You all care about this site. The next step is caring for it. We’re asking you to caretake this site so it can remain the premier Twins community on the internet.
Hello all, It is a great time of the year to be a baseball rumor junkie and (finally) a Twins fan. In last years blueprint forum I advocated a complete teardown in trading both Dozier and Santana. This year I am advocating for just the opposite. I think the Twins are entering year 1 of a 5-year window to truly contend. I say 5 years because that is one year longer than the Twins have team control over key players such as Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Rosario, and Buddy Boshers (Kidding). I extend this
With Major League Baseball free agency ready to get underway, general managers and organizations will begin pitching to players why they should sign with their respective teams. For the Twins, pitching will once again remain a focus, but for a team looking to take the next step, a nice offensive additional may not be a bad play. There's multiple options out there, but a former divisional foe should be the place they turn first. That guy is Carlos Santana. The former Cleveland Indians slugger i
What a year! 2016 2017 changeActual Wins 59 85 +26 Improving by 26 games is quite a feat. So how did the 2017 Twins get there? 2016 2017 changeActual Wins 59 85 +26Pythag Wins 66 83 +17Luck -7 +2 +9 Okay, so the actual improvement was more like 17 games. The "Luck" here is shorthand for the difference between their wins and the wins we should have expected given their run totals--in other words, the advantage the Twins h
This is an excerpt from a Zone Coverage article which appears in full here. Please click the link. The Minnesota Twins exhibited significant growth in 2017, winning 85 games just one season after crumbling to the depths of 103-loss despair. A lot of it was done with in-house guys, as the only significant additions were a decent reliever (Matt Belisle) and a good catcher (Jason Castro). The rest of the bump came from within. But if we saw anything in October, it was that, while the Twins were
This is an excerpt from a post at Zone Coverage. It appears in full here. It’s not terribly controversial to suggest that the Houston Astros just climbed the summit to reach heights that fans hope are possible in the near future for the Minnesota Twins. Like, winning the World Series is the ultimate goal, and seeing a team that was -- at least for a stretch -- going through their rebuild concurrently with the Twins should give fans at least a semblance of hope for the future. But what it s
How have the Minnesota Twins done in the MLB Draft in the past and recently? The Minnesota Twins has to make the most out of every player they acquire through the draft. You can say that about every team in Major League Baseball but, some of those teams have the ability to make up for a bad draft every now and then. They can stretch the payroll to go get top tier free agents or make a big trade to acquire players who have already established themselves as great players. Those teams are the e
In 2017, one of the greatest deficiencies for the Minnesota Twins was the lack of quality relief pitching. While the starting rotation left plenty to be desired on its own, it was the bullpen that generally provided little in the way of resistance when tasked to come in and back up a start. Minnesota needs to address that this offseason, but what if they don't look anywhere but within? Over the course of the early offseason, I've considered plenty of different ways the Twins could spend their
On Monday June 8, 2015 the Houston Astros franchise changed. Really, every franchise across Major League Baseball changed as they added an influx of new talent through the First-Year player draft. Houston though, selected a shortstop from LSU with the second overall pick, and Alex Bregman set forth on a path that would greatly enhance the Astros future. In this same draft, the Twins would select 6th overall. Following the selections of three collegiate players and two high-schoolers, they chos
It’s the birthday of Twins all-time great Jim Perry, born in Williamston, North Carolina in 1935. Perry came up with the Cleveland ballclub in 1959 at the age of 23, finishing runner-up to Washington’s Bob Allison in American League Rookie of the Year balloting. His sophomore season he tied with Baltimore’s Chuck Estrada for the AL lead with 18 wins. He made his first All-Star team in 1961. The Twins acquired Perry from Cleveland on May 2, 1963 for Jack Kralick, who had pitched the first no-
The Minnesota Twins took the first step to improving their pitching staff on Thursday, as the club announced they’ve hired Garvin Alston as the new pitching coach on the big-league staff. Alston is the 16th pitching coach in Twins history, and fourth since 1985 according to a team release. Alston finished 2017 as the bullpen coach for the Oakland A’s, and began the season as a pitching rehab coordinator for the San Diego Padres. He’s spent 13 years coaching in some capacity in professional bas
The Minnesota Twins, and really baseball as a whole, is just a matter of weeks away from making a flurry of transactions. With the World Series already underway, the rest of the baseball world will again be joined by the Astros and Dodgers in the offseason. For Minnesota, an anticipated break from baseball includes plenty of potential roster moves. First and foremost however, they need to make room. Currently, the Twins have a full 40 man roster, with 45 players occupying some sort of a role.
