BK432

It seems pretty clear at this point that a realignment is on the horizon in Major League Baseball. Different ideas have been shared, but the most popular and most sensible one is for baseball to realign their divisions so that the teams are in closer proximity to each other. Such an alignment would probably not help any team more than the Seattle Mariners, who currently have to play 6 series in the state of Texas; more than 2,000 miles away from Seattle.
 
These ideas have arisen in light of the rumors of baseball expanding to 32 teams, with one team likely to be in Portland, Oregon and the other somewhere in the Eastern time zone. Such expansion will necessitate realignment anyhow, so it's possible that the MLB will wait until then to do anything, but in reality, they could start sooner. Indications are that the goal is for the Oakland A's and Tampa Bay Rays to move into new stadiums before expanding. However, negotiations are slow. The Rays are committed to playing at Tropicana Field through 2027 and have made little progress on what to do after, though they have begun to explore a disastrous idea to split time between Tampa and Montreal when their lease on the Trop is up.
 
The current travel for the players is grueling, especially for the teams in the west, who are vastly outnumbered by teams in the central and eastern time zones. Instead of waiting for the expansion to happen, which will probably be close to a decade from now, if not longer, the MLB could realign AND shorten the season much sooner. Here's how:
 
The first step is making the rules uniform. This realignment will jumble up the league, so the DH will either have to be universal or banned first.
 
Then, the MLB could align their divisions as follows (basically, just take the divisions as they are now and shuffle the deck a little bit)
 
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Pacific: Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers
Southwest: San Diego, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Houston
Upper Midwest: Kansas City, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Minnesota, Milwaukee
 
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Rust Belt: Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh
Metropolitan: Toronto, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston, Philadelphia
Southeast: Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Miami
 
I like this arrangement for a number of reasons, it's not perfect, especially for the southwest, but it's better than what they have. Also, there was no choice but to break up either Chicago's teams or KC and St. Louis. It's unfortunate, but something had to give.
 
As for the length of season, this schedule would make a ton of sense:
 
Vs Division opponents: 15 games vs each X 4 teams = 60 Games
Vs Rest of Conference: 6 games X 10 teams = 60 Games
Interleague: 6 games X 5 teams =30 Games (Play a 3 game series at home and on the road vs an entire division)
Total of 150 games
 
As I mentioned, it's not likely that the MLB will do anything until expansion happens (which I'm pretty indifferent about, honestly). However, in order to give the players a more reasonable travel schedule, and to give fans more chances to travel and see their team in nearby stadiums, this realignment makes a ton of sense.

It's been exactly one week since the Twins last off day, an unplanned off day prompted by a wet field in Los Angeles, so now is a good time to assess what has gone right, and what has gone wrong for the team since then.
 
The Good
A 5-1 record since the last day off. Simply put the Twins have been mashing in that time with a convincing win over the Angels, a sweep against the White Sox, and a well-played 2 game split against one of the National League's best teams the Milwaukee Brewers. In those 6 games, the Twins have outscored their opponents 51-23, Max Kepler has collected AL Player of the Week honors, and have increased their divisional lead from 7 games to 10 games. Obviously when you have that record a lot has gone well, but starting pitching has to be the biggest plus in those six games. Starters allowed just 7 earned runs in 36 innings in this time.
 
The Bad
Although the team has been playing well, there has been some rough patches, particularly for the Twins bullpen. Austin Adams gave up 5 earned runs while only recording 2 outs in the final game in Los Angeles. Luckily the Twins were up by 14 prior to Adams' appearance and would still win by 9. However, it led to Adams being waived and claimed by the Detroit Tigers. Adams' roster spot was taken by Zack Littell who pitched two clean innings against Chicago in the series opener on the 24th. The other bad out of the Twins pen is Taylor Rodgers being taken deep. Rodgers came into both games against Milwaukee and proceeded to give up a home run in both appearances. In the first game he gave up what would be a game winning 2-run shot to Orlando Arcia, and gave up a harmless solo homer to Yasmani Grandal last night. Of course this is not so bad if the team continues to have three-plus run leads, but Rodgers will be called upon in high leverage situation the rest of the way, and will need to find a way to avoid leaving pitches over the heart of the plate. Rodgers has been one of Minnesota's best relievers and I anticipate him finding himself again.
 
