On to October

 

It's been a rocky road, but ultimately, the Twins did it. They are AL Central champs. Now to win a playoff game.

Digging a little deeper, finding out the whole story

Emilio Pagan has a reputation that is hard to shake here in Minnesota. He had a tough year last year, one that was so rough that it's hard to look past in order to see how good he has been this year. There is more to it than performance, I believe. Taylor Rogers, the closer that was dealt to the Padres as part of the deal was fairly popular. Pagan already had a bit of a hill to climb to get into the good graces of Twins fans, and his performances against Cleveland didn't help.

A cursory look at Pagan showed he broke out with the Rays and Padres, both organizations with smart front offices and the ability to delve tactfully into the international market, and the initial perception of Pagan is that he is another Hispanic wunderkind that the Rays dredged up. Digging even a little bit shows that Pagan started in the Seattle organization, bounced to Oakland and eventually went to Tampa. And while he is Puerto Rican, he is actually from the Charlotte area. He sounds like this:

When you hear the name, especially given the number of Latin American players in the league, you might initially think you know what to expect, and it probably isn't Carolina southerner.

Not until you dig deeper. That's what the Twins did with him too. Pagan's raw numbers were inexcusably bad last season, but the Twins liked his stuff. They also saw that some of his peripheral numbers were out of whack. Home runs per fly ball, batting average on balls in play, and his walk rate, were all very bad by any standard, even versus his career numbers.

2023 seems like a correction. Certainly, some of those same categories are now even better than his career figures. The walk rate is encouraging, and he should be even better with strikeouts than he has been this year. Digging deeper, as the Twins did, would show that this is closer to the Emilio Pagan we should know. 

The Carolina righty with an electric fastball.

The Marlins Magic

Twins fans spent the first half of the season looking closely at the Miami Marlins, wondering what might have been. Obviously, this was because the Twins and Marlins made a major trade over the offseason. Luis Arraez came out at the beginning of the year to a ton of attention, while Pablo Lopez's results weren't yet matching his metrics. It didn't help that the Twins were inconsistent, and the Marlins seemed to do no wrong.

Now that the Twins are getting more proficient on offense, people around here haven't really focused on the Marlins or the trade for a while. Arraez also hasn't been as otherworldly as he was to start the season. He's still been the best player for the Marlins by a pretty wide margin, especially on the offensive side of the ball. 

Arraez is the top player by WAR for the Marlins this year, and the next 5 players on the list are in the starting rotation. One might suspect that this is because the rotation is very good, which it is, but also, the Marlins offense is very bad. The Twins offense has been moribund this season, but still, there are SEVEN position players for the Twins that would be better than the 2nd best Marlins position player this season, including Jorge Polanco and Edouard Julien, the replacements for Arraez at 2nd this year. 

If the Twins had attained the results they expected from their two highest end position players, I think we would more clearly recognize Minnesota for the well rounded team they are. There is plenty of offensive talent on the Twins roster, and last season, the Twins learned the value of pitching depth. It's easy for me, because of the logic fand because of how often we reflected on this move earlier in the year, to see the logic and the benefit of the move for the Twins.

What I don't think enough people understand, though, is how utterly lost the Marlins would be without Arraez. The Twins added another weapon to a rotation that needed health to really thrive. The addition of Arraez gave Miami a decent player. The third highest WAR among Marlins position players is utility guy John Berti. The Marlins, thanks to their rotation and Arraez, are still somehow in the playoff hunt.

The Marlins are clearly able to develop pitchers -- they had one to spare in Lopez, and still are riding their arms this season. Their offensive ineptitude makes me think it was lucky they grabbed Arraez in this trade rather than any sort of real prescience. 

A simple look under the hood for the Marlins should show the team that they need to work on their offense this offseason. With a weak free agent class this off season, maybe they can try to work a little magic on the trade market. It worked once.

Cable Crunch

 The best part about Cable TV, or over the air TV, anyways, is the ability to flip channels. As we sit here now, I am flipping from the Twins game to Monday Night Football, all with the press of a button. That is right now the last best thing about over the air TV, the ability to toggle through live events easily.

