Trov

I have like Arraez since he came up. Many have been down on him for lack of power, which makes him not a top prospect, but he brings something very important to a lineup. His approach reminds me more of Tony Gwynn than Carew, but both of them could hit lefties much better than Arraez. Maybe it is SSS for Arraez as this year is even lower numbers than career, but his career numbers are a large split. It does warrant sitting him against lefty starters and pinch hit later in game against a righty. As for the slugging, Arraez is right up with Carew normal year of slugging. Carew career was the .429, but he was normally closer to .400 or lower, he had a few big seasons in slugging to raise the career. Where Arraez does have a bit of drawback is his lack of speed and base stealing. Either way, I enjoy watching his at bats as he almost never gives anything away, and I have a feeling if defenses start to try and rob his line drives he might just start to increase his angle and try to drive it over their heads for those extra base hits.

I just wanted to add in that I would not trade him, as long as still in place to make playoffs. I doubt the return for him would be worth giving up what he would add to the team in the playoffs. I am not a push all in and try to upgrading all the pitching either. I say ride it out, see how it goes.

The news on this is very vague as to why he is on the list. I have not heard what it all is. Some are speculating mental health, some are thinking substance issues, but nothing has been released other than "personal issues". I hope for him he can work through those.

He is mashing in AAA, but I am sure there is some internal discussion about his wrist and has he worked on the few issues he had early this year? I think also they only want to bring him up one more time. I fully agree he could slide into DH or rotate around, but my guess is the team wants to make sure when he does come up, he will be up here for good. He is getting regular swings each day, and I think they want to make sure he will have no set backs on the wrist. Also, is he mashing fastballs only? I have not watched so if he is only mashing fastballs but still rolling over anything not fastballs, he may not be ready to come back up because he will see nothing but offspeed when he gets back up here.

Overall I agree that situational hitting is lacking. However, that is in part based on how players have developed over the years. Most MLB players have always been 1 thru 4 type hitters on their teams growing up, because they are most likely the best on the team. They were never asked to really advance runners. I have long talked about players lack of practicing such situations is the biggest issue. Like guys never bunting, but then asking them to do it out of no where is a problem, they normally fail at it. Over the past decade the game went away from situational hitting, but went to try to hit extra base hits, which requires hitting the ball hard. With the dead ball that has played out this year, doing the little things may be much more of a thing to work on. However, just because a guy wants to do something, does not mean they will, as the pitcher is not going to just let them do it. Also, if the hitters gets a pitch to hit hard, why take it because it does not give you the planned result of just advancing a runner? The Sanchez situation talked about, he did hit the ball the right direction, but just not in the right angle. Guys cannot always hit the ball the way they want to. Now, I will agree we should work more on those situations and get back to maximizing situations. I do feel overall the team is doing much better having better at-bats overall. You will always find bad at-bats to point out in any game. They just get highlighted when you lose by a run or two.

He has managed to take the ball each time, sure for only about 4 or 5 innings, but he has not been terrible. If we were to start playoffs tomorrow, he would not be my number one choice that is for sure, but he has added more value than some other guys.

