nicksaviking

I just struggle to get behind Hendricks. He's a soft-tosser and doesn't strike anyone out because he primarily uses that sinker. Sonny Gray used to be on my no-no list but he backs up his sinker with a strong strikeout rate, so I can get behind him.

Maybe it's just because he was forced to wear a White Sox uniform, but he looks a bit dejected in that cover photo, which doesn't instill tons of confidence. I much prefer the photo of Colome.

Man, I'm just looking forward to a full season's worth of games again so our player evaluations can come with a more confident sample size.

I'd take Clippard back, but there are still quite a few interesting relievers available, and I doubt most of them will be getting prohibitive contracts. Just for fun, I'll say they sign Shane Greene to a surprisingly small MLB contract with incentives and Nick Tropeano to a MiLB deal with a spring training invite. I wanted to predict Keone Kela, but with the less than glowing reports on his attitude and behavior, he may not be someone the club has much interest in trying to tame.

I hope like last year there's a trade coming for another starter; this team still has too many corner bats and most of them have good to great value. I'd be willing to say a painful farewell to some prospects for a German Marquez or Luis Castillo, neither of whom have contracts the Twins can't still afford to fit into the budget. If there's no trade, I still bet they follow last year's pattern and get an under-the-radar free agent arm or two to add depth and compete with Dobnak. Leake, Samardzjia, Hamels, Cahill, Porcello, Arrieta or Fiers probably will be getting pretty small contracts and would play the Hill and Bailey roll from last year. Of course those moves are always met with mixed reactions. Some fans like to have that depth, others would prefer to just give the 5th spot to someone already on the roster.

I'd take Paxton, assuming it's a 1 or 2 year deal. I just don't want Odorizzi if it's going to be 3 years or longer. I just don't think he's that much more likely to be successful than any of the other bounce back arms on the free agent market. I'll do long term deals for the horses at the front of the rotation, but if the team is only going to look at him for five innings a start anyway, I think that can be replicated without the long-term commitment. I'm also probably the only one who'd like Rich Hill back on the cheap, right?

Nelson Cruz had an on base percentage of .397 last year. Arraez had an OBP of .364. Donaldson had an OBP of .373. If you're looking for a skill set to equate to runs, it's not going to be on base percentage, at least not entirely. You need to look at the extra base hits. A guy who gets on base at a 40% clip but only gets singles is probably going to score fewer runs than a guy who piles up doubles and HR but only gets on base at a .330 rate. Last year, Sano, Donaldson, Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, Cruz, Cave and Jeffers all scored more runs per plate appearance than Arraez.

I would have been interested in Ozuna if they kept him in the OF, but if the team was going to tie up the DH spot for him for 3-5 years, I wasn't interested. However, the Twins seem to be looking to improve the defense this offseason so I'd guess they weren't planning on him being in the OF regularly.

I'm not in favor of "putting the band back together"; I don't want Odorizzi or Marwin or Romo back. But Cruz was the only usable bat in the post season last year.

Why does Arraez need to be in the lineup every day? Arraez had an OPS of .765 last year while Cruz had an OPS of .992. Arraez is fun, we don't see .300 hitters anymore, but he's a pretty one dimensional player.

PECOTA is fun, and I really like using math as a predictor. But PECOTA is almost always Bearish on the minor leagures. I don't understand it enough to know how or why, and it's understandable that the guys with the least amount of data would get the uber conservative estimates, but if teams based their rosters off of what PECOTA suggests the young guys will do, there would be about 4 rookies on MLB rosters each year.

I read that the White Sox have shown no interest, despite them wanting to spend big and having an opening at DH. It seems really weird that the White Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Rays and Astros haven't at least sniffing around. He's not a perfect fit for any of them, but even if they don't truly want him, why aren't they at least trying to make it look like they'd make him work if only to drive up the price on the Twins? If he was on the White Sox, and it looked like the Sox were going to get him back on the cheap, I'd be pretty disappointed if the Twins didn't at least bluff to make sure the Sox paid more than they wanted to.

Oh for sure. I wouldn't care to have him if he's staring TJ in the face.

It seems inevitable that this move is to set up Lewis as SS in 2022, but the logistics now become less clear. There is zero chance he makes his MLB debut opening day next year. If he's going to start there, he's going to have to play in the majors this year. But if he's going to play this year, does that mean the Twins shift Simmons, their best defender, to the bench? A different position? That's not going to look good if they're in the playoff hunt. Does Lewis play a different position? That doesn't seem to set up his readiness to play SS next year. You also wouldn't call up your top prospect to ride pine and just make spot starts. Does Lewis start next year in AAA? If so, then the team will need to find another stopgap SS because it's doubtful Polanco is ever going to move back to regular SS duties.

I don't tend to view a sinker as a positive. I don't want pitchers who intentionally put the ball in play.

I think plenty of teams would have done Tanaka at 4M per. I don't know what his salary is with his new contract, but I'd guess he's taking a discount going back to Japan. The Yankees gave Corey Kluber 11M to replace him. At this stage of their careers Tanaka is a better pitcher, so I'd have to think Tanaka's asking price was most likely quite a bit higher than that. And considering he's going back to Japan to play at a significant discount, it's very possible he only intended to stay if he could play for the Yankees, or stay in NY, or some other very narrow set of circumstances.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/01/marlins-designate-jordan-yamamoto-for-assignment.html Dibs on this guy. I was just looking at random rosters the other day and Yamamoto caught my eye. Now he's DFA'd so it must be fate. Great results in the minors but he struggles with command in the majors. It looks like it's mostly just his curve that he can't get over though. Looks like he has a nice slider, if he's not injured pick him up and making him a FB/slider reliever. Not that he'd be a "relevant reliever" as the title of this thread implies, but he's the type of guy I like to speculate on as a diamond in the rough. I'll never get why guys who do very well as starters in the minors but struggle in the majors get DFA'd before they're given a shot in the bullpen.

