Trov

I remember when we drafted Canterino the big question for him was if his arm would hold up. He was coming from Rice, who seems to burn out their pitchers. Hopefully he can come back and be a top guy, but he may be destined for pen spot because of arm holding up.

I disagree. Could it end up being a mistake, maybe, but the reason stated because we kept Kepler and have too many left handed hitters is not a good reason. Not saying Kepler will become anything amazing, but years ago we let a left handed hitting guy go because we had too many lefties and kept Matthew LeCroy to be our DH/catcher to be the right handed hitter we needed. Well that never turned out well for us. I would never make a decision on a player simply because of if they hit right or left and the rest of the team hits a certain way.

I would say we can have the best defensive outfield, but that is only based on all three playing the OF. Based on lack of offense, Taylor is not likely to play every day, but more spell Buck or be late inning replacement. Gallo may not get as much time in the OF as we want, if we need him to fill in 1B. Overall, we should hopefully, (fingers crossed) have at least 2 top defenders in OF every day, if not 3.

It is that many runs saved since 2020 season, so it covers, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The fact that Buck played only half those games over that time shows how great he is on defense, if he can only stay on the field.

I wonder if Jose makes a similar climb that Emmanuel did last year. Not predicating that, but Emmanuel had worse rookie ball numbers at his age 17 year, but mainly by average only. Not comparing the two, but in MLB Emmanuel was ranked 21, had a huge season before injury, and now ranked 3. If Jose can step up and show similar power and contact, he will fly up the lists. I do not take much from how they are ranked at 16 years old. Many of the top international guys were not the top guy of their class, and guys like Soto were not big names but took off once came state side.

The way I see it is no deal was out there that the Twins found to be of good value for them. Also, without knowing health of all players we could be selling on a guy that may be needed. He could increase his value by having a good year under new anti-shift rules(I have long argued he will not increase offense that much if at all). I am fine keeping him, just glad we did not sell low on him just to get something.

I wonder if Marlins even fought it at that point, to make some good will for extension? You would think they could have came to agreement prior to hearing after the trade was made, not sure the rules on that though.

To address Ryan, you do not point out that he still had good games against non KC or Det, but his numbers were really blown up against non KC or Det by a few games. SD 10 runs in 4.2 innings will really affect that ERA. Then he had like 3 other games were he did not pitch well, giving up a run per inning over 4 or 5 innings. However, he still had quailty starts against Cleveland, Boston, Texas(one of the games he lost because Twins got shut out) Baltimore and Giants as well. The 6 worst starts was SD, Yankees, Dodgers, Houston, Boston, Seattle. All close to 9.00 ERA or higher with 5 or less innings pitched. The Yankees and Dodgers beat up everyone, scoring each scoring over 800 runs. Houston scored 737, 3rd in AL, Boston was 4th scoring 735(you did not mention he 6 innings giving up 1 run in one of the Boston starts), SD and Seattle were middle of road offenses. Outside of those, he gave up 3 or less runs. Yes, sometimes in only 4 innings, but he cannot control if Rocco pulls him after 70 plus pitches over 4 innings. If he goes out has 1 or 2 scoreless innings the numbers look a whole lot better. Rocco did not trust he would, but not like he got blown up. Yes, he beat up on worst offense in league, as he should. I would be more concerned if he got beat up by them. You claim he needs to show he can stop better offenses, but he did well against Boston in one game, and Cleveland, SF, Brewers, Texas, who all scored either close to 700 or more than 700 runs last year in the top half of the league. You suggest he never pitched well against a non bottom feeding offense, but KC even was not bottom, they were bottom half, but he had good games against top half offenses too. Every pitcher has some bad games, and if you take away all the good to great games, of course the pitcher will look bad. If he only won against Det or KC and was blown up by every other team, like you suggest, I would agree, but that simply is not true he had really 6 bad games out of 27, I would say 12 good to great games(compared to his others based on ER and innings pitched, he did not allow more than 1 ER in 12 games, not all were against KC and Det. That leaves 9 okay games giving up 2 to 3 runnings over 4 to 6 innings. He was slotted to be our 1 number guy out the gate, but he was still a rookie and did just fine against non bottom feeders. Was he an Ace no, but even Aces have bad games sometimes, and will feast on bad teams.

Comp round picks can be traded, regular round picks cannot, but the comp rounds can, and increasingly have been.