This is an excerpt of an article that appears in full on Zone Coverage here. Please click through. This is a series of evaluations that will be done this offseason on every player that closed the season on the 40-man roster for the Minnesota Twins throughout the winter until each player has been evaluated. The plan is to start with Mr. Belisle and move all the way through the pitchers, then to the catchers, infielders, outfielders and finally those listed as designated hitters on the club’s of
The Twins might be done for 2017, but the Supershow will never die! With Stubbs out of town, the boys invade New Thompson South. Dantez and Panda break down the 2017 post-season, reminisce about Glen Perkins’ major league career, machinate on what might happen with the 2018 Twins, and what games they’d love to see on a N64 Classic! You can find this show and all previous shows on Spreaker, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts. Don’t forget to leave a like, comment, and share this
Continuing in the off-season series, today looking at the free agent market for starting pitching: who's available and which members of the current class the Twins could target in the free agent market. The Twins, as most other teams in the league, are in need of starting pitching. They are one of the few teams that consider themselves legitimate postseason contenders - and need to make significant upgrades to the current rotation if they want to make a serious push towards a World Series birt
After an exciting American League Championship Series, the Houston Astros are headed to the 2017 World Series. In an event that was determined destiny three years ago by Sports Illustrated, this home grown group is looking to knock off a very good Los Angeles Dodgers team. While the hometown nine has been eliminated, two former Minnesota Twins could be eyeing their first rings. If you need a local connection, both Francisco Liriano and Juan Centeno may provide it. Playing in 55 games for the T
Alright, as many of you know - and maybe many of you are - I'm a huge binge TV watchers. I've got access to Amazon, Hulu and Netflix and watch so many shows. I'll watch almost anything. I've watched shows like Highway to Heaven, and I've watched shows like American Horror Story. I'm currently watching old episodes of 7th Heaven, and I'm very excited for Season 8 of The Walking Dead on AMC! I was late to the show, to be honest. Season 7 was the first season that I watched on AMC as it was happe
Team development is the final step to building a winning team. Team Development is similar to player development but from a team aspect. A winning team doesn’t come from simply putting the best players on the field together. Talent, while a huge part of winning, isn’t the only trait needed to field a winning team. It might not even be the best trait of a winning team. A winning team has to have every piece of a winning team and those pieces have to fit together and have great chemistry in orde
Wheelin' and Dealin' - Off season trade targets Despite the undeniable successful season the Twins had in 2017, as tends to happen in the playoffs, deficiencies and holes in the lineup, rotation and bullpen become less transparent and more of a glaring, vacuous hole - clearly seen. For instance, Robbie Grossman started the American League Wild Card game for the Minnesota Twins, not as an injury replacement for a banged up regular - no, he was the starting Designated Hitter - a position he h
This is an excerpt from an article which appears in full at Zone Coverage here. This is a series of evaluations that will be done this offseason on every player that closed the season on the 40-man roster for the Minnesota Twins throughout the winter until each player has been evaluated. The plan is to start with Mr. Belisle and move all the way through the pitchers, then to the catchers, infielders, outfielders and finally those listed as designated hitters on the club’s official MLB.com rost
This is an excerpt from a piece that appears in full on Zone Coverage here. On Wednesday the Minnesota Twins announced the winners of their Sherry Robertson (Minor League Player of the Year) and Jim Rantz (Minor League Pitcher of the Year) Awards. Catcher Mitch Garver got the nod for the Robertson Award, and it was richly deserved after the numbers he posted at Triple-A Rochester. Garver was rewarded with a call-up to the big leagues after hitting a stellar .291/.387/.541 in 88 games with
In less than a month, Major League Baseball will enter the official hot stove season, the period in which some eligible players will be granted free agency and teams will look to sign and trade, trying to improve their clubs. A look at the free agent class, there will be plenty of steam surrounding the hot names and big contracts, while fandoms sit hopeful that their team will make the moves and fill the gaps in the rosters that propel them toward October baseball. The Twins have a few glaring n
This is a series of evaluations that will be done this offseason on every player that closed the season on the 40-man roster for the Minnesota Twins throughout the winter until each player has been evaluated. The plan is to start with Mr. Belisle and move all the way through the pitchers, then to the catchers, infielders, outfielders and finally those listed as designated hitters on the club’s official MLB.com roster. That means we’ll wrap it up with Kennys Vargas sometime before the season star
On Saturday, Tait went 2-for-4 with a walk and his 17th double. The 19-year-old is hitting .219 with 17 doubles and 15 home runs at High-A Cedar Rapids.
The Twins Daily Caretaker Fund
