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After the Minnesota Twins signed veteran reliever Hansel Robles to a Major League deal this offseason, their 40-man roster was down to just four openings. Needing significant reinforcements still, it’s a good bet that addition by subtraction could be coming. By my estimation Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have no less than players yet to acquire, but a more comfortable reality is probably in the ballpark of six. With that in mind, a shortage on 40-man spots becomes a reality, and swinging a deal
The day the Padres officially announced their status as contenders by officially landing Blake Snell and Yu Darvish, the Twins countered with their own power move for, *squints at notes*, Hansel Robles. Jokes aside, Twins fans should be encouraged that an initial move has been made to deepen a bullpen losing several key 2020 cornerstones. What should we make of Robles, his stuff, his profile, and his fit? Robles had a dire 2020 that should be largely thrown out as his 317 recorded pitches amou
We’re about to close the book on one of the craziest years in my lifetime. At 30 years old, I’ve hardly seen as much as the next person, but to say this calendar was filled with unprecedented events would be putting it lightly. Through it all though, we had baseball, and that was a distraction I know that I needed. I remember many months ago now, waking up from a nap and looking at my phone. There was an alert from ESPN noting that Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter accident. As I processed
There is further thoughts I'd like to probe about this subject. To do this I'd like you to review this prior thread below http://twinsdaily.com/blog/1318/entry-13744-lets-bring-back-the-87-twins/ To summarize, the Twins began w/ pinstripes & were competitive. In '65 they won the AL Championship & went to the WS. In the 1st 2 yrs. of the start of the Western Division '69 & '70 they won. Shortly afterwards they quit the pinstripes & the drought began & became frequent botto
As I read the entries on the TD sight we all imagine getting players in Free agency or big trades. This is especially true when we see the Padres making their moves. What I really liked was the WAR team ratings that MLB.com got from Fangraphs and I used for the Blog photo. This is really significant to me. It shows us ranked fifth, but there are five teams close behind us and only two in the AL ahead of us. So any move we make has to keep us above the teams right behind us like the White Sox.
Update: It appears that the Padres will be also landing Yu Darvish from the Cubs. While that takes a target away from the Twins, they have less competition on the Reds front. Arms like Joe Musgrove and Jon Gray also remain enticing. Late on Sunday night the market for starting pitching pursuits took a drastic change. After the Tampa Bay Rays had announced they’d make Blake Snell available, the San Diego Padres decided to cap off their Christmas weekend with a blockbuster trade. This provides a
Today Maury Brown put an article out at Forbes that illustrated some of the economic impact across baseball in relation to a pandemic shortened 2020 season. While the league as a whole spent roughly $2.5B less on salaries, the per game adjustments note a step forward. The Twins can and need to afford a similar path in the year ahead. In 2019 $2,472,194,292 more dollars were spent on payrolls across baseball. Obviously, there were also 102 more games played that season. Adjusting the calendar t
Over the past couple of weeks, it has been rumored that the Twins are acting as a shark circling blood in the water. Waiting for an opportunity to make a big move like they did last offseason, it’s been anyone’s guess as to what that may be. Today it was reported that the move could come up the middle. Trevor Bauer is the premier free agent this winter, but shortstop talent is aplenty as well. Andrelton Simmons is a perennial Gold Glove type, while both Didi Gregorious and Marcus Semien bring
This offseason was always going to be incredibly weird. Coming off a pandemic shortened season, with no fans, and an unprecedented amount of uncertainty still ahead, how teams would tackle preparations for 2021 is a mystery. The Twins are good though, and despite a few holes they want to get better. What if they go all in? This morning at ESPN Jeff Passan penned a piece regarding some rumblings he’s heard around the league. One of them was a note on the Minnesota Twins circling like a shark in
With all the talk about FA and DFAs I got thinking about who the prospects behind each position are – not the top prospects in the system – but the ones that are there for each position on the club. Call it the next line of defense: C – Jeffers is obvious, but he might be the starting C so who is next – Ben Rortvedt would be the next in line. He is age 23 which surprised me, because it seems like we have been looking at him for the last decade (I exaggerate). He has four minor league season
This will be my 6th annual top 15 Twins prospect update. As was the case with the midseason edition back in June, we’re dealing with an unprecedented scenario here. Having not played any minor league baseball action in 2020, movement is based more on what I heard out of the alternate site and what took place from prospects appearing at Target Field. The hope would be that a level of normalcy is restored in 2021. While I’m optimistic we see something closer to what we’ve come accustomed to, cha
The question is – should we sign Cruz or just let a number of players DH? I thought I would look back at the Twins DH history. I ignore any DWAR since I am only interested in the DH. Tony Oliva was the first DH. In 1973 he was in 146 games. He hit 291/345/410 and his WAR was 0.7. The next year he was in 127 games with a line of 285/326/414 and 0.4 WAR. 1975 he played 131 games with a line of 270/344/378 and WAR of 0.5. 1976 saw Craig Kusick as the DH – 259/344/432 – 1.5 WAR. In 77 his l
