OptimisticTwinsFan

Julien should be top 100

I think there will be a lot of platoon type of lineup moves to insert players like Farmer/Lewis (eventually)/Gordon into the lineup so I don't think Kirilloff, Kepler, or Gallo will play 'full-time' unless they start playing like their peak years or in Kirilloff's case his potential. That being said, I'm guessing it looks something like this: Polanco (2B) Correa (SS) Buxton (CF) Kirilloff (1B) Gallo (RF) Miranda (3B) Larnach (DH) Vazquez (C) Kepler (LF) The bottom of the order I just tried to do L/R/L/R splits as I know the Twins seem to like that. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Twins put Polanco in the #4 spot and go non-traditional in the #1 spot and use Gallo or Miranda or Kirilloff especially if Gallo or Kirilloff hits like their potential.

Thielbar, Jax, Fulmer, Duran, Lopez is a great little bullpen group. I would love to try to keep Fulmer next year and add Alcala to that mix next year. Somehow even with all of that new bullpen depth we end up with 2 Pagan/Megill games per week. Ultimately, what I will say is I'm not against the maximize SP by not taking them a 3rd time through the order but if you're going to do that you have to proportionally overspend on your bullpen. Traditionally, that group above would be enough... now it's not because we need the bullpen to pick up comparatively more innings.

I would argue “if healthy” is the mantra with every prospect (and every arm). Tommy John isn’t really too different than an ACL these days. Either way, calculated risk.

Law’s scouting report says that Prielepp could have been in consideration for the #1 overall pick if healthy and repeating what he flashed during his rookie year.

This is just completely disengenuous. Sano starts slow every year and has plenty of track record to not be written off as only a garbage time producer. This has nothing to do with advanced stats. The stats used were described to show how you measure that type of playstyle. Would you use the same stats to measure Arraez versus Buxton? Is Arraez bad because he doesn’t hit home runs? Again, I’m probably not even on keep Sano long term but this entire thread is basically ignorance about what is important when analyzing success for a player with an outlier hitting profile. And that’s different than talking about the metrics that matter for Sano and then saying that may be true but I dislike his style of play. Judging Sano based on his K% and batting average or balls play is the Arraez playstyle equivalent of calling him bad and an embarrassment because he doesn’t hit any HRs. To me, there are much more productize conversations to be had about Sano and the higher level style of play conversation by discussing Sano’s performance by analyzing how well he is foundationally doing the things that maximize the outcomes he’s trying to produce. Sano plate appearances should be judged based on how many pitches he is seeing, how many BBs he is drawing to offset the weak contact in play, how often Sano is swinging at pitches in zones with high expected outcomes and how often he is avoiding swinging at pitches that will result in soft contact if he makes contact as well as what percentage of the time is he hitting the ball hard and barreling the ball. Sano needs to do these things well to offset having fewer balls in play and a lower average. Measuring what matters, Sano is actually having some of the best ABs during a stretch of his entire career despite his production not reflecting that. Sano has a 13.5-14% BB which is among the best in the league. This isn’t surprising because he’s seeing the most pitches per AB in the league at 6.8. And when Sano is swinging he’s still hitting the ball extremely hard with the highest exit velocity behind Buxton with poor BABIP. As a bonus his K% is down to about 30% but really it’s for the most part an irellevant stat. Sano has not shown frustration and continue to be extremely patient and avoiding chasing averaging almost 7 pitches and walking at a rate that would be one the best handful in the league. His hard hit percentage suggests he’s swinging at the right pitches but is just a little by off. Sano may be actually poised for a bounce back year if he can maintain this profile. He is a slow starter in general but is actually probably much closer to going on a multi week year than it seems. This isn’t something broken. Sano is getting bad luck and in general getting under everything with a 72% FB rate and just a 14% GB rate. With slight timing corrections he’ll take off quickly here.

I don’t mind him swinging at that pitch. Sano has stretches every year where he has unlucky BABIP stretches and/or his timing is slightly off and (generally) he’s skying pitches in the air instead of driving them. Sano is going to have to swing his way out of it and it’s not like he hasn’t been mashing balls, he has the highest average exit velocity this season on the Twins behind Buxton. Even today, the last 2 ABs prior Sano had 2 103 &105 mph exit velocity hits turn into outs despite an expected outcome as an example of a .850 average on that. Sano isn’t having unproductive ABs where is just overwhelmed. He is seeing the most pitches per AB in the league and has close to career highs BB% and low K% Sano could repeat the exact same batted ball profile over the next two weeks and be an .800 OPS player. I’m not sure why people still get so frustrated with Sano.

