Minnesota Twins Are Finally Planning on Playing the Young Guys. Why is Everyone So Upset?

[Cody Schoenmann]

1 hour ago, Patzky said:

The Rumsfeld Quandary 

the main dangers regarding the Twins lie in the 'unknown knowns'—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices the front office pretends not to know about, even though they form the background of Twins Territory’s values.

[Doc Lenz]

If we bring to many rookies up this year they will cancel each other out for ROY.

[AceWrigley]

1 hour ago, purplesoldier4u said:

Whatever, Cody.

Post of the year.

[AceWrigley]

Ya know what? I wonder if any GM's have started using A.I. in evaluating trades or acquisitions?

[AceWrigley]

I wonder which team will have the first A.I. robot manager . . . other than Rocco of course.

[awmonahan]

It's so meta. This writing concept is the baseball blog equivalent of a March signing of Joey Gallo.

[Doc Munson]

Straw Man Article

[harmony55]

32 minutes ago, AceWrigley said:

I wonder which team will have the first A.I. robot manager . . . other than Rocco of course.

Oakland AIs? The Ballers will be first professional sports team managed by AI:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6599707/2025/09/05/artificial-intelligence-baseball-manager-oakland-ballers/?source=athletic_user_shared_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

[GNess]

I don't understand the. need to be concerned about the emotional, mental and spiritual state of Twins fans on TD. It's ok to be excited about the young emerging players or to grouse about the incompetence that brought the Twins to this place.

Both seem valid to me. 

[AlLagoon]

The Twins best era was primarily draft and develop, then add as necessary. 87, 91.

I HATE slowing prospects down and playing middling vets from other organizations instead.

Jenkins should be a Twin next year, and Raya, Prielipp, Gonzales, maybe even Culpepper. 

Tired of stopgap lineups of AAAA players. 

Play the prospects: you might be pleasantly surprised. 

If not, more top end talent will be coming in.

If you aren't willing to pay to play, this is the best answer.

 

[Pdub]

Keaschall is the only guy I’d consider young, maybe Lee. I don’t consider the 26-29yo AAAA types as young. I’d be much more apt to buy tickets next year if they played the Jenkins, EmRod, GG in the field and Raya, Prielip in the pen. Roden and Martin I do think are worth giving another shot. I also think the retread no hit utility guys we keep picking up show that the FO is not serious about actually playing the young guys. 

[old nurse]

7 hours ago, Doc Munson said:

Straw Man Article

So not the first straw man article here, definately not the last 

I have realized why they need so much straw on this site. 

[Mahoning]

If James Outman is part of, to use Falvey’s language, the next big push, then Lord help us. 

[Western SD Fan]

8 hours ago, EGFTShaw said:

There is a difference between playing the young guns because you are trying to work them in to the Big Show

and

HAVING to play the young guns because you gutted the team and refused to build upon a winner.

I look forward to the young guns, but the piss poor planning of the owners doesn't go unnoticed, and they still should be rake over the coals.

Pohlads are cheap cheap cheap.

I quoted something wrong in another post, but they still received around $210-$215M in 2024 for the revenue sharing machines and CUT payroll after winning their first series since before some of the current players were born.

I encourage you to re-read @Sherry Cerny article that she wrote last week linked here:  

 

I hate continuing to hear about how cheap the Pohlad's are while they continue to outspend most of the teams in the region and definitely in the division.  Will that get us a World Series?  Obviously not, but there is no excuse with the payroll we have had during the Falvey/Rocco era to be more competitive than we have shown on the field.  I'm not going to rehash what could/should have been done as Sherry did a great job of that in her article and you should go read it.

If you want to criticize the Pohlads, it's not so much the amount of payroll spending.  It's the inefficiency of how they are organizing their budgets and that the Pohlads themselves do not know how to run an efficient small to mid-market team.  When I looked at the Twins' payrolls (using Sportrac as my reference) compared to other teams that seems to be more payroll efficient, such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Tampa Bay, the Twins have wild swings in their payroll, going up $29M from 2021-2022, then dropping by $25M two years later in 2024.  IMHO, the Pohlads give a payroll based on the profitability of their other businesses, using the Twins as a cash cow rather than running it as a separate business.  I believe this explains the sudden shifts in payroll from year to year and the mystery of what the payroll will be every offseason.  We don't seem to hear this much chatter about payroll expectations from the other teams listed above as they seem to operate in a range that is well known to their GM likely years in advance.

