Friday Links, and thoughts about those links

 Back in the day, when I would post regularly, I would make a point of linking to other content. I don't break news here, and I'm not the only person who has thoughts, so it is nice to get other perspectives every once in a while. Also, back in the day, like approaching 20 years I would write posts with quick paragraphs and thoughts about some of the news stories of the day. It started as "the Junk" and then it evolved into something else with the Victoria Times, and then it went away. Anyways, here are some links and some junk.

Fox Sports - CARDINALS REMOVE 'STUDY' CLAUSE FROM KYLER MURRAY'S NEW CONTRACT - The problem, for me, isn't that this clause was in Kyler Murray's contract. With contracts, they are negotiated by both sides, and when it was placed in there, Kyler and his agent signed off on it. Since he gave his consent, there was some tacit acknowledgement that he needed to get better at his game tape review, in preparation for future opponents. The problem is that the clause was released to the public. It seems like a smear campaign, and I can't figure out who gains from it, but it makes Murray look bad, and like the Cardinals have immediate regret over the contract. To his credit, Murray's statement about the clause, that the idea that he doesn't prepare is an insult to other players, because it's too hard to be successful at quarterback without preparing against them, was the right tone to take, Hopefully enough people read it, because it made me respect him a little bit more. 

Yahoo Sports - Nine MLB trade deadline deals that make sense: Baseball's best teams look to get even better - The trade suggested for the Twins was acquiring Jordan Lyles. "This may be the most boring deal on the list but Minnesota needs a starting pitcher and Lyles is one of those..." Who wrote this, Jim Bowden? Rest assured, Minnesota will do more than Jordan Lyles at the deadline. 

ESPN - Charles Barkley says he is staying with Turner Broadcasting after entertaining LIV Golf interest - I'll be up front with you. I like the idea, generally, of LIV. It's a smaller, golfer first platform that lets players have a better home life, that may eventually move to a relegation format. It's not traditional, for sure, but it can be competitive and has the potential to make bigger stars of its players thanks to more direct exposure. But it's gross, man. The fact that the money is Saudi, and a fairly blatant attempt to paper over the transgressions against journalists, women and humanity is gross. Donald Trump defending the backers to 9/11 protestors is a pretty on the nose distillation of all the problems with LIV. Yuck. It's hard to make the PGA look good, but you did it. 

Inside the Park off the face interlude

BOOM BOOM!! pic.twitter.com/kaZl9sDWlH

— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) July 28, 2022

Ouch

 

MLB.com - The 12 players most likely to be traded This also includes the three most likely destinations. The only time the Twins appear as a destination is for Noah Syndegaard. According to the internet, the Twins should get Jordan Lyles and Noah Syndegaard. Watch out, World Series, here we come.

NFL.com - 'We've Never Practiced That Fast:' Matt Ryan's Up-Tempo Emphasis Is Keeping The Colts Focused, Engaged And Efficient During Training Camp - Not only does Matt Ryan complete my "custom jersey" duo with the Joe Ryan Twins jersey, but he makes the Colts better. The Colts are good enough that they could probably be decent with anyone. Heck, they almost went to the playoffs with Carson Wentz last year, and did with Philip Rivers the year before. The problem is, this was a core built originally with Andrew Luck in mind, and they haven't had a stable quarterback situation. They haven't been bad enough to rectify that, and they want to seize on an opportunity before the Jaguars start coming around. It's good to hear that Ryan is being so well received, and have a little confidence that he is the right man for the job. Maybe he will even stick around for a couple of years. 

Purdue's spot among the conference shuffle

 Purdue is a bit of an anomaly as a University. It is a Land Grant institution, a public school in the Midwest, big and independent of the other state school systems, Indiana and Indiana State. It's a third major state school when many states have only one or two institutions or systems. 

As it stands, Purdue fits in pretty well with the rest of the Big Ten. It seems like a private school, given the name and reputation, but it's backing comes from tax dollars, just the same as every other member of the Big Ten (save for Northwestern), though in 2023-4, that will change. The conference is adding UCLA and privately funded USC.

A lot of Purdue's graduates are from the Chicago area, and the market is generally split between Northwestern, Purdue and Illinois in inexact measure. The diaspora of Northwestern and Purdue grads is greater than that of Illinois, giving the Boilermakers a greater audience outside of Chicago when their teams are on TV. 

Purdue is pulling it's weight in the Big Ten, and fits in with what the rest of the conference is all about. Even though it was one of the first members of the conference, and is well positioned within it. It's crazy to even talk about this, but with all of the tumult of conference expansion and realignment, and two very blue blooded programs from California of all places joining next year, it seemed like a pertinent topic for discussion.