I think that I am in the camp that this line-up is probably not as bad as it has been thus far, but is worse than expected when entering the year. Lineup mainstays have continued to regress (Sano/Kepler), prospects haven't developed (Kirilloff/Larnch/Jeffers), the new additions are just okay (Urshela, Sanchez) and other pillars have yet to take off (Correa/Polanco). The plan needs to be to hope that Kirilloff an play like he did pre-injury last year and that the Twins should focus on the best defensive lineup to help their pitchers. C - Jeffers - 1B - Sano - 2B - Polanco -3B - Urshela - SS - Correa - LF - Kirilloff - CF - Buxton - RF - Kepler -DH - Arrea

There is truth to this, but I disagree with your conclusion. Sano is a very disciplined hitter that I agree with. His chase rate is low because he doesn't expand the zone or try to generate contact with pitches on the outside edge of the zone unless he is forced to do so with 2 strikes. I actually think this description gets it completely backwards. Sano's primary goal during his plate appearances is to wait for a pitcher to make a mistake or deliver a pitch in an area of the strike zone with high XBH expected outcomes. Sano wants to maximize the chance that a pitcher makes a mistake and avoid bailing pitchers out by swinging at pitches that correlate with weaker contact even if it's a strike because it's well place on the corner of the zone. There is no reason to bail the pitcher out by swinging at a pitcher's pitch if you still have strikes available. The best way to maximize the chance of getting a pitch that has a high expected XBH outcome is to only swing at pitches that fall outside of that areas unless you have to do so. In addition, this means being willing to take a walk if a pitcher is not willing to challenge you in those areas of the zone. Sano consistently faces pitches per plate appearance that rank him in the top 5-10 range. This whole approach that you've called out is actually the right approach to maximize the chance that you can drive a pitch for an XBH on an at bat by at bat basis. This is a feature by design and actually represents Sano executing this approach at what you could call an elite level. Part of this approach also means that you are looking to wait the pitcher out and try to drive pitches in those areas even if you have 2 strikes. It is difficult at the MLB level to get drivable pitches over the heart of the zone and the idea is that you have to maximize your chance of generating an XBH by looking to drive those balls even with 2 strikes. Basically, what you are suggesting is that Sano should swing at strikes on the edge of the zone instead of taking them and going deeper into counts or getting behind. Sano has maximized his approach to generate the highest possible sample size in any given game (based on how many he gets) of high expected XBH outcomes and selectively almost exclusively swings at those pitches. If Sano doesn't get that pitch or he misses that pitch and the at bat continues with balls or strikes at the edge of the zone until it's 3-2 this means that push has to shove. Either a pitcher has to attack the zone where Sano wants him to throw or they have to continue to not attack the zone and try to get Sano to chase. Basically what you are saying is that Sano should swing at strikes in non-high XBH area outcomes trying to generate something that will most likely resemble weak content instead of keeping the chance open that he either gets a high-XBH-percentage pitch or gets on base by a walk if the pitcher doesn't. That's not to say that I wish Sano chased breaking balls off the plate less in this situation. However, now with 2 strikes Sano DOES have to swing at that lower percentage pitch that you talked about if it's on the corner of the zone. The large majority of these swing and misses Sano identifies fastball on the edge of the zone and it falls off. Many other times he lays off and walks as well. So while pitchers do beat him in some of these at bats, he is also able to navigate working through counts to get on base at a really high level with an 11-12% BB that puts him in the 20-30 range among qualified hitters. Part of the goal of Sano being really patient looking for these pitches is that not every contact is created equal and not every hitting outcome is worth the same. The goal of Sano's approach at the plate is to create an outcome where he is generating extreme amounts of line drives, hard hits, barrels, and an extremely high exit velocity. Throughout his career Sano has actually ranked either the best in the league in these areas or close to the best in the league. Basically, Sano's approach and execution of that approach may actually mean that he is the best in the league at making pitchers execute pitches and nail the corners of the zone without catching too much of the plate. If pitchers are a little bit off either on or off the plate Sano wins the AB. Most hitters end up creating contact that benefits pitchers with low expected SLG% outcomes despite the fact that if they were patient they likely would have had the chance to face a better hitter's pitch. Sano is one of the best in the league at making sure he is selectively swinging at pitches with high expected SLG% outcomes and forcing you to execute multiple perfect pitches to get ahead of him and in positions where you can make him expand the zone. We know this is true because when Sano makes contact there is arguably no one who hits the ball harder on average. This is not by accident the result is a purposeful outcome of a diligence and patience to trust a framework that allows him to more consistently swing at better pitches than other hitters. You want Sano to swing at more lower SLG% pitches to create more contact and decrease his K%. What you don't properly correlate is that Sano's K% is not