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The Twins are projected for 81 wins this coming season, which is fairly generous for a team coming off a 78-84 season that is losing its MVP in Carlos Correa. The front office is on the hot seat, having failed to win a playoff game in their six year tenure after inheriting a young, cheap and talented roster prior to 2017. That front office believes in its process to the point it apparently feels comfortable running back pretty much the same guys and hoping that fewer injuries vaults them up the
In "Fun with Player Comps" I look at player comps for 30 current Twins who figure to ply a role in 2023, starting with their closest age player from Baseball-Reference.com prior to 2022. I then move into the best and worst case scenarios based on each player's general vibe. Find the first installment for the middle infield here.
The Twins center-field options will include at least one new face for 2023 in Joey Gallo. The rest of the group contains the same warts: When Byron Buxton ge
Since no one has any idea what’s going to happen for the rest of the offseason (Emilio Pagán traded to the Mets and then extended for four years 36M?) I thought it would be fun to try out some player comps for 2023. I’m going to go through 30 players who are on the team and figure to, if not make the team in spring, at least figure into their plans in the first half. We’ll start with their closest age player comp from Baseball-Reference for their 2022 season just to put some sort of foundation t
Losing out on Carlos Correa was interesting. It was both a gut punch and completely expected. I’ve seen Carlos Baerga be right too many times to not get a little into the idea that Correa might actually eschew the great weather, prestige and generally winning culture of the San Francisco Giants for less money with the Twins.
It unfolded how it should have. Once the Giants got to a certain number, maybe 310M, they were betting against themselves. The Twins only got to 285M- I doubt the Cubs
The team is in a tricky spot following the winter meetings. They allegedly remain in play for Carlos Correa, but their backup options are getting swallowed up and their 50M remains unspent. Even with Correa, this team will have some challenges going into 2023. Winning the Central can’t be the goal, especially with the state of the competition being as sorry as it is. To be a real force in the AL, the Twins need a few things to happen, Correa or not:
The Astros take a step back.
The As
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
It looks like the pitching market is really shaping up for 2020 in terms of who is going to be available via trade. We have the Red Sox with David Price, Nate Eovaldi and maybe even Chris Sale. The Cubs may dangle Yu Darvish and there has even been some Mike Clevenger talk. Matthew Boyd continues to pop up; Robbie Ray, as well. Beyond that I haven’t heard much, and that’s a shame because the hot item come July is rarely who we expect going into Spring Training. With the way teams prefer to retoo
MLB is announcing the top rated prospects. I am pleased to see that the Twins have the 10th rated SS with Brooks Lee, who was rated as the top hitting SS prospect. Royce Lewis was not in the top 10, but was mentioned in the article as being on the fringe of the top 10 at SS. Julian is #7 at 2B and is rated as the 2B prospect who has made the most improvements in the shortest amount of time and who has risen the farthest. MLB mentioned that Jose Miranda had graduated off of last year's top 10 rankings at 3B. When we add Carlos Correa and all his superlatives to the equation at SS and a former all star SS, Polanco, currently at 2B...that is impressive. 1B will hopefully be manned by Kirilloff, who is still very young (remember he was drafted out of HS) and very promising as a fielder at a relatively new position, where his play looks smooth, and if his wrist is fixed, he can be a very promising hitter, with some power. The Twins' OF is current loaded with award winning defensive outfielders, but probably not any highly ranked OF prospects. I feel Larnach is the most likely to become an impressive young OF'er or possibly Wallner or Martin , who has underperformed in pro ball so far, based on his draft position. Catching is by far the Twins weakest group of prospects. The Twins should attempt to trade for Henry Davis of the Pirates, who have 2 catchers ranked in the top 10 prospects. Davis is rated as having the best catching arm among the prospects. The Mets also have 2 catchers in the top ten list of prospects and both will probably be good hitters in the majors. In fact the Mets' prospect catcher, Alvarez, is rated as being the best hitting prospect of all prospects, and ranked #1 among all prospects. So I expect he will be the first choice to catch for the Mets. Possibly that will free up the other top prospect catcher on the Mets, Parada, to be traded to the Twins. Now about those pitching prospects....