Orgfiller

He kinda just shows up to the dugout and is such a nice guy that nobody has the heart to tell him he can't be there.

With Anthony's arm they definitely sent him on purpose. Made a surprisingly good throw.

Okamoto is so slow lol, rare good throw from Roman Anthony out there. Nice hit from Pinango.

The Red Sox are hitting atom balls all over the place lol. That flyout from Contreras was hit even harder than his HR at 108. xBA of .384

Much better looking velo from Lauer early on. 91-92 on the fastball.

Barriera I'm not as concerned because he didn't quite show the level of tantalizing talent + performance as Ricky T did. If they want him to sink or swim as a starter and have to dump/make him available in the rule 5 if it doesn't work, that's fine with me. Ricky T in theory could be a contributor already, assuming the stuff and command hasn't backed up completely following years of injuries. Barriera is still very much a work in progress to even get back to "potential contributor" status.

At this point you just have to hope that he can stay healthy enough to pitch full seasons out of the bullpen. He could be an Aaron Ashby type weapon, another former top lefty prospect with monster stuff who had trouble staying healthy. Ashby pretty frequently pitches 1+ innings, I'd probably check that Ricky T can even pitch 50 1 IP stints before testing that though.

He's been injured so often that he's a shell of the player he showed flashes of while - big caveat - healthy. His hardest hit ball in the MLB was 102.5 mph lol. Truly horrendous.

Gimenez

I'm not sure if Rogers has those same restrictions. Sure, he probably shouldn't be throwing on 3 consecutive days except on emergencies, but I'm not sure if there's the same need for concern with him throwing 4 out of 5 days. He's old and might get general body soreness but it's not like his arm is under extreme duress to warrant the same worry.

I'm going to assume his command is still rusty coming back, so wouldn't be surprised to see a few walks and maybe a mistake that is hammered. If the stuff is good though, he'll be able to work himself out of trouble. He probably goes 4 for 65-75 pitches (no idea how built up he is) and keeps us in the game, if only the offense could not repeat last night's effort.

Ernie

This one always comes to mind for me:

I think one thing his early season eye test has shown, is that when he's been struggling he's been really in between. No real conviction on swinging early at good pitches, he panics once he gets to 2 strikes and does weird half swings because striking out is dishonourable in Japanese culture or whatever. I think if he can't over having his best "A" swing at all times, or isn't good enough to stay alive on 2 strike counts, then he needs to be swinging earlier looking to do damage. Part of this I think hopefully can come during the adjustment period, once he gets more comfortable with how the league approaches him. He's a very powerful hitter who can do serious damage to all parts of the field, and can connect on velocity. The early numbers show he doesn't chase a lot, and I think he can get even better here once he's less in between after getting more exposure to MLB pitching. Take your walks, swing hard all the time, and try to do your damage early if 2 strike counts continue to be a problem. I think this will indicate if he needs to be swinging more or less often.

Has to be Piña

The hipster answer to this is Dillon Dingler btw. Elite defense combined with 99th percentile xwOBA? The hitting doesn't seem sustainable though, his top end exit velo is not elite and the projections don't love him, so how long can he keep pummeling the baseball with like 50 grade power? Is the hit tool better than advertised?

Drake Baldwin: new BCIB? The defense is nothing impressive, but the offense might be getting better from last season, and the projections are buying it. Gen-Z Will Smith?

At this point I'm wondering if he's (Lauer) more injured than he's letting on and not telling anyone about it. An injury could hurt his FA market, especially if by the time he's back he's been lapped in the rotation by all the returning arms. He's been averaging like 88-89 on his heater his last few starts for god's sake, he looks awful out there. Now he's wearing weird neck tape that the manager didn't even know about. I think he's hurt but is trying to prolong staying in the rotation as long as he can, but it's only costing him more because he looks next to unplayable at the moment.

People were quick to write him off after uhh...having a 92 wRC+ in A+ at 19 years old while vastly improving his K rate? But if he keeps this up he's easily in AA at 20 years old by the end of the year, which is very much still top prospect territory. None of the prospect publications have even written him off, he's firmly top 100 in all of them, averaging out around the 75 mark. Even more encouragingly, they all seem to think he'll be able to stick at SS. Willy Adames here we come.

2023: 84 IP, 9.4% BB rate 2024: 62 IP 5.5% BB rate 2025 with TOR: 6.1% BB rate 2025 with MIN: 15.9% BB rate 2026: 18.9% BB rate wtf did the Twins do to him? Is it just a matter of more advanced hitters being able to see his stuff? His K rate has gone down with the Twins as well, although the sample size in AAA and above is not very large

Kendry Rojas debuted. Stuff is pretty impressive, that's some sick velo from a lefty. The command has significantly backed up since he joined the Twins however. Changed something mechanically to get more out of his stuff (which was already quite good), but at the cost of a more repeatable delivery?

Fisher was the right call there though? While groundballs are great, they have a higher chance of squeezing through a hole, you want strikeouts with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Fisher came in and did just that. The walk hurt him, but then he induced a weak .060 xBA bloop bases clearing double and then a pop up that Ernie played poorly. He did his job for the most part, just got crazy unlucky with the results.

Tyler Rogers is nuts lol. Weak contact merchant

He has but not in ways that suggest it’s sustainable. His exit velos haven’t been impressive, he’s just hitting singles all over the place.

John Schneider is a genius