Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Minny505

Verified Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    590

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Tutorials & Help

Videos

2023 Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Free Agent & Trade Rumors

Guides & Resources

Minnesota Twins Players Project

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Minny505

  1. Minny505
    In the original entry: "His defense at third was already questionable". I honestly don't understand this sentiment. There was not a lot of concern about him playing 3B when he was a prospect and his play there as rookie leads me to believe he'll be an average-to-slightly-below-average defensive 3B. Yes, he was atrocious at 1B, but he was a 0 across the board for DRA, OAA, & RAA at 3B.
  2. Minny505
    Meh. Go look thru the MLBTR page for any team. Most of them read similarly to the Twins. It's par for the course in MLB spring training. I think we are just oversensitive to it because of leading the league in 2022 in projected WAR lost to injury.
  3. Minny505
    There was a book called The Arm written by Jeff Passan that came out in 2016. It is entirely on this very topic. It's a little old, and even outdated. My memory is a little hazy on the specifics, but i remember being shocked by the high rate of success that rest had on avoiding surgery. I believe rest worked in something like 72% of cases. Hopefully someone with the book can comment here and correct or verify that info.
  4. Minny505
    I hope you are right. On both accounts. It would be awesome if Solano can play some COF. As for Gordon, it is very possible 2022 was his career year. After 2019, we all thought that Kepler was in ascension mode, but he only maintained that production for one more season, before falling back to his career baseline. 2019 was Kepler's same age season as 2022 was for Gordon, the age 26 season. Ages 26 and 27 are when the majority of MLBers put up the best seasons of their careers. Trading Gordon in the offseason may have been selling high. I hope that's not the case.
  5. Minny505
    👆 That is actually what I was expecting to read when I opened the entry. The answer to the lineup is rather easy. Yankees with Judge > Twins with Buxton > Yankees without Judge = Twins without Buxton
  6. Minny505
    I don't think that's just this year. The Astros took that bench from the Yanks years ago and have run away with it. That said, the Blue Jays are catching up fast to take it from the 'Stros. According to Fangraphs offensive run values, take Judge off the team and the Doodles essentially become league average.
  7. Minny505
    This has got to be an early leader in the TwinsDaily clubhouse for best entry of the year. Absolutely incredible analysis that came out of nowhere. I have heard a lot of analysis on the impact of the new shift limitations on individual players, but I never considered a RHB, especially one with speed, seeing an uptick in hits. I wonder if the studies we all have heard/read are also only using LHB in their data sets.
  8. Minny505
    On a national level, pitchers tend to fall off due to injury far more often than hitters do. This means that a potential average 3B is ranked higher than a potential average #3 SP. However, as Twins writers are more in the weeds on just the Twins system, which has kind of experienced the opposite of this with hitting prospect after hitting prospect fall due to injury (Kubel, Buxton, Sano, Kirilloff, Lewis...which are just some top 100 guys), while other than Liriano, no pitching prospect has really fallen in the same way. On the national level, talent evaluators love to say "There is no such thing as a pitching prospect." Here in Twins Territory, we experience it more like "There's no such thing as a hitting prospect."
  9. Minny505
    Being that Ober is the 6th SP right now, I'd prefer they keep him stretched out as he'll likely be needed in the Twins's rotation before the calendar flips to May...possibly before it flips to April. But I completely agree on Winder. I would peg him as no higher than 8th on the SP depth chart. Due to the youth behind him, he could easily end the season 10th or so. It's time to transition him to the BP and see what he can do in short bursts.
  10. Minny505
    Is the point of this piece that Mauer will not be inducted on the first ballot? That's probably correct. But he's pretty much a shoe-in. I don't think there is any concern about Mauer being a part of the induction ceremony in the next five years.
  11. Minny505
    I agree
  12. Minny505
    I guess I don't understand the exercise then🤷‍♂️
  13. Minny505
    MJ Melendez needs a spot on this team. The dude is a masher. I'll take him at DH over Perez. I'd consider him a push in RF or C, despite the rough . Yet, he isn't mentioned anywhere. And Vaughan is a better choice at 1B. Naylor is worse than Kepler vs LHP. That's an impressive feat.
  14. Minny505
    Engaging in a little "scouting the stat line", his peripherals didn't really change from pre-2021 to 2022...except one. His GB% went up about 10 percentage points, a 30-ish% increase. That's impressive! It led to both a lower BABIP and HR rate. Was it luck? If he can maintain stay close to a K/IP and a BABIP around 44%, he should be able to carve out a decent MLB career as a SP.
  15. Minny505
    It's a little telling how much Twins fans overvalue their own prospects, the ones they are familiar with, over the prospects that are new to the system, when none of the guys ranked 4-7 on this list are likely getting any Top 100 prospect consideration anywhere, while at number 8 we have a guy who is on 2 or 3 of those lists. Salas should probably be ranked at 4, right behind Rodriguez. I'd accept an argument that Julien and SWR should be above him due to proximity to The Show, putting him at 6th. But that's why these are fun...even if they are objectively incorrect 😜
  16. Minny505
    This is about what I would expect, with LF/RF/1B/3B being mixed and matched as some of the LHB start to have varying success against LHP. I would like to see Buxton, depending on current health, start in RF from time to time, which is a far less health hazard vs CF. That would truly maximize the wRC+ vs LHP, allowing Vazquez to DH. And, that OF alignment levels up the OF defense just that much more.