This situation is where a more experienced GM than Falvey would have been better.  Falvey seemed to feel the need to spend his budgeted payroll akin to a government agency that feels like he needs to spend every last dime with the fear that he wouldn't get that budget again.  Spoiler alert: Falvey never gets the same budget twice.  This leads to inefficient spending (Donaldson, Correa, Margot, Gallo, we all know the list).  I also think this led to Falvey not being able to spend at the deadline as he used all of his bullets in the offseason trying to plug holes with aging veterans.

Here is my work in showing how the Twins compare payroll wise to teams like Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Milwaukee.  I left out the 2020 year since it would skew my payroll averages.  As we can see, the Twins have had the largest consistent payroll of the group but has the worst winning percentage of the group and made the playoffs the least number of times of the group during the Falvey Era.

	W	L	Win %	Avg Payroll	Avg MLB Payroll Rank	Post App
Minnesota	654	642	0.505	131.325	18.25	3
Milwaukee	734	563	0.566	117.60	20.375	6
Cleveland	714	581	0.551	99.825	23.125	5
Tampa Bay	708	588	0.546	79.738	27.125	4

Per Sportrac, this has been the Twins payroll during the Falvey Era, minus 2020 of course.  Payroll is in millions, stars represent postseason appearances, and the MLB payroll rank.

Minnesota
W	L	Payroll	MLB Place
70	92	129.7	21
82	80	131.2	19
87	75	156.1	16	*
78	84	150.4	15
73	89	121.4	17
101	61	125.3	18	*
78	84	115.5	21
85	77	121	19	*

[old nurse]

A site that promotes negativity wonders why people are negative.   I don’t know if I should give credit to Cody for starting a semantics argument over the term young. 

[Patzky]

8 hours ago, Cody Schoenmann said:

the main dangers regarding the Twins lie in the 'unknown knowns'—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices the front office pretends not to know about, even though they form the background of Twins Territory’s values.

You're spot on.. want it Rumsfeld who also said you go to ear with the army you have not the army you might want or need.. that was my thrust but maybe that was someone else 🤣 who said that.

[JBK]

It worked in 1982............just saying

[jmlease1]

There's a variety of reasons some people are still upset, it's not just a linear action of people being bad they weren't playing the young guys and now being forced to play the supposed young guys. There's the people who hate Falvey, and won't be happy until he's fired; there's the crew that won't be happy until the Twins get rid of guys who strike out a lot and start bunting more; there's those who thought we were finally moving on from the Cheap Pohlads and had the rug pulled out from under us, etc.

That said, a lot of people are asking to see the prospects and let them sink or swim, but there's no real evidence that the Twins are planning on that happening yet. There's definitely some inexperienced players who will be relied on, but it sure looks like a lot of the top prospects in the high minors won't be starting with the team. Outman & Larnach are looking like they're on the 26-man and they're neither young nor prospects of any kind at this point. (Martin isn't all that young any longer either, but at least he played well last season) Clemens isn't young, and isn't a prospect. Lewis isn't a young prospect any longer either. Even in the pitching we don't know who is getting a chance; are we actually going to see Raya & Preilipp in the bullpen or are we going to see a bunch of dumpster-diving bullpen candidates in Spring Training and even guys like Adams and Ohl still trying to land a job? So far the only young prospects that are somewhat locked in are Keaschall (who needs to stay healthy) and Lee (who isn't that young since he was a college player and has been up in MLB in 2024 & 2025).

Julien will be 27 coming off back-to-back poor seasons. Larnach will be 29 and struggled. Outman will also be 29 and has declined in the field and is a horrible mess at the plate. Roden's the baby of the group and will be 26. Clemens will be 30. All of them are likely to need time in the OF or at DH and just their presence on the roster makes it harder for guys like Gonzalez, Rodriguez, or Jenkins to get time absent injury. None of them were good in 2025.

It's not a real youth movement. And there's a bunch of sunk costs that the Twins can't move on from.

[bean5302]

Comparing the lineups, pretty much identical in age.

2023 Player	2026 Player	2023 Age	2026 Age	Position
Ryan Jeffers	Same	26	29	C
Donovan Solano	Kody Clemens	35	30	1B
Edouard Julien	Luke Keaschall	24	23	2B
Carlos Correa	Brooks Lee	28	25	SS
Royce Lewis	Same	24	27	3B
Joey Gallo	Austin Martin	29	27	LF
Michael A. Taylor	Byron Buxton	32	32	CF
Max Kepler	Matt Wallner	30	28	RF
Byron Buxton	Trevor Larnach	29	29	DH
Avg		29	28

Rotation more of the same

2023 Player	2026 Player	2023 Age	2026 Age	Position
Sonny Gray	SWR	33	25	SP
Pablo Lopez	Same	27	30	SP
Joe Ryan	Same	27	30	SP
Bailey Ober	Same	27	30	SP
Kenta Maeda	Taj Bradley	35	25	SP
Avg		30	29

I'd imagine the frustration is with the quality of the "young" (not young) players.

