d-mac

People are overly optimistic on Kepler. I think even the "traditional" projectors are overestimating his production. He had one of the worst batted ball profiles in baseball last year. He hits a lot of ground balls, and his line drives and flyballs were particularly weak. Andrew Perpetua's xStats (which use Statcast data) gave him an expected triple slash of .229/.300/.332 last year. His 2017 projection for Kepler is .238/.301/.362.

Jason McLeod was my guy.

1,642

The more things change the more they stay the same. *Sigh*

In fact, according to Andrew Perpetua's xStats, Mauer's batted ball profile suggesting he should have hit .290/.389/.469. He projects him to hit .284/.351/.454 in 2017.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Mauer. in 2016 his K% was down and BB% was up vs 2015. Also, he improved his batted ball profile in literally every category last year. More hard hit balls, fewer softly hit balls, fewer ground balls, more flies and liners, higher HR/FB%, and fewer infield flies. Yet his BABIP went down. That screams bad luck.

Well Hughes is a righty. And that'll play better at TF, as it suppresses left handed hitters' power.

LOL!

His composition of fastball%, breaking ball%, changeup% is not statistically different than Santana's. Duffey also has a pretty significant reverse platoon split over his career: 3.14 xFIP vs LHH and 4.53 vs RHH (3.25 and 4.61 in 2016, respectively), nearly doubles his K/BB ratio vs LHH and RHH have nearly a 100 point increase in wOBA vs lefties. Most successful mid-rotation major league starting pitchers generally have 2 above average to plus pitches and average to above average command. Third and fourth pitches are generally only "show me" type pitches to keep hitters honest and are rarely even major league average in quality. We needn't look any further than the other Santana that pitched for the Twins to see this. In 2007, the only year that pitch f/x is available on fangraphs and Johan's last year with us, he threw a 4-seamer 63.9% of the time, his famed change-up 26% and his slider only 10.1% of the time. If the average PA lasts only 4-5 pitches then he is throwing his third pitch, the slider, at most once every other PA. And Johan was the definition of an ace type pitcher, not merely a mid-rotation type.

He should at least start the season in the bullpen. But I doubt that will even happen. It clearly looks like his velo isn't back yet.

Plus it sets them behind in development time before the inevitable injuries even occur. May will be on his age 28 season next year. The odds have now gotten slim that he'll ever be able to put together a long career as a start. Had he been in the rotation last year (at age 26) and finished 2015 (age 25) in it and thus already been established- this would likely been only a blip in his career.

I think some of it has to do with the stigma video games have with people born before, say.. 1970.

I know, right? All these old people are like "Get off my lawn you kids!" Or, "Video games will turn your brain to mush!" -Every "boomer" generation parent with kids that played video games.

This ranking is way too high for a kid that played 9 games in the DSL. Plus there are questions about his swing mechanics and whether or not he'll stay at short. In fact most scouting reports I've read question his hit tool and doubt he'll have the range for short.

Stewart to me is a non-prospect at this point. With his lack of strikeouts AA ball is really the last stop for him unless the new regime can turn him around. And unfortunately for Kohl, I've seen molasses move faster than Falvine making personal changes. So here's to hoping I'm proven wrong!

Technical or otherwise.

A 35 run swing is absolutely a 0.22 ERA swing based on the Twins' 1,443 staff IP last year. ([816ER- 35]/1443IP)*9= 4.87. 5.09-4.87= 0.22. I used stat corner's catch framing metric to get the 35 run swing. Castro was at +12.8 RAA, Gimmenz +1.2, Murphy -0.2, Suzuki -5.0, Centeno -16.9.

Batting average? This is 2017, son! Castro beats Suzuki in wRC+ in both '15 and '16 with 79 and 88 to 'Zuke's 65 and 86. Castro is not going to set the world on fire by any stretch of the imagination, but he's hardly a downgrade from Suzuki with the bat. And DRS, UZR, etc are all not great evaluators of catcher defense. Baseball Prospectus had a great all encompassing tool for catcher defense which includes catcher framing, but sadly it seems to have gone behind their paywall. When it was accessible Castro was rated as one of the best regular catchers at framing and about average and throwing out runners and blocking pitchers. Suzuki was one of the worst framers and one of the best at blocking pitches and slightly below average with throwing out runners. Centeno was one of the worst at everything. Castro+ Murphy or Castro+ Gimmenez will be a HUGE upgrade defensively over Suzuki+Centeno. According to Statcorner's catcher report that's a 34.5 to 36.1 run swing in defense on framing alone (depending on Castro's backup). Assuming those runs are all earned, that's a 0.22 reduction in staff ERA without even changing any of the pitchers.

Catching pop ups does not require athletic ability. It's a learned skill that can be improved with reps.

WTF??!!!!! Ok. FIRE FALVINE INTO THE SUN!!!!

Same age is you. But I can tell you I certainly feel more like 30 than 25. I'm married and have a kid that's turning 1 in two weeks.

Belisle isn't even a deadline trade candidate if all goes well. His upside is of an August trade for a PTBNL. I just don't have a ton of confidence that he can successfully transition to the AL for the first at 36/37 while having posted sub 7K/9's the past three seasons. Tonkin, Boshers, Haley can all give similar production at or near the minimum. Why boot one of these younger, cheaper options off the roster? This move smacks of Terry Ryan era veteran fetishism. It's sub-optimal roster construction. And even at the fringes it still grinds my gears.

If they were going to reach this low in the barrel I'd have preferred a minor league deal. Rebuilding teams do not give guaranteed roster spots to Methuselah.

This is a classic Terry Ryan move. Yuck. No thanks. A NL only middle reliever approaching 40 that hasn't had a K/9 above 7 since 2013.

In fairness, a lot of us doing that were actually critical of the previous regime (I was in that camp starting in 2012) are criticising the current regime for their lack of activity. They haven't done enough to wash away the foul stench of the previous regime.