Top 25 Most-Viewed Twins Daily Articles of 2024 (Part 3: 11-15)

[Seth Stohs]

In Part 3 of the most-viewed articles at Twins Daily in 2024, we'll talk TV, Yankees, an in-season decision, and a couple of Twins trades that still get talked about. Check it out below. 

Image courtesy of © Brad Rempel-Imagn Images (September 2017)

As we continue to countdown the Top 25 most-viewed articles at Twins Daily in 2024, I continue to chuckle a bit, intrigued by which articles end up ranking high and receiving so many clicks. Some make sense. Others just feel really random, and the five articles today exemplify that. 

Let's jump right into it and see which articles received the 11th through 15th most page views. Feel free to discuss any of those articles or start thinking about what you think you will find in the Top 10. 

#15: The Twins Made a Decision about Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien, but It May Not be the Right Choice 
Matthew Taylor 
June 3 

Throughout the course of a season, there can be difficult decisions for a front office. In early June, Royce Lewis was set to come off of the Injured List. Veteran role players Kyle Farmer and Manuel Margot were struggling, but they weren’t going to be DFAd that early. Some may have thought Jose Miranda. He was the one called up when Lewis went on the IL. But he was playing really well and crushing baseballs. In the end, the decision was pretty easy. Edouard Julien, who was terrific as a rookie in 2023, was hitting below .200 and had more than three times as many strikeouts as walks. It was probably the easy decision, but check out why Mr. Taylor thought that it might not be the right answer.  

#14: Twins Send Jorge Polanco to Mariners in Five-Player Deal
Matthew Trueblood 
January 29

He had been the longest-tenured Twins player at that time, having signed just days before Max Kepler in 2009. He had one more season on his long-term contract, plus an option year. However, the Twins were under orders to drop $30+ million from their 2023 payroll. Polanco was traded to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for reliever Justin Topa, veteran and oft-injured Anthony DeSclafani, pitching prospect Darren Bowen, and outfield prospect Gabriel Gonzalez. DeSclafani missed the whole season with injury. Topa pitched just a couple of innings over the season’s final weekend after dealing with a knee injury all season. Bowen showed his potential at times in Cedar Rapids. Gonzalez spent most of the season at age 19 in Cedar Rapids. Unfortunately his power wasn’t on display and he missed a couple of months with a back injury. Topa has a couple of years of team control remaining while Bowen and Gonzalez can develop under team control for several seasons. Meanwhile, Polanco fought through arguably his worst season and the Mariners chose not to pick up his option for 2025. 

#13: Eduardo Escobar Trade Turned into a Coup for Minnesota 
Ted Schwerzler 
May 13

At the July 2018 trade deadline, the Twins traded fan-favorite Eduardo Escobar to the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for outfield prospects Ernie de la Trinidad and Gabriel Maciel, and a hard-throwing pitcher in A-ball named Jhoan Duran. Despite missing the season’s first month with an oblique injury, Duran has been one of the most dominant relievers in baseball the past three seasons. 2024 was definitely a step backwards for Duran, in terms of velocity and results, but remains a strong late-innings option for the Twins. Escobar was just coming into his own, and he continued to get better in Arizona. In 2019, he was an All Star and hit 29 doubles, 10 triples, 35 homers and drove in 118 runs. The D-Backs got two prospects from the Brewers at the July 2021 deadline. 

#12: How Can I Watch the Twins Today?  (And Seven Other Questions about the Twins-Bally-Comcast Clustermuck) 
John Bonnes
May 1

Unfortunately, it’s been a question since 2021 when YouTube TV and other streaming services quit dealing with regional sports networks. The Twins, and several other teams, have been - to some degree - held hostage, losing significant dollars  with almost no say in the decisions. The thought was that it was going to be cleaned up last offseason. Instead the Twins went back to Bally Sports for one year. The Twins TV future remained a topic throughout the year. Even after the year when the team announced that it would team with MLB TV in 2025 and hopefully bring the Twins games to more people’s TVs. Of course, I’m not sure everyone understands the minute details of the TV deal the Twins have for 2025. Or, maybe it’s just me? 

#11: Yankees 5, Twins 1: Umpires Stubbornly Refuse to Award Five Runs for Cool Homer
Ted Schwerzler 
June 4

After every Twins game, you can find a Game Recap at Twins Daily. It isn’t your typical postgame article on the game. We’ll look at Win Probability, and we try to highlight key plays in the game. Maybe there was a unique play. In this game, the primary thing that may have made it take get so many views is that it was against the Yankees. In this game, former Twins prospect Luis Gil started and pitched well, as he did most of his Rookie of the Year season. Gleyber Torres hit a home run that literally would only have been a home run at Yankees Stadium. Not one of the other 29 MLB stadiums.

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Let's discuss. What are your thoughts on the Polanco trade, nearly one year later? How clear are you about how we will be able to watch Twins games in 2025? Do you think it is clear-cut that the Twins won the Escobar-Duran trade from 2018? Or even just let us know what you might want to see from the daily Game Recaps. 

 

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[Doctor Gast]

Twins made a lot of wrong decisions in '24. The greatest mistake was selecting Margot over Keirsey. Margot was simply terrible on both offense & defense. It delayed Keirsey's MLB development 1 year & had to play rookie Martin in difficult situations. 2nd decided to place Jeffers over Vazquez as the primary catcher. Quickly it became an equal tandem even at that, Jeffers eventually after the 2nd half, he started to wane especially defensively. 3rd Chose Julien to be fultime 2Bman. Twins took a big hit defensively up the middle. Besides Correa & Buxton missing significant time & Jeffers catching too often. Margot was suppose to be Buxton's sub at CF that didn't turn out. W/o Correa covering for Julien, his warts became obvious defensively. The league adjusting to him, Julien was terrible offensively but because we didn't have anyone to sub him he stayed up far too long & was called up far too soon. 

4th was not trading Julien & Gonzales for a SP & a high-leverage LHRP. The rotation was as expected worn thin which affected their performance. With Duran suffering a minor setback & LHRP Theilbar a greater one, with Steward injured again. The Twins were in desperate need of high-leverage arms, especially LHRP. 5th not cementing Miranda & Kiriloff at 1B, after coming off shoulder surgeries. Miranda & Kiriloff were phenomenal while healthy. If cemented at 1B they could have greatly improved our 1B offense production there at 1B the whole year. Instead, they made them to play positions where they had to really work their shoulders. IMO to compensate for their shoulders, both backs went out. Miranda lost 1 year of MLB development & 1/2 year of production. Kiriloff lost all that plus the rest of his career. I will add at 6th not adding future promising MLB-ready catching. We desperately need a future catcher & we have no depth. Having a future catcher giving Jeffers a break once in a while in the 2nd half would have done wonders in Jeffers's production while building for the future.

I could go on about how they were managed but these were the 6 most serious mistakes. To comment on the Polanco trade. It was a lose-lose-lose situation, Twins/SEA/Polanco. Twins gained nothing. Desclavani's arm was shot when we got him, Topa had & still has a chronic knee problem, he was a nonfactor & Gonzales was way overrated when we got him & shouldn't ever make it to the Twins. We lost Polanco's presence on & off the field & his clutch hitting that we dearly missed down the stretch. His knees were worse than we thought yet he still was able to make the highlight videos, If Twins had doubts about Miranda & Kiriloff at 1B, Polanco could have put some time there to spare his knees. Being traded is difficult especially when that person has given so much of his heart. Polanco by far had his worst season for SEA. Polanco & Garver went through hell by the SEA fans. FO frivolously spent most of the extra money on players that didn't really pan out. The trade should not have ever happened.