something that can be thought of in isolation. If you swing at more lower SLG% strikes you are getting a benefit that largely results in largely weak contact and a high percentage of easy outs with some additional singles and maybe a limited number of XBHs. Mostly, it's going to be a lot of outs with some smattering of seeing eye singles or bloopers. If the tradeoff was get those extra singles in exchange for a decrease in K% that would be great, but it's not. The actual trade-off is that you want Sano to adjust his swing profile to increase the number of weak contact outs & some increase in singles and maybe driving a small amount of pitches and what you want Sano to lose is that you want him to decrease the number of high SLG% outcome pitches that he faces, lower his BB%, lower the number of 2Bs, lower the number of HRs. To me this doesn't make any sense at all. I can't understand why swinging at strikes on the edge of the strike zone earlier in counts gets you anything but weak contact outs + singles instead of strikeouts + BBs and decreasing your hard hit / barrel / LD / XBH% because you feel differently about a strikeout out versus a weak ground ball, pop-up, or fly-ball out. ______________________________________________________________________ Your statement is why I feel like people just don't take the time to properly understand what Sano is trying to or why his approach allows players to generate those types of outcomes. If you do understand what Sano's goals are and why those goals correlate to certain outcomes you realize that the whole package is a consequence of eachother. You cannot get the good without the negative externality of the strikeouts. Sano actually has arguably optimized his approach to produce the outcomes he wants to produce at what you could consider a 95th+ percentile level. He is also extremely patient and disciplined in sticking to that framework in each at bat understanding that these outcomes are produced over large samples. ______________________________________________________________________________ Sano has an extremely dialed in approach--where things get inconsistent and frustrating is his execution ______________________________________________________________________________ Sano is no longer the hitter that he was and doesn't generate quite as elite of hard contact as he used to. In addition, Sano definitely goes through periods of time where his timing is slightly off meaning that instead of driving the high percentage pitches in the middle of the plate Sano is either swinging through them or popping pitches up (this is what he's done right now). There is a relatively low margin of error with this approach because you have to execute on a high percentage of fewer swing attempts and may find yourself in more potential counts where the pitcher has the advantage. The point of this paragraph is that while Sano has almost completely perfected the approach that he is trying to use to generate trips on base and XBH's that doesn't mean he always executes at the same level. Sano could definitely serve to be more consistent in his execution and less prone to timing issues that resent in multiple-week or month long slumps as he works to resolve that. Note: If I were to suggest one reason that Sano didn't reach his potential as a power bat that his hype suggested I would suggest that Sano has more inconsistent execution than one would expect from an elite player. Sano has throughout his career struggled to consistently keep his timing dialed in leading to some inconsistencies in output. If I were to suggest to Sano a trade-off that would be worth it and decrease his strikeout rate, I would suggest that instead of continuing to take bug cuts on pitches that start on the outside of the zone with 2 strike you build in a variation into your three-true-outcome approach that priorizes contact specifically when the pitch starts in this area of the zone. The reason that I suggest this is really the one area where Sano could make a tradeoff that is worth it is that this pitch mix that is really difficult for Sano to handle is really the result of strong placement by pitchers who make the pitch look like it's located on the outer edge and then spin it out of the zone. The likelihood through which Sano is able to drive pitches in this location is small. Prioritizing more contact could allow you to wait until this pitch is deeper toward you and potentially identify the breaking pitches more often, increase your average, and decrease your K rate. Sano may just not really be capable of dialing back. However rather than your suggestion, to me this is the best small change that could decrease your K% and increase your .avg & BB% when pitchers have three-true-outcome hitters in one of the most disadvantagous counts for that approach. ______________________________________________________________________ Additional Note Everyone knows about Sano's power but I wanted to make one more point about how much fans obsess over the strikeouts and the three true outcome approach. To use this example I will use someone has an opposite approach (Trea Turner). Turner was among the league leaders in 1Bs and average (130 & .328) respectively. Turner prioritizes putting balls in play even if he's not driving the ball. This also means that he's looking for pitches to hit and many times not going to end the AB in a walk. Turner's heavy contact + ball in play + batting average approach resulted in Turner reaching 1B at the end of an AB from a 1B or a BB about 26% of the time while Sano reached first base at the end of an AB from a 1B or BB 21-22% of the time. This is a Sano that is not nearly the hitter that he was prior to 2020. Outside of his injury shortened bad year during 2015-2019, Sano reached first base through a single or a walk about 25% of the time.

