defensive upside apart from being able to plug a hole at most fielding positions - not any of them particularly well - and batted at .238 in the Majors this year, which really isn’t good enough to leapfrog other waiting catchers with long term defensive upside. I just don’t see a realistic expectation that he is going to play out as an average or better member of the team, and should probably be signed to a Minors deal. The fact that he’s listed on the 40-man as a 1B is a pretty good indicator of how he ranks in terms of Minnesota catchers. 2022 Prediction - Will not break camp with Twins, will not make 40-man roster. Now onto the catchers that I figure will be involved in the plans for the Twins. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that I mean Garver, Jeffers and Rortvedt. I’ve included their stats for the year as a refresher (via FanGraphs). Offensive Stats 2021 Defensive Stats 2021 Mitch Garver Mitch is my Do Not Trade catcher. Whilst he pretty much grades out average in terms of catcher defense, his 2019 season and the mid to latter half of the 2021 season (barring That Injury We Don’t Like To Think About) make him by far - and I mean far - the most productive catcher we have offensively. He ranked 13th amongst catchers in AVG (min 50 PA), 7th in OBP and 5th in slugging, finishing the year on .256/.358/.517. He was definitely struggling at the plate early on, but he did settle in and he was playing pretty darn well before he spent five weeks dealing with that groin injury and another four with back tightness. If someone honestly wants to take Garver off our hands, I see it taking an extremely sizeable haul because at the moment he’s our safest bet. Yes he’s older than the other two and has had some injury, and a veteran catcher to split time with them wouldn’t cost much if we do trade him, but like I’ve said - unless the promised return is huge I don’t see why we’d deal a catcher who hits like that. 2022 Prediction - will not be traded, breaks camp as Opening Day catcher for the Twins. Ryan Jeffers Jeffers actually took the lion’s share of games this year thanks to Garver’s injuries and whilst he is projected to end up as the better defensive catcher (though this year Garver was ranked 93rd percentile in pitch framing per Baseball Savant to Jeffers’ 74), his bat just did not carry this year. To the point where - had we had another catcher ready - I imagine he would have been sent to St Paul to work it out. He managed an average of just .199 across 267 at-bats. I have faith though, that his bat will grade out to average and in my mind, he’s probably the one who will end up taking the most time behind the plate if the Twins attempt to rotate the DH role for the 2022 season (which I think they will). Let’s not forget he had a pretty darn good 2020 season with his bat, finishing with a stat line of .273/.355/.436/, which was a tick above league average. He’s got the goods, I just think he caught a bad case of the sophomore slump. Hard work required, but Jeffers will hang around long term. 2022 Prediction - he will break camp with the Twins and split catching duties with Garver. Ben Rortvedt I’m just going to get this out of the way. He’s got huge arms, okay? We’ve seen them. And defensively, he’s projected to have the highest upside of all four catchers. But in terms of Major League production, he’s just not ready. Batting at .169 for the year (over 87 PA), his OBP was a paltry .227, far below the league average .317, and slugged at just .281. This places him second last in all Twins hitting categories with just Gilberto Celestino ranking lower in AVG and OBP, and Andrelton Simmons ranking last in SLG. His defense has him ranked above Jeffers in terms of overall WPA for the year, but the bat is going to need to improve drastically if he’s going to make league average, or even a low-offense/high-defense combo. There is the chance a team could carry a slightly below average hitter if he has a huge defensive upside (Simmons anyone?) but there’s not many that would take that kind of offensive shortage. He needs to start 2022 in the minors, have a solid spring, and work on his offense. 2022 Prediction - he’ll probably make the 40-man, but will spend the year in St Paul working on his bat skills. Let me talk a minute on a Garver trade. As I already said, I don’t like the idea at all. And honestly, is he valuable enough to another team (apart from the Marlins, who Cody Christie wrote about already) for them to trade with proven, high quality pitching? Because that’s what the return needs to be. The Twins have a whole heap of prospect arms at/about to be tested in the Majors in the upcoming season but we need impact rotation pitching now. I don't know if Garver on his own would bring enough back for us... maybe if he was in a package deal? If the 2022 season includes a universal DH, Mitch Garver becomes more valuable. His average this season was only just above league average, but his slugging percentage - when viewed with his 2019 Silver Slugger - mean he might draw interest from a National League team looking to possibly platoon through the DH, or who struggle to find a bat only DH at good value. He’s still in arbitration, made less than $2M this year, and is projected to make a hair over $3M next year. Compare that to the $13M we paid Nelson Cruz just to hit, and he becomes a much more valuable piece to a broader audience. I like the combo of Garver and Jeffers for next year. They seem to have a decent balance sorted out and provided Jeffers can get his bat to click in 2022, there’s no need to create a problem at catcher when we have enough things we need to address.

I have three people on my Please Do Not Trade list. Polanco is one (the others being Byron Buxton and Mitch Garver). We absolutely cannot afford to lose him at 2B. I love Arraez as much as the next Twins fan, but he's not a defensive superstar. He's a soft-contact, high OBP hitter. We shouldn't be so focused on pitching that we also trade away all our defensive and offensive strength. Polanco was our strongest asset in the infield this year by a healthy margin, and if they do consider a trade, they're going to want a big, big return.