Minnesota Twins 2014 - ∞: To Infinity & Beyond!

[gopher6]

Tom Kelly’s son TK JR 42 yrs young passed away over the weekend
https://www.startribune.com/son-of-form ... 600012048/

[frozen4champs]

1 year 8 million

[davescharf]

1 year 8 million

It's an 8 million dollar deal? If he's close to his recent average of 3.77 ERA and stays healthy this should be a pretty good signing for the Twins. That said I'm already seeing the Twitter GMs melting down about it.

[Beauner]

It's a decent deal. Happ is a solid pitcher for the back end of the rotation. I'm hoping they can try to bring in Teheran and/or Taijuan Walker too.

[Snowcool08]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

[Beauner]

Arguably the best defensive SS in the league.
Simmons hit .297 in the shortened season and has a .269 career average. His bat started out terrible when he first joined the bigs but has been a .270+ guy for 4 of the last 5 years. He puts the ball in play a lot (only 386 strikeouts in almost 4000 at bats).

He's currently on pace to be one of the greatest defensive players ever.

https://www.baseball.fyi/posts/andrelto ... layer-ever

[Bertogliat]

Arguably the best defensive SS in the league.
Simmons hit .297 in the shortened season and has a .269 career average. His bat started out terrible when he first joined the bigs but has been a .270+ guy for 4 of the last 5 years. He puts the ball in play a lot (only 386 strikeouts in almost 4000 at bats).

He's currently on pace to be one of the greatest defensive players ever.

https://www.baseball.fyi/posts/andrelto ... layer-ever

I am no baseball expert, just ask Maize, but I’ll take a top SS with a 0.279 BA all day long. Amiright?

[Border Gopher]

Batting average? We're talking about batting average??

[Beauner]

Arguably the best defensive SS in the league.
Simmons hit .297 in the shortened season and has a .269 career average. His bat started out terrible when he first joined the bigs but has been a .270+ guy for 4 of the last 5 years. He puts the ball in play a lot (only 386 strikeouts in almost 4000 at bats).

He's currently on pace to be one of the greatest defensive players ever.

https://www.baseball.fyi/posts/andrelto ... layer-ever

I am no baseball expert, just ask Maize, but I’ll take a top SS with a 0.279 BA all day long. Amiright?

His average has been solid and OBP is in the .320-330 range. He doesn't provide a lot of pop (slugging for his career is .379) but he's a solid singles hitter and plays incredible defense. He does have a couple seasons with double digit HRs so he's got power potential but i wouldn't rely on him to hit more than 10-12.

[davescharf]

Arguably the best defensive SS in the league.
Simmons hit .297 in the shortened season and has a .269 career average. His bat started out terrible when he first joined the bigs but has been a .270+ guy for 4 of the last 5 years. He puts the ball in play a lot (only 386 strikeouts in almost 4000 at bats).

He's currently on pace to be one of the greatest defensive players ever.

https://www.baseball.fyi/posts/andrelto ... layer-ever

I am no baseball expert, just ask Maize, but I’ll take a top SS with a 0.279 BA all day long. Amiright?

His average has been solid and OBP is in the .320-330 range. He doesn't provide a lot of pop (slugging for his career is .379) but he's a solid singles hitter and plays incredible defense. He does have a couple seasons with double digit HRs so he's got power potential but i wouldn't rely on him to hit more than 10-12.

I'll take any SS that can make a throw to 1st base in a playoff game.

[Beauner]

Some Simmons defensive wizardry for your viewing pleasure

[Bertogliat]

Those are incredible. Simmons is clearly supremely confident in his abilities as can be seen by the fact he even attempts half of those plays.

[YoungEagle]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

Has Polanco played 2nd before? Signing Simmons seems like a shrewd Twins move. Will be fun watching Buxton hawk CF and Simmons hawk SS.

[Beauner]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

Has Polanco played 2nd before? Signing Simmons seems like a shrewd Twins move. Will be fun watching Buxton hawk CF and Simmons hawk SS.

He has played 2B sparingly (5 games) in the bigs. He played 2B and SS a lot coming up through the minors (322 career games at 2B, 802 at shortstop--456 at the big league level).

[Slap Shot]

Still need pitching....

[Bertogliat]

Still need pitching....

You're not allowed to point that out.

If you suggest the Twins need pitching, you must specifically state who you feel the Twins should sign.

[davescharf]

Still need pitching....

You're not allowed to point that out.

If you suggest the Twins need pitching, you must specifically state who you feel the Twins should sign.

I'll help SS out...Bartolo Colon and Livan Hernandez.

