Updating Narratives Surrounding the 2026 Twins

[JD-TWINS]

Outman .115 BA - 3 OPS+ - with (-.200 WAR)

Clemens .175 BA - 60 OPS+ with (-.200 WAR)

Keaschall .208 BA - 44 OPS+ with (-.200 WAR)

 

Matt Wallner (-.800 WAR)

No roster moves as of 10:30 a.m. CST

[Patzky]

12 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Outman .115 BA - 3 OPS+ - with (-.200 WAR)

Clemens .175 BA - 60 OPS+ with (-.200 WAR)

Keaschall .208 BA - 44 OPS+ with (-.200 WAR)

 

Matt Wallner (-.800 WAR)

No roster moves as of 10:30 a.m. CST

Refresh.. refresh.. "curse you Pohlads.".. checking weather forecast.. refresh..

[Patzky]

13 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Outman .115 BA - 3 OPS+ - with (-.200 WAR)

Clemens .175 BA - 60 OPS+ with (-.200 WAR)

Keaschall .208 BA - 44 OPS+ with (-.200 WAR)

 

Matt Wallner (-.800 WAR)

No roster moves as of 10:30 a.m. CST

-.800.. it's the Terry Felton zone..

[Greglw3]

Mentioned as drags on the offense were Wallner, Clemens, Outman and Keashcall, which is true and also add Lewis, who looks totally lost and inept at the plate as a 5th ineffective bat and Byron Buxton is a bit better but carrying a low batting average. Bell and Caratini are regressing.

The best hitters are Martin (by a mile), Lee (lately coming on) and Tristan Gray. Jeffers has been acceptable too.

The biggest drag IMO is Wallner, who I’d replace now with Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Keaschall probably needs to be sent down for a while and tough as it is, Clemens probably released. And Outman released. Lewis probably needs to be sent down and instructed sternly about stopping the relentless HR hunting and chasing of bad pitches and start learning how to really hit, up the middle, to right field. I think he was seduced by all those early home runs which has completely messed up his approach.

I’d probably go with a revamped, forward looking lineup (until and if any trades can be made) of:

LF - E. Rodriguez (G. Gonzalez or Fedko vs L)

CF - Buxton

RF - A. Martin

3B - Tristan Gray

SS - B. Lee

2B - Kaelen Culpepper

1B - Larnach  (Caratini/Jeffers vs L)

C-Jeffers/Caratini

DH - Bell/Caratini/Jeffers

This isn’t perfect but could eliminate the .100 club hitters from the lineup, add a bit more speed in E-Rod and Culpepper)

[Greglw3]

11 minutes ago, Patzky said:

-.800.. it's the Terry Felton zone..

I had hoped Zoll sans Falvey would be a bit more proactive and aggressive. It’s clearly time to draw the line in the sand with Wallner, Clemens, Lewis, Keaschall, Outman with options and DFAs. Let E-Rod, Culpepper and others have a go at it.

[Patzky]

6 minutes ago, Greglw3 said:

I had hoped Zoll sans Falvey would be a bit more proactive and aggressive. It’s clearly time to draw the line in the sand with Wallner, Clemens, Lewis, Keaschall, Outman with options and DFAs. Let E-Rod, Culpepper and others have a go at it.

There's no way the game tonight gets played. 🌧️ Chance to call up someone extra for tomorrow.. if it aint Rojas it should be Fedko.

[Patzky]

16 minutes ago, Greglw3 said:

Mentioned as drags on the offense were Wallner, Clemens, Outman and Keashcall, which is true and also add Lewis, who looks totally lost and inept at the plate as a 5th ineffective bat and Byron Buxton is a bit better but carrying a low batting average. Bell and Caratini are regressing.

The best hitters are Martin (by a mile), Lee (lately coming on) and Tristan Gray. Jeffers has been acceptable too.

The biggest drag IMO is Wallner, who I’d replace now with Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Keaschall probably needs to be sent down for a while and tough as it is, Clemens probably released. And Outman released. Lewis probably needs to be sent down and instructed sternly about stopping the relentless HR hunting and chasing of bad pitches and start learning how to really hit, up the middle, to right field. I think he was seduced by all those early home runs which has completely messed up his approach.