It's Friday afternoon, and I'm counting the minutes until the weekend. Let's make a plan. For this exercise, I started with Matthew Taylor's spreadsheet on Twinspayroll.com, and used $125 million as the top spending level. My goal is to fall $5-10 million under that to reflect closer to a 15% payroll discount. When I started the exercise, I wondered how we could best allocate the budget if we elected not to re-sign Nelson Cruz. Let's get started... The spreadsheet shows these roster slot
Welcome to a new era of Minnesota Twins baseball. This isn’t the Terry Ryan regime anymore, and it hasn’t been for quite some time. What was ushered in with Derek Falvey represented a more progressive way of thinking. Unfortunately, the downside to that is having other organizations looking to play copycat. Now that is beginning to come full circle. Last offseason the Twins lost their hitting coach. James Rowson was the architect behind a lineup that hit the most home runs in Major League Base
Now that the Eddie Rosario Experience is almost certainly over, let's take a look back at some of his contributions to Twins history. This is just what appears in my Twins Almanac spreadsheet. Please contribute your own Eddie trivia, fun facts, or cool stories in the comments section. And if you're into this kind of stuff, follow me on Twitter at @TwinsAlmanac. May 6, 2015 Major League Debut Leading off the bottom of the third against Oakland's Scott Kazmir, the 23-year-old Puerto Rico na
Seventy five for a seventy five year old Okay, it is my birthday and I love life and all my ex-students, friends, participants in the guided tours, neighbors and family. So I am reflective and that means I have to think of 75 memories – there are many more. But here are 75 Twin memories. 1. Ushering during season one 2. Mudcat Grant – you want colorful – this is it. 3. Vic Power taking over first base in a way I have never seen anywhere else. 4. Jim Kaat just delivering and delivering and deli
On Wednesday, the Minnesota Twins will need to decide whether or not they’ll tender a contract to left fielder Eddie Rosario for the 2021 Major League Baseball season. He's already been placed on outright waivers, so they would be negotiating for less than his projected arbitration value. A 4th round pick in 2010, he’s been in the organization for a decade since he was a 19-year-old. A changing of the guard could be coming involving a core player, and it’s worth looking back on the impact he’s h
As has been the expectation now for week, the St. Paul Saints will officially join the Minnesota Twins organization in 2021 per reports from the Star Tribune. Previously playing in the American Association as an Independent Baseball team, they’ll now assume the role of the Twins Triple-A affiliate. For years there has been talk about the convenience having an affiliate just down I-94 would provide the Twins. Then during the pandemic shortened season, CHS Field acted as the alternate site for t
As I said in my previous blog posting I am watching to see where the current Twins rank in ratings outside the Twin Cities. It is always suggestive to read a less biased - less connected view of our own team. So here is the ESPN Roto rankings for 2021 - https://www.espn.com/fantasy/baseball/story/_/id/28285423/fantasy-baseball-2021-rankings-roto-rotisserie Catcher Garver is rated #7 (between Will Smith and Gary Sanchez) Jeffers 34 (between Romine and Torrens Avila is 47 between Trevino and Kna
In 1986 the Twins had one of the worst records in baseball (71-91) but in 1987 the Twins turned it around, becoming a Cinderella story that won the World Series. A story which inspired movies. 1986 team was basically the same team as the 1987 w/ players Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Frank Viola, Bert Byleven, Tom Brunaski, Roy Smalley, to name a few. So what changed? They brought back the pin-stripes & added the M insignia. The change was a immediate success & continued w/ succ
I am always looking for outsider opinions on the Twins since it is too easy to have hometown bias. All of us who root for the Twins follow them with much more emotion and fan hopefulness that allows them to rise higher in our opinions than an outsider might see them. So, I was interested in the Athletic’s fantasy baseball rankings. I know fantasy and reality are not the same, but it is one way of comparing players. Derek Van Riper just posted his fantasy ratings of players https://theathletic.co
Minor League Baseball is going to see massive changes in 2021, and the Twins have already signaled that they will be among the teams seeing the biggest shakeups. There has been plenty of speculation that St. Paul will become their new AAA home, but it's my belief that whether or not that happens, the Twins will end up with a Minor League Team in Wichita, Kansas one way or another. As a quick recap, Minor League Baseball is expected to undergo a massive reorganization starting next season as it
Since the main TD articles keep talking about Eddie Rosario being traded, cut, cursed or whatever you want to call it I thought it might be instructive to do a comparison of all the six year players on the roster. In a move that we all thought would make the future of the Twins we had Eddie, Byron, Miguel, and Max arrive the same year and it did not take long before they were part of a home run hitting behemoth and twice got to the playoffs where they, like their predecessors failed. (I chose no
I am not a follower of Donald Trump. I have participated in several no kings rallies and am disgusted with what he and his followers have done to our country and the world. I would like to know what most Brazilians feel about the United States now and about the folks our citizens have elected to represent us.
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hello Seth......you'll wanna correct the date in headline of today's minor league report. :-) Brad· 0 replies
I am not a follower of Donald Trump. I have participated in several no kings rallies and am disgusted with what he and his followers have done to our country and the world. I would like to know what most Brazilians feel about the United States now and about the folks our citizens have elected to represent us.· 1 reply