 

 

[rv78]

Yeah, we aren't upset that they are playing the young guys, we are upset they are going to play other teams castoffs. I'd rather see one or two of Jenkins, Rodriguez, or Gonzalez in the outfield over Roden or Outman. If Lee needs a break at SS I'd rather see Culpepper over Fitzgerald. I'd rather see one of OUR young players getting at bats over weak hitters like Gasper, Outman, and Alex Jackson. The only thing these type of players provide is payroll relief instead of washed up veterans that Falvey was bringing in that cost multi millions. These players have no value to the team in the present or for the future. So the Falvey plan now is to save money with the crap he brings in. They will still take playing time away from OUR own young players. I have no doubt the pitchers he traded for at the deadline will make up the majority of the bullpen. The direction they have decided on is easy to figure out. It's not to go all in and try to win now, or to go young and build incrementally or to even go full rebuild mode. The direction they have chosen is to go CHEAP. 

[Fire Dan Gladden]

This is not an either/or situation. You can play the youth and have quality veterans at the same time. 1B, C, IF all have holes that would not be "blocking" a younger player.

Be real about where the anger is directed.

[USAFChief]

What new "young players" are the Twins counting on in 2026?

1st base? Nope 

2nd base? I guess, but Keaschall earned the position in 2025.

SS? Nope. Same guy 

3rd? Nope, same guy.

LF? Maybe. I guess. At some point?

CF? Nope. 

RF? Nope.

Rotation? Nope. Not until injury requires additions,  but that's the case every year. Nobody has qualified veteran starting pitching sitting around in AAA.

Bullpen? I guess. Probably. Although we don't know that yet, and there's some young pen staff for pretty much every team every year.

 

I ask again...what new "young players" are the Twins handing jobs to in 2026?

[DocBauer]

I am 100% in the camp of playing the prospects. So this OP isn't directed towards me.

BUT I'm NOT one of those who believe in tearing down the team and playing nothing BUT prospects. It sounds so easy to say: "trade Lopez and/or Ryan and just throw the young pitchers and play the young talent, in a couple of years we're going to have a REALLY GOOD team ready to contender.

It just doesn't work that way. Prospects fail, or just don't become as good as expected. When you actually have some good talent on hand, I believe in re-tooling.

Destroying the rotation does NOTHING but mark a complete rebuild. Period. Baseball gods help us then.

I advocate KEEPING what we have in regards to the rotation, and arms in general. I advocate a new manager voice and partially new staff, along with some health...Lewis in particular, which is looking optimistic these days...might see some growth just by experience, if nothing else, thinking about Martin, Lee, Roden, etc.

I am dismissive of articles that talk about cheap or bounce back OF optional signings  BECAUSE of Martin, Roden, Rodriguez, Jenkins, Gonzalez, and even Rosario and maybe Fedko. I've stated many times the Twins should NOT follow the path of any particular team. They have to find their OWN identity, stamp it, and follow it.

But if you do that, you should recognize opportunity and talent. I've gotten some pushback on a healthy Rodriguez, for example, who only has 1 option left, and should spend a month at AAA for future control if nothing else. Point taken. And it's probably a point I haven't considered. Based on talent, a very good MILB career, and his strong Winter League season, I think he's ready NOW to move Wallner to DH and provide offense and defense to the team.

But MAYBE it's "smarter" to let him play a month at St Paul to get another year of control. I don't like that idea, but it might be a good long term idea to let Roden get more AB in the OF to BEGIN 2026.

As much as we can't wait for Jenkins, he was only 20yo when he reached AAA last year. His power is just starting to come through. If his power starts to develop with a month or two in AAA to begin 2026 AND we get another year of control, is that a bad thing?

BTW, Martin's improvement in 2025 was a good thing. Roden isn't a "special" talent. And he's had a very good MILB career. A poor, and very limited, rookie debut shouldn't dismiss him as being a potentially solid, well rounded player.

But there is ALSO a REALITY present here.

The FO has to just admit a failure in Outman. That should be taken care of SOON in regard to Rodriguez and Jenkins. Hey, you took a shot. No penalty. Just DFA as soon as you promote one of your top prospects. 

The OF potential is really, really good. Changes may start opening day, and might be even better come June 1st and beyond.