Also, perhaps more than any other school in the Big Ten, or at least as much as any, they are perfectly content with adding whichever the most high revenue schools are that they can add. Sure, there are travel issues, but they are right in the middle of the conference. They likely don't have many worries about moving east or west as they grow. 

As ever, Notre Dame is the biggest target, and they have a lot to offer the Boilermakers. An inherent rival and much less travel than other potential additions for sports outside of the revenue activities, in addition to the built in national audience. Aside from Notre Dame, the primary objective for Purdue and any additions, I imagine, is that sweet, sweet cash flow. They are athletically capable and enough of a contributor that they shouldn't feel threatened by expansion or realignment.

The way I see it, there are two  paths forward for the Big Ten, and either way should be amenable to the Boilers. The first is with Notre Dame, which would likely mean three more teams to get up to 20. I suggest Boston College, Virginia and North Carolina as additions in this scenario. The second is without Notre Dame, and the conference could work to accommodate their California brethren. In this scenario, they would raid the Pac 12 again, with Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Stanford and California all standing as options. Heck, even Arizona State plays in the Big Ten for hockey.

Almost everyone without a financial stake in the game ranges from frustrated to distraught with conference realignment. It's not good for competition, or for fostering regional rivalries, or supportive of the little guy overcoming adversity. But Purdue does have a financial stake, and they are going to be happy to go along with anything that comes down the road. 

Bullpens aren't easy

 Let me just say, that I understand and agree: the results of the Twins' methodology for bullpen construction are unacceptable. That said, I have no issue with the actual methodology. 

Saturday night, after Joe Smith had an extremely rough outing in relief, and a local Twins blogger lamented that Smith was the "only player the Twins added in the bullpen" which is not true, and even if it was, Smith brought some very good outings to start his Twins career. For the record, Minnesota also added, to varying levels of success, Emilio Pagan, Trevor Megill, Jharel Cotton and Jhon Romero, and likely would have used Chris Archer there as well, were it not for injuries that ravaged the team's pitching staff.

Now obviously, that isn't really a who's who of elite pitching talent, but frankly, that's the way teams successfully build bullpens. Look at the Twins of 2019, the last full season of good Twins baseball. The three busiest relievers were grown in house - Taylor Rogers, Trevor May and Tyler Duffey, but the next two were a waiver claim in Ryne Harper, and their one major league free agent signing, Blake Parker.

The person complaining about Smith being the only player acquired was obviously lamenting the fact that the Twins didn't make any additional free agent signings. Never mind that they have an extremely rugged history with relief acquisitions. Alex Colome had his worst season in baseball with the Twins last year. There was Hansel Robles, Tyler Clippard, Parker, Fernando Rodney, Addison Reed, Zach Duke and Matt Belisle before them. There was some success there. It wasn't universal.

In fact, that's a pretty bad bullpen. Colome and Reed were probably the most high profile signings out of that group, but Clippard and Duke may have been the most successful. And lest you think that there is something wrong with how the Twins have signed free agent relievers, I tell you the free agency market for bullpen arms is fraught with uncertainty.

MLB Trade Rumors had 6 relief pitchers among their top 50 free agents this year. I presume that these are the relievers people wish the Twins had signed this year. While if you swapped any of them out for Joe Smith, it would be an improvement, but more likely, you would have swapped them with Griffin Jax at the beginning of the year, and it is less of a benefit. 

The important point, though, is how difficult it is to figure out who will and will not be successful. Of those pitchers, Kenley Jansen is the one having the best season in terms of WAR, though with a 3.53 ERA, demonstrating the mercurial statistics of relief pitchers. Next? Hector Neris. Is that who you expected? Corey Knebel and Ryan Tepera have been worth 0 WAR. 

A lot of people have pointed to the trade of Taylor Rogers tis offseason as well. Given that his results this season are better than they have been since 2019, it's hard for me to say that the Twins made a misstep in trading him, especially since Chris Paddack has been worth .9 WAR in his 22 innings of work. That's more than any of the free agent relievers, outside of Jansen, in the entire first half of the season, and Paddack will be a Twin for two more seasons. 

Again, this is a league where results matter, and the Twins 'pen hasn't been providing them. I am hard pressed to agree that the Twins didn't make enough moves to try to sort it out. They did plenty, but things haven't broken their way, and performance from many players has been subpar. Complain about the assessment of the bullpen arms before the season, and the depth, but the action was there.

And because bullpen arms are so perennially suspect, bullpen arms are the most likely pieces to be moved at the deadline, and the easiest to acquire. This is a front office that has remained active in their 5 years in charge, and it would be foolish to assume that they won't be this trade season as well. 

