Orgfiller

Looks like he was saving some velo on purpose for when he needed to get big outs.

Austin Wells with some brutal "blocking" attempts this game already.

Infield playing back with Vlad who's a GB machine is an odd, if not baffling decision. We'll take the free run.

This is a good thing with us having to use all of our good relievers yesterday.

Gimenez with some of the best baserunning I’ve ever seen from a Blue Jay.

Kirk’s been elite at throwing out runners since 2024.

Yeah I feel you, but bases loaded to a good lefty isn’t exactly inspiring for Berrios. Could just as easily be 4-0 with one swing.

Ben Rice is no slouch and Berrios gets clobbered by lefties.

Roden and Wagner in the doghouse facing a crappy righty, damn. To be fair, we probably need Ernie at third with the rockets that are gonna be hit to the hot corner against Berrios.

bWAR is pretty bad for evaluating catcher value since it misses a lot of modern components involved in catcher defense. Kirk is at 0.1 (similarly bad) fWAR since his defense generally grades as elite or near elite.

The big difference here is that Schneider literally could not touch the high fastball. Roden is just driving it into the ground, and he's demonstrated a much better hit tool that should allow him to make adjustments to these pitches.

I'm of the opinion that as much as Wagner and Roden have been swinging a pool noodle to date, it's far too early to give up on them. They're not being completely overpowered or the K/whiff rates would be bad. Roden in particularly hasn't been drawing as many walks as you would want, but he's a guy getting his first taste at the MLB level so he could be pressing, or just hasn't made the adjustments to make himself feel comfortable with taking more pitches. The projections for both these guys are what they are because their success at the upper minors was legit, despite merely okay power numbers. Not many Ks, good amount of walks, lots of line drives, that's been their profile. I don't think there's any good reason to send them to AAA just yet, this could just make things worse. Roden needs to fix his swing path, there's no question about this, to what extent the team believes this can be worked on at the MLB level versus a lower pressure environment will be the determining factor. He's providing value in other areas which has been a surprising development, so while he's not totally killing you, see if he can make adjustments on the fly.

Crochet struggling with his command and the M's broadcast is picking up every single F bomb he's dropping clear as day lol.

Not buying that at all just yet. His top end exit velos aren't that good, and he's overperforming his xWOBA pretty significantly. He's probably a true talent 15-20 HR bat unless he significantly alters his approach. His K/BB rates are pretty bad and I don't know if he has a Bichette hit tool or Javy Baez bat speed + power tool to make up for it.

Romano blows another one. Going for the 10th inning save, he allows a groundball to advance the runner, a deep double to score the tying run, IBB, strikeout, bloop single to lose the game. Bunch of hanging sliders. Fastball didn't even look bad but he hardly used it.

Barger is one of the stiffest dudes I can think of, so I think the infield dream for him is over. The arm is excellent but I just don't think he can move laterally very well, and I shudder remembering what he looked like at third last season.

It's weird that they continue to sit Barger, which makes me think he's the one heading down once Varsho returns to the team. I thought Lukes was a shoo-in for a demotion but his performance and the fact that he won't care whether he's playing or not might keep him on the roster for a bit longer.

Okay? We're just going to ignore projections now because the team is in a rough stretch?

Fangraphs has us projected at 40% odds to make the playoffs right now.

@Brock Beauchamp

I believe Will Wagner has officially graduated prospect eligibility. He's at 131 career ABs which means he has exceeded rookie status.

The Padres are kind of the posterboys of what a team with a bunch of potential/actual albatross contracts looks like. Cronenworth is signed until 2030 and he's been trending down since 2022. Relatively cheap at least. Yu Darvish is signed until 2028 for inexplicable reasons. He's 38, declining, and hasn't pitched since the first half of last season. $18M AAV Joe Musgrove has two more years after 2025 at $20M per. Pitched a combined 200 IP the first two seasons, recovering from TJS. Bogaerts signed for 8 more years at huge money as you mentioned. Machado, who is still pretty good, is signed until 2033. He's settled in as a ~3.5 WAR player which is good for now but is likely to decline in the coming years. $31.8M AAV

I agree with you, although even those guys at the end that you mentioned are unlikely to be anywhere near the worst contracts in the sport. Even if all of them are complete negatives, their total hit isn't even that bad. Combined they probably make less than Anthony Rendon's contract. Or Stephen Strasburg's. True horrendous contracts are guys that were paid star level contracts for their performance in their 20s, with the contract mostly in their early to late 30s - Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Xander Bogaerts. Or pitchers, the most likely to be albatrosses due to injury. Robbie Ray is in a 5/115 deal, he had one okay season in the first year of the contract, missed practically two straight years with TJS, and might suck now.

The Twins have the fifth worst offense in the majors thus far. This seems less like a vote of confidence and more that they desperately need some offense at the top.

I mean, the team is 8th in position player fWAR, and still a roughly average offense despite Bo and Vlad displaying no power and significantly underperforming their xStats and Santander being a black hole in the 3 spot. It's not like it hasn't been working thus far, and I don't think it's that they heavily value contact ability necessarily, or rather devalue power, but there's a problem in how they bring it out in some players. Popkins seems to be the type of guy to target damage and it hasn't really paid off obviously, hopefully we see results emerge as the season goes along. It's easy to say that their target as a team is to be the 2015 Royals and I just think they've been trying to find wins where they can get them. Gimenez and Varsho are guys who they might find undervalued, but it doesn't mean they think these prototypes for a player are the blueprint for a winning team.