The Twins' Playoff Odds Have Cratered. Could Calling Up Walker Jenkins Have Saved Them?

[MMMordabito]

Just now, bean5302 said:

Luke Keaschall is the worst fielding MLB player I've ever seen in my entire life. It's not 1 play. It's more like 1 play every single game. No matter what position he plays.

His outfield play projects at -50 runs... I'm serious -50 runs or -5 WAR over a full season.

That's fine.  It's not what the article title is leading people to believe it's about.  It should have been titled "Luke Keaschall is the Worst Fielding MLB Player I've Ever Seen in My Entire Life".

[bjorks]

And here we go

[Derojo]

Apparently, Keaschall wasn't good at second, but he didn't look lost like he does on hard hit deep fly balls. He does well on routine ones, and ok on short ones. I don't see a place for him on this Twins team. He could DH next year, but I'd rather they sign Josh Bell. It's not a criticism of Keaschall as a person or teammate.

[JADBP]

12 hours ago, friedbrycenbeans said:

The concerning thing about not calling up Jenkins is it once again showed that this entire organization refuses to commit to something.

They buy at the deadline but then have no interest in being aggressive with Jenkins (and you could argue it wouldn't even be "aggressive" to call him up). 

Very weird. They make big grandiose swings but then follow it up with something that completely counteracts that swing:

• Sign Correa, Buxton and Pablo then immediately cut payroll
• Complete the biggest collapse in franchise history in '24 and then make zero changes to the roster
• Sell at the deadline last year and instead of continuing to rebuild or improve the roster for '26, they do essentially neither.
• Buy at the deadline this year and then sit on their hands when their top prospect is mashing in AAA, instead wasting a roster spot on Alex Jackson
   

This org refuses to commit. Instead, they half-ass both sides all the time. 

Ageed.  GET RID OF ZOLL!   He has no idea what he is doing!

[JADBP]

12 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

Lets blame the entire 2026 Twins failure on Keaschall.  Yes I agree he has not been good defensively.  Why wasnt he given a position in the minors and taught how to play it?  Why after 12 years do we still have Buxton messing cup the outfield roster?  In 12years he has only played 2 "full" seasons.  And those weren't even really full.  They cater to him way too.much.  he has been awful yhe past couple of months.  He is unplayable.  His insistence on playing whenever he can just in case he actually does something good is ridiculous.  Keaschall was bad yesterday but so was thePitching.  What has gappened to Royce ,i dont do slumps?  Put Keaschall in one of the corner outfield spots.  Set Buxton down for season and bring Jenkins up to.play center.  I hope if he gets here and doesn't play up to people's expectations that they will give him a break.

Well...the reason they keep deferring to Buxton is because, when he is healthy, he is one of the best players in league.  Yeah, but when healthy.  I agree that you can't put the blame for the season on Keaschall...but you can absolutely put at least 3-4 games on balls he missed on 2B or OF.  Two in the last couple of weeks with him masquerading as a CFer.  

Keaschall never learned a to play 2B in the minors.  He was only drafted in 23, spent lost much of one minor season to TJ surgery, and came up in 2025.  His only above average skill set is hitting for average (almost no power).    

Royce is getting better, slowly.  I think he is now finally getting the training he should have got in A, AA and AAA ball!

I keep coming back to the same story over and over...the Twins are horrible at taking HS or college kids and turning them into MLB pieces.  Doesn't make any difference where they draft em...they still never lean a position, never learn hitting strategies, never learn how to prepare for a game/series/season until they get to the biggs and then they flounder.

BTW, this system-wide Twins problem can ONLY be laid at the desk of the front office.  They run the show.  Its Zoll and his minions that put the Twins in this position.  At least Tom seems willing to spend a little more $$

We finally get Jenkins tomorrow...let's hope he has learned.  He certainly has burned up AAA!  

 

[laloesch]

17 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

It's become pretty evident that selling off would've, at the very least, given the team a roughly equal chance as they've had since they bought.  

Not a single player that this board clutched their pearls about trading has done a damn thing to help get to the playoffs.

Bingo 💯 THIS.  They should have traded Ryan Jeffers and Joe Ryan, when they had the chance.  Neither is going to stay with the Twins long term (Jeffers is gone at season's end and Ryan by the end of 2027).  It's utter foolishness to hang onto players when you have soooo many holes to fill in your lineup and can get large packages of prospects to start plugging them. They also should have sat down with Byron Buxton and talked to him about his future with the Twins and asked him to consider dropping his no trade clause.  Buxton is a fantastic player but given how frequently he's injured he's just not a cornerstone you build a franchise around, he's more of a secondary piece or a third leg on the tripod with other star players. 

[laloesch]

4 hours ago, JADBP said:

Royce is getting better, slowly.  I think he is now finally getting the training he should have got in A, AA and AAA ball!

Or he's finally put his ego aside and is listening to coaching staff.

[bjorks]

19 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

They've won less games than most sites predicted. They are only "in it" because the rest of the AL stinks. There is no hindsight in the vast majority of the posts criticizing this FO for their decisions. Most of these were made last year, last offseason, before the trade deadline this year.....

Missing the point. You're 100% correct about the rest of the AL sucks too, but i'm not measuring a good/bad year based on the Vegas O/U number of wins. Yes...we're right where they thought we would be, but 6 months ago we would've agreed MN was hopefully a 2nd or 3rd place finisher behind CLE/DET. My comment is solely about the Twins ability to win a WS and with the team constructed currently (regardless of who did the building) is not a WS team...yet. Hopefully we go 20-8 the rest of the way, but I doubt it and if Jenkins/ERod struggle and next year is what it is, I wouldn't have traded their opportunity for either to season more next year than. chase what is a doubtful playoff run let alone winning it.