Episode 1336: Season Preview Series: Twins and Phillies

Date

February 15, 2019

Summary

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about differently shaped players being in the best shape of their lives, the Luis Severino extension, and three trends: the disappearance of highly ranked pitching prospects, the plateauing of league-wide fastball velocity, and arbitration-eligible players signing team-friendly extensions. Then they preview the 2019 Minnesota Twins (17:54) with Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Aaron Gleeman, and the 2019 Philadelphia Phillies (46:23) with The Athletic Philadelphia’s lead Phillies writer, Matt Gelb.

Topics

Twins

• Willians Astudillo
• Twins offseason moves
• Nelson Cruz
• Joe Mauer money
• Are there more moves to make
• Twins early extensions
• Jake Cave
• Byron Buxton
• Miguel Sano
• Twins managerial move
• Front office changes
• Raising the strikeout rate
• Jose Barrios
• How close are the Twins

Phillies

• The Phillies offseason
• Is the offseason complete
• Bryce Harper and Manny Machado chatter
• Why did Phillies breakdown last season
• JT Realmuto trade
• Sixto Sanchez
• Gabe Kapler
• Player development changes
• Seranthony Dominguez
• Nick Pivetta

Intro

• The Microphones, "I Felt Your Shape"

Interstitials

• Jeremy Messersmith, "Fast Times in Minnesota"
• Prince, "Still Waiting"

Outro

• Leonard Cohen, "The Guests"

Banter

• Best shape of their life guys
• Extensions for everyone
• Velocity plateau
• Pitching prospects, or lack thereof

Notes

• “Can you imagine a guy walking in actually half his former self” - Ben
• Aaron predicted the Twins would win 84 games this season.
• Matt predicted the Phillies will win 86 games this year with no more moves, and 88 wins with Harper or Machado.

Links

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1336-season-preview-series-twins-and-phillies/

Link to Ben’s article about pitching prospects

Link to Jeff’s velocity research

Link to Jeff’s post about the Kepler extension

Link to Jeff’s post about the Severino extension

Link to Baseball Mogul offer

Link to preorder The MVP Machine