The Twins Offense is Sputtering—So Why is Carson McCusker Still in St. Paul?

Wallner crushed for six weeks at St Paul before he finally got the call, a few years ago. There were struggles but eventually success. Worst case scenario you show off McCusker and have some trade bait if he succeeds. Best case, well we (would like to) rely on Wallner quite a bit these days.

Yes. To me there is no question. He should have already been up and this is just getting silly. It's like last year when we watched walner spend so much time and waste. So many home runs in AAA. I hate this kind of stubborn effort to avoid call-ups. It's not like we have 40 Superstars on our roster. 

I would 100 percent hate platooning Wallner..........

But McCusker should be up right now. 

Just now, Jocko87 said:

 Because it requires a 40 man move.  That’s it.

It’s May 6th and they already used their early 40 move on Keaschall.  One weird injury after an early DFA will have us shopping the waiver wire again. 

I do like the idea of him as the designated pinch hitter against lefties in the late innings.  But it’s not that time of the year yet.  

So what? Play to win. Stop playing not to lose.

If they are afraid of losing McCusker, he's worth playing. 

24 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

It’s not McCusker they are worried about losing.  Do you remember just a week ago when they were grabbing at anyone that could stand in the infield?  Those risks haven’t changed.

If they get a chance to put someone on the 60 day, then I could see adding him to the 40 man. Keaschall timeframe might work and if Martin reinjured his hammy badly it might work out.

The risk of cutting Clemens and Lewis or Castro not being right is not a worth taking a flyer on McCusker yet.  

You're saying they can't replace one of Bride or Clemens or Kiersey? How long do you wait? What's different in a month? The same argument is made then. 

9 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

 Because it requires a 40 man move.  That’s it.

It’s May 6th and they already used their early 40 move on Keaschall.  One weird injury after an early DFA will have us shopping the waiver wire again. 

I do like the idea of him as the designated pinch hitter against lefties in the late innings.  But it’s not that time of the year yet.  

The Twins had an open 40 man spot when they chose to trade mere Cash for Bride who was DFA'd by the Marlines and they had an open 40 man spot when they chose to trade mere Cash for Clemens who was DFA'd by the Phillies. 

Both times McCusker could have been that 40 man addition and the Twins chose to go with players that other teams were clearing off of their 40 man roster. 

The Twins have been consistently choosing low value vets over in-house options. They either:

1. Mistakenly don't believe in the talent that they are developing

or

2. They unmistakenly have failed to develop players who only need to clear a bar set by players that have been DFA'd. 

Either way it's a development problem firmly attached to this organization that other organizations don't seem to have. 

If McCusker can't be called up with two open 40 man spots, two open 26 man spots... large number of injuries while he is crushing the crap out of the Ball at AAA and age 27... When? 

Two home runs last night. That's 9 now. A home run every 10 AB's and a .337 BA to boot. 

9 hours ago, stringer bell said:

I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a chance this year, but just because he's tearing up AAA isn't any guarantee that he'll amount to anything. I see McCusker homered twice today. His OPS is above 1.000, Great numbers to be sure. In a smaller sample size Mickey Gasper has an OPS of 1.500. Some guys can dominate Triple A, but can't make the next step and often it is one weakness, maybe high fast balls or maybe breaking stuff. I also see that McCusker strikes out a lot. I am pretty sure the K number would be even higher in the majors. 

He probably would hit more than Royce Lewis right now, but that is more about Lewis. McCusker reminds me of two guys who played for the Twins after producing boxcar numbers in the minors--Chris Colabello and Mark Funderburk. Colabello had a few moments with the Twins and Toronto, but was out of baseball after three plus years. Funderburk got a couple of callups with the Twins (1981 and 1985). Neither was a game changer.

The Twins need more guys who can help them win games in more than one way. Defense and base running are two of the bigger flaws on the team today and I sincerely doubt that McCusker can help them in those areas. 

It's fun to root for the underdog and a guy like McCusker qualifies, as does Eeles and to some degree Keirsey. These late bloomers and guys from Indy Ball are good stories and if they make the major leagues, it shows what can happen if you pursue your dream, but the chances of really being a helpful piece or more are pretty small. 

I don't come here to bury the Twins field staff or front office, but the fact is that the team has disappointed more often then not since 2019 and have only won one playoff series since the Falvey (and Baldelli) era began. I think they need more position players who are well rounded, first and foremost. That is really what Carson McCusker is.

