2022-2023 Offseason Thread

[fish16]

What does "a literal 12-year-old" even mean? Literal as opposed to what? An eleven- or thirteen-year-old?

Miguel Andujar got dfa’d yesterday. Remember when he was your prospect of the century that we absolutely needed to acquire? How about ben Meyer or the other 50 prospects you fall in love with nonsensically based off
of limited samples

[lou]

Now we're cooking! Baseball Reference projects 7 homers and 50 rbi for Arraez in the coming season. Wait, that sucks. As does his total lack of speed and marginal glove at 2B. (a five-ten or less 1B is no positive either).

Chisholm could have moved to CF (as suggested multiple times) last season to improve the team. Segura could play 2B this coming year (his best defensive position). Lopez or another pitcher could have been traded for a young 3B with upside and pop in the bat.

Per Baseballtradevalues, Lopez alone was worth far more than Arraez. Couldn't agree more. While a lot of ridiculous trade scenarios can be conjured based on individual trade values attached to players, the site is nearly always very close to valuations on trades that actually take place. This deal was an exception. The Twins received nearly double the value that Arraez had. That suggests a huge miss for the Marlins GM. If Royce Lewis had been included in the deal, it would have worked for me.

This is the second deal in which the Twins fleeced the Marlins in the last year. The first was when the Fish basically traded Dylan Lee to the Twins by taking Jacob Berry in the draft with the pick prior to the Twins, leaving Minnesota with the vastly better prospect in Lee. Like Arraez, Berry was/is a one-tool guy.

I can easily see Jacob Amaya as shortsop on opening day.

BTV is a shitty website. Pablo and Arraez are likely pretty close in value, the issue is Salas is a good prospect.

As said, I feel the delta here is the Twins know what Arraez would take on a 5-6 year extension, so they based his value on that versus the 3 years. Basically, we can increase the surplus value dramatically with him under contract 2-3 years more. That's where Salas comes in. He fills that void. Pablo is going to cost $90+ million to sign, so the Twins don't get a real benefit with that here.

Therefore, I'm expecting the Marlins to do a 5/$55 extension shortly. That fixes the "Salas" problem here. Marlins make up the value with years and a reasonable deal for everyone. Absent this, this is a problem.

Also Amaya won't be up until mid-June at earliest. They aren't blowing a year of service time/making him a super 2 by choice.

[fish16]

Ya, I’m not sure where that website came from, but there valuations are horrific

[Erick]

For what it’s worth, I feel like I fell into the trap of maybe stereotyping Arraez because he doesn’t look like a 2B.

But the reality is he wasn’t even that terrible at 2B last season in the 277 innings he played there.

So I actually change my mind and say keep him at 2B if he can just provide average defense there. I’d be cool with even slightly below average.

He can definitely hit. Career .330 hitter against right handed pitching. Contact skills/plate discipline are rather elite.

[fish16]

For what it’s worth, I feel like I fell into the trap of maybe stereotyping Arraez because he doesn’t look like a 2B.

But the reality is he wasn’t even that terrible at 2B last season in the 277 innings he played there.

So I actually change my mind and say keep him at 2B if he can just provide average defense there. I’d be cool with even slightly below average.

He can definitely hit. Career .330 hitter against right handed pitching. Contact skills/plate discipline are rather elite.

He’s one of if not the best lead off hitter in baseball. If soler and Garcia can truly bounce back, and jazz can stay healthy, he’s the perfect table setter. They need to get reynolds now. With him the lineup would be really nice

arraez
jazz
reynolds
soler
cooper
garcia
segura
wendle
fortes

[Erick]

He’s one of if not the best lead off hitter in baseball. If soler and Garcia can truly bounce back, and jazz can stay healthy, he’s the perfect table setter. They need to get reynolds now. With him the lineup would be really nice

arraez
jazz
reynolds
soler
cooper
garcia
segura
wendle
fortes

Reynolds would be nice obviously, but it would take Eury + more to get it done. I don’t see that happening.

