[新聞] 波拉斯對魯城不爽啦已刪文

看板MIN-Twins作者WilMyers (#MNTwins)時間6年前 (2018/11/09 00:17)推噓0(0推 0噓 2→)

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https://reurl.cc/NX5e9 Scott Boras targeted the team that resides at Target Field and it didn’t end well for the Twins. Truthfully, the super-agent could have ripped any of a dozen or so teams during his 70-minute media session here Wednesday afternoon as he hammered home the point that tanking teams have hurt the Major League Baseball product in the stands and on television. That the Twins began the 2018 season with good intentions, a franchise-record payroll and high hopes didn’t matter as a mini tear-down resulted in seven players traded and the team drawing a Target Field-low 1.959 million fans. Boras actually beat up the Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins as much if not more on the second full day of the general-manager meetings, citing their much larger attendance woes. But his playful shot that “sometimes only one of the Twins shows up” to home games stung nonetheless for a franchise that could be a tweener this winter, a team not quite ready to go all in as it waits to see if its young core can come together. “Our intent is to be as competitive as we can,” Twins GM Thad Levine said. “Our goal is to build a team that has a chance to sustain great success. The first step in that is for us to be regarded as something more than a second-place finisher in the American League Central. The Cleveland Indians are the class of our division right now, and they’ve earned every bit of it. “Right now, we have a core of young players who are extremely dynamic and give us a real shot to propel ourselves forward. We saw some of them take a step forward in ’17, some of them take a step forward in ’18. Our goal in ’ 19 is to marry those steps forward and if we’re able to do that we may be more of a prominent contender than other teams think we would be.” The Twins are absolutely in a position where they could throw caution to the wind if they chose to. After spending a franchise-record $128.7 million on payroll last season, according to Baseball Prospectus, the Twins have the most money coming off the books in all of Major League Baseball, more than $85 million, according to Fangraphs. They also still boast a talented young core featuring the likes of José Berr íos, Byron Buxton, Miguel Sanó, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco, Max Kepler and others. But given that Buxton and Sanó took significant steps back last season, the Twins have as many questions about what they can expect from their young team in 2019 as they have answers. The uncertainty has the front office in a position where it plans to spend to flush out the roster, but also not to the extent it would have had the Twins been contenders in 2018. “We certainly had setbacks last year,” chief baseball officer Derek Falvey said. “No one would argue any different. “We’re at a place where we know we need to invest in the continued development of that group. The teams that just went to the World Series last year, there was a core of young players that helped them to get there with some free-agent supplements. But the vast majority of those teams’ value comes from the young players they have grown and developed. We still need that to happen to be as successful as we want to be.” Although there’s another wave expected to arrive in as few as two years spearheaded by Boras clients Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff, internally the Twins are hopeful it can occur with the current young group. But for that to happen, Buxton and Sanó need to rebound from a season in which Falvey estimated they finished in the fifth-10th percentile of the team’s internal statistical projections. The duo produced minus-0.4 Wins Above Replacement, according to Fangraphs just a year after they combined for 5.9 f-WAR. However, with plenty of financial flexibility to go around, the Twins expect to spend some money on players in free agency and perhaps acquire other talent through trades. One area the Twins could target is starting pitching. While Berríos has four more years of team control ahead and the team has a slew of talented young arms, Kyle Gibson, Jake Odorizzi and Michael Pineda are all under contract for next season only. The Twins have already been attached to veteran free-agent pitcher J.A. Happ, according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi. Happ, 36, had a 3.65 ERA in 31 starts for the Blue Jays and Yankees and made his first career All-Star appearance in 2018. Though a play for Patrick Corbin — the 28-year-old who had a 3.15 ERA in 33 starts and was an All-Star for the Diamondbacks last season — seems unlikely, the Twins sound as if they’ll be active to bolster their rotation. The Twins also are seeking help in the middle infield after trading both Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar. Both headed for free agency, Escobar re-signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks last month while Dozier is in search of a new home. The Twins feel as if they have flexibility in their search for middle infield help as shortstop Jorge Polanco could slide over to second base if they found a competent, strong defender at shortstop. Already this offseason, the Twins have been tied to Detroit Tigers free-agent shortstop José Iglesias. Though he only has a .678 OPS over the past four seasons, the 28-year-old Iglesias has produced 7.9 f-WAR in part because of his steady glove. The addition of Iglesias would strengthen a Twins infield defense that was porous in 2018. Iglesias has combined to produce 5 defensive runs saved and a 31.1 Ultimate Zone Rating — a metric that measures overall defensive contribution, with zero being average — over the past four seasons. “We know on the infield that we were going to need to find ways to get better,” Falvey said. “In the second half of the year, our info and data would say that our positioning improved, there were some things that we did that helped us. But, I think we certainly need to see improvement from everybody across the board.” The Twins are also awaiting a decision from veteran first baseman Joe Mauer, who is a free agent for the first time in his career and mulling retirement. Were Mauer to retire, the Twins have another opportunity to be flexible as they potentially could move Sanó from third base to first. The Twins still see Sanó as a third baseman, but think that having flexibility all around the infield affords them more options to improve their team. “If you get too married to one thing, you may miss real opportunities that present themselves,” Levine said. The Twins also could find themselves in the market for a designated hitter after Logan Morrison struggled in 2018 and the team declined to pick up his 2019 club option. Falvey and Levine also suggested the Twins could dip into a loaded relief market to build up a bullpen that has plenty of promise, but could use more depth. But in the end, it all comes back to what the Twins can get out of their homegrown talent. “For us to be successful, we have to build around our core,” Falvey said. “ Our core has to grow and develop. Some of that group took steps backward. I view free agency to be the supplement to building a team, not necessarily the primary driver. But because we do have a little bit more flexibility maybe than we did a year ago just in terms of what is already allocated, we’re certainly going to have some open-minded conversations about anybody on the board.” Boras thinks that step forward is more likely to involve Lewis and Kirilloff, the No. 7 and No. 10-rated prospects in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline. Lewis hit .292/.352/.451 with 14 home runs and 28 steals in 538 trips to the plate between two levels last season. Kirilloff hit an incredible .348/.392/.578 with a combined 20 home runs in 561 plate appearances last season. Though both made huge strides in 2018, neither is expected to arrive in the majors next season as they both finished the year at High-A Fort Myers. Until then, the Twins could be a target for Boras’s playful banter. “When Alex and Royce arrive, I think the other Twin will show up at the ballpark,” Boras said. -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc), 來自: 140.115.197.252 ※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/MIN-Twins/M.1541693841.A.990.html