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It’s hard to get excited about the Minnesota Twins. They could easily be an exciting team by next spring but that’s beside the point. The Twins just never seem to command any respect.
They’ve been around for sixty years, have won two titles and plenty of divisions. No one blamed them for getting Sandy Koufax’d in 1965. They had a historic home run hitter in Harmon Killebrew, a spark plug who could carry a team in Kirby Puckett, and the Jack Morris ten inning shutout. They don't limit payrol
Counting the costs.
I spent most of the weekend drumming up the potential ramifications of my "all 81 away games" dream in an excel spreadsheet. This led to some quality angst and vulnerability hangover, for both I and spouse :)
Upon entering mileage and dates, a few things are apparent:
1. MLB was not considering my potential dream trip when they were organizing the Twins road schedule this year. Beyond utilizing the LA trip as a back to back with the Dodgers and Angels in May
Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself.
Steve Trefz, 42 yrs old, Twins fan by virtue of birthplace (farm in rural NorthCentral South Dakota), of influence (Herb and John every summer evening for 3.5 hrs), and of circumstance (first World Series that I remember watching was 1987, which was also the year of the first Metrodome trip and Twins game of my life).
I have more to share when it comes to "Why the Twins?," but for now I just want to introduce where this blog is headed...lit
In the 2019 offseason, the Twins had four promising young outfielders in the minors who could reasonably be projected to stick as MLB centerfielders, occupying at least a 4th outfielder role--Misael Urbina, Gabriel Maciel, Akil Baddoo, and Gilberto Celestino.
Urbina (20) is still in the organization, finishing the season at A-ball Ft. Myers. Maciel was claimed off waivers before the 2022 season by Oakland. Baddoo, quite infamously, was taken by the Tigers in the 2020 Rule 5 Draft, a fact th
The Glendale Desert Dogs had several representatives from the Twins' farm system. Denny Bentley, Francis Peguero, Jon Olsen and Ryan Shreve were the pitchers, and the position players were Alex Isola, Austin Martin and Edouard Julien. Here's a few photos from my trip in late October. For two of the three games I was joined by the illustrious USAFChief.
Driving there meant going through some dusty desert miles. Here is one of the denizens of the town of Beatty NV where I quartered for th
Okay, the title ignores the whole shortstop situation, but hear me out. Actually it also ignores the catcher issue as well, but just keep reading. I'll briefly address them later.
When @vikingsfan1936 commented "Failvine found there missing piece ..." and "World Sereis here we come" under Dan Hayes's tweets about the Twins' trade for Kyle Farmer and resigning of Kyle Garlick, respectively, he might not actually be too far off the mark. Obviously, no one would say that the Two Kyles™️ solve
The idea of taking a shot at an offseason plan is always a fun one. Here's my attempt. As best as I could, I used the arbitration projections cited elsewhere. I also used the free agent projections at MLBTradeRumors as starting points. And I had the advantage of being able to include the Urshela and Farmer moves and other action that's happened to date.
First, the sunk costs – options that didn’t get picked up: Bundy $1M, Archer $.75M and Sano $2.75M for a total cost of $4.5M
N
Looks like my previous Blog had a bad link. This one seems to be working for me.
I prefer the tier rankings over 1-100 type. Most tier 1's are in your top 100 type listings. Tier 2 prospects are usually 75-200 range. Keith Law pointed out that the difference between a #1 prospect and a #25 is usually huge. Where a 50th ranked player and a 100th ranked player is pretty small.
Updated MLB Farm System Rankings at Start of the 2022-23 Offseason | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors
Okay, so the Twins have "Farmed" out shortstop. Unless of course the FO goal is to quickly swap Farmer for two PTBNL, a broken down reliever and a partridge in a pear tree. Anyway, I asked Daddy Warbucks to give us a quick assessment of the financial impact of swapping the two shortstops.
Stats (2022)
Player Salary WAR HR Ave (Maria?) RibEyes OPS Cost per WAR Cost Per RBI
Correa $35 mill 5.4 22 .291 64
With the deadline for finalizing 40 man roster in advance of the Rule 5, There are some very cheap, low risk high reward type players out there. These are right in teh Twins wheelhouse. Gamble on the cheap and see if you hit the lottery.
