It’s the Staleness of it All: How the Twins' Deadline Upheaval Managed to Feel So Small

[chpettit19]

45 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

And today he's doing? He's got a podcast so there's that.  

And he's on MLB Network.

[Doctor Gast]

I'm a big supporter of our players. I understand their frustration of wanting to win, but the FO is doing nothing viable to make that happen. I'm sick & tired of them not being developed properly & mismanaged on so many levels. I'm sick & tired of bad player evaluation on who should be promoted, demoted & traded. I'm sick & tired of their inability to make viable & essential trades to cover our weak areas, I'm sick & tired of hoarding redundant prospects, I'm sick & tired of all their excuses & their cosmetic solutions, which don't do any good. I'm sick & tired of their weird analytical philosophies void of any human elements. To sum it all up, I'm sick & tired of Falvey. His firing is long overdue.

[Woof Bronzer]

1 hour ago, Vanimal46 said:

Turns out Levine was the smartest person in the room and left this mess of an organization before his reputation was tarnished. 

Considering he didn't get another MLB job it appears the damage was already done...

[Vanimal46]

2 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Considering he didn't get another MLB job it appears the damage was already done...

We will see if he’s not getting interviews this winter. 1 year off isn’t a big deal. 

[mluebker]

“Obviously, I’m not speaking to the success of these moves; I’m merely pointing out that this very front office—one that has largely been the same for the better part of a decade, at levels from leadership to analyst, only growing—was making risky decisions on a routine basis relatively recently.”

I think the only thing risky about the moves that the Pohlads routinely make during the off-season is in alienating the fans who want to see the team win. 

It’s a revolving door: Anytime a player does well and stands to get a raise, they’re out the door and Falvey and company go looking for a cheap DFA or free agent replacement who looks like he has roughly the same statistics.

But all too often, that cheaper replacement is a just a little bit worse than whoever they’re replacing. That’s not how you build a winning team. 
 

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

I think your quite possible's are quite possible... because a plausible explanation is needed and it's about the only plausible explanation that I can think of. 

And it's exactly what weights heavy on my mind.

Thinking you are a Carlos Correa at full potential away? OK... maybe for a year, maybe two but certainly not for the length of the contract? Players get more expensive as time moves on. Payroll would need to keep rising. I'm sure they placed some large bets on Kirilloff and others that didn't pay off but a team with limited budget was going to need more than Kirilloff and I don't believe they placed enough bets because Kirilloff by himself was never going to be enough. They had to know that money was going to dry up regardless of the television revenue.   

TV/Cable... Baseball demographics... all of it was on shaky ground when they took the position. When it hit... it didn't just hit the Twins. It hit multiple teams. Many teams felt the financial hit but not every team felt the hit on the overall product like what occurred in Minnesota. This front office conducted themselves like the money was going to be there and they kept on the same path even when they had to know that the money was no longer there. 

We all know this but it's worth pointing out. They signed Ty France for an everyday 1B job at nearly the minimum and made him an every day player. The only teams that do this sort of thing are teams that have nowhere else to go. They can't afford better and they didn't grow better... and better was such a tremendously low bar to clear. 

Diamondbacks had it worse for television contract cancelation cost. They have a decent team in the playoff chase, recent WS. The fans in the stands are even stronger now, so they could afford the Burnes contract. They are even surviving his injury.  

When they signed Correa the second time they had the potential of Wallner, Kirriloff, Larnach, Miranda, and Lewis, with Steer hitting well in AAA. They took a risk that the next 4-5 years with a healthy Buxton and the bat of Arraez with all these great prospects, they had a shot.  We saw how it worked out.

 

[old nurse]

2 hours ago, In My La Z boy said:

We either have a large disconnect between Falvy & Pohlad, or Falvey is his bad cop? Pohlad has now embarrassed Falvey in my opinion. I just cannot believe Falvey signs Correa unless he has the future payroll runway cleared. If Pohlad pulled the rug, after greenlighting the rug, Falvey should quit. Pohlad was well aware it was a 6 year deal. You just don't make that signing, and turn around 2 years later and flush it down the toilet? Especially after doing the same thing w/Donaldson! I look for Falvey to continue the theme and get rid of every player making over $800K not named Byron Buxton this winter sadly.