The Ugly
The Twins have been bitten a bit by the injury bug as of late. Mitch Garver has been on the injured list with a high ankle sprain, but looks to possibly return this weekend. Nelso Cruz has taken his time returning from a sore wrist. Starter Michael Pineda was placed on the injured list yesterday with right knee tendinitis. Finally, center fielder Byron Buxton had a nasty collision with Target Field's center field wall last night and is currently listed as day-to-day with a bruised right knee. All of these things sound benign enough, but the Twins need to remain healthy to continue their torrid pace, and any sort of setback could drastically hurt the team especially a setback to Buxton or Garver who have been among the league's best at their respective positions.

After a series loss to the Houston Astros, the Minnesota Twins were able to sweep the Baltimore Orioles in another 3-game series with hot bats and solid pitching all around.
 
The Twins were finally able to get an off day after playing 12 straight games before they faced the Orioles for the second, and final time of the season. The Twins just a week prior, and were able to sweep them in a 3-game series after dropping the series against the Toronto Blue Jays. They were able to walk right through the Orioles again and move to 16-9 on the season.
 
The bats continued to stay hot and the pitching really picked up in this series from both the starters and relievers.
 
It started off with Martin Perez on Friday throwing six solid innings while only giving up one run on six hits and striking out four. The bullpen combined for three shutout innings with four strikeouts and only two hits to secure Perez's third win of the season.
 
Just like the last time the Twins played the Orioles, the bats were rolling for the good guys. The Twins got right to work in the first inning, going back-to-back-to-back home runs from Nelson Cruz, Eddie Rosario (of course), and C.J. Cron. Max Kepler was able to add a home run later in the game, and Cruz hit his second of the game to extend the lead to 6-0. The Orioles were able to score one, but the Twins got the win 6-1 in the first game of the series.
 
Jose Berrios was given the start in game two and went straight to work. He dealt six innings and struck out eight, but did give up eight hits which only led to two runs. The bullpen, again, came in and threw three shutout innings, this time striking out six and only giving up one hit. Berrios was able to move to 4-1 and continues to be the ace that the Twins needed.
 
As you can probably guess, more home runs were hit by the good guys in this game as well. This time it was Kepler who picked up the multi-home run game as he homered in back-to-back games. Cron, Marwin Gonzalez, and Jason Castro were all able to go yard in last night's game propelling the Twins to a 9-2 victory.
 
In the series finale, Kyle Gibson was lined up to close out the Orioles, and he did exactly that. He was able to pick up his second win of the season, both of them coming against the Orioles, with a very solid outing. He went seven innings and gave up just three hits and one run while striking out six. Gibson has now gone back-to-back starts without issuing a walk and the lone run was a home run from Chris Davis in the seventh.
 
The runs weren't flowing as much this game, but Kepler, yes again, hit a home run as well as Byron Buxton getting his first of the season. The bullpen came in and did their job in two shutout innings as Blake Parker was able to pick up his fifth save of the year as the Twins got their brooms out in a 4-1 win to sweep the Orioles again.
 
Offense
 
Rosario was able to extend his team high in home runs this series getting his 11th of the season. Max Kepler hit four home runs this series and now has seven on the season. Jorge Polanco was a little cold this series (2-13) but is still batting .337. The teams OPS is still very high sitting at .847
 
Pitching
 
Twins starters have now gone at least five innings in 14 of the last 15 starts which has been very helpful for the bullpen with how many games they've had/ still have with little rest. The bullpen threw a combined eight shutout innings throughout this series and the starting pitchers only gave up four runs in 19 innings.
 
What's next?
 
The Twins stay at home for a 4-game series with the Astros, who are finishing up a series with the Cleveland Indians tonight. Hopefully this series can go better for the Twins, and they can keep up the pitching and hitting. They then travel to New York to face the Yankees for the first time this season in a 3-game series.

Recently I was messing around on MLB.com for no particularly good or suspicious reason when I stumbled upon their top prospects list. Now, we all are familiar with prospects because as Twins fans, they sometimes bring us more hope than the major league team. But even cooler than the updated top prospects list was an archived top prospects list from 2011 that included their top 50 prospects of the year along with top 10 lists for each team. An oh boy does nothing brew my fair-trade espresso like looking back at old prospects lists and chuckling at how their careers actually turned out. Guys like Machado, Harper, and Trout were all in the top 10 and have been excellent so far while guys like Jacob Turner, Martin Perez, and Shelby Miller haven’t quite lived up to their hype. Baseball is a funny game and how good of a prospect a player oftentimes does not correlate to major league success. So buckle in and get ready for some weird nostalgia. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2011/
 