  17. Minny505
    I suspect you are accurate about what they will do, but it may not be optimal. Putting Buxton in RF means Vazquez/Jeffers can DH, which is likely a 100 basis points of OPS upgrade over any LHB you stick in RF. 200 bps over Kepler. Speaking of Kepler, I never want to see him have a PA against a LHP in a close game ever again. Due to injuries this may not be possible, but he is the last OFer on the 40 man that I want to see in the lineup against a LHP. I'd start Farmer in RF before Kepler. He is nearly Andrelton Simmons circa 2021 bad at the plate when it comes to LHP. I like Kepler. He's a fantastic strong-side platoon role player who plays very good RF defense, but that defense is not so good that he should be in the lineup vs LHP.
  18. Minny505
    It seems a forgone conclusion around here that Taylor will play CF against LHP while Buxton does the DH thing. But I wonder if there are any discussions within Twins management to have Buxton play RF against LHP, which would be a huge upgrade over Kepler, and allow another right-handed bat to take over DH. Corner OF is much less stress on the body as most plays are (statistically speaking) either towering fly balls that are relatively easy to get under or line drives and grounders that just need to be thrown back in. I doubt we see it, but it would probably be a middle ground of optimizing both Buxton's health and team performance.
  19. Minny505
    😂 And this is the conundrum of TV and radio broadcast teams across North America. That said, I think FIP+ is both contextual and predictive in that it predicts the future performance of a pitcher relative to the league. A FIP+ of 110 predicts that a pitcher will be roughly 10% better than the average pitcher. Tangent time: One stat I always wish was available readily available is something spFIP+, which was relative to only SPs, and it's counterpart, rpFIP+. For that mater 2BwRC+ for relativity on offense to to positional average. A 90 wRC+ from a catcher is roughly equivalent to a 105 wRC+ for a RF. Either a separate stat or something like the positional average in parenthesis next to the + stat. Maybe it's time to dust off the SQL skills...but I wouldn't even know where to get the data sets to begin. And FWIW, I agree on + being superior to - for FIP. It's easier to quickly comprehend for whatever reason.
  20. Minny505
    This is an incredible, succinct, and simple way to explain these metrics. Well done. (Why can't Dick do this quickly on the air?) The only nits I pick are that I like all numbers on a "relative to all other players" stat. A 3.75 FIP in 2023 meant a roughly average pitcher. In 2003, it meant a borderline all-star. Using FIP+ (or minus if you prefer) helps identify performance relative to the league at the time. OOA is a relative stat already, it just was not mentioned as such in your post. I think that is worth pointing out. All-in-all though, I am so impressed and I am going to save your post to refer back to when I need to explain those numbers to another person who wants to deepen their understanding of baseball.
  21. Minny505
    Disregarding bullpen pickups, only 5 of these 1 year contract players were expected to be decent when signed: Lynn, Schoop. Cruz, Hill, Simmons. While Cruz makes up the majority of the value, those players collectively lived up to the contracts they received. The rest were questionable signings before they even passed their physicals, and the collective results are so awful that it's time to admit that this FO doesn't know how to identify bounce-back talent. Bundy was probably the best signing of those question marks, which shows how much this strategy has backfired. And that's fine. A front office does not need to be good at everything. They just need to understand their strengths and weaknesses and lean into those strengths while avoiding their weaknesses. And THAT has been the problem. They just haven't been able to stop themselves from leaning into their weakness. But maybe that has now changed. Gallo is the only bounce-back, 1 year contract, and he is a very different type of bounce-back candidate. Every name on that questionable 1 year list had a bounce back upside of "He was fine". Gallo has All-star, Gold Glover upside. Still not of a Cruz or Simmons level of average expected. Gallo is still a bounce-back signing. But at least this one has real upside.
  22. Minny505
    I would take this even further. Leadoff sees the lowest PAs with runners in scoring position of any of the top 6-7 spots in the lineup. Because of that, hits really are of little value, while getting on base or hitting a HR is at a premium. If Gallo is somewhat back to his former self, he actually makes a great leadoff man. If he can match Arraez's OBP, but with 25-30 more HRs, he's an even better leadoff man than Arraez with his superior baserunning and lack of splits. It may not be traditional, but he could be the best answer to this question. I start the season with any of those others listed here, but I keep the door open for Gallo if he shows he is back in April.
  23. Minny505
    This will be a big season for Joe. If he can maintain or improve, he is the real deal. But with a full season of scouting reports, it will be interesting to see if hitters can adjust to the unique pitch plane. If hitters cannot adjust their swing to go the other way against the shift, which they see against many pitchers, I find it hard to believe they will be able to adjust their swing to hit one individual pitcher they only see a couple ABs a season.
  24. Minny505
    I'd add Gordon to that list as well. And even if everyone on the roster now is there and healthy all season, I think Larnach still gets 500+ PAs.
  25. Minny505
    I don't disagree, but if Gallo is a 2 WAR player, he is far from a bust. That's my dispute. And if Larnach or Wallner are pressing at mid-season to play daily, and Gallo is on track for that 2 WAR season, he can be traded for prospects. FWIW, not a chance in hell I sign Gallo unless a trade for Kepler is lined up or done...but in a vacuum, the signing is perfectly reasonable.
×
×
  • Create New...