Let's talk about what's really bugging the Twins

 

After the last couple of weeks, it seems like the Twins have grounded into about 1,000 double plays. The number is still a league leading 71 GIDPs, which is very frustrating, but also it makes sense. Lefties are more likely to ground into double plays, and you can only do that if you have runners on base. Look at how the lineup unfolds most nights. Two of the best table setters in the game, with Arraez and Correa early, often followed by lefties like Jorge Polanco, Alex Kirilloff, or Max Kepler. 

What doesn't make sense is how the Twins completely shut off as games continue on. Fangraphs have a statistic called "Clutch" which measures how a player performs in high leverage situations versus their typical performance. 

The Twins as a team are a -1.06, which qualifies as "poor". Lest you think that this is standard, that teams just naturally perform more poorly in stressful situations, the Twins are 21st in the league in "clutch". Naturally, owing the spurious nature of baseball, especially on something like this which will likely ultimately converge to "0", one might believe that this is something that will settle out this season. Alas, the Twins have been well under 0 for the last 4 season.

One can come up with all sorts of reasons why this might be the case, but the mix of players every season is different, and looking at things more granularly, the "Clutch" score for player to player is inconsistent. Jorge Polanco has been near the top of the list a few times, except when he was near the bottom in 2019. Miguel Sano found himself towards the bottom, but he was one of the best before his injury this season. 

So with a normally spurious statistic, and a lot of noise among individual players, what gives? Why are the Twins so subpar at executing in clutch? The only plausible reason that I can come up with is that curses are real, and the Minnesota curse has struck again.

There is a lot of ink spilled over the Twins and their pitching, but the offense and whatever ancient artifact is spirited away in Tommy Watkins locker.

The same story: trade from strength

My standing opinion of teams at the deadline is that if a team is likely to make the postseason, they should really go for it. Only one team gets to win it, and anything can happen in the postseason. The Twins find themselves in first place in the AL Central with an increasing grip on the league as the White Sox and Guardians get battered on their schedule. The Twins should really go for it.

There is a widespread view online that there was a miserable failure of roster construction and pitching development by the front office. Had the bullpen had better options, they wouldn't have blown those three games against the Guardians, and could have had a double digit lead in the division. That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is that the team is only a couple of players away from being truly dominant. Even better is that there is a wide array of pitchers that lift the floor of the bullpen. The Twins won't have to break the bank to improve the weakest point of the roster at the trade deadline. 

That wouldn't really be going for it, though. Instead of taking the bullpen from the potential for being a nightly car accident you can't turn away to being OK, the Twins can instead try to make the bullpen a strength if they are aggressive in the trade market this month. They have plenty of resources in order to make it happen.

I'm just going to point to one idea, knowing full well it may not work for everyone, but addresses some thoughts for the Twins. It's a three way deal to make it work for everyone. We'll look at every component that involves the Twins.

Twins get
SP Frankie Montas,  RP AJ Puk, MiLB C Rickardo Perez

A's get
MiLB 3b Spencer Steer, MiLB P's Andrew Painter, Damon Jones

Phillies get
RF Max Kepler

Like I said, this might not work for a variety of reasons. Namely, the Baseball Trade Values chart is probably not fully aligned with what GMs are thinking, and Damon Jones currently finds himself on the injured list, but the idea from the Twins perspective is there. 

First, the Twins have a need for pitchers out of the bullpen, so adding former top prospect AJ Puk makes sense. Any Twins rumor for the past 6 months has revolved around Frankie Montas, but in this instance, adding another starter allows the Twins to employ one of their starters as a shut down long reliever, which eases the burden on the rest of the pen. 

The last element coming the Twins' way, from Philadelphia is Rookie league catcher Rickardo Perez, helping to supplement some of the depth behind the plate in the organization.

The two players going out come from parts of the organization that are currently robust. Spencer Steer, this year's version of Jose Miranda, looks like he might be blocked in the long term by... Jose Miranda. The A's are said to love Steer, so he is an obvious component in any deal with the A's. 

The other area of strength is in the corner outfield. Not only do the Twins have a lot of talent in the upper minors or at the major league roster ready to play in the corner outfield, it appears to be a hot commodity on the trade market. The Twins have many capable corner outfielders coming up, and if the Twins can move Kepler instead of Kirilloff or Larnach, they would jump at the opportunity. The Phillies are reputed to be one of the teams sniffing around at Andrew Benintendi, and would likely be open to another option should the possibility arise. 

The Twins will have the wherewithal to make a move this summer, and they should have the motivation. Many times, it's a challenge to figure out what a team can do to get that extra edge, but this year, the writing is on the will. They should really go for it.