I don't really care to give Dobnak the final spot. He just seems too Scott Diamond/Andrew Albers/Cole Devries - y to me. The guys who come out of nowhere and get good results but can't miss any bats seem to be a great story initially, but they seem to be a very short story. These guys are something fun to talk about during a rebuilding losing season, but I think I'd rather have someone with better stuff and potential since this team should be fighting for the division. With the top four spots filled with players whos ceilings are pretty close to set in stone, it would be nice to see someone in the fifth spot you can dream on. Either a bounce back free agent or a young prospect. Or, you know, go trade for someone that would put Happ/Pineda in the fifth spot. Dobnak might be a great swingman though. A better version of Anthony Swarzak or Brian Duensing.

If those are the options, I'd go with the rookie. If Marwin is on the roster, Baldelli is going to feel compelled to find him regular playing time. I'll take Marwin on a MiLB deal, which I half suspect will be the best he's going to get anyway.

It's a one year deal so many seem to think it's a bridge to Lewis. But there is next to no chance Lewis just debuts on opening day of 2022. He's either playing this year, or getting called up later in 2022 after some seasoning. If it's this year, where does he play? If Simmons bat is terrible, which it might be, I could see Lewis bumping him to the bench late in the year. But if his bat is not terrible, are they really going to push their best defensive infielder out of his position to get the rookie reps? That goes over less well if the team is in the playoff hunt. It would be nice if Lewis had some versatility; particularly because I don't think Arraez has the versatility being suggested. I'd in fact be looking to trade Arraez for starting pitching ASAP before those defensive deficiencies get too over exposed during the season. There are still other utility infielders they could sign on the cheap until Lewis is ready.

I like the HOF, mostly for the history and the displays, the busts are cool, but I don't really care who has them. "Getting In" is kind of a silly phrase anyway as there are tons of non-HOFers with displays and artifacts that are in fact in the HOF. If there hasn't been already, someday there will surely be an exhibit about the steroid era; I remember one about the Black Sox scandal, and it's probably still there. Anyway, the thought of Bonds and Clemmons getting in used to bother me, it doesn't anymore. But I'll also say, I'm not going to feel sorry that some guys don't get busts when they knew getting caught meant they almost certainly weren't getting a bust. Seems kind of like catching your kid stealing a cookie, and then rewarding him with another cookie. But whatever, those guys are somebody else's kids, they can deal with them as they please.

Considering Semien for 18M I’d guess Simmons was actually the back up plan. I wanted offense, not defense, but this is still way better than no move. Polanco may be the 2B and Arraez the utility guy to start, but I can’t see that sticking. Polanco is a much better athlete; I struggle to see Arraez at 3B and no way is he playing SS.

I'd really like to find a way to get Baez, even if it's just for this next year. If taking Bryant and making room for him is required I'd be interested. Perhaps a third team could come on board, or the Twins could sit on Bryant a bit and flip him in spring training after another club finds themselves with an injury to a corner player, with the Twins eating some of the cash. Or perhaps if the Twins get Baez and take on Bryant, Sano could be the return for the Cubs. That would be 11M to offset the cost of the two Cubs players. With Bryant being a negative value and Baez only retained for one more year, the Cubs might need to toss in something else, as crazy as that sounds. Or eat some of the contract, which I suppose the Twins would probably prefer. The Cubs would probably have to trade Rizzo then too, but I'd guess by that time Cubs fans would have already burned down Wrigley so the front office would have nothing left to lose.

I wouldn't be opposed to Wong in a vacuum, but they'd still need to find a shortstop, even if Polanco does keep the starting job. Then if they happen to sign a starting SS, I'd still prefer Polanco's bat in the lineup over Wong. But if Wong is going to be the last guy on the bench AND they are comfortable that he can spell Donaldson at 3B, sure, then I'd take him. I really don't want Wong only to move Arreaz to DH though. Then we're basically just swapping Wong for Cruz, which is about a .300 point drop in OPS.

I was thinking about the 'in on Bauer', 'out on Bauer', situation and it is just so bizarre. Who was the party that got Rosenthal to retract his original statement? It would make no LOGICAL sense for Bauer's camp to clarify this as they should want the perception of more suitors. It would make no LOGICAL sense for the Twins to refute this as even if they didn't want him, they should want the price driven up, not to mention this doesn't in anyway make them look better with the fan base. I suppose it would make sense for one of the teams actually in on Bauer to to tell Rosenthal he's full of BS and everyone knows the the Twins aren't in it, so he needs to stop helping Bauer to inflate his price. But how would another team actually know if the Twins are in or out? And how could they convince Rosenthal with certainty? Perhaps, is the more likely option that one of the Twins beat reporters corrected Rosenthal? But typically instead of letting Rosenthal update his intel, it would be that reporter who would write up their own article or Tweet denying the Twins interest. Maybe that reporter didn't want to publicly cross the front office, but was frustrated enough the the slow offseason that they still felt compelled to set the record straight? Or maybe they were tight with Rosenthal so they were going to let him be the one to save face? Of course, we are dealing with human beings, so perhaps this wasn't done with LOGIC as a foundation, but with other intentions. Bauer is pretty opinionated and brash. Perhaps he really doesn't like the Twins and wanted to make it clear they weren't an option for him, leverage be damned? Or perhaps Derek Falvey really didn't like Bauer from their time together in Cleveland and had no intention of helping him gain more leverage? Anyway, not a big deal overall, but it was just such an odd occurrence where the means and motivation just don't seem to add up that I'm curious as to how this all went down.