Yes, but both need a chance to get consistent ABs to have a chance to develop. The more stagnation and bouncing that Larnach and also Kirilloff do between levels I think the worse it is for them after losing the Covid years. If the Twins want to wait until it’s clear if they will compete or not that’s fine. It would be nice to see 100-120 games in a consistent role for both players where we give them space and look to see if there is projectable improvement to build off of. On the Martin front, I see no reason to be conservative with promoting him as a college graduate. It seems like there are questions about his power but I’d like to see the Twins add more hitters who take great ABs and get on base and are threats when they do. You can take a Polanco development approach and let Miller focus on his elite on base and batted ball skills and work with him in the offseason to develop a path forward that helps Miller generate more power if even gap power at least selectively when he identifies a pitch to drive. The Twins need to hit on and get some players who are ahead of their development schedule. It’s been a while since they have been able to develop a good hitter.

Maybe so, but my perspective is that the Twins are probably too tied to giving lots of ABs to mediocre veteran players. Time to start finding what’s next

I have been a long time Sano proponent especially his 2015-2019 production outside of an injury shortened low BABIP season. I agree that Sano has been a frustrating player from a fan perspective. During his “prime” years his production never consistently materialized across a full season as he was constantly in a yo-yo scenario of a terrible 1st month back from injury as a quasi-sprint training, a dominant multiple stretch of months, and then an injury and repeat. Lastly, many really don’t like Sano’s playstyle. I do think that Sano gets miscategorized or did during those first years especially. Because of his K rate, I think Sano was thought by many to have a poor plate approach and a mostly zero impact player outside of some HRs. However, I think the opposite is true. Sano had an elite plate approach where he was able to virtually maximize the value you can produce through an approach focused on maximizing two different outcomes OBP & XBH. Sano has been consistently among the league leaders in pitches seen per plate appearance in the 4.3-4.4 range. Other than maybe Joe Mauer, there is no other Twins hitter that extends ABs as well as Sano has done. In addition, he’s actually seeing the most amount of pitches in his career this year at 4.7. Despite what Twins social media says, Sano is not a player who walks up to the plate and just swings at 3 pitches and then walks back. This also suggests that Sano’s ABs have a little bit more value than suggested helping get deeper into pitch counts and other hitters see pitches. This is a purposeful approach for Sano. Basically, Sano’s goal is to have a plan for areas in the zone where he can drive the ball and wait until a pitcher throws a ball in an area he can drive even if it means watching strikes or walking if a pitcher refuses to challenge him in the zone. Sano actually has one of the most patient and deliverate approaches in the league that helps him optimize his ability to make hard contact. Sano’s strikeout numbers are a by product of this approach and the way that this approach allows Sano to generate a ton of XBH. Sano needs to be willing to let counts go to two strikes if he doesn’t get pitches he feels that he can drive and continue to look for balls to drive with 2 strikes. Sano famously has big time issues with breaking balls off the plate. However, despite that issue he doesn’t really have an issue chasing balls out of the strike zone. Sano in many counts has the advantage of the pitcher but Sano has to try to defend the plate if it looks like a strike with 2 strikes and he sees more two strikes accounts than virtually anyone else. This approach also generates a ton of walks. Since 2015 when Sano came into the league in a general sense Sano’s OBP of around .350 meant that despite his contact issues he was on base more than anyone outside of roughly Mauer, Polanco, Cruz, Donaldson, and Arraez. Again, Sano gets a lot of grief for the strikeouts but at the same time he’s really trading weak contact for a higher XBH% and a higher strikeout percentage. Sano‘s approach focusing on driving the ball and taking big swings as well as his willingness to let the count go to 2 strikes over swing at a pitch that would be hard to drive has meant that Sano has been associated with contact issues. That being said, during that range of time Sano either led the league or was close to leading the league in hard hit percentage, line drive rate. Barrel percentage, and exit velocity. Basically, when Sano does make contact with the ball there is arguably no one in the MLB who is better at more consistently barreling the ball at that level of exit velocity. Sano was actually a pretty productive hitter when healthy: ~.350 OBP - 40+ HR per 150 -35 2B + 3B per 150 - 100-105 RBIs per 150 If you just don’t care because you hate the three true outcome style that’s fair but Sano has a history of being a player who gets on base a lot and generates a ton of power leading to a lot of runs driven in. It is too bad that Sano hasn’t been able to be that level of hitter as he’s moved from DH to 1B passably. Sano has had a prolonged stretch since 2019 where he hasn’t been able to reach that level. In a world where balls travel less far and batting averages have gone down, Sano’s has as welll. Sano was still a 10% above average hitter last season despite decreases in his average to the .210-.215 range and corresponding OBP drop to .310-.315. Sano still hits a lot of balls hard with a high exit velocity but like many others not as much as he did during the juiced ball ERA. However, Sano was still pretty decent last season per 150g. .312 OBP - .780 OPS - wRC+ - 110 ~35 HR - ~28 2B ~85 RBI - ~80 runs Sano has started the season characteristically slow but he’s still hitting balls extremely hard and has even made incremental improvements to his BB & K percentages. I don’t expect Sano to ever reach his potential and he likely will not reach the level he produced at during the juiced ball era. That being said, if the Twins can figure out how to have a top 10 offense Sano could be a nice #6 hitter or so who can have a .320-.325 OBP - .800 OPS - 35 HR - 35 2B - 95 rbi type season There are a lot of power hitters like Sano who have been able to make strides as hitters in their 30s . I’m not saying that we should rely on Sano making some incremental slides. However, he’s a better hitter than Kepler is at this point. In addition, both Larnach and Kirilloff have struggled and haven’t yet been able to produce even close to the average MLB level. Sano’s approach and skillset makes him a little bit of a niche hitter. But he sees a lot of pitches, gets on base more than most even with a lower average, and can still be an above average power hitter and run driver. I think that near-term Twins lineups could use his power bat as a good complementary piece. In a near-term lineup that could be featuring more and more players like Arraez and Austin Martin it will be important to have players to drive them in. The Twins don’t have to be tied to Sano but there isn’t any 1B/DH players near the majors or in the majors who have done anything to show me they are even close to Sano level.

