First off I don't believe that Bloom really cares if the player was signed or acquired while he was GM or while someone else was GM. There's no evidence him or anyone else factors this in when making player moves. Kepler is a significantly better player than JBJ was. He walked almost twice as often and struck out half as often. But the main difference is that even if Kepler doesn't improve and basically gives you what he gave the Twins in 22, that's still valuable. In JBJs case, he actually did improve on his 21 numbers in 22 but it wasn't enough to make him a regular. I'd have to look into it more, but off-hand I think that Kepler is a player who was hurt by the shift. His XWOBA has hovered around .340 for a few years now while his WOBA has bounced around between .300 and .350. It could be that shifting explains this difference.

dajuba, I agree with your analysis of Kepler's salary. He'll cost $9.5M in 23 The reason they can't keep Ort is due to the 40 man roster crunch they have several players to protect. If you keep Ort on the roster you have to expose a player like Chris Murphy, Thadeus Ward, or Wikelman Gonzalez. All of these players are better and younger than Ort is. If they DFA him, he's likely to be claimed because as you said he has two options remaining, makes the major league minimum and can throw 100MPH. As for your other comment, I think Kepler is a better player than JBJ was after the 21 season. I'll elaborate on that a little later.