I think the INF is different. WHEN K-Pepper is ready, no matter improvement from Lee, I think we start to see changes. Even with improvement from Lee, frankly, K-Pepper is the better, more athletic player. Some sort of shuffle begins.

But we STILL have a massive 1B issue. While I agree with my TD friend @Riverbrianabout hating more and more 1B re-treads at 1B, i think we can find a solid option there in the long term. And I WANT it to happen.

But tell me honestly, what long term option do we have prepared for 2026? Still unproven Fedko and Roden could be placed there as a quasi platoon and double as 4th OF. Mendez might do something latter in the season. Maybe Gonzalez or Rosario starts to play some 1B as well.

It's just ridiculous for the FO to keep ignoring this important position. So I'm fine for a 1B FA for at least 1 more year. It's a balance from what we have, to what we have.

The rotation depth is fine, barring a breakdown, with some interesting depth.

The pen has to be re-built, but there are external options that will be brought in. 

Go with the kids as much as possible. But I do think there is a balance where the team can do so, while still adding a handful of veterans to balance the roster, and maybe even make this team competitive. 

[weitz41]

It's a sign Correa, extend Lopez and then right size payroll.

Type of thing to me.

If they're going to do it. COMMIT to it...Not 1/2 measures. April and May of young guys then send them to AAA because they don't hit the ground running for your Mlib contract veteran..NO..

[old nurse]

4 hours ago, Patzky said:

You're spot on.. want it Rumsfeld who also said you go to ear with the army you have not the army you might want or need.. that was my thrust but maybe that was someone else 🤣 who said that.

That was Rumsfeld in response to being questioned on why the military sent the soldiers off to war to be maimed and killed in Humvees with little armor to protect the soldiers.  The callousness of the response  was astounding. 

[Mike Sixel]

13 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

You're confusing "young" and "inexperienced." The Twins have very few actually young guys on their current roster but have many inexperienced ones. They aren't the same thing. 

Austin Martin is not young, he'll be 27 next season. Allen Roden is not young, he'll be 26 next year. Keaschall is young, and you can argue Brooks Lee is borderline. They are the only "young" position players on the roster. This is why some of us have been complaining. Because the guys you're trying to call young are actually just inexperienced because they weren’t called up until their mid-20s.

The pitching staff is too far from being set to know what that situation will be. But people call Ryan and Ober young when they're essentially the same age as Lopez. The difference is that they were called up so much later they're still in arbitration while Lopez is making over 20 mil a year.

This. They aren't playing any actual young guys at all as far as we can tell.

[Major League Ready]

50 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

What new "young players" are the Twins counting on in 2026?

1st base? Nope 

2nd base? I guess, but Keaschall earned the position in 2025.

SS? Nope. Same guy 

3rd? Nope, same guy.

LF? Maybe. I guess. At some point?

CF? Nope. 

RF? Nope.

Rotation? Nope. Not until injury requires additions,  but that's the case every year. Nobody has qualified veteran starting pitching sitting around in AAA.

Bullpen? I guess. Probably. Although we don't know that yet, and there's some young pen staff for pretty much every team every year.

 

I ask again...what new "young players" are the Twins handing jobs to in 2026?

Apparently, you are defining of counting on in 2026 requires that they are on the opening day roster?   I suppose that's one definition.  It makes sense if you think they are going to contend.  If they are rebuilding, the opening day roster is MUCH less important than the end of season roster.  When any team rebuilds, it's a transition over a couple of years.  The Twins will be looking to transition a significant portion of their team.

It is highly likely that Walker Jenkins, Rodriguez, and Culpepper are part of 2026.  Gabriel Gonzalez has a a good shot and someone like Mendez, Fedko or even Roden could end up at 1B.  Almost the entire BP and Mick Abel.  Can we count Andrew Morris?  nearly the entire BP will be "young / inexperienced guys.  Of course, there is a very good chance there are trades made for other "young guys". 

If you look beyond opening day, this team will likely go through a massive turnover in the roster.  It will be fun to look back in October and see how much the team has changed.  

[Patzky]

Sonny Gray to the Red Sox .. does that impact Ryan going there? Probably not.

[RpR]

8 hours ago, Pdub said:

Keaschall is the only guy I’d consider young, maybe Lee. I don’t consider the 26-29yo AAAA types as young. I’d be much more apt to buy tickets next year if they played the Jenkins, EmRod, GG in the field and Raya, Prielip in the pen. Roden and Martin I do think are worth giving another shot. I also think the retread no hit utility guys we keep picking up show that the FO is not serious about actually playing the young guys. 

Go watch the Saints.

[Dawgzilla]

Trade!!!!!!  Trade!!!!!!