Many have talked about how we are not ready to win this year, unless we upgrade our pitching. I agree we can upgrade our pitching, but believe getting a top starter and top reliever will drain our farm system and will not be needed to get into playoffs, and once there nothing says doing so will make the difference between a WS win or not. I looked into past deadline deals and only found 2 higher end starters helping lead to WS win in recent history. I am suer there was some middle of road trades that helped, but without knowing how someone else would have done we never know how big of a difference it would be. This post is not about if we should trade for pitching, but if we do not, should we trade Correa. That being said, if you are in the boat of we need to upgrade pitching or season will be a bust, if the price for that pitching is too high, would you trade away Correa to get prospects? Most likely doing so would cost us a chance at playoffs, with no clear replacement. I believe it would greatly lower our chances if we did sneak into playoffs, but much as starting pitching we would not know. It is highly unlikely Correa opts in for next year barring any injuries down the stretch that would eat up much of next year, he will want to get a bigger deal, which we all expected when the deal was signed. The question is, do you stand pat on him hoping we can still make playoffs and do something with him, or do you try to bring in a couple of top prospects, understanding that his value is not super high being just a rental for any team taking him. He also has limited no trade clause I believe. You would also most likely give up any chance of getting a deal with him long term, which is already very unlikely. Both trading and not trading has merit. First, keeping him we have one of best defenders and one of best hitting SS in the league. Bogaerts right now has best WAR of SS but Correa is not far behind and has much less games. Any contending team that does not have a SS or could not move their SS to another position would love to have Correa. What would they give up? That might depend on how desperate they are, if they think they could convince him to opt in, or resign him, or who else is looking for him. You never know who would come back to the Twins and how they would pan out, but with most likely losing Correa for nothing after the season there is merit to saying get value for him. You may upset many fans though down the stretch, and affect possible future FA signings, although think every knew it was a 1 year deal so doubt that would affect many future FA thoughts. On the flip side, if you can make the playoffs having a guy on defense at SS that is as good as he is, and will hit middle of order with chance of hitting HR and getting on base at high clip, has a ton of value. Our offense versus some good starting pitching has shown at least right now they can hold their own. We won two world series in our history, both of which were considered big underdogs in each round of those playoffs but still won. When we had what we thought was elite top pitching or at least a top pitcher, we have not won series. Specifically in 2020 we had two guys that could dominate games that year, and lost both starts after having not great, but not terrible but facing off against aging vet and unproven rookie. We failed to score despite pitching not being terrible it was not good enough. I am a big fan of getting to playoffs and see how it goes. Atlanta last year was not favored. Many teams that win are not favored, but yes many that are do as well. However, sometimes it is a surprise person that steps up. I personally would not be upset either way, as long as the return in a trade helps next year and in near future, not years down the road. But if we try to stay pat with starters and bring in cheap relief guys for very low level prospects, I would be happy with that too.

First, I think the cost of getting Mantas will be pretty high. He is not a HOF bound guy, but he is best out there and as we get closer to deadline there will be a team thinking he will make the difference of getting into playoffs. My assessment is two fold for the NEED for upgrade at upgrading pitching. First, are they needed to get us to the playoffs? Then what kind of a difference will they make? I do not think we need to upgrade to make the playoffs, provided our top end guys come back from injury soon. Our pen will get us into the playoffs as well I believe. Now when we make it, will they be that big of a difference maker? Some top guys can be, the most recent deadline trade I can think of that helped push a team to the ship was Houston 2017, who it looks like gave up basically at best bench players for him. Great deal for Houston. Johnny Cueto was traded to KC in 2015 and he helped in playoffs having 2 good games 1 okay game and 1 bad game. Of note, during the regular season he had a stretch of 5 terrible games, but had about 5 great games too, However, beyond that I cannot find too many deadline deals that led to WS wins, and if you give up your full farm system you better end up with a ship, else it was a failure. If the Twins feel Montas will be a big addition to next years rotation, which I do not feel he will be needed, then I would be okay with a deal, but if he is not needed to fill out the rotation I do not feel he is that much better than what we would march out there, and you never know what the playoffs will bring. He could pitch 1 great game but never get another game, or he pitches several duds, or he could go on a mad bum like run and carry us to the ship. You never know.

Yeah I would not give up much for Noah. I have not seen him pitch this year, but looking at his numbers his K rate is down a ton, his walk rate at about career norm, so not like he is getting early contact outs. I would pass unless it was more of a waiver claim situation. He does not clearly rank higher than any of our current rotation, other than his numbers from several years ago of 2018 and 2016 really. Unless our starters start missing the full year I give up nothing other than money for him, and if we have a healthy staff he would most likely slot near Archer. They are baiscally having the same season overall, just Thor has gone deeper generally in starts, but on the Twins that may not happen.

