#AskBW (10.17.22): Oven Mitts, Arraez's Future, Corner Outfield Help & More
You asked questions; I answered them
Welcome back to another edition of Q&A at Access Twins called “#AskBW.”
If you’d like to be involved, there are a few ways you can do so:
Tweet @brandon_warne or @accesstwins with the hashtag #askBW
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Should be pretty easy, right? Let’s talk to it:
Let’s first anoint our friend @mauer786_m as today’s MVP for submitting about a half dozen really great questions. I’m more worried he used up all the questions for future editions of #AskBW but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
I don’t think he’s a permanent fixture at first base…or DH…or second base. I really don’t think he’s a permanent fixture anywhere except in the batting order.
I think Rocco Baldelli can be creative enough to keep him in the lineup on a daily basis — though we’ll see how he’s used against lefties, as he hit an improved but still not great .266/.331/.354 against them in 2022.
My sense is he’s going to be a bit of a unicorn. If the Twins have a Ben Zobrist lite on the team right now — since Baldelli comes from the Rays tree, hang with me here — it’s probably more Nick Gordon than Arraez, right?
My biggest issue/question is how do you keep adding depth/talent on a team with Arraez when you have to make room for him every day but also need to make sure not to have another situation like 2022 where a team’s depth is worn so thin they’re down to option No. 8 in the outfield, etc.
Maybe guys like Arraez and Gordon make that easier? Or maybe they make it even more difficult? I really don’t know the answer.
I do, but it would take a confluence of factors. The pitcher would need to be the right age, skill level, pedigree, etc. All the things you’d want in a pitcher with age and/or health on their side. Zack Wheeler was their first target in that respect before the 2020 season and I have no doubt they’d have gone to five years for him.
This time around, that target might be Carlos Rodon, who is 30 in December but has been surprisingly durable the last two seasons. If the Twins could get him on a three-year deal for something like $80 million (a shade under $27 million per year) I think they’d jump at that.
I don’t see it. I still believed in him more than most before the Arizona Fall League — in which he’s slashed an insande .500/.575/.656 through eight games — but I think it’s another super utility profile where he’s probably going to play most places except short. I’m willing to be wrong.
It’s a good question and one I’m obviously not equipped to answer. Keeping him off his legs for DH days will only help. I’m going to lean toward cautiously optimistic here.
I’m about 55 percent no, 45 percent yes. Someone sent me a trade idea with the value calculator that’s floating around out there, and it said that Kepler had roughly the same trade value as Rockies right-hander German Marquez. That’s a trade I’d make all day. I’d also ring up Kim Ng and the Marlins and see what kind of pitching I could get for Kepler. I suspect the answer is someone like Elieser Hernandez, who has ugly numbers but intriguing stuff.
I’d be interested. I’m not inherently anti-Kepler but I don’t see much in the way of a return to form for him, and reasonably productive corner outfielders aren’t too terribly difficult to find. Could they land a Kole Calhoun type in free agency? Absolutely. (Keep in mind Calhoun is always just my random fill-in name here. Think of him as…modern-day Jason Kubel or someone like that.)
Beyond that, the Twins have Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach whom they’d ostensibly like to use in those spots. Kepler isn’t blocking anyone and those guys aren’t beating the doors down, so it’s kind of forcing the dilemma. But moving Kepler and getting back a lottery ticket would be on my to-do list.
I haven’t seen an update on Polanco since late September. I suspect knee soreness by itself will be fine on its own, but it’s more than worth wondering if he missed that much time with just “soreness” if there’s something else in there, right?
My inclination is to say “at least it isn’t the ankle” and want to move on in the line of questioning, but it’s not like a knee injury is anything to sweep under the rug, either. I guess what helps here is the team’s middle infield depth, so to speak, with Gordon, Arraez, possibly Martin and a few other guys kicking around in the minors besides.
This is another really great question. I think teams will bank on Swanson being who he is the last three seasons combined: only two games missed, slash line of .265/.324/.451 (108 OPS+), very good defense at a prime position and he’s only headed into his age-29 season.
But with that said, Marcus Semien got seven years and $175 million from the Rangers — and he’s not even playing shortstop anymore. He was headed into his age-31 season and had a 129 OPS+ in his previous three seasons, but through his age-27 season had just a career OPS+ of 96.
All of this is a really long way of saying….I’m not sure. There’s really no reason for me to think Swanson can’t get what Semien got. Would he take less to stay in Atlanta? Maybe. Should he? I don’t know. But free agents who play premium positions and are still in their 20s always seem to do a little better than we think. I’m going to take the hypothetical under on $200 million, but not by a ton.
I feel like they’ll bring in someone like Adam Duvall to battle with Kyle Garlick for the short side of a platoon, but I don’t really think they’re going to go to extreme lengths to find a right-handed hitting outfielder who will play every day. Maybe Robbie Grossman is a fit? Maybe Andrew McCutchen could come in and do a Torii Hunter 2015 impersonation?
If they aim higher, I think Trey Mancini is the guy to shoot for. He’s a good hitter coming off a down year on the wrong side of 30. He’s ripe for the picking on a short-term deal to rebuild value.
As for Larnach, and for that matter Kirilloff, I think it wouldn’t be unwise to bring in an outfielder for them to compete with, with the idea that AK could also be in the mix at first base. In that case, I think it’d be someone like Joey Gallo. The tools are tantalizing, the price should be right and nobody likes a deal on a reclamation project like this front office.