You make the deal when you think everything is going to work out   It did not work out. Nobody could see the plantar fasciitis coming. This year was either disinterest or the aging curve started to hit.  If Lewis elevated to star level, and most of the prospects worked out to solid major leaguers it was a great plan.  Even the 160 million payroll year was a gamble it would all work out.  When it didn’t, Jim Pohlad cut the money.  Correa had to go sooner or later. It was actually luck that Houston needed him,

[Nshore]

The as yet nameless, faceless new minority Twins owner(s) are a bit concerning.  I assume it's some sort of private equity conglomerate.  The Pohlads aren't great, but private equity is worse IMO.  They're looking to absorb as much profit as they can, put as little as possible back in to the business, sell off the parts, and burn down the remaining structure for the insurance money.  Not expecting a big spark of energy to the ongoing baseball operation.

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I agree he was probably pushed but he was allowed to tell the world that he left on his own accord. 

That is the minimum courteous press release when making a change in upper management.

Since I don't think any of us has much of an idea how Falvey and Levine shared the decision making duties, or (equivalently) what Falvey delegated to Levine, or what their working relationship was like, we're mostly just speculating.  After several years, was Falvey genuinely disappointed with the independent decisions Levine made?  Were the major decisions all joint, and they jointly concluded the process wasn't working?  Did Falvey need a fall guy in order to preserve his own job?  (A little less pointedly, was he instructed by ownership that "something will have to change" given the poor 2024 outcome, and this was the change he genuinely opted for?)  Considering the way that they were thought of together in 2016 going forward, these latter options are a sad outcome but not every working relationship lasts forever.

Levine's seemingly kept his mouth shut in the meantime.  Has anyone here listened to his podcasts, and picked up traces of anything regarding his time with the Twins?  He could make waves, but probably believes that would kill any remaining chances in the baseball world.

And so we just sit.  And speculate.

[Mike Sixel]

Stale is a pretty good word......they really tried to ride the "almost good, let's see if it works out" train with Polanco and Kepler and Miranda and Julien. The first two getting older, and the next two not working really killed any ability of this team to do anything much. They haven't developed an exciting player (who is healthy) ever under this FO, though MAYBE Keaschell is their first. 

I don't see a good way out of this. Trading for AAA / AAAA players was a bad idea, imo. Especially if ownership wants them to cut the salary even more. 

[DocBauer]

I want to address Greg's OP more directly, but I have to digress slightly and look at ownership first. 

The FO made some very interesting moves in previous years. Both offseason and in season. Some were quite aggressive. Some worked well. Some did not. Where they suddenly became passive was mostly after 2023 and the Pohlad's "right sizing" mantra. How in hell do you sign both Buxton and Lopez to extensions, and then bring in Correa TWICE and THEN have Joe Pohlad speak about the payroll continuing to increase and he could even "see a day where the Twins might have a $180M payroll" and then the forward movement of the organization wasn't just put in neutral, it was put in reverse.

The Pohlads are suffering financially, apparently. (Have to put in a disclaimer). So they, allegedly, borrow against their biggest single asset and mess it up. That is a HUGE DISCONNECT within the family and their corporate structure. ESPECIALLY when the team had some real momentum following 2023. 

I can't blame that on Falvey, even if I don't like or agree with moves made, or not made, over the past 2 seasons.

Yes, I feel a sense of disappointment and frustration and have a hard time seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with the 2024 collapse and the way the 2025 season has turned out. The roster needed some changes made. A shakeup of sorts had to happen. Without going in to rehashed details and opinions yet again, I will just say I wouldn't have made a couple of the moves at the deadline that took place, and I will leave it at that.

So my ongoing disappointment is more focused on POST deadline operations. In all honesty, I may be frustrated by the appearances of most/all of the "ready" prospects brought in. (Also frustrated with some of the Twins own prospects). But I simply have to state that a couple months, a few weeks, a few appearances really shouldn't cloud the opinion of most of these acquisitions, or some struggling current prospects. 

I'm not trying to Looney Toons painted  artificial escape at the end of the tunnel, but in Bradley, Abel, Rojas, Roden, and our OWN Lee, Matthews, and Festa, we are MOSTLY talking about players who have just debuted, are only in their 1st full season, and are all 24-25yo. Even Abel, despite his ML experience with TB, is still only 24. I didn't even list SWR, who is also only 24yo, but hasn't struggled as others have.

It would be awesome for a traded for young player to come in and flash and provide optimism for 2026. It hasn't happened. I wish it had happened. I'm disappointed it didn't happen. That's the part where to Roadrunner paints a tunnel and the Coyote runs in to the side of the mountain.

