Forking off the discussion to here...
Here's my barely half baked attempt at a 2017 lineup.
Listing it out...
Catcher: ???
First: Mauer.
Second: Dozier.
Third: Sano. UZR had him as a plus fielder there this year and last.
Shortstop: Polanco? UZR did not like his fielding at short.
Right: Kepler.
Center: Buxton.
Left: ???
Suzuki's option did not vest so I think that makes him a free agent. That leaves Murphy as the catcher to start the season. Grossman is the obvious one to put in left but, well, gross. Maybe Rosario instead? Scouts never liked Polanco's fielding at short and the metrics agree with them. Escobar would then be the shortstop but he needs to bring back the 2015 version.
Focusing on fielding as a way to improve the run-prevention, Mauer, Dozier, Sano, and Buxton were all rated as plus fielders last year. Dozier was barely so, but he's not a negative yet. Kepler was average in right. Rosario would be a plus in left so that leaves shortstop and catcher as possible holes. Catcher would be the most important I think. Framing can do so much to help the pitchers in a way that is also so easy to miss.
Are we in agreement that these are the primary holes to fill or room for improvement (in no order or priority)?
Catcher
Shortstop
Left Field
Starting Pitching
Relief Pitching
Do we have in-house fill-ins for any of these? Who is expendable for trade to help out?
Answering your last question, Dozier.
Not a decision that leads me to envy Falvey, but I think you're right. Figuring out the matches is tougher. I wonder if Falvey might prefer players that have already graduated to MLB so as to minimally expose any incoming talent to the Twins' player development system? If so, that probably means two players instead of a raft of prospects.
Both pitching and defense killed this team. A full year of Buxton in cf will help.
If they're serious about fielding a .500 team, they will need above average defense up the middle. Is Murphy above average at catcher? I don't see any reason to think Polanco will be above average at shortstop. Those are too big holes.
I think it is time to focus on defense and stop moving players around as if defense doesn't matter. It has been a disaster.
Grossman, Vargas, and Park are all without a defensive position. Two of their best hitters going into next year are second basemen. They need to do something about this.
Vargas & Park to DH & cover at 1st as necessary.
Grossman off the bench as 4th outfielder
Escobar off the bench as utility infielder
Trade Dozier for a starting Catcher or starting pitching
Give Engelb Vielma a shot at SS
With two years left on Mauer's contract, I wonder if the new front office will see Vargas and/or Park as part of the 1B solution in 2019? Or could that be where Sano ends up if he can't handle 3B short/medium term?
You know who played almost 400 games at third?
He made the switch to first for his age-26 season, which would be 2019 for Sano.
He too was drafted/signed as a shortstop.
I would take that career for Sano.
M. Cabrera played nearly 700 games at 3B*, switching over to 1B in his 5th year as a pro (age-25 season).
*he also played nearly 350 games in the OF. I did not remember that.
He was not a good first baseman. At least he never was later on
Another complicating factor is that Trevor Plouffe! is still around. I don't like the idea of him blocking Sano at third, and I wanted to trade him a year ago. I still would trade him, but if you do it now it would be with the understanding that you're not going to get equal value and you're just doing it to clear third base for Sano. Will the new Chief be willing to do that? I guess we'll see.
I think he will be nontendered. His arb salary has to be around $8-9 million, right? I don't see anyone trading for him.
MLBTR released its arb predictions today and has Plouffe at $8.2M. I hope Falvey takes a good look at how he could use that money elsewhere.
He might be able to pry me away from my job for that amount.
Well I'll take half of that!
Not me! What are you guys getting paid, anyway?
Maybe I'm way off, but I don't see a catcher being available in a trade. It seems like the catcher position has gotten thinner over the past few years. There are teams that got 'em, and those players aren't going anywhere. I'm struggling to think of too many great catching prospects too, though that could easily be my lack of study on the topic.