[lou]

For what it’s worth, I feel like I fell into the trap of maybe stereotyping Arraez because he doesn’t look like a 2B.

But the reality is he wasn’t even that terrible at 2B last season in the 277 innings he played there.

So I actually change my mind and say keep him at 2B if he can just provide average defense there. I’d be cool with even slightly below average.

He can definitely hit. Career .330 hitter against right handed pitching. Contact skills/plate discipline are rather elite.

Yes, he is fine there and has a good enough arm. He's not going to be a defensive liability, and the bat *really* plays versus other 2B in the league. His 3.3-3.7 WAR projections I think are pretty fair and he should be a top 6-10 2B in baseball for years. He could spike higher in a really good year or develops even a little power. Call it 55-60+ XBH. He only hit 40 last year so there is some major growth here if he starts realizing he can just sit back and take some shots here and there. Seems like a perfect guy some aggression will help and who cares if he whiffs a few more times versus grounding out a dribbler, etc. Take some swings. His exit velocities have inched up every year and he's 26. But we'll see what happens there. I just want them to sign this dude for 5 as stated.

[lou]

Reynolds would be nice obviously, but it would take Eury + more to get it done. I don’t see that happening.

Yep. And a SS makes more sense now anyways, followed by a 1B upgrade.

Let's be real here - Casas and Rafaela are perfect to link this to the Boston ideas if they can figure that out.

[fish16]

MLB pipeline has salas as the twins 13th best prospect

[fish16]

Also sixto posted a picture in instagram and who knows whether his shoulder is healthy but he looks like he’s in much better shape. Not overweight like he’s been the last few years. If he can come back and return to form, that would be incredibly valuable

[Nick]

Also sixto posted a picture in instagram and who knows whether his shoulder is healthy but he looks like he’s in much better shape. Not overweight like he’s been the last few years. If he can come back and return to form, that would be incredibly valuable

If he's 100% healthy come April 1st, what's his role? Do you think about converting him to closer right away, to try to keep him healthy? Is it too early for that?

[Todd]

I say go the route the Cardinals did with Wainright.

Put him in the pen, early in low leverage situations. Let him build up game fitness. Slowly progress to more high pressure matches including closing at some point halfway if his stuff is good and he is competitive. Then next year let him compete for the rotation in 2024.

[fish16]

If he's 100% healthy come April 1st, what's his role? Do you think about converting him to closer right away, to try to keep him healthy? Is it too early for that?

Given our rotation currently and his injury history, probably reliever for this year and try him back in the rotation next year. But one thing that would make me question that is whether his shoulder would be more affected as a reliever where he’s getting up to warm up and then back down and then up again or whether the more innings period would be more bothersome. So does ramping up and down multiple times a week hurt him more than just doing it every 5th day for 5 innings?

In the picture he looks even skinnier than he was when he was traded here. Maybe it means nothing, but after two years of him seemingly not caring about being in shape it’s a refreshing change. Reliever or starter, if he’s back and healthy, he’s filthy

[fish16]

MLB.com reporter mark feinsand says nothing finalized but we’re heading to a deal with gurriel. If it’s super cheap I like it. Terrible last year but insurance for Cooper and soler at 1b and dh and if he regains his form he was one of the better 1b in baseball for a few years. It seems like another trade is coming. I could see Sanchez or bleday being moved in a reynolds trade, and I don’t think they love cooper. Would give us the last two Al batting champs

between him, Arraez and segura, that is a ton of contact we’ve added this offseason. Finish it off with the reynolds piece

[sports24/7]

If he's 100% healthy come April 1st, what's his role? Do you think about converting him to closer right away, to try to keep him healthy? Is it too early for that?

His pitch mix is way too good to force him into a closing role IMO. If he's healthy and in shape, I think you have to give him another shot in the rotation. If you end up having too many good starters, that's a good problem to have, and you can then just deal one of them for another bat (maybe finally get a good catcher).