Austin Martin Has Solidified Himself as an Integral Member of 2026 Minnesota Twins

[Riverbrian]

29 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

Concur. I really believe this is critical for position players. 

I have been diving into the 2016 Twins and 2017 Twins. The 2016 Twins won 59 games. The 2017 Twins won 85 games. How did that happen?

One thing I noticed is the Twins had the second youngest batter age in the AL at 26.9. The Astros were the youngest at 26.4. The Astros improved by 17 games in 2017 and won the World Series. The Rays were 3rd by average batter age in the AL. They went from 68 to 80 to 90. Over in the NL the DBacks were 26.4. They went from 69 wins to 94 wins. I should add the Phillies also. They were 26.9. They did not improve the next year.

This is not a deep dive. Mauer’s PAs skew that 26.9 number up. The Phillies didn’t have any starter that was 30. The season to season improvement of Buxton, Sanó, Rosario, Polanco and Escobar were a big contribution to the success. They did sign one free agent in Castro. He was a very nice upgrade over Suzuki.

As for Martin and the others under 27. I would prefer the Twins bet on the improvement of their own players as opposed to trying to squeeze one more year out of a player in the decline phase of their career. I would bet on Martin rather than spend the 10-20 million it might take to get Bader back for one year. The pay off of finding a pre-arb player that contributes to wins is worth the gamble.

As always... You are a pleasure. We don't always agree but I always know that you are researched. 

[sweetmusicviola16]

I for one am fine with playing the people we have in the system now in 2026. Let's find out what we have and see if what we have will improve. This team isn't contending in 2026. At least most of us don't see that happening. And if it does, great. Let it be with what we have. We have veteran players already. Jeffers, Buxton, Larnach, even Lewis are now veteran players. We can shout from the rooftop about Bader as being proof for signing veterans from around the league, but what difference did it make to the 2025 team? We were losing when he was here. 

[DJL44]

10 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

I for one am fine with playing the people we have in the system now in 2026. Let's find out what we have and see if what we have will improve. This team isn't contending in 2026. At least most of us don't see that happening. And if it does, great. Let it be with what we have. We have veteran players already. Jeffers, Buxton, Larnach, even Lewis are now veteran players. We can shout from the rooftop about Bader as being proof for signing veterans from around the league, but what difference did it make to the 2025 team? We were losing when he was here. 

It might make a difference to the 2027 team to acquire Hendry Mendez for Bader. Danny Coulombe returned a pitcher who could be useful. Bad teams should try to pick up MLB veterans for below-market cost in case they're tradeable in June. It's a lot better idea than giving innings to AAA veterans like Keirsey and Gasper.

[USAFChief]

6 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

With all of the complaining that I've done.

I have never asked for the firing of Falvey or Baldelli. 

 

With due respect, this makes no sense.

You've been (rightly) complaining about this lack of development for several years now. Falvey was hired in the fall of 2016. Coming up on 9 years ago. He's the guy that's driven the team to the point we're at now....basically zero hope for the medium range future. The guy who has signed 1 year vets for 9 years now...

...but IKF would be your breaking point?

It's hard to take you seriously if you're not willing to ask for them to do what's necessary to enact what you're endlessly asking for. Falvey is suddenly going to change??

Second, somewhat related point: you repeatedly want to talk "theory" and not names. You want to talk about the Twins infield but not about Brooks Lee or Culpepper. Just theoretical, nameless concepts of players. 

To me, that's a copout. It's always about specifics. 

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

With due respect, this makes no sense.

You've been (rightly) complaining about this lack of development for several years now. Falvey was hired in the fall of 2016. Coming up on 9 years ago. He's the guy that's driven the team to the point we're at now....basically zero hope for the medium range future. The guy who has signed 1 year vets for 9 years now...

...but IKF would be your breaking point?

It's hard to take you seriously if you're not willing to ask for them to do what's necessary to enact what you're endlessly asking for. Falvey is suddenly going to change??

Second, somewhat related point: you repeatedly want to talk "theory" and not names. You want to talk about the Twins infield but not about Brooks Lee or Culpepper. Just theoretical, nameless concepts of players. 

To me, that's a copout. It's always about specifics. 

I have been complaining about development for several years now. I've also stated multiple times that I will judge this front office on development and development alone. 

However... I'm just simply hard to drag into the crowd of people that wants to simply fire people that I've never met and have never heard a reasoning or strategy that isn't public relation screened. Every fan base of every organization from Pro to College to High School to Bantam Hockey wants the coach fired. 

My years of complaining is asking them to change approach rather repeatedly.  