But then I recall Gibson and Berrios looking downright awful initially. And Ryan was solid, but not the pitcher he became. Ditto for Ober. Just examples, and I'm not going to keep beating this particular drum. I'm just saying that TODAY'S disappointment and frustration shouldn't cloud at least some optimism for TOMORROW, meaning 2026, and learning curves and development that might take place over the next several months.

Right now, agreed, it's a bummer watching your team stink up the place.

What has really had me down, frustrated, and having a hard time believing in that OTHER painted exit of the tunnel, is choices made by the FO over the past 2 months since the deadline. I totally understand that INITIALLY, they just grabbed some arms/players to simply fill out a 26 man roster to play games. But it's from there that bothers me.

If they really wanted to take a look at a few guys to see if there was SOMETHING of value to keep around, OK. But did they really believe there was enough to "see" in Davis, Ramirez, and Urena for the staff? Why wasn't Laweryson brought up sooner? Why didn't Paredes jump from AA for a pen audition? Why play games with Adams and Ohl up and down instead of getting them all the ML audition time they could grab?

I know the MLB pitchibg cupboard at AAA was bare, but why not get out of your own way and start thinking about 2026 ASAP?

If they really and truly believe Outman has a chance to be "fixed" after the Dodgers couldn't in 2yrs, I guess I can understand that to some degree. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. But they bring up McCusker to sit on the bench and not play? If they didn't want to give the still only 21yo Gonzalez a ML audition, FINE. But why not Fedko after a breakout season to come up and PLAY and see if he's got some actual ML potential?

It took an injury to bring up a AAAA Pareda at catcher while sticking with Gasper who really doesn't seem to be a ML catcher and doesn't appear to be able to hit at the ML level? Hell, it you aren't going to win anything anyway, give Cardenas a shot just to let him see what MLB is all about to maybe get him ready for a promotion in 2026 at some point.

I'm not one to yell for the recently promoted Jenkins, or Rodriguez...who's just come off a rehab stint...to be tossed in to the fray at this point. But when you aren't playing any longer for 2025, you should be preparing for 2026. I mean, you aren't keeping BOTH Keirsey and Outman on the 40 man...maybe neither...so why not look at someone younger that MIGHT help next season. Same for some of the arms I mentioned.

If you keep Lopez and Ryan, a healthy Ober and a number of talented young arms gives you real optimism for the rotation next year. And quality SP is the hardest thing to find. There is a BASE for optimism regarding the potential of the lineup next year, especially with a handful of top prospects set to debut at some time. The pen is an entirely different conversation, of course.

But it's the USE of the 26 man roster in a disappointing, losing season that has me angry, befuddled, and having a hard time recognizing that end of the tunnel exit that has me feeling down.

[Sjoski]

On 9/22/2025 at 10:43 AM, AKTwinsFan said:

now we're forced to watch an entire year of this inconsistency next season as well. 

Fans aren't "forced" to watch anything.  

To the contrary,  by not watching,  fans can force ownership to field a team worth watching. 

Every empty seat is a vote.

That's how I see it. 

 

[RpR]

1 hour ago, DocBauer said:

it took an injury to bring up a AAAA Pareda at catcher while sticking with Gasper who really doesn't seem to be a ML catcher and doesn't appear to be able to hit at the ML level? Hell, it you aren't going to win anything anyway, give Cardenas a shot just to let him see what MLB is all about to maybe get him ready for a promotion in 2026 at some point.

LOL, Let's see Pereda's fielding percentage with the Twins of .957 vs Gasper's .983, yeah, that is what the Twins needed.

Heck 'Bride is batting .281/.876 vs Jenkins .242/.720, bring Bride up , they need a good 2nd baseman.

[LastOnePicked]

I think the hopelessness comes from the fact that this is a team without a winning culture. There's no commitment to excellence here, no pressure to win, no expectations.

Until the culture changes, you can bring in the top free agent in the market and nothing would change. Oh wait, they did that. They were losers before, during and after Correa.

The prospect pipeline won't mean a thing until the culture changes. Hopelessness about this team is a sign that you're paying attention. It's okay to see things as they are - if only the FO and ownership could, too.

[Riverbrian]

On 9/22/2025 at 12:13 PM, old nurse said:

Diamondbacks had it worse for television contract cancelation cost. They have a decent team in the playoff chase, recent WS. The fans in the stands are even stronger now, so they could afford the Burnes contract. They are even surviving his injury.  