So the first one isn't a FA or rule 5 but he is the type of player that COULD be. 1B/OF Dom Smiht of the Mets. Dom is a GG caliber 1B. This kid actually CAN hit. He has just never been given consistent ABs in a consistent position in the field being b
There have been a number of wild posts that are not based in any sort of reality. This is another of those.
Twins should sign Verlander, Correa (I would prefer Turner but let's stick with Correa), and Judge. Because of course it is only that easy. lol...
But.., they CAN afford it.
Reason #1,
Verlander's deal will be no more than 3 years, so that will come and go before you know it and not impact long-term roster building. the other 2... well that is a different stor
Quite a number of posts have railed about “The Plan” for Twins starters to make short starts and never face the Third Time Through the Order, but I did a fairly deep dive into looking at box scores and would offer a different analysis of their starter usage this season. Here’s an alternative take for consideration, arguing that The Plan was not the plan:
From Opening Day until about May 31, the Twins tried using starters in a “normal” pattern. If you look at starters across the board (e
I believe I had shared this thought last year, If I hadn't., I thought I'd throw it out there for your thoughts While a draft lottery for the top 6 positions is at least a start to preventing tanking, still there is an incentive to losing. Albeit not as great as before, btu ask any team, would you rather have a16.5% chance (like teams with worst records) or a 0.9% chance like the Twins have. I am guessing any GM that wants to rebuild will take the 16.5% chance and tank. The way to prevent tank
I am not an expert on the MLB CBA, but I am wondering if something like this would be legal...
Could the Twins and Correa come to an agreement where he opts in for 2023, and teh Twins agree to allow him to negotiate with other teams for a long term contract?
Hasnt something like this happened before with disgruntled (not the case with Correa, he just wants long term deal) players who "demand trades"? Maybe it is only in other sports, like NBA, but I could swear I remember stori
I know this list is late, as the team MVP awards have already been announced but I wanted to do mine anyway. The subject that gets overlooked in much MVP discussion, is the definition of value. So, I want to start this off by explaining my definition, which will hopefully make my picks understandable even if they are not agreeable. When it comes to defining valuable, in my experience, often the answer you’ll get is “the player who helped their team win most”. However, that leaves open the questi
Since this week was the 20th anniversary of Senator Paul Wellstone's death, I thought I might run one of my favorite columns, which I wrote to eulogize him. I got quite a bit of feedback on it, and it mostly left me depressed, since many missed the point of the column. Many readers who were critical of the column couldn't see beyond his politics, and even more sadly, neither could many of his supporters who praised it. For me, the magic of Wellstone wasn't what he fought for, it was how he fo
Shortstop Angst
According to Team Rankings (https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/double-plays-per-game) the Twins ranked 23 out of 30 teams in double plays per game with an average of .73. Pre-Correa (2021) the Twins averaged .85 per game. Twins finish in the division? 3rd in 2022, 5th in 2021.
Number One on the list, St. Louis at 1.11 per game.
Last on the List? NY Yankees at .65.
Which of the three teams made it to the play-offs? Cards and Yankees. Ponder that.
Fielding htt
Just popped in to check play-off results and discovered starting pitchers are going seven innings on three-days rest. Somebody step in and stop this cruelty or somebody is going to get hurt!
The Twins will soon officially have a shortstop vacancy. Carlos Correa has informed the media (and I presume the Twins) that he will opt-out of the second year of his contract. One possibility, Jermaine Palacios, has been DFAed and claimed by the Detroit Tigers. The Twins have shown no tendency to use in-house options Jorge Polanco, Nick Gordon or Gio Urshela as a regular shortstop. Brooks Lee hasn't been with the organization a year out of college and looked pretty rough on defense in the minor
What qualifies to be an ace? How to profile SPs? I'd like to give you my take.
As was previously stated in part 1, a SP is a pitcher who can regularly give you at least 5 quality innings & sustain that, otherwise is better off in long relief. I'd like to categorize them as 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd & top SP, ace and workhorse. I will rate them accordingly by stuff & arm strength. Stuff= quality of pitch, # of quality pitches in his repertroire, command & location. Arm strength that