Sure, if you have more than one screen, or multiple apps completely eviscerating your CPU, you could watch a bunch of events with a simple flip of a button or what have you. On college football Saturday's it would be a challenge to have several ESPN versions running, in addition to Fox Sports, Youtube or whatever college games are going to be on. And during the postseason, I would want MLB.TV up and running as well...

With Bally Sports about to collapse, the Minnesota sports teams are going to be free agents. The only local area networks that I can think of that might be able to secure the rights to keep local sports on air locally are things like 45, WFTC or the CW. Don't count out the CW, which has purchased the rights to LIV and Inside the NFL. They are making a sports play, and local sports rights might be next.

But then the Loons and the rest of MLS have gone to Apple TV. I can't imagine other sports will be different. We already have Amazon, Peacock and ESPN taking pro sports online. There is a decent chance local sports are taken out of locals' hands, as with the MLS. With TV deal money already becoming limited, the inability to tap into local interest seems like it could be ruinous for the non-NFL leagues.

The next few years are going to be tough for sports fans, especially those like me, who like to watch a quantity of sports, as we adapt, and will be forced to pick and choose what it is we want to enjoy.  The rest of the TV world was subsidizing sports ans forever, so I guess turnabout is fair play.

The next best thing about Cable TV was the array of channels that I can turn on and leave to take in idly.  Law and Order marathons, cooking shows, weather, things like that. Now, there is plenty of 'free' live television, or subscription television, like FreeVee, Peacock and Paramount +. You can leave it on for hours without having to be invested in anything, and it's great.

If only there was a platform that could aggregate all the live sports for us now. I don't think that's going to be happening, though. And that's a bummer.

Well, well, well, the Twins are heating up

 The Twins have been in front of the AL Central, and after taking 2/3 from the Cleveland Guardians, in Cleveland and after they made a bold move to claim three players on waivers, have essentially ended the race, in their favor. They lost this afternoon, but with a resurgent offense and a weak slate of upcoming opponents, the door is wide open for the home town 9. 

The consternation over the bullpen is important over the final stretch of the season. With the pacing of playoff series, starters can go longer, and back of the rotation starters, like Kenta Maeda, a very good starter in his own right, will also move to the bullpen. Bailey Ober may come back and pitch out of the 'pen. With starters like Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan, the concern over the relief corps should be diminished in the post season.

Through the first half of the season, the bats were completely dormant. As the season progressed, three things have happened. First, players that were slumping are coming around. I'm looking at you, Max Kepler. 2nd half Carlos Correia, Ryan Jeffers and even Christian Vasquez have been appreciably better since the break.

Then, there has been the contribution of young players, all added in season. It started with Edouard Julien, followed by Matt Wallner and most recently, emphatically, Royce Lewis. Somehow, Lewis is getting better and better as he goes. Also, importantly, he's coming through in important spots, an important trait with the playoffs looming.

Of course, the steady performance of veterans like Donovan Solano and Michael A. Taylor have been valuable, the improvement at designated hitter has been remarkable. Byron Buxton just hasn't had it this season, and while some of his other teammates were given the chance to sort things out, the DH role was improved by replacement, as it has rotated through Julien, Jeffers and Jorge Polanco. 

The Twins, despite only emerging lately, are built like a playoff team. Many fans worry that their team isn't built to reach the playoffs, but not whether or not they are built to succeed in the playoffs. This version of the Twins is built for the playoffs. They have a strong set of starting pitchers, fixable bullpen issues with anchors at the back end, and an offense littered with veteran, clutch performers. 

If Minnesota wasn't in the clutches of an unbreakable curse, I'd feel really good about their postseason chances. 

Dallas Keuchel showed us why Pablo Lopez was such a great acquisition

The conversation has died down a little bit on whether or not the Arraez/Lopez trade was worthwhile for the Twins, but the recent series with the Phillies was another piece of information in favor of Minnesota. I'm not even talking about Lopez's great outing in the season. I'm talking about Dallas Keuchel's clunker.