 

Aaron Hicks


 
I swear on my life that I didn’t plan this, but the news of Aaron Hicks’ new 7-year extension with the Yankees broke earlier this week and basically every part of that sentence just absolutely stings. Hicks was the OG toolsy centerfielder before Buxton was even in the picture and there was a lot to like about his game. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end too well for us Twins fans; Hicks struggled in the majors for the Twins, was traded to the Yankees after the 2015 season for John Ryan Murphy, then struggled in 2016 for the Yankees before figuring it out in 2017 and is now coming off a fresh 4.9 fWAR season for the Yankees. There really isn’t any way that you can slice that trade that makes it look good for the Twins, but it does hurt a touch less considering how good the Twins OF is even without Hicks. And it makes me feel a little better if I think of it as a Hicks for Moya trade because good Lord, John Ryan Murphy was just awful for the Twins. Terry Ryan should have known not to trust a guy with 3 first names, but here we are. JRM was one of the worst Twins players I had ever seen and the only fond memory I have of him is when he got tossed in Houston after Jerry Layne’s ego got in the way of making a strike 3 call.
 
 

Kyle Gibson


 
What an interesting career Gibson has had so far. Gibby was originally taken as a 1st round college arm in 2009 because the Twins philosophy at the time was “take college pitchers in the 1st to get them here as quick as possible”. Gibby took a little longer than expected due to getting Tommy John surgery late in 2011, but he eventually debuted in 2013. After some solid yet unspectacular seasons in 2014 and 2015, the metaphorical feces hit the fan in 2016 and the first half of 2017 for Gibby as his standard groundball special became obsolete and hitters started to tee off on the poor guy. After being sent to AAA in 2017 and changing how he pitched (along with probably “finding himself” or something equally deep), Gibby started to strike people out and he pitched well in the 2nd half of 2017. All of this led to a full breakout 2018 campaign at the ripe age of 30 for the converted groundball man and he looks to stabilize the rotation again in 2019.
 
 

Miguel Sano


 
Here we have yet another unusual career path because God forbid a Twins prospect develops normally into a quality MLB player without a speed bump or 7 along the way. Sano was one of the few good moves made by Bill Smith as he was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2009 as a 16-year-old (allegedly, according to Joe Simpson). He mashed through the minors before losing an entire year in 2014 due to Tommy John surgery but skipped AAA the next year and made his MLB debut in 2015. And oh boy did he make a debut. He absolutely mashed to the tune of a 149 wRC+ and was seemingly crushing clutch homers every single night. 2016 was less kind to Sano as he struggled with injuries and dumbassery when the Twins attempted to move him to RF to keep elite third baseman Trevor Plouffe on the roster. 2017 was kinder as he made the All-Star game but still struggled with injuries later in the season. 2018 was just absolutely turrible in the full Charles Barkley sense of the word for him but let’s not dwell on the past. Sano is still around as a 25-year-old (allegedly also to the dude who cares about that kind of thing) with All-Star upside but needs to have a good 2019 year to show that he can stick in the Twins’ future plans.
 
 

Oswaldo Arcia


 
Oh man, Oswaldo Arcia, what a headache this guy was. All the talent in the world but couldn’t make contact, or hit the ball to left field, or field, or run… Really, it isn’t much of a surprise that this guy flamed out. Arcia is pretty much the cookie-cutter bust as he hung around for a few years with meh numbers and was finally DFA’d in 2016 when the team had enough finally. I mean seriously, when you can’t even make the 2016 Twins better, that isn’t a great sign for where you are skill-wise. Arcia bounced around to a number of teams that year and then chilled in Arizona’s minor league system in 2017 before going international to further his career. He was actually supposed to play in the AAA All-Star game in 2017 but didn’t end up going for some reason. I don’t know who would turn down a nice trip to Tacoma, Washington like that. Now we get to watch his brother, Orlando, do things for Milwaukee and then get the cold 1000-yard stare whenever the word “Arcia” is mentioned. Apparently, he signed a contract with a Mexican league team about 2 weeks ago, so that’s neat.
 
 

Joe Benson


 
Y’all remember Joe Benson? This absolute legend has all of 74 major league plate appearances and holds a career wRC+ of 67. Benson was in the minor league system for the Twins for what felt like forever but never really got a major shot until 2011. Ironically enough, Benson lost the starting centerfield job to Aaron Hicks in 2013 during spring training and was placed on waivers later that year to make room for P.J. Walters. Benson bounced around some other minor league teams afterward and was last recorded as signing with the Chicago Dogs in Indy ball. Also, as a fun fact to use whenever at the bar, Benson’s first career hit came off of Max Scherzer, so use that for a pickup line whenever you need.
 
