Austin Martin Has Solidified Himself as an Integral Member of 2026 Minnesota Twins

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

With due respect, this makes no sense.

You've been (rightly) complaining about this lack of development for several years now. Falvey was hired in the fall of 2016. Coming up on 9 years ago. He's the guy that's driven the team to the point we're at now....basically zero hope for the medium range future. The guy who has signed 1 year vets for 9 years now...

...but IKF would be your breaking point?

It's hard to take you seriously if you're not willing to ask for them to do what's necessary to enact what you're endlessly asking for. Falvey is suddenly going to change??

Second, somewhat related point: you repeatedly want to talk "theory" and not names. You want to talk about the Twins infield but not about Brooks Lee or Culpepper. Just theoretical, nameless concepts of players. 

To me, that's a copout. It's always about specifics. 

I have been complaining about development for several years now. I've also stated multiple times that I will judge this front office on development and development alone. 

However... I'm just simply hard to drag into the crowd of people that wants to simply fire people that I've never met and have never heard a reasoning or strategy that isn't public relation screened. Every fan base of every organization from Pro to College to High School to Bantam Hockey wants the coach fired. 

My years of complaining is asking them to change approach rather repeatedly.  

IFK would be the breaking point (I'm extremely close to that breaking point already) because:

We just hit the wall that I said they would hit. They just stripped the roster down to 20 pre-arb players. They got a blank slate to work with. If they return to the same practice... that I believe got them there in the first place. Well... they would without a doubt be incapable of change and at that point I will join the crowd and be a broken record on how they must go. Until then and I'm extremely close... my comments are constructive.  

Talking theory and not names. I have no choice.

A, I don't know what specific player will be or could be. Age 23 players and what they will be at age 26 with opportunity. I don't know... none of us know. I don't read Keith Law and convert it to gospel. They could be good... could be bad... there is only one way to find out. I've stopped trying to predict it. I'm more comfortable with my opinions with players with a major league sample size but at the same time... I also know that a light switch can be located at any time in their development. I simply expect my organization with all of their scouts and coaches who do this for a living to be better at it because we are team with a budget that will always be dependent on minimum making talent. Don't care who rises from the seeds planted. But we better have seeds that produce and we are way behind everybody else. 

B, If I say we need to develop better players (Theory) the conversation always gets bogged down with... Martin Sucks... Julien Sucks... Keirsay Sucks... (Specific). Now my point is lost because Martin sucks and I got sucked into a Martin debate with someone who is sure they know what Martin will be in the future. Now in order to make my point... I gotta become a Martin supporter when I have no idea what Martin will become. I simply don't care if Keirsay sucks... the point is that the organization should have produced players who don't suck by now and they need to produce players who can help win so we have budget to work with. 

If they fail to develop... they fail period in my opinion. 

Why am I stopping short of calling for their heads even after this disaster of a season and continued practices that I believe are toxic?

I don't know what caused this? Did they ignore youth development in favor of cheap one year contracts because they thought they were close and France was a better bet? Did ownership change course on them... a course change that was hard to change out of? Was it Falvey? Was it Rocco? Was it the Pohlads? I don't know. 

Anyway... damage is done now. Slate was cleared. If they go back to the methods that didn't work before this off-season. I'll be full throated in my cries for immediate change. 

14 hours ago, USAFChief said:

If it's all theoretical and you have no idea what players are gonna do, why the objection to IKF? Gotta see if that light switch flips, no? 

He won't be back. If the light switch flips he's gone and we are back at square one. If the light switch doesn't flip. He's gone because we don't want him back and we are still at square one never even reaching square two. Meanwhile one year gone. Find the next IKF for 2027... Two years gone. On to 2028... three years gone. 

Carlos Santana had a decent year for us. Got himself a 12 million dollar deal that we couldn't afford. We couldn't afford it because we didn't have enough pre-arb players developed to create the spare change necessary and this led to Ty France playing every day. 

Cleveland had the 12 million because they had a different philosophy and successfully developed pre-arb players that allowed them to afford him. That 12 million deal with Santana brought them up to 100 million which is still 42 million less than what we spent this year.  

Of course... we don't know what players are gonna do. Carlos Santana didn't work out for Cleveland. They cut him two weeks ago... which is something the Twins just don't do and they have turned the 1B job over to Manzardo, Cayfus and Noel.

Who knows if Cleveland makes the playoffs but... they are currently 2.5 games back out of the wild card. Their current 28 man roster has 23 pre-arb players on it. If Cleveland wanted to... they won't... but if they wanted to... because of their development. They could outbid all 29 clubs for Kyle Tucker next year and still be spending less than we spent this year. 

Where is our Manzardo, Cayfus or Noel? 

You hit the nail on the head. The issue isn't Ty France... The issue is that Ty France was the best option by far. I'll add that not only was Ty France the best option... he played every day like he was Pete Alonso because the Twins backed themselves into this corner.

We came out of spring training with 8 pre-arb players... 142 million payroll for the year. 7 expiring contracts and arbitration raises that would eat nearly every dollar available from the 7 expiring contracts, the farm is nowhere near spitting out the replacements to fill those roster spots and Falvey probably can't go to Pohlad and ask for another 15 million just to fill the 7 expiring contracts just to keep the status quo.  The money was gone. The bill came due. 

So... we were going to need to move a player or maybe two players in the off-season to free up 10 to 20 million dollars just so we can go re-staff the team with 6 more IKF type players and onward we go. Just life support until the wall hits you in the face and the airbags go off. 

Airbags went off... The team steeply sold. Money is now available. Don't spend it on IKF types. 

Fix this development issue whatever it is.