The main reason I have high hopes for Mirana, is he has shown growth, and willingness to work his ass off, and take coaching. Unlike some players that reject some coaching, he took huge strides over last few years when he took some coaching. He went from a fringe prospect to top guy simply by changing up a small approach at the plate. Now, he is getting in better shape and I expect him to continue to improve.

When you look at Gallo and his defense, looking just at defensive WAR is a poor way to judge his overall defense. First, the name itself is above replacement, meaning you are judging him to the average defender. So by definition, having a positive WAR makes him above average. Where he was been above average on defense is right field mainly. When you look at his seasons playing RF, he is actually the majority of his dWAR. The early part of his career he was playing 3rd, where he had negative defense, hence the move to OF. When you compare him to other well known or regarded defending right fielders, he is on par with them. For the most part even the best defensive right fielders are still only a plus 1 to 2 dWAR in any given season. Left field is similar. It is the CF that makes a huge difference in dWAR. However, I think dWAR for an outfielder is hard to really quantify. Think about it, how do you really measure it? When a guy guns someone out do we give them a plus .1? What happens if no one runs on them because their arm is too good? Does that get you any plus or since no one tried we really cannot quatify? How about throwing to wrong base allowing a guy to advance do we give a negative .1 for that? I think most of what BR for dWAR looks into for it is range and the like, if you look at how they measure it that seems to be the way they go, as it is based on defensive runs saved, and zone rating, two different metrics. I believe they do not look a ton at the little things a guy can do for defense. No one is saying Gallo is a super high all time defender, but when you compare him to many others, he is better than most. His strike outs are an issue, but he still walks a ton, it is not like he is just up there 3 pitches sit back on the bench.

I think they have done a pretty good job of addressing many of the issues. The biggest thing for Twins will be health though. We have depth at SP, and at positions. The Taylor deal is much bigger than some will think. His ability to play CF when Buck is hurt or needs a day off to keep him healthy means we are not marching out sub par defense. If our new trainer can keep the guys on the field more at high level, I think we will be a decent team.

I think fans need to remember that very few FA actually live up to their multi year deals. First, most do not become FA until the tail end of their careers, and some big name players never make it to FA because their team retains them, or they are traded to a team that extends them. Yes, there is normally 1 bigger name each year that does reach FA, and some more than that. However, it is not common place. There are about 6 teams that can take on bad long term contracts and write it off, outside of them, just about every team needs to be very risk adverse as to who they spend on. Every team needs young guys to come up to make their team work. I cannot think of 1 team that is mainly built from big FA signings. Even guys that have big long term deals, quite a few were traded first. The main teams I can think that has built a large amount of team from FA signings are Mets and Padres, but even them it is not as much as you may think. Angels would continue to try, but have failed, and really they should be the model to not follow. They routinely make the wrong long term signings of big name FA. It started with Albert, and went on from there. Not that he was bad the whole time, but he never moved the needle enough. They have brought in big name after big name for a long stretch, only to now waste the best player of our generation in non-playoff games. Any time I read comments, or articles about needing to make bigger long term deals, I point out how bad the Angels have done it. People forget that baseball cannot be changed by 1 single player. It is not like football where a top QB can make huge difference, or even more so in NBA where 1 guy can fully change a bad team to a good team. No one signing will ever swing a team from bad to good, it takes several players and depth.

I believe Gallo will start as lead off. I know many will freak out about that, but he really offers much of what the Twins seek at lead off. When he is going well, he hits a ton of HR and takes a ton of walks. The fact that he strikes out a ton is actually mitigated by a lead off guy. He will work the counts a lot, and without the 4 man outfields, I think he will get closer to his Texas numbers than after. I read that he faced more 4 man outfields than anyone, 50% of the time, and although it is hard to say that he was losing hits from it, there may have been a bit of a mental game thing going on, the article suggested.

Sisk could have been taken by any team in the rule 5 if they wanted him. Pretty sure most teams are not expecting much from him. He walked 4.7 per 9 in AAA last year. It was 3.5 in AA but he had 3.5 in rookie ball too, in similar amount of innings. So after his rookie ball year, he forgot how to throw strikes? Most likely not. Most likely as he advanced hitters stayed off some stuff. Might he have some good stretches sure, but I would not be looking to bring him in high leverage spots, because he will walk 1 guy every other inning. I can only guess how bad it will get when he is facing MLB top hitters who know how to work a count. Overall he is a lefty specialist, but with having to pitch to three batters, if you do not end an inning, he will have to face some RH hitters. Giving up OBP of .341 against righties last year, but the year before he was actually worse against lefties, but that is outlier year. I have little faith Sisk will give much value to any team. This year he at best will be coming in blow games, and maybe a few chances against lefties. I am sure there will be a few games against us were he faces one of our many lefties and people will talk about how bad it was we traded him, but overall we will not be missing out on him in my opinion.