That was not a fun trip down memory lane, but I do think it is necessary for us to check our hype on prospects occasionally. As fans, we always expect the perfect outcomes for them as we envision them as future All-Stars who lock down the team for years to come, but the truth is, they don’t always pan out, and that was a big reason for the Twins struggles in the early Target Field era, the Twins couldn’t develop an actual prospect to save their life. Under the new regime, however, a great number of excellent coaches and modern technologies have been implemented to make sure the next wave of top prospects in Royce Lewis, Alex Kirilloff, and Brusdar Graterol, among others can succeed when they hit the majors.

“Every artist gets asked the question ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ The honest artist answers ‘I steal them.’” - Austin Kleon
 
As Twins fans, we tend to look at roster moves through Twins-colored glasses. We know there are approaches to roster construction and talent acquisition outside of the Falvey/Levine mold and we try our best to keep track of them, but it’s difficult and time-consuming to monitor 29 other rosters for ideas the Twins could adopt. Unfortunately opposing players don’t have “amateur free agent” or “trade acquisition” on their jerseys along with their name and number.
 
The good news, friends, is that your humble author has done the hard work for you. Over the past few weeks I’ve studied the teams that made the 2018 postseason in an effort to better understand to what degree they relied on homegrown talent (i.e. drafted and signed internationally) and external talent (i.e. free agents and trade acquisitions) to reach the postseason. I looked at every player that suited up for these clubs and tracked how they were acquired and how they performed. The results were surprising and fascinating, showing one key area where the Twins have fallen behind - an opportunity they can’t afford to continue to miss if they want to return to the postseason.
 
Before we dive in, a few notes on methodology:

All WAR figures are based on FanGraphs’ WAR formula. If you aren’t a fan of WAR, you may want to turn back now, but you’re reading a baseball site on Super Bowl Sunday so my guess is we’re safe.
The 2019 Twins projections below are FanGraphs’ Depth Chart projections, which are a blend of Steamer’s projection system and playing time estimates by FanGraphs’ staff.
Several types of averages below help summarize the postseason field as a whole, including median, unweighted average (mean) and weighted average. The weighted average favor the clubs that advanced further into the postseason (crediting 19 games for advancing to the World Series, 12 games for advancing to the league championship series, and so forth). So the Red Sox are weighted more heavily in that average than the A’s, for example.
The “Small Market Average” is an average of Cleveland, Oakland, Milwaukee and Colorado, meant to represent the postseason clubs more closely aligned with the Twins’ revenues and spending capabilities.

Okay, let’s get started.
 
Homegrown Talent
 
Any conversation around Minnesota’s underwhelming 2018 starts with the struggles of Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, but readers may be surprised by how competitive the Twins’ homegrown core was relative to those of the postseason clubs, even factoring in Buxton and Sano’s struggles. Let’s take a closer look at the numbers:
 


 
In fact, players the Twins drafted or signed as amateur international free agents contributed 19.6 wins to the 2018 club, roughly even with the average playoff team. Among the contending clubs, the Red Sox and Rockies led the way with 23.7 and 23.5 wins respectively from their homegrown talent, while the Brewers managed to lead the National League in wins despite only 3.6 wins’ worth of production from players they’d drafted or signed internationally.
 
Fangraphs projects the Twins’ drafted and international signings to continue to produce at or above the level of a postseason team in 2019, but 2018 showed us that this won’t be enough to take the club to October. So if the Twins maintained pace with baseball’s best in homegrown production and still fell short, where did the eventual postseason clubs pull away?
 
Free Agency
 
The state of free agency has been a hot topic this offseason, and it’s no secret to Twins fans that the free agent market wasn’t kind to their club in 2018. Logan Morrison, Lance Lynn and Addison Reed fall flat, and key free agent investments from previous offseasons Ervin Santana and Jason Castro were non-factors. Let’s take a look at free agent production as compared to the 2018 playoff teams:
 




 
While the Twins got a mere 1.3 wins from players acquired via free agency, playoff teams enjoyed an average of nearly 8 wins apiece. There were outliers even within one division, with the Dodgers needing nearly 14 wins from former free agents to squeak into the postseason while the Rockies needed less than 2 free agent wins to do the same. The NL West race also demonstrates a split in strategy between larger- and smaller-market teams, with the smaller predictably relying less on free agents than their larger-market counterparts.
 
