Are the Twins Really Keeping Their Core Together This Winter?

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, LastOnePicked said:

The beauty of baseball is watching a winning club in action, not imagining one. It's long past time for this team to pick a lane. and they seemingly did last trade deadline. It's a rebuild. So commit to it.

There is nothing even remotely realistic about this club and the playoffs in 2026. And that's fine. Build now for future success.

Of course, I agree completely, especially about picking a lane and committing.  What I was getting at is people don't really want a 72-win team, they want to believe that everything will go perfectly, and this 72-win team will somehow compete for a playoff spot.  As ill-advised as it is to pursue that hopeful scenario if you are a baseball executive, it's still fun to believe. 

[old nurse]

14 hours ago, karcherd said:

Because it applies to how this organization is lacking in developing their prospects and not having patience with them.  We will see this year if they truly believe Wallner is an every day player because last year they did not have the options to sit every lefty hitter against left handed pitching.

On a team that had Bader and Castro for much of the year they did not have anyone to platoon with him, thus hurting his development by playing him. Can’t argue with that logic

[Woof Bronzer]

19 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

The beauty of baseball is that we can dream of a scenario where Lewis is a 130 wRC+ guy, and Lee improves drastically, and they find a 1B, and Jenkins comes up and excels immediately, and the starting staff stays healthy and perform well, and they completely rebuild their BP, and they win the close games.   In that scenario, as unlikely as it might be, the Twins could conceivably have a shot at a playoff position.  This is what some fans want. If you ignore or don't recognize the future cost, why give up anything now no matter how low the odds are of it coming together?

Sure, I mean if all the players who were bad in 2025 have career years, and all the players who had a good year repeat it, and the team is as healthy as it was in 2025 again, and the young kids come up fully formed and turn into all stars, and the bullpen whisperer creates a strong bullpen without adding to payroll, and the rest of the Central decides not to try like in 2023, sure, this team could get to .500.  

[NYCTK]

On 12/6/2025 at 9:54 PM, tony&rodney said:

Two - Carson McCusker, who was tearing AAA apart and then sat on the bench for two solid weeks, getting six trips to the dish mostly against closers. There is no way to know if Carson would have done well if he was stuck in the lineup for two weeks and 40+ PA. He was sent down and never really recovered. I watched a ton of Saints games and although he still hit a few home runs McCusker never did recover his batting stroke. He needs a fresh look and may be out of baseball soon.

Sounds to me like the Twins correctly evaluated McCusker as a AAA player that was just going through a hot stretch. The fact that he went down to AAA and didn't even OPS 600 over his next 200 PAs tells me not that the Twins ruined him, but that he wasn't all that good to begin with. 

 

On 12/7/2025 at 12:10 AM, Nashvilletwin said:

There are always excuses for why we never transition a high performing projectable minor leaguer into a decent major leaguer.  

Who? There hasn't been a high performing projectable minor leaguer promoted to the Twins since Royce Lewis. At least for position players.

• Kiriloff, but his injury misfortunes are well noted. 
• Austin Martin, but he had already lost that top prospect status before coming over to the Twins. 

It seems the bigger issue is fans are getting way too excited for prospects like Trevor Larnach whose highest consensus rating was #83 and Wallner who was never a top 100 prospect.

Well...the biggest issue is the Twins have had a terrible time scouting and developing in the minor leagues. It'd be nice if they could have more legitimate prospects graduating more frequently (without major health issues). 

On 12/7/2025 at 8:08 AM, karcherd said:

Wallner is a perfect example of their impatience with the younger players.  In 24 he was sent down after two weeks and 25 AB's.  Yes I know his K rate was off the charts, but it was 25 AB's.

Wallner is actually a perfect example of the Twins accurately evaluating their talent and the fans losing their minds over proper baseball decisions.

He not only sucked in spring training and the start of the MLB season, but Wallner continued to suck for weeks in the minor leagues. It took him a solid month or more to get into the swing of the season, and was only kept off the major league roster 2-3 weeks from his inflection point. 

Did they time it perfectly, calling him back up as soon as he could have been a contributing player? Not quite. But did fans really want him to get 200 PAs in the major leagues, striking out 100 times, allowing him to find his swing with the Major League team that had won the division the year prior and expected to repeat? 

[Mike Sixel]

This core won how many games the last two years? With Duran and Jax for two thirds of that time?

[Woof Bronzer]

17 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

This core won how many games the last two years? With Duran and Jax for two thirds of that time?

