Rosenthal: The Twins Are Weird and That Makes the Deadline a Challenge

Julien should  be DH seven out of eight games; put him at second once in awhile to experience new adventures in fielding a ball.

Gallo is not going any where but Wallner should be sent down.'

Lose Castro, lose games, ditto for Solanno; no practical way to bring him up outside injury but Stevenson is the best Saints player period.

It makes me laugh to see these types of stories knowing the the first responses will always be:  GALLO and KEPLER.  It's like a mantra...

They are not the problem.  Kepler is your starting OF, but should really be your 8th best player in the lineup.  Defense first OF tend to go that route.  Gallo was not brought in to carry the offense, he was brought in as insurance for 5 positions and has had to play 4 of them extensively.

While we (myself included) were hoping for the rule changes to help these two offensively, it did not come to pass.  Instead, they are playing at the level we pretty much expected.

Please do complain that Solano, Castro, and Jeffers are your fWAR leaders.  All three of these guys were penciled in to be backups.

Lewis and Polanco can't stay healthy.  Buxton, Miranda, Gordon, Correa, Vazquez, have been HORRIBLE. And you guys still want to complain about Kepler and Gallo?

Unless something falls into their lap for cheap, the Twins should really not make any moves right now.  No players readily available are demonstrative upgrades unless you want to overpay for a rental or sell the farm.  I do not see either happening.

Buxton needs to go in the IL until he is 100% healthy.  He is doing more harm than good.  Add Lewis and Polanco to the playing rotation, hope that the positive trending of Correa and Vazquez sticks.  Kiriloff, Julien, Farmer, the rest of that group just need to maintain.  That is what needs to happen.
 

With the budget that is available on this team, there is probably not much we can do. I doubt the front office will allow the front office to take on more than 5 million in additional payroll at the deadline since we have our highest payroll ever right now.  With that in mind here are the incremental improvements.

I think playing Walner more in favor of who is slumping in the OF.  including Taylor as Gallo or Kepler can slide over for a game or two from time to time.  

With Polanco coming back give Julien starts at DH in place of Buxton if he continues to slump.  Also not opposed to giving him starts at 3B.  

Lewis will be back from the DL soon and will contribute at 3B and possibly DH.

So even if we don't make trades, we have in house improvements on the way.  

But.... here are my trade thoughts.  

If we do, make a trade it needs to be a small one like a RH OF who won't add more than a few million to payroll and that is a maybe.  The low-cost options include to Lane Thomas of Washington (idea from Twins Daily Article) or Tony Pham (Brock posting it and being against it).  I like Boston player Turner if they take a salary back in the trade.  If the Twins receive insurance on Mahle contract, then maybe trading a reliever like Pagan or Lopez would work in a Turner salary level type of trade.  

After reading all your posts I almost feel like we should stand pat now.  There are several players returning which will in essence upgrade our team without giving up prospects in a trade.  We have Theilbar and Stewart in the BP coming back.  We have Polo and Lewis coming back which will interject energy into the lineup, not to mention Gordon.  And I advocate adding Kuechel to the rotation along with Maeda to help reduce the innings for our core starters.  This also can be an audition of sort to determine who the 5th starter should be for the remainder of the year and also as insurance should an injury to one of our main starters occur.  I did not do the hard part of identifying which players get sent down or DFA'd to make room for these additions.  That's what the FO gets paid the big bucks to do.  Make these difficult decisions.

31 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

After reading all your posts I almost feel like we should stand pat now.  There are several players returning which will in essence upgrade our team without giving up prospects in a trade.  We have Theilbar and Stewart in the BP coming back.  We have Polo and Lewis coming back which will interject energy into the lineup, not to mention Gordon.  And I advocate adding Kuechel to the rotation along with Maeda to help reduce the innings for our core starters.  This also can be an audition of sort to determine who the 5th starter should be for the remainder of the year and also as insurance should an injury to one of our main starters occur.  I did not do the hard part of identifying which players get sent down or DFA'd to make room for these additions.  That's what the FO gets paid the big bucks to do.  Make these difficult decisions.

I do not know where they can put Gordon but he will do nothing to improve the team.

1 hour ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

It makes me laugh to see these types of stories knowing the the first responses will always be:  GALLO and KEPLER.  It's like a mantra...

They are not the problem.  Kepler is your starting OF, but should really be your 8th best player in the lineup.  Defense first OF tend to go that route.  Gallo was not brought in to carry the offense, he was brought in as insurance for 5 positions and has had to play 4 of them extensively.

While we (myself included) were hoping for the rule changes to help these two offensively, it did not come to pass.  Instead, they are playing at the level we pretty much expected.

Please do complain that Solano, Castro, and Jeffers are your fWAR leaders.  All three of these guys were penciled in to be backups.

Lewis and Polanco can't stay healthy.  Buxton, Miranda, Gordon, Correa, Vazquez, have been HORRIBLE. And you guys still want to complain about Kepler and Gallo?