IFK would be the breaking point (I'm extremely close to that breaking point already) because:

We just hit the wall that I said they would hit. They just stripped the roster down to 20 pre-arb players. They got a blank slate to work with. If they return to the same practice... that I believe got them there in the first place. Well... they would without a doubt be incapable of change and at that point I will join the crowd and be a broken record on how they must go. Until then and I'm extremely close... my comments are constructive.  

Talking theory and not names. I have no choice.

A, I don't know what specific player will be or could be. Age 23 players and what they will be at age 26 with opportunity. I don't know... none of us know. I don't read Keith Law and convert it to gospel. They could be good... could be bad... there is only one way to find out. I've stopped trying to predict it. I'm more comfortable with my opinions with players with a major league sample size but at the same time... I also know that a light switch can be located at any time in their development. I simply expect my organization with all of their scouts and coaches who do this for a living to be better at it because we are team with a budget that will always be dependent on minimum making talent. Don't care who rises from the seeds planted. But we better have seeds that produce and we are way behind everybody else. 

B, If I say we need to develop better players (Theory) the conversation always gets bogged down with... Martin Sucks... Julien Sucks... Keirsay Sucks... (Specific). Now my point is lost because Martin sucks and I got sucked into a Martin debate with someone who is sure they know what Martin will be in the future. Now in order to make my point... I gotta become a Martin supporter when I have no idea what Martin will become. I simply don't care if Keirsay sucks... the point is that the organization should have produced players who don't suck by now and they need to produce players who can help win so we have budget to work with. 

If they fail to develop... they fail period in my opinion. 

Why am I stopping short of calling for their heads even after this disaster of a season and continued practices that I believe are toxic?

I don't know what caused this? Did they ignore youth development in favor of cheap one year contracts because they thought they were close and France was a better bet? Did ownership change course on them... a course change that was hard to change out of? Was it Falvey? Was it Rocco? Was it the Pohlads? I don't know. 

Anyway... damage is done now. Slate was cleared. If they go back to the methods that didn't work before this off-season. I'll be full throated in my cries for immediate change. 

[NYCTK]

26 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

 

Anyway... damage is done now. Slate was cleared. If they go back to the methods that didn't work before this off-season. I'll be full throated in my cries for immediate change. 

Quite frankly, I don't think you understand why this team sucks.

You seem to be under the impression this team sucks because they hired Ty France. Not that they hired Ty France because this team sucked. If France wasn't hired maybe Miranda miraculously turns into Pujols! 

They didn't hire Harrison Bader because they have in it for their younger internal outfielders and refuse to let them develop. They hired Bader because they understood betting on Keirsey and/or Martin was a BAD bet. Even in the event one of them turned a corner and become a legitimate major leaguer (Martin maybe right now?) they also understand depth is greatly important and lo and behold, Marin was injured half the year. 

They hired Danny Coulombe not because they refused to give Funderburk any chance, but because they understand that Funderburk isn't quite up to the task to be the primary left handed reliever on a roster they hoped might compete for the division. 

If hiring a veteran like IFK would be your breaking point, I simply don't believe that you actually do understand MLB roster rules and construction strategies, even though you clearly seem to. Hiring a veteran middle infielder on a rebuilding team with ample 40 and 26 man space is exactly what a well run MLB team would do, regardless of how many pre arb guys you count each week. 

[USAFChief]

43 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

Quite frankly, I don't think you understand why this team sucks.

You seem to be under the impression this team sucks because they hired Ty France. Not that they hired Ty France because this team sucked. If France wasn't hired maybe Miranda miraculously turns into Pujols! 

They didn't hire Harrison Bader because they have in it for their younger internal outfielders and refuse to let them develop. They hired Bader because they understood betting on Keirsey and/or Martin was a BAD bet. Even in the event one of them turned a corner and become a legitimate major leaguer (Martin maybe right now?) they also understand depth is greatly important and lo and behold, Marin was injured half the year. 

They hired Danny Coulombe not because they refused to give Funderburk any chance, but because they understand that Funderburk isn't quite up to the task to be the primary left handed reliever on a roster they hoped might compete for the division. 

If hiring a veteran like IFK would be your breaking point, I simply don't believe that you actually do understand MLB roster rules and construction strategies, even though you clearly seem to. Hiring a veteran middle infielder on a rebuilding team with ample 40 and 26 man space is exactly what a well run MLB team would do, regardless of how many pre arb guys you count each week. 

Concur with the 1st four paragraphs. 

Ty France isnt the issue. The issue is he represented the best option. By a wide margin.

 

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

I have been complaining about development for several years now. I've also stated multiple times that I will judge this front office on development and development alone. 

However... I'm just simply hard to drag into the crowd of people that wants to simply fire people that I've never met and have never heard a reasoning or strategy that isn't public relation screened. Every fan base of every organization from Pro to College to High School to Bantam Hockey wants the coach fired. 