First, to get what suggested needed, I would say it will take emptying most of our prospects to get 3 high end pen pitchers and a top end starter. For say Montas, I bet it will take minimum Martin and a top pitcher, or 2 lower tier pitchers. I am not certain that gets it done though, might depend on who else is looking to trade for him. For the 3 pen pitchers, not sure who is out there, but they will take many mid level guys at minimum if not a top tier guy depending on the guy and who else is buying. Personally, I am never a fan of trading top prospects for rentals. I am okay with trading for at least a couple years of control. I would not do it, because even doing so does not mean we win anything in the playoffs. Many will say we will not win without it, which may be true, but clearing out your prospects for a little bit better chance to me is not worth it. First, I think we can make playoffs with current team, so any trades you talking about most likely would be to increase playoff chances. So lets look at Montas, he would slot as top guy in our rotation most likely. We do not know if he will pitch more than 1 game in the playoffs, even if he wins his first start, which is no guarantee, as we have seen any starting pitcher can have a bad start. Same thing with pen pitchers, our last playoff game had our "best" pen pitcher gave up a run without getting an out recorded, giving up 2 hits and a walk. So you never know. Sure, if we got overall better pitchers will it help our cause, of course, but how much of improved chances will we have? I am sure Tiger fans wish they never gave up John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander, despite going 9-0 down stretch in regular season, with a 1.50 ERA. Alexander pitched game 1 and 5 against the Twins, losing both games, giving up 6 in 7.1 innings in game 1, and 4 in 1.2 innings in game 5. He helped them get to playoffs, maybe not needed, but back then it was harder to even make playoffs, but in the playoffs he pitched terrible, and Tigers gave up a HOF pitcher for it. My point is, I think we can make the playoffs without upgrading starting pitching, or the pen, and giving up top prospects that can help us for years down the road, or build our team next year via trades, for rentals this year makes little sense. There is no guarantee these moves pay off in playoffs. Yes, the Alexander example may be extreme and there are times were reverse pays off. Most recent Verlander was a deadline trade to Houston in 2017 and he helped push them to win a WS, along with banging on a trash can. All Houston had to give up, looking back is a pitcher that has yet get beyond High A, a 4th type OF and a backup catcher. Of course they had higher hopes when brought them in. No matter the way the FO goes, we will never know if it works out, until it does, and we really we not know if the reverse would have been better.

I think the FO was less worried bout his ability to throw out runners, because for years teams just would not run. However, as MLB is looking to bring stealing back into the game, with different rule changes, changing size of base, and appearing to decrease the power of the ball, that liability is starting to show it may be a huge issue. I am no catching expert, and it may be just his arm is not as strong, or his set up to frame pitches cost him some time, or could be our pitchers do poor job too. However, watching some teams starting to run all over on him may lead to need to change. Since he is not providing any offense, really anyone can fill in for him if they can throw guys out. I would point out that very few catchers are good on both sides, but right now Jeffers is not doing great on either, and as MLB eventually gets the robo ump the pitch framing will be pointless, and throwing runners out will be a bigger issue. Maybe he will change things up when that happens to help with the runner situation, but right now, I would agree he is not an asset behind the plate overall.

On name in the internal options not mentioned is Spencer Steer. He has played some over there, and assuming he is not the best defensive option, but has a lot of offense upside, if he can balance enough he could be a bridge until Lewis is ready next year. I highly doubt we land a top FA SS. Correa was an odd situation where for some reason no one was willing to give his asking price. Now it is possible that teams will shy away from some of those deals as the big SS signings so far have not done great. Seager and Seimien with Tex have OPS around .700. Baez he is fielding fine, but he is hitting terrible for making 20 mil. Story had a hot stretch for like 2 weeks in May, outside of that he has been below replacement player earning 20 mil. Correa has been by far best of them all, and will most likely command the 300 mil he is looking for. I doubt we pay it. Could we hope one of the other 3 top guys agree to something closer to what we want to pay, maybe, but only if last years crop scare off a few teams, which for the LA's and East Coast teams I doubt it will.

Yes we can beat the yankees, the problem is we do not play like we can. Of course they are talented team, we are not only team that has lost to them. However, we seem to always make huge bone head mistakes, like no one trying to catch a pop up in the infield. These get compounded and more mistakes get made. We just play differently against them. I mean over the time Gleeman posted, we had some good teams, division winning teams and like 90 win teams. We had some bad teams too, but it is not like the Yankees were always the best team in league. There just happens to be something against them. No matter the lead it is not safe. We always find ways to blow it. Now, I will say I am happy with how we hit their starters and over last 4 games we have faced 4 pretty good pitchers this year and done well against them. Now we just need our staff to get right.

Overall I would agree with this. The Odo trade they were dealing from depth and need to cut money. I would disagree with the Ryan for Cruz trade. If Rays did have him slotted as a pen arm, that is on them for not seeing what he could be. Sure he may not stay at level he has been, but I have not seen any signs of regression overall. They may have needed a bat, but they could have found one somewhere for much less than what they gave up. It shows at worst that they just were wrong on Ryan, which it happens because they stole Anderson from us for nothing, but maybe that will not turn out as he really only had 1 decent year, and been injured all last year and this year. The Garza deal we got fleeced, but that is more on us. Pretty sure Garza did not like it here and we decided to try and get a bat for him. We were thinking on old ways of baseball at that time, not thinking bat first corner OF guys are easy to find. We were hoping Young would be more than he was, which was not terrible but pitching is king and bat first corner OF guys, unless they are HOF bound, are easy to find.