I’d probably go with a revamped, forward looking lineup (until and if any trades can be made) of:

LF - E. Rodriguez (G. Gonzalez or Fedko vs L)

CF - Buxton

RF - A. Martin

3B - Tristan Gray

SS - B. Lee

2B - Kaelen Culpepper

1B - Larnach  (Caratini/Jeffers vs L)

C-Jeffers/Caratini

DH - Bell/Caratini/Jeffers

This isn’t perfect but could eliminate the .100 club hitters from the lineup, add a bit more speed in E-Rod and Culpepper)

Whose locker do we have to put the itch powder in first.. or find that rotten Kyle Farmer sausage, it must still be there somewhere..

[Linus]

1 hour ago, Ricky Vaughn said:

Is it a lack of talent or a lack of competent instruction? A lot of these guys were highly rated even by outside evaluators, but fall flat on their face when they get to the show. 

Definitely talent. They’ve had multiple hitting coaches just in the last few years with the same basic results. We need better players. 

[Coach Wheels]

3 hours ago, rv78 said:

The current roster is woefully inadequate in almost every facet of the game. Good job Falvey!

This article could have been reduced to 1 line:

"They are who we thought they'd be."

[Parfigliano]

4 hours ago, thelanges5 said:

“If several lineup spots continue to provide little to no value, the offense will eventually crater.“

I think they found the crater in the past 10 games. 

They cant hit and I don't think anyone predicted they would be able to.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, Patzky said:

There's no way the game tonight gets played. 🌧️ Chance to call up someone extra for tomorrow.. if it aint Rojas it should be Fedko.

I’m in Cincinnati but this “internet” forecast says rain is done for days in Minneapolis by 7:00-7:30 tonight…….. seems by 8:30 great chance for first pitch?

[GNess]

4 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Biggest part of trades last year was to get better young players for future ……… future starting in ‘26.

Rojas - Abel - Bradley all getting involved in April is encouraging. The PEN’s stats v. other bullpens are middle of the road, at worst. They don’t strike guys out but generally, they get outs. They certainly have faltered at times but every PEN falters & gives up runs …..i.e. Devin Williams for the Mets.

Last 4 games, 2 - 8 - 2 - 1 runs ………. all losses …….. in the 8 run game they gave up 3 unearned runs and lost by 2.

Defense is not good - offense is not good! I said in very early April, until they can score runs, I’m not going to bitch about defense and PEN……. sure, they have had some good offensive fortune - we’re 2nd in Baseball in HR’s at one point.

Keaschall - Outman - Wallner - Clemens ……….. followed by a leveling of Caratini & Bell …….. Buxton being wildly inconsistent ………. there are holes all over the line-up. To me, that is the heart of the problem. Complaining about bullpen runs given up when Team doesn’t score is just venting frustration.

Agree that offense and defense åre big even possibly bigger issues than BP weakness.  My point was that the bull pen was often mentioned as the most easily fixable/re-build after the trades on TD. I am suggesting early returns are not supporting that premise. 

BTW - I am not frustrated, I have been a Twins fan since the 1960's - I have learned if you want to be a Twins fan and enjoy the experience it sometimes takes a roll with the punches attitude. (Of course, that doesn't mean I have to be quiet as a fan as to what I think is happening with the team.)

[HeresWaldo]

I'm happy for Martin and have enjoyed watching him succeed, and I agree it's been a great story, but I'd caution against anyone seeing this as a breakthrough. He's got a .405 BABIP, low barrel rate, low bat speed, and low average exit velocity. Maybe he's the next Luis Arraez, but it's much more likely big regression is coming. He can still be a likeable and useful platoon bat/pinch runner even if he regresses, but he's probably not a key offensive piece in the long run. 

[bunsen82]

5 hours ago, Brett said:

Fielding

Preseason narrative: eek

Early season results: eww

Current narrative: ick

You could say that again . . .   🤣

[T.O.]

5 hours ago, thelanges5 said:

“If several lineup spots continue to provide little to no value, the offense will eventually crater.“

I think they found the crater in the past 10 games. 

 

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, Greglw3 said:

1B - Larnach  (Caratini/Jeffers vs L)

Just how bad do you want the defense to be? I think that would be worse than Bell.

[T.O.]

5 hours ago, Jeff K said:

You beat me to it.  The lack of athleticism on the team might be a bigger problem than the bullpen..

They don't seem to be playing as a team, a cohesive unit.

[Larry Janisewski]

5 hours ago, thelanges5 said:

“If several lineup spots continue to provide little to no value, the offense will eventually crater.“

I think they found the crater in the past 10 games. 

Sunday 4 of the bottom 5 starters in the batting order had batting averages under .200. And the 5th: .208. No wonder they scored 2 runs! Actually its a miracle they scored 2.

