The Twins Are Giving Their All, But It's Not Enough

[HarmonK03]

32 minutes ago, Coach said:

I'm just putting this out there. What if we released BB... and moved on.

And eat over $30m in salary, that will never happen.  Accept the fact that he is here for another two years unless he changes his mind.

[HarmonK03]

12 minutes ago, Wedman13 said:

Now that a really interesting thought .......(and yes of course he would have waived the no trade clause - he and his agents aren't idiots)  

So you are saying that Buxton is lying when he says fairly emphatically he wants to be here.

[LastOnePicked]

3 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Great article which speaks for me. I absolutely love the hustle and the effort and the "NO QUIT"! attitude  from top to bottom. This team respects the game. 

Are people actually watching the Minnesota Twins? Maybe folks have been getting the Brewers feed by mistake.

Folks, this team is 8 games under .500 in the most winnable WC race in MLB history.

And I like a lot players on this team, yes, But "no quit attitude" is taking it a bit far for a team that routinely can't score after the 4th inning.

[Saxophone Joe]

1 minute ago, LastOnePicked said:

Folks, this team is 8 games under .500 in the most winnable WC race in MLB history.

And I like a lot players on this team, yes, But "no quit attitude" is taking it a bit far for a team that routinely can't score after the 4th inning.

In my heart, I want to disagree but can't.

Sad but true.

[RpR]

2 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Are people actually watching the Minnesota Twins? Maybe folks have been getting the Brewers feed by mistake.

Folks, this team is 8 games under .500 in the most winnable WC race in MLB history.

And I like a lot players on this team, yes, But "no quit attitude" is taking it a bit far for a team that routinely can't score after the 4th inning.

I quit watching the Vikings because they failed,  always,  when they should not have.

I watch baseball, regardless of record because I truly like baseball; why do you even pay attention to the Twins if they annoy you that much.

[LastOnePicked]

2 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Our desperation is showing when we keep emphasizing our feels in place of emphasizing sound planning and systems.

I could give this more likes than Minnesota has lakes and it still wouldn't be enough. Perfectly stated.

The Twins are not a serious organization. Until new ownership arrives to confront this reality, nothing can or will change.

[RpR]

5 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

And I like a lot players on this team, yes, But "no quit attitude" is taking it a bit far for a team that routinely can't score after the 4th inning.

THAT has been a problem for the Twins for more than just a few years.

That , I guess,  is Very annoying.

[LastOnePicked]

3 minutes ago, RpR said:

I watch baseball, regardless of record because I truly like baseball; why do you even pay attention to the Twins if they annoy you that much.

I wrote about this a few years ago - a little post called "Why Winning Matters." It's about what the Twins have meant to me since I was ten years old. And now that my father is fading away, it's about how thankful I am that we had memories together of the Twins winning it all.

I want every baseball-loving parent to have that experience with their baseball-loving kid. Period. Every opportunity this organization lets slip by is another generation that loses the experience of rooting for their team on the near-impossible quest for a championship.

Trust me, I would love to quit this version of the Twins. Sadly, they're in my blood at this point. But if my crankiness bothers you or anyone else here, then feel free to block or ignore me. It's gotta be easy to do.

[LastOnePicked]

53 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

So you are saying that Buxton is lying when he says fairly emphatically he wants to be here.

This has kind of been hashed and re-hashed to death. Just for clarity's sake, Buxton was very upset after last season and made it clear to Dan Hayes and others that he would drop the no-trade clause if the Twins were rebuilding the entire team around him. Falvey also wouldn't clarify that they would never try to trade Buxton, and by all accounts, this hurt Buxton's pride.

But then Tom P. took the reins and Zoll - probably at his directive - made a public statement that the Twins are never going to try and trade Buxton. And that seems to have satisfied Buxton.

So, yes, Buxton does want to be here. And yes, he is now untradeable because Zoll has already clarified his status here. But, yes, he could have been traded last offseason. Maybe that would have been good for all involved. Or maybe whomever they got in trade wouldn't have even put up career numbers as good as what Buxton put up in the first half. Who knows?

He's here until the end of his contract - that much is now 100% certain. The challenge for the Twins will be to build roster contingencies around his inevitable injuries.

[Saxophone Joe]

17 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Trust me, I would love to quit this version of the Twins. Sadly, they're in my blood at this point. 

I'm 43, was a hardcore Twins fan from '90 through around 2010. I've read several books on the team's history, didn't follow too closely from around 2012-2022 but was on board again for 2023, the epic collapse in '24, etc.

So maybe this is my recency bias showing, but can any of you longtime fans recall a Twins team that has struggled more than this one in winning/finishing close games? The 9-65 record after the 6th inning is eye-popping. And it's not just failures in clutch hitting but all aspects. It was a problem of course in the early parts of the season, but for about six weeks from early June to the All-Star Break, we had done a much, much better job of closing games, especially the bullpen.

But this part of the 2026 season has been so hard to watch lately. This season has gone from fun and rewarding to uber frustrating over the last six weeks or so. We truly had a shot at legitimate shot at the playoffs. I draw a line at the Mariners series when it started to go south, bad. 

[LastOnePicked]

1 minute ago, Saxophone Joe said:

So maybe this is my recency bias showing, but can any of you longtime fans recall a Twins team that has struggled more than this one in winning/finishing close games? Not just clutch hitting but all aspects. It was a problem of course in the early parts of the season, but for about six weeks from early June to the All-Star Break, we had done a much, much better job of closing games, especially the bullpen.

The recent second-half-of-the-season collapses probably each have their own reasons, but maybe the biggest reason that connects them all is that they continue to roll out a roster of previously injured players and just hope they all don't get injured. And when they wind up injured, there's just not the roster depth there to salvage the season.

The other reason is this: the Twins are just not that good. They haven't had an elite player at any position in years. They haven't had an MVP, a ROY, a Cy Young Winner, a saves leader or a home run king in a very long time. Many hyped top prospects also went belly-up way too quickly. Clutch situations usually expose talent level pretty quickly.

Okay enough to play close baseball, but not strong enough to win. I keep hoping that ownership might take this seriously some day.

 

[Autist75]

     Sad to say, as dysfunctional as they are, the Vikings at least seem to be making a germ of an effort in leadership (Nolan Teasley).  The Twins have owners that are liars and deliver empty promises and a GM that's just a Falvey clone.

[Wedman13]

1 hour ago, HarmonK03 said:

So you are saying that Buxton is lying when he says fairly emphatically he wants to be here.

Negotiating.  Doesn't matter now leverage is gone on both  sides. And I love the guy.

[Hunter4848]

2 hours ago, HarmonK03 said:

So you are saying that Buxton is lying when he says fairly emphatically he wants to be here.

Of course he's happy to be here. He has zero expectations here, he can sit out half a season and no one cares. Do that in an organization that has a passionate fan base and expectations,  and he would rightly be raked over the coals