Please site your source for his lack of speed to cover CF? His throwing has been in question, but I have not read anything to suggests he lacks speed to cover CF. He clearly has speed with 21 stolen bases this year already, and baseball reference has his range factor, which is outs plus assists/ 9 innings at a high level. Maybe it is just good positioning, but Buxton is current active leader, and 16th on all time list, at 2.714. Martin in minors so far is 2.34 in CF. This on par with Kevin Pillar, who is 6th on current active list. This year in very small sample size he is 3.49, but in only 6 games so would regress most likely. For comparison Gilberto Celestino has a career minor league mark at 2.20 in CF. The point is, his early numbers show he may not be elite at defending CF, but could most likely could hold it down. It is possible his numbers are just small sample size compared to guys who spent every game in CF or mostly, but please provide your source for fact Martin lacks the speed to play CF.

I quit watching once the infield just let a pop up drop without a single player trying to catch it. I knew how it was going to go from that point.

I fully agree. Most people think first is just stand there and catch ball at ya. Which in a lot of cases that may be the situation. However, there are many ways to mess even that up. Stretch too early, or not have feet set right to make the right stretch. With all the shifting you need to figure out when to go after a ball and when not to. Also, pitcher need to do better getting over to cover on any ball hit that direction. They are so used to think only balls close to first, but now some first basemen are only person on that side and need to cover more range. First is not as easy to defend as many people think, and even harder now than ever before with the shift.

The FIP for this year is a bit off because his walks were so high the first few games. Also, FIP for a relief pitcher is not a great way to measure them. If you give up a solo HR in a three run game but get the save, the FIP will jump off the charts, However, they still got the job done. Look at Josh Hader, his FIP jumped from .99 to 2.28 when he gave up to solo shots the other day. I am not comparing the two, I am just pointing out that FIP will change so much when you are doing 1 inning at a time. I am not saying Pagan is lights out or anything, and can we improve sure, but my point is he has for most part got the job done compared to what we could have. It also shows how saves are way over blown. Some guys get the saves, but do not shut the door when it is a multi run game. It gets ya nervous and may not be sustainable. Fernando Rodney was the perfect example of this. Much of his career pretty high FIP and ERA, a couple of great years, but he still got a lot of saves, converting 80% life time. Rivera, most likely best "closer" ever was 89%. Rodney would come in a 3 run lead give up 2 leaving 2 on. Come in with 1 run lead leave bases loaded. I am not saying Pagan is amazing, by any stretch, but he has been effective enough so far. Could that change quickly, sure.

The write up was not about a single game, but how he has been hitting overall last week or two. He has 10 hits in 28 at-bats, with 3 HR. Yes, SSS and he could just as quickly drop back to what he was, but he has raised his season OPS nearly .200 points in that span. I doubt anyone is saying he is on his way to ROY or anything, but his at bats have been looking better overall too.

I would not say he is the best trade chip, as you noted his prospect ranking is dropping, hard to say he is a top trade chip if his value is dropping. Now, if the question was is he most likely to be traded if one is made, I would agree with that. I do like him overall, and the throwing errors would hopefully be something he can work on. He has great range and speed but with Lewis looking like he will hopefully hold down SS, or at least better than Martin would, and Buck locked up long term in CF, Martin is not knocking on the door and we could send him off and not be hurting because of it. Based on his dropping value not sure he nets what people would be hoping though. Our best trade chips would be Buck, Correa, Lewis, or Ryan in my opinion, but you do not trade any of them if you are trying to win this year or anytime soon.

