2023 Shaping Up to Be a Make or Break Year for the Twins

"Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have stressed the importance of keeping the Twins’ winning window open as long as possible. "

How are back to back losing seasons part of a winning window? 

Didn't they give out too long of contracts already to guys like Kepler and Sano? Buxton will join that list. The best player (Correa) is a 1 and done. Yeah, nothing like committing to a winning window. When their version of a winning window is signing or trading for washed up or injured pitchers, you forgot 1 (Paddock) and players (Buxton) for the cheap and letting good players walk away they need to add a screen to that window to filter out the blood-sucking players that they think are butterflies.

We've had the core to get it done the last 2 yrs but the problem has been management. Their big excuse is injuries but I say many of those injuries are due to poor management. Nothing will change until management changes their plan.

I don't think next year will be a make or break year, for that to happen ownership need to care enough to see what's really going on.

What opening win ing window are you talking about?  This team has been terrible the past two seasons.  There is no window.  Maybe a window of mediocrity.  The FO likes to pat themselves on the back for all the moves they made the past two years.  Do they watch their own product?  Or like the fans they can't stomach it either?  This FO could go down as one of the worst in Twins history.

Every year seems to get labeled as make or break.  We should pay more attention to how winning teams are built in other small/mid-markets.  How many high dollar free agents does Cleveland have on their roster?  How many trades has Cleveland made for big name free agents.  How many highly productive players were obtained by trading away well-established veterans? 

They had 7 position players with an fWar above 1.5.  Four of them were acquired by trading away established players, 2 were international (not high dollar) and 1 was drafted.    Clause and Quantrill were also acquired by trading away Kluber.   Their other two top SPs (Bieber / McKenzie) were drafted.

This obsession with big name free agents and trading for big names absolutely ignores how good teams are built in modest revenue markets with modest revenue.  The Twins have slightly more revenue and therefore can augment a roster but good teams simply are not built in similar markets in the manner so many here insist they must be built.

Disagree, great show examples of teams sustaining success in similar markets though trading for long-term assets and signing $200M free agents.

I worry about Arraez staying healthy. He needs to bat leadoff. Wish he was a "taller" guy at first, but...we need to play him somewhere.

All the players mentioned above are trade chips if they stay healthy. I wished that Kepler was on the tading bloc this summer, but he went and got himself injured. Sigh.

I now know why I am not a baseball general manager. You can't win in the job!

I just cant see this team shaping up  under the present coaches  , manager and FO  ....

the coaches and manager do not have there focus on the game  and if the coaches and manager don't have  focus them how do you expect the players to have focus ...

There is so many problems with their  plan that it will  not sustain  a winning team ... 

I'm still predicting sonny gray will ask for a trade  ....

that's my plan and I'm sticking to it  .. 

For a Twins GM it is make or broke. Bill Smith would still be the GM if his plan wasn’t spend money to fix. Iy is more likely than not the dynamite duo in place will be fine as long as there is profit. 

As far as Kepler leaving,, when there are 6 better options the could try to trade him, or he hits free agency, and goes. Celestino is not an answer. Beckham and the other guy they brought in, and Contreras showed why they need so many outfielders at their disposal. When a team claims Cave, it shows there is a dearth of backups. 

10 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Every year seems to get labeled as make or break.  We should pay more attention to how winning teams are built in other small/mid-markets.  How many high dollar free agents does Cleveland have on their roster?  How many trades has Cleveland made for big name free agents.  How many highly productive players were obtained by trading away well-established veterans? 

They had 7 position players with an fWar above 1.5.  Four of them were acquired by trading away established players, 2 were international (not high dollar) and 1 was drafted.    Clause and Quantrill were also acquired by trading away Kluber.   Their other two top SPs (Bieber / McKenzie) were drafted.

This obsession with big name free agents and trading for big names absolutely ignores how good teams are built in modest revenue markets with modest revenue.  The Twins have slightly more revenue and therefore can augment a roster but good teams simply are not built in similar markets in the manner so many here insist they must be built.

Disagree, great show examples of teams sustaining success in similar markets though trading for long-term assets and signing $200M free agents.

You need to have a good scouting department.  In regards to the Twins, to dsome that is a debate able issue for a different thread.

You need to move on from mistakes. Actually this FO managed to move Lynn and Happ. Cut its with Shomaker, outright Smeltzer (not quite a mistake) and Dobnak (Contract mistake). The window is kept open by the continuous finding of players. 

I don't think they expected to contend in 2022. They were going to roll into the year with a very young rotation, Buxton, Kepler and some kids in LF,  a 25 year old catcher, a lot of youth in the pen, that young SS from TEX or Lewis at SS, etc. Dumping Donaldson got them Sanchez and Urshela, but they only picked up Grey, Pagan, Paddock, after Correa landed in their laps. I think on January 1 they still thought this was a year to get the kids broken in and 2023 was the target season. 

EDIT: Just for the record I do NOT expect them to be in on Judge, but he would be a fun add in Kepler's role.