If Twins fans are looking for some good news, it’s unlikely their luck will be nearly as poor in 2019. FanGraphs has rosy projections for former free agents Nelson Cruz, Michael Pineda and Jonathan Schoop, but a return to the postseason will likely hinge on every ounce of the 13.5 wins FanGraphs projects the Twins getting from players acquired in free agency.
 
But here’s where things get interesting, because if the homegrown core still looks promising and the free agent acquisitions appear poised for fairly strong production, there’s only one player acquisition strategy left that jumps off the page as a missed opportunity for the Twins, and if you took a close look at the charts above you may be way ahead of me.
 
The Trade Market
 
While last year’s playoff teams may have had a step up on the Twins in free agency, they absolutely torched the Twins when it came to finding surplus value in the trade market. Let’s take another look at the breakdown of external production:
 




Outside of the trade for Jake Odorizzi, the Twins have been largely absent from the trade market, and it shows when you compare them to the best teams in baseball. Excluding midseason trades, which we’ll omit due to the Twins having very different goals in those trades than the other teams on this list, trade acquisitions contributed only 6.1 wins to the Twins in 2018, and those were largely concentrated between Odorizzi and erstwhile fan favorite Eduardo Escobar.
 
By comparison, 2018’s postseason teams averaged a whopping 17.9 wins from players acquired via trade, again excluding midseason trades. That’s nearly 40% of their production coming from such trades, and the number balloons to nearly 50% when you look at just the smaller market clubs. The A’s and the Indians have written the book on building a small market contender by acing the trade market, with the A’s acquiring over half their 2018 production and the Indians acquiring four of five pieces of a dynamic rotation (all of whom were worth 4 or more WAR) via trade.
 
If there’s one lesson to take from this review of the 2018 postseason field, it’s that effectively leveraging the trade market is critical to building a postseason contender, and the Twins have not kept pace with their competition. Twins fans have seen what can happen when trades go wrong, but we also saw in 2018 the effect that conservative trade activity can have on a club that has eyes on the postseason. Is it time to get out there and make some aggressive moves?

On Sept. 1 in MLB, rosters expand. For the entire month, teams can bring up and use any player on the 40-man roster. The usage of this is varied, as some teams will empty out their minors and stock their clubhouse and dugout. Others will simply bring up some pinch-runner types and an extra bullpen arm or two.
 
It all depends on the team’s goals for the season and the construction of their rosters -- both 25- and 40-man. Some teams have more MLB-ready players on their 40’s than others, while others have some younger project-type players who the team just as soon would not want to promote and expose and/or pay an MLB daily salary to.
 
It’s been awhile since the Twins were terribly good heading into September to the point where they were fine-tuning for the playoffs, and that’s frankly not the case this season, either. Most likely, the Twins will bring up any players they think can help them toward the goal of at least one of the Wild Card spots, if not chasing down Cleveland for the division crown in the final days of the season.
 
And while the proverbial floodgates can open as early as Sept. 1, teams don’t like to leave their minor-league clubs playing shorthanded. For instance, the Rochester Red Wings are not only the current Wild Card team in the International League with a three-game lead over Lehigh Valley, but their regular-season schedule doesn’t end until Sept. 4 against Pawtucket. Thus, if the Red Wings miss the postseason, the mass exodus of players to Minneapolis would most likely start on Sept. 5.
 
Either way, here are the players we think the Twins will bring up whenever the time is right next month:
 
Mitch Garver - C/1B/OF
 
Obviously he’s already up, but what we’re saying here is that he’s almost certain to stay up for the rest of the season. Without the injury to Robbie Grossman, Garver most likely finishes out the season at Triple-A Rochester before coming up. Now, with the timeline for recovery for Grossman likely stretching into September, Garver should be up for the duration, working in mostly at DH or first base with some reps in the outfield. As much as he’s caught this season, it’s difficult to ease a catcher into things this deep into the season on the big-league roster. We saw how Juan Centeno’s trial-by-fire went last year, and he was supposed to be a good catch-and-throw guy as well. Running mate Chris Gimenez raves about Garver’s improvement even since this spring, but he probably won’t catch much, if at all the rest of the way.
 
Please click through here to read the rest of this article on ZoneCoverage.com.