But I also don’t think they’re going to want to pair both of those guys with right-handed bats in platoon situations over the medium-term and beyond. To be a difference-making left-handed hitter in the league today, you have to hold your own against lefties. I’m not talking Yordan Alvarez-level dominance, but enough to not be considered an automatic out with two outs in the eighth against a team’s second lefty out of the pen.
Honestly I’m OK with this. I’m just a one-time dad — for now, Baby 2 is coming in a couple weeks — and anything that’s underrated falls right into my lap.
The 100 Grand bar is the pinaccle of human achievement. It not only has flavor and texture, but the caramel center means it will stick with you longer, making it take more time to eat and thus giving the eater more time to enjoy it — and less need to keep packing their face full every few seconds.
It really is the perfect candy.
And anything with chocolate and pretzels is A++ in my book. Chocolate + salt just works, man.
This is going to be a big year for them. Understatement of the year, right?
But the so-called “pitching pipeline” was waylaid by there being no 2020 season, and thus no added pitching development for a roster that had quite a few guys progressing in the upper minors. Instead of seeing guys like Blayne Enlow, Jhoan Duran and Jordan Balazovic perhaps as early as 2021, we saw Duran and Duran only in 2022 with Enlow and Balazovic dealing with injuries and, in the latter’s case, a brutal season at Triple-A.
That pipeline started to show some life with Bailey Ober in 2021, and continued to flower this season with Louie Varland, Josh Winder and even Simeon Woods Richardson for a brief cameo to end the season.
The reason the pitching pipeline is so important is it helps eliminate the need to sign the Chris Archers and J.A. Happs of the world. The Twins don’t want to give four years to a guy like, say, Alex Cobb when they think they can replicate what he provides in the near future from within.
If the Twins are going to spend on pitching, I suspect they want to aim high on a guy they really, really like — Zac Gallen keeps being the name I come back to but mostly just as a reference — while backfilling with guys they develop, hoping a bunch of them turn into 2s and 3s with a pop-up guy here and there.
That solves not only the “why do they keep signing these has-beens” talking point but also the “what happened to developing pitching” one.
How long will the regime get before the scrutiny heats up from within? I don’t think we’re close to that — yet. But come midseason 2023, if things are still looking murky, I think we could hear some rumbling.
You know it’s honestly funny that sometimes I get accused of being “on the team’s Christmas card list” or “in the owner’s pockets” but the truth is I’ve only ever talked to Jim Pohlad on one occasion.
“Hello, Brandon,” Jim said to me one time. That’s it.
I don’t even remember when it was. It was either Joe Mauer’s retirement press conference or when they signed Josh Donaldson. That’s the entirety of my experience talking to Jim. We’ve been in the same room perhaps a dozen times in the last 10-12 years I’ve spent covering the team.
As an owner? I don’t really have a strong opinion. They opened up the finances to get Carlos Correa, but again that was more a situation of opportunity than it was really changing the narrative. The Donaldson signing was far more of a re-writing of the narrative than Correa, at least to me.
This would be a really good time to throw caution to the wind, sign a shortstop and a top starting pitcher and let them lead the way with a bunch of cheap rookies to the division title in 2023. Forget signing one Carlos — sign two! (Rodon and Correa)
Better than Kepler, anyway. I kind of feel like he’ll be on the block all offseason but unless someone offers a player or prospect the Twins can actually use — and they’re pretty well stocked outside of a top-end starter or maybe some legit MLB relief help — he’ll probably be back here next year.
But I’m not confident. I’ll say about 60 percent. I still can’t decide if the Twins traded for Urshela or traded simply to be rid of Donaldson — or some combination of both. Are they married to Urshela? My sense is not, but not only because he’s a free agent at the end of the season but they also need to see what Jose Miranda can do over there.
If someone comes calling with a reasonable offer, I think he could be on the outs.
It’s getting a No. 1 starter in some form or fashion. Correa wouldn’t really feel like a splash — at least not to me — since he was here already before. The Twins already have enough pretty good pieces to make an acceptable rotation, but what they lack is a true No. 1 starter.
Those aren’t easy to find, but if they wanted to pay for someone like Rodon, Chris Bassitt, Jacob deGrom or Justin Verlander (if he opts out), that would fit the bill. I would be enthused but less sure about guys like Noah Syndergaard, Jameson Taillon, Mike Clevinger, Sean Manaea, Nathan Eovaldi and a few others.
But I think the big target here has to be Rodon. He throws the absolute hell out of the ball from the left side. The Twins don’t have anyone who can do that in the organization outside of maybe Jovani Moran as a reliever.
Every time I see a runner wearing one, I think of this scene:
I think everything went well, but I also wonder if doing postseason baseball as a studio analyst hasn’t made him miss playing in October. Does he think he can get back there with Minnesota? I sure think he can — but I don’t speak for him.
I think his teammates all understood and expected the opt out decision to go the way it did. It wasn’t entirely surprising, and now it’s time to put up or shut up if you’re the Twins.
I don’t think anywhere other than the top one-third of the lineup makes sense. A lot will depend on who the Twins sign. If they sign, for instance, Brandon Nimmo? Then I’d hit Arraez second, behind him. If they sign Trea Turner? Probably the same answer. If they sign Correa, then probably leadoff.
But it wouldn’t shock me altogether to see him hit third every now and then, either. I still do kind of like the idea that your best “pure” hitter — whatever that means — hits third. I do love breaking the game down analytically, but at the heart of it all I still see the game as someone who grew up watching it in the 1990s before we knew what on-base percentage was, either.