A lot has been made of Luis Arraez's brilliant season with the Marlins. Earlier in the year, he was very seriously flirting with .400. Now, it is around .367, thanks in part to a .260 average so far in August. Meanwhile, Pablo Lopez has almost singlehandedly kept the Twins on the right track. When the Twins were doing poorly, Lopez has come through with a dominant outing.

But this isn't a 1-1 comparison, even though, for the moment, Lopez is in a better stretch than Arraez. It's about what their absence would have meant. Bot the Twins and Marlins were able to reasonably patch over the absence of the player that they traded away. The Marlins have a deep well of starting pitchers and prospects. The Twins plugged Edouard Julien in at 2nd, and he seems like a contender for rookie of the year. Certainly, Julien is the most consistent player the Twins have had in the offense for a while.

The Marlins, even after adding Arraez, were aggressive at the deadline, adding, among others, Josh Bell and Jake Burger because they needed a serious jolt of offense. Even with Arraez, it wasn't enough for the Marlins to put together a capable offense. Would another left handed bat, no matter how much he got on base, really have made the Twins offense look more competent this season?

Now, if you subtracted Lopez from the rotation, you likely would have had more Dallas Keuchel for sooner. He was good in St. Paul, but has been a poor Major League pitcher for some time now. I fear his season opener against Philadelphia was more telling than his first. If the Twins don't have Lopez this season, then they would have more Keuchel starts. Or Louie Varland, or Simeon Woods-Richardson. Perhaps Cole Sands or Josh Winder get starts. The step back from Lopez to his replacement would be worse than Arraez to Julien. 

The Twins traded away a popular, very good player, but are better because of it. Just because the Twins won the trade doesn't mean the Marlins had to lose it either. 

The Twins are winning, even if they aren't doing what we want.

Last Saturday, the Twins enshrined Joe Mauer into the team hall of fame. Mauer is indisputably the most popular Twins since Kirby Puckett, and arguably the best Twins position player since Rod Carew. Maybe better than Carew. Whatever the case, Mauer is top 5 since the team moved to Minnesota. 

Mauer, of course, was not the player people expected him to be. He was a very good defender, first behind the plate and then at first base. He was an on base machine, nearly matching Carew's OBP, despite an average that was 20 points lower for his career. But he was 6'4 and strong, yet he wasn't ever really a power hitter.

Imagine the disrespect I felt, then, on the day Mauer was honored for his time with the Twins, the current Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers launched two dingers in the teams victory against the Diamondbacks. This win is part of the Twins 6-1 record since the trade deadline, where the Twins were generally inactive. Like Joe Mauer's power at the plate, it wasn't what fans expected and people were upset.

But like Joe Mauer at the plate, the results have been good. They just swept Arizona, took 2 out of three from the Cardinals and got their series in Detroit kicked off in dynamic fashion. Professional sports are a results based business, and with the results as they are, the inactivity looks to be merited so far.

Unlike Mauer's halcyon years, the Twins haven't been getting consistent productivity from their best players. The Twins would struggle when role players weren't producing, but they could often rely on Mauer or Justin Morneau, even Torii Hunter when they were needed, with the other role players coming up short in times of need. The 2023 Twins are the opposite.

Willi Castro continues to be one of the more valuable Twins, along with rookies Edouard Julien and Matt Wallner. The other position players in the top 12 in WAR for the Twins, according to Baseball-Reference are Donovan Solano and Michael A Taylor. The highest WAR among a position player belongs to Jeffers, who saw the Twins sign Christian Vasquez to take most of the catching reps this season. 

The players the team expected to be the best on the roster haven;t been available, or haven't played to the best of their abilities yet. Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, Alex Kirilloff, Vasquez, or Jorge Polanco have fallen flat this season. The Twins haven't had any right handed production, but the players that should be the best in that role, Buxton and Correa have been the worst.

So without an idea of the best version of the Twins, it is a challenge to properly evaluate needs. Do you give up on all those players that are struggling? Max Kepler has demonstrated the value of good faith, and Jeffers has overtaken Vasquez with his break out. The front office has more patience and confidence in the roster than we do, and it seems as though they should be getting well soon.

Not that Jeffers or Kepler are unwell right now. We might not like the process, but if we learned anything from Joe Mauer, there are many ways to be successful.