[soyouresayingtheresachance]

The bullpen isnt going to magically get better on its own. With these players, you cant have 3 4 5 relievers coming into every game. One or more of them will falter more often than not. The starters need to pitch deeper into games. The other day Ober was pulled with around 83 pitches. Bullpen comes in and immediately puts the game out of reach. 

Coming into this season we knew it was going to be filled with ups and downs. Player evaluation should be happening. But the ones in charge absolutely need to make moves when necessary. We are past that point. Get the AAA guys up here and see what we have with them. Outman can go. I feel like Keaschall needs a reset in st paul. Get better defenders. Do something. Sending Kriedler down was not the right move. 

[Patzky]

1 hour ago, JD-TWINS said:

I’m in Cincinnati but this “internet” forecast says rain is done for days in Minneapolis by 7:00-7:30 tonight…….. seems by 8:30 great chance for first pitch?

Would be better to have a day off, that's Thurs night game then fly for Fri evening trip had to suck. 

[Doctor Gast]

There were 3 glaring needs when the Twins came into the offseason: #1 high-leverage arms in the BP, #2 INF defense, and #3 clutch hitting. Putting Band-Aids, thinking you solved the problem or completely ignoring the problem is a typical Twins' approach. '26 was no different.

Yet, the Twins have been in almost every game. A serious approach could have made such a difference, especially in the pen. I'd like to give Shelton some slack because he's new, but I wish he were quicker to adjust to evaluating the pen. You don't use your worst RPs more; put them in higher leverage or when there is a runner on base. When your BP is so bad, you tend to over-extend your SP & Morris. Which results in injuries, blowout innings & inefficient arms. The sooner you can obtain higher-leverage RPs & more long relief the better. With a good BP, we can turn things around. Otherwise, things will only snowball.

Gray & Kreider have helped, but they & Lee are not permanent solutions. Martin has been a great table setter, but too often the Twins haven't hit in the clutch. To some extent, Jeffers, Larnach, & Bell have come through to win some games. So has Buxton, but he's capable of much more. Wallner, Lewis, Clemens & Outman have been disappointing. Wallner & Lewis are capable of much more. In our losing streak, Lee has finally gotten some hits to no avail. We have the potential to be a better team if they were administered better.

[ashbury]

Seems like our Twins have an awful lot of players with OPS below .600.

More to the point, they have an awful lot of plate appearances invested in players with OPS below .600.  I just took a look at the Blue Jays and sorted their batters by plate appearances - you have to go down to #9 to find their first guy with such a low OPS.  On the Twins, you find them at #2 and #4.

[DJL44]

49 minutes ago, soyouresayingtheresachance said:

Coming into this season we knew it was going to be filled with ups and downs. Player evaluation should be happening. But the ones in charge absolutely need to make moves when necessary. We are past that point. Get the AAA guys up here and see what we have with them. Outman can go. I feel like Keaschall needs a reset in st paul. Get better defenders. Do something. Sending Kriedler down was not the right move. 

The AAA guys are mostly struggling in AAA. Roden looked ready before he injured his shoulder. Rodriguez is hitting for power and drawing walks but batting .239 while striking out 1/3 of the time. Everyone else is a mediocre AAA batter.

[stringer bell]

The Twins have lost nine of their last ten games and are at a low point in the season. Before this slide, they were among the better offenses in MLB and their starting pitching was within the top ten. Who knows what will happen in the next ten game stretch? If I were a betting man, I would predict more losing than winning, but it's entirely possible that they put together another good stretch. I hate to keep repeating this, but it is still really early in the season. A hot week (or cold) week can change perceptions dramatically, just looks at Brooks Lee's offensive numbers. 

The constants in the Twins' season thus far have been a bad bullpen and poor defense. During their successful run they were able to paper over those two soft spots, but all of the metrics were pointing to those two factors as a problem, and so they are.

Someone opined that the defensive woes were fixable. I am skeptical of that unless Shelton wants to run Ryan Kreidler out as his shortstop and replace poor defenders Bell, Wallner and Larnach. From what I can tell Kaelen Culpepper might be more athletic than Lee, but I don't know if he would be an obvious upgrade and Culpepper is hitting in the .230s at St. Paul with an OPS in the low .700s. Replacing Wallner would most likely improve the defense and playing Martin more in left field would help, but the biggest problem is defense at shortstop.