Recently TD had article about how Pagan, and all season people have been posting about him. First, is he being unfairly attacked because he was part of the Rodgers trade? I mean he did not ask to be in that trade, but people seem to be comparing the two. More on that later. Yes, early on he was walking way to many guys and walking the tight rope. When you look at his per game break down, for some reason he has been terrible against Detroit, but against other teams his numbers are not too bad. Take out Detroit, which are all his blown saves or blown lead, one was in 8th so not a save, of 1 run leads. He has given up 4 runs, 2 ER, but he did give up a HR in the game of 2 unearned, over 14.1 innings with 2 HR. Against Detroit he has given up 4 runs, all earned, with 3 HR over 4.2 innings. Of course we do count the Detroit games, but absent those his overall results have not been bad, as none of the runs he gave up in the other games affected the overall outcome really. He did pick up the loss in the 7-2 loss against the dodgers back on April 12. He gave up 1 run, just happened to be the one that got the loss. I would suggest that if he came to the Twins in a trade not involving Rodgers, or if he was just signed as a FA fans would be giving him a bit more of a break. Since early May he has really cut down his walks. Walking 1 in his last 11.1 innings. He has given up 11 hits over that period, for a WHIP of about 1. Not terrible for a pen arm. All guys are going to blow saves, Hader just had his streak broken with to solo shots the other day. I am not specifically comparing the seasons of Rodgers and Pagan, but Rodgers did start off on fire, converting 17 of first 18 save chances, the one blow save he let in with 2 outs runners that were on when he came in so did not get credited for giving up any runs. Over his last few outings he has blown 2 saves and picked up a loss in addition in a non save situation. He also got a save in last outing while giving up 1 run. We have seen Rodger runs like that in the past, but I remember reading many articles and comments about how good Rodgers is and how it was just SSS and will bounce back, but Pagan has been getting the opposite treatment of how he will get blown up soon. It is not fair to compare the seasons the two are having, and that is not what the point of this post is. It is about the fact that I feel some have been harder on Pagan because he was involved in a trade for Rogers, who many felt he was better than what his numbers always suggested. I will admit, I am not happy when Pagan gets the 9th over Duran, but after noticing Detroit is the only team that has really hurt us when Pagan comes in, I am not as nervous. Maybe Pagan will start blowing more saves, I hope not, but he seems to be doing just fine when pitching against any team not the Tigers. Lets hope he stops getting games against them going forward. Also, this is not an attack on Rogers, he has been good, but just like he always did with us, he will blow saves and lose games. If you actually compare game to game, Rogers has been involved in more losses than Pagan has. In fairness Rogers has pitched in 7 more games, so more of a chance to do so. However, for the people comparing the two and wishing we never made the trade, there is little evidence to think we would have any more wins if the trade never got made.

Miranda really worked on things after his 1 day demotion. That was one hell of a day in St. Paul to learn how to hit at the MLB level.

Many rookies do not perform to what they did in minors, however, players generally peak between ages 27 and 30. Most do not become FA until 29 to 31. You will find no team that wins simply built on just FA signed players, no matter the positions. Supplementing a team with FA can help put them over the top for sure, but to completely build a team from top FA has never worked out for teams. Normally the player drops off in production and are barely replacement level player, but when you paying big bucks you feel like you need to send them out there, or you kept trading away prospects of that position over the years because they were blocked anyways, so you have no depth in organization. Building from within is not nearly as much of a crap shoot as signing old vets. You have years to determine what you have and form the players in your style. Yes, many times top prospects do not work out, but I challenge you to find a single team that has more FA signed players than home grown players. I would include players traded to organization while still in minors or considered rookies as home grown, despite not being drafted or signed originally with team. If you just tried to build a team on draft, or trades, or FA, you will not have a good team. You need a mix of all three, but too heavy on FA or trades will set teams back for years. As shown this year, depth is needed. Imagine if we traded away all our top young guys over last year or two? Where would we be with all the injuries? I was not suggesting you only rely on players from your minors to help the team, but to only rely on the FA you will miss much more than you hit on. Just look at the FA pitching this year. Many fans wanted us to sign like 3 or 4 FA pitchers, because we had too many unproven starters. I started a forum about how right now only like 2 of the FA pitchers we could have had a real chance of singing, I did not include Scherzer, Verlander, or Kershaw, as all there were not coming here, have been a good signing so far. Gausman, who we beat, and Rodon, who started off hot, but has slipped as season has gone on. Rest big signings are not off to good starts overall.

Mad Bum numbers on their face look fine, but a deeper look suggests he may be set for a poor run. His first 6 starts were great, but since he has been okay. I would not give up Kiriloff for him. I would be willing to take a flier on him over Bundy right now, but not Kiriloff. Mad Bum is giving up hard hit rate of 46%, and a K-rate of 16% with a walk rate of 8%. with a FIP of 5.01. All of Bundy's numbers in those categories are better. I would just be worried with Mad Bum too, he may be getting by with a lot of luck and will get blown up soon.

I do not know about Gray or Winder, not much updates, but Ryan is supposed to get a rehab start soon coming of the COVID list.