The reason it did not work out is because no cable network would carry the product, mainly because they were FOX back then and FOX said carry FSN and not Victory or you will not get any of the FOX channels. Now FOX is basically out of sports and most other TV. I have no clue who may be able to step now though. Everyone on here just assumes someone will pick up the rights, but if it is true Bally owes so much for TV rights, not many broadcasting companies will be able to take on that. This is a much bigger story and people on here may think. We actually may not be seeing too many games this year if something is not worked out soon during bankruptcy. I wonder if this will start to be a fall of some of these TV deals that so many leagues were touting, and paying huge sums to players because of. Now the bills are due by the TV stations for those rights and they cannot pay it. There was talks awhile back that Twins should be up for a good contract soon, but maybe they will not have any TV money coming in soon.

Kepler is the perfect example of looking to sell high on a guy. Sometimes it bites you, sometimes it bites the other team. After 2019, Keplers value could not have been higher. He was coming off what we all were hoping was breakout season. Some were thinking he would take another step and be even better. He was also signed long term on team friendly deal, if he progressed as some had hoped. I will admit, I was one that hoped he would keep growing, and was not asking for a trade. However, if we had traded him then, we would have maxed his value. There would have been larger market for him, and teams would have offered more for him. Now he has little value 2 years later. If we would have traded him then, fans would have been upset, but it would have been the better move, too bad we cannot go back.

I have long been a big fan of the change up as the best off-speed pitch for guys. If the change-up is good, to me that is the best for a guy. The reason I say this is if pitches are similar speeds all the time, even with movement, the hitter is still just looking at location and timing is not an issue. However, a good changeup that looks like a fastball arm action, will lead to keeping hitter off balance timing wise. I know Twins like the slider fastball combo the best, because of the same arm slot and helps with not tracking as much. However, I believe if the speed is similar, if the slider gets hung, it will get crushed so much more often, than a good change up left up. If the change up is up, but the hitter is out in front thinking it is a fastball, they will not crush it as often. Of course this is always based on how good the change up is.

I have been saying all along people are over valuing Kepler. I keep seeing suggested trades to all kinds of teams, not understanding the very limited market Kepler will draw. Kepler is a good, but not great player. He is best on a team that is looking to fill that last OF spot, or a 4th OF kind of spot. No rebuilding team will have interest in him because of his age most likely does not line up with their timeline. Which leaves just a few teams, like the Yankees, left. Those teams will not be willing to give up current MLB talent most likely as they are competing and will not want to deplete current talent, unless they have huge excess. Some fans think with the anti-shift rule Kepler's numbers will increase, you will be disappointed I believe. That being said, I would be fine with keeping him, let him hit bottom of order.

Why would Pirates have any interest in Kepler? I get Winder and a pick, but why Kepler? They are in no way going to be competing in the next few years. He adds nothing to their team. Suer, the magic trade machine says they fit, but you need to remember the team taking on someone like Kepler will want to be in win now mode, if they are giving away assets. Would Pirates take him if he was put on waivers, maybe, but they would never give up an asset to get him, as he does not fit their plans going forward.

Personally, I would not want to deal too much of our farm system for a guy that will be here 2 years. The main reason, is we will have several in our rotation all leaving at the same time. If they all leave, then we will need to fill those spots with someone. You would hope we will have a few ready to step in, but we would run into the, untested guys again. I also am hesitant to trade our top SS prospects, mainly because they can move to other positions at MLB level, and as long as they can hit, which most have shown they can, I do not see a point in giving them up. I am not one that believes that either Gallon or Burns will make the full difference between losing in first round or not. Yes, it would increase our chances most likely, but how much better are they than what we can put out there? As long as we have health, we should have a decent 5 man rotation, and I do not think either Gallon or Burns will improve enough to be worth what we would need to give up. I would agree that with a top pitcher pitching top of their game can help carry a team in playoffs. However, just having the best pitcher in the matchup will not mean you win. We had Santana for several post season runs, but never won a series. The year we beat Oakland, many years ago, every one of the starting pitcher match ups very much went to Oakland. I mean our best pitcher, Radke would not have been slotted better than any of the top 3 for Oakland, but yet we still won. Yankees have had Cole last few years, but still no ship for them. I believe raising the overall floor is better than having 1 top guy. Dealing away all your assets to improve a little just does not seem worth it. Sure if you could get Gallon for Ober, Salas or Martin, and a third lower level guy, I would jump at that, but my guess it will take much more. I do not even think Burns could be had for that. I bet not 1 trade starts without Lee or Lewis being talked about, and most likely both, and more.