My years of complaining is asking them to change approach rather repeatedly.  

IFK would be the breaking point (I'm extremely close to that breaking point already) because:

We just hit the wall that I said they would hit. They just stripped the roster down to 20 pre-arb players. They got a blank slate to work with. If they return to the same practice... that I believe got them there in the first place. Well... they would without a doubt be incapable of change and at that point I will join the crowd and be a broken record on how they must go. Until then and I'm extremely close... my comments are constructive.  

Talking theory and not names. I have no choice.

A, I don't know what specific player will be or could be. Age 23 players and what they will be at age 26 with opportunity. I don't know... none of us know. I don't read Keith Law and convert it to gospel. They could be good... could be bad... there is only one way to find out. I've stopped trying to predict it. I'm more comfortable with my opinions with players with a major league sample size but at the same time... I also know that a light switch can be located at any time in their development. I simply expect my organization with all of their scouts and coaches who do this for a living to be better at it because we are team with a budget that will always be dependent on minimum making talent. Don't care who rises from the seeds planted. But we better have seeds that produce and we are way behind everybody else. 

B, If I say we need to develop better players (Theory) the conversation always gets bogged down with... Martin Sucks... Julien Sucks... Keirsay Sucks... (Specific). Now my point is lost because Martin sucks and I got sucked into a Martin debate with someone who is sure they know what Martin will be in the future. Now in order to make my point... I gotta become a Martin supporter when I have no idea what Martin will become. I simply don't care if Keirsay sucks... the point is that the organization should have produced players who don't suck by now and they need to produce players who can help win so we have budget to work with. 

If they fail to develop... they fail period in my opinion. 

Why am I stopping short of calling for their heads even after this disaster of a season and continued practices that I believe are toxic?

I don't know what caused this? Did they ignore youth development in favor of cheap one year contracts because they thought they were close and France was a better bet? Did ownership change course on them... a course change that was hard to change out of? Was it Falvey? Was it Rocco? Was it the Pohlads? I don't know. 

Anyway... damage is done now. Slate was cleared. If they go back to the methods that didn't work before this off-season. I'll be full throated in my cries for immediate change. 

If it's all theoretical and you have no idea what players are gonna do, why the objection to IKF? Gotta see if that light switch flips, no? 

[Riverbrian]

14 hours ago, USAFChief said:

If it's all theoretical and you have no idea what players are gonna do, why the objection to IKF? Gotta see if that light switch flips, no? 

He won't be back. If the light switch flips he's gone and we are back at square one. If the light switch doesn't flip. He's gone because we don't want him back and we are still at square one never even reaching square two. Meanwhile one year gone. Find the next IKF for 2027... Two years gone. On to 2028... three years gone. 

Carlos Santana had a decent year for us. Got himself a 12 million dollar deal that we couldn't afford. We couldn't afford it because we didn't have enough pre-arb players developed to create the spare change necessary and this led to Ty France playing every day. 

Cleveland had the 12 million because they had a different philosophy and successfully developed pre-arb players that allowed them to afford him. That 12 million deal with Santana brought them up to 100 million which is still 42 million less than what we spent this year.  

Of course... we don't know what players are gonna do. Carlos Santana didn't work out for Cleveland. They cut him two weeks ago... which is something the Twins just don't do and they have turned the 1B job over to Manzardo, Cayfus and Noel.

Who knows if Cleveland makes the playoffs but... they are currently 2.5 games back out of the wild card. Their current 28 man roster has 23 pre-arb players on it. If Cleveland wanted to... they won't... but if they wanted to... because of their development. They could outbid all 29 clubs for Kyle Tucker next year and still be spending less than we spent this year. 

Where is our Manzardo, Cayfus or Noel? 

You hit the nail on the head. The issue isn't Ty France... The issue is that Ty France was the best option by far. I'll add that not only was Ty France the best option... he played every day like he was Pete Alonso because the Twins backed themselves into this corner.

We came out of spring training with 8 pre-arb players... 142 million payroll for the year. 7 expiring contracts and arbitration raises that would eat nearly every dollar available from the 7 expiring contracts, the farm is nowhere near spitting out the replacements to fill those roster spots and Falvey probably can't go to Pohlad and ask for another 15 million just to fill the 7 expiring contracts just to keep the status quo.  The money was gone. The bill came due. 

So... we were going to need to move a player or maybe two players in the off-season to free up 10 to 20 million dollars just so we can go re-staff the team with 6 more IKF type players and onward we go. Just life support until the wall hits you in the face and the airbags go off. 

Airbags went off... The team steeply sold. Money is now available. Don't spend it on IKF types. 

Fix this development issue whatever it is.