If we call the 2025 core Buxton, Lopez, Ryan, Jeffers, and Lewis?, then...

2023:  2025 core + ace starter, HOF shortstop, 2 all star relievers, Polanco and others = 87 wins

2024:  2025 core + ace starter, HOF shortstop, 2 all star relievers, $30mil payroll cut = 82 wins

2025 pre dealine:  2025 core + HOF shortstop, 2 all star relievers, $0 additional investment = 75 win pace

2025 post deadline;  2025 core, $30 mil payroll cut = 57 win pace

 

What are we missing Mike?

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

If we call the 2025 core Buxton, Lopez, Ryan, Jeffers, and Lewis?, then...

2023:  2025 core + ace starter, HOF shortstop, 2 all star relievers, Polanco and others = 87 wins

2024:  2025 core + ace starter, HOF shortstop, 2 all star relievers, $30mil payroll cut = 82 wins

2025 pre dealine:  2025 core + HOF shortstop, 2 all star relievers, $0 additional investment = 75 win pace

2025 post deadline;  2025 core, $30 mil payroll cut = 57 win pace

 

What are we missing Mike?

2 all star RPs (not sure they have one legit RP right now), a HOF SS, career years from certain players....and that got 75, 82, and 87 wins.....

Their SS isn't even an average SS, let alone HOF. 

[tony&rodney]

3 hours ago, NYCTK said:

Sounds to me like the Twins correctly evaluated McCusker as a AAA player that was just going through a hot stretch. The fact that he went down to AAA and didn't even OPS 600 over his next 200 PAs tells me not that the Twins ruined him, but that he wasn't all that good to begin with. 

 

Who? There hasn't been a high performing projectable minor leaguer promoted to the Twins since Royce Lewis. At least for position players.

• Kiriloff, but his injury misfortunes are well noted. 
• Austin Martin, but he had already lost that top prospect status before coming over to the Twins. 

It seems the bigger issue is fans are getting way too excited for prospects like Trevor Larnach whose highest consensus rating was #83 and Wallner who was never a top 100 prospect.

Well...the biggest issue is the Twins have had a terrible time scouting and developing in the minor leagues. It'd be nice if they could have more legitimate prospects graduating more frequently (without major health issues). 

Wallner is actually a perfect example of the Twins accurately evaluating their talent and the fans losing their minds over proper baseball decisions.

He not only sucked in spring training and the start of the MLB season, but Wallner continued to suck for weeks in the minor leagues. It took him a solid month or more to get into the swing of the season, and was only kept off the major league roster 2-3 weeks from his inflection point. 

Did they time it perfectly, calling him back up as soon as he could have been a contributing player? Not quite. But did fans really want him to get 200 PAs in the major leagues, striking out 100 times, allowing him to find his swing with the Major League team that had won the division the year prior and expected to repeat? 

Brent Rooker.

[NYCTK]

8 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Brent Rooker.

Quite honestly, Twins fans need to get over him. You can't just point to one exception to argue for every AAA player to get a long run at the major league level. 

Brent Rooker has a career AAA OPS of 977 (930-ish as a Saint) whereas McCusker is sitting at 800. No one's arguing that McCusker can't be given further opportunities, but he needs to earn his chance to become a big leaguer. 

[tony&rodney]

33 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

Quite honestly, Twins fans need to get over him. You can't just point to one exception to argue for every AAA player to get a long run at the major league level. 

Brent Rooker has a career AAA OPS of 977 (930-ish as a Saint) whereas McCusker is sitting at 800. No one's arguing that McCusker can't be given further opportunities, but he needs to earn his chance to become a big leaguer. 

I could care less about the Twins trading Rooker and I'm not a fan of DH types generally, as I explained previously. I merely suggested that players often need a firm run of consistent playing time to get their feet beneath them and for an opportunity to see if they are viable regulars. This was in response to another person who was down on certain players. You just jumped in with stuff that wasn't really relevant as a response to whether the Twins are particularly good at evaluation. The Twins should just release McCusker and Julien. They have no intention of letting them play. The rostered Twins position players I care about are Buxton and Keaschall. That's it.

[Woof Bronzer]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

2 all star RPs (not sure they have one legit RP right now), a HOF SS, career years from certain players....and that got 75, 82, and 87 wins.....

Their SS isn't even an average SS, let alone HOF. 

I'm sure Falvey's hands are tied to an extent, and he's probably right to think that a full rebuild isn't going to help his job security, but I just can't imagine looking at this roster and the last 2 years and think it's good enough to compete.  

[StiltedGopher]

Core?