So it seems like SS and SP are the ways to focus in a trade, and hope JRM can turn into someone? I felt like he, too, improved in his last stint? But I haven't actually looked at the numbers on that.
You are not wrong.
Over 44 PA's in April: .075/.119/.100
Over 46 PA's in Sept:. .214/.261/.333
Uffda.
John Ryan Murphy
Well, he'll be starting next season at age 25. He's only had 374 big league plate appearances. So one might think there's some naturally room for growth there. His minor league stats look pretty good too.
Given relative price, lack of FA options, and unlikelihood of trading, I'd love to see JRM split with a left-handed batting catcher (Centeno). Of course, catcher splits are more rare, given you like a guy to work with a pitcher or somesuch, but... I think getting him out there against left-handed pitchers is gonna be a good move.
How is his pitch framing? Is there anything offsetting his offense?
In 1700 pitches, he rated as a bit below average. Centeno was by far the worst.
He also had a 99 OPS+ with the Yankees the previous 2 years in 3x as many PAs as he had with the Twins. That was at age 23-24, too, which is why the Twins traded for him. I mean, Hicks had a 91 OPS+ the previous 2 years at age 24-25 and had a 65 OPS+ for the Yankees this year. So the Twins traded Hicks for a catcher that was younger and had a better MLB hitting track record. He was sent down after about a dozen games' worth of starts. I know the Twins were looking to jump start a team they thought was just off to a bad start, but that showed a big lack of patience with a player with a track record, not just an MLB novice. I think it showed a lot of the young players that you have to perform well now or else.
He more than doubled his offensive production!
I don't think you're far off, Philos. Unfortunately, the list of likely free agent catchers isn't confidence-inspiring. Ramos would've been the best available. Now "best" depends on your feelings about Alex Avila, Nick Hundley, Chris Iannetta, Suzuki, and Matt Weiters.
I am not confident that, at this point, Vielma would not have the bat knocked out of his hands. Yes, he hit .271 in AA, but he had an OPS of .663 because he had almost no power whatsoever. He's twenty-two, so I'm not saying he can't get there, but I don't see him as a shortstop solution for next year.
Maybe just a placeholder for Gordon? I'd rather they focus on starting pitching - Polanco & Escobar can hold down SS.
Jorge Polanco*:
210 PA's vs. RHP .268/.332/.395
80 PA's vs. LHP .324/.363/.521
*SSS
Eduardo Escobar
1137 PA's vs. RHP .242/.294/.355
483 PA's vs. LHP .277/.308/.440
Of course, if they trade Dozier for anything, Polanco is penciled in (nearly inked?) at 2B.
If they trade Dozier, maybe they'll get a SS (too)?
I see a correlation between this and this.
Also this.
One somewhat unrelated topic. Terry Ryan seems like a great guy but I think there is a very real possibility he was a bad GM that got lucky on a couple moves. If you look at his entire record, Liriano and Johan look like the outliers and all the sell low moments look like the norm.
I would even suggest that they really only had a couple good seasons. The other playoff years were the result of an unbalanced schedule and a weak division.
Milton to the Phillies for Silva & Punto worked out pretty well. In exchange for one year of Milton the Twins got 9 wins out of Silva (plus that ridiculous 74-pitch CG), 8 wins and some underutilized roster flexibility from Punto, and seventeen innings of Bobby Korecky. Claiming Mayor McCheese from the Pirates was another good move. On the other hand, the Mientkiewicz trade was probably necessary to clear space for Moreau & LeCroy, but somehow the Twins wound up with Justin Jones instead of any of the six other players traded. Oddly enough, two of those six eventually wound up playing in Minnesota: Orca & [redacted].
Another major factor in evaluating TR's tenure is draft performance & strategy. I haven't familiarized myself enough with the entirety of his draft record.