I'm not sure I understand why you would question mccusker. Until we give him a chance. It's all speculation. And we have seen what the waiver wire pickups look like. So let's try something new. If it doesn't work, what have we lost?

22 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

While I don't totally disagree here, this is also a pretty big indictment of their offseason/player development/team building. We're talking late April, early May here and a pretty normal number of injuries and we're already in need of 2 waiver wire pickups over being able to call up a guy on fire in AAA because you might lose one of those waiver wire pickups?

This isn't aimed at you as I don't remember you being one of these people, but this is also a good reminder for all the "we need to trade away so-and-so because we have a log jam!" people. There's no such thing as a log jam. We can't call up Carson McCusker (and I'm not saying that's the end of the world or he's Wallner 2.0 or anything) because we need Jonah Bride and Kody Clemens? Bride started yesterday. It didn't cost us the game or anything, but he's not just sitting on the bench. He's starting games. Even with Lewis and Castro back. Or Jeffers and Vazquez are starting together. We have an open starting spot that we can't fill because of Bride and Clemens. There's no such thing as a "log jam."

If Ryan Fitzgerald is going to put up a .923 OPS for you while playing SS at your AAA affiliate at the age of 30 and not be good enough depth for you to risk cutting Kody Clemens, then I don't know what purpose Ryan Fitzgerald serves. Certainly not suggesting he is any sort of long-term solution, but he can't come up for a 2 week stint and hit .105 and play solid defense if needed? Why even sign him? Armando Alvarez was brought here specifically to be Jonah Bride, I thought. Isn't that why they signed him this offseason? So they had a Jonah Bride type at AAA and didn't need to be handcuffed to a Bride type at the MLB level if they didn't need to be? Even if they aren't developing enough decent talent of their own, they need to be doing a better job of signing AAA depth that makes it less of a requirement to hold onto Bride and Clemens types out of fear of having to sign you or me to play 3B next week.

Spot on post.

I can't stand the term log jam. I also don't like the use of the term AAAA.

I don't know... You don't know... the front office doesn't know. If the front office knew... Rooker would still be here. If the front office knew... Julien wouldn't have made the roster. If the front office knew, they wouldn't have signed Vazquez to a 30 million dollar deal and on and on it goes. I don't blame the front office for not knowing. All 30 front offices don't know. 

Nobody can tell me what McCusker will be in the major leagues... I can't tell anybody what McCusker will be in the major leagues and I won't even try but I can guarantee everybody that he will be nothing in the major leagues if he doesn't reach the major leagues and I can tell everyone that the Twins have consistently relied upon a cycle of one year low cost veterans that spend one year with the club only to be replaced by another low cost vet when other clubs are filling that space with pre-arb players who are performing just as well and can be sent down if they can't clear the low bar being set by those players.  

Some sings the praises of the 1 year rental of Solono. I enjoyed watching him play... he still has a major league job but his OPS+ was a notch above average at 110. Some sing the praises of Michael A. Taylor. He played some nice defense and he hit some homers but his OPS+ was a below average 93. Joey Gallo cost 11 Million for... I don't care what his OPS+ was... He was crap. We sing the praises of WIlli Castro who was a DFA pick up that worked out. But, lets be clear... We are paying him 6 million now and his production was 105 and 108. At least Willi had a future with years of club control to come. Kyle Farmer... We sing his praises... OPS+ of 97 and 92 in his two years with the team. I haven't even mentioned Margot yet. 

This year... It's Bader, France with the additions of Bride and Clemens. Don't get me wrong. Bader has done a good job so far. I have never had a problem with Bader specifically  but I have a big problem with the idea of needing Bader. Ty France is costing the minimum and he has done a decent job comparatively to the rest of the team thus far in 2025 with the Twins. However, while we sing his praises for what he has done so far... it's important to point out that he leads the team in plate appearances and his current OPS+ is 97. 

As our Pre-Arb players graduate to Arb we have watched the club strip mine our left handers for parts. 

Today we sit with single digit pre-arb players making the minimum while over half of the major league teams have over half their 26 man roster making the minimum. Why is that? Is it because we have simply failed to develop talent? Is it because they are so risk adverse that they simply prefer the endless string of vets over the endless string of farm raised players. I don't know but either way... it's a development problem and passing over McCusker not once but twice is a symptom of the disease.