All Things 2024 Minnesota Twins In-Season Thread

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Ope3 said:
Nowhere did I say I was in the Vasquez fan club.

My stance is that the difference between them is negligible and that playing them 50/50 is perhaps the best way to get the most productivity combined out of them. It also improves the odds they are productive in September and hopefully in October.

If it were up to me, I would probably go with more of a 55-45 split, or even just a little less than that. If Jeffers caught and then there was a subsequent Off Day, then sure go ahead and play Jeffers again. However, resting him a 2nd day is also just fine by me.

My disagreement was when you called what the Twins were doing "stupid". It's working out, for now. If there is a significant change in either Jeffers or Vasquez' production it can certainly be re-evaluated. Jeffers for more than a month now, has not been hitting at a clip that screams he deserves more playing time.

No, I can't imagine sitting Mauer 80 games. Your reference with #7 is just plain silly. He's a Hall of Famer. Jeffers no matter how much he catches will need to buy his own ticket to get into the Cooperstown Museum.

There was a much more pronounced drop off between Joe's back ups (offense & defense) and the current catchers. Also in this case, it's Vasquez that has the much higher salary, $10M compared to Jeffers $2.4M.
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One of them has an OPS of .800 even after his slump. The other has an OPS of .530 even after his "surge". I don't know how you can say that's a negligible difference. Vazquez is a better defender, but it's pretty marginal and certainly not worth the massive drop off on offense.

It is true we're talking about a difference of basically one start per week. But that's still 26-30 starts over a season and 125-150 plate appearances. That's not nothing.

Jeffers isn't a HOF'er. But he is one of the better young offensive catchers in the game and deliberately only using him 50% of the time in favor of one of the three worst hitters in baseball (at least until recently) just doesn't make sense to me.
 

now if Rocco could find a LH-hitting Catcher to platoon with Jeffers, that would be a different story.

then, I thought - a switch-hitting catcher would be perfect. which sent me down a rabbit hole. I found a data base listing 82 switch-hitting catchers, and a surprising number of those played for the Twins at some point.

Rob Bowen
Ryan Doumit
Marcus Jensen
Javier Valentin
Matt Walbeck
Butch Wynegar - on the list I found, Wynegar was 3rd for most games caught by a switch-hitter.

Ted Simmons was #1 for most games caught by a switch-hitter who was also a total asshole. I may have added the last part.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Jeffers did start 44 of 57 (77%) games through the end of May. I know not all were at catcher but I bet it wouldn't be 50/50 now if Jeffers were still hitting like he did in April and early May.
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I know he was DH'ing some, but barring a bad rash of injuries, those days are done for 2024 with Wallner/Larnach/Lee/Miranda etc. all hitting well.

Maybe, but I don't believe Jeffers has caught back-to-back games in the regular season since early 2023, if then. Rocco/Falvey seem 100% wedded to this rotation.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Jeffers did start 44 of 57 (77%) games through the end of May. I know not all were at catcher but I bet it wouldn't be 50/50 now if Jeffers were still hitting like he did in April and early May.
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That’s what happened at the end of last season and when Vasquez didn’t sniff an AB in the playoffs.
 

howeda7 said:
I know he was DH'ing some, but barring a bad rash of injuries, those days are done for 2024 with Wallner/Larnach/Lee/Miranda etc. all hitting well.

Maybe, but I don't believe Jeffers has caught back-to-back games in the regular season since early 2023, if then. Rocco/Falvey seem 100% wedded to this rotation.
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I think early in the season they could split catching duties 50/50 because there weren't a lot of great DH options so they could save on Jeffers' legs while still getting him in the lineup just about every day. Wallner, Santana were terrible. Miranda was in the minors. Lewis was hurt.

There's no way of proving this but if Jeffers was still hitting very well, I'm confident he would be catching more since DH isn't much of an option anymore.
 




howeda7 said:
One of them has an OPS of .800 even after his slump. The other has an OPS of .530 even after his "surge". I don't know how you can say that's a negligible difference. Vazquez is a better defender, but it's pretty marginal and certainly not worth the massive drop off on offense.

It is true we're talking about a difference of basically one start per week. But that's still 26-30 starts over a season and 125-150 plate appearances. That's not nothing.