Looking at only first round picks, whiffing on the three straight top-6 picks between Cuddyer and Mauer is not a good mark on his record. But obviously Ryan made enough other good picks/signings/trades to win a bunch of division titles when these guys could have been contributors:
1998 - Ryan Mills #6 overall
1999 - BJ Garbe #5
2000 - Adam Johnson #2
I wonder what the track records of other bottom feeders tend to look like in the draft. Obviously, three straight whiffs could be bad decision making. It could also be bad luck, given that there are lot of first-round picks who never "make it" in the Majors.
plus that ridiculous 74-pitch CG
I was totes there for that one.
Early on, TR was very successful grabbing guys from the low minors of other organizations for veteran chaff. Instead of Pat Light, he found guys like Ortiz, Joe Mays, and Lew Ford.
My guess *
C: free agent/trade/promoted minor leaguer
1B: Mauer
2B: Polanco (Dozier gets traded)
SS: free agent/trade
3B: Sano (Plouffe is let go)
LF: free agent/promoted minor leaguer (I think Rosario gets moved. His lack of walks hurts him)
CF: Buxton
RF: Kepler
DH: Park/free agent
bench: Danny Santana, Juan Centeno, 2 free agents
SP: Erv Santana, Berrios, 3 mix and match of free agents/traded for players/organization "depth"
RP: too hard to predict
*this prediction is made before knowing whether the new boss is open to dumping contracts like Park or Erv Santana or etc and starting fresh
I think your asterisk caveat will end up being the most interesting part of the off season.
Re: LF, I hope they don't move Rosario ... I think he can improve (he was 24 for most of the season, and looked batter when he came back up from Rochester).
He took 8 of his 12 walks over his last 40 games and slashed .299/.333/.451 before getting injured. That OBP would be 4th-best among players with ~350 or more PA's for the year (though his season OBP was .295).
It will, indeed, be interesting to see if the Chief has a plan and what the plan is. It will also be interesting to see whether he's allowed to implement his plan.
He had a .260/.302/.403 in AA and .290/.320/.478 in AAA. Somewhere in the middle with plus fielding will do.
Perhaps its personal bias slipping in on Rosario (not my favorite player, but I dont hate him either), but I can see him being flipped for a low to mid level prospect or being stashed away in AAA
I forgot to mention above, but I think Vargas is gone, a casualty to a numbers crunch at 1B/DH
New Chief, so who knows, but if they didn't get rid of Vargas last year, when they'd signed Park, I'm not sure why they'd get rid of him now.
Vargas still had minor league options.
I believe that luxury has run out.
AAA stashed is fine with me, I just don't know who they like better in LF.
I'm afraid you're right about Vargas. Based on how far they are from competing, I'd rather they keep him than Park (assuming the choice is between those two).
edit: good point Padre.
I'm honestly not sure how far away from competing they really are. 1 year? 5? Competing at what level? If next year Buxton, Sano, and Berrios all take a big step... they could be competing then, right? Or if they all hold steady, we're a long way away. I just don't know how you assess that, without being very close to the situation.
I still don't know how good Park is, because I don't think we've seen the real Park yet. He played all last season with a sore wrist, and even though the Twins downplayed it (to the extent of denying it had any effect at all), wrists are hugely important to a batter. I want to see more of him before I make any decision there.
I think Park has something to show yet
I'm well on record as agreeing with this. I seem to remember him looking like a real good hitter who mashed his taters before the wrist stuff started.
Don't let my comment mislead you - I agree with this. I was really disappointed to see him struggle, even more so to lead. He was playing through injuries with so little support from his manager and FO.
(Philo) My point is that a team which loses 103 games isn't likely to be sniffing .500, let alone competing for a playoff appearance in the next couple of years. Vargas's splits weren't great, but he's a switch hitter with good power (doubled his year-over-year HR total in 7 fewer AB's, upped his SLG by 150 pts!), competent defense at 1B and is 4 years younger than Park. If the hypothetical choice is between these two, I believe I'd keep Vargas and see what I could get for Park.
Can't they keep Park in the minors?
HE'S SO GOOD, YOU CAN'T KEEP HIM DOWN!!