Miranda’s slow start is really unfortunate. The Twins could really benefit from an injection of some new energy. They really need 1-2 of their internal players to show up and develop. It is really unfortunate that Kepler/Sano have taken steps back (even though I believe Sano will climb out of slump and be a hitting that’s 10-20% above average. This issue has been compounded by the fact that it seems like Covid/injures completely stalled Larnach/Kirillof as prospects leading to questions about their major league abilities or at least abilities to be above replacement players. I’m really not sure what to do for the Twins. I guess figure out how to get Arraez in the lineup everyday and work to develop against LHPs and add Austin Martin to the lineup over Kepler? This would at the very least allow the Twins to have two players who take more consistent high quality ABs and get on base. C - Jeffers 1B - Kirilloff 2B - Polanco SS - Correa 3B - Arraez LF - Larnach CF - Buxton RF - Martin DH - Sano/Kepler/Urshela/Sanchez

I am a fan of Wes. I like that he finds ways to optimize deliveries to get more MPH than they previously had. He seems like he does a solid job of helping pitchers put together a plan for their pitch mix and dig into things like sequencing/tunneling of those pitches. He also seems to specialize in my favorite type of pitchers and pitching profile. It seems like he has found the most success with pitchers like Odorizzi, Maeda, Ryan, Ober and others whose signature is their 4 seam FB at the top of the zone with other secondary pitches developed off of that. He seems to value pitchers that have or have the potential to have above average swinging strike percentages and below average BB percentages who limit contact and this baserunners while giving up the downside of HRs (theoretically shallow). He also seems to be really good at finding pitchers who have some sort of unique characteristic whether it be release point, arm angle, height or something else that he can work off of that allows players stuff to play above traditional stuff metrics. I think finding guys with unique delivery points or arm angles or other characteristics and filtering them through the pitch usage above or others if it fits that profile is probably the right approach I am really hopeful he can turn Paddack into an Odorizzi pitcher or better. Paddack has elite stuff and is still young . Peripherals suggest he’s better than his current production consistently since injury return. Paddack is a big student of spin rates and grips and other things. I will feel betrayed if he doesn’t figure out the right tweaks to make the stuff and peripherals match the production.

What is happening with our pitching group right now? Everyone is on fire. Even Paddack has a 1.7 FIP or something like that.