Jeffers isn't a HOF'er. But he is one of the better young offensive catchers in the game and deliberately only using him 50% of the time in favor of one of the three worst hitters in baseball (at least until recently) just doesn't make sense to me.
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That's a more well reasoned argument, but it still does not sway me into thinking the current workload isn't appropriate. Jeffers OPS for the season is .800 but over the past six weeks or so, it's much lower.

The way both are playing at least since Memorial Day to me indicates going 50/50 is not way out of line or even a little.

With regards to Plate Appearances Jeffers has 281 with Vasquez at 181. That's not nothing. At the current rate he's going to have 180-190 more than Vasquez. As you have indicated his DHing will probably be more limited the 2nd half, with others on the roster performing well, so it probably will be in the 125-150 range you desire.

If Jeffers gets 100% healthy and starts lighting it up at the plate, I would hope/expect they will find more Plate Appearances for him (DH, PH, a little less time off, whatever). Until then, it's just fine.
 

Twins game with White Sox tonight postponed due to rain.

Teams will play a straight double-header Wednesday with 1st game starting at 1:10pm.
 



Hurricane remnants raining out games in Chicago in early July. Something you're not going to hear very often.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Twins O (MLB Rankings) through 6/27

Avg. (10) W/.249
HRs (6) W/96
OPS (5) W/.744
Runs (6) W/392
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Now, we’re in the Top 5 in the four major offensive statistical categories (listed above from 6/27 and below from 7/9)

We are the only FRICKING TEAM in MLB which has this distinction 🤠🍾🎉🏆💯💪🎊🍻.
Not dem Yanks, Phils, Dodger 🐶 or birdies from Baltimore.

Twins O (MLB Rankings) through 7/9 - so prior to today’s double dip.

Avg. (4) W/.256
HRs (5) W/111
OPS (3) W/.760
Runs (4) W/455

I’m not active on Twitter, but feel free to tweet out those stats out to the collective universe.

This is why the Guards are toast- our lineup is too fricking deep. If you would have told me that both Correra and Buck would be these types of offensive weapons after last season, I would have said you was 🌰🥜

Buck is up to ,282 and he’s methodically raised his average, while playing 69 games.
Correra back to his AS form and with Miranda going all MLB records and stuff, our Right Hand sticks are Righteous.

 
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saw this in a tweet from baseball writer Jon Morosi.

since April 22, the Twins are 45-26. that is the best record in the American League during that time period. that is a .633 winning percentage, which over a full season equates to 102 wins.

for all of the talk about "they need another starting pitcher" or "they need help in the bullpen," etc, this has been a very fun stretch of baseball.
 

Rich Reese hit his team record third career pinch-hit grand slam on this date in 1972.

He was batting for Lambeton, Minnesota native and future Twins assistant general manager Bob Gehbard.

IMG_7304.jpeg
 



short ornery norwegian said:
saw this in a tweet from baseball writer Jon Morosi.

since April 22, the Twins are 45-26. that is the best record in the American League during that time period. that is a .633 winning percentage, which over a full season equates to 102 wins.

for all of the talk about "they need another starting pitcher" or "they need help in the bullpen," etc, this has been a very fun stretch of baseball.
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In April, the Pohlads were said to not care about winning. Apparently they started caring in May.
 

That was an uninspired game today. I know each game is its own thing and there’s a lot of them, but man did they look flat in game 1. Of course only getting 4 hits helps you look flat.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
Now, we’re in the Top 5 in the four major offensive statistical categories (listed above from 6/27 and below from 7/9)

We are the only FRICKING TEAM in MLB which has this distinction 🤠🍾🎉🏆💯💪🎊🍻.
Not dem Yanks, Phils, Dodger 🐶 or birdies from Baltimore.

Twins O (MLB Rankings) through 7/9 - so prior to today’s double dip.

Avg. (4) W/.256
HRs (5) W/111
OPS (3) W/.760
Runs (4) W/455

I’m not active on Twitter, but feel free to tweet out those stats out to the collective universe.