Happy?

[Bertogliat]

Still need pitching....

You're not allowed to point that out.

If you suggest the Twins need pitching, you must specifically state who you feel the Twins should sign.

I'll help SS out...Bartolo Colon and Livan Hernandez.

Happy?

You have to ask Maize if that's good enough. I just want MOAR.

[streakygopher]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

Has Polanco played 2nd before? Signing Simmons seems like a shrewd Twins move. Will be fun watching Buxton hawk CF and Simmons hawk SS.

He has played 2B sparingly (5 games) in the bigs. He played 2B and SS a lot coming up through the minors (322 career games at 2B, 802 at shortstop--456 at the big league level).

I'm confused. Did I miss something? With a good every-day player like Polanco at short and Arraez at second, who plays where in the new infield?

[Beauner]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

Has Polanco played 2nd before? Signing Simmons seems like a shrewd Twins move. Will be fun watching Buxton hawk CF and Simmons hawk SS.

He has played 2B sparingly (5 games) in the bigs. He played 2B and SS a lot coming up through the minors (322 career games at 2B, 802 at shortstop--456 at the big league level).

I'm confused. Did I miss something? With a good every-day player like Polanco at short and Arraez at second, who plays where in the new infield?

Simmons will be the everyday SS. Polanco everyday 2B. Arraez moves to replace Marwin Gonzalez in the super utility role. He'll likely fill in for Polanco at 2B, probably play some 3B for Donaldson, he's played outfield at times in his career too so he will probably play LF/RF.
Arraez becomes what Marwin Gonzalez was for the last two seasons, basically. Significant upgrade to the defense.

[Maize]

Polanco is not a very good defensive shortstop. Now they get to keep his bat in the line-up and put him at an easier position, and they can use Arraez to play at 3B frequently to try to keep Donaldson upright for the latter part of the season.

As for the pitching, I don't understand why the Twins don't simply sign one of the dozens of ace perennial Cy Young candidates available on the market.

[Zwak]

Polanco is not a very good defensive shortstop. Now they get to keep his bat in the line-up and put him at an easier position, and they can use Arraez to play at 3B frequently to try to keep Donaldson upright for the latter part of the season.

As for the pitching, I don't understand why the Twins don't simply sign one of the dozens of ace perennial Cy Young candidates available on the market.

I'm not a great baseball management mind. Why are guys like Kluber and Simmons only signing one year deals?

[streakygopher]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

Has Polanco played 2nd before? Signing Simmons seems like a shrewd Twins move. Will be fun watching Buxton hawk CF and Simmons hawk SS.

He has played 2B sparingly (5 games) in the bigs. He played 2B and SS a lot coming up through the minors (322 career games at 2B, 802 at shortstop--456 at the big league level).

I'm confused. Did I miss something? With a good every-day player like Polanco at short and Arraez at second, who plays where in the new infield?

Simmons will be the everyday SS. Polanco everyday 2B. Arraez moves to replace Marwin Gonzalez in the super utility role. He'll likely fill in for Polanco at 2B, probably play some 3B for Donaldson, he's played outfield at times in his career too so he will probably play LF/RF.
Arraez becomes what Marwin Gonzalez was for the last two seasons, basically. Significant upgrade to the defense.

Thanks. I see I missed that Marwin is gone.

[Maize]

I'm not a great baseball management mind. Why are guys like Kluber and Simmons only signing one year deals?

Kluber is 34 and coming off a shoulder injury. He also apparently took less money to sign with the Yankees because he works with someone on their staff.

I don't know about Simmons. Probably a combination of the Twins being willing to pay a little more for a short-term rental, and players thinking they can do a little better when revenues return to normal.

[Beauner]

Polanco is not a very good defensive shortstop. Now they get to keep his bat in the line-up and put him at an easier position, and they can use Arraez to play at 3B frequently to try to keep Donaldson upright for the latter part of the season.

As for the pitching, I don't understand why the Twins don't simply sign one of the dozens of ace perennial Cy Young candidates available on the market.

I'm not a great baseball management mind. Why are guys like Kluber and Simmons only signing one year deals?

