The Twins Finally Picked a Lane

[Fred]

On 8/1/2025 at 5:10 PM, BillyBallLives said:

Not to beat a dead horse, but to give it one more whack.

Since dumping Alcala....here's the list of relievers that have come thru the door. 

• Joey Wentz
• Noah Davis
• Pierson Ohl
• Anthony Misiewicz
• José Ureña
• Kody Funderburk
• Michael Tonkin
• Erasmo Ramírez
   

  It’s practically a sitcom at this point, but not body stays long enough for the closing credits. 
   

 

I don't really want to get down on Funderburk, but I don't understand how anyone can be enthusiastic (other than his family) about him.

[LA Vikes Fan]

While I agree with a lot of the comments and the sentiments, I guess I start from a different place. This core simply wasn't a group of players in whom to invest or frankly, even keep around. They showed us that last year when going 23-32 in August and September while chasing a playoff berth, losing 25 of their last 37, and they showed us in again in June (9-18) and July (11-13) this year. Minor changes weren't going to be enough. 

Starting there, the only trade that I see as problematic was trading Varland. The rest all made sense - expiring contracts flipped for at least some value for the most part, really good returns on the Duran trade, a good return on Jax who wanted out and is  starting to decline at age 30, and losing Correa who clearly wanted out and wasn't the answer. Trading Varland only makes sense in the context of starting pitching is more valuable than relief pitching and Rojas, the 21 year old leftie starter who just got to AAA (at age 21!), could be more valuable in time but it's a real crapshoot. Varland could have been the replacement closer and been around for another 4 years. Also, the Stewart trade was a little weird although its being painted here in LA as getting an older, injury prone guy for a former top 3 ROY finisher. I guess we all have are own myopic perspective. 

We needed to clean house and reset the roster. The lousy message doesn't change what I see as the true fact: the Twins as previously constituted were a mediocre team going nowhere and frankly getting pretty old to boot. Now we're a youngish team with younger players getting a shot so at least there's some upside. I guess that's better? Just wish there was a column C we are a good contending team.