This is why the Guards are toast- our lineup is too fricking deep. If you would have told me that both Correra and Buck would be these types of offensive weapons after last season, I would have said you was 🌰🥜

Buck is up to ,282 and he’s methodically raised his average, while playing 69 games.
Correra back to his AS form and with Miranda going all MLB records and stuff, our Right Hand sticks are Righteous.

Click to expand...
C’mon Twins, you’re making my post look silly and I don’t want to be responsible for two Ls today.
 
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I don’t understand the love affair with Margot in left field. He hardly seems like a defensive upgrade over Wallner at this point in his career. Every fly ball hit to him is an adventure.
 


wasn't a pretty day, but at least got a split of the DH. Hitters missed a lot of opportunities.

bullpen came through in the 2nd game. actually, Sands threw 2 good innings in the first game, so for the day, they got 6 scoreless innings from the 'pen.

Guardians lost to the Tigers, so the Twins are 5 games back.
 

At 18.36, Gregg Olson has far and away the highest ERA in Twins history (minimum 10 appearances).

In 1997, the Twins gave the 30-year-old Olson 11 opportunities out of the bullpen. He gave up 17 earned runs in just 8.1 innings pitched.
 

so, this is funny. (at least I think so.) was reading an article from The Athletic about how Statcast was created. and I came across this section mentioning Twins' 1st-base coach Hank Conger.

Constructing each metric took careful consideration, plus a little bit of a sniff test. The initial leader for catcher pop time — how long it takes a catcher to receive a pitch and get it to second base — was Los Angeles Angels backup Hank Conger. “No offense to Hank Conger,” Schwartz said. “We knew that wasn’t right.” MLBAM intern Ezra Wise, now an analyst for the Minnesota Twins, was dispatched to watch Conger. Wise learned Conger short-hopped most throws, and the pop-time “stopwatch” halted as soon as the ball hit any object, grass or glove. Once the metric was adjusted to measure the throw to the center of second base, Conger slid to the bottom of the leaderboard and J.T. Realmuto popped to the top.

(the entire article is really long, but interesting.)
 

From the Parkinglot said:
I don’t understand the love affair with Margot in left field. He hardly seems like a defensive upgrade over Wallner at this point in his career. Every fly ball hit to him is an adventure.
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Once Lewis comes back, they should move Lee to 2B and Castro back to his proper super utility role. That will force Rocco to part ways with at least one of Margot or Farmer. Of course they will probably just send Lee down instead and cling to the vets.
 

howeda7 said:
Once Lewis comes back, they should move Lee to 2B and Castro back to his proper super utility role. That will force Rocco to part ways with at least one of Margot or Farmer. Of course they will probably just send Lee down instead and cling to the vets.
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An infield of Lewis, Correa, Lee and Miranda could be pretty sweet and in place for a long time.
Some combo of Buxton, Keplar, Larnach and Wallner in outfield with Martin and Castro super subs.
If that group ever stayed healthy, could be pretty impressive.
Maybe Kiriloff as Miranda's back- up.
 


howeda7 said:
Once Lewis comes back, they should move Lee to 2B and Castro back to his proper super utility role. That will force Rocco to part ways with at least one of Margot or Farmer. Of course they will probably just send Lee down instead and cling to the vets.
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Lee won't get sent back down unless he really struggles. Which I don't see happening. Someone will get hurt or something.

I still think there's a chance Lewis ends up in the outfield. Maybe LF instead of CF.
 


Detroit leads Cleveland 10-1, so the Twins should pick up a 1/2 game today.
 

Skenes has a no no through 6 W/11Ks vs. Brewers thus far
 
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GophersInIowa said:
Lee won't get sent back down unless he really struggles. Which I don't see happening. Someone will get hurt or something.
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They’re not sending a first rounder prospect ranked 13 best prospect down, unless he 💩 the 🛌.

He and Wallner make the lineup soooo deep, it past the buoys.
GophersInIowa said:
I still think there's a chance Lewis ends up in the outfield. Maybe LF instead of CF.
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Bucks mojo is right where we need it now, so let him stay in center; I bet at this stage of his career, he’s still a better option than Lewis.

Maybe next year, but not mid seasons this year, to left? I’ll still be surprised if he moves from third. I think Eddie gets traded before start of next season, at the latest, and Lee is the regular second sacker next season.
 

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