When they signed Correa the second time they had the potential of Wallner, Kirriloff, Larnach, Miranda, and Lewis, with Steer hitting well in AAA. They took a risk that the next 4-5 years with a healthy Buxton and the bat of Arraez with all these great prospects, they had a shot.  We saw how it worked out.

 

I don't have a problem with the Correa deal. Even in hindsight... I still don't. It was nice to see the Twins actually walk into that exclusive door and play in the upper end of the free agent pool... if only for a second. 

However, if they took this Correa risk because of the potential of Wallner, Kirilloff, Larnach, Miranda and Lewis and Steer. They couldn't have handled this critical group worse nor failed harder. 

The first three justifications for signing Correa were strip mined for parts, pinch hit for, and handcuffed to Farmers, Garlicks and Luplows. Now we are at the point where the Twins Daily faithful are talking about trading what's left of this trio. Of course trade value for Wallner and Larnach has been severely compromised due in large part to the players being compromised by the club. I'm sure the reason for the compromising was justified into an attempt to raise the odds by raising percentages during this Correa window but in the end... they compromised young rising talent in order to platoon advantage for slight percentage gains on a per AB basis. Maybe the Larnach and Wallner can recover value enough to reach Joc Pederson series of one year contract levels when they reach free agency but right now... it's being openly discussed on this website that we should just toss Larnach now despite having above average success at the plate against the hand he was allowed to face. This was minimizing future value in an attempt to minimally raise current odds. 

Only Steer had an above average OPS of the right handed group in 2025... the one that is not here. Miranda... we have probably seen the last of.  Hopefully Lewis has shaken out of whatever had him but he's in arbitration now and despite an incredibly hot superstar like start. He has been a year long slump surrounded by injury and enough injury that Miranda had enough time to rescue his career as the trio of right handed justifications for acquiring Correa were all tied to the same position.

I'm not sure if development could have turned out worse and honestly... I'm not sure that it wasn't partially intentional because they tried to justify the Correa signing with Margot's and Frances. 

The D-Backs... sold at the deadline... and have pulled themselves back into contention with the kids. Much like Cleveland did. 

The Twins... not so much. 

They could not have supported the Correa deal worse. 

[In My La Z boy]

19 hours ago, old nurse said:

You make the deal when you think everything is going to work out   It did not work out. Nobody could see the plantar fasciitis coming. This year was either disinterest or the aging curve started to hit.  If Lewis elevated to star level, and most of the prospects worked out to solid major leaguers it was a great plan.  Even the 160 million payroll year was a gamble it would all work out.  When it didn’t, Jim Pohlad cut the money.  Correa had to go sooner or later. It was actually luck that Houston needed him,

The SF Giants & the NY Mets saw it coming and both backed out of "done deals", and then Falvey signed him. I think you are being generous. Hindsight does no one any good and I do look forward to looking forward.

[old nurse]

26 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

The SF Giants & the NY Mets saw it coming and both backed out of "done deals", and then Falvey signed him. I think you are being generous. Hindsight does no one any good and I do look forward to looking forward.

The Mets and Giants had 12 year contracts. The medical were reporting concerns for the repaired ankle not holding up that long. Common sense as a shortstop says he was not going to last that long.   There were no ankle issues in his Twins stay. There was no unreasonable length to his contract. He had been averaging 5 bwar a season for his career up to that point. His Twins contract was not unreasonable for that kind of player, It wasn’t working this season. That is not hindsight.  There is understanding history. 

[In My La Z boy]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

The Mets and Giants had 12 year contracts. The medical were reporting concerns for the repaired ankle not holding up that long. Common sense as a shortstop says he was not going to last that long.   There were no ankle issues in his Twins stay. There was no unreasonable length to his contract. He had been averaging 5 bwar a season for his career up to that point. His Twins contract was not unreasonable for that kind of player, It wasn’t working this season. That is not hindsight.  There is understanding history. 

I guess I am wrong and you are right. It was perfectly reasonable to jump on board with Correa and to give him 25% of the entire teams payroll. Of course we could afford a $37M player what am I thinking? And just think, now we still get to pay him 10% of our entire teams payroll. Good times.

[old nurse]

59 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

I guess I am wrong and you are right. It was perfectly reasonable to jump on board with Correa and to give him 25% of the entire teams payroll. Of course we could afford a $37M player what am I thinking? And just think, now we still get to pay him 10% of our entire teams payroll. Good times.

If the plan worked, attendance would be back toand it would not be 25% of payroll. They took a risk and lost. The cheap Pohlads spent money and it did not work. All it did was give the negative people one more thing to complain about.