Unless something falls into their lap for cheap, the Twins should really not make any moves right now.  No players readily available are demonstrative upgrades unless you want to overpay for a rental or sell the farm.  I do not see either happening.

Buxton needs to go in the IL until he is 100% healthy.  He is doing more harm than good.  Add Lewis and Polanco to the playing rotation, hope that the positive trending of Correa and Vazquez sticks.  Kiriloff, Julien, Farmer, the rest of that group just need to maintain.  That is what needs to happen.
 

Probably not as hard I as laugh reading the tone of these posts that completely miss the mark....

They absolutely are part of the problem. 

Defense first OFers tend to play CF and be platoon/4th OFers. They aren't stalwarts in RF (a bat first position) with a below average bat. Depending on how much stock you want to put in defensive metrics, Kepler hasn't been anything special defensively this year either. 

Gallo was a bounce back candidate that hasn't worked out. He wasn't some insurance policy and nobody was planning on him "carrying the offense." The guy has been an albatross. He has started 60 games, 53 have been in LF or 1B with a bulk of the latter coming while Kirilloff worked his way back. What are these other two positions he has played "extensively?" 

I don't understand the need to obfuscate reality to justify roster spots for these two. The calculus here is simple, the Twins can (should) move on from both guys next year, and there are replacements deserving of a shot at AAA. 

Shut down Buxton is job one, which opens up the DH position.

Ask yourself if someone would actually trade prospects AND take salary releif from the Twins for Kepler and Gallo. If so, let them be gone and replaced by Larnach and Wallner, for now.

If there is any demand for Polanco after a week's play, also take that!

And dangle Madea and/or Gray. Can you get more for Gray or less than if you make him a qualifying offer.

COnsider yourself lucky if you remain on top of the division for the final 65 games, and hope any and everyone you promote from down in AAA is better than those you cut loose.

2 hours ago, Danchat said:

If the Twins are serious about being a true contender, I believe the bare minimum would be to acquire a 3B, RH OF, and a reliever.

reliever makes some sense; we were a little thin there even before Stewart and Thielbar went down with injury.

It'd be great to balance out the OF with a RH hitter in theory...but who is really available that is going to be a true upgrade, be an impact bat and not spend tons of prospect capital for? Keep in mind that in the Teoscar Hernandez discussion (a player who seems to be down to one skill, hitting lefties) we're still talking about a player than while tied for 3rd on his team in ABs has still only gotten 84 of them against LHP. he's played in every single game for Seattle. So how much impact is a RH OF really going to have?

adding a 3B seems like a waste: Solano is hitting well and can play there, Farmer can play there, and we have Royce Lewis (who was hitting very well) coming back from injury even if Miranda doesn't turn it around. I want Lewis out there when he's healthy again.

6 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Who do I replace first?

Gallo

Kepler

A third baseman (like, I replace whomever that is now)

I consider replacing Taylor, but I just don't see how they pay the price to do so

You know I have been on the move Kepler bandwagon.  However, his wRC+ for the last six weeks in 123 and it seems like his defense has been better too.  Gallo is the guy I would move.  That does not mean I would not trade Kepler but I would want to get something back.

I suggest we approach this trade deadline as if we have a 15 game lead.  There has not been a real fight for first place in the division all year. Cleveland is discussing trades for some of their starting pitchers. Or at least teams that would like to trade for them are.

Give  Wallner and larnach playing time in the outfield. Put Buxton on the injured list, let Polanco DH and give his legs time off, don't over use Duran.

Let Julian play second. He played all over in the minors, but maybe that's part of his problem now he never got steady playing time at the second.One of those problems of wanting position players who can play all over, they can't play anywhere at gold glove level.

Trade Gallo and Kepler. They won't be back next year and don't be fooled by a sudden hot streak, they're the same guys who did poorly the whole first half. We need to find a couple of guys to play in the outfield next year, or else we'll be hunting an entire outfield in the off season. It doesn't look like Buxton will be back out there and he never play that many games in any season anyway. They need to play Martin in center field and quit putting him at second base. If he is hitting well enough by the end of August, let him rotate with Taylor.

Miranda probably needs surgery or at least long term rest for his shoulder. There is a reason he can't drive the ball. It's hard to hit with one hand. Don't expect him back this year. Don't expect Alcala, Paddock or Canterino for a pitching boost this year.

I think the Twins can win 38 of their last 66 games. Roughly a 600 clip. That should allow them to slowly pull away in the division.

14 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Three weeks isn't more indicative than the years for me. I get others disagree

I would not pay attention to 3 weeks either.  I was citing the last 6 weeks.   Not that 6 weeks is a large sample.  However, it's adequate in terms of indicating who is contributing to turning around our stagnant offense.  Just saying ... Kepler has been a net positive of late.   If they could find a 1B, put Kirilloff  LF and Kepler maintains this play, that would not be too bad.