Similarly, there don't appear to be any easy answers to improve the relief pitching. A bunch of underwhelming arms are attempting to be successful and St. Paul's bullpen has mostly been an arson squad. 

The Twins' offense benefitted from good sequencing, and hitting with runners in scoring position until both of those things normalized. They aren't truly in the top five offenses (where they were when they were 11-7 and they have come back to earth. I don't think they are as bad as they have appeared in the last ten games and I expect that if Shelton is patient a couple of the guys who aren't going well will come around, particularly the young-ish guys (Lewis, Keaschall and maybe Wallner). Breakthroughs would be appreciated and the leash has to be getting shorter for Wallner and Lewis.

We've seen glimpses of high quality pitching from Ryan, Bradley and Abel. Ober has been surprisingly effective with his 90 mph fastball and SWR has a history of turning it around right about when people start giving up on him. Add in Prielipp's debut performance and finally a strong outing in St. Paul for Zebby Matthews and there is reason to be optimistic about the starting pitching. 

 

 

[LA Vikes Fan]

I agree with the OP analysis. The bigger question is can you fix this, and how? No one knows the answer because no one knows how different players might perform, but it sure seems like there are steps that need to be taken:

Outman DFA, Emma up.

Wallner demoted, GG up.

Clemens DFA, Kriegler or Arcia promoted to play SS everyday and improve the defense. Lee moved to 3B, Lewis benched, and the two share 3B with Lee playing 2B on occasion. Lewis plays 1B some. The new SS is just keeping the seat warm until Culpepper is ready to be promoted.

Unless he improves over the next week of home games, Keaschall back to AAA for a reset. Replaced by a platoon of Gray and Kreidler with Gray also getting ABs against LH.

Banda DFA, Rojas promoted to a bullpen role. When Abel is ready to return, Prielipp stays in the rotation and SWR moves to the bullpen (assuming Prielipp pitches well in his next two starts). At that time, Rojas goes back to AAA if he has not performed and if he has, Morris or Funderburk down. I searched for better bullpen moves to make but I just don't see any other than promoting a journeyman retread like Brebbia and I just couldn't see the point. Adams may be a guy in a couple of weeks. 

Lineup going forward: Martin LF, Buxton CF, Larnach/Bell/GG DH, Jeffers/Caratini C, Lee 3B, Keaschall/Gray 2B, Emma RF, Bell/GG 1B, Arcia/Kreideler SS. 

 I think he is we've either got to significantly improve the defense or score more runs. I see the path to improving the defense as a better bet than improving the offense. By moving Lee we improve at short and at 3B. Emma is a huge upgrade over Wallner in the outfield, and by making Larnach a basically DH only player, you improve the left-field defense by having Martin play every day. 1B is still a defensive black hole but frankly GG can't be any worse than Bell and who knows, maybe he'll improve enough to stay there. Keaschall needs to fight off Gray to keep his job with a AAA reset an alternate possibility,  Wallner can come back when he's got his stroke back but he's a fallback if Emma can't hit MLB pitching yet or fighting for playing time. He's had his shot. 

Bottom line moves - 

Out - Outman (DFA), Clemens (DFA), Wallner (AAA).

In - Emma, GG, Arcia or Kreidler

Bench - Lewis

 

[DJL44]

If you want help from AAA you should be looking at other orgs.

1B - Michael Toglia, 940 ops; Felix Reyes, 999 ops; Niko Kavadas 1043 ops; Ryan Ward 991; Jonah Bride 966; 

2B - Cesar Prieto, 994 OPS; Chad Stevens 938

RH platoon OF - Stuart Fairchild 968 OPS

 

 

[ashbury]

30 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Someone opined that the defensive woes were fixable. I am skeptical of that unless Shelton wants to run Ryan Kreidler out as his shortstop and replace poor defenders Bell, Wallner and Larnach. 

It's easy.

• Bell: his best position is probably DH. Install him there.
• Wallner: he profiles more as a DH going forward.
• Larnach: I guess you could DH him.

Oh wait. I think I'm beginning to see the problem.

[stringer bell]

4 minutes ago, ashbury said:

It's easy.

• Bell: his best position is probably DH. Install him there.
• Wallner: he profiles more as a DH going forward.
• Larnach: I guess you could DH him.

Oh wait. I think I'm beginning to see the problem.

Yup, and none of those guys play shortstop

[ashbury]

Just now, stringer bell said:

none of those guys play shortstop

How do we know? Has anybody thought to ask them to try?