9 hours ago, old nurse said:

You need to have a good scouting department.  In regards to the Twins, to dsome that is a debate able issue for a different thread.

You need to move on from mistakes. Actually this FO managed to move Lynn and Happ. Cut its with Shomaker, outright Smeltzer (not quite a mistake) and Dobnak (Contract mistake). The window is kept open by the continuous finding of players. 

How could we possibly debate a good scouting department is essential to success in MLB.  This would be true regardless of specific strategy as it influences every potential strategy for building a team?  However, the debate tends to be we don't have Tampa's scouting / development so we should follow different practices.  Unfortunately, the net of that logic is that we follow strategies that simply don't or at least have not produced great results for mid or small market teams.  In other words, pursing inferior strategies is a really flawed.  The answer is not to pursue strategies likely to fail even with good execution. The answer is to get better at executing the most viable strategies.

This premise is at the heart of the question posed here about 2023 and more importantly sustaining success beyond 2023.  In that regard 2023 does have or make or break component in that so many future pieces will be tested.  Will Kirilloff and Lewis come back healthy.  Will Larnach / Wallner / Celestino adapt and thrive at the MLB level.  Is Martin "breaking out" and will he be a factor fairly soon.   What do they do with the available budget?  Will it be used in a long-term or short-term manner.  Will they reshape the infield by moving one of Urshela / Polanco or Arraez.  Will they gibe Duran a shot at starting?  That's a lot of questions which supports the long-term importance of what happens in 2023.

On the pitching side, Ober looked quite different when he came back.  He just might have more ceiling than most believed.  Then, we have Varland and SWR looking like they are ready so 2023 will tell us a lot about their future.  So, he this context 2023 is going to be a huge test of their plan and execution across the entire organization.  I guess that could be considered make or break in 2023.

I believe last year at this time many of us were saying 2022 was the make or break year depending on the success of the vaunted pitching pipeline. 

3 hours ago, h2oface said:

According to recent past reasoning by this FO, they will be trading Maeda and Gray during the off season. Pressly had to go with a year and a half left on contract. So did Berrios. How is Gray and Maeda different?

 

Pressly and Berrios were both trading deadline transactions in seasons where the Twins were not going to make the postseason. I doubt either would have been traded if the Twins had been in the race. Would they have been traded at the end of that season? Maybe, although Berrios' contract would have expired.

I've said many times that any and every player should be traded if the organization is improved as a result. We got Celestino and Alcala for Pressly, and Martin and Woods-Richardson for Berrios. It's easily possible that we will have won both trades after we look back at it a few years from now.

So trading Maeda and/or Gray would not worry me.

1 hour ago, Nine of twelve said:

Pressly and Berrios were both trading deadline transactions in seasons where the Twins were not going to make the postseason. I doubt either would have been traded if the Twins had been in the race. Would they have been traded at the end of that season? Maybe, although Berrios' contract would have expired.

I've said many times that any and every player should be traded if the organization is improved as a result. We got Celestino and Alcala for Pressly, and Martin and Woods-Richardson for Berrios. It's easily possible that we will have won both trades after we look back at it a few years from now.

So trading Maeda and/or Gray would not worry me.

Except that would mean they are out of it again. I hope they are rolling, but I think if they are in it next year they might have to stand pat at the deadline because the farm has already been raided.

2 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

Pressly and Berrios were both trading deadline transactions in seasons where the Twins were not going to make the postseason. I doubt either would have been traded if the Twins had been in the race. Would they have been traded at the end of that season? Maybe, although Berrios' contract would have expired.

I've said many times that any and every player should be traded if the organization is improved as a result. We got Celestino and Alcala for Pressly, and Martin and Woods-Richardson for Berrios. It's easily possible that we will have won both trades after we look back at it a few years from now.

So trading Maeda and/or Gray would not worry me.

So you are liking Alcala and Celestino for Presley?

10 hours ago, wabene said:

Except that would mean they are out of it again. I hope they are rolling, but I think if they are in it next year they might have to stand pat at the deadline because the farm has already been raided.

 

Good point. I had an off-season trade in mind when I wrote my post.

9 hours ago, Linus said:

So you are liking Alcala and Celestino for Presley?

Too soon to know. Celestino has been improving and is still pretty young. Alcala has the stuff to be a shut-down reliever if he recovers for next season. 

9 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Celestino is worthless.

So was Aaron Hicks at age 23. So was Whit Merrifield. So were a lot of other good MLB players. No matter what your opinion of his current status is, it's too soon to know what he will be in 5 years.

9 hours ago, USAFChief said:

And hoping that someday, Alcala can become what Pressley already is, is the definition if a failed trade.

That's the case if you want to do things incorrectly and evaluate a trade based only on what is true right now. The correct way to evaluate a trade is to look at career performance. Maybe Alcala will not do anything more, or maybe he'll be highly valuable. My crystal ball is in the shop, so we'll just have to wait and see.