I would move Prielipp down only because he is coming off TJ and no minor league innings yet. For Salas I think that is good placement. Hard to argue with much of it overall though.

Well, the fact is most players will fail at hitting about 70% of the time. That includes reaching based on walks. Which means normally people think there is some way to improve. I personally think at this level hitting coaches have little to do with player success, other than trying to connect with them to see the subtle differences in swings when right and not. I think most hitting coaches have the info, it is about connecting with the players to get them to buy in.

I truly believe that injuries are up, have not done the full research just basic observation. It could be that we only hear more about it because back in the day if you tore your UCL in the minors or early in career, you were basically done, now it is the norm to get the surgery and come back. The guys that could pitch at high level that did not tear it were the ones we saw. I cannot say pitchers are doing more than the prior generations have been asked to do. It would be interesting to look back years ago and see how many people tore the UCL and we just never heard of them because they never made it to majors. The other reason I believe so is that overall velo is up. I remember when average FB was like 89 to 90, back in the 90's. Then you had guys like Ryan and Clemons that were throwing much faster, and many more pitches per outing. I remember when a guy throwing 95 was heat, and if they could get to upper 90's it was rare. Now, if you cannot hit 100 or more you are not a power FB guy. I believe this is leading to additional stress on arms that lead to more injuries. The moment a guy loses 1 or 2 MPH on FB their careers are considered over, unless they become a junk baller that still can get outs, but they normally get passed on for high velo guys. The art of pitching has changed, for better or worse, and we just need to adjust to it. I remember the old school guys would talk about trying to get that little extra when needed, but would really try to coast by when could. Now, it seems every inning they are going for that extra, and the Twins are basically preaching to go all out for 5 innings, and then turn over to pen. In part I think pitchers are so concerned about K's per 9 because that is what people are looking at for effectiveness. It also affects FIP so much and teams are paying for FIP more than ERA now. So why take it easy on a light hitting guy using 1 pitch to get him out by throwing it over hoping they get the quick out, when using 6 or 7 pitches to get the K will get you paid more.

It really depends on how the writers view Joe's overall career. Different players have got in over the years that no one doubted they deserved, but when you look at the overall numbers they are lower on the scale, but the retired due to health at top of game. The two main that come to mind is Puckett, and Koufax. Puckett and Mauer's numbers are darn close. Both retired at 35, Puckett because he could no longer see, and Joe because he just did not want to continue, maybe some health, but was not forced. Joe had 3 more years he played, but total games were very close. Joe had about 70 more over those 3 additional seasons. Puckett had the 2 WS and was loved by writers during his playing time. Joe should be in hall based on what he did at catcher, and only moved off catcher due to health. Had he played his full career there and put up same numbers, no way does he miss out, because everyone would talk about his batting champs. What will hurt Joe is that he moved off catcher, to an offensive minded position, and was not top in the league at that time. Really, his last 5 years of his career he was just above replacement level overall. That will hurt him a ton. So it will come down to how do the writers look at him and his career. Do they take into account for a stretch he was the best hitting catcher overall, and was first to win batting titles at that position in AL? Or, will they look at his last few years after concussions and other issues made him just above replacement level player, and that his team never, NEVER, won a playoff series, and barely even won a game. He was not a beloved media guy hardly giving worth while interviews. That should not matter, but when writers are doing the voting, that stuff does. I actually doubt he makes it under the writers, but makes it in the era voting down the road. The reason I say this is, the writers bounced Johan very quickly, and he had just as good of a resume as Joe did. Johan numbers are almost identical to Koufax, Johan actually had higher career WAR. Both careers were cut short due to injury, Johan tried to come back Koufax did not. The main difference, is Koufax ended his career on a 5 year tear, and was the best pitcher over those 5 years, but if you look at his other 7 years he was not HOF. He retired on the top of his game due to injury. So that is what writers remember and assumed he would have continued doing what he did over those 5 years and would have got the numbers. Sometimes it is how your career ended. Had Joe's career ended due to health and never moved off catcher, he makes HOF, easy, because writers would have played the what if like Puckett and Koufax, but because he played out his contract and moved to 1B, that will work against him.