Partly, on Kluber's part at least, due to the decreased revenue from last year. Teams are a lot more tight with their budget (well, most of them) right now because they're still unsure what's going to happen with revenues next season after losing a lot of revenue last year.
Simmons is more of a rental. He likely wants to play for a contender at this point in his career (he played for Atlanta his first full season when they were good, they were bad his next two years and then he went to the Angels where they haven't cleared .500). Even the Yankees tried to nickel and dime DJ Lemahieu for a bit. Most teams that fit that "contender" mold weren't looking for a starting SS.
Houston has Correa, White Sox have Anderson, Padres have Tatis/Machado, Yankees have Torres, Dodgers have Seager, Atlanta has Swanson... so if he wanted to play for a contender his options were limited. And at this stage with revenues down so much, a lot of teams that aren't going to compete aren't going to spend money on free agents if they have a young shortstop in their system.
The Twins were likely willing to pay a bit more (though IMO 10.5 million is very fair for a guy like Simmons) for one year while Royce Lewis marinated for another year.

[Beauner]

I should have added that Kluber is also coming off an arm injury, as Maize pointed out. At his age, coming off an injury, a one year "prove it" deal is probably the best he'd get.

[Beauner]

Nelson Cruz re-signs one year, $13 million. Good news.

[Beauner]

[davescharf]

Nelson Cruz re-signs one year, $13 million. Good news.

If this is the deal I’m surprised it took this long to get done. I know there was hope of the NL getting the DH and driving a bidding war, so maybe the realization just hit that the DH is t going universal

[Beauner]

Nelson Cruz re-signs one year, $13 million. Good news.

If this is the deal I’m surprised it took this long to get done. I know there was hope of the NL getting the DH and driving a bidding war, so maybe the realization just hit that the DH is t going universal

That is a large part of the delay.
There are rumors swirling that the Twins are also in on Marcell Ozuna which would make this lineup insane.

[bearpaw28]

Twins sign SS Andrelton Simmons. His bat isn’t good. Defense more than makes up for it. Sounds like Polanco will get pushed over to 2nd base and Arraez will be the super utility guy.

Has Polanco played 2nd before? Signing Simmons seems like a shrewd Twins move. Will be fun watching Buxton hawk CF and Simmons hawk SS.

He has played 2B sparingly (5 games) in the bigs. He played 2B and SS a lot coming up through the minors (322 career games at 2B, 802 at shortstop--456 at the big league level).

I'm confused. Did I miss something? With a good every-day player like Polanco at short and Arraez at second, who plays where in the new infield?

Simmons will be the everyday SS. Polanco everyday 2B. Arraez moves to replace Marwin Gonzalez in the super utility role. He'll likely fill in for Polanco at 2B, probably play some 3B for Donaldson, he's played outfield at times in his career too so he will probably play LF/RF.
Arraez becomes what Marwin Gonzalez was for the last two seasons, basically. Significant upgrade to the defense.

That’s an upgrade defensively... but it takes the bat of Arraez out of the every day lineup. And he’s one of their more “clutch” hitters IMO, unlike some guys who are boxscore hitters... who fold when it counts Hopefully Arraez is still in the lineup 4-5 of of 7 games...& not b/c Donaldson is constantly nicked up

[Bertogliat]

Nelson Cruz re-signs one year, $13 million. Good news.

If this is the deal I’m surprised it took this long to get done. I know there was hope of the NL getting the DH and driving a bidding war, so maybe the realization just hit that the DH is t going universal

That is a large part of the delay.
There are rumors swirling that the Twins are also in on Marcell Ozuna which would make this lineup insane.

Is the assumption with the signing of Cruz that the Twins are out of negotiations with Ozuna? Your post makes it sounds like they are looking to possibly sign both.

[Beauner]

Nelson Cruz re-signs one year, $13 million. Good news.

If this is the deal I’m surprised it took this long to get done. I know there was hope of the NL getting the DH and driving a bidding war, so maybe the realization just hit that the DH is t going universal

That is a large part of the delay.
There are rumors swirling that the Twins are also in on Marcell Ozuna which would make this lineup insane.

Is the assumption with the signing of Cruz that the Twins are out of negotiations with Ozuna? Your post makes it sounds like they are looking to possibly sign both.

From what I saw yesterday they had reached out to Ozuna even with their negotiations with Cruz coming to a close. Not sure if they'd back off on that interest now or not (I haven't seen any confirmation that they backed away from the table after Cruz signed). He would potentially be a replacement in LF for Rosario in 2021, and if signed to a multi-year deal could slot into DH after 2021 if Cruz retires/goes elsewhere.
Ozuna isn't a what I'd call a good defensive outfielder but he's serviceable and with Buxton in CF he'd be covered for a bit more than most.

My gut feeling is that they're not going to meet his supposed demands (I saw he's looking for 4/$100 million earlier) with Cruz back in the fold, but with the news that the universal DH is likely going byebye, his demand may drop because he'll likely be more sought after by teams that can use him as a DH (part of why the Cruz negotiations went from a slow crawl to a done deal in about 36 hours).

Signing Ozuna would potentially mean the team could consider packaging one of their higher-end outfield prospects in a trade for a SP (maybe a Larnach, Rooker, Matt Wallner, Misael Urbina type). Larnach and Rooker are both either already MLB ready or will be extremely soon, so an Ozuna signing for 3-4 years would make them tradeable, especially with Kiriloff in the same boat. Wallner is a solid outfield prospect with a big bat that is probably 2 years away and Urbina is an 18 year old with great speed and a solid bat that could draw some serious interest with his power potential (21 of his 51 hits in rookie league in 2019, as a 17 year old, were XBH, where he hit .279/.382/.443). A CF with that kind of pop at that age, with his speed, could make him an appealing target for teams to trade for.

Ultimately I doubt it will happen but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.

[Maize]

Ozuna isn't a what I'd call a good defensive outfielder...

[Cowgirl]

Not everyone can pull that off.

[Beauner]

Ozuna isn't a what I'd call a good defensive outfielder...

I totally forgot about that one

[Viking]

RIP Twig

https://www.startribune.com/wayne-terwi ... 600018512/

[Hobey Baker]

Twins approval to allow 2400 fans for spring training games

[frozen4champs]

There is conflicting reports on the salary. Somewhere between 5 and 6.5 million

[Beauner]

Like the deal a lot.

[Beauner]

There is conflicting reports on the salary. Somewhere between 5 and 6.5 million

Clarification on salary

[YoungEagle]

Like the deal a lot.

Are they still looking at starting pitchers? Paxton seems like an interesting option if they are.

[Beauner]

Like the deal a lot.

Are they still looking at starting pitchers? Paxton seems like an interesting option if they are.

I'd imagine they are still looking at starters and maybe even another bullpen arm.

There are a lot of interesting names still available.
Paxton and Odorizzi are both out there but probably want longer term deals with higher dollar amounts. I'm not sure if the Twins are too willing to pay either guy $16 million a year (or more) for 3-4 more years.

There are some potential steals to be had. I'd love to see them bring Taijuan Walker in on a deal like they got Pineda here for. He has some nasty stuff and is only 28, but his injury history is a red flag that scares a lot of teams off of signing him to a bigger deal. With the coaching staff and trainers in place with the Twins I think Walker could be an absolute phenom here.

[frozen4champs]

Depth move. Wade wasn't going to make the Twins this year most likely.

[Beauner]

Not a bad move. Wade or Cave was more or less expendable and Anderson has some good stuff. High velocity and a wicked slider which is going to miss a lot of bats.

[Snowcool08]

Not a bad move. Wade or Cave was more or less expendable and Anderson has some good stuff. High velocity and a wicked slider which is going to miss a lot of bats.

I’m guessing they will turn him in to a Matt Wisler type and have him throw 90% sliders.

[Beauner]

Not a bad move. Wade or Cave was more or less expendable and Anderson has some good stuff. High velocity and a wicked slider which is going to miss a lot of bats.

I’m guessing they will turn him in to a Matt Wisler type and have him throw 90% sliders.

If he can throw it for strikes consistently, that would most likely be their plan.

[Slap Shot]

[streakygopher]

Not a bad move. Wade or Cave was more or less expendable and Anderson has some good stuff. High velocity and a wicked slider which is going to miss a lot of bats.

I've come around on Cave. I don't know his stats, but it feels like he gave the Twins some good at bats at big moments (except of course the playoffs, in which case he was like everyone else.

[Slap Shot]

[davescharf]

Clippard was here for like $3M last year so I can see that happening again

[frozen4champs]

Another big free agent signing by the Twins

[Beauner]

Low risk, high reward move with Shoemaker. He's been a quality pitcher in his career when he's been healthy. The "when he's been healthy" part is the key. He has battled injuries basically since fracturing his skull on a line drive in 2016. He returned to pitch in 2017 and made 14 starts before being sidelined with a forearm strain (the same forearm he ended up having surgery on in 2018). Then in 2019 he missed most of the season after tearing his ACL. Last season he was limited to 6 starts as he dealt with a strained lat.
The Twins are hoping he can stay healthy, obviously, but this adds another arm to battle for the #5 spot with Dobnak.

I'm still holding out hope they can nab Taijuan Walker on a similar deal.

[Beauner]

Top Twins prospect Royce Lewis will miss the entire season. He tore his ACL and will miss the entire 2021 season. Brutal news.
After a down